Ravenhill Quotes..

Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows Himself. -Leonard Ravenhill

"There are people who think that God is only around to help us. We have a great utility God, they think. You pray, and He does this! You pray, and He does that! You pray, and He sends you money. You pray, and He gets you out of a jam. He’s not somebody you worship in speechless adoration, but He’s a utility God! And some on TV are exploiting that to the maximum." -Leonard Ravenhill

"The only reason we don't have revival, is because we are willing to live without it." -Leonard Ravenhill

"The greatest tragedy ever, is a sick church in a dying world." -Leonard Ravenhill

"A man who is intimate with God, will never be intimated by men." -Leonard Ravenhill

“We have to make up our minds if this Book is absolute or obsolete.It's either got the answer for our generation or forget it." - Leonard Ravenhill

“The church has to rediscover two things. One, the majesty and the Holiness of God, and the other, the sinfulness of sin.” – Leonard Ravenhill

"We’re preaching an acceptable Gospel today, making it as painless as we can. And all we do is give people a shot to put them to sleep so they get to hell quicker. We need some hellfire preaching on repentance" - Leonard RavenhillGod himself says in the Bible: "If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!" (Micah 2:11)You know what we're doing with our modern methods for effective evangelism? We're grieving God, we're making a fool out of Him! We think the Bible isn't good enough. We need examples! The Holy Ghost is history. We need entertainment. And now we got two problems. First of all, the Church fully relies on these methods (instead of relying on God) and they seem to work. The second problem is that Christianity receives new strength. But not the strength from God. In Isaiah it says: "You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint." (Isaiah 57:10). This chapter is directed to the sons of a sorceress, offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! This is the spiritual state of the Church of Christ today! But in spite of her terrible state, she gains new strength...power from this world.Lots of Christians like these days. They think that God is working...well, perhaps I'm wearing very dark sunglasses, but I believe we live in the darkest days ever! I thank God there are still people who see this darkness and they dare to preach boldly. They don't merely point out that there's darkness, but they also lit a candle! Before revival comes, we need to see that we are dead! That's what revival means: RE = again + VIVAL comes from "Life". So revival means to come back to life again, which makes clear that at this moment we (as the Church of Christ) are as dead as a dodo!We're going down people! So let us go down also...to our knees! May we be encouraged by God as He says: "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth" (Isaiah 62:6-7)

"I’m embarrassed to be part of the Church of Jesus today, because I believe it’s an embarrassment to a holy God!" - Leonard Ravenhill

"This much is sure: If we could merit revival by fasting, there would be many martyred by starving. If we could organize revival, we would pool our thinking to outwit the powers of darkness.If we could buy this elusive revival with the mammon of unrighteousness, we could get a score of what we call Christian millionaires to underwrite the thing for us.If we could blast the devil from this present world, we would pledge the politicians for an atom bomb.God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost."

"You see, what people are seeking today is a painless Pentecost. There isn’t such a thing. What happened immediately after Pentecost? They prospered? Yes? No! They went to jail! It wan’t prosperity; it was prison, pain, privation, and persecution"- Leonard Ravenhill

"As I’ve said before, if you say "where two or three are gathered in His name…," if the living Christ is in your meeting, how in God’s name can you have a dead service?! It’s totally impossible!"- Leonard Ravenhill

Can you imagine the Apostle Paul daring to step into Rome, this city of hatred and violence with any less comprehension of the power of the Cross than he had?Our gimmick-geared gospel would have fallen as flat in that day as in our day. Can you imagine Paul and his party confronting this pagan, wicked hoard with hip-swinging girls and hand-clapping boys singing, “Something Good is Going to Happen to you,” or offering them a Prosperity Pack for a donation?L. RavenhillSodom had no Bible

All time favorite:"If you are going to get mature in God all the dwarfs around you will criticize and sneer at you and say 'Your trying to be holier than the rest of us, ah?"

"If you are going to get mature in God all the dwarfs around you will criticize and sneer at you and say 'Your trying to be holier than the rest of us, ah?"Reminds me of a Mark Twain quote:Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

I share the view of E.M. Bounds that it takes God twenty years to make a preacher.L. RavenhillWhy revival tarries

I believe a warrior knows no shame he only knows the orders that are at hand, and having done all stand. a soldier only knows what he is given to do. some times I think I sometimes believe I have the right too question the written orders and judge them and do as I think I should. Lord help me and others to read your word and be doers and followers of your word. amen

That final day is going to be awesome. Have you figured how you'll get on when you stand there? You and I will stand there alone on that day and be judged for every aspect of our lives - for our praying, our giving, our talking, and our doing. I still believe in the majesty of that eternal court, with the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the Judge of judges. You see, there's no possibility of any rehearsal, and what's more, there's no possibility of any repetition. Because, again, this is the Final Judgment, and to some God will say, "Come, ye blessed," but to others He'll say, "Depart from Me." No, it's not so simple to be a Christian after all. It's a majestic thing. ~ Leonard Ravenhill

Charles gave us that wonderful hymn, “gentle Jesus, meek and mild…” but you know some people never get past “gentle Jesus”. Jesus is associated with fire!- Ravenhill

The offense of prayer is that it does not essentially tie in to mental efficiency. That is not to say that prayer is a partner to mental sloth. But in these days, efficiency and smartness are at a premium. Prayer is conditioned to one thing alone, and that is to spirituality. One does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is, to make and deliver sermons of homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude. By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined book shelves, self-confidence and a sense of having arrived - the pulpit is yours almost anywhere these days. Preaching of the type mentioned affects men; prayer affects God. Preaching affects time; prayer affects eternity. The pulpit can be a shop window to display our talents; the closet speaks death to display.

The tragedy of this last hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people. There is a strange thing that I have seen even in the fundamentalist circles: it is preaching without unction. What is unction? I hardly know what it is, but I know what it is not, or at least I know when it is not upon my own soul. Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life. The unctionless preacher is a savor of death unto death. The Word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher. Preacher, with all thy getting, get unction.

Unction cannot be learned, only earned by prayer. Unction is God's knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet. The meeting is won or lost before the preacher's foot enters the pulpit. Unction is like perfume. Unction is like dynamite. Unction comes not by the medium of the bishop's hands, neither does it mildew when the preacher is cast into prison. Unction will pierce and percolate. It will sweeten and soften. When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed.

The ugly fact is that the altar fires are either out or burning very low. The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh. What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer? Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen - degrees or no degrees. Where are our unctionized pulpit crusaders? Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls.

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Ps. 126:5). This is the divine edict. This is more than preaching with zeal. This is more than scholarly exposition. This is more than delivering sermons of exegetical exactitude and homiletical perfection. Such a man, whether preacher or pew dweller, is appalled at the shrinking authority of the Church in the present drama of cruelty in the world. And he cringes with sorrow that men turn a deaf ear to the Gospel and willingly risk eternal hell in the process. Under this complex burden, his heart is crushed to tears.

Many of us have no heart-sickness for the former glory of the Church because we have never known what true revival is. We stagnate in the status quo and sleep easy at night while our generation moves swiftly to the eternal night of hell. Shame, shame on us! Jesus whipped some money changers out of the temple; but before He whipped them, He wept over them. He knew how near their judgment was The Apostle Paul sent a tear-stained letter to the Philippian saints, writing: "I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ" (Phil. 3:18). Notice that he does not say they are enemies of Christ; they are, rather, the enemies of the cross of Christ. They deny or diminish the redemptive values of the cross. There are many like this today. The church of Rome does not stand as an enemy of Christ; it traces heavily on His holy name. Yet it denies the cross by saying that the Blessed Virgin is co-redemptive. If this is so, why was she not also crucified? The Mormons use the name of Christ, yet they are astray on the atonement. Have we tears for them? Shall we face them without a blush when they accuse us of inertia at the Judgment Seat saying that they were our neighbors and an offense to us, but not a burden because they were lost?

America cannot fall - because she is already fallen! This goes for Britain, too. She cannot go into slavery - because her people are fettered at the moment in the chains of self-forged, self-chosen moral anarchy. Here are millions, diseased morally, with no longing for healing. Here are men paying for shadows at the price of their immortal souls.

This is an hour in need of burning hearts, bursting lips and brimming eyes! If we were a tenth as spiritual as we think we are, our streets would be filled each Sunday with throngs of believers marching to Zion - with sacks on their bodies and ashes on their shaking heads, shaking at the calamity that has brought the Church to be the unlovely, unnerved, unproductive thing that she is!

If we wept as much in the prayer closet as devout Jews have done at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, we would now be enjoying a prevailing, purging revival! If we would return to apostolic practice - waiting upon the Lord for apostolic power - we could then go forth to apostolic possibilities! This is the hour when we are asked over and over again, "Is everybody happy?" God's purpose for us is not happiness, but HOLINESS!

We’re in grave danger when we let our accomplishments become the ground of our confidence. Oh boy, how we want to be esteemed! How we want to be respected…how people should realize what precious gifts of the Spirit are given, do you know why you don’t? Because you stink with pride!

Brethren, we could well manage to be half as intellectual (of the modern pseudo kind) if we were twice as spiritual. Preaching is a spiritual business. A sermon born in the head reaches the head; a sermon born in the heart reaches the heart.

Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit.

Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls. Away with this palsied, powerless preaching which is unmoving because it was born in a tomb instead of a womb, and nourished in a fireless, prayerless soul. We may preach and perish, but we cannot pray and perish.

No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop-window to display one’s talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off. Poverty-stricken as the church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestles; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.

The Roman orators were very brilliant men; they attacked the emotion. The Greek orator attacked the intellect. The true preacher is not a descendent of the Greek orator nor is he a descendant of the Roman orator. The true preacher is the descendant of the Hebrew prophet; he is not there to tickle emotions, he is not there merely to stir the mind, he gets deeper down than either, he gets to the conscience.

You know we have on our coins, “In God We Trust”. That’s not my problem. My problem is does God trust us. We don’t trust God! If we trusted God we wouldn’t have an air force or an army.

Wesley sticks in one of his wonderful hymns, “Jesus lover of my soul…other refuge have I none and hangs my helpless soul on thee”. But how often when we get into a jam, when the mountains are moving in your life, what do you do? Call for the neighbor? Ring for the pastor? Or the deacons? Or do you go to prayer and say, “GOD, THAT GOD WHO HEARD ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL…”

"A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men." – Leonard Ravenhill

One of the most amazing and disgusting things is that on the day of our Lord’s resurrection there was not not even one of his disciples at the tomb…. Had been telling them for years that he would be put to death and on the third day he would rise again and they just…ignored him. How many promises have you ignored?

The trouble with the church today is that we do not have preachers. We have preacher-ettes preaching sermon-ettes to Christian-ettes who smoke cigar-ettes

"The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church...grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil."

"A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God."

"Do the Pentecostals look back with shame as they remember when they dwelt across the theological tracks, but with the glory of the Lord in their midst? When they had a normal church life, which meant nights of prayers, followed by signs and wonders, and diverse miracles, and genuine gifts of the Holy Ghost? When they were not clock watchers, and their meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power? Have we no tears for these memories, or shame that our children know nothing of such power?"

If we were not so preoccupied with lesser things, we would be grief-stricken that we have failed to inherit our possessions in Him.

There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer. People often ask, "Why do you insist on prayer so much?" The answer is very simple - because Jesus did. You could change the title of the Gospel according to St. Luke to the Gospel of Prayer. It's the prayer life of Jesus.

The other evangelists say that Jesus was in the Jordan and the Spirit descended on Him as a dove - Luke says it was while He was praying that the Spirit descended on Him. The other evangelists say that Jesus chose 12 disciples - Luke says it was after He spent a night in prayer that He chose 12 disciples. The other evangelists say that Jesus died on a cross - Luke says that even when He was dying Jesus was praying for those who persecuted Him. The other evangelists say Jesus went on a mount and He was transfigured - Luke says it was while He was praying that He was transfigured. There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer.

The Scriptures say that the disciples went to bed, but Jesus went to pray - as was His custom. It was His custom to pray. Now Jesus was the Son of God - He was definitely anointed for His ministry. If Jesus needed all that time in prayer, don't you and I need time in prayer? If Jesus needed it in every crisis, don't you and I need it in every crisis?

C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 16 and began preaching in London at the age of 19. When he was 27, they built him a tabernacle seating 6,000 which he packed twice on Sundays - that's 12,000 - and once on Thursday nights. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied...and he prayed.

God makes all His best people in loneliness. Do you know what the secret of praying is? Praying in secret. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door..." (Matt. 6:6). You can't show off when the door's shut and nobody's there. You can't display your gifts. You can impress others, but you can't impress God.

Now I say very often - and people don't like it - that God doesn't answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer! Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling...." The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.

Duncan Campbell told the story of hearing a farmer in his field who was praying. He was praying about Greece. Afterward, he asked him why he was praying. The man said, "I don't know. I had a burden in the spirit and God said, 'You pray; there's someone in Greece that is in a bad situation.' I prayed until I got a release." Two or three years later the farmer was in a meeting listening to a missionary. The man described a time when he was working in Greece. He had been in serious trouble. The time? Two or three years ago. The men compared notes and discovered that it was the very same day that God had burdened a farmer, on a little island off the coast of Scotland, to pray for a man in Greece whose name he didn't even know.

After the boy recited Psalm 24 he began to pray. He prayed 10, 15, 20 minutes. Then he suddenly said, "Excuse me, Lord, while I resist the devil." He turned around and began to tell the devil where to go and how to get there. He fought for all he was worth. You talk about having on the armor of God and resisting the devil! When he finished resisting the devil, he finished his prayer. He prayed for 45 minutes! When he finished praying it was just as though God had pulled a little switch in heaven. The Spirit of God came down on that church, that community, on the dance hall at the other end of town, and the tavern on this end of town. Revival was born in that prayer!

People say, "I'm filled with the Holy Spirit." If the coming of the Spirit didn't revolutionize your prayer life, you'd better check on it. I'm not so sure you got what God wanted you to get.

Thanks Jimm,Some choice nuggets you are unearthing. Had to lift this one back up again:The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.Don't know if a truer statement has ever been uttered. Joh 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

A few years ago, Dr. Carl F. Henry, founder and editor of Christianity Today, sent out a questionnaire to what he called, "Twenty of the leading intellectual preachers in the country." And the question that he sent out was this: "What do you see for the church of Jesus Christ by the year 2000." I remember only one of the replies, it was given by Elton Trueblood, the Quaker philosopher. He said this amazing thing: "By the year 2000 the church will be a conscious minority surrounded by an arrogant, militant paganism."

The tragedy in our colleges and seminaries right now is that we turn men out who know the word of God. - That is never going to turn the world.The question is not whether they know the Word of God.The question is:DO THEY KNOW THE GOD OF THE WORD?

Isn't it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we had some cities yesterday where 3000 sermons were preached and nobody was saved. And it doesn't even faze us.

The church used to be a lightning bolt, now it's a cruise ship.We are not marching to Zion - we are sailing there with ease. In the apostolic church it says they were all amazed - And now in our churches everybody wants to be amused.

Today Lucifer is probably surveying the church just as Bonaparte did China. One can almost behold the fear in his eyes as he thinks of the Church's unmeasured potential and growls, "Let the Church sleep! If she wakes, she will shake the world." Is not the Church the sleeping giant of today?

Consider Samson's fall. He didn't get drunk; he didn't commit murder; he didn't steal. Samson fell simply because he succumbed to the natural, and fell asleep.

God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost.

Holy jealousy gripped him. Mighty as he had been in other things, Samson now proved mightiest in prayer: "Lord, strengthen me ... this once!' (vs. 28) Would to God that every professed believer in the whole of Christendom would borrow this prayer and mean it. Then with dramatic conclusion, Samson sealed the doom of many more of the enemies of God in his dying than in his living.

The religious sentimentalist who sings "Just a closer walk with Thee" but walks close to the ungodly and sits with the blasphemers, is not taken seriously in either heaven or hell. Be very sure, friend, that this vile world is not "a friend to grace to help on to God." We need to pray the Father to put some blood into this "water" that runs through our veins. Our Simon-like natures need the Upper Room fire to clean us out and the discipline of the Spirit to shape us into soldiers.

I suggest to you in all reverence that these three words terrified hell. IT IS FINISHED!

I get indignant when I hear people say, "What we need to do is study comparative religion." Well, I say again with some heat and some feeling in my spirit, Christianity is not a comparative religion, it's a SUPERLATIVE religion!

You see, there at that moment when Jesus said: "It is finished," Mercy and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace kissed each other... and hell went into panic. How do I know? Because the earth was shattered. The whole earth rocked on it's axis. The earth trembled under the impact of the sin that He bore for us. Heaven trembled...That event was so sacred that, as it were, God took His coat off and hung it over the sun. And there was darkness for three hours. He would not let anybody see His Son become corruption.

Again, going down that road the people mocked Him - that's what the Bible says. "They that passed by reviled Him wagging their heads." What a bunch of dumb, blind, senseless folk. If Caesar comes down the road they bow the knee and say, "Hail, Caesar."If the priest comes, they stand in awe. But, you see, He not only was, He IS. In this mad, insane, world in which we live, HE STILL IS DISPISED AND REJECTED OF MEN.

Prayer is battle. Could it be that in our churches the rightslogan over the door of most of our prayer rooms would be "WeWrestle *Not*"? I often see listed in churches names of athleteswho will play ball of some kind, but I would like to see these"muscle men" operating where strength really counts - that is, inthe place of prayer. Prayer taxes even the physical frame; prayer wears on the nerves; prayer involves the whole man. Prayer *must*have priority. Prayer *must* be our bolt to lock up the night,our key to open the day. Prayer is power. Prayer is wealth.Prayer is health of the soul.

You know the most awful thing in the church today is not sin, as we think of it, drunkenness, and abortion… the greatest hindrance is unbelief! :-( :-( :-(

Vision is almost the greatest dynamic in the world and the only answer to it is a revelation from God. If you have a vision without a task you are a visionary, if you have a task without a vision that’s drudgery but if you have a vision with a task that makes you a missionary. :-o :-o

God pity us!

In Malachi, it says that God has a “book of remembrance” and, I think it would do you good to ask God every night what He put in His book about your day.

And because they did not like to retain thoughts of God in their minds what did he do? He gave them over to their own silly little minds…I’m tired of people saying “thus saith the Lord” when it’s their own silly minds.

You know I don’t judge a person by his organization or his…[*SIGH*]… let me live with a person a while and share his prayer life and I’ll tell you how tall I think he is.

And we have nice caparpet and cushions and stuff on the floor so we don’t hurt our darling little knees and God pity us we can’t even muster a corporal’s guard to pray.

And you get to heaven and the eyes of Christ a full of Holiness and the place is brooding Holiness and you have all the saints of all the ages…and suppose Gabriel comes with a record of your devotional life? Heh??? We’ll hardly step out of time into eternity before we realize what FOOLS we’ve been.

And they think that Jesus is going to come and resist the Devil for them and say to him, “You leave my darlings alone!” What does it say in James? Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. No one is going to resist him for you! What did God say to Moses when he cried ou to him? Why do you cry out to me? YOU stretch forth YOUR staff and divide the sea…

So then faith cometh by what? Organization? Theology? Heh??? FAITH COMETH BY HEARING, AND HEARING THE WORD OF GOD!

And people say, “Oh well, you’re only human…” What in God’s Name do you mean! How can you have a three fold filling of God and be human merely!

And they say, “Oh well, it’s the last days…” Cowards! You should be out there protesting, not getting tossed around like a pile of tumbleweed.

From the 2 hour interview on the front page of SI -"I used to say that America will pay on judgement day for what it has done to the churches. Now I say that the churches will pay for what they have done to America."Save us from that eventuality, Lord. Help us to turn into the wind of Your Spirit.Shalom,Bill Word

"We sing, "There's room at the cross for you." Forget it! There's ON the cross. That's what I say."Shalom,Bill Word