From "WHY REVIVAL TARRIES"
-by Leonard Ravenhill.
Today God is bypassing men -- not because they are too ignorant,
but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are
our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!
Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation's sin like God;
he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He
was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation
of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his
preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten
metal on their flesh.
Brethren, if we will do God's work in God's way, at God's time,
with God's power, we shall have God's blessing and the devil's
curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the
devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God's smile means
the devil's frown! Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt
nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden somebody.
The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet goes against it.
A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic
because he speaks against his nation's sins; unkind because his
tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of
preaching opinion is against him.
Ah! brother preachers, we love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs,
reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys, etc. We will
write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their
epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except
imitate them . We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch
carefully the first drop of our own!
Oh, my ministering brethern! Much of our praying is but giving God
advice. Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves
or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God
alone. It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored,
His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house
made a circus of social efforts.
God's problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor
liberalism, nor modernism. God's problem is -- dead fundamentalism!.
"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will
spew you out of my mouth." - Rev. 3:16
This generation of preachers is responsible for this generation of
sinners...Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into
the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on
popular magazine covers. Church-goers, sermon-sick and teaching-
tired, leave the meeting as they entered it -- visionless and
passionless! Oh God, give this perishing generation ten thousand
John the Baptists!
-by Leonard Ravenhill.
Today God is bypassing men -- not because they are too ignorant,
but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are
our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!
Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation's sin like God;
he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He
was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation
of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his
preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten
metal on their flesh.
Brethren, if we will do God's work in God's way, at God's time,
with God's power, we shall have God's blessing and the devil's
curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the
devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God's smile means
the devil's frown! Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt
nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden somebody.
The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet goes against it.
A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic
because he speaks against his nation's sins; unkind because his
tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of
preaching opinion is against him.
Ah! brother preachers, we love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs,
reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys, etc. We will
write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their
epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except
imitate them . We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch
carefully the first drop of our own!
Oh, my ministering brethern! Much of our praying is but giving God
advice. Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves
or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God
alone. It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored,
His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house
made a circus of social efforts.
God's problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor
liberalism, nor modernism. God's problem is -- dead fundamentalism!.
"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will
spew you out of my mouth." - Rev. 3:16
This generation of preachers is responsible for this generation of
sinners...Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into
the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on
popular magazine covers. Church-goers, sermon-sick and teaching-
tired, leave the meeting as they entered it -- visionless and
passionless! Oh God, give this perishing generation ten thousand
John the Baptists!
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