How E M Bounds Prayed

I had the great privilege, France, of being part of bringing a book to publication, a combination of E.M. Bounds' original unabridged work of preacher and prayer and the Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones book by Marian Price. Marian Price was privileged to lead the son of E.M. Bounds to the Lord, Osborne Bounds, and he wrote a book about it called Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones. And Revival Literature has combined that book with the original preacher and prayer by E.M. Bounds.

It's a fantastic work. I believe every preacher should read preacher and prayer and see what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the spirit of prayer as a preacher. And I wanted to take the time before we go to our time of prayer today, France, to just read you just a portion of my foreword.

Well, I should go ahead and read you the foreword, it's not that long, to this booklet that is combined preacher and prayer and Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones by Marian Price. And let me do that at this time. It may give us all a sense of eternity and the need to pray for revival in our day.

The greatest need in our land today is a prophet, a man sent from God, God's man who will stand in the gap between heaven and earth, between mortal man and almighty God, a holy man who is so wholly sold out to God, so intoxicated with Christ and so consumed with eternity that his very footprints leave a smoky trail of the lingering fire of God, a man whose desperate life of prayer has left fingerprints on the horns of the altar in glory, a man whose emboldened faith and Enoch-like walk with God moves mountains of resistance and proves that the God of the Bible is alive and interested in the most minute requests of man, a God who will always raise up an Elijah, whose prayers impact a sleeping nation, the church in each generation has had individuals who live upon their knees, whose prayers reach heaven with a holy violence, India had her pray and hide, China her Hudson Taylor, England her Puritans, Scotland her Covenanters, America her fiery E.M. Bounds, voices which gained the attention of the throne room, startled angels and shook the gates of hell, making even the demons quake and tremble with their desperate prayers. As a sovereign God hears and answers the prayers of his saints on earth, he also orders the steps of his servants by his providence, guiding them along the divine chessboard of life, each piece like the pawn, rook and bishop are strategically placed and arranged by a providential hand to fulfill the divine purpose. Men's lives cross at appointed junctures.

Eternity is impacted and through these divinely arranged human relationships, the purposes and plans of the Almighty are carried out. There is no expiration of a prayer, for a prayer once made has wings, a life and a force that reach far into the future and into eternity, all for the glory of God. A man prayed.

God listened. God would answer in his perfect time. This was the case in the life of E.M. Bounds, in a small southern town of Washington, Georgia.

A frail old man prayed. He prayed for the salvation of his offspring. His knees grinded the gray wooden slats of his prayer closet as he anguished in intercessory prayer for his boy Osborne.

E.M. Bounds died in 1913, with his son Osborne unsaved. Sixty-three years later, in 1976, God moved a strategic piece on his chessboard in the form of Marian Price. Marian Price was used of God to lead the 84-year-old son of E.M. Bounds to Christ.

God had finally answered the desperate prayer of E.M. Bounds for his son Osborne. We will let Brother Price relate the story taken from his own account in his book entitled, Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones. It is our great privilege to republish in one volume, Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones by Marian Price, and the unabridged edition of Preacher in Prayer by E.M. Bounds, which was only one of two books published in Bounds' lifetime.

Every minister of the gospel should carefully study Bounds' treatise on preaching and prayer, as they are vitally connected. We pray that this little volume will bless you immensely, and that your own prayer life and preaching ministry will be renewed and revitalized, all to the glory of God. I highly recommend reading that, Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones by Marian Price.

It's an astounding story of God's grace and answered prayer. Let us go now, friends, to a time of prayer, and pray desperately for the sin-soaked land, that God would be pleased once again to send his manifest presence among us, to quicken us, and to turn us back to him. Let us pray.