Leonard Ravenhill was the last of a great lineage of British Holiness evangelists that included Samuel Chadwick, Billy Nicholson and Daniel Steele. As a young man he met Smith Wigglesworth, Jessie-Penn Lewis, Rees Howells, Evan Roberts, la Marechale (William Booth's daughter) and had life-long friendships with Dr. Tozer, Duncan Campbell, Norman Grubb and T. Austin-Sparks. He outlived them all, and his death in 1994 at the age of 87 marked the end of a generation.
I became acquainted with him in his later years. I used to track down out-of-print and hard-to-find books for him. My best score was a first-edition copy of "Sermons on Regeneration" by Phillip Dodderidge. He wrote, "My dear brother Wayne, I have 3500 books in my collection. This one I shall treasure most. Blessings, Len."
Though I was not part of the inner circle of friends who addressed him as "Len," I got to know him a little beyond the one-dimensional perception you get from a man's books and sermons.
One of his endearing idiosyncrasies was the way he would thank me for locating some rare volume by sending me an ill-wrapped bundle of crackpot literature that he considered vital reading for a preacher-boy - an exposé on the New Age conspiracy behind modern Bible versions, for example.
He also gave me some great books, like [i]Intercession: The Throne Ministry
His letters were always peppered with his trademark alliterative aphorisms (couplet-proverbs with repetitive first letters).
In 1992 I was passing through Texas and was delighted to discover that Lindale was just off the freeway. Having corresponded with him by letter and phone for a few years, I called ahead and asked Ravenhill if I could stop by for a visit.
Following his directions, I turned in at his address and passed through a gated entry flanked by imposing brick pillars with white marble lions on top. For a second I was in shock. "What??? Ravenhill lives in a mansion?" But in fact he and Martha lived in a little guest house by the gate. Like typical Britons, they kept a big, bright flower garden. He liked a big car with a big engine and an old Cadillac the size of an aircraft carrier was parked in the gravel driveway. He was also fond of flying-eagle pictures and his office was plastered with them. His book collection took up half the wall space in the cottage.
Because he received so many visitors, he had to limit visits to half-an-hour (At least that's what he told [i]this
Ravenhill was the same guy in person that he was in the pulpit: passionate and intense. He talked about intercession and revival and pounded the arm of his chair just like he pounded the podium.
His irrepressible fountain of humor was also in evidence. He had a surprisingly sunny smile for an old man. He asked me if I was married. I told him I was not. "Good!" he said. "Stay that way." I started to say something about the social stigma of being unmarried..."Forget it!" he said. "There's a biblical stigma to being married. By the way, do you know why a Christian man can't have two wives? Because 'No man can serve two masters!'"
Our main topic of discussion was a parallel experience we shared - we had both spent a few years with the Vineyard/Third Wave/Kansas City Prophecy movement. I had written an exposé of the "holy laughter" revival that attracted the attention of International Director Todd Hunter and ended my association with the Vineyard. I offered Ravenhill my theory that the lack of discernment in the Third Wave movement probably made genuine Revival impossible. He shook his head and said, "I've lost confidence in those guys. They bounce around from one fad to another; they won't center on the Cross."
Before I left he took my right hand in his and prayed for me.
There was a time when I looked up to him as a spiritual giant, a reincarnate Old Testament Prophet, the Greatest Preacher of Our Generation. Once I got to know him and realized he was a mere mortal, I quit idolizing him and instead came to a new understanding of what transformative Grace can do to a man. He was an ordinary man with an extraordinary nearness to Christ.
His most striking characteristic was his vision. He constantly reminded us that we serve the same God who wrought upon Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, John and Paul - "the high and holy One who inhabits eternity and whose dwelling is with the meek and lowly." What business do we have with mediocrity and paltry triumphs?
"We're paddling around the shore of an infinite ocean of grace," he used to say.
He believed in a mighty Latter Rain Revival, "A Pentecost that will out-Pentecost Pentecost!" He believed that, like Simeon, he would not die until he had seen the promise fulfilled. "If the Revival doesn't come soon," he said at the age of 85, "I'm going to be a very disgusted old man."
That was the tragic element in Ravenhill's mission. For seventy years he labored in the Gospel and travailed in prayer for the Latter Rain, but never saw it. He devoted his life to extracting a pure, victorious, praying church from the industrial church, with predictably frustrating results. The irony of his life was that his calling as a revivalist constrained him to be pure in heart, visionary and idealistic, and at the same time immersed him in the organized religion industry he detested. But, despite a lifetime of disappointments, he never gave up on the church.
Though a Primitive Methodist himself, he fellowshipped with Baptists, Quakers, Pentecostals, Keswick Conventioneers, Salvationists and Plymouth Brethren. Anyone with a heart for Revival was a friend of Ravenhill's. He was more interested in spiritual fruits than theological roots. Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." And that was the way Ravenhill looked at it: if it produces Revival, it is good theology.
His disregard for what he called "exegetical exactitude" left him free to associate with people and movements that a more proper religionist would rather avoid. He joined up with William Branham and the Voice of Healing movement, Paul Cain and the Kansas City Prophets, and similar associations, in the hope that they would burgeon into a mighty Latter Rain Revival. Instead, they fizzled or spun off into chicanery.
Some ministries are born posthumously. E.M. Bounds, for example, had little impact in his lifetime, but his Spirit-breathed books on prayer have been setting Christians on fire for a century now. And though it cannot be said that Leonard Ravenhill had "little impact" on his generation, it is certainly true that he spent a lifetime sowing seeds of Revival, but never saw the harvest.
Perhaps our generation will.
For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. (Matt. 13:17)
And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. (John 4:37-38)
