“Worldliness in the church is the number one enemy, and that comes in when we have unspiritual people, and we have unspiritual people too often because they are nominal Christians. They have the language, they have the outward, but they don’t have the power. So, Paul’s words: ‘The kingdom of God is not in word but in power.’ That whole school of Edwards and Alexander and so on — they believed in the power of religion. You know, men candidating for the ministry, and the minister saying, ‘Can he pray down the Holy Spirit?’ Imagine that question today. Can a man pray down the Holy Spirit? It’s not perhaps exactly the sentence we would say is completely correct, but you know what they meant. . . . When those men prayed, the Holy Spirit did come down.”
Rev. Iain Murray, in a 9Marks interview with Dr. Mark Dever.
This post was originally published on The Gospel Coalition