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A Man of God
Leonard Ravenhill

Leonard Ravenhill (1907 - 1994). British-American evangelist, author, and revivalist born in Leeds, England. Converted at 14 in a Methodist revival, he trained at Cliff College, a Methodist Bible school, and was mentored by Samuel Chadwick. Ordained in the 1930s, he preached across England with the Faith Mission and held tent crusades, influenced by the Welsh Revival’s fervor. In 1950, he moved to the United States, later settling in Texas, where he ministered independently, focusing on prayer and repentance. Ravenhill authored books like Why Revival Tarries (1959) and Sodom Had No Bible, urging the church toward holiness. He spoke at major conferences, including with Youth for Christ, and mentored figures like David Wilkerson and Keith Green. Married to Martha Beaton in 1939, they had three sons, all in ministry. Known for his fiery sermons and late-night prayer meetings, he corresponded with A.W. Tozer and admired Charles Spurgeon. His writings and recordings, widely available online, emphasize spiritual awakening over institutional religion. Ravenhill’s call for revival continues to inspire evangelical movements globally.
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Sermon Summary
This sermon reflects on a 70-year journey of faith, witnessing various church tragedies and worldly events, yet remaining steadfast by looking up to Jesus, reading the Word, and following the paths of faith. It emphasizes coming to Jesus in times of weariness and emptiness, seeking His grace and zeal to inspire and revive the heart. The importance of prayer, revival, and the presence of God in the midst of believers' gatherings is highlighted, drawing from historical revivals like the Welsh and Shangtung revivals.
Sermon Transcription
I got saved at 14, I'm 84, almost 85, so I've been 70 years, I've seen all kinds of tragedies in the church, wars and rumors of wars, popular men going popular and so forth, but keep looking up to Jesus and reading the word and remembering these old paths that my daddy used to talk about so much and all the other looks like trivia. I've often said that I didn't come to Jesus as an old English hymn like we used to sing so often. I came to Jesus, I was weary and worn and sad. I didn't because I was 14 and I didn't understand my father's zeal for God. I didn't come because I was convicted of sin, I came because of the blanks in my life, like he relished reading the word of God and he relished going to prayer meetings, even half nights of prayer and also more than ever he relished being a street corner preacher. Do you remember the hymn, My faith looks up to thee, thou lamb of Calvary? Well the last time it says, May thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart, my zeal inspire, and my daddy had inspired zeal. God lifted the beggar from the dunghill, he completely changed my daddy. He'd been to a certain system of religion which made him fearful and terrified of priestcraft and all that and he got marvelously born again as a result of hearing David Matthews who went through the Welsh revival. Then he wrote the classic, it's still a classic, on I saw the Welsh revival. My daddy had never been in meetings like that and the fervor and the joy, particularly I remember seeing David Matthews when I was five years of age. I'd never seen anybody preach like he sang like his mouth like an oval and he had a shock of black wavy hair and he had a zeal and he had a joy in the Lord that stirred and my daddy got saved. Well as a result of that as I say, he became fervent in spirit serving the Lord. I never saw him downcast, I never saw him suggesting about giving up, but I mean when he got saved he tossed away his interest in professional football and everything else which of course became a style in England. After you're saved you never go to a movie, you never go to a professional match, there's so much profanity and so forth. And when I saw that and I saw the joy and we lived in comparative poverty, we had much money, my daddy was a laborer and as a result of that as I say at 14 he took me to a half night of prayer, there were three other men there and they prayed and my daddy's a big husky man taking his coat off at one o'clock in the morning in a room that had no heat and praying with tears and fervor from that very day. I recognized there's something far beyond what the average Christian had and then after that of course I went to the Methodist class meeting till I was 14 and that was full of the joy alone and I mean people spoke as though God lived with them all the time and he did and there was that same kind of zeal there. I mean even in those days back in the 1902 well that'd be around 1912 just before world war one even, there was a half hour song singing before the Sunday night service but they didn't sing choruses except choruses from hymns or they sang great hymns like and can it be and so forth and you had men who would explode in a meeting when he was singing and can it be that I said my chains fell off when old boy would jump at the tears all down his face he'd strike it up at the end there's a woman to the left of us I used to watch her because her neck would go red and then she'd suddenly burst with a hallelujah you know we talk about the joy of the Lord I've never seen anything like it well at that time Samuel Tadwick was preaching in Dade he had revival on the local level in Leeds and of course the conversation in the house we had we ever had a newspaper there's no talk about films of course we were just coming out then it was all about God and mysteries and so forth Daddy told me to see Paddy Quirks who founded the Japan rescue mission I was about 12 I think I heard C.T. stood to give a lecture one morning and later saw Miss Cable and Miss Francesca French that walked through China and the Gobi Desert and all that kind of my daddy wherever there was a anything fervent I'll tell you at that time Doncaster was 25 miles away from us well um there's a Pentecostal fellowship there and I forget the name of the Bible teacher but my daddy might get on a bus to town another bus from town to Doncaster and then walk the rest of the way to the fellowship and stay there a weekend and come back radiant as though he'd been in the upper room which they just about had because um Smith Wigglesworth was one of the teachers there and all those guys and nobody in those days scornfully said that faith healing is fake healing I mean there were living evidences of people spontaneously getting out of wheelchairs and so forth but it wasn't that really it was a transformation in personality I mean they went back to the churches and had prayer meetings and in our town we have a little man he's only I don't think he weighed about 110 pounds and for years he fasted and prayed he was a Pentecostal which was despised in fact his wife said to hear him pray he'd be praying in another room it was like you know a man having a personal encounter with God he'd wrestle with God well then George Jeffress came along in 1927 the whole city was swept in three weeks with the Holy Ghost and the church is there today it's called Bridge Street in Leeds England that church is still it's in its third enlargement where other churches are going down they still have that same they were born in the fire they maintain the fire but they maintain prayer all the time well then from there I was in a factory working in a factory one day and I heard a voice say follow me and I turned it was so real I took my tape off my neck I was a tailor's cutter put my shoes down and prayed I remember saying clearly to the Lord Lord not only will I not go back I won't even look back and that day I applied to go to Cliff College and then when Chadwick was the principal there well Chad the birds both had a flock together so the great character in America at that time was A.B. Simpson founder of Christian Mission Alliance and also in Scotland there was a man by the name of MacIntyre I've read his little book Hidden Life of Prayer it's one of the classics it's still published better they just republished well those three men you of course across the Atlantic there was no telephone in those days and mail was slow but they corresponded all the time because they're all on one level well Chadwick went out and right opposite his church in the middle of Leeds there's an oversized statue of Queen Victoria with a big spread in front of it men used to stand there and preach well an atheist stood there and he laughed at people coming out of church in Scotland and told you a man standing in a coward's castle a pulpit he talks one way you can't listen to me and they listen well Chadwick went out and listened to this man scolding the Bible and everything and one day he said listen I've listened to you three weeks you didn't come and listen to me you come and listen to me so I come next so it came and there's a big horseshoe gallery and right opposite the preacher was a clock and this man the leaders sat behind the clock and the other 10 men sat with him and they came to the altar the first night they were there and it wiped out the whole testimony of the atheists then it wiped out the all the devilry in the community at level on a on a on a local state revival on a local level and it was all prayer I mean he wrote the he wrote the book the way to Pentecost and after that he wrote the book the path of prayer and that's where he lived and that's why it rubbed off on so many of us that we we saw a living example of a man who walked in the power of the spirit well then I could go on for long enough but I won't uh all the time I've tried to feed myself and I've gathered books I have a rack of books on prayer and a whole stack of books on historic revival which we don't have anymore America hasn't had a revival in the last 70 years that I know of I mean revival that closes their shops and as soon as people get home they want to get to the sanctuary and and they don't stay till seven o'clock till eight there's still eight till midnight and after when the holy ghost really comes I think very often we're praying in ignorance we want the holy spirit to come but what do we want him to come for just to increase our numbers just so our kids won't go to the devil I mean are we jealous for God's glory and to me that's what revival is all about revival is an invasion of God by the spirit and if America doesn't have one in the next 10 years it's going to be horrible living in this country crime is out of hand now immorality abounds herpes aids every devilish thing is prospering plus all the power of the cults say multi-million dollars so it's inevitable that we have revival Paul said would be God you could bear with me in my father yeah indeed bear with me for I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy for I have espoused you to one husband and I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ but I fear less by any means as a serpent beguiling you through his subtlety so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ for he that cometh preaches another Jesus yeah then we have not preached or if you receive another spirit which you have not received or another gospel which you have not accepted yeah you might well bear with him yeah is there another gospel that we're listening to it's not a gospel what is that gospel well in England we used to call it modernism or you call it liberalism here that uh I mean they're baptists now for a long time they've had contention about the the bible is it the very word of God I mean uh can't we alter it as I say very often we've revised it but God never has and I still think the King James Version is nearly to the best and those old-fashioned guys preach it I think brother this we've almost no preachers in America everybody's teaching teaching teaching I think I have 500 tapes in there that people I think I got 40 tapes in the first month of this year you must read my interpretation of revelation you must read my story there is there's at least 50 John the Baptists in the country so they think they are if a guy tells me I'm John the Baptist have you increased your insurance I say why I say you're only going to live six months he goes oh no no no but we're not preaching the gospel what are we preaching well there's one was two groups there's one group now that's preaching signs and wonders all the time there's another one that says it's love and signs or if it's signs and wonders in God's name what did he do for Judas he saw everything Jesus did then look what he did and what are some of the guys have been preaching about the holy ghost and miracles where are they now one's in jail the other's in the gutter comparatively we've got to get back to the cross I if I've been lifted up I will draw all men you get the Emmaus road going down the Emmaus road it says that Jesus opened unto them the scriptures then they opened their eyes and they open their understanding but then you think after they and read the last chapter in Luke and it says the most awesome thing there that they sat and talked with Jesus and had breakfast with him one of them broke bread and he took gave him bread the other one broke a honeycomb and well can you imagine you giving Jesus personally honeycomb and he puts his hand out there's a nail hole through it and they saw the most astounding miracle in history the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and wait a minute he says come with me and they went to what they saw the next most astounding miracle the ascension of Jesus into heaven couldn't they live on that couldn't they live there isn't a devil in hell will ever move us we had breakfast with Jesus we talked with Jesus we shared a meal with Jesus couldn't you live on that forever Jesus says no you can't well we saw him ascend into heaven not many of us but we saw him the two most outstanding and yet Jesus has tarried till you be endued you can't live on the emotion of it that's the trouble with that the most horrible thing i know that happens in evangelism today we don't value the human soul when are we going to get serious about being serious about the most serious thing in the world the birth of people at the altar i watched the close of a in dallas a few weeks ago at the end about 15 people came in for four minutes they said a prayer and gone away well my reaction to that brother was this i can't get my car through a car wash in four minutes can they pass from death unto life can they put off the old man and put on the new man as you use the figure can they get married to christ in four minutes of course not in fact when you read seven pentecostal pioneers which everybody should read because it's still printed it tells you there that they had one place where they had meetings for three weeks and i forget the number something like 964 people came and everyone was dealt with personally we used to go to a city without money and pitch a tent and stay there 12 weeks the churches are still there 60 years after but everybody came to the altar if you came i come with a bible at the side of you and ask you what your problem was you wanted to be saved we took you through the scriptures if we spend an hour so what i said i don't often watch tv i watch a special there's a special about three years ago of all the things we're going to show on one of the uh what do you call now well it's a special animals the birth of a giraffe now i said to martha well darling i want to see this so anyhow the guy said now listen i've already gone through this once but let me show you and he brought in this this female he said look her head is 14 feet from the ground which i thought was a long way now here's the male his head is 19 feet from the gun now watch and he said i've been through this so watch and he said we'll bring the camera right in front of the giraffe he said now look she's spreading her legs at the back you see that black thing hanging that's a little baby and it's going to fall five to six feet according to the height of the animal onto a bed of straw so what's that got to do with the gospel it broke my heart why because i watched that thing and he said now watch the next now you see the things coming now now watch watch he said there and the thing dropped to the onto the onto the big bed of straw and he said now this takes between three and four hours and he said now watch and the little thing tried to get up and it rolled over it tried again it rolled over tried up again it rolled the other way now watch carefully he said and the next time it tried the mother put a hoof behind its backside and lifted it up and it stood up and she turned around and nodded and the little thing nodded and he said that's almost four hours so i ran to the room to pray and mother said what's wrong i said darling i said it takes four hours to get a baby giraffe born it doesn't take four minutes for somebody to get born at our altars today oh well graham said it more than once just stay a few minutes stay a few minutes in god's name what do you mean stay a few minutes was gethsemane a few minutes was the temptation the wellness a few minutes we're trying to get people i guarantee that not five percent of people in america or england are genuinely born again of the spirit they're born again of a decision they give up a few lousy habits some of them and so they don't they go right back and then you tell you there's nothing in it dear brother i i was at a certain place i preached on the new birth i thought there's a pretty much liberty and i said if any of you want this experienced a birth in christ come forward and then come down the aisle and go to the room on the right women go down on the left so there were half a dozen in each group well that was that was uh nine o'clock and we stayed in that room till 10 helping men and they were really broken before god then at 10 o'clock there's a knock on the door and i said come in and it was the pastor he said can i bring this lady and will you pray with i said well if you'll stay she's a big gorgeous looking blonde she knows when i hit the ground then she bursted and she said i want to tell you something mr ramey i said well tell me i'll listen she said this is the 14th time i've come out for this i went to a certain bible school for three years we had three revivals a year and each time i went that was nine times and he said since then i've been to other meetings somebody slips around around me and says don't worry dear jesus paid it all he knows when you said you're sorry that that's all that matters and i said that's not true and i said that we'll stay with you while you really get a real relationship with god so we stayed and she passed from death to life how do i know because two years after i was passing the church she was coming out with a bible and i said to her he said that's a good woman you prayed for the last time you were here she's the best bible teacher we have that the thing was before she got saved and back to bible school day she got married she got divorced she had a charge had a broken heart a broken life it would have been avoided if she got saved the first time but she didn't get saved she made a mental decision she wanted to be better she wanted to go to heaven but how many people really want to know i mean isn't the essence of christianity christ in you the hope of glory there's no other religion in the world where a man's god comes and lives inside of him and we've made it appear as though if you get saved of course you're going to give up all your joys you give up these crazy habits you don't go to movies you don't go to ballgames you're christ is all you want but what on the other hand what about peace that passes all understanding what about a home eternal in the heavens what about the eternal aspect we don't present that i got two fellows in here didn't we and they came from a certain well actually came from chriswell seminary and one of them said immediately mr really i know to put a sermon together i know to get words together but i've no power the other man burst into it i said i just opened a paper and your pictures in there he said well i didn't put it somewhere i said but you're a preacher you said i've had 300 people saved in the last three months how do you know and he hadn't an answer well he said i don't know i've often wondered they'll come out and say a prayer and go now and live the same i said they don't if they're born again you become a new creature if any man anywhere at any time being christ and there's no better example of that than dave wilkinson with all the people he covers unless i don't know if you know jackie pulling to you know jackie well she was here to see me and i mean she goes she doesn't go out till 10 o'clock at night she goes to the gutter she goes to the outcast she goes to the prostitute she goes to men to smoke opium for 50 years she goes to women that have prostituted for 40 years you've got to have a gospel you can't give a mental flip to those people and she stays with them until they're born again in the spirit of god as one of the most amazing works in the world as far as i'm concerned but where are the people i mean you add up all the people who made a profession of christ in the last few years of our crusades or let me put it here and then quit adam a veteran mission from south america and he said before i came up with the ramie i was talking to a veteran missionary and he said brother if you add up all the crusades in south america and all the people so everybody in south america has been saved five times in the last 15 years well is it the same in this country are we talking about how many people came to the people came forward why are the churches increasing i had a lawyer call me from one of the greatest churches in the country so mr ramie at least a thousand people walk down the isle in our church every year and after three years of doing that he said the church is still the same size we still have the same seating capacity the prayer meetings haven't grown there's no evidence except that these people come forward every sunday why haven't they as i said to earlier day brother the darkness of this day is the gift of the church to the world the street meetings have gone dear god with all kinds of ministries around here but tyler goes to hell how many churches do you have a mega churches in dallas i guess you can't find one street i spent 50 years of my life in street meetings every saturday night i went out at 9 30 till midnight and after every night for whether it was snowing or raining or what we went out to the same place and people came out of taverns and out of movie houses at 10 o'clock and stayed an hour and two hours in the cold no air-conditioned buildings no nice no attractive singers just testament i call on one man said this man was in jail this man used to run around with women this man has a prison record this man over there used to beat his wife and the transfer this girl was a prostitute and put them out living flesh and blood nobody could argue people would stand and say why are you the only preacher in the town does this i don't know except god told me to do it and i do it well that's where the lost people are a man would be an idiot to buy a hundred dollar fishing gear and fish in his bathtub and that's all we do in church we're fishing with the same people every week and people are dying without god i'm glad dear brother i was raised in a church where we had i know the preachers often boring i devoured the methodist in book 80 years ago and i can recite still dozens and dozens of hymns and one was aimed by andrew bonner go labor on spend and be spent i judge do the master's will it is the way the master went should not the seven put tread it still men die in darkness at your side without a hope to cheer the tomb take up the torch and wave it wide the torch that lights diamonds thickest gloom i go to the prayer meeting somebody will pray that after that somebody will pray the the prayer of one of the greatest of modern women there um from india um what was her name amy carmichael yeah thank you amy carmichael you know give me a love that leads the way of faith which nothing can dismay i hope no disappointments tired of passion that will burn like let me not sink to be a cloth the woman in way over a hundred pounds make me die fuel flame of god she never married she took a one-way ticket to the mission field people go now there's plenty of money in our church oh we'd love you to come back for christmas or thanksgiving do come back so they break off and come back they go back they run to and fro they have to go with a camera they have to go with a load of stuff you don't find the old-fashioned mysteries going like they used to do jackie went on a single ticket to hong kong when she was 19 she's 44 now she's still there she's shed a million tears but she's had some of the greatest characters infamous characters saved there how many people come forward in your church and you can go back afterwards and say your view came to the altar what happened in your life i think that everybody that comes to the altar we should visit them during the week and be sure that they did pass from death unto life because what happens they say well i've been out twice i never got anything well they can't because so to do something mentally i don't see any brokenness i see kids come forward in a in a crusade they're laughing and joining hands they go out and the first thing they do is stop at a um a hot dog place or something they don't go home to grieve and read the word and find out if it's true they go back full of jealousy and they sing on the bus we had a wonderful time but what are we doing the summer is gone the harvest is passed and we're not saved is that what you're saying yeah well i'm saying dear brother i don't believe that we we reach the conscience like some people like uh one of the classic things dr tozzi used to quote to me often you say well then remember when our famous american preacher d l moody went to london the first day he preached he'd laugh at his his yankee clothes the second day they laughed at his style the third day cambridge university men were there laughing and he's talking he said gentlemen laugh at my style laugh at my americanism but he said in god's name don't laugh at the word of god he says the word i would just as soon handle uh fault lightning what happened here's an illiterate man a comparative no education he goes to london he goes from london to scotland where alexander white was the king of the pulpit at that time and alexander white sits on the edge of his chair with his mouth open well what what is this vanguard he doesn't know history too well doesn't quote scraper very correctly but there's something about him so much so that across town there's a man i don't know if you're a book call know a book written by henry drummond the greatest thing in the world it was one of the greatest classics ever and alexander white says to drum and eight come over and hear this fellow we haven't had any plans it was like this and they were spellbound what would have happened if he'd gone to london for three days he didn't he went for eight months he went to scotland and and there's still the uh the tent hall is still there i i think they called it a tent hall because people came out of the tent the mood he had and went in that hall also the one of the greatest bible schools ever uh glasgow bible institute was founded because of that and the money was given to him well i'll tell you you talk about a background one of the most wonderful men i ever saw was ct stud well ct stud's daddy used to buddy with the king of england when i used i used to do in world war ii i went to one of the largest air force camps in in the in the nation and i had to go up a hill and to the right in the moonlight i could see this estate where ct used to live with a private racecourse well ct's daddy went to london i mixed up with all the society then he had about this yankee preacher well let's go well when he got there somebody asked the man to pray while while um what you call him now well moody was on the platform gonna preach they sang to him and said prayer this guy went on and on and moody jumped up and said let's sing a song while this fellow finishes so immediately they were happy you know the guy wasn't tied up to formality well they listened and ct's i think his father got saved there as a result he took the three most famous cricketers in england ct was the babe rudith english critic cricket well they went and the whole society lied i went well ct joined up with a k other six they formed the cambridge seven and went to china i mean there's all kinds of things happened out of that one revival of an illiterate man they didn't care if they laughed at his clothes and everything and he received opposition well nothing happened like that till the 1920s or 26 or something like that when when uh george jeffries went to whole crusades in england and stephen jeffries are greater works than that and they go to a time without a penny and believe got to fill an auditorium with 3 000 people in a week and they did it and they weren't great expositors brother ravenhill and jeremiah the prophet says thus saith the lord yes stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way walk there in and ye shall find rest for your souls but they said we will not walk there well going back brother larry i said uh we've turned the lights out in the street we've no more uh street meetings we've turned the light out sunday night many churches don't have a sunday night meeting wednesday night that's about the biggest tragedy people say don't you think we should get the bible back in school i said that's not the first problem get it back in the home why don't how many people meet ask the deacons in your church ask the past how many of you have family worship they don't have it as soon as supper's over they have to go and get on tv and leave it till the kiddies go to bed they don't know the word of god i had a man here and his daughter came to bring me some mail and she's 14 i said well david how much scripture do you remember i haven't memorized any i said can you memorize the 10 commandments you couldn't say the 10 commandments two days after a young guy came he lives across town he has seven children the eldest boy is 13 he's memorized every word of every chapter in uh in uh proverbs and the other boy is 10 and he's memorized 12 chapters of proverb every word the man gets with his wife at 4 to 4 30 in the morning they have an hour together with the word of god they get the children up just after five and then teach them the word of god and prayer and then the children have a rest then the mother teaches them the rest of the day she's homeschooling them how they do it i don't but those little kids are walking bibles we don't know the word of god two things we don't know in fact i said to the seminary men do you know god well i i didn't know no i answer yes or no oh i learned hebrew i didn't ask if you know hebrew do you know god you guys 10 young people in your church to answer in in less than 50 words why did jesus come into the world to save us from hell to save us from sin and so they go on but what does jesus saying in john 17 too that they may know thee the only true god and that's the answer we don't know god if we knew god we'd set the world on fire if he knew god wouldn't beg for money we know things about god but we don't know we don't know god but i want to tell you then in 1932 i preached in swansea south wales in a little upper room and there's a lady there with white hair and she said uh do you know my husband i said i didn't know he had one you know my husband is major russell i said well who's major russell in the british army no salvation army she said would you come up come up and have a meal with us i said well this is a crusade and they said i only have friday off i said i'll take the bus and come up the place of scholar robin i'll come up friday afternoon she said well come and have some tea and and we'll talk so here's a gray haired fella sitting and i said well it's a privilege come and talk with you how old are you he said well i'm 82 and he said i'll tell you some things that when you're my age i said i've never lived to be 82 and i'm 84 now i'm 85 but he shared the with william boo the founder of the salvation army i said what were the days like days like heaven on earth he said god the holy ghost came they mentioned a certain place which is on the strand in london he said now it's it's a a theater in those days it's a hall you're hired and movies weren't uh houses and theaters weren't open on sunday so you could rent them on sunday so you could rent them saturday and sunday and he said he said i've been in that meeting he said people won't believe you when you tell them and then i was that was 1932 so he's almost 60 years back and he said when you tell they won't believe i said well they believe me not tell me i said i want to know i don't care if it puts my nose in the ground don't care what you say as long as you realize that just as you're a link with the past at my age of 82 i'll be a link with another generation that doesn't know god so i said well i'll tell you what happened he said william booth could preach like nobody else from jeremiah the harvest is past or somebody said it all his favorite was and he had a gruff voice if those run with a footman and they have worried they are now doing the swelling of the job and fire of ollie which meant say hallelujah so they all know hallelujah you know and he said that but what william booth could he could get men trembling he said he said as a matter of fact you give them a hymn book of maybe 25 pages and they sit with it on their lap and shred it while they were they were so disturbed he said you could see where these men have been all the back pews were full of shredded hymn books the same thing happened in 1926 i talked with the i talked with the the greatest revivalist uh islands ever had wp nicholson he said by the length he said people used to shred the hymn books when we listen they're under conviction it was so nervous and sweat would run off the nose it's not that it doesn't happen anymore anyhow going back to this he said the old william would preach hellfire boys and he could make you shake and he said but he couldn't make an altar call so he would say now come to the mercy seat come to the mercy come run for your life you're going to hell and he couldn't get anywhere say a shout out where is lawley where is lawley well commissioner lawley was one of the stalwarts for the salvation i mean like brengo and he said he was under the platform and it came out and they used to hand clothes to each other you know like somebody gave me your suit it would be hanging down on the commissioner lawley's coat was down to his ankles but he said it come out on all fours and do this there'll be a cloud of dust and then lawley would begin to make an appeal you know come to the mercy seat and he said the altar will be lined up sometimes they he said the general would turn around and roar at us you know pray boys everybody looked down and prayed unusually there's a break but he said this day they prayed and nothing happened so he said again pray he said everybody's nervous hey what's happening to the old boy he's angry he's angry well let's pray and he said lord lord move right now move right now and he said nobody came so a third time he'd roar you know get hold of god he said this meeting is going to go to hell these people are perishing some of them are wealthy some are poor some are ignorant some are backslidden pray and he said the holy ghost would take all the men on the back seat and lift them bodily over the congregation and drop them at the altar i've said to pentecost you saw that you'd run for the door you say spiritualism or something i said but there was an unwritten law in the salvation they call their churches a core you know like like the army does crps core and it was an unwritten law in the salvation army that when you finished your street meeting at nine o'clock saturday night you go to pray till midnight and he said to me we had men that would pray and one old man particularly would say he'd jump up maybe 12 or one and raise his hand and shout victory victory there'll be 10 tomorrow and he said there'll be 9 or 10 saved or it said there'd be 15 there'd be 13 or 14 he said there was only one or two every time but he said remember we had street meetings we got baptized with rotten eggs in those days there were no hazardous bathrooms they kept a what they call a pot under the bed and they'd always empty and people would run out throw it from the window and throw urine on them and he said we kept two coats you kept an old one with eggs and and you went home and scraped them off and then you put your sunday best on and he said but he said who cares when there's revival as i said to you you don't have to advertise a fire colonel bringer was the biggest orator in america and uh i don't know it was with a multi-million there's offered to build him the biggest church in america give him the biggest salary if you would stay he said i'm going to london why because there's a fire there's a man called he was a methodist they got rid of him and he's having revival and he went in that revival and he gathered all kinds of people to him but the secret again but they had a burning you went in a prayer meeting you you know you felt the glory the majesty of god and now you don't do that like i was with the team not long ago well before the meeting and now you went in a side room and they'd hot tea and cold tea and drinks and fruit and everything and trivia talking and straight off there to the platform how do you suddenly turn off and sort of become spiritual we travel the country but i walk the length of england what the breadth of england with five college fellows we slept in fields and i we slept in churches we didn't get a penny wage in six months and nobody ever said a word because at night we'd kneel in the street at ten and eleven o'clock at nine people get saved in the street you don't you sleep we slept in sleeping bags for three years slept on the floor of churches anywhere they'd take us in but we had revival the churches are still standing today but now i go to a meeting and everybody's silly oh nice to see you and they want to talk and say leave me alone well we went brother we had a solid hour of prayer together eleven o'clock to twelve in the morning then we had a bit of a rest in the afternoon and mostly went to prayer then we had a prayer meeting one hour before the night service went on the platform charged with the power of god and full of expectation and faith and night by night the elders were lined with people we don't do that today we've got miss so-and-so she's number one on the charts we've got so-and-so and it's humanism we're depending on something we have i mean you clap you go to one charismatic meeting you've been to the mall you stand and sing for 30 40 minutes we're trying to work something up when god has to send something down i can remember dear brother when you went to a holiness meeting in england or or pentecostal there were more people at the altar before the service and after i used to fear going when i was 14 i used to go my daddy used to take me to a pentecostal meeting and the whole row of the phone before and they'd be praying with energy and crying to god one old man particularly said come lord and walk in our midst and i used to think i hope it doesn't because i'm scared to death he would but god used to come in the meeting and then at the end he didn't have to beg and sing emotional songs there's room at the cross i forget it there's room on the cross forget there's room at the cross get on the cross and as tosa said a man going down the road with the cross you know one thing about him he wasn't coming back how people don't want to die there's only two kinds of people in the world those who are dead to sin and those who are dead in sin and we're in one of the two in fact you talked about victory they laugh at you oh you can't live in victory well then why why don't you be a buddhist to somebody what do you do with somebody that says look i don't just want to get i want to be pure in heart you can't be pure in heart who says so one of the latest books off the press says you can't who cares a hell of a what does the word of god say what did jesus say to the bad woman that came to him go and sin less he says that to a woman who's been spending in immorality before the cross what does what does paul say that's him that stole steal less no sir it's cut off what we need in america dear brothers is more than ever we need people to go forth with a new birth message forget all about tongues forget all about miracles and signs and wonders in case they're not happening anyhow let's get back to real genuine conversion why most of our kids are teenagers they go to a they go to a christian camp well christian camps are much better than others i mean adam israel here very one of the few men i really respect in the world he came from india and he came through hawaii so he went to a very famous bible school there what do you think they said well he said the girl's shorts were so bad when they came toward me i was disgusted when they went the other way it was worse so he said to the world famous leader you've no dress code here he said what do you mean he said well the girls come towards me he said you can't tell their shorts on the social when they go the other way they're terrible and the reply he got from the famous leader was as long as their cheeks are not showing they're all right so as a girl's backside to be showing they you can't even not preach holiness you can't preach modesty these days because kids are used to getting saved and going straight back to the old way they go mixed mate mixed men in some of the meetings around here they'll have two mystery groups go to wet and wild but what do guys want to stand with half naked women women in bikinis or as near as they can to that and a man came to see me a few weeks ago and he said he'd been to a minister near here and he said i went to the meeting last night it was very good they enjoyed it but then he said this morning they said we were meeting at the swimming pool he said there was my wife for the first time in her life my five children saw the mother almost naked standing in a pool and i realized this is not for me and he left it another man left not after and he said we if you can't have modesty where can you have it and they don't want to pray there's no appetite for prayer but the old salvation army thrived on prayer the greatest revivals in history the shangtung revival when uh what was over there munson was there and the woman that died last year of a hundred years old uh bertha smith with the southern baptist she was born again she was filled with the holy ghost in that revival and they expected god to move in phenomenal ways they didn't advertise he don't have to advertise it what we need is god in the midst if god is in the midst a lot of our stuff would never take place just let god come his very presence that happened in the welsh revival you know when you go to a revival now the big guy gets up they sing then bev shay somebody's gonna sing then something else ends up and it's all programmed beforehand how can god come in but one of the things that i i as i said i went with that man who that welshman who went through the revival with uh with william booth but then i said what about the welsh revival so i'll tell you what happened in the welsh revival he said i was with william booth in his office we were having meetings in london and somebody sent me a note my wife revival has broken out there's a young man in his 20s evan roberts and he's packing everywhere he goes he won't even let them publicize him he won't let them put his picture in the paper they'll just announce he's coming to swansea and every church in town is filled because they don't know where he's going so he said well i knew i friday afternoon i had i could leave uh friday afternoon and that's saturday free and i can come back sunday and get to the office for monday morning so i said i went there meeting was crowded in one meeting evan roberts comes in there's 800 people which isn't big for america but there it's the largest hall in town and evan walks down to the front seat sits down bows his head and prayed for three hours our people walk out but then he stood up for 15 minutes he said you ever heard out like it in your life the holy ghost came upon him he was a big man when he prayed god just came down as though he jumped in the audience and that happened more than once but he said once i did that young man and of course the welsh couldn't sing like nobody on earth god me oh thou great jehovah these are the great hymns and he said at the end of the meeting he said of course the end of the meeting was no no no no no no he just after he prayed for three hours and spoke for 15 minutes he went out at 10 o'clock at night he prayed the whole night for the anointing for the next day our guys don't do that they go sit and talk and say silly jokes we want to be spiritual and carmel spiritual carmel hot and cold all out for god all out for the cowboys god says no and you've done it for 25 years why don't quit start something different okay so then he said i stayed the first day boy he said i was hooked here's this young man preaching like nobody had ever preached in my life praying as nobody had prayed and tears and he said i listened the first day i thought well i i can still get the the train overnight and get back to my office monday morning but boy he said sunday night was better so i stayed the next day and then i thought well i'm in trouble anyhow the general day after me oh no no because i can use this other day is my day off for this week and he kept bargaining with himself like that and he goes home on saturday friday night he goes in the office he said william boot just turned around and said russell where have you been you know barked at me and he said yes sir quietly general i've been to heaven you've been where i've been to heaven what do you mean you've been to heaven he said sir the spirit of god is on the man in wales a young man almost without tutoring he hadn't been to a salvation army college but god is upon him he's been in hiding for 13 years dear god he's only 26 years of age he prayed for 13 years i said to preachers when i get a chance i said listen you can i said you say i need a vacation you don't need you need a cave i said can you go for three so you can't go for three hours without turning tv on you don't need grace to pull down strongholds you need grace to stop tv that's the devilish thing that's this it's not the devil it's your choices anyhow he said the general said well tell me about it tell me about this he said the general just relaxing and i told him how god had worked and he said there's no begging people they come and rush to the scene and cry and he said the police are not arresting anybody the the the judges are not that the courts are closed the taverns are closed they have prayer meetings the coal mine they used to take a little tin you know with the what do you call it a food tin you take and and they call it i've been there snap you've only a little time i mean and they need the snap before they start working and then they spend the rest of the time praying in the dinner or singing in the coal mines and he said i went on to tell him what miracles were being he said the general put his finger up he said he said remember russell he said in the very early days the very first days of the salvation i mean it was just like that the glory of the lord came down we're getting too commercial we're getting too mechanical we'll have to go back to the glory of the lord in the same way and all the bible says is pray without ceasing it doesn't say preach without ceasing doesn't say do miracles it says pray and well like somebody may ask me if i know you fellows well i'd say well i met them but i don't i don't know anybody said i prayed with him i don't care who he is and i know some of the outstanding personalities in the world today but i haven't prayed with them so i don't know them but once a man opens his heart and it's one thing for us to stand between uh stand before god on behalf of people it's a great thing to stand before god on behalf of people and stand before god and tell before people on behalf of god as i quoted the other day to some people uh what about the 34th chapter of of exodus where moses had been on the mountain and god says let me alone i said that's god saying to a man leave me alone i said did god ever say that to you i said it's wonderful when a man lays hold of god it's a wonderful wonderful thing in one sense when a man lays hold of god but when god lays hold of a man and god says let me alone and i'll utterly destroy these people but are we not there john wesley preached on romans 8 16 more than anything else the witness of the spirit oh well i want the spirit to wear witness i'm walking in holiness i want you to bear witness i'm speaking truth i want you to i said don't do don't borrow his language in romans 9 where paul said i call the holy ghost to bear witness that i lie not can the holy ghost bear witness i said in essence what paul says then i'll be damned if need be if all only you'll just rent the heavens and come down and i said you get you keep praying again i say i was 64 for all that that was random and god shoots back rent your hearts and not your garments don't put a one-hour prayer meeting on make it a lifestyle i used to i told the deacons the last church i did in england i said listen i'll take the church on this condition number one that you meet with me at least a half hour to 40 minutes before every service number two you abolish offerings so we don't have to beg from the poor people and they meet with me friday night nine o'clock till midnight we did and got turn that church church round and i don't know any any ministry that's had the same time in prayer have you read have you read george burns at all well you read robert no george burns have you read robert mary mcshane yes well well mary mcshane i stood outside of his church in uh in um and he was on the coast of scotland aberdeen scotland well he was a man that prayed and wept and prayed and wept and prayed and wept until his health went so he went to be a missionary he's a brilliant man in hebrew and he went and had a rest in what was his israel then or palestine and while he was there wc burns came in the church and the holy ghost was upon him because he'd spent days and weeks in prayer and the whole town was rocked with a revival the whole city was moved there'd never been revival before or since that's how they kill sides revival so anyhow wc burns has this tremendous move of god and we would book him up for london and book him up for manchester oh the anointing is on him open the way let the guy go out of that god picked that man up dear brother and took him to china and dropped him in china and he died unknown from a modern pentecost go and pray he went and prayed and fasted and wept in that area so what happened after him jonathan goforth went mrs goforth says they will go to a meeting in the morning at nine and stand and sing and praise god and they still be praising him at five o'clock nobody sat down and even though they were tired you go the next day there'll be no singing will be prayer the whole day you go the next day there's neither singing or prayer the whole day in the quietness you said in the quietness was more productive than the other meetings i told the people this week we've forgotten how to be quiet be still and know that i'm god is israelis be filled with the spirit anyhow jonathan goforth went the whole ground was broken up and teared tears stained by wc burns jonathan goforth went after him came um watch with me and i don't know if you read the life of um john sung have you read his life that's the most fabulous thing i've read outside the new testament i think well i quoted him as being the most distinguished scholar foreign scholar ever came to america he learned english he learned german and did his phd in german he took his b.a degree his m.a degree learned a new language took his uh his doctorate in three and a half years and finally he went to um union theological seminary in new york and when he was there a young man said to him you look more like a preacher than like a scientist well five different nations begged him to come on their on their payroll and be their leader in nuclear fission even those years ago and he refused them well to cut a long story short one night he knelt down he said well lord my daddy's a methodist preacher and i i'm not born again i don't know god and right there god came upon him he jumped up opened the door ran down the corridor in union theological seminary right the one in act three leaping and praising god the next day they certified him insane and put him in the white in in a institution and there the lord said i can get you out of here but he's but stay here i forget the number like 195 days i'll teach you my way and he learned dear brother how to analyze a chapter eight different ways and then he went back to china he threw all his diplomas overboard in the china sea and he began his ministry married the girl that the neighbor had said they'd marry when they were kids took a long story short i was preaching in a meeting i quoted the story and a big oversized woman at the organ she'd been playing tears rolling down her face so afterwards she said well that was a lovely meeting i said i noticed you were weeping i said that story of uh that story of uh john sung uh did you hear it before she said no mr red i used to play his in his meetings in revival in china i said well today exactly you couldn't exaggerate that man doesn't know what you say but she i'll tell you one thing that i went after he died and he died as a young man he died of tuberculosis she said he would come from a meeting at night and he never he never did like the others he didn't get western clothes he wanted an american jacket and a white shirt he just had a figure he tied on his shoulder a lock of hair that fell down and she said he stayed in the home of a friend of mine and he would leave a half door open you know to get the air and she said he would come in after the meeting and his shirt sticking to his back and he would be heeding like a dog and this lady said to her after you know of all preachers we've ever had in this country i've never seen a man like john sung he lives and moves as his being in god and she comes home every night sobbing and weeping and his shirt stuck to his back and she said one scripture only leaps to my mind when i see him she said what's that this is my body which is broken for you and she said that was where he lived he didn't tell other people who live there but he lived economically and he lived all the time well his book is written time in the mission published it and if you see it by it's worth a thousand dollars i mean i've tried to contact men that like that have lived moving out there being in god they have theories there's all kinds of theory i could in fact right now i should be in australia with a team that will go on to hong kong and china and everywhere but the thing is there's a hunger now young men in this country have never seen revival they never seen meetings that go until two or three in the morning people that won't go home or if they do go home say i can't eat i can't turn on my tv i'm so hungry for god i'm so tired of my neighbor's going to hell i'm told my daughter came home and tells me she's pregnant my son came home he's on drugs there's all kinds of messing even amongst believers even amongst the pastors children so what we need to rediscover the value of a human so our people need to be taught what repentance is what the atonement is what forgiveness is what pardon is what justification is what the witness of this they don't know they want to kneel down near five minutes pass from death to life and become a full-blown christian it can't happen jaggie bollinger was here and uh we were talking about people being converted she said well uh a man knocked at my door recently and i went and i said well let's call him bill that wasn't his name oh bill come in no no miss jaggie i'm being a bad boy uh i left you 13 years ago you took me in i was a drug addict i was a drunkard i was a fighter i was a bad man and i got saved i fell with a spirit and spoke in tongues but then i just went to the devil the devil took me i left my wife and child i took another woman i've been in and out of principle i know i've seen your record in the newspaper but but he said i've been wicked for almost 13 years i've done everything shamelessly but three months ago in my present self jesus came to me and i was saved again and he's restored me in avish peace to have his joy but he said miss jackie i want to tell you that every night for the last three months i've wept two to three hours every night and she thought she would come with him she said well bill you don't need to do that your sins run the blood they forgot i'm not i'm not i'm not worried about my sins what are you worried about i'm worried about the fact that for 13 years i've denied god the right to use my tongue and use my heart and use my mind and use my thinking and i'm sorry she said that's the best case of repentance ever heard well this one isn't just saying i did these lousy things but i've denied god the right what could i have been if i'd what would swaggart be if he hadn't messed his life up he might have been a new deliverer for this nation but the devil got him and now he's arrogant he says it's no business of yours they tell me when he said that two weeks ago the audience clapped and gave him a stunning ovation he'll gather thousands of people living in a devil really don't care i just hope god spares him i mean if i were god i'd cut the guy off he's had his second chance adam didn't get a second chance judas didn't get a second chance why does swagger expect it but we're in that day now where some does the sin doesn't mean much to us i mean i i weep over the guy but what does jesus do he's crucified the son of god afraid i was reading last night to martha said darling well i don't understand this in fact i wrote to a friend at two o'clock this morning where what is it two quintains three says uh the fire shall try every man's work and uh what's not what size it is but what sort it is and then uh but the thing that boils me over maybe you fellas can help me maybe that's why i need a lot to send you today and i'm serious about this yeah one two three that's right and uh one quintains three i think they're 13 yes everyone's work should be a manifest for the day shall declare it well let's let's put it in a nutshell dear brothers when you and i go to the judgment we're not going to have our passports checked we're going to have our baggage checked what have we been collecting all our lives he's been a bill about okay well look at verse 13 if anyone's work shall be made manifest the day shall declare because it'll be revealed by fire the fire shall save a man's work what sort nor what size it is now if a man's work abide which is built there on each receiver reward now look at this 15th verse if any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved by fire now look at verse 17 if any man defile the temple of god him shall god destroy now what do you do god's going to destroy that man did jimmy schwaggart ever think he's 24 5 billion people or you and i will with all the archangels there all the apostles of the old of the new testament all the prophets of the old testament gazing on me and god reads my record out we've lost sight if we began every meeting in the light of the judgment we'd be prostrate before the end of this service you wouldn't think about running home to turn the lousy tv on the early pentecostal meetings but they used to go at eight in the morning and stay till five or six at night they had a meal on the grounds particularly in america and then have an afternoon session and an evening session at three or four sermons i don't know we have to go to that but this is nobody's answering my question him shall god destroy not his record be destroyed but he should be destroyed how can a man mix with a harlot when he knows his body is the temple of the holy ghost and that is only in his head i mean the body is the temple is it awesome when you think two men five years ago had the world at their feet jimmy schwaggart got arrogant because he said god called him to evangelize the world in the first place that's wrong he said that nobody would go to david wilkins went to him two years before that mess up he went to pto two years before and told them and they wouldn't listen to him it's no good saying they'd know friends they were so arrogant they became alone to themselves nobody dared correct them they wouldn't listen to counsel they got on a crest as they say in the world they got on a roll schwaggart's taking three million a week in i i hear it still takes in a million million a week but where's the power i'm not looking for a modern elijah i'm looking for a kind of a hundred elijah's in different areas to to come without all the other would you respond to this passage this picture from isaiah in light of what you're saying in isaiah 29 verse 13 it says wherefore the lord said for as much as his people draw near me yes with their mouth so with their lips do honor me but have removed their heart far from me yeah and their fear yes toward me is taught by the precept of men yeah their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men it's all being watered down i mean don't fear i mean god teaching us the priesthood the fear of god and not the spirit of god teaching us the fear of god yeah but i mean you got the uh again uh the more i read the more i've read the last month of noah i just think i've read the bible with my eyes closed before he was moved with fear did he think what do you think happened dear brother the first 10 years after he told those people he's building the ark don't cut that tree down adam used to know that tree what are you doing ruining the countryside cutting your trees down what are you doing all lying there and he's got his family with him that were wonderful i mean they weren't 17 18 year old kids it must have been 100 years old but anyhow the fact is after 10 years they say listen you old fool there used to be a man going my grandpa says an old man went up down there with a white beard with his hands raised to heaven remember they'd never seen a bible they'd never seen a priest never seen an altar never seen a sacrifice and yet enoch walks up and down doesn't care a hill of beans and god made a hole in the sky and he saw something that hasn't happened yet the lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints we think gentle jesus meek and mild is coming forget it everybody likes that name charles what about i wrote to a guy this as i said two o'clock three o'clock this morning lo he comes with clouds when he comes it's going to be terrible in his majesty nobody's going to jump on his knee or say papa i've come to see you forget it we're going to fall i mean if john felt his feet as dead and john used to lay his head on his bosom what are you and i going to do but we don't live in that realm we don't live in a realm of the spirit we live in a realm of reason and we've reasoned oh god is a loving god he doesn't send my judgment he does and he's going to do i think we're heading for the next unless a miracle happens we'll have a financial clash within three years a bankruptcy which may do something but on the other hand i don't believe that if we had two earthquakes and one went north to south other way and america's in four pieces that people would repent they only repent when conviction of sin comes you can't deny the holy ghost his office right when he is coming or convicted convicted of sin and righteousness and judgment to come we don't live in that area i mean nobody expects jesus to come today they say they do but if they do he does have this hope in him purify he doesn't say when he is calm he'll give us 24 hours gnosis if we're in purity he'll call us if we're in purity he won't call us when we should be like him not not an hour after he comes not a day after but that very moment if i'm not walking in the will of god in known purity i don't believe we'll be taken doesn't matter if you're pastor of the biggest church in town 10 times as big as billy won't make any difference all our ideas are perverted anyhow there's not much meekness blessed the meek they shall inherit the earth oh dear god where is that meekness anymore oh we have the biggest church in town we're on so many radio stations arlen roberts used to say that swagger said it so what's it got them god is a jealous god all set for such or false apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of christ yeah and no marvel for satan himself is transformed into an angel of light therefore yeah it is no great thing if his ministers may also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works ministers of righteousness yeah but ministers of satan don't you think that like when you talk to some people uh about victory in the christian oh well my righteousness is as filthy right as i will get saved what does john say he that he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous i mean you can't be partly this i mean there are no degrees in purity there are degrees in life there are no degrees in death that man's dead this man isn't he's injured he's incapacitated he has a mind problem physical but you preach christian perfection they laugh at you these days purity they're just scorned but it's good to say that there's hope in him purified himself and paul writes to the to the uh peter rather in his first epistle you have purified your hearts by faith as i said to you're just as spiritual as you want to be all these men here only had the same bible i have they used it better they'd only 24 hours on the clock i could do with a 48 hour clock and i'd still use it now are you now are you clean by the word which i've spoken to you wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his life by taking heed thereto according to thy word yes well it goes on to say that very thing does it uh thy word have i hid in my heart that i might not sin not just occasionally get victory i mean dear god what's the difference between us and others oh speaking in tongues mormon speak in tongues every devout mormon speaks in tongues but they live like devils a lot of them there's only one thing i think the devil can't fake and that's a holy life he's tried to do it through monasteries but going back a minute i don't know if you read it and i don't know i read it recently in two different accounts why two different men said if i could now i would start a christian monastery what they mean is like the bible school i went to there were no tvs in those days or radios you couldn't take a radio you couldn't take an automobile when you went on the campus you stayed from october till christmas they went home for a few days came back and stayed at least you go off the campus i have to have a hair coat you couldn't go shopping you couldn't drive a car anything there were no girls there the two distracting and we were shut up you came here to know the word of god and they did a pretty good job but now dear god i know a boy that went to or are you his daddy as an agency of cars he gave him a new car bought him a new typewriter bought him new clothes a new set of golf clubs everything he had and within a month he wrapped the new car around the lamppost total wreckage called back and said oh don't come home don't come home mommy's bringing a new car tomorrow and that's all back him up like that old robert says he has four thousand young people there full of the holy ghost below me how could he have four thousand there were only 120 in the upper room his people go to they can't dance on the premises but they go to other places to dance why don't you have places where they say students are spending all night in prayer in intercession we've never been in the mess we're in now we're nearer judgment than we've ever been in america and england i think england america the modern sodom and the modern gamara they never had the chances we have they never had the bibles we've never had the seminars never had all the christian periodicals how many at this moment how many teams do you think there are around america either going around teaching spiritual warfare or something else every magazine you come out we've got something new and we're feeding jaded appetites if we once had a holy ghost revival that say got all of a dozen out of a hundred men in in a in a factory and they began instead of going to lunch they they had a lunch then they had a prayer meeting or something it would soon spread but we don't know that and i don't know by well by what i read we're going to do the same thing the next 10 years we've done the last 10 years we've done nothing but it's like uh as virgin said you you see there's a stick there and it's the most crooked stick you've ever seen don't argue about it put the straight stick at the time you see the truth with our young people brother they don't know they don't know what they believe like john fred wolf has one of the biggest southern baptist church in in in mobile i preached then he's put a new building up since since 4000 and he says he said we feel responsible for 11 000 students in this area but he said i wonder why it is in their sophomore year which is what the second year they live in college they leave church well you can guarantee those kids went to daily vacation bible school most likely went to a christian camp i guarantee 99 95 have made a profession of christianity when i get away from home i'm not going to go to church you can play sports here you can go down to the cm bay you can have a one why did they deserve like that i mean why don't they have an appetite for god but they don't i mean three weeks ago the fellow that's taking up the to be assistant of dr chriswell he blasted baylor university the message in but then guys told me going to baylor uh it's not known any longer as a spiritual place it's known now as a well it's a liberal arts college and it's known mostly for his football team but why do the kids suddenly i have no appetite when they get teenagers get away from home or i won't have to go to church send it back my folk have made me go everything there's no appetite so there's no relationship with god and if he spent time at and took them through step by step what it means to become a christian your life is hid with christ in god you're not your own you bought with a price that you've no time of your own you've no money of your own you have no interest you know christ must become a complete master we don't do that and unless we do we're not going to have a change i mean there are people are really hungry there are people that meet dave wilkinson's folk on the streets i've never seen a christian in my life well what what they say the average church member is just like us very often they're smoking till they go in the meeting at last the last minute when they come out it's the cowboys or something at work where's the difference and it isn't there but it all comes down i don't care whether it's swagger to pto it comes down it breaks down with personal devotion to christ they quit praying they quit reading the word of god they haven't time and therefore they start rotting from the inside there is the nation big enough to destroy america will destroy ourselves the present rate of development in herpes and aids is appalling the list the lid hasn't been taken off the thing yet i don't think the government dare tell us what's happening in the country it's the same in england but where are god filled men i mean says the day after i've been in that trouble i was going to step down and let my son take over but i woke up full of the holy ghost no he woke up full of tongues he gave his tongues and he took it that's a sign but the gifts and callings of god are without repentance i see a girl wearing a big ring she said well jack gave me that i go back to the church since once after and say well oh did he get mad oh no we we quarreled after that but you're still wearing the ring yes well of course jack's gone but he left his ring by the same token the holy ghost has gone but he left his gift the gifts and callings without repentance who moved london more than irving edward irving in his day carriages jostled each other parliament suspended so they could run out near this great oratory there every kind of sign and wonder a bit like colossal chairs and finally sit on the platform and said i am the son of god i've kept this veil to you but now here i am there's everything men call him the 13th apostle there's no there's no questions about what happened there's a whole book on him i have it and you've got all these amazing moves i guess you've read something of wigglesworth have you read john john g lake john g lakes books are published now by christ for there's four of them that man is well here i'm standing here and i talk with wigglesworth wigglesworth is here i'm here john lake is up there you talk about apostolic christianity and it all beyond anything we've ever known i don't think it's the only answer i think the answer is when people are so transformed they're no longer mean and no longer selfish no longer covetous but they give themselves i mean when children say something happened to my daddy he's been a baptist for all his life or something happened or my daddy's been a methodist or now my daddy's been a charismatic but something suddenly changes become different he's christlike he speaks gently to my mother he's concerned about us it isn't well i'm going to the world series whether you like it or not or i'm going to a ball game you know super bowl and i these preachers you well you you say i can't take three days off i say you took more than three days off to go deer hunting you took three days off to go fishing why can't you pastor set the standard and say there's going to be a meeting for pastors at least one day a week or one night a week when we get together we evangelicals really lay hold of god for revival in our city these kids around here will raise money to go to hong kong for three days or go to south america but when they come back as soon as they get off the plane their compassion dies what are you going to do with kids like that and they'll keep doing it as long as we want them you know oh we took a number of our people from our church we took them on a cruise but you're touching the elite of the church all the time you've done that year after year and the poor people are struggling if you can take six or seven days off for a cruise can you take six or seven days off for a nation that's going to hell what do you want to do kids lie in the street fornicating people clobbering a man on the head and stealing his watch that's sin to become before your eyes before we feel i mean how many it's all right to say i want to be like jesus to all of it like what do i want get so many i've never heard a person yet dear brother and i've gone to church for 80 years i've heard men say i was born again i went to the cross i've had my i've had my upper room experience i've never heard the man say i get seminary experience i've broken my dad was the nearest of that my dad couldn't say grace at mealtime without tears right now i have invitations to seven different i'm not going to one i said because if people say what's happening in america i can't say there's revival anywhere i know i said do you think i'm going to talk to them about the holy ghost revival when we're dying and doomed and damned here and we're running into worse trouble well it's in their scriptures what does god say i can't give you glory because you honor one another that's one of the biggest sentences we have like john winters to them when did you recharge me and i said if you do i'll walk off the platform well i went to say well first of all we talked about revival he said well you you told bickle that in revival you don't make alterculture and you don't he said i've never been in a meeting like that so i said when we come i said let our david speak an hour before i do an hour our david's free now he's pulled out from a church he's free to go anywhere i said so david preached an hour we had a 15 minute break and i preached for an hour and a half and while i was preaching the whole audience broke up they came in hundreds to the front and wept and groaned and cried out audibly make me clean purify me that happened six days we never had three one week and three the nights we never had an alterco in and after they came to the altar and stayed not five minutes two and three hours calling on god you read luke chapter three what to say john was preaching and the people cried out what we do and the soldiers cried out which we do and the publicans cried out dear god when heathen men start crying out what should we do you know god's there there's no pleading altar no what did they say on the other day of pentecost men and brethren what should we do we're panicking with what the altar doesn't mean anything to people now they come out every week we're romanizing our protestant oh get your sins forgiven go back and do the same lousy thing it's ridiculous you don't do that if you go to death when you die to self you die to business promotion you die to ambition you lay it all out and say we mean this with bits like god go on record put us on record we're not going to do anything unless we get there we've had a kind of value what do we have not long ago do you remember a allen a allen used to have meetings you get 500 come forward on the way home to his hotel he called his call girl and she met him there he died with liquor bottles whiskey bottles all around his room there's a whole bunch of men than that you don't find anything like that amongst the old-fashioned revivalist true revivalist that's why i like i write to read the book like this when i'm the accounts of revival i mean it's something we don't know a thing about dear god piteous we say we have the same bible the same holy god why do we get the same result the menace of many of our meetings is we're trying to get people saved they don't know their loss come forward the lord loves you the lord loves you the lord hates you why do we put a stung us instead of a bumper sticker god loves you god is angry with the wicked every day or the wicked should be turned into hell we'd soon be in trouble fools make a market sin but we don't do that we don't even preach it well i know there's a hunger across america by the phone calls i get and uh guys are going to a stone wall now they uh there's there isn't a there isn't a church in this town that's having a move of god they say i'll pray till the rains get together and uh the prophet amos yeah said behold the day saith the lord the days come sayeth the lord that i will send a famine in the land yes famine not a famine of bread nor thirst for water but of hearing the words of the lord and they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the lord and shall not find it is that literally like no bibles or is it that the word isn't a living word it doesn't i mean you can read it i go and hear a fellow and he preaches there's no passion there's no tears there's no you know i'll die rather than like richard baxter i preached as if to never preach again and as a dying man to dying men now you think these fellows are professional he gets paid when he when he steps out of the pulpit he says hey john uh what about a round of golf on wednesday or thursday and immediately they switch from the spiritually eternal to some stupid thing i wouldn't take any notice of them anyhow i said pastor live it live it live it don't tell me to pray meet with me in the in the church when i would got saved and then after i trusted dr sanctified because of the blank in my life and the first thing i went to the pastor said pastor i want to pray meeting on wednesday night on friday night for the young people oh well it's not good for young people to meet together so you come and supervise if you think we're gonna fool around so we started a prayer meeting on friday night at seven and we prayed till nine i started a prayer meeting at seven sunday morning and i lived on the outside the boundary of town i walked to the prayer meeting walked home for breakfast walked home for the morning service walked home for lunch walked back for the afternoon service walked home for supper worked for the nine service night service and god began to move and people in the neighborhood got saved that had never happened before but you see once you've been in that it's like uh like uh i said not not carol bringer but major thomas said no major uh russell that once he got back in the fire of the welsh we've had everything he didn't burn he got on the train and going home to he couldn't get back to london quick enough to tell that the holy ghost had fallen and then i mean the first greatest revival in england was the western revival that went to 90 no the western revival and then the next one was the salvation army which that went into 70 countries in 90 years not 70 but 70 countries dear god they had the most amazing night prayer meetings and training students and getting down to the bible and prayer and every week they were taking to a night of prayer they're taking to street meetings somewhere in london they were meeting sin head on visiting taverns talking to harlots which nobody does know except just about dave wilkinson and tim delaney down in uh in the motor city they're doing the same thing but we're all sitting inside for ted john weber i said why do you sit inside a four wall singing let the earth hear his voice it doesn't make sense let the earth hear his voice stand on a box call a man to witness call a woman to witness sing a hymn he can't preach very much to crowds but before long you say we're going to be here every saturday night for the next winter and or summer and they come with expectations to plan the shopping like people used to do with us they plan to come shopping on saturday friday night and saturday night because we're in the town square and we didn't miss for three years and our young people came you didn't have to whip them they came eagerly you know give me a chance to witness it i said if anybody stands on this box who's isn't telling the truth you interrupt them because i'm the leader and i said i'll check on them don't let a man talk when he's not walking and if he's walking in it if if the man is in your factory your office uh if they're not telling the truth come and tell me you know chase them off well we didn't need to advertise in the paper dear god i was the best known man in town even though the cathedral is only 300 yards away from us magnificent cathedral i only got 500 sunday night they stood outside and lined up like a movie house but the cathedral got 50 so where do you go i mean the cathedral is ornate it had gold plates on the on gold uh communion things and candlesticks on the altar it was like a miniature western stained glass windows but what is that to the glory of god i mean our place was packed an hour before time our prayer meetings were packed we had three prayer meetings a week and three street meetings and that's why that church kept in continuous revival for the three years i was there and it's still there today well brother now what i want to say is that either the bible is absolute or obsolete which is it is god all he says he is is hebrews 11 6 what we need to rediscover he that cometh to god must believe that he is what's it matter about swagger and all the rest i know it's it's objectionable it hurts and people tell me now they're already cracking jokes about swagger if uh if god told me i could go on preaching a guy told me the other somebody said well if god says he can go on preaching the message in wedding god tell him there's a cup following about the lord in a car so another's demons they appear to be i think it all boils down to one of the oldest hymns where you have to ever sing it trust and obey there's no other way no other way it's hard on the flesh it's hard against the lifestyle of preachers around but what does god want i'm not going to the judgment bar of the assemblies of god or the first baptist church i'm going to assume i'm going to judgment bar of jesus christ and i live with that every day it's his words that will judge us yes that's what he said well you think it's not what's just in the book of life as tozer said to me one day he said leonard i don't think i'm ashamed of what i've done since i was saved it's what i could have done that troubles me and not what i did but why i did it god has been away the mortars i mean i had g cameron logan say i had talked with a friend of mine the other day and he'd been preaching in the church i'd love to go to a monk cameron logan said how do you get on he said oh he said i enjoyed myself he said he did he enjoyed his oratory he enjoyed his rapport with the people he enjoyed his eloquence he enjoyed himself what did god get the the question when i finish a meeting is i didn't get anything out of this meeting and what did god get out of it what do people say going out i think dear brother if i was where god wants me to be where i should be i would leave a meeting with tears running down my face at the glory of god or that all these people outside are glued to the tv this afternoon this sabbath day and they're a bit interesting god christ could die on the main street today it won't interest them at all but we've got i i think we've got to preach till people know that we mean what we say we burn edwin hatch was uh chancellor of i think st mary's college in oxford and one of the best guys in england but one day even though they had crowds and everything he got so tired he went in his office and he wrote that gorgeous him breathe on me breath of god fill me with life anew then the last time to breathe on me breath of god till i am holy thine till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine people ask me how do you you've been preaching 70 years now how do you keep an edge because i read stories on live because i read the word of god and i see what the apostle did that paul can laugh at death and laugh at hardship and sit in the lousiest prison in the world and tell other people to rejoice or he can give you true corinthians 11 and go down seven times for we're missing the fast in perils of the deep in perils of my own countryman in perils perils enough to kill 10 men and glory in tribulation doesn't just find grace to get through he welcomes it he said this is the only way because when we get to heaven that dear brother god in the natural way your diploma is he's not looking for medals he's looking for scars paul says for this also thank we god without ceasing because when you receive the word of god which you heard of us you received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of god which effectually worketh also in you that believe yes do men not believe this word that has been written to them well because it doesn't work in us i say you stand in the pulpit and preach it but what does it mean to you why does it work out in your life i mean you have to drive the biggest car you have to have this you have to have the other ones i have a five-year-old uh uh lincoln continental the small window now people laugh at me for having it i said well i'll swap it for anything else it's reliable that's why i like it i got it because i'm doing long distance traveling i don't need it to shop in if you want to buy it i'll take an older one but i say i said it doesn't mean that much to me i said i haven't bought any clothes for five years i bought one pair of trousers it's just that i used to almost i didn't like clothes because i was i was a tailor before i was before i was saying i wore the best clothes in the country in fact you've come in the best dressed man in the whole household but all that's gone that's trivial that's silly looking but i said all that matters if you can get nearer to god than i get tell me how did you get there that's all i'm concerned about paul isn't concerned about anything i said you go to the national convention of your denomination and stand up and say i've got a glorious text for you that there's a thousand pastors here from our denomination i've got a glorious text from you you're dead what would they do they glare at you i said paul could you're dead and your life is hid with christ in god oh they believe you're dead you're preachers though you're dead you act as though you're dead are you dead to all the world's glamour are you dead to the rivalry in your denomination are you dead to climbing up the ladder there's so many preachers wept when when chris well finally decided to have joel gregory from chalice avenue as his assistant other men thought what i deserve it after him true it was there 45 years he's been there 42 years i'm a young man i should go in so what people ask me what do you do to be great and they wash somebody's feet will they never be told you're your mentor yes what was he like well there were different ways to answer that question but i'll tell you one thing about him it was the same with the martin lloyd jones i talked with him g campbell morgan i listened to him often so martin lloyd jones and george uh campbell morgan and tozer had one thing in common when they went to the pulpit they never raised their finger never raised their voice they didn't depend on histrionics to get the message of dr tozer had a habit of like he'd have his uh he'd have his bible in his hand say i'm reading from john 17 one and i begin to read and and they maybe give a little outline and and then he rocked two and four like this then suddenly threw his bible on the pulpit at that moment he was airborne it's like a like a plane getting off the runway and off he went and uh he wasn't the greatest preacher i've heard in my life but he had the most intimacy with god like he read all the mystics you know you could quote ladder of sanctity or you could call madame gina faber anybody and he could put his finger on the whole lot and tell you how he'd read them and uh his his emphasis was the inner man the inner man you know and he was against showmanship he wouldn't let anybody play a trumpet on his platform hardly let anybody sing unless they sang a hymn he knew what it was and he had a fellow called um mac something anyhow he introduced well before that tozer had got an old methodist head book and soaked himself in it well this fellow came on and i can't remember his name mac and he introduced when they got to a lot of old methodist in books so they printed the sheets and they sang hymns and can it be that i should gain and all those and tozer rattled in that kind of thing he wouldn't have a concert in the place he wouldn't have any uh special meetings i went and we had two weeks three weekends actually and he said this is the greatest revival in the history of this church we had the altars open till midnight people weeping and seeking god and coming right across town well here's the difference you got student you got moody bible institute here next door is moody church the students only had to come out of here into there and yet they crossed the town when when the ice you know churned up by the cars and it froze and you could well the people's ankles were snapping getting off buses and that they'd rather come across town in a car or walk some of them and hear tozer then go next door to hear the um whether there was preacher that logs done a part of the time and and well i'll tell you where he was he was in that place that three times they begged him to become the president of the christian mission and i'm sure everybody wants that he turned it down again again god didn't ask me to kiss babies and sit in council meetings my business is the word of god and he would turn men away and not even uh but his advisor with his time i i was privileged to spend a lot of time with him and go to his home even but all the time he talked about well the type of teaching that ab simpson had opening the depths of the word of god you know romans and ephesians living in that area and uh shut worldliness out shut theatres out shut everything else which he did he loved music he was he listened every night to a recording of uh of uh who did he listen to not chopin i'm not sure but uh yeah one of the great symphony every night said we're now listening to good music but again he was i prayed him many times a very very wonderful in prayer he didn't shout he just he had a conversational talk with god and he could be he could cut an audience in two with the word almost uh he got very sarcastic at times and you know people kind of remonstrated with him for that he refused all invitations until the very end he stayed in one church 25 years and he didn't get a very big salary so his strength actually was his devotional life he he wouldn't let any anybody trespass on that he spent certain time with god all the time you reflect some on your your times with keith green well keith was a zealot i mean he he bounced through that door i remember he well i where this division is it used to be a wall and dave wilkinson pulled it out and furnished all this for me and uh wilkinson would come one day cream would come the other as opposite as could be because david was mature he'd been a pastor for about 20 years then keith of course had come from the guts and he'd tell me about his past life and sordidness but he was hungry for god i remember definitely a turn in his life when i told him he shouldn't charge to go into concerts when they didn't do they've gone back to it this last week i think but they didn't do that and i remember talking to him about eternity on one occasion and holiness on another and he you know like a trout jumping up to get a fly he got a little bit like that and he would come back i remember he bounced through the door you know he got he want to get through it before he opened it open and bounce through and there's a big guy and he i remember he used to give me pops and give me a hug he said pops you know what all roads lead to we used to say in england all roads lead to rome it's an old saying everybody travels to rome to see he said do you know what all roads lead to i said no the same thing no i said you're wrong i said why he said all roads lead to the judgment seat i said very good and he had a i don't know i've never read this anywhere but i think it's right to say he had a holy fever or if you're if you're like a fear of god i mean when you think he didn't live very long but i still get letters about him again that book that his wife wrote on no compromise is doing good and uh they still send his tapes out in fact he wrote them he wrote the uh catholic chronicles that they withdrew somebody wrote to me this week and asked me could they ever say it because god used it tremendously but it got them into trouble for not being friendly enough with the catholics so they withdrew it but uh and he loved to pray he'd say can we pray and he'd get down and really pour his heart out you know and he had visions of what god wanted to do in this area and he was because other people couldn't keep up with him they thought he maybe he was he wasn't mature enough in one sense for leadership he wanted everybody to jump up to his level which you can't do any more than i could jump up now to the level of a an olympic runner and i used to run i'd like to run but i can't i'm glad even to walk but he was like that i mean he saw eternal things and if if they weren't clear to you he couldn't understand his stupidity he couldn't understand why you're not leaping and you know and going full pace if he fasted he fasted if he prayed he prayed there's a uniqueness well my my precious wife had a tremendous insight to people the first time she saw him she said when uh the spirit of god is on that young man and uh in england you know you've got two kidneys are supposed to match function the same well in england they say well that man isn't your kidney in other words you know it's not your if you want to call it alter ego what you want to call it but immediately he came in she said well there's something unique about uh and there was about him and they don't have it now they know that i mean he was willing to live at full stretch he expected others to do the same thing for him he was a good reader he liked to read tozer very much and uh he liked to read david brainerd or he liked to read the three volumes of um edward pace and he read that too in in essence their brother is saying exactly what you say go back to the old palace he'd asked me what well of course he and the guy that usually up at at uh of the street at the um we had a minister up there agape they're very much fashionable they used to read william booth they read the stories of william booth and the old men and he'd come to me and tell me more about booth tell me more about the nights of prayer tell me about the days it was fascinating tell me about your street meetings and uh i need to warm up to you know we want to get back to that and uh it's one of those mysteries you don't know why god moves men along like that but then you know how would how would you want people to remember you oh i don't know as a nuisance i think when your reward is like i can't do it now because i get so many people but say three or four years ago man i couldn't spend two hours and then write back and say you know from another country i'm passing out in new zealand and the turning point was when i came to see you i got more in two hours with you than i got two years in seminary i'm reading the whole armor of god i'm reading this i'm reading some history of the salvation army and and areas that they haven't broken into and uh all i know is i've stressed as much as possible the life of prayer and personal devotion immediately you get cold there you get cold outside as you keep fueling yourself you keep reading isaiah 6 over and get visions of god ambition of a living the book of the revelation and you don't understand all of it don't ask to i say god can't be explained he can be experienced and that's all that matters i mean i sometimes fear like i preach my heart out on sunday and a threefold vision i wondered after i might tend to get people to come up to the altar i don't know because i never made an alter go but nobody's going to jump i mean i got saved at 14 i'm 84 almost 85 so i've been 70 years i've seen all kinds of tragedies in the church wars and rumors of wars popular men going popular and so forth but keep looking to jesus and reading the word and remembering these old paths that my daddy used to talk about so much and all the other looks like trivia guys now laugh at me because i live on my social security i've i've done counseling in this room for 13 years and the whole aggregate somebody leaves something behind it's okay they haven't left 500 in 13 years so i don't do it for the money a man called me from houston last year he said can i come and see you i said yes next one a van came 10 of them came with the pastor at 10 o'clock and they stayed till one night taught my heart how much i could going out one of them said you're not expecting a remuneration for this dear i said no i said i live on my social security anything above that i divided the middle between my son and myself or the other boy so this fellow said well we should leave you something so he goes to the door takes his billfold out takes something out and he came back and he put it on the table put his hand on it and he said i'm leaving this for you because i know you'll share it with your son i said i sure will so they went and i went to martha and i said darling they've gone now i said but they left us some money isn't that a miracle she said well that we don't get that i said well i don't know what it is maybe a hundred dollars or a thousand he's left us because it's all we share it with paul sure let's go so he came in he left us five dollars i said well one thing we won't get drunk anyhow no i'm just saying that because everything has money in america you know what annoys me well what would it how much would it cost how do you come for a week i say if you start that way i'm going now don't go no i think that i think we're moving now in one thing it's terrible that things like uh swaggots happen and so forth but it gives the church a new start we're going to start a new level of holiness we're not going to be entertainers we're not going to bother who comes we don't have to join in every effort that they're making the city to have a revival forget it we've been doing that for 20 years stay at the place of prayer no matter who comes to town to preach we're going to stay together and pray friday night from nine till eleven or nine to twelve i've done that always every city i've been in i've started a pastor's prayer meeting usually on a monday when they're washed out and tired and they come from all denominations there's no alternative to prayer and obedience
A Man of God
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Leonard Ravenhill (1907 - 1994). British-American evangelist, author, and revivalist born in Leeds, England. Converted at 14 in a Methodist revival, he trained at Cliff College, a Methodist Bible school, and was mentored by Samuel Chadwick. Ordained in the 1930s, he preached across England with the Faith Mission and held tent crusades, influenced by the Welsh Revival’s fervor. In 1950, he moved to the United States, later settling in Texas, where he ministered independently, focusing on prayer and repentance. Ravenhill authored books like Why Revival Tarries (1959) and Sodom Had No Bible, urging the church toward holiness. He spoke at major conferences, including with Youth for Christ, and mentored figures like David Wilkerson and Keith Green. Married to Martha Beaton in 1939, they had three sons, all in ministry. Known for his fiery sermons and late-night prayer meetings, he corresponded with A.W. Tozer and admired Charles Spurgeon. His writings and recordings, widely available online, emphasize spiritual awakening over institutional religion. Ravenhill’s call for revival continues to inspire evangelical movements globally.