Biography of Leonard Ravenhill — E.A. Johnston

As we continue our study of the importance of reading good Christian literature, I want to share with us today a book that has blessed me immensely. It is the biography of the life of Leonard Ravenhill.

It's entitled In Light of Eternity, and it's written by Mack Tomlinson. It can be obtained through various Internet book distributors, in particular Amazon .com and others. I want us to read some excerpts from this remarkable book today, because Ravenhill was a remarkable man.

Leonard Ravenhill's Prophetic Call to Revival

He was a real prophet who was on fire for God, and he stirred and ignited Christians in his generation. He's best known for his book, Why Revival Tarries. He wrote many books on revival. I want to read some of these revival quotes to us today.

Ravenhill is also known for his one-line zingers. They're little quips and quotes that stir and ignite the heart. As I read these to us today, I want us to focus on eternity, focus on the need for revival, and just focus on living our life more in light of eternity, as we read from this biography of Ravenhill by Mack Tomlinson today.

Prayer, Integrity, and the Reality of Revival

These now are Ravenhill's quotes, and I want to read them to us now. I pray that they ignite our hearts to be more fervent for the God we serve in our day. The pastor who is not praying is playing, and the people who are not praying are strained.

The pulpit can be a shop window to display one's talents. The prayer closet allows no showing off. What good does it do to speak in tongues on Sunday, if you have been using your tongue during the week to curse and gossip?

My main ambition in life is to be on the devil's most wanted list. A man who is intimate with God never needs to be intimidated by men. The one with the eyes of flame and fire saw through all the show of the Laodiceans.

He sees through all our showmanship also. I believe every church is either supernatural or superficial. I don't believe there is any middle ground. Christ cared enough for sinners to die for them. Do we care enough for sinners to live to reach them?

Many ask God for help. A few ask God for mercy. No vice, however horrible, will keep us out of heaven if repented of. No virtue, however admirable, will get us into heaven without the blood of Christ.

There are a lot of wealthy Christians that will get to heaven bankrupt, and there are a lot of Christians who are almost bankrupt living in poverty who will be spiritual super millionaires when they get into eternity.

The worst thing that God gives us is better than the best thing Satan offers. If Christ is not worth everything you have, he is not worth anything you have. Faith needs no crutches. The Bible is never wrong.

A sinning man stops praying, and a praying man stops sinning. The only people who want to change the gospel are those who are unchanged by it. A man is not to be judged by the height of his ambitions, but by the depth of his compassion.

The Bible cannot be dissolved by human power. It was not put together by the human mind. It was not put together by human hands. It cannot be destroyed by them. You may give a man an office in a church, but you cannot give him authority, nor can you withhold it.

True authority is divinely given. If God turned some of us inside out, he might send us out to turn the world upside down. Most Christians pray to be blessed, but few pray to be broken. God isn't training Boy Scouts.

He's training soldiers. Great soul winners have always been great lovers of men's souls. Prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessing. But worship is preoccupation with God himself.

Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for? It's much easier to wear a cross than bear a cross. Each of us are only as godly as we want to be. We're living in an unprecedented day when evil is no longer called evil.

We've changed the terminology. Iniquity is now infirmity. Wickedness is now weakness, and devilry is now deficiency. Christ has not conquered my affections if he has to compete for my attention. Do you know why we know so little of the power of God?

Because we suffer so little and trust him so little. I often pray, Lord, let your word bite my heart right now. God owes us nothing. He gave us everything for turning to life and godliness in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Discipleship, Surrender, and the Cross

What possessions a man has are not too important, but what possesses a man is important. There is a cost to discipleship. God has no bark and basement blessings. When Jesus laid aside his glory and took on our flesh, he knew it.

When we lay aside the flesh and walk in the spirit, we know it. I don't believe that ever in history any three words were more pregnant with meaning than these words given by one man at the end of his life.

It is finished. Too many of us want to make a peace treaty with Christ, but will not make a total surrender to Christ. Through the atoning death of Christ and regeneration, heart purity is instant, but spiritual progress is constant and continuing.

There is too much organizing in the supper room and not enough agonizing in the upper room. God cannot be explained, but he can be experienced. A day with him is better than a thousand hours of instruction about him.

The Bible is full of unused promises and uncashed checks. The Bible is either absolute or it's obsolete. The river of God is full of water. It does not dry up or freeze up. The surest thing in the world is not death and taxes.

It's death and eternity, yet we're so unconcerned. Popular evangelists read your emotions, but true prophets read your conscience. The last word of Jesus to the church was repent. A true shepherd leads the way.

He does not merely point the way. The law of spiritual progress goes like this. You never have to advertise a fire. If your church is on fire spiritually, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.

Get on fire for God and men will come and watch you burn. Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and any other sin. There are only two kinds of persons, those who are dead in sin and those who are dead to sin.

Holiness, Obedience, and Spiritual Maturity

Children can tell you what Channel 7 says, but not what Matthew 7 says. Some women spend hours preparing physically for church. Oh, what would happen if we all spent the same amount of time preparing spiritually for church with prayer and meditation?

Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age. The only time you can really say, Christ is all I need, is when Christ is all you have. So much professing Christianity is trapped in trivia and mesmerized by materialism.

Only the Holy Ghost can make people holy. We are tired of men in soft raiment with softer speech who use rivers of words with only a spoonful of unction. Success and popularity in Christian work are not proofs of spirituality and character.

Why do we expect to be treated better in this world than Jesus was? Jesus ended his human life on a cross. We begin life by death. Testimonies are wonderful, but so often our lives don't fit our words.

Just because there is some religious stirrin' in a place doesn't necessarily mean anything. There's also a stirrin' when the circus comes to town. You don't develop character by reading books. It comes only through experiencing trials and tribulation.

We must do what we can for God before he will give us the power to do what we can't do. There's a difference between changing your opinion and changing your lifestyle. How can you pull down spiritual strongholds if you don't even have the strength to turn off your TV?

Everyone recognizes that Stephen was spirit-filled when he was performing wonders, yet he was just as spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death. If a Christian is not having tribulation in the world, there's something wrong.

Church unity comes from corporate humility. For the Apostle Paul, the ministry was not a game to be played, but a battle to be fought. The pulpit was never a theater to display his preaching powers or healing gifts.

The Presence of God Over Mere Doctrine

What the church needs today is not a baptism of the Spirit, but rather a baptism of honesty. An altar serves only two purposes, a sacrifice and death. You can have all of your doctrine right, yet still not have the presence of God.

You can know a lot about the atonement and yet receive no benefit from it. If the whole church goes off into deception, that in no way excuses us for not following Christ. One day we will see a Pentecost that will out-Pentecost Pentecost.

Men give advice, but God gives guidance. The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity. If the saints are the salt of the earth, then praying people are the salt of the church.

Many pastors criticize me for taking the gospel so seriously, but do they really think that on Judgment Day Christ will chastise me saying, Leonard, you took me too seriously? Christianity has not been weighed into balance and found wanting.

It's been tried, found difficult and rejected. The answer to the national dilemma is not in the oval room of the White House, but in the upper room in God's house. Most professing Christians are living on credit card Christianity, getting by with disobedience here and later paying at the checkout counter the judgment seat of Christ.

Hell is God's eternal jail for all who are unrepentant. Death comes to all, but it does not end all. I believe every church is either supernatural or superficial. There is no middle ground. All Christians are equally born again as sons of God, but all do not develop their spiritual life to the same degree.

I'd rather have ten people that want God than ten thousand people who want to play church. I want to see the glory of God come among us so that our young people don't have to be told to go to church, but instead will long to get to the sanctuary where God is.

He is no fool who exchanges the burden of sin for the burden of the Lord. The world is not waiting for a new definition of the gospel, but for a new demonstration of the power of the gospel. We have failed to make sin offensive and Christ attractive.

The less joy you have in Christ, the more entertainment you will need from this world. Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. To graduate a preacher from a seminary without a prayer life is like sending a car from the assembly line without a motor.

Revival, Spiritual Hunger, and Sacrificial Ministry

Our eyes are dry because our hearts are dry. America is called the land of the free, but one wonders sometimes what it is free from. Certainly not from sin, fear, or sorrow, but perhaps free from the fear of God.

I'm astounded and baffled when people tell me there are 75 million people in America who are filled with the Holy Spirit, when at the same time we're the most rotten nation on earth. Alas, the church supper is more attractive than the Lord's Supper.

We look for medals, but God looks for scars. No truce with our enemy and no defeat. We are not just survivors, but overcomers. Reputation is what people think I am. Character is who God knows I am. A man must hear the voice of God before he can be a voice for God.

Earth has no permanent settlers. We're all on probation. Many want us to be good, but few want to be holy. If we do not get preachers filled with the Spirit before they fill our pulpits, they will fill the people with chaff.

God did not use others in previous generations because they had more time or less temptations than we have. He used them because they had more of God than we have. Some of you say, I wonder why God doesn't burden me.

I'll tell you why. Because he can't trust you. That's why you're not strong enough to carry the burden. Paul never glamorized the gospel. It's a gory gospel. It's a bloody gospel. It's a sacrificial gospel.

The cardinal ethic of Christianity is sacrifice, not success, but sacrifice. I don't want to meet a man who has preached more than me, who has written more books than me. I want to meet a man who has more of God's presence than me.

The Bible, this wonderful book, sometimes I'd like to live another hundred years just to sit and read the Word of God and explore it, because it's the most profound thing in the whole world. It's the revelation of God himself.

How blessed it is to have no name and no fame, nothing to do but his will, and nothing to seek but his glory. You'll never grow in grace by just reading your Bible. You'll only grow in grace when the truth gets into your bloodstream.

May his peace be your shield, his passion your strength, his love your energy, his gentleness your greatness, his will your determination, and his coming your incentive. There is only one true body of Christ, and all true believers are members of that one body, so we do the devil a service when we injure another member of the body.

Faith, Spiritual Warfare, and Walking With God

Isn't it amazing that all these great men of faith today have faith for everything except money? The holy book of the living God suffers more from its exponents than from its opponents. Jesus is the master of ceremonies.

This world is a dressing room for eternity. Jesus will never bow the knee to the Pope, but the Pope will surely pout the knee to Jesus Christ. In the church today, what promotion, commotion, and ambition, but no revival.

Keep an open heart, open to his word, and an open mouth to speak for him. Our problem is not the strength of humanism, but the weakness of modern evangelism. The three Hebrew boys walked in the fire and were not burned.

Peter walked on the water and did not sink while he was looking at the Lord. David feared not while he walked in the valley of the shadow of death. Walking with him, we are safe. Self-abasement is one thing, but self-effacement is another matter.

The former I can do for myself, but the latter he must do in me. What a blessed thing to be lost in God. I would rather have a crust of bread in his perfect will than make a million and have his second best.

Thank God that, as the psalmist says, the river of God is ever full of water, so you will not rob others if you take freely of all his abundance. Most folks see the church as a convenience store rather than the residence of the eternal God.

When the oppression of the enemy becomes heavy, maybe we should delight in the fact that we are worthy of his attention. George Whitefield was the greatest evangelist that ever lived. This much is sure.

Faith cannot be defeated, and God works for the one who waits for him. More and more I see that so much of the work the Lord has done in the flesh, it seems to be a forgotten art to be still and know that he is God.

If man will not accept the truth of God, they will swallow the lies of man. There is more interest now in the man of sin than in the sin of man. Eternity is not time out, but time ended. Time is man's little day, and eternity is God's day.

Prayer, Burden-Bearing, and Spiritual Leadership

I want to feed needy souls who are longing for a higher ground. I thank God I have never had the itch for a leadership position. Though it's often been offered to me at times, I know my limitations. There may come a time when he will throw me into some such position, but I would never candidate for it myself.

Please do take regular periods off for rest. It's better to wear out than to rust out, but it's still better still to last out. I noticed a new way the other day. How many times it says in Jonah, the Lord prepared, and finally the Lord prepared a worm.

It was to eat the gourd that he had prepared to shelter Jonah. I wonder what worms he will prepare to destroy the things in which some of his children are hiding. The understanding soul prays, and the praying soul gets understanding.

No amount of prayer will deliver us from temptation, but it will deliver us in temptation. Prayer is the language of the poor in spirit. I find it most intriguing that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, he's already decided what place to give them in eternity.

There can be no leadership of Christ without the lordship of Christ. The Bible cannot be solved or dissolved by human power. It was not put together by human hands and cannot be destroyed by them. Just ponder what the heroes of Hebrews 11 did without a Bible and how little we do with a Bible.

If Christ liveth in me, then I should be very careful where I take him. If faith were more vigorous, it would be more victorious. Sinners need cold comfort and hot preaching until they come to a place of repentance.

I would rather be Balaam's ass for God than the swiftest horse in Jehu's chariot. God grant us perception from heaven to save us from deception on earth. God has to work in a man before he can work through a man.

Spiritual maturity comes not by book knowledge, but by strict compliance to the revealed will of God. Lord, let nothing live in me that should die, and let nothing die in me that should live. The worst thing God can give us is better than the best thing Satan offers.

Christian Character, Humility, and Perseverance

Better to have a hard will and a soft heart than a soft will and a hard heart. I refuse to let men flatter me or flatten me. The world is unimpressed with a man who has his dispensations correct, but his disposition all wrong.

Tears are a ministry untaught, unsought, and unteachable. Think twice before you speak. Think three times and may not speak at all. The Christian life is more than emotion, but it is not without emotion.

Truth fears no exposure. We can give God much, our problems, griefs, and praises, but we cannot give Him advice. I don't mind being the least of all saints, but I don't want to be the most stupid of them.

A contentious spirit is a sign of immaturity. The only imperishable thing on the earth is the church of the living God. Preaching is proclaiming the Word of God. Teaching is explaining it. What kind of church would my church be if all its members were just like me?

The Christian life is not a party, but a pilgrimage. The power of Christ's resurrection is often sought, but the fellowship of His sufferings is shirked. Better to die doing something for God than to live doing nothing for Him.

In Acts 27, Paul was the insurance policy for all on board the ship. Beware of an unholy attitude toward holy things. We have too many men studying church history and too few making it. People are more concerned about the hardening of their arteries than about the hardening of their hearts.

There is a lot of foot dragging in the area of obedience. The successful preacher does not end his sermon with the congregation on its feet applauding him, but on its knees adoring Christ. The preacher must taste the powers of the next world if he would preach to men who are blind and deaf to the claims of the next world.

There is much more to preaching than merely being loaded with theology, savvy, and elastic vocabulary. The pastor's task is to feed the flock, not to produce it. The school of the prophets is never crowded.

Well, I hope, friends, that those one-line singers and epigrams of Leonard Ravenhill have pierced our heart today and encouraged us to live more in light of eternity. And I want to encourage you again to purchase the biography In Light of Eternity by Mack Tomlinson.

I believe every pastor should have a copy of this book and immerse himself in it and the God of Leonard Ravenhill.