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The Bible is full of accounts that describe the greatness of God. It describes people like Elijah, Moses, Daniel, and the apostles in the New Testament. Through them, God performed great miracles. But unfortunately, we often find ourselves like Gideon today, who longed for God's work on earth (see Judges 6:13 ).
God has not changed, so the lack of God's work must lie with us, not with Him. What are the reasons why God is not so omnipresent in our midst today? Why is the preaching in our church services often so powerless and brings about so little change in the lives of the listeners? The main reason is the lack of earnest and persistent prayer.
Reading the booklet "Strength Through Prayer" has made this very clear to me again. That is why we want to reprint some chapters of this book here. Our wish and prayer is that everyone who reads these chapters will be moved by the Spirit of God to correct their prayer life so that they may serve the Lord with greater authority.
"Strive for a holy life, for your entire worthiness depends upon it. Your sermons last only an hour or two; your life, however, preaches all week long. If the devil even succeeds in arousing in you the desire to be praised by people, to pursue pleasure, to enjoy good food, then he has already ruined your ministry."
Surrender to prayer and allow God to give you your texts, your thoughts, and your words. Luther spent his most precious three hours in prayer” (Robert Murray McCheyne).
With all our might, we seek new methods to promote the Lord's church and ensure the wider spread and effectiveness of the gospel. This characteristic of our time tends to draw people into a plan or an organization. God's plan, however, is to empower people to the fullest. People are God's method. The church seeks better methods—God seeks better people. "There was a man sent from God, and his name was John."
The time that Christ announced and prepared the way for him was embodied in this man, John. “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.” The salvation of the world comes from this son in the manger. The glory and efficacy of the gospel depend on the extent to which people allow themselves to be used by God. This vital truth is ignored by our age of outward propaganda for the gospel.
Preachers shape not only sermons, but also people.
The Lord's church today doesn't need new organizations, nor more methods, but men anointed by the Holy Spirit and equipped with His power. Men of powerful prayer. The Holy Spirit doesn't flow through methods, but through people. He neither anoints administrative bodies nor empowers them. He doesn't sanctify plans, but people of prayer.
A prominent historian once said that the characteristics of human character have more to do with the revolutions of nations than philosophical historians and democratic politicians admit. This truth is fully applicable to the Gospel of Christ. The character and conduct of Christ's followers change the world, transforming nations and individuals. This is especially true of those who proclaim the Gospel.
Both the nature and the success of the gospel are entrusted to the preacher. He either proclaims the unadulterated truth to the people or he distorts God's message. The preacher is the golden conduit through which the divine oil flows. The conduit must not only be golden, but also clean and flawless so that the oil can flow through unimpeded.
Image source: AdobeStock_191237878 @ andranik123
Man himself shapes the preacher; therefore, God must shape man. The messenger, if one can put it this way, is more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon. The preacher delivers the sermon. Just as life-giving breast milk can only come from a mother, so everything the preacher says is permeated by what the preacher is. The treasure is contained in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel permeates the contents and can give them a different color.
The whole person stands behind the sermon. Preaching is not the achievement of an hour; it is the overflowing of a lifetime. It takes twenty years to create a sermon because it takes twenty years to form the man behind it. True preaching is something living. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is powerful because the man is powerful. The sermon is holy because the preacher is holy. The sermon is full of divine anointing because the preacher is full of divine anointing.
Paul called it “my gospel,” not because he had diminished it through his egoism or selfish application, but because he internalized the gospel in his very being. This personal trust was to be carried out through its Pauline characteristics, kindled and empowered by the fiery power of his fiery soul.
What is the meaning of the sermons of the Apostle Paul? Where are they now? Skeletons, scattered fragments adrift on the sea of inspiration? But Paul himself, greater than his sermons, lives on forever in his full, formative stature within the church. The preaching is merely a voice that will one day fall silent. The text will be forgotten and fade from memory, but the preacher, however, lives on.
The sermon itself cannot surpass the preacher with its life-giving power. Dead men deliver dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher. In Old Testament times, the high priest wore a golden headband inscribed with the words: "Holy to the Lord."
Every preacher in the service of Christ must be shaped by this sacred motto! It is a great shame for Christian preachers that they lag behind the Jewish priests in holiness, both in manner and purpose. Jonathan Edwards once said, “I eagerly continued to strive for greater holiness and Christ-likeness. The heaven I longed for was a heaven of holiness.”
The gospel of Christ does not spread on its own. It develops to the extent that the men who are familiar with the gospel develop. The divine and especially prominent characteristics of the gospel must be embodied in the preacher. He must personify the gospel. The power of love must be felt in the preacher as a supreme, all-commanding, self-forgetting force. The capacity for self-denial must permeate his being, his heart and soul. He should walk clothed in humility, remain meek, wise as a serpent, yet without deceit as a dove, bound as a servant, yet with the spirit of a king—a king with a regal, independent bearing and the simplicity and sweetness of a child.
The preacher must throw himself into his work with complete devotion and consuming zeal in order to save people. Those who wish to win our generation for God must be heroic, compassionate, and fearless martyrs. If they are timid servants of mankind, seeking to please people, fearing them, and whose faith rests only weakly on God and His Word, they can draw neither the Church nor the world to God.
The true sermon originates in the prayer chamber.
The preacher should preach most fervently to himself and do the most extensive and thorough work on himself. Christ's greatest, most difficult, and most enduring work was the training of the twelve disciples. Preachers don't just shape sermons, but people and saints. Only he who is himself a holy man is capable of this work.
God doesn't need great talents, advanced education, or powerful preachers, but rather holy men with great faith, great love, and great faithfulness. Men who preach constantly—through holy words from the pulpit and through a holy life in everyday situations. Such men can lead our generation to God.
Such were the first Christians—men of strong character, preachers modeled on heavenly examples—heroic, unwavering, and sanctified. For them, proclaiming the word meant a work of self-denial and self-crucifixion. They dedicated themselves to this task in a way that did not fail to have an effect on their generation. The preacher should be a man of prayer. Prayer is the preacher's most powerful weapon, an all-powerful force that gives life and strength to all.
True preaching originates in the prayer room. The man of God is formed in the prayer room. His life, with its deepest convictions, is born in his communion with God. The burdens of his soul, his most profound and beautiful messages, he receives when he is alone with God. Prayer shapes the person; prayer shapes the preacher; prayer shapes the pastor.
The preachers of our time are weak in prayer. Pride in their training gets in the way of the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer from the pulpit is too often merely formal, a function that has become part of the routine of the service. In the pulpit of our time, prayer lacks the powerful force it possessed in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul.
Any preacher who does not make prayer a powerful factor in their own life and ministry is a weak factor in the work of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, they are powerless in leading God's cause in this world.
EM Bounds (1835 – 1913)
From "Strength Through Prayer", Herold Publishing House