(Compilation) a Cry for Revival — Leonard Ravenhill

The Church’s Need for Release and Revival

Is we're content to live without it. I believe the greatest tragedy in the world tonight I believe the greatest tragedy in the world tonight is a sick church in a dying world but the church is gagged and bound she needs release in this awful hour in which we're living and the only one that can bring that release is Jesus Christ himself.

Personal Accountability Before God

Parvail! It's forgotten in our day. It says the books were open. What books? You say well Mr. Raynald I don't I won't be in serious trouble because you know I don't have a good memory. That great scholar Daniel Webster was once asked what is the greatest thought?

You have a colossal mind. What is the greatest thought that has ever traveled down the corridors of your mind? He said I thought many great things but the greatest thing that I've ever thought of, the most awesome, the most terrifying, the most shattering thought I've ever had is my personal accountability to God one day.

The hour is coming for all of us before too long. I beg you I entreat you find what is the will of God for your life and do it. The mission field isn't dying for want of mysteries. Most of them will be better come home.

They malfunction after what? What? They went out of compassion, went out of sympathy. We went to teach, we went to help the poor. Very good but not the primary object of the man of God or the woman of God.

It's to go with an anointing, to go with a love that surpasses everything they have ever seen. It's the love of God. Can you imagine that Paul says the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost?

We try to prove we're filled with the Spirit by our different gifts. I'm not going to argue about that. There is one qualification that proves we're filled with the Holy Ghost and that is we live a holy life.

The world is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity. It's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity. I'd be happy to go to heaven tonight. I've preached over 60 years and I've had some wonderful meetings but I want to see God do something in this garden valley area before I die.

Spiritual Bondage and the Power of Christ

And then he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus! So he just said Lazarus come forth and he came forth. He was alive. The boy, he was bound, gagged on his face. He had great claws. He could only shuffle. His hands were tied and that's true about 95 of believers today, they're alive but they're gagged, they're bound, they've still got great claws.

I think the world around us is just about fed up of blackboard theology and notebook theology. The devil kicked us around like a football and Jesus says loose him and let him go. We're bound by superstition.

We're bound by the theology of our grandfathers or something. We dare to bear his name and we're destitute of power. With all the blessed excuse the modernists and liberals have given us for not believing in the Old Testament, for not believing the miracles working in power.

The Majesty and Judgment of Jesus Christ

Listen when you see Jesus you're not going up and say hey buddy I'm glad you died for me. When you see Jesus you'll be almost paralyzed with fear unless you have a glorified body and a glorified mind.

Boy we're in for trouble at the end of the line. For a simple reason we've had so much light and rejected it. Carter can't make a move to the right. If he makes it to the right it's still to the left.

He makes a counter move that makes him sink further and further in the mire. It's not only true that we live in a world of bankrupt politics, we live in a world and this is the most tragic of all of a bankrupt church.

The usurper, the liar has taken over. There's never been as much opposition to the true gospel of Jesus Christ as there is today. The picture of Jesus here is not the picture of a pathetic individual pushed around by anybody who wants to push him around.

I think sometimes we think we're going to march up and say well you know Jesus do you know how many years I served you and how many souls I won for you and how many sermons I preached for you? Oh no no no.

God pity us. Well what will he be like in heaven? Well I'll tell you what the book says he'll be like. It says his hair is as white as snow, his feet are like burnished brass, his face is like the sun in its strength, his eyes are living coals of fire, his tongue is a sharp twedged sword and here is John who used to lean his head on the bosom of Jesus and hear that divine heartbeat.

The man that I believe knew more about Jesus than anyone else and when he saw Jesus there on his throne in his majesty with his face brighter than the sun, with his feet like burnished brass, with his eyes like flames of fire, with his tongue majestic and his voice like the sound of many waters, John the man who had walked with him and talked with him for three years says that when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead.

The Church’s Responsibility in a Dark World

What do you think you and I are going to do? You think you've got problems with your children? What about a man who has a whole string of churches they've just come out of heathendom, many of them are weak and vacillating, there's no revelation, there's no Bibles yet.

All the heroes in Hebrews 11, not one of them has a Bible. And you and I have everything that God is ever going to say to the world. What are we going to do, run away and let the devil have the whole place?

The Church of Jesus Christ has had in America or any other country in the last 25 years has not changed one of those countries. So something needs to be changed. I think before we point the finger at the world we better turn to the church and say look we better all get sackcloth and ashes and humble ourselves and say Almighty God.

And I think we better watch this business of you know God loves you, God loves you and all the bumper stickers sloppy evangelism. Will you remind people of the goodness and the severity of God? Will you remind them that there's a day when mercy is cut off forever?

Will you remind them that people pray in hell but nobody ever answers? We've gone to other countries, have we taken them? No we haven't taken the gospel, we've taken American Christianity or English Christianity, Bible Christianity.

The Church’s Need for a New Revelation of God’s Majesty

It's the most costly thing in the world. It's the most beautiful thing in the world, it's the most glorious thing in the world. Jesus going to the tomb and saying roll away the stone. He didn't roll it away.

He gave wine at the feasts but he said you fill the water pots. There's some labor we have to do. You put the water in the in the water pots I'll turn it into wine. You roll the stone away. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God.

This is what? This is the King of Kings and he's the judge of judges and it's the tribunal of tribunals and there's no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final. There'll be no biased judgment. Two people at least have said to me this week there is no justice in the earth today.

Maybe there isn't. I hang on to a word that says shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Well you say again I still hang on to the fact my memory isn't good. You know it says the books are open.

I don't know what the books are. I think the books of the Ten Commandments for one thing. I think the book of memory for another thing. You see this memory is an amazing thing but you know memory will last into eternity.

Eternal Consequences and the Reality of Hell

Oh I don't think the redeemed will remember their sorrows and heartaches but I'll tell you what the unholy dead will remember every time somebody put a tract in their hand. They'll feel it through eternity and wish their God it was there.

They remember that they heard their mother's prayers. They remember every sermon. They're going to remember everything because one day a man in hell prayed. It was the wrong place to pray. He prayed to the wrong person.

He prayed to Abraham. He got the wrong answer. Son remember in thy lifetime that you had good things. But I don't want my brothers to come here. But Jesus says remember. Memory is eternal. It will never die.

If you're an unsaved man a thousand million years you say well I came this morning my wife wanted me to come but I don't think I'll come again. I don't like this kind of stuff. Well friend let me tell you lovingly go to hell and live with all the scum of the earth.

You like to drink? Go with the drinkers. You like to lust? Go with the prostitutes. In hell if you're given to lust after women you'll have that lust but there's nothing to satisfy your lust. If you drink you'll thirst but there's nothing to satisfy your thirst.

You'll give a king's ransom for one drop of water. There isn't even a drop of water. Never mind that precious wine you drink. When in God's name is the church going to open her heart again and open her mind again and see again that every man I cannot whether he flies his own private Learjet or how many millions he has or rules over a city.

The great of the earth and the scum of the earth and the the unbelievers they're gonna spend their time in eternity. They're gonna live there forever and ever. The good book says where they're wormed I earth not.

This is the judgment of the believers now. What are we going to do? Run away and let the devil have the whole place? They labor us together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building according to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder.

I have laid the foundation and another builder thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. If any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it.

Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man's work. Notice what it says very carefully here. What sort it is not what size it is. Not the quantity but the quality. If any man's work abide which he has built thereupon he shall receive a reward.

If any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet as by fire. So Jesus there as it were or the Spirit puts these into little pockets. He says your life can be wood or hay or stubble or your life can be silver, gold or precious stones.

And the fire shall try every man's work. See there's Paul he gave his colossal intellect to God. He wrote about 14 epistles. He went over Asia Minor. He didn't sit in a jet and say you know how good the Lord is to me No sirree.

He was lashed to the post 195 times. He was in weariness and fastings and painfulness and tribulation and distress and famine and peril and nakedness and sword. In tribulation amongst false brethren. In perils of the deep.

You think that man's gonna get two ounces of reward for a life like that? You'll only get rewarded. Grace is free but rewards are not free. Isn't it awesome to think that all this stuff we sing all that will be glory for me Friend you've got one big stumbling block.

Devotion, Worship, and a Holy Life

Let me rush through this. Time's going. Your life is wood. The fire's gonna come. Hay. The fire's gonna come to it. Stubble. The fire's gonna come to it. But what if your life is silver and gold and precious stones?

What is gold a sign of? Gold I believe there is a sign of our devotion to God. What happens when you burn gold? Nothing. All you do is change it from solid to liquid but you don't reduce it. Can you see all the saints of all the ages and Leonard Raybill is standing there before a Christ whose eyes are full of holiness where the place is breathing holiness where there's all the majesty of an awesome God and he reads the record of my poor life before all the saints of all the ages and I don't care how I preach I don't care whether you believe me either I'm not responsible for that.

Yesterday I guess about the woman that came with an alabaster box of ointment you know I read that story for years and heard it preached on before ever I realized she came for one reason only she came to worship Jesus.

How do you know? Because she brought the most sacrificial gift that she had. How do you know? Because she never said a word while she was there. How do you know? Because she said I won't wash his feet with water I wash them with tears I won't dry his head his feet with a gorgeous towel I'll wipe his feet with the hair of my head and she poured out that costly fragrance and then she wiped his feet again so what happened?

The fragrance she poured out on him came back on her. Why isn't my life more fragrant? Because you don't take time to be holy because you think if you stuff all the stuff you get at a gappy which I'm sure is good or some other Bible school that this is no no no no God isn't gonna measure your intellect the size of your hat.

I think again of the statement Dr. Totem made for me once he said Len you know what? He said we'll hardly get our feet out of time into eternity and gaze on eternity while we bow our heads in shame and humiliation and say my God look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ and I've come to the judgment seat almost a pulpit.

Love, Joy, and the Power of the Early Church

He prays that they may have my love. Not a mushy sentimental love. That strong love of God. The love that led him to be nailed to the cross. It was love that held him there not nailed. God has not merely given us Jesus Christ he's given us all things and because there isn't enough joy in the house of God we need entertainment.

Because entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. There isn't enough power in the house of God people are always looking for the last scientific development and their hair stands up when they see some fancy show on TV.

When I see the church in the New Testament they didn't have stately buildings, they didn't have paid evangelists, they didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have organization they couldn't get on TV and beg.

But I'll tell you what they did they turned the world upside down and I'm embarrassed to be part of the Church of Jesus today because I believe it's an embarrassment to a holy God.