True Revival - Part 2 (Cd Quality) — Leonard Ravenhill

A Holy Ghost Fire for Revival

I'm still believing God is going to send a Holy Ghost fire in the Tyler area. I don't care where. I don't care if we have to take a storefront shop sometime. If he can't get in anywhere else, let's make a place where he can get in.

Possessing All Things Without Self-Exaltation

It's blessed to have nothing. Paul said he had nothing and he possessed all things. Now we've all things and we've got nothing. When we've no self-esteem, when we've no goal except it's glory, when we're not after some denominational label, when we're not seeking to outbid somebody else in Sunday school numbers.

I think of the day when David numbered Israel, God rebuked him. Boy, it's a numbers game these days, isn't it? How many numbers in Sunday school? How many buses are you running? It's numbers, numbers, numbers.

I think we ought to get out of numbers into exodus, make an exodus. Then maybe God will come with fire on us. You've heard me say this often enough, I'm going to say it here and then we're going to pray.

The Unlisted Heroes of Faith

I read and read and re-read Hebrews 11. Those amazing people who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the miles of lions. Women received their dead, raised to life. Tell you what, it's going to be a wonderful thing at a judgment when these people who've never been listed, the unlisted heroes.

We don't know who they were. They wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted and tormented. Where? When was it? I don't know, I don't care, but I know God has a record of it.

One day we're going to find these people marching up to the front while some of the big TV evangelists are still trying to get into heaven. But they're going to go up to the front to be honoured with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nobodies who became somebodies and exalted when they get into the presence of the Eternal King. Why? Because they obeyed God. They were obedient to the heavenly vision. I was thinking of that hymn, a favourite of mine, anyhow.

Emptying the Heart of Earthly Love

I've got about 3 ,000 favourites. John Wesley's favourite. It was written by a pretty, petite, little French lady a hundred years before Wesley was born. Come, Saviour Jesus, from above. Assist me with thy heavenly grace.

Empty my heart of earthly love. That's where it starts. Jesus won't be rivaled with anything in your life, whether it's success, money, position, social standing, or intellectual power. Come, Saviour Jesus, from above.

Assist me with thy heavenly grace. Empty my heart of earthly love, and for thyself prepare a place. Nothing very dramatic about that. But then she says, nothing on earth do I desire but thy pure love within my breast.

This, only this, will I require, and freely give up all the rest. Wealth, honour, pleasure, and what else this short, enduring world can give. Tempt as ye will, my soul rebels, for Christ alone is all to leave.

Thee will I love, and thee alone, with pure delight and inward bliss, to know thou takes me for thine own. Oh, what an happiness is this! Henceforth may no profane delight divide my consecrated soul. Possess it thou hast the right, as the Lord and Master of it all.

John Wesley's Surrender and Open-Air Preaching

Now Wesley said that, not only said it, he did it. An outstanding scholar in his day laid his scholarship at the feet of Jesus. His parents, I've read, were the most important people in England after the royal family.

And he surrendered everything to become an outcast. One day he met a young man by the name of George Whitfield. And he said, Mr. Whitfield, you don't preach in the sanctuaries, you don't preach any longer in the cathedrals.

He said, no, sir. Did Jesus preach in cathedrals? No. Well, Mr. Wesley, why don't you come with me into the street? And in his diary, John Wesley says, I condescended today to become more vile. And I preached with no roof over my head.

And I preached without stained glass windows. I preached with no bishops around me. I preached, but I preached again as a dying man to dying men, as later was said in the, well, had been said before that, actually.

But he said, from that moment there burned in me a fire, an irresistible fire, a burning, a live coal from off the altar. It's an amazing thing that this brilliant scholar was taken to the coal miners in Bristol.

George Whitfield's Tears and Holy Anointing

They used to go, hey, George Whitfield, at five o 'clock in the morning, you can get people listening for five dollars each at that time, not two or three thousand. They worked in the coal mines all night.

They came up and Whitfield was there with his holy anointing, the man who said, every time I preached, I saw the fires of hell waiting to consume my congregation. A lady saw him standing there. He was a portly man, even when he was young.

And his tears rolled down his face and bounced off his tummy onto the little woman standing there. And she said, Mr. Whitfield, three times I've heard you today, three times this day and three times I've been wet with your tears.

Why do you weep? Because he said, you don't weep. My heart breaks for that heart of yours that won't break. The miners listened to him at five o 'clock in the morning and they said the tears made tracks through the dust.

I've been in the coal mine in Wales. And I've seen the coal miners there. And they have all the dust. They sweat. And then the dust, the black dust, of course, sticks to their faces. And the tears just streamed down their faces and made tracks until they looked as though they'd been chalked with white.

And George Whitfield, who was raised in a tavern, went to the ladies that wore their silks and satins in the beautiful castles and mansions of England. George Whitfield did that. Wesley was born up there.

God took him to Ditherick Street. And then each of those men confessed they were burning. Charles Wesley wrote a hymn in which he said, Refining fire, go through my heart. Illuminate my soul. Scatter thy life through every part and sanctify the whole.

My steadfast soul from falling free shall then no longer rove. While Christ is all the world to me and all my heart is love. I forget who it was. There's another great hymn that says, See how great a flame aspires, kindling by a spark of grace.

Pentecostal Wind and Fire

You know, on the day of Pentecost, the two most potent forces in nature were married. Wind and fire. You remember earlier this year, one of the great fires out on the West Coast that consumed I don't know how many hundreds or thousands and thousands of acres?

We listened to the news at 10 o 'clock at night. We think we've contained the fire. It's died down. Almost everywhere it's gone. Next morning it was blazing with flames 20, 30 feet high. Oh, the wind came in the night and caught hold of the sparks and fanned it into this blaze.

The hymn writer says, See how great a flame aspires, kindled by one spark of grace. God doesn't raise up denominations. He raises up men. He didn't raise up Lutheranism again. He raised up Luther. He didn't raise the Wesleyan church, which became the Methodist church.

He raised up Wesley. He didn't raise up the Salvation Army. He raised up this marvelous young man, half Jew and half Gentile, William Booth. And he put a banner up. I think they still have the banner.

I don't think they have what it stands for. And on the banner it said, Blood and Fire. And he marched people through the streets, singing, Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flames, send the fire. Thy blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire.

Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost. We want another Pentecost. We need it. You think we dare pay the price for him? To make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire.

To live a dying world to save, send the fire. O see us on thine altar, lay our lives, our all this very day. To crown the offering now we pray, send the fire. And people left castles and mansions, and wealth.

Men who inherited get industrial plants left, because fire is attractive. They've gone into the formalism of the Church of England, they've been frozen to death almost. And here comes William Booth, with a tatamalian crowd of ragged people, poor people, no personality people, but people on fire.

Intercessory Prayer and the Price of Revival

As I've said before, I don't think there was anybody equal to John Wesley in his day. They were not equal to him intellectually, they didn't need that. They were equal to him spiritually. They were equal to him with hunger for God.

They were equal with him with longings for revival. And England at that time was as bad as she is now, or even worse. But God came in answer to intercessory prayer. And he'll come again in answer to intercessory prayer.

We're not going to organize something for God to bless. He's looking at people that have lost all confidence in themselves, confidence in their ability, confidence even in their message, confidence in their eloquence.

They're right down to rock bottom and say, God Almighty we're bankrupt unless you come. We have no power. Is America going to die? We can't live much longer as we've lived. I heard a horrible thing this week reported.

There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of men with AIDS in the nation. They've openly said we're going to go and donate blood. We won't even admit we've got this thing. We'll go somewhere where nobody knows us.

We're going to pollute America with AIDS. How diabolical can you get? The fellow that runs the Church of Satan out on the West Coast, I'm told he's ordered that every one of those stations which they have across the nation, every Wednesday they're going to fast and pray for demon power to invade Christian homes in America and destroy it.

Fasting and praying. They meet at midnight and pray and worship their devil, their demon, till six o 'clock. Stand on the cross and blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ. The cults are running wild. Why?

Why do you think? Do you think the devil is going to interrupt his own work? They've got all the power of the devil behind them. He doesn't block them. He doesn't resist them. He fights the evangelical testimony.

He fights the truth of God. And heresy is strangling our nation. Every day we live, I thank God every day I live, for that mercy is extended another day. We've out sinned Sodom. We've out sinned Gomorrah.

Revival Through Transformed Lives

But people are going to be attracted by a star singer putting on a show. They're going to come when the Holy Ghost comes with such burning. Again, people did not, N .O .T. listen, people did not go to church to get saved in the New Testament.

They went because they were saved. They were saved by what they saw in transformed lives. They saw people supernaturally changed. They saw men who had demon powers in them converted. And they wanted what they saw.

People don't want what we have. We're not radiant enough. I made up my mind I'm going to read some part of Revelation every day of my life now. I want to see the King in his glory. I get a bit weary of people saying, remember, Jesus walked on the dusty roads of Galilee.

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. He's not Jesus of Nazareth. What did Paul say of him? He says, already he is the immortal, invisible, the only wise God. He's already exalted. He has no victories to win.

What he's trying to get through to us is to have to enter into his victory. There's no kingdoms to pull down. There's no devil to trample on the foot. He did it on the cross. He said it is finished and it was finished.

But we haven't entered into that. Whether we're individuals or churches or denominations. We get to a plateau. We no longer feel the lash on our backs. But they got stuck at Kadesh Barnea. It should have been a gateway.

It became a terminus. It should have been a thoroughfare but they settled there. And the church is much like that today. I don't care what the label is. If you went in a Pentecostal church most of them you wouldn't know it was Pentecostal if they didn't have a label outside anyhow.

Where is that surging, surging power? I say I need a permanent resident Holy Spirit in me. Jesus said he shall be in you. I know the various manifestations of that. Sometimes I need to be touched with holy anger.

Purity Rather Than Power

And I do, I get blazing mad when I pray sometimes. I had just yesterday a precious girl. This pastor told me. One of the most beautiful girls in our church was saved and baptized with the Holy Ghost when she was 11.

She became like a star shining in the sky. Her parents would go to that Pentecostal church and say now wait a minute, wait a minute. You're still young you know. You need to see something of life. You see she was shaming them with her devotion, with her prayers.

She wept at night. She fasted, she groaned. And her spirit filled parents got mad about it. And they said well you don't need to go this like this. You need to take a little bit of liberty. She did. And now she's 17 years of age and pregnant.

And they go to the altar every night they have a meeting and weep and weep and God, God why did it happen? Well why did it happen? You said your daughter was getting too spiritual. I know a place where a man, fairly wealthy man says of his daughter who's a charming girl.

She started walking out with a Pentecostal boy. I'd rather she went to hell than marry him. She didn't marry him. She's pretty well on her way to hell though. Isn't it amazing what people will do? I'm longing to see, well this young man said last night I listened to your tapes I never knew there was a woman called the Marashal until you said it.

I want to read her life story. Did you ever see her? I said yes I ate with her, talked with her, preached with her. Do you think at 17 years of age she could step into Paris to the underworld with no financial backing and preach and see people come from the Sorbonne and the Greddish Universities and from the Gutters and got saved?

Why aren't the people like that today? I said you answer the question. I said the difference today between presenting Pentecost and the early days is this. The stress is in Acts 15, 8 and 9 where the Holy Ghost is recorded as coming to the house of Cornelius and he purified their hearts by faith.

We're not concerned about purity it's power we want. And much of it is selfish it's to endure us and let me preach better. Let people be attracted to my oratory let them be attracted to my ministry. No, no, no, no, no.

Purifying their hearts. They didn't have electric lights in the Tabernacle of Hope. No you said they had oil lamps. What were they filled with? Olive oil? No, no, no. They were filled with pure oil it says.

The desk was made of beaten gold no it was made of pure gold. The garments of the priests were pure. Everything that God used in that tabernacle ministry was pure. He's still looking for purity. He's still looking for people who want to be I was going to say scourged scoured we would say in England until every part of us which is unclean is totally removed and every part of our being is filled with that divine love.

That love which is a fire that burns. Again that precious little woman as I finish that little Irish lady Amy Wilson Carmichael wrote that verse give me a love that leads the way a faith which nothing can dismay.

A hope no disappointments tire a passion that will burn like fire here she is weighing about 96 pounds. Let me not sink to be a cloud. Make me thy fuel flame of God. And the only way for me to burn is everything in me is burned out.

All the dross all the impurity all the self-seeking all the self-interest. I can only testify for myself. I'm getting more hungry than ever to see God. To see something which is unquestionably sovereign power of God.

America, Judgment, and the Church's Responsibility

Holy power that's pure of anything purified of everything. I'm aching in my spirit. God is my witness. I do wish I could live without eating. I do wish I could live without sleeping. If the temperature doesn't rise in the church anymore than we have it now.

America is going to go to hell in less than 10 years. We can't get more disease. We can't get more venereal disease. We can't have more babies put down the job. We can't have more rebellion against God.

He won't put up with it. His spirit will not strive with men forever. He won't strive with individuals forever. He doesn't strive with nations forever. And I believe we're tempting the law. Nobody is more mutilated and merchandise the gospel than America.

Look what we do. Sunday mornings begging, screaming for money. I've said it and quit. I've said for so long, for years that because of the mounting iniquity in the nation the church is going to suffer for the sin of America.

I don't believe that anymore. I mean, I believe America is going to suffer for the sin of the church. The uncleanness, the pride the covetousness the worldliness. We're mesmerized by materialism doesn't mean if you sell your house and everything you have that tomorrow you'll be a superstar in God's kingdom.

Not at all. But you see the penniless prophet Jesus Christ. Could you think a holy man like him would be betrayed? Would you think a holy man like him could be doubted? They didn't all make well even out of the twelve.

And so if you suffer some of that thing remember it's the way the master went. I say again I can't transfer my despair to your heart. In one sense I'd like to. I can't. But there's a despair in my heart for God.

The Purpose of Tyler and the Day of Visitation

God brought us here for some reason. We're not the greatest people in the world. Dear Martha and I. We went back in our lives the other day. We lived in England in a beautiful place went to Ireland lived in a more beautiful place.

And from there we went to Bethany Fellowship. From Bethany Fellowship we went to New York worked with Dave Wilkerson twenty years ago. From there we went and lived for three years in the beautiful Bahamas.

Then God brought us into Louisiana. Then he brought us over here. Why did we stop here? Tyler isn't the most beautiful place on earth. I don't think it's a lovely place. I dare to believe God has a reason for me being here.

I believe he has a reason for you being here. And he says to Israel you remember pardon me he said to Jerusalem O Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets. If you knew the day of your visitation isn't it amazing.

They were celebrating the Passover in the temple and crucifying God's Passover in the very same day. And didn't even know if you knew the day of your visitation the walls were going to come tumbling down before long again.

The Church Amid Despair and Disaster

While you and I sit here in our ease there are people under debris there trying to keep away the dust so they won't choke on it buried under buildings in agony. All they know is despair and darkness death to them.

There's no risen exalted Christ. There's no eternity of glory. They've been deceived and lied about and there they are. And when our economy comes tumbling down and other things there's going to be despair all over the nation.

And the only people that will lift their heads up will be the Christians. And we'd better be pretty well sold out to God. By that time there was fire. The mark of residency of the Holy Spirit again was the pillar of fire.

It was fire on the lips of Isaiah. Elijah said let there be rain. No, no, no. If it rained the people of Baal would say it rained because we cut our breasts and beat our heads and screamed to God. But he made it most difficult though they wanted rain he said send fire.

That's a symbol of God the God that answers by fire. Let him be God. I believe the world is still waiting to see that holy fire manifested in his people. But there'll be something burning that you can't explain and I can't explain in our hearts.

Sovereign Fire from Heaven

It's going to come. There are so many people praying for Tyler. We meet them in different places that tell us we're praying for Tyler. That's great. I'm not saying the fire will only fall in Tyler. I'm telling you out of my despair tonight.

I'm honest with you I thank God for the fire that's in me. I know there is a fire burning but I know there's still more that God wants to reveal. There came a rushing mighty wind from above. There came fire from above.

It didn't come down main street. It didn't go through the temple. It didn't go past the house of the high priest. It came directly from heaven to those men there. And the next time it comes it will come the same way.

It's not going to be manipulated by the headquarters of the assemblies of God or the headquarters of the Nazarene. God's going to display his sovereign right. And no man will get the glory. And that's what we need.

A Burden for Local and Global Revival

I want you to pray about that fire tonight for your own life if you have to. And I'm sure all of us could do with more anointing more holy zeal more holy love more holy courage more holy determination to do the will of God.

And then again pray again for this community that God will come not only here. Maybe you have a burden for India or Africa. I don't care. You know when you think it's it's terrible to think that if in the next 12 months we had a revival in the world that swept 1 billion people into the kingdom that there's still 4 billion for the devil to have.

And that's too much. Last time we were in Ireland we went up into Donegal where they make that lovely Donegal tweed. And they've got hills there. And they've got rocks on the side of the hills. And there were old men there with little scythes.

They were cutting the wheat and all over the place. There were grandpas and grandmas cutting like that. I come over here and I see these great combines doing more in one hour than those people were doing a whole year.

Evangelism, Revival, and the Outpouring of the Spirit

I see that as evangelism and revival. Evangelism is doing little bits. Revival is when God comes with a great outpouring of his spirit and disturbs the sleep of death. And people know that it's God. It's not man.

It's not evangelism. It's not a star personality. Young men are going to see visions. And old men dream dreams. And I'm God's servants and handmaid. Not his bishops. Not superstars not bishops not presidents.

I'm my servants and handmaid. That's where he began. He didn't go to the temple and ask the high priest there who are the best most spiritual people. He went to a fisherman down there. He went to a tax gatherer.

He took the most ordinary men and made them extraordinary. And he's still in the business. And if you're a candidate for it cry out to him tonight. Say Lord I want the greatest purging I've ever had. I want the greatest anointing.

Dying to Self and Entering Christ's Victory

I want this to be permanent. I don't want to be running to the altar every week. Good Lord we've got altar tramps. They think there's something magic about kneeling there. No. I went to an altar once and I remember where it was.

And I died to self that night. I knew my problem was pride. It was ambition. It was jealousy. I remember going to that altar and crying and saying God. The man that came to deal with me said what do you want.

I said I want God to do. Romans 6 -7. You mean Romans 6 -6. No I don't. Well Romans 6 -6 knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth we should.

I don't. That's not what I'm asking for. What do you want. Next verse. What's the next verse. He that is dead is freed from sin. I want to die tonight. I went to enter a death where there'll never be any renewal.

I'm not saying there's no trial after it no difficulty after it. I'm saying there's a place where permanently God can cut us off from all vain ambition. Cut us off from all worldliness. Worldly interest worldly sports worldly achievement.

Everything is cut off and we're completely lost in him. As a lovely chorus says that we never sing. But maybe we'll learn it. Sweet will of God still hold me closer till I am wholly lost in thee. Sweet will of God still hold me close till I'm wholly this.

I've no eyes for anything else. I've no interest in anything else. You'll tempt me. I'm not interested. Tempt a dead miser with money. And he'll not reach for it. Tempt a man who really dies out to Jesus Christ saying after this it won't be easy coasting.

The devil will be after him for sure. But he'll have supreme victory because he has the total indwelling of the spirit of the living God. These are the men God's looking for. These are the women God's looking for.

We'll go to prayer. And again as I always say you're free to go anytime you want to go. I'm sure we'll pray at least another hour.