The Minister and his Prayers. C.H. Spurgeon.
It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotions, and yet I cannot forbear. To you, as the ambassadors of God the mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate; the more familiar you are with the court of heaven the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust. Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honoured of God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving on the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great potter by which He moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer. Texts will often refuse to reveal their treasures until you open them with the key of prayer. The commentators are good instructors, but the Author Himself is far better, and prayer makes a direct appeal to Him and enlists Him in our cause. A certain Puritan divine at a debate was observed frequently to write upon the paper before him: upon others curiously seeking to read his notes, they found nothing upon the page but the words, “More light, Lord” “More light, Lord,” repeated scores of times. A most suitable prayer for the student of the Word when preparing his discourse.
The Minister and His Preaching. Charles Bridges.
Our Lord’s pungent addresses to the Scribes and Pharisees exhibit the boldness of a Christian Ministration. The same spirit in the Apostles – unaccountable upon human calculations – confounded their judges to the face. Witness Paul before Felix – a prisoner on his trial for life – “no man standing by him” – hated even unto death by the influential body of his countrymen; yet, mean, and in peril, looking his judge in the face with the power of life and death in his hands, and remembering only the dignity of his office – delivering to this noble sinner and his guilty partner the most personal and offensive truths. How did this splendid example of Ministerial boldness “magnify his office!” For what can be more degrading to our divine commission, than that we should fear the face of men? What unmindfulness does it argue of our Master’s presence and authority, and of our high responsibilities, as “set forth for the defence of the gospel!” The independence that disregards alike the praise and the censure of man, is indispensable for the integrity of the Christian Ministry. Luther would have been tolerated on many truths of general application, but his bold statements of justification could not be endured. But the question is not how our people may be pleased, but how they may be warned, instructed, and saved. We would indeed strongly rebuke that modesty, which makes us ashamed of our grand message; or that tremulous timidity, which seems to imply that we are only half-believers in our grand commission. To keep offensive doctrines out of view, or to apologise for the occasional mention of them, or to be over cautious respecting the rudeness of disquieting the conscience with unwelcome truth; to compromise with the world, to connive at fashionable sins, or to be silent where the cause of God demands an open confession – this is not the spirit which honours our Master, and which He “delighteth to honour.”
The Minister and his Soul. Richard Baxter.
See that the work of saving grace be wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to that effectual working of that gospel which you preach. Take heed to yourselves lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing, and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare their food. Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save me for offering salvation to others, while they refused it themselves? Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in His Master’s service. Take heed therefore to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe, and have heartily entertained that Christ and that Spirit which you offer unto others. It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor of religion, but much more to be an unsanctifed preacher of the gospel.