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

Dad's Funeral

After a several months of scares and false alarms, dad's diabetes and weak heart have combined to make his quality of life going on a downward slide.

I am glad I had a few days with him during our short trips during CNY 2010 to just nurse him and wash him. At times he seem to have recovered so much we were so sure that he would make it to the mid 90s.

On May 8th night while we were at Wai Wah & Bea's house having our prayer and renewal session, the phone call from my sister stating that dad was admitted to ICU due to severe dehydration, and subsequent short conversation from the kidney specialist of KPJ reported his kidney failure. We were given the choice of proceeding with dialysis but the high rise of stopping his extremely weak heart immediately or to allow him the extra 20-30 hours to see him lapsing into comma and death.  We left the choice to the best advise of the specialist.
Efforts to get a online plane ticket on Satarday night and early Sunday morning was next to impossible. After trying Airasia, Emirates and MAS, Carol & I finally settled for MAS but would be Monday night before we can get home to Seremban.

As I was finishing the Mothers' day message and announcing our trip for Malaysia to the church at about 12.00noon, my mobile phone rang and a SMS from sister saying that dad has just gone on to be with Lord. It was 10.00am in Malysia and 12.00noon in Melbourne. a few frantic phone call back and forth confirmed the bad news.

Anyway, we made it to Seremban late on Monday night while the wake was at it tail end as it was almost 11.00pm, I accompanied 2nd brother and spent the night next to dad' coffin which was at the porch of his big house. The funeral was on Tuesday morning starting at 10.30am. Pastor John Chin & Evangeline officiated the funeral. The wake and funeral was not unduly sad as dad has lived a good full life of 88 years and would have avoided much more painful medical treatments and the associated bad quality of life. The parting grief of any Christian funeral is always mingle with joy of the eternal future and the Hope of meeting again. In fact there was some sense of celebration and it can be a bit surreal to those not in the know.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to many fiends and relatives, and all the siblings and their children who supported us in many forms and ways besides coming for for the funeral. A big "Thank You"  to my brothers and sisters and sister in law who did much of the nursing care in the recent months.