Travailing - Part 7 — Leonard Ravenhill

Church of the Christian Missionary Alliance in Omaha and he said, Brother Aidan, we're going to have a half night of prayer, you'll enjoy that. I said, I will. He said, boy, we've got some old farmers here.

I said, boy, can they pray? He said, you'd better watch out, they'll scare you. I said, I'd rather be scared in a prayer meeting. Well, last week, he said, one of them got going, he said, he took his coat off and right onwards he really got praying.

We've been talking about many needs that we had and he said, this old boy got his hands up and his voice up and he said, Lord, the cattle on a thousand hills are yours. The farmer next to him said, drive them this way, Lord, drive them this way.

The Power of Travail and Desperate Prayer

He thought that would solve their problems. I would have liked to have heard the Apostle Paul preach. I'd like to have heard him on Mars hills, surrounded by intellectuals, philosophers, poets, Epicureans, Stoics, what have you got?

But above all, I'd like to have heard him pray. Travail! It's forgotten in our day. I think a meeting we had, we had a rough guy with us and boy, did he shout when he prayed. After praying one day, an old lady came up to the front and she said, Son, God isn't deaf.

He said, no, and he's not nervous either. If you have to give expression loudly, so what? When do you shout? When you're in need. When do you shout? When you're in danger. Isn't America in danger tonight?

Isn't America in need tonight? Isn't my generation the greatest need it ever had? Is hell enlarging its mouth to swallow this generation? Hasn't the church miserably failed? Only God can deliver us. And I don't believe he answers prayer.

I believe he answers desperate prayer. I travel. Can you do this? Can I do this? Can you call the Holy Ghost to bear? That's a dangerous thing to do, Paul does. Isn't it Romans 10 where he goes, I call the Holy Ghost to bear witness?

Paul’s Burden for the Lost

What? That I could wish myself accursed. Do you know what the literal word is there? I could wish myself damned if need be. Madame Guillen says, if there isn't room in heaven for one more sinner, give them my seat and let me go to hell.

Because I enjoyed you so much on earth, Lord, I'd enjoy you in hell. Now that's not my kind of theology, but that's what she said. I understand the feeling. I can understand Paul saying, let me be an outcast.

Let me be the most rejected man in the world. Considered with my staggering intellect the biggest idiot. Because I'm following an invisible person called Jesus Christ. I might have been the greatest rabbi that ever lived.

What is that? My richest gain I count but loss. Poor contempt and all my pride. I'm not suggesting you get into that state of prayer after two weeks in this Bible school or any other. But I'll tell you what, if your prayer life isn't deepened in this school, you've missed it.

Deepening the Prayer Life Through Travail

Or any other school. Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try. Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach the majesty on high. It's always great when you get to my age, to have hindsight.

E. M. Bounds and the Need for a School of Prayer

I told my darling wife recently, I said, Martha dear, I think if I were ten years younger I'd sell this house we're in, with permission from the Lord. I'd go by the old house that E .M. Bounds used to live in.

I walked in that house a while ago. The rugs are still the same, the chairs are still the same. The rug where he stained it with his tears, the chair when he used to dig his elbows in and groan and travail.

There was something almost mystical about that house. I'd love to see somebody, but I'd turn it into a school of prayer. A ten weeks course. No going out shopping. Day and night considering, studying prayer, getting men that come in that could pray, and men that could teach us to pray.

It's the greatest need in the nation today. I want you to pray. Time's going. It's amazing how people stay at ball games till 3 o 'clock in the morning. You know, it would be amusing if it wasn't so sad, that people can't bear an hour, one hour in the house of God.

Oh, it's a long one, that hour. What do they do? Get up and walk out. What are they going to do when they go to eternity? If you can't stick an hour with God down here, God's name, what are you going to do for a million years in His presence?

Accept some reports from earth about football games or something? No. I say this again. My great concern for this area is that in His mercy, God will produce a new race of Christians. Anointed with a new zeal, a new passion, a new love.

A New Race of Anointed Christians

Say goodbye to the sports world, and the business world, and every other world. And say, I'm going to live from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, my spirit, my soul, my body, my mind, my will, my emotions on the altar.

I like that verse of the hymn, Trust and Obey. We don't sing it so much. But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay. For the favor He shows and the joy He bestows are for those who will trust and obey.

Holy Love, Anointing, and Vision for the Nations

We all need a new baptism of love. A baptism. My eyes need to see. I've been around the world. These precious friends of mine are going back to India. Lousy hole if there is one. It was described this week on TV as the filthiest city in the world.

I think the second one is Mexico City. You go and tiptoe through bodies on the streets. People just fall down in front of you, pull their clothes over their heads and sleep at night. Babies are left on the side of the road.

Holy cows take up every blessed place. It's only one of so many nations. Two thousand years after Jesus died there are more lost people tonight than ever there have been in history. Does that make you happy?

Where did we miss the turn in the road? What are we missing? We're missing holy love, holy passion, holy anointing, holy vision. Do you think you dare kneel down and ask God for some of that now? Pray for our precious friends as they go to India.

Intercession for Missions and New Believers

Pray for that group of young men that at this moment will be praying for the first time, seven of them. Pray for the ministries around here. One of them doesn't need a new anointing. Isn't that right, Brother Martin?

Prayer for Leaders in a Time of Crisis

You've got to pray particularly because there's a crisis period in it's not a moral crisis, not just a financial crisis. There's a certain crisis here at last days that these precious leaders need special wisdom from heaven to decide at this time.

Maybe thousands of lives depend on it. Pray about the political situation. It's a critical situation. We'd rather go forward or backward. We'd rather go up or go down. It's a horrid thing when the blind are leading the blind.

Farrar talked last night as though you've only to ask the Russians to come to the table. It'll all be nice and obedient. Then the news this morning says there are 17 recent violations of the promises that they've made.

What did they do in England today? The IRA blew up or tried to kill Mrs. Thatcher and the whole cabinet and killed five but didn't fortunately kill her. She just got up and said, well, it must go on as usual.

Oh God, baptize us with love. Baptize us with this courage this man had, this zeal that refused to give up, this love that would not, could not fail, this courage that wouldn't waver.