Be Still by Leonard Ravenhill — Compilations

The Anointing of God Cannot Be Bought

I thank God many, many times on my knees for the incorruptible Holy Ghost. You can do almost everything in America with a checkbook, but you can't buy the anointing of God. You can put up buildings, you can have a swell ministry, you can get on TV, you can get millions out of people, but they're prerogatives with God.

Amy Carmichael's Sacrificial Missionary Life

Some of you young ladies wish you were young men, I guess. No, you don't, but... You know, some of the greatest characters. I preached in a little church, not as big as this room, in Belfast, which has been blasted off the earth nearly with bombing in the last few years.

Behind me was a picture of a lady with lovely, lovely hair and a choker collar on, and the sweetest smile. And underneath they put the name of the lady she worshipped in this church. Do you know who she was?

Amy Wilson Carmichael. She got a one-way ticket, which was the old-fashioned way of missionaries. Get a one-way ticket, not coming back. She had a curvature of the spine. For 35 years they had to lift her in and out of bed.

For the last five years she was as impotent as a child, almost. Normal functions, that's all. And yet she wrote some of the sweetest things. One of them said this, From subtle love of softening things...

This is the lady on the back. From easy choices, weakenings. Not thus are spirits fortified. Not this way went the crucified. Let me, frail little woman, let me not sink to be a clod. Make me thy fuel, flame of God.

Loving God Through Passion for Souls

All for a passionate passion for souls, all for a pity that yearns, all for a love that loves unto death. That's the love of God. The love you say you have, you say He loves you. That's not the point.

How much do you love Him? I told you about that sick lady, bald-headed, there in the hospital. In California, that a few weeks ago some people went in to see her. She's been there, suffering I don't know how long.

People that go in the room are just gripped by the majesty of God. This little woman has had people going in. Doctors have come in from other hospitals. And she lies there and she's radiant with God. Has no hair because of her suffering with cancer.

And she said, Jesus appeared at the end of my bed a little while ago. And He said to me, you know, I love my bride. I deeply love my bride. I could take her home today. I've just one problem, she doesn't love me.

Love Demonstrated in Deeds

Oh, you love Him in words. Jesus said, you don't love me in words, you love me in deeds. It's easy to sing, sing, go the whole realm of nature, minding God's name, don't sing lies. If you won't give Him what you've got, do you think He's going to trust you with more?

The Crucifixion of Self-Interest

You'll be as selfish if He gives you ten times as much as you have now as you are now. He has to do a miracle in us. He has to dethrone that little monster that's worse than the devil almost. And that's self.

Self-interest, self-pity, self-seeking, self-glory, self-righteousness. Every one of them has to be crucified. Not in success if so, but one deal of God in crucifixion. A man was never re-crucified.

We don't want to die. We want to be blessed, we want to be held. We pray sometimes, oh Lord, if you don't do something, you know, if you don't use me, you're missing the best thing on earth. I mean, your kingdom will never go forward unless you really harness me up.

And to some degree that may be right. But the thing is to be still. Excuse me, I'll quote you another hymn. It's about little Samuel. Hushed was the evening hymn. The temple courts were dark. The lamps were burning dim before the sacred ark.

Samuel's Calling and the Failure of Eli

When suddenly a voice divine rang through the silence of the shrine. The old man, meek and mild, the priest of Israel, slept. His watch, the temple child, the little Levite kept. And what to Eli's sense was sealed, the Lord to Hannah's son revealed.

The leading man of the nation is asleep as most of our big preachers are now. They can shout their heads off Sunday morning, I won't listen to one of them. Our Elis are sitting on the gate. Their backs slidden, they've lost their power and their anointing.

Hannah's Praying and the Birth of a Prophet

And so God is finding Hannah's child. She prayed for a child. Do you think that child was normal? She prayed for a child. No, she didn't. What did she pray for? A man child. What did she get? A man child?

No, she didn't. She didn't get a little girl. What did she get? She got a prophet. God did more than she could ask or think. Do you know why? Because when she went day after day and even year after year.

Praying. And praying through her pregnancy. The old priest is there saying she's drunk. Well, bless God forever. The church never does anything when it's sober anyhow. I wish we'd all get drunk. Intoxicated with God's spirit.

Hannah has to go and everybody is ridiculing her and her sisters and others. You'll never be pregnant. You've been like a stone for years and years. It says she went year after year. But one year she went and she was pregnant.

God gave her a man child? No, he gave her a prophet. Through her tears. It says she wept. She wept until she was sore. And she wept until she poured her heart out. Like Jesus did in Gethsemane. There is no birth without praying.

That's why our prayer meetings are so small in churches. This barren woman brought forth a miracle child. He was what? A prophet. In the 30's of Exodus it is. Rachel comes down one day. Her hair isn't all beautiful.

Rachel's Desperate Cry for Children

She hasn't got her best dress on. No designer stuff on today. She throws herself at the feet of Jacob and says, Give me children or I die. Do you know what God will use you? When you die. When you toss your petty plans to the skies.

Dying to Self and Accepting Ridicule

When you dare to be ridiculed and criticized maybe in a school. I went to a Bible school. There were only 35 men there. We hadn't been there a month when the old boys said, You're going to get ravenil and lown and yo.

Three holiness men. So what's wrong with that? Because we didn't go to movies. We didn't go to other things. God will start moving on your life when you're totally severed from this world. From all of its pleasures, its pomp and its pride.

Other things can do it. God isn't making them. He's making you. He'll ask you to pay a price nobody else is going to pay. Men were never crucified in dozens. One at a time. I can hear that sweet little voice of Dr. Sosa saying to me again, You know Len, people are so afraid to trust God.

So afraid to die. Let me wind this up. The God of the host. Boy, that'll be wonderful to see them on it. Join in the everlasting song and crown him Lord of all as we sing. But he's the God of Jacob. The twister, the deceiver.

Jacob's Wrestling at the Jabbok

I only admired Jacob for one thing. He got one on his uncle who was smarter than he was. And he licked his uncle for once. That was good. But do you remember he went over to Brook Jabbok? Find an old Methodist hymn book.

Do your good. Charles Wesley had a hymn with about 15 standards. It's called Wrestling Jacob. You remember suddenly somebody seized hold of him. Who do you think he thought it was? His brother. The last time he saw his brother he said, Next time I see you I'll kill you.

So he's going round a rock and somebody jumps on him. Who do you think he thought it was? Oh, my brother's smarter than I thought. But I'll tell you what, I'll die fighting.