John the Baptist and the Fire of God # 7

John the Baptist and the Fire of God # 7

Come on parent, are you living so your children will want something that is in your life, something that is beautiful? Something that they can't see in school, that they can't see in a magazine? And they can't see in church, maybe?

My mother was a role model for me, my daddy was a role model. The best thing he ever did, he took me to a prayer meeting when I was fourteen years of age. And I remember that night, it comes to me often, often.

See, we've got the idea that the only reason you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit is you are going to be a missionary. The greatest break down in America is not in brothels tonight, and it is not in abortion, the greatest breakdown in America is in the home!

It's not what YOU have to bring to God, it's what GOD can give you! We don't have men like we used to have. When Whitefield came from England the population of Boston was 12 thousand and he drew 14 thousand a night without black-topped roads, without restaurants. One man says, "I put my wife on the back of the old mare and I got up, the snow was so deep we struggled up hills and valleys, and finally I got off and just led the horse. And I was soaking wet. There were no pews, no shelter. I stood there in the snow and I heard a man who was blazing with God! I never realized till I moved that my trousers were almost stiff with frost, they were wet through and then they were stiff in the frost. We went home. The poor old mare was tired out the next day when we got home, but we turned round and we went back again." Why did they go all that way? Preachers don't have to do that now. You just get enough money and you get a TV program and poor swell-headed guys think they are turning the world upside-down. And we are as far lost down the pit as we were before we started.

God isn't looking for organizing. He is looking for agonizing. And he talks about praying in the Holy Spirit. And I want to learn more of that. It's praying in tongues. And I am not knocking tongues.

What we've had in the last 25 years with all the Pentecostal churches we haven't moved this nation to God. How is it that 120 turned the world upside-down? They'd no money, they hadn't the screen, they couldn't throw what they were saying into a million homes.

I'm sure in my own heart, what God is looking for is to take total possession of some men in their spirit, their soul, their mind, their will.

I went to a little college, Cliff College. It only had one revival. I wasn't there. A friend of mine, he was up in years in 1932, and 33. Had been in World War One. He was a drunkard, a blasphemer, and everything else. A very precious, gorgeous lady lead him to Christ and he fell in love with her, and they fixed a day for their wedding. One day they went to an old Holiness meeting and they were singing a hymn, but when he came to the stanza: "Here I give my all to Thee, Friends and time and earthly store, Soul and body, Thine to be, Only Thine for forevermore." And he sang it. "Here am I to give my friends," he thought. She is the only friend I have in the world; we are going to be married in three months, I've a house stored with new furniture." And the Lord Jesus said, "You want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, it will cost you everything. Postpone your wedding for three years. Give me all your time. Your earthly store is all the furniture you have for the future, sell it and use it to pay to go to Cliff College.

He went to Cliff College. There were about thirty-five students there, as there were when I went there, thirty-five men. He woke up one morning about two o'clock with a craving for God. Dan Philips, was his name. He came down in his pajamas into the lecture hall, between one and two o'clock in the morning and started crying to God. And he just roared: "Lord, I'm a preacher. Lord I win souls, but my heart is not full of Holiness, it's not full of love, it's not full of the power of the Spirit, it's not full of humility, it's not full of gentleness, it's not even full of peace. Send the fire down to this heart of mine." And he cried for about half an hour, and every man in the college left his bed and they were all there in that room in their pajamas crying to God. And the Spirit of the living God came on them. And the Holy Spirit swept through the College for weeks.

He didn't think when he yielded his life, and his future wife, and all he had in Manchester, the result would be that a whole college revived. We had some of the most brilliant preachers, Samuel Chadwick was there. Joe Brice was there. Some of the outstanding preachers of England were there, but it wasn't through their preaching. It was when a man obeyed God, and tossed the bedclothes on one side and went down in the room that was cold and said, "God I need just the fire of the Holy Spirit, not for tonight, but for all my life. I want to refill my life continually with the Spirit."

It is not enough to be filled with His Holy Spirit ten years ago. I don't care where you were baptized. The question isn't were you filled ten years ago but are you filled tonight? Are you filled with God tonight? Are you filled with love tonight? Are you filled with power tonight? Are you filled with passion for the lost?

Come on, in God's name. God is going to bypass us. You may scream if you've gifts, you don't scream for the fruit. It's not easy. God will wreck your career. Hell wreck you life style. But if He does if you let Him, He can use you to poor out His revival through you. One day the pillar of fire is going to come, and you know what? We won't need to advertise! There will be such a meekness, such a sweetness, such a holiness, such a gentleness, such a loving kindness the fruit of the Spirit.

We are going to sing Mr. Hatch's hymn (a brilliant English preacher), he had a packed church, he had stacks of money, he was the favorite preacher in town. "But one night," he said, "I went into my office, and said, "Lord I am not satisfied with popularity. I am not satisfied with the favor of men. I am not satisfied with my eloquence. "Breath on me breath of God." And he snatched a piece of paper and he wrote this hymn we are going to sing now.

Maybe you want to meet God in some new way. If you do, why don't you keel at your chair while we sing and let others sing it. Kneel somewhere and say, "Lord, I want something tonight that I've never had in my life. I want the destruction of my self-life, my self-interest, my temper, my pride, my fear of man, my fear of the future, my fear of what the relatives will think of me, destroy it!

All hell is looking into this meeting at this moment. All angels are looking in. And Jesus is waiting to see the fruit of the travail of His soul.

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(The End)

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