2 Powerful Prayers From Leonard Ravenhill and Art Katz — Compilations

Intercession for the Lost and Perseverance to the End

Father, we think of those that we have sung of in this wonderful hymn tonight, and as we sang it we think of the tribes, the millions who are still without God and without hope. We sung about yonder sacred throng when you wind up all the affairs of this terrestrial ball on which we live, when you end all empires, industrial or the great empires of kings and rulers, and between here and there, there may be many tribulations and trials, but we thank you again that as you brought us so far, you'll take us further, right to the end of the trail.

Praying for God's Glory to Invade the Church

Grant, Lord, this meeting, which is not very large, but it's large enough to make an impact on this world if you get your way in every life tonight. We pray, Lord, for your glory, not for ours, not for the preacher, not even for last day's ministry, but we pray for your holy namesake, that you will invade this sanctuary tonight.

Dying to Self Through Repentance

We pray you'll work spiritual revolutions in us. We pray that some of us may go to our own funeral tonight and die to self and end all the failure and all the weakness and all that's been our handicap, all that's been our hang-up.

The Cleansing and Sanctifying Blood of Christ

Do work by the precious, precious blood of Jesus, the cleansing blood, the sanctifying blood, the blood of the everlasting covenant. Again we ask in honesty, we ask with desire, that this will be a very, very bad night for the devil.

Breaking Bondage and Revealing God's Glory

We pray that lives here where he's had dominion, that that dominion will be broken, where he's been deceptive, that he'll be unmasked tonight, where he's tried to make us fearful and intimidate us. Oh, give us a revelation of your glory and your power.

We pray the very angels in heaven may have a good time tonight rejoicing over all bondage that shall cease. Take the veil away from your word. Take the veil away from our understanding. Open the word.

Understanding God's Word and Proclaiming His Works

Open our minds. And then open our mouths to tell what great things God has done. As we think of the millions again tonight, some of them lying as we saw in the newspaper recently, lying with their bones bleaching, haven't strength to stand up in areas of Africa and other areas, Lord, where there's a total dissolution of their lifestyle, and other areas where there's prosperity, and yet they're without God and without hope.

Turning from Earthly Mindedness

Father again, save us from being earthly minded. Let the things of earth grow strangely dim. They look strangely grim when we get into eternity. You see, we look back and see how often the devil fooled us, and how often our own flesh fooled us, and how often we were unwilling and undeserving, and we gave up when we should have gone on.

Surrendering Human Strength to God

Change our thinking tonight. Change our desires. Change our aspirations. Make us captives. As an old saint said in England years ago, make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conquer a bee.

I sink in life's alarms when by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms, and strong shall be my hand. Oh God, we bless you that you're more adequate than we can ever dream of. I think, Lord, when we get to eternity, some of us have lived many years, but if you were to cut us all off tonight and sweep us into eternity, we'd discover that we're only in spiritual water to our ankles, not to our knees, not to our loins.

Holy Dissatisfaction and the Travail of Christ

We're still paddling on the edge of the ocean of the possibilities of grace. Put a holy dissatisfaction in us tonight, and then holy desires. Our supreme desire is that from this meeting Jesus shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.

We give you praise in his name.

A Prayer for Deeper Participation in the Cross

Thank you, Lord. Hear the prayers of your saints, my God, under their breath or audibly, out of their deeps, out of their souls, in a deep moral way, transacting with you, not willing merely to acknowledge the cross, but to participate in its reality, express, make it known, willing for the suffering that the cross signifies that must almost always come to those who stand for God in an inhospitable world, especially in the last days when the conflict will be fierce.

Longing for Identification With God

So Lord, listen, you who have spoken so strangely tonight, come and hear a prayer for which you have longed. I want a permanent dismemberment of my own facile, shallow personality that is okay to get by with people, but it's not okay to glorify you.

I want your deeps, my God. I want an identification with you. I want to share in your sorrows. I want to be awakened in the night hours, the early morning hours to prevail for things for which my mind is not even given an understanding.

Welcoming the Cross Into Every Attachment

I want to groan for the things that yet need, my God, to be enacted and the fierce things that will conclude the age. Come, I'm welcoming, Lord, your cross in a new way, in a deep way. I'm opening myself.

I'm trusting you. I don't know what it will mean for my marriage, what it has meant for my brothers and their marriages who are identified with me. Whatever form it pleases you to take, you know where the sword of the Lord must go, must penetrate, must pierce, must cut.

Confronting Worldliness, Vanity, and Pride

You know our fleshly and soulish bondings and attachments that compromise and weaken our witness and testimony and make us less than other than what we ought. It's in those very places we're inviting your cross, into the youth culture, its fashion and form that is so delightful for us to contemplate, to embrace, to wear, to put on while we're yet Christians.

We can show them. We can be groovy also. Lord, bring death. Bring the power of the cross to bear in those places from which we cannot free nor extricate ourselves. Vanity, self-interest, pride, sloth.

Awakening From Spiritual Sleep

We're sleeping. We've been sleeping in the garden. We could not watch for an hour. Not even so much as an hour was too much for us. But we're asking, Lord, come, precious God, bring the reality of the cross to bring death where it's needful, that we might know also its power and its life.

Revealing the Glory of God to the World

Thank you, Lord. When you send your kinsmen into our midst, they're not just going to meet some shallowy people who are obliged to be nice. New Zealand has always been nice, but they've got to see something more.

They've got to see the glory of God. They've got to see the nature of their God, the nature of the God of Israel, suffering servant even before he became that, slain, the Lamb of God slain from before the foundations.

Rejecting Comfort and Embracing Spiritual Conflict

He was always in that makeup. Not to be a suffering God is not to be the God who is God. What then must his people be? Save us from comfort, Lord. Save us from being mollified and pacified and seduced and being concerned for our ease and our security, our retirement, as if these constitute the real issues of life.

Come, my God, and show us again we're called into a conflict. Something needs to be contended against fiercely. Powers of darkness who know their time is short and will tear and rail and need to be met and opposed by a people who know their God and can express the power of the cross because they have come into its reality in their own life and experience.

Come on, you saints, call on the Lord. Let him know you're willing. Let him bring it. He'll not do it against your will. It's not for everyone. But when he hears your cry, hears your prayer, sees the intention, how far you're willing to go, I'll tell you, you young ones, it's not long before you'll be 76 also.

It's amazing how you think that your youth is going to be permanent, but I can tell you this life is short and the issues of eternity are long. Decide rightly and decide now for Jesus' sake.