Excerpts from "Heart Breathings"
By Leonard Ravenhill

Strings for Your Harp

     Part III. The Church

        D. The Lukewarm Church (Continued)

           Folk are more concerned about the hardening
           of their arteries
           than about the hardening of their hearts.

           I am more afraid of sorcerers
           than of flying saucers.

           "Property" sells best today on Easy Street.

           There is a lot of foot-dragging in the area of
           obedience.

           There is a roar of opposition to pollution in
           ecology,
           but only a squeak of opposition to pollution in
           theology.

           The world has lost the power to blush over its
           vice;
           the Church has lost the power to weep over it.

           The Church has many organizers,
           but few agonizers;
           many players and payers, but few pray-ers;
           many singers, but few clingers;
           lots of pastors, but few wrestlers;
           many fears, but few tears;
           much fashion, but little passion;
           many interferers, but few intercessors;
           many writers, but few fighters.

           The trouble, as I see it, with the present
           interpretation of the promise in Acts 1:8, "Ye
           shall receive power," is that
               It is all sugar and no salt,
               all daylight and no darkness,
               all pleasure and no prisons,
               all privileges and no privations,
               all feastings and no fastings.

           When we have raked over the whole muck-
           heap of this decaying civilization, my greatest
           grief is to see a sick Church in a dying world.

           We have never had a period when Bible knowledge
           was more extensive than today. We drown in a
           sea of interpretations. We are surfeited with
           millions of cassettes, books, seminars, Bible
           schools, seminaries, radio and TV sermons and
           lectures, but where, oh, where is Apostolic
           power, Apostolic purity, and Apostolic piety?

           The One with eyes as a flame of fire saw
           through all the show of the Laodiceans. He
           sees through all our showmanship also. Joel
           says we are to sound an alarm in all God's holy
           mountain. Now is the time to do it. Christ was
           nauseated and disgusted with a church that
           bore His name but not His nature. The church
           which flattered itself because of its commer-
           cial and political prowess was rejected in His
           sight. On the law Of averages, God's house
           today is neither a house of prayer nor a house
           of power. As with Laodicea, so with us, He
           stands outside.

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