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- Revival Series 1 Part 2
Revival Series 1 - Part 2
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
In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of prayer and the distractions that can prevent us from truly focusing on God. He highlights the materialistic and comfortable lifestyle that many people have, contrasting it with the spiritual poverty that can result from neglecting prayer. The speaker also mentions the global dominance of communism and the need for the church to rise up and rely on Jesus Christ for guidance and strength. The sermon references the story of Gideon from the Bible as an example of someone who initially doubted his own worth but ultimately embraced his calling as a mighty man of valor.
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Every day he had a woman sit outside of the bedroom so nobody could say there was anything wrong going on. And he'd decide that demon and the demon and all the demons in hell laughed at him. It took toll on his body, he would sweat, he would almost bleed. Well the preacher said, why don't you give up? This girl's beyond hope. Well you think it doesn't happen. Listen, I spent two years in the subculture of New York with David Wilkerson editing his paper. I've seen some of the most beautiful girls in America. They used to sing in the choir and they could recite scriptures when I saw them. They could sing hymns without a hymn book. They became prostitutes for a thousand dollars a weekend. I remember a girl, we had their demon possessed. She'd been to one of the great schools, Schmetter-Wasser. He had more culture and refinement and dignity than any girl I've seen, practically. She played around, acted with sex, acted with drugs. Demons got a hold of her. One day as we talked to her, David Wilkerson said to her, does your mother know you live this way? Where do you live? Why don't you live at home anymore? My mother's old fashioned. You know, just wants to live at home with servants and cars and all the luxury. I've given that up. Where do you live? Who do you sleep with at night? Anybody. Black men, yellow men. You're a prostitute? Sometimes. I'm also a lesbian. I've taken drugs. I've been to hell and back. Wish my mother could get liberated. A few weeks after, we were having breakfast with a bunch of cutthroats and murderers and jailbirds and prostitutes and the vilest of the vile. One boy leaned over the breakfast table and he said, oh, you know that kid in that film that Ravenel and David Wilkerson interviewed? She went berserk in a coffeehouse the other night, somewhere down 111th Street. Boy, she thought even the cops couldn't control her. Finally they tied her up with a belt. She's in the nuthouse. A few weeks after, the boys were talking again. They said, you know that kid that went to the nuthouse? She's come out. We saw her downtown for the other night. She looked a bit weird. A few weeks after we were having breakfast, one of the boys said, you know that kid that went to the nuthouse and got out? Why, she was a charming girl. Oh, she could show her jewelry and she could pose. She had the most amazing eyes. She'd culture. Oh, she could quote Latin and French and all the stuff. Oh, she was some doll. Well, what about her? She didn't need help. She got personality, culture, things she was good at. I never found a prostitute that was going to be a prostitute anyhow. I can show you new girls in New York tonight that look like the Queen of Sheba. They're dripping with diamonds and they charge more than anybody else. You don't have to approach them. They'll approach you. Sit in any hotel in New York. Go to the Americana on 8th Avenue. Go to some of the super hotels. Some pretty girl come up the side of you, tell her a price, and before you know it, she'll follow you to bed if you don't chase her. But I'll tell you this. There's not one of those girls when she comes home at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and call herself the dirtiest doll in the country. Let me tell you just this other thing. I went in the office one day. Here's a tall boy like a beanpole. He had a girl with stringy, dirty hair. Her nose was eaten away with drugs. Her teeth were all taken. Her eyes were hollow. Her temples were in. And I said, hi, can I help you? I don't want to help her. Help my wife. She's just on drugs. She's going to die. Is she your wife? No. No, we've lived together three years. She's not my wife. But I gave her the first stop. And she says, look, she can't get off it. We can't get the money. And he lulled her with big, snakey-looking eyes, and they spanked the pad on her like an old cat. What are you going to do? Pray. Pray? She needs something more than prayer. She needs help. She needs a doctor. You need to get her in an institution. She's going to die. We don't have any doctors. What can we do? Well, there's one thing you can't live together here. She can go in the girl's room over there. You go two days after that girl walked in the prayer meeting. The picture of death. Wobbling, sunken jaw, dirty, smelly, bleary eyes. She came out half an hour after as though she had been to heaven and back. Her so-called husband was lulling her by the world. Hmm, proper sleep. She came out. Triumphant. His nickname was Bunny. She said, Bunny, Bunny, it's happened. What's happened? I'm a new creature. I just knelt down there and said, Jesus Christ, I'm rotten. I'm a sinner. I don't even know where you are. I don't know how to pray. But, oh, God, I'm in a mess. I'm going to hell as good as I can go. Will you do something? And somebody said, believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and ask him to come and cleanse your heart. And he did just that. As good as that, he changed her. Bunny said to me, will it last? Will it last? Will she die? I said, no. She lived. Two days after, he went in the same prayer room. He came out just as transformed. I used to teach the staff there two mornings a week, Tuesday and Thursday. And he said, I'd like to come in every Tuesday and Thursday. I said, you get Mr. David Wilkerson's permission. You can come. He came. That boy now, that boy who was the despair to the police, despair to everybody, that boy who was eaten with drugs and devilry and dope and vice, he had lived with women. They'd lived all their rottenest lives, barnyard models here, sir. Jesus Christ got hold of them and changed them. People said, you won't do much with them. They don't have any brains. And I'll tell you what he did. That boy went to Bible school and at the end of the first year, they asked him to leave because he was asking the professors questions they couldn't answer. He took Greek as extracurricular work. And his wife said, you know, it's amazing. We used to be out till two or three in the morning on drugs and dope and sex parties. But now there he is at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning studying the Bible, getting a concordance, finding some Greek wisdom. And he devours the Word of God. And do you know what he's been doing for the last, what, three years now now, I guess? Four years, four years. That man has been heading away in a little prayer retreat with a bunch of people, insulting himself in the Word of God. He was a despair to men, he was a despair to devils, he was a despair to everybody. But there came a day in his life when he said, look, I'm not going to play at Christianity. If Jesus Christ is going to have anything, he's going to have everything. If he'll take this life of mine and cleanse it and organize it and quickly begin to have me. What power do we have over the power of the devil? The greatest battle in the world is going on right now. The greatest battle in history was Gethsemane. The second greatest battle is going on now in the heavenlies. And if America doesn't have any Bible she is right in her own sins. And that goes for England too. I'll talk tomorrow night about revival and the price of revival. It's an awesome price, but it can be paid and revival can be had. You think that there's no power in prayer? You think there are not men who almost single-handedly can put barrels up and Satan cannot pass? Let me quote one. When the great plague was sweeping over Scotland about 1550, a Presbyterian minister got up one morning. He was reading the word of God. I give you power over all the power of the enemy. Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will, what he shall, what he could, what he might, he will. Please. He put on his clerical collar, his three-quarter coat. And in the gray light of that awful morning. And I've been in Scotland in summer at four or five o'clock when you're shiveries on a summer's day. At five o'clock he marched down the boundary line of the city. Being pushed and pushed and said, Satan, you shall not enter this city. Death, you shall not enter this city. Plague, you shall not enter this city. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I resist you. He locked the bedroom windows and looked and said, oh, it's the clergyman. Something must have gone wrong with him. He walked down the boundary line. He walked down the other boundary line. He couldn't walk down that boundary line because it was the North Sea. And he couldn't walk down this because it was the River Tay. He walked down that boundary line and defied the devil while people laughed at him. The plague rolled on and rolled on and rolled on until it came to that boundary line. And everybody inside the boundary was saved. And everybody outside of the boundary perished. You know why the devil keeps you so busy with trifles, little things? Because he's afraid you might discover the riches in Jesus Christ. That you have a right by yourself or with another one to stand against the power of the enemy. That he doesn't run because you say boo and he doesn't run because you pray for five minutes. It means getting together and declaring war on the powers of darkness. There's a lion in the way. Did that worry Samson? Did he organize a committee? Did he suggest they got some weapons stored? He went up in the strength of God and he tore the lion. The devil is devouring this age at a speed he's never devoured any other. But there are more heathen people in the water. And this generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of heathens. I don't care if I'm heathen as a film star going into a Waldorf or Story Press sitting with diamonds. And the people I saw, they're in the heart of Papua. My boys just come out of Papua. I've been there. They have wall-to-wall dirt in the homes. It is not sunny. I got pictures of this. People say don't show it anymore. Here is a woman. They're naked anyhow. There's no sex appeal about them. And she has a baby on her breast. And there are pigs all over the house. And this little pig can't feed on its mother. So she rolls the baby on the floor and picks the pig up and feeds it. She's going to another home. There's a woman suckling a dog. Because the little puppy is sick. Or its mother died. When you see films like that, you don't say, oh, let's see them again. They're so funny. Isn't it appalling that a people two thousand years after Jesus Christ came and they've never heard that blessed name? Isn't it appalling that God has given us this book, the greatest treasure in the world, and our feet are wet underneath, never mind water to the ankles and knees, and loins of water to swim in. And the devil wants to keep us somehow occupied with lesser things. Because he knows that if he can move on, he's going to strangle our generation. I remind you tonight that two-thirds of the world right now is under the dominion of communism, and the rest, they're going. They're going to trap us as well. The answer isn't in politics. The answer isn't in finding out who's the guilty party in the Watergate. The answer is, is the Church of God and Jesus Christ going to revive? Is he going to put on the whole armour? Is she going to ask for this endearment of powerful and high? Let me say this in case I forget tomorrow, that perhaps if he were a spiritualist, you and I would have come to church tonight in sackcloth with a handful of ashes to put on our unworthy hands. Maybe the choice is simple. Either we concentrate in prayer, or we pray in concentration camps. Which way do you want it? Is that our seven years of cleansing? Most of you have a nicer home than the Queen of England. You've air-conditioned everything. She has a big air-conditioned house. The wind blows through it everywhere. You can turn the heat on. The children cry if you get Pepsi instead of getting the real Coke. Poor darling. You don't have twenty-eight varieties of ice cream and twenty-eight varieties of doughnuts. Mother doesn't know what you're shopping for. I have an idea there are some bread lines coming up the road. But I won't talk about that. I'll talk to her tomorrow night. Tomorrow night gives you a chance to stay at home. There was a line in the way. But he slew it. Go back just ten chapters briefly. Ten chapters in this book. It's a lovely book, Judges, isn't it? Do you remember the other story there? We always tell the children these stories. The story of a little fellow, I think maybe seventeen or eighteen years of age. His name was Gideon. He was fleshing corn. And while he was fleshing it, an angel came. And the angel said, God is with thee, thou mighty man of valour. You know, if the angel had said that to me in the same circumstance, if I'm into them, I would have said to the angel, so you tell jokes too, eh? God is with thee, thou mighty man of valour. Just a minute, angel. You see that cave up there? That's where I live. You see the next cave? My uncle lives there. You know what? When he said that, Israel was in bondage. To the Midianites. And they never saw any supernatural manifestation. And you know the greatest tragedy of our day is this. While your children may have seen rockets going up to the sky, and they know all about so much science, they know more science than the scientists knew a hundred years ago. What they learned at school. But they'd never been in a holy gospel revival. They'd never seen God come and put a fence around a community and plague that community. And men can't swear, and men can't drink, and men can't fish. God is with thee, thou mighty... Wait a minute. God is with us. What am I up at night, at midnight, fleshing corn for? I should do this at midday. But he gave them to him at midday. Why? Because they were in captivity to the Midianites. God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Do you know the answer? He said, if God be with us, where be his miracles that our fathers told us of? That would be a pretty stiff... God's stick to measure most of our meetings with, wouldn't it? Where be his miracles? My grandfather told me that he remembers walking through the greatest aquarium in the history of the world. They waved to the fishes as they went through, when they were delivered through the Red Sea. He told me at night, when he was nervous, he lived in the edge of the center. He told me he had a pair of shoes he wore for 40 years and never wore out. He had a suit that he wore for 40 years. It never smelled. Every morning, God opened the windows of heaven and sent the man, and he spit the rock and water followed him. Those people lived on miracle. They ate miracle. They walked on miracle. They saw miracle, and yet they never entered the promised land. We've got thousands of people that will go thousands of miles to see miracle. They want to see God operate, but they don't want God to operate on them, do some divine surgery, and circumcise their hearts, and take away their evil spirit, and take away their bad temper, and take away their carnality, that he might make them the dwelling place of his spirit. The book of Daniel is the book of revelation of the Old Testament. Do you remember what God said when he gave Daniel the vision? He said, seal it up. It's not for today. When he gave John the vision in the New Testament, he said, don't seal it. It shall shortly come to pass, and that was 2,000 years ago. So we must be ready for the coming. But, God said to Daniel, in the last days, are we living in the last days? I don't think so. We're living in the last minutes of this dispensation, not the last days. But in Daniel it says, in the last days, when wicked men do wickedly, the people that do know their God, not the people that know their Bibles. You can get Bible notes this high. You can know the Word of God without knowing the God of the Word. You know the Word of God because you have that kind of mind. You like statistics, and dividing chapters, and penetrating words. You can be loaded with the Word of God, and yet hardly know the God of the Word. Scripture says, in the last days, when wicked men do wickedly, not the people that do know their Bibles, but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. Are these the last days? Are wicked men doing wickedly? Let me telescope history. In my day there have been three outstandingly wicked men. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. Forget Mussolini, forget Stalin, what about Hitler? He lengthened the coastline of Germany a thousand miles. He put more kings off their thrones than anybody else. Do you remember when he stood there with more machines, and weapons, and airplanes, and tanks, and devilish things than any man in history? And he raised his hand, and he said, The Third Reich will live a thousand years! The Third Reich. The first Reich, you may or may not remember, was the Holy Roman Empire. When they built shrines for the Caesars, where if you wanted to save your life, you went to an image of Caesar, and you put three grains of incense there, and said, Caesar is God. And Hitler longed for the day when men would worship him, and he said, The Third Reich, with its ten fish, will last a thousand years. It didn't last a thousand weeks. But he lengthened the coastline of Germany a thousand miles. He pushed kings off their thrones. He said, I'll make Germany the master nation of the world, or I'll pull the world to the edge of hell. And he did that. And the world has never recovered financially from that time. I don't believe it ever will. When wicked men do wickedly. Oh, they've done it. He liquidated six million Jews. Read that marvellous book. It used to cost ten dollars. It's that thick. Fifteen hundred pages on the Third Reich. One man! Not a man linked to God. A man that sold himself to the devil. He didn't go to bed at ten o'clock. What brainless Johnny Tartt. He read Napoleon. He was determined to be a greater military strategist than Napoleon himself. He went to bed at three and four o'clock in the morning after being guided by a spiritist medium who made every move for him correctly until the last one. You can win battles and lose wars, and that's what he did. That little man who just had a Charlie Chaplin moustache on his lip and a stripe on his arm and everybody laughed and said, What will he do? He said, I'll conquer the world. And they sneered at him. But he came within an ace of goodness. And if a man dedicated to evil, if a man dominated with selfish desires can make America give its finest funds and rape Europe, if you fail to pay thirty dollars income tax, they will send you to jail. Remember that World War? Russia owes America 1.5 billion dollars. England owes America 11.5 billion dollars. France owes America 7.5 billion dollars. If you got that 20 million dollars back, the dollar wouldn't be so sick. They'll hound you to jail if you don't pay your 30 dollars. But we don't make nations do that, we don't. We're poor dupes, aren't we? They do what they want with us. They've got us on a string. We're puppets. Don't care whether you call the Democrats or the Othercrats or anybody else. They've just got us where they want us. We're not going to straighten this thing out economically, socially, financially. The only way we can restore the balance in America is a purging Holy Ghost Revival that will cleanse people from the politicians in the White House right down to the jailhouse and the brothel house and the alehouse. All right, I'll tie it up. In the last days when wicked men do wickedly, you don't remember too much of Mussolini, I could tell you a lot at once. Stalin, but Hitler. And God says when you see the devil put his supermen out, keep watching. I'm going to send my supermen and he's going to send them as sure as that's my hand. I'm not sure he's going to bell a theological seminary to get him or even a Pentecostal seminary, but he's going to get his men. He always has. He always will. They got Samson. He's a menace. He embarrasses them. He lifts the gates of the city. He destroys their chosen men. He sets their stock of food on fire. He catches 600 foxes. This man, you can't do against anything. The anointing is on him and no weapon is formed against him from crossfire. And it was like that with the early church. All right. They got his secret. The woman said you must be tired chasing foxes and lifting gates to the city. Put your head on my lap, have a sleep. And he did. That must be the most expensive haircut in the world, I think. The next thing he hears is the same sweet, no, wicked lady saying, come on, wake up Samson. The philistines be upon me. And he woke from his sleep and he wasn't any smaller than when he went to sleep. He forgot to put his hair, hands up, because they cut his hair off. He'd given their secret away. But he says, I'll go out as I did at other times. And here is one of the saddest texts in the Bible. He wished not that the spirit of God had departed from him. He didn't know God had left him. A couple of simple things. In Cornell University a while ago, they did a very simple thing. They had an ordinary gas stove like you have at home. They put a dishpan of cold water here and a dishpan of cold water here. And they lit the jets and they got this water boiling and they put a frog in it. And suddenly he, it was boiling. As soon as he heard it, he swore out and he kicked and out he got. He said, if I stay here, I'll cook to death. They lit the jet on the other dish of water at the very lowest point. And two professors sat down and watched the frog for five minutes. Then they turned the jet up once and they sat down five minutes. They turned the jet up again and sat down five minutes. It wriggled and wriggled, but he adjusted and settled down. Then it got hot and he wriggled and he settled down. He adjusted, except for the last time. And he just did. He didn't adjust the last time. When they dropped the frog in boiling water, he says, get out of here, I'll die. When they turned it up, just progressively, when they turned it up, just progressively, killed him alright. What killed your spiritual life? What killed your prayer life? What killed your Bible reading? Was it Johnny Carson? Was it your love for sport? What was it? Oh, Satan didn't get you drunk, you didn't commit adultery, you didn't steal money from the business that you're in, but little by little, Satan turned the jets up and he got you exactly where he wanted you. Alright, here we are finally. They got the man, they bind him, they blind him. They put him down in a basement, they put some bracelets of brass round his arm. They made him go round and round and round and round and round. Grinding corn for the Philistines. Are you going to suggest if you got in that basement, you wouldn't have heard that man crying? Don't you think he might have been saying rather angrily, God, why didn't I die after I slew that lion? Why didn't I die after I lifted the gates of the city? Why didn't I die after I did my expo? I'm dying, I'm never in spiritual bankruptcy. And while he's there there, he turns his sight aside and says, who are you now? I'm a boy. A cannibal boy. A Philistine boy. A Philistine boy. What are you doing down here? I have come to take you. God must have been like a dagger in his heart. There was a time when a thousand men couldn't take him, and one boy is going to take him now by the fingers and take him away. Where are you taking me? I'm taking you into the temple of David and the fish god. They're having a conference. Everybody's saying, you know God is dead. Doesn't that sound familiar? The god of the children of Israel, he used to deliver them. Oh, he did miracles. But he's out of business. He died of old age. And we are the kings of the earth. Our religion is the religion of the day. Where is the god of Israel? Destroy an army. And lift the gates of the city. Now he's taken by the fingers. And he says, son, steady, steady. Can you take me on the platform? Some steps up, but go cautiously. Now I'm blind. Do you know what it says? It says there were 3,000 men in the gallery. The gallery usually holds a third of the auditorium. So I'm going to guess there were 10,000 people there. And they bring Samson in and they laugh. Oh, that must have cut him to bits. They scorn, they say, the god of Israel. He's dead. The god of a village. The god of sensuality. The god of lust. The god of materialism. The other god has gone out of business. And those sightless eyes began to feel tears in that heart that had been crushed for so long. Did something he hadn't done for a while. But I don't care who the man is. I don't care how brilliant he is, how famous, how well he preaches. No man under God's heaven is greater than his prayer life. When Samson realized he was in this jail, do you know what he did? He says, oh, Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me. I pray thee, strengthen me just once. Isn't it amazing that while he believed in the god of Israel, he didn't say, give me my eyes back and I'll chase the enemy. He didn't say, take me back and make me one of the leading kings of the earth like I was. He didn't say, give me liberty. He didn't pray for restoration. He was jealous of God. He says, God, will you please come? Strengthen me once while I'm blind and out. I pray thee, mercy, touch me. Because he says, strengthen me and touch me, verse 30 says, even if I die with a... And when a man can look up into the face of a holy God whose breath is in his nostrils, and he knows God can stop his heart beating like that, and the next second he can be a corpse, and he says, God, I mean business so much that I want this anointing. I would rather live just a few hours with the anointing of God than live the rest of my life blind and helpless and useless. Strengthen me, I pray thee, just once. God doesn't answer prayer. God answers desperate prayer. Now, this man is more desperate than ever in his life. He says, God, give me this anointing, even if I die. And that anointing came. And he pushed out the pillars and the house came down. And the word of God says he killed more in his dying than in his living. Do you know what we're going to have before long? Dying than in his living. Do you know what we're going to have before long? The Holy Ghost revival. Do you know who the evangelists are going to be? Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men see visions. Your old men dream. And on my servants and handmaids, not on my preachers and theological seminary professors, but on my servants and handmaids, that's what Jesus did when he started. He didn't go to Caiaphas and take him to the upper room. He went to fishermen. He went to typescarvers. He went to poor men. And he slain them for three years and filled them with the Holy Ghost and sent them to turn the world upside down. And as it was in the beginning, even now it shall be in forever and forever. God's going to pour out his Spirit. God's going to let this wicked, materialistic, drunken, sex-diverted, damned generation know he's God. He's looking for somebody that's desperate to get cleansed. If you live the next day, will the devil have it? Is your life on the altar for everything that God wants to take? Does anybody say, you know, I don't understand the secret of that man in our church. He's different from other men. He has more power, oh, when he prays. He has authority. He can command unseen spirits to come out. We were in a place just the other night. A lady sent for me in a hotel. Holiday Inn. Four millionaires. She's got everything, but she was sick. She called my dear wife. Martha said, would you pray for Mrs. So-and-so? I said, yes. I went in the hotel and prayed for her. She said, I'm nearer death than I've ever been. She's had serious trouble. We went in and just simply laid hands on her and prayed. And came out. And we hit the road to come up here. She's gone back to the Bahamas, but her daughter-in-law was speaking to her, and she said, I tried to get Brother Ray, and I tried to find him. I couldn't find him in Florida. I wanted to tell him that when he prayed that night, I woke up a new creature in the morning. The pain had gone. The sickness had gone. I was completely delivered. It's rather amazing. We have quiet. Well, that's all right. And we have choir leaders. That's fine. And we have education ministers. I wonder why we don't have a prayer minister. We've got bus ministers. I don't know how many more ministers we're going to get in the churches. Minister of the church, minister of music, minister of education, minister of busing. I wonder this afternoon as I meditate, why don't we have a, why don't we have a, is it because most of us have faith in prayer, but not many can pray the prayer of faith? Look, you'll forget everybody outside of this building. Forget your wife, your sweetheart, your friend right here. Do you want to turn to spiritual maturity? Do you want to die like Samson, spiritually bankrupt? Or do you say tonight, Brother O'Neill, more than anything on God's earth tonight, I want to be cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit. And I'm prepared to challenge your holy God in the presence of this congregation. I'm prepared to pray Samson's prayer. Spend for me, just once. If God will give me that anointing, I don't care whether I live six days or six years, but I want that anointing. Samson never lost it, he died with it. He died in the greatest revival he'd ever had. I know we're going to have a Pentecost soon, but without Pentecost, Pentecost. God is looking for the men and the women. You know, if my program had gone around, we would either be in Australia or New Zealand tonight at some of the greatest conventions in the world. And God said no. And I didn't know when your pastor asked me, why I said to my sweetheart, darling, we're not going. I'd like to have gone to New Guinea to see our son and his wife and the children there. I'd like to have gone to these big conventions where they're hundreds of minutes, and God said no. And then they said, come to Merritt Island for one night, and we stayed for. And then your good pastor said, well, if you're coming that way, why not coming... I don't carry secrets, I'm just telling you this is our God's order. So I don't know where you are, but I know I'm riding God's will tonight in this church. I brought the message, God wanted you to hear. And I'm not responsible for a single soul after this moment. There you'll pray, some of you 16-year-olds. You'll be God's anointed for the next generation. I don't think there'll be a generation. I think Jesus will come within the next ten years anyhow, maybe five. But he's going to shake the world before he comes. He's not coming for a feeble... Who is he coming for? He's coming for a bride, not a widow. He's not coming for an old lady shuffling to the grave with bunions and cataracts on her eyes. He's coming for a young, beautiful bride, robed in white, robed in holiness, strength, strong, victorious. Are you hungry and thirsting for him tonight? As he looks at your shabby prayer life, as he looks at your powerlessness, as he looks at your dry eyes, as he looks at your lack of love for souls and concern for a lost world and for his coming. Our Father, we're glad that you look down from heaven at this moment. We remember heaven itself for those who have fought, who thou never saidst no. There's not an angel or an archangel knows every heart bowed before thee at this moment, but you know every one of us. You know every grief over our failure. You know every obstruction that we've allowed to come in between. A life fully, totally yielded to thee. A life dominated, controlled entirely by the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray for each one of these dear ones here, if there are some unsaved, bring them into a conscious knowledge of this moment, of this moment of sinless forgiveness. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who is grace so rich and free? But Lord, we believe that most of these know thee and the longing for that deep inner cleansing that the blood at this moment shall cleanse them through and through and the Holy Spirit invade them from the crown of their head to the sole of their feet. Lord, as we've sung in this hymn this gorgeous, wonderful expression, until my heart is clean, purify every heart bowed before thee. Whether it be sin, whether it be doubt, whether it be fear, whatever it is, I pray just now, Heavenly Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that not every person here at this moment will say, come in Holy Spirit, take full control of my life. I pray thee tonight, Lord Jesus, get some prayer warriors, get some mishros, get some soul winners, get some Sunday school teachers, get people who from tonight shall know what it is to become strained and restrained by the Holy Spirit. We're a country of this desperate hour in which we live. We know that money cannot reach lost men and women. We know that human organization cannot do it. But, oh God, we thank thee that all power is thine. And as you came on those men in the upper room, they were unlearned, they were ignorant, and they went out to get fruit and bring glory to thy great name. I pray that homes will be transformed here, homes that don't have a family altar, that from tonight those who have no passion for the lost will find tonight that tears of compassion come as they think of millions who are still in darkness and in the shadow of death. I pray for men whose lips have been sealed in the office, where men tell dirty stories and they're arrogant in their sins, that they'll have grace and power to testify, to witness boldly to the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the breathing of your Spirit tonight. Lord, you said the evening and the morning were the first day. I beseech you in the name of Jesus, not for my sake, not for the sake of this lovely church of Pastor Peter. Lord, that the whole community will know that God is kind, that a fire will spread right through Florida, and as needy as America is, as needy as England is, as needy as other countries are, that it will please me to make this house the birthplace of a revival that will shape this country for a holy God, and save us not only from communism, but save us from the devil and his power that will give us an unexpected heart. Bless us, we pray, as we turn in the morning sessions to meditate over our Lord. As we consider tomorrow night the mighty possibilities of being linked to a holy, omnipotent God in prayer. Oh, that thou wouldst this week rend the heavens and come down. Show us what it's like when God walks down the aisles, when God grooves over the atmosphere, when God is allowed to have his way. Do that, Lord, which we'll be conscious of as the power of God, not the work of the flesh, not the work of men, but the work, the mysterious, marvelous, miraculous work of the Holy Ghost. We covenant with you tonight that we'll give you every bit of the praise, we'll give you every bit of the glory. We say thank you for presencing yourself with us. Thank you for convicting us. Thank you for cleansing us. Thank you for purifying us. Thanking you for invading our personalities tonight with your Spirit. May we go out in the power of the risen Son of God to live on an elevation of spirituality we've not known before. It is necessary by blessing we pray in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Revival Series 1 - Part 2
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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.