Quotes from Leonard Ravenhill's Personal Letters
Quotes from Leonard Ravenhill’s Personal Letters
I have been reading the almost 600-page biography of Leonard Ravenhill by Mack Tomlinson. It brought to mind photos taken while Margaret and I waited with Leonard and Martha for their flight from the Minneapolis airport to Dallas. We had just finished meetings with Len, sponsored by a number of churches around the Minneapolis area.
I didn’t find the photos, but I did run across 45 letters, untouched for years, that we received from Len between 1983 and 1993. Len died in 1994. Shortly before that, Len wrote the foreword to our book, The Christ of the Apocalypse. That foreword was more than the result of a random request to a well-known author, in order to help bring the book to the public’s attention. It was born out of these years of communication, through the which, we also had many telephone conversations and a visit in the Ravenhill home, while traveling through Texas to Mexico. After sending Len a good portion of the manuscript of The Christ of the Apocalypse, I gave him a call from Germany. “I have read your work twice,” he said, “and I was just going over it the third time, when you called.”
Margaret came to know the Ravenhill´s at Bethany Fellowship Missionary Training School, where she attended classes with the Ravenhill sons, Paul, David and Philip in the 1960s. The family lived on campus. I came to know him many years later, after he spoke at Spiritual Life meetings at Crown College of the Christian Missionary Alliance. Margaret and I attended most of those meetings.
This is what Leonard Ravenhill wrote in the foreword: “Of a dozen books I have on the Apocalypse, this one by my friend Lowell Brueckner has moved me most. It is pointed, practical, painful, but profitable. He does not fix any dates or strive to interpret the number 666 or name the Antichrist.
As I read this book, the background in my mind was the prophet’s word—sound an alarm in my holy temple. The timing for the publication of this book is perfect. We are at a crisis hour in human history. Men ignored Christ as the Light of the World. He said, men love darkness rather than light. They still do. Darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people. We have put out ten lights (The Ten Commandments) in each school classroom. The Bible—the lamp for our feet—is missing from almost every house. So our children struggle and stumble in the darkness. Bible preaching is losing ground in many churches.
Reading the book, I was gripped again that Jesus in the Apocalypse says of its awesome events, “things that will SHORTLY come to pass. Add to this Hebrews 1:2 “Hath in these last days…”—words spoken 2000 years ago.
This book has a message vital for this day when in the churches:
There has never been more talk on faith and never more begging.
There has never been more evangelism and never less revival.
There has never been more Bible teaching and never more confusion.
There have never been more believers and never less disciples.
There has never been more action and never less unction.
There has never been more seminars and never less saints.
There has never been more Bible knowledge and never less understanding.
There have never been more outward riches and never more inward rags.
There has never been more feasting and never less fasting.
There has never been more believing and never less behaving the gospel.”
I thought it would be good on this blogspot, to share from these 45 personal letters some of the Ravenhill gems contained in them – pithy quotes from an expert in pithy statements. His letters had many of them, mixed with personal news. They came from the heart and mind of a man, who spent much time alone with God – more than most of us can imagine and perhaps would even find hard to believe.
What I am offering just below is my personal favorite, because it was written, as stated, at four o’clock in the morning. Often Ravenhill spent most of the night in prayer. He wrote it shortly after being with us for meetings. In it, you see the mixture that I mentioned – the personal and the pithy. What I most treasure is the suggestion that we should consider spending a year close to them before going to Germany. It wasn’t possible, but I felt highly honored that he should so desire.
Wednesday, 4 a.m.: The week-end with you was memorable.
There is no mild Bible truth; we deal with awful holy authority from above. Alas, today sin is so acceptable, so delightful – so fashionable, so excitable – believable, and yet, albeit, so damnable. Only the Holy Spirit can convict of unholy living.
We pine for rain here in every way. Revival must come before the great and notable day of the Lord. We must witness rent heavens, showers of mercy before showers of judgment. Spiritual pregnancy must precede spiritual birth.
Are you sure you cannot come to Texas for a year before you go to Germany?
Look for other Ravenhill quotes from his letters to us. I will post more soon, putting them under the label "revival", because revival was his theme.
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