Intercessory prayer and Leonard Ravenhill

Leonard Ravenhill's book, "Revival God's Way," is a must read.

 

Let me give you some bullet points from chapter 14, "Intercessory prayer," to stimulate your spiritual thoughts today.

 

All of these are quotes from that chapter - and please note that they don't connect to one another; just great sentences from a man who knew about intercessory prayer.

 

"The Church has many praying men, but few men of prayer.

 

I cannot find a place in the Scriptures where angels sing.  Neither can I find a place where their praying is mentioned.  Is there a connection?  Is it that they cannot sing because they know nothing of the victory of prayer?

 

I think that the greatest privilege ever offered to man was that of sharing Gethsemane with the Lord.

 

There is nothing mechanical about it (prayer).  There is no formula.

 

Let's get this straight in our thinking:  no one - and I mean no one - is going to tell God what to do or how to do it in His final act of mercy of this age.

 

We are not told that a person is superior to another because he has visions.

 

When asked what supported their faith in the prayer encounter, Peggy answered, "We had a consciousness of god that created a confidence in our souls which refused to accept defeat."  (I love that!)

 

And then Leonard Ravenhill closes the chapter with this poem (poems are a lost art in the kingdom of God) entitled "Watch and Pray".

If God should turn my night to day,
It matters not one jot,
If that's His way
To teach me how to watch and pray.

If He will give to  me a greater vision;
If He will grant my thoughts His own revision;
If He will give to me a broken heart;
If He will speak the word, "My son, depart,"

And I have less than
Other men to sleep,
And while they laugh
In loneliness I pray and weep,

What matters if believers think me mad?
In that Great Day, I shall not then be sad
That I had grace to softy steal away, to pray;
While others, maybe most, did idle time away.

This race is not to the swift or strong,
But to the few who fight the wrong
With revelation from His Word,
Reject Baal, and follow on to know the Lord!"

Good thoughts from a man of God on a Wednesday.