J. B. Gambrell was Southern Baptist leader whose life spanned the War Between the States and the First World War. He served as editor of two state Baptist newspapers as well as teacher at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Corresponding Secretary of the Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and 3 terms (1917-1920) as President of the Southern Baptist Convention. His call for a certain kind of preaching is more needed today than it was when he originally issued it.

We may invigorate our faith and renew our courage by reflecting that divine power has always attended the preaching of doctrine, when done in the true spirit of preaching. Great revivals have accompanied the heroic preaching of the doctrines of grace, predestination, election, and that whole lofty mountain range of doctrines upon which Jehovah sits enthroned, sovereign in grace as in all things else. God honors the preaching that honors him. There is entirely too much milk-sop preaching nowadays trying to cajole sinners to enter upon a truce with their Maker, quit sinning and join the church. The situation does not call for a truce, but for a surrender. Let us bring out the heavy artillery of heaven, and thunder away at this stuck-up age as Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, and Paul did and there will be many slain in the Lord raised up to walk in newness of life.