What is wrong with reformed presbyterianism? - part 1: no Ravenhill

I admit I have chosen an odd title for a blog entry on a site dedicated to revival and authored by a reformed presbyterian minister.   Part of me would like to say that nothing is wrong with reformed presbyterianism.   But something is very much wrong.  I don't mean to say that there is something very wrong with the thing itself, but something very wrong with reformed presbyterianism as it is in our day.  

A little background...  My roots are Baptist.  I spent a few years on the mission field as a child, and in my early adulthood I spent some years in charismatic churches (pentecostal and non-denominational).  In the reformed world there is a love for doctrines and distinctions.  We are truth men.  Many of us are confessional.  We ought to be!  We read old books and circulate them.  We love good publishing companies like Banner of Truth.  But there is something almost too civilized about us.  I remember hearing Paul Washer speak of crying out to God and throwing rocks at heaven.  That note is largely missing among us.  We are book men but not wild men.  We are not like Paul who could speak of being out of his mind for Christ; and we have little in common with the men of Hebrews 11 of whom the world was not worthy.   We are busy in many things but we aren't turning the world upside down.

When I meet believers for the first time if we get talking about the things of God I like to ask them who they read.  Once in a while I discover a 'Ravenhill man'.  I don't mean by that that there is a loyalty to him that is idolatrous.  All of us should be able to say with the apostle "and I of Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:12).  By a 'Ravenhill man' I simply mean that I have met someone who has discovered the preaching and writing of Leonard Ravenhill and been forever changed the experience.  When that happens, when I discover someone whose life has been changed by the ministry of Leonard Ravenhill, I know I have found a dear friend.  Immediately there is a bond.  Usually the conversation turns to the need of the Church, the need for revival, the loveliness of Jesus, and then invariably the conversation turns to the subject of prayer.  And if the man is (what I have decided to call) a 'Ravenhill man' we always end up on our knees.  That specifically is the note that is missing among reformed presbyterians.   Most reformed and/or presbyterian men (pastors, elders, laymen) have never heard of him.  They read Calvin, Bavinck, Turretin, Bannerman, Warfield, Machen and Murray but they don't read Ravenhill.  

And what difference does that make?  Well I certainly wouldn't suggest it has everything to do with Ravenhill.  We have our own Ravenhills if we would read them and imitate them!  I am thinking of men like Samuel Rutherford, John Welch, David Brainerd, Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Lachlan Mackenzie... But that man - Ravenhill - had a unique ministry and one that was contemporary with our own. He was a bit mad - at least in the biblical sense.  He was a man of prayer, and he was uniquely prophetic in his writing and preaching.  He called men to pray like no one else in his generation.  Men who sat at his feet usually became men of prayer themselves.  

In the reformed presbyterian world we do a lot of things well but one thing we do not do well is pray.  Even now in this time of global pandemic, we speak of God's judgment and the need for fasting, and we do so with an eloquence and theological robustness that is unparalleled... but where is the sackcloth?   I do mean actual sackloth.  Where are the men who will hold a fast of biblical proportions?  It is one thing not to eat for a day, it is another thing entirely to give that day to prayer.  

When reformed presbyterians meet to pray it is (on the whole) far too civilized, far too formal and far too brief.  Ask a reformed minister about his prayer life and you may hear something about praying "all the time," but you won't usually hear about stated times of prayer before the day begins.    If you were to ask pressing questions about the man's prayer life, you won't find very  many who pray 2 and 3 and 4 hours every day.  For most in the reformed world prayer like that is utterly alien and so alien that it doesn't even happen during days of judgment.   Here is the irony.  We speak firmly and eloquently of God's judgment upon the nations and the Church, we call for fasting and prayer, but on the whole we do little in the way of actually tarrying in the place of prayer.  We know what prayer is, and when we pray our words are theologically rich, but we haven't that anguish that characterized the men of the past.  We haven't the will (the faith) to persevere and to plead at the throne of grace like our forefathers.  We are rich in many ways but in this one critical way we are desperately impoverished.  

What is wrong with reformed presbyterianism?  In the future I would like to write more about the subject of prayer and our weakness in this area, but for now I would simply observe that in all our reading and studying and listening we need to become acquainted with Leonard Ravenhill.   We read too much that is doctrinally dry and not enough Ravenhill.   

If you are in a reformed presbyterian church ask your pastor if he has read anything by Leonard Ravenhill.  If he hasn't buy him a book.  Read him yourself.  Listen to his sermons.   You won't agree with everything he says because Ravenhill was neither reformed nor presbyterian.   But he did live very near to God; and for my part I can say that if I could sit at the feet of any man dead or living I would choose brother Ravenhill.

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For part 2 go here.