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My Favourite Preaching Quotes

I maintain that preaching is a very strange business. The following quotes each say something that it is important for all preachers to hear.

Jedidiah Burchard 1834/35

After repeated prayers and appeals, by which he almost compelled multitudes to repair to the anxious seats, he asked again and again if they loved God.They were silent. 'Will you not say that you love God? Only say that you love or wish to love God.' Some confessed; and their names and numbers were written down in a memorandum book, to be reported as so many converts. It was enough to give an affirmative to the question: but many were not readily, and without continual importunity and management, induced to the admission. He would continue - 'Do you not love God? Will you not say you love God?" Then taking out his watch, - 'There now, I give you a quarter of an hour. If not brought in fifteen minutes to love God, there will be no hope for you - you will be lost - you will be damned.' A pause and no response. 'Ten minutes have elapsed, five minutes only left for salvation! If you do not love God in five minutes, you are lost forever!' The terrified candidates confess - the record is made - a hundred converts are reported

F.A. Cox and J. Hoby , Baptists in America pp180-1 Quoted in "Revival and Revivalism" Iain H. Murray p 287.

George Whitefield 1714-1770

He worked tirelessly, like his friend Wesley, embarassing in his zeal. He usually rose at 4:00am and spent whole nights in reading and devotions, sometimes getting up after going to bed at his usual hour of 10:00pm to do so. He preached morning, afternoon, and evening on Sundays; 6:00 every morning and evening Monday to Thursday, and Saturday night; twelve messages a week, sometimes forty to sixty hours of speaking each week.

Winkie Pratney "Revival" p95

Jonathan Edwards 1703-1764

(describing "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God")

Here was a man who often studied thirteen hours a day, whose writing and eyesight were so bad he had to screw his face down close to a sermon manuscript to read it (in a monotone).... Edward's astonishing results on the day he preached that sermon are probably much more due to the manifested power of God in answer to prayer than some convicting content in his message. Nevertheless, the effect was awesome; people screamed aloud, clutched the backs of pews and the stone pillars of the church, lest the ground open and swallow them alive into hell!

Winkie Pratney "Revival" p99,100

Leonard Thynn

I asked him what he'd ended up thinking after Edwin's talk on Sunday. He looked pleased. Doesn't usually get asked for an opinion. Overdid it of course. Leaned back in his chair, put his fingertips together and tried to look wise.
'Well, I did sit right up at the front on Sunday.'
'Yes'
'So I was very close to Edwin as he talked.'
'Yes...'
'And I did end up doing something I'd never quite managed before.'
'Yes - and that was...?'
'I counted Edwin's teeth. He's got thirty-six.'

Adrian Plass "The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass (aged 37.75) " p97