The Price of Revival — Leonard Ravenhill

Elijah’s Life Summarized in Prayer

Text 9 is in the epistle of James. The epistle of James. I have an almost incurable habit of, let me say that again, I have an almost incurable habit of, I hope you have, of reading the Bible, but one of the most profitable studies is to discover how God has made men.

We're going to start tomorrow morning, we did not start this morning, on the epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11, and see how God made men. It's a very fascinating study. The lives of many great men have been written in two volumes.

Begbie wrote a very fascinating life of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. He was half-Jewish, half-Gentile. He established the Salvation Army, the worldwide revival that began in 1865 and went into 70 countries in less than 90 years.

It was a very fascinating life of the founder of the China Inland Mission, Hudson Taylor, Dr. Hudson Taylor. The first volume is called The Growth of a Soul, which is the explanation of the life of the man.

The second volume is called The Growth of a Work, which is the development of the China Inland Mission. I don't think it's very difficult to write the life of a person in two volumes, if you have enough information and you have enough words.

But I'm quite sure in my own mind that God alone could write the life story of one of the greatest men that ever crossed the bridge of time, in two words. And this is what God does when he writes the life story of this fantastic man, the prophet Elijah.

Because it says here in the end of the epistle of James, summarizes his life, verse 17, the middle of verse 17, he prayed. Isn't that wonderful? His whole life, the life of a man who could strangle the economy of a nation, subdue kingdoms, terrify kings, raise the dead.

You name it, he did it. He lived in a realm that we don't live in anymore, hardly. He lived in a realm of the supernatural. And yet God condenses his whole life into two words he prayed. Why does it say anymore?

Because you can't say anymore about any man. I don't care how eloquent he is, I don't care how big his bus service is in his church, I don't care how many degrees he has. As I said last night, if you're not numb in hell, as far as I'm concerned, preacher, you're a failure.

I don't care if you're 50 ,000 people in your church. And in case you think this man was not a normal man, he was very normal. Oh, I can prove that two ways, because the scripture says so. He was a man of like passions as we are.

The Burden of the Prophets

And the other proof is that he stood up to 800 men and ran away from one woman. So that shows you he was pretty normal. He had nerves, sinews, emotions. ...are God's emergency men for crisis hours. The schoolmen of the church have divided them into two classes.

Minor prophets, major prophets. And yet some of the minor prophets said some major truths. There are only three chapters in that book, that wonderful little prophetic book of the minor prophet Habakkuk, or Habakkuk if you like.

And I was reading it today because, you see, there's a common denominator about these men who are called prophets. They were never successful in the eyes of the world, they were never popular, nobody wanted their autograph, nobody took their photograph.

They were not only brave men, they were burdened men. You'll find this repeatedly amongst these men, and this is how the prophecy of Habakkuk begins. The burden which Habakkuk, the prophet, did see, O Lord, how long shall I cry?

And will thou not hear even the cry? When I cry out unto thee of violence, wilt thou not save? Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and they are they that raise up strife and contention.

Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth, for the wicked doth compass about the righteous. Therefore wrong judgment proceedeth. And he finishes up there at the end of the third chapter in one of the bleakest spots, one of the most terrible expressions in the whole of divine revelation, he says, O the fig tree shall not blossom, and let there be no fruit in the vine, and the labour of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat, and the herbs shall be cut off from the stalk.

Now there's blackness compounded. There's death, desolation, destruction, everything to terrify him. And yet as he finishes he says, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Hebrew says, I will shout aloud his praise, and I will dance in the presence of the Holy God. Even though it's as black as midnight. Oh he comes through with some light, because he says there in the, in chapter 2 and verse 14, he sees right at the end of the tunnel, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Elijah, the God of Elijah, and the Supernatural

Now he's the same breed of man as Elijah. And I hardly ever preach on Elijah, but somebody comes up and says, now you forgot one thing. I forget many things, I'm getting old. There are three signs of old age.

One, loss of memory. I can't remember the other two. As you get older you get kind of mental lapses, and sometimes I skip things, I don't finish what I intended to say. But, let me say this, this man Elijah again.

He's outstanding, he's a giant amongst men. There's no major prophecy of Isaiah, there's no minor prophecy of Elijah for sure. And somebody says, remember after Elijah came Elisha. Elisha did twice as many miracles, raised twice as many dead, he prayed for a double portion of the Spirit, so forth and so on.

Right. But God is never called the God of Elisha, he's called the God of Elijah. If you went to a Jewish home on certain seasons and they were celebrating one of the Old Testament feasts, if there were fourteen people in the house there would be fifteen chairs and the door would be left open.

If you ask why the door is left open and why there's an extra chair, they say because Elijah may come. You remember when John the Baptist came they didn't say this is Elias, Elisha, they said this is Elijah.

When Jesus died on the cross they said he calls for Elijah. The last two witnesses at the end of the Revelation are, one of them is Elijah. On the Mount of Transfiguration they beheld, I wonder how they knew, they have no photographs.

But Peter and John said there's Moses and there's Elijah. He's always there. He's one of God's super-knits. It's true he didn't have an advance party, didn't have any double knits and alligator shoes like the modern evangelist, didn't need a million dollars to stir a city.

I think what we need to rediscover that one man with God is a majority. He came onto the stage of the Old Testament. You remember how he came, every Sunday school child knows that. I'm not going to suggest that you read it tonight, but read it when you go home.

A Nation in Apostasy and Elijah’s Confrontation

Fifty-eight years before he came there had been a dividing of the kingdom, then there had been a succession of kings. Each king did more iniquity, the second did more evil than the first, the third did more evil than the second, the sixth did more evil than the fifth.

The last one, Ahab, did not do more evil than the king before him, he did more evil than all the aggregate iniquity of all the kings before him. If you want to read, give a summary of this, read it when you go home, the end of the sixteenth chapter of the first book of Kings.

You'll find that the whole nation was just swept with an awful tidal wave of impurity, iniquity and idolatry, and impurity. And then as the Irish would say, to make bad worse, though God said that the city of Jericho should not be rebuilt, they rebuilt the city of Jericho and laid it in the foundation of their own blood.

And then to defy God again, it seems that Ahab decided he would marry a woman of another group, another nation that God said should not be done. And the wicked woman Ahab, pardon me, the wicked woman that married Ahab, Jezebel, got into authority.

And just as you might put the lights out one by one and plunge the nation into darkness, she did exactly that. She got on the throne, she chased the priests away. There could have been a moment when this man could have said in despair when every preacher ran away, I even, I only, instead of that he braced himself and said not I even, I only am left, but God and I are left.

He couldn't even put his finger on the word of God, if two of you shall agree, and if he could he couldn't find anybody else to agree with him anyhow. All the preachers had run away. I wouldn't give you a dollar for the whole six thousand of them.

Like a flood, for the spirit of the Lord was to lift up a standard against him. All the iniquity had been done that could be done. The evil had been compounded. This woman is in the place of authority.

She's got everything where she wants it. But she miscalculated because there was one man still left. They may have scorned him, they may have criticized him, they may have hated him, but they never mastered him.

They knew he had too much power with God. And I don't know how he did it, but maybe they were looking for some flowers in the garden and suddenly this rugged, ragged little man came and put his finger up and he said there's going to be no rain according to my word.

Prayer, Holiness, and the Church’s Compromise

You see, if you keep emphasizing be filled with the spirit, be filled, right, be filled with the spirit. The same word that says be filled with the spirit says be angry. The trouble is most of us get angry over things that shouldn't disturb us that much.

Just your children do something, you get blazing mad. Something goes wrong in the church, but iniquity can abound. You see this nation again I say was like parallel with the nation that we're in right now.

Evil was done in a flagrant, boastful, wicked way. It was no longer done in a corner, it was done openly. Before long there were X-rated films on TV. I say tonight what I said yesterday if you were not here, that if you and I were as spiritual as we think we are with all your talk about the Holy Ghost, you'd have come to God's house tonight in sackcloth with a handful of ashes to put on your unworthy head.

So were they. No nation has risen as rapidly as America, no nation has fallen as quickly. We have more alcoholics than any other nation in the world, we have more drug addicts, we have more illegitimate children, we have more kids under 15 with venereal disease.

We've legislated the devilish thing, abortion. The church hasn't said much about it. I'd like to see some Christian kids parading somewhere up in Washington against some of the devilish things that go on.

You shout from the pulpit. I find a lot of preachers who are very brave in the pulpit, but cowards when they get out of it. Afraid we might lose our job. Afraid we might upset a few deacons. Maybe it was to the advantage of Elijah he didn't have a pastor, didn't have any deacons he could ascend to please, and if he had he wouldn't have cared anyhow.

The enemy has come in like a flood, this woman thinks she's got everything there in a grip, and this man looks out, they've rebuilt altars to Ashcroft, they've rebuilt the city, God should, and he's angry.

Smoke ascends every day from altars and it stinks in the nostrils of God. Does that worry us? Not on your life. We put our arms round people. We say today it doesn't matter whether you're in the church of Rome or not, as long as you get the baptism, let's put our arms round them.

Well if you're going to have Pentecostal Catholics, you've got to have Pentecostal Mormons and Pentecostal Jehovah's Witnesses and Pentecostal Spiritists. Who are you to divide the sheep from the goats?

If you take one, take the lot. As far as I'm concerned they're all heretics anyhow if they don't abide by the word of the living God. The day is coming when the church of Rome will strangle her. She hasn't conceded one thing in Vatican I or Vatican II.

Tell me what she's conceded. She doesn't want to share, she wants us all to come like little puppies and bow at the feet of a man they call Father. The conflict of the ages. Paul went to the intellectual capital of the world which was Athens.

He saw shrines, he saw temples and he says, it says in the sleepy Elizabethan English, his spirit was stirred. It says in the Amplified, which I don't like except when it agrees with me, and it says there in the Amplified that when he went down Main Street in Athens he was angry.

Hudson Taylor and the Cost of Persistent Prayer

Sure he was angry. He saw the money invested in false gods, he saw people doing obeisance to God, he saw their sacrifice, he saw their devotion. I preached at the great Karizawa convention in Japan a few years ago.

Not too long ago my dear wife and I went into a meeting because a certain man was there and he said, oh I remember you preached to us in the convention in Karizawa. I said I remember it too. When did you leave Tokyo?

Yesterday. These are great days for travel. As we conversed he said, you know I had quite an experience in Tokyo. I went in for a haircut, it's so cheap. Most things are in Japan. But he got his haircut.

The man was snipping away at his hair, he said, are you a Yankee? Well he said no, but I'm American. But he said, oh you're a businessman? He said no, I'm a missionary. Oh good, good. I'm a missionary too.

You're a missionary? You're a barber. Cut my hair. No, no, no. Oh you can tell me how the gospel spread in South America and other countries. Do you know we've never penetrated Japan with the gospel? The missionaries have been there a hundred and three years and half of one percent of the people.

Now if you want a challenge, get to Japan. If you've got an experience that can shake the world, get to Japan and manifest it. I might go myself if I was younger. The man said I go out at seven o 'clock, knock on a door, get in a home, play my phonograph record, give them instruction, go to the next door, go to the next door, at seven o 'clock at night.

And I finish just before two o 'clock. I try to get home for two o 'clock. Then at two o 'clock I go into my private chapel and I draw the curtain on one side and I sit there and I meditate on God and renew my strength.

From two o 'clock to four. My missionary friend said I began to feel pretty bad. I don't pray like that. So I said well how often do you do this? Every night. How long have you done it? Over six years.

Every night. Every night. This is the message for the world. Christianity doesn't have it. Nobody else has it. We're going to change the whole of the East and then we're going to invade Europe and America.

Here is a heathen man who believes that he has something that can solve the problem in the lives of men and women. He gives himself from seven at night till two in the morning and then from two to four he prays before his God, a dumb God that can't hear his broken heart, ears that can't hear, hands that can't serve, a heart that can't feel, that he pours out his prayer.

Oh come on preacher. Come on deacon. Come on Leonard Ragner. Do you pray like that? Gabriel can get some of us out of bed at midnight to pray till two in the morning. We're so fat and satisfied. Got big cars and lovely homes.

People that tell us we preach better than Sturgeon. Well I know you preachers good because you steal his sermons. But apart from that, why should people think we're sincere? We only play the game of Christianity.

As I say again, are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for? Elijah is brought in everywhere you look. But when he sees the whole nation giving up to strange gods. Oh we serve the gods of lust.

We serve the gods of dope. We've millions of kids paralyzed with dope. We've nine million alcoholics. We've more divorced people and broken homes than any nation. It doesn't break our hearts though does it?

Broke the heart of Elijah. Same God is the same wonder working God that he's ever been. Remember he challenged the hosts of Baal. His life is really simple. As I said last night, the life of that wonderful man Samson is very simple.

All they did with Samson was bind him, blind him and grind him. And the story of this man is very simple. It's trust and obey. He goes and he says to this man and woman there's going to be no rent. Not according to God's word, according to my word.

And he's shut up heaven. You see the difference between belief and faith is belief says it can be done, faith says it will be done. And he says according to my word I'll shut up heaven. That's why it says in the next verse he prayed again that the heavens might still be shut up.

And he's shut up heaven, there's going to be no rent. And he put the key of faith in his pocket and the Lord said to him, go hide thyself. Pretty rough isn't it when you've had a city-wide crusade and the Lord says get out of the picture.

When your name is the best known name in the whole nation and God says go hide thyself. And he didn't say for how long. You see the story is very simple. The Lord says in this chapter go hide thyself, in the next chapter he says go show thyself and it's wrong to show yourself when you should hide yourself, it's wrong to hide yourself when you should show yourself.

He said I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there and I've commanded the woolly woman to feed thee there. Now if the Lord says a raven is going to feed you there, and will you notice they got bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening.

So by the scripture you only ought to have two meals a day. And so they had bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening. And Elijah left all the glamour. The house was shaken, the king was terrified.

If there was nobody else that was feared in the nation, this woman feared the man of God anyhow. And God says go hide thyself. That's the hardest thing. Preachers are always saying to me, you know I want to tell you about my life.

What do you think I should do? I say go hide yourself. Take three months off and go in a cabin and just take your Bible. There's a wonderful little man down in South Africa and I haven't been there but I have some invitations to go, I don't think I'll make it.

Moses and the School of Silence

One day Dr. Tozer, my eminent mentor, was coming out, was in his office stroking a piece of paper. Not only stroking it but he gave it a kiss. Now Tozer was not emotional. Well he was about as emotional as a toothpick.

And there he was with a piece of paper in his hand. When I went in the office he said I would rather have this little note from a Baptist preacher in Africa, a little black man, than a letter from the President of the United States.

To the King of England, the Queen of England. I gave this illustration a meeting not long ago and a man came up to me afterwards. He's the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

And he said that was interesting to hear you talk about Duma because it was in my daddy's church that Duma came. He came in the meeting one night. A sinner. He hit the altar. He got wonderfully saved.

There was no uncertainty. He got the witness of the Spirit. You remember Bunyan's pilgrim got the same thing and he said he gave three leaps for joy. I think one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Ghost.

But he said he gave three leaps for joy because he said I came to a place that was somewhat ascending and I was walled and out of sight and there was a cross and the burden loosed from off my shoulders and fell from off my back and it went into an open sepulcher and I beheld it no more forever.

Hallelujah! Now that's what Baptists used to be like. Duma got marvelously saved. The pastor said well it's so good to see you. Could I help you? And he said yes sir you could. He said well what can I do for you?

He said give me a church. Give you a what? Give me a church. Why? A miracle just took place in my life. I came in here so burdened and my burden is gone. I came in darkness. I've received light. I was bound.

I'm free. I want everybody to know. Yeah the pastor said we're all like that at first you know. You know you're thrilled to find you're one of his chosen people. Before long we're one of his frozen people.

I can't give you a church. Do you have any school training? No. Did you go to high school? No. Did you go to Bible school? No. That was a big advantage though I didn't know it. And so he said well after all you couldn't be a pastor.

Couldn't be a pastor. A little black man disappeared. Just over a month later the preacher was preaching. He thought well I've seen that fellow before somewhere. After the meeting he said hello how are you?

Fine. Could I help you? He said yes. What can I do for you? He said give me a church. Thought I'd seen you before. You were in this church about a month ago weren't you? Yes. Well it's the same thing.

I can't give you a church. In any case you haven't been in the church for a month. Where have you been? He said sir when you told me you would not give me a church. And he lives in Durban South Africa and he's there tonight if you ever go down to Durban.

I went down the road outside of the city. I came to the forest. I found a pat in the forest. I found a stream. I found a hole in the wall. And I put a mark on it. And I made a mark there 21 days and 21 nights.

I stayed in there and I said Lord you and I are going to have this out. You're going to tell me before I leave this place you'll call me to minister. And if you have now your men are dead and they're going to change me.

And if you haven't I'm not going to preach. He said I stayed there 21 days and 21 nights. All I did was like Elijah. I drank water from the brook. I didn't touch any food. I didn't hear any voice. I didn't see any face except his face.

His voice. And he told me I'd put my hand upon you. And he threw me with a holy ghost while I was there. And he told me that I'd lay hands on the sick. And he's a Baptist preacher. And they recover. Now he said are you going to give me a church.

He said well I'll see the deacon. The generous deacon said well there's a little shanty church outside of town. Just a little lean to where a few colored people go. We'll let him be the pastor there. He can't do much harm.

As a matter of fact there's only five members. And they'll soon get fed up with him and they'll come back to our church. And then we'll close it down. We'll say you see. See what happened. While I was told to kissing the piece of paper because the man happened to have read one of two or three of Tulsa's books.

But that man I understand now. The little black man that stayed there with God. The man that went there and stayed 21 days and 21 nights with God at a church of 1200 people. And in a country where whites won't go listen to black men.

He not only has white men sitting there. He has government officials who are very happy to be deacons in his church. And he's maintained the anointing. Do you know why? Because he didn't stand a certain day at a certain place.

God filled me with the Holy Ghost. The day I understand that he got filled or went into that little hall in the wall, that cave, was the 17th of November. Every year since then he's said goodbye to his wife and kissed his children.

Goodbye to the deacons. Not whether he kissed them but anyhow he said goodbye to them as well. And he's gone back in that hall and stayed 21 days and 21 nights fasting to renew his vision and renew his strength.

You got it all at seminary didn't you preacher? You got a nice little thing on the wall. The devil looks up and runs up and says boy I can't stay here. He's a seminarian. I mean he's got knowledge. That's all his diplomas worth if it's filled with pride and you think you've made the devil afraid because you've got diplomas.

Isn't it amazing that Elijah made it the way he did and never went to Bible college? Never had any advanced men. Never had his picture taken you know like these dramatic preachers. That's a classic pose if you're filled with the Holy Ghost.

You know he'll look like this and signs and wonders and miracles. They couldn't move the fuzz on a gander's nose. When did you last hide yourself preacher? When did you last shut the door? You weren't available to anybody.

Come get away. This is where God sends his great men. A lady asked me a while ago what university I went to and I was felt very good you know. I said Bush University. Bush University. Yeah. Would I know anybody that went there?

I said Moses. She said Moses who? She must have been a Baptist. Go hide thyself. Ah this is the toughest thing isn't it? Oh we put emphasis on tithing. Of course it's Old Testament. If you preach tithing you should preach circumcision too and everything else that goes with it.

There's no tithing in the New Testament. They gave according to the way God prospered them but there's no such thing as literal tithing. And in any case what does it say in the scripture? Bring you all the tithes?

No. All the tithes mm. It's the mm that's the trouble you see. Because if you give God a tenth of your money you should give God a tenth of your time which is two hours and twenty four minutes every day plus an offering which would make it about three hours a day.

You should tithe your conversation. Tithe your time. It comes down to it we get by very easily don't we? As I've said repeatedly we're the most undisciplined disciples the Lord ever had. If we dare be called disciples maybe we should just be called followers.

Go hide thyself. God's ways aren't our ways you know that. You say it often enough. Sure enough. Will you take a man who's been trained for forty years and he wears a uniform and he's a brilliant general and he has a breast full of medals and he's already a legislator.

Will you push him to the backside of the desert like God did? Moses lived a hundred and twenty years. Forty years in the universities of Egypt. Forty years he learned more the second forty he lived with his mother-in-law.

And the third forty from being eighty to being a hundred and twenty. You wouldn't cut the middle out of a man's life would you? Forty. Life begins with forty. Here is a young man he's already trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

He's ready to deliver the nation. Go hide thyself. Could you stand that? I challenge you to try it for forty hours. I challenge you to try it for forty days. Until God speaks. And if he speaks you'll never forget it.

In a meeting the other week where God moved all kinds of preachers came in from Presbyterians, Pentecostals, you mentioned it, freewheeling, I mean freewheel Baptists. And I don't know who else didn't come, other kinds of Baptists, missionary Baptists they all came in.

You never know who's in the meeting. In England you know when there are preachers there they wear their collars backwards way. Because most of them are going backwards way. But anyhow. You can tell when the preachers are there.

I got a letter just before we set off on the road a few weeks ago now. And as I opened it I said Martha dear let's read the letters before we get in the car. And I read this one. Brother Raymond on the last night of your meeting a Methodist minister was in our, in the meeting.

Dignified, fine young man, very accomplished, very gifted. And God got hold of him. He went to church Sunday morning. They got through the preliminaries and it came time for the message and he said friends I could give you a sermon.

I've been doing that for a year or two but I'm not preaching a sermon. I'm not going to talk to you again until I hear from God. I've been preaching sermons but not a message from God. Good day. The deacons didn't like that.

They liked it less when they went the second Sunday and he went through all the preliminaries and said I haven't heard from God. Good day. They were climbing the walls the third Sunday when he said I haven't heard from God.

Good day. What are we going to do with him? We pay him to preach. He's preached good sermons. Oh yes he's preached good sermons. Never disturbed anybody. He knew how to do like you do. Construct your sermons with homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude and grammatically polished.

Three Sundays he turned that fine congregation away. And they plotted and planned and said look he's only got one more Sunday to do. We're going to do something. They went the next Sunday. Then the preacher go, they thought Gabriel had come, never mind the preacher.

That man just stood there and gave a word that God, he'd waited a month. They'd found him, criticized him, written to him, threatened him. Until I hear from God. They're going to preach to you again. He preached that Sunday morning.

He got his text out. He preached about ten minutes. That congregation broke up. They began to run to the altar and cry and groan and ask to be saved, ask to be filled with the Spirit. God began to manifest himself with the Holy Spirit in the meeting and turn the church upside down.

Oh you'd like it in six easy lessons wouldn't you? You'd like to send to some little mill up there where they'll give you a theological degree for fifty dollars and four soap wrappers. It costs something to hear from God.

This man is going to deliver a nation. He's going to put his uniform on one side, lay his medals down. Nobody's going to bow down to him. Nobody's going to wash his feet. He has no slaves to attend. He has to look after some slaves.

And there he walks up and down. And God hasn't given him his commission yet. Can you imagine him the day before he's eighty years of age going down the road and saying, I missed it. Boy, God hasn't spoken to me.

I don't know why, oh, why I remember that bush was burning. Nothing unusual about it except it's not consumed. He goes near and a voice says, take off thy shoes from off thy feet. And the God that answers by fire.

Out of the middle of the bush. After forty years of stillness. Of course if you get filled with the Holy Ghost you'll have to get filled the way I got filled otherwise it won't be genuine. The man that took over the job was a fellow called Joshua you remember.

And he had problems with Israel too. Maybe one day he was saying to himself I shouldn't have taken the job. I'm sure that, well after all I mean I never saw a burning bush. I never heard the God's voice.

And I'm just about destroyed with this bunch. After all he got about a million and a half people you know, take a bit of handling. Bush, no voice of God. Maybe I should, oh. Who about the captain of the hosts of God, take off thy shoes from off thy feet.

There was no burning bush. It was the same commission, it was the same anointing. God sent his great men into the wilderness of silence. I reminded you yesterday John Baptist was in the wilderness twenty years training and he only preached six months.

Now guys go to college six months and preach twenty years, no wonder they run out. The greatest intellect the world ever saw, the apostle Paul. And after God revealed himself to him on the Damascus road he revealed himself in him in the wilderness.

School of silence. Isn't it amazing that Jesus went about doing good, no doing nothing for thirty years. Went home at night, brushed the sawdust off his hairy legs, took the bits of wood out of his toes and walked home.

And maybe made a casket for somebody the next day or a yoke for the neck of a beast the next day. And he wasn't sweating and worrying and anxiety and fretting and say Lord when am I going to start my, no he did not do that.

For thirty years God left him there. The privilege of talking with one of the greatest men in the world today. Buck Singh. If ever he comes round, if ever he's in this area get a rope and put it round his neck and pull him in and let him talk to you.

He's a very wonderful man. He's raised up about three hundred and fifty churches on his own in India without any backing, financial backing at all, without asking for a dime. We were talking about the things of God.

He said to me Brother Ravenhill do you know the Americans are lovely people, I like them very much, they're very generous, very kind. They've got lovely churches, but I've never been in a church in America where they could worship God.