This is side two of the Redpath-Ravenhill
cassette featuring discussions with Dr. Alan Redpath and
Leonard Ravenhill, first heard on the Chapel of
the Air radio broadcast.
In just a moment, you'll hear the first
of three interviews with Leonard Ravenhill, author, preacher,
and senior revivalist.
Again, these programs are being presented exactly as
they aired to give you the opportunity to
hear David Maine's words of introduction.
David Maine's greeting you, my friend.
Through the years, it's been my privilege to
interview many guests during these 15-minute get
-togethers, but few have been as appreciated by
our listeners as my guest again this visit,
Leonard Ravenhill.
Stay tuned, will you please, for the Chapel
of the Air.
Leonard Ravenhill is probably best known for his
books on revival, such as Why Revival Terry's,
Revival God's Way, Revival Praying, but he's also
appreciated by many of you for his powerful
preaching on that same theme.
Now, this is the first of three phone
line visits with Leonard Ravenhill, during which time
I want to talk with him first about
the local church, next our seminaries, and finally
about religion as seen and heard on television
and radio.
Leonard Ravenhill, on a scale of one to
ten, give the church in North America a
grade, will you, and tell why you picked
that number.
Brother David, on a scale of one to
ten, I would give the church, that is,
I'm thinking of the evangelical church, about a
four, because I sense a lack of eternity
and the majesty of God in current evangelism,
and that reacts, of course, in the church.
Leonard, say you were assigned to make a
winner out of the church, or change that
four into an eight or a nine.
You're the new coach.
What are you going to strive to correct
or change?
Well, again, we need to have a recovery,
I'm sure, of the awesome majesty of God.
I asked a congregation last Sunday, did you
come here tonight to meet God or to
hear a sermon about God?
I've asked that many times in many churches,
and only once did I get a response
from a person who said, well, I do
come to meet God.
Leonard, when you go somewhere, you bring that
presence of the Lord with you.
How important a role is the minister going
to play in a rebuilding process of the
local church?
Well, I think an awesome responsibility rests on
the pastor.
There's a saying, as you know, that a
river never rises higher than its source, and
normally the pastor is the, to change the
figure, the top banana on the pile, and
I think that he forms the spiritual culture
of the church.
If he's a praying man, you have a
praying church, and if he's a politician, he'll
mix up with the crowd and say, the
moral majority of somebody is going to pull
the nation out of the fire, which I'm
sure it isn't.
I mean, Jesus himself said that the spirit
of the Lord is upon him, and he
was anointed to preach.
I miss the anointed preaching.
How would you recommend that ministers spend their
priority time?
Would it be in counseling or in fundraising
or in praying or preparing sermons?
Brother David, I would say they need to
reread historic revival.
I don't believe there are a dozen people
in America that have ever seen a revival.
I mean, revival that closes the shops and
stops the traffic, so to speak, and the
lights of the sanctuary don't go out for
a month or so.
What kind of a book would you recommend
such a minister read?
There's a book written in 1604 by a
man by the name of William Gurnall, and
it's called The Whole Armor of God.
It's on the last few verses in Ephesians
6.
It costs $26, but if they sent a
Trinity book service a month there in New
Jersey, you can get it for $16.
It's 1140 pages.
Even Spurgeon said it was the most amazing
thing that every preacher should read it.
And then I would recommend, of course, to
help recover a concept of the majesty of
God, that they would read The Existence and
Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock.
You see, we've no massive theology today.
I don't agree with what old Karl Barth
said by a long way, but he said,
I look for something vast in theology, and
all I find is paperbacks.
Leonard Ravenhill, do you see most ministers agreeing
with what you're saying, or do you feel
they will resist what you're saying?
Well, I think it's almost 50-50, Brother
David.
It depends on the man, if he realizes
he has the most awesome task.
I mean, to me, preaching a sermon is
more dramatic and challenging and stirring and responsible
than doing open-heart surgery.
Well, aren't we really doing open-heart surgery
in evangelism?
Yes.
You see, again, I think evangelism today is
the biggest enemy of revival.
You need to explain what you mean by
that.
Well, it's so shallow.
I thought before we hear the narrative that
was written by Jonathan Edwards.
You know, the great revival of 1735 was
not staged.
Jonathan Edwards could have said, we'll wait, because
in two weeks' time, George Whitefield, the greatest
preacher since the Apostle Paul, is coming to
America.
He didn't do that.
He preached.
It was in the only course of preaching
in the spring of 1735 that the Holy
Ghost fell on the meetings.
Remember up to that time, Brother David, there
had been no public invitations given by a
pastor to come forward and accept Christ.
It says here, the Puritan preachers kind of
agreed together, and they feared more than anything
else the sin of plucking unripe fruit.
They were afraid of sham converts in their
ministry.
They were afraid that in their zeal for
souls, they might lead people into false procession
of Christ and thus be the means of
their damnation, rather than their salvation.
I say again, you see, Spurgeon, the greatest
servant in his day, never once in the
20 years he preached made an altar call.
He was followed by Dr. A.C. Dickson,
and he made an altar call.
And one of the press reporters said to
him afterwards, well, Mr. Spurgeon was here all
those years, and he never once made an
altar call.
He said to people, if you're anxious about
your soul, meet me in my office early
tomorrow morning.
And if you don't get in in the
morning session, come in the afternoon.
And a reporter says, in his long and
varied ministry in London, it was the usual
thing for there to be a steady procession
of inquirers to the office from early morning
Monday right through the entire day.
Well, A.C. Dickson was asked, why did
he do it?
A.C. Dickson said, I believe in striking
while the iron is hot.
A reporter said, well, if you told that
to Mr. Spurgeon, he would have said, Dr.
Dickson, if the iron is hot at 8
Sunday night, it will still be hot if
it's the Holy Ghost the next morning.
But you see, we're just plucking unripe fruit.
If we could get one of these computers
to tell us how many decisions have been
made in evangelism in the last 10 years,
everybody in the nation has been converted about
twice.
But there's no abiding fruit, or hardly any.
How do you think we can turn things
around as it relates to evangelism in the
local church?
Well, I preached a week last Friday night
to my student body on, hell has no
exits.
I reread the 16th chapter of Luke, and
it's awesome.
We've lost sight of hell because we've lost
sight of the holiness of God.
And they're two sides of one coin as
far as I'm concerned.
Leonard Ravenhill, by what standards do you want
churches to be judged?
Do you want them to be judged by
buildings?
Because certainly that's a very high success rate
in America.
Congregation sizes seem to be high, budgets are
high, and so on.
What would you judge the congregation by?
I would judge it by its holiness.
By the character, I would go around the
community and say what kind of people come
from so-and-so church.
You see, another thing that's lost, Brother David,
you know as well as I do, the
weakest thing in any church is the prayer
meeting.
I don't know a thing about automobiles.
I don't know a thing about 18-wheeler
trucks, but I do know they don't run
on Volkswagen motors.
And we're trying to run 10,000 and
20,000 membership churches with about 50 or
60 at the prayer meeting.
What would be your challenge to church people
in a congregation like that?
What would you preach?
I would preach Isaiah 6, verses 5, 7,
and 9, woe, lo, go.
Help us with that a little because some
people aren't acquainted with Isaiah chapter 6.
Well, Isaiah 6 is in the year that
King Uzziah died.
The background is 2 Chronicles chapter 26, which
gives a summary of this young man who
took over a nation at 16, and he
ruled it for 50 years.
In that time, he recovered the economy.
He reorganized the army.
He had many inventions.
He did many, many marvelous things.
It says, while he was humble, God was
with him.
But then he got proud, and he decided
that he would take over the church, too.
And today, to me, the church is almost
entirely Babylonish.
Over 100 years ago, Andrew Bonner, the great
hymn writer in Scotland, said, I look for
a church, and I found it in the
world.
I look for the world, and I found
it in the church.
Go back to your phrases.
You started with woe, and what was the
second word?
Lo, in verse 7 and verse 9.
The first is a word of a man,
woe.
The second is a word of a seraphim,
lo.
And the third is the word of God,
go.
It's a vision of height.
I saw the Lord high.
It's a vision of death.
He saw into the abyss of his own
nature.
It's a vision of breath.
He saw a lost world.
It was an upward vision of deity.
It was an inward vision of depravity.
It was an outward vision of duty.
It was an upward vision of holiness.
He saw the holy, holy, holy God.
The seraphim, the only time they're mentioned in
Scripture, they were not singing almighty or omnipotent.
They were not singing about the attributes of
God.
They were singing about the nature of God.
He's holy, holy, holy.
If you divide that marvelous book, there are
66 books in the Bible.
There are 66 chapters in Isaiah.
The Bible is divided at book 39, Malachi.
And Isaiah is divided at chapter 39.
In the first section of the book, there
are 12 references to God, the Holy One.
In the second half of the book, there
are 17 references to a holy God.
David, when you last go to church and
tiptoe out of the sanctuary, overwhelmed by the
holiness of God, do you think Leonard Ravenhill,
that the average church person today, would say
with Isaiah, I am a man of unclean
lips?
They wouldn't say that.
They come to the altar for help, for
blessing, for this.
If everybody honestly, with heart searching, bowed before
God and said, woe is me, I'm undone,
I'm unclean.
My prayer life is undone.
My life is undone totally.
I have no discipline in my life.
But we just go from Sunday to Sunday
and we're blessed because we tithe and the
meeting is nice.
We don't expect an invasion of divine power.
But it's going to come, I'm sure of
that.
You say it's going to come.
I'm sure.
I feel that same way, Leonard.
May our thoughts be correct in God's sight.
It's going to take an immense change though,
isn't it?
Yes, but you see, the last two years
I was on the road, I tried to
get together a new prayer meeting.
Usually, say, Friday night from 9 o'clock
till midnight to pray for local revival.
After all, we can amass all we like,
Brother David.
We can talk about humanism, communism, this-ism
and the other-ism.
There's only one obstruction to revival, and that's
uncleanness in the church.
We're undone and we're unholy.
They all want to quote Joel, too, that
God will pour out His Spirit, but nobody
wants to lay prostrate between the altar and
the doorpost in chapter 1 of Joel.
And that's the formula for revival.
We don't need to write books.
I know I've written them.
But you see, the price is too high
and the cost is too great, and the
humiliation is too deep.
And the acknowledgement is so embarrassing to say
we do have big churches.
I think they're like a man in England
years ago was asked how big his church
was.
He said it's three miles wide and one
inch deep.
Huh.
Yeah, your words are well taken.
Thank you for visiting, Leonard.
Tomorrow our discussion will be about schools or
seminaries where our ministering people are trained.
But right now we need to stop.
This visit I'm going to ask Leonard Ravenhill
to describe the kind of ministers we need
to be able to impact this present society.
And what about our seminaries?
Are they producing these kinds of men and
women?
Leonard Ravenhill, as most of you know, is
a writer, preacher, and senior revivalist whose heart
is still aflame for the Lord.
Stay tuned as we visit, will you, in
the Chapel of the Air.
David Maines greeting you, my friend.
If you're one of the few who's not
familiar with Leonard Ravenhill's long and effective ministry,
well, you should be.
Here are some of his book titles.
Why Revival Terry's.
America is Too Young to Die.
Meat for Men.
And Revival God's Way.
Now yesterday we talked together by the phone
lines about the church.
Tomorrow we'll discuss radio and television ministries.
And today, right now, we'll get Leonard Ravenhill
to look at the schools that train our
ministers.
Leonard, of all the men under whom you
have trained, formal or informal, which one influenced
you the most?
Well, without question.
Samuel Chadwick.
I happen to be born in a kid
of the night sparse and close.
And again, it was only in the course
of his...
Which, by the way, was the same, Brother
David.
The great awakening of 1725 came in the
ordinary course of a faithful pastor's ministry.
That was Jonathan Edwards.
He could have held up and said, George
Ritzi is coming into town soon.
But there was no staging of anything.
There was no projecting human personalities.
It was just the Holy Ghost came.
That was also true, Leonard Ravenhill, of the
Second Great Awakening.
The influence of that awakening in the early
1800s was all pastors.
Pastors faithfully preaching the Word of God.
When people talk about pastors, though, we back
it up a step and say, what about
the seminaries that train the pastors?
If you taught a course in one of
our key seminaries here in North America, what
subject would you want to teach that course
on?
Well, I would take historic revival.
I mean, I'm sometimes accused of being anti
-intellectual.
But the great Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in
his great church there opposite Westminster Abbey, he
talked with me about revival.
And he said he believed that Jonathan Edwards
was the greatest intellectual America ever had.
And yet he was a man we know.
There are still 500 of his sermons extant.
And everybody reminds me of the fact, well,
he was a gravel-voiced, angry-looking man
who preached sinners into the hands of an
angry good.
But out of 500 sermons, that's the only
sermon on the wrath of God.
Most of them are on love.
And he's like all the other great men.
I've got the data before me.
But while he did pour out fire and
brimstone, in his closet he lay on his
belly groaning and weeping and weeping and weeping.
And Jonathan Edwards wept.
I don't see preachers weeping today.
And I go to conferences and I have
an intellectual display.
Just theological fireworks.
But they don't leave anything behind.
One of the interesting things when I read
the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, or a person
like Charles Finney, they're very specific as to
what needs to change in terms of God's
people's lives.
They name what the sins are.
They talk in terms of holiness.
And they always seem to hold that up
against the majesty of a God who in
his perfection and love wants to draw us
to a higher standard of living.
Leonard, do you think it's easier to capture
the hearts of young prospective ministers with Revival
thoughts or of older more seasoned ministers?
I believe if they got a visualization of
what true Revival really is.
I mean they talk about Revival and they
say we're starting Revival next Sunday night at
8 and finishing the following Sunday night.
Well who tells the Holy Ghost when to
come and when to go?
The least aspect of teaching on the Holy
Spirit today as far as I'm concerned, Brother
David, is when he's come he will convict
of sin.
A farmer doesn't expect to plow up the
fallow ground, sow the seed, water the seed,
and reap a harvest in half an hour.
But the evangelist does.
And there's a time factor.
I mean in natural birth there's conception, gestation,
and birth.
And we've got that in Revival.
There isn't a Revival without being preceded by
agonizing prayer and intercession and sacrifice.
But we don't know a thing about that.
We're such a flabby, flippant age.
Yes, that's very much characteristic of who we
are and it's sad.
Yes.
It can be verified that prior to earlier
awakenings, seminary students got together to study the
history of Revivals like you mentioned before.
Yes.
Do you see this as something that should
be repeated and maybe will be repeated in
some of our schools?
Well I mean they don't know anything about
that.
And then when they left it, taverns were
cleared up.
There's a historic church there in Rochester, New
York.
There's a plaque in the ground.
I saw it that Charles G.
Finney was here.
I think it was six months.
And 100,000 people in this town were
born again.
And we baptize people and they don't show
any fruit for repentance.
You see there's an intellectualism now.
I think there's a humanism in our seminaries.
We can do it with this, that, and
the other.
I was reading of Blaise Pascal.
Do you know him?
Yes.
Well he was a wonder man as far
as I'm concerned through the ages.
He broke all records for intellectualism.
And then it says of him, at an
age when other men hardly began to see
the light, he had completed the circle of
human sciences and was aware of their nothingness
and so he turned his thoughts to religion.
And it was he I believe who first
said that religion is the queen of the
sciences.
Well if that's true, then holiness is the
crown on the head of the queen.
It's time to blow out of the sky
this humanism.
I mean where are we now with it?
I can remember World War I starting, the
4th of August 1914.
Right before that there was a group of
people called the Fabian Socialists which was headed
up by H.G. Wells and George Bernard
Shaw and some of the cynics.
And they said at that time, this is
before World War I, it's possible to have
a new world order by intellectual and psychological
processes.
We believe in the adequacy of materialism and
the inevitability of progress.
But by 1939 when World War II came,
H.G. Wells wrote his book Mind at
the end of its tether.
And he'd given up in despair on the
human society.
What have we got with all this humanism
and freedom?
Crowded jails, venereal disease, this horrible disease of
AIDS, and more divorces than ever we've had.
I put it all into the church and
I lay it all at the feet of
the preachers.
And that's why very often they don't like
me.
I think a lot of preachers do like
you, Leonard Ravenhill, at least your openness and
your directness.
You've been talking about intellectualism.
Are academics or studies and religious fervor at
odds with each other or can they be
wed together?
Well I'm just looking at my library here,
Brother David.
Wesley was a tremendous intellectual, his brother.
You know, he wrote many hymns, in fact
he wrote 6,000.
You see, I believe two arguments the devil
has with people.
One is they're so good they don't need
to be saved.
On the other hand, they're so bad they
can't be saved.
And I think we've almost implied that every
man in church is running around with another
woman and everybody else has some secrecy.
I think it's time to say, David, with
a trumpet voice, that Jesus Christ did not
come into the world to make bad men
good.
He came into the world to make dead
men live.
And there are lots of men, I know
all men are bad, but they're not all
fooling around with sins.
I know ungodly men who won't have a
TV in their home.
They say it damages the minds of children.
But on the other hand, you've got towering
intellectuals, well, Matthew Henry and all these commentators.
I mean, I listen Sunday morning usually to
Dr. Criswell.
He's one that lasted the line, I think.
He's a brilliant preacher.
He quotes his Greek without any ostentation and
tears run down his face when he talks
about the coming of the Lord and the
glory of heaven and the majesty of God.
I was thinking of that event of Isaiah.
When Newsday went into the temple, they tried
to stop him, but he went in and
he was smitten with leprosy.
He went into the holy place, the holy
of holies, where only the priest was allowed
to go.
Well, Julius Caesar had a son-in-law
by the name of Pompey, and Pompey went
to Jerusalem because they told him that God
was there.
He went into the court of the temple.
He went through the Gentile court.
He went through the court of women.
He went into the holy place, and then
he slashed his way through the curtain into
the holy of holies, which was pitch black,
and he screamed out, God isn't here, God
isn't here.
Well, now, instead of those different courts, Isaiah,
if youngsters come to our church, they have
to get through the outer court, which is
the tennis court.
They have to get through the next court,
which is the volleyball court.
They have to get through the next court,
which is the racquetball court, and they get
to the sanctuary, and God isn't there.
There's no sense of God's majesty.
They don't see a preacher trembling as he
talks about the awful destiny of men and
women.
Leonard, can the touches on a man's life
you're talking about, can they be learned in
a classroom, or do they have to be
learned in some other place?
They could be learned in a classroom.
I'd like to have sat in a class,
wouldn't you, with the apostle Paul?
I mean, his passion never varied.
And I think if a man is eternity
conscious, he's going to leave students eternity conscious.
That's why I like to listen to Samuel
Trandering.
I had a popular preacher in my office
here the other week.
He said, you talk a lot about the
Puritans, lots of difference between them and us.
They said they lived in eternity, but we
don't.
We're earthbound.
Our preacher's not eternity conscious, David.
I agree with you.
Lord, help me to be eternity conscious.
I pray that often, not just to make
more broadcasts.
Are seminaries, Leonard, and Bible schools places where
revival fires could touch down?
Absolutely.
But, well, they think I'm erratic, you know.
I don't obey all the laws of homiletics.
And what have you got?
I went to one famous college, and afterwards
the teacher of homiletics said, Wave News shattered
every law of homiletics.
But the president of the college said, I've
never been as moved as when you preached
on holiness and the majesty of God.
And I've got a bunch of men driving
seven hours this coming Friday night.
They're driving seven hours to come to the
prayer meeting from half past seven till half
past ten and a seven hour trip back.
Why do they have to come five, six
hundred miles, seven hundred miles to a prayer
meeting?
They pass a thousand churches in between.
But they're all locked up.
There's no passion.
There's no vision.
Oh, for the day when those churches are
alive with the fire of the Lord.
That's what we're praying for, isn't it?
I agree.
Yes, I agree.
And my prayer has been that this visit
would be more than just a time of
interesting questions and answers, and the Spirit has
answered that prayer.
We want Him to reveal His presence now
through the whole of His church in this
land and as soon as can be.
Well, thank you so much.
We'll visit again tomorrow about ministries on radio
and television.
Religious radio and television.
Is it good or bad?
What do you think?
And what do your friends think?
My own feeling is that it's a mixed
bag.
I'm David Maynes.
But this visit I'm more interested in hearing
the views of Leonard Ravenhill on this topic
of religious radio and television.
Leonard Ravenhill has been my guest our past
two visits and is once again today in
the Chapel of the Air.
Hi, good friend, and welcome.
I'm sure Leonard Ravenhill is not a stranger
to most of you.
Through the years, he's been my guest a
number of times here in the Chapel of
the Air.
But of course, Leonard Ravenhill is best known
for his many books on revival, such as
America is Too Young to Die, Revival God's
Way, Meat for Men, and so on.
And how privileged I am to again have
him on the Chapel of the Air phone
line.
Leonard Ravenhill, do you have early memories of
preachers using radio or television in a powerful
and positive fashion?
We hadn't much in England, but...
When did you first come to the United
States preaching?
I came first in 1950.
I went to Bethany Fellowship in Minneapolis.
Yes, and by that time, radio had already
had quite a long life over here in
terms of religious things.
Has religious radio or television ever stimulated you
in a positive way in your spiritual life?
Well, I must admit very, very little because,
I mean, the stuff that's offered is so
shallow.
I mean, I guess this is true.
If John the Baptist preached on radio one
Sunday, would he get on the next Sunday?
He probably wouldn't, would he?
Or Elijah?
Yeah.
I know from some of your early writings
that you saw dangers in the possible misuse
of the religious media.
Some of those early books, you commented on
this.
Now, through the years, have these fears proven
to have been unfounded, or have some of
them come true?
Well, you know, they said Finney inspired countless
pastors and evangelists to seek revival.
Finney's theory encouraged some who fancied that they
could produce revival anywhere using means they should
use.
And then a writer here says by motivated
men of God was usually productive, but used
by worldly operators, it produced promotional evangelism, manipulated,
sensationalized, commercial.
I think that falls over Brother David in
asking what I think of, well, particularly TV
evangelism today.
I find people just totally revolted against the
begging that goes on.
I mean, why should a man that has
an income of $15,000 a year, for
instance, and struggling to keep his son or
his family together, why should he send a
tithe to a man who has $55,000
a year and all expenses paid?
I think it's immoral.
I mean, in the old stories in England,
Robin Hood, he robbed the rich to help
the poor.
Now he robbed the poor to help the
rich.
These big fellows live in ostentation and they
have private jets and other expensive means of
transport.
I think that most of these big ministries
are filthy with filthy lucre.
And I used to say, David, that before
long, the Church will suffer for the sin
of America.
I've turned it around.
I believe that America will suffer for the
sin of the Church.
There's so much extravagance, there's no real praying
done about what money should be used.
I mean, when you think of when a
number of them get almost a million a
week coming in, how will they answer the
judgment seat for the way they use it?
The amount of money is not the problem
as much as how it is being accounted
for in the stewardship.
That's what you're saying.
It must be a great thing, too.
Yes.
Say you were asked, Leonard, to speak for
the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters
and the Lord directed you to accept that
invitation.
What message might you bring to that group?
I believe I'd preach on hell.
All the great revivalists were strung on hell.
You can take Moody, you can take Finney,
you can take Jonathan Edwards.
They didn't do it with a barking, horrible,
gravel voice.
They did it with tears and brokenness, but
I don't see any brokenness in tears.
Not very much, is there?
No.
Do you see the expansion of radio and
television ministries as possibly enhancing national revival or
is maybe it moving against national revival?
No, I believe the next revival will come
through local churches with men who've been waiting
on God.
Do you think that religious radio and television
has had a strong influence on the local
church or has it been minimal?
Well, again, it depends what the heartbeat of
the preacher is.
I mean, your ministry is wonderful.
You don't beg for money.
You're systematic in teaching, but a lot of
this stuff is flashy and I'm amazed how
many small little churches now want a TV
program.
They're bleeding the people to go on TV.
What does it do?
The air is already choked with radio and
TV.
But where is a man with a heartbeat?
Where is a man with brokenness and tears?
I have a feeling we're going back to
that statement that you made earlier when you
said if John the Baptist were on, he
probably wouldn't be on the following week.
Is a strong, consistent message like John the
Baptist might preach going to be supported by
Christian listening and viewing public?
I certainly doubt it.
I mean, I want to scratch itching ears.
That sounds like Scripture, doesn't it?
Yeah, and everybody's having seminars.
I say I'm going to have a seminar
on seminars.
I mean, when I read about these men,
like Jonathan Edwards or Whitfield, preaching in the
open air, starting with a small crowd of
5,000, and within a week, without any
hype, without any publicity, when people have to
walk or ride on horseback, getting 30,000
a night.
And Whitfield could get 7,000 or 8
,000 to 10,000 people at 5 o
'clock in the morning in London, England.
There's not many in Los Angeles can.
We've got to have nice, comfortable hotel rooms
or auditoriums.
But when there's a hunger for God, there'll
be a breakthrough in all that stuff.
I'm sure of that.
There isn't that hunger, although I have a
sense that it's beginning to build among the
common folk.
I hope I'm right.
Well, Brother David, that's why I get men
coming, not only from all over America, but
an awful lot of young preachers now, not
satisfied.
I've got a list of 10 books they
should read, and I give it to them.
And one of them, of course, is Girmel,
on the whole armor of God.
And the other two are The Attributes and
Existence of God by Charnock.
And I say, shut yourself up for the
winter.
Forget about TV.
Discipline your life.
Go to bed at a certain time.
Get up at a certain time.
All the great men of God, I can
find, Brother David, have been men of discipline.
And we have no discipline today, not even
in the ministry.
Now you've used another strong word, discipline.
And we're back to an area where we're
wondering whether people are going to respond to
us or not.
Can we talk about things like discipline and
see individuals coming along and saying, thank you
so much.
This is exactly what I need to hear.
I believe we can, David, if we give
them goals.
How is it these kids who get up
at 4 o'clock in the morning and
work and labor seven, eight hours a day
for a gold medal?
Another four years ahead, they'll do it.
Why can't we get young people to see
eternity in their life and discipline themselves and
in their reading?
I feel very strongly about what you're saying.
I affirm your words.
In fact, when I travel, I think of
myself often as saying, I have the privilege
now of coming and representing the marvelous kingdom
of God here.
Here is the kingdom representative who has arrived
and he's going to share the very words
of God with you people.
Do you sense that in your own ministry
as well?
Yes.
Yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful privilege, isn't it?
It's an awesome privilege.
I think it can be a part of
radio and television as well.
I believe it can.
I'm absolutely sure of that.
What message is it that you would preach
if you were given more opportunity?
I know you're aged at this point and
I know you can't do that regularly but
say here was a phenomenal opportunity to preach
to God's people by television.
Say, what would you preach?
I'd certainly go through a good discourse on
prayer and give them, of course, scriptural examples
and then show them men I don't know
why, but men like Braynard, men like Wesley
and a whole host of men were up
by 4 o'clock in the morning.
There's a huge work on Hebrews put out
by Creagles and in the preface it says
this man finished his devotions by 2 a
.m. Barnes who wrote the great commentary on
the Bible, he did all his work between
5 a.m. and 8 o'clock in
the morning.
One of your problems Leonard Ravenhill is that
you have read too much, isn't it?
You have read so much about previous days
that when you compare this day you see
the shallowness of it as it relates to
earlier generations.
Yes, I'm totally spoiled because I don't believe
that Christianity of the day is true Christianity.
I believe that as well.
And if the house was full of the
joy of the Lord, which there's a house
I heard this morning they just got a
new baby boy are they excited.
If we saw people genuinely redeemed, transformed by
the grace of God who put off the
old life and put on the new life,
if they quit their smoking, drinking and fooling
and sinning and were totally committed to Jesus
Christ we could turn America around.
If everybody professing Christianity lived Christianity for one
total day we could turn this nation around.
Say we have Leonard, in another 5 or
10 years do you see the possibility of
the nation turning around or not?
I doubt it.
We've got 5 people that are colossal, financial
colossal.
Sometimes those are used to the Lord to
draw people back to himself, aren't they?
Sometimes the hard times are what brought Israel
to her knees.
Maybe that's what will bring America to her
knees.
Well, in one sense yes, but you know,
I thought that would happen in World War
II, David, but it didn't in England.
People went to the big monolith churches that
were built like a rock and they told
me that they found men and women there
in sexual immorality or people drinking or people
playing cards.
They got between the pews and knew the
buildings would hardly come down.
You see, the one thing that with God
Almighty, I mean, we've tried everything.
We've tried miracles.
We've tried gifts.
Again, the minister of the Holy Spirit is
to convict of sin and nobody can do
that but the Holy Ghost.
War won't do it.
Plagues won't do it.
I mean, people are frightened now with AIDS.
What do they do?
They go on sinning.
They'll have 3 more years to sin.
It's a fascinating thing, isn't it?
We could solve the AIDS problem if we
would quit our immorality.
Leonard, you're always very provocative.
If you were on the radio every day,
it might be different but whenever you join
us as a guest here on the Channel
of the Air, though your words are strong,
the response is always very, very positive.
And I appreciate you joining me.
So I thank you.
I thank you on behalf of all who
will write expressing their thoughts of appreciation for
what you've said and for who you are.
That brings us to the close of this
cassette tape featuring discussions on the subject of
spiritual revival with Alan Redpath and Leonard Ravenhill.
If you have comments on these interviews that
you'd like to share with our Chapel of
the Air director, David Mains, I know he'd
be pleased to receive your note or letter.
We also have a number of other books
and tape albums on this subject of revival
available through the Chapel office.
Just write to us and request our current
chapel catalog.
Our mailing address is The Chapel of the
Air, Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois, 60189.
In Canada, our office address is The Chapel
of the Air, Box 2000, Waterdown, Ontario, LOR
2HO.
We thank you for your interest in this
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