Two Words — Leonard Ravenhill

Elijah's Life Condensed to Prayer

There are many great biographies written in two volumes, dedicated to two great lives of William Booth, the founder of the South Asian army, in two great volumes. The life of the founder of the China Inland Mission is given in two great volumes, and as a writer I don't think it's very difficult to condense the life of a man into two volumes, but it's rather difficult to condense the life of a person, particularly a man who stands as a giant in history, into two simple words.

And God has done exactly that, because he says of this amazing man Elijah, he prayed. Elijah, the anointed of God, he's been in the secret place of the most high, he comes on the stage of full-grown men, he shuts up the whole nation, starves the economy, terrifies the king.

Prayer as the Measure of Greatness

I don't believe that any man is greater than his prayer life. I don't believe that any church is stronger than its prayer life. I was in a very famous college not long ago, and God was on that meeting that morning, and I just stepped round the podium and I said to all the brilliant doctors of divinity and all the other scholars that were there, I want to ask you a simple question.

You have hundreds of students that are going into the ministry, you have a course on weeping, and if they graduate in weeping, do you have a course on howling?

There's a stony silence.

What would you think if people gave a blind man a license to drive an automobile? You'd say that's insanity. We give boys in college a certificate to stick on the wall, to prove that they're preachers, just because they know the Word of God.

Knowing God Rather Than Merely Knowing Scripture

But they do not know the God of the Word. I think so often of the disciples, I guess you do, you read about them. I think of them coming to Jesus and saying, Lord, teach us to pray. I wonder why they never said, Lord, teach us to preach.

Christianity Rejected Through Prayerlessness

He preached the greatest sermon the world has ever had. He's got the answer for our day. Christianity has not been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Christianity has been tried, founded, because and rejected.

Christianity is not only too difficult for the world, it's too difficult for the church. God's problem in the world is not communism, Romanism, Moonism, or any other ism. God's problem in America is dead fundamentalism.

The Church's Excess of Knowledge and Lack of Prayer

We know all the cliches. We know all the words. The nation is drowning right now in theological knowledge. There are millions of cassettes. There are hundreds and hundreds of seminars. I'm thinking of having a seminar on teaching seminars.

Prayer as Standing Before God for Others

The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. I would rather pray than be the greatest preacher in the world. Preaching, we stand before men on behalf of God. Praying, we stand before God on behalf of men, which is the greatest.