We need Revival- with Insight from Leonard Ravenhill
Blow a trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of the LORD is coming; Surely it is near,
Joel 2: 1
12“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; 13And rend your heart and not your garments.”
Joel 2: 12
Back in 1987, the Lord called me into ministry, and then in 1989, He gave me my first preaching assignment. I had sought hard to find a name for the ministry and had come up with several that I liked. But the Lord came back time and time again with, “Pure Heart Ministries.” I told Him I didn’t like it and wanted to call it a different name. But the Lord, well, he refused to change. So, the ministry was called Pure Heart Ministries.
Then, one night, the Lord came to me and explained that He called me to provoke His people to pray for revival. To be honest, at that time, I knew nothing about revival. The Lord continued and gave me Joel chapter two with the instruction that I was to focus on the heart. I understood why He called the ministry Pure Heart—or so I thought. My first message was based on Joel chapter two back in 1989.
In the last two or three years the Lord began to share with me that I was called to provoke believers to pray for revival and to live with a pure heart. 2021 was a year when something changed. There was an increase in intensity and an acceleration. The Lord spoke to me several times, warning me of how late the hour is and what He was calling me to do.
All my life, I had opinions of what the last days would be like, but I never imagined they would end up like the days we find ourselves in. Then, when I think about all the things the Lord has shown me are coming, the need for the Church to arise and pray has never been greater.
The Lord led me to Leonard Ravenhill. He pointed out how we take quotes from the Bible and miss key components. We live in an hour where we live compromised lives and feel it is ok to interpret the Word the way we want to. Leonard said-
God is able, without a doubt, to do all that the first part of the verse implies—but read on. The promise is that God is able “… according to the power that worketh in us.”
He added-
But are we not also guilty of misquoting the Royal Message in our ideas?
When we look at the verse in context, suddenly, we see the need for a personal revival. Something has to change in us. Leonard went on to say-
Since something is obviously stopping the Spirit’s inflow to us Christians, the same thing is stopping His outflow from us. With the Spirit’s help we need to search for this hindrance. “God. . . searcheth the heart.”
Many people criticize me for preaching such messages because, as they explain, I don’t understand what they are going through, and I am being too strict regarding the Word. But let’s look at Joel chapter two and what the Lord has to say. As Leonard Ravenhill states, we like to quote the parts of Joel chapter two that are nice and make us feel good-
Another Scripture which comes in for pernicious and promiscuous use, even more, is Joel 2:28-32. Nothing seems to put a sagging prayer meeting back on its feet like the promise in these verses: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will out spirit all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.” Let us consider this passage at greater length. In these turbulent days, some men use this Joel 2 promise as a sheet anchor for the soul, or else they hold it like a shining star of hope in the black sky of this moral midnight. But to isolate this text is unlawful, unscriptural, and therefore untrue.
What we miss is as Leonard Ravenhill explains-
Of all the promises, this promise of revival to come “in those days” is obviously conditional.
It starts with us and if we really want revival, then we must act and act NOW. Ravenhill said-
An old Chinese proverb says that he who would take a thousand steps must take the first one. By the same token he who would claim Joel 2:28, 29 must start earlier in the chapter. Verse 12 would be a good starting point: “Therefore… saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”
We need to get into the Secret Place and be revived. We must permanently abide in the Secret Place, fully awake and living boldly for Jesus. Can our prayer life and burden for revival no longer be confined to a weekly prayer meeting? Ravenhill said-
Revival must not be just a once-a-week concern in the midweek church prayer meeting.
So, based on Joel chapter two, let us hear what the Lord is calling us to do and what actions we are to take. Ravenhill said-
Here then are the ingredients of the first phase of our quest for outpoured blessing: “Turn ye even to me with… Fasting, with weeping, and with mourning” (Joel 2:12).
He added-
If on our part we do not obey these things, how can we hold God to His part?
We are called to rend our hearts and not just our garments. To explain the rending of the garments, Ravenhill stated-
In Genesis 37:29 when Reuben returned and Joseph was not in the pit, Reuben “rent his clothes.” This rending of the garments was again an outward sign of inward grief, a sign of a broken heart.
In the Secret Place we must be real because it is a holy place and a place of absolute truth. We can’t fake it or put on a show. Ravenhill explained-
Here again from the Word of the Lord we have fasting, sackcloth, and humiliation as a sign of grief, and an operation that God favored.
And
If Reuben was heartbroken over the absence of his brother and rent his garments, and if Ahab put on sackcloth, ought not we, too, be distressed about the lost millions who wander into eternity without God and without hope?
But we must, as I have explained, abide in the Secret Place where we walk in a holy fear of the Lord, and we are real. Ravenhill warned-
The rending of the garments could drift into hypocritical formality. Behind the outward observance, there could be no broken heart.
But rather in the Secret Place we must receive the Holy Spirit fully and allow Him complete access to every part of our lives. All hypocrisy and falsehood must be revealed and killed. Our hearts must become soft, sensitive and receptive to all He has to say. Ravenhill said-
We rend our hearts by godly consideration and self-examination; by the conviction of the Holy Spirit; by recognition of our failure to pray; by confessing that we have more appetite for material food than for spiritual; by acknowledging that we like the company of men more than the company of God; by abhorring ourselves because we love to play more than pray.
He added
Our next instruction is a repeated one: “Turn unto the Lord your God” (vs. 13). They were admonished to turn to the Lord; so somewhere they had turned from Him.
We look around and we see a Church lacking power and consumed in the world. But what about us? Oh, to become so sensitized to the Holy Spirit that at the instant we offend or grieve Him, we would know and repent. If we, like David, have one desire, which in reality is to dwell in the Secret Place of the Lord’s Presence. We would as Ravenhill explained-
Are we like David, aware when we grieve the Spirit? Where did we begin to trust in the flesh, consciously or unconsciously?
Let us understand as Ravenhill said-
We are wondering why God does not move; He is wondering why we do not break!
As Jesus explained to the Church at Laodicea they did not see their true state and need of Him. Have we lost sight of our need of Him? Do we seek to do it all in our strength and by our inspiration?
We must turn to God to receive compassion (without Him we have none) for the multitudes; we must turn to Him for power to pray; we must turn to Him for endurance to fast; we must turn to Him for vision; we must turn to Him for endurance to overcome principalities and powers.
Do we hear the alarm of Heaven in this hour? Is our spirit disturbed and sensing the need to pray?
Dean Stanley has this to say about it: “The harsh blast of the consecrated ram’s horn called an assembly for an extraordinary fast. Not a soul was to be absent.
Are today’s leaders broken? The call from Heaven is that they must become broken. We preach success and victory but ignore repentance and brokenness.
In the time of this calamity that Joel speaks of, the priests, the ministers of the Lord, were to weep between the porch and the altar. This is a divine arrangement. This is a divine commandment.
Ravenhill powerfully explained-
It has been said, “Tears without prayers are vain.” In a time of calamity, it might be right to say, “Prayers without tears are vain.”
