What Is Your Life - Part 4 — Leonard Ravenhill

Eternal Life and the Miraculous Birth of Jesus

Every kind of life, and supremely about eternal life. And Jesus appears, and when he comes, he comes with a miracle birth. And you know this well enough, but in other countries they don't know it too well.

The Incarnation: God Humbled Himself to Become Man

That somehow, though the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, he was contracted to a span and incomprehensibly made man, to use Charles Wesley's wonderful words, he laid his glory by and wrapped him in our clay.

Or the hymn we sing at Christmas, how the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Mild he laid his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.

The Human Longing That Only God Can Fill

You see, the man in the world there, the man that puts some bits of tin together and sits somebody in it and presses the button and shoots them and they can walk around the moon, he thinks it's far beyond anything that's got anything to do with the Bible, it's all emotional.

That man still has a missing link in his life. That man still has a place in his life that only God can fill. To use the words again of Augustine, we have a space within us and God made us for himself and we'll never ever be satisfied until he comes and occupies that part in our lives.

It's astounding when you think of it that we, human beings, with all our failure, we can be made the habitation of God through the Spirit. Now, you have the classical confrontation as far as I'm concerned.

Jesus’ Miracles and the Demonstration of Christianity

Here is a man of impeccable morality, one of the greatest scholars in his generation. Maybe you stood on the edge of the crowd and saw miracles. Maybe you went to the bazaar to buy some coffee or something, heard people say, you know that fellow's done some astounding miracles, and the whole nation had been stirred by John Baptist, but John did no miracle.

And then Jesus comes and he does miracle after miracle. He shows he has dominion over death, over disease, over insanity. He knocks the demons out of people's minds. He sets the captives free. This Pharisee must have said it over and over again, year after year, reciting the 35th chapter of Isaiah, that when he comes, oh, when the Son of God comes, when Messiah comes, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame leap as a harp, the tongue of the dumb shall sing.

Do you know that guy, and even Saul after him, those fellows had been to the anniversary of Pentecost year after year after year, and they accepted Pentecost when it was empty. They rebelled against Pentecost when God fulfilled his word and poured his Spirit out on all flesh.

We've got people today that are very happy to celebrate Christmas or Easter or even Pentecost on this, so long as nothing happens. Keep up a tradition. That world outside there is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity, it's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.

Encountering a Person Rather Than a Religious Concept

And there's one thing that life does, wherever it goes, life begets life. You can't love theology, you can't even love your Bible. You can only love a person. You can't love a theological concept of God.

Saul’s Damascus Road Encounter With Christ

I've often wondered what Paul really saw on that Damascus road when he prayed four simple words, Who art thou, Lord? If you read it straight off, it means nothing. Who art thou, Lord? But suppose you can read it this way, Who art thou, Lord?

Here's a man with a colossal intellect. Here's a man who is in every category, in the highest category. He's a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He's a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He's of the tribe of Benjamin. He's of the seed of Abraham.

He had fulfilled the law. He says concerning the law it was blameless. And yet he's going down that Damascus road, breathing out threatenings with a heart full of fire and hatred. You talk about a miracle of the grace of God.

That man had murdered people, as he says in the twenty-six of Acts. He tore families apart. He changed them, chased them off into strange cities. And that very man whose body, whose brain was filled with theology, and his heart was filled with hatred, wrote the most amazing hymn, the most amazing poem on love that was ever written.

Paul’s Transformation and the Love of Christ

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have no love, I'm a sounding brass or a tingling cymbal. And if I give my body to be burned, which he was prepared to do on the Damascus road.

Do you know I think, I'll ask him in eternity, I think suddenly when he fell off his horse there, there were, I'm sure there was a horse rider in front of him to protect him, and a man behind, and one to the right, one to the left.

A man of his class would never walk all the way to Damascus. And suddenly he's pitched off his horse. You say, were there only four people there? No. You say there's a man riding in front. Yes, one behind, one to the right, one to the left.

Were they the only witnesses? Mm-hmm, maybe on earth. I want to tell you I believe every demon in hell was looking down on that man at that moment. I believe every angel in heaven was looking down the demons, because he was their best advocate on earth.

He was fearless, he regarded nobody. He had some letters in his pocket saying he could put to death anybody that he wanted. And then suddenly Jesus came into his life. Would you have thought that man in the dust had inside of him 14 epistles, if you give him Hebrews, and I think he wrote it.

Would you think that he would go through Asia Minor and establish a dozen or more churches? Would you think that that man in a lousy stinking prison, they wouldn't let you put a dog in today, would write to other Christians as he does to the Colossians, or the Philippians, and the Ephesians, his love letters to them.

And as he says, rejoice in the Lord. And again, they should have been saying letters of comfort to him, and he's sending letters of comfort to them. Why? Because on that Damascus Road, as far as I'm concerned, he came alive.

Crucified With Christ and Living by Faith

Religion, formality, ritualism, they were banished forever. And then after that experience, he was shut away in the quietness. Maybe that's why God's brought some of you around here, so you can get alone under a tree somewhere, and talk to God, and find out where he wants you to go.

When you have three and a half years in the wilderness, then he's caught up into the third heaven. And then he sets out on that amazing pilgrimage. And as far as I'm concerned, he explains it all when he said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.

And yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live here in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. If I were to ask you tonight, you're saved. You say, yes, I'm saved. When?

Salvation as Cleansing, Indwelling, and Transformation

Oh, so-and-so preached, I got baptized, I'm saved. What are you saved for? Hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners?

Are you saved from rebelling against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from? 90 of the people in the nation are not saved, they claim to be. When I went to an altar and I confessed my sins, fine, fine.

That's what the preacher said, you confess your sins, and you confess them. Do you know they did that in every Roman Catholic Church in the country last Sunday? A man needs more than to be forgiven, he needs cleansing, he needs more than cleansing, he needs indwelling, he needs more than indwelling, he needs undoing.

I was in a little place, a country place last week. The pastor was away, his daughter was expecting a baby. Good night. It must have been a big hospital, I think every relative they had went there.