Words said without heart are as utterly useless to our souls as the drumbeating of the poor heathen before their idols. Where there is no heart, there may be lip-work and tongue-work, but there is nothing that God listens to; there is no prayer. Saul, I have no doubt, said many a long prayer before the Lord met him on the way to Damascus. But it was not till his heart was broken that the Lord said, “He prayeth.”
– JC Ryle –
from A Call to Prayer
The worst thing a book can do for a Christian is to leave him with the impression that he has received from it anything really good; the best it can do is to point the way to the Good he is seeking. … That book serves best which early makes itself unnecessary, just as a signpost serves best after it is forgotten, after the traveller has arrived safely at his desired haven.
– AW Tozer –
There is a lot of soft, sentimental talk about Him today that brings no conviction. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he did not feel comfortable! Neither did Habakkuk nor Daniel nor Paul nor John. We want a picture of Him today that does not disturb us, that smiles at sin, and winks at iniquity. I remember a man who told me he wanted to hear no hell-fire sermons but rather about the meek and lowly Jesus. Yet the poor man did not seem to realize that the meek and lowly Jesus said more about hell than is reported from the lips of anyone else in the Bible! We need a true and complete vision of God in His holiness and Christ in His glory that will bring us to repentance.
– Vance Havner –
The gospel always brings life to the receiver and death to the giver. If the gospel brought death to Jesus Christ why would we think that in preaching the gospel it would be any less for us?
– Jackie Pullinger –
Isn’t it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we had some cities yesterday where 3000 sermons were preached and nobody was saved. And it doesn’t even faze us.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
We have the truth and we need not be afraid to say so.
– JC Ryle –
Preach not calmly and quietly as though you were asleep, but preach with fire and pathos and passion.
– Charles Spurgeon –
It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners, as it is in captive nations today. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms. It was a deal: we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us—so everyone was happy.
– Richard Wurmbrand –
The great reason why we have so little good preaching is that we have so little piety. To be eloquent one must be in earnest; he must not only act as if he were in earnest, or try to be in earnest, but be in earnest.
– Charles Spurgeon –