Who's Touching The Ark - Part 5 — Leonard Ravenhill

Confidence in God Rather Than Human Strength

Somebody that will really, really, really have no confidence in the flesh, won't try to organize. Isn't it horrible when we try and subsidize God's cause with a few dollars here and a collection there and something else?

Standing on Christ Rather Than Shifting Foundations

Now either God is God or he isn't. As I've said before, this book is either absolute or it's obsolete. There's no middle cause. It either has all the answers or it has no answers. I've got to get to the place where I say, Lord you can strip everything else away from me and on Christ the solid rock I stand, all of the ground is sinking sand.

Refusing to Steady the Ark

I'm not going to steady the ark. I'm convinced God's going to do a new work. I've talked the last two or three days with a brother I love very dearly and these are the crossroads in his life and I know others who are men that you think are at the top of the tree.

Seeking a New Dimension of God's Revelation

You think they should be satisfied with what they've got and they're not. They're suddenly realizing there's a new dimension that God wants to bring to our generation. A new revelation, a new unfolding of the word of God.

Following God Beyond Human Organization

If you like men that don't try to steady the ark by organization and saying you must do it this way and you must do it that way, you must do it this way. Say no listen, say we're going to follow, if it takes us we have to follow those lowing oxen.

They look pretty scruffy things. But before long you remember that David he went and slew the oxen and and he took the fatlings and he made a sacrifice to God and then he danced before God. Why? Because he got rid of many of his obstructions.

God's Mercy in Stripping Away False Supports

The Lord is very merciful. Do you know how merciful he is? He's so merciful he'll strip us right down to the place where we haven't a thing to stand on. We haven't a thing to lean on. We're cast in nakedness and we say in despair you know the church that was rich and increased in goods?

The Danger of Lukewarm Faith

That's where the church is today. She's rich, she's increased in goods, she's in need of nothing. Which church was it Jesus spewed out of his mouth? I would I was either hot or cold. So then because I'm neither hot or cold I'll spit.

It didn't spew the cold one out of his mouth, it'd never been in. It was his church that he spewed out of his mouth. It wasn't a heathen religion, it was his church. They were neither hot or cold. They were kind of midstream.

And because they were neither one thing nor the other he vomited them out. He didn't vomit the cold church out, he didn't bother with it. God will not stand for mediocrity. I think I need to sit down, in fact I've said to somebody today I'm going to do less preaching in the next few months, as little as I can and I'm going to meditate on certain things.

Persevering in a Later Season of Calling

I'm not young anymore, I'm getting older and older but that doesn't mean you can't. I mean Moses was 80 when he started and I'm not 80 yet. So maybe when I'm 80 I'll wake up and start doing something.

Hunger for Abiding and Spiritual Growth

But there's a hunger, there's a, there's a, the class we talked to last Saturday morning, there's some fine young men, maybe about 30 of them, 32 or 3. And half of them were zealous, they were sitting on the edge of their seats at all prospects.

Most of them there were seminarian fellows. Eager, keen, even asking afterwards, well Mr Rainer, what's the secret really of abiding? What's the secret of abounding in the Christian life? What's the secret of not being a failure?

What's the secret of not letting your branch get withered up? I have so many calling today for prayer again, every day they call. I'm sorry for the situation some of them are in, but it's the only way they'll grow in grace anyhow and in the knowledge of God.

Learning to Lean on God Alone

They've been leaning too much on what they have and now God's going to dry up their souls so that they only have God on whom they can lean. They've had so much flesh, they've had so much ability, they've had so much organization, they've had so much security, God says well let me pull it all away.

Doesn't the word say trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord is everlasting strength. I think one of the shocks in eternity will be to discover how little we've ever used of the available power of God.

Using God's Resources for a Dying World

Not for our own mean silly self, but there's a world out that's dying there. Does God have resources to meet this generation? Come on. I learned to my horror just while I was in Brooklyn there, a man who is a professional in this realm, a very fine Christian man.

Last year the churches in America spent close on two billion dollars on radio and tv preaching, two billion. Do you know how many people we reach? Less than four percent of the of the national family.

Less than four percent of Americans listen to the gospel and we spent nearly two, can you imagine how many mission stations that would have built, how many churches that would have built in some other country.

Obedience Instead of Controlling God's Work

I think we're putting our hands on the ark. We're rather afraid that we might go a bit overboard you know. Doctrinally somebody comes and says hey well steady a minute and he hardly knows he's putting his hand on the ark anyhow.

We're just afraid it seems of some new revelation, some new demand that God will make upon us. Not just individually, well it is individually of course and collectively. Now I guess I didn't get this over to you as it came to me but I'll tell you when I read it the other day, I was shocked to realize that again this man did not smash up the ark, he didn't tell all the people to rebel, he didn't tell the priest to do it.

All he did was steady the ark thinking he was doing God a favor when all he did was disobey. Is that all? Well that's all Adam did in the garden, all he did was disobey, didn't curse God. And it seems the hardest thing that we have in our lives to learn is how to obey in the very, very, very simple things that God challenges us with.

The Need to Practice the Light Already Received

I still say you know if I were a kind of protestant Pope I'd close every church down for a month. We're preached to death, we, we, heavens why do we keep going to conferences? You can't handle the light you've got, why do you want some more?

Huh? Turn it on when you go home tonight. The next conference you go with is this weekend, the next week, you'll have more.