======================================================================== GOD RAISES HOLY MEN by Leonard Ravenhill ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need for individuals, filled with the Holy Spirit and purified, to fully surrender their will to God. It highlights the impact of individuals like Wesley, Whitfield, Luther, and Savonarola who shook the world through their dedication to God. The urgency of living a life fully committed to God, being eternity- conscious, and not being swayed by worldly distractions is a key theme. The message stresses the importance of prayer, spiritual strength, and standing up for righteousness in a world filled with brokenness and sin. Topics: "Full Surrender", "Impact of Spiritual Dedication" Scripture References: Genesis 6:9, Philippians 1:21, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 6:18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the need for individuals, filled with the Holy Spirit and purified, to fully surrender their will to God. It highlights the impact of individuals like Wesley, Whitfield, Luther, and Savonarola who shook the world through their dedication to God. The urgency of living a life fully committed to God, being eternity-conscious, and not being swayed by worldly distractions is a key theme. The message stresses the importance of prayer, spiritual strength, and standing up for righteousness in a world filled with brokenness and sin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ God wants men, he wants women, full of the Holy Ghost, purified until they've no will. Take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine, in perfect unison with him. God doesn't raise up denominations, he raises up men. Then out of the men maybe something grows. God raised up Wesley, Charles and John, before that he raised, of course, George Whitfield who was the torchbearer actually. But look what happened, they shook the world. Luther, he shook the world. Kerry went to India when the Baptists stroked their beards and said, no, young man, when God wants to save you, he's omnipotent and sovereign, he'll save them without you, don't believe that. God is sovereign but he works through human agencies. Dear friend, I'm not going to heaven for the weekend and you're not going to go to hell for the weekend, he said, we're going forever and ever. And Paul says, I want to tell you the things that motivate me, I have a home eternal in the heavens. I have a home. Can you think of us in eternity, everlasting bliss, everlasting joy? As the hymn says, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus, we'll wish that we carried heavier burdens, we'll wish that we'd lived more sacrifices, it's too late. There's no U-turn before the throne of God, remember that. Whether you're a sinner going to the judgment seat, there's no U-turn, you'll wish to God there was but there won't be. There's no U-turn for the believers either. No matter whether you talk about Finney or Wesley or Savonarola, a man that never claimed to be filled with the Holy Ghost, Savonarola shook a whole city from centre to conference, he toppled the papacy, he toppled corruption, he toppled the leaders, he toppled the magistrates, he toppled the noblemen, he made the king in his castle to tremble. Just one man, one man, I know these are the evil days in which we're living, as it was in the days of Noah, even so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. I preached to some hundreds of preachers two weeks ago, at nights I guess we had about 1,200 there, and God did some real work. But one night a big shot professional preacher, I won't give you his name, anyhow he said oh here's a conference with about 2,000 people the first night, he said there's only one hymn we can sing to start this revival, I thought oh he'll sing all hail the powers of Jesus name. You know what he sang? America the beautiful. If he hadn't have been so big I'd have pushed him off the platform I think. What in God's name do you start a conference, a revival conference singing that? So I had to have my pennies worth you know next day, I said what do you mean America the beautiful? Our jails are packed, our divorce courts are packed, we're broken in mind with drugs, we're broken in body with sex perversion, we're broken with drunkenness. Where's America beautiful? Where's England beautiful? None of them. They're dark, they're polluted, they're in bondage, they're captives to drink, they're captives to sin, they're captives to every devilish thing there is. But the church doesn't care, as I've told you we're broken in our minds through drugs, we're broken in our bodies through sin, we're broken in our divorce rate, everything's broken except the church. The church isn't broken hearted about it, Jesus is but we're not. In one year one million teenage girls will become pregnant and of them two hundred thousand will be aborted. I'm not reading about Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm reading about America where you can't get a prayer meeting going hardly in any churches, young guys phone me and say Mr Rayleigh I'm trying to get a prayer meeting in the church but they don't want to come, they don't want to pray. Do you know why they don't come? Because they've no prayer life at home, if they had they'd come with something kindling in their hearts and want to explore, then they'd go to a prayer meeting. You don't have to grind something, I want to come every night with a burdened heart, I want to live with a burdened heart, I can't live otherwise. As I say I'm sick of the mediocrity in the church, well it says concerning Noah, he was a preacher of righteousness, you can preach anything today, preach the second blessing, preach the second coming, preach the second death, no, we don't talk about the second death. But it's there in the book, and time is running out, and I'm sick to death as I've said more than once of the devil having monopoly of our young people, he's got them where he wants them. You see if we're not careful we'll see as other men see, oh that girl she's an honour student, that boy's a quarterback, come on forget it, that's how the world thinks, he's either saved or lost, he's either fuel for the flames of hell or he's a person that's going to wear a diadem in the presence of Jesus forever, and once we get eternity conscious all our values change, all our interests change, we won't be seduced by trivia, we won't be occupied with trivia, we say God I want to live a hundred percent, as I've told you I want to live so that without a minute's notice I could walk straight into heaven. I don't have to say well Lord hold off I have something to put right, I have some repentance to make, I have a grudge against somebody, I want to say no no no no no, you know once I start living like Christ, thinking like Christ, seeing the world in the eyes of Christ, seeing material things in the eyes of Christ, the world looks insane, it's a madhouse, I get up every day and say dear God this world's stark mad, it's breaking your laws and you hold your peace, but he said as it was in the days of Noah, there's a vengeance coming, there's a day of vengeance of our God, the moon hasn't yet turned into blood or the sun turned into darkness, but darkness covers the earth even now and God is wanting everyone of us to be living a hundred percent for him, totally careless as to what we wear, whether it's valuable or not, only as we live in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Again Noah goes in the ark and he's there for years, up to that time the preparation time he's scorned, he's ridiculed, they laugh at him and they'll do that with you, but what do you think happened five minutes after the door was shut, remember he put everything in the ark but one thing, God says you put a light in the window, put the animals, but there's one thing you can't do, I shut the door, and when I shut the door no man can open it, as soon as the clouds darkened, the heavy thunder rolled, what did they do, I believe every man jumped on a horse and got out of town, they'd been warned day after day after day, year after year, they'd gone up and snared and scorned and ridiculed the man who was building the ark, and then when the heavens broke and the water came from beneath and water from above, I guess they jumped on every horse and camel and elephant they had to try and beat it out of the town, but they saw the water coming in, Noah had built an ark, what did he do, he cut himself off from the rest of the world, when he got in that ark, that ark had to be his entertainment, his joy, his peace, everything, well come on, if it's a type of Christ, why in God's name doesn't it satisfy people, why isn't Christ your all in all tonight, as it says in Philippians, he is all and in all, why isn't Christ all your joy, why isn't Christ all your peace, why isn't Christ all your happiness, I'm trying to get you grown up too quickly some people think, no I don't want you to be walking around as cripples ten years from now, I want you to get some spiritual muscle, some spiritual strength, some spiritual vision, some spiritual intelligence, the devil's running away with the world because the young Christians aren't standing up as they should, I want you to cry out to God, come on now, don't leave the praying just for three or four, and don't pray forever, pray and quit, don't go round and round, say it and believe it, but somebody pray for these youth tonight, can you think of a million girls this year that have run away and most of them have been lost, forgotten, girls being sold to prostitution, you see that on West 42nd Street in New York, and the other great cities, and the devil's just putting a bigger cancer in this country, the whole world, in what's called humanism and freedom and it's bondage and it's death and it's disease and it's damnation, and it should make us angry, in the spirit there is a holy anger, human anger there's bitterness, holy anger there's sorrow. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/F-KO3iTmomc.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/leonard-ravenhill/god-raises-holy-men/ ========================================================================