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| Why Revival Tarries --by Leonard Ravenhill |
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I've been reading Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill the past couple of days. It was first published in 1959. The way he describes his contempoary Christian church is alarming. I have to keep reminding myself that he made these comments 49 years ago. The moral and spiritual atmosphere of our nations and of our churches has continued to decline since then.
Ravenhill's comments are even more alarming in 2008! Here are a few:
"A sober church never does any good. At this hour we need men drunk with the Holy Ghost."
"We are so subnormal these days that normal New Testament experience seems abnormal."
"When a couple of struggling Salvation Army officers wrote to William Booth telling him they tried every way to get a move and failed, he sent this terse reply, 'Try tears!' They did and they had revival."
"Many of us know only a sick, tearless, passionless, soulless round of preaching which passes for the minister's office these days."
"The biggest single factor contributing to delayed Holy Ghost revival is the omission of soul travail."
"I am increasingly convinced that tears are an integral part of revival preaching."
"What use is deeper knowledge if we have shallower hearts?"
"America cannot fall -- because she is already fallen. She cannot go into slavery -- because her people are fettered at the moment in chains of self-forged, self-chosen moral anarchy. Here are millions diseased morally, with no longing for healing."
"This is an hour in need of burning hearts, bursting lips, and brimming eyes. If we were a tenth as spiritual as we think we are, our streets would be filled each Sunday with throngs of believers, shaking at the calamity that has brought the church to be the unlovely, unnerved, unproductive thing that she is!"
"We surely need to climb Calvary's hill on our knees, to survey the wonderous Cross in an attitude of humiliation and adoration. The church must first repent; then the world will break! The church must first weep; then our altars will be filled with weeping penitents."
"Oh, we bankrupt, blind, boasting believers! We are naked and don't know it."
Whew! And I am not even finished reading the book yet. But I will press on. We all need to hear God's truth even (maybe especially) when it speaks against us. |
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| To add a comment to "Why Revival Tarries --by Leonard Ravenhill" |
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| November 16, 2008 |
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| Wow Steve what a blessing, I think I will read that book! |
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| November 16, 2008 |
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| It is a powerful book, Minister Of Poetry! |
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| November 16, 2008 |
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| Brother Steve, pinch me I thought they were having a great revival in Lakeland Florida. Truthfully Brother Leonard is right about the why's were not having revival. There's a cost that believers will have to pay like in prayer and fasting that's not happening yet. God wants to pour out his Spirit on all flesh, it's the getting people to want his Spirit poured out on them that's not happening yet. |
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| November 16, 2008 |
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| Very well spoken, Praise Temple. |
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| November 17, 2008 |
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revival happens as we stop looking to ourselves and as we stop looking to pastors for answers...we look inward, and pray that God would weed out ALL of the garbage that accumulates so easily. No man can deliver us, and we will face God individually. I have a terrible burden to know The whole counsel of God, not a denomination's regulations.
Dan, we are looking for a congregation like that.
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| November 17, 2008 |
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Let me just ask this...why do believers need revival? We should be walking around full of the Spirit to the point it makes a difference in our every day life to the extreme people notice...all people. If Christians walked around like that then they would carry revival with them....I believe that is what we need to do and how we are to conduct our everyday lives...The Spirit should have evidence of LIVING inside each one of us....that in turn should impact others...
Revival should be for the lost...and our prayer should be their eyes should be opened...
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| November 17, 2008 |
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| Lorinfj: What you write sounds good, but if we look around we don't see it happening. We see so many Christians living just like the world, watching others sin on TV for our entertainment, turning church into entertainment. We are so focused on whether we like church. We seldom ask: What does God want church to be like? We go to church where we feel comfortable, not where we are needed. We are desperately needed in the poorest and most violent neighborhoods. |
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| November 17, 2008 |
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Forgiven: Amen. That is also my heart.
Dan: I've spent many years looking for a congregation like that. |
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| November 17, 2008 |
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| 9. | to return to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, or a flourishing condition. |
| 10. | to recover from financial depression. |
| 11. | to be quickened, restored, or renewed, as hope, confidence, suspicions, or memories. |
| 12. | to return to notice, use, or currency, as a subject, practice, or doctrine. |
| 13. | to become operative or valid again. |
| 14. | Chemistry. to recover the natural or uncombined state, as a metal. |
The above are some definitions of "revive" that I found on dictionary.com.
I do not think an unbeliever can have a revival. I do think an unbeliever can have an awakening, though.
A revival is for the christian who has forgotten his/her first love. Just for the record...This has happened to me, so I know how it feels to be quickened in my heart and soul after walking away, and living like a dumb person. Chastisement and correction from The Lord is a good thing. |
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| November 17, 2008 |
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Steve, your reply above hits home with me. The church we 'were' going to moved out of a neighborhood that they perceived to be 'rough' and moved into a 'better' neighborhood.
someone was refused food that came in the doors, hungry. the person that witnessed this did not have one penny in his pocket to give this person. In retrospect, this individual blames himself because he did not leave the service and get the man something to eat. A lesson learned and a mistake that will never be made again.
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