Programs of Study

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer.
 

It seems that God has indeed designed that the inspired Word of the Bible become uniquely powerful by passing through a Spirit-filled person on the way to make a dead heart live.
 

You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it.
 

Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother: pray, pray, pray.
 

The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.
 

I urge upon you . . .  a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn aside in Christ that we never saw, and new foldings of love in Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep; and sweat, and labor, and take pains for Him; and set by as much time in the day for Him as you can. He will be won with labor.
 

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
 

The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems…
 

He is looking for voluntary lovers: people who long to know Him more than anything else; people who will live lifestyles of prayer, fasting and meditation on the Word of God because they hunger to know a holy God; people who will seek the knowledge of God because they want to be transformed and invited into the deep things of God’s heart.
 

If the anointing which we bear comes not from the Lord of hosts, we are deceivers, since only in prayer can we obtain it.
 

Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God’s Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory.
 

All the minister’s efforts will be vanity or worse than vanity if he have not unction. Unction must come down from heaven and spread a savor and feeling and relish over his ministry; and among the other means of qualifying himself for his office, the Bible must hold the first place, and the last also must be given to the Word of God and prayer.
 

God wants men on the field who can pray. There are too many preachers now and too few pray-ers.
 

Satan dreads nothing but prayer. . . . The Church that lost its Christ was full of good works. Activities are multiplied that meditation may be ousted, and organizations are increased that prayer may have no chance. Souls may be lost in good works, as surely as in evil ways. The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.
 

The Holy Spirit will give to the praying saint the brightness of an immortal hope, the music of a deathless song, in His baptism and communion with the heart, He will give sweeter and more enlarged visions of heaven until the taste for other things will pall, and other visions will grow dim and distant. He will put notes of other worlds in human hearts until all earth’s music is discord and songless.
 

A certain preacher whose sermons converted many souls received a revelation from God that it was not his sermons or works by all means but the prayers of an illiterate lay brother who sat on the pulpit steps pleading for the success of the sermon. It may be in the all-revealing day so with us. We may believe after laboring long and wearily that all honor belongs to another builder whose prayers were gold, silver, and precious stones, while our sermonizings being apart from prayer are but hay and stubble.
 

Fletcher of Madeley, a great teacher of a century and a half ago, used to lecture to the young theological students. He was one of the fellow-workers with Wesley and a man of most saintly character. When he had lectured on one of the great topics of the Word of God, such as the Fullness of God’s Holy Spirit or on the power and blessing that He meant His people to have, he would close the lecture and say, “That is the theory; now will those who want the practice come along up to my room!” And again and again they closed their books and went away to his room, where the hour’s theory would be followed by one or two hours of prayer.
 

The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy.
 

During the great Welsh Revival a minister was said to be very successful in winning souls by one sermon that he preached—hundreds were converted. Far away in a valley news reached a brother minister of the marvelous success of this sermon. He desired to find out the secret of the man’s great success.—He walked the long way, and came to the minister’s poor cottage, and the first thing he said was: “Brother, where did you get that sermon?” He was taken into a poorly furnished room and pointed to a spot where the carpet was worn threadbare, near a window that looked out upon the everlasting hills and solemn mountains and said, “Brother, there is where I got that sermon. My heart was heavy for men. One night I knelt there—and cried for power as I never preached before. The hours passed until midnight struck, and the stars looked down on a sleeping world, but the answer came not. I prayed on until I saw a faint streak of grey shoot up, then it was silver—silver became purple and gold. Then the sermon came and the power came and men fell under the influence of the Holy Spirit.”
 

Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer.