Leonard Ravenhill

I went to a church not along ago — they got thirty acres. So what are their plans with it? They want their own football field and tennis courts. Dear God, do we go to church to learn to play tennis? God help the preachers!

~ ~ ~ ~

The best title of the professing church of God today, in my judgment, is "Unbelieving Believers." There's cancer in the church tonight!

At this grim hour, the world sleeps in the darkness — and the Church sleeps in the light.

~ ~ ~ ~

You'll never get me to believe that the church today believes in Hell.

~ ~ ~ ~

Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. The more joy you have in the Lord, the less entertainment you need.

~ ~ ~ ~

The apostles had no gold, but lots of glory. We have lots of gold, but no glory.
The book of Acts shows us the church before it became fat and short of breath by prosperity!

Where are the souls white-hot for God because they fear His holy name and presence and so live with eternity's values in view?

I'd rather have ten people who want God — than 10,000 people who want to play church!

The early church was a lifeboat for rescuing the perishing.
Today's church is a cruise ship for pampering the prosperous.

The early Church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions.
Today, the Church is married to prosperity, personality and popularity.

Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and other sin.

You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there's a fire. If your church is on fire for God, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.

~ ~ ~ ~

Thousands of preachers who would not dare cut Hell out of their Bibles, have cut it out of their preaching!

~ ~ ~ ~

The wonder of the grace of God is that God can take an unholy man out of a unholy world — and make that man holy — and put him back into a unholy world, and keep him holy!

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age!" Titus 2:11-12

The world has lost the power to blush over its vice.
The Church has lost her power to weep over it.

~ ~ ~ ~

The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is the religion of Christ's church.

Sin will keep you from this Book — or this Book will keep you from sin!

The Bible is either absolute, or it's obsolete.

We're not here to get to know the Word of God, but to get to know the God of the Word.

It's going to demand a lot of courage before too long — to really live and maintain the true Christian life according to the Word of the Living God.

If you're going to be a true Christian, it will be a lonely life. It's a narrow way, and it becomes narrower and narrower and narrower. It's not simple being a Christian.

Most of us are trying to get to Heaven with minimum spirituality. If we looked after our business like we look after our soul — we'd be bankrupt years ago! Materialism has crept in and it's blinded us! It has become a way of life.

God is looking for people who will live recklessly for Him — not concerned with public opinion or preacher's opinions, but becoming a love slave of Jesus Christ.

The smallest church meeting numerically, is the prayer-meeting. If weak in prayer we are weak everywhere.

Let the fires go out in the boiler room of the church and the place will still look smart and clean, but it will be cold. The Prayer Room is the boiler room for its spiritual life.

The true man of God is heartsick. He is . . .
grieved at the worldliness of the Church,
grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church,
grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church.

A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way.

~ ~ ~ ~

Could a mariner sit idle, if he heard the drowning cry?
Could a doctor sit in comfort, and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?
Can you sit at ease in church, with the world around you going to Hell?

~ ~ ~ ~

There is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God — and knowing the God of the Word.

You can have all of your doctrines right — yet still not have the presence of God.

~ ~ ~ ~

Christianity today is so subnormal, that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian — he would be considered abnormal!

No man — I don't care how colossal his intellect — no man is greater than his prayer life.

You can't live wrong and pray right.

If you don't have a praying pastor, forget it!

Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees.

I'm not concerned about how many books you've read, how many doctorates you have, or how large your church is, tell me how much you pray!

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.

The pastor who is not praying is playing.
The people who are not praying are straying.

The pulpit can be a shop window to display one's talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off.

"The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe." Proverbs 29:25

A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.

Repentance is not a few hot tears at a protestant altar. It is not emotion or remorse or reformation. Repentance is a change of mind about God, about sin, and about Hell!

"I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city!" Matthew 10:15

Sodom, which had no Bible, no preachers, no tracts, no prayer meetings, no churches, perished.

How then, do you think that America and England will be spared from the wrath of the Almighty? We have millions of Bibles, scores of thousands of churches, endless preachers — and yet what sin!

Do you know what's wrong with modern preaching?
It's missing three things:
one, it has no intensity;
two, it has no majesty;
three, it has no eternity.

We have too many preacherettes preaching too many sermonettes to too many Christianettes!

We fear a Russian invasion. We fear a financial breakdown — but we don't fear God! I want that holy fear!

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge!" Proverbs 1:7

~ ~ ~ ~

We have a king in America — — his name is King Sport and his wife is Queen Entertainment.

~ ~ ~ ~

"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him." Ephesians 1:4

God has only one standard for His people — He wants a holy people.

Holiness is not a luxury a it's a necessity. If you're not holy, you'll never make it to Heaven.

Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord. Jesus didn't die to save us from Hell. That's a fringe benefit!

"But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15-16

~ ~ ~ ~

Wouldn't be wonderful to have a few men like Paul? He said, "I'm dead!" Dead to self... dead to ambition... dead to feelings... dead to be offended... dead to be flattered... dead! Paul died to everything!

Prayer is preoccupation with our needs.
Praise is preoccupation with our blessing.
Worship is preoccupation with God Himself.

The most important thing in the world while you're on this side of eternity is that you learn to worship God. If you're going to do it forever and ever, dear Lord, you ought to practice it now!

~ ~ ~ ~

Christians don't tell lies, they just go to church and sing them! How many times have you stood and sang, "Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee" and haven't given Him a scrap?

Do you mean what you sing?

~ ~ ~ ~

Sending a new Christian to church today is like taking a newborn baby and putting it in a refrigerator! I want a place that vibrates with God, vibrates with eternity!

~ ~ ~ ~

Sunday morning attendance shows how popular the church is.
Sunday night shows how popular the preacher is.
Wednesday prayer meeting shows how popular God is.

~ ~ ~ ~

If God withdrew the Holy Spirit tomorrow, my church would function just the same; we wouldn't even know He was gone! We say, "Let the Spirit have His way in our church." We don't!! We mimeograph what He has to do last Wednesday in the church office!

~ ~ ~ ~

The church is supposed to do what? To stop corruption? Is the church doing that? No! The world is corrupting the church!

~ ~ ~ ~

I'm accountable to God for everything I have. Every moment of my time — every dime of my money!

Every penny you earn since you've become property of Jesus Christ, you'll give an account of before God. He doesn't just take your sins — He takes your whole self — He takes over the government of your life.

Christ must have pre-eminence . . .
in my living,
in my thinking,
in my time,
in my language,
in all things, not some things.

~ ~ ~ ~

You can go to Hell at the communion table or the gambling table — if Jesus hasn't saved you.

There are two kinds of people in the world — only two kinds. Not black or white, rich or poor — but those either dead in sin or dead to sin.

Our preachers today, are golfing on Saturday and goofing around the other five days. It's a profession to most of them, when it should be an obsession with them!

If there's no brokenness in the pulpit, why should there be any brokenness in the pew?

We've gone into other countries — have we taken the Gospel? No! We have not taken the Gospel — we're giving them American Christianity!

Bible-Christianity:
it's the most costly thing in the world;
it's the most beautiful thing in the world;
it's the most glorious thing in the world.

~ ~ ~ ~

The sinner's prayer has sent more people to Hell than all the taverns in America!

Most people are bothered by those passages which they cannot understand.

The Scriptures which trouble me the most are the Scriptures I do understand.

The surest things in the world are not death and taxes — it's death and eternity. Yet, we're so unconcerned.

Ten million years will not put a strain on the clock of eternity.

We are not eternity-conscious enough!

In God's name, what are you going to do in a million years in God's presence? Expect some reports from earth about football or something?

We're too busy running our own lives:
praying when you want to pray,
eating what you want to eat,
going where you want to go,
spending what you want to spend,
reading what you want to read.

Do you call that a spiritual life? Brother, it is carnal as carnality!

I find the Book of Revelation a book of mystery — I don't understand a lot of it.

It's a book of majesty — it shows Jesus in all His glory and His majesty.

And it's a book of misery because it shows me the collapse of world systems. It shows the final judgment that's going to come on the world, and it shows the anger of God that's going to be poured out before long.

"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken!" Matthew 12:36

You can't help what you hear, but you can help what you say.

We speak thousands of words every day and all these words are accumulated. We are so flippant with our words. We stab and we injure and we hurt — and God is going to try all my words before a thousand-million people. Every word you say is going to be played back some day. You're going to be accountable for every word you speak!

Fifty years ago, you never heard of a divorce in the Christian church. You never even heard of marriage counseling in the church. We're putting up with sin in the church.

There's one thing we need above everything else; it's something we don't talk about these days. We need a mighty avalanche of conviction of sin!

We're living in an unprecedented day when evil is no longer evil. We've changed the terminology:
iniquity is now infirmity;
wickedness is now weakness;
devilry is now deficiency.

David had one of the most blessed experiences in the world, and the blessedness was that he was miserable about his sin.

"Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." Psalm 51:2-5

Someone asked me, "Do you pray for the dead?"

I said, "No, I preach to them!"

I think every pew in every church is death row. Think about that! They're dead! They sing about God; they talk about God, but they're dead! They have no living relationship with God.

"The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

Then He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!'" Ezekiel 37:1-4

~ ~ ~ ~

"You shall not covet . . ." Exodus 20:17

"Covetousness, which is idolatry." Colossians 3:5

A Roman Catholic priest startled us not very long ago by saying that for 25 years he had been sitting in the confessional, listening to the confessions of men and women. He said he heard murders, rapes, adultery, and fornication confessed. He met men and women who have broken every law of God and man with repetition. But never in 25 years had anyone ever confessed to be covetous. Covetousness! We wrap it up and call it ambition. We may call it business or something, but right down in the middle of those things is a rotten word called "covetousness." Paul called it idolatry!