Unction, Prayers and Preaching

I came across the following quotes which i find much resonance

“The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people. Oh! the horror of it. There is a strange thing that I have seen ”under the sun,’…it is preaching without unction. What is unction? I hardly know. But I know what it is not (or at least I know when it is not upon my own soul). Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life. The unctionless preacher is a saviour of death unto death. The Word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher. Preacher, with all they getting–get unction. Brethren, we could well manage to be half as intellectual (of the modern pseudo kind) if we were twice as spiritual. Preaching is a spiritual business. A sermon born in the head reaches the head; a sermon born in the heart reaches the heart. Under God, a spiritual preacher will produce spiritually minded people. Unction is not a gentle dove beating her wings against the bars outside of the preacher’s soul; rather, must she be pursued and won. Unction cannot be learned, only earned–by prayer. Unction is God’s knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit.“
- Leonard Ravenhill

“One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying.”
- Catherine Marshall

“God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” - John Wesley

“Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.” - Sidlow Baxter