"The Supremacy of God in Preaching"

So i just finished reading through this book by Piper again. I try to read it once every year or so, just because its one of those books you want to keep influencing you. So here are a few good things from it.

"How utterly dependent we are on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching! All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation. You wake up on Sunday morning and you can smell the smoke of hell on one side and feel the crisp breezes of heaven on the other. You go to your study and look down at your pitiful manuscript, and you kneel down and cry, "God, this is so weak! Who do I think I am? What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life."

"Spurgeon said of John Bynyan, "Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his sould is full of the Word of God."

"Gladness and gravity should be woven together in the life and preaching of a pastor in such a way as to sober the careless soul and sweeten the burdens of the saints."

"Don't be content to guide people among the foothills of his glory. Become a mountain climber on the cliffs of God's majesty, and let the truth begin to overwhelm you so that you will never exhaust the heights of God."

"To blame a minister for declaring the truth to those who are under awakenings, and not immediately administering comfort to them, is like blaming a surgeon because when he has begun to thrust in his lance, whereby he has already put his patient to great pain... he won't stay his hand, but goes on to thrust it in further, till he comes to the core of the wound. Such a compassionate physician, who as soon as his patient began to flinch, should withdraw his hand... would be one that would heal the hurt slightly, crying, 'Peace, peace, when there is no peace.'" Jonathan Edwards

just some quotes that i appreciated while reading through it!