Leonard Ravenhill – Born in Leeds, England 1907, Died in Garden Valley, Texas 1994
Notables
- Next to AW Tozer, Leonard stands as a giant for REVIVAL IN THE 20TH Century
- England’s foremost outdoor Evangelist of the 1900’s.
- Some of his Books – Why Revival Tarries, Revival Prayer, No Bible in Sodom
Personal Comments:
Most of us in our generation have not witnessed Revival firsthand. However, we can read and follow men who lived not too long ago whom God used to bring Revival. One such man was Leonard Ravenhill. His sermons are available on-line and many biographies are written about him, my favorite is entitled, In Light of Eternity. Listen here
The anointing of God was heavy on him and his example and preaching will ignite a passion of a holy awakening in your life. Ravenhill is perhaps the more prolific writer on the subject of Revival in our modern times and is a must read if you too want to be used of God for Revival and Evangelism.
Although his early ministry led him into the Holiness church, it was before they were given to Pentecostalism. When they did, he separated from them. Don’t let his attachments to some men keep you from gleaning rich, convicting preaching and teaching.
Introduction:
Leonard Ravenhill was a prominent British evangelist and Christian revivalist whose ministry profoundly impacted the 20th-century evangelical movement. Known for his passionate preaching, Ravenhill emphasized the need for authentic, fervent prayer and deep personal holiness among Christians. He was a strong advocate for revival and frequently challenged both church leaders and congregants to pursue a more serious commitment to God. His messages often focused on the urgency of repentance, the reality of eternity, and the necessity of living a life wholly devoted to Christ.
Ravenhill’s ministry was marked by his deep concern for the spiritual state of the church and society. He authored several influential books, including Why Revival Tarries, Sodom Had No Bible, and Revival God’s Way, which continue to inspire Christians to this day. His writings and sermons, characterized by a blend of piercing conviction and profound spiritual insight, called believers to return to the foundational truths of the Christian faith.
Throughout his ministry, Ravenhill remained uncompromising in his call for a return to biblical standards. He often lamented the modern church’s lack of spiritual power and urged believers to seek a revival that would transform both the church and the world. His legacy endures through his powerful writings, recorded sermons, and the lives of those who were deeply impacted by his ministry.
Another reason why men admire Leonard Ravenhill is for his inspiration sayings. Bellow is a sampling of his quotes from goodread.com
Notable Quotes of Leonard Ravenhill:
“A man who is intimate with God is not intimidated by man.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy. ”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your TV?”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“The early church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions. Today, the church is married to prosperity, personality, and popularity.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“There are two kinds of people in the world—only two kinds. Not black or white, rich or poor, but those either dead in sin or dead to sin.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“You can’t live wrong and pray right.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him does it matter whom we displease?”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries: A Classic on Revival
“Preacher, keep your knees on the ground & your eyes on the throne.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it legalism.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“My goal is GOD HIMSELF. Not joy, not peace, not even blessing but HIMSELF…my GOD.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“One of these days some simple soul will pick up the book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy. The more joy you have in the Lord the less entertainment you need.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“But you know if God should stamp eternity or even judgment on our eyeballs, or if you’d like on the fleshy table of our hearts I am quite convinced we’d be a very, very different tribe of people, God’s people, in the world today. We live too much in time, we’re too earth bound. We see as other men see, we think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. We’re supposed to be a different breed of people. I believe that the church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God. We’re all going to stand one day, can you imagine it- at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for the deeds done in the body. This is what- this is the King of kings, and He’s the Judge of judges, and it’s the Tribunal of tribunals, and there’s no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“There are three persons living in each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“LORD strengthen me where I am too weak and weaken me where I am too strong!”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Is the world crucified to you or does it fascinate you?”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Satan fools and feigns, blows and bluffs, and we so often take his threats to heart and forget the “exceeding greatness of God’s power to us.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God’s Way
“The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if, through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“If we had more sleepless nights in prayer, there would be fewer souls to have a sleepless eternal night in hell.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God’s Way
“The apostles had no gold, but lots of glory. We have lots of gold, but no glory.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Some Day Someone is going to pick up this book (The Bible) and believe it, and put us all to shame.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries: A Classic on Revival
“One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed. We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed).”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The opportunity of a lifetime needs to be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“One thing and one thing alone keeps us from complete decay in this hour – the church, the true Church.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“If Thou canst do something with us and through us, then please, God, do something without us! Bypass us and take up a people who now know Thee not!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries: A Classic on Revival
“there is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Sodom, which had no Bible, no preachers, no tracts, no prayer meetings, no churches, perished. How then will America and England be spared from the wrath of the Almighty, think you? We have millions of Bibles, scores of thousands of churches, endless preachers—and yet what sin!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“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”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“A vision without a task makes a visionary; a task without a vision is drudgery; a vision with a task makes a missionary.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Where,oh,where are the eternity-conscious believers? Where are the souls white-hot for God because they fear His holy name and presence and so live with eternity’s values in view?”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God’s Way
“Who or what takes priority over God in our lives?”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God’s Way
“The evangelists today are very often prepared to be anything to anybody as long as they can get somebody to the altar for something. They glibly call out: ‘‘Who wants help? Who wants more power? Who wants a closer walk with God?’’ Such a sinning, repenting ‘‘easy believeism’’ dishonors the blood and prostitutes the altar. We must alter the altar, for the altar is a place to die on. Let those who will not pay this price leave it alone!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The Christless cults and deity-dishonoring mushroom religions of this midnight hour tempt the Lord God. Will no one sound the alarm?”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“If Christ waited to be anointed before He went to preach, no young man ought to preach until he, too, has been anointed by the Holy Ghost. —F. B. MEYER”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The secret of praying is praying in secret.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent.”
― Leonard Ravenhill
“Yet ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Today God is bypassing men—not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“John the Baptist’s training was in God’s University of Silence. God takes all His great men there.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“The Cinderella of the church of today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Preacher brethren, this is the time to blush that we have no shame, the time to weep for our lack of tears, the time to bend low that we have lost the humble touch of servants, the time to groan that we have no burden, the time to be angry with ourselves that we have no anger over the devil’s monopoly in this ‘‘end time’’ hour, the time to chastise ourselves that the world can so easily get along with us and not attempt to chastise us.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Oh that believers would become eternity-conscious! If we could live every moment of every day under the eye of God, if we did every act in the light of the judgment seat, if we sold every article in the light of the judgment seat, if we prayed every prayer in the light of the judgment seat, if we tithed all our possessions in the light of the judgment seat, if we preachers prepared every sermon with one eye on damned humanity and the other on the judgment seat—then we would have a Holy Ghost revival that would shake this earth and that, in no time at all, would liberate millions of precious souls.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“It has been well said that there are only three classes of people in the world today: those who are afraid, those who do not know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Prayer does not condition God; prayer conditions us. Prayer does not win God to our view; it reveals God’s view to us.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival Praying: An Urgent and Powerful Message for the Family of Christ
“Jesus said, ‘‘Go ye!’’ but He also said, ‘‘Tarry until!’’ Let any man shut himself up for a week with only bread and water, with no books except the Bible, with no visitor except the Holy Ghost, and I guarantee, my preacher brethren, that that man will either break up or break through and out. After that, like Paul, he will be known in hell!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Christianity today is so subnormal that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian, he would be considered abnormal”
― Leonard Ravenhill
tags: christianity
“Almost every Bible conference majors on today’s Church being like the Ephesian Church. We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him. Alas, what a lie! We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have ‘‘left our first love!’’ We appease sin—but do not oppose it. To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate. Let us stop looking for scapegoats. The fault in declining morality is not radio or television. The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“We are not Protestants any more—just ‘‘non-Catholics’’! Of what and of whom do we protest? Were we half as hot as we think we are, and a tenth as powerful as we say we are, our Christians would be baptized in blood, as well as in water and in fire.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“We have not yet resisted unto blood in prayer; nay, we ‘‘do not even get a sweat on our souls,’’ as Luther put it. We pray with a ‘‘take-it-or-leave-it’’ attitude; we pray chance prayers; we offer that which costs us nothing! We have not even ‘‘strong desire.’’ We rather are fitful, moody, and spasmodic. The only power that God yields to is that of prayer. We will write about prayer-power, but not fight while in prayer.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Unctionized by the Spirit’s might, John cried, ‘‘Repent!’’ And they did! Repentance is not a few hot tears at the penitent form. It is not emotion or remorse or reformation. Repentance is a change of mind about God, about sin, and about hell!”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“And before we can be clean and ready for Him to control, self-seeking, self-glory, self-interest, self-pity, self-righteousness, self-importance, self-promotion, self-satisfaction—and whatsoever else there be of self—must die.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“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.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“Do not we rest in our day too much on the arm of flesh? Cannot the same wonders be done now as of old? Do not the eyes of the Lord still run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust in Him? Oh, that God would give me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to call on Him. —J”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries
“When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries