Edward McKendree Bounds
Public Domain Texts

Voices From the
Church of Philadelphia


Tips for Using WhatSaithTheScripture.com ---New Window


As a voice from the past, God's mighty man raises His Standard high,
that God's Truth should not be lost in these
Last Days of deception.
"He being dead yet speaketh"
(Hebrews 11:4 ).

Edward McKendree Bounds (1835-1913) "IN any study of the principles, and procedure of prayer, of its activities and enterprises, first place, must, of necessity, be given to faith. It is the initial quality in the heart of any man who essays to talk to the Unseen. He must, out of sheer helplessness, stretch forth hands of faith. He must believe, where he cannot prove. In the ultimate issue, prayer is simply faith, claiming its natural yet marvellous prerogatives -- faith taking possession of its illimitable inheritance. True godliness is just as true, steady, and persevering in the realm of faith as it is in the province of prayer. Moreover: when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live. Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God. How great -- without qualification or limitation -- is the power of faith! If doubt be banished from the heart, and unbelief made stranger there, what we ask of God shall surely come to pass, and a believer hath vouchsafed to him 'whatsoever he saith.'" -from "The Necessity of Prayer" ---New Window by E. M. Bounds

TO THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA:
"8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an Open Door, and NO man can shut it:
for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My WORD, and hast not denied My Name.
10 Because thou hast kept the WORD of My patience, I also will keep thee
from The Hour Of Temptation, which shall come upon all the world,
to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: HOLD THAT FAST which thou hast,
that NO man take thy crown.
13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches"
(Revelation 3:8,10-11,13).




SECTION
SUB-INDEX




Writings by E. M. Bounds





E. M. Bounds: Power Through Prayer ---New Window



"NEVER was there greater need for saintly men and women; more imperative still is the call for saintly, God-devoted preachers. The world moves with gigantic strides. Satan has his hold and rule on the world, and labors to make all its movements subserve his ends. Religion must do its best work, present its most attractive and perfect models. By every means, modern sainthood must be inspired by the loftiest ideals and by the largest possibilities through the Spirit. Paul lived on his knees, that the Ephesian Church might measure the heights, breadths, and depths of an unmeasurable saintliness, and 'be filled with all the fullness of God.' Epaphras laid himself out with the exhaustive toil and strenuous conflict of fervent prayer, that the Colossian Church might 'stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.' Everywhere, everything in apostolic times was on the stretch that the people of God might each and 'all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.' No premium was given to dwarfs; no encouragement to an old babyhood. The babies were to grow; the old, instead of feebleness and infirmities, were to bear fruit in old age, and be fat and flourishing. The divinest thing in religion is holy men and holy women.

No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God. Holiness energizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with desire for more faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration -- this is the secret of power. These we need and must have, and men must be the incarnation of this God-inflamed devotedness. God's advance has been stayed, his cause crippled: his name dishonored for their lack. Genius (though the loftiest and most gifted), education (though the most learned and refined), position, dignity, place, honored names, high ecclesiastics cannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery one, and fiery forces only can move it. The genius of a Milton fails. The imperial strength of a Leo fails. Brainerd's spirit can move it. Brainerd's spirit was on fire for God, on fire for souls. Nothing earthly, worldly, selfish came in to abate in the least the intensity of this all-impelling and all-consuming force and flame." --E. M. Bounds









E. M. Bounds: The Necessity of Prayer ---New Window



"IS faith growing or declining as the years go by? Does faith stand strong and four square, these days, as iniquity abounds and the love of many grows cold? Does faith maintain its hold, as religion tends to become a mere formality and worldliness increasingly prevails? The enquiry of our Lord, may, with great appropriateness, be ours. 'When the Son of Man cometh,' He asks, 'shall He find faith on the earth?' We believe that He will, and it is ours, in this our day, to see to it that the lamp of faith is trimmed and burning, lest He come who shall come, and that right early." --E. M. Bounds









E. M. Bounds: The Possibilities of Prayer ---New Window



"HOW vast are the possibilities of prayer! How wide is its reach! What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves Him to do what He would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the story of great achievements. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in the hands of His saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. Prayer reaches to everything, takes in all things great and small which are promised by God to the children of men. The only limits to prayer are the promises of God and His ability to fulfill those promises. 'Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.'" --E. M. Bounds









E. M. Bounds: The Weapon of Prayer ---New Window



"GOD'S great plan for the redemption of mankind is as much bound up to prayer for its prosperity and success as when the decree creating the movement was issued from the Father, bearing on its frontage the imperative, universal and eternal condition, "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession." In many places an alarming state of things has come to pass, in that the many who are enrolled in our churches are not praying men and women. Many of those occupying prominent positions in church life are not praying men. It is greatly to feared that much of the work of the Church is being done by those who are perfect strangers to the closet. Small wonder that the work does not succeed. While it may be true that many in the Church say prayers, it is equally true that their praying is of the stereotyped order. Their prayers may be charged with sentiment, but they are tame, timid, and without fire or force. Even this sort of praying is done by a few straggling men to be found at prayer-meetings. Those whose names are to be found bulking large in our great Church assemblies are not men noted for their praying habits. Yet the entire fabric of the work in which they are engaged has, perforce, to depend on the adequacy of prayer. This fact is similar to the crisis which would be created were a country to have to admit in the face of an invading foe that it cannot fight and have no knowledge of the weapons whereby war is to be waged. In all God's plans for human redemption, He proposes that men pray. The men are to pray in every place, in the church, in the closet, in the home, on sacred days and on secular days. All things and everything are dependent on the measure of men's praying. Prayer is the genius and mainspring of life. We pray as we live; we live as we pray. Life will never be finer than the quality of the closet. The mercury of life will rise only by the warmth of the closet. Persistent non-praying eventually will depress life below zero." --E. M. Bounds







"History is His story."

--by E. M. Bounds




The following men each have their own sub-index:

Charles Grandison Finney ---New Window (1792-1875)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon ---New Window (1834-1892)

Jonathan Edwards ---New Window (1703-1758)

James Aitken Wylie ---New Window (1808-1890)

Andrew Murray ---New Window (1828-1917)

E. M. Bounds (1835-1913) (this page)

A. T. Pierson ---New Window (1837-1911)

D. L. Moody ---New Window (1837-1899)



Section Index for Voices of Philadelphia