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What Is Your Life - Part 3
Leonard Ravenhill

Leonard Ravenhill (1907 - 1994). British-American evangelist, author, and revivalist born in Leeds, England. Converted at 14 in a Methodist revival, he trained at Cliff College, a Methodist Bible school, and was mentored by Samuel Chadwick. Ordained in the 1930s, he preached across England with the Faith Mission and held tent crusades, influenced by the Welsh Revival’s fervor. In 1950, he moved to the United States, later settling in Texas, where he ministered independently, focusing on prayer and repentance. Ravenhill authored books like Why Revival Tarries (1959) and Sodom Had No Bible, urging the church toward holiness. He spoke at major conferences, including with Youth for Christ, and mentored figures like David Wilkerson and Keith Green. Married to Martha Beaton in 1939, they had three sons, all in ministry. Known for his fiery sermons and late-night prayer meetings, he corresponded with A.W. Tozer and admired Charles Spurgeon. His writings and recordings, widely available online, emphasize spiritual awakening over institutional religion. Ravenhill’s call for revival continues to inspire evangelical movements globally.
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Sermon Summary
This sermon delves into the themes of materialism, the inevitability of progress, and the sufficiency of man, reflecting on historical events like World War I and II, the devastation caused by atomic warfare, and the failure of human ideologies to bring lasting peace and prosperity. It emphasizes the futility of relying solely on human efforts and intellect, pointing to the emptiness within man that can only be filled by a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
Sermon Transcription
materialism, the inevitability of progress, and the sufficiency of man. That was two years when they declared that they could have a utopia, if not a new heaven we don't need it, a new earth. And they gathered people around them and they marched on bravely with a little card, you know, saying utopia isn't far off and we will do all this. Well, the Kaiser in Germany had another idea and he upset the apple cart. Two years after they made their declaration, World War I came, 1914 until 1919. 1919 to 1939, I think, were 20 of the most wonderful years for the church. She missed it. And in 1939 another fellow came along. He had Charlie Kaplan's moustache on his lip and one stripe on his arm. His name was Hitler. And we found we were in serious trouble. And like every war, every war gets more diabolical. The next one is unthinkable. Like you being around here a hundred years ago, you'd have walked down the road then, oh, dirty Indians shot an arrow in my back. Uncivilized wrecks that he is. Now the boys from Harvard and elsewhere with brains, they can drop an arrow on a city and wipe it out. That's education. The uncivilized people killed thought one at a time. They were pretty decent about it. Now we can wipe out whole cities. There's a possibility that a third of the population of the United States could be liquidated in less than one minute. It is a sudden, terrible, horrible, unthinkable atomic war. And the situation isn't better. Do you know that in the third world we're giving billions of dollars away? Do you know in the third world right now there are more billionaires than in the free world? Yesterday showed Mr. Marcos and his wife in the Philippines. I think she's just acquired her first billion. One of her friends in another country that we're sending money to has acquired her second billion and is on her way to her third billion. And yet tonight with all our progressive education we have more sin, we have more, we have more darkness, we have more slums, we have more disease, we have more broken homes, more broken lives. The world is a madhouse. Despite all the lives that were laid out. Oh how many people perished in World War One? I don't know, maybe a million. And then right after that 16 million people perished by an epidemic of influenza that swept the world. And then we had a time of recovery. And then again we came back to 16 minutes to 8 on the 5th of August 1945. When one man in a plane on his belly pressed the button, dropped the bomb, wiped out about a hundred thousand people and left about 300,000, many of them still living blind and paralyzed. You'd think these politicians would give up. What in God's name are they doing? Apart from wasting money, wasting, dangling a carrot on the end of a stick when all the time they know there's no, there's no hope. You know we learn from history. The one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. If we did we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in tonight. But you see when that bloody man Hitler began to wipe out cities and countries, I remember walking down the street in Sheffield when people are all listening, holding their ear to the door of a shop that sold radios and what have you got. And somebody said to a fellow, what's going on? Churchill speaking. And there was old Churchill with his famous slur, you know, those Huns he said as he called the Germans. They've swept past Paris and they're sweeping down onto the French coast and they're coming over here. But he said we shall fight them with bottles if we have to. We shall fight them with sticks. I imagine myself on a chair trying to pull a Messerschmitt out of the sky. And he roused the people. But the war got more diabolical. And right in the middle of that war H.G. Wells, who had already designed along with his friends a way to clean the world up out of its moral sewers and out of its fanaticism and insanity and injustice, pulled down the hills of wealth, fill in the valleys of poverty, make the crooked places straight. H.G. Wells had written his outline of history. He'd written his book Crux Ansata that got him into trouble with the Roman Church. And then suddenly his brain, brain woke up. And he wrote his final book, and this was the title of it, The Man That Was Dreaming Great Dreams of a New World Order. And he had the answer along with all his brother, brothers who were so super intellectual. And his last book was called Mind at the End of Its Tether. And he wrote the whole human race off and said there is no hope, no hope for the human race, because he says man has a blank inside of him. Well he got almost theological. Man has a blank inside of him. You've got life tonight, physical life, otherwise you wouldn't be here. You've got emotional life, otherwise you wouldn't laugh. You've got a social life. You've got intellectual life, you may have a religious life. But you see, this book is not complimentary in any shape or form. So you find a man saying youth is a mistake, manhood is folly, and old age is a regret. Fancy having to be a super statesman to have a bankrupt philosophy like that. Youth is a mistake, manhood is folly, old age is regret. Sure it is if you miss the one place to get life. And even in the days of his flesh, Jesus complained he will not come to me that he may have life. Now do you remember his great statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the way, without that there's no going. I am the truth, without that there's no knowing. I am the life, without him there's no growing. I am the way, that's external. I am the truth, that's internal. I am the life, that's eternal. Now this book is completely lost to one idea as far as I'm concerned. It tells us the origin of man. Now I know at school you've got a teacher who's much smarter than that. She tells you to go to the zoo to see your uncle. And I think when you go back to school you should take a banana and give it to her. And she said what's it for? Well I saw your uncle George in the zoo the other day and he had no lunch so why don't you take this for him. I was told that not long ago the monkeys had a conference. And they outlawed the idea that they have any relationship with a human race at all. They asked for a show of hands. There were ten thousand monkeys there. Chimpanzees and now and now tanks and I don't know what were there. Every kindred and tribe, the whole twelve tribes of monkeys were there. And they asked for a show of hands. Anybody here ever taken drugs? Raise your paw. And nobody raised the paw. Any of you ever been in jail? Raise your paw. No paws either. Any of you ever been drunk? No, no. Any of you ever been divorced? No. Any of you go to a village and tear it up and murder everybody in the village in one night? Oh, never think of that. Well that's what those monkeys do that wear clothes. They just raid people at night and kill them. And they destroy. No, no, no. Here is a wonderful, wonderful fact that God has given to us. It's an amazing thing when you think of it that God gave just one chapter to tell us about the creation of the world and seven chapters about the creation of the tabernacle in the wilderness. I wish he'd changed it around. But you know he never even asked me for advice these days either. I give him some in my prayers sometimes because you wouldn't do a thing like that. You're too smart. But the whole thing is about life.
What Is Your Life - Part 3
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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.