We preachers must teach prayer; if we do not, we are unfaithful ministers of the New Testament. But we must do more than teach prayer; we must teach it by practicing it.
A praying preacher is never envious of another man whose pulpit mastery exceeds his own. He glories that another can explain the way of the Lord more perfectly and glue the ears of a shifty congregation to the Word of the Living God.
There cannot be two operators of the Christian's life. We are either Spirit led in everything or self led.
We may call prayerlessness neglect, or lack of spiritual appetite, or loss of vision. But that which matters is what God calls it. In I Samuel 12:23 God calls prayerlessness sin: God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you."
Good preaching on ground ill-prepared by prayer is an abortive thing.
The man behind the pulpit must have a prayer life. "A holy man, " Robert Murray McCheyne used to say, "is a fearful weapon in the hands of a holy God."
Prayer links man's impotence to God's omnipotence.
Prayer swings us out of the natural into the supernatural.
Prayer turns our stony words into bread because He who turned water into wine still longs through the preaching of the Word to impart nourishment to heaven's pilgrims.
