Classic Quotes from Ravenhill

These quotes will encourage and convict – we need to hear them:

The great preacher, teacher and revivalist Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) had a huge influence on millions of Christians. He even was involved in discipling folks like Keith Green. His prophetic ministry was a godsend for a sleeping and apathetic church. Just in case you have never heard of him before, I did a brief write-up about the man here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/02/22/notable-christians-leonard-ravenhill/

He has left us with so many gems from his many sermons and talks. Here are some choice quotes from this great man of God:

“If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him, does it matter whom we displease?”

“The man whose little sermon is ‘Repent’ sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man: ‘off with his head.’ You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to Heaven.”

“When a nation calls its prime men to battle, homes are broken, weeping sweethearts say their good-byes, businesses are closed, college careers are wrecked, factories are refitted for wartime production, and rationing and discomforts are accepted – all for war. Can we do less for the greatest fight that this world has ever known outside of the cross – this end-time siege on sanity, morality and spirituality?”

“He’s not your lackey. He’s not your servant. He’s not there to pull every mountain down. He’s there to give you strength to get over the mountain – not to ease your burden.”

“In the church pillars have given place to pillows.”

“The only reason we don’t have revival is because we are willing to live without it!”

“The trouble today is that we have too many dead preachers giving out dead sermons to dead people.”

“I get calls from all over the world, everyone wants my anointing and mantle… but nobody wants my sackcloth and ashes.”

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, and make that man holy and put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”

“Nobody stood by Jesus. Maybe nobody will stand by you. It’s a lonely life but it’s a glorious life.”

“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.”

“You can’t say, ‘Christ is all I need,’ until Christ is all you have.”

“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.”

“The reason we have so many pygmies in our pews is because we have so many puppets in our pulpits.”

“Each of us are as godly as we want to be.”

“Holiness is not a luxury it’s a necessity. If you’re not holy, you’ll never make it to heaven.”

“I’d rather have ten people that want God than 10,000 people who want to play church.”

“If John the Baptist came back today, he would not be a voice crying in the wilderness but crying in the church.”

“When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it legalism.”

“Why in God’s name do you expect to be accepted everywhere? How is it that the world couldn’t get on with the holiest Man that ever lived and it can get on with you and me? Are we compromised? Have we no spiritual stature? Have we no righteousness that reflects on their corruption?”

“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’?”

“Paul never glamorized the gospel! It is not success, but sacrifice! It’s not a glamorous gospel, but a bloody gospel, a gory gospel, and a sacrificial gospel! Five minutes inside eternity and we will wish that we had sacrificed more, wept more, bled more, grieved more, loved more, prayed more, given more!”

“God-centered men are the need of this hour, not men who want power to strut, nor power to call the world’s attention to their ‘great’ ministries. We need God-endued men whom hell fears.”

“I believe the hour is come when we, God’s people, need the baptism of anger.”

“Many believers live as if this world were a playground instead of a battleground.”

“These days we are spiritually so subnormal that to be just normal (according to the New Testament pattern) seems to make us abnormal.”

“Our churches are more air-conditioned than prayer-conditioned.”

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

“If we will do God’s work in God’s way at God’s time with God’s power, we shall have God’s blessing … and the devil’s curse.”

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

“Finney preached and sometimes the whole congregation would get up and leave! That’s good preaching.”

“The only time you can really say that Christ is all I need, is when Christ is all you have.”

“Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was?”

“The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church…grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.”

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, and make that man holy and put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”

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

“My main ambition in life is to be on the devil’s most wanted list.”

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

“All (of) God’s great men have been very, very lonely men. The price of being a prophet is loneliness.”

“People say, ‘We want another Pentecost.’ I don’t believe them for a minute. Pentecost in the New Testament is tied in with persecution, poverty (and) prison!”

“The apostles had no gold, but lots of glory. We have lots of gold, but no glory.”

“Christ will not stand competition. This vain world should have no pull on us at any level at all.”

“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’ and haven’t given Him a scrap?”

“We’ve reduced God to a minimum. 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! The materialism has crept in and it’s blinded us! It (has become) a way of life.”

“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 greatest tragedy ever is a sick church in a dying world.”

“I had a man chase me one day because I said that to become a Christian you must renounce your sin… repent… and take up your cross. ‘Oh no,’ (he said), ‘you mustn’t tell young people to take up their cross; you’ll frighten them.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you argue with the Lord about that, not me?’ That’s what the Word of God says— you take up your cross and follow me.”

“If a preacher is not known in hell, he ain’t worth a hill of beans.”

“I’m convinced that the greatest thing about those Puritan preachers (is) they lived in eternity six days a week and came down to earth on the seventh! 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!”

“Everyone recognizes that Stephen was Spirit-filled when he was performing wonders. Yet, he was just as Spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death.”

“We must do what we can do for God, before He will give us the power to do what we can’t do.”

“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”

[1475 words]