Prayer and Preaching

The one who prays may be called upon to act by transmission of truth by preaching. If so, he will need to understand the place of prayer in his preaching. That he needs the prayers of others for effective utterance (Ephes. 6: 19); and that he must carry out the warfare himself experimentally when he is transmitting truth which affects the kingdom of Satan. If by prayer he deals with the powers of darkness before preaching, the flow through his spirit may be unhindered; but if evil spirits are hindering his message he may have to fight his words out with difficulty, because his spirit is at the same time resisting the obstacles in the spiritual realm. This may cause his voice to sound harsh because of the resistance in the atmosphere, the voice breaking through into clear tones when the resistance gives way. Whenever the spirit is thus engaged in conflict the outer man is affected and less calm in action or speech. Whilst the believer is actually preaching, deceiving spirits can endeavour to interfere with his delivery by a stream of "comments," so to speak, charging him with their own workings, i.e., they will be whispering to him every cause but the true one for the condition of the meeting, pouring accusations into his mind whilst he is speaking, challenging the words coming out of his mouth. If he is speaking of the holiness of life necessary for the children of God, he is told how far he comes short of what he is preaching to others; the challenge being so persistent that the speaker may input into his message depreciative words about himself, and through these words, suggested by evil spirits, and thought by the speaker to be his own, they pour a stream into the atmosphere of the meeting, which brings a dark cloud upon the people.