Edward McKendree Bounds (1835 - 1913) was a powerful preacher and a well-known minister during the era of America's Civil War. Although he was against aligning himself with either side in that war, having refused to join the Confederate Army initially, the Union Army nevertheless arrested him as a Confederate sympathizer because he pastored a church in Brunswick, Missouri, which was Confederate territory. He was released about a year and half later whereupon it became impossible for him to minister the gospel within the arena of war unless he was given official sanction. Thus, he enlisted as a Confederate Chaplin in the Missouri ranks. He became an immense source of comfort for both Confederate and Union soldiers alike, ministering to either side as the Lord gave him opportunity. It is recorded that one night before a major battle, Bounds was holding a gospel service for a large contingent of Confederate troops encamped along a river. On the other side of the river was the Union Army. When the Union troops across the river discerned that Bounds was holding a service, they began to yell across the river and ask for prayers for various comrades who had been wounded or who were otherwise in need. The Confederate side, under Bounds, warmly received these requests, and yelled back across the river with names of their own injured, thereby soliciting prayers from the Union side. Such was the effect that E. M. Bounds had upon all he ministered to. In the annals of Christendom, Bounds' works on prayer are unequaled, especially his greatest piece - Power Through Prayer. The complete works of E. M. Bounds on prayer are available in print from Baker Books, and his discourses should be read by every person who calls himself Christian. |
"Biblical revelations are not against reason but above reason. They require the exercise of faith, man's highest faculty." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"A bad reputation can be coupled with good character. Conversely, a good reputation can cover up bad character. But the Devil has this characteristic about him: his reputation is based on his character. They are one. The Devil's reputation is bad, because his character is worse!" Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan is always at church before the preacher is in the pulpit or a member is in the pew. He comes to hinder the sower, to impoverish the soil, or to corrupt the seed. He uses these tactics only when courage and faith are in the pulpit, and zeal and prayer are in the pew; but if dead ritualism or live liberalism are in the pulpit, he does not attend, because they are no danger to him." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The Devil goes about as fierce, as resolute, and as strong as a lion, intent only on destroying. He is restrained by no sentiments that soften and move human or divine hearts. He has no pity and no sympathy. He is great, but he is only great in evil. He has a great intellect, but he is driven and inspired by a vicious and cruel heart." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"That is the Devil's main business -- to materialize religion, to get man to live for bread alone, to make earth bigger than heaven, to make time more intriguing than eternity." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan's supreme effort is to gain control of the church -- not to destroy its organization, but to divert its divine purpose. He does this in the most insidious way, so that there is no startling change and nothing to shock or alarm those whom he is trying to undermine." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"In worldly, popular language, a local church is called strong when its membership is large, and when it has social position and financial resources. A church is thought to be powerful when ability, learning, and eloquence fill the pulpit, and when the pews are filled by fashion, intelligence, money, and influence. An assumption of this kind is worldly to the fullest extent. The church that defines its strength in this way is on the highway to apostasy." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"On the contrary, show us a church that is poor, illiterate, obscure, and unknown, but composed of praying people. They may not be men of power, wealth, or influence. Their families may not know one week where they are to their bread for the next. But with them is "the hiding of God's power" (Habakkuk 3:4), and their influence will be felt for eternity. Wherever they go there is a fountain of light, Christ in them is glorified, and His kingdom is advanced. They are His chosen vessels of salvation who reflect His light." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The personal holiness of the members of each church is the only true measure of strength. Any other test offends God, dishonors Christ, grieves the Holy Spirit, and degrades religion." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"God's church must continue to do this work of converting sinners and perfecting saints in holiness. Whenever this work becomes secondary, or other interests are held to be its equivalent, then the church becomes worldly." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"When collecting money, building buildings, and counting attendance become the evidence of church prosperity, then the world has a strong foothold, and Satan has achieved his purpose." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The things that men savor in church planning and church life are against God's plan... The Devil seeks to destroy the church indirectly. Men's views eliminate all the unpopular principles of the Cross... Then the church becomes popular, self-satisfying, modern, progressive. But it is the Devil's church, founded on principles pleasing in every way to flesh and blood." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Man's wise plans, thoughtful resources, and easy solutions are Satan's devices... All of God's plans have the mark of the Cross on them, and all His plans have death to self in them. All of God's plans have crucifixion to the world in them." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan deludes church leaders into thinking that the main purpose of the church today is not so much to save individuals out of society as to save society, not so much to save souls as to save the bodies of men, not so much to save men out of a community as to save men and manhood in the community. The world, not the individual, is the subject of redemption." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The early church took it for granted that all who came to them really desired to 'flee from the wrath to come' (Matthew 3:7) and were sincerely yearning after full redemption." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The world should be renounced by every true disciple of Christ. To love the world and the things of the world puts us in open enmity to God. If we have a relationship of love or friendship to the world, we are the enemies of God. We need commit no other sin except that of having an attachment to the world; by that alone, we are the enemies of God." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Friendship with the world violates our marriage vows to heaven." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Under the guise of Christian learning, education becomes the most powerful ally to Satan by unsettling faith in God's Word and opening a wide door of skepticism in the temple of God." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan works by imitation. It is his policy to make something as close to the original as possible and, thereby, to break the force and value of the genuine." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"This is another of Satan's methods: to distress and defame those whom he cannot deceive." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The Devil is seldom seen in his movements and methods. He has the rare ability to get others to do his work and execute his plans." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan perverts the things that are truly works of God and misemploys miracles to obscure God's glory." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The saints who have seen most of heaven are often summoned to see most of hell. Saints who have the fullest and most transporting revelation of God often have the saddest experience with Satan. Paul's thorn meant as much to Paul as his abundance of revelations. His thorn made him more a saint than his vision of the third heavens. Satan only lifted him higher by keeping him lower." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan's thorns will make room for God's greatest power in us and on us. The Enemy's thorns will make the lowest point of a spiritual depression the highest point of vision. His thorns will make strength out of weakness and wealth out of poverty." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Stupidity, neglect, and being off guard in the conflict with Satan are much more than mistakes or indiscretions. They are fatal defeats -- eternal and irreparable losses." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Israel lost Canaan by not possessing Canaan." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"No cry of alarm is so frequent in the New Testament as the call to watch. No call hurts Satan so vitally or defeats him so readily as the call to watch. Being on the watchtower prevents all surprises and is essential to victory at all times... The foolish virgins missed heaven because they failed in this virtue." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"Satan cannot stand against a display of the blood of Christ. He turns pale at every view of Calvary. The flowing wounds are the signals of Satan's retreat. A heart sprinkled with the blood is holy ground on which he dares not tread. Satan trembles and cowers in the presence of the blood-sprinkled warrior." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"We cannot make too much of the Word of God. Christ foiled Satan with it. If we are to be valiant, true, and invincible, we also must have the Word of God dwelling in us richly." Guide To Spiritual Warfare |
"The faith which creates powerful praying is the faith which centers itself on a powerful person. Faith in Christ's ability to do and to do greatly, is the faith which prays greatly." Prayer And Faith |
"Faith is called upon, and that right often, to wait in patience before God, and is prepared for God's seeming delays in answering prayer. Faith does not grow disheartened because prayer is not immediately honored; it takes God at his Word, and lets him take what time he chooses in fulfilling his purposes, and in carrying on his work. There is bound to be much delay and long days of waiting for true faith, but faith accepts the conditions -- knows there will be delays in answering prayer, and regards such delays as times of testing, in the which, it is privileged to show its mettle, and the stern stuff of which it is made." Prayer And Faith |
"Faith is not an abstract belief in the Word of God, nor a mere mental credence, nor a simple assent of the understanding and will; nor is it a passive acceptance of facts, however sacred or thorough. Faith is an operation of God, a divine illumination, a holy energy implanted by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit in the human soul -- a spiritual, divine principle which takes of the supernatural and makes it a thing apprehendable by the faculties of time and sense." Power And Faith |
"Faith gives birth to prayer, and grows stronger, strikes deeper, rises higher in the struggles and wrestlings of mighty petitioning... Faith, too, is humble and perservering. It can wait and pray; it can stay on its knees, or lie in the dust. It is the one great condition of prayer; the lack of it lies at the root of all poor praying, feeble praying, little praying, unaswered praying." Prayer And Faith |
"Faith opens the way for prayer to approach God. But it does more. It accompanies prayer at every step she takes. It is her inseparable companion and when requests are made unto God, it is faith which turns the asking into obtaining. And faith follows prayer, since the spiritual life into which a believer is led by prayer, is a life of faith... Faith makes prayer strong, and gives it patience to wait on God. Faith believes that God is a rewarder... Yet faith is narrowed down to one particular thing -- it does not believe that God will reward everybody, nor that he is a rewarder of all who pray, but that he is a rewarder of them that DILIGENTLY seek him. Faith rests its case on diligence in prayer, and gives assurance and encouragement to diligent seekers after God, for it is they alone, who are richly rewarded when they pray." Prayer And Faith |
"Trust brings eternity into the annals and happenings of time, transmutes the substance of hope into the reality of ruition, and changes promise into present possession. We know when we trust just as we know when we see, just as we are conscious of our sense of touch. Trust sees, receives, holds. Trust is its own witness." Prayer And Trust |
"Primarily, it is not trust in the Word of God, but rather trust in the person of God. For trust in the person of God must precede trust in the Word of God... The person of Jesus Christ must be central to the eye of trust... The trust which informs prayer centers in a person." Prayer And Trust |
"When trust is perfect and without doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready to receive. Trust perfected is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing asked for -- and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God CAN bless, that he will bless, but that he DOES bless, here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires." Prayer And Trust |
"To be much on our knees in private communion with God is the only surety that we shall have him with us either in our personal struggles, or in our efforts to convert sinners." Prayer And Trust |
"Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. Such perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart, no feeling, no real desire accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence." Prayer And Desire |
"A lack of ardor in prayer, is the sure sign of a lack of depth and of intensity of desire; and the absence of intense desire is a sure sign of God's absence from the heart! To abate fervor is to retire from God. He can, and does, tolerate many things in the way of infirmity and error in his children. He can, and will pardon sin when the penitent prays, but two things are intolerable to him -- insincerity and lukewarmness. Lack of heart and lack of heat are two things he loathes." Prayer And Desire |
"Lack of spiritual heat creates more infidelity than lack of faith. Not to be consumingly interested about the things of heaven, is not to be interested in them at all. The fiery souls are those who conquer in the day of battle, from whom the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and who take it by force. The citadel of God is taken only by those who storm it in dreadful earnestness, who besiege it with fiery, unabated zeal." Prayer And Desire |
"Prayer ascends by fire. Flame give prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame." Prayer And Desire |
"Prayer is an indispensable phase of spiritual habit, but it ceases to be prayer when carried on by habit alone. It is depth and intensity of spiritual desire which give intensity and depth to prayer." Prayer And Desire |
"Desire must be made intensely personal, must be centered on God with an insatiable hungering and thirsting after him and his righteousness... The indispensable requisite for all true praying is a deeply seated desire which seeks after God himself, and remains unappeased until the choicest gifts in heaven's bestowal have been richly and abundantly granted." Prayer And Desire |
"Fervorless prayer has no heart in it; it is an empty thing, an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life must find place in all real praying. Heaven must be made to feel the force of this crying unto God... Prayers must be red hot. It is the fervent prayer that is effectual and that availeth." Prayer And Fervency |
"The Holy Spirit comes as a fire, to dwell in us; we are to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Prayer And Fervency |
"To be absorbed in God's will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer." Prayer And Fervency |
"There is no plea so efficacious as importunate prayer, and none to which God surrenders himself so fully and so freely." Prayer And Importunity |
"God finds faith in his praying child -- the faith which stays and cries -- and he honors it by permitting its further exercise, to the end that it is strengthened and enriched. Then he rewards it by granting the burden of its plea, in plenitude and finality." Prayer And Importunity |
"In Christ's teaching, it is not simply works of charity and deeds of mercy upon which he insists, but inward spiritual character. This much is demanded, and nothing short of it will suffice." Prayer And Character And Conduct |
"We simply cannot talk to God, strongly, intimately, and confidently unless we are living for him faithfully and truly. The prayer closet cannot become sanctified unto God when the life is alien to his precepts and purpose. We must learn this lesson well -- that rightesous character and Christlike conduct give us a particular and preferential standing in prayer before God." Prayer And Character And Conduct |
"The most difficult thing about piety, as it is the most impressive, is to be able to live it." Prayer And Character And Conduct |
"A repentance which does not produce a change in character and conduct, is a mere sham, which should deceive nobody. Old things must pass away, all things must become new." Prayer And Character And Conduct |
"The spirit which prompts a man to break one commandment is the spirit which may move him to break them all. God's commandments are a unit, and to break one strikes at the principle which underlies and runs through the whole." Prayer And Obedience |
"That which God works in us, in regeneration and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, bestows enabling grace sufficient for all that is required of us, under the atonement. This grace is furnished without measure, in answer to prayer. So that, while God commands, he at the same time stands pledged to give us all necessary strength of will and grace of soul to meet his demands." Prayer And Obedience |
"If it be claimed that the unrenewed man, with all the disabilities of the fall upon him, cannot obey God, there will be no denial. But to declare that, after one is renewed by the Holy Spirit, has received a new nature, and become a child of the king, he cannot obey God, is to assume a ridiculous attitude, and to display, moreover, a lamentable ignorance of the work and implications of the atonement." Prayer And Obedience |
"God cannot help hearing the prayer of an obedient child." Prayer And Obedience |
"Prayer is not a mere form of words; it is not just calling upon a name. Prayer is obedience. It is founded on the adamantine rock of obedience to God. Only those who obey have the right to pray. Behind the praying must be the doing; and it is the constant doing of God's will in daily life which gives prayer its potency." Prayer And Obedience |
"The difficulty in prayer is not with faith, but with obedience, which is faith's foundation." Prayer And Obedience |
"It cannot be stated too frequently that the life of a Christian is a warfare, an intense conflict, a lifelong contest. It is a battle, moreover, waged against invisible foes, who are ever alert, and ever seeking to entrap, deceive, and ruin the souls of men. The life in which Holy Scripture calls men is no picnic or holiday junketing. It is no pastime, no pleasure jaunt. It entails effort, wrestling, struggling; it demands the putting forth of the full energy of the spirit in order to frustrate the foe and to come off, at the last, more than conqueror. It is no primrose path, no rose-scented dalliance. From start to finish it is war. From the hour in which he first draws sword, to that in which he doffs his harness, the Christian warrior is compelled to endure hardness like a good soldier. What a misconception many people have of the Christian life! How little the average church member appears to know of the character of the conflict, and of its demands upon him! How ignorant he seems to be of the enemies he must encounter if he engage to serve God faithfully and so succeed in getting to heaven and receive the crown of life! He seems scarcely to realize that the world, the flesh and the devil will oppose his onward march, and will defeat him utterly unless he give himself to constant vigilance and unceasing prayer." Prayer And Vigilance |
"It is all important and absolutely essential to victory that prayer should so impregnate the life that every breath will be a petition, every sigh a supplication. The Christian soldier must needs be always fighting. He should, of sheer necessity, be always praying." Prayer And Vigilance |
"The entire life of a Christian soldier -- its being, intention, implication, and action -- are all dependent on its being a life of prayer. Without prayer -- no matter what else he has -- the Christian soldier's life will be feeble, and ineffective, and constitute him an easy prey for his spiritual enemies." Prayer And Vigilance |
"A reverence for God's holy name is closely related to a high regard for his Word." Prayer And The Word Of God |
"Bible-reading and praying are the distinguishing traits of those who strive to know and please God." Prayer And The Word Of God |
"No two things are more essential to a Spirit-filled life than Bible-reading and secret prayer." Prayer And The Word Of God |
"When prayer is set aside, God is outlawed." Prayer And The House Of God |
"Any church calling itself the house of God, and failing to magnify prayer, which does not put prayer in the forefront of its activities, which does not teach the great lesson of prayer, should change its teaching to conform to the divine pattern or change the name of its building to something other than a house of prayer." Prayer And The House Of God |
"It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer." Prayer Takes In The Whole Man |
"The ministry of prayer, if it be anything worthy of the name, is a ministry of ardor, a ministry of unwearied and intense longing after God and after his holiness." Prayer And Devotion |
"Activity is not strength. Work is not zeal. Moving about is not devotion. Activity often is the unrecognized sympton of spiritual weakness." Prayer And Devotion |
"The singing may be so directed as to have in it elements which deprave and debauch prayer. It may be so directed as to drive away everything like thanksgiving and praise. Much of modern singing in our churches is entirely foreign to anything like hearty, sincere praise to God." Prayer, Praise, And Thanksgiving |
"The heart must have in it the grace of prayer to sing the praise of God. Spiritual singing is not to be done by musical taste or talent, but by the grace of God in the heart." Prayer, Praise, And Thanksgiving |
"That is an entirely false view of life and shows supreme ignorance which expects nothing but sunshine and looks only for ease, pleasure and flowers. It is this class who are so sadly disappointed and surprised when trouble breaks into their lives. These are the ones who know not God, who know nothing of his displinary dealings with his people." Prayer And Trouble |
"Trouble is under the control of Almighty God, and is one of his most efficient agents in fulfilling his purposes and in perfecting his saints... no trouble is ever turned loose in this world and comes into the life of saint or sinner, but comes with divine permission, and is allowed to exist and do its painful work with God's hand in it or on it, carrying out his gracious designs of redemption." Prayer And Trouble |
"AS trouble is not sinful in itself, neither is it the evidence of sin. Good and bad alike experience trouble. As the rain falls alike on the just and unjust, so drought likewise comes to the righteous and the wicked. Trouble is no evidence whatever of the divine displeasure." Prayer And Trouble |
"Trouble, no matter from what source it comes, becomes in God's hand his own agent to accomplish his gracious work concerning those who submit patiently to him, who recognize him in prayer, and who work together with God." Prayer And Trouble |
"When we survey all the sources from which trouble comes, it all resolves itself into two invaluable truths: First, that our troubles at last are of the Lord. They come with his consent. He is in all of them, and is interested in us when they press and bruise us. And secondly, that our troubles, no matter what the cause, whether of ourselves, or men or devils, or even God himself, we are warranted in taking them to God in prayer, in praying over them, and in seeking to get the greatest spiritual benefits out of them." Prayer And Trouble |
"In the school of prayer is where patience is learned and practiced. Prayer brings us into that state of grace where tribulation is not only endured, but where there is under it a spirit of rejoicing." Prayer And Trouble |
"It is in the fires of suffering that God purifies his saints and brings them to the highest things. It is in the furnace their faith is tested, their patience is tried, and they are developed in all those rich virtues which make up Christian character. It is while they are passing through deep waters that he shows how close he can come to his praying, believing saints." Prayer And Trouble |
"God's highest aim in dealing with his people is in developing Christian character. He is after begetting in us those rich virtues which belong to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is seeking to make us like himself. It is not so much work that he wants in us. It is not greatness. It is the presence in us of patience, meekness, submission to the divine will, prayerfulness which brings everything to him. He seeks to beget his own image in it. And trouble in some form tends to do this very thing, for this is the end and aim of trouble. This is its work. This is the task it is called to perform. It is not a chance incident in life, but has a design in view, just as it has an all-wise designer back of it, who makes trouble his agent to bring forth the largest results." Prayer And Trouble |
"Chastisement is no evidence of anger or displeasure on God's part, but is the strong proof of his love." Prayer And Trouble |
"Trouble makes earth undesirable and causes heaven to loom up large in the horizon of hope. There is a world where trouble never comes. But the path of tribulation leads to that world. Those who are there went there through tribulation." Prayer And Trouble |
"If the church does not advance its members in holiness of heart and life then all our show of activities and all our display of church work are a delusion and a snare." Prayer And God's Work |
"If we are not growing in holiness then we are doing nothing religious nor abiding." Prayer And God's Work |
"Material prosperity may easily blind the eyes of church leaders, so much so that they will make it a substitute for spiritual prosperity... Prosperity in money matters does not signify growth in holiness. The seasons of material prosperity are rarely seasons of spiritual advance, either to the individual or to the church." Prayer And God's Work |
"It may be stated as an axion: That the work of God fails as a general rule more for the lack of grace than for the want of gifts... And a lack of grace flows from a lack of praying. Great grace comes from great praying." Prayer And God's Work |
"Consecration has a sacred nature. It is devoted to holy ends. It is the voluntary putting of one's self in God's hands to be used sacredly, holily, with sanctifying ends in view. Consecration is not so much the setting one's self apart from sinful things and wicked ends, but rather it is the separation from worldy, secular and even legitimate things, if they come in conflict with God's plans, to holy uses. It is the devoting of all we have to God for hiw own specific use." Prayer And Consecration |
"The consecration which meets God's demands and which he accepts is to be full, complete, with no mental reservation, with nothing withheld. It cannot be partial, any more than a whole burnt offering in Old Testament times could have been partial. The whole animal had to be offered in sacrifice. To reserve any part of the animal would have seriously vitiated the offering. So to make a half-hearted, partial consecration is to make no consecration at all, and is to fail utterly in securing the divine acceptance." Prayer And Consecration |
"Consecration is really the setting apart of one's self to a life of prayer. It means not only to pray, but to pray habitually, and to pray more effectually. It is the consecrated man who accomplishes most by his praying. God must hear the man wholly given up to God. God cannot deny the requests of him who has renounced all claims to himself, and who has wholly dedicated himself to God and his service. This act of the consecrated man puts him on praying ground and pleading terms with God. It puts him in reach of God in prayer. It places him where he can get hold of God, and where he can influence God to do things which he would not otherwise do. Consecration brings answeres to prayer. God can depend upon consecrated men. God can afford to commit himself in prayer to those who have fully committed themselves to God. He who gives all to God will get all from God. Having given all to God, he can claim all that God has for him." Prayer And Consecration |
"He who is truly and fully consecrated lives a holy life. He seeks after holiness of heart. Is not satisfied without it. For this very purpose he consecrates himself to God. He gives himself entirely over to God in order to be holy in heart and in life." Prayer And Consecration |
"The Scriptures alone make the standard of life and experience... Whatever standard of religion which makes in it provision for the flesh, is unscriptural and hurtful... It is God's standard at which we are to aim, no man's. It is not the opinions of men, not what they say, but what the Scriptures say." Prayer And A Definite Religious Standard |
"The new birth is a definite Christian experience, proved by infallible makrs, appealing to the inner consciousness. The witness of the Spirit is not an indefinite, vague something, but is a definite, clear inward assurance given by the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God." Prayer And A Definite Religious Standard |
"Church discipline, now a lost art in the modern church, must go hand in hand with prayer, and the church which has no disposition to separate wrong-doers from the church, and which has no excommunication spirit for incorrigible offenders against law and order, will have no communication with God." Concerted Prayer |
"The truth is there is such a lust for members in the church in these modern times, that the officials and preachers have entirely lost sight of the members who have violated baptismal covenants, and who are living in open disregard of God's Word. The idea now is quantity in membership, not quality. the purity of the church is put in the background in the craze to secure numbers, and to pad the church rolls and make large figures in statistical columns." Concerted Prayer |
"Whenever a poor sinner turns his eyes to God, no matter where he is nor what his guilt and sinfulness, the eye of God is upon him and his ear is opened to his prayers." The Universality Of Prayer |
"The missionary movement is the church of Jesus Christ marching in militant array, with the design of possessing the whole world of mankind for Christ. Whoever is touched by the Spirit of God is fired by the missionary spirit. An anti-missionary Christian is a contradiction in terms... Anti-missionary churches are dead churches, just as anti-missionary Christians are dead Christians." Prayer And Missions |
"The craftiest wile of Satan, if he cannot prevent a great movement for God, is to bebauch the movement." Prayer And Missions |
"The ongoing of Christ's kingdom is locked up in the closet of prayer by Christ himself, and not in the contribution box." Prayer And Missions |
"Above everything else, the primary qualification for every missionary is prayer. Let him be, above everything else, a man of prayer. And when the crowning day comes, and the records are made up and read at the great judgment day, then it will appear how well praying men wrought in the hard fields of heathendom, and how much was due to them in laying the foundations of Christianity in those fields." Prayer And Missions |
"A person who can pray is the mightiest instrument Christ has in this world." Prayer And Missions |
"What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plains, but men -- men of prayer." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message... Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outcome of a life. It takes twenty years to make sermon because it takes twenty years to make the man." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"The preacher's sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself... Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"Prayer is the preacher's mightiest weapon... The real sermon is made in the closet. The man -- God's man -- is made in the closet." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"The pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer... Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's [true] work and is powerless to project God's [true] cause in this world." Men Of Prayer Are Needed |
"Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill... The real sermon is made in the closet. The man -- God's man -- is made in the closet... The pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer... Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's work and is powerless to project God's cause in this world." Men OF Prayer Are Needed |
"Preaching is to give life; it may kill... This letter-preaching has the truth. But even divine truth has no life-giving energy alone; it must be energized by the Spirit, with all God's forces at its back. Truth unquickened by God's Spirit deadens as much as - or more than - error. It may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its shade and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness." Our Sufficiency Is Of God |
"Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much -- death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul. Only crucified preaching can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man." Our Sufficiency Is Of God |
"The preaching that kills may be, and often is, orthodox -- dogmatically, inviolably orthodox...The preaching that kills may have insight and grasp of principles, may be scholarly and critical in taste, may have every minutiae of the derivation and grammar of the letter, may be able to trim the letter into its perfect pattern, and illume it as Plato and Cicero may be illumined, may study it as a lawyer studies his textbooks to form his brief or to defend his case, and yet be like a frost - a killing frost... Under such preaching how wide and utter the desolation! How profound the spiritual death!... This preacher and his preaching have helped sin, not holiness; peopled hell, not heaven." The Letter Killeth |
"Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than this, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words." Tendencies To Be Avoided |
"Prayer, in the preacher's life, in the preacher's study, in the preacher's pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force and an all-coloring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no mere coating... The preacher's study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a vision, and a ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it went manward; that every part of the sermon might be scented by the air of heaven and made serious, because God was in the study." Prayer, The Great Essential |
"To men who think praying their main business and devote time to it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders in this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God's great leaders and the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will crown their labors." Prayer, The Great Essential |
"The preacher may speak with all the eloquence of men and of angels, but unless he can pray with a faith which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal for permanent God-honoring, soul-saving uses." Prayer, The Great Essential |
"Much time spent with God is the secret of all successful praying... The short prevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God in a mightier struggle of long continuance... God's acquaintance is not made by quick visits. God does not bestow his gifts on the casual or hasty comers and goers. Much time spent with God alone is the secret of knowing him and of influence with him." Much Time Should Be Given To Prayer |
"No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying." Much Time Should Be Given To Prayer |
"The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God, will make poor headway seeking him the rest of the day... The heart which is behindhand in seeking God in the morning has lost its relish for God." Begin The Day With Prayer |
"A desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing and will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully. The desire for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at the beginning of the day will never catch up." Begin The Day With Prayer |
"No soul gets God who does not follow hard after him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after him in early morn." Begin The Day With Prayer |
"Devotion to a church, to opinions, to an organization, to orthodoxy -- these are paltry, misleading, and vain when they become the source of inspiration, the animus of a call... The name and honor of Jesus Christ, the advance of his cause, must be all in all. The preacher must have no inspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no ambition but to have him glorified, no toil but for him." Prayer And Devotion United |
"There is an infinite distance between the betterment of an age by the force of an advancing civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness and Christlikeness by the energy of prayer." Prayer And Devotion United |
"We have emphasized sermon preparation until we have lost sight of the important thing to be prepared -- the heart. A prepared heart is much better than a prepared sermon. A prepared heart will make a prepared sermon." Heart Preparation Is Necessary |
"God's revelation does not need the light of human genius, the polish and strength of human culture, the brilliancy of human thought, the force of human brains to adorn or enforce it; but it does demand the simplicity, the docility, humility, and faith of a child's heart." Heart Preparation Is Necessary |
"Almost any man of common intelligence has sense enough to preach the gospel, but very few have grace enough to do so." Heart Preparation Is Necessary |
"We believe that one of the serious and most popular errors of the modern pulpit is the putting of more thought than prayer, of more head than of heart in its sermons... It is easier to fill the head than it is to prepare the heart. It is easier to make a brain sermon than a heart sermon. It was heart that drew the Son of God from heaven. It is heart that will draw men to heaven." Grace From The Heart Rather Than The Head |
"A professional ministry is a heartless ministry. When salary plays a great part in the ministry, the heart plays little part." Grace From The Heart Rather Than The Head |
"The closet is the heart's study. We will learn more about how to preach and what to preach there than we can learn in our libraries... We can learn more in an hour of praying, when praying indeed, than from many hours in the study. Books are in the closet which can be found and read nowhere else. Revelations are made in the closet which are made nowhere else." Grace From The Heart Rather Than The Head |
"Unction is simply putting God in his own word and on his own preacher... This unction is not the gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it. No industry can win it. No prelatical hands can confer it. It is the gift of God -- the signet set to his own messengers. It is heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer." Unction, The Mark Of True Gospel Preaching |
"A separation to God's work by the power of the Holy Spirit is the only consecration recognized by God as legitimate." Much Prayer Is The Price Of Unction |
"The preacher who has never learned in the school of Christ the high and divine art of intercession for his people will never learn the art of preaching, though homiletics be poured into him by the ton, and though he be the most gifted genius in sermon-making and sermon-delivery." Prayer Marks Spiritual Leadership |
"Apostolic praying makes apostolic saints and keeps apostolic times of purity and power in the church." Prayer Marks Spiritual Leadership |
"Air is not more necessary to the lungs than prayer is to the preacher... It will take all the praying he can do, and all the praying he can get done, to meet the fearful responsibilities and gain the largest, truest success in his great work." Preachers Need The Prayers Of The People |
"The holier a man is, the more does he esteem prayer; the clearer does he see that God gives himself to the praying ones, and that the measure of God's revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul's longing, importunate prayer for God." Preachers Need The Prayers Of The People |
"Our devotions are not measured by the clock, but time is of their essence. The ability to wait and stay and press belongs essentially to our communicating with God. Hurry, everywhere unseeming and damaging, is so to an alarming extent in the great business of communion with God. Short devotions are the bane of deep piety. Calmness, grasp, strength, are never the companions of hurry. Short devotions deplete spiritual vigor, arrest spiritual progress, sap spiritual foundations, blight the root and bloom of spiritual life. They are the prolific source of backsliding, the sure indication of a superficial piety; they deceive, blight, rot the seed, and impoverish the soil." Deliberation Is Necessary For Largest Results From Prayer |
"Spiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish... To be little with God is to be little for God." Deliberation Is Necessary For Largest Results From Prayer |
"To pray is the greatest thing we can do; and to do it well there must be calmness, time, and deliberation; otherwise it is degraded into the littlest and meanest of things. True praying has the largest results for good; and poor praying, the least. We cannot do too much of real praying; we cannot do too little of the sham." Deliberation Is Necessary For Largest Results From Prayer |
"Laymen there are who will give their money -- some of them in rich abundance -- but they will not give themselves to prayer, without which their money is but a curse." Deliberation Is Necessary For Largest Results From Prayer |
"Sainthood's piety is made, refined, perfected, by prayer. The gospel moves with slow and timid pace when the saints are not at their prayers early and late and long." A Praying Pulpit Begets A Praying Pew |
"God wants elect men -- men out of whom self and the world have gone by a severe crucifixion, by a bankruptcy which has so totally ruined self and the world that there is neither hope nor desire of recovery; men who by this insolvency and crucifixion have turned toward God perfect hearts." A Praying Pulpit Begets A Praying Pew |
"Men prayed well in Old Testament times because they were simple men and lived in simple times. They were childlike, lived in childlike times and had childlike faith." Praying Saints Of The Old Testament |
"Promises are God's golden fruit to be plucked by the hand of prayer." Prayer And The Promises |
"Miracle-making promises need miracle-making praying to realize them. Only divine praying can operate divine promises or carry out divine purposes." Prayer And The Promises |
"Nothing is surer than that the Word of God is the sure foundation of prayer. We pray just as we believe God's Word. Prayer is based directly and specifically upon God's revealed promises in Christ Jesus. It has no other ground upon which to base its plea." Prayer And The Promises |
"All is to be sanctified and realized by the Word of God and prayer. God's deep and wide river of promise will turn into a deadly influence or be lost in the abyss if we do not utilize these promises by prayer, and receive their full and life-giving waters into our hearts." Prayer And The Promises |
"It was prayer that brought to pass the famous day of Pentecost. And as it was then, so it can be now. Prayer can bring a Pentecost in this day if their be the same kind of praying, for the promise has not exhausted its power and vitality. The promise of the Father still holds good for the present-day disciples." Prayer And The Promises |