Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

31 May, 2007   comments: (0) Classic Devotion   The Praying Pastors of Yesterday    Quoting Joel Beeke . . . The Puritans saturated all their evangelistic efforts in prayer. They were "men of the closet" first of all. They were great preachers only because they were also great petitioners who wrestled with God for divine blessing upon their preaching. A [worker at the Puritan-minded] Robert Murray M'Cheyne's church noticed the awe on the face of a visitor and invited him into his study. "Tell me", said the visitor, "having sat under this Godly man's ministry, what is the secret of his success?" The worker told the visitor to sit at M'Cheyne's desk. Then he asked the man to put his hands on the desk. Then to put his face in his hands and weep. Next the two men walked into the church sanctuary and ascended to the pulpit. "Lean over the pulpit", the worker said. "Now reach out your hands and weep". "Now you know the secret of M'Cheyne's ministry". The church today desperately needs such preachers whose private prayers season their pulpit messages. The Puritan pastors jealously guarded their personal devotion time. They set their priorities on spiritual, eternal realities. They knew that if they ceased to watch and pray constantly they would be courting spiritual disaster. Faithful, steadfast, and sincere, they were God-fearing men who continually examined themselves and were painfully aware, as John Flavel said "that a man may be objectively a spiritual man, and all the while subjectively a carnal man". They believed as John Owen noted: "No man preacheth that sermon well that doth not first preach it to his own heart... If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us". Unlike many modern evangelists, the quality of their spiritual life was uniformly high. From:  Puritan Evangelism: A Biblical Approach   Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.426   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism