12. Quotes from Leonard Ravenhill's Personal Letters
Quotes from Leonard Ravenhill's Personal letters, number 12
Here are two more letters from Ravenhill. A few of the first letters that I received from him were dictated, such as the second one posted below, because he was just recovering from a stroke. Listen to the beat of a heart that grieves along with the heart of God. This is a man who, in his youth, walked from one end of England to another, evangelizing… twice. He witnessed powerful movings of God and the formation of churches after his evangelism brought people to Christ… so he understood what true evangelism was and what was a sham to draw crowds and pick people’s pockets in the name of Christ. Who cannot be angry, when the God, who you know and love, is defamed by conscienceless men?
May 4: Greetings in His peerless name. I can fully understand your disgust and distress at the present state of evangelism in the US and for that matter in most parts of the ‘Christian’ world... the appalling showmanship on TV that goes in His name. The ‘stars’, who are saved and yet live in the muck of Hollywood… the gold gluttons who weep over the TV for their ministry, but never weep for souls… all this is vain. Christ is wounded in the house of His friends. Revival is not important to the life of America; it is imperative. The answer is not the Moral Majority, but a Holy Minority. Schaefer says that the Christians should have protest marches. Since when? By what Scriptural authority? The cults march on, while the ‘church’ sleeps on. What will it take to awake her? Maybe the Lord will have to strangle the economy of the nation to get the attention of the ‘church’. I am sure that the nation will suffer for the sin of the church, rather than the church suffer for the sin of the nation…
What is the anointing? One black preacher said, “I don’t know what it is, but I know what it ain't!” I know that it’s not eloquence or emotion. I know that it is there sometimes, when you think it is not and not there other times, when you think it is. There is one sure mark of the anointing: People’s hearts are moved and lives are changed forever. I fear standing alone before people with an open Bible, but an empty heart.
August 16, 1983: I’m glad to know you’re making some impact with your writings. I, too, deplore this horrible presentation of the gospel through mime and puppets. God said out of the mouth of babes and sucklings He’s ordain praise, but not out of these mechanical, horrible things that are going on these days. They will have to be brought low... there’s no question about that… before God can pour out of His Spirit. I’ve been thinking so much lately of Paul’s word, where he said, “… my preaching was not in words, … but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” I’m afraid much preaching today is only lecturing. It doesn’t need anointing and it doesn’t have anointing. But my prayer is that God will restore the “thus saith the Lord” in a genuine way with the Spirit anointing it. I am dictating this; I’m not able to write at present. I’m just pulling out of this stroke very slowly, day by day. I’m praising the Lord for His goodness…
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