Leonard Ravenhill's Son: US Persecution Levels Could Be a Sign of the Second Coming - GREG GORDON/SERMON INDEX

Leonard Ravenhill's Son: US Persecution Levels Could Be a Sign of the Second Coming

2/15/2017 GREG GORDON/SERMON INDEX   charisma news

Will strong persecution come to North America in our lifetime?  Seasoned preacher and Christian author David Ravenhill believes it will. He states that in his lifetime, we could see the "underground Church" start in North America because of persecution.

Currently around the world, persecution against believers in Jesus Christ is on the rise. Many churches' theology leaves out the possibility of persecution, because in their lifetimes, they did not have any

However, the Gospels are clear that coming worldwide persecution will happen before Jesus comes a second time:

You will be arrested, punished, and even killed. Because of me, you will be hated by people of all nations. Many will give up and will betray and hate each other. Many false prophets will come and fool a lot of people. Evil will spread and cause many people to stop loving others. But if you keep on being faithful right to the end, you will be saved. When the good news about the kingdom has been preached all over the world and told to all nations, the end will come (Matt. 24:9-14).

You can read below a transcription of David Ravenhill sharing a stern warning of what could happen and the need for revival in the church:

"How many of you know that we need revival? Unless we have revival in this nation, we won't have a nation. My father [Leonard Ravenhill] said, way back in the 80s, that "if America does not concentrate in prayer, it will pray in concentration camps." And I used to laugh not outwardly, because I respected my father, but inwardly I would think, This is America! The land of the free, the home of the brave. We have a Constitution. We have a Bill of Rights, and so on and so forth.

But I have learned that those things are fast disappearing. And the church is being turned against. We are the ones who are the problem, if you like. We are the ones who speak out against homosexuality and all the other things we know are wrong morally. Yet we are the ones [who] are mocked and laughed at and so on. We will be, I believe in a number of years, driven underground. It would not surprise me that in my lifetime we will have an underground church in North America because of the persecution. And the only answer is revival. The Spirit of God coming and sweeping through this land." 

Greg Gordon is the founder of SermonIndex.net, which was established in 2002. Millions of audio sermons have been distributed through this world-wide ministry. He is also the author of The Following of Christ and other books. Greg has traveled to many countries and across North America to thousands of churches and ministries bringing a message of radical Christian discipleship. He has also been involved in organizing over 12 international historic revival conference events where thousands of lives were impacted.

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A Close Look At The Rapture - Michael Snyder on The Jim Bakker Show

Watch here: A Close Look At The Rapture - Michael Snyder on The Jim Bakker Show

 Jim & Lori Bakker

Michael Snyder
Jim Bakker Show 2016 | Show# 3000 | Aired on May 24, 2016


Jim Bakker Show © 2016 • Morningside Studios

Don't Quench the Spirit in the Next Move of God - J. Lee Grady

Don't Quench the Spirit in the Next Move of God

 5/27/2015 J. LEE GRADY  charisma magazine

Have we trivialized the Holy Spirit? (Vitaly Vitorsky)

Last weekend, my wife and I helped lead a retreat for ministers in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I knew most of the couples who were joining us, but I was surprised to learn that one of the attendees was Sally Fesperman, a leader (with her late husband, Jay) during the early days of the charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 1970s.

Sally is 88, but she is as bright-eyed and energetic as any 20-something I know. She loves to talk about her relationship with Jesus, and she shared many stories about the early days of renewal when thousands of Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians were discovering the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Sally brought back so many memories of the mid-1970s, when I was filled with the Spirit as a teenager.

While in the mountains God spoke to me from Isaiah 35 about another wave of the Holy Spirit that is coming soon. He told me, from verse 6: "Waters will break forth in the wilderness." I have never been more convinced that God is going to refresh us again with a sudden outpouring of His presence and power. I was so excited about this promise that I asked Sally on Friday morning to pray over us, and to prophetically pass the torch of renewal to the younger generation.

I wept when Sally prayed over us because I am desperate to see revival. However, by Saturday I was sobered by the responsibility of receiving this torch of renewal. That's because I know that when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the American church more than 40 years ago, we mishandled this precious gift.

I believe God will visit us again soon, but we must prepare now to avoid the mistakes of the past. Here are five ways we mishandled the outpouring of the Spirit in the last season:

1. We exploited it. The first attempt at quenching the Spirit's power in the New Testament church was made by Ananias and Sapphira, who were full of greed (see Acts 5:1-11). The same thing happened to the charismatic movement in the 1980s, when prosperity preachers with dollar signs in their eyes showed up to merchandise the Spirit's anointing. Swaggering evangelists in white suits and Rolexes began pushing people to the floor and convincing crowds to dig into their wallets to give in "miracle" offerings. And so began the slow but steady sell-out. We didn't realize the greed was driving us farther and farther from the Spirit's blessing.

2. We fabricated it. In the early days of renewal, charismatic leaders had a sense of holy awe when they prayed for people. They didn't want to do anything to grieve the Spirit. But somewhere along the way, some ministers realized they could fake the gifts of the Holy Spirit and still draw a crowd. Charlatans began hosting charismatic sideshows, complete with faked healings, spooky stage drama and mesmerizing manipulation. God's holy anointing was replaced by mood music and a quivering voice. Anybody with discernment could sense that the Spirit's sweet presence had exited the building.

3. We corrupted it. In the early charismatic days, I cut my spiritual teeth on meaty messages from firebrands such as Judson Cornwall, Leonard Ravenhill, Corrie Ten Boom, Keith Green, Derek Prince, Joy Dawson and Winkey Pratney. They preached regularly about the fear of God. Their messages demanded holiness. But if you fast-forward to today, you will find that much of the preaching in our movement has been reduced to drivel. It is sad that people can attend a "Spirit-filled" church today and never hear a sermon explaining that fornication is a sin. It is sadder that we have preachers in our pulpits who shamelessly flaunt sexual sin under the banner of a cheap grace message that will actually send people to hell.

4. We denominationalized it. When the Holy Spirit fell on certain groups in previous decades, their leaders assumed that the blessing of God was an indication that they were "special." Some denominations even taught that all other Christians would one day come under their group's banner—because they believed they had elite status. Sectarian pride might sound spiritual, but it is still pride. And don't ever think that nondenominational church networks are immune to this virus. There are trendy new groups today that claim to have a corner on truth. Their subtle message is, "We are better." Don't let this smug attitude quench the Holy Spirit.

5. We professionalized it. In the early days of charismatic renewal, there was a sense of childlike wonder as people discovered the power of the Spirit for the first time. The meetings were Christ-centered, the sermons were solidly biblical and the fellowship was deep. We could sing They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love because we felt a deep bond with each other in the Holy Spirit.

But it didn't take long to replace the genuine sense of New Testament koinonia with something colder and less inviting. We began emphasizing titles. We discovered slick marketing techniques. Churches and their budgets grew. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the megachurch: We lost our simplicity. We turned church into a business. We stopped being relational and we became professional.

I'm not against growth, megachurches or marketing. The Holy Spirit can produce and direct all those things! But if we sacrifice the freshness and warmth of relationships on the altar of professional Christianity, we may discover the Holy Spirit has withdrawn from our ministries.

May the Lord help us to cultivate an atmosphere that attracts His presence rather than repels Him. May we be ready to receive the baton as a younger generation embraces the promise of another move of God. Come, Holy Spirit!

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books. You can learn more about his ministry, The Mordecai Project, at themordecaiproject.org.

Pockets of true revival are breaking out across America. Want to know more about the next great move of God? Click here to see Jennifer LeClaire's new book, featuring Dutch Sheets, Reinhard Bonnke, Jonathan Cahn, Billy Graham and others.

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Will the Church Wake Up Before God’s Wrath Falls on the Nation? - JENNIFER LECLAIRE

Will the Church Wake Up Before God’s Wrath Falls on the Nation?

4/10/2015 JENNIFER LECLAIRE  charisma news

Dutch Sheets and the Appeal to Heaven flag. (Jennifer LeClaire)

I'm sober. I'm awake. I see—and report—on the tsunami of perversion that's rising. I don't have my head in the sand. I lift my voice against the antichrist agendas that have infiltrated our government, schools, media, entertainment, medical and other fields. It's dark out there and it appears to be growing darker.

Yet, amid my sobriety and vigilance, I am not in utter despair. Desperate, yes, but not in despair. Indeed, I am wide-awake but ever hopeful that God will bring a transforming revival to America. I am watchful but confident that God is going to bring a Third Great Awakening—a greater Great Awakening; the greatest Great Awakening the world has ever seen—to our land. I see an emerging move of God even now.

Yes, many in our nation have turned their back on God—many never knew Him. But God has not turned His back on this nation. Yes, the hedge of protection around America has been at least partially lifted. But God still has His hand on these United States. God does not delight in seeing a nation that was birthed in covenant with Him fall—and God has not broken His covenant with us. He's just waiting on American to be repent so she can be born again.

Could America Crumble and Fall?

I was greatly honored this week to be on "The Line of Fire," revolutionary radio with Dr. Michael Brown. I work with Dr. Brown week in and week out on Charisma News, publishing his hard-hitting, yet compassionate columns. Over the years, I've learned quite a lot from how he approaches difficult subjects and he's been kind enough to help me wade through the backlash that often results from my own hard-hitting, yet compassionate columns.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW JENNIFER ON FACEBOOK FOR SPIRITUAL CONVERSATION.

Dr. Michael Brown also knows revival. He preached alongside John Kilpatrick and the late Steve Hill at the Brownsville Revival, otherwise known as the Pensacola Outpouring, in the 1990s. He's written books about God's holy fire, the power of God, holy revolution and other revival-oriented topics. In his show this week, we talked about the next great move of God, this transforming revival I believe God wants to bring to America. Here's how Brown opened the segment:

"We understand that revival is only needed, that awakening is only needed when decline has happened—but there are nations that have risen and fallen and are no more. Could that happen to America? Or could it be that Jesus is coming soon and things are only going down hill from here and we shouldn't pray for revival? Or is this the very time we should be crying out in holy desperation out of a desire to see Jesus glorified, out of desire to see a lost world touched, out of desire to see health and blessing come to the people of God?"

The Next Great Move of God

I believe we should pray for revival. I believe we should be crying out in holy desperation out of a desire to see Jesus glorified. I believe we should make intercession to see a lost world touched. I believe we should make an appeal to heaven to see health and blessing come to the people of God. I believe the next great move of God is emerging even now.

As Brown pointed out, I start my book with a chapter that declares, "It's time to wake up!" For the opening question of the program, he asked me why I think we need to wake up. I explained that the church at large has been drowsy for decades and is snoozing on the job. If the church was alert we would not have allowed prayer to be removed from schools, abortions to be legalized, gay marriage to become the norm and so on. The result: America is in a great crisis.

Is there time for awakening? Absolutely. Jesus gave Jezebel space to repent (see Rev. 2:20). Jehovah held back mass judgment when Nineveh repented (see Jonah 3:5). God gave Hezekiah 15 more years even after He declared his coming death (see 2 Kin. 20:1-6). Yes, there is time for an awakening. God's arm is not too short to save (see Is. 59:1). It's time to make an appeal to heaven. I believe God wants to sweep through this nation with a spirit of repentance that will bring transforming revival.

"I really encourage you to get the book. Your heart will be stirred. What got my attention with this book is that it's hard-hitting, no-holds-barred but full of hope," says Brown. "I'm really excited about the content here. Each page I want to read another quote from Leonard Ravenhill or Billy Graham or John Kilpatrick or different ones. Friends, get the book, the Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening."

Jennifer LeClaire is senior editor of Charisma. She is also director of Awakening House of Prayer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and author of several books, including The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening, Mornings With the Holy Spirit, Listening Daily to the Still Small Voice of God, The Making of a Prophet and Satan's Deadly Trio: Defeating the Deceptions of Jezebel, Religion and Witchcraft. You can visit her website here. You can also join Jennifer on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

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Leonard Ravenhill Paints Picture of True Prophets

12/26/2014 LEONARD RAVENHILL  charisma magazine

The prophet is the missing piece from most churches today. (Charisma archives)

Leonard Ravenhill at age 81

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the Year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality.

In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.

He has no price tags. 
He is totally "otherworldly." 
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. 
He marches to another drummer! 
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. 
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. 
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith
the Lord." 
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of 
impending judgment. 
He lives in "splendid isolation." 
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright. 
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!" 
His prophecies are parried. 
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void. 
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. 
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! 
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with 
epitaphs when dead. 
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. 
He is friendless while living and famous when dead. 
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint 
by posterity. 
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of 
Life to those who listen. 
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years. 
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation. 
He announces, pronounces, and denounces! 
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire. 
He talks to men about God. 
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men. 
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing. 
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in 
the marketplace. 
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual. 
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity. 
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival.

Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. 
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant "churchianity." 
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. 
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do." 
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. 
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting. 
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God. 
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day. 
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. 
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.

God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!

About the author: Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was a well-known British evangelist who brought many people to Christ through his straightforward preaching of the Word. In 1959, he and his family moved to the United States, where Ravenhill continued to travel, ministering in tent revivals and evangelistic meetings. He placed great emphasis on the subjects of prayer and revival, and though he wrote many books, he is probably best known for Why Revival Tarries. ("Picture of a Prophet" was taken from ravenhill.org and used by permission of the author's son, David Ravenhill. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill.)

I Refuse to Accept the Status-Quo American Version of Christianity - Michael Brown

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I Refuse to Accept the Status-Quo American Version of Christianity

6/17/2014 MICHAEL BROWN

(Esther Gibbons/creationswap.com)

I refuse to believe that what we see in churches across America is what God planned for His people. I refuse to believe that it is the God-intended norm.

The Word of God is against it.

Church history is against it.

What the Spirit is doing around the world is against it.

What I have experienced in my own life is against it.

Everything inside of me is shouting, "There must be more! We must go deeper!" Is that same voice shouting inside of you?

If the death and resurrection of Jesus are real—and they are—there must be more. If the outpouring of the Spirit is real—and it is—there must be more. If the promises of God are real—and they are—there must be more. If the requirements of the Lord are real—and they are—there must be more.

It's high time that we quit trying to drag the Word of God down to our level of experience and commitment, trying to conform Scripture to our ways rather than conforming our ways to Scripture. Instead, we need to take hold of everything He has promised and everything He has called us to, and, by His grace, pursue and obey Him until His reality becomes our reality.

What does God's reality look like? What is normal according to the Word? As I have said for many years, what the world calls fanaticism and most of the church calls extremism, God calls normal. In the words of Leonard Ravenhill, "Christianity today is so subnormal that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian, he would be considered abnormal."

What does normal look like according to Jesus?

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 10:37-39, ESV).

What does normal look like according to Paul? (Let's remember that Paul told us to follow his example; see 1 Cor. 11:1, Phil. 4:9.)

"It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:20-21).

Unfortunately, as expressed by Watchman Nee, "By the time the average Christian gets his temperature up to normal, everybody thinks he has a fever."

I say it's time we burn—in fact, the Word commands us to be fervent (which means red-hot) in spirit in Romans 12:11—so that others can catch fire as well.

They can call us crazy, judge us as religious extremists and put us out of their company. But if we walk in humility, if we bless and don't curse, if we honor those in authority while determining to obey the Lord no matter what, the fruit of our lives will be the proof of God's goodness. And people will come flocking to us saying, "I need what you have. How can I experience more of God in my life?"

Missionary C. T. Studd once said, "If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." This is the reality we must live by.

The glorious Son of God shed His blood on our behalf, dying for our sins so we could belong to God, bringing us into His family as brothers and sisters. His Father is now our Father, and we are joint heirs with Him. (See Romans 8:14-17.)

And that's only the beginning. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Rom 8:32) All things!

That is the glorious gospel. How should we respond?

Jesus says to us, "Follow me"—and that means that all that we have, all that we are and all that we ever could be belongs to Him. We now live to do His will, our eyes set on Him, and our life goal to know Him and make Him known, regardless of cost or consequence.

That is normal according to the New Testament.

As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, Jesus died for all so that "those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised" (2 Cor. 5:15).

Or as he said to the Colossians, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1-3).

Or as expressed by Peter, we are to live "for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God" (1 Pet. 4:2).

This is beautiful, not binding, our act of gratitude as recipients of grace, not our futile effort to receive His grace. And because of that grace and mercy, we belong totally to Him: "Therefore," Paul writes, "I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice–alive, holy, and pleasing to God–which is your reasonable service" (or "your spiritual worship"—Rom. 12:1, NET).

So let us crucify every distraction, let us count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, let us ask the Spirit to work afresh in our lives and let us take hold of the challenge that fueled the fires of D. L. Moody's life, spoken to him by revivalist Henry Varley: "Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him."

Isn't it time that our nation sees what God will do with a man or woman fully consecrated to Him? Isn't it time that our generation has a true demonstration of the gospel?

Join in me striving to be normal in the Lord's sight, by the grace and power of God.

It's time.

Michael Brown is author of Can You Be Gay and Christian? Responding With Love and Truth to Questions About Homosexuality and host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire on the Salem Radio Network. He is also president of FIRE School of Ministry and director of the Coalition of Conscience. Follow him at AskDrBrown on Facebook or at @drmichaellbrown on Twitter.

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