A voice from the past is now speaking to the Church of today. His words carry a somber reminder of who we have become and what must be done before we can experience true revival.

A teacher and evangelist named Leonard Ravenhill addressed the condition of the Church in his day, but also prophesied what would come in the Church of today. He wrote the book, “Why Revival Tarries.” In the book, he addressed the issues of why true revival is not taking place.

In 1950, Ravenhill and his family moved from Great Britain to the United States. In the 1960s, they travelled within the United States, holding tent revivals and evangelistic meetings.

In 1978, Ravenhill moved to Garden Valley, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries Ranch, where Keith Green would eventually be mentored by Ravenhill. Ravenhill’s influence affected not only Green but also other men of God, such as Charles Stanley and David Wilkerson. Ravenhill was also a close friend of pastor and writer A.W. Tozer. 

Ravenhill once spoke to a young minister. I quote from a Church historian for what was said during their conversation, where Ravenhill said the following: 

“The last-day church will be the most distracted church in history.” He didn’t say the church would be wicked or heretical. He said it would be distracted. Distracted by comfort, entertainment, activities, noise, and good things that suffocate the God-thing. 

Ravenhill said our generation would drown in blessings and starve in burden. He said we would lose our tears, lose urgency, and lose the agony that births revival. The future church, he said, would be full of motion but empty of devotion. Loud on stage but silent in prayer. Talented in music but poor in repentance.

Then he gave a prophecy, not to excite or motivate, but to warn. “A shaking is coming. A divine confrontation. A holy interruption.” 

Ravenhill said God would pull back the curtain and expose everything fake. Look around today – scandals, moral failures, spiritual dryness, churches with fog machines but no holy fire, pastors building platforms but losing their souls, Christians who love Christian content more than Christ Himself. If you listen carefully, you can hear the tremors. The ground is already shaking. Ravenhill finally said, “The church lost her voice because she lost her tears.”

Ravenhill’s warning has now come to fruition. It will be our tears for the things that grieve the Lord that will become the gateway to true revival. This is not about the church down the street that we don’t like or about another person with whom we disagree. This revival will begin individually before it is released corporately. 

As Ravenhill prophesied, “A shaking is coming. A divine confrontation. A holy interruption.” When the shaking comes, each of us will be offered an opportunity to examine the condition of our hearts to see whether they are aligned with what matters most to the Lord. Our tears, or the lack of them, will determine if the coming shaking and resulting revival will affect us for the glory of God.