Reverend George B. Duncan, Keswick England, 1951

Posted on February 11, 2015 by roger willmore

The Reverend George B. Duncan, former pastor of St. George’s Tron, Church of Scotland, Glasgow; and one of the most popular speakers at the English Keswick and Keswick’s around the world.

Spiritual Priorities

That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection. Philippians 3:10

You may be disappointed, because of some dreadful failure in your life. I want to say to you that the intention of God is surely not that His children should be disappointed. Do you read anywhere in the New Testament that God’s intention is that you and I should be depressed and disappointed and cast down and dismayed? I do not. Instead, I read a note of confidence coming again and again- ‘I can do all things through Christ.’ ‘This is the Victory’- not maybe, or ought to be, but ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world.’ ‘Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’ An amazing note of confidence runs all through the Word of God. It is not the intention of God that we should be disappointed. Provision is made for our confidence; the power of His risen life.

Does any feel downcast to the point of despair because of some tragic failure? Do not add to your sins the sin of under-estimating the measure of God’s forgiveness, and having got the measure of God’s forgiveness which has no limit, take this to your heart, disappointed, defeated- it may be even disgraced- child of God; that you have resident within you ‘the power of His resurrection’. God can give no more than that. God has no more to give; and God gives this to every child of His. So we must be confident, not in ourselves, but in Him.

Preached at the Historic Keswick Christian Life Convention, Keswick, England, Summer 1951

Taken from: Daily Thoughts From Keswick, A Year’s Daily Readings, Hebert Stevenson, editor

Prevailing Prayer

Posted on February 11, 2015 by roger willmore

Wesley Duewel

God intends your praying to secure divine answers. Prayer is not just God’s diversion to keep from being lonely. He delights in your fellowship. He always draws nearer when you pray. Also, prevailing prayer is one of the most important ministries in God’s kingdom plans.

Prevailing prayer is not simply a spiritual exercise to help you grow in grace. Certainly nothing is more beneficial to growth in grace than growth in the life of prayer. The more you prevail, the more you learn the secrets of God’s grace and the powers of His kingdom. The more you intercede, the more intimate will be your walk with Christ and the stronger you will become by the Spirit’s power.

Prevailing prayer is God’s ordained means for extending His kingdom, for defeating Satan and his empire of darkness and evil, and for fulfilling God’s eternal plan and bringing into effect His good will on earth. It is God’s means of covering the earth with His blessings. Prevailing prayer is God’s priority strategy for our age and dispensation. The history of the church can never be fully written until Christ in eternity reveals the mighty hidden prayer involvement of all His praying people. What a joy that revelation will bring to Christ’s prayer partners…

Prevailing prayer is the most divine ministry you will ever have. Nothing is more Christlike or involves more cooperation with Christ. No form of Christian service is both so universally open to all and so high on Christ’s priority for all Christians as prevailing prayer. It is Christ’s desire, Christ’s call, and Christ’s command. Lord, teach us to prevail!

Wesley Duewel, Mighty Prevailing Prayer.

E.M. Bounds on Prayer and Preaching

Posted on February 11, 2015 by roger willmore

E.M. Bounds

By a slight perversion, the sweetest graces may bear the bitterest fruit. The sun gives life, but sunstrokes are death. Preaching is to give life, but it may kill. The preacher holds the keys; he may lock as well as unlock. Preaching is God’s great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed its benefits are untold. When wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging result.

It is an easy matter to destroy the flock if the shepherd is unwary or the pasture is destroyed. It is easy to capture the citadel if the watchman is asleep or the food and water are poisoned. The preacher is invested with gracious prerogatives, exposed to great evils, involving so many grave responsibilities. It would be a parody on the shrewdness of the Devil- a libel on his character and reputation- if he did not use his master influences to adulterate the preacher and preaching. In the face of all this, Paul’s exclamatory question, Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Corinthians 2:16) is never out of place…

The great hindrance is in the preacher himself. He does not find within himself the mighty, life-creating forces. There may be no deficiency in his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnestness. But, somehow the man- the inner man- in his secret places has never broken down and surrendered to God. His inner life is not a great highway for the transmission of God’s message, God’s power.

Somehow, self, not God rules in the holy of holiest. Somewhere, all unconscious to himself, some spiritual nonconductor has touched his inner being. The divine current has been arrested. His inner being has never felt its thorough spiritual bankruptcy, its utter powerlessness. He has never learned to cry out with an ineffable cry of self-despair and helplessness until God’s power and fire come in, fill, purify, and empower. Self-esteem- self-ability in some wicked form- has defamed and violated the temple that should be held sacred for God.

Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much- death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul. Only crucified preaching can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man.

E.M. BOUNDS, chapter, Our Sufficiency is of God