No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion;
many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.
– Richard Baxter –
Laughter and tears are the warp and woof of life. If you leave them out of preaching, you are leaving out life itself.
As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear.
– Robert Murray McCheyne –
Some preachers master thier subjects; some subjects master the preacher; once in awhile one meets a preacher who is both master of, and also mastered by his subject. The apostle Paul, I am sure, was in that category.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
Any manipulation of the Scriptures to make them speak peace to the natural man is evil and can only lead to ruin.
– AW Tozer –
The pastor is first of all a preacher and not a writer.
– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones –
For unless your hearts are free from worldly hopes and worldly fears, you never will speak boldly, as you ought to speak. The good old Puritans, I believe, never preached better than when in danger of being taken to prison as soon as they had finished their sermon. And however the church may be at peace now, yet I am persuaded, unless you go forth with the same temper, you will never preach with the same demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
– George Whitefield –
The essence of this mystery is Christ, Himself. In these days certain would-be wise men are laboriously attempting to constitute a church without Christ and to set forth a salvation without a Savior. But their Babel building is as a bowing wall and a tottering fence. The center of the blessed mystery of the Gospel is Christ, Himself, in His Person. What a wonderful conception it was that the infinite God should take upon Himself the nature of man! It never would have occurred to men that such a condescension would be thought of!
– Charles Spurgeon –