The following message is from Min. Leonard Ravenhill. May you each be blessed with a heart burning for the Lord in listening to this sermon.
The prophet by the very nature of his calling is a tragic figure. He has a fierce loyalty to God and a burning heart of compassion for the lost world.
Holiness is the most needed thing in the church today.
Jesus undid all that Adam did. He is the last Adam!
All that people know in the churches now is that they have had their sins forgiven, but they have been submitting to inward sin for years. That is not the message of salvation. Forgiveness is not salvation!
They preach to sinners in their sin, "You know the Lord loves you just as you are?" Well, then, why change? Yet the Psalms says that God is angry with the wicked every day.
Religious people like to say, "God loves you, but hates your sin." That is bunk. God hates you for committing the sin. Is God going to take your sins at the judgment and judge them, but leave you alone? The Scripture says that the man who has failed God, he will suffer loss, not his sins.
Jesus came to save us now from sin. A man living in defeat to sin cannot tell another how to be saved. We must be saved from lust, fear, doubt, pride, etc. Christianity is not a sinning religion, but a victorious one.
The problem with most preaching is that people preaching never really sees or knows God. Where there is no vision, the people perish. Every preacher ought to read Acts 26:16-18 on his knees every night.
The salvation of America does not depend on the White House, but on God's House; and before God does anything, He will clean up the church. Judgment must begin at the house of God.
The most awesome task in the world is to be a man who stands between a living God and a dying people. We need some Hellfire preachers.
Yes, Jesus whipped the people in the temple, but a few verses back He wept over them first.
God doesn't owe you a single thing. The reason you are a spiritual dwarf is because you won't eat His word, you won't wait on Him, you won't hear His voice, and you won't obey Him. The secret of revival is obedience! But you cannot obey what you don't know.
How can you have a dead church meeting if Jesus is a Living God? You cannot, unless Jesus is not there.
God's business is to make us holy. If you have the Holy Spirit, you will live a holy life and nobody in Earth or Hell will offend you. Once you get a clean heart, it will not mean a hill of beans who likes you or who doesn't (Psalm 119:165). The only reason we get offended is because there is some of Satan's character in us, some pride or bitterness.
Before God promises to pour out His Spirit on all flesh in Joel, He calls upon the people to cry out and mourn for the condition of the people (Joel 1:5-2:18).
Entertainment is the Devil's substitute for joy. The King in America is called Sports and his wife is called Entertainment.
Praise is the gateway to worship. Worship is the gateway adoration. Adoration is what you do when you are prostrate on the floor.
You will get more people to your church with a chicken supper than with prayer. This shows the pitiful condition of the church.
The church is mumbling on about the goodness of God, but refusing to acknowledge that there is severity in God as well (Romans 11:22).
Moses had been with an angry God and as a result, he became angry. You get like the people you live with. You live in the presence of God and you will become like Him. Another problem of the church is that God's people are not in line with His heart; they do not share His anger over the condition of the people.
The church has lost the fire of God. Our God is an all-consuming fire. Where did Moses get his life revolutionized? At a burning bush. Ezekiel said the fire burns him. Jeremiah said there was a fire burning in him. Jesus will baptize you with Holy Ghost fire!
The early church came out into the world without money, without prestige...only POWER. Rejected by men on every level - including orthodox religion - but were accepted by God. They went out anointed by the Holy Ghost and turned the world upside down.
The Devil isn't short of captains in his army to do the most vile & wicked things, so what is wrong with the church? We need the fire of God.
Whoooo weeee! I can't understand him that well so thank you for the translation, lol! I have been so blessed by your site. I was excited to see this new posting and I immediately played it after reading and I cannot wait to get some quiet and listen to it. That is hard with two young children :) I saw a Youtube channel that had this sermon and it has TONS of other sermons like this on their site available for download it is sermonindex.net
'Religious people like to say, "God loves you, but hates your sin." That is bunk. God hates you for committing the sin. Is God going to take your sins at the judgment and judge them, but leave you alone? The Scripture says that the man who has failed God, he will suffer loss, not his sins.' My comment on this is that God is angry with the sinner, but does not hate him. John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. Hatred, as different from being angry because of sin, is a work of darkness and does not dwell in God. 1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I have to admit that when Min. Ravenhill said, "God hates you for committing the sin.", I thought, "Whoa, that is harsh. Does that statement malign God's character?" Then God reminded me of the following:
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Romans 9:13
The word "hated" above is the Greek word miseō which means to hate or detest. Why did God hate Esau? Because Esau considered an inheritance in the Lord to be of little value.
"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Hebrews 12:16-17
Above, God compares any profane person or fornicator to Esau, whom He hated. When we despise the goodness of God and consider it worth less than the temporal things of this world, we become like Esau in God's eyes. God would not even give Esau place for repentance, although he eventually tearfully sought it. We don't like to consider such things because they fly in the face of our image of God. However, we must be honest with the Lord and ourselves. God "hated Esau" because he chose things of the world over the things of God. That is the definition of a sinner.
You say that hatred is a work of darkness, but does God say that? If God Himself says that He "hates" - and we know that there is no darkness in Him - then can we really say that hatred is a work of darkness?
Honestly, I think our complete thinking about love/hate is erroneous because it is in our minds based upon some type of feeling or emotion. The thing about God which many do not understand is that love is intimately tied with righteousness. Love has more to do with holiness than it does with an emotion-based response. Consider this:
"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." Psalm 97:10
"Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." Amos 5:15
One thing is clear, the whole "God loves the sinner, but hates the sin" is nowhere in Scripture. In fact, based in part on what is shared in the Scriptures above, we can say that such is against the Scriptures.
In the end, what difference does it make whether God is simply angry with me or whether He hates me when the end result of rebellion against Him is the same: an eternity in Hell?
That's funny about the rewinding :) I don't know if he is Scottish or English he talks so fast, lol! Anyway yes, the sermon index site looks wonderful and I just had a thought about how archiving sermons like that are so necessary because they are disappearing. I am a gardener and I am nurturing my first vegetable garden of heirloom seeds. They are non-gmo, non-hybrid. They are pure and open-pollinated. They are disappearing. What is happening is that our agriculture is dominated by corn that is genetically modified and also wheat, soy, and other fruits and vegetables. I just thought how sad it all is. How sad that we are Christians and we take in the hybrid, spliced up, modified by man so-called word of God. We don't realize how it is pushing out the pure and true Word of God that we first recieved. GMO foods have produced cancer and infertillity in lab rats. They are used in processed foods as well. All of this "God is love and ignore His anger" is like a cancer causing crop that has contaminated the church. The part about God hating the sinner is hard for me to swallow as well, but then you gotta look at the other side of things and see how disobedient and stiff-necked we are!
It is great to hear about your gardening. We had a boxed garden a couple of years ago, but I have not kept it up. You know what happens to an untended garden...sort of like the garden of our hearts being untended. It will be overgrown with weeds and the life will be choked off. So, long story short, I need to restart it.
But yes, I completely agree with your comments about the infiltration of GMOs compared to the contamination of the Gospel. We all need to heed the leading of the Holy Spirit if we are to receive the pure Gospel and not just rely on the word of any man.
I thought it was an interesting perspective. We don't waste 2 seconds throwing around what we consider to be the love of God (even in areas where Scripture is silent or at odds with our beliefs), but that word is just as serious as the word hate. If God can love personally, then He can certainly hate personally as well.
It is likely important as well to acknowledge that when God says, "Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated", it is not an indication that Jacob was without sin or error. The difference between the two was not the presence of sin, but their valuing of a Godly inheritance. Jacob (who still had sin) cherished the things of God while Esau (who also had sin) despised them. One yearned for God's blessing and the other thought it of no value. THAT is what God hated. If we have the heart of Jacob, esteeming the blessing of God more than anything else, then God can cleanse our hearts and give us victory over sin; but sinlessness is not a condition for receiving His love. I really don't think Min. Ravenhill was implying that as much as he was coming against the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" concept. Maybe the following would help too: God's Unconditional Love
My only admonition for all would be to search the Scriptures and see what they say, being open for the Holy Spirit to challenge our thinking with His truths...as with all things.
It is love that led God to die for our sins when we were all His enemies. At the same time, I do not expect God to "love" unrighteousness, nor be neutral about it. He takes sin personally and it is no little thing when we do despite unto His Spirit and trod underfoot the blood of His Son Jesus.
Hey, Mia! Another great post as usual. Ravenhill is a favorite from those from the holiness camp- all believers in Christ should live holy lives, right?- and street preachers. He's certainly one of my favorites. I've read a great book by his son, David Ravenhill, entitled, Surviving The Anointing. If you haven't already, check it out when you get a chance! God bless!
The parable Jesus taught about the Word being choked out by the weeds or cares of life always come to my mind when I am out weeding. They spring up overnight and you gotta cast them AWAY, not pull them up and leave them there because I learned a few days ago that they can take root again. How true in the life of a believer! I just got through the story of Jacob and Esau yesterday and thank you for sharing that comparison. God never ceases to amaze my by showing me something new in something I have read so many times! I thank God so much for His revival in my heart and I thank Him for leading me to your blog. He is using you in such a mighty way. God bless!
WOW! I didn't know that about weeds. I thought all you had to do was pull them up. What you have shared here sounds like an important message itself in terms of how weeds that are just left laying around can take root again. I am helping my Pastor with a book now about how the Gospel message (and its resulting growth in the life of a Christian) is organic. It will be a tremendously liberating book for many because the word the Lord has him is about the foundations of salvation which even many professing Christians do not understand. I will be prayerful about this info you have shared for it stands out to me as something that should be included and expanded upon. Thank you much for sharing that!
I thank God for any blessing you might get through the blog. What I treasure most is the wonderful connections and friendships He has allowed me to make in the Body as a result. We are clearly one Body with many members, all with something to give and edify the whole. Thanks for doing that for me today.
Wow God is just amazing isn't He! I check my bed every morning and I did some weeding last Saturday. I thought it was thorough, but it looks like I did barely weeding at all because I just left a lot of them on the soil thinking that they would shrivel up. I would love to read that book that your pastor is writing. I gotta tell you I have been reading so many entries that I never clicked on the link to the church website until last night, lol! I am from Lithonia, GA and I want to make it over there when we come back to my mom's in Lithonia. God bless <3
I agree we need more holiness. Sometimes it seem abstract. I constantly ask what does that mean in my life? How do I stay holy without living a life of complete isolation. I try to guard my heart, but I often feel there is more to it than that. I also agree that a man cannot be separated from his actions, but we must be careful how we deal with it. This tension between truth and grace often leads people to be silent. That is true in my case. The world tries to trick us with that calling our critcisms unloving. There is so much great material on your blog thanks.
I understand. A lot of times, being sanctified from the world can come across as complete separation. It is important for us to understand that this is primarily an inner work. It does not mean being physically apart from the world or those in it, but even being in the midst of it, yet not being touched by it. It is being able to be like Jesus, who walked in the world and even communed with those in sin, but the god of this world still had nothing "in" Him (John 14:30). There were no lusts, no selfishness, no pride that Satan could draw on to contaminate Him.
One way that I like to think of holiness is this: Simply being in communion with our Father. The more time we spend with Him, the more He will change us to be like Him (II Cor. 3:18). We don't have to "do" anything or "try" anything in our own effort. All we have to do is stay at His feet, seek His face continually; abide in Him and He will complete the work all by Himself. He will make us what He is. He will even give us the boldness of His Spirit to speak the truth in love and not be confounded by the ways of the enemy to distract us.
The world mistakenly believes that anything which doesn't "feel good" is not love. That comes from a mind that is in love with self, a heart of selfishness (II Tim. 3:1-5). If "I" am the standard, then anything that hurts me must be wrong. However, if I have cancer, a surgery to remove it may hurt me, but is that not still a good thing so that I may be healed?
Be encouraged Sister! The Lord is preparing His people for these times and we will be all that He says we shall be. He is faithful to complete the work.
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Whoooo weeee! I can't understand him that well so thank you for the translation, lol! I have been so blessed by your site. I was excited to see this new posting and I immediately played it after reading and I cannot wait to get some quiet and listen to it. That is hard with two young children :) I saw a Youtube channel that had this sermon and it has TONS of other sermons like this on their site available for download it is sermonindex.net
ReplyDeleteHi GIJane02,
DeleteYes, I had to listen extra hard - and sometimes rewind and replay - to understand what as said. LOL But it was worth it.
Thanks for sharing the info about sermonindex!
'Religious people like to say, "God loves you, but hates your sin." That is bunk. God hates you for committing the sin. Is God going to take your sins at the judgment and judge them, but leave you alone? The Scripture says that the man who has failed God, he will suffer loss, not his sins.'
ReplyDeleteMy comment on this is that God is angry with the sinner, but does not hate him. John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Hatred, as different from being angry because of sin, is a work of darkness and does not dwell in God. 1 John 1:5
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Hi Udy,
DeleteThanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I have to admit that when Min. Ravenhill said, "God hates you for committing the sin.", I thought, "Whoa, that is harsh. Does that statement malign God's character?" Then God reminded me of the following:
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Romans 9:13
The word "hated" above is the Greek word miseō which means to hate or detest. Why did God hate Esau? Because Esau considered an inheritance in the Lord to be of little value.
"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Hebrews 12:16-17
Above, God compares any profane person or fornicator to Esau, whom He hated. When we despise the goodness of God and consider it worth less than the temporal things of this world, we become like Esau in God's eyes. God would not even give Esau place for repentance, although he eventually tearfully sought it. We don't like to consider such things because they fly in the face of our image of God. However, we must be honest with the Lord and ourselves. God "hated Esau" because he chose things of the world over the things of God. That is the definition of a sinner.
You say that hatred is a work of darkness, but does God say that? If God Himself says that He "hates" - and we know that there is no darkness in Him - then can we really say that hatred is a work of darkness?
Honestly, I think our complete thinking about love/hate is erroneous because it is in our minds based upon some type of feeling or emotion. The thing about God which many do not understand is that love is intimately tied with righteousness. Love has more to do with holiness than it does with an emotion-based response. Consider this:
"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." Psalm 97:10
"Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." Amos 5:15
One thing is clear, the whole "God loves the sinner, but hates the sin" is nowhere in Scripture. In fact, based in part on what is shared in the Scriptures above, we can say that such is against the Scriptures.
In the end, what difference does it make whether God is simply angry with me or whether He hates me when the end result of rebellion against Him is the same: an eternity in Hell?
That's funny about the rewinding :) I don't know if he is Scottish or English he talks so fast, lol! Anyway yes, the sermon index site looks wonderful and I just had a thought about how archiving sermons like that are so necessary because they are disappearing. I am a gardener and I am nurturing my first vegetable garden of heirloom seeds. They are non-gmo, non-hybrid. They are pure and open-pollinated. They are disappearing. What is happening is that our agriculture is dominated by corn that is genetically modified and also wheat, soy, and other fruits and vegetables. I just thought how sad it all is. How sad that we are Christians and we take in the hybrid, spliced up, modified by man so-called word of God. We don't realize how it is pushing out the pure and true Word of God that we first recieved. GMO foods have produced cancer and infertillity in lab rats. They are used in processed foods as well. All of this "God is love and ignore His anger" is like a cancer causing crop that has contaminated the church. The part about God hating the sinner is hard for me to swallow as well, but then you gotta look at the other side of things and see how disobedient and stiff-necked we are!
DeleteHi GIJane02,
DeleteIt is great to hear about your gardening. We had a boxed garden a couple of years ago, but I have not kept it up. You know what happens to an untended garden...sort of like the garden of our hearts being untended. It will be overgrown with weeds and the life will be choked off. So, long story short, I need to restart it.
But yes, I completely agree with your comments about the infiltration of GMOs compared to the contamination of the Gospel. We all need to heed the leading of the Holy Spirit if we are to receive the pure Gospel and not just rely on the word of any man.
Someone shared the following with me today: People say hate is a strong word, but so is love and people throw that around like it is nothing.
I thought it was an interesting perspective. We don't waste 2 seconds throwing around what we consider to be the love of God (even in areas where Scripture is silent or at odds with our beliefs), but that word is just as serious as the word hate. If God can love personally, then He can certainly hate personally as well.
It is likely important as well to acknowledge that when God says, "Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated", it is not an indication that Jacob was without sin or error. The difference between the two was not the presence of sin, but their valuing of a Godly inheritance. Jacob (who still had sin) cherished the things of God while Esau (who also had sin) despised them. One yearned for God's blessing and the other thought it of no value. THAT is what God hated. If we have the heart of Jacob, esteeming the blessing of God more than anything else, then God can cleanse our hearts and give us victory over sin; but sinlessness is not a condition for receiving His love. I really don't think Min. Ravenhill was implying that as much as he was coming against the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" concept. Maybe the following would help too: God's Unconditional Love
My only admonition for all would be to search the Scriptures and see what they say, being open for the Holy Spirit to challenge our thinking with His truths...as with all things.
It is love that led God to die for our sins when we were all His enemies. At the same time, I do not expect God to "love" unrighteousness, nor be neutral about it. He takes sin personally and it is no little thing when we do despite unto His Spirit and trod underfoot the blood of His Son Jesus.
God Bless!
Hey, Mia! Another great post as usual. Ravenhill is a favorite from those from the holiness camp- all believers in Christ should live holy lives, right?- and street preachers. He's certainly one of my favorites. I've read a great book by his son, David Ravenhill, entitled, Surviving The Anointing. If you haven't already, check it out when you get a chance! God bless!
ReplyDeleteHi Eric,
DeleteFor sure! ALL believers in Jesus Christ should be holy as He is holy. I haven't heard of that book, but I will check it out since you recommend it.
I hope you and the family are well. Give Maria my best!
Much love to you brother!
The parable Jesus taught about the Word being choked out by the weeds or cares of life always come to my mind when I am out weeding. They spring up overnight and you gotta cast them AWAY, not pull them up and leave them there because I learned a few days ago that they can take root again. How true in the life of a believer! I just got through the story of Jacob and Esau yesterday and thank you for sharing that comparison. God never ceases to amaze my by showing me something new in something I have read so many times! I thank God so much for His revival in my heart and I thank Him for leading me to your blog. He is using you in such a mighty way. God bless!
ReplyDeleteHi GIJane02,
DeleteWOW! I didn't know that about weeds. I thought all you had to do was pull them up. What you have shared here sounds like an important message itself in terms of how weeds that are just left laying around can take root again. I am helping my Pastor with a book now about how the Gospel message (and its resulting growth in the life of a Christian) is organic. It will be a tremendously liberating book for many because the word the Lord has him is about the foundations of salvation which even many professing Christians do not understand. I will be prayerful about this info you have shared for it stands out to me as something that should be included and expanded upon. Thank you much for sharing that!
I thank God for any blessing you might get through the blog. What I treasure most is the wonderful connections and friendships He has allowed me to make in the Body as a result. We are clearly one Body with many members, all with something to give and edify the whole. Thanks for doing that for me today.
Wow God is just amazing isn't He! I check my bed every morning and I did some weeding last Saturday. I thought it was thorough, but it looks like I did barely weeding at all because I just left a lot of them on the soil thinking that they would shrivel up. I would love to read that book that your pastor is writing. I gotta tell you I have been reading so many entries that I never clicked on the link to the church website until last night, lol! I am from Lithonia, GA and I want to make it over there when we come back to my mom's in Lithonia. God bless <3
DeleteI agree we need more holiness. Sometimes it seem abstract. I constantly ask what does that mean in my life? How do I stay holy without living a life of complete isolation. I try to guard my heart, but I often feel there is more to it than that.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that a man cannot be separated from his actions, but we must be careful how we deal with it. This tension between truth and grace often leads people to be silent. That is true in my case. The world tries to trick us with that calling our critcisms unloving. There is so much great material on your blog thanks.
Hi Margaret,
DeleteI understand. A lot of times, being sanctified from the world can come across as complete separation. It is important for us to understand that this is primarily an inner work. It does not mean being physically apart from the world or those in it, but even being in the midst of it, yet not being touched by it. It is being able to be like Jesus, who walked in the world and even communed with those in sin, but the god of this world still had nothing "in" Him (John 14:30). There were no lusts, no selfishness, no pride that Satan could draw on to contaminate Him.
One way that I like to think of holiness is this: Simply being in communion with our Father. The more time we spend with Him, the more He will change us to be like Him (II Cor. 3:18). We don't have to "do" anything or "try" anything in our own effort. All we have to do is stay at His feet, seek His face continually; abide in Him and He will complete the work all by Himself. He will make us what He is. He will even give us the boldness of His Spirit to speak the truth in love and not be confounded by the ways of the enemy to distract us.
The world mistakenly believes that anything which doesn't "feel good" is not love. That comes from a mind that is in love with self, a heart of selfishness (II Tim. 3:1-5). If "I" am the standard, then anything that hurts me must be wrong. However, if I have cancer, a surgery to remove it may hurt me, but is that not still a good thing so that I may be healed?
Be encouraged Sister! The Lord is preparing His people for these times and we will be all that He says we shall be. He is faithful to complete the work.
God Bless!