(Clip) Lukewarm Christians — Leonard Ravenhill

Salvation Beyond Confession

90 of the people in the nation are not saved. They claim to be. Well, I went to an altar and I confessed my sins. Fine, fine. That's what the preacher said. You confess your sins and you confess them.

Forgiveness, Cleansing, and Indwelling

Do you know they did that in every Roman Catholic church in the country last Sunday? A man needs more than to be forgiven. He needs cleansing. He needs more than cleansing. He needs indwelling. He needs more than indwelling.

What Salvation Must Save Us From

He needs undoing. If I were to ask you tonight, you're saved. Do you say, yes, I'm saved. When? Oh, so-and-so preached, I got baptized. What are you saved from? Hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust?

Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners? Are you saved from rebelling against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from? I'm not asking you tonight, did you one night kneel down and make confession?

The Evidence of a Transformed Life

And after that, your life was no change. Your lifestyle was no different. Your appetites were no different. Your prayer life was no different. Come on. Isn't it offensive to say to people, listen, you may be a genius.

You have a colossal intellect. If you fall out of bed, you invent something. But do you know right in the center of you, you're dead. Because you've no living relationship with God. Now there are two kinds of people in the world, only two kinds.

Dead in Sin or Dead to Sin

Not black and white, not rich and poor. There are those who are dead in sin, and there are those who are dead to sin. If I say most people are half saved, will you know what I mean? I mean this, you go to the cross, but you never get on the cross.

You go and get your sins forgiven and feel happy. And you go do the same lousy thing again the next day. Come on, what kind of a salvation is that? The miracle of the new birth is this, that when a man is really born, when he gets this life, he doesn't want that life.

Setting the Mind on Things Above

Okay, so Paul says, if you have risen with Christ, or you've been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not things on the...

Come on, come on, come on you fellas now. Okay, you're saved. And yet I guess you talk more about baseball than you talk about Jesus, is that right? Hmm? Do you know why you need entertainment? Or any of us.

You only need entertainment when you've lost the joy of the Lord. Listen, are you just a Sunday morning Christian? Do you live and move and have your being in Jesus Christ every waking moment of your life?

Has he got your thinking? But look at his figure for a moment. Here is a man stretched on a cross. As soon as that man is nailed to the cross, he has no rights of his own. You can take a bucket of filth and throw it over him.

The Total Surrender Portrayed by the Cross

You can take a stick if you like and break his legs. You can have a game of pitching rocks and you knock his right eye out, I'll knock his left eye out and so forth. He has no rights. He can be battered and bleeding and broken.

I remember going through India, there were birds that were this height from the ground. They have about an eight foot wingspan. They keep their necks in until they fly and then out comes this long neck with no feathers.

They look hideous. Their beaks, oh, they must be this length. Huge curved things. Do you know what they do? They go onto the arms of the cross as the light comes up, daylight. And those big hideous things reach down and peck out the eyes if they're still there.

And they tear the body. And it becomes bloody and the entrails run out of the man and the blood runs on the ground and the dogs come out of the city to drink of the blood. Even a woman who saw her husband crucified would never go back in the morning.

The World Crucified to the Believer

You didn't see a woman with her arms around a bleeding, horrible, wretched form of a man saying, Darling, I love you. And Paul says, That's what the world is to me. It's a system of corruption and rottenness and vileness.

It's anti-Christ from the world go. Is the world crucified to you tonight? Or does it fascinate you? Oh, I'm coming down the line. I mean, Jesus isn't looking for some sissies to serve him. He's looking for some men with guts and men with grace and men with determination.

Costly Experience and Radical Obedience

You still comfortable to sit in a ballpark and say, Here, somebody take the name of Jesus in vain? Look, if you haven't got a hold of this, get a hold of it now. You can't impress God. Let me tell you this.

An experience of God that costs nothing does nothing. And it's worth nothing. What the church has had in the last 25 years has not moved this nation or this world to God. It's time for something new. And God wants some men who are really drunk, intoxicated with the Spirit of God, who have a love life with the Lord Jesus, that he can ask anything of you and you'll do it.

From Being Challenged to Being Changed

Well, how many of you guys are eating up with lust? You women eating up with jealousy, with pride? Or is it just chronic laziness? You've no appetite for this love letter of God's. You know, I hear people go to conferences, meetings, and they say, Boy, that was good.

Boy, were we challenged. Every meeting, we were challenged. And the question isn't were you challenged. The question is were you changed. I'm going to ask you a simple question tonight. How many of you are here tonight?

Examining Whether Christ Dwells Within

You've come from many parts, and I'm asking you to keep your eyes closed, not look around. How many of you say tonight, I do not know that Christ lives in me. Christ is not indwelling me. I know that.