Sermon by Charles Spurgeon - March 1st, 1986

"Brethren, why do you think that the Lord allows his servants to be beaten at all? Well, of course, the chief reason in this case was—and of that we will speak presently,—because God gives the victory to faith, and if we will not believe, neither shall we be established. If we fall, as those disciples probably had fallen, into an unspiritual frame of mind and a low state of grace, our commission will not be worth much, our former qualifications will be of little value, and all successes we have had in earlier days will not take away the effect of present failures. We shall be like Samson, who went out and shook himself as he had done aforetime; but the Spirit of God had departed from him; and the Philistines soon overcame him,—those very Philistines whom, if his Lord had still been with him, he would have smitten hip and thigh with great slaughter. If we are to do the Lord's work, and to do it successfully, we must have faith in him, we must look beyond ourselves, we must look beyond our commission, we must look beyond our personal qualifications, we must look beyond our former successes, we must look for a present anointing by the Holy Spirit, and by faith we must hang upon the living God from day to day."

"Faith in our own plans or strength only promotes prideful self-dependence, but faith in God's wisdom and power encourages us to come boldly to Him, expecting to receive from Him while focusing on our need of Him."

- Jack Hayford, Kingdom Warfare

"Anxiety is a signal alerting you it's time to pray."

- Craig Groeschel

"God is fully able to take action toward others by His own sovereign will and power – bypassing our role in prayer completely. But the amazing fact is that He hasn’t, and He doesn’t. Instead, His sovereign choice is to act only in response to the prayers of His people. He only invites our partnership; He insists upon it."

- Jack Hayford, Kingdom Warfare