Hello brothers and sisters,
This is my first post, though I visit the site all the time. Over time I've listened to some Leonard Ravenhill messages and I often jot down things I hear that catch my attention. There were 2 poems I recorded a while back that Leonard Ravenhill read (I don't know where he got them), but now I can't find the messages and I'm wondering if any of you know where they came from.. I think the first might have been an interview, but I'm not positive. The second he talked about how his friend "Warren Parker" wrote it. Anyways, here they are:
Challenge of an Atheist - unknown
"Were I a religionist did I truly, firmly, consistently believe as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another life, religion should be to me everything. I would cast aside earthly thoughts and feelings as less than vanity. Religion would be my first waking thought and my last image when sleep sunk me into unconsciousness. I would labor for her cause alone. I wouldn't labor for the meat that perishes nor for treasures on earth but only for a crown of glory in the heavenly regions where treasures and happiness are alike beyond the reach of time and chance. I would take thought to the morrow of eternity alone. I would esteem one soul gained to heaven worth a lifetime of suffering. There should be neither worldly prudence nor calculating circumspection in my engrossing zeal. Earthly consequences should never stay my hand or seal my lips. I would speak to the imagination, awaken the feelings, stir up the passions, arouse the fancy. Earth: its joys and its griefs should never occupy a moment of my thoughts for these are but the affairs of a portion of eternity so small that no language can express it's comparatively infinite littleness. I should strive to look but on eternity and on the immortal souls around me soon to be everlastingly miserable or everlastingly happy. I would deem all who thought only of this world, merely seeking to increase temporal happiness, and laboring to obtain temporal goods; I would deem all such as purely madmen. I would go forth to the world and preach to it in season and out of season. And my text should be "what should it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul."
A Hundred Years From Now ~Warren Parker
It will not make much difference friend a hundred years from now,
If you live in a stately mansion or a floating river scow.
If the clothes you wear were tailor made or just pieced together somehow,
If you eat big steaks or beans and cake a hundred years from now.
It wont matter what your bank account or the make of car you drive,
For the grave will claim all your riches and fame and the things for which you strive.
There's a deadline that we all must meet, no one will show up late.
It wont matter all the places you've been each one will keep that date.
We will only have in eternity what we gave away on earth.
When we go to the grave we can only save the things of eternal worth.
What matters friend the earthly gain for which some men will bow?
For your destiny will be sealed you see, a hundred years from now.
If anyone knows which audio messages contain him reading these I'd be very grateful!
Thanks in advance, God bless.
Bobby
