E. M. Bounds on the Necessity of Prayer

E. M. Bounds wrote in a day when the word “men” was understood to mean “men and women.” It is no longer understood that way but please extend grace to him and please don’t let his language keep you from receiving his wisdom.

“In doing God’s work there is no substitute for praying. The men of prayer cannot be displaced with other kinds of men. Men of financial skill, men of education, men of worldly influence—none of these can possibly be put in substitution for the men of prayer. The life, the vigor, the motive-power of God’s work is formed by praying men. A vitally diseased heart is not a more fearful symptom of approaching death than nonpraying men are of spiritual atrophy.

“The men to whom Jesus Christ committed the fortunes and destiny of his church were men of prayer. To no other kind of man has God every committed himself in this world. The apostles were preeminently men of prayer. They gave themselves to prayer. They made praying their chief business. In what first in point of importance and first in results. God never has, and never will, commit the weighty interests of his kingdom to prayerless men, who do not make prayer a conspicuous and controlling factor in their lives. Men who do not pray never rise to any eminence of piety. Men of piety are always men of prayer. Men who are not preeminently men of prayer are never noted for the simplicity and strength of their faith. Piety never flourishes so rapidly and rankly as in the closet. The closet is the garden of faith…

“The entire consecration of many of God’s children stands out distinctly like towering mountain peaks. Why is this? How did they ascend to these heights? What brought them so near to God? What made them so Christlike? The answer is easy—prayer. They prayed much, prayed long, and drank deeper and deeper still. They asked, they sought, and they knocked, till heaven opened its richest inner treasures of grace to them. Prayer was the Jacob’s ladder by which they scaled those holy and blessed heights, and the way by which the angels of God came down and ministered to them.”

From “The Necessity of Praying Men,” in The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer (Baker Books, 1990), 384-86.