(Compilation) Prayer Is the Secret — Leonard Ravenhill

Prayer Requires Protected Time Alone with God

But prayer is a secret. You know that. You make up your mind you're going to give time to a prayer. The devil will fight it more than anything else. Your phone will ring off the hook. Visitors will come.

Somebody will say, come and preach at our church. Why don't you go conduct a revival in somebody else's church when your own is dead? Moses is up in the cloud there with God, in a blazing fire and wrapped in blackness so nobody can see it.

Private Communion and the Heart's Unspoken Prayer

It's private. You see, God takes us to the greatest things in our lives. We're not in prayer meetings usually. It's alone with God, the world forbidden. Alone with God, oh blessed retreat. Alone with God and with Him hidden to hold with Him communion sweet.

I have some of the greatest times of prayer when I say nothing. When I'm too full up, I'm choking. I stammer through my tears. Oh, I could talk and shout like a bull and roar and people say that man's praying and not mean that much to God.

God reads our disposition. God reads our heart. There's nothing in us that's not knowing totally to Him. I think it was Montgomery wrote the hymn in which he says, prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near.

Intimacy with God Overcomes Fear of Men

The man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men. There's nothing on earth or hell will scare him. He has a divine commission. The child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the desert.

He's in the wildest places that there are. He's alone. You know the thing that most of us can't stand is to be alone. Or you say, boy, I'd like a quiet hour. You get the children off the school and you turn the TV on, the crazy thing.

Listen to somebody babbling about the Bible and prophecy instead of getting alone with God. When did you get alone in your room and put up your hands and say, the spirit of the bride say, come Lord Jesus, not to get me out of this lousy world that's heading for destruction faster than a plane can go through the sky.

Worship Is Preoccupation With God Himself

But Lord, your church is so polluted. I'm part of the pollution. As I tell you, prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessings. Worship is preoccupation with God himself.

Revival Comes Through Poverty, Pruning, and Prayer

My goal is God himself, not joy, not peace, not even blessing, but lead. And to get there is going to do a lot of pruning. So be cautious, be careful. But if you mean business, God means business. Friends, we're not going to have revival our way.

We're going to have it God's way. He may not come in the middle of preaching. He may come in the middle of a prayer meeting. You say, well, when will he come to me? When you acknowledge your poverty. When you acknowledge, he says, listen, either be a hot or cold, but if you're mediocre, forget it.

The church is cold. Maybe you're the key to revival in your church. I'm not going to ask you to close your eyes. Jesus didn't say to his disciples, close your eyes, I'm going to the cross. It's embarrassing.

Prayer Meetings Reveal the Church's Spiritual Priorities

They're going to crucify me between thieves. I don't believe there's anything that the devil hates more than praying men and women. You decide to pray, your church will be against you. I don't claim to be a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I know the weakest, smallest meeting in every church is a prayer meeting.

Again, if you want to know how popular the church is, you go Sunday morning. If you want to know how popular the preacher is, you go Sunday night. If you want to know how popular God is, you go Wednesday night.

Revival Without Spectacle or Fundraising

Who loses? Well, the congregation sang a couple of hymns and somebody prayed. And then they said, we're glad to have Principal George Jeffries. He was the head of the Bible School. And he came on the plant, stood there.

He never raised his voice. You could feel the power of God emanating from him. The whole congregation was ignited. There was an expectation. They did with him what they did with this man. They brought cripples off the street.

A woman had been in bed 31 years. And they laid her at his feet. And he spoke and she jumped straight up. And everywhere they went, they had people jamming the streets. They had the most horrible cases of twisted, deformed, demented people.

There was no fundraising. There was no asking for money. They just passed a basket around, if you wanted to give, you gave. But the point to me is this. There was no magic. There was no show. No pretty girls with tambourines slapping their hips like they do in shows.

The glory of God filled the temple. I have a bigger fire burning in my belly, if you like, and my heart than ever in my life. And I'm determined by the grace of God to wage war. And as I say, I've got young men coming 300 miles to our prayer meeting.

Total Surrender to the Holy Ghost Fire

That's my consolation. Paul says, when I said goodbye to the world, I said goodbye to a filthy thing. The world is crucified to me. And she said, you know, he said one afternoon, if you'd come and put all on the altar and let the Lord burn up your fear and your own silly plans and everything else and fill it with the Holy Ghost.

And she said, you know, every time people said something like that, Satan said to me, it's not for you. All you do is sweep the floor of a factory. It's only for special people. Like deacons in churches or ministers or missionaries.

It's not for ordinary people. And then she said, Brother Ravenhill said, why don't you bring what you have? You don't have much. Bring it and let God's fire burn it up. She said, you know, that stirred something in me.

I was sweeping the floor of a factory. But he said, when he gave me a chance, he said, I just bolted down and I got down in that room and I said, Lord, I'm going to take the preacher's word because I believe it's your word.

Look, here I am. This is me on the altar. Everything, everything, Lord. There's not much. You see, the devil will torment you. You don't have much to bring to God. That's not the problem. It's how much he has to bring to you.

Holy Ghost Fire and the Call to Christlikeness

There's nothing more attractive on this earth than fire. Whether it's physical or spiritual, fire is the most attractive. Our God is a consuming fire. And the only answer to hell fire is Holy Ghost fire.

The True Measure of Spiritual Maturity

I don't really want His protection. I want my heart, my spirit, but the habitation of God. We're all in a primary. We're all on probation here. Graduation day is there. Not for being a famous preacher or write wonderful books, but our Christlike we are.

Does the devil care what we have? All he's worried about is that you catch fire and then your church catches fire. You see, God used the same material before. They were flesh and blood. Many of them were fallible.

Paul was saying this morning, some of them made great mistakes. But God looks on the heart. And they were able to see great movings of the Spirit of God. But prayer is a secret. You know that. But prayer is a secret.

You know that.