Sins of Laodicea - Part 7 — Leonard Ravenhill

From Ankle-Deep Waters to Holy Ghost Abandonment

I don't prophesy like Dave does so often, but I tell you this, your whole outfit down there is still in water to the ankles. You're going to go to waters to the knees, then water to swimming, then to true Holy Ghost abandonment.

Reports That Lead to Spiritual Self-Examination

We want you to send us reports that will make us weep, make us search our hearts. Look what God's doing down there. David has a statement in his book that'll cause him some trouble, that God Almighty is not dependent on the money in the churches in America to shake the world.

God's Work Is Not Dependent on American Church Money

He's done it all through history without money, men. I know we've got to live, we've got to eat, we've got to pay our taxes, but people think if we can launch out here, the little boy on PTL says, this is God's method, you know.

What do you mean God Almighty's method to save the world? People that listen up the Amazon can't afford a shirt, never mind a TV. Go around the Philippine Islands and see people there. They've no shoes to their feet.

The Elderly Woman Who Walked to Hear About Jesus

There's a hymn that was written, I've forgotten, 40 years ago about a woman that came, I think it was through Korea. They told her about a man who was preaching about the living God, who had a son, and his son once came to this earth and he lived like us and got sleepy and tired and hungry.

And yet people kicked him around. Where is that man? And she was told she walked 15 miles at 70 years of age, she walked 15 miles to the meeting. She couldn't hear too well. And just before she left, she said to the preacher, I didn't quite get the name of the man you said died for my sins.

I would like to say thank you to him. Did he take all my sins? Yes. I have been very bad. He took all yours. There's not one of them the devil can bring up against you in that great day. What was his name?

Jesus. Jesus. She walked home 15 miles through the forest. Feet were blistered and sore and bleeding when she got home. She slept soundly, sure she did. Woke up in the next morning and had forgotten his name and she walked back to the missionary, 15 miles.

She asked for the missionary and they said he lives in that. She hammered on the door and she said, tell me his name again. I forgot it. And he spelled it out again. Somebody wrote a chorus, we used to sing, oh tell me his name again.

Or sing me that glad refrain. How Jesus in love came down from above to die for our sin and shame. Tell me his name again. You know that name has lost its charm for many of us. You know, we'll never get things till we work them God's way.

The Acts of the Holy Ghost and the Power of Jesus' Name

Some people never get out of the first five chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. Well, the Acts of the Apostles is the Acts of the Holy Ghost. It's the Acts of the Church. But read it carefully and get out of your doldrum.

And find out the name of Jesus is mentioned far more often than the Holy Ghost. In whose name did he do this thing? There's one name that makes hell tremble, it's name high over all in hell or earth or sky.

The Church's Departure from the New Testament Pattern

Angels and men before it fall and devils fear and fly. I say this, I don't care who listens. I'm embarrassed to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ tonight, which is so totally radically different from the New Testament.

So impoverished, so blind, so powerless. I talked with David now yesterday, we had a wonderful talk. I've come to this conclusion. There is a move of God in America today, but not amongst the unsaved.

Becoming Part of the Bride Through Separation from the World

It's amongst the redeemed who are determined by the grace of God to be part of the bride. And to be part of the bride, you have to be divorced from everything in the world. You can't be holy on Sundays and candle on Mondays.

You can't delight in some little scripture the preacher gives you and you turn it over and then Monday say, Oh, I just saw the Dow Jones, boy, isn't it wonderful? Oh, brother, that money stinks. When it's become your idol.

Idolatry and Divided Devotion

Anything you like more than prayer and worshipping God is an idol, you better get rid of it. I shall have no other God before me. God is a jealous God. I wouldn't share my dear wife if I said to my wife, well, darling, I love you, you're beautiful.

But you know, remember a girl I used to know called Alice? I'll just need one night a week to go and talk with Alice. I mean, I'll be back, you know, by nine o 'clock. And she says, yes, it doesn't matter if you never come back, which would be right.

Come on, why don't you, you've got an idol. Come on. Some of you can't wait for baseball to start, you know. Every player, you know, as the average is. You know how many times he gets knocked out or washed out or beaten up, whatever it is.

You've had no joy all winter because you don't like football. Oh, boy, just a week or two and we'll have the TV showing us a wonderful game. Anything that you love more than you love Jesus Christ is an idol.

I don't care what it is. David will say, well, in fact, my dear wife and I have been reading that book. It's very stirring. And in one place he says, Rebecca, remember Rebecca was barren. God told her to take all the idols out of her tent and when she did, she became fruitful.

Christ's Counsel to Buy True Spiritual Riches

And he labors on that, on the barrenness in the churches due to the idols in our homes. I counsel thee to buy. It will cost something. Buy gold from a banking system. Buy gold from a city that made more garments than any nation in the world.