We are continuing to read through Heaven Taken by Storm together.

You can find our reading plan and links to previous posts here.

Chapter Four Outline

• The great devotion required to properly hear the Word.
• A description of those who don’t hear the Word diligently.
  • They scarcely mind what is said.
  • They hear in a dull, drowsy manner.
• Considerations for stirring ourselves up to hear with devotion.
  • It is God that speaks.
  • The weightiness of matters delivered to us.
  • If the Word is no regarded, it will not be remembered.
  • It may be the last time we hear God speak.

Chapter Five Outline

• Violence carries our prayer.
• We must stir up the heart to prayer
• We must stir up the heart in prayer.
  • A description of those who don’t pray with violence.
    • They give a dead, heartless prayer.
    • They give a distracted prayer.
  • Considerations for fueling fervency in prayer.
    • Consider the majesty of God.
    • Prayer without fervency is speaking, not praying.
    • Zealous and violent affections best suits God’s nature.
    • Consider the need we have of those things which we ask in prayer.
    • Consider the things which we ask and God has a mind to grant.
    • Mercy is bestowed through prayer.
    • Only violence and intenseness of spirit has the promise of mercy attached.
    • Consider the large returns that God has given to violent prayer.
      • To give this violence we must be a people of grace.
    • Pray with a sense of our needs.
    • Let us beg for a violent wind.

Questions for Reflection

• What does Watson mean by hearing the Word?
• Do you attend to the hearing of the Word with the devotion that he describes?
• Are your prayers marked by holy violence?
• Which of Watson’s points to consider most stirs up your heart to and in prayer?