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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
E.M. Bounds
Started reading
August 1, 2019
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.
Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life.
The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move.
The preacher must impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be embodied in him.
Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God.
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.
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.
The sweetest graces by a slight perversion may bear the bitterest fruit.
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 man.
Preaching which kills is prayerless preaching. Without prayer the preacher creates death, and not life.
Prayer that affects one’s ministry must give tone to one’s life.
The prayer that makes much of our preaching must be made much of.
The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching.
No learning can make up for the failure to pray.
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.
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;
As the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with all its machinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as far as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and created the steam.
the preaching which secures God’s end in preaching must be born of prayer from text to exordium, delivered with the energy and spirit of prayer, followed and made to germinate, and kept in vital force in the hearts of the hearers by the preacher’s prayers, long after the occasion has past.
No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God. Holiness energizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with desire for more faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration—this is the secret of power.
If he does not excel in grace, he does not excel at all.
No age, no person, will be ensamples of the gospel power except the ages or persons of deep and earnest prayer.
God could flow unhindered through him.
The preacher is to be prayed for, the preacher is made by prayer.
Praying makes the preacher a heart preacher. Prayer puts the preacher’s heart into the preacher’s sermon; prayer puts the preacher’s sermon into the preacher’s heart.
The heart makes the preacher. Men of great hearts are great preachers.
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.
Our great need is heart-preparation. Luther held it as an axiom: “He who has prayed well has studied well.”
We do say that while the channel of preaching is the mind, its fountain is the heart; you may broaden and deepen the channel, but if you do not look well to the purity and depth of the fountain, you will have a dry or polluted channel.
All the mightiest forces are heart forces. All the sweetest and loveliest graces are heart graces. Great hearts make great characters; great hearts make divine characters.
I felt real pleasure last Sunday. I can bear witness that the preacher did at once speak the words of truth and soberness. There was no eloquence—the honest man never dreamed of such a thing’but there was far better: a cordial communication of vitalized truth. I say vitalized because what he declared to others it was impossible not to feel he lived on himself.”
This unction is the art of preaching. The preacher who never had this unction never had the art of preaching. The preacher who has lost this unction has lost the art of preaching.
