“GO FROM THE PRESENCE OF A FOOLISH MAN, WHEN THOU PERCEIVEST IN HIM NOT THE LIPS OF KNOWLEDGE.  – Proverbs 14:7

The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

People memorize the Scriptures by the yard, but that is not a guarantee of knowing the truth. Truth is not a text. Truth is in the text, but it takes the plus the Holy Spirit to bring truth to a human soul. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Any doctrine that makes the world your friend is not your friend. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Outside of the will of God, there is nothing I want. And in the will of God, there is nothing I fear. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

A scared world needs a fearless church. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

The purpose of good works isn’t to change us or save us; rather, it’s the demonstration of the change within us. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

To pray without expectation is to misunderstand the whole concept of prayer and relationship with God. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Receiving a Righteous Judgement is a harsh cure for our troubles, but it is a sure one. Gentler cures may be too weak to do the work. And time is running out on us – Aiden Wilson Tozer

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

harmony within our hearts depends mostly upon our getting into harmony with God. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Whenever God begins something, we have the assurance that He will finish it. Nothing will stand in the way of Him accomplishing His purpose in this world and in our lives. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

What God starts, He finishes, and nobody can hinder Him. Sure, delays will happen. Just remember, God is in charge of the delays as well as the progress. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to ‘accept’ Christ without forsaking the world. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Our mistake is that we want God to send revival on our terms. We want to get the power of God into our hands, to call it to us that it may work for us in promoting and furthering our kind of Christianity. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

We want still to be in charge, guiding the chariot through the religious sky in the direction we want it to go, shouting “Glory to God,” but modestly accepting a share of the glory for ourselves in a nice inoffensive sort of way. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

We are calling on God to send fire on our altars, completely ignoring the fact that they are OUR altars and not God’s…. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

It is not love if it ignores sin and error. Rather it is just a sentimental tool of the devil. – DiscerningTruth.com

It is not kind, nor loving to allow anyone to remain in a condition that is destroying them and others. – DiscerningTruth.com

The purpose of LOVE is redemption Its only objective is to set us free from our errors and sins so that we may walk in His light. dicerningtruth.com

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof? Jer 5:31

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, “By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:” For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. – Matt 11:14-15

Faith that is going to be trusted is going to be tested. –  Leonard Ravenhill

If Jesus came back today, He wouldn’t cleanse the temple, He’d cleanse the pulpit. – Leonard Ravenhill

You must be much WITH God before you can be much FOR God.  – Leonard Ravenhill

All you have to do is get in a closer walk with God and you’ll find your enemies are in your own church. – Leonard Ravenhill

It is because of love that we judge for we don’t want those we love to suffer for sin or in sin. It is not to put anyone down, but to lift them out of the mire. Only the cruel leave a sickness undiagnosed or ignored. – DiscerningTruth.com

Love without judging is worthless. Knowing the darkest of facts about someone And loving them still Is the greatest of loves. – DiscerningTruth.com

Mercy and judgment are not opposites not “either/or” Mercy is God’s decision to make Christ’s atonement apply to our sins Mercy is the result and reason for judgment – DiscerningTruth.com

“If the whole church goes off into deception, that will in no way excuse us for not following Christ.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was?” – Leonard Ravenhill

Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“You can have all of your doctrines right – yet still not have the presence of God.” – Leonard Ravenhill

Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. – James 4:4

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:26

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple – Luke 14:27

Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:33

Begin to rejoice in the Lord, and your bones will flourish like an herb, and your cheeks will glow with the bloom of health and freshness. Worry, fear, distrust, care-all are poisonous! Joy is balm and healing, and if you will but rejoice, God will give power. – A.B. Simpson

This seems like what Christianity will look like
during the time for the two witnesses of Revelation

THE PROPHET

Leonard Ravenhill

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today,
The missing person in our ranks is the prophet…

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.
The man with a terrible earnestness.
The man totally other-worldly.
The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable..

In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet!
The prophet is God’s detective seeking for lost spiritual treasures.
The degree of his effectiveness is determined by the measure of his unpopularity.
Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags. He is totally otherworldly.

He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonable hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a seer who comes to lead the blind. –
He lives in the heights with God and comes into the valley with a “Thus saith the Lord.”

He shares some of the foreknowledge of God, and so is aware of Impending judgment.
He lives in splendid isolation. He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is, REPENT! be reconciled to God, or else….
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead.

He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few make the grade in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry – then established as a saint by posterity.
Daily he eats the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.

He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

We are tired of men in soft raiment and softer speech who use rivers of words with but a spoonful of unction.
These know more about competition than consecration, about promotion than prayer.
They substitute propaganda for propagation and care more for their church’s happiness than for its holiness.

Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous.
May the Lord send us prophets, terrible men, who cry aloud and spare not,
who sprinkle nations with unctionized woes, men too hot to hold,
too hard to be heard, too merciless to spare.

Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life. The unctionless preacher is a savour of death unto death.
The Word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher, Preacher, with all thy getting – get unction.

Prophets, Preachers, Prayer, Revival

Many of us in the Deeper Life bracket are hunting mice – while lions devour the land! Ravenhill – why revival tarries – Leonard Ravenhill

ONE of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed. – Leonard Ravenhill

We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed). – Leonard Ravenhill

In this perilous hour I am weary of all our mighty talk about our risen, wealthy LORD, and yet the trailing poverty of us sickly believers! – Leonard Ravenhill

God honours not wisdom nor personality but faith. – Leonard Ravenhill

The self-sufficient do not need to pray; The self-satisfied will not pray; The self-righteous cannot pray. – Leonard Ravenhill

The blessed Book does not say if thou canst explain the Scriptures, all things are possible to him that explaineth. – Leonard Ravenhill

What we know about God these days is giving us a deep stream of shallow books and is filling our libraries. (We are not despising true learning, and certainly not that wisdom which comes from above). But what we know is one thing; whom we know IS quite another. – Leonard Ravenhill

Who a man is is not important; What he knows does not matter; but what he is to the inscrutable God is what matters. If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him, does it matter whom we displease? What we can be in union with Christ is one thing; but what we are is quite another. – Leonard Ravenhill

The promise still stands: The people that do know their God shall! be strong and do exploits. If any of us knows God, then watch out, Lucifer! – Leonard Ravenhill

But tell me, today when we preach the everlasting gospel, does anybody think that we are raving (as Rotherham translates mad) or going insane (as Weymouth translates it)? On the contrary, we have our love offering in view, our big name to defend, our crowds to consider, and our extent of days to think over, don’t we? – Leonard Ravenhill

Christ is now wounded in the house of His friends. The Holy Book of the living God suffers more from its exponents today than from its opponents. The Church alone can limit the Holy One of Israel, and today she has consummate skill in doing it. – Leonard Ravenhill

If there are degrees in death, then the deadest I know of is to preach about the Holy Ghost without the anointing of the Holy Ghost. – Leonard Ravenhill

The Church alone can limit the Holy One of Israel, and today she has consummate skill in doing it. If there are degrees in death, then the deadest I know of is to preach about the Holy Ghost without the anointing of the Holy Ghost. – Leonard Ravenhill

This is the day of a restricted and relegated Holy Ghost, even in fundamentalist circles. We need and say that we want Joel 2 to be fulfilled. We cry, Pour out Thy Spirit upon all flesh! yet add the unspoken caution, but don’t let our daughters prophesy, or our young men see visions! – Leonard Ravenhill

The same church members who yell like Comanche Indians at a ball game on Saturday sit like wooden Indians in church on Sunday. – Vance Havner

The conflict of the ages is upon us. This unbiblical distorted thing called the church, that mixes with the world and dishonours its so-called Lord, has been found out for what it is, a fraud. – Leonard Ravenhill

Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! – Leonard Ravenhill

What use is deeper knowledge if we have shallower hearts? What use is greater standing with men if we have less standing with God? What use is personal physical hygiene if we have filthiness of the mind and of the spirit? What use is religious piety if we have soul carnality? Why strut with physical strength if we have spiritual weakness? Of what use is worldly wealth if we have spiritual poverty? Who can take comfort in social popularity if he is unknown in hell? Prayer takes care of all these spiritual maladjustments. – Leonard Ravenhill

If the Church had something vital and victorious to offer, these men who choose golf clubs by day and nightclubs by night might be drawn from these fleshpots. When these have forsaken faith, they feed on films and football. – Leonard Ravenhill

This is an hour in need of burning hearts, bursting lips, and brimming eyes! If we were a tenth as spiritual as we think we are, our streets would be filled each Sunday with throngs of believers marching to Zion – with sacks on their bodies and ashes on the shaking heads, shaking at the calamity that has brought the Church to be the unlovely, unnerved, unproductive thing that she is! – Leonard Ravenhill

The Church must first repent; then the world will break! The Church must first weep; then our altars will be filled with weeping penitents. – Leonard Ravenhill

The Church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure. A ministry that is college-trained but not Spirit-filled works no miracles. – Samuel Chadwick,

The man whose little sermon is “repent” sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man off with his head!’ You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven. – Joseph Parker

Oh, my God! if in our cultivated unbelief and our theological twilight and our spiritual powerlessness we have grieved and are continuing to grieve Thy Holy Spirit, then in mercy spue us out of Thy mouth! – Leonard Ravenhill

If Thou canst not do something with us and through us, then please, God, do something without us! Bypass us and take up a people who now know Thee not! Save, sanctify, and endue them with the Holy Ghost for a ministry of the miraculous! Send them out fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners to revive a sick Church and shake a sin-soddened world! – Leonard Ravenhill

Again, in the majority of prayer meetings, what text is more used than Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst? But too often He is not in the midst; He is at the door! We sing His praise; but shun His person! – Leonard Ravenhill

I do marvel at the Lord’s patience with the sleepy, sluggish, selfish Church! A prodigal Church in a prodigal world is God’s real problem. – Leonard Ravenhill

Today we seem much more interested in having Churches air-conditioned than prayer-conditioned. – Leonard Ravenhill

Oh, we need the fire! Where is the power of the Holy Ghost that slays sinners and fills our altars? – Leonard Ravenhill

The old nature may dodge the water baptism, but it is destroyed in the fire baptism, for He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Until they were fire purged, the miracle-working disciples who beheld His resurrection glory, were held back from ministering the Cross. – Leonard Ravenhill

We have no lack of preachers of prophecy, but we are pitiably short of prophetic preachers. – Leonard Ravenhill

No man can monopolise the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost can monopolise men. Such are the prophets. They are never expected, never announced, never introduced – they just arrive. They are sent, and sealed, and sensational. – Leonard Ravenhill

But can there be an earthquake without sensation? Or a tornado without disorder? Did Wesley’s scorching ministry cause no upheaval? – Leonard Ravenhill

Prophets were martyred for denouncing false religion in no vague terms. And when we too see lying religion cheating men in life and robbing loved ones in death, or when we see priests leading them to hell under the banner of a crucifix, we should burn against them with holy indignation. Later, maybe, to lead the way to a Twentieth Century Reformation, we shall burn on martyr fires. – Leonard Ravenhill

Oh! God, send us prophetic preaching that searches and scorches! Send us a race of martyr-preachers men burdened, bent, bowed and broken under the vision of impending judgment and the doom of the unending hell of the impenitent. – Leonard Ravenhill

Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous. May the Lord send us prophets, terrible men, who cry aloud and spare not, who sprinkle nations with unctionized woes, men too hot to hold, too hard to be heard, too merciless to spare. We are tired of men in soft raiment and softer speech who use rivers of words with but a spoonful of unction. These know more about competition than consecration, about promotion than prayer. They substitute propaganda for propagation and care more for their church’s happiness than for its holiness! – Leonard Ravenhill

Solid doctrine has put most believers sound asleep, for the letter is not enough. It must be kindled! It is the letter plus the Spirit which giveth life. A sound sermon in faultless English and flawless interpretation can be as tasteless as a mouthful of sand. – Leonard Ravenhill

Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh, that I may be a man of prayer! Henry Martyn

Love is kindled in a flame, and ardency is its life. Flame is the air which true Christian experience breathes. It feeds on fire; it can withstand anything, rather than a feeble flame; but when the surrounding atmosphere is frigid or lukewarm, it dies, chilled and starved to its vitals. True prayer MUST be aflame. E. M. Bounds

Great eagles fly alone; great lions hunt alone; great souls walk alone alone with God. Such loneliness is hard to endure and impossible to enjoy unless God-accompanied. – Leonard Ravenhill

John was a Voice. Most preachers are only echoes, for if you listen hard, you will be able to tell what latest book they have read and how little of the Book they quote. To reach the masses we need a Voice – a heaven-sent prophet to preach to preachers! It takes broken men to break men. Brethren, we have equipment but not enduement; commotion but not creation; action but not unction; rattle but not revival. We are dogmatic but not dynamic! – Leonard Ravenhill

This generation of preachers is responsible for this generation of sinners. At the very doors of our churches are the masses unwon because they are unreached, unreached because they are unloved. – Leonard Ravenhill

God meets fire with fire. The more fire in the pulpit the less burning in hell-fire. – Leonard Ravenhill

Holy Ghost fire both destroys, purifies, warms, attracts, and empowers. – Leonard Ravenhill

Almost joyfully will I confirm with my blood that truth which I have written and preached. -John Huss on the stake

The primary qualification for a missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ. – Vance Havner

A man with an experience of God is never at the mercy of a man with an argument, for an experience of God that costs something is worth something, and does something. – Leonard Ravenhill

Having found peace with God, Paul made war on all that was godless. He charmed the intelligentsia of Athens on his sweet lyre of the Gospel, ending his song abruptly by grasping the resurrection-trumpet, only to send the Athenians scattering scarred and scorched by its truth. – Leonard Ravenhill

Many of us, alas, are happy to get the scraps that are left over from another man’s ministry. But Paul built upon no man’s foundation (I Cor. 3: 10), for his brain was not so steeped in dogma that it became an ecclesiastical machine, merely grinding out the mysteries of metaphysics. He spent no wearying hours speculating upon Daniel’s image. Neither did he hide away in some spiritual laboratory dissecting truth or labelling theological capsules, nor yet complimenting himself on his ability to polish words for future creeds. – Leonard Ravenhill

The cost might be prison, for it were better that he should be the prisoner of the Lord for a few years than that his fellow men should be the devil’s prisoners in hell forever. – Leonard Ravenhill

Paul was sold out to God. Every beat of his heart, every thought of his mind, every step of his feet, and every longing of his soul all were for Christ and the salvation of men. He upset synagogues, had revivals and riots either one or the other, sometimes both. (We seem to have neither). – Leonard Ravenhill

Unsponsored, unwelcomed, unloved – made little difference to Paul. On he went blind to every jewel of earthly honour, deaf to every voice of siren ease, and insensitive to the mesmerism of worldly success. – Leonard Ravenhill

Yet, though slick, shallow saints of this hour would have heaven opened and revival delivered on the slot machine method, God has not mechanised His glorious power to fit our time geared religious machinery. – Leonard Ravenhill

Revival would die in a week in some Bible churches, for where are the mothers in Israel to care for them? – Leonard Ravenhill

but prayer is more than asking. Prayer, surely, is getting us into subjection to the Holy Ghost so that He can work in and through usOh, the reproach of our barren altars! Has the Holy Ghost delight in our electric organs, carpeted aisles and new decorations if the crib is empty? Never! Oh that the death-like stillness of the sanctuary could be shattered by the blessed cry of newborn babes – Leonard Ravenhill

The Bible says that in the last days when wicked men do wickedly, the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. Not those who sing about God, not those who write or preach about God but they that know their God shall be strong and do exploits. – Leonard Ravenhill

The Church of our day should be pregnant with passionate propagation, whereas she is often pleading with pale propaganda. – Leonard Ravenhill

We will have revival the moment we start obeying the great commandments and demand holiness in our life. – reb

The Church has advisers by the carload. But where are her agonisers? When believers lacking births become burdened, and when soul sterility sickens us, then we will pulsate with holy fear, and pray with holy fervour, and produce with holy fertility. At God’s counter there are no sale days, for the price of revival is ever the same: travail. – Leonard Ravenhill

I am fully aware that there are those who in their sleepiness will swing back on the sovereignty of God and say, When He moves, revival will come. That is only half-truth. Do you mean that the Lord is happy that eighty three people per minute die without Christ? Have you fallen for the idea that the Lord is now willing that many should perish? Do you dare to say – what to me is little less than blasphemy – that when God decides to lift up His heel and scatter His enemies, then a mighty visitation will come? Never! Quote part of a text and you can make the Bible say anything. For instance, God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Stop the verse there, and it means God is able to do it, but as yet He is not bothered so to do. This verse, misquoted, leaves the lack of revival on the steps of God’s throne. But finish the text.. able to do according to the power that worketh in us, and it means that the channel is blocked; it means God cannot get through to this age because of lack of power in the Church. So lack of revival is our fault. – Leonard Ravenhill

But have we Holy Ghost power – power that restricts the devil’s power, pulls down strongholds and obtains promises? Daring delinquents will be damned if they are not delivered from the devil’s dominion. What has hell to fear other than a God anointed, prayer-powered church? – Leonard Ravenhill

Any man who has so assessed himself filth of the earth (I Cor. 4: 13) has no ambitions and so has nothing to be jealous about. He has no reputation and so has nothing to fight about.He has no possessions and therefore nothing to worry about. He has no rights so therefore he cannot suffer any wrongs. Blessed state! He is already dead so no one can kill him. In such a state of mind and spirit, can we wonder that the apostles turned the world upside down? – Leonard Ravenhill

Paul is not grieved that they have superabundance and he nothing. He groans that their wealth has brought weakness of soul. They have comfort, but no cross; they are rich, but not reproached for Christ’s sake. He does not say they are not Christ’s, but that they are seeking a thornless path to heaven. – Leonard Ravenhill

We are suffering today from a plague of ministers who are more concerned that their heads should be filled than that their hearts be fired. – Leonard Ravenhill

A Christian, dreaming before his television night by night, has a dead brain and a bankrupt soul. He would do better to persuade God to let him quit this world if he is so out of touch with this lax, loose, licentious age that blindness of the sinner no longer tears his soul. Every street is now a river of devilry, drink, divorce, darkness, and damnation. If you are taking a stand against all this, marvel not, brethren, that the world hate you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own. – Leonard Ravenhill

Well might we, too, inwardly quake and with trembling lips repeat this phrase, the world is crucified to me. Only when we are thus dead to the world and all its toys, its idle pomp and fading joys can we feel the freedom that Paul knew. The plain fact is that we followers of Christ respect the world and its opinions and appreciations and qualifications. – Leonard Ravenhill

With his strong emphasis on separation, one wonders that Paul ever got any converts at all. – Leonard Ravenhill

For men of divine selection were not sent to the council chambers of human wisdom to get their personalities polished or their knowledge edged. But God somehow trapped His man and closeted him with Himself. – Leonard Ravenhill

Our preaching is much diseased today by borrowed thoughts from the brains of dead men rather than from the Lord. – Leonard Ravenhill

Books are good when they are our guides, but bad when they are our chains. – Leonard Ravenhill

To smite the iniquity of this sin-soaked age and shatter the complacency of slumbering saints, something is really needed. Vital preaching and victorious living must come out of sustained watches in the prayer chamber. – Leonard Ravenhill

We live in a Christian culture that is about study and learn instead of believe and do. – reb

Prayer is as vast as God because He is behind it. Prayer is as mighty as God, because He has committed Himself to answer it. God pity us that in this noblest of all employments for the tongue and for the spirit, we stammer so. If God does not illuminate us in the closet, we walk in darkness. At the judgment seat the most embarrassing thing the believer will face will be the smallness of his praying- Leonard Ravenhill

Here is a majestic passage from the venerated Chrysostom: The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire; it hath bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-sufficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother, of a thousand blessings. Are Chrysostom’s words mere rhetoric, to make a commonplace thing look superlative? The Bible knows nothing of such cunning. – Leonard Ravenhill

Elijah was a man skilled in the art of prayer, who altered the course of nature, strangled the economy of a nation, prayed and fire fell, prayed and people fell, prayed and rain fell. We need rain, rain, rain! The churches are so parched that seed cannot germinate. Our altars are dry, with no hot tears of penitents. Oh for an Elijah! – Leonard Ravenhill

Perhaps we are praying that we might dance when we have never yet mourned. We choose the garment of praise while God says, (Isa. 61: 3), unto them that mourn [I give] the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. If we would reap, the same order is true, for he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him (Ps. 126: 6). – Leonard Ravenhill

For this sin hungry age we need a prayer hungry Church. – Leonard Ravenhill

When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen. Memorial to John Geddie, the father of Presbyterian Missions in the South Seas

Men need to be a pillar of fire. God guided men to lead a misguided people; passionate Pauls to stir timid Timothys; men of Flame to outshine and out burn men of name! We need knights of prayer to lead nights of prayer. We need true prophets to warn of false profits, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? (Mark 8: 36) Compared to a heart that has known the fire of the Lord and allowed that fire to go out, the ice-clad peaks of the Alps are warm. Metal is molten only while the fire burns; remove the fire and the metal is solid. Even so, a human heart without the heat of heaven is an iceberg. – Leonard Ravenhill

If the Spirit is absent, the preacher’s study becomes a laboratory for dissecting doctrine and developing lifeless dogma. Teaching needs anointing; truth must be trenchant; and comfort must kindle. – Leonard Ravenhill

As the Church goes, so goes the world! If the watchmen sleep, the enemy takes the city! – Leonard Ravenhill

The preacher should give at least one day a week to prepare his sermons and yet another day to prepare the preacher to preach the prepared sermons. – Leonard Ravenhill

Inspiration is as mysterious as life, for both are God-given. Life begets life by its very nature. By the same token, inspired men inspire. – Leonard Ravenhill

As the Church goes, so goes the world! If the watchmen sleep, the enemy takes the city! The preacher should give at least one day a week to prepare his sermons and yet another day to prepare the preacher to preach the prepared sermons. Inspiration is as mysterious as life, for both are God-given. Life begets life by its very nature. By the same token, inspired men inspire. – Leonard Ravenhill

Men are ever saying that in these trying days people need comfort. Agreed many do need comfort. The sick, the sad, and the suffering are in this bracket. However, let none fail to realise that to keep silent while a house is burning is criminal. He is no comforter who lets his neighbour sleep as he watches a criminal move to the door with a gun. – Leonard Ravenhill

But slinging theological terms or even Bible verses at devil-possessed men is as ineffective as snowballing Gibraltar in the hope of removing it. – Leonard Ravenhill

But what was Paul’s armoury? Where did he edge his blade? Paul more than once uses the phrase I am persuaded, and therein lay his secret. Revealed truth held him like a vice. The Word, like the Lord, was immutable. Paul’s anchor was cast in the depths of God’s faithfulness. His battle axe was the Word of the Lord; his strength was faith in that Word. – Leonard Ravenhill

Because Paul loved His Lord with a perfect love, he also hated sin with a perfect hatred. Thus he saw men not only prodigals but also rebels, not just drifters from righteousness but conspirators in wickedness, who must be pardoned or punished. With the fierceness of Love’s intensest blaze, he burned at the injustice of men subordinate to demon power. – Leonard Ravenhill

His watchword was This one thing I do. He had no side issues, no books to sell. He had no ambitions and so had nothing to be jealous about. He had no reputation and so had nothing to fight about. He had no possessions and therefore nothing to worry about. He had no rights so therefore he could not suffer wrong. He was already broken so no one could break him. He was dead so none could kill him. He was less than the least so who could humble him? He had suffered the loss of all things so none could defraud him. Does this throw any light on why the demon said, Paul I know? Over this (God-intoxicated man, hell suffered headaches. – Leonard Ravenhill

At the thought of eternity, language is beggared and imagination staggered. Paul could write off stripes, imprisonments, fastings, weariness, and painfulness as light affliction recompensed by the fact so shall we ever be with the Lord. All the shot and shell of demons was wasted against Paul. Do you wonder now that one of them said, And Paul I know? – Leonard Ravenhill

You may give a man an office in the church, but you cannot give him authority, nor can you withhold it. – Leonard Ravenhill

Divine authority is divinely given. – Leonard Ravenhill

Romans 8:37, more than conquerors, is an exclamation of jubilation for the soul’s emancipation! – Leonard Ravenhill

A preacher is a man with a message from another world to people in this world who are going to that other world. – Leonard Ravenhill

The successful preacher does not end his sermon with the congregation on its feet applauding him; but rather, he leaves it on its knees adoring Him. – Leonard Ravenhill

Our preachers must be filled with the Spirit before they fill our pulpits, or else they will fill the people with chaff. – Leonard Ravenhill

The message of the preacher is not always scathing, but it is always searching -if it is Spirit-energized. – Leonard Ravenhill

The effective preacher is the man who trembles at His Word, but who stands untremblingly to deliver that Word. – Leonard Ravenhill

The preacher must taste the powers of another world if he would preach to men of this world who are blind and deaf to the claims of the next world. – Leonard Ravenhill

We have an abundance of men of the cloth; few – too few – men with sackcloth. – Leonard Ravenhill

Wet-eyed preachers never deliver dry sermons. – Leonard Ravenhill

A preacher cannot get off the ground until he prays, and he cannot keep on the ground after he prays – his preaching will soar! – Leonard Ravenhill

The petty Peter of pre-Pentecost days became the prophet-preacher of post-Pentecost days. – Leonard Ravenhill

There is much more to preaching than merely being loaded with theological savvy and elastic vocabulary. – Leonard Ravenhill

The pastor’s task is to feed the flock, not to produce it. – Leonard Ravenhill

Giving a man an R-E-V does not sanctify him any more than giving him a Ph.D. – can edify him. – Leonard Ravenhill

I am tired of preachers who act like lions in the pulpit but play like kittens outside of it. – Leonard Ravenhill

Some preachers spend so much time walking theological picket lines that they never enter the areas of true worship. – Leonard Ravenhill

An evangelist with his eye on the Jackpot Should be afraid of being labeled a crackpot. – Leonard Ravenhill

Pity him and pray for him – the preacher who can mouth eternal truths to eternal souls without pain, or tears, or burden. – Leonard Ravenhill

Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life. The unctionless preacher is a savour of death unto death. The Word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher, Preacher, with all thy getting – get unction. – Leonard Ravenhill

====================================

it is no sign of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick church. – DiscerningTruth

if you want to do the works of God, don’t learn about them or study them. Rather yearn for Him, the Christ and you will yearn to do His works and He will give you the power. The natural outcome of Seeking God is a fervent desire to do His works and manifest His majesty to others. – DiscerningTruth

Each member of Christ’s body has value. But if we judge a tree by how well it can fly, we will consider the tree useless. Rather, find the value of each other in the calling God has given them, and encourage them in it. – DiscerningTruth

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. — Albert Einstein (true in the world, true in Christianity)

Of all sad words of mouth or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been —John Greenleaf Whither (complacency destroys)

Don’t let learning about God and His kingdom, keep you from knowing God and His kingdom – DiscerningTruth

If you carry your happiness everywhere, you don’t have to worry about how to make others happy.  If you carry your love everywhere, you don’t have to worry how to make others love.  If you carry your faith everywhere, you don’t have to worry how to make others have faith – DiscerningTruth

Jesus is our life. How many of us live like He is? DiscerningTruth

To love is to recognize the need you have of others in Christ – DiscerningTruth

no saint will be strong and do exploits (Da 11:32) until they rid themselves of a church who is not and does not – DiscerningTruth

no church will proper as long as it has any interest in pleasing people, making them comfortable or feeling liked in their carnal state. The church’s business is not to please people, but to transform them, not into the image of the world, but to the image of Christ. Any message, any activity that does not do that has no place in a church. – DiscerningTruth

wrong thinking and bad moods are rarely overcome by argument: They are not founded upon reason so they cannot be destroyed by logic. But truth, spoken to the heart by one steadfast in the truth they speak, can transform wrong thinking and bad moods. – DiscerningTruth

You can’t teach men to Christ, but you can inspire them to Christ – DiscerningTruth

They that can give up essential truth to obtain a little temporary comfort, peace, ease or pleasure will, in the long term, will find neither comfort, peace, ease or pleasure. – DiscerningTruth

knowing God is the key to life, happiness, pleasure, joy, fulfillment. It is not found in leisure time, family time, financial success, personal competence, sports, or in any activity where Christ is not the focus. – DiscerningTruth

In a society where everybody’s guilty of sin, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of saints, the only final sin is unbelief which has led to inaction. – DiscerningTruth

The world values achievement as the mark of success and approval. Jesus Christ says that belief in Him is the only way to success and approval, and then He will cause us to succeed in those things He has called and equipped us to do. – DiscerningTruth

The most dangerous man to society is the one who believes His God and obeys Him without concern for reputation or pleasing others. His only focus is to please God. It is only God who says “Well, done, good and faithful servant”. Why do we care how many times the world says that? It means nothing in the courts of God – DiscerningTruth

We are not to hold on to guilt and shame when we sin or our shortcomings are made public. God’s intention is that we admit the truth of it, and turn from it, and to Him, and commit to only obeying and loving Him. – DiscerningTruth

Not obeying God is proof that we do not love Him. John 14:15 – DiscerningTruth

9 Ravenhill Quips

“WE’VE GOT MUSLIMS READY TO DIE FOR THEIR FAITH, AND
CHRISTIANS WHO AREN’T READY TO LIVE FOR OURS”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“UNLESS WE ALLOW THE LORD TO EMPTY US, THERE IS NO FILLING”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“WE WANT TO ORGANIZE, WHILE GOD WANTS US TO AGONIZE”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“WE’RE QUICK TO WEAR A CROSS, BUT SLOW TO BEAR A CROSS”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“GOD’S NOT INTERESTED IN OUR ABILITY, HE’S INTERESTED IN
OUR STICKABILITY …”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“THERE ARE ONLY TWO KINDS OF PERSONS: THOSE DEAD IN
SIN AND THOSE DEAD TO SIN …”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“GOD´S NOT LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP WITH US, BUT
OWNERSHIP OF US”
-Leonard Ravenhill

“THE WORLD IS NOT IN NEED OF A NEW DEFINITION OF CHRISTIANITY,
IT´S IN NEED OF A NEW DEMONSTRATION OF CHRISTIANITY”
-Leonard Ravenhill

‘WHEN THERE´S SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT CHURCHES/
SAINTS DON´T LIKE, THEY CALL IT “LEGALISM”‘
-Leonard Ravenhill

What is the heart of a True Preacher and True preaching?

“Some preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons or more sermons into the fire.” – Vance Havner

“Preaching has very largely become a profession. Instead of real Christian sermons, we are given secondhand expositions of psychology. The preachers say they that give the congregations what they ask for! What a terrible condemnation both of the preachers themselves & their congregations!”
― Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.”
― Patrick Henry

I will never be able to love other people in the world until I have first mastered my love for God.” – A. W. Tozer
“The Bible definitely is infallible, how else could it survive so many years of bad preaching?” – Leonard Ravenhill

“To preach, to really preach, is to die naked a little at a time and to know- all the time- that you must do it again.”
― Jeff Arthurs

You can use the Bible as the springboard for all kinds of ideas, can’t you? Look around in here and find something that fits your fancy and then launch a rocket off it. People say, ‘That was amazing, wasn’t it? Remarkable what he got out of that.’ Well of course it is because he put it in before he got it out.”
― Alistair Begg

“If you want the Kingdom speeded, go out and speed it yourselves. Only obedience rationalizes prayer.
Only Missions can redeem your intercessions from insincerity.” – William Carey

If the gospel of the kingdom is not changing your life, how can you expect it to change the lives of others? – Frank Viola

“The invasion of the Church by the world is a menace to the extension
of Christ’s Kingdom… A secularized or self-centered Church
can never evangelize the world.” – John R. Mott

“Put all your heart into what you do, or else put none of it in.”
– C.H. Spurgeon

“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”
― Richard Baxter

“Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God; such alone will shake the gates of hell.”
― John Wesley

when the Lord has drawn from me some word for the good of souls, I know, because of the pain of it.
― Georges Bernanos,

the goal is not to get something said but to get something heard.”
― Fred Craddock

“Whenever a day comes when I can stand and preach God’s Word without an agony of anxiety lest the people will not accept Christ; whenever a day comes when I can see men and women coming down the aisles without joy in my heart, I’ll quit preaching.” – Billy Sunday

“A man who first tried to guess ‘what the public wants,’ and then preached that as Christianity because the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave”
― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

“The backslider likes the preaching that wouldn’t hit the side of a house, while the real disciple is delighted when the truth brings him to his knees.”
― Billy Sunday

O Sirs! We might as well preach to stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to give it power to convert the soul.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon  [Does that explain why the churches are in the powerless state they are in?]

“It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their [the communists’ ] terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy.”
― Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ

Sin is the dethroning of God in one’s life. Righteousness is bringing God back into His rightful place – Frank Viola

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.
– H. Richard Niebuhr ( In describing the liberal bent of the social gospel,)

God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already. ”
― Jonathan Edwards

The only place where the true message can be found

“Lock yourself in a room; throw the key away; do something!
Seek God and be found of Him. That is His promise:
“If you will seek for Me with all your heart and all your soul, you shall be found of Me” (Deut. 4:29).

When you do obtain that knowledge, maintain it, or else you will lose it.”
– Art Katz

Discipleship and the Kingdom

“Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity
without discipleship, and
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without
Christ.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus only knows ONE definition of “disciple”

Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife,
and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot
be my disciple.
33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he
hath, he cannot be my disciple.

“Let us beware lest the things we own come to own us.” – Anonymous

“‘Why are we not more holy?’ asked John Wesley, addressing his
preachers. ‘Chiefly because we are enthusiasts, looking for the end
without the means.'” – John Wesley

“Men are God’s method.
The Church is looking for better methods;
God is looking for better men.” – E.M.Bounds

“God can part with nothing of His own power, and therefore I can
experience the power and goodness of God only so far as I am in contact
and fellowship with Himself; and when I come into contact and
fellowship with Himself, I come into contact and fellowship with the
whole omnipotence of God, and have the omnipotence of God to help me
every day.” – Andrew Murray

The ekklesia, when functioning under the headship of Christ, will shame
the cosmic principalities and powers by showing that a fallen human
race can be led by an invisible, resurrected Lord who has conquered
them.
Frank Viola – Insurgence

Why does Jesus want the gospel of the kingdom proclaimed to every
nation? Is it just so the people of the nations can go to heaven when
they die? No. The purpose of the apostolic commission was—and still is—
to deliver the nations from Satan’s dominion and reclaim them for God’s
kingdom (Acts 26:18).
Frank Viola – Insurgence

“The devil has a counterfeit for nearly everything.” – Anonymous”

The Book of books is called the Holy Bible because it has a holy
author, and aims at a holy purpose, the production of holiness in its
readers.” – Daniel Steele

“Take heed of drowsiness in hearing.” – Thomas Watson

“Are we jealous for God’s glory?
To me that is what revival is all about.”
– Leonard Ravenhill

To seek first the kingdom means,
among other things,
to view everything in light of how they serve God’s rule.
It means that the interests of Christ become preeminent in our lives.
It means we seek to possess the character of the King,
a King who “shall reign in righteousness” (Isaiah 22:1 KJV).
So the question before you and me in every decision we make is,
How does this serve the interests of the sovereign rule of God?
Frank Viola – Insurgence