Are You Willing - Part 6 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Cost of Revival and Disruption of the Status Quo

And give gifts unto men. As I said, there's one great, two great reasons we don't have revival. One, we're content to live without it. Number two, it's too costly. We don't want, we don't want God to disrupt our status quo.

Leaving All to Follow God's Way

We want to eat, drink and be merry and tomorrow we'll live. The Christian life can only be lived one way and that's God's way. And God's way is that I leave all and follow him. God's way is that in the hour when I think I'm going to have joy or something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup of bitterness.

When I think I've arrived at something, the Lord shatters that. You know, we think, well if I had the privilege of Mrs. Saunders or Mr. somebody else, I'd be a real saint. And I read this, whosoever will be chief among you, let him be a servant.

Christ's Example of Servant Ministry

I didn't come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give my life. I was reading a couple of pages in the Marischal's life yesterday. I like to turn to that book. She was the oldest daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army and had the privilege when she was 85 years of age, she could preach up a storm, if you ever talk about a storm.

A Servant Girl's Prayer for Spiritual Fire

And then one night she said, I went to Brussels. I went to a large mansion. It was loaded with antiques, costly things. It was beautiful. It was owned by a Christian. And there was a sweet girl there.

I noticed each morning about 9 o 'clock, she'd come out of the servant's quarter, radiant. I said to her one day, my dearie, I want to ask you a question. I've noticed for the last few mornings, when you come out of the servant's quarter after having breakfast, you're so radiant.

Well, it was a big, big old house. We used to have a house with not many chimneys in it. I think there were 12 fires and she had to light the fire every morning. Take out the ashes from everyone and carry the ashes out.

Get the kindling work. Get the fire going first of all in the dining room so the precious folk wouldn't be shivering you know when they're eating all the wonderful stuff. And the mother-in-law said, but what time do you?

Oh, I begin, my dear lady, I begin at 5 o 'clock in the morning. 5 o 'clock? Yeah. In what time? Well, breakfast is at 8. Usually I finish the last fire. I've got the last fire going by about half past 7.

Well, how do you do it? I just kneel in front of it and I sweep all the ashes on one side. I put them in a bucket. And then I get some paper and I get some kindling wood. And boy, getting cold to catch fire is a job.

I go in that room and get that fire going. I go to the next. I go to the next. I go back. The first one's gone out, so I do it over again. But eventually I get to breakfast a minute or two before 8 o 'clock.

And I've lit my 12 fires. Don't you get impatient? No. Well, you say the fire has gone out? Yeah, they often go out. Well, do you get up early in the morning for devotion? She said, no, not very early.

Well, how do you maintain your spiritual life? She said, every time I light a fire I say, Jesus, while I'm kindled this fire, kindle a fire in me. Kindle a fire of your love in me afresh this morning.

Kindle a fire of your devotion in me. Here's this precious little girl talking to one of the most powerful women in the world. A woman who at 21 years of age went to Paris and turned the city upside down.

Preaching against all the prostitutes. The queen of the underworld was there. Men came from the Sorbonne. The greatest intellectuals with their long beards and their pipes. And listen to her. And yet this precious little girl, she's, the mother said, that young lady taught me more than most sermons I'd ever heard.

She had to light the fire, then get bellows and blow the things up, try and get them going. And she said, every fireplace I never missed one morning saying, Lord, as I'm kindling this fire, kindle your fire in me.

The fire of love for your will. The fire of love. The fire of joy. The fire of peace. The fire of compassion. If it all came back to the church, we'd turn America upside down in six months. Ours is all theology.

Theology Without the Life of the Spirit

We get a starving man, we give him a cookery book. Does it help him? He looks in the cookery book and he sees a dish there with potatoes on and beef and all that. What do you do? You tantalize him. Oh, I hope one day you can come to our, we're going to have this, you see, this beef and then we're having this and we're going to have some turkey and something else.

And the poor man's ravenously hungry. We give him a picture, but we don't give him the goods. The average church today you go in Sunday morning, they give you the menu, but they never give you the meal.

They give you now a line of theology. This is our precious doctrine. So those people have been reciting doctrine in hell. Jesus never intended it should be a meal. As I've said to you before, if you say where two or three are gathered in his name, if the living Christ is in your meeting, if there's a living Christ, how in God's name can you have a dead service?

It's totally impossible. I remember talking once in the Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh with Miss Kuhlman. We were talking about the church as it is and various other things. And she said, I talked with some young students the other day and they said, well, we go to a certain church.

Oh, we have a wonderful pastor and a marvellous choir and he's a great teacher. But nothing ever happens. We come to see your meeting and there's a power of God there. And I was in meetings there where billows of power went over the meeting.

All kinds of miracles were done. What does the pastor say? He says, well, of course, where two or three are gathered, he's in the midst. Do you know what I said to them? No, what did you say? Well, if he's in the midst and you believe he's the same yesterday and today and forever, why doesn't he do in the midst here what he did in the midst there?

Dead Religion and the Promise of Awakening

We try and bail God out. The stupid pastors have been to a seminary, as I say again, cemetery. Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons to dead people. But there's going to come an awakening.

God Almighty doesn't care if he sends America bankrupt. He doesn't care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn't care if our automobiles rust because we've got no gasoline. And that could happen easily.

If Russia gets Iran, she can bottleneck all the oil in the world there. And that's what she's after. And she's going to fight desperately for it. But again, you see, this is so expensive. We have to do more than believe in the Lord, we have to believe on the Lord.

The Holy Ghost and Holy Living

We have to do more than have a blessing just because we feel better, we feel inflated, and we maybe get a gift or something. You know, I find people get gifts of the Spirit, they're more proud after they get the gift than they were before.

They're proud of the gift. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me, is the most majestic thing this side of eternity. The Holy Ghost produces holy people. Holy people live holy lives. Produce holy daddies and holy mummies.

The Cup, Gethsemane, and the Cross

So here's a question, you answer it for yourself. Do you want to drink the cup that he drank of? It's strained, I can't get to it. Between me and that mission that John Baptist said, when I come I'll baptise you with the Holy Ghost, between here and there, there's a Gethsemane, there's a cross.