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Quotes of the Week!
"We are so utterly ordinary, so
commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the twentieth century does not
reckon with. But we are "harmless", and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual
pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death
with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact
with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the
comradeship of the Cross. We are 'sideliners', content to sit by and leave the
enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its
own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!"
-Jim Elliott, Missionary
More
Quotes:
George Whitfield:
"I believe I never was
more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in
the open fields."
"I now preach to ten
times more people than I should, if had been confined to the Churches."
"Finding the pulpits are
denied me, and the poor colliers are ready to perish for lack of knowledge, I
went to them, and preached on a mount to upwards of 200. Blessed be God, that
the ice is now broken, and I have now taken the field."
CH Spurgeon on Whitfield:
"What the world would have been if there had not been preaching outside of
walls, and beneath a more glorious roof than these rafters of fir, I am sure I
cannot guess. It was a brave day for England when Whitefield began
field-preaching."
Dwight L. Moody:
"When I was out west about thirty years ago, I was preaching one day in the
open air, when a man drove up in a fine turn-out, and after listening a
little while to what I was saying, he put the whip to his fine-looking steed,
and away he went. I never expected to see him again, but the next night he came
back, and he kept on coming regularly night after night."
In a Moody Biography: "Moody did not have televisions, the Internet,
radios, cable TV, fax machines, mp3 players, email, nor did he put out a
national magazine. He did most of his preaching on foot and preached in the open
air."
In P.B. Bliss'
Biography: "Moodyıs modus operandi was to preach in the open air from the
steps of the nearby courthouse for about thirty minutes and then to urge the
crowd into his meeting. Bliss and his wife, having heard of Moody but never
having heard him, out for a stroll before Sunday evening services, happened onto
the outdoor preaching."
C.H. Spurgeon
"It would be very
easy to prove that revivals of religion have usually been accompanied, if not
caused, by a considerable amount of preaching out of doors, or in unusual
places."
"No sort of defense
is needed for preaching out of doors, but it would need very potent arguments to
prove that a man had done his duty who has never preached beyond the walls of
his meeting-house."
On the value of
Open-Air Preaching: "It is the very back-bone of the movement to win the
non-church-going element. The more of it the better, the more of it the better,
- the whole world around!"
Spurgeon on Robert
Flockhart: "Neither the hostility of the police, nor the insults of papists,
Unitarians, and the like could move him; he rebuked error in the plainest terms,
and preached salvation by grace with all his might. So lately has he passed away
that Edinburgh remembers him still. There is room for such in all our cities and
towns, and need for hundreds of his noble order in this huge nation of
Londoncan I call it less?"
"The great benefit
of open-air preaching is that we get so many newcomers to hear the Gospel who
otherwise would never hear it."
"We ought actually
to go into the streets and lanes and highways, for there are lurkers in the
hedges, tramps on the highways, street-walkers and lane-haunters, whom we shall
never reach unless we pursue them into their own domains."
"I once preached a
sermon in the open air in haying time during a violent storm of rain....I was
sufficiently wet, and my congregation must have been drenched, but they stood it
out, and I never heard that anybody was the worse in health, though, I thank
God, I have heard of souls brought to Jesus under that discourse."
"There is no telling
how far a man may be heard with the wind. In certain atmospheres and climates,
as for instance in that of Palestine, persons might be heard for several miles;"
RA Torrey
"This is one of the most
important things in starting out to do open-air work. You are bound to make a
failure unless you settle this at the start. Open-air work has its
discouragements, its difficulties and its almost insurmountable obstacles, and
unless you start out knowing that God has called you to the work, and come what
will, you will go through with it, you are sure to give it up."
"Jesus said, "Go out
quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor,
and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." Every great preacher of the Bible
was an open-air preacher. Peter was an open-air preacher, Paul was an open-air
preacher, and so were Elijah, Moses and Ezra. More important than all, Jesus
Christ Himself was an open-air preacher, and preached for the most part out of
doors. Every great sermon recorded in the Bible was preached in the open air;
the sermon on the Day of Pentecost, the Sermon on the Mount, the sermon on Mars
Hill, etc. In this country, we have an idea that open-air preaching is for those
who cannot get any other place to speak, but across the water they look at it
quite differently. Some of the most eminent preachers of Great Britain preach in
the open air."
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