Excerpt from Leonard Ravenhill’s sermon:
A city wide crusade can cost two million dollars.
Revival doesn't cost a red cent, except broken hearts.
You can stage your revival; you can stage a city wide crusade; you can not stage Revival.
Revival is a mysterious divine intervention. I think one of the most awesome tasks given to man was given to John Baptist, when God said, "Prepare YE the way of the Lord."
You know, you talk about revival in this country and everybody has got tunnel vision. They think revival must come like Finney had it. We are not living in Finney's days. It would be nice to have him around, for sure, but we are not living in Finney's day. It is a new day. Iniquity has never swaggered like it swaggers now. You know what has happened in the last twenty three years in England? In the last twenty three years in England the Muslims have built 300 mosques and at the same time they were building their 300 mosques the Church of England has closed 660 churches. Does it drive us to despair? There are more people lost in this world at the moment than in any period in history. And yet we go on as though we were on the edge of the millennium instead of on the edge of judgment.
I believe the key to revival is given here in Joel, "Let the priests, the ministers of God, weep between the altar and the door posts."
You know, the first thing that really moved me to God after I got saved? Somebody gave me an abridged edition of the life of David Brainard. I just could not believe it; I could not take it in. Could a man be so utterly selfless?
The thing that is crippling us is our prosperity. Materialism is choking the church as well as the world. We want ease and comfort.
When I read of a young man that could walk out in the snow, snow up to his chin sometimes, wrestling in prayer from sunrise to sunset with a tubercular body...
When I read about a man that wrestled in prayer like that, I was dumbfounded.
And since the church I went to was pretty sleepy and I was only about seventeen, I went out into Sherwood forest - I lived on the edge of it - and started praying by myself at night. We have some bracken there, and it grows seven or eight feet high, I used to creep in it and weep and groan and pray for revival. And revival came. Because I prayed? No, No. I was one of a number.
What we need now is
A revival of holiness.
A revival of character.
A revival of people who are utterly selfless
and prepared to lay their lives on the altar for God.
No man - I don't care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his prayer life.
To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing.
To stand before God on behalf of men is something entirely different.
We've urged people to tithe, haven't we? But we only mean their money. You see, we want a "revival" which is a painless Pentecost. We want something that won't disturb our status quo. It's "easy street" everywhere else, so why not here?
There never has been a revival that I can trace, that hasn't been birthed back there with true, true, true intercession.
Two Salvation Army officers set out to found a new work, only to meet with failure and opposition. Morale was at all-time low. The organization had hit rock bottom. They did not know what to do. Frustrated and tired they appealed to the General (William Booth) to close the rescue mission. General Booth sent back a telegram with two words on it, "TRY TEARS." They followed his advice and they witnessed a mighty revival.
See Below Link for the “Call to Anguish”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMG_PVaJoI
A city wide crusade can cost two million dollars.
Revival doesn't cost a red cent, except broken hearts.
You can stage your revival; you can stage a city wide crusade; you can not stage Revival.
Revival is a mysterious divine intervention. I think one of the most awesome tasks given to man was given to John Baptist, when God said, "Prepare YE the way of the Lord."
You know, you talk about revival in this country and everybody has got tunnel vision. They think revival must come like Finney had it. We are not living in Finney's days. It would be nice to have him around, for sure, but we are not living in Finney's day. It is a new day. Iniquity has never swaggered like it swaggers now. You know what has happened in the last twenty three years in England? In the last twenty three years in England the Muslims have built 300 mosques and at the same time they were building their 300 mosques the Church of England has closed 660 churches. Does it drive us to despair? There are more people lost in this world at the moment than in any period in history. And yet we go on as though we were on the edge of the millennium instead of on the edge of judgment.
I believe the key to revival is given here in Joel, "Let the priests, the ministers of God, weep between the altar and the door posts."
You know, the first thing that really moved me to God after I got saved? Somebody gave me an abridged edition of the life of David Brainard. I just could not believe it; I could not take it in. Could a man be so utterly selfless?
The thing that is crippling us is our prosperity. Materialism is choking the church as well as the world. We want ease and comfort.
When I read of a young man that could walk out in the snow, snow up to his chin sometimes, wrestling in prayer from sunrise to sunset with a tubercular body...
When I read about a man that wrestled in prayer like that, I was dumbfounded.
And since the church I went to was pretty sleepy and I was only about seventeen, I went out into Sherwood forest - I lived on the edge of it - and started praying by myself at night. We have some bracken there, and it grows seven or eight feet high, I used to creep in it and weep and groan and pray for revival. And revival came. Because I prayed? No, No. I was one of a number.
What we need now is
A revival of holiness.
A revival of character.
A revival of people who are utterly selfless
and prepared to lay their lives on the altar for God.
No man - I don't care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his prayer life.
To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing.
To stand before God on behalf of men is something entirely different.
We've urged people to tithe, haven't we? But we only mean their money. You see, we want a "revival" which is a painless Pentecost. We want something that won't disturb our status quo. It's "easy street" everywhere else, so why not here?
There never has been a revival that I can trace, that hasn't been birthed back there with true, true, true intercession.
Two Salvation Army officers set out to found a new work, only to meet with failure and opposition. Morale was at all-time low. The organization had hit rock bottom. They did not know what to do. Frustrated and tired they appealed to the General (William Booth) to close the rescue mission. General Booth sent back a telegram with two words on it, "TRY TEARS." They followed his advice and they witnessed a mighty revival.
See Below Link for the “Call to Anguish”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMG_PVaJoI
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