A Study in Contrasts

“The greatest miracle God can do is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make him holy, put him back into an unholy world, and keep him holy.” -Leonard Ravenhill

“Those who know of Leonard Ravenhill recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the church, but to battle the priests of Baal on their own mountain-top, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet and to warn the people who are being led astray.

Such a man as this is not an easy companion. He is not the professional evangelist who leaves the church meeting as soon as it is over to hurry to the most expensive restaurant to feast and crack jokes with his supporters. Such evangelists will find this man something of an embarrassment, for he cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet. He insists upon being a Christian all the time and everywhere. That marks him out as different.”  -A.W. Tozer

“Leonard had a deep fear of God that pervaded all that he did and said. He feared the Lord so much and feared no man. This came out in his preaching. He did not regard the favor of man a thing to be sought after. He was constantly calling the church to the highest, to the pure, to the beauty of holiness… almost like a spokesman for the very passions of God. This “God consciousness” was a burning backdrop for everything he did and said. He was not afraid to challenge the things of man or things that were merely pleasing to our religious preferences or traditions. Ravenhill would sift them through the Scriptures and the revealed character of God.”  -Al Whittinghill

“I’m glad my daddy came out of that (high society). He was the first to challenge me about the Christian life. There were never any sports magazines in our house. All the literature in the house was spiritual. I was always reading something about a missionary in a distant land. I read one day about someone in Japan with the Japan Rescue Mission and then about someone in the Congo. All the books on our shelves were books of spiritual matters because Daddy set these things before us.”

“A crisis came in my life and I searched the whole city one Saturday afternoon with my daddy for a pair of soccer shoes because I loved soccer and I could play soccer. I could run in those days like a fast rabbit. We went to five or six shops and they had every size you could imagine. But they did not have my size. We went from shop to shop and finally I was disgusted. I was disgusted with my father and I was disgusted with the Lord as well, because I prayed and asked Him to send me soccer shoes. When he did not, I was pretty mad. Of course, I was only fourteen. But I’ll tell you what. Many times I thank God that I did not find the right shoes. It’s amazing that God doesn’t always speak or work in the way you think, but instead He works in other ways. It’s not always what He does, but also at times what He doesn’t do.” -Leonard Ravenhill

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C32ZIlVFpE&w=640&h=480]

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“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”  -Matthew 12:34

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C.J. Mahaney @CJMahaney [March Madness Podcast] Don’t Waste Your Tournament! March Madness is a gift from God!