Secret Power Summary: Moody on the Holy Spirit, Chapter by Chapter
Holy SpiritChristian LifeEvangelism
Secret Power; Or, The Secret of Success in Christian Life and Work is D. L. Moody's book on the Holy Spirit. He signed the preface at Northfield, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1881. In five chapters he answers one question: where does power for Christian living and Christian work come from? His answer is the Holy Spirit, a Person and not an influence. Every believer has the Spirit dwelling in him, but not every believer has the Spirit resting upon him in power for service, and Moody urges every Christian to seek that.
You can read Secret Power free in TheWay Library. Below is what each chapter says, with a link to open it in the reader.
Preface
Read the preface. Moody says one man may have zeal without knowledge and another knowledge without zeal. With an open Bible no one need lack knowledge of God's will. He believes the Bible's teaching on the Holy Spirit has been "too much overlooked," and the result is weak testimony and work.
Without this power, our work will be drudgery. With it, it becomes a joyful task, a refreshing service.
Secret Power, preface
Chapter I: Power, Its Source
Read chapter I. The source of power is the Holy Spirit. Moody starts with who He is. The Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, equal with the Father and the Son, and he notes that Christ always spoke of the Spirit as "He" and "Him." He admits this came late for him:
I was a Christian a long time before I found out that the Holy Ghost was a person.
Secret Power, Chapter I
The Spirit's first work is to give spiritual life and to keep it. The same power that raised Christ's body from Joseph's tomb must raise dead souls, so we should look to the Spirit and not to ministers to do it.
Then Moody names three things the Spirit gives a worker. First, love. A lawyer, doctor or merchant can succeed without loving his clients, "but no man can be a co-worker with God without love." It takes grace to love the man who slanders you. Here Moody tells of his own conversion morning on Boston Common, when he "fell in love with the birds" and had not a bitter feeling against anyone. He gives the well-known reading of the fruit of the Spirit as love in many forms: "joy is love exulting; peace is love in repose," and so on down the list.
Second, hope. Moody says he never knew God to use a discouraged worker. He tells of a season when he was ready to quit, until a friend sent him to study Noah, who preached 120 years without a convert and never lost heart.
Third, liberty. Many Christians have life but are bound like Lazarus coming out of the tomb. A cold spirit of criticism in churches keeps believers from speaking for Christ.
Chapter II: Power "In" and "Upon"
Read chapter II. This is the heart of the book. The Holy Spirit dwelling in us is one thing; the Holy Spirit upon us for service is another. Moody points to the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, both filled with God's glory when the work was finished, and then to the believer, who is now the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray Him to empty us.
Secret Power, Chapter II
Every believer has the Spirit dwelling in him, but "God has a great many sons and daughters without power." The church does not need new measures, organs or choirs. It needs "the old power that the Apostles had." A Spirit-filled man knows how to use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and preaches Christ, not himself.
Moody contrasts the boy pumping an old farm well until his arm ached with an artesian well that flows on its own. Then he turns to the disciples. Jesus breathed on them and said "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," yet still told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power. In Acts 4 they were filled again, and Moody draws the lesson:
The fact is, we are leaky vessels, and we have to keep right under the fountain all the time to keep full of Christ, and so have a fresh supply.
Secret Power, Chapter II
He tells of an English minister and an old pastor with heart trouble who both sought this anointing and began preaching with power, and he says, "It is not the hard work breaks down ministers, but it is the toil of working without power." The chapter ends with Elisha refusing to leave Elijah and asking for a double portion of his spirit.
Chapter III: Witnessing in Power
Read chapter III. Jesus promised that the Comforter would testify of Him, and that the disciples would bear witness too. At Pentecost Peter testified of Christ and the Spirit bore witness with him, and thousands were converted. Moody thought this was the greatest miracle the world has seen: men with Christ's blood on their hands turned by a plain sermon. Preachers who "veil Christ with sapless sermons and superfine language" should not expect the Spirit to work.
The Spirit also guides into all truth. Moody warns sharply against consulting mediums and spirits of the dead, as Saul did, since the Spirit and the Word are guide enough. He says conscience alone is not a safe guide because it often speaks only after the wrong is done. The Spirit teaches us to pray, brings Christ's words to our remembrance, comforts, and makes believers "long-sighted" like Abraham, Moses and Stephen.
Last, the Spirit convicts the world of sin, above all the sin of unbelief, which is "making God a liar." Moody is glad that conviction is not his job:
It is my work to preach and hold up the Cross and testify of Christ; but it is His work to convict men of sin and lead them to Christ.
Secret Power, Chapter III
He would rather see a hundred men truly converted than a thousand professions without conviction of sin. The chapter closes with a summary of the Spirit's work so far: to impart life, implant hope, give liberty, testify of Christ, guide into all truth, teach all things, comfort believers and convict the world of sin.
Chapter IV: Power in Operation
Read chapter IV. Power in operation is the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. Moody sorts the nine graces in threes: love, joy and peace toward God; long-suffering, gentleness and goodness toward others; faith, meekness and temperance toward ourselves. We cannot make these graces. They come when Christ is received by faith.
He tells parents the surest way to win their children is an even Christian life at home. Love is the badge Christ gave His disciples, and he urges Christians to live in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient with the sinner while impatient with sin, and he has hard words for fault-finders. Peace is not something to make but to enter, because Christ made it on the cross. He tells of French sailors who would not believe the war was over. Joy flows even through trouble:
Happiness is caused by things which happen around me, and circumstances will mar it, but joy flows right on through trouble …
Secret Power, Chapter IV
The highest joy is seeing others saved, and a joy that does not send us out to help someone is "purely sentiment and not real joy."
Chapter V: Power Hindered
Read chapter V. The last chapter deals with what stops the Spirit's power. Moody starts with the unpardonable sin, from Matthew 12 and Mark 3. He reads it as saying Christ had an unclean spirit and cast out devils by the devil. He comforts the anxious: anyone troubled about his sins shows the Spirit has not left him. Evil thoughts that flash into the mind are not that sin. As an old writer put it, you are not to blame for birds flying over your head, only for letting them nest in your hair.
Then he turns to grieving the Spirit, and he aims at the church: division, worldly entertainments and lotteries, and unconverted choirs. A church can rent all its pews and pay its bills with no conversions at all. Moody wants the standard lifted, not lowered:
The Gospel has not lost its power; it is just as powerful to-day as it ever has been.
Secret Power, Chapter V
Quenching the Spirit is letting anything come between the soul and God, whether cares, family, wealth or self. He ends with the emblems of the Spirit in Scripture (water, fire, wind, rain and dew, the dove, a voice and a seal) and a prayer that our faith would rest "in the power of God."
Reading Secret Power today
The book reads like Moody preaching, with stories, plain questions and Scripture on nearly every page. Most chapters open with short sayings from writers like Spurgeon, and three close with a hymn or poem. If you want a single chapter, read chapter II. To keep going, see quotes from Secret Power and Moody's other books, the story of who D. L. Moody was, and which of his books to read next. Or open Secret Power and start with the preface.