Revival # 3

Revival # 3

People say to me all over the country, "I am interested in revival." I say, "Yes, so are a million other Americans." I find all kinds of people interested in it. I don't find many people burdened for it. People are very interested in revival, but we don't start to break the fallow ground. We don't prepare the way for the Lord.

I remember as a little boy I used to go to bed at night with a candle...you never had that joy, did you? I remember thinking how many other candles you could bring and light off that candle? I wonder and I wonder. I never found an answer, but I often used to wonder.

It was Charles Wesley who wrote the hymn, "See how great flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace.

Jesus' love the nations fires,sets the kingdoms all ablaze,
To bring fire on earth He came, kindled in some hearts it is,
Oh that all might catch the blaze, all partake the glorious bliss.

Jesus said, "To bring fire on earth have I come, "Did you hear anybody preach on that text? What kind of fire? Well, surely not hell fire. Holy Spirit fire! The most devastating fire of all is not the fire that consumes a building. It isn't even the fire of hell. The greatest, most devastating fire, is the fire of God. We say, "God is love, God is love, God is love. And yet our God is a consuming fire. "Who shall abide the day of His coming," Malachi says, "He is like a refiner's fire." Matthew 3:16, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit fire." But you see, that aspect is not stressed in the day in which we live.

Everybody talks about the baptism. So what do you mean by the baptism? There is a baptism with the Holy Spirit and Fire. Not just with the Holy Spirit, but with Fire. When He comes He will "thoroughly purge His floor and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Which again, can happen individually, or it can happen in a church, or it can come and work through a whole community or it can work through a whole nation.

There will be a thousand people who, if you get a heart and a vision, will say, "Oh, you've got tunnel vision." Hmmm? Well, I think the one reason why the Apostle Paul conquered - and triumphed - and out-smarted us - and out-suffered us - and out-prayed us - and out-sacrificed us - and out-preached us was because he settled for one thing: "This one thing I do." You've got to have one vision, You've got to have one heart, You've got to have one purpose, "This one thing I do - "I sell out to God's will totally.

Well, what does this become? Well, I believe this thing becomes an obsession, as I was saying to a brother this morning. For fifty years I've wept, and I've prayed, and I've groaned, and I've read, and I've fasted, and I've met with guys for nights of prayer, and days of prayer, and days and days of prayer, for revival. There isn't much sign of it. Well, are you sure? You see, prayers never die! What are these under the altar? The prayers of saints." You never pray a prayer that is born of God without it being on record with God. God never wastes anything. Do you think you and I have prayers born of grief, born of anguish, born of desire to see an overthrow of iniquity, (for after all that is what revival is) and you think God will let them die?

Now again, the shadow of darkness and death is over this generation like nothing we've ever had before. And yet, the greatest tragedy of all is this: a sick church in a dying world! We have neither the vision nor the passion, nor at this moment, the intention of setting our house in order - "to break the fallow ground" - to prepare the way of the Lord.

My hope is that as we go on here we are not just going to gather information and statistics about revival, but that we are going to individually seek personal revival.

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(The End)

[copyright/reproduction limitations: "Copyright (c) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas")