"THE ELIJAHS of GOD!"

"THE ELIJAHS of GOD!"
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 the classic book 'Why Revival Tarries' by Leonard Ravenhill.