Paul's Passion and Preaching - Part 4 — Leonard Ravenhill

Faithfulness Rather Than Longevity or Achievement

Them up and say I'm going to breathe and mercy you can't do it. But we live as though you know anybody's going to die but not me. Oh some other day maybe when I get old. You know the thing that kind of grieves me is this when this fellow wrote this epistle he wrote fourteen if you give him Hebrews and I give him Hebrews I think he wrote it.

But that guy, that guy, I'm getting so Americanized. I mean this preacher, he wasn't much more than half of my age when he wrote these epistles. I'm much older than he was but my goodness he was a million miles up the road spiritually compared with me.

It's not how long, we're not going to be rewarded for how long we've lived. If we are God isn't just. David Brainerd one of the greatest saints in America died at twenty-eight. Wesley died at eighty-eight.

Who gets the biggest reward? The man who died at eighty-eight or the one who died at twenty? No, no, no, no. We're rewarded for faithfulness not for years. We're rewarded for obedience. We're not rewarded for achievements necessarily.

To whom much is given God will expect much. You say you have more knowledge of the Bible, so what? You'll be in more trouble when you get to the judgment bar. You've this talent, you've that talent, the other.

You know you say about a lady, this dear lady that's praying for us tonight, she has a talent. That's not a talent, that's a gift. In the Bible talents are always related to money, silver talents and golden talents.

And we'll be responsible for those as well. You want to look at Romans.

Paul's Apostolic Debt and Continual Filling by the Spirit

One fourteen? I know you know it well enough, but let's take it for a moment. I am debtor.

Both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and unto the unwise. So do you wonder he says in another place, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel? This man has a passion of a hundred men.

This man wasn't filled with the spirit at some junction twenty years ago. The Hebrew, the Greek there anyhow says be being filled with the spirit not just get filled up. There are thousands of Pentecostals and wholeness people who are filled with the Holy Ghost, they've been leaking ever since it got filled.

But there has to be a constant inflow that there may be an overflow and an outflow. If you keep a cup under water and the water is dripping down, the cup will fill, it will go over and then it will go out.

And if you live in complete subjection to the Lord, the spirit will fill us. I saw a man write on a board recently a lot of things, get this out of your heart, pride, anger, jealousy, suspicion, blah blah blah blah blah.

And I said brother, I didn't say it to him, he was preaching. I said in my heart, you don't remember, how do you remember all those things? You don't. You just let the Holy Ghost come and there's an old hymn that says our blessed Redeemer, ere he breathed his tender last farewell, a guide, a comforter bequeathed with us to dwell.

The Holy Spirit as a Gracious Guest and Inward Guide

He came sweet influence to impart, a gracious, willing guest. And you know that word ghost, holy ghost, the word ghost is a corruption of the word guest. He comes as a guest. How long does your guest stay?

Until they tell him to go. He comes as a guest and if you grieve him he goes. But we do the actions, we know the vocabulary, we say the same things, we have the same terms, we gesticulate, we stress, dear God help us.

But he says, he goes on to say in the hymn, every virtue we possess and every conquest won and every thought of holiness are his alone. What's the quotation over there, Martha? Pardon? I know dear, but how does it start?

Well the middle of it says he checks each thought and calms each fear and speaks of heaven. The holy ghost is my inward monitor and he tells me that's wrong, stop right here. Or go ahead, that's right.

I need that inward presence of the spirit of the living God to be my constant monitor, constant ruler. But he says I'm a debtor. Do you wonder that he sweats and he toils and he works? There's nothing can move him.

Preaching as Obsession, Passion, and Weeping

Boy I love that statement he makes. Let's say well his purpose was the first chapter, 20 to 21, he talks about dying. Romans 1, 14 is his passion. As I've said before, preaching is not a profession, God help us.

Preaching is an obsession and a passion. And I love this passionate preacher. How he preaches his heart out, he weeps. A preacher that doesn't weep should be fired. I have a little slip, I put it in letters.

If your preacher doesn't weep over the pew, organize something in the pew to weep over the preacher. Jesus wept, Paul wept. You see, we're so ready made. I fear to hear people have just sent it into a blessing so they think that means you resign your job and go preaching and they don't have no experience.

Preparation, Training, and Trials Before Entering the Pulpit

I don't believe any man should enter the pulpit until ten years after he's been saved or filled with the spirit. Somebody wrote to me, oh I've got to get out, I'm young. I said listen, Jesus is young and God kept him brushing shavings off his legs at the end of every day for 30 years.

The son of God took 30 years training. John Baptist was 30 years with the wild beasts. Moses, a colossal intellect. Read Romans, Acts chapter 7. He was mighty in word and in deed. Before ever he was, God got hold of him, he was a statesman.

He made the laws of the country. And yet God takes him to the back side of the desert. James reminded me the other day, in with a friend, he said well you're 80 now. He said well that's just the time Moses started preaching.

Well I'm hoping to get started soon. Most folk are hoping I'll stop. No. 40 years. You can't preach out of the Bible merely to have experiences to get in your blood. No man's a right to stand up and dictate unless he's gone through the trial.

Christ Magnified Through a Debtor's Passion

I can listen to this man, he's been in prison, in fasting, in weakness, in weariness. And yet there's nothing that's able to pull him down. His purpose then was what? That Christ might be magnified. His passion was what?

That he's a debtor. Again I say preaching is an obsession and a passion. If a thing doesn't burn in me, it won't burn in you. I'm not going to stand up and get... Most preachers don't preach anyhow. Some of you guys, how many of you want to be preachers?

Like to be preachers? Put up your hands, let me see you. I'll tell you what to do. Eat as little as you can. Oh good, that's encouraging. Jacob put his hand up, I've been praying he'd want to become a preacher.

Here's my plan for you. Eat as little as you can. Sleep as little as you can. Pray and fast.