But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Jesus to His disciples in Acts 1:8)
Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.(John Wesley)
Whole days and weeks have I spent prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer. (George Whitefield)
A religion of mere emotion and sensationalism is the most terrible of all curses that can come upon any people. The absence of reality is sad enough, but the aggravation of pretense is a deadly sin. (Samuel Chadwick)
It is well to get rid of the idea that faith is a matter of spiritual heroism only for a few select spirits. There are heroes of faith, but faith is not only for heroes. It is a matter of spiritual maturity. (P. T. Forsythe)
When God intends great mercy for His people, the first thing He does is set them a-praying. (Matthew Henry)
Beware of merely reasoning about God’s Word – just obey it! (Oswald Chambers)
The Church has halted somewhere between Calvary and Pentecost. (J. I. Brice)
How shall I feel at the judgment, if multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review, and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and pride? (W. E. Sangster)
Revival is the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. (D. M. Panton)
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame. (E. M. Bounds)
No man is greater than his prayer life. (Leonard Ravenhill)
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In response to the most common question coming to me by letters, e-mails, telephone and person-to-person in these days, “Why don’t we see revival here in America?” I have decided to refer us to a powerful book by Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, published in 1959, and again in 1960 by Bethany Fellowship, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Over a generation ago, Mr. Ravenhill blamed the compromise of evangelists, the lack of urgency in prayer and pride as the main reasons why revival tarries. The greater part of his work is directed toward the lack of urgency in prayer. I shall in this message present what I consider to be the more critical of his arguments on this subject, and then make an observation of my own concerning the present generation.
Ravenhill wrote: “The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!”
In response to the most common question coming to me by letters, e-mails, telephone and person-to-person in these days, “Why don’t we see revival here in America?” I have decided to refer us to a powerful book by Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, published in 1959, and again in 1960 by Bethany Fellowship, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Over a generation ago, Mr. Ravenhill blamed the compromise of evangelists, the lack of urgency in prayer and pride as the main reasons why revival tarries. The greater part of his work is directed toward the lack of urgency in prayer. I shall in this message present what I consider to be the more critical of his arguments on this subject, and then make an observation of my own concerning the present generation.
Ravenhill wrote: “The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!”
Pressing for anointed preaching, he said, “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 bookshelves, self-confidence and a sense of having arrived – brother, 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 tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.
