Leonard Ravenhill reflects on the profound experience of Jesus in Gethsemane, emphasizing that salvation comes not merely from Christ's death but from His resurrection and ongoing life. He highlights the loneliness and sorrow Jesus faced as His disciples fell asleep during His most critical hour, drawing parallels to the modern church's spiritual slumber. Ravenhill urges believers to recognize the weight of the cup Jesus bore, filled with the sins of humanity, and to respond with a deeper commitment to prayer and spiritual vigilance. He challenges the congregation to consider their own faithfulness and the importance of truly knowing the presence of God in their lives.

named Passion Week. And next Friday night will be what we call Good Friday. But I want to step it back and consider the experience of Jesus in Gethsemane tonight, and next Friday night, God willing, we'll sing hymns on the Resurrection. Again, we're not saved by the death of Christ. That shocks a lot of people. They kind of perk up, you know, and feel there's a heretic in the pulpit. But we're not saved by his death. Paul says we're saved by his life. If he isn't living tonight, we're sunk. He had to die, but he had to rise again. He rose, he died for our sins. He rose for our justification. All right, let's read from the Gospel as recorded by Matthew in the 26th chapter. Verse 30, they had just drunk and eaten round the table of the Lord. Well, Jesus here had been with his disciples, and they had sung a hymn, which undoubtedly was a great hallow. Those majestic psalms that have never been superseded. You can say all you like about praise and adoration, whether you're charismatic, Pentecostal, or Presbyterian, or Methodist, or what. Nobody has ever succeeded the praise of the psalmist. He extols the Lord. If ever I wrote a tune, I would write it to lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors. I feel that that's a great resurrection hymn. But they'd sung, when they had sung a hymn, verse 30 says, they went out into the Mount of Olives, and Jesus said unto them, All ye shall be offended of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Peter again, you know, always got an answer. Peter said, Though all men forsake thee, I will not do it. Verse 35, Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee. Verse 37, He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto a death. Now, would these smart boys that say there's no sorrow and hardship, would they accuse Jesus of lacking faith? If everything comes in answer to faith, he says he could do nothing in one city because of their unbelief. Now, why didn't Jesus overmaster their unbelief with his faith? You can think about that for a while after. Then said he unto them, My soul, verse 38, is exceeding sorrowful even unto death, tarry ye here and watch with me. And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, father saying, and prayed saying, O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Middle of verse 40, He saith to Peter, Could ye not watch with me? Because he came and found them asleep. Verse 42, He went away again the second time and prayed saying, O my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them and went away again and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then he cometh to his disciples and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Now look, between that and the next verse, those possibly hours. But notice the infinite mercy of Jesus. They failed Him once, twice, three times. In His darkest hour. And yet verse 46 says, Rise, let us be going. Behold, He is at hand that betrayeth me. So Jesus waited patiently while they slept in the most critical hour of His life. You may not agree with me, that's all right. But I believe that's exactly what the church is doing now in the most critical hour since she was founded. She's sleeping, and therefore failing her Lord in this most critical of all critical hours in history. These are the very men who one day came to Jesus, and as I've said, and not facetiously, they didn't say, Lord, teach us to sing. They didn't say, Lord, teach us to preach, though He was a master preacher. Think of the Sermon on the Mount. They didn't say, Lord, teach us to heal the sick. They came and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. In other words, we've heard John, that they were kind of suggesting, John doesn't touch the heights that you touch. Now it's amazing, there is no record in the Scripture of Jesus ever praying with His disciples. He prayed for them, but I don't know that He prayed with them. It's like Dr. Tozer going to church. When he went to church to the prayer meeting, nobody dared pray because they were afraid it would look so bad. And then he would pray, and after he prayed, nobody dared pray. Because he prayed, not just with a vocabulary that was more expressive, but he prayed in a dimension, in a depth, in a height, that left everybody floundering, you know, waters to the ankles, we're only just in this business. And I think this is the most awesome thing ever that Jesus did, apart from the cross. But they fell asleep. Now in the old economy, in the old Hebrew economy, you know, the priest entered, they had a day of atonement. And on that day of atonement, the high priest, not a priest, but the high priest. Again, a man could be a soldier in Israel when he was 20, he could not be a priest until he was 25, he could not be a high priest until he was 30. It's a sign of maturity, perfection. Again, the walls of the ark were 30 cubits high. The house that Solomon built, the walls were 30 cubits high. Again, Jesus did not preach until he was 30, nor did John Baptist, nor did the Apostle Paul, nor any of the great men. It's a sign of maturity. And on this auspicious occasion, the high priest goes into the sanctuary three times on the one day, the only other 364 days he could not enter, he went into the sanctuary three times on that day. The first time he went in, he went with some incense and he went with a vessel with fire in it, I suppose we call it kind of a lamp. And he went into the darkness and he threw the incense on the fire and a cloud of glory filled, or at least a cloud covered the mercy seat. Now, I haven't read this, but I think I'm right in saying it. If I thought I was wrong, I wouldn't say it. But I think it was at that moment when he made that offering that the Shekinah glory of God came down. Now, this is totally false to us. We do not understand the Shekinah glory. Again, in the outer court there was daylight, in the inner court there was candlelight or seven-branch candlestick. In the Holy of Holies there was no light at all. It was totally black unless the glory of God came. I get an ache in the pit of my stomach or somewhere else when I go to church and immediately someone says, let's all stand up and sing a real rousing chorus. Well, I've been listening to noise, blaring automobiles and guys going past with every bit of pressure coming out of their radio on the car and others. I think it's time we learn to be still and know that he's God. You may not, you're much younger, you've got hotter blood maybe, but it still does not alter the fact. I guarantee you could count on one hand or maybe one finger the last time you came out of the sanctuary where you were subdued with the glory of God. You were awed with his majesty. We just came home last week, you know, or this past week, and I said to my wife, well, we'll have a backlog. I have a backlog of mail actually till about Christmas and there'll be some more. We've been away a few days and we've been away three weeks in the Bahamas and we'll just have a cup of tea and I'll get down to business. And a fellow called me and he said, I'm at last days picking up some tracks. I must see you. We're going to drive all night. Got a 19-hour drive to 150 miles or something the other side of Atlanta. I said, all right, I'll give you 15 minutes, which I gave him plus two hours and something else. He stayed three hours. But I've never seen two young men, two young ladies, people more hungry. And he said, this has been life changing tonight. And all we did was talk about the holiness and the majesty of God. Oh, mercy, he said, I never think about that when I go to church. You know, it struck me very funny today. No, it's not really funny, but it's critical really, that millions of people this Sabbath day will go to God's house, but they don't know the person that owns the house. Would you go knock at somebody's door, a house you didn't know, you knock at the door and the fellow says, what do you want? I don't really know, who are you? Well, I live in this house. And yet people are content to go Sunday after Sunday and never meet the owner of the house. Just atmosphere, just emotion. So the high priest went in the first and he took that incense and he took the fire. The second time he went in, he went with blood for his own sins. And the third time he went in, he went with blood for the sins of the nation. Now, as I see it, Jesus entered only twice, as it were, into the holy place. And one is here in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know, things that used to be scientific fantasies a few years ago, when I was a boy, have become actual, commonplace. If you had told your grandfather, maybe you did tell him years ago, that you could sit in a room and in a million homes in America, you just press a button like that and in a million homes at the same split second, you can see the president behind his desk, he would have thought you were something wrong with your head. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that picture could actually travel from one city to another city and you got it, say, 15 minutes later in Dallas and you got it here, and then you got it two hours later over in California, but at the same split second. You see, it's really magic, it's really miraculous, it's a scientific miracle. And, you know, when people are always saying, Oh, every time I pick up the newspaper, hear the news, I hear about the Middle East, I think about the coming of the Lord, I think about this, that and the other. Well, I'm not saying that's wrong, and I think often we get distorted. I think we get fascinated with events rather than the Son of God Himself. If you're more excited about the coming of Jesus than you are about the presence of Jesus, you'd better do some thinking. It's His presence that matters. But we get caught up in things like that rather than realize His majestic presence. Now, scientists told me years ago that over the earth there's a sphere, which I understand is an envelope, or envelope if you want it that way, of ether belting the world. This is the world kind of thing, and all around the world there's I don't know how many miles of ether. And that ether has been a trap. This scientist says every word that has ever been spoken audibly is trapped in that ether. And just as you switch a knob, and isn't it amazing, in your automobile, automobiles are like sitting in the front room now. They're lush, plush, comfortable, and you switch the music on and get this and get that, get the other. You'll be able to turn a dial and nothing has ever perished. If you like, you might be filtering through, turning the knob, and suddenly you hear Adam and Eve who was talking in the garden. Plus, you hear God talking in the garden. Every word ever spoken, every audible... Oh, is that why the book says that every idle word, and as a matter of fact, every other word that man speaks is going to come back to him? It's all locked up there in space. Now, supposing you could have your choice tonight to hear all the things that have ever been said since Adam talked in the garden with the Lord. What would you choose? Would you want to hear Mark counting his oration over Julius Caesar? Or Hannibal talking to his elephants going over the Alps? Or would you like to hear the original declaration, which must have been very wonderful when the President of the United States at that time gave that famous Gettysburg speech? After all, the man before him spoke for 120 minutes. Abraham Lincoln spoke for 120 seconds. Do you know the name of the man that spoke two hours before him? Can you find that speech anywhere? You can find Abraham Lincoln's speech in books in Russia, England, anywhere in the world. A majestic speech. It must have been wonderful to hear him give it. Would you like to have heard Isaiah when he cried, Woe is me, I'm undone? Or Moses when he spoke to the rock? Or maybe that wonderful sermon on the mount? You know, I tried to filter through this afternoon and say to myself if I had just a 10 minute speech out of the Word of God, what would it be? Well, my choice would be this. I would just, I'm not sure I could bear it, but at least I'd ask for it. And I would ask to hear the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think it's the most wonderful thing that human lips ever uttered. You know, these brave, we've all done it. All to Jesus I surrender. We've sung it over and over and then during the week when it's a choice between this and that, we choose that, not him. Prayer meeting, well not tonight, it's wet. Some other choice. How easy it is to be apparently sincere and yet really hardly knowing our own hearts because it's emotion that stirs us to say yes, Lord, look, all this bunch, you can't, I mean, you can't trust Thomas, you know, he's got a streak of doubt in him and John's a bit weak, but me, Peter, I can meet them all. So if you get into a jam, you know this, that Peter is behind you all the way. Well, he wasn't, was he? Now, this is a non-repeated, it's an unrepeated act, like everything Jesus did. The virgin birth has never been repeated. Gethsemane has never been repeated and it is unrepeatable. It never will happen again, doesn't have to happen. And then the death of Jesus is unrepeatable and the resurrection. We used to sing a hymn, I've forgotten the hymn book it was in, go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempter's power. Your Redeemer's conflict, see, watch with him one little hour. Turn not from the world away, but learn with Jesus Christ to pray. Gethsemane. Do you know what the word really means? It means the oil press. It was just across the road from the place where they'd already sung that wonderful hymn. They didn't have very far to go. And yet again they slept. The men that said, teach us to pray, had the greatest chance. Oh, I've heard people say, did you ever pray with Dr. Tozzi? Yes, I did a number of times. Wasn't it wonderful? Yes, it was wonderful. I'd rather pray with a man than have my dinner with him. I prayed at times with some of the greatest men in the world and I remember their prayers more than I remember their eloquence and their brilliance. We don't pray from our minds really, we pray from our hearts. Jesus has come into this situation where, remember this, he's been under suspicion all his life. I think from the very day he stood up in the temple at twelve years of age. Somebody says, you know that's Joseph's kid if they use that word, they possibly, that youngster, that cub, as they would say now, that youngster stood up yesterday in the temple with all the learned men, the arrogant thing. Hope his father spanked him last night when he got home. Twelve years of age, he declared his mission. In fact, when he was born he was under suspicion because the city was divided, Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And just a little pocket, an old lady, about a hundred, Hannah the prophetess and Joseph and Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah and maybe there weren't twelve of them that believed. Here he is, here's the salvation of God. And the Romans were suspicious because they said, somebody born king of the Jews, we can hardly keep those miserable Jews down now. If they've got a king they're going to fight, now we're in trouble. Trouble was his companion from the day he was born until he ended up there on the cross. And in the most critical hour when he needed that companionship they failed him. And I say again, this got to me today. I believe this was the most critical hour in history and the church is playing games. Jesus at least expected they would be praying and they're sleeping. Dear Lord, as I read this again and I thought how he waited for them. He could hear them maybe snoring and turning over and thinking yes, another hour, maybe another hour, the daylight will come. And you'll wake up, you've been through the most amazing night in history and it passed over you like that. And you know, I think we're doing the same thing very much in the church. Just Sunday again, so we go to church Sunday morning. Oh, with a lovely choir and a nice pastor and we'll have a nice time. We need to make a statement like Peter and live with it. Do you remember a little later Jesus says, look, if I wanted to do, I could get out of this. I've said to you before and I say to myself often, I believe the perennial challenge of the believer is this, come down from the cross and save yourself. Other people are not fasting like you fast. Other people don't spend as much time in prayer. Other people don't husband their money and use it and give it to missions. Other people are not investing for eternity like you are. Why be the oddball? Everybody in church says you're a nice person but they think you're a fanatic behind this. They say she's gone, you know, she's gone overboard. You notice nobody ever says you can get too rich. No one says you can get too well educated. But oh, be careful you don't get to be too spiritual. See, the main trouble if you get too spiritual is you'll show how unspiritual they are. And that's what they're afraid of. They're not afraid of your spirituality so much as a fact that they're kind of a withered branch that hasn't got any fruit. Jesus has been, I say again, here he is in the garden. He says, I could call twelve legions of angels, he says a bit later. A legion, a minimum of a legion is five thousand and the top number is ten thousand. Let's make it five. And he says he could call twelve legions of angels so that would be sixty, wouldn't it? Sixty legions. One angel in the Old Testament, what, in the second book of Kings chapter 19, don't look now, killed 185,000 people. One night, one angel killed nearly 200,000. Well if you take twelve legions of angels, if every angel, 60,000 angels, killed 200,000 people, it comes to about 11 billion people. In other words, Jesus could have wiped out the human race and started the whole thing over again. So am I wrong in saying that here is a garden, we sing, it was alone, the Savior prayed in dark Gethsemane, yes and no. Yes, he was alone, he was deserted, the disciples had let him down badly. Three years of teaching and they were still dumb. Am I wrong in saying that he wasn't alone because here, there are millions or billions of angels watching on to see what's going to happen? And at the other side, there are billions of demons watching on to see what's going to happen? This is the gateway, not into just the greatest tragedy, it was not a tragedy. Well, it was tragic in the sense that men had no more sense than to deal with him this way. But you remember that Herod said to him, listen, you watch your step because I'll take your life from you. And Jesus looks at him so calmly and says, no man takes my life from me, I have power to lay it down. And when it comes, I'll lay it down and you know what, I'll take it up again. You know, that must have shocked him. I'd like to have taken his pulse after he heard that. He must have been dithering saying, well, I'm not going to get rid of him, is he going to pull some magic? You see, they were suspicious of him because all through his life he'd shown dominion. He reverses every law, he comes into the world without a father. He walked on the water, nobody else has done that that I know of. He had power over demons, he cast out devils, he had power over sickness, he had power over insanity. He raises Jairus' daughter from the dead and he raised Lazarus from the dead. And I think underneath there's a great suspicion here that Jesus is going to pull something off. In fact, I'm quite sure about it for how, why, why do you send sixteen soldiers to guard a tomb? I'll give you my picture next week, next Friday night on unsealing that tomb. But let me remind you of this, the tomb was not, the stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out of the tomb. He was out a long while before that, the stone was rolled away to let the disciples go in, not to let him out. But again I remind you after three years of tutoring that there wasn't one person, I think that was the greatest shock in the life of Jesus. I think this shocked Jesus that they went to sleep. I think they often shocked him by their unbelief and bad attitudes. But the resurrection morning when he'd broken the gates of death, when he'd led captivity captive and given gifts unto men and there wasn't a single person there. Mercy, I would have thought blind Bartimaeus would have been there. I would have thought the woman of the well would have been there. But come on, don't look so conceited tonight. How many times do you wake up in the morning even Sabbath day or any day and say he's risen, he's alive and because he's alive I shall live today. Don't blame the world for not believing it. Every day should be a celebration. We're not of the world. How's the weather today? I think I need an extra coat or something. What's the traffic like? Oh, it's the twenties jammed up just before you get into Dallas and something else is wrong. And you know, we get as much junk loaded on us as though we were just ordinary folk. We're not ordinary. You may be, but I ain't. I'm extraordinary. I'm a prince with God. You're a princess with God. Why sweat about the world and what it's doing? We don't have to get victory. We should have victory already in Jesus Christ. Now here he is alone in Gethsemane. The disciples have gone to sleep. What do I see in him? I see his majesty. We think of majesty just in a sense of authority. Well, as I've said, he's already celebrated that majesty. Power over death. You talk about trying to teach your children. What do you say? For the thousandth time I've asked you to say thank you or please, because you don't have children like that. They're going over the lake and it's a horrible lake. It's shallow and so the wind whips the water up very quickly and suddenly they think the boat's going down. And they jump on Jesus and shake him and say, Don't you care that we perish? Well, isn't that the essence of selfishness? Wouldn't you have thought they just said, Master, we're afraid you're going to drown. No, don't you care that we perish? Huh? Little me. Lord, turn all the world upside down for me. For me. Put everything in order for me. Oh, dear, dear, dear. How earthbound we get. We think on the level of others so often. I see here the majesty of Jesus. What did he say? Now, there's no guesswork about this. He shall be offended of me this night because the shepherd is going to be smitten. He walks into the jaws of death because that's what he's doing, actually. There's no nervousness. There's no lack of assurance. For this purpose, I came into the world. I've been preparing for 33 years for this supreme moment in my life. That's a long time to go to school. But he went to the school of the Father. There's no happenstance. There's no guesswork. Do you believe, is that true in your life? Are you a football for the devil to kick around? Are you a dead leaf for the winds of change to blow you around any corner? Or are you stayed upon Jehovah as we sing? This is my career. I've been training for 30 years. All that you've seen is incidental. It's all periphery to this one fact that right now here's the supreme ministry that I have. And he stands there in solemn majesty. I guess the devil and demons are looking down and I guess they were saying that the odds are against us very much because we've never beaten him. I wrestled with him 40 days in the wilderness. He beat me every round. I faced him at death. He beat me at death. I faced him with a paralyzed. Every disorder that Adam brought into the world, he's put it back into order. That word majesty comes from the word magnum which actually means awesome strength and awesome power. Not in the sense of an earthly king but something far beyond that. Not only do I see him in his awesome majesty but I think of the thing that we shun so much loneliness. My dear sister called me two weeks ago. She's just about 80 and her husband had died that morning. She lives in a nice little cottage there in England and I kept saying to Martha, well she'd be pretty lonely. They'd be married 50 years and her husband a good preacher and he's gone. People shun loneliness but when that loneliness is something you don't deserve when people have sworn their allegiance to you and so forth and so on and you wonder that for once the crowds were not there. They weren't going after bread. They weren't going after healing. Why? Why? Why? Isn't there an easy point of satisfaction in our lives huh? I talked with Dave Wilkins an hour today I'll tell you what happened a little later and as I listened to them I thought yeah there's the awesome wonder of the gospel again that as we sang tonight that brother chose and I was going to choose it to start with but the Lord must have wanted it anyhow. Years I spent in vanity and pride and the psalmist says he lifted me out of a horrible pit. Now look some of us were deeper down in that pit and some of us were not. I was brought up on the clean side of the road in a good old Methodist home. I wasn't in the pit but I was going to the pit and the pit I was going to was far worse than the pit I was lifted out of. But oh do you think that God gets lonely now? Do you remember the scripture that says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever? Well if he was disappointed and disgusted with those disciples in the garden of Gethsemane do you think he's disgusted and disappointed tonight? Oh let me ask you this, he wept over Jerusalem the city he loved so much. Do you think he's weeping over his church tonight? Some of you have read some of Gordon Olson's work and I couldn't find it I'd like to have read it but I'll turn it up. He has a section on which he speaks on the grief of God. Well if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever if he's touched with the feeling of our infirmities then surely he must look on a church which is disgustingly unlike the New Testament church. We don't compare with the New Testament church, we contrast with it. It's day and night. It's life and death. It's a regimented turn God on at eleven o'clock, turn him off at twelve o'clock, turn him on seven o'clock Sunday night, turn him on Wednesday night. That didn't exist in the early church. It didn't exist for at least a hundred or more, nearly two hundred years, two centuries after the church was born. I suggest to you, though Gethsemane I guess is not mentioned in John's epistle, gospel, that read John. Would you read John this week? Well, read all the different versions of the crucifixion that read John. You see, the way the Bible is set up, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then the Acts of the Apostles, then the epistles, and we get it in our mind that this is divine order. No, it's not divine order. That's the way men put it. The last thing that was written, the last gospel that was written, or the last version, there aren't four gospels, there's one gospel told by four different people. The last version, the version by John was written after the epistles, and then he has three letters, and he was unlearned and ignorant. You know, he did pretty good, didn't he, for an ignorant man. He wrote, the most profound thing ever written is the fourth chapter, is the fourth gospel, as we call it, the gospel of John. And then he wrote three epistles, that makes four books. And then to prove he was stupid, he wrote the book of the Revelation, which is pretty good going, isn't it? But you see, we kind of think that the epistles are more important. No, they're not. No, the epistles are only an expansion of the gospel as John presented it. If you read John, the first chapter, and the first eighteen verses, you read everything that's in that book. The rest is an expansion of those first eighteen verses of John chapter one. But you see, we're getting away, we're still getting tied up with gifts, and you go to some meetings, all you hear is prophecy, of the Son of God himself. Okay, so then, as it was with him, so it will be with us in this world. Can you see him there in Gethsemane, no visible audience, the disciples away there sleeping, demons looking on, angels looking on, the Father looking on? Read the twenty-second psalm when you go home. Psalm twenty-two is the psalm of the cross. Psalm twenty-three is the psalm of the crook, that is, the shepherd's crook, which he lifts sheep out of the hole with. And, psalm twenty-two is the psalm of the cross, psalm twenty-three is the psalm of the shepherd's crook, and psalm twenty-four is the triumph, the song of deliverance, loneliness. It's a good school to go to. One of the young men said to me the other night, if I were your son, what seminary would you advise me to go to? I said none. He said, well that's settled the problem anyhow. What would you do? I'd get two volumes of the big, two volumes on the life of Whitefield. I'd get that big volume of the Christian Incomplete Armor, eleven hundred and twenty-eight pages, that takes a bit of digesting. And I would get the life of John Soong, and I'd get the life of little Sammy Morris from Africa. And, one more, what was the other one there? Oh, Tolstoy's books, yes, but there's another one I was thinking of there. It's just been reissued by Banner of Truth, Fair Sunshine. It'll show you about the young men that many of them died before they were twenty-five years of age for doing nothing else but preach the gospel. One of them didn't go to bed for two years. He slept out on the moors in Scotland. It's pretty lousy up there because I've been through that country. And it's miserable inside, never mind sleeping on moors, and he'd knock on a door in the middle of the night and ask for a crust of bread. One of the great saints. They were persecuted by the English until 1665. I said, take the summer off. Work as little as you can on work. Go to a farmer and say, give me bed and bread. I don't want any wages. I want to start at eight in the morning, finish at five at night, put my head under a pump and wash the dust out of my hair at the end of the day. And I said, you read those books. You let those two volumes of Whitfield, see how God made that amazing man. He'll have about twelve hundred pages. Balance it by reading the Christian Incomplete Armor, which you can get up at Agape right now. Twenty-five dollars it is. Nice little book. And get the others. John Sung has been reprinted by Banner of Truth. Don't be nibbling at all these little magazines that come around that don't say much. They're all rehashing little stories and there's no meat in them and there's nothing that gets under your skin and makes you feel unworthy and people say, you know, we need to feel sinful. No we don't. What sin will honor God? You can't tell me a sin in your life that will honor God. I don't want to feel sinful but I sure want to feel unworthy. My, when I read this about my Lord, my Master, going into Gethsemane. His soul is exceedingly bowed down. He goes a little further away from them as though he wants more privacy or privacy if you like. And there he is all alone and then all the billows as it says in what, in the 22nd Psalm, all thy billows have gone over me. I don't understand no man that ever preached understands how God was contracted to a span incomprehensibly made man. How the heaven of heavens cannot contain God and yet he's pressed into the matrix of the Virgin Mary. I don't understand how the ancient of days became a babe. I don't understand how he or his life had to begin his life all over there in the womb of the woman. I don't understand he that gave life everything, hangs on his mother's breast for sustenance every day. I do not understand how God became man as Wesley says, God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made man. But less do I understand how he became sin for us. What does it say? Father, if it be possible may this cup pass away from me that if I drink it then thy will be done. What was in that cup? David was telling me today that in his meeting I think it was a Sunday night he felt led to say that there's such a big crowd I'm going to preach there next month. It's a wonderful tabernacle there in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Tabernacle. See it's about 1500. And it was packed and there were three or four hundred people outside. David took a box and went and preached to them outside and a number about 14 or 15 ran out to get saved. Then he went indoors and he said before I preach I want to say this that God right now is moving me to say this that somebody here hasn't been sleeping for a night or two. Who is it? And he said a young man just ran down the aisle full speed and he said look I'm a leader of the communist youth here in New York I'm a leader of the gay people and all the sex perversion and he said I heard it two nights ago and I haven't slept a wink for two nights. And he just fell down and hollered and cried and wept and groaned that God would save him. He had a real old fashioned baptism of repentance. Now all that corruption was in that cup. He became sin for us. A man called Adam opened the door and he let the stream in and in a little stream and it's like going up to Minneapolis and you can stride just like that you can stride over the Mississippi River because it begins there. But look at it when you get down to New Orleans the size of it. By one man's disobedience sin entered into the world and death because of sin. And every sin that you can name the vulgar vile wretched rotten stuff David was telling me about some other things that are unmentionable. And they were all in that cup. I told a story before I'll tell you again. In the largest church I pastored I was in my twenties and it was at the tabernacle in Oldham outside of Manchester. And going down the street one day as I it was five minutes of five I remember as I went past the door of this very humble kind of place this lady put her head out and said I know who you are you're the pastor at the tabernacle. I said that's right. I've been to the tabernacle I usually sit at the back. I'm very poor and I can't have anything to put in your offering. I said alright. And she said you come in my house and have a cup of tea. I said no I'm sorry it's five minutes of five and I'm due for tea as we say in England or supper at five o'clock. No that's not the reason. That's not the reason that's not the reason. You won't be coming because I'm poor and it isn't a nice house like some of your folk have. I'll come in I'll come in I went in. Kind of a house you go in and all you know is you go in you know. I've never I've been in some pigsty's of a house but never one like that I'll tell you that. I sat down at the table and the there was just about this much space to get from the door the front door and it was all stacked up with books. She bought them at a junk shop down the road. She'd read thousands of them. The table was full and there was a little space at the sink and then there was a big sink it was piled up with dishes. She hadn't had a washing up of dishes I'm sure for months and there's a nice piece of bacon and it had it was all green and mulled you know. Real appetizing kind of thing. What do you call that stuff you get off mulled? Penicillin. She'd fifty dollars worth of penicillin on that thing I'm sure. And she didn't even know. She said you do drink tea? I said yes. She said alright. And she had a teapot that had been white once and that it was all messed up on the outside and she reached in the sink and took a cup out that was all slimy on the outside and as I looked in it had tea leaves and some corruption in the bottom and she just took that black tea and she poured it in that cup and she said do you take cream? I said yes I do. She said I don't have any. Do you take sugar? Yeah. I don't have any. You know as she held her fingernails were all in mourning. They were covered with dirt and she held that filthy cup out with that rotten cold tea with no sugar no cream no anything and she said and I looked at it and I I kind of I guess I shrunk off from it and she said drink it! You know as I put my hand out to take that cup right there I've never forgotten it. My mind just went 2000 miles away from England to a place called at that time Palestine and 2000 years back to this man in the garden when the father said drink it. Drink it! Well that's enough to lay us out surely. He's the essence of purity he's the essence of holiness he was harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners and yet he takes the most horrible thing this world has ever had symbolic of all the sin of all the ages you can mention it all the physical corruption lesbianism every lousy rotten corrupt thing that sends men to jail that makes men rot in their bodies every vicious thing the pride and the anger and all the other things the sins of the flesh the sins of the spirit and they're all there and he took that cut and there was nobody there to sustain him except of course again the father and the men that he trained were all lying around snoring that's the thing that got to me the more I studied it the more I meditated over it today don't blame them for heaven's sake don't criticize those disciples they never had a volume of 66 books on their lap they were still doubtful in their minds I'm sure that he would rise from the dead what kind of a judgment do you think the church is going to have when we get to the judgment seat with all the knowledge we have and all the light we have and all the versions we have a lot of these meetings where we just clapped and had a marvelous time and sat down and went home and couldn't remember the text of what had happened all we had was a hullabaloo time that stirred our emotions they look pretty sick at the judgment seat I think there's no violation here there's no disagreement with the father's will he accepts this tremendous agonizing challenge and I kind of wonder in my mind what he was seeing at that moment in the darkness because his resurrection had been prophesied anyhow and I think that that was his consolation why did he do it why did he do it he did it for this reason he said right through his life all that he did everything he did pleased the father and you remember the verse that says for the joy that was set before him he suffered the cross despising the shame now I don't believe there's any I don't believe he had any joy in hanging on a cross we try to be modest and they cover Jesus you know but I don't believe anybody crucified ever had a covering on him at all part of the stark nakedness was part of his humiliation and he goes to the cross and he endures the cross because that was the way that the father had designed it he came into the world for the sole purpose for thirty years that cross never had a shadow over it there was never any gloom over it never any darkness over it in the truest sense of the word this is the ultimate goal why I came into the world that I might please the father it's the only way that redemption could be completed again he goes there so different from the priest the priest had to take an offering for his own blood and then he had to take an offering for the blood of the for the sin of the nation Israel it was just tied up to one group to Israel now the gospel is for the whosoever it's for all nations all people everywhere the high priest died our high priest will never die the Aaronic priesthood they were superseded by their sons or at least they died and their sons followed them but in here there's no such thing he ever liveth to make intercession for us I want you to think about this you'll get more out of it as you do it's amazing that men were going to try to arrest him I think they can't have been very sensible Peter did show up of course he took a sword I don't know what he was doing with it but he snatched it and chopped off a fellow's ear and the last thing Jesus did to men was to heal one of his enemies I wonder what would have happened if they had taken him after all he didn't punch them the disciples didn't jump up and fight them off but what I spoke about let me tie it all up here I said here is the majesty of Jesus here he is in his meekness meekness is strength Moses was the meekest man in all the earth but boy when it came to strength he showed strength here is Jesus in his meekness here is Jesus in his strength and no man goes up to him they fall backwards why? because I believe that they were kind of waves of they were when they came into his presence I heard somebody say recently I was in the presence of a certain preacher and I was awed I couldn't speak I'd heard of this man I'd heard him preach and when I got up close somebody said did you talk no I couldn't I was so awed I felt the atmosphere changed when he came in the room don't you think it was like that where Jesus the very personification of cleanliness of holiness of meekness and these men are rough blood thirsty rascals and somehow as they come nearer they feel as though he has a kind of a defense around him that they can't understand after all the Lord had said he'll give his angels charge concerning us I think one of the great revelations when we do get into eternity will be again coming from some of these folk at the gulag archipelago or somewhere like that in these awesome prison camps that exist in our so called civilization we find how many times God has delivered them with angelic powers you see the lonely place is the heart place Moses had to have it didn't he if you sing all to Jesus I surrender maybe he'll come back and say you do surrender it too you may have to surrender some friendship you may have to surrender a career maybe he'll wreck all the things that for years you've thought about as being the very thing God wants you to do and you suddenly find it isn't it something you wanted to do for God not something that God wanted you to do for him I want to remind you tonight of some things we need to pray for pray for the aftermath of the meetings that David had last week in Brooklyn New York again let's pray for that fellow the communist leader young communist leader let's thank God for the many who sought God he said some nights they he'd hardly start preaching but what people started walking down the aisles and wanting to get straightened out with God that sounds a bit like Finney's Day sounds like the awesome overwhelming sovereignty of God we need to pray too Dale and Betty are not here tonight their youngest girl is quite sick I understand our Paul has a little girl some of you know she's 18 months old she has diabetes and this past week she's been very sick we need to pray for her too and we need to pray for these ministries Joe Foss and his 14 of them are flying down to Belize this coming week I don't think Joe likes planes any more than I do but 14 of them on one plane they're going on a special assignment there I always think of Greenacres when I think of Belize Dr. Walker and some others go down there pretty regularly dear Bob Roberts goes down there let's think of that as an area Bob Roberts is working not in the city of Belize now he's working up in the wild part where there's an awful lot of superstition this past week we were in a church God thank you for praying we had a very wonderful weekend in that church the pastor stood up and made a confession to the church which is pretty unusual and the assistant pastor must have spent an hour or an hour and a half at the altar trying to get things straightened out but they too are sending relief to Haiti and I don't think that's wrong the only thing that troubles me is that the church has been doing that for 25 years they need clothing they need surplus food they need some medication but you know the thing that challenges me that's alright lots of people are doing that who are not Christians do you think anybody will ever be brave enough to get a gang of guys and say look we're going down there we're going to stay there till God drives this devilish voodooism out of this area it's alright to get people excited you can be prosperous you can be this you can be that put us down in a hell hole like that put us down in an area where there's unrestricted violence where as far as we know it's suggested even or inferred very heavily that that in some parts of that nation they still sacrifice human beings voodooism is horrible 97% of the people in Haiti are Catholics and 93% of the 97% practice voodooism as just as they practice Catholicism how in the world can they be contented to do that well they're in darkness years I've spent in vanity and pride do you ever look back and wonder how stupid you were for so long huh why did I go through formality it's boring to go to church I think you did people say I tried Christianity there's nothing in it I say I agree shake hands there's nothing in it well I've tried it that's your whole problem you tried it you didn't try him you tried it you tried a system you tried saying your prayers you tried giving tithes you tried other but you didn't try him no man God has a marvelous record he's never failed anybody so if he fails you you'll be in more than the guinness book of records you'll be in the eternal book of records you're the only man that ever lived that God failed or any woman but he won't do that okay here we have our risen exalted Lord sitting at the right hand of the Father making perfect our imperfect praying what's it say James 4 3 ye have not because she ask amiss why? is it we're praying in the wrong place? is it we're standing in the wrong direction? some people in the church of England always pray to the east because that's where the Lord's coming some people say you need to go to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem some say you need to go to Mecca if you're a Mohammedan some people say you should go to St. Peter's in Rome and some think you should go to St. Paul's Cathedral in London well thank God we don't need to go to any place this is hallowed ground where he is as the Irish sing almost every prayer meeting where'er we seek thee thou art found and every place is hallowed ground okay we're through he poured out his life for us can we do less than pour out our lives for him? the chapter will soon be over your little volume your writing of volume people say I'd like to write a book Mr. Ramey I say you've been writing one from the day you got saved there on the bookshelf in eternity with your name on and one day God's going to read the whole thing from the day you were saved till the moment you died how much you prayed how much you sacrificed how much you loved him how much you served him how much money you gave to him your personal biography no it's not a biography it's an autobiography you're writing it every day see that's why eternity's going to take a long while people say well how long will it take? I say I don't know we're not going anywhere so what matters? with no appointments we're just going to be there in eternity and we're going to see the redeemed of all ages and we're going to see people that we never thought would get much honor brought to the front and people we thought would be very honored they'll be at the back some of you will be looking during the millennium for some big TV operator you watch him every Sunday and you say well I haven't seen him around you say he's driving Leonard Raymond's chariot down there he's been reduced in size the first should be last the last should be first God has some marvelous saints hidden away and you know I want to get the best not just for my own sake I want to do that that pleases the Father and if you go to a Gethsemane remember he'll bring you through if everybody fails you it's lonely loneliness is bad enough but when it's pitch dark it's worse and when you're deserted by the best folk that complicates it a little bit further and when you think people are spiritual and you suddenly find they're crisis are they're worse than anybody else that's good that's according to the book don't worry about it let's pray pray for Haiti tonight pray for Belize that country may not be open too long it's in a danger spot you know let's pray for those people Dave Wilkerson what God used him to reach this week let's pray for these ministers around here we could all do with a shaking up a whole lot of us and maybe some burden you have just open your heart let's ask God to give us an increasing burden for lost people I see no hope no hope I'll hang my harp on the willows if God is going to give us a revival let's go to glory and get out of the way