Ravenhill:
I got saved at 14. I am 84, almost 85. So I mean 70 years I have seen all kinds of
tragedies in the church, wars and rumors of wars, popular men go, popular and so forth. But I keep looking unto Jesus and reading the Word. I am remembering these old paths that my daddy used to talk about so much and all the other looks like trivia.
I have often said that I didn’t come to Jesus. As an old English hymn that we used to sing so often, I came to Jesus I was weary and worn and sat at him because I was 14 and I didn't understand my father’s zeal for God. I didn’t come because I was convicted of sin. I came because of the blanks in my life like he relished reading the Word of God and he relished going to prayer meetings even half nights of prayer. And also more than ever he relished being a street corner preacher and that...do you remember the hymn, My Faith Looks up to thee, thou Lamb of Calvary? Well, the last stanza says.
May thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal inspire.
And my daddy had inspired zeal. God lifted the beggar from the dunghill. He completely changed my dad. He had been through a certain system of religion which made him fearful and terrified of priest craft and all that. And he got marvelously born again as a result of hearing David Matthews who went through the Welsh Revival. Then he wrote the classic. It is still a classic on I Saw the Welsh Revival. Well, my daddy had never been in meetings like that and the fervor and the joy.
Particularly I remember seeing David Matthews when I was five years of age. I had
never seen anybody preach like that. He sang like with his mouth like an oval and he had
a shock of black, wavy hair and he had a zeal and he had a joy in the Lord that stirred.
And my daddy got saved.
Well, as a result of that, as I say, he became fervent in spirit serving the Lord. I never saw
him downcast. I never saw him suggest about giving up. But, I mean, when he got saved
he tossed away his interest in professional football and everything else which, of course,
became a style in England. After you are saved you never go to a movie, you never go to
a professional match. There is so much profanity and so forth.
Page 2 of 47
And when I saw that and I saw the joy and we lived in comparative poverty. We hadn’t
much money. And my daddy was a laborer. And as a result of that, as I said, at 14 he
took me for a half night to prayer meeting with three other men there. And they prayed
and my daddy is a big husky man taking his coat off at one o'clock in the morning in a
room that had no heat and praying with tears and fervor.
From that very day I recognized there was something far beyond what the average
Christian had. And then after that, of course, I went to the Methodist class until I was 14
and that was full of the joy of the Lord and I mean people spoke as though God lived
with them all of the time and he did.
And there was that same kind of zeal there. I mean even in those days back in the 19
ought...well, around 1912, just before World War I even there was a half hour song
singing before the Sunday night service, but they didn’t sing choruses except choruses
from hymns. Oh, they sang great hymns like And Can it Be and so forth. And you had
men who would explode at a meeting when they were singing, ”And can it be that I
should gain...my chains fell off.” One old boy would jump and the tears roll down his
face. He would strike it at the end as a woman to the left of us. I used to watch her
because her neck would go red and then she would suddenly burst with a Hallelujah, you
know. We talk about the joy of the Lord, but have never seen anything like it.
So, well, at that time Samuel tried to make his preaching in the...he had revival in the
local level in Lees. And, of course, the conversation in our house, we hardly ever had a
newspaper. There was no talk about films of course. They were just coming out then. It
was all about God and ministries and so forth.
Daddy told me this. He, Patrick Whelps, who founded the Japan Rescue Mission, I was
about 12 I think. [?] morning. And later saw this cable it was [?] who walked through
China in the Gobi desert and all that kind of...my daddy, whatever. There was anything
fervent. I will tell you. I have had five...Doncaster was 25 miles away from us. Well,
there was a Pentecostal fellowship there. And I forget the name of the Bible teacher, but
my daddy...he had a bus to town, another bus from town to Doncaster and then walked
the rest of the way to the fellowship and stayed there the weekend and came back raging
to say he had been in the upper room which had just about had, because [?] was one of
the teachers there and all those guys.
And nobody knows this, scornfully said, "Faith healing is fake healing.”
And one of the living evidences of people spontaneously getting out of wheelchairs and
so forth. But it wasn’t that. Merely was a transformation [?]. I mean they went back to
the churches and had prayer meetings and in our town we had a little man. He was
only...I don’t think he weighs above about 110 pounds. And for years he fasted and
prayed. He was a Pentecostal which was despised. In fact his wife said to hear him pray,
he would be praying in another room, it was like a man having a first encounter with
God. He wrestled with God.
Page 3 of 47
Well, then, George Jeffries came along in 1927. the whole city was swept in three weeks
with the Holy Ghost. And the church is there today. It is called Bridge Street in Lees,
England. That church is still...it is in its third enlargement. While other churches are
going down, they are still [?]. They were born in the fire. They maintained the fire. But
they may [?] prayer all the time.
Well, then from there I was in a factory working in a factory one day and I heard a voice
say, "Follow me.” And I turned it was so real. I took my tape off my neck. I was a
tailor’s cutter. I put my shears down and prayed and I remember saying clearly to the
Lord, "Lord, not only will I not go back, I won’t even look back.” And that day I applied
to go to Cliff College and then went Saturday because the principal there was a chap that
birds of a feather flock together.
So a great character in America at that time was A.B. Simpson, founder of Christian
Missionary Alliance. And also in Scotland there was a man by the name of McIntire
which wrote a little book Hidden Life of Prayer. It is one of the classics. It is still
published. [?]
Well, those three men knew...of course, across the Atlantic there was no telephone in
those days. And mail was slow, but they corresponded all the time because they were on
one level.
Well, Chadwick went out and right opposite his church in the village of Lees there is a
oversized statue of Queen Victoria with a big spread in front of it. And men used to
stand on there and preach.
Well, an Atheist stood there and he laughed at people coming out to church and scorned
them and told them a man standing in a coward’s castle a pulpit. He talks one way. [?]
listen to me and they listen.
Well, Chadwick went out and listened to this man scorning the Bible and everything.
Well, one day he said, "Listen. I have listened to you three weeks. You daren’t come and
listen to me. You come and listen to me.”
He said, "I’ll come next.”
So he came and there is a big horseshoe gallery and right opposite the preacher was the
flock and this man, the leader of the [?] club and [?]and they came to the oath of the first
night they were there and he wiped out the whole testimony of the atheist. And then he
wiped out the...all the devil [?] in the community at level on a local...revival on a local
level. And it was all prayer. I mean, he wrote the book The Way to Pentecost. And after
that he wrote the book The Path of Prayer. And that is where they live. And that is
where he wrote that on so many of us that we...we saw a living example of it, a man who
walked in the power of the Spirit.
Page 4 of 47
Well, then I have gone for long enough, but I won’t. All the time I have tried to feed
myself. I have gathered books. I have a rack of books on prayer and a whole stack of
books on history of revival which we don’t have anymore. America hasn’t had a revival
in the last 70 years that I know of.
I mean revival that closes the shops and as soon as people get home they want to get to
the sanctuary and they don’t stay to seven o'clock tonight. They just go eight till midnight
and after, when the Holy Ghost really comes.
I think maybe afterward praying in England [?] Holy Spirit would come, but I wondered
what they wanted him to come for, just to increase your numbers? Just so our kids won’t
go to the devil. I mean are we jealous for God’s glory? And to me that is what revival is
all about. Revival is an invasion of God by the Spirit. And if we...if America doesn’t
have one in the next 10 years it is going to be horrible living in this country. Crime is out
of hand now. Immorality abounds. [?] every devilish thing is prospering. First all the
power of the cults. [?] imbalance. So it is inevitable that we have revival.
Voice:
Paul said, "Would to God you could bear with me in my folly.”1
Ravenhill:
Yeah.
Voice:
"And indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy.”2
Ravenhill:
Yes.
Voice:
"For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that
cometh preacheth another Jesus...”3
Ravenhill:
Yeah.
1
2 Corinthians 11:1
2
2 Corinthians 11:1-2
3
2 Corinthians 11:2-4
Page 5 of 47
Voice:
"...whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not
received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted...”4
Ravenhill:
Yeah.
Voice:
"...ye might well bear with him.”5
Ravenhill:
Yeah.
Voice:
Is there another gospel that we are listening to?
Ravenhill:
Sure.
Voice:
[?] gospel? What is that gospel?
Ravenhill:
Well, in England we used to call it Modernism or you call it Liberalism here, that I mean
the Baptists now for a long time they have had contention about the Bible. Is it the very
word of God? I mean, [?]. And as I say very often, we have revised it, but God never
has. And I still think the King James Version is nearest to the best. And those old
fashioned guys preached it.
I think what it is, we have almost no preachers in America. Everybody is teaching,
teaching, teaching. I think I have 500 tapes in there that people are saying you got 40
tapes in the first month of this year. You must read my interpretation of Revelation. You
must read my story.
4
2 Corinthians 11:4
5
Ibid.
Page 6 of 47
There are at least 50 John the Baptists in the country. So I think they are... if a guy tells
me, "I’m John the Baptist. Have you increased your insurance?”
I say, "Why?” I say, "You are only going to live six months.”
He goes, "Oh, no, no, no.”
But we are not preaching the gospel.
Voice:
What are we preaching?
Ravenhill:
Well, there is one...there was two groups. There is one group that is preaching signs and
wonders and all the time. There is another one that says it is love and signs...it is signs
and wonders in God’s name, what did he do for Judas? He saw everything Jesus did and
then look what he did. And what of some of the guys that he had preached about the
Holy Ghost and miracles? Where are they now? One is in jail. The other is in the gutter
comparatively. We have got to get back to the cross.
"I, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men.”6
You get the Emmaus Road...going down the Emmaus Road it says that Jesus opened unto
them the Scriptures. Then he opened their eyes. Then he opened their understanding. But
then you would think after they had...and to read the last chapter in Luke and it says they
saw something there that they sat and talked with Jesus and had breakfast with him. One
of them broke bread and he took...gave him bread and the other one broke a honey comb
and, well, can you imagine you giving Jesus personally honey comb and he puts his hand
out. There is a nail hole through it. And they saw the most astounding miracle in history,
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And wait a minute he says, "Come with me.”
And they went to what this and the next most astounding miracle, the ascension of Jesus
into heaven. Couldn’t they live on that? Couldn’t they...?
There isn’t a devil in hell who will ever move us. We had breakfast with Jesus. We talked
with Jesus. We shared a meal with Jesus. Couldn’t you live on that forever?
Jesus says, "No, you can’t.”
"Well, we saw him ascend into heaven. Not many of us, but we saw him.”
The two most outstanding...and yet Jesus says, "Tarry until you be endued.”7
6
See John 12:32
7
See Luke 24:49
Page 7 of 47
You can’t live on the emotion of it. That is the trouble with...that the most horrible thing I
know that happens in evangelism today, we don’t value the human soul. When are we
going to get serious about being serious about the most serious thing in the world, the
birth of people at the altar?
I watched the close of a service in Dallas a few weeks ago. At the end about 15 people
came in four minutes. They said a prayer and gone away. Well, my reaction that, brother,
was this. I can’t get my car through my carwash in four minutes. Can they pass from
death unto life? Can they put off the old man and put on the new man as you use the
figure? Can they get married to Christ in four minutes?
Of course not. In fact when you read Seven Pentecostal Pioneers which everybody
should read because it is still printed, it tells you there that they had one place where they
had meetings for three weeks. And I forget the numbers. Something like 964 people came
and everyone was dealt with personally.
We used to go to a city without money and pitch a tent and stay there 12 weeks. The
churches are still there 60 years after. But everybody came to the altar. If you came I
would come with a Bible at the side of you and ask you what your problem was. If you
wanted to be saved we took you through the Scriptures. If we spent an hour, so what?
I don’t often watch TV. I watched a special. There was a special about three years ago of
all the things that they were going to show on one of the””what do you call them now””
well, it was the special animals, the birth of a giraffe. And I said to Martha, "Well,
darling, I want to see this.”
So anyhow the guy said, "Now, listen. I have already gone through this once, but let me
show you...” And he brought in this female. He said, "Look. Her head is 14 feet from the
ground,” which I thought was a long way. "Now, here is a male. His head is 19 feet from
the ground. Now watch,” and he said, "I have been through this so watch.” And he said,
"We will bring the camera right in front of the giraffe.” He said, "Now, look. She is
spreading her legs at the back. Do you see that black thing hanging? That’s a little baby
and it is going to fall five to six feet, according to the height of the animal, onto a bed of
straw.”
So what has that got to do with the gospel? It broke my heart. Why? Because I watched
that thing and he said, "Now watch the neck now. You see the thing is coming now.
Now, watch, watch,” he said. "There.” And the thing dropped to the...on to the big bed
of straw. And he said, "Now this takes between three and four hours.” And he said,
"Now, watch.” And the little thing tried to get up and it rolled over. It tried again, it
rolled over. It tried again, it rolled over. It tried up again, it rolled the other way.
"Now watch carefully,” he said. And the next time it tried the mother put a hoof behind
its backside and lifted it up and it stood up. And she turned around and now the...and the
little thing of it. And he said, "That’s almost four hours.”
Page 8 of 47
So I went to the room to pray and [?] my son. I said, "Danny,” I said, "It takes four hours
to get a baby giraffe born. It doesn’t take four minutes for somebody to get born at our
altars today. Oh, well, [?]. Just a few minutes. Stay a few minutes in God’s name.”
"What do you mean stay a few minutes?”
Was Gethsemane a few minutes? Was the temptation in the wilderness a few minutes?
We are trying to get people...I guarantee that not five percent of people in America and
England are genuinely born again of the Spirit. They are born again of a decision. They
give up a few lousy habits some of them and some of them don’t. They go right back.
And then they will tell you that there is nothing in it.
Dear brother, I was at this certain place I have preached on the new birth. I thought I had
pretty much liberty. And I said, "If any of you want this experience of birth in Christ
come forward and the men come down the aisle and go to the room on the right. Women,
go down on the left. So there were a half a dozen in each group. Well, that was... that
was nine o'clock. And we stayed in that room until 10 helping men. And they were really
broken before God.
Then at 10 o'clock there was a knock on the door and they said, "Come in.” And it was
the pastor.
And he said, "Can I bring this lady in. Will you pray with her?”
I said, "I will if you will stay.” She was a gorgeous looking blonde.
She no sooner hit the ground than she burst in and she said this. "I want to tell you
something Mr. Ravenhill.”
I said, "Well, tell me. I’ll listen.”
She said, "This is the 14th time I have come out for this. I went to a certain Bible school
for three years. We had three revivals in a year and each time I went and I was nine
times.” And she said, "Since them I am [?] before the meeting someone slips their arm
around me and says, ‘Don’t worry, dear. Jesus paid it all. He knows when you have said
you are sorry and that is all that matters.’”
And I said, "That’s not true.” And I said, "We will stay with you while you really get a
real relationship with God.”
So we stayed. And she passed from death to life. How do I know? Because two years
after I was passing the church she was coming out with a Bible and I said to her...he said,
"That’s the woman you prayed for the last time you were here. She is the best Bible
teacher we have.”
The thing was before she got saved and back to Bible school days she got married. She
Page 9 of 47
got divorced. She had a child. She had a broken heart, a broken life. It would have been
avoided if she had got saved the first time. But she didn’t get saved. She made a mental
decision. She wanted to be better. She wanted to go to heaven.
But how many people really want to know. I mean, isn’t the essence of Christianity
Christ in you the hope of glory? There is not a religion in the world where the man’s
God comes and lives inside of him. We have made it appear as though if you get saved,
of course, you are going to give up all your joys, you give up these crazy habits. You
don’t go to movies, you don’t go to ball games. You...Christ is all you want.
But what on the other hand? What about peace that passes all understanding? What
about a home eternal in the heavens? What about the eternal aspect? We don’t present
that.
I had two fellows in here the other week and they came of a certain...they actually came
[?]. And one of them said immediately, he said literally, "I know how to put a sermon
together. I know how to get words together, but I have no power.”
The other man burst into [?] I have just opened a paper and your preacher is in there. He
said, "Well, I didn’t put it...somebody.”
I said, "But you are a preacher.”
He said, "I have had 300 people saved in the last three months.”
"How do you know?”
And he hadn’t an answer.
"Well,” he said, "I don’t know. I have often wondered. They’ll come out and say a
prayer and go out and live the same.”
I said, "They don’t if they are born again. You become a new creature. "
If any man, anywhere at any time be in Christ and there is no better example of that Dave
Wilkinson with all the people he covers unless...I don’t know if you know Jackie [?]. Do
you know Jackie? Well, she was here to see me. And I mean she goes...she is with God
until 10 o'clock at night. She goes to the gutters. She goes to the outcast. She goes to the
prostitutes. She goes to men that have smoked opium for 50 years. She goes to women
that have prostituted for 40 years. You have got to have a gospel. You can’t give a
mental flip to this people.
And she stays with them until they are born again of the Spirit of God. That’s one of the
most amazing works in the world as far as I am concerned. But where are the people? I
mean you [?] the people who have made a profession of Christ in the last few years at our
crusades and everybody here [?] a veteran mission from South America and he said,
Page 10 of 47
"Before I came up, brother Ravenhill, I was talking to a veteran missionary and he said,
‘Brother, if you add up all the crusades in South America and all the people...everybody
in South America has been saved five times in the last 15 years.”
Well, is it the same in this country? Are we so far...how many people came to the
meeting? How many people came forward? Why aren’t the churches increasing?
I had a lawyer call me from one of the greatest churches in the country, say, "Mr.
Ravenhill, if 1000 people walk down the aisle in our church every year and after three
years of doing that,” he said, "the church is still the same size. We still have the same
seating capacity. The prayer meetings haven’t grown. There is no evidence except hat
these people come forward every Sunday.”
Why haven’t they?
As I said to you earlier, dear brother, the darkness of this day is the gift of the church, the
world. The street meetings are gone. Dear God, we have all kinds of ministries around
here, but [?] goes to hell.
How many churches do you have and mega churches in Dallas? I guess you can’t find
one street. I spent 50 years of my life in street meetings. Every Saturday night I went out
at 9:30 until midnight and after every night for...whether it was snowing or raining or
what. We went out to the same place and people came out of taverns and out of movie
houses at 10 o'clock and stayed an hour and two hours in the cold, not air conditioned
buildings, no nice, no attractive singers, just [?] one man said this. His friend was in jail.
This friend used to run around with women. This man has a prison record. This man over
there used to beat his wife and they are transformed. This girl was a prostitute. And put
them out, living flesh and blood. Nobody could argue.
People would stand and say, "Why are you the only preacher in town [?]?”
I don’t know except God told me to do it and I do it. Well, that’s where the lost people
are. A man would be an idiot to buy a hundred dollar fishing gear and fish in his bathtub.
And that’s all we are doing in church. We are fishing with the same people every week
and people are dying without God.
I am glad, David, that I was raised in a church where we had a...I know the preachers are
often boarding. I devoured the Methodist hymnbook 80 years ago. And I can recite still
dozens and dozens of hymns. And one was penned by Andrew Bonar.
Go, labor on: spend, and be spent,
Thy joy to do the Father's will:
It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?
Men die in darkness at your side,
Page 11 of 47
Without a hope to cheer the tomb;
Take up the torch and wave it wide,
The torch that lights time's thickest gloom.
I go to the prayer meetings. Somebody will pray that. After that somebody will pray the
prayer of one of the greatest of modern women there from India, what was her name?
Voice:
Amy Carmichael?
Ravenhill:
Yeah, thank you. Amy Carmichael. You know,
Give me a love that leads the way,
A faith that nothing can destroy,
A hope no disappointment tire,
A passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod;
The woman is way over 100 pounds.
Make me Thy tool, O, flame of God.
She never married. She took a one way ticket to the mission field. People go now. There
is plenty of money now. It says, "Oh, we’d love you to come back for Christmas and
Thanksgiving. Do come back.” So they break up and come back. They go back. They
run to and fro. They have to go with their camera. They have to go with their load of
stuff. You don’t find the old fashioned missionaries going like they used to do.
Jackie went on a single ticket to Hong Kong when she was 19. She is 44 now. She is still
there. She has shed a million tears, but she has had some of the greatest characters
infamous characters saved there. How many people come forward in your church and you
can go back afterwards and say, "When you came to the altar, now, what happened in
your life?”
I think that everybody that comes to the altar we should visit them during the week and
be sure that they did pass from death unto life because what happens? They say, "Well, I
have been out twice and I never got anything.”
Well, they can’t. [?] mentally. I don’t see any brokenness. I see kids come forward in a
crusade. They are laughing and joining hands. They go out. And the first thing they do is
stop at a hot dog place or something. They don’t go home to grieve and read the Word
and find out if it is true. They go back full of jollity and they sing on the verse. We had a
wonderful time. But what are we doing?
Page 12 of 47
Voice:
The summer is gone.
Ravenhill:
The harvest is past.
Voice:
The harvest is past and we are not saved.8
Is that what you are saying?
Ravenhill:
Yeah, what I am saying, dear brother. I don’t believe that we have reached the conscience
like some people like one of the classic things [?] used to quote to me often he would say,
"Well, Len, remember when our famous American preacher D.L. Moody went to
London. The first day he preached [?] in his Yankee clothes. The second day they
laughed at his style. The third day the Cambridge University men were there laughing at
his clothes.” And he said, "Len, they can laugh at my style, laugh at my Americanism.”
But he said, "In God’s name, don’t laugh at the Word of God.” He says, "The Word that I
would just as soon handle fault lightning.”
What has happened? Here is an illicit man. He had comparatively no education. He goes
to London. He goes to London to [?] Alexander White was the king of the pulpit at that
time. And Alexander White sits on the edge of his seat with his mouth open. "Where
does this man go?”
He doesn’t know his history too well. Those books [?] correctly, but it is something about
it, so much so that across town there is a [?] book called...no a book written by Henry
Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World. It is one of the greatest classics ever. And
Alexander White says to [?], "Come over and hear this fellow. We haven’t had an
evangelist like this.” And they were spellbound.
What would have happened if he had gone to London for three days? In the end he went
for eight months. He went to Scotland and there is still the....the tent hall is still there
at...I think they call it a tent hall because people came out to the tent that Moody had and
went to that hall also that one of the greatest Bible schools ever, Glasgow Bible Institute
was founded because of that. And the money was given to him.
Well, I’ll tell you. You talk about background. One of the most wonderful men I ever
saw was C.T. Studd. Well, C.T. Studd’s daddy used to buddy with the King of England.
8
See Jeremiah 8:20
Page 13 of 47
When I used to...I used to do in World War II, I went to one of the largest air force camps
in the nation and [?] off a hill and to the right in the moonlight I could see this [?] where
C.T. used to live with a private race course. Well, C.T.’s daddy went to London and
mixed up with all the society. And he had about this Yankee preacher. Well, let’s go.
Well, when he got there somebody asked the man to pray while...what do you call him
now? While Moody is on the platform then a priest...they sang the hymn and said,
"Pray.” This guy went on and on. And Moody jumped up and said, "Let’s sing a song
while this fellow finishes.”
So immediately they were happy. You know, the guy wasn’t trying to [?]. Well, they
listened and C.T.’s...I think his father got saved there and as a result [?] three most
famous cricketrers in England. C.T. was the Babe Ruth of English city, cricket. Well,
they went and the whole society [?] about went. Well, C.T. joined up with the chaotic six.
They formed the Cambridge Seven and went to China.
I mean there is all kinds of things happened out of that. One revival, I mean they
literally...man, they didn’t care if he laughed at his clothes and everything. And they
received opposition.
Well, nothing happened like that until the 1920s or 26 or something like that when
George Jeffries went to whole crusades in England and Steven Jeffries’ are greater works
than that. And they go to a town without a penny and believe God to fill an auditorium
with 3000 people in a week and they did it. And they weren’t great expositors.
Voice:
Brother Ravenhill, in Jeremiah the prophet says, "Thus saith the Lord...”
Ravenhill:
Yes.
Voice:
"Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths.”9
Ravenhill:
Yes.
Voice:
"...where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they
said, We will not walk therein.”10
9
Jeremiah 6:16
Page 14 of 47
Ravenhill:
Well, going back, brother Larry, I said we have turned out the lights in the street. We
have no more street meetings. We have turned the light out Sunday night. Many churches
don’t have a Sunday night meeting. Wednesday night, that is the biggest tragedy. People
say, "Don’t you think we should get the Bible back in school?”
They say, "That’s on the first form. We get it back in the home.”
Why don’t...how many people. I mean, ask the deacons in your church. Ask the pastor,
"how many of you have family worship?”
They don’t have it. And so they suffer [?] they have to go and get on TV and leave it till
the kiddies go to bed. Thy don’t know the Word of God.
I had a man here and his daughter came to bring me some mail and she is 14. I said,
"Well, dearie. How much Scripture have you memorized?”
"Oh, I haven’t memorized any.”
I said, "Can you memorize the 10 Commandments?”
She couldn’t say the 10 Commandments.
Two days after a young guy came. He lives across town and he has seven children. The
eldest boy is 13. He has memorized every word of every chapter in the Proverbs. And the
other boy is 10 and he has memorized 12 chapters of Proverbs, every word. The man
gets up with his wife at four to 4:30 in the morning. They have an hour together with the
Word of God. They get the children up just after five and then teach them the Word of
God in prayer. And then their kids are allowed to rest. And then the mother teaches and
the rest of the day she is home schooling them. How they do it, I don’t know. But those
little kids are walking Bibles.
We don’t know the Word of God.
Two things we don’t know. In fact, I say to the seminary men, "Do you know God?”
"Well, I didn’t...”
"No, No. I asked...answer yes or no.”
"Oh, I learned Hebrew.”
"I didn’t ask you if you know Hebrew. Do you know God?”
10
Ibid.
Page 15 of 47
You ask 10 young people in your church to answer in less than 50 words why did Jesus
come into the world? To save us from hell. To save us from sin. And so they go on. But
is Jesus saying in John 17:3? "That they might know thee the only true God.”11
And that’s yes. But we don’t know God. If we knew God we would set the world on
fire. If we knew God we wouldn’t beg for money.
Voice:
We know things about God, but we don’t God.
Ravenhill:
We don’t know God.
What I wanted to tell you then, in 1932 I preached in Swansea, South Wales in a little
upper room. And there was a lady there with whit hair and she said, "Do you know my
husband?”
I said, "I didn’t know your husband.”
She said, "Well, my husband is Major Russell.”
I said, "Well, who is Major Russell?”
"In the British army?”
"No, Salvation Army.”
She said, "Will you come out? Come out and have a meal with us?”
And I said, "Well, this is a crusade.” And I said to her, "Dear, I only have Friday off.” I
said, "I’ll take the bus and come up.” The place was called Rivina. "I’ll come up Friday
afternoon.”
She said, "Well, come and have some tea and we will talk.”
So here is a gray haired fellow sitting and I said to him, "Well, it is a privilege to come
and talk with you. How old are you?”
He said, "Well, I’m 82.” And he said, "I’ll tell you some things that when you are my
age...”
I said, "I’ll never live to 82.” And I am 84 now and I am nearly 85.
11
John 17:3