A Man of God - Part 9 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Loss of Spiritual Appetite Among Young People

Church, you can play sports here, you can go down to the CM Bay, you can have a... Why do they deserve it like that? I mean, why don't they have an appetite for God? But they don't. I mean, three weeks ago, the fellow that's taking up the... to be assistant of Dr. Criswell, he blasted Baylor University, the mess it's in.

But then guys told me going to Baylor, it's not known any longer as a spiritual place, it's known now as a... well, it's a liberal arts college, and it's known mostly for its football team. But why do the kids suddenly have no appetite?

The Need for Conversion and Total Devotion to Christ

When they get teenagers, get away from home, or won't have to go to church, sit around, my folk have made me go every... there's no appetite. So there's no relationship with God. And if he spent time at the altar, and took them through step by step, what it means to become a Christian.

Your life is hid with Christ in God, you're not your own, you're bought with a price, that you've no time of your own, you've no money of your own, you've no interest, you know, Christ must become a complete master.

We don't do that. And unless we do, we're not going to have a change. I mean, there are people that are really hungry, there are people that need Dave Wilkins and folk on the streets, well, I've never seen a Christian in my life.

Personal Devotion and the Inner Decay of the Church

Well, what they say, the average church member is just like us, very often they're smoking until they go in the meeting at last. At last, when they come out, it's the cowboys or something, where's the difference?

And it isn't there. But it all comes down, I don't care whether it's shrug it or pete it, it comes down, it breaks down with personal devotion to Christ. They quit praying, they quit reading the word of God, they haven't time, and therefore they start rotting from the inside.

There is a nation big enough to destroy, America will destroy ourselves, the present rate of development in herpes and AIDS is appalling. The list, the lid hasn't been taken off the thing yet. I don't think the government dare tell us what's happening in the country.

It's the same in England, but where are God-filled men? I mean, Shrug It says, the day after, I've been in that trouble, I was going to step down and let my son take over, but I woke up full of the Holy Ghost.

No, he woke up full of tongues. He gave his tongues, and he took it, that's a sign. But the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. I see a girl wearing a big ring, she says, Jack gave me that.

I go back to the church six months after and say, well, oh, did he get married? Oh, no, we quarreled after that, but he's still wearing the ring. Yes, well, of course, Jack's gone, but he left his ring.

By the same token, the Holy Ghost has gone, but he left his gift. The gifts and callings are without repentance. Who moved London more than Irving? Edward Irving in his day. Courages jostled each other, Parliament suspended so they could run out near this great holiday.

Edward Irving, John G. Lake, and Apostolic Christianity

There are every kind of signs and wonders, a bit like colossal finally stood on the platform and said, I am the Son of God. I've cut this veil to you, but now here I am. There's everything. Men call him the 13th Apostle.

There's no questions about what happened. There's a whole book on him. I have it. And you've got all these amazing moves. I guess you read something of Wigglesworth. Have you read John T. Lake? John T. Lake's books are published now by Christ for Nations.

There's four of them. That man is, well, here I'm standing here and I talk with Wigglesworth. Wigglesworth is here. I'm here. John Lake is up there. You talk about apostolic Christianity and it all, beyond anything we've ever known.

Christlikeness as the Evidence of Genuine Transformation

I don't think it's the only answer. I think the answer is when people are so transformed and no longer mean and no longer selfish, no longer covetous, but they give themselves, I mean, when children say something happened to my daddy, he's been a Baptist for all his life, or something happened, or my daddy's been a Methodist, or now my daddy's been a charismatic, but something suddenly changes, becomes different.

He's Christ-like. He speaks gently to my mother. He's concerned about us. It isn't, well, I'm going to the World Series, whether you like it or not, or I'm going to a ball game, you know, shoot the ball.

And I said to these preachers, well, you say I can't take three days off. I say you took more than three days off to go deer hunting. You took three days off to go fishing. Why can't you pastors stand and say there's going to be a meeting for pastors at least one day a week, or one night a week, and we get together.

We evangelicals really lay hold of God for revival in our city. These kids around here will raise money to go to Hong Kong for three days, or go to South America, but when they come back as soon as they get off the plane, their compassion dies.

What are you going to do with kids like that? And they'll keep doing it as long as we want them. You know, oh, we took a number of our people from our church. We took them on a cruise, but you're touching the elite of the church all the time.

You've done that year after year, and the poor people are struggling. If you can take six or seven days off for a cruise, can you take six or seven days off for a nation that's going to hell? What do you want to do?

Kids lie in the street fornicating? People clobbering a man on the head and stealing his watch. Have sin to become before your eyes, before we feel. I mean, how many, it's all right to say I want to be like Jesus, do I want Gethsemane?

The Cost of a Gethsemane Experience

I've never heard a person yet, dear brother, and I've gone to church for 80 years. I've heard men say I was born again. I went to the cross. I've had my upper room experience. I've never heard a man say I've had a Gethsemane experience.

I've had a broken. My dad was the nearest of that. My dad couldn't say grace at mealtime without tears. Right now I have invitations to seven different places. I'm not going to one. I said, because if people say what's happening in America, I can't say there's revival anywhere I know.

I said, do you think I'm going to talk to them about the Holy Ghost revival when we're dying and doomed and damned here and we're running into worse trouble? What is in the scriptures? What does God say?

I can't give you glory because you honor one another. That's one of the biggest sentences we have. Like John Winters to them, when did you recharge me? And I said, if you do, I'll walk off the platform.

Revival Meetings and the Cry for Cleansing

Well, I went to say, first of all, we talked about revival. He said, well, you told Bickle that in revival you don't make altar call. I said, you don't? He said, I've never been in a meeting like that.

So I said, when we come, I said, let our David speak an hour before I do an hour. Our David's free now. He's pulled out from the church. He's free to go anywhere. I said, so David preached an hour. We had a 15 minute break and I preached for an hour and a half.

And while I was preaching, the whole audience broke up. They came in hundreds to the front and wept and groaned and cried out audibly, make me clean, purify me. That happened six days. We never had three one week and three the next.

We never had an altar call. We didn't have to. They came to the altar and stayed not five minutes, two and three hours calling on God. You read Luke chapter three, what does it say? John was preaching and the people cried out, what should we do?

And the soldiers cried out, what should we do? And the publicans cried out, dear God, when heathen men start crying out, what should we do? You know, God's there. There's no cleaning altar call. No, what did they say on the day of Pentecost?

Men and brethren, what should we do? We're panicking with, but the altar doesn't mean anything to people. Now they come out every week. We're romanizing our Protestant. Oh, get your sins forgiven and go back and do the same lousy thing.

Dying to Self Rather Than Repeating Old Sins

It's ridiculous. You don't do that if you go to death. When you die to self, you die to business promotion, you die to ambition, you lay it all out and say, we mean this with this, let God go on record, put us on record.

We're not going to do anything unless we get there. We've had a, what did we have not long ago? Do you remember A .A. Allen? A .A. Allen used to have meetings. You get 500 come forward on the way home to his atelier.

He called his call girl and she met him there. He died with the liquor bottles, whiskey bottles all around his room. There's a whole bunch of men done that. You don't find anything like that amongst the old-fashioned revivalists.