We must go fresh from the mercy-seat to the field of service if we would gather plenteously. Our truest strength lies in prayer. I am persuaded, brethren, that we are losing much of blessing which might come upon the church through our negligence in private supplications. I cannot pry into your prayer-closets, but I believe that in the conscience of many of you, there will be an affirmative voice to the charge I lay against some of you; ye have restrained prayer before God. Your restraining of prayer, if you seek to serve God, is binding your own hands and cutting the sinews of your strength. As you could not expect to be vigorous if you denied yourselves food, so neither can you hope to be strong if you deny yourselves prayer. Get close to God, for strength flows out of him. Keep at a distance from him, and you lose all power and become weak as water. “He that goeth forth,” must mean, then, that he has stood before the mercy-seat, that he has told out the story of his wants where the blood is sprinkled, and then has gone forth in the power which prayer alone can bring from heaven to scatter his precious seed among men.
From a sermon entitled "Tearful Sowing And Joyful Reaping," delivered April 25, 1869. Image by Satoru Kikuchi under Creative Commons License.
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