Now and again, it takes P T Forsyth to reset the preacher's heart to the default setting of grateful wonder at the mystery of the Gospel and the privilege of proclaiming it.
The secret of spiritual realism is personal judgment, personal pardon, and personal prayer – prayer as conflict and wrestling with God, not simply sunning one's self in God. There is no reality without wrestling, as without shedding of blood there is no remission…For the preacher it is only serious searching prayer, not prayer as sweet and seemly devotion at the day's dawn or close, but prayer as an ingredient of the day's work, pastoral and theological prayer, priest's prayer – it is only such prayer that can save the preacher from histrionics and sentiment, flat fluency and that familiarity with things holy which is the very Satan to so many forward apostles….. (Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, 108ff).
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