How long must we in America go on listening to men who can only tell us what they have read and heard about, never what they themselves have felt and heard and seen?1
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No man should stand before an audience who has not first stood before God. Many hours of communion should precede one hour in the pulpit. The prayer chamber should be more familiar than the public platform. Prayer should be continuous, preaching but intermittent.2
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The differences between the orator and the prophet are many and radical, the chief being that the orator speaks for himself while the prophet speaks for God. The orator originates his message and is responsible to himself for its content. The prophet originates nothing but delivers the message he has received from God who alone is responsible for it, the prophet being responsible to God for its delivery only. The prophet must hear the message clearly and dehver it faithfully, and that is indeed a grave responsibility; but it is to God alone, not to men.3
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There isn’t anything quite so chilling, quite so disheartening as a man without the Holy Spirit preaching about the Holy Spirit.4
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I don’t want to be unkind, but I am sure there ought to be a lot more authority in the pulpit than there is now. A preacher should reign from his pulpit as a king from his throne. He should not reign by law nor by regulations and not by board meetings or man’s authority. He ought to reign by moral ascendency.5
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I have done everything I can to keep “performers” out of my pulpit. We do not think we are called to recognize “performers.” We are confident that our Lord never meant for the Christian church to provide a kind of religious stage where performers proudly take their bows, seeking human recognition for themselves.
We do not believe that is God’s way to an eternal work. He has never indicated that proclamation of the gospel is to become dependent upon human performances.6
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Many persons preach and teach. Many take part in the music. Certain ones try to administer God’s work—but if the power of God’s Spirit does not have freedom to energize all they do, these workers might just as well have stayed home. Natural gifts are not enough in God’s work. The mighty Spirit of God must have freedom to animate and quicken with His overtones of creativity and blessing.7
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If any man is determined to preach so that his work and ministry will abide in the day of the judgment fire, then he must preach, teach and exhort with the kind of love and concern that comes only through a true and genuine gift of the Holy Spirit—something beyond his own capabilities!8
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We live in a day when charm is supposed to cover almost the entire multitude of sins. Charm has taken a great place in religious expression. Brethren, I am convinced that our Lord expects us to be tough enough and cynical enough to recognize all of this that pleases the unthinking in our churches—the charm stuff, the stage presence in the pulpit, the golden qualities of voiced.9
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The Holy Spirit… rules out all of this sparkle and charm and pulpit presence and personal magnetism. Instead, He whispers to us: “God wants to humble you and fill you with Himself and control you so that you can become part of the eternal work that God wants to do in the earth in your day!”10