WesleyGospel Ministries

If he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.                                                         –2 Corinthians 11:4 (KJV)

Five Views on Sanctification, Wesleyan, Reformed, and Pentecostal. (VS Keswick).

Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, all could be good here.

Mark Jones, Antinomianism.

Martin Luther, “Against the Antinomians,” Luther’s Works, vol. 47, Fortress Press.

Hardships and Temptations:
Jesus Had Them and So Will True Christians

This book is broken up into two main parts. Part 1 is about the temptations of Jesus (hence the word Tried or trial in the title); and Part 2 is about the transfiguration of Jesus (hence the word Transfigured or sanctified with Spirit-baptism in the title). Most of the book is a Bible study about these experiences in Jesus’ life; and explaining what they mean. But occasionally the suggestion is drawn that Christians are to expect the same things in their own lives, in different ways. Ravenhill advances the thesis that true Christians, who are reflections of Jesus, will go through both trials (painful hardships) and temptations (pleasurable, sinful seductions) in order to prove the genuineness of their faith in God. 1 Peter 1:6-7: “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that THE PROVEN GENUINENESS OF YOUR FAITH—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Ravenhill said, “Gold tried in a fire is of greater value than gold which still has a mixture of alloys. Gold that is shaped into an ornament has yet more value. Of still higher worth is gold purified, then shaped into a vessel, and finally beautifully engraved” (p. 64). I also think about Job 1:8-12, when Satan himself was allowed to test Job’s faith with hardships, in order to prove to the spirit world that Job feared God with no strings attached.

All kinds of trials. When thinking about Jesus, he refers to Jesus in the desert for 40 days, fasting, hungering, starving, getting challenged by the devil to make bread out of stones in order to prove to Himself that he was the Son of God (implied was a suggestion to Jesus that he was not the Son of God but illegitimate), to throw Himself down from the temple and see if the angels would come and levitate Him, and to seduce Him with worldwide religious and political authority if He would only bow down and worship the devil—perhaps an appeal to follow Roman religion and have influence in the Roman empire as a chief magician, like Jannes and Jambres were for Pharaoh (Exod. 7:22; 2 Tim. 3:8).

With each demonic vision or voice, Jesus appealed to the authority of Scripture, saying, “It is written” (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10); and after the third time “the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him” (4:11). The angels would have come to strengthen His faith. Even Jesus needed to live by faith, because He lived as a man. So, after proving His spiritual strength by conquering bodily cravings, by shunning the vanity of materialism and earthly authority, by placing His faith verbally in Scripture all by Himself in isolation from other people, by rejecting the Dark Side of the Force and Satan’s lure to become the next Darth Vader, and by overcoming the devil in the desert unlike Adam had in the Garden—Jesus proved to the spirit world that He had authority over all evil spirits: even over Satan himself. Before the desert, there is no mention of Jesus casting out demons. But afterwards, it happened almost constantly for three years until He was crucified.

The Transfiguration:
Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Empowerment to Face Even Greater Trials

When we come to the transfiguration part of the book, which is longer, we see different themes touched on. In its Introduction, conditional security is mentioned: the possibility of backsliding after mountaintop experiences with the Lord. Peter denied Jesus three times after he saw the transfiguration of Jesus (his body shining with the bright white light of the Holy Spirit), and Moses, Elijah, the bright white cloud of God, the audible voice of God, falling into a trance, feeling the fear of God (Matt. 17:1-9). Even after all of that, Peter still weakened and buckled under pressure when his life was threatened. The moral of the story is that spiritual highs in the present are no guarantee against losing your faith in the future. Salvation is by faith (Eph. 2:8); so much for the doctrine of once saved, always saved! We must keep ourselves in check, God helping us. 1 Corinthians 10:12: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Biblical scholars generally date the transfiguration one year before the crucifixion. So, after this extremely supernatural experience of God, it took about one year for Peter to backslide to the point of denying Jesus three times, when threatened with martyrdom (Matt. 26:69-75).

I was pleasantly surprised to see Ravenhill favorably refer to Evelyn Underhill’s The Mystic Way on page 81, a 400 page book on Catholic mystical theology from an Anglican perspective. At first I was a little concerned, because in her book Mysticism, she takes a pluralistic approach, mixing the religions, but in the one quoted by Ravenhill, it looks like she had cleaned up her theology and only turned to sources like Catholic saints. It was about how contemplation can lead to transfiguration or even encounters with the shekinah glory (light of the Holy Spirit): St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Bologna are mentioned as examples. I recently wrote about this in my booklet on Supernatural Lights, drawing from Alexander Golitzin’s St. Symeon the New Theologian: On the Mystical Life, vol. 3, where he shares at length about the role of shekinah glory in the life of this Greek Orthodox saint. Foreign sounding to Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and other Protestant ears, but it begs the question of whether they are missing out on something due to a theological blind spot.

When referring to these mountaintop or transfiguration-like experiences, he brings it down a notch for the rest of Christianity. Not everyone is like St. Francis of Assisi, not everyone is literally going to light up like Jesus or Moses did. (Why not!?) But seriously, though, there are lower level experiences from the Holy Spirit that can follow the same pattern, following periods of trial and temptation, only to be followed by worse ones later on. Ravenhill said:

Christ’s glory-baptism on the Mount must have been a special means of ministry for His soul’s fortification. This was the entrance to a future, gloomy tunnel of soul-strain that led to the waste places of the valley of humiliation. It was a special anointing for service…Christ had this glory-baptism, this unique anointing of majesty on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was a gateway through which He began to tread the Via Dolorosa (pp. 127-128).

In other words, His transfiguration was a supernatural empowerment of confidence and divine protection, to energize Him for the greater trials that lied ahead (Matt. 17): namely, negative repercussions from cleansing the temple, persecution from politically empowered Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, Gethsemane where He sweat blood, Judas Iscariot’s betrayal and suicide, kangaroo court proceedings, mockery from Roman soldiers, the crown of thorns, Peter’s denials, beatings, scourgings, His crucifixion (definitely that), and knowing that most of His disciples did not believe He would rise from the dead (Matt. 21-28). Ravenhill also saw the transfiguration as a kind of baptism in the Holy Spirit, without speaking in tongues: and no doubt, it was: the glory cloud of the Holy Spirit was permeating the atmosphere to where you could both feel it and see it! All of them were Spirit baptized in a sense, but especially Jesus, since He shone with light. It might have been the greatest Spirit baptism He ever experienced. But by the time He’s on the cross a year later, He couldn’t feel God’s presence, and He cried, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me!” (Matt. 27:46). No presence of God was felt on the cross. It seems that the transfiguration baptism had all dried up by then. By the time of Gethsemane, just before the crucifixion, He needed extra encouragement from an angel (Luke 22:43). But He got there. Jesus didn’t run away, even though God told Him through Moses and Elijah what He wanted to happen. Luke 9:30-31: “There talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elijah: who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Does it look like I’m presenting an all-too-human Jesus to you? How human can you get…dying on a cross. That is one of the most humiliating ways to die. Compare that with the way the Pharisees probably died: with honors and respect, as rabbi-saints, respected in the community, lying on their deathbeds, blessing and prophesying to a group of loving admirers. Not Jesus. He died with probably nothing more than a loin cloth on His body, with shredded skin and muscle tissue hanging out, with huge holes in His hands and feet, gasping for His final breaths while thugs laughed at him. Jesus was and is the Son of God, but He lived as a human being and was “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin” (Heb. 4:15). He was the Son of God yes, but he was also the Son of Man (through the virgin Mary), and that is what qualifies Him to be a mediator, or middleman, between God and humankind. But this same Jesus definitely needed encouragement from the Holy Spirit, the voice of God, saints from Heaven, and from angels sometimes! And SO DO WE!

I disagree with Ravenhill’s doctrine of entire sanctification in ch. 16, which is what he thinks the transfiguration symbolizes for the life of the believer. On the contrary, I think it more so symbolizes what we have in Acts 2:4: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” The presence of God part, more so than the tongues part, but they aren’t mutually exclusive now that we live in the Pentecostal age. But along with Wesley and all the confused Methodists and holiness people who hold to entire sanctification, Ravenhill at least said that backsliding from perfection was possible, which to me, nullifies the entire claim of the doctrine: “I am not inferring that this endowment is a kind of perpetual nonforfeitable” thing (p. 143). Well, then brother Ravenhill, I would say then that although God is omnipotent, the flesh will always remain sinful (Rom. 7:23), and only physical death will eradicate bodily sin entirely (glorification). There is no entire sanctification before death. However, SPIRIT-BAPTISMS should be the focus, because it is SPIRIT-BAPTISMS, or FEELING GOD’S PRESENCE that strengthens our faith and resolve to fight sin, when things get dry. And how do we get them? They are “maintained only by prayer and close submission to the will of God” (p. 143). Pentecostal praise and worship is a form of prayer. Bible study and faith-based obedience to Scripture is the best form of submission to God that I know of. James 4:7: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Leonard Ravenhill was a man of God; and in my estimation a saint. Some have gone so far as calling him a prophet, and maybe he was. He was not the type of person to have tons of dreams and visions; or share prophecies and supernatural words of knowledge, but I think its possible he had moments like that, since in this book he at least expresses sympathy for those things (pp. 102-103). If anything, he was what you might call an intercessor. Aside from that label, I’d say he was a revivalist and an evangelist. He represented the Wesleyan holiness tradition until his death in 1994; and he was and still is the best modern holiness preacher, in my view. But as an intercessor, he was absorbed with the idea of prayer and the practice of it. Prayer was everything to him, especially the kind taught by E. M. Bounds, who although he doesn’t mention him in this book, he did compile some of his writings in A Treasury of Prayer. I personally believe that his intercessions for national revival, which spanned over many years, were finally answered after he died in 1994. Steve Hill was mentored by him in his final days, and both of them led the Brownsville Revival, which was national, involved several million people, was mentioned in The New York Times, and lasted from 1995 to 2000, until it was shut down by Pharisees in the Assemblies of God, who didn’t like people shaking in response to God’s Spirit.

For those of you who have read his signature book Why Revival Tarries, you will find in the Preface of Revival God’s Way, that it is meant to be a sequel, or part 2 to that original book. This was the last book that Ravenhill published. It was in 1983, just after what I call the Lindale, Texas revival (1979 – 1982), where he often preached at Last Days Ministries, and lived nearby Keith Green and David Wilkerson. This was the time that the video sermons on SermonIndex and YouTube were recorded. If you read Revival God’s Way, you get the sense that this is the Ravenhill you’ve come to know and love from those videos on the internet: that fiery, sin-rebuking critic of the Church, who breaks down idols, and challenges Christians to spend more time alone with God in prayer. Peppered throughout, you will also find a good amount of Christian poems, which probably came from him being around a songwriter like Keith Green.

Intercessory Prayer Comes Out As a Main Revival Principle

Its clear to me that he was a man of prayer and that this book was written in the spirit of prayer. But with that–and this is my main critique of the book–comes a sort of random, unstructured presentation of the principles of revival. The same approach was in Why Revival Tarries. Unless you have a highlighter, and a pen, and are taking careful notes, you might get lost trying to follow his train of thought. You might not remember much of what you read, because the subjects change so often. But then again, there is enough repetition on the theme of intercessory prayer, that its hard to forget that revival principle. In this way, his unstructured approach to spiritual subjects is not that different than Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion; but in my view, Finney’s book is a little bit more structured so far as the Table of Contents are concerned: at least with him, its not hard to grasp his revival thesis, just from skimming the contents: that revival involves intercessory prayer, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel correctly, and understanding the hindrances to revivals. Because of the allegorical chapter titles in Ravenhill’s books, however, you really have to read the chapters to see what they are about; and after finding what they are about, you then find that the subjects change often, and its hard to grasp a consistent thesis on the nature of revival. This can be sort of frustrating, but I did take notes on what they are about! And what is of value to the Church should be found in this: that while Ravenhill may not have been a really organized academic theologian, he was by far more advanced in the spiritual life of prayer than most evangelical church leaders. Of this I am deeply persuaded; and anything he has to say, while you may not always agree with it, is still worth considering with the Word of God in hand.

A Summary of Chapter Themes

His chapter themes touch on the following subjects: the joy of obedience to God vs. greed: a nice alternative to John Crowder’s antinomian view of joy (ch. 1), intercession (ch. 2), lukewarm preachers on TV (ch. 3), cults and cheap grace antinomianism (ch. 4), prayer and revival linked (ch. 5), Hell (ch. 6), morally weak sermons, a skeptical critique of Vinson Synan’s claim that 5 million people have been baptized in the Holy Spirit as of the 1980s (ch. 7), the relation of Puritan and Wesleyan preaching to the presence of God, and of revival changing the moral climate of the community: not just one church (ch. 8), Evan Roberts’ weeping and tears in prayer: something I think Ravenhill emphasized too much, and which has unfortunately been faked by certain of his fans, crying fake “revival” tears. Most men are just not that sensitive. This could be because David Matthews, who wrote I Saw the Welsh Revival, and whom he quotes on page 73, played a role in leading his dad to Christ. John Wesley called it the gift of tears; and I would grant that, but its not something that should be faked or manufactured. I was given this gift once, when I was driving to a spot for street preaching, listening to a Robin Mark song. I was suddenly overwhelmed with intense, heartfelt crying, and I cried like a little boy, with a voice that was much higher pitched than I would have liked: it was with “strong crying and tears” (Heb. 5:7), because after so much of my street preaching efforts, I thought of how so many people would just walk by unfazed and seem completely unconcerned about their spiritual conditions (ch. 9).

True prophets (ch. 10), prayer and contemplation leads to prophecy during “pulpit prayer” (ch. 11), purity and prayer with preachers (ch. 12), prophetic intercession: this stood out to me as practical and supernatural: compare with James Goll’s The Prophetic Intercessor (chs. 13-14), prophetic thorns for intercessors (ch. 15), intercession: praying for salvations, makes me think of using prayer lists with people’s names: “God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23) (ch. 16), hunger for God (ch. 17), carnal pastors, the rarity of intercessors (ch. 18), social ills all around: to prayer! (ch. 19), Christian suffering (ch. 20), social ills: prayer! (ch. 21), and finally, America must either experience a national revival or face the judgment of God (ch. 22). Regarding the last chapter, I’d say that the Brownsville Revival, if anything, might have held back national judgment: 4 million people, they say, attended those Ravenhill-like meetings. What did God say to Elijah? “I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal” (1 Kings 19:18). In that case, only seven thousand true followers of the Lord were needed to spare the country from destruction. Ravenhill wrote something eerily prophetic on page 74:

Cotton Mather devoted 490 days and nights in intercession for revival in New England. Mather died in 1727 just prior to the First Great Awakening. Dr. Lovelace noted, “Where prayer is, revival cannot be far behind.”

As it was with Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and the Great Awakening–so also, it seems, it was with Leonard Ravenhill, Steve Hill, and the Brownsville Revival. Ravenhill died in 1994; and the Brownsville Revival, as I have mentioned, began in 1995.

“Unction is God’s knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory” (p. 18). This really sums up the message of Ravenhill’s signature classic Why Revival Tarries. That is, the Holy Spirit will fill the man who strives against his lazy flesh and fights his way through hours of intercession for lost souls. The school of thought that he is coming from is that of E. M. Bounds, as expressed in his Power Through Prayer. Its also evident that William Booth was a huge hero to Ravenhill, who’s spiritual influence stood in a fairly close proximity to his family while growing up in early Salvation Army meetings in England. This was a military type of approach to Christian spirituality; and it seems fitting that Ravenhill served as a chaplain for a while, when Teen Challenge was just starting out, offering a firm sense of discipline to gang members and drug addicts. Ravenhill’s brand of spirituality was one that required toughness and discipline; a manly “get on your knees and pray it through!” attitude. Smith Wigglesworth, with his curt, gruff expressions, often had the same approach towards sin and the flesh.

While he hops around a lot on the nature of revival, it is clear that more than anything, Why Revival Tarries is a book about intercessory prayer. He asks the reader with the title, “Why does revival tarry or delay from coming?” Eventually his answer is, “Revival delays because prayer decays” (p. 83). By the word prayer, he usually means one thing: solitary, fervent, holy intercessory prayer for lost souls to be saved–the prayer of an evangelist (p. 16). He saw Jonathan Edwards’ The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, as the perfect biography of a missionary, whom had exemplified the prayer life that Ravenhill is preaching about in this book. What Ravenhill was aiming at by topics and chapters, David Brainerd’s life story had already fleshed out by application (pp. 84-86). Ravenhill does not really preach about contemplative prayer, although he hints at it in Tried and Transfigured, even quoting from Evelyn Underhill’s The Mystic Way. Ravenhill fixates on private intercessory prayer for lost souls to be saved from sin and Hell. He was not at all like Richard J. Foster, who enumerates 21 different ways of praying in his book on Prayer. Ravenhill was really serious about PRAYING, PRAYER, and PRAYER WARRIORS or intercessors. To him there was really only one kind of prayer: INTERCESSION and only INTERCESSION that was Spirit-led, Spirit-filled, and FILLED WITH GRIEF OVER THE POWER OF SIN IN OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES. You could call it prophetic intercession: the prayer of a prophet, a go-between, a Christlike man to stand in the gap between God and lost sinners, an intercessor, a pastor, and an evangelist; a man who prays fervently, and seriously, and sorrowfully for the souls he is going to preach the true Biblical Gospel to in the next 24 hours. He sees demons attacking them, he sees emaciated spiritual beggars, he sees these poor people just hanging by a thread over the fire of Hell. To take prayer in this direction, accented by burden bearing, travailing (laboring), and genuine sorrow producing crying, weeping, and tears, is to GET ON THE CROSS and experience UNION WITH JESUS IN HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION. Thereby embodying the very principle of salvation within oneself, and becoming a REVIVALIST, a carrier of the spirit of salvation, a power that is built up in private prayer, and then publicly released by evangelistic sermons, and sparking revivals.

My personal experience with reading this book during a time of spiritual dryness was one of personal revival. I had truly supernatural moments where I was filled and led by the Holy Spirit to pray for others to be delivered from sin and demons, with genuine grief and feeling. I believe Why Revival Tarries is an inspired book, in a non-canonical kind of way, not on the level of the Bible; but a book that was just bathed in the spirit of prayer and the Holy Ghost. Its hard to read it and not be spiritually affected in a good way. There are not many Christian books I can say that about; books that made me feel God’s presence or made me see angelic lights while reading them. Books that have really increased my faith in God. I can only put a few in this category: Kenneth J. Collins’ Wesley on Salvation, Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans, A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, and Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God.

Leonard Ravenhill preached against sin and heresy. This will translate to a hatred of sin the more you muse on it; and the hatred of sin was a virtue to him. Hebrews 1:9: “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.” If he hated sin while he prayed, to be sure he hated sin while he preached. To hate sin is to love God. To hate sin is to love mankind. To hate sin is to fear Hell and love Heaven. To hate all sin, and to shine a blazing light on its hideous ugliness, is to be a Biblical preacher. To most people today, Ravenhill’s sharp and denunciatory preaching against Catholicism’s idea of Mary as a mediatrix, cult members, antinomians (easy-believism people, p. 58), cessationists, dispensationalists, lukewarm fundamentalists, communists, universalists, greedy materialists, liberal theologians, agnostics, science-worshipping atheists, gamblers, drunkards, and the sexually immoral, would be considered “hate speech.” But for him it was just preaching the Gospel, preaching holiness, and preaching against sin. Preaching the doctrine of repentance: turning away from sin. The only real antidote to backsliding. As in ch. 4, he saw the task of a revivalist as one like Elijah or John the Baptist, ready to publicly preach against the false prophets of Baal and the Pharisees. The man was a demon hunter. This was his view of the ministry:

In the light of the judgment seat, we had better live six months with a volcanic heart, denouncing sin in places high and low and turning the nation from the power of Satan unto God (as John the Baptist did) rather than die loaded with ecclesiastical honors and theological degrees and be the laughing stock of Hell (p. 104).

God-gripped prophets of old had a sensitive awareness of the enormity and unpopularity of their task (p. 151).