Judgement Seat 1-31-91 - Part 1 — Leonard Ravenhill

Father, we thank you that we have access to the throne. We thank you for the old song that says, living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away, rising he justified freely forever.

One day he's coming, O glorious day. We thank you, Lord Jesus, you died, and you rose again, you ascended. We haven't much confidence in our prayers, but Lord, we're confident in the fact you're at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for this very meeting here in Anaheim this morning.

Lord, we say, have your way. Lord, let the truth we've already heard penetrate deeper than our heads into our hearts. Lord, I pray, give us a wholesale burial this morning. Let people die by the thousand in this meeting, and rise again in newness of life.

Let China feel this meeting this morning. Let Africa feel this meeting today. God, I pray, just get hold of people who from today will be slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us the vision that will never, never dim.

We give you praise in Jesus' name. I told Jackie she should have carried on. I noticed half the congregation's leaving, now I have to go. You see, the difference between Jackie's preaching, she leads the way, whereas we guys just point the way.

I said to her a few minutes ago, I wish about 50 of you guys that are slowly dying in that theological cemetery would get newness of life and go join their staff. I mean, go join their staff for six months, just as the janitor.

You'd learn a lot more than going to college. Yeah, but the trouble is you folks are clapping for somebody else, not for yourself. To make just one sweeping statement, it seems to me that Christianity began with the apostles and it's ending with the apostates.

An apostate is not a man who has wrong doctrine and he runs here and there. An apostate is somebody who comes up to the light and backs off from it. We have thousands of preachers in the country today who backed off from the truth that they really know.

I've got the most amazing message to share with you this morning. I would say it's not really a text so much as a message. It's the orphan, yes, okay, this subject is the orphan of our preaching and the Cinderella of our theology.

Don't get nervous with that. I preached on the judgment seat of Christ in a conference some years ago and I didn't know, I thought it was wonderful. I was having a great time. Then when I finished, I said, do you know how long you've preached?

They said, no, they said three hours and 30 minutes. I'm in training to go to Hong Kong. They have services last six and seven hours. Isn't that wonderful? Boy, if we had services like that, we'd need a miraculous.

We'd have to raise the dead. Okay, the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter six, verse 10 says, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that which he has done, whether it be good or bad.

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God. Let me read the first text for you, which is from the book of Revelation, chapter 20. Revelation 20, verse 11.

And I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it from whose face the heavens and the earth fled away and there was found no place for them. I saw the dead small and great. Notice he says, I see.

Read the book of Revelation, see how many times he says, I see, I see, I see, because he is a seer. Where did he see all this? I mean, God tears the clouds away, takes the veil off the future and he sees into eternity.

But he saw it on a prison island, a place called Patmos, which in the day of the apostle John was just a prison colony where they dumped the worst characters in the whole world. And it was there that God revealed himself to him.

You say the heavens don't open to me, they open for Stephen when he was battered to death, when his body was bloody and broken and suddenly the heavens open. We want heaven to open to us in a conference, but God most likely will take us to a place of persecution and privation.

Pentecost in the New Testament meant to be married to poverty, persecution, privation, prisons, pain. Today, Pentecost is married to prosperity and security and happiness, the very opposite of what it was originally in the word of God.

Jackie used the word this morning that hasn't been used the whole week, as far as I remember, and that's the word eternity. I have a sign in my office and everybody that comes in sees the sign first, Lord, keep me eternity conscious.

We talk very much and very often about Jonathan Edwards, maybe the greatest preacher America ever had. But remember, but for seven days, he prostrated himself before God. If forever, there was not moving of the spirit of God.

And do you remember his prayer? Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. And once he saw eternity, he never saw anything else. It's a very dangerous thing to pray because as Jackie said this morning, it's a very costly experience it's not watching a video, it's going through the process of being broken and remade and anointed by God.

Make me eternity conscious. One of the most forgotten characters in America, I think, is Stephen Grellet. That's G-R-E-L-L-E-T. If ever you see a book on his life or part of his life, read it. He was a French nobleman, he came to this country.

His father had vast wealth, his father was a friend of the King of France. He lived in Limoges, where they still make the most beautiful china in France. And he got into a Quaker meeting in America. John Wimber used to be a Quaker.

I don't know what he is now, but he used to be a Quaker. And so this young man goes into a meeting, he comes out, he walks in a field and at the side of the field, there's a forest. And suddenly the wind began to work in the leaves.

And he said, every leaf on every tree became a tongue and they all began to say the same word, eternity, eternity, eternity, eternity. He said, I fell on the ground like Saul of Tarsus. And when he got up, he was completely transformed.

He had what Jackie says, everything else was blurred. All he saw after that, every waking moment of his life was eternity. So what did he do? Organize, no siree. He went to the Wondrous Cross where the Prince of Glory died.

And he died to self, he died to ambition, he died to the throne of France, he died to prosperity. Do you know what he did? He walked into France, he walked over the Alps. He went to every country in Europe.

He walked over the Alps when he had to walk in time on his hands and knees because of the snow and the ice. He learned as many languages as I have fingers and toes. He sat in the gutter and learned languages from children.

He went into slave camps, he went into leper colonies. He even went to the Pope and everywhere he went, he had the same message of redeeming love, that that vision never blurred. I've read about that man, I still read about him.

I've read about him for at least 60 years. And every time I read, I shrink and shrink and shrink. Here is a man that had eternity in his eyes, but also he had eternity in his soul. So here is John on the Isle of Patmos.

Here's a paraphrase, I think by an American writer. I dreamed that a great judgment morning had come and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed that the nations had gathered for judgment before the white throne.

From the throne came a bright shining angel and he stood on the land and the sea and he swore with his hand raised to heaven that time was no longer to be. And oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost heard of their fate.

They cried for the rocks and the mountains. They cried, but their prayer was too late. The rich man was there, but his money had melted and vanished away. A pauper he stood at the judgment. His debts were too heavy to pay.

The great man was there, but his greatness, when death came, was left far behind. The angel had opened the records. No trace of his greatness could find. Then again, oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost heard of their fate.

They cried for the rocks and the mountains. They cried, but their prayer was too late. The gambler was there and the drunkard and the man who sold them the drink and the fellow who gave them the license and in hell they forever did sink.

The moral man came to the judgment, but his self-righteous rags would not do. The men who crucified Jesus passed off as moral men too. The soul that had put off salvation. Not tonight, I'll get saved by and by.

No time now for religion at last. He found time to die. And oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost heard of their fate. I'm sure there were hundreds of people this week have heard the voice of God and would not obey.

You see, there's a sense of independence in the world today. Oh, nobody's gonna push me around. It's a very wonderful age of science, isn't it? This is a stupid thing. We spend billions and billions of dollars financing men who explore archeology to find out where we came from that nobody knows where we're going.

So what's the good of going to UCLA to study some science like that? We don't know where we're going. I've often asked students, if you could live one day with Jesus, what day would it be? And you know, almost all of them say the same thing.

I'd like to have seen Jesus walking on the water or I'd like to see Jesus doing this. But one of the most amazing days is yet to come. You see, this world thinks that it left Jesus Christ behind 2 ,000 years ago.

I remember one day I was sitting in my office, the door burst open. I knew it's either a burglar or Keith Green. And it was Keith, he comes bouncing in, gives me a grab. Papa, he says, talk to me a minute.

And he said, I've just discovered all roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ. I've made a world of difference. We discussed that just a week before that. And he said, I've suddenly realized that all of us at all times, anywhere, we're going to the judgment seat of Christ.

You see, it must have been very wonderful when Jesus, when somebody said to Jesus, my brother's dead, well, don't worry about that. But he's been dead three days already. Well, don't worry about that.

So they went up to the cemetery. Like I'm preaching this morning to the cemetery, but anyhow. And have you noticed when he went to the cemetery, Jesus didn't pray for Lazarus, he just spoke the word. Have you noticed that when the man at the beautiful gate of the temple was twisted and distorted and he was a tourist attraction for 30 years.

Jesus passed him by, Peter passed him by, John passed him by, but one day in the plan of God, Peter and John go to him and they don't say, we got filled with the Holy Ghost yesterday, we speak in tongues, they just said, look on us.

And immediately he did that. They said, look on us as though by our power, our holiness, they wanted to get Jesus Christ's glory. But they didn't pray for him, they just spoke the word and he was delivered.

So they go to the cemetery with all the big shots there. And Jesus just says, can you imagine him standing there with all the critics, the Jewish theologians, the Romans and others looking on and there's a one man by himself.

And there's a stone and behind it, there's a man who's dead. And Jesus didn't pray and call down heaven and call down angels. He just speaks the word Lazarus. Boy, I'd like to know how he said it. Lazarus, come forth.

Do you know why he said, Lazarus, come forth? Because if he'd said, come forth, all the cemetery would have come. Because he was the resurrection and the life. And he says, Lazarus, come forth. And they said, what kind of a man is this?

We were on the sea the other day, the sea obeys him, the winds obey him, demons obey him. We've seen people go demon possessed. I don't, how many of you were here yesterday that brother, what's his name, Foster?

Did you hear Foster? How many of you raised your hand? Aren't these Englishmen wonderful preachers? After all, Jackie's from England. She doesn't wear a pigtail. If I go to Hong Kong, I'm gonna wear a pigtail.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't ask my wife. But boy, it was wonderful yesterday to listen. I mean, know what happened a hundred years ago is emphasis on prayer, is emphasis on street meetings, is emphasis on rescuing the perishing and care for the dying.

Some of you men are pretty stupid, I know, but you don't fish in your bathtub, do you? Preachers go fishing every Sunday in the same church, the same bathtub. There's people going past the street, model lepers, lame, incurable, blind, demon possessed.

You see, we can't, you know, we have not exported Christianity. We've exported American Christianity to other countries. We've exported English Christianity and it's been bankrupt a hundred years. How many go in the power of the Spirit?

When you go to the bookstore, I suppose you will, there's a little set of books there, or there's one book you could get on the ministry of John Lane. Have you read the ministry of John Lane? He had a hundred thousand certified healings he raised the dead.

He had some of the most amazing movings of the Spirit of God in Africa. This is a crisis hour in history for America. As I said, Monday night. Now, Jesus pinpointed this hour in which we live. He says, I'll tell you where we are.

He says, as it was in the days of Noah. Well, what were the days of Noah? Look at the sixth chapter of Genesis, verse 11. It says what? The earth was filled with violence. Is it filled with violence now?

There's a man there can put his finger on a button and wipe out maybe half of the American army. The earth is filled with violence. As we heard this morning, you can't walk down some streets, you get murdered.

And the earth was corrupt before God. Isn't it amazing that men up in Washington are accused of dabbling with millions of dollars. And when you bring them for justice, say, well, everybody does it. Isn't that comforting?

To know all those guys are sharks up there. But this is the most critical hour in American history, in world history. And maybe the answer to it is here this morning. If God can open our eyes. I read Hebrews 11 and it crushes me.

I get charged with preaching sinless perfection because I believe Jesus Christ gives us victory over sin. I don't have to be a victim of sin, I'm a victor over sin. I can have the world, the flesh and the devil under my feet.

We're more than conquerors through what? Our theology, our gifts of the spirit, no more than conquerors through him. Here's a guy bringing his lunch or his supper. Can you imagine going to a meeting in China where they bring meals in?

I think you're insulting God. So throw it on the floor. But anyhow, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. There's a dying world out there. It's damned, it's doomed, it's dying, it's blind.

Is there anything more cruel than putting a blind man on a road when you know he'll fall in a pit a hundred feet up the road? Well, that's what civilization is going to do. We made a full wheel to come right back today to slavery.

There are more slaves in the world at this moment than any period in history. But we're volunteer slaves. Some of you Christians have voted to smoke yourself to death. Men in the street have voted to get venereal disease and some other thing.

We've got slaves, but we've got slaves in the sanctuary and God needs to deliver us. Okay, Jesus goes and says there, Lazarus come forth. How did he come forth? He was bound hand and foot. He comes out like this, you know, shuffling along.

What's the next thing? Loose him and let him go. Some of you have been shuffling for 20 years. You're still bound, you're still gagged. You didn't testify, you didn't sacrifice. And God came here to liberate you.

Okay, let's go back again. We're gonna look at Lazarus. Come forth and he comes forth. Now what does Jesus say to him? Oh, oh, oh, I wish I'd seen you the other day. I wish I'd seen you when you opened the eyes of the blind.

Bartimaeus on the road. He's another tourist attraction. Now we've lost him. I wish we'd seen his miracles. And Jesus says this. Listen, there is coming a day in which all who are in the graves who hear the voice of God, at the voice of Jesus Christ, they will rise, every one of them.

Every person that died away there from Adam right down to the final moment. Again, as Jackie said, it depends what you see. If you read that marvelous, wonderful Hebrews 11, I can read that. You know, people say, again, I preach sinless perfection.

I do not. I believe victory over sin. Okay. Oh, well, the argument is you need a little bit of sin to keep you humble. Why not have a lot and be real humble? I don't know sin that will do you any good.

I don't know sin that will bring you to maturity. It will bind you. It will keep you from maturity. It will keep you from vision. So go back to Hebrews 11. What's it about? Vision. The scripture tells me Cain built a city.

John saw the city. Abraham looked for a city. Who's builder and maker is God? But there's another man there. A man who lived in a house worth millions of dollars. He was a statesman. Read the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

And before ever God came on to Moses, it says he was mighty in Egypt because he was a statesman, it said, that Moses, even before God touched him, he was a statesman. Now he wasn't an orator because he, what did he do?

He stammered, but he was a lawmaker. And then suddenly he turns his back on the richest family in the world. And instead of having a seven course dinner and people just bowing to him, he runs out in his robe and he's still wearing the same robe 40 years after.

It's all torn and tattered with chasing after sheep. There's a wonderful man. You'll hear him at the conference someday by the name of Carter Conlon. He's up in Canada. He's the most anointed man I know in the world, maybe today.

What did he do? He gave up his career in the police force, the criminal section, and he went on the mountain for four years. Dear God, how dare you go for four years? Some of you can't live four hours without your TV.

I hope they'll bury it with you. You'll need it where you're going, but anyhow. And there that beautiful man is. He's been on the mountains four years with God. He's learned the ways of God. He's come back ministering every week in the anointing of the spirit of God like nobody I know today.

But we don't like loneliness. We like the crowds. Jesus spent 30 years before he ministered. John the Baptist was with wild beasts 30 years. Loneliness is the test. Jesus says, all who are in the graves.

Can you imagine that? Nobody knows how many millions of people are there. And let me say that a minute again while I want to emphasize it, that God has an emphasis there. Moses has a career coming up.

But why did he, what did he leave? Moses, you've left the treasure. You've been here three years, 20 years, 30 years. You could have been going down main streets in a chariot. Everybody by the name saying his majesty Moses.

And here you are in the backside of the desert with his stinking sheep. What are you doing here? It says he forsook Egypt. Now listen, he esteemed the reproach of Christ. What do you mean? Not the kingdom of Christ, not the glory of Christ.

One day God pulled the skies back and he saw, what did he see? He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater than all the treasure of Egypt. Because he had respect unto what? The recompense of the reward.

Do you remember a song we used to sing a few years ago? It'd be worth it all when we see Jesus. Don't you think it will? Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase.

So bravely run the race. You see the Apostle Paul sat down one day. You read the last verses of the fourth chapter, the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. What does it say? Our light affliction which is but a foment.

In God's name, what does he mean our light affliction? Read the 11th chapter. In weariness, in fastings, and night and day in the deep. In perils of mine own countrymen, in perils of the deep. In perils of false prophet.

And then he uses one word that covers acres of suffering. He says in deaths oft. What does he mean in deaths oft? There's a time when he died to sin, but also he says I die daily. That's the killer, isn't it?

You can make a vow in here and before you get out, the devil will say come down from the cross and you save yourself. That's the perennial challenge of the devil to the believer. Come down from the cross.

Why should Jackie give up fame and fortune? She's gone out now. She wasn't insulted. She had an appointment. If she'd run out, I'd have shouted after her. She had to go. But Jackie could have been a married woman in England, married to some society.

She'd come from a very high class family. And there she plunged into a ghetto, one of the rottenest places in the world. And she has no children. She has hundreds of children. But you've got to keep your eye on the ultimate.

I'm looking at God. The city who's builder and maker is God. Moses forsakes everything. He doesn't write a story about it. Because he said, I've seen the ultimate. I'm looking at that day that Jesus Christ is gonna come in his majesty and his glory.

Millions of people in thousands of churches have said hundreds of times, thy kingdom come. Ask them what it means. Do we believe one day he's gonna rule the whole world? Every government will be under his dominion?

Do we believe there's a city that has no curse? It has no impurity. It has no cheating politicians. It has no vice. It has no corruption. Everything is pure and holy. That's the city of God that dear old, who was the guy who wrote the city of God?

Augustine, thank you. Did you know him personally? Okay. Augustine. You know, my dear old friend, Dr. Tosser, he's a marvelous man. How many of you read Tosser's books? How many of you haven't? Good, well, buy them, but buy mine first.

But I never met a man who had an intimacy with God like Dr. Tosser. I spent many hours with him in prayer. And he had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a little man with a narrow face and small shoulders and a bit knock-kneed.

And he said, you know, Brother Leonard, I go down the seat, I see a donkey. He said, I wave to it and say, hey, brother, I know you, what you like. I have a long face too, so. But he had an intimacy with God, which was most amazing, I thought.

He never shifted in any shape or form from moving towards that great city. Okay, the day is coming in which all are in the graves. Can you imagine that? 16 million perished in World War I. 15 million perished right after it with an epidemic of flu that swept the world.

How many men are gonna die in this war? I don't know, and I hope not many. But they're gonna come out of the Roman Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, every other empire, everybody that's in the grave, at the voice of the Son of God, they're gonna rise and come forward to judgment.

Do you think that Teddy Kennedy ever dreamed he'd stand there with billions of people looking on and see Jesus Christ? You see, we'd rather sing that lovely hymn, wouldn't we? That little hymn of John Wesley's, Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.

Do you know that hymn? I sang that at my mother's knee from until I was 10 years of age. And I'm just gonna look a minute here. I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it. Jackie was talking about vision.

Do you ever vision the Christ you're gonna see, not gentle Jesus, meek and mild? Here's what he's like when you see him. It says in Revelation chapter one, I turned to see the voice that spake with me and I saw seven golden canvases.

Here is Jesus Christ, no longer a little boy, no longer smacked in the face, no longer somebody spits on him, no longer somebody pulls his beard. You sang it, every knee shall bow. Were you singing a bit of a lovely song?

Oh, hail the power of, oh, that with yonder sacred throng we at his feet may fall. When the most ultimate glories will be when we see Jesus Christ and every knee shall bow. If the Catholics were gonna be judged by the Pope, they might get away with it.

If the Buddhists were gonna be judged by the Buddha, they might get away with it. Confucius, we're gonna get judged by Confucius, they might do it, but no, so the Buddha is gonna bow the knee to Jesus.

Confucius is gonna bow the knee to Jesus. Every knee shall bow, every king. Who is this man despised and rejected of men? What does Paul say to Timothy? He gives Jesus a little cabin all of his own. He says, Jesus is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.