'We Don't Know God!' — Leonard Ravenhill

Knowing God Rather Than Knowing About God

The word of God. Two things we don't know. In fact, I say to the seminary men, do you know God? Well, I didn't know, no. I answer yes or no. Oh, I learned Hebrew. I didn't ask if you know Hebrew. Do you know God?

Jesus Came So That We Might Know God

You ask 10 young people in your church to answer in less than 50 words, why did Jesus come into the world? To save us from hell, to save us from sin. And so they go on. But what does Jesus say in John 17 too, that they may know thee, the only true God.

The Testimony of Major Russell and Past Revival

And that's the answer. We don't know God. If we knew God, we'd set the world on fire. If we knew God, we wouldn't beg for money. We know things about God, but we don't know God. We don't know God. But I want to tell you then, in 1932, I preached in Swansea, South Wales, in a little upper room, there's a lady there with white hair.

And she said, do you know my husband? I said, I didn't know you had one. She said, well, my husband is Major Russell. I said, well, who's Major Russell? In the British Army? No salvation army. She said, would you come up and have a meal with us?

I said, well, this is a crusade. And he said, I only have Friday off. I said, I'll take the bus and come up to a place that's called Robina. I'll come up Friday afternoon. She said, well, come and have some tea and we'll talk.

So here's a gray haired fellow sitting. And I said to him, well, it's a privilege to come and talk with you. How old are you? He said, well, I'm 82. And he said, I'll tell you some things that when you're my age, I said, I never lived to be 82, and I'm 84 now, nearly 85.

But he shared the office with William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. I said, what were the days like? Days like heaven on earth. He said, God, the Holy Ghost came. And he mentioned a certain place, which is on the Strand in London.

He said, now it's a theater. In those days, it's a hall you hired. And movies weren't, houses and theaters weren't open on Sunday. So you could rent them on Sunday. So you used to rent them Saturday and Sunday.

And he said, he said, I've been in that meeting. He said, people won't believe you when you tell them. And then I was, that was 1932. So it's almost 60 years back. And he said, when you tell them, they won't believe you.

I said, well, they believe me, not tell me. I said, I want to know. I don't care if it puts my nose in the ground. I don't care what you say, as long as you realize that just as you're a link with the past, at my age of 82, I'll be a link with another generation that doesn't know God.

William Booth's Preaching and Conviction of Sin

So I said, well, I'll tell you what happened. He said, William Booth could preach like nobody else from Jeremiah. The harvest is past, or somebody said it. Oh, his favorite was, and he had a gruff voice.

If thou hast run with a footman and they have worried thee, I will now do in the swelling of the Jordan, fire of Ollie, which meant say hallelujah. So they all roared hallelujah, you know. And he said that, but what William Booth could, he could get men trembling, he said.

He said, as a matter of fact, you'll give them a hymn book of maybe 25 pages, and they'd sit with it on their lap and shred it while they were so disturbed. He said, you can see where these men have been.

All the back pews were full of shredded hymn books. The same thing happened in 1926. I talked with the greatest revivalist Ireland's ever had, W .P. Nicholson. He said, Brother Len, he said, people used to shred the hymn books when we listened.

They were under conviction. They were so nervous. And sweat would run off their noses, and it doesn't happen anymore. Anyhow, going back to this, he said the old William would preach hellfire, boy, he said he could make you shake.

The Mercy Seat and the Power of Prayer

And he said, but he couldn't make an altar call. So he would say, now come to the mercy seat, come to the mercy, come run for your life, you're going to hell. And he couldn't get anywhere. He'd shout out, where is Lawley?

Where is Lawley? Well, Commissioner Lawley was one of the stalwarts for salvation. I mean, like Brinkle. And he said he was under the platform, and he'd come out, and they used to hand clothes to each other, you know, like somebody gave me your suit, it would be hanging down on me.

And Commissioner Lawley's coat was down to his ankles. But he said, come out on all fours and do this, there'd be a cloud of dust. And then Lawley would begin to make an appeal, you know, come to the mercy seat.

And he said the altar would be lined, but sometimes they wouldn't come. He said the general would turn around and roar at us, you know, everybody looked down and prayed. Unusually, there was a break. But he said, this day they prayed, and nothing happened.

So he said again, pray. He said, everybody's nervous. Hey, what's happening to the old boy? He's angry, he's angry. Well, let's pray. And he said, Lord, Lord, move right now, move right now. And he said, nobody came.

So the third time he'd roar, you know, get hold of God. He said, this meeting is going to go to hell. These people are perishing. Some of them are wealthy, some are poor, some are ignorant, some are backslidden.

Pray. And he said, the Holy Ghost would take all the men on the back seat and lift them bodily over the congregation and drop them at the altar. I've said to Pentecostals, you saw that, you'd run for the door, you'd say it's spiritism or something.

Salvation Army Prayer and Expectation

I said, but there was an unwritten law in the Salvation Army. They called their churches a corps, you know, like the army does, C-O-R-P-S, corps. And it was an unwritten law in the Salvation Army that when you finish your stream meeting at nine o 'clock Saturday night, you go to pray till midnight.

And he said to me, we had men that would pray. And one old man particularly would say, he'd jump up, maybe 12 or one, and raise his hand and shout, victory, victory. There'll be 10 tomorrow. And he said, there'll be nine or 10 saved.

Or he'd say, there'll be 15, there'll be 13 or 14. He said, there was only one or 12 every time. But he said, remember, we had street meetings, we got baptized with rotten eggs. In those days, there were no houses with bathrooms.

They kept what they call a pot under the bed, and they'd always empty it. And people would run out and throw it from a window and throw urine on them. And he said, we kept two coats. You kept an old 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.

Revival Fire and the Glory of God

And I don't know who it was with a multimillionaire's offer to build him the biggest church in America, give him the biggest salary if you 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. 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 a 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 10 and 11 o 'clock at night and people get saved in the street. You don't care who where you sleep.

Prayer-Filled Ministry and the Loss of Spiritual Fervor

We slept in sleeping bags for three years, slept on the floor of churches. Anyway, they'd take us in, but we had revival. The churches are still standing today. But now I go to a meeting and everybody's silly.

Oh, it's nice to see you. And they want to talk. I said, leave me alone. We went, brother, we had a solid hour of prayer together, 11 o 'clock to 12 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 charge 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 missed.