“How often have you trifled before God, as you would not have dared to trifle in the presence of an earthly sovereign? You have either been an Atheist, and forgotten that there was a God, or have had less respect for him, and his presence, than you would have had for an earthly judge.”
“How many times have you detected yourself in consulting vanity, about your dress and appearance? How many times have you thought more, and taken more pains, and than you have about preparing your mind for the worship of God? You have gone {to the house of God} caring more as to how you appeared outwardly in the sight of mortal man, than how your soul appears in the sight of the heart-searching God. You have in fact set up yourself to be worshiped by them, rather than prepared to worship God yourself. You {came} to divide the worship of God’s house, to draw off the attention of God’s people to look at your pretty appearance. It is in vain to pretend now, that you don’t care anything about having people look at you. Be honest about it. Would you take all this pains about your looks if every body was blind?”
“Then comes intercession, the hardest work in the world – the giving of one’s self, time, strength, energy, and attention to the needs of others in a way that no one but God sees, no one but God will do anything about, and no one but God will ever reward you for.”
“The preoccupations of young women – their looks, their clothes, their social life – do not change very much from generation to generation. But in every generation, there seem to be a few who make other choices.”
“If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to him and ask him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”
“It’s a sad reflection on the church today that we are more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness.”
Leonard Ravenhill: Read More »
“If you praise and worship Jesus with your mouth, and your life does not praise and worship Him, there’s something wrong!”
“Many preachers seem very much afraid of making the impression that they mean anybody in particular. They are preaching against certain sins – not that these have anything to do with the sinner; they would by no means speak as if they supposed any of their hearers were guilty of these abominable practices. Now this is anything but preaching the Gospel.”
“Preaching, to be understood, should be colloquial in style. A minister must preach just as he would talk, if he wishes fully to be understood. Nothing is more calculated to make a sinner feel that religion is some mysterious thing that he cannot understand than this formal, lofty style of speaking which is so generally employed in the pulpit.”
“Preaching should be direct. The Gospel should be preached to men, and not about men. The minister must address his hearers. He must preach to them about themselves, and not leave the impression that he is preaching to them about others. He will never do them any good, further than he succeeds in convincing each individual that he is the person in question.”