Interviu Cu Leonard Ravenhill (Spanish) — Leonard Ravenhill

A Seventy-Year Journey of Faith

I got saved at 14, I'm 84, almost 85, so I've been 70 years, I've seen all kinds of tragedies in the church, wars and rumors of wars, popular men going popular and so forth. But keep looking up to Jesus and reading the word and remembering these old paths that my daddy used to talk about so much, and all the other looks like trivia.

I've often said that I didn't come to Jesus as an old English hymn like we used to sing so often. I came to Jesus, I was weary and worn and sad, I didn't because I was 14, and I didn't understand my father's zeal for God.

I didn't come because I was convicted of sin, I came because of the blanks in my life, like he relished reading the word of God. And he relished going to prayer meetings, even half nights of prayer. And also, more than ever, he relished being a street corner preacher.

And that, do you remember the hymn, My Faith Looks Up To Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary? Well, the last time it says, May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire, and my daddy had inspired zeal.

God lifted the beggar from the dunghill, he completely changed my daddy. He'd been to a certain system of religion which made him fearful and terrified of priestcraft and all that. And he got marvelously born again as a result of hearing David Matthews, who went through the Welsh Revival.

Then he wrote the classic, it's still a classic, on I Saw The Welsh Revival. Well, my daddy had never been in meetings like that. And the fervor and the joy, particularly I remember seeing David Matthews when I was five years of age.

I'd never seen anybody preach like he sang his mouth like an oval. And he had a shock of black wavy hair. And he had a zeal and he had a joy in the Lord that stirred and my daddy got saved. Well, as a result of that, as I say, he became fervent in spirit serving the Lord.

I never saw him downcast, I never saw him suggestive about giving up. But, I mean, when he got saved, he tossed away his interest in professional football and everything else. Which, of course, became a style in England.

After you're saved, you never go to a movie, you never go to a professional match. There's so much profanity and so forth. And when I saw that, and I saw the joy, and we lived in comparative poverty. We had much money.

My daddy was a laborer. And as a result of that, as I say, at 14 he took me to a half night of prayer. There were three other men there and they prayed. And my daddy's a big husky man taking his coat off at one o 'clock in the morning in a room that had no heat.

And praying with tears and fervor from that very day. I recognized there's something far beyond what the average Christian had. And then after that, of course, I went to the Methodist class meeting until I was 14.

And that was full of the joy of the Lord. I mean, people spoke as though God lived with them all the time. And he did. And there was that same kind of zeal there. I mean, even in those days, back in the 19...

Well, that would be around 1912, just before World War I even. There was a half hour song singing before the Sunday night service. But they didn't sing choruses, except choruses from hymns. Or they sang great hymns like, And Can It Be, and so forth.

And you had men who would explode in a meeting when they were singing, And Can It Be. My chains fell off. One old boy would jump at the tears all down his face. He'd strike it up at the end. There's a woman to the left of us.

I used to watch her because her neck would go red. And then she'd suddenly burst with a hallelujah, you know. We talk about the joy of the Lord. I've never seen anything like it. Well, at that time, Samuel Chadwick was preaching in the...

He had revival on the local level in Leeds. And, of course, the conversation in our house, we hardly ever had a newspaper. There's no talk about films, of course, which were just coming out then. It was all about God and mysteries and so forth.

Daddy took me to see Pagic Works, who founded the Japan Rescue Mission. I was about 12, I think. I heard C .T. study the lecture one morning. And later saw Miss Cable and Miss Francesca French that walked through China and the Gobi Desert.

And all that kind of... My daddy, wherever there was anything fervent, I'll tell you, at that time, Doncaster was 25 miles away from us. Well, there was a Pentecostal fellowship there. And I forget the name of the Bible teacher, but my daddy might get on a bus to town, another bus from town to Doncaster, and then walk the rest of the way to the fellowship and stay there a weekend and come back radiant as though he'd been in the upper room, which he just about had, because Smith Wigglesworth was one of the teachers there and all those guys.

And nobody in those days scornfully said that faith healing is fake healing. I mean, there were living evidences of people spontaneously getting out of wheelchairs and so forth, but it wasn't that. Really, it was a transformation in personality.

I mean, they went back to the churches and had prayer meetings. And in our town, we had a little man. He's only... I don't think he weighed about 110 pounds. And for years, he fasted and prayed. He was a Pentecostal, which was despised.

In fact, his wife said to hear him pray, he'd be praying in another room. It was like, you know, a man having a personal encounter with God. He'd wrestle with God. Well, then George Jeffress came along in 1927.

Revival, Prayer, and Transformation

The whole city was swept in three weeks with the Holy Ghost. And the church is there today. It's called Bridge Street in Leeds, England. That church is still... It's in its third enlargement. Where other churches are going down, they still have that same...

They were born in the fire. They maintain the fire, but they maintain prayer all the time. Well, then from there, I was in a factory, working in a factory one day, and I heard a voice say, follow me. And I turned.

It was so real. I took my tape off my neck. I was a tailor's cutter. Put my shoes down and prayed. I remember saying clearly to the Lord, Lord, not only will I not go back, I won't even look back. And that day, I applied to go to Cliff College and then went.

Chadwick was the principal there. Well, Chad, the birds both had a flock together. So, the great character in America at that time was A .B. Simpson, founder of Christian Mission Alliance. And also in Scotland, there was a man by the name of McIntyre.

Have you read his little book, Hidden Life of Prayer? It's one of the classics. It's still published. Bethany just republished. Well, those three men, of course, across the Atlantic, there was no telephone in those days.

And mail was slow, but they corresponded all the time because they were all on one level. Well, Chadwick went out and right opposite his church, in the middle of Leeds, there was an almost high statue of Queen Victoria with a big spread in front of it.

Men used to stand there and preach. Well, an atheist stood there and he laughed at people coming after church and scorned them and told you, a man standing in a coward's castle, a pulpit, he talks one way, you can't answer.

Listen to me. And they listened. Well, Chadwick went out and listened to this man scorning the Bible and everything. And one day he said, Listen, I've listened to you three weeks. You didn't come and listen to me.

You come and listen to me. He said, I'll come next. So he came and there's a big horseshoe gallery and right opposite the preacher was a clock and this man, the leader, sat behind the clock and the other ten men sat with him and they came to the altar the first night they were there and he wiped out the whole testimony of the atheists.

Then he wiped out all the devilry in the community at level on a local level. And it was all prayer. I mean, he wrote the book The Way to Pentecost and after that he wrote the book The Path of Prayer and that's where he lived and that's where it rubbed off on so many of us that we saw a living example of a man who walked in the power of the Spirit.

Well then, I could go on for long enough but I won't. All the time I've tried to feed myself I've gathered books out of a rack of books on prayer and a whole stack of books on historic revival which we don't have anymore.

America hasn't had a revival in the last 70 years that I know of. I mean, revival that closes the shops and as soon as people get home they want to get to the sanctuary and they don't stay till 7 o 'clock till 8 they stay till 8 till midnight and after.

When the Holy Ghost really comes? I think very often we're praying in ignorance we want the Holy Spirit to come but what do we want him to come for? Just to increase our numbers? Just so our kids won't go to the devil?

I mean, are we jealous for God's glory? And to me that's what revival's all about. Revival is an invasion of God by the Spirit and if America doesn't have one over the next 10 years it's going to be horrible living in this country.

Crime is out of hand now. Immorality abounds. Herpes. AIDS. Every devilish thing is prospering. Plus all the power of the cults save multi-million dollars. So it's inevitable that we have revival.

Paul said, Would the God you could bear with me and my father. Indeed bear with me for I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ but I fear less by any means as the serpent begot thee through his subtlety.

So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For he that cometh preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached. Or if ye receive another spirit which ye have not received or another gospel which ye have not accepted you might well bear with him.

Is there another gospel that we're listening to? It's not the gospel? What is that gospel?

The Gospel, Scripture, and the Call Back to the Cross

Well in England we used to call it modernism or you call it liberalism here. I mean the Baptists now for a long time they've had contention about the Bible is the very word of God. I mean can't we alter it?

As I say very often we've revised it but God never has. And I still think the King James Version is nearly to the best. And those old fashioned guys preach it. I think brother this we've almost no preachers in America.

Everybody's teaching, teaching, teaching. I think I have 500 tapes in there that people, I think I got 40 tapes in the first month of this year. You must read my interpretation of Revelation. You must read my story.

There's at least 50 John the Baptists in the country. So they think they are. If a guy tells me I'm a John the Baptist I say have you increased your insurance? They say why? I say you're only going to live six months.

He goes oh no, no, no. But we're not preaching the gospel. What are we preaching? Well there's one, there was two groups. There's one group now that's preaching signs and wonders all the time. There's another one that says it's love and signs and wonders.

If it's signs and wonders in God's name what did it do for Judas? He saw everything Jesus did then look what he did. And what are some of the guys that have been preaching about the Holy Ghost and miracles?

Where are they now? One's in jail. The other's in the gutter comparatively. We've got to get back to the cross. If I be lifted up I will draw all men. You get the Emmaus Road. Going down the Emmaus Road it says that Jesus opened unto them the scriptures then he opened their eyes then he opened their understanding.

But then you think after they and read the last chapter in Luke and it says the most awesome thing there that they sat and talked with Jesus and had breakfast with him. One of them broke bread and he gave him bread.

The other one broke a honeycomb. Well can you imagine you giving Jesus personally honeycomb and he puts his hand out there's a nail hole through it. And they saw the most astounding miracle in history.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And wait a minute he says come with me. And they went to order for the next most astounding miracle the ascension of Jesus into heaven. Couldn't they live on that?

Couldn't they live? There isn't a devil in hell that will ever move us. We had breakfast with Jesus. We talked with Jesus. We shared a meal with Jesus. Couldn't you live on that forever? Jesus says no you can't.

Well we saw him ascended into heaven. Not many of us but we saw him. The two most outstanding things and yet Jesus has tarry till you be endued. You can't live on the emotion of it. That's the trouble with the most horrible thing I know that happens in evangelism today.

We don't value the human soul. When are we going to get serious about being serious about the most serious thing in the world the birth of people at the altar. I watched the close of a service in Dallas a few weeks ago.

At the end about 15 people came in four minutes. They said a prayer and gone away. Well my reaction to that brother was this I can't get my car through a car wash in four minutes. Can they pass from death unto life?

Can they put off the old man and put on the new man? As you Jews would figure can they get married to Christ in four minutes? Of course not. In fact when you read seven Pentecostal pioneers which everybody should read because it's still printed it tells you there that they had one place where they had meetings for three weeks and I forget the number something like 964 people came and everyone was dealt with personally.

We used to go to a city without money and pitch a tent and stay there 12 weeks the churches are still there 60 years after. But everybody came to the altar if you came I'd come with a Bible at the side of you and ask you what your problem was.

You wanted to be saved we took you through the scriptures. If we spend an hour, so what? I don't often watch TV. I watch a special there was a special about three years ago of all the things they were going to show on one of the what are they called now?

Well it was a special on animals the birth of a giraffe and I said to Martha well darling I want to see this. So anyhow the guy said now listen I've already gone through this once but let me show you.

And he brought in this female he said look her head is 14 feet from the ground which I thought was a long way. Now here's the male his head is 19 feet from the ground now watch. And he said I've been through this so watch.

And he said well bring the camera right in front of the giraffe. He said now look she's spreading her legs at the back and you see that black thing hanging that's a little baby and it's going to fall 5 to 6 feet according to the height of the animal onto a bed of straw.

So what's that got to do with the gospel? It broke my heart. Why? Because I watched that thing. And he said now watch the next now you see the little thing's coming now watch watch he said there and the thing dropped onto the big bed of straw.

And he said now this takes between 3 and 4 hours. And he said now watch. And the little thing tried to get up and it rolled over it tried again it rolled over it tried up again it rolled the other way.

Now watch carefully he said. And the next time it tried the mother put her hoof behind its backside and lifted it up and it stood up. And she turned round and nodded. And the little thing nodded. And he said that's almost 4 hours.

So I ran to the room to pray and mother said what's wrong? I said darling I said it takes 4 hours to get a baby giraffe born it doesn't take 4 minutes for someone to get born at our altars today. Oh well grandma said it mother once just stay a few minutes stay a few minutes in God's name.

What do you mean stay a few minutes? Was Gethsemane a few minutes? Was the temptation in the wilderness a few minutes? We're trying to get people I guarantee that not. 5 of people in America or England are genuinely born again of the spirit.

They're born again of a decision they give up a few lousy habits some of them and some of them don't they go right back. And then you tell you there's nothing in it. Dear brother I I was at a certain place I preached on a new birth I thought there was pretty much liberty and I said if any of you want this experience of birth in Christ come forward and then come down the aisle and go to the room on the right women go down on the left.

So there were about half a dozen in each group. Well that was that was 9 o 'clock and we stayed in that room till 10 and there was helping men and they were really broken before God then at 10 o 'clock there was a knock on the door and I said come in and here's the pastor and he said can I bring this lady in and will you pray with her.

I said well if you stay she's a big gorgeous looking blonde she knows when I hit the ground then she bursted and she said I want to tell you something Mr. Raymond. I said well tell me she said this is the 14th time I've come out for this.

I went to a certain Bible school for 3 years we had 3 revivals a year and each time I went that was 9 times and he said since then I've been to other meetings. Somebody slips their arm around me and says don't worry dear Jesus paid it all he knows when you said you're sorry that that's all that matters.

And I said that's not true and I said we'll stay with you while you really get a real relationship with God. So we stayed and she passed from death to life. How do I know. Because 2 years after I was passing the church she was coming out with a Bible and I said to her he said that's the woman you prayed for the last time you were here.

She's the best Bible teacher we have. The thing was before she got saved and back to Bible school days. She got married she got divorced she had a child. She had a broken heart a broken life. It would have been avoided if she got saved the first time.

But she didn't get saved. She made a mental decision. She wanted to be better. She wanted to go to heaven. But how many people really want to know. I mean isn't the essence of Christianity Christ in you the hope of glory.

There's no other religion in the world where a man's God comes and lives inside of him. And we made it appear as though if you get saved of course you're going to give up all your joys. You give up these crazy habits.

You don't go to movies. You don't go to ball games. Christ is all you want. But on the other hand what about peace that passes all understanding. What about a home eternal in the heavens. What about the eternal aspect.

We don't present that. I had two fellows in here the other week and they came from a certain. Well actually they came from Criswell Seminary and one of them said immediately I know how to put a sermon together.

I know how to get words together but I have no power. The other man burst into it. I said I just opened a paper and your picture's in there. He said. Well I didn't put it I said. But you're a preacher.

He said I had 300 people saved in the last three months. How do you know. And he hadn't an answer. Well he said I don't know. I've often wondered they'll come out and say a prayer and go out and live the same.

He said they don't. If they're born again you become a new creature if any man anywhere at any time being Christ. And there's no better example of that than Dave Wilkerson with all the people he covers unless I don't know.

If you know Jackie Pullington do you know Jackie. Well she was here to see me. And I mean she goes. She doesn't go out till 10 o 'clock at night. She goes to the gutters. She goes to the outcast. She goes to the prostitutes.

She goes to vendors who smoke opium for 50 years. She goes to women that have prostituted for 40 years. You've got to have a gospel. You can't give a mental flip to those people. And she stays with them until they're born again in the spirit of God as were the most amazing works in the world as far as I'm concerned.

But where are the people. I mean you add up all the people who made a profession of Christ in the last few years of our crusades. Or let me put it here. And then I quit. I had a veteran missionary from South America and he said before I came out by the way I was talking to a veteran missionary and he said brother if you add up all the crusades in South America and all the people everybody in South America has been saved 5 times in the last 15 years.

Well is it the same in this country. Are we talking about how many people came to the meeting. How many people came forward. Why aren't the churches increasing. I had a lawyer call me from one of the greatest churches in the country.

At least a thousand people walk down the aisle in our church every year. And after 3 years of doing that he said the church is still the same size. We still have the same seating capacity. The prayer meetings haven't grown.

There's no evidence except that these people come forward every Sunday. Why haven't they as I said to you earlier today brother the darkness of this day is the gift of the church to the world. The street meetings have gone dear God.

We've all kinds of ministries around here but Tyler goes to hell. How many churches do you have. The mega churches in Dallas. I guess you can't find one street. I spent 50 years of my life in street meetings.

Every Saturday night. I went out at 9 .30 till midnight and after every night whether it was snowing or raining or what. We went out to the same place and people came out of taverns and out of movie houses at 10 o 'clock and stayed an hour and two hours in the cold.

No air conditioned buildings. No nice no attractive singers. Just testament. I call one man said this man was in jail. This man used to run around with women. This man has a prison record. This man over there used to beat his wife in the transfer.

This girl was a prostitute. Put them up living flesh and blood. Nobody could argue. People would stand and say why you the only preacher in the town does this. I don't know except God told me to do it.

And I do it. Well that's where the lost people are. A man would be an idiot to buy a hundred dollar fishing gear and fish in his bathtub. And that's all we do in church. We're fishing with the same people every week and people are dying without God.

Evangelism, Missions, and the Lost

I'm glad dear brother. I was raised in a church where we had another preacher which was often boring. I devoured the Methodist in book eight eighty years ago and I can recite still dozens and dozens of hymns and one was a hymn by Andrew Bonner.

Go labor on spend and be spent. Thy joys do the master's will. It is the way the master went. Should not the servant tread it still. Men die in darkness at your side without a hope to cheer the tomb. Take up the torch and wave it wide the torch that lights down the thickest gloom.

I go to the prayer meeting. Somebody will pray that after that somebody will pray the prayer of one of the greatest of modern women there from India. What was her name. Amy Carmichael. Yeah. Thank you Amy Carmichael.

You know give me a love that leads the way of faith which nothing can dismay. I hope no disappointments. Tired of passion that will burn like let me not sink to be a clothed woman in way over a hundred pounds.

Make me die. Fuel flame of God. She never married. She took a one-way ticket to the mission field. People go now. There's plenty of money in our church. Oh we'd love you to come back for Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Do come back. So they break off and come back. They go back. They run to and fro. They have to go with a camera. They have to go with a load of stuff. You don't find the old fashioned missionaries going like they used to do.

Jackie went on a single ticket to Hong Kong when she was 19. She's 44. Now she's still there. She's shed a million tears. But she's had some of the greatest characters infamous characters saved there.

How many people come forward in your church. And you can go back afterwards and say well you came to the altar. What happened in your life. I think that everybody that comes to the altar we should visit them during the week and be sure that they did pass from death unto life.

Because what happens. They say well I've been out twice. I never got anything. Well they can't. Because what do you say mentally. I don't see any brokenness. I see kids come forward in a crusade. They're laughing and joining hands.

They go out and the first thing they do is stop at a hot dog place or something. They don't go home to grieve and read the word and find out if it's true. They go back full of jollity and they sing on the bus.

And we had a wonderful time. But what are we doing. The summer's gone the harvest has passed and we're not saved. Is that what you're saying. Yeah. Well I'm saying dear brother. I don't believe that we reach the conscience.

Like some people. Like one of the classic things Dr. Tozer used to quote to me often. He used to say well Len remember when our famous American preacher D .L. Moody went to London. The first day he preached he'd laugh at his Yankee clothes.

The second day they laughed at his style. The third day Cambridge University men were there laughing. And he stopped them and he said gentlemen laugh at my style laugh at my Americanism. But he said in God's name don't laugh at the word of God.

He says the word that I would just as soon handle fork lightning. But what happened here's an illiterate man. Comparative no education. He goes to London. He goes from London to Scotland where Alexander White was the king of the pulpit at that time.

And Alexander White sits on the edge of his chair with his mouth open. Well what has this man got. He doesn't know history too. Well doesn't quote scripture very correctly. But there's something about him so much so that across town there's a man I don't know if you know a book written by Henry Drummond the greatest thing in the world.

It was one of the greatest classics ever. And Alexander White says to Drummond come over and hear this fellow. We haven't done any findings. And they were spellbound. What would have happened if he had gone to London for three days.

He didn't. He went for eight months. He went to Scotland and there's still the tent hall is still there. I think they called it a tent hall because people came out of the tent the mood he had and went in that hall.

So also one of the greatest Bible schools ever Glasgow Bible Institute was founded because of that and the money was given to him. I'll tell you you talk about background. One of the most wonderful men I ever saw was C .T. Studd.

C .T. Studd's daddy used to buddy with the King of England. When I used to do in World War II I went to one of the largest air force camps in the nation and I had to go up a hill and to the right in the moonlight.

I could see this estate where C .T. used to live with a private race course. Well C .T.'s daddy went to London mixed up with all the society. Then he had about this Yankee preacher. Well let's go. Well when he got there somebody asked a man to pray.

While while what do you call him now. While Moody was on the platform going to preach they sang to him and said pray. And this guy went on and on and Moody jumped up and said let's sing a song while this fellow finishes.

So immediately they were happy. You know the guy wasn't tied up to formality. Well they listened and C .T.'s I think his father got saved there. As a result he took the three most famous cricketers in England.

C .T. was the English critic cricket. Well they went. And the whole society like that went. Well. C .T. joined up with the Cambridge Seven and went to China. I mean there's all kinds of things happened out of that one revival of an illiterate man that didn't care if they laughed at his clothes and everything.

And he received opposition. Well nothing happened like that until the 1920s or 26 or something like that when George.

Jeffries went to Holcruise in England and Stephen Jeffries had greater works than that and they go to a time without a penny and believe got to fill an auditorium with 3 ,000 people in a week and they did it and they weren't great expositors.

Brother Evan Hill. In Jeremiah the prophet says thus saith the Lord stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls but they said we will not walk therein.

Well going back. Brother Larry I said we've turned the light out in the street. We've no more street meetings. We've turned the light out Sunday night. Many churches have a Sunday night meeting Wednesday night.

That's the biggest tragedy. People say don't you think we should get the Bible back in school I said that's not the first problem. Get it back in the home. Why don't. How many people meet. Ask the deacons in your church.

Ask the pastor how many of you have family worship. They don't have it. As soon as supper's over they have to go and get on TV and leave it till the kiddies go to bed. They don't know the word of God.

I had a man here and his daughter came to bring me some mail. She's 14. I said well dearly how much scripture have you memorized. Oh I haven't memorized any. I said can he memorize the ten commandments.

He couldn't say the ten commandments. Two days after a young guy came he lives across town. He has seven children. The eldest boy is 13 he's memorized every word of every chapter in in Proverbs. And the other boy is 10 and he's memorized 12 chapters of Proverbs every word.

The man gets up with his wife at 4 to 4 .30 in the morning. They have an hour together with the word of God. They get the children up just after 5 and then teach them the word of God and prayer. And then the children have a rest and the mother teaches them the rest of the day.

She's home schooling them how they do it. But those little kids are walking Bibles. We don't know the word of God. Two things we don't know. In fact I say to the seminary men do you know God? Well I didn't know.

No. I answer yes or no. Oh I learned Hebrew. I didn't ask if you know Hebrew. Do you know God? You've asked 10 young people in your church to answer in less than 50 words. Why did Jesus come into the world to save us from hell.

To save us from sin. And so they go on. But what does Jesus say in John 17 2 that they may know thee the only true God. And that's the answer. We don't know God. If we knew God we'd set the world on fire.

If we knew God we wouldn't beg for money. We know things about God but we don't know God. We don't know God. But I want to tell you then in 1932 I preached in Swansea South Wales in a little upper room and there's a lady there with white hair and she said do you know my husband?

I said I didn't know. You had one. She said my husband is Major Russell. I said well who's Major Russell? In the British Army? No Salvation Army. She said would you come up come up and have a meal with us?

I said well this is a crusade and I only have Friday off. I said I'll take the bus and come up to places called Rovina. I'll come up Friday afternoon. She said well come and have some tea and we'll talk.

So here's a grey haired fellow sitting and I said well it's a privilege to come and talk with you. How old are you? He said well I'm 82. And he said I'll tell you some things that when you're my age I said I never lived to be 82.