A Man of God - Part 5 — Leonard Ravenhill

Revival Requires Sacrifice Rather Than Advertisement

No hazardous batteries. They kept a, what they call a pot under the bed, and they'd always empty it, and people would run out, throw it from the window, and throw urine on them. And they say, we kept two coats.

You kept an older one with eggs, and you went home and scraped them off, and then you put your Sunday best on. And he said, Bert, he said, who cares when there's revival? As I said to you, you don't have to advertise a fire.

Colonel Bringle was the biggest orator in America, and I don't know who it was, but the multimillionaires offered to build him the biggest church in America, give him the biggest salary if he would stay.

He said, I'm going to London. Why? Because there's a fire. There's a man called William Booth who was a Methodist. They got rid of him, and he's having revival, and he went and had revival. And he gathered all kinds of people to him, but the secret again.

Prayer Meetings and the Glory of God's Presence

But they had a burning. You went in a prayer meeting, you know, you felt the glory, the majesty of God, and now you don't do that. Like I was with the team not long ago. Well, before the meeting at night, we went in a side room, and they'd hot tea, and cold tea, and drinks, and fruit, and everything, and trivia talking, and straight off there to the platform.

How do you suddenly turn off, and suddenly become spiritual? We traveled the country, but I walked the length of England. I walked the breadth of England with five college fellows. We slept in fields at night.

We slept in churches. We didn't get a penny wage in six months, and nobody ever said a word. Because at night, we'd kneel in the street at ten and eleven o 'clock at night, and people get saved in the street.

You don't care at home where you sleep. We slept in sleeping bags for three years. Slept on the floor of churches, anywhere they'd take us in. But we had revival. The churches are still standing today.

Human Effort Cannot Manufacture God's Power

But now, I go to a meeting, and everybody's silly. Oh, nice to see you. And they want to talk. I say, leave me alone. We went, brother, we had a solid hour of prayer together, eleven o 'clock to twelve in the morning.

Then we had a bit of a rest in the afternoon, and mostly went to prayer. Then we had a prayer meeting one hour before the night service. Went on the platform, charged with the power of God, and full of expectation and faith.

And night by night, the elders were lined with people. We don't do that today. We've got Miss So-and-so. She's number one on the chart. We've got so-and-so. And it's humanism. We're depending on something we have.

I mean, you clap. You go to one charismatic meeting. You've been to them all. You stand and sing for 30, 40 minutes. We're trying to work something up, and God has to send something down. I can remember, dear brother, when you went to a holiness meeting in England or Pentecostal, there were more people at the altar before the service than after.

I used to fear going when I was 14. I used to go. My dad used to take me to a Pentecostal meeting, and a whole row at the throne before. And I'd be praying with energy and crying to God. One old man particularly said, come Lord and walk in our midst.

And I used to think, I hope he doesn't, because I'm scared to death he would. But God used to come in the meeting. And then at the end, he didn't have to beg and sing emotional songs. There's room at the cross.

Dying to Sin and Pursuing Holiness

I said, forget it. There's room on the cross. Forget there's room at the cross. Get on the cross. And as Tozer said, a man going down the road with a cross, he knew one thing about him. He wasn't coming back.

How people don't want to die. There's only two kinds of people in the world. Those who are dead to sin, and those who are dead in sin. And we're in one of the two. In fact, you talked about victory. They laugh at you.

Oh, you can't live in victory. Well, then why don't you be a Buddhist to somebody? What do you do with somebody that says, look, I don't just want to get sick. I want to be pure in heart. You can't be pure in heart.

Who says so? One of the latest books off the press says you can't. Who cares a hell of a thing? What does the word of God say? What did Jesus say to the bad woman that came to him? Go and sin less. He says that to a woman who's been spending an immorality before the cross.

What does Paul say? Let him that stole steal less. No sorry, it's cut off. What we need in America, dear brothers, is more than ever, we need people to go forth with a new birth message. Forget all about tongues.

Forget all about miracles and signs and wonders in case they're not happening anyhow. Let's get back to real genuine conversion. Why? Most of our kids, our teenagers, they go to a Christian camp. Well, Christian camps are so much better than others.

Christian Modesty and the Failure to Teach Holiness

I mean, I had a missionary here, one of the few men I really respected in the world. He came from India and he came through Hawaii. So he went to a very famous Bible school there. What do you think of it?

He said, well, he said the girl's shorts were so bad when they came toward me. I was disgusted. When they went the other way, it was worse. So he said to the world famous leader, you've no dress code here.

He said, what do you mean? He said, well, the girls come towards me. He said, you can't tell their shorts on, they're so short. When they go the other way, they're terrible. And the reply he got from the famous leader was as long as their cheeks are not showing, they're all right.

So as a girl's backside to be showing, you can't even not preach holiness. You can't preach modesty these days because kids are used to getting saved and going straight back to the old way. They go mix mate, mix mate in some of the meetings around here.

They'll have two missionary groups go to wet and wild. But what do guys want to stand with half naked women, women in bikinis or as near as they can to that. I had a man came to see me a few weeks ago and he said, he'd been to a minister near here.

And he said, I went to the meeting last night. It was very good. They enjoyed it. But then he said this morning, they said to a meeting at a swimming pool. He said, there was my wife for the first time in her life.

My five children saw the mother almost naked standing in a pool. And I realized this is not for me. And he left it. And another man left not after. And he said, if you can't have modesty, where can you have it?

Historic Revivals Were Sustained by Prayer

And they don't want to pray. They have no appetite for prayer. But the old salvation only thrived on prayer. The greatest revivals in history, Shang Tung revival. When Monson was there and the woman that died last year, 100 years old, Bertha Smith with the Southern Baptists.

She was born again. She was filled with the Holy Ghost in that revival. And they expected God to move in phenomenal ways. They didn't advertise it. You don't have to advertise it. What we need is God in the midst.

If God is in the midst, a lot of our stuff would never take place. Just let God come. His very presence. That happened in the Welsh revival. You know, when you go to a revival now, the big guy gets up, they sing, then Bev shares, somebody's going to sing, then something else.

And it's all programmed beforehand. How can God come in? But one of the things that I, as I said, I went with that man who, that Welshman who went through the revival with William Booth. But then I said, what about the Welsh revival?

Evan Roberts and the Welsh Revival

He said, I'll tell you what happened in the Welsh revival. He said, I was with William Booth in his office. We were having meetings in London. And somebody said to me, no, my wife, revival is broken out.

There's a young man in his twenties, Evan Roberts, and he's packing everywhere he goes. He won't even let them publicize him. He won't let them put his picture in the paper. They'll just announce he's coming to Swansea and every church in town is filled because they don't know where he's going.

So he said, well, I knew Friday afternoon I had, I could leave Friday afternoon and that Saturday free, and I can come back Sunday and get to the office for Monday morning. So I said, I went, that meeting was crowded.

In one meeting, Evan Roberts comes in, there's 800 people, which isn't big for America, but there it's the largest hall in town. And Evan walks down to the front seat, sits down, bows his head and prayed for three hours.

Our people walk out. But then he stood up for 15 minutes. He said, you know, her not like it in your life. The Holy Ghost came upon him. He was a big man. When he prayed, God just came down as he jumped in the audience.

And that happened more than once. But he said, once I did that young man. And of course, the world's can sing like nobody on earth. God knew that great deal, but these are the great hymns. And he said, at the end of the meeting, he said, the meeting was no, no, no, no, no, no.

He just, after he'd prayed for three hours and spoke for 15 minutes, he went out. At 10 o 'clock at night, he prayed the whole night for the anointing for the next day. Our guys don't do that. They go sit and talk and say silly jokes.

Spiritual Power Demands a Decisive Break With Carnality

We want to be spiritual and carnal, spiritual, carnal, hot and cold, all out for God, all out for the cowboys. God says no. And you've done it for 25 years. Why not quit? Start something different. OK.

So then he said, I stayed the first day. Boy, he said, I was hope. Here's this young man preaching like nobody had ever preached in my life. Praying as nobody had prayed.