WHERE are THE ELIJAHS OF GOD??
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
by Leonard Ravenhill
To the question, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" we answer,
"Where He has always been-on the throne!" But where are the
Elijahs of God? We know Elijah was "a man of like passions as
we are," but alas! we are not men of like prayer as he was. One
praying man stands as a majority with God! Today God is
bypassing men - not because they are too ignorant, but because
they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our
handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!
Out of obscurity, Elijah came on to the Old Testament stage,
a full-grown man. Queen Jezebel, that daughter of hell, had
routed the priests of God and replaced them with groves to
false deities. Darkness covered the land and gross darkness
the people, and they were drinking iniquity like water. Every
day the land, fouled with heathen temples and idolatrous rites,
saw smoke curling from a thousand cruel altars.
Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation's sin like
God; he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like
God. He was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his
denunciation of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching.
Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts
of men as molten metal on their flesh.
Brethren, if we will do God's work in God's way, at God's time,
with God's power, we shall have God's blessing and the devil's
curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us,
the devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God's smile
means the devil's frown! Mere preachers may help anybody
and hurt nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden
somebody. The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet
goes against it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be
branded unpatriotic because he speaks against his nation's
sins; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword;
unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against
him. Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons
famous. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded.
Ah! brother preachers, we love the old saints, missionaries,
martyrs, reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys,
etc. We will write their biographies, reverence their memories,
frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do
anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of
their blood, but watch carefully the first drop of our own!
-From "Why Revival Tarries" by Leonard Ravenhill - one of the
best Revival books ever written.