Why we need gospel preaching and prayer.

I rediscovered John Owen's treatise on the noetic effects of sin (that is the effects of sin on the mind, distorting both what counts as true and what can be recognized as true for the unbeliever) in James K.A. Smith's "Who's afraid of Post-Modernism?" In Book III.3 Owen says "What the sun is unto the world as unto things natural, that is the word and the preaching of it unto men as to things spiritual." Spiritual darkness is in and upon everyone until God, by an almighty and effectual work of the Spirit shines into our hearts.