The Judgement Seat of Christ - Part 7 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Judgment Seat and the Examination of Devotion

Can you see all the saints of all the ages? And Leonard Ravenel is standing there before Christ, whose eyes are full of holiness, where the praise is breathing holiness, where there's all the majesty of an awesome God?

And he reads the record of my poor life before all the saints of all the ages? When he puts the fire to my devotional life, am I just a good showman? I sure like to preach because God called me to preach.

And I don't care how I preach, and I don't care whether you believe me either. I'm not responsible for that. I preach out of my heart all I believe, and I'd die for it. But say, am I just a showman? What's my secret life like?

The Woman Who Worshiped Jesus With Her Alabaster Box

We were talking just earlier, yesterday I guess, about the woman that came with an alabaster box of ointment. You know, I read that story for years and heard it preached on before ever I realized she came for one reason only.

She came to worship Jesus. How do you know? Because she brought the most sacrificial gift that she had. How do you know? Because she never said a word while she was there. How do you know? Because she said, I won't wash his feet with water, I'll wash them with tears.

I won't dry his feet with a gorgeous towel, I'll wipe his feet with the hair of my head. And she poured out that costly fragrance, and then she wiped his feet again. So what happened? The fragrance she poured out on him came back on her.

Holiness Requires Time With God

Why isn't my life more fragrant? Because you don't take time to be holy. Because you think if you stuff all the stuff you get at a gappy, which I'm sure is good, or some other Bible school, that this is good.

No, no, no, no, no. God isn't going to measure your intellect the size of your hat. He's going to try with his fire my devotional life. I think again of a statement Dr. Tozer made to me once. He said, Len, you know what?

He said, we'll hardly get our feet out of time into eternity, and gaze on eternity with what we bow our heads in shame and humiliation and say, my God, look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ, and I've come to the judgment seat almost a pauper.

Entertainment Cannot Replace Spiritual Joy

For God has not merely given us Jesus Christ, he's given us all things. And because there isn't enough joy in the house of God, we need entertainment. Because entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy.

Because there isn't enough power in the house of God, people are always looking for the last scientific development, and their hair stands up when they see some fancy show on TV. I think before we point the finger at the world, we better turn to the church and say, look, we better all get sackcloth and ashes and humble ourselves and say, almighty God, when I see the church in the New Testament, they didn't have stately buildings, they didn't have paid evangelists, they didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have organization, they couldn't get on TV and beg, but I'll tell you what they did, they turned the world upside down.

And I'm embarrassed to be part of the church of Jesus today, because I believe it's an embarrassment to a holy God. Most of our joy is clapping our hands and having a good time, and then afterwards we're talking all the drivel of the world.

Learning to Share the Sufferings of Christ

Oh, to be lost in Him, to be consumed in Him. We mentioned this week a little frail woman, my dear boy, that's in South America. Many of you heard him preach Paul. I think he has every book that Amy Wilson Carmichael wrote, about 30 of them.

He's drenched himself in her teaching. She was a fine little Irish woman. She had a curvature of the spine. The last three years of her life, they had to lift her in and out of bed, change her diapers.

She was helpless, but she loved 350 little children. She wrote this. From subtle love of softening things, from easy choices and weakenings, not thus are spirits glorified, not this went the crucified.

From all that dims thy calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me. You know, we're overboard on laughter and happiness. There's an old saying in the world, laugh and the world laughs with you. I change it. I say, laugh and the church laughs with you, but weep and you weep alone.

You get so near to the heart of God. We sang it on Friday. We had a marvelous Friday night prayer meeting. I wouldn't have taken that Friday night meeting for $10 ,000. God came and we were broken and humiliated before Him.

You get so near to the heart of God, that you share His grief over a world and over a backslidden church that we have today. Can He share His sorrow with you? Oh, yes, you'll get filled with the Holy Ghost and get the bank balance.

That's all right. If you do, God will hold you to account for it. But are you big enough to say, Lord, in this crucial hour in human history, let me fill up the sufferings of Christ. Are you prepared to challenge demon power and say, listen, I've moved into the place where the Apostle Paul was when he said, I glory in tribulation, in necessities, in reproaches.

Heroic Service Grows From Deep Devotion

Because if you're going to get mature in God, all the dwarfs around you will criticize and sneer at you and say you're trying to be holier than the rest of us, eh? You say you don't have time for basketball or go and see a baseball game.

No, maybe you don't. That's nobody's business but yours and God's. You'll discover this. The men who have been most heroic for God have been the men with the greatest devotion in life. I remind you again that one day I was in the Bible School of Wales and dear Mrs. Rees-Howes, her husband was dead now.

We stood on the terrace there and she turned back. She said, you see the room there? I said, yes, I see that room. That door, yes. Daddy, meaning her husband, went through that door at six o 'clock in the morning and he stayed there till six o 'clock at night.

Every day for eleven months except the one day that his mother died. We mutilated all the hymns. Most of Charles Wesley's hymns had thirty stanzas. Now they've about six. We've done that with other things.

Spending One Life for God

You'll see a little board up in homes, in offices sometimes. Only one life shall soon be passed. Only what's done for God will last. That's not what the poet wrote. The poet wrote this. Only one life shall soon be passed.

Only what's done for God will last. And when I am dying, how glad I shall be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for thee. You think all Christians die happy? Not on your life. They die as miserable sinners, some of them.

Because I've misused my time and I've misused... Lord, if you'll only spare me to do this. Some of you prayed that on a hospital bed. Some of you women, when you thought you were dying, giving birth to a child, said, Lord, if you spare my life, I'll do this, that and the other.

Have you done it? The only thing that will tie me in victory continually through the blood of Christ is my personal devotion to Him, the Son of God. My adoration that I give Him my tribute every day. It's more than my service.

It's more than giving my money. That I love Him and I adore Him and I magnify Him. I take Him, as it were, by the feet. For all the people who worshipped Jesus, the woman came and brought an alabaster box of ointment and she was at His feet.

Falling at the Feet of Christ in Revelation

She was at His feet on every occasion. That woman, if you follow the story through, when He appeared in the upper room, they seized Him by the feet. You get a little bit further in the book of Revelation, or if you go to the sixth chapter again, you find there it says at the end that the four and twenty elders now, they fell down at His feet.

You wonder Matthew Bridges wrote that lovely hymn, Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne. Crown Him the Lord of spheres. The potent agent of time. Crown Him the Lord of love. Crown Him the Lord of spheres, whose power a scepter sways from pole to pole, that war may cease and all be prayer and praise.

Every Person Will Face Christ

The one thing that's wrong with that world outside is it thinks it's done with Jesus Christ and it hasn't even started with Him yet. For He stands at the end of the trail for every man, rich or poor, bondman or free, black or white, intellectual or ignoramus.

What's your devotional life this morning? Would you like Gabriel to hand me the book of your devotional life for the last month and read it to this fine audience?