Why Revival Tarries

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Leonard Ravenhill's classic Why Revival Tarries has been one of the most challenging books I have ever read. In this book he forces the spiritual leader to take a look deep within the depths of his or her heart in order to see if there are any idols of the heart that are keeping them from being fully submitted to God, and fully searching for God in their life and for their ministry.

One caution to this powerful book is to be careful not to find yourself in the midst of a "works-based" relationship with God. True spiritual health and fruitfulness in the life of a believer comes from abiding in Christ (John 15), and responding to the Spirit's work (Galatians 5:22-23) and leading in our lives (Romans 12:14). God's love for us has nothing to do with how many hours of prayer we commit to each day, or anything else we do as a response to His love. God's love for us is found at the cross (Romans 5:8), and is experienced through faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 8:39).

How I strategically respond to the powerful exhortations that are found in Why Revival Tarries, is I use them to help strengthen and develop my personal convictions for God. I use them to help ignite a passionate fire within, and to help fuel and inspire greater devotion to seeking God with my whole heart as I do abide in the Vine. 

I have listed 15 of my favorite quotes from the book that have personally challenged me to never settle when it comes to my pursuit of God.

TOP 15 QUOTES

1. A sermon born in the head reaches the head; a sermon born in the heart reaches the heart. Under God, a spiritual preacher will produce spiritually minded people. P.18

2. Unction is not a gentle dove beating her wings against the bars outside of the preacher’s soul; rather, must she be pursued and won. Unction cannot be learned, only earned - by prayer. P.18

Definition: Unction equates to being "filled with the Spirit" and "empowered by the Spirit" to do the work of the ministry.

3. Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees. P.19

4. If God called us to the ministry, then, dear brethren, I contend that we should get unctionized. With all thy getting – get unction, lest barren altars be the badge of our unctionless intellectualism. P.20

5. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. P.23 (Whoa! Very convicting, and undeniably true)

6. William Booth of the Salvation Army is quoted as saying that if he could do it, he would have finalized the training of his soldiers with twenty-four hours hanging over hell, to see its eternal torment. P.31

7. He who fears God fears no man. He who kneels before God will stand in any situation. P.33

8. God does not want partnership with us, but ownership of us. P.40

9. Again and again God asks men to do not what they can, but what they can’t. To prove that no sleight of hand does it but that they link their impotence to His omnipotence, the word impossible is dropped from their vocabularies. Pp.45-46

10. Prophets are lone men; they walk alone, pray alone, and God makes them alone. For them there is no mold; their patent rights are with God, for the principle of divine selection is “past finding out.” P.46

11. Dear believers, listen. The world is not waiting for a new definition of the Gospel, but for a new demonstration of the power of the Gospel. P.46

12. At this grim hour, the world sleeps in the darkness, and the Church sleeps in the light. P.47

13. The fact beats ceaselessly into my brain these days that there is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word. P.69

14. Faith honors God. And God honors faith. God goes wherever faith puts Him. Faith, in a sense which I believe you will understand, localizes deity. Faith links our impotence to His omnipotence. P.71

15. True prayer is a time-eater. In the elementary stages, the clock seems to drag; later, as the soul gets used to the holy exercise, time flies when we pray. Prayer makes the soul tender. Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! P.87

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