Weeping
between the porch and the altar
John the
Baptist and the Fire of God
By Leonard Ravenhill
Luke
We are going to look into the Gospel as recorded by Luke and the third chapter.
I suppose most of us can quote John 3:16 without looking at it. How many of us
can quote Luke
Luke 3 verse 16: "John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize
you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am
not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" and in
this version, "and with fire:" but the original says: "Holy
Ghost fire." Because God is a consuming fire. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit
of fire. And Jesus said, "I've come to bring fire on earth." There is
no escaping fire. This is a kind of a cliché of mine, but I still get a lift
out of saying it, I believe that tonight the world is going to hell fire
because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire, it's as simple as that.
Between
Malachi and Mathew you've got four hundred years of blackness without any
prophetic light. Four hundred years of stillness without any prophetic voice.
And then suddenly, dramatically, unexpectedly this strange man, John the
Baptist, came streaking across a sky that was totally black. The Word says he
was a "burning and a shining light." Jesus, the greatest character in
history, says, "There was no man comparable to John Baptist." Not
Isaiah not Jeremiah not any of those towering saints. He is a very, very
remarkable character.
John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. It was not only
a wilderness geographically,
it was a wilderness morally,
it was a wilderness politically,
it was a wilderness religiously. You see, you go back in the Scripture and you
read about Ezrah and Nehemiah. They established a governership over
In 170 BC there was a man with the strange name of Antiochus Epiphanies. You
need to look up his name and his relatives. He took over
Now with this horrendous background of murder and rape and debauchery and
suffering and agony, John Baptist steps on the stage. A remarkable character.
You see, today we try to organize. We try to get a bunch of people together.
God never did that. God takes individual men. He takes Moses to the backside of
the desert. John the Baptist was in the wilderness until the day of his showing
forth.
Jesus, the Son of God who had left the Glory, spent thirty years in training
to minister!
John Baptist thirty years in training.
The apostle Paul at least thirty years.
Moses at least forty years; and we want to go to
Not how many meetings you go to.
Not how many gifts you have.
Not how many sermons you preach.
Not how many records you've made.
Tell me what time you spend alone with God... and I'll tell you how spiritual
you are. The Word here tells me about this remarkable man, John the Baptist,
that he was in the wilderness until the day of his showing forth. Going forth
at the command of God Himself, of course.
He was in the wilderness, of all places. It says he had his dwelling among wild
beasts, ferocious things. The remarkable thing to me, as I read this again
today, is this: he had no role model. Elisha had Elijah. Joshua had Moses as a
role model. Timothy had Paul as a super model in front of him. And right
through the Scripture you find these men that have lived with some giant and
they've become like him. But this man has no model before him. What did he do
wandering on the rocks? "He ate wild honey," it says. And he was with
wild beasts… and he was a wild man.
Luke chapter 3 gives you a kind of run down on the awesomeness of this man's
ministry. Look this first verse.
"… the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Ceasar, Pontius Pilate
being governor of Judea and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother
Philip the tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias
the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests,"
That's about as refreshing as a mouth full of sand, isn't it? What in the world
do you do with it? Except it gives you a framework. "Annas and Caiaphas
being the high priests," that's illegal. They could only have one high
priest and they got two. Then came "John the son of Zacharias in the
wilderness. And he came into all the country about
Repentance is more than saying, "I'm sorry." Repentance is mental.
It's something in my mind, I'm going this way and I turn that way.
When I'm going this way I'm saying,
"God is in the wrong and I am in the right."
When I turn around I say,
"God is in the right, if He sends me to hell He is in the right."
That is repentance. It's not just repenting for the sin I've done, it's
repenting about the motive that made me do the sin. It's going past the fruit
to the root because if the root of corruption is there, there is going to be
fruit coming out that is wrong. Romans 6 talks about having your fruit unto
Holiness and it's talking there to regenerate people, not people that claim to
be filled by the Holy Ghost.
John goes out, stands and ministers there. And they come to him. He is a
success any way you count it. Geographically - they come from the North and
South and East and West. He is a success socially. They came from all levels of
society. . He said to the multitude that came to be baptized, "you
generation of vipers." Isn't that pleasant? Do you know anybody who'd dare
stand up in the First Baptist or the Last Baptist Church tomorrow morning and
say, "You generation of vipers. I'm sick of talking to you." Uh? They
would sure take a love offering for him, wouldn't they? To get him out of town!
"Oh generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?" He was not only condemning their sin, he was saying, "there is
a gate, and when you get through it, it is eternal wrath from God."
We have forgotten about the wrath of God. A friend saw a bumper sticker and you
know what it said on it? "Jesus is coming and He is as mad as hell."
Sacrilege? No. II Thessalonians 1 says, He is coming in flaming fire in
judgment on this world. In other words, He's as mad as hell. May be it is a bad
way of putting it, but it's the truth. You see, we are all looking for
"gentle Jesus meek and mild." The attitude of the average Christian
today is relax and be raptured. But He is coming with flaming vengeance on this
world. There is a time when His Spirit's forbearance runs out. There is going
to be a day of the vengeance of God. And when God gets angry you've no idea
what it is. Like a thousand volcanoes exploding. He has appointed a day in
which He is going to judge the world and the poor blind world doesn't know much
about it, and the poor blind church doesn't think much about it now.
Let me look at this in Exodus 32. "Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched
it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of
the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord
went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.
And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the
people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses,
until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered
into the tabernacle the cloudy pillar descended." It was a pillar of fire
by night and a pillar of cloud by day.
If you were in
But notice He did not come until they went outside the camp!!
There are very, very, few occasions when God Almighty has revived dead
denominations. The men who stirred their generations had to go outside the camp.
Doesn't it say in Hebrews 13:12 that He went outside the camp?! That's fine,
but when it comes to verse 13 you go outside the camp and bear His reproach.
Maybe before long God will bring a cleavage somewhere in this city, I hope He
does. And you will have to get outside of the camp. You will have to leave your
group, and you will have to go join a people who have the anointing of God.
They may be poor, and have no stained glass window, and beautiful choir...
I am impressed with this, you may not be, but I am. Verse 9: "It came to
pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and
stood at the door of the tabernacle.... And all the people saw the cloudy
pillar." Wouldn't it be wonderful...? Imagine if you could answer your child
as one of those Israeli mothers would. Her little boy wakes up at night and
says,
"Mommy, sometimes I think of those days we were in
Doesn't it say in Hebrews that God makes His Angels ministering Spirits, and
His ministers flames of fire? We've got snowmen in the pulpits with icicles
hanging all around. If ever the fire comes there'll be some melting!
I say again, this man John Baptist has no pattern before him. I believe this
man walked up and down amongst the wild beasts, and there he is, he doesn't eat
much. Some big flies, you know, a bit bigger than these horrible things that
eat my garden up, grasshoppers. Big, big things, he caught them, put them on a
rock and roasted them. Three times a day he had locust burgers. Nothing else to
eat except locusts and wild honey. And yet the people come near to hear him.
I'll say it again, for my comfort if not yours: You never have to advertise a
fire. Whether it's spiritual or a physical fire. The most self advertising
thing in this world is a fire.
I remember getting home between one and
I wonder how many of us have really seen a man who is on fire for God. When the
Holy Ghost came in the upper room, how did He come? Did He come as a dove? --
When Jesus received His baptism the Spirit came as a dove upon Him. There was
nothing in Him to purify. He comes to us in fire because we need purification.
I remember a night in
He
came in the most broken down automobile I've ever seen. He was nuts, pardon the
phrase, but he was sanctified nuts. He came in clothes that were almost worn
out. He bought all his clothes at the Salvation Army. This old car came
wheezing up the street, rheumatism in all the wheels and asthma in the motor.
It was sobbing and groaning as it came up the hill... but he was giving
thousands of dollars away to missions!
He
stayed with us for a half night of prayer. I'll never forget that night of
prayer. There were surgings of blessings. There were times when God so came in
power, I was afraid to open my eyes. We started praying at
You see, there is a great deal of difference between revival and evangelism. I
am so sick to death, I hardly read any reports of meetings that come to me.
Everybody is getting half of
You want to know what preaching is? Study this third chapter in the Gospel of
Luke, and when you've read that read the twenty-sixth chapter of the Acts of
the Apostles where Paul is standing before a heathen king in a pagan court and
says, "God called me to preach." And He summarizes what preaching is:
it's to open the eyes of the blind,
to turn them from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and
an inheritance among them that are sanctified.
People come to the altar, yes, but meet them at the door and ask what happened.
"Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah. I confessed my sins." There is not one
evangelist in fifty in
He came for something more,
He came to rescue us from hell,
He came to rescue us from sin and sinning. Not just our past sin, but to stop
this damnable business that makes God so sad. "He that is born of God does
not" N-O-T "does not commit sin." You say it's impossible not to
sin. It is possible for us not to sin.
What happened when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost? What does it say?
They were pricked in their hearts. After that Stephen preached. And when he
preached the same thing happened. Peter on the day of Pentecost says to the men
he had ran away from: "You crucified the Lord of Glory. You killed Him."
Stephen says, "You murdered the son of God."
That is preaching. When Nathan the prophet went to David, he didn't say,
"You know, some of you are guilty." Did he? He said, "Thou art
the man!"
Oh, people say, "I'd love to go to a Holy Ghost church." Would you?
Will you love to hear somebody say, "Hey fellow, listen, last night you
committed adultery. You embezzled some money this week. You've got a spirit of
hatred which God says is as bad as committing murder?" Again, Jesus came
not to save us just from sins, but from sinning. When they heard these men,
they were pricked in their hearts.
I go back into the third chapter, verse 7, he says, "Oh, generation of
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruit
meat for repentance." And quit saying "we have Abraham to our
father." Isn't this nice. He called them vipers and now he says, "God
can do as much through stones as through Abraham. Don't boast of Abraham; if
God wants He'll turn those stones into children to worship Him." That's
pretty much exhausting their theology, isn't it? In verse 9 he says, "The
ax is laid unto the root of the trees, every tree therefore which bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. And the people asked him,…"
He didn't ask them! They were so conscious of guilt, they felt as though they
had some serpent or scorpion stinging them. They didn't dare look back because
of their sins. They didn't dare look forward because of judgment. They didn't
dare look round about them, somebody might come pouncing on them. And so they
cried out.
This is revival!
It's not singing some sentimental chorus, then giving the invitation:
"Would you like to come? Jesus is waiting, wringing His hands in heaven,
He would be so upset if you don't come." Jesus doesn't care a hill of
beans whether you come or not. He's done everything He can do for you. You have
to do the rest. He is not going to whip you into submission. He is not going to
demand, though you sing, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my
life, my all." It's on your side to do it. But notice who they were.
Verse 10 The people asked him, "What shall we do?"
Verse 12, "Then came also the publicans to be baptized, and said unto him,
Master, what shall we do?"
Verse 14 the soldiers, they were Romans, they lived in a pagan society, they'd
never seen a man on fire for God. They'd never seen a priest who didn't care a
bit about his trimmings.
Remember how this man was born. His father Zacharias went into the temple and
as he got there to the altar, there was an angel on the right side… And he says
to him, "Fear not… your wife is going to bear a son." And God does a
miracle to raise that child up. Zacharias did this once in his life only. There
is a line behind him of at least two thousand priests, all waiting for the one
time in their life when they'll go in long white garment and enter into the
If you haven't had it, if you walk with God, one day you will go to a meeting
and you'll think God Almighty is talking to nobody in that congregation but
you. Why is He singling me out? Because you have the ears to hear which you
didn't have before. Because you have a hunger for God you never had before.
You've heard me say this and I say it again, I am scared that when I
get to the judgment seat and there are a billion people looking on me that God
will say to me, "Son I had many things to tell you, but you couldn't bear
them. You weren't grown up enough."
-- A man leaves his son millions of dollars. He puts a caution in the will, he
says,
"You can't spend a dime of this until you are twenty years of age.
This money is all tied up until you have enough sense to use it." --
I believe Almighty God is saying that to the Church today. We've toiled, rather
we've trifled with gifts of the Spirit. We are far more interested in the gifts
of the Spirit than with the Holy Spirit Himself. And God has treasures beyond
our comprehension.
So John moved the people. They say, "What shall we do?" The publicans
cry out. They are a bunch aren't they? Stony-hearted rascals. And yet with the
conviction of the Spirit they cry out, "What shall we do?" And John
gives the answer in verse 16, he says, "I indeed baptize you with water,
but One cometh after me, I am not even worthy to carry His shoes. He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire." Or with Holy Ghost Fire.
We talk about the baptism of the Spirit - it's really the baptism of Jesus.
There's nothing you can get this side of eternity that didn't come through
Jesus Christ. My dear old principal used to call the coming of the Holy Ghost
upon us, "The coronation gift of Jesus."
"His fan is in His hand. He will thoroughly purge His floor. But He will
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And many other things did he…" I
wonder what they were. I wish He'd left a list, don't you?
Here is a man with no financial backing. He has no program.
He has the favor of nobody.
He has the Roman army against him.
He has the religious army of the Jews against him.
He has the Pharisees against him.
He has the Sadducees against him.
He has no money (he doesn't need it) and
he doesn't have a miracle ministry -- It says very clearly: "John did no
miracle" -- Nobody ran after him pleading: "Have mercy on my son he
is a lunatic." Nobody cried, "Unclean, unclean, unclean" or
"open my eyes," or "I'm deaf," or something. Nobody said
that.
He never unstopped deaf ears.
He never opened blind eyes.
He never cured a withered leg or withered arm.
He didn't raise a dead man - He raised a dead nation. SINGLE-HANDEDLY.
God has had this man in the school of silence. He's been talking to God and
walking with God and weeping before God. He's lived with Jeremiah. He's lived
with the prophets. He knew what Isaiah said that one day a man should come in
the wilderness crying, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in
the desert a highway for our God." Isaiah 35 says that highway shall be
called the way of holiness, and that a wayfaring man, though fool, need not err
therein.
"He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost and with Fire." God always
works with the minority. You've got a wonderful list in I Corinthians 15 of
people who saw Jesus in His resurrection power. And then it ties the knot at
the end of the cotton and it says He was seen of 500 brethren at once. And I am
convince in my spirit it was those 500 to whom He says, "Tarry 'til ye be
endued with power." How many went? 120! 380 of them never bothered. It's
always like that. God uses a minority.
There's only a few people want to go outside the camp. There's only a few
people that want to die with Him.
The only freedom that lepers had was to walk outside the camp. It was a place
where all the sewage of the city went. It was a place where they threw dead
bodies and dead animals. It was a stink hole. And the Holiest man that ever
lived went outside the camp that you may go inside of it! And Yet you have to
whip some people to church almost. If I went to the church they go to I'd want
whipping too. Isn't it tragedy, almost blasphemy to go to a meeting and you
say, "Oh, boy that meeting was cold"? "The meeting was so
dead." How can you have the living Christ in a dead meeting. Or put it the
other way, How can you have a dead meeting if the living Christ is there? How
can you go out? After all, our business is to know about eternity, is to talk
about a time when there is no bonds and no other stuff materialistic, it's all
vanished. We are going to a Kingdom that knows nothing of these material
things, and yet, we are so slack and so careless about the eternal things.
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army., just about got kicked out of
the Methodist church. That day he walked outside and put his arm around his
wife's shoulder, and said, "Darling we are going to raise up an
army." "From where?" "We'll take all the cast off, or drop
outs from the churches, we'll go to the gutter." And he wrote a wonderful
hymn:
Thou Christ of burning cleansing flame, send the fire. (We ought to learn
that.)
Thy blood bought gift today we claim, send the fire.
Look down and see this waiting host, give us the promised Holy Ghost.
We want another Pentecost, (I am not sure if we do, but we need it.)
To make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire.
To live a dying world to save, send the fire.
Oh, see us on Thine alter lay our lives, our all this very day
To crown the offering, now we pray, sent the fire.
Again, "make our weak hearts strong and brave." The only way you can
get dross out of gold is put it in a crucible. Today they put it in an
induction crucible. You press the button, the heat comes up, the gold sinks to
the bottom of the crucible, and a man sits there with a sieve and he takes the
scum off the top and throws it out and throws it out. He is there half an hour,
then he quits. "Are you tired?" "No." "Why do you
quit?" "It's pure." "How do you know?" "Because I
can see my reflection in it."
Doesn't Malachi say, "When He comes, He is a purifier of Silver?" Who
shall abide the day of His coming? Dear God! We talk about one year revival. If
we have Holy Ghost Revival, maybe you won't sleep for the first ten days of it.
God will do such a refining, such a purifying, maybe not on your husband or
your wife, on you. Fifty years ago the most popular chorus was,
"Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His wonderful passion and purity,
Oh, Thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine,
'Til the beauty of Jesus is seen in me,"
The refiner sits there,
He has me in the furnace and He heats it, and He heats it,
and He heats it - and it feels like hell sometimes.
He throws out what He doesn't like: my pride, my ambition, my secret lust, my
temper, my unforgiving spirit, my stubbornness (we don't think much of that,
but stubbornness is as the sin of witchcraft in the Word of God.)
He purifies until He looks in me and sees His reflection. He won't be satisfied
with less. He doesn't come to make me a great preacher, or a great writer, or a
great singer, or a great organizer. He comes because He wants to reflect His
beauty in my life. Gentleness and meekness and holiness.
The self-life goes out.
Self-interest goes out.
Self-glory goes out.
Self-seeking goes out.
Self-righteousness goes out. Do you think it's easy? We have lived with it so
long that we like ourselves. And God long ago stopped liking us. And the
Scripture talks about the Word of God being a mirror. You know, when revival
comes He holds the mirror up and you see yourself.
Remember the old story of Cromwell? An artist begged could he paint him, and
Cromwell had a great big wart on his chin. And the artist painted him minus the
wart. When he went in he said, "What do you think?" Cromwell
answered, "Paint me wart and all! It's part of me." "Lord paint
me, but don't show me my wart. Don't show me I am basically selfish, full of
self-interest and full of self-seeking,
I am full of pride,
I am full of anger,
I am full of bitterness,
I have an unforgiving...
don't show me that I am as ugly as the devil." The smart boys today tell
you that your trouble is that your self image is so poor, you have such a poor
image of yourself. No, your trouble is that you've too good an image of
yourself! "Paint me wart and all."
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. William Booth put up his slogan,
"Blood and Fire." Studebaker, the carriage and auto-maker, stood in
He got to
but I need Fire,
I need Fire,
I need Fire!" William Booth said, "You'll get it. Tomorrow morning at
five o-clock, you'll polish the shoes of fifty students."
And none of them had one leg. A hundred big high-top boots! And not spray
polish. But Dr. Brengle later said, "It is there God taught me a lesson of
patience."
They did not open the door and say, "We were waiting for a talented man
like you to teach on the book of the Revelation. We'd like you to lead the
prayer meeting tomorrow morning." They said, "Stick your nose down
there." Brengle did. And he waited on God and God filled him with the Holy
Ghost.
Later, a deaf person was asked after one of Brengle's meetings why she had come
to the altar if she didn't hear the message. She answered, "Because I
could see what I never have seen in a preacher in all my life." "What
was it?" "I saw the beauty of Jesus in him while he was preaching. I
don't know what he was saying, but I knew there was something in him I did not
have!"
Come on parent, are you living so your children will want something that is in
your life, something that is beautiful? Something that they can't see in
school, that they can't see in a magazine? And they can't see in church, maybe?
My mother was a role model for me, my daddy was a role model. The best thing he
ever did, he took me to a prayer meeting when I was fourteen years of age. And
I remember that night, it comes to me often, often, often.
See, we've got the idea that the only reason you have to be filled with the
Holy Ghost is you are going to be a missionary. The greatest break down in
When Whitefield came from
God isn't looking for organizing. He is looking for agonizing. And he talks
about praying in the Holy Ghost. And I want to learn more of that. It's beyond
praying in tongues. And I am not knocking tongues.
What we've had in the last 25 years with all the Pentecostal churches we
haven't moved this nation for God. How is it that 120 turned the world
upside-down? They'd no money, they hadn't the screen, they couldn't throw what
they were saying into a million homes.
I am sure in my own heart, what God is looking for is to take total possession
of some men in their spirit, their soul, their mind, their will.
I went a little college,
"Here I give my all to Thee,
Friends and time and earthly store,
Soul and body Thine to be
Only Thine for forevermore."
And he sang it. "Here am I to give my friends." He thought, "She
is the only friend I have in the world; we are going to be married in three
months. I've a house stored with new furniture." And the Lord said,
"You want to be filled with the Holy Ghost, it will cost you everything.
Postpone your wedding for three years. Give Me all your time. Your earthly
store is all the furniture you have for the future, sell it and use it to pay
to go to
He went to
He didn't think when he yielded his life, and his future wife, and all he had
in
It is not enough to be filled with His Holy Sprit ten years ago. I don't care
where you were baptized.
The question isn't were you filled ten years ago but are you filled tonight?
Are you filled with God tonight?
Are you filled with love tonight?
Are you filled with power tonight?
Are you filled with passion for the lost?
Come on, in God's name. God is going to bypass us. You may scream if you've
gifts, you don't scream for the fruit. It's not easy. God will wreck your
career. He'll wreck your life style. But if He does…If you let Him…If He can
use you to pour out His revival through, one day the pillar of fire is going to
come, and you know what? We won't need to advertise. There will be such a
meekness, such a sweetness, such a holiness, such a gentleness, such a loving
kindness – the fruit of the Spirit.
We are going to sing Mr. Hatch's hymn – a brilliant English preacher, he had a
packed church, he had stacks of money, he was the favorite preacher in town.
"But one night," he said, "I went into my office, and said,
'Lord I am not satisfied with popularity, I am not satisfied with the favor of
men, I am not satisfied, with my eloquence. Breath on me breath of God.'"
And he snatched a piece of paper and he wrote this hymn we are going to sing
now.
Maybe you want to meet God in some new way. If you do, why don't you kneel at
your chair while we sing and let others sing it. Kneel somewhere and say, Lord
I want something tonight that I've never had in my life. I want the destruction
of my self-life, my self-interest, my temper, my pride, my fear of man, my fear
of the future, my fear of what the relatives will think of me, destroy it.
All hell is looking into this meeting at this moment. All angels are looking
in. And Jesus is waiting to see the fruit of the travail of His soul.
Weeping between
the porch and the altar
"Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the
porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people O Lord, and give not
Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Wherefore
should they say among the people, Where is your God?"(Joel 2:17)
I spent an afternoon in
You cannot standardize revival. I am not thinking of a church revival; I'm
thinking of a national revival. There is only one hope for
Let's see first of all how God grieves over the sin of the people, and after
all, when you look in the Old Testament, God's argument was not with the
Amalekites, and Hitites and all the other "ites". God's problem in the
Old Testament was
A city wide crusade can cost two million dollars. Revival doesn't cost a red
cent, except broken hearts. You can stage your revival; you can stage a city
wide crusade; you cannot stage Revival. Revival is a mysterious divine
intervention. I think one of the most awesome tasks given to man was given to
John Baptist, when God said, "Prepare YE the way of the Lord."
You know, you talk about revival in this country and everybody has got tunnel
vision. They think revival must come like Finney had it. We are not living in
Finney's days. It would be nice to have him around, for sure, but we are not
living in Finney's day. It is a new day. Iniquity has never swaggered like it
swaggers now. You know what has happened in the last twenty three years in
I believe the key to revival is given here in Joel, "Let the priests, the
ministers of God, weep between the altar and the door posts."
I was preaching in a well known college two years ago. I was preaching on
Hannah, because I think Hannah is typical of the true intercessor. The
intercessor believes, "The thing will happen through me. I have to stand
in the gap." You know, when you talk about intercessors we always go back
and say, "Well,
What about Jonathan Goforth that went out and had revival in
You know, the first thing that really moved me to God after I got saved?
Somebody gave me an abridged edition of the life of David Brainard. I just
could not believe it; I could not take it in. Could a man be so utterly
selfless?
The thing that is crippling us is our prosperity. Materialism is choking the
church as well as the world. We want ease and comfort. When I read of a young
man that could walk out in the snow, snow up to his chin sometimes, wrestling
in prayer from sunrise to sunset with a tubercular body...When I read about a man
that wrestled in prayer like that, I was dumbfounded.
And since the church I went to was pretty sleepy and I was only about
seventeen, I went out into
But a
man called George Jefferys came. Very humble... He never stopped to meet you...
never mentioned money...He just came there, they sang about one chorus, but the
ministry and the authority of God was upon him, and again the Acts of the
Apostles were repeated. I don't think that a move of
miracles like that is the only answer. In fact I think we could by-pass that. In the last thirty
years
What we need now is
A revival of holiness.
A revival of character.
A revival of people who are utterly selfless
and prepared to lay their lives on the altar for God.
Paul Koffman went to
No man - I don't care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his
prayer life.
To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing. To stand before God on
behalf of men is something entirely different.
We've urged people to tithe, haven't we? But we only mean their money. You see,
we want a "revival" which is a painless Pentecost. We want something
that won't disturb our status quo. It's "easy street" everywhere
else, so why not here?
There never has been a revival that I can trace, that hasn't been birthed back
there with true, true, true intercession.
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To read more articles written by the revivalist Leonard Ravenhill, please visit his web-site at