That's bad. No, that is good.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

Even after 40 years I still remember Abbott and Costello doing a comedy skit that has since taught me a great scriptural truth. Lou would tell about an incident which seemed to be awful, and Bud would respond by saying, "Oh, that was bad." Lou would say, "No, that was good." Then after explaining the entire situation, Bud would say, "Oh, that is good." "No, that was bad," Lou would answer.

Have you ever thought about how some things which seem so bad at the moment, actually turned out for good, while some things which appear so good at first, eventually turn out so bad.

Today, Tebra and I saw the largest living things on the earth-giant sequoia trees. While traveling through the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park, we saw trees that were over 2500 years old, over 300 feet tall, and over 30 feet in diameter. These huge sequoias have experienced droughts, insects, fires, and man, and still survived. In fact, I learned that forest fires, which seem to be the worst thing that could happen to a tree, was really the life-saver for the sequoia.

Sequoias rely on fire to release most seeds from their cones, to expose bare mineral soil in which seedlings can take root, to recycle nutrients into the soil, and to open holes in the forest canopy through which sunlight can reach young seedlings. They need a fire to sweep the forest every 10-15 years, and where God does not provide one through lightning strikes, foresters in Yosemite will now conduct controlled fires. Bad? No, that's good.

On September 9, Barbara Givens, was driving from delivering brownies to our Prime Timer Bible Study which Pastor Jack teaches on Thursdays. Her car was suddenly hit on her driver's side by a truck. She was taken to the hospital where she was told she had some broken vertebrae and bleeding from a kidney. After being taken by helicopter to another hospital, they did more tests, scans, and x-rays and found that she actually had a cancerous tumor on her kidney.

The doctor explained to Pastor Jack and Barbara that the accident may have saved Barbara's life. Because she had no symptoms, had it not been for the car wreck and subsequent tests, they may not have found the tumor until it was too late. Barbara is scheduled to have the tumor and kidney removed on October 5. A car wreck-bad? No, it will turn out for her good and for God's glory.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

Why Revival Tarries

It is not a personal opinion, but it is a documented fact-the Church in America is in trouble. Why? What's the problem? What's the solution?

In December 1959, God used a man by the name of Leonard Ravenhill to pen these words which gives a precise diagnosis of the church in America today. I pray that as you read them, and reread them, you will be as convicted and repentant as I have been:

No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop-window to display one's talents; the prayer closet allows no show offs.

Poverty stricken as the church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.

The secret of praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning. Spiritual adolescents say, "I'll not go tonight, it's only the prayer meeting." We are beggared and bankrupt, but not broken, not even bent.

Are we so substandard to New Testament Christianity that we know not the historical faith of our fathers, but only the hysterical faith of our fellows? Prayer is to the believer what capital is to the business man. Can we deny that in the modern church setup the main cause of anxiety is money? Yet that which tries the modern churches the most, troubled the New Testament church the least. Our accent is on paying; theirs was on praying. When we have payed, the place is taken. When they had prayed, the place was shaken!

In the matter of New Testament, Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, world-breaking prayer, never has so much been left by so many to so few. For this kind of prayer there is no substitute. We do it-or die!


Taken from Why Revival Tarries, by Leonard Ravenhill, Fires of Revival Publishers, 1959.