PRAY TODAY

No man is greater than his prayer life. 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. Poverty-stricken as the church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestles; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.

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

There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer. People often ask, "Why do you insist on prayer so much?" The answer is very simple - because Jesus did. You could change the title of the Gospel according to St. Luke to the Gospel of Prayer. It's the prayer life of Jesus.

The other evangelists say that Jesus was in the Jordan and the Spirit descended on Him as a dove - Luke says it was while He was praying that the Spirit descended on Him. The other evangelists say that Jesus chose 12 disciples - Luke says it was after He spent a night in prayer that He chose 12 disciples. The other evangelists say that Jesus died on a cross - Luke says that even when He was dying Jesus was praying for those who persecuted Him. The other evangelists say Jesus went on a mount and He was transfigured - Luke says it was while He was praying that He was transfigured. There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer.

The Scriptures say that the disciples went to bed, but Jesus went to pray - as was His custom. It was His custom to pray. Now Jesus was the Son of God - He was definitely anointed for His ministry. If Jesus needed all that time in prayer, don't you and I need time in prayer? If Jesus needed it in every crisis, don't you and I need it in every crisis?

Now I say very often - and people don't like it - that God doesn't answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer! Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling...." The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.

The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.

The tragedy in our colleges and seminaries right now is that we turn men out who know the word of God. - That is never going to turn the world.
The question is not whether they know the Word of God.
The question is:
DO THEY KNOW THE GOD OF THE WORD?


Isn't it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we had some cities yesterday where 3000 sermons were preached and nobody was saved. And it doesn't even faze us.
The church used to be a lightning bolt, now it's a cruise ship.We are not marching to Zion - we are sailing there with ease. In the apostolic church it says they were all amazed - And now in our churches everybody wants to be amused.

God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost.

Holy jealousy gripped him. Mighty as he had been in other things, Samson now proved mightiest in prayer: "Lord, strengthen me ... this once!' (vs. 28) Would to God that every professed believer in the whole of Christendom would borrow this prayer and mean it. Then with dramatic conclusion, Samson sealed the doom of many more of the enemies of God in his dying than in his living.

The religious sentimentalist who sings "Just a closer walk with Thee" but walks close to the ungodly and sits with the blasphemers, is not taken seriously in either heaven or hell. Be very sure, friend, that this vile world is not "a friend to grace to help on to God." We need to pray the Father to put some blood into this "water" that runs through our veins. Our Simon-like natures need the Upper Room fire to clean us out and the discipline of the Spirit to shape us into soldiers.

Prayer is battle. Could it be that in our churches the right
slogan over the door of most of our prayer rooms would be "We
Wrestle *Not*"? I often see listed in churches names of athletes
who will play ball of some kind, but I would like to see these
"muscle men" operating where strength really counts - that is, in
the place of prayer. Prayer taxes even the physical frame; prayer
wears on the nerves; prayer involves the whole man. Prayer *must*
have priority. Prayer *must* be our bolt to lock up the night,
our key to open the day. Prayer is power. Prayer is wealth.
Prayer is health of the soul.

And we have nice caparpet and cushions and stuff on the floor so we don’t hurt our darling little knees and God pity us we can’t even muster a corporal’s guard to pray.

Americas living on borrowed time. We’ve passed the safety line years ago. We’re heading for hell as quick as any nation on earth. But if we saw the glory of God on Sunday in every church in America, we’d shake the country for God the next week.”-

Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows Himself.

There are people who think that God is only around to help us. We have a great utility God, they think. You pray, and He does this! You pray, and He does that! You pray, and He sends you money. You pray, and He gets you out of a jam. He’s not somebody you worship in speechless adoration, but He’s a utility God! And some on TV are exploiting that to the maximum."

"The only reason we don't have revival, is because we are willing to live without it."

"The greatest tragedy ever, is a sick church in a dying world."

“We have to make up our minds if this Book is absolute or obsolete.
It's either got the answer for our generation or forget it."
"We’re preaching an acceptable Gospel today, making it as painless as we can. And all we do is give people a shot to put them to sleep so they get to hell quicker. We need some hellfire preaching on repentance" - Leonard Ravenhill

God himself says in the Bible: "If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!" (Micah 2:11)

You know what we're doing with our modern methods for effective evangelism? We're grieving God, we're making a fool out of Him! We think the Bible isn't good enough. We need examples! The Holy Ghost is history. We need entertainment. And now we got two problems. First of all, the Church fully relies on these methods (instead of relying on God) and they seem to work.

The second problem is that Christianity receives new strength. But not the strength from God. In Isaiah it says: "You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint." (Isaiah 57:10). This chapter is directed to the sons of a sorceress, offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! This is the spiritual state of the Church of Christ today! But in spite of her terrible state, she gains new strength...power from this world.

Lots of Christians like these days. They think that God is working...well, perhaps I'm wearing very dark sunglasses, but I believe we live in the darkest days ever!

I thank God there are still people who see this darkness and they dare to preach boldly. They don't merely point out that there's darkness, but they also lit a candle! Before revival comes, we need to see that we are dead! That's what revival means: RE = again + VIVAL comes from "Life". So revival means to come back to life again, which makes clear that at this moment we (as the Church of Christ) are as dead as a dodo!

We're going down people! So let us go down also...to our knees! May we be encouraged by God as He says: "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth" (Isaiah 62:6-7)

This much is sure:

If we could merit revival by fasting, there would be many martyred by starving.

If we could organize revival, we would pool our thinking to outwit the powers of darkness.

If we could buy this elusive revival with the mammon of unrighteousness, we could get a score of what we call Christian millionaires to underwrite the thing for us.

If we could blast the devil from this present world, we would pledge the politicians for an atom bomb.

God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost.

We are too earthbound we live too much in time, we invest our time like the world invests it, we invest our money like the world does. We are supposed to be a different breed of people on this earth.

How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your TV?


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.



You see, what people are seeking today is a painless Pentecost. There isn’t such a thing. What happened immediately after Pentecost? They prospered? Yes? No! They went to jail! It wan’t prosperity; it was prison, pain, privation, and persecution.


The men that have been the most herioc for God have had the greatest devotional lifes.

Can you imagine the Apostle Paul daring to step into Rome, this city of hatred and violence with any less comprehension of the power of the Cross than he had?
Our gimmick-geared gospel would have fallen as flat in that day as in our day. Can you imagine Paul and his party confronting this pagan, wicked hoard with hip-swinging girls and hand-clapping boys singing, “Something Good is Going to Happen to you,” or offering them a Prosperity Pack for a donation?

The Church used to be a lifeboat rescuing the perishing. Now she is a cruise ship
recruiting the promising.


There is a 'deeper life.' It is as deep as a personal Gethsemane and as costly as a personal Calvary.

We talk Apostolic doctrine
but lack Apostolic deeds.
We claim Apostolic faith
but lack Apostolic fruit.
Some trumpet Apostolic power
but lack Apostolic poverty.
Some claim Apostolic enduement
but lack Apostolic accomplishment.
We may have Apostolic vocabularies.
Do we have Apostolic victories?
Many claim Apostolic succession.
Few, if any, dare claim Apostolic success!

I read of the revivals of the past, great sweeping revivals where thousands of men were swept into the Kingdom of God. I read about Charles G. Finney winning his thousands and his hundreds of thousands of souls to Christ. Then I picked up a book and read the messages of Charles G. Finney and the message of Jonathan Edwards on 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' and I said, 'No wonder men trembled; no wonder they fell in the altars and cried out in repentance and sobbed their way to the throne of grace!'


Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day, Christ will chastise me, saying, ‘Leonard, you took Me too seriously’?

The offense of prayer is that it does not essentially tie in to mental efficiency. That is not to say that prayer is a partner to mental sloth. But in these days, efficiency and smartness are at a premium. Prayer is conditioned to one thing alone, and that is to spirituality. One does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is, to make and deliver sermons of homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude. By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined book shelves, self-confidence and a sense of having arrived - the pulpit is yours almost anywhere these days. Preaching of the type mentioned affects men; prayer affects God. Preaching affects time; prayer affects eternity. The pulpit can be a shop window to display our talents; the closet speaks death to display.

The tragedy of this last hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people. There is a strange thing that I have seen even in the fundamentalist circles: it is preaching without unction. What is unction? I hardly know what it is, but I know what it is not, or at least I know when it is not upon my own soul. Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life. The unctionless preacher is a savor of death unto death. The Word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher. Preacher, with all thy getting, get unction.

Unction cannot be learned, only earned by prayer. Unction is God's knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet. The meeting is won or lost before the preacher's foot enters the pulpit. Unction is like perfume. Unction is like dynamite. Unction comes not by the medium of the bishop's hands, neither does it mildew when the preacher is cast into prison. Unction will pierce and percolate. It will sweeten and soften. When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed.


The ugly fact is that the altar fires are either out or burning very low. The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh. What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer? Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen - degrees or no degrees. Where are our unctionized pulpit crusaders? Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls.

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Ps. 126:5). This is the divine edict. This is more than preaching with zeal. This is more than scholarly exposition. This is more than delivering sermons of exegetical exactitude and homiletical perfection. Such a man, whether preacher or pew dweller, is appalled at the shrinking authority of the Church in the present drama of cruelty in the world. And he cringes with sorrow that men turn a deaf ear to the Gospel and willingly risk eternal hell in the process. Under this complex burden, his heart is crushed to tears.

Many of us have no heart-sickness for the former glory of the Church because we have never known what true revival is. We stagnate in the status quo and sleep easy at night while our generation moves swiftly to the eternal night of hell. Shame, shame on us! Jesus whipped some money changers out of the temple; but before He whipped them, He wept over them. He knew how near their judgment was The Apostle Paul sent a tear-stained letter to the Philippian saints, writing: "I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ" (Phil. 3:18). Notice that he does not say they are enemies of Christ; they are, rather, the enemies of the cross of Christ. They deny or diminish the redemptive values of the cross. There are many like this today. The church of Rome does not stand as an enemy of Christ; it traces heavily on His holy name. Yet it denies the cross by saying that the Blessed Virgin is co-redemptive. If this is so, why was she not also crucified? The Mormons use the name of Christ, yet they are astray on the atonement. Have we tears for them? Shall we face them without a blush when they accuse us of inertia at the Judgment Seat saying that they were our neighbors and an offense to us, but not a burden because they were lost?


America cannot fall - because she is already fallen! This goes for Britain, too. She cannot go into slavery - because her people are fettered at the moment in the chains of self-forged, self-chosen moral anarchy. Here are millions, diseased morally, with no longing for healing. Here are men paying for shadows at the price of their immortal souls.

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 marching to Zion - with sacks on their bodies and ashes on their shaking heads, shaking at the calamity that has brought the Church to be the unlovely, unnerved, unproductive thing that she is!


If we wept as much in the prayer closet as devout Jews have done at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, we would now be enjoying a prevailing, purging revival! If we would return to apostolic practice - waiting upon the Lord for apostolic power - we could then go forth to apostolic possibilities! This is the hour when we are asked over and over again, "Is everybody happy?" God's purpose for us is not happiness, but HOLINESS!

We’re in grave danger when we let our accomplishments become the ground of our confidence. Oh boy, how we want to be esteemed! How we want to be respected…how people should realize what precious gifts of the Spirit are given, do you know why you don’t? Because you stink with pride! Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit.

Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls. Away with this palsied, powerless preaching which is unmoving because it was born in a tomb instead of a womb, and nourished in a fireless, prayerless soul. We may preach and perish, but we cannot pray and perish.