Edward M. Bounds

“ Thus, in every circumstance of life, prayer is the most natural out-pouring of the soul, the unhindered turning to God for communion and direction. Whether in sorrow or in joy, in defeat or in victory, in health or in weakness, in calamity or in success, the heart leaps to meet with God just as a child runs to his mother’s arms, ever sure that with her is the sympathy that meets every need. ”

“ The preacher's relations to God are the insignia and credentials of his ministry. These must be clear, conclusive, unmistakable. No common, surface type of piety must be his. If he does not excel in grace, he does not excel at all. If he does not preach by life, character, conduct, he does not preach at all. If his piety be light, his preaching may be as soft and as sweet as music, as gifted as Apollo, yet its weight will be a feather's weight, visionary, fleeting as the morning cloud or the early dew. Devotion to God—there is no substitute for this in the preacher's character and conduct. ”

“ The Holy Spirit is the Divinely appointed Substitute for and representative of the personal and humanised Christ. How much is He to us! And how we are to be filled by Him, live in Him, walk in Him, and be led by Him! How we are to conserve and kindle to a brighter and more consuming glow the holy flame! How careful should we be never to quench that pure flame! How watchful, tender, loving ought we to be so as not to grieve His sensitive, loving nature! How attentive, meek and obedient, never to resist His Divine impulses, always to hear His voice, and always to do His Divine will. ”

“ NEHEMIAH, THE PRAYING BUILDER
We care not for your splendid abilities as a minister, or your natural endowment as an orator before men. We are sure that the truth of the matter is this: No one will or can command success and become a real praying soul unless intense application is the price. I am even now convinced that the difference between the saints like Wesley, Fletcher, Edwards, Brainerd, Bramwell, Bounds, and ourselves is energy, perseverance, invincible determination to succeed or die in the attempt. ”

“ But to pray really, to pray till hell feels the ponderous stroke, to pray till the iron gates of difficulty are opened, till the mountains of obstacles are removed, till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are lifted, and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens—this is hard work, but it is God’s work and man’s best labour. Never was the toil of hand, head and heart less spent in vain than when praying. It is hard to wait and press and pray, and hear no voice, but stay till God answers. ”

“ Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer. These things cannot be too often repeated. Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons and widens all straits by which God’s saints have been holden.
Life was sweet to Hezekiah and he desired to live, but what can brook God’s decree? Nothing but the energy of faith. Hezekiah’s heart was broken under the strain, and its waters flowed and added force and volume to his praying. ”

“ Without unction or heart, they fall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The more dead they are the longer they grow. A plea for short praying, live praying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy Spirit—direct, specific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit—is in order. A school to teach preachers how to pray, as God counts praying, would be more beneficial to true piety, true worship, and true preaching than all theological schools. ”

“ All that God has lies open to Christ through prayer. All that Christ has lies open to us through prayer.
If we have the two Christs covering the whole realm of goodness, power, purity and glory, in Heaven and on earth—if we have the better Christ with us here in this world—why is it that we sigh to know the Christ after the flesh as the disciples knew Him? Why is it that the mighty work of these two Almighty Intercessors finds us so barren of Heavenly fruit, so feeble in all Christly principles, so low in the Christly life, and so marred in the Christly image? ”

“ Desire burdens the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels. Prayerless praying has no burden, because no sense of need; no ardency, because none of the vision, strength, or glow of faith. No mighty pressure to prayer, no holding on to God with the deathless, despairing grasp, “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.” No utter self-abandon, lost in the throes of a desperate, pertinacious, and consuming plea: “Yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin—if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book;” ”

“ It takes prayer to minister. It takes life, the highest form of life, to minister. Prayer is the highest intelligence, the profoundest wisdom, the most vital, the most joyous, the most efficacious, the most powerful of all vocations. It is life, radiant, transporting, eternal life. Away with dry forms, with dead, cold habits of prayer! Away with sterile routine, with senseless performances and petty playthings in prayer! Let us get at the serious work, the chief business of men, that of prayer. Let us work at it skillfully. Let us seek to be adepts in this great work of praying. ”

“ Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower—that is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death, and say: "God doth not require me to make myself a drudge to save them?" Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty?—Richard Baxter. ”

“ All-night praying has changed many a Jacob, the supplanter, into Israel, a prince, who has power with God and with men.
No mission was more majestic in purpose and results than that of Moses, and none was more responsible, diligent and difficult. In it we are taught the sublime ministry and rule of prayer. Not only is it the medium of supply and support, but it is a compassionate agency through which the pitying long-suffering of God has an outflow. Prayer is a medium to restrain God’s wrath, that mercy might rejoice against judgment. ”