Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the critical need for accountability to God, illustrating the transformative power of genuine repentance and the pursuit of purity in the heart. He recounts a personal story of a woman who, after a deep cry for mercy, experienced true salvation, contrasting it with his own struggle with sin and misery. Ravenhill argues that the greatest sin is the desire to run one's own life apart from God, and he stresses that true Christianity is about allowing Christ to live within us, leading to a pure heart and a renewed spirit. He challenges the modern church's tendency to downplay sin and calls for a return to recognizing the need for deep, inward cleansing and the power of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, he encourages believers to seek purity, as it is the foundation for true power in their lives and ministries.

Because I feel so miserable. Well, that's why I don't get it. I feel miserable too. He said, you know, we sat on the edge of the bed till nearly two o'clock in the morning. And finally he said, I yanked the bed from the wall and he said, I walk round that way and she walk round that way and she wouldn't speak to me and I wouldn't speak to her. And somewhere after two o'clock I heard her fall down and she cried with all the power of her being, God have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. He said, she stayed and she wept and she groaned. And maybe half an hour after she got up and said, well praise the Lord, I'm really saved. I've been a Methodist for years but now I'm a Christian, I'm really saved. And he said, she got into bed. And I walked round and round and round and round and I kept looking at her in bed and I could see the tears of joy had run down her face and I felt mad, I felt bewildered, I felt your rotten thing lying in bed so happy and here I am as miserable as sin. This isn't the right thing anyhow. But he said, you know, it was just while you were praying as though God sprung a trap in my mind. I saw every sin I'd ever committed, sins of youth, sins of childhood, sins of youth, sins of manhood, sins of the flesh, sins of the spirit. They came like an army. You said, I wish God would spring a trap and your sins go around your bedroom all night. And you know, He did that. My sins pursued me all night. I don't know what time it was but he said, I fell down the other side of the bed and just said, God, I'm a sinner and I know it, have mercy, forgive me. And he met me, he said, and he brought his peace and he brought his joy. You know, there's a lot we want to cover up. We want a short-term approach to God. Lord, you know all about it. Forgive me, amen. Get up, that's all there is. Much more than that. Much more when he restores his joy. Much more when you come to the final phase where David says here, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit. You see what we've done in our modern smartness? We've changed these words. We don't call iniquity, iniquity anymore. We call it infirmity. We don't call it sin or disease, we call it a defect. We don't call it what God calls it. God says, if you're not saved, you're at enmity with God. You say, I've never been found, I've never been a drunkard. Look, look, look, look, come on, come on. Why did Adam get kicked out of the garden? Did he commit adultery? Did he lie? Or go back? Why did Satan get kicked out of heaven? For the simple reason he said, I'm going to run my life, I'm not God. The greatest sin in the world is not adultery. The greatest sin in the world is, I'm going to run my life, I'm not God. The first argument God has with you is not that you're bad. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live. You may be religious as any man on earth, but if you're good, and maybe you give to the church, and more, you're considered a nice person. The only thing is, there's a spot inside of your being which is a graveyard. It's dead. And it won't live until Christ himself comes there. All right, here's the key to the whole. What's the heart of the problem? The heart of the problem is the heart. That's what Jesus said. It's out of the heart proceedeth. I don't believe in modern evangelism. We preach salvation. We preach forgiveness. We preach heaven. We preach peace of mind. We preach you can be better. Justification deals with my relationship with God. Sanctification deals with the heart. As I've said to you before, I don't ask people anymore if they're saved. Ask somebody, are you a Christian? Yeah, I was born in a Christian home. Sounds almost facetious, but you go to one meeting, you go to a holiness meeting, and you stand up and say, I've been saved. Everybody says, Amen. And two years after I got sanctified. Hallelujah, that's wonderful. Now you're in, you're one of us. Saved and sanctified. Go to a Pentecostal meeting, you get saved, and you say afterwards, and I got the baptism so long afterwards. Praise God, he's one of us now. See, it's just in different terminology. This man's saved and sanctified. This man's saved and has the baptism. I'm not arguing with it. But I say this, folks have heard it so many times, it falls on deaf ears. Supposing you stand up there and look very sweet, and just next time there's a testimony meeting, stand up and say, Christ liveth in me. Maybe when you sit down, your wife will nudge you and say, George, when did that happen? I'm almost to listen. We were in a certain town when somebody said about a man who was driving out in a gorgeous shiny Cadillac. He used to be one of the worst men in this city. He ran around with women. He didn't take his money home. He drank. He gambled. He was a sinner, first class rotten sinner. And somebody said to his wife, not too long ago, it must be wonderful living in that lovely home of yours. You have a marvelous home, a beautiful automobile. You have plenty of money. And your husband, he isn't a drunkard, and he doesn't run around with women, and he doesn't waste his money. And I mean, it's marvelous. You must feel, it must be marvelous living with your husband like that. And she shook her head and said, no. Well, hasn't God changed his life? And she said, yes, his life is, yes, yes, his manner is changed. His life is changed, but his disposition isn't. Has your disposition changed? Have you really got rid of bitterness and wrath and malice? Do you still have a gossiping tongue while you profess to be saved and spirit-filled? Do you lie? Not big ones, you know, neat little ones, not black ones, just nice white ones. Hmm? Can God do more than forgive me? Look, this is a simple thing, and it's a penetrating thing. There are no degrees of purity. There are degrees of strength. There are degrees of wisdom. There are degrees, but there are no degrees of purity. Your heart tonight is either pure or impure. There's no middle ground. There's no gray. It's black or white. It's purge or polluted. It's a throne where Jesus feels at home in your personality because you live and move and have your being in God, creating me a clean heart, O God. Wesley says, A heart in every thought renewed and full of love divine, perfect and right and pure and good, a copy, Lord, of Thine. Thy nature gracious, Lord, impart. Come quickly from above. Write Thy new name upon my heart, Thy new best name of love. Refining fire goes through my heart. Illuminate my soul. Scatter Thy light through every part and sanctify the whole. My steadfast soul from falling is free and I then no longer roll while all the world is dead to me and all my heart is love. Have you got a heart like that? It seems the least emphasis we put on the majesty of the Holy Spirit is purity. We've emphasized pure, pardon me, we've emphasized power. As I said this morning, Can you tell me a miracle the disciples did after Pentecost they didn't do before? They did all kinds of miracles before Pentecost. They ran to Jesus excitedly and said, Jesus, we had a wonderful time. We cast out devils. We did this. And Jesus said, just a minute, hold off. There's something more wonderful than doing that. Rejoice, your names are written in heaven. They had a supernatural ministry before Pentecost. But I'll tell you what, after Pentecost you'll never find Peter backsliding. Oh, it's true that he needed a bit of correction. God purifies the heart with the blood. He corrects the head with a rod. And Peter still had a bit of homework to do. You know, when that sheet was let down from heaven, he still had a bit of bias he got out to deal with and correct him. But you don't find him running away from a girl who puts her finger up. Rather on the day of Pentecost he puts his finger up and he says, you crucified the Lord of glory. Him God hath raised up, whereof we are witnesses. Well, it's all that Peter suffered a martyr's death. And he explains it all in Acts 15, 8 and 9. This is my last word. In Acts 15, 8 and 9 he says this, reporting the coming of the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles. He's reporting to the people there in Jerusalem. And he says, God who knoweth the heart, Acts 15, 8 and 9, God who knoweth the heart bears them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, and put no difference between us and them. What? With balls of fire? Or tongues or miracles? No, no, no, not just there. It may have been the same. But the thing that Peter remembered about the upper room was not the balls of fire and the rushing mighty wind. He said, he purified my heart. He drove out cowardice and unbelief and fear. The fear of man that bringeth a snare. The fear of stepping out into God's will because, well, we almost infer God may go broke and let me down. The fear of taking up a cross because, no sir, fear goes out. He hath not given us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind. Reader Harris finished a meeting in London once. He'd spoken about the Holy Ghost. And he said, many of you have needs. And he said, at this side, on your right, my left, there's a room. And on the right, your left, there's another room. Now, all you Christians who are defeated, in bondage, powerless, prayerless, loveless, all your spasms up and down, sometimes on fire, sometimes cold. You know, Peter warmed himself at a fire until he got the fire. And then he never warmed himself at anybody else's fire. Reader Harris said, all you people who want power come down that aisle and go in that room. And all you people that want purity go down that aisle, go in that room. Do you know what the ratio was? Ten to one. Ten people seeking power for every person that seeks purity. But purity is the secret of power. Love that is pure is passionate. They're ready to blaze for God. They don't care where. In honour they prefer. They're no longer saying, can I sit on the right? Can I sit on the left of that? No, no, no, they don't say that anymore. The Spirit of God came in that upper room, in the area that they needed. He came in fire and He sat upon each of them. And He burned up the dross that was in them. And they went out pure and passionate with purpose and strength. Is your heart pure tonight? Do you know how long it will stay pure? It will stay pure as long as you abide in the place of obedience under the blood. Because the Word of God says, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth. The Greek says it keeps on cleansing. While ever you stay in the place of obedience and submission you'll be cleansed and you'll stay clean. And you'll have the anointing of the Spirit of God. There are three prayers. Do you come up in one category tonight? The prayer of a sinner, have mercy on me, I'm loaded with my sins. The prayer of a backslider, you once knew better days. This good book was, as it says, sweetened on the honey and the honeycomb. And now it's dry and boring and the sports page in the newspaper is much more thrilling. Huh? Or do you say, well I've been groping and I long for purity. I long for inward cleansing. I'm tired of temper. I'm tired of pride. I'm tired of secret lust. Give me half a minute here. I preached in that famous Calvary Baptist Church a number of times when I was a teen child and Stephen Offord would call me and say, Len, I'm going out of time, will you come and preach? So I preached one night there. A message I love still to preach on Isaiah 6, woe, lo, go. And I said at the end, you know, God is able to cleanse you and indwell you and take you out and use you. I didn't ask them to come to the altar. I asked them to raise their hands. About 50 did and I said, go home and meet God. Get a piece of paper and write your name at the top. Write the things you know are wrong with your life. I'm lazy. My praying is spasmodic. I don't enjoy the word of God. I'm not eager to testify. Put them down, then draw a line and then say, Holy Spirit, you show me what's wrong with my life. And he will. And then at the bottom put what David put, I acknowledge my transgression. These are my sins. I'm sorry. I repent. Cleanse me and keep me in the line of victory and take me where you like. Six months after we were on 8th Avenue preaching in that historic church of A.B. Simpson, I said to my wife, Sweetie, let's stand here. We won't want to shake hands with everybody going out. And just when I thought everybody had gone, I went forward and the young lady said, Hi, you're Mr. Raymond. You preached in Calvary Baptist about six months ago, didn't you? You told us to write this catalog and then ask God to cleanse us. And then say, Here am I. Send me. She said, I did exactly what you said. It took me a long while. I stayed up and I made my list and the Lord cleansed me and I said, Now Lord, take this vessel you've cleansed. And she said, I have a good job here in the city as a secretary to a famous man. But I've resigned it. God got hold of me and cleansed me and gave me His power and gave me His love and gave me authority. I've resigned my job. I'm going to Bible school and I'm going to a certain mission field. I said, Here am I. Send me. And He did it. He took me. He cleansed me, anointed me and He's sending me. Would you like to go to the mission field right now and if somebody came up to you or you were in a dirty alley in New York and somebody said, Well listen buddy, you're talking to me about being clean and about being anointed. Are you clean? Is your heart pure? Huh? Have you got some selfishness tucked away? Some anger? Some pride? Some jealousy? Some secret lust? Some grudge? Some unforgiving spirit? This is not a luxury. It's a necessity. The pure in heart see God. Not only they shall, they do. Right here, they see His revelation. They see and know and understand Him. Whether you pray as a sinner, pray as a person to be restored or pray for cleansing and the fullness as He did and anointing of the Holy Spirit, God can meet your need and answer your prayer. Praying Father, we think of those millions at this moment lost without God and without hope. We would like you to reach down in this meeting and pick us up and distribute us around the world as flaming apostles of a message for the lowest and the hardest and the wickedest and the stoniest heart and the most rebellious spirit that we know of Christ who is beyond Buddha and Confucius and every other religion. One who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God. But Lord, it must be done in us first. Oh, I just sat in the back and thought, oh, how accountable we will be to God for the precious truth He's given us. And you know, being accountable to God is not a drudgery to me. I think it's going to be exciting. I want to be standing before the Lord and say, Lord, I did all I could do with what You gave me. And God is pouring out a treasure of wisdom to us, isn't He? Let's close in prayer. Brother Joe, would you close us? Father, we're so thankful this night that You're able to speak to us through a man like Brother Ravenhill. Lord, every word was so impressed upon our lives and we want to take it with us. And I ask that Your Holy Spirit would even bring this to our remembrance and that repentance would come and purity would come, vision would come, anointing would come, that we would be able to be sent even to the uttermost. Thank You for this night, O God. I love You and ask You to take care of us as we go. In Jesus' name, amen.