Charlie Peace was a criminal. Laws of God or man curbed him not. Finally the law caught up with him and he was condemned to death. On the fatal morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, [...]]]> From Leonard Ravenhill’s book, Why Revival Tarries.

Charlie Peace was a criminal. Laws of God or man curbed him not. Finally the law caught up with him and he was condemned to death. On the fatal morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses. The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading.

“The Consolations of Religion,” was the reply. Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about Hell. Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase without a tremor? Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings?” All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached. Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon.

“Sir,” addressing the preacher, “if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal Hell like that!”

My reader, because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire, men go to hell-fire! We need a vision of a holy God. God is essentially holy. The cherubim and seraphim were not crying, “Omnipotent! Omnipotent is the Lord! nor “Omnipresent and Omniscient is the Lord!” but “Holy, Holy, Holy!” This vast Hebrew concept needs to penetrate our souls again. If I make my bed in hell, if I take the wings of the morning — yet He is there. God compasses us in time; the inescapable God, awaits us in eternity. We had better be at peace with Him here, and be in the center of His will now!

I do not marvel so much at the patience of the Lord with the stonyhearted sinners of the day. After all, would we not be patient with a man both blind [...]]]> If you have never read Leonard Ravenhill’s “Why Revival Tarries” then you are missing out on some good, soul searing hard preaching. He wrote:

I do not marvel so much at the patience of the Lord with the stonyhearted sinners of the day. After all, would we not be patient with a man both blind and deaf? And such are the sinners. But I do marvel at the Lord’s patience with the sleepy, sluggish, selfish Church! A prodigal church in a prodigal world is God’s real problem.

Oh, we bankrupt, blind, boasting believers! We are naked and don’t know it. We are rich (never had we more equipment), but we are poor (never had we less enduement)! We have need of nothing (and yet we lack almost everything the Apostolic church had). Can He stand “in the midst” while we sport unashamedly in our spiritual nakedness?

Oh, we need the fire! Where is the power of the Holy Ghost that slays sinners and fills our altars? Today we seem much more interested in having church air-conditioned than prayer-conditioned. “Our God is a consuming fire.” God and fire are inseparable; so are men and fire. Every single one of us is treading a path of fire — hell-fire for the sinner, judgment-fire for the believer! Because the Church has lost Holy Ghost fire, millions go to hell-fire.

The prophet Moses was called by fire. Elijah called down fire. Elisha made a fire. Micah prophesied fire. John the Baptist cried, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Jesus said, “I am come to send fire on the earth.” If we were as scared to miss fire baptism as we are to miss water baptism, we would have a flaming Church and another Pentecost. The “old nature” may dodge the water baptism, but it is destroyed in the fire baptism, for He shall “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Until they were fire-purged, the miracle-working disciples who beheld His resurrection glory, were held back from ministering the cross.