Welcome to our collection of quotes by Leonard Ravenhill. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Leonard Ravenhill
Leonard Ravenhill (18 June 1907 – 27 November 1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging western evangelicalism (through his books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide.
If Jesus preached the same message ministers preach today, He would have never been crucified.
Ten million years will not put a strain on the clock of eternity.
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!
The world is waiting for a practical demonstration of the Gospel of the grace of God!
The world out there is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity; it's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.
God doesn't answer prayer, He answers desperate prayer!
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 when you haven't given Him one ounce?
Any method of evangelism will work--if God is in it.
America is not dying because of the strength of humanism but the weakness of evangelism.
Men build our churches but do not enter them, print our Bibles but do not read them, talk about God but do not believe Him, speak of Christ but do not trust Him for salvation, sing our hymns and then forget them.
Preaching is not a profession, it's a passion.
An experience of God that cost nothing, does nothing, and is worth nothing.
The opportunity of a lifetime needs to be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.
You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there's a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.
Revival is the Spirit's passion within the believer to know and to obey the total will of God.
Maybe you are the key to revival in your church.
Redemption is a magnificent thing ..the life of God in the soul of man.
A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way.
Testimonies are wonderful. But, so often our lives don't fit our testimonies.
LORD strengthen me where I am too weak and weaken me where I am too strong!
Your doctrine can be as straight as a gun barrel and just as empty!
Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!
Finney preached and sometimes the whole congregation would get up and leave! that's good preaching.
We have substituted organizing for agonizing and equipment for endowment.
Tell me what time you spend alone with God -- and I'll tell you how spiritual you are.
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.
Some preachers master thier subjects; some subjects master the preacher; once in awhile one meets a preacher who is both master of, and also mastered by his subject. The apostle Paul, I am sure, was in that category.
The highway of Christian living is strewn with has-beens.
I'm sick and tired of (only) reading about church history; let's make (some) by the grace of God.
When you're sitting in a dark room, you can either sit and curse the darkness--or you can light a candle.
He who fears God fears no man.
A popular evangelist reaches your emotions. A true prophet reaches your conscience.
Get rid of this bunkum about the 'carnal Christian.' Forget it! If you're carnal, you're not saved.
If the whole church goes off into deception, that will in no way excuse us for not following Christ.
There is a deeper life. It is as deep as a personal Gethsemane and as costly as a personal Calvary.
When God-given, heaven-sent revival does come, it will undo in weeks the damage that blasphemous Modernism has taken years to build.
If we had more hell fire preaching in the pulpit then we would have less hell bound people in the pew.
The Holy Book of the living God suffers more from its exponents today than from its opponents.
Prayer in its highest form is agonizing soul sweat.
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?'
Love is blind. Marriage is an eye-opener.
No faith is required to do the possible; actually only a morsel of this atom-powered stuff is needed to do the impossible, for a piece as large as a mustard seed will do more than we have ever dreamed of.
It may be that Satan has little cause to fear most preaching. Yet past experiences sting him to rally all his infernal army to fight against God's people praying.
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.
Someone asked me, 'Do you pray for the dead?' I said, 'No, I preach to them! I think every pew in every church is death row. Think about that! They're dead! They sing about God; they talk about God, but they're dead! They have no living relationship (with God).
If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him, does it matter whom we displease?
This much is sure in all churches, forgetting party labels; the smallest meeting numerically is the prayer-meeting. If weak in prayer we are weak everywhere.
Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen -- degrees or no degrees.
You know, we live in a day when we are more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness.
We have too many preacherettes preaching too many sermonettes to too many Christianettes smoking cigarettes.
All you have to do is get in a closer walk with God and you'll find your enemies are in your own church.
If I don't believe the Word of God, why should you believe it? If we don't believe it, why should the world believe us?
There is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word.
Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall save his people from their sins.
Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
There's only one proof of the Holy Ghost in your life and that's a holy life.
Nobody stood by Jesus. Maybe nobody will stand by you. It's a lonely life, but it's a glorious life.
We need to close every church in the land for one Sunday and cease listening to a man so we can hear the groan of the Spirit which we in our lush pews have forgotten.
I find it most intriguing to contemplate the fact that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, He has already decided what place to give them in eternity.
Why is there this criminal indifference to the lostness of men? Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living.
Are you wiser in God (now) than you were last year at this time? Peter says we're to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist never performed any miracles. Yet, he was greater than any of the Old Testament prophets.
I believe every church is either supernatural or superficial. I don't believe there's any middle ground.
Prayer is preoccupation with our needs. Praise is preoccupation with our blessings. Worship is preoccupation with GOD Himself.
We need more prophets in our pulpits and less puppets.
No man is greater than his prayer life.
Longer Version:
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.
If Jesus came back today, he wouldn't cleanse the temple, he'd cleanse the pulpit.
Praying men stop sinning and sinning men stop praying.
The most shattering thought I've ever had is my personal accountability to God one day.
The self-righteous never apologize.
The self-sufficient does not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray. No man is greater than his prayer life.
Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?
Life begets life by its very nature. By the same token, inspired men inspire.
The Sunday morning service shows how popular your church is. The evening services show how popular your pastor is. Your private prayer time shows you how popular God is!
Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions.
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.
Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was?
A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.
A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.
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.
Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!
Smart men walked on the moon, daring men walked on the ocean floor, but wise men walk with God.
Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and other sin.
Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way.
If you have the smile of God what does it matter if you have the frown of men?
The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural.
Gethsemane is where He died; the cross is only the evidence.
Great eagles fly alone; great lions hunt alone; great souls walk alone-alone with God. Such loneliness is hard to endure, and impossible to enjoy unless God accompanied. Prophets are lone men; they walk alone, pray alone and God makes them alone.