“The Strategic Role Of Prayer In Preaching,” by Keith Krell, PhD

**Each Friday Preaching Truth looks at some aspect of preaching, inviting pastors and scholars to submit articles. Today’s “Preaching Post Fridays” feature is authored by my pastor friend on the west coast Dr. Keith Krell of Crossroads Bible Church in Bellevue, Washington.

Dr. Krell earned a PhD from the University of Bristol (2011) and a DMin from Talbot School of Theology (2008) . The title of his PhD dissertation is “Temporal Judgment and the Church: God’s Remedial Agenda in 1 Corinthians.”  

Keith is also the author of the book Paul and Money (Zondervan Academic, 2015) and he taught preaching for a number of years as associate professor of biblical exposition at Moody Bible Institute-Spokane. Check out Keith’s website The Timeless Word for biblical preaching, teaching, and training materials**

THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF PRAYER IN PREACHING

“I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” —Charles Spurgeon 

“Study without prayer is atheism, and prayer without study is presumption.” —R. W. Dale

Why is Prayer the Most Important Step in Preaching?

1. Preaching is a supernatural EVENT (1 Cor 2:4–5; Rom 1:16–17). Preaching is not delivering a speech; it is communicating the very words of God (1 Pet 4:11). Thus, if one is speaking God’s Word it is critical to communicate with God before, during, and after sermon preparation. The preacher who neglects prayer is using building supplies of wood, hay, and stubble that will burn in eternity (1 Cor 3:12–15). However, the preacher who is prayed up will see God pour out His Spirit (Acts 1–2).     
   
2. Spiritual warfare is a CONSTANT reality (Eph 6:12; 2 Cor 4:3–4; Mark 4:15). Since God has ordained preaching as a means to transform people (1 Pet 1:25), Satan works hard to keep people from hearing and applying God’s Word. Prayer is the best remedy to counter this. Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” Consequently, the preacher must pray that God’s Word will go forth in an unhindered fashion (Acts 28:31).   
   
3. God calls His people to pray without CEASING (1 Thess 5:17; Eph 6:18; Phil 4:6–7). The preacher is called to spend significant time in prayer, because he or she is held to a stricter accountability (Jas 3:1). This is why Martin Luther has said, “To pray well is half the study.” God honors those preachers who seek Him (2 Chron 16:9).    
   
4. Prayer demonstrates HUMILITY and desperation (Jas 4:6). The preacher must recognize that preaching is both a privilege and a sacred task. There should be a sense of holy fear before speaking on behalf of God. The Lord declares, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isa 66:2b). Phillips Brooks used to counsel young preachers with these words: “Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work. If you ever find that spirit growing on you, be afraid.”¹
   
5. Prayer is an expression of FAITH (Matt 17:19–20). The author of Hebrews declares, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (11:6). Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Prayer acknowledges our need of God.     
   
6. Prayer enables the preacher to INTERPRET the Scriptures (1 Cor 2:10–13). There are portions of the Bible that can be difficult to interpret (2 Pet 3:15–16). Yet, when the preacher prays, God reveals the truth of His Word (Dan 2:22).        
7. Prayer follows the EXAMPLE of the early church (Acts 2:42). The task of the apostles was to be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4). Both were equally necessary. E. M. Bounds aptly said: “Apostolic preaching cannot be carried on unless there be apostolic praying.”²

BIBLICAL EXAMPLES OF PRAYING PREACHERS

The Old Testament 

1. Moses (Exod 32:11–13; 32:32)
2. Samuel (1 Sam 12:22–23)
3. Daniel (Dan 2, 9, 10)

The New Testament 

1. Jesus (Mark 1:33; Luke 3:21–22; 24:49–51; cf. 5:16; 6:12)³
2. The Early Church (Acts 1:14; cf. 1:5–7; 2:33, 42; 3:1; 10:9; 6:4⁴)
3. Paul (Acts 14:23; Eph 6:18–20)

HOW TO PRAY SCRIPTURE

“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” (1 John 5:14–15)

Select Tips:

1. Choose a passage to meditate upon.
2. Read the selected passage slowly several times.
3. Read the passage out loud several times.
4. Identify a phrase or word that stands out to you. 
5. Empathize with the author’s emotions.
6. Add your name or the name of someone you know.
7. Pray in faith.  

A Case Study: Psalm 42

“For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. ² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? ³ My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ ⁴ These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. ⁵ Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. ⁶ O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. ⁷ Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. ⁸ The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. ⁹ I will say to God my rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’ ¹⁰ As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ ¹¹ Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

PRAYING PSALM 42:

MOTIVATIONAL PRAYER QUOTES FOR PREACHERS

Richard Baxter (1615–1691): We must not only pray for ourselves, but we must often pray on behalf of all our hearers. Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching. He preaches not heartily to his people, who will not often pray for them.⁵

John Owen (1616–1683): “A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.”⁶

Charles Finney (1792–1875): “Without this [prayer] you are as weak as weakness itself. If you lose your spirit of prayer, you will do nothing, or next to nothing, though you had the intellectual endowment of an angel . . . The blessed Lord deliver, and preserve His dead.”⁷

E. M. Bounds (1835–1913): “Light praying will make light preaching. Prayer makes preaching strong [the God who answers prayer does this] . . . and makes it stick.”⁸

E. M. Bounds: “The young preacher has been taught to lay out all his strength on the form, taste, and beauty of his sermon as a mechanical and intellectual product. We have thereby cultivated a vicious taste among the people and raised the clamor for talent instead of grace, eloquence instead of piety, rhetoric instead of revelation, reputation and brilliancy instead of holiness.”⁹

E. M. Bounds: “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men and women whom the Holy Ghost can use — people of prayer, people mighty in prayer.”¹⁰

D. L. Moody (1837–1899): “I’d rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught His disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.”¹¹

A. C. Dixon (1854–1925): “When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do, and so on. Nor am I disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place, but when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.”¹²

R. A. Torrey (1856–1928): “Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all pray.”¹³

R. A. Torrey: “We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.”¹⁴

H. A. Ironside (1876–1951): “If we would prevail with men in public, we must prevail with God in secret.”¹⁵

A. W. Tozer (1897–1963): “To get to the truth I recommend a plain text Bible and the diligent application of two knees to the floor . . . a few minutes of earnest prayer will often give more light than hours of reading commentaries.”¹⁶

Richard A. Bodey (1930–2013): “Faithful, earnest prayer and long hours of diligent, believing study of the Word of God are more necessary than anything else.”¹⁷

Calvin Miller (1936–2012): “Preaching in one sense discharges the firearm that God has loaded in the silent place.”¹⁸ 

David Larsen: “Strange it is that any discussion of preaching should take place outside the context of believing prayer. We have not prepared until we have prayed. . . . We cannot represent God if we have not stood before God. It is more important for me therefore to teach a student to pray than to preach.”¹⁹ 

Charles Stanley: “Getting on my face before God, that’s where the power comes.”²⁰

John Piper: “God has made the spread of his fame hang on the preaching of His Word, and He has made the preaching of His Word hang on the prayers of the saints . . . the triumph of the Word will not come without prayer.”²¹

1.  Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 106.
2.  E. M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer (Radford: Wilder, 2009), 4.
3.  Luke refers more often to Jesus’ prayer life than the other gospel writers.
4.  It is rather intriguing that in Acts 6:4 prayer is mentioned before preaching. 
5.  Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 218.
6.  Cited in I. D. E. Thomas, A Puritan Golden Treasury (Chicago: Moody, 1975), 192.
7.  L. G. Parkhurst, Charles G. Finney’s Answers to Prayer (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1983), 126–27.
8.  E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.), 31.
9.  Bounds, E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer, 74.
10.  E. M. Bounds, The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 584.
11.  D. L. Moody, Leadership Vol. 1, no, 1.
12.  Cited in John Piper, Brothers We Are Not Professionals (Nashville: B&H, 2002), 71.
13.  R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (Chicago: Moody, 1923), 166.
14.  R. A. Torrey, How to Obtain Fullness of Power in Christian Life and Service (Edinburgh: Oliphants, 1955), 81.
15.  H. A. Ironside, Praying in the Holy Spirit (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.), 59.
16.  A. W. Tozer and J. L. Snyder, The Early Tozer: A Word in Season: Selected Articles and Quotations (Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1998), 39.
17.  Richard A. Bodey, ed., Inside the Sermon. Thirteen Preachers Discuss Their Methods of Preparing Messages (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 28.
18.  Calvin Miller, Spirit, Word, and Story (Dallas: Word, 1989), 26.
19.  David Larsen, The Anatomy of Preaching: Identifying the Issues in Preaching Today (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 53–54.
20.  Charles F. Stanley, “Spirit Anointed Preaching” www.intouch.org/listen/spiritual-gifts/spirit-anointed-preaching-part-1-radio.
21.  John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Portland: Multnomah, 1991), 225.