Something Is Missing in the Church — Leonard Ravenhill

David Brainerd and the Call to Sacrificial Living

David Brainerd, one of America's greatest saints, he was dying of tuberculosis. It's not how long you live, it's how you live that matters. So here he is, wracked with consumption, his body weighs about 85 pounds.

Did that little man dying there, a man that lived with the Indians, a man that hardly ever got a decent meal, he ate berries, he slept with the Indians, they let him sleep in a wigwam or a beaten up building, and he says, well, I never get a decent meal, but oh, God is so real.

When he coughed, he spit blood in the ground. When he sneezed, he sprayed blood in the ground. This is an American. See that every one of our young preachers gets a copy of the life of David Brainerd, to stir them to action, to stir them to sacrifice, to get their focusing straight.

Eternity-Focused Ministry and the Example of William Carey

They're not living for eternity, they become professional preachers. They're happy to go along and preach in a nice place. Get their eyes on eternity. Therefore, they must read David Brainerd. Did David Brainerd, as he prayed there, dying, gasping for breath?

Did he ever dream a young man in England, a young Baptist by the name of Carey, would read that biography, and it would send him to India? He could really say what we sing, God help us, I lay in dust life's glory dead.

Put your so-called faith and love into action. Lay in dust your pride. Forget it. Who cares whether you wear designer clothes or not? Who cares whether you have the best ring or anything, the best car?

The Centrality of Corporate Prayer

It doesn't matter. You should have a prayer meeting in your church every morning, and the pastor should be there to lead it. It's his business. To be an example, not a talker. If you don't have a praying pastor, forget it.

When I pastored a church in England in my twenties, that was in 1934, we had seven prayer meetings a week. We had a half-night of prayer Saturday night. Do you wonder people lined up outside the church to get a seat?

Prayer, Youth Ministry, and Revival

Do you wonder the glory of the Lord filled the place? Do you wonder we never had a sports program in any period at all? We'd throngs of young people, dozens of them, in about five different parties went out to our street meetings.

I didn't have to urge them and whip them, they caught a light, they were ablaze. No church is going to have revival with a prayer meeting one morning a week or one night a week. This is a time for blood, sweat and tears.

If fellows can lose all their rights and go up to, what do you call it, West Point. Listen, if they can do it, dear God, can't we do it? What are you shrugging up in that little church for? Because it never hurts you to go?

Because nobody fasts, nobody prays, nobody weeps. Your preacher's dry-eyed, he talks. How in God's name do they do it? I don't know. Why do you weep while other people are laughing? Why do you fast while other people are having a whale of a time?

Counting Time in Light of Eternity

It's stupid, it is. Except in the light of eternity it isn't. You see, you have to account for your time. So here you've got three. You live 24 hours a day. You work 8 hours a day. You sleep 8 hours a day.

What do you do with the other 8? Put that into years. You live 60 years. You sleep 20 years. You work 20 years. What do you do with the other 20? As I've said to you, if I could push the door of Heaven and you could peep into it for 5 minutes, you'd never backslide.

You'd change your lifestyle, you'd change your conversation style. Listen, you and I are supposed to be eternity conscious. How can you go to a fashionable church where nobody weeps? All this has got to end.

Eternal Rewards Over Earthly Comforts

Can you imagine an eternity? It will not make much difference, friend, a hundred years from now, if you live in a stately mansion or a floating river scow, if the clothes you wear were a tailor-made or just pieced together somehow, if you eat big steaks or beans and cake a hundred years from now.

Won't matter what your bank account or the make of car you drive, for the grave will claim all your riches and fame and the things for which you strive. There's a deadline that we all must meet. No one will show up late.

It won't matter. All the places you've been, each one will keep that date. We will only have in eternity what we gave away on Earth. When we go to the grave, we can only save the things of eternal worth.

Won't matter, friend, the earthly gain for which some men will bow, for your destiny will be sealed, you see, a hundred years from now. Isn't that something? Won't matter. If you live in a stately mansion or a floating river scow, what kind of clothes you wear, won't matter.

The only thing that will matter is if we're clothed in righteousness. John Wesley fasted, prayed, he made money, he built schools, he built orphanages, he printed Bibles, he printed Methodist hymn books.

Sacrifice, Suffering, and Heavenly Reward

He's a dying thief, can't have the same reward. What about that job God gave you and you gave it up? Disgusted or discouraged? I'll tell you what, we're not going to be the same in Heaven. They, not one, they were stoned, they were sawn asunder.

According to tradition, Isaiah was hung this way with his feet strapped up there and sawn down the middle, not with an electric saw, get it over with a wooden saw. He was sawn in pieces. They were stoned, how long did it take them to die?

They were sawn asunder, they were destitute, and that means they were totally void. They had no clothes except rags, they had no food except scraps. You know, all these guys have gone down the drain, do you know why?

Recovering a Fervent Prayer Life

Let me tell you how to backslide. Why they backslide? They all backslide in the place of prayer. And because they're cold there, in the place of prayer, because they're failing in the place of prayer, they lose the presence of God.

It's time for you to tighten up your prayer life.