Cost Of Discipleship - Part 4 — Leonard Ravenhill

Paul's Divine Calling and Preparation for Ministry

Go straight and that's the house. Isn't it great to know that God knows your name and address? Postman may forget it, but God knows it. And he goes down and says to him, Brother Saul, that must have startled him.

I mean, he was going to kill that man, and he goes and says, Brother Saul, the Lord hath appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister. And you know, only God can make you a minister, nobody else can do that.

They may teach you a few things in Bible school, but they never make you a preacher. The Lord hath appeared to thee. And then he disappears. He goes into the wilderness. God revealed himself in him. I hope you understand my language here.

Spiritual Birth and the Fruitfulness of Paul's Ministry

I believe in that period of three and a half years that Paul became spiritually pregnant. I believe the Spirit of God birthed all these epistles, which afterwards he would give birth to. I believe he birthed all those churches, because he writes afterwards, doesn't he, to the Galatians.

And he says, little children, for whom I travel in birth. You talk about, out of him shall flow rivers of living water. Fourteen epistles, if you give him Hebrews, and I think he wrote Hebrews as well.

Fourteen matchless epistles! I remind you again, Christianity was not served up to the world on a silver platter. Christianity was served up, or it was born in a sophisticated, totalitarian society. And yet, Jesus never said anything about slavery.

The Upper Room Versus Political Solutions

All these boys are rushing to Washington. They then put God's house right, but they want to put the White House right. The answer to our present moral and political and every other dilemma we have in the nation will not be solved in the Oval Room at the White House.

It will be solved, if it's solved at all, in the Upper Room in God's house. The way the preachers are rushing to Washington, you'd think that the politicians were the salt of the earth. They're not. They can't put their own house in order, never mind us.

God strictly forbid that Israel should go down to Egypt for help, and all these boys are rushing to the politicians. They want to get the Bible back in school. Well, I'm not too worried about that. I'd like to see the Bible back in every home.

Then forget the school. Some of us want the school teacher to do what Daddy and Mommy should do. Do you wonder when he'd surveyed the wondrous cross? I think we slip over that way. You ever see a surveyor on the road?

You know how meticulous he is? He gets that, well, there are many names for it. Let's call it a telescope. He gets it, then he looks, and they wave to each other, and he goes this way or that. Oh, a man's very, very careful when he does a surveying job.

The Cross as Paul's Comprehensive Vision

No man surveyed the cross, the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died like the Apostle Paul. My richest gain I count but loss. Yes, sir, he did it over and over and over again. After all, if you lay the cross on the ground, it points north, south, east, and west.

It has a message for the whole world. If you stand it up, it points to a topless heaven and a bottomless hell, and the arms, as Charles Wesley said, the arms of love that compass me would all mankind embrace.

Paul's Courage Before Kings and Rulers

Paul has no fear. Do you know what he did? I would, to God, some of you fellows would do it. Do you know what he once did? He said, I bow the knee to the Father, and because he bowed the knee to the Father, he never bowed the knee to anybody else, neither demons or politicians or kings.

He stood there, regal. Isn't it something that there's a man there, swarmed in his gorgeous robes and his beautiful rings, and all society gasping when Felix walks in? And before he finished, Felix's knees were knocking together.

It says, Felix trembled. He goes to one of the most distinguished men of the day, and what does he say? You almost persuade me to be a Christian. I'm on the very verge of it. Paul says, I would, to God, that you are even as I am, except for these chains.

Isn't that lovely? He has his chains on. The difference between Paul and the man on the throne, the man on the throne had chains, but they were on the inside. Paul's chains were on the outside. He had none on the inside.

Freedom From Fear and Identification With Christ

He was free, free from the fear of men, free from the fear of consequences, free from anything the devil might put on him or other people. From henceforth, he says, let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

I'm afraid that Paul would look with compassion and real pity on our feeble faith. I sometimes say this is a day of thin theology and fat preachers. And I'm sure it is. There's no sentimental Christianity with the Apostle Paul.

Beyond Forgiveness: Cleansing, Indwelling, and Surrender

There's no such thing as coming to the cross and just getting your sins forgiven. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. The man who only wants his sins forgiven is trifling with Christianity. He needs more than his sins forgiven.

He needs more than that horrid record. Maybe you sin enough to damn a thousand people. And God, in his infinite mercy, when you confess and you plead and you're broken-hearted and you're penitent and you repent, he takes that record and flings it into his eternal backyard.

It's like never to be remembered against us anymore forever. The man needs more than forgiveness. He needs cleansing. He needs more than cleansing. He needs indwelling. He needs to get to the reach of the bondage of sin.

He becomes a bond-servant of Jesus Christ. Now, I said Paul came to the intellectual capital where they worship the brain and he came down to Corinth where they worship the body. The continual talk in Athens was wisdom.

The continual talk in Corinth was wickedness. I don't read he sent out a letter asking for support to get there. I don't read he made reservations in the Holiday Inn or somewhere. This man is prepared to follow the step of Jesus every way, as far as possible.

Sacrificial Ministry Rather Than Monumental Buildings

Somebody said to a friend of mine recently who might be doing some building for God, he said, listen, let me give you a word of advice. Don't build anything that will embarrass you in a few years. That's a very good point.

I see God's money going in stately buildings and swimming pools and tennis courts and I want to vomit. With the world starving, with the mission field needing money, Paul attacks Corinth. Well, he doesn't go with his philosophical stuff.

He doesn't dazzle them with his knowledge. He says, listen, he begins the epistle, doesn't he, by saying, I'm not coming to you with enticing words of man's wisdom. Almost saying, I just tried that out at the last place and those philosophers and Stoics and Epicureans and others, they marvel, they open their eyes, they were staggered by what I said, but I didn't get through to them.

And so I'm going right back, back, back to the foundation. Some years ago there was a professor in America. His book has recently been republished. I think, I'm not sure if it was at Yale, no, Princeton.

The Limits of Human Medicine and the Need for a Deeper Answer

He was only in his forties when he contracted a terrible disease. His body began to droop, he began to shuffle. He tried to get an answer to his problem and he couldn't and so one day somebody said to him, you need to go to Paris, there's a doctor there.

Now this was when ships were slow, not even fast ships and certainly no planes. When he got to Paris somebody said to him, no, no, no, we don't have the answer. I think you'll find it in Geneva. And Geneva they said, no, we don't have the answer here.

The answer is in Austria. He got to Austria and somebody said, no, the answer is in France. He got to France, they said, it's across the channel in England. In England they said, no, no, no, we don't have the answer.

The physician who has the answer is there in Scotland. When he got there the physician said, I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to it. We've done some investigation but we've got no answer. Like our day we can diagnose cancer, we can't cure it.