Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week, we have Leonard Ravenhill with his
message, A Man of God, Part 2.
Young men in this country have never seen
revival.
They've never seen revival.
Some meetings are gone until 2 or 3
in the morning.
People who won't go home, or if they
do go home say, I can't eat, I
can't turn on my TV, I'm so hungry
for God, I'm so tired of my neighbor's
going to hell.
My daughter came home and tells me she's
pregnant.
My son came home, he's on drugs.
There's all kinds of messing, even amongst believers,
even amongst the pastors' children.
So, we need to rediscover the value of
a human soul.
Well, our people need to be taught what
repentance is, what the atonement is, what forgiveness
is, what pardon is, what justification is, what
the witness of this, they don't know.
They want to kneel down, live five minutes,
pass from death to life, and become a
full-blown Christian.
It can't happen.
Jackie Bollinger was here, and we were talking
about people being converted.
She said, well, a man knocked at my
door recently, and I went and I said,
well, let's call him Bill, that wasn't his
name.
Oh, Bill, come in.
No, no, Miss Jackie, I'm being a bad
boy.
I left you thirteen years ago.
You took me in.
I was a drug addict, I was a
drunkard, I was a fighter, I was a
bad man, and I got saved and filled
with the Spirit and spoke in tongues, but
then I just went to the devil.
The devil took me.
I left my wife and child.
I took another woman.
I've been in and out of prison.
I know, I've seen your record in the
newspaper.
But he said, I've been wicked for almost
thirteen years.
I've done everything shamelessly, but three months ago,
in my prison cell, Jesus came to me,
and I was saved again, and he's restored
me in avish peace, avish joy.
But he said, Miss Jackie, I want to
tell you that every night for the last
three months, I've wept two to three hours
every night.
And she thought she would come to him.
She said, well, Bill, you don't need to
do that.
Your sins run their blood.
I'm not worried about my sins.
What are you worried about?
I'm worried about the fact that for thirteen
years I've denied God the right to use
my tongue and use my heart and use
my mind and use my thinking, and I'm
sorry.
She said, that's the best case of repentance
ever heard.
Well, this one isn't just saying I did
these lousy things, but I've denied God the
right.
What could I have been if I'd, what
would Swaggart be if he hadn't messed his
life up?
He might have been a new deliverer for
this nation, but the devil got him.
And now he's arrogant.
He says, it's no business of yours.
They tell me when he said that two
weeks ago, the audience stood up and clapped
and gave him a stunning ovation.
He'll gather thousands of people living in adultery,
and the devil really don't care.
I just hope God spares him.
I mean, if I were God, I'd cut
the guy off.
He's had his second chance.
Adam didn't get a second chance.
Judas didn't get a second chance.
Why does Swaggart expect it?
But we're in that day now where sin
doesn't mean much to us.
I mean, I weep over the guy, but
what does Jesus do?
He's crucified the Son of God of faith.
I was reading last night, to Martha, I
said, darling, I don't understand this.
In fact, I wrote to a friend at
two o'clock this morning, where, what is
it?
2 Corinthians 3 says, the fire shall try
every man's work.
And what, not what size it is, but
what sort it is.
And then, but the thing that boils me
over, maybe you fellows can help me.
Maybe that's why the Lord sent you today.
And I'm serious about this.
Yeah, 1 Corinthians 3, that's right.
1 Corinthians 3, is it?
Verse 13.
Yes.
Everyone's work shall be a manifest for the
day, shall declare it well.
Let's put it in a nutshell.
Dear brothers, when you and I go to
the judgment, we're not going to have our
passports checked.
We're going to have our baggage checked.
What have we been collecting all our lives?
Okay.
Well, look at verse 13.
If any man's work shall be made manifest,
the day shall declare it, because it will
be revealed by fire.
The fire shall try every man's work, what
sort, not what size it is.
Now, if every man's work abide, which is
built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
Now, look at this 15th verse.
If any man's work shall be burned, he
shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be
saved by fire.
Now, look at verse 17.
If any man defile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy.
Now, what do you do?
God's going to destroy that man.
Did Jimmy Swigert ever think he's standing for
5 billion people, or you and I will,
with all the archangels there, all the apostles
of the New Testament, all the prophets of
the Old Testament gazing on me and God
reads my record out?
We've lost sight of the judgment.
If we began every meeting in the light
of the judgment, we'd be prostrate before the
end of the study.
We wouldn't think about running home to turn
the lousy TV on.
The early Pentecostal meetings, Brother used to go
at 8 in the morning and stay till
5 or 6 at night.
They had a meal on the grounds, particularly
in America, and then have an afternoon session,
and an evening session at three or four
sermons.
I don't think we have to go to
that, but this is, nobody's answering my question.
Him shall God destroy.
Not his record be destroyed, but he shall
be destroyed.
How can a man mix with a harlot
when he knows his body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost and that is all
in his head?
I mean, the body is the temple.
Isn't it awesome when you think two men,
five years ago, had the world at their
feet.
Jimmy Swigert got arrogant because God called him
to evangelize the world in the first place,
that's wrong.
He said there's nobody to go to.
David Wilson went to him two years before
that mess up.
He went to PTL two years before and
told them, and they wouldn't listen to him.
It's no good saying they're no friends.
They were so arrogant, they became alone to
themselves.
Nobody dared correct them.
They wouldn't listen to counsel.
They got on a crash, as they say
in the world, they got on a roll.
Swigert's taking three million a week in.
I hear he still takes in a million
a week.
But where's the power?
I'm not looking for a modern Elijah.
I'm looking for a kind of a hundred
Elijahs in different areas to come.
We've had all the other...
Would you respond to this passage, a scripture
from Isaiah, in light of what you're saying?
In Isaiah 29, verse 13, it says, Wherefore
the Lord said, For as much as this
people draw near me with their mouth, and
with their lips do honor me, but have
removed their heart far from me, and their
fear toward me is taught by the precept
of men.
Their fear towards me is taught by the
precept of men.
It's all being watered down.
I mean, don't fear.
I mean, God...
For men teaching us the precept, the fear
of God, and not the spirit of God
teaching us the spirit of God.
Yeah, but, I mean, you got the...
Again, the more I've read the last month
of Noah, I just think I've read the
Bible with my eyes closed before.
He was moved with fear.
Did he think...
What do you think happened, dear brother?
The first ten years after he told those
people, he's building the ark, don't cut that
tree down.
Adam used to know that tree.
What are you doing?
Ruining the countryside?
Cutting your trees down?
What are you doing, all lying there?
And he's got his family with him that
were wonderful.
I mean, they weren't seventeen, eighteen year old
kids.
They must have been a hundred years old.
But anyhow, the fact is, after ten years,
they say, listen you old fool, there used
to be a man going up my gump,
I says, an old man went up and
down there with a white bird with his
hands raised to heaven.
Remember, they'd never seen a Bible, they'd never
seen a priest, never seen an altar, never
seen a sacrifice.
And yet, Enoch walks up and down, doesn't
care a hill of beans.
And God made a hole in the sky,
and he saw something that hasn't happened yet.
The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his
saints.
We think gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is
coming.
Forget it.
Everybody likes that name.
Charles Wesley wrote it.
What about, I wrote to a guy this,
as I say, two o'clock, three o
'clock this morning.
Lo, he comes with clouds.
When he comes, it's going to be terrible
in his majesty.
Nobody's going to jump on his knee or
say, Papa, I've come to see you.
Forget it.
We're going to fall.
I mean, if John fell at his feet
as dead, and John used to lay his
head on his bosom, what are you and
I going to do?
But we don't live in that realm.
We don't live in a realm of the
Spirit.
We live in a realm of reason.
And we've reasoned, oh God is a loving
God.
He doesn't send my judgment, but he does,
and he's going to do.
I think we're heading for the next, unless
a miracle happens, we'll have a financial crash
within three years, a bankruptcy, which may do
something.
But on the other hand, I don't believe
that if we had two earthquakes, and one
went north to south, and America's in four
pieces, that people would repent.
They only repent when conviction of sin comes.
You can't deny the Holy Ghost his office,
right?
When he is come, he will convict of
sin and righteousness and judgment to come.
We don't live in that area.
I mean, nobody expects Jesus to come today.
They say they do, but if they do,
he that hath this hope in him purify.
He doesn't say when he is come, he'll
give us 24 hours notice.
If we're in purity, he'll call us.
If we're in purity, he won't call us.
When we should be like him, not an
hour after he comes, not a day after,
but that very moment, if I'm not walking
in the will of God in known purity,
I don't believe we'll be taken.
Doesn't matter if you're the pastor of the
biggest church in town, ten times as big
as Billy Graham, won't make any difference.
All our ideas are perverted anyhow.
There's not much meekness.
Blessed the meek, they shall inherit the earth.
Oh dear God, where is the meekness anymore?
Oh, we have the biggest church in town.
We're on so many radio stations.
Oral Roberts used to say that.
Swaggart said it.
So what's it got then?
God is a jealous God.
Paul said, for such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light.
Therefore, it is no great thing if his
ministers also be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness whose end shall be according to their
works.
Ministers of righteousness, but ministers of Satan.
Don't you think that, like when you talk
to some people about victory in the Christian,
oh well, my righteousness is as filthy rags
as I will get saved.
What does John say?
He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as
he is righteous.
I mean, you can't be part of this.
I mean, there are no degrees in purity.
There are degrees in life.
There are no degrees in death.
That man's dead.
This man isn't.
He's injured.
He's incapacitated.
He has a mind problem, physical.
But you preach Christian perfection, they laugh at
you these days.
Purity.
Then you're scorned.
But it's good to say that he's hoping
to impurify himself.
Then Paul writes to Peter in his first
epistle, ye have purified your hearts by faith.
As I said to a congregation, you're just
as spiritual as you want to be.
All these men here only have the same
Bible I have.
They used it better.
It's only 24 hours on the clock.
I could do with a 48 hour clock
and I'd still use it.
Now are you clean by the word which
I've spoken to you?
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his place
by taking heed thereto according to thy word?
Yes.
Well, it goes on to say that very
thing, does it?
Thy word have I hid in my heart
that I might not sin, not just occasionally
get victory.
I mean, dear God, what's the difference between
us and others?
Oh, tongues, Mormons speak in tongues.
Every devout Mormon speaks in tongues.
But they live like devils, a lot of
them.
There's only one thing I think the devil
can't fake, and that's a holy life.
He's tried to do it through monasteries.
But going back a minute, I don't know
if you read it, and I don't know
if you ever read it recently, in two
different accounts where two different men said, if
I could now, I would start a Christian
monastery.
What they mean is, like the Bible school
I went to, there were no TVs in
those days, there were radios.
You couldn't take a radio, you couldn't take
an automobile.
When you went on the campus, you stayed
from October till Christmas.
They went home for a few days, came
back and stayed till Easter.
You could go off the campus, except have
a haircut.
You couldn't go shopping.
You couldn't drive a car, anything.
There were no girls there.
They were too distracting.
And we were shut up.
You came here to know the word of
God, and they did a pretty good job.
But now, dear God, I know a boy
that went to ORU.
His daddy, as an agency of cars, he
gave him a new car, bought him a
new typewriter, bought him new clothes, a new
set of golf clubs, everything he had.
And within a month, he wrapped the new
car around a lamppost, total wreckage, called back
and said, oh, oh, don't come home, don't
come home.
Mummy's bringing a new car tomorrow.
And that's all they did, back him up
like that.
Oral Roberts says he has 4,000 young
people there, full of the Holy Ghost baloney.
How could he have 4,000 of only
120 in the upper room?
His people can't dance on the premises, but
they go to other places to dance.
Why don't there be places where they say,
students are spending all night in prayer, in
intercession.
We've never been in the mess we're in
now.
We're nearer judgment than we've ever been in
America and England.
I think England, America, the modern Sodom and
the modern Gomorrah, they never had the chances
we have.
They never had the Bible school, never had
the seminar, never had all the Christian periodicals.
How many, at this moment, how many teams
do you think there are around America, either
going around teaching spiritual warfare or something else?
Every magazine you come out, we've got something
new.
And we're feeding jaded appetites.
If we once had a Holy Ghost revival
that, say, got all of a dozen out
of a hundred men in a factory, and
they began instead of going to lunch, they
had a lunch, then they had a prayer
meeting or something.
It would soon spread, but we don't know
that.
And I don't know by what I read,
we're going to do the same thing the
next 10 years we've done.
The last 10 years we've done nothing.
But it's like Spurgeon said, you see there's
a stick there and it's the most crooked
stick you've ever seen.
Don't argue about it, put the straight stick
at the side of it.
You see, the truth with our young people,
brother, they don't know.
They don't know what they believe.
Like John Fred Wolf, that's one of the
biggest Southern Baptist Church in Mobile, I preached
there, and he's put a new building up
since, since 4000.
And he says, he said, we feel responsible
for 11,000 students in this area.
But he said, I wonder why it is.
In their sophomore year, which is what, the
second year that they're in college, they leave
church.
Well, you can guarantee those kids went to
daily vacation Bible school, most likely went to
a Christian camp.
I guarantee 99, 95% have made a
profession of Christianity.
When they get away from home, I'm not
going to go to church, you can play
sports, you can go down to the CM
Bay, you can have a walk.
Why did they desert like that?
I mean, why don't they have an appetite
for God?
But they don't.
I mean, three weeks ago, the fellow that's
taken up the, to be assistant of Dr.
Criswell, he blasted Baylor University, the mess it's
in.
But then guys told me going to Baylor,
it's not known any longer as a spiritual
place.
It's known now as a, well, it's a
liberal arts college.
And it's known mostly for its football team.
But why do the kids suddenly have no
appetite?
When they get teenagers, get away from home,
well, I won't have to go to church.
My folk have made me go every time.
There's no appetite.
So there's no relationship with God.
And if he spent time at the altar
and took them through step by step, what
it means to become a Christian.
Your life is with Christ in God.
You're not your own.
You're bought with a price.
You have no time of your own.
You have no money of your own.
You have no interest of your own.
Christ must become a complete master.
We don't do that.
And unless we do, we're not going to
have a change.
I mean, there are people that are really
hungry.
There are people that meet Dave Wilkins and
folk on the streets.
I've never seen a Christian in my life.
Well, what they say, the average church member
is just like us.
Very often they're smoking until they go in
the meeting at last.
And last minute when they come out, it's
the cowboys or something.
Where's the difference?
And it isn't there.
But it all comes down.
I don't care whether it's shrug it or
pete it out.
It comes down.
It breaks down with personal devotion to Christ.
They quit praying.
They quit reading the word of God.
They haven't time.
And therefore they start rotting from the inside.
There isn't a nation big enough to destroy.
America will destroy ourselves.
The present rate of development in herpes and
AIDS is appalling.
The list, the lid hasn't been taken off
the thing yet.
I don't think the government dare tell us
what's happening in the country.
It's the same in England.
But where do God fill men?
I mean, Swaggart says the day after, he'd
been in that trouble.
I was going to step down and let
my son take over, but I woke up
full of the Holy Ghost.
No, he woke up full of tongues.
He gave his tongues and he took it.
That's a sign.
But the gifts and callings of God are
without repentance.
I see a girl wearing a big ring
and say, well, Jack gave me that.
I go back to the church six months
after and say, well, oh, did you get
married?
Oh, no, we quarreled after that.
But you're still wearing the ring.
Yes, well, of course, Jack's gone, but he
left his ring by the same token.
The Holy Ghost has gone, but he left
his gift.
The gifts and callings are without repentance.
Who moved London more than Irving?
Edward Irving in his day.
Carriages jostled each other.
Parliament suspended so they could run out near
this great holiday.
Every kind of sign and wonder built that
colossal church.
He's then finally stood on the platform and
said, I am the Son of God.
I've kept this veil to you, but now
here I am.
There's everything.
Men call him the 13th Apostle.
There's no questions about what happened.
There's a whole book on him.
I have it.
And you've got all these amazing moves.
I guess you've read something of Wigglesworth.
Have you read John G.
Lake?
John G.
Lake's books are published now by Christ for
the Nations.
There's four of them.
Well, I'm standing here and I talk with
Wigglesworth.
Wigglesworth is here.
I'm here.
John Lake is up there.
He talked about apostolic Christianity.
He had it all.
Beyond anything we've ever known.
I don't think it's the only answer.
I think the answer is when people are
so transformed, they're no longer mean, they're no
longer selfish, they're no longer covetous, but they
give themselves.
I mean, when children say something happened to
my daddy, he's been a Baptist for all
his life, or something happened, or my daddy's
been a Methodist, or now my daddy's been
a charismatic, but something suddenly changed.
He's become different.
He's Christ-like.
He speaks gently to my mother.
He's concerned about us.
It isn't, well, I'm going to the World
Series, whether you like it or not, or
I'm going to a ball game, you know,
Super Bowl.
And I said to these preachers, you say,
I can't take three days off.
I say, he took more than three days
off to go deer hunting.
He took three days off to go fishing.
Why can't you pastors stand up and say
there's going to be a meeting for pastors
at least one day a week, or one
night a week, and we get together, we
evangelicals, really lay hold of God for revival
in our city.
These kids around here will raise money to
go to Hong Kong for three days, or
go to South America, but when they come
back as soon as they get off the
plane, their compassion dies.
What are you going to do with kids
like that?
And they'll keep doing it as long as
we want them.
You know, oh, we took a number of
our people from our church.
We took them on a cruise.
But you're touching the elite of the church
all the time.
You've done that year after year, and the
poor people are struggling.
If you can take six or seven days
off for a cruise, can you take six
or seven days off for a nation that's
going to hell?
What do you want to do, kids lying
in the street fornicating?
People clobbering a man on the head and
stealing his watch.
That's sin to become before your eyes, before
we feel.
It's alright to say I want to be
like Jesus.
Do I want Gethsemane?
I've never heard a person yet, dear brother,
and I've gone to church for 80 years.
I've heard men say I was born again,
I went to the cross, I've had my
upper room experience.
I've never heard a man say I've got
Gethsemane experience.
I have a broken...
My dad was the nearest of that.
My dad couldn't say grace at mealtime without
tears.
Right now I have invitations to seven different...
I'm not going to one.
I say because people say, what's happening in
America?
I can't say there's a revival anywhere I
know.
I say, do you think I'm going to
talk about the Holy Ghost revival when we're
dying and doomed and damned here, and we're
running into worse trouble?
Well, it's in the scriptures.
What does God say?
I can't give you glory because you honor
one another.
That's one of the biggest sentences we have.
Like John Wimbledon, once he eulogized me and
I said, if you do, I'll walk off
the platform.
Well, I went to say, well, first of
all, we talked about revival.
He said, well, you told Bickle that in
revival you don't make altar calls.
I said, you don't?
He said, I've never been in a meeting
like that.
So I said, when we come, I said,
let our David speak an hour before I
do an hour.
Our David's free now.
He's pulled out from a church.
He's free to go anywhere.
I said, so David preached an hour.
We had a 15 minute break and I
preached for an hour and a half.
And while I was preaching, the whole audience
broke up.
They came in hundreds to the front and
wept and groaned and cried out audibly, make
me clean, purify me.
And that happened six days.
We never had three one week and three
the next.
We never had an altar call.
We didn't have to.
They came to the altar and stayed not
five minutes, two and three hours calling on
God.
You read Luke chapter three, what does it
say?
John was preaching and the people cried out,
what shall we do?
And the soldiers cried out, what shall we
do?
And the publicans cried out, dear God, when
heathen men start crying out, what shall we
do?
You know God's there.
There's no pleading altar call.
No, what did they say on the day
of Pentecost?
Men and brethren, what shall we do?
We're panicking.
The altar doesn't mean anything to people.
Now they come out every week.
We're romanizing our protestants.
Oh, get your sins forgiven, go back and
do the same lousy thing.
It's ridiculous.
You don't do that if you go to
death.
When you die to self, you die to
business promotion, you die to ambition, you lay
it all out and say, we mean this
with bits like God go on record, put
us on record.
We're not going to do anything unless we
get there.
We've had, what did we have not long
ago?
Do you remember A.
A.
Allen?
A.
Allen used to have meetings.
You get 500 come forward on the way
home to his hotel.
He phoned his call girl and she met
him there.
He died with liquor bottles, whiskey bottles all
around his room.
There's a whole bunch of men done that.
You don't find anything like that amongst the
old fashioned revivalists, true revivalists.
That's why I write to read the book
like this one on the accounts of revival.
I mean, it's something we don't know a
thing about, dear God, piteous.
We say we have the same Bible, the
same Holy Ghost.
Why do we get the same results?
The menace of many of our meetings is
we try to get people saved, they don't
know their loss.
Come forward, the Lord loves you, the Lord
loves you, the Lord hates you.
Why do we put a bumper sticker, God
loves you?
God is angry with the wicked every day.
Or the wicked should be turned into hell,
we'd soon be in trouble.
A.
Rules make a market sin.
A.
But we don't do that, we don't even
preach it.
But I know there's a hunger across America
by the phone calls I get.
Guys are coming to a stone wall now.
There isn't a church in this town that's
having a move of God, they say.
I'll pray till the rains get together.
The prophet Amos said, Behold the days saith
the Lord, the days come saith the Lord
that I will send a famine in the
land.
Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst
for water, but of hearing the words of
the Lord.
And they shall wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even to the east
they shall run to and fro to seek
the word of the Lord, and shall not
find it.
Is that literally like no Bibles or is
it that the word isn't a living word?
It doesn't, I mean, you can read it.
I go and hear a fellow and he
preaches, there's no passion, there's no tears, there's
no, you know, I'd rather write Richard Baxter,
I preached as if to never preach again,
and as a dying man to dying men.
You know, you think these fellows are professional,
he gets paid, and when he steps out
of the pulpit he says, Hey John, what
about a round of golf on Wednesday or
Thursday?
And immediately they switch from the spiritual and
the eternal to some stupid thing.
I wouldn't take any notice of them anyhow.
I'd say, Pastor, live it, live it, live
it.
Don't tell me to pray, meet with me
in the church.
When I got saved, and then after I
trusted Dr. Sanctify, because there's a blank in
my life, and first thing I went to
the pastor and said, Pastor, I want a
prayer meeting on Wednesday night, on Friday night
for the young people.
Oh well, it's not good for young people
to meet together, so you come and supervise
if you think we're going to fool around.
So we started a prayer meeting on Friday
night at seven, and we prayed till nine.
I started a prayer meeting at seven Sunday
morning and I lived outside the boundary of
town.
I walked to the prayer meeting, walked home
for breakfast, walked home for the morning service,
walked home for lunch, walked back for the
afternoon service, walked home for supper, walked for
the night service, and God began to move
and people in the neighborhood got saved that
had never happened before.
But, you see, once you've been in that,
it's like, like, I say, not Colonel Bringle,
but Major Thomas said, no, Major Russell, that
once he got back in the fire of
the Welsh Revival, everything he didn't burn, he
got on the train and going home, he
couldn't get back to London quick enough to
tell that the Holy Ghost had fallen, and
then, I mean, the first greatest revival in
England was the Western Revival, that went to
90, no, the Western Revival, and then the
next one was the Salvation Army, which they
went into 70 countries in 90 years, not
70, but 70 countries.
Dear God, they had the most amazing night
prayer meetings and training students and getting down
to the Bible and prayer, and every week
they were taking to a night of prayer,
they were taking to street meetings somewhere in
London, they were meeting sin head on, and
visiting taverns, talking to harlots, which nobody does
now, except just about Dave Wilson and Tim
Delaney down in the Motor City there, doing
the same thing.
But we're all sitting inside, I said, John,
why do you sit inside a four wall
singing, let the earth hear his voice, it
doesn't make sense.
Let the earth hear his voice, get out,
stand on a box, call a man to
witness, call a woman to witness, sing a
hymn, you can't preach very much to crowds,
but before long, you say we're going to
be here every Saturday night for the next
winter or summer, and they come with expectations,
they plan the shopping, like people used to
do with us, they planned to come shopping
on Friday night and Saturday night, because we're
in the town square, and we didn't miss
for three years.
And our young people came, you didn't have
to whip them, they came eagerly, to give
them a chance to witness.
I said, if anybody stands on this box
who isn't telling the truth, you interrupt them,
because I'm the leader, and I said, I'll
check on them.
Don't let a man talk when he's not
walking it, if he's walking it, if the
man is in your factory, your office, if
they're not telling the truth, come and tell
me, you know, chase them off.
Well, we didn't need to advertise in the
paper, dear God, I was the best known
man in town, even though the cathedral was
only 300 yards away from us, magnificent cathedral.
I only got 500 on Sunday night, they
stood outside and lined up like a movie
house, but the cathedral got 50.
So where do you go?
I mean, the cathedral is ornate, it had
gold plates on the gold communion things and
candlesticks on the altar, it was like a
miniature Westwind Stravage, stained glass windows, but what
is that to the glory of God?
I mean, our place was packed an hour
before time.
Our prayer meetings were packed.
We had three prayer meetings a week and
three street meetings, and that's why that church
kept in continuous revival for the three years
I was there.
And it's still there today.
Well, brethren, what I want to say is
that either the Bible is absolute or obsolete,
which is it?
Is God all he says he is?
Is Hebrews 11, 6 what we need to
rediscover?
He that cometh to God must believe that
he is.
What does it matter about Swaggart and all
the rest?
I know it's objectionable, it hurts, and people
tell me now they're already cracking jokes about
Swaggart.
If God told me I could go on
preaching, a guy told me the other night,
somebody said, well, if God says he can
go on preaching, the message is, why didn't
God tell him there's a cop following him
up the road in a car?
So, they're not as dumb as they appear
to be.
I think it all boils down to one
of the oldest hymns we have to ever
sing it, trust and obey.
There's no other way.
No other way.
It's hard on the flesh.
It's hard against the lifestyle of preachers round
about us, but what does God want?
I'm not going to the Judgment Bar of
the Assemblies of God or the First Baptist
Church, I'm going to the Judgment Bar of
Jesus Christ.
And I live with that every day.
It's his words that will judge us.
Yes.
It's what he said.
Well, you think it's not what's just in
the book of life, as Joseph said to
me one day, he said, Leonard, I don't
think I'm ashamed of what I've done since
I was saved.
It's what I could have done that troubles
me and not what I did, but why
I did it.
God has been away the mortars.
I mean, I had G.
Campbell Morgan say, I had talked with a
friend of mine the other day, and he'd
been preaching in a church I love to
go to, and Campbell Morgan said, how did
he get on?
He said, oh, he said, I enjoyed myself.
He said he did.
He enjoyed his oratory.
He enjoyed his rapport with the people.
He enjoyed his eloquence.
He enjoyed himself.
What did God get?
The question when I finish a meeting is,
I didn't get anything out of this meeting.
What did God get out of it?
What do people say going out?
I think, dear brother, if I was where
God wants me to be or where I
should be, I would leave a meeting with
tears running down my face at the glory
of God, or that all these people outside
are glued to the TV this afternoon, this
Sabbath day, and they're not a bit interested
in God.
Christ could die on the main street today,
it won't interest them at all.
But we've got, I think we've got to
preach till people know that we mean what
we say.
We burned Edwin Hatch was Chancellor
of I think St Mary's College in Oxford.
One of the best guys in England.
But one day, even though he had crowds
and everything, he got so tired, he went
in his office and he wrote that gorgeous
hymn, breathe on me breath of God, fill
me with life anew.
Then the last sentence, breathe on me breath
of God till I am wholly thine, till
all this earthly part of me glows with
thy fire divine.
People ask me, how do you you've been
preaching 70 years now, how do you keep
an edge?
Because I read stories on Levi, because I
read the word of God, and I see
what the Apostle did.
That Paul can laugh at death and laugh
at hardship and sit in the lousiest prison
in the world and tell other people to
rejoice.
Or he can give you 2 Corinthians 11
and go down seven times in awareness of
the fact that in perils of the deep,
in perils of my own countrymen, in perils,
perils, enough to kill ten men.
And glory in tribulation, doesn't just find grace
to get through.
He welcomes it.
He says, this is the only way.
Because when we get to heaven, dear brother,
God isn't going to ask you where your
diploma is, he's not looking for medals, he's
looking for scars.
Paul says, for this cause also thank we
God without ceasing.
Because when you receive the word of God
which you heard of us, you receive it
not as the word of men, but as
it is in truth the word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Do men not believe this word that has
been written to them?
Well, because it doesn't work in us.
I say you stand in the pulpit and
preach it, but what does it mean to
you?
Why does it work out in your life?
I mean, you have to drive the biggest
car, you have to have this, you have
to have the other ends.
I have a five-year-old Lincoln Continental,
the small one, and people laugh at me
for having it.
I say, well, I'll swap it for anything
else.
It's reliable, that's why I like it.
I got it because I'm doing long-distance
traveling.
I don't need it to shop in.
If you want to buy it, buy it.
I'll take an older one.
But I said, it doesn't mean that much
to me.
I said, I haven't bought any clothes for
five years.
I bought one pair of trousers.
It's just that I used to, almost, I
didn't like clothes because I was a tailor
before I was sane.
I wore the best clothes in the country.
In fact, they used to call me the
best dressed man in the whole household.
But all that's gone, that's trivial, that's silly
looking back.
I said, well, it matters.
If you can get nearer to God than
I get, tell me how did you get
there?
That's all I'm concerned about.
Paul isn't concerned about anything.
I said, you go to the National Convention
of your denomination and stand up and say,
I've got a glorious text for you.
There's a thousand pastors here from our denomination.
I've got a glorious text from you.
You're dead.
What would they do?
They'd glare at you.
I said, Paul could.
You're dead and your life is hid with
Christ in God.
Oh, they believe you're dead.
Your preachers are dead.
Your actors are dead.
But are you dead to all the world's
glamour?
Are you dead to the rivalry in your
denomination?
Are you dead to climbing up the ladder?
They tell me preachers wept when when Chriswell
finally decided to have Joel Gregory from Travis
Avenue as his assistant.
Other men thought, well, I deserve it after
him.
Truett was there 45 years.
He's been there 42 years.
I'm a young man.
I should go in.
So what?
People ask me, what do you do to
be great?
I wash somebody's feet.
Was A.W. Tozer your mentor?
Yes.
What was he like?
Well, there were different ways to answer that
question, but I'll tell you one thing about
him.
It was the same with Martin Lloyd-Jones.
I talked with him.
G.
Campbell Morgan, I listened to him often.
So Martin Lloyd-Jones and George Campbell Morgan
and Tozer had one thing in common.
When they went to the pulpit, they never
raised their finger, never raised their voice.
They didn't depend on histrionics to get the
message over.
Dr. Tozer had a habit of, like he'd
have his Bible in his hand, say, I'm
reading from John 17 1, and he began
to read, and he'd maybe give a little
outline, and then he rocked to and for
like this and suddenly he'd throw his Bible
on the pulpit and at that moment he
was airborne.
He's like a plane getting off the runway
and off he went.
And he wasn't the greatest preacher I've heard
in my life, but he had the most
intimacy with God.
Like he read all the mystics, you know,
he could quote the Ladder of Sanctity, or
he could quote Madame Guin or Faber, anybody,
and he could put his finger on the
whole lot and tell you how he'd read
them.
His emphasis was the inner man, the inner
man, you know.
And he was against showmanship.
He wouldn't let anybody play a trumpet on
his platform.
Hardly let anybody sing unless they sang a
hymn, he knew what it was.
And he had a fellow called Mack something.
Anyhow, he introduced, well before that, Tozer had
got an old Methodist head book and soaked
himself in it while this fellow came on,
and I can't remember his name, Mack, and
he introduced when he got to a lot
of old Methodist head books, or they printed
sheets, and they sang hymns like And can
it be that I should gain, and all
those.
And Tozer reveled in that kind of thing.
He wouldn't have a concert in the place.
He wouldn't have any special meetings.
I went and we had two weeks, three
weekends actually, and he said this is the
greatest revival in the history of this church.
We had the altars up until midnight, people
weeping and seeking God, and coming right across
town.
Well, here's the difference, you've got Moody Bible
Institute here, and next door is Moody Church.
The students only had to come out of
here into there, and yet they crossed the
town when ice churned up by the cars
and it froze, and you could well, people's
ankles were snapping getting off buses, and they'd
rather come across town in a car or
walk, some of them, and hear Tozer, than
go next door to hear the whoever was
preacher, that Logsdon part of the time.
And, well, I'll tell you where he was.
He was in that place that three times
they begged him to become the president of
the Christian Missionary Alliance when everybody wants that,
and he turned it down again and again.
God didn't ask me to kiss babies and
sit in council meetings.
My business is the Word of God.
And he would turn away and not even
buy his advisor with his time.
I was privileged to spend a lot of
time with him and go to his home
even.
But all the time he talked about well,
the type of teaching that A.B. Simpson
had, opening the depths of the Word of
God, you know.
Romans and Ephesians living in that area and
shut worldliness out, shut theatres out, shut everything
else which he did.
He loved music.
He listened every night to a recording of
of who did he listen to?
Not Chopin, I'm not sure, but one of
the great symphonies.
Every night he had one hour listening to
good music.
But again, he was I prayed to him
many times.
He was very, very wonderful in prayer.
He didn't shout.
He just, he had a conversational talk with
God and he could be, he could cut
an audience in two with the Word almost.
He got very sarcastic at times and, you
know, people kind of remonstrated with him for
that.
He refused all invitations until the very end.
He stayed in one church 25 years and
he didn't get a very big salary, so.
His strength, actually, was his devotional life.
He wouldn't let anybody trespass on that.
He spent certain time with God all the
time.
Did you reflect some on your times with
Keith Green?
Well, Keith was a zealot.
I mean, he bounced through that door.
I remember he, well, this division, it used
to be a wall and Dave Wilkinson pulled
it out and furnished all this for me.
And, uh, Wilkinson would come one day, Green
would come the other, as opposite as could
be because David was mature.
He'd been a pastor for about 20 years
then.
Keith, of course, had come from the guts
and he'd tell me about his past life
and sordidness.
But he was hungry for God.
I remember definitely a turn in his life
when I told him he shouldn't charge to
go into concerts when they didn't do.
They'd gone back to it this last week,
I think, but they didn't do that.
And, uh, I remember talking to him about
eternity on one occasion and holiness on another.
And he, you know, like a trout jumping
up to get a fly, he got over
it like that.
And he would come back.
I remember he'd bounce through the door, you
know, he'd want to get through it before
he opened it.
He'd open it and bounce through it.
And he was a big guy.
And I remember he used to give me
pops and give me a hug.
He'd say, pops, he'd say, do you know
what all roads lead to?
We used to say in England, all roads
lead to Rome.
It's an old saying.
Everybody travels to Rome, you see.
He said, do you know what all roads
lead to?
I said, no, the same thing.
No, he said, you're wrong.
I said, why?
He said, all roads lead to the judgment
seat.
I said, very good.
And he had a...
I don't know, I've never read this anywhere,
but I think it's right to say he
had a holy fever.
Or, if you like, a fear of God.
I mean, when you think he didn't live
very long, but I still get letters about
him.
I get that book that his wife wrote
on no compromises, doing good.
And they still send his tapes out.
In fact, he wrote the Catholic Chronicles that
they withdrew.
Somebody wrote to me this week and asked
me could they ever say it, because God
used it tremendously, but it got them into
trouble for not being friendly enough with the
Catholics, so they withdrew it.
And he loved to pray.
He'd say, come, we'll pray.
And he'd get down and really pour his
heart out, you know, and he had visions
of what God wanted to do in this
area, and he was...
Of course, other people couldn't keep up with
him.
They thought he...
Maybe he was...
He wasn't mature enough, in one sense, for
leadership.
He wanted everybody to jump up to his
level, which you can't do anymore, than I
could jump up now to the level of
an Olympic runner.
I used to run.
I'd like to run, but I can't.
I'm glad even to walk.
But he was like that.
I mean, he saw eternal things, and if
they weren't clear to you, he couldn't understand
his stupidity.
He couldn't understand why you're not leaping and,
you know, and going full pace.
If he fasted, he fasted.
If he prayed, he prayed.
There's a uniqueness...
Well, my precious wife has a tremendous insight
to people.
The first time she saw him, she said,
Len, the Spirit of God is on that
young man.
And in England, you know, you've got two
kidneys that are supposed to match, function the
same.
Well, in England, they say, well, that man
isn't your kidney.
In other words, you know, it's not your,
if you want to call it, alter ego,
or what you want to call it.
But immediately he came in.
She said, well, there's something unique about...
And there was about him.
And they don't have it now.
They know that.
I mean, he was willing to live a
full stretch.
They expected others to do the same thing
for him.
He was a good reader.
He liked to read Tozer very much.
He liked to read David Brainerd.
He liked to read the three volumes of
Edward Pace.
And he read that too.
In essence, dear brother, he's saying exactly what
you say.
Go back to the old past.
He'd ask me, well, of course, he and
the guy that used to be up at
the street, the minister up there, they're very
much fashionable.
They used to read William Booth.
They read the stories of William Booth and
the old men.
And he'd come to me and tell me
more about Booth.
Tell me more about the nights of prayer.
Tell me about the days of fasting.
Tell me about your street meetings.
And I need to warm up to it.
We want to get back to that.
It's one of those mysteries.
You don't know why God moves men along
like that.
How would you want people to remember you?
Oh, I don't know.
That's a nuisance, I think.
When your reward is like I can't do
it now because I get so many people,
but say three or four years ago, a
man had come and spent two hours.
And men write back and say, you know,
from another country, I'm fasting out in New
Zealand.
And the turning point was when I came
to see you, I got more in two
hours with you than I got two years
in seminary.
I'm reading the whole armor of God.
I'm reading this.
I'm reading some history of the Salvation Army
and areas that they hadn't broken into.
And all I know is I've stressed as
much as possible the life of prayer and
personal devotion.
Immediately you get cold there, you get cold
outside.
If you keep fueling yourself, you keep reading
Isaiah 6 over and get visions of God
and visions of living in the book of
the Revelation and you don't understand all of
it.
You don't ask to.
I say, God can't be explained.
He can be experienced.
And that's all that matters.
I mean, I sometimes fear like I preach
my heart out on Sunday in a 3
-4 vision.
I wonder after am I trying to get
people to come up to the altar?
I don't know, because I never made an
altar call.
But nobody's going to jump.
I mean, I got saved at 14.
I'm 84 almost 85.
So I've been 70 years.
I've seen all kinds of tragedies in the
church.
Wars and rumors of wars.
Popular men going popular and so forth.
But keep looking up to Jesus and reading
the word and remembering these old paths that
my daddy used to talk about so much.
And all the other looks like trivia.
Guys now laugh at me because I live
on my social security.
I've done counseling in this room for 13
years.
And the whole aggregate somebody leaves something behind.
It's okay.
They haven't left $500 in 13 years.
So I don't do it for the money.
A man called me from Houston last year.
He said, can I come and see you?
I said, yes.
Next one, a van came.
Ten of them came with the pastor at
10 o'clock and they stayed till one
night.
Talked my heart out as much as I
could.
Going out with them and said, you don't
expect any remuneration for this do you?
I said, no.
I said, I live on my social security.
Anything above that I divide in the middle
between my missionary son and myself or the
other boy.
So this fellow said, well, we should leave
you something.
So he goes to the door, takes his
billfold out, takes something out and he came
back and he put it on the table,
put his hand on it and he said,
I'm leaving this for you because I know
you'll share it with your son.
I said, I sure will.
So they went and I went to Martha
and I said, darling, they've gone now.
I said, but they left us some money.
Isn't that a miracle?
She said, well, we don't get that.
I said, well, I don't know what it
is.
Maybe $100 or $1000 he's left us because
he told me to share it with Paul.
She said, well, let's go.
So he came in and he left us
$5.
I said, well, one thing, we won't get
drunk anyhow.
No, I'm just saying that because everything has
money in America.
You don't know.
What annoys me, well, how much would it
cost to have it come for a week?
I said, if you start that way, I'm
not even going.
Now, don't go.
No, I think we're moving now.
In one thing, it's terrible that things like
swaggots happen and so forth, but it gives
the church a new start.
We're going to start on a new level
of holiness.
We're not going to be entertainers.
We're not going to bother who comes or
doesn't come.
We don't have to join in every effort
that they're making in the city to have
a revival.
Forget it.
We've been doing that for 20 years.
Stay at the place of prayer.
It doesn't matter who comes to town to
preach.
We're going to stay together and pray Friday
night from 9 till 11 or 9 till
12.
I've done that always.
Every city I've been in, I've started a
pastor's prayer meeting, usually on a Monday when
they're washed out and tired.
And they come from all denominations.
There's no alternative to prayer and obedience.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermon series.
This week you heard Leonard Ravenhill with his
message, A Man of God, Part 2.
Tune in again next week to hear Billy
Graham talk about the gift of blood on
the From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.