A Man of God - Part 10 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Need to Rediscover Revival

That's why I like to read a book like this one on the accounts of revival. I mean, it's something we don't know a thing about, dear God pity us. We say we have the same Bible, the same Holy Ghost, why do we get the same results?

Preaching Sin and the Reality of Judgment

The menace of many of our meetings is we try to get people saved, they don't know their loss. Come forward, the Lord loves you, the Lord loves you, the Lord hates you. Why do we put a bumper sticker, God loves you, God is angry with the wicked every day.

Or the wicked should be turned into hell, we'd soon be in trouble. It's almost like a market sale. But we don't do that, we don't even preach it. But I know there's a hunger across America by the phone calls I get.

Famine of Hearing the Word of God

Guys are coming to a stone wall now, there isn't a church in this town that's having a move of God they say. We'll pray till the rains get together. The prophet Amos said, Behold the days saith the Lord, the days come saith the Lord, that I will send a famine on the land.

Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east they shall run to and fro. To seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it.

Passionate and Authentic Preaching

Is that literally like no Bibles or is it that the word isn't a living word? It doesn't, I mean you can read it. I go and hear a fellow and he preaches, there's no passion, there's no tears, there's no, you know, I'd rather, like Richard Baxter, I preached as if to never preach again and as a dying man to dying men.

You know, you think these fellows are professional. He gets paid and when he steps out to the pulpit he says, Hey John, what about a round of golf on Wednesday or Thursday? And immediately they switch from the spiritually eternal to some stupid thing.

I wouldn't take any notice of them anyhow. I'd say, Pastor, live it, live it, live it. Don't tell me to pray, meet with me in the church. When I got saved and then after I touched the doctor's sanctified, it goes to the blank in my life.

Prayer Meetings That Bring Revival

First thing, I went to the pastor and said, Pastor, I want a prayer meeting on Wednesday night, on Friday night for the young people. Oh well, it's not good for young people to meet together. So you come and supervise it.

So we started a prayer meeting on Friday night at 7 and we prayed till 9. I started a prayer meeting at 7 Sunday morning and I lived outside the boundary of town. I walked to the prayer meeting, walked home for breakfast, walked home for the morning service, walked home for lunch, walked back for the afternoon service, walked home for supper, walked for the night service.

And God began to move and people in the neighborhood got saved that had never happened before. But, you see, once you've been in that, it's like, like, I say, not Colonel Brinkle, but Major Thomas said, no, Major Russell, that once he got back in the fire of the Welsh Revival, everything, it didn't burn.

He got on the train and going home to, he couldn't get back to London quick enough to tell that the Holy Ghost had fallen. And then, I mean, the first greatest revival in England was the Western Revival that went to 90, no, the Western Revival.

The Salvation Army's Prayer and Evangelistic Zeal

And then the next one was the Salvation Army that went into 70 countries in 90 years. Not 73, but 70 countries. Dear God, they had the most amazing night prayer meetings and training students and getting down to the Bible and prayer.

And every week they were taking to a night of prayer and they were taking to street meetings somewhere in London. They were meeting Sid head-on, visiting taverns, talking to the harlots, which nobody does now except just about Dave Wilson and Tim Delaney down in the Motor City there is doing the same thing.

Taking the Gospel Into the Streets

But we're all sitting inside a four-wall singing, let the earth hear his voice, it doesn't make sense. Let the earth hear his voice, get out, stand on a box, call a man to witness, call a woman to witness, sing a hymn.

He can't preach very much to crowds, but before long you say we're going to be here every Saturday night for the next winter or summer. And they come with expectations, they plan the shopping, like people used to do with us.

They planned to come shopping on Friday night and Saturday night because we're in the town square. And we didn't miss for three years. And our young people came, you didn't have to whip them, they came eagerly, you know, giving a chance to witness.

I said if anybody stands on this box who isn't telling the truth, you interrupt them because I'm the leader and I say I'll check on them. Don't let a man talk when he's not walking. If he's walking, if the man is in your factory, your office, if they're not telling the truth, come and tell me, you know, chase them off.

Genuine Revival Versus Religious Formality

Well, we didn't need to advertise in the paper, dear God, I was the best-known man in town. Even though the cathedral was only 300 yards away from us, magnificent cathedral. I only got 500 Sunday night.

I stood outside and lined up like a movie house. But the cathedral got 50. So where do you go? I mean, the cathedral is ornate. It had gold plates on the, or gold communion things and candlesticks on the altar.

It was like a miniature western established stained glass windows. But what is that to the glory of God? I mean, our place was packed an hour before time. Our prayer meetings were packed. We had three prayer meetings a week and three street meetings.

And that's why that church kept in continuous revival for the three years I was there. And it's still there today. Well, brethren, what I want to say is that either the Bible is absolute or obsolete. Which is it?

Faith That Takes God at His Word

Is God all he says he is? Is Hebrews 11 6 what we need to rediscover? He that cometh to God must believe that he is. What does it matter about swagger and all the rest? I know it's, it's objectionable.

It hurts. And people tell me now. They're already cracking jokes about swagger. If, if God told me I could go on preaching, a guy told me the other night, somebody said, well, if God says he can go on preaching, the message is inviting God to him.

There's a cop following him out the road in a car. That's another's demons they appear to be. I think it all boils down to one of the oldest hymns we hardly ever sing it. To a stand or bay. There's no other way.

No other way. It's hard on the flesh. It's hard against the lifestyle of preachers and other baptists. But what does God want? I'm not going to the judgment bar of the assemblies of God or the First Baptist Church.

I'm going to the judgment bar of Jesus Christ. And I live with that every day. Words of Jesus? Yes. That's what he said. Well, you think of it. It's not what's just in the book of life. As Joseph said to me one day, he said, I don't think I'm ashamed of what I've done since I was saved.

It's what I could have done that troubles me. And not what I did, but why I did it. God has been away the mortars. I mean, I heard D. Campbell Morgan say, I had talked with a friend of mine the other day, and he'd been preaching in a church I love to go to, a monk.

Campbell Morgan said, How did he get on it? I said, oh, he said, I enjoyed myself. He said he did.