No sort of defense is needed for preaching outdoors, but it would take a very strong argument to prove that a man who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse has done his duty. A defense is required for services within buildings rather than for worship outside of them.
– William Booth –
Preach abroad. … It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has dampened the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going into the highways and hedges and compelling men and women to come in.
– Jonathan Edwards –
I’m not about to put up a silly skit and preach a 15-minute message on “how to cope” to a multitude of people who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at the thought.
– David Wilkerson –
Preaching is God’s great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.
– EM Bounds –
You must preach God’s justice and vengeance against sin as well as his love for the sinner. You must preach hell as well as heaven. You must let your Gospel match the intuition of humanity or you may as well throw it into the sea, and thus save both trouble and money. A Gospel of love never matched anybody’s soul. The great want in this day is truth that cuts – convicting truth – truth that convicts and convinces the sinner, and pulls off the bandages from his eyes
– Catherine Booth –
Life giving preaching costs the preacher much – death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul. Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified life
– EM Bounds –
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer –
In the school of prayer only can the heart learn to preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.
– EM Bounds –
It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God – men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.
– EM Bounds –