Power Through Prayer

I have re-posted from last night as I had a private time this morning with the Lord devoted to thankfulness for my wife, the mother of my kiddos.  

Instead of completing my earlier post on the second question of the Exodus 35 study, I have decided to post a series of quotes from E.M. Bounds' Power Through Prayer and I trust if you read this with thoughtful, prayerful concern and self reflection, you too will come to the conclusion that we all miss out on God's power in our life due to our lack of earnest prayer...

I will update part four of the tabernacle study soon enough:)

Chapter One: Men of Prayer Needed-

"What the church needs today 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."

"The sermon is full of divine unction because the man is full of divine unction."

"Preachers are not sermon makers, 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 men can mold a generation for God."

"The man-God's man-is made in the closet [of prayer]."

"The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer."

Chapter Two: Our Sufficiency Is of God-

"Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much-death to self, crucifixion to the world, the trevail of his own soul.  Crucified preaching only can give life.  Crucified preaching can only come from a crucified man."

Chapter Four: Tendencies to Be Avoided-


"Prayer- secret fervent believing prayer- lies at the root of all personal godliness." (Carrey's Brotherhood, Serampore)

"All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets."

"Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and strength must be given.  It does not mean the closet absorbed in the study or swallowed up in the activities of ministerial duties; but it means the closet first, the study and activities second, both study and activities freshened and made efficient by the closet."

"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.  He will never talk well with real success to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men."

Chapter Five: Prayer, the Great Essential-

'To men who think praying their main business and devote time to it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders in this world."

Chapter Seven: Much Time Should Be Given to Prayer-


"While public prayers, as a rule, ought to be short and condensed...-yet in our private communions with God time is a feature essential to its value.  Much time spent with God is the secret to all successful praying."

"Our short prayers owe their point and efficiency to the long ones that have preceded them...Jacob's victory of faith could not have been gained without that all-night wrestling."

"Much of God alone is the secret of knowing him and of influence with him."

"He [Martin Luther] had a motto: 'He that has prayed well has studied well'."

"Joseph Alleine arose...If he heard other tradesmen plying their business before he was up, he would exclaim: 'O how this shames me!  Doth my Master deserve more than theirs?'"

"He [John Welch] kept a plaid that he might wrap himself when he arose to pray at night.  His wife would complain when she found him lying on the ground weeping."

Chapter Eight: Examples of Praying Men-

"No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying."


Chapter Nine: Begin the Day with Prayer-

"If God is not first in our thoughts and effort in the morning, he will be in the last place the remainder of the day."

"The desire for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at the beginning of the day will never catch up."

"No man gets God who does not follow hard after him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after him in early morn."

Chapter Twelve: Heart Preparation Necessary-

"We do say that he who has struggled with his own heart and conquered it; who has taught it humility, faith, love, truth, mercy, sympathy, courage; who can pour the rich treasures of the heart thus trained, through a manly intellect, all surcharged with the power of the gospel on the consciences of his hearers- such a one will be the truest, most successful preacher in the esteem of the Lord."

Chapter Thirteen: Grace from the Heart Rather than the Head-

"The closet is the heart's study."

"Jesus Wept" is the shortest and biggest verse in the bible."

"Thought is not only brightened and clarified in prayer, but thought is born in prayer."

"Books are in the closet which can be found and read nowhere else.  Revelations are made in the closet which are made nowhere else."

Chapter Fifteen: Unction, the Mark of True Gospel Preaching-

"This unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet...It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit...It is heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour or tearful, wrestling prayer."

Chapter Sixteen: Much Prayer the Price of Unction-


"How and whence comes this unction?  Direct from God in answer to prayer.  Praying hearts only are the hearts filled with this holy oil; praying lips only are anointed with this divine unction."

"Without unceasing prayer the unction never comes to the preacher.  Without perseverance in prayer, the unction, like the manna overkept, breeds worms."

Chapter Seventeen: Prayer Marks Spiritual Leadership-


"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.- John Wesley"

"A prayerless Christian will never learn God's truth; a prayerless ministry will never be able to teach God's truth."

Chapter Eighteen: Preachers Need the Prayers of the People-


"It is absolutely necessary that the preacher be prayed for."

"Called, commissioned, chief of the Apostles as he [Paul] was, all his equipment was imperfect without the prayers of his people.  He wrote letter to everywhere, urging them to pray for him.  Do you pray for your preacher?"

Chapter Nineteen: Deliberation Necessary to Largest Results from Prayer-


"Short devotions deplete spiritual vigor, arrest spiritual progress, sap spiritual foundations, blight the root and bloom of spiritual life.  They are the prolific source of backsliding, the sure indication of a superficial piety; they deceive, blight, rot the seed, and impoverish the soil."

"The statement of Elijah's praying may be condensed to a few brief paragraphs, but doubtless Elijah, who when 'praying he prayed', spent many hours of fiery struggle and lofty intercourse with God before he could, with assured boldness, say to Ahab, 'There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."

"It takes good time for the full flow of God into the spirit.  Short devotions cut the pipe of God's full flow.  It takes time in the secret places to get the full revelation from God's full flow.  Little time and hurry mar the picture."

"More time and early hours for prayer would act like magic to revive and invigorate many a decayed spiritual life.  More time and early hours for prayer would manifest in holy living.  A holy life would not be so rare or so difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short and hurried."

Chapter Twenty: A Praying Pulpit Begets a Praying Pew-

"God wants elect men-men out of whom self and the world have gone by severe crucifixion, by bankruptcy which has so totally ruined self and the world that there is neither hope nor desire of recovery; men who by this insolvency and crucifixion have turned toward God perfect hearts."