In this sermon, Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the need for revival and spiritual awakening among young people. He laments the lack of hunger for God and the prevalence of sin and moral decay in society. Ravenhill calls for a rediscovery of the value of repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and justification. He criticizes the current state of the church, where jaded appetites are being fed with new trends and teachings instead of a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. Ravenhill also highlights the importance of personal devotion and prayer, and warns of the impending judgment of God.

Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons. Each week we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers too. This week, we have Leonard Ravenhill with his message, A Man of God, Part 2. Young men in this country have never seen revival. They've never seen revival. Some meetings are gone until 2 or 3 in the morning. People who 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. 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, we need to rediscover the value of a human soul. Well, 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, live five minutes, pass from death to life, and become a full-blown Christian. It can't happen. Jackie Bollinger was here, and we were talking about people being converted. She said, well, 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 Jackie, I'm being a bad boy. I left you thirteen 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 and filled with the 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 prison. I know, I've seen your record in the newspaper. But he said, I've been wicked for almost thirteen years. I've done everything shamelessly, but three months ago, in my prison cell, Jesus came to me, and I was saved again, and he's restored me in avish peace, avish 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 to him. She said, well, Bill, you don't need to do that. Your sins run their blood. I'm not worried about my sins. What are you worried about? I'm worried about the fact that for thirteen 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 stood up and clapped and gave him a stunning ovation. He'll gather thousands of people living in adultery, and the 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 Swaggart expect it? But we're in that day now where sin doesn't mean much to us. I mean, I weep over the guy, but what does Jesus do? He's crucified the Son of God of faith. I was reading last night, to Martha, I said, darling, I don't understand this. In fact, I wrote to a friend at two o'clock this morning, where, what is it? 2 Corinthians 3 says, the fire shall try every man's work. And what, not what size it is, but what sort it is. And then, but the thing that boils me over, maybe you fellows can help me. Maybe that's why the Lord sent you today. And I'm serious about this. Yeah, 1 Corinthians 3, that's right. 1 Corinthians 3, is it? Verse 13. Yes. Everyone's work shall be a manifest for the day, shall declare it well. 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? Okay. Well, look at verse 13. If any man's work shall be made manifest, the day shall declare it, because it will be revealed by fire. The fire shall try every man's work, what sort, not what size it is. Now, if every man's work abide, which is built thereon, he shall receive a 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 Swigert ever think he's standing for 5 billion people, or you and I will, with all the archangels there, all the apostles of the New Testament, all the prophets of the Old Testament gazing on me and God reads my record out? We've lost sight of the judgment. If we began every meeting in the light of the judgment, we'd be prostrate before the end of the study. We wouldn't think about running home to turn the lousy TV on. The early Pentecostal meetings, Brother used to go at 8 in the morning and stay till 5 or 6 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 think 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 shall 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 all in his head? I mean, the body is the temple. Isn't it awesome when you think two men, five years ago, had the world at their feet. Jimmy Swigert got arrogant because God called him to evangelize the world in the first place, that's wrong. He said there's nobody to go to. David Wilson went to him two years before that mess up. He went to PTL two years before and told them, and they wouldn't listen to him. It's no good saying they're no friends. They were so arrogant, they became alone to themselves. Nobody dared correct them. They wouldn't listen to counsel. They got on a crash, as they say in the world, they got on a roll. Swigert's taking three million a week in. I hear he still takes in a 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 Elijahs in different areas to come. We've had all the other... Would you respond to this passage, a scripture from Isaiah, in light of what you're saying? In Isaiah 29, verse 13, it says, Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. 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... For men teaching us the precept, the fear of God, and not the spirit of God teaching us the spirit of God. Yeah, but, I mean, you got the... Again, 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 ten 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 seventeen, eighteen year old kids. They must have been a hundred years old. But anyhow, the fact is, after ten years, they say, listen you old fool, there used to be a man going up my gump, I says, an old man went up and down there with a white bird 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 Wesley wrote it. What about, I wrote to a guy this, as I say, 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 fell at 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, but 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 crash 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, 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 come, he will convict 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 that hath this hope in him purify. He doesn't say when he is come, he'll give us 24 hours notice. 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 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 the pastor of the biggest church in town, ten times as big as Billy Graham, 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 the meekness anymore? Oh, we have the biggest church in town. We're on so many radio stations. Oral Roberts used to say that. Swaggart said it. So what's it got then? God is a jealous God. Paul said, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works. Ministers of righteousness, but ministers of Satan. Don't you think that, like when you talk to some people about victory in the Christian, oh well, my righteousness is as filthy rags as I will get saved. What does John say? He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. I mean, you can't be part of 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. Then you're scorned. But it's good to say that he's hoping to impurify himself. Then Paul writes to Peter in his first epistle, ye have purified your hearts by faith. As I said to a congregation, you're just as spiritual as you want to be. All these men here only have the same Bible I have. They used it better. It's only 24 hours on the clock. I could do with a 48 hour clock and I'd still use it. Now are you clean by the word which I've spoken to you? Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his place by taking heed thereto according to thy word? Yes. Well, it goes on to say that very thing, does it? 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, tongues, Mormons 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 if you ever read it recently, in two different accounts where 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, there were 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 till Easter. You could go off the campus, except have a haircut. You couldn't go shopping. You couldn't drive a car, anything. There were no girls there. They were too 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 ORU. 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 a lamppost, total wreckage, called back and said, oh, oh, don't come home, don't come home. Mummy's bringing a new car tomorrow. And that's all they did, back him up like that. Oral Roberts says he has 4,000 young people there, full of the Holy Ghost baloney. How could he have 4,000 of only 120 in the upper room? His people can't dance on the premises, but they go to other places to dance. Why don't there be 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 Gomorrah, they never had the chances we have. They never had the Bible school, never had the seminar, 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 a factory, and they began instead of going to lunch, 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 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 Spurgeon said, 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 side of it. You see, the truth with our young people, brother, they don't know. They don't know what they believe. Like John Fred Wolf, that's one of the biggest Southern Baptist Church in Mobile, I preached there, and 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 that they're 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 they get away from home, I'm not going to go to church, you can play sports, you can go down to the CM Bay, you can have a walk. Why did they desert 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 taken up the, to be assistant of Dr. Criswell, he blasted Baylor University, the mess it's in. But then guys told me going to Baylor, 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 its football team. But why do the kids suddenly have no appetite? When they get teenagers, get away from home, well, I won't have to go to church. My folk have made me go every time. There's no appetite. So there's no relationship with God. And if he spent time at the altar and took them through step by step, what it means to become a Christian. Your life is with Christ in God. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. You have no time of your own. You have no money of your own. You have no interest of your own. 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 that are really hungry. There are people that meet Dave Wilkins and folk on the streets. I've never seen a Christian in my life. Well, what they say, the average church member is just like us. Very often they're smoking until they go in the meeting at last. And last minute when they come out, it's the cowboys or something. Where's the difference? And it isn't there. But it all comes down. I don't care whether it's shrug it or pete it out. 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 isn't a 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 do God fill men? I mean, Swaggart says the day after, he'd 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 and say, well, Jack gave me that. I go back to the church six months after and say, well, oh, did you get married? Oh, no, 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 are 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 holiday. Every kind of sign and wonder built that colossal church. He's then finally stood 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 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 G. Lake? John G. Lake's books are published now by Christ for the Nations. There's four of them. Well, I'm standing here and I talk with Wigglesworth. Wigglesworth is here. I'm here. John Lake is up there. He talked about apostolic Christianity. He had 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, they're no longer selfish, they're 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 changed. He's become different. He's Christ-like. 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 said to these preachers, you say, I can't take three days off. I say, he took more than three days off to go deer hunting. He took three days off to go fishing. Why can't you pastors stand up and say there's going to be a meeting for pastors at least one day a week, or one night a week, and 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 lying 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. It's alright to say I want to be like Jesus. Do I want Gethsemane? 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 upper room experience. I've never heard a man say I've got Gethsemane experience. I have a 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 say because people say, what's happening in America? I can't say there's a revival anywhere I know. I say, do you think I'm going to talk 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 the 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 Wimbledon, once he eulogized 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 told Bickle that in revival you don't make altar calls. I said, 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. And that happened six days. We never had three one week and three the next. We never had an altar call. We didn't have to. They came to the altar and stayed not five minutes, two and three hours calling on God. You read Luke chapter three, what does it say? John was preaching and the people cried out, what shall we do? And the soldiers cried out, what shall we do? And the publicans cried out, dear God, when heathen men start crying out, what shall we do? You know God's there. There's no pleading altar call. No, what did they say on the day of Pentecost? Men and brethren, what shall we do? We're panicking. The altar doesn't mean anything to people. Now they come out every week. We're romanizing our protestants. 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, what did we have not long ago? Do you remember A. A. Allen? A. A. Allen used to have meetings. You get 500 come forward on the way home to his hotel. He phoned 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 done that. You don't find anything like that amongst the old fashioned revivalists, true revivalists. That's why I write to read the book like this one on 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 Ghost. Why do we get the same results? The menace of many of our meetings is we try 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 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. A. Rules make a market sin. A. But we don't do that, we don't even preach it. But I know there's a hunger across America by the phone calls I get. Guys are coming to a stone wall now. 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. The prophet Amos said, Behold the days saith the Lord, the days come saith the Lord that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a 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'd rather write Richard Baxter, I preached as if to never preach again, and as a dying man to dying men. You know, you think these fellows are professional, he gets paid, and when he steps out of the pulpit he says, Hey John, what about a round of golf on Wednesday or Thursday? And immediately they switch from the spiritual and the eternal to some stupid thing. I wouldn't take any notice of them anyhow. I'd say, Pastor, live it, live it, live it. Don't tell me to pray, meet with me in the church. When I got saved, and then after I trusted Dr. Sanctify, because there's a blank in my life, and first thing I went to the pastor and said, Pastor, I want a prayer 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 going to 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 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, walked for the 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, like, I say, not Colonel Bringle, but Major Thomas said, no, Major Russell, that once he got back in the fire of the Welsh Revival, everything he didn't burn, he got on the train and going home, 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 they 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 were taking to street meetings somewhere in London, they were meeting sin head on, and visiting taverns, talking to harlots, which nobody does now, except just about Dave Wilson and Tim Delaney down in the Motor City there, doing the same thing. But we're all sitting inside, I said, John, 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, get out, stand on a box, call a man to witness, call a woman to witness, sing a hymn, you 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 or summer, and they come with expectations, they plan the shopping, like people used to do with us, they planned to come shopping on 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, to give them a chance to witness. I said, if anybody stands on this box who 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 it, if he's walking it, if the man is in your factory, your office, 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 was only 300 yards away from us, magnificent cathedral. I only got 500 on 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 gold communion things and candlesticks on the altar, it was like a miniature Westwind Stravage, 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, brethren, 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 does it matter about Swaggart and all the rest? I know it's objectionable, it hurts, and people tell me now they're already cracking jokes about Swaggart. If God told me I could go on preaching, a guy told me the other night, somebody said, well, if God says he can go on preaching, the message is, why didn't God tell him there's a cop following him up the road in a car? So, they're not as dumb as they appear to be. I think it all boils down to one of the oldest hymns we 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 round about us, 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 the Judgment Bar of Jesus Christ. And I live with that every day. It's his words that will judge us. Yes. It's what he said. Well, you think it's not what's just in the book of life, as Joseph 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. Campbell Morgan say, I had talked with a friend of mine the other day, and he'd been preaching in a church I love to go to, and Campbell Morgan said, how did he 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 question when I finish a meeting is, I didn't get anything out of this meeting. 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 or 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 not a bit interested in God. Christ could die on the main street today, it won't interest them at all. But we've got, I think we've got to preach till people know that we mean what we say. We burned Edwin Hatch was Chancellor of I think St Mary's College in Oxford. One of the best guys in England. But one day, even though he had crowds and everything, he got so tired, he went in his office and he wrote that gorgeous hymn, breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew. Then the last sentence, breathe on me breath of God till I am wholly 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 Levi, 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 2 Corinthians 11 and go down seven times in awareness of the fact that in perils of the deep, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils, perils, enough to kill ten men. And glory in tribulation, doesn't just find grace to get through. He welcomes it. He says, this is the only way. Because when we get to heaven, dear brother, God isn't going to ask you where your diploma is, he's not looking for medals, he's looking for scars. Paul says, for this cause also thank we God without ceasing. Because when you receive the word of God which you heard of us, you receive 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. 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 ends. I have a five-year-old Lincoln Continental, the small one, and people laugh at me for having it. I say, 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, buy it. I'll take an older one. But 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 a tailor before I was sane. I wore the best clothes in the country. In fact, they used to call me the best dressed man in the whole household. But all that's gone, that's trivial, that's silly looking back. I said, well, it 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. 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'd 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. Your preachers are dead. Your actors are dead. But 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? They tell me preachers wept when when Chriswell finally decided to have Joel Gregory from Travis Avenue as his assistant. Other men thought, well, I deserve it after him. Truett 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? I wash somebody's feet. Was A.W. Tozer 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 Martin Lloyd-Jones. I talked with him. G. Campbell Morgan, I listened to him often. So Martin Lloyd-Jones and George 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 over. Dr. Tozer had a habit of, like he'd have his Bible in his hand, say, I'm reading from John 17 1, and he began to read, and he'd maybe give a little outline, and then he rocked to and for like this and suddenly he'd throw his Bible on the pulpit and at that moment he was airborne. He's like a plane getting off the runway and off he went. And 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, he could quote the Ladder of Sanctity, or he could quote Madame Guin or Faber, anybody, and he could put his finger on the whole lot and tell you how he'd read them. 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 Mack something. Anyhow, he introduced, well before that, Tozer had got an old Methodist head book and soaked himself in it while this fellow came on, and I can't remember his name, Mack, and he introduced when he got to a lot of old Methodist head books, or they printed sheets, and they sang hymns like And can it be that I should gain, and all those. And Tozer reveled in that kind of thing. He wouldn't have a concert in the place. He wouldn't have any 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 up until midnight, people weeping and seeking God, and coming right across town. Well, here's the difference, you've got Moody Bible Institute here, and next door is Moody Church. The students only had to come out of here into there, and yet they crossed the town when ice churned up by the cars and it froze, and you could well, people's ankles were snapping getting off buses, and they'd rather come across town in a car or walk, some of them, and hear Tozer, than go next door to hear the whoever was preacher, that Logsdon part of the time. 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 Missionary Alliance when everybody wants that, and he turned it down again and 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 away and not even buy his advisor with his time. 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 A.B. Simpson had, opening the depths of the Word of God, you know. Romans and Ephesians living in that area and shut worldliness out, shut theatres out, shut everything else which he did. He loved music. He listened every night to a recording of of who did he listen to? Not Chopin, I'm not sure, but one of the great symphonies. Every night he had one hour listening to good music. But again, he was I prayed to him many times. He was 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. 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 wouldn't let anybody trespass on that. He spent certain time with God all the time. Did you reflect some on your times with Keith Green? Well, Keith was a zealot. I mean, he bounced through that door. I remember he, well, this division, 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, Green 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'd gone back to it this last week, I think, but they didn't do that. And, uh, 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 over it like that. And he would come back. I remember he'd bounce through the door, you know, he'd want to get through it before he opened it. He'd open it and bounce through it. And he was a big guy. And I remember he used to give me pops and give me a hug. He'd say, pops, he'd say, do 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, you see. He said, do you know what all roads lead to? I said, no, the same thing. No, he 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 like, a fear of God. I mean, when you think he didn't live very long, but I still get letters about him. I get that book that his wife wrote on no compromises, doing good. And they still send his tapes out. In fact, he wrote the 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. And he loved to pray. He'd say, come, we'll 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... Of course, 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 anymore, than I could jump up now to the level of an Olympic runner. 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 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 precious wife has a tremendous insight to people. The first time she saw him, she said, Len, the Spirit of God is on that young man. And in England, you know, you've got two kidneys that 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, or what you want to call it. But immediately he came in. She said, well, there's something unique about... And there was about him. And they don't have it now. They know that. I mean, he was willing to live a full stretch. They expected others to do the same thing for him. He was a good reader. He liked to read Tozer very much. He liked to read David Brainerd. He liked to read the three volumes of Edward Pace. And he read that too. In essence, dear brother, he's saying exactly what you say. Go back to the old past. He'd ask me, well, of course, he and the guy that used to be up at the street, the minister up there, 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 of fasting. Tell me about your street meetings. And I need to warm up to it. We want to get back to that. It's one of those mysteries. You don't know why God moves men along like that. How would you want people to remember you? Oh, I don't know. That's 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, a man had come and spent two hours. And men write back and say, you know, from another country, I'm fasting 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 areas that they hadn't broken into. And 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. If you keep fueling yourself, you keep reading Isaiah 6 over and get visions of God and visions of living in the book of the Revelation and you don't understand all of it. You 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 in a 3-4 vision. I wonder after am I trying to get people to come up to the altar? I don't know, because I never made an altar call. 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 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. Guys now laugh at me because I live on my social security. 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. Ten of them came with the pastor at 10 o'clock and they stayed till one night. Talked my heart out as much as I could. Going out with them and said, you don't expect any remuneration for this do you? I said, no. I said, I live on my social security. Anything above that I divide in the middle between my missionary 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, we don't get that. I said, well, I don't know what it is. Maybe $100 or $1000 he's left us because he told me to share it with Paul. She said, well, let's go. So he came in and he left us $5. I said, well, one thing, we won't get drunk anyhow. No, I'm just saying that because everything has money in America. You don't know. What annoys me, well, how much would it cost to have it come for a week? I said, if you start that way, I'm not even going. Now, don't go. No, I think we're moving now. In one thing, it's terrible that things like swaggots happen and so forth, but it gives the church a new start. We're going to start on a new level of holiness. We're not going to be entertainers. We're not going to bother who comes or doesn't come. We don't have to join in every effort that they're making in the city to have a revival. Forget it. We've been doing that for 20 years. Stay at the place of prayer. It doesn't matter who comes to town to preach. We're going to stay together and pray Friday night from 9 till 11 or 9 till 12. 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. You've been listening to the From the Pulpit and Classic Sermon series. This week you heard Leonard Ravenhill with his message, A Man of God, Part 2. Tune in again next week to hear Billy Graham talk about the gift of blood on the From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.