Pure Heart, Pure Church - Part 3 — Leonard Ravenhill

Saul's Fall After the Spirit Departs

Me, for the Lord is departed from thee.". Isn't that something? Departed from who? From a man who had the anointing of the Holy Ghost and was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, but he died a suicide.

I heard a man say this week again in that same show, don't you worry, God will never forsake you. Doesn't matter, you may leave him, he won't leave you. That is entirely against the Scripture. If the Spirit troubles you this morning, thank God he's troubling you before you go to hell.

The Spirit will leave you, well this is what you can do with the Holy Spirit, accept him, resist him, grieve him, quench him. Now that's biblical, that's in my theology, isn't that right Brother Parrish?

The most miserable man in the world is not the man who's lost a million dollars or lost his memory or lost some other thing. The most miserable man in the world is the man that God has forsaken. Again I remind you that this King prophesied, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, he prophesied, but he died a suicide.

He propped his sword up in the ground and fell on it. And he wasn't completely dead, so who killed him off? An Amalekite. Why was he in this trouble with the Philistines? Because God said, God utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

The Sin We Refuse to Destroy

But he didn't destroy them, he kept the best he said for God. He didn't destroy the Amalekites, so the Amalekites destroyed him. If you don't let God destroy that sin in your life, that sin will destroy you.

Oh the people, I remember preaching in Australia and the pastor said, you see the man on the right there, that bald-headed man nearly at the back, yes. Do you know 15 years ago he was the most anointed man in the whole of this vast country?

And it is a vast country. Australia is wider from coast to coast than America is from New York to California. That man had traveled the country and left a blaze of revival behind him. But he trifled with sin.

And he was desolate, he's like a man without a country. Is there anything more desperate than a man without God? The whole highway of Christian living is strewn with has-beens. He has been a great preacher, he has been a great authority.

Neglecting Prayer, Discipline, and Worship

Shall I tell you the secret to backsliding? I'm sure you'd like to know. Neglect your devotional life and your prayer life. No man is greater than his prayer life, you don't care how many he talks to on TV.

I had three preachers in my office the other day. I nearly mentioned their names, I won't. All asking about the spiritual life. Before that, two students from one of the best seminaries or cemeteries, if you like, in Dallas.

What is the secret, Brother Rayneal, of stability? What is the secret of maturity? I'll tell you. Number one, every preacher that comes in my office has three weaknesses. One, he isn't disciplined. Two, he has almost no prayer life.

Three, he doesn't know a thing about worship. No, no, no, that's just where I am. Well then, before you leave seminary, if you don't want to learn to pray in seminary or any Bible school around here or anywhere else, you haven't learned anything as far as I'm concerned.

Jesus' Lesson on Prayer and the Devotional Life

Do you remember when the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, teach us to preach? No? What did they say? Oh, I see. Oh, well, it was Paul who said, preach without ceasing. Which some of us almost do, I think, sometimes.

Oh, it was James who said, when you're sick, preach to one another. There's nothing the devil will attack more than your devotional life. Forget everybody else. God doesn't make us in groups, he makes individuals.

David's Penitential Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm

There's nobody who could pray at one time like David, and yet here he prays this penitential prayer. Praising in agony. Again, he doesn't say, Lord, I'm at the top of the charts. As you know, I'm right at the top.

I mean, people are going down the street, clapping their hands and singing, Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. I'm number one on the charts. Oh, what an amazing man. What an amazing fluctuation in his life.

He wrote some of the most profound songs ever written. You would have to go to Scotland to hear people sing 23rd Psalm. They have about half a dozen tunes to it. One is called Crimin, that was born in my days, which is a long while back.

There's an older one, Brother James's Heir, that has a lovely lilt to it. They have about five different tunes to the 23rd Psalm. But you would have to go to Wales. Gwen isn't here this morning. She's of Welsh extraction, as we say.

I used to love to preach in Wales. Oh, mercy, how they would sing. And when they got blessed, they'd sing in tongues, the Welsh tongue. And boy, when they sang there, there was a mouse always came and ran up and down my back.

Oh, they were so tremendous. And one great hymn that they sang was this, This great God of wonders, all thy ways display thine attributes divine. But countless acts of pardoning grace above all other wonders shine.

Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? One of the greatest hymn writers ever, I think he wrote more hymns than anyone else, was Charles Wesley. He put his brother's theology to music.

Repentance Versus Religious Profession

We think sometimes that sinners are just the derelicts. Dear David goes, and he's going out again on Tuesday, pray for him, he'll be away two weeks. Meeting head to head, eyeball to eyeball, as we say, on the streets of Detroit just recently.

Crowds of young black Muslims there. People running forward before they could make an altar call. Kneeling at his feet, holding his feet, weeping at his feet. And he said, Len, you know, the most of them I talked to already had an experience of God years ago.

I was a Baptist, I was a Pentecostalist. What are you doing now? Prostituting. I say, sin doesn't appear to be sin anymore. Two weeks before when he was in New York, they'd just set up their music, was singing, a bunch of young ladies came around him and said, We love Jesus, Mr. Wilkerson.

You do? Yeah. They live in New York? Well, we weren't born here, we work in here. Where do you work? We're prostitutes. But we love the Lord. Isn't that something? They can live in their degradation and go to some house of worship and never be broken and contrite, for that's an awesome word that he says later when he says, the sacrifices of God.

The Broken Spirit God Accepts

Now let me step back a minute. He comes in all his disarray, morally, spiritually bankrupt, morally bankrupt. And he said, Thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Well, what way was there to God but sacrifice?

They brought the blood of bulls and goats. Or doves. Or the ashes of an heifer. But he says, Thou desirest not sacrifice. Oh, I'd be glad to bring the whole herd of cattle that I have if you'll accept it.

But you won't accept it. Why not? Because sacrifice without repentance is useless. That's right. What does he say? Thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. And then he says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

He mentions spirit three times. Just as he mentions sin three times in the first two verses.