Holiness
Holiness and Revival: Stirring Quotations of Revival
REVIVAL the MOTHER of WORLD MISSIONS...
“If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is un-obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living, and because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being.” – Arthur T. Pierson
“The Protestant Churches owe an immeasurable debt to the Evangelical Revival… it added an intense sense of civic responsibility, and this naturally found its expression both in such movements of reform as the campaign for the abolition of slavery and in zeal for missionary endeavour… At a time when all these movements were showing signs of dying down, the Second Evangelical Awakening crossed the Atlantic from America to Britain in 1858. This was undenominational in character, and produced that new phenomenon of the nineteenth century, the interdenominational or undenominational missionary society.” – Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions
“In regard to our foreign mission, we are at present in need of almost everything. We are greatly in need of money, and we are sorely in need of missionaries; but what we want most is Life and an increase of spiritual power… Money will flow in streams to God’s treasury, and men will offer themselves in companies, and our missionary enterprise will expand into missions worthy of the name, when the enthusiasm of Christ, the fire of the Holy Ghost, possesses the Church - never tilt then.” – Rev. Archd Scott, The Church of Scotland Home & Foreign Missionary Record
“Missionary work in foreign fields would soon cease to bring forth fruit if it would not have been for special revival seasons.” – Henry B. Roller, The Twentieth Century Revival (1911)
“The only hope of missions lay in a revival of religion, wide-spread and deep-reaching.” - Arthur T. Pierson, The Crisis of Missions (1886)
“The first work of the Spirit of God at this epoch was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come; to set before them the heinousness of unbelief in Christ, the possibility of victory over evil through Him, and the certainty of retribution for all that set Him at naught. When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.” – J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel
“It is the century of missions largely, yes mainly, because it has been also, beyond any other, a century of revivals, of quickening and purified spiritual life… In large measure modern missions are the direct product of revivals. “ – Delavan L. Leonard, A Hundred Years of Missions (published –1895)
“A passion for missions is the result of a special conviction, a new inward work of the Holy Ghost.” – James Elder Cumming
“Yes, my friends, it is amidst the effusions of the Spirit of God that men are trained to engage actively and efficiently in the great enterprise of Christian benevolence: here they are to have their hearts and their hands opened in behalf of those who are sitting in the region and shadow of death: here they are to catch that spirit of zeal, and self-denial, and holy resolution, which will lead them to attempt great things, and by God's blessing to accomplish great things, towards the moral renovation of the world….I hardly need to say that all our great benevolent institutions – our Missionary, and Bible, and Tract, and Education and all kindred societies, have flourished most when the influence of God’s grace have been most abundantly experienced.” ” – William B. Sprague , Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1832)
“In every revival there is a reemphasis of the Church's missionary character. Men return to Calvary, and the world is seen afresh through the eyes of Christ. The infinite compassion of Christ fills the heart, and the passion evoked by Calvary demands the whole wide world as the fruit of His sacrifice.” –John Shearer, Old Time Revivals
“The Revival of 1859 helped to lay the foundations of the modem international and interdenominational missionary structure…Every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields, and the records of missionary enterprises and the pages of missionary biography following I860 are full of clearest evidence of the stimulating effect of the Revival throughout the world.” –J. Edwin Orr
“A mighty spiritual revival in the Church is the fundamental need of the hour; it is the only thing that will avail… When it comes the problems of missionary recruits and missionary support will be solved.” - Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World Wide Missions
“The fact is indisputable that revivals of true Christianity issue in missionary effort. In the absence of revival and of a healthy Church life missionary interest and effort alike languish.” – S. M. Houghton, Sketches from Church History
” Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world.” - A. J. Gordon, The Holy Spirit in Missions
“Following the 1858 Prayer Revival, a world-wide interdenominational student missionary movement began to flourish. In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement was founded. This movement heightened missions awareness and over the next several decades helped recruit some 20,000 students who went forth to serve on the mission field.” - Timothy K. Beougher, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions
“It is utterly impossible to divorce the story of student awakenings from the course of missions in countries overseas. From the beginning, one of the most immediate and dramatic effects of college revivals has been the recruitment of personnel for the work of Christ abroad.” -J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame
“A mighty spiritual revival in the Church is the fundamental need of the hour; it is the only thing that will avail… When revival comes the problems of missionary recruits and missionary support will be solved.” - Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World Wide Missions
“Water cannot rise any higher than its source, nor can the mission overseas be any stronger than the supporting church at home. A sick church can never save a dying world…Throughout history, revival at home and missions abroad have always gone together.” – J. Herbert Kane, A Concise History of the Christian World Mission
“There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work.” - Andrew Murray (1900)
“Awakenings resulted from revivals as the Church moved powerfully into the world in evangelism, social transformation, and mission…The two cannot be separated.” - Paul E. Pierson, Evangelical Dictionary of World missions
“The Evangelical Awakening both founded and established the far-sighted world Protestant foreign missionary movement, this is a fact no student of the period can doubt.” – J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and after Wesley
“The evangelical revival in the English-speaking world two hundred years ago had vast influence in increasing the confidence that all nations of the earth would yet be turned to the gospel of Christ.” – Ian Murray, The Puritan Hope
”Not till the eighteenth century began to usher in the great Evangelical Revival did the churches of Reformed Christendom put forth their strength in missionary effort.” - J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel
“The astonishing missionary advance at the close of the eighteenth century and the onset of the nineteenth was a direct consequence of the Evangelical Awakening.” - Skevington Wood, The Inextinguishable Blaze
“The first work of the Spirit of God was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come… When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.” – J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel
“In times when church work and missionary endeavors have dwindled for lack of support, it has been from revivals that a new supply of manpower has arisen” – Iain H. Murray, Pentecost –Today?
“The Church today needs a revival…There is plenty of missionary sentiment; but little of that practical self-denial and burning zeal which impelled the Moravians to go forth without script or purse, to carry the banner of the Cross to the dark places of the earth.” – Edwin Hodder, The Conquest of the Cross, A Record of Missionary Work throughout the World
“The first work of the Spirit of God was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come… When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.” – J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel
“In times when church work and missionary endeavors have dwindled for lack of support, it has been from revivals that a new supply of manpower has arisen” – Iain H. Murray, Pentecost –Today?
“The Church today needs a revival…There is plenty of missionary sentiment; but little of that practical self-denial and burning zeal which impelled the Moravians to go forth without script or purse, to carry the banner of the Cross to the dark places of the earth.” – Edwin Hodder, The Conquest of the Cross, A Record of Missionary Work throughout the World
“Following the 1858 Prayer Revival, a world-wide interdenominational student missionary movement began to flourish. In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement was founded. This movement heightened missions awareness and over the next several decades helped recruit some 20,000 students who went forth to serve on the mission field.” - Timothy K. Beougher, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions
“It is utterly impossible to divorce the story of student awakenings from the course of missions in countries overseas. From the beginning, one of the most immediate and dramatic effects of college revivals has been the recruitment of personnel for the work of Christ abroad.” -J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame
“The Revival of 1859 helped to lay the foundations of the modern international and interdenominational missionary structure…Every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields, and the records of missionary enterprises and the pages of missionary biography following I860 are full of clearest evidence of the stimulating effect of the Revival throughout the world.” - J. Edwin Orr
“If I should die, I shall be able to say to the rising generation, God will surely visit you. A work is begun that will not end till the world be subdued to the Savior. ” - Andrew Fuller
“The outpourings of the Spirit will bring about the work of conversion in a wonderful manner. They will result in the calling of new laborers who will be zealous to carry the gospel to the nations of the world.” - Charles L. Chaney, The Birth of Missions in America
“When the churches stirred to life near the end of the Eighteenth Century, they gave themselves to missionary organization and action as never before. The dynamic of the renewed efforts was that ‘powerful impulse’ let loose in America in the Great Awakening. Pious missionaries crossed the mountains, sought out the Indian tribes and invaded the southern frontier. They gathered churches in the cities, preached to the slaves, and ultimately spread out to the islands and continents of the
world. The categories that marked the boundaries of their theology came from the Puritans. The under-girding spirit that moved them to action and flavored their theology was that of the Evangelical Revival.” - Charles L. Chaney, The Birth of Missions in America
“Almost all the (missionary pioneers) had come more or less directly under the influence of what we call the Evangelical Revival, that is, that movement of the Spirit of God which… gave a new vitality in the second half of the eighteenth century to personal faith.” – Ernest A. Payne, The Growth of the World Church
“It is a want of a revived godliness in our church at home which prevents our hoping for any great success abroad. Ah brethren we must till our own vineyards better, or else God will not make us successful in driving the plow across the broad acres of the continents….Just as the anointing oil was first poured on Aaron’s head, and then went to the skirts of the garment, so must the Holy Spirit be poured on us, and then shall it go to the utmost borders of the habitable earth.” - C. H. Spurgeon
“Revivals and missions have always been closely related. Eighteenth-century awakenings laid the foundation for the modern missions movement. In the next century they brought renewed zeal among the faithful, inspired believers to enter the ministry or become missionaries, and influenced non-Christians to convert.” - A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Missions
“The eighteenth-century evangelical revivals that began in England with Whitefield and Wesley played an important role in awakening Christian leaders and laypeople to the responsibility for evangelism worldwide.” - Ruth A. Tucker
“The links between the missionary movement and the Evangelical Revival are remarkably close. Revival largely supplied the men, the motive, and the message… Each of the missionary societies was indebted to it.” - Arthur Skevington Wood
“The modern missionary movement as a whole is usually dated from the closing years of the eighteenth century. In 1787, the first mention is made of Missions established by the Methodist Society.” In 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society came into being, mainly through the influence of Carey. Three years later the London Missionary Society was founded…The closing year of the century saw the inauguration of the Church Missionary Society, and also of the Religious Tract Society…That all these agencies were the result of the (Evangelical) Revival cannot be questioned; the leaders In almost every case had come under its influence directly or indirectly; many of them were a part of its fruit. Under the strong constraining love of Christ they felt impelled to think of others, less favored than them selves. Their Master words rang in their ears: ‘Go ye into all the World’; they realized that they were ‘put in trust with the Gospel,’ and in the spirit of loyal and willing obedience they began to see how best they might discharge their trusteeship. Such was the origin of the first effort of Protestantism, on any large organized scale, to evangelize the world.” – Rev. Bishop E. R. Hasse, The Moravians
“Revival always raises up agencies for the propagation of the Gospel…those gifted as exponents of vital truth, those who get visions of far-off heathen, and souls dying at our doors, either want to go themselves, or consecrate their faculties to make money to send others.” - W. G. Bennett
“The main reason we should be praying about revival is that we are anxious to see God’s name vindicated and His glory manifested. We should be anxious to see something happening that will arrest the nations, all the peoples, and cause them to stop and think again,” - Martin Lloyd-Jones
“History testifies to the power of prayer as the prelude to spiritual awakening and missions advance.” – John Piper
“To understand aright the fruitfulness of this period (1866) it should be borne in mind that Mr. Taylor, among many others, was reaping the aftermath of the great revival of 1859. That wonderful spiritual awakening had not only swept thousands into the Church of Christ; it had prepared the way for a new order of things, an up-springing of individual faith and effort, characterized by love for souls and new resourcefulness in seeking their salvation.” - Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission – The Growth of a work of God
“Missionary fervor has always followed in the wake of revivals.” – W. J. Dawson
“All the first missionaries were converted and received their missionary baptism in revivals…There would have been no missionaries to send if God had not poured out His Spirit, and raised them up and prepared them to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. In these revivals the holy fire was kindled which waked up and warmed the churches to an onward aggressive movement such as had never been known in this country before.” - Henry C. Fish, Handbook of Revivals
"I am convinced that nothing less than a mighty Holy Ghost revival will awaken us to a sense of our great privilege and responsibility with regard to the missionary challenge and world evangelization." - Clifford Filer
"If you want the Kingdom speeded, go out and speed it yourselves. Only obedience rationalizes prayer. Only Missions can redeem your intercessions from insincerity." - William Carey
The invasion of the Church by the world is a menace to the extension of Christ's Kingdom. In all ages conformity to the world by Christians has resulted in lack of spiritual life and a consequent lack of spiritual vision and enterprise. A secularized or self-centered Church can never evangelize the world.” - John R. Mott
“There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work.” – Andrew Murray
” Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world.” - A. J. Gordon
“Raymund Lull sought in vain for the sympathy of popes and prelates in his heroic missionary project, and finally had to go forth as a solitary and unsupported herald of the cross among the Muslims. Today this man's grace and apostleship are so fully recognized that historians of missions ask not whether he heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, but whether he was not almost the only one who heard it, in that dreary and unspiritual age.” – A. J. Gordon
"Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after new obedience.” -The Westminster Shorter Catechism
"Oh, for closest communion with God, till soul and body, head, face, and heart -shine with Divine brilliancy! But oh! for a holy ignorance of our shining!" - Robert Murray M'Cheyme
“Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort.” –Samuel Chadwick
“How careful we should be lest we misrepresent a real work of grace because of some things which occasionally may accompany it! When Whitefield was once preaching in Boston, the place was so
packed that the gallery was thought to be giving way, and there was a panic in which several persons were trampled to death. But it would be unfair and unreasonable to blame the revival for this… We do not despise the great river because of the sticks and straws that may occasionally float on its surface.” – William Alexander McKay (1890)
“Some people do not like to hear much of repentance; but I think it is so necessary that if I should die in the pulpit, I would desire to die preaching repentance, and if out of the pulpit I would desire to die practicing it.” -Matthew Henry
“Depend upon it, if you are bent on prayer, the devil will not leave you alone. He will molest you, tantalize you, block you, and will surely find some hindrances, big or little or both. And we sometimes fail because we are ignorant of his devices…I do not think he minds our praying about things if we leave it at that. What he minds, and opposes steadily, is the prayer that prays on until it is prayed through, assured of the answer.” - Mary Warburton Booth
“How we have prayed for a Revival - we did not care whether it was old-fashioned or not - what we asked for was that it should be such that would cleanse and revive His children and set them on fire to win others.” - Mary Warburton Booth
“I myself, for instance, am not especially gifted, and am shy by nature, but my gracious and merciful God and Father inclined Himself to me, and when I was weak in faith He strengthened me while I was still young. He taught me in my helplessness to rest on Him, and to pray even about little things in which another might have felt able to help himself.” - James Hudson Taylor
"Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.” –James Hudson Taylor
“ Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.” –Daniel 9:3-5
“Our sufficiency is of God. Difficulties melt in His presence. In Him are those mighty, overcoming energies, which accomplish the possible and the impossible with equal readiness…The real resources are with Him for the evangelizing and the redeeming of the world. But He has not been able to do ‘many mighty works’ in the non-Christian lands, because of our unbelief as a Church. We have not possessed our possessions. God has been waiting to be honored by the faith of a generation that would call upon Him for really large outpourings of His power.” –J. Lovell Murray (SVM)
“God has honored this generation as He has never honored a generation before. He has thrown dazzling opportunities before it. He has flung wide open for it the doors of access to all parts of His world and has laid at its feet every possible advantage and facility.” -J. Lovell Murray (SVM)
Ah, prayer turns trembling saints into great victors! There is no such thing as surrender, or even discouragement, to a man who dwells in the secret place of the Most High and abides under the shadow of the Almighty.” –Henry W. Frost
“I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.” - James Hudson Taylor
“The men that will change the colleges and seminaries here represented are the men that will spend the most time alone with God…It takes time for the fires to burn. It takes time for God to draw near and for us to know that He is there. It takes time to assimilate His truth. You ask me, How much time? I do not know. I know it means time enough to forget time.” - John R. Mott
“You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go not only to those that need you, but to those that need you most…It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance.” – John Wesley
"And we ourselves are 'saved to save'-we are made to give-to let everything go if only we may have more to give. The pebble takes in all the rays of light that fall on it, but the diamond flashes them out again; every little facet is a means, not simply of drinking more in, but of giving more out." -Lillias Trotter
"Yes, there lies before us a beautiful possible life-one that shall have a passion for giving: that shall be pored forth to God-spent out for man: that shall be consecrated for the hardest work and the darkest sinners." -Lillias Trotter
“Let Christians remember, that in a season of revival as well as in a season of coldness, the evidence of piety is to be sought in the fruits of the Spirit. And let sinners remember that no degree of attendance on means, no degree of fervor, can be substituted for repentance of sin and faith in the Savior..." -William B. Sprague
“ I am born for God only. Christ is nearer to me than father, or mother, or sister - a near relation, a more affectionate Friend; and I rejoice to follow Him, and to love Him. Blessed Jesus! Thou art all I want -a forerunner to me in all I ever shall go through as a Christian, a minister, or a missionary." -Henry Martyn
“If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence...? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now!” -Keith Green
“Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival – men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations.” -C. H. Spurgeon
“Revivals begin with God's own people; the Holy Spirit touches their heart anew, and gives them new fervor and compassion, and zeal, new light and life, and when He has thus come to you, He next goes forth to the valley of dry bones…Oh, what responsibility this lays on the Church of God! If you grieve Him away from yourselves, or hinder His visit, then the poor perishing world suffers sorely!” –Andrew A. Bonar
“In the Irish Revival of 1859, people became so weak that they could not get back to their homes. Men and women would fall by the wayside and would be found hours later pleading with God to save their souls. They felt that they were slipping into hell and that nothing else in life mattered but to get right with God... To them eternity meant everything. Nothing else was of any consequence. They felt that if God did not have mercy on them and save them, they were doomed for all time to come." - Oswald J. Smith
“We Christians too often substitute prayer for playing the game. Prayer is good; but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is nothing but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism...To your knees, man! and to your Bible! Decide at once! Don't hedge! Time flies! Cease your insults to God, quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame, lying, and cowardly excuses. Enlist! " - C. T. Studd
"The love-slave has no pleasure like that of serving his master. this is his joy, and his very "crown of rejoicing." The love-slave is altogether at his master's service. He is all eyes for his master. He watches. He is all ears for his master. He listens. His mind is willing. His hands are ready. His feet are swift to sit at the master's feet and look into his loved face, to listen to his voice and catch his words; to run on his errands, to do his bidding, to share his privations and sorrows, to watch at his door, to guard his honor, to praise his name, to defend his person, to seek and promote his interests, and, if needs be, to die for his dear sake; this is the joy of the slave of love, and this he counts his perfect freedom." -Samuel L. Brengle
"My Lord was pleased to die for my sins; why should I not be glad to give up my poor life out of love for Him." -Girolamo Savanarola
"I feel very happy since the Lord called me to step out in faith, and I obeyed. The Lord is our inexhaustible treasure." -Pandita Ramabai
“Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.” -James Hudson Taylor
“This season of waiting is always an essential qualification for successful service. God would have His children realize the utter inadequacy of all human means to accomplish His gigantic purposes, that thus the praise and glory might be afterwards ascribed exclusively to Him. The disciples were given ten days to review the field of battle, to recognize the difficulties that bristled round on every side, to measure the adversaries' strength, and to understand their own helplessness and weakness; thus were they driven to their knees in earnest, anxious prayer. Then came the answer. The promise was fulfilled, and the power stored up in the almighty Savior was brought down to His disciples in the person of the Holy Spirit.” -Hugh D. Brown
“The chief danger of the Church today is that it is trying to get on the same side as the world, instead of turning the world upside down. Our Master expects us to accomplish results, even if they bring opposition and conflict. Anything is better than compromise, apathy, and paralysis. God give to us an intense cry for the old-time power of the Gospel and the Holy Ghost!” -A. B. Simpson
“It is not the bee's touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on divine truth, that will prove the choicest, strongest Christian.” -Joseph Hall
“The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.” -James Hudson Taylor
“The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came...Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.” - R. A. Torrey
“The way to stimulate and provoke others unto good works is to strive to outrun them in the race. The way to rebuke the cold and indifferent is to be always full of zeal and ‘abounding in the work of the Lord’ yourself. Men will be much more ready to answer a call to come up to your level, than a command to advance beyond you.” - Record of Christian Work, May 1909
“A sermon in shoes is often more eloquent than a sermon on paper.” - Theodore L. Cuyler
“Closet communion needs time for the revelation of God’s presence. It is vain to say, ‘I have too much work to do to find time.’ You must find time or forfeit blessing. God knows how to save for you the time you sacredly keep for communion with Him.” – A. T. Pierson
“Today comes but once, and comes never to return. We hope it will come again tomorrow; but it does not. It is gone forever, with its inexhaustible possibilities, privileges and responsibilities.” – Record of Christian Work, October 1908
“Elijah on Carmel did not only pray; he kept his eyes open to see the rising cloud.” – Theodore L. Cuyler
“With some men it would seem, if they could control God's operations and manipulate His actions they might tolerate a revival; but to allow God a free hand, fills them with righteous indignation and horror. If only God would consent to become an 'ecclesiastic' and respect their dignity and decorum and beautiful order of service and ways of running the Church, they might condescend to have a revival.” – William P. Nicholson
“To arouse one man or woman to the tremendous power of prayer for others, is worth more than the combined activity of a score of average Christians.” - A. J. Gordon
"I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach; - A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." -H. MacGregor
"Are you living for the things you are praying for?" - Austin Phelps
“Oh, to realize that souls, precious, never dying souls, are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus!" - Oswald J. Smith
“Wise leaders should have known that the human heart cannot exist in a vacuum. If Christians are forbidden to enjoy the wine of the Spirit they will turn to the wine of the flesh....Christ died for our hearts and the Holy Spirit wants to come and satisfy them." - A. W. Tozer
"We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist--Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy." -A. W. Tozer
“A prayerless man is proud and independent, and any church that neglects corporate prayer is sadly no better. Only God's humble and needy children take the time to pray. Everyone else is just going through the motions and naively trusting in their own strength!” –David Smithers
"The time factor in prayer is very important. In the exercise of prayer God is not tied to our clocks. Neither is He at the other end of the phone to receive and answer our two-minute calls. It takes time to know the mind of God, to shut out the material things of earth and to be wholly abandoned." -Hugh C. C. McCullough
"When we get a glimpse of the worth of a soul, and begin to realize that we stand between lost men and Heaven or Hell, then we shall have real concern and the Lord will hear our prayers of intercession." - J. W. Mahood
"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth." - John Wesley
"A heart ready to melt at the sight of human suffering and need is necessary to successful soul-winning...Where there is no real soul-burden for sinners, there will be no revival. The early Churchtravailed in pain for the souls of dying men." - J. W. Mahood
"He can do all things who prays well. All soul-winners have conquered on their knees. Wherever the secret of prevailing prayer is found, something supernatural will come to pass." - G. F. Oliver
"No system of doctrine, preaching and worship which fails to develop prayer, faith, spiritual labor, and success in converting souls from sin, can long have the face to claim to be the religion of Jesus Christ!" -William W. Patton
"The days in which we live are days of great opportunity and of grave responsibility, and a second-hand religion is not good enough for times such as these. They demand that we should always be at our best if we are to seize our opportunities and manfully shoulder our responsibilities." - J. A. Broadbelt
"The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the church...grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil." - Leonard Ravenhill
"There are different kinds of fire; there is false fire. No one knows this better than we do, but we are not such fools as to refuse good bank notes because there are false ones in circulation; and although we see here and there manifestations of what appears to us to be nothing more than mere earthly fire, we none the less prize and value, and seek for the genuine fire which comes from the altar of the Lord." - William Booth
"We must wake ourselves up! Or somebody else will take our place, and bear our cross, and thereby rob us of our crown." - William Booth
"We must continue in prayer if we are to get an outpouring of the Spirit. Christ says there are some things we shall not get, unless we pray and fast, yes, "prayer and fasting." We must control the flesh and abstain from whatever hinders direct fellowship with God." - Andrew Bonar
"The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph." -Samuel Zwemer
"This much is sure in all churches, forgetting party labels; the smallest meeting numerically is the prayer- meeting. If weak in prayer we are weak everywhere." - Leonard Ravenhill
"Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late - and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring the plain precept laid down in Scripture is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience." - A. W. Tozer
"How long will it take us to learn that our shortest route to the man next door is by way of God's throne? – A. T. Pierson
"Wherever the Church is aroused and the world's wickedness arrested, somebody has been praying." – A. T. Pierson
"How terrible is the cost of robbing God of time for prayer. When we rob God of time for quiet, we are robbing Him of ourselves. It is only in the quiet that we can really know Him and know ourselves, and be sure that we give ourselves back to Him. Oh, for God's sake, do not risk keeping the windows of Heaven closed by robbing God of time." ( Keswick 1946 ) – Gordon M. Guinness
"The missionary church is a praying church. The history of missions is a history of prayer. Everything vital to the success of the world's evangelization hinges on prayer. Are thousands of missionaries and tens of thousands of native workers needed? ‘Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth laborers into His harvest.’" – John R. Mott
"God the Holy Ghost calls for crusaders… How many ministers would be in church if it were not their job? The answer will be found in the number who never go to the job that is outside." –Samuel Chadwick
"Why does the Church stay indoors? They have a theology that has dwindled into a philosophy, in which there is no thrill of faith, no terror of doom and no concern for souls. Unbelief has put out the fires of passion, and worldliness garlands the altar of sacrifice with the tawdry glitter of unreality. The Holy Ghost cannot conquer the world with unbelief, nor can He save the world with a worldly Church. He calls for a crusade, a campaign, and an adventure of saving passion. For this enterprise He wants a separated, sanctified and sacrificial people." – Samuel Chadwick
"We give ourselves to prayer. We preach a Gospel that saves to the uttermost, and witness to its power. We do not argue about worldliness; we witness. We do not discuss philosophy; we preach the Gospel. We do not speculate about the destiny of sinners; we pluck them as brands from the burning. We ask no man's patronage. We beg no man's money. We fear no man's frown…Let no man join us who is afraid, and we want none but those who are saved, sanctified and aflame with the fire of the Holy Ghost." – Samuel Chadwick
"The Church gives more time, thought, and money to recreation and sport than to prayer." – Samuel Chadwick