Gethsemane # 2

Gethsemane # 2

Yes, it was a bitter cup for Jesus. Oh, don't be careless professors of Christianity for another minute. Don't you start to make a cold, formal prayer when you come to address Almighty God! Don't you dare to regard this campaign in a critical and carping way. Oh, hell must be an awful place when Jesus was in such agony to think that men were going there. You're a big fool to go to hell, but it will be your own fault if you do. God doesn't want you to go there, but He can't stop you. He has sacrificed His Son to keep you out of hell, and what more could He do? I am doing all I can to keep you out of hell. I have stood here and preached to you and I've done all that I could, and if you won't be saved, all right - go to hell!

When Jesus was being led out to be sacrificed women followed Him and wept, and He turned to them and said: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." For He said, "For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Jesus meant that they shouldn't weep for Him, but for those who were about to crucify Him; He meant that there were more reasons to weep for them than to weep for Him.

So don't weep for others' troubles; weep for your own soul. Don't worry about my vocabulary, sister; get on your knees and pray for your salvation. Don't worry about my eccentricities; you'd better look after your own faults.

We learn still another lesson - the power of prayer.

Every man and every woman that God has used to halt this sin cursed world and set it going Godward has been a Christian of prayer. Martin Luther arose from his bed and prayed at night, and when the break of day came he called his wife and said to her, "It has come." History records that on that very day King Charles granted religious toleration, a thing for which Luther had prayed.

John Knox, whom his queen feared more than any other man, was in such agony of prayer that he ran out into the street and fell on his face and cried, "Oh, God, give me Scotland or I'll die." And God gave him Scotland, and not only that, He threw England in for good measure.

When Jonathan Edwards was about to preach his greatest sermon on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he prayed for days - and when he stood before his congregation and preached it, men caught at the seat in their terror, and some fell to the floor; and the people cited out in their fear, "Mr. Edwards, tell us how we can be saved!"

I believe that if you pray as you ought to pray, you will have more people at the altar in the next week than you have had in all the weeks that are passed. You have never had the people of this community in such a frame of mind as they are in now, and you may never have things as they now are again. Now is the time to save souls. If you can't save them now, God pity you, for you never will.

An old infidel - a blacksmith - said that he could refute any argument that a Christian could make. There was an old deacon there - he was a Baptist, and he heard of it. He told his wife and they got down on their knees and prayed until three o'clock in the morning. That morning the old deacon hitched up and drove over to see the man. He went into the blacksmith shop and the infidel was standing there, and the deacon stood before him. He said, "My wife and I prayed for you until three o'clock this morning." Then his eyes filled with tears and he sobbed and turned away. He couldn't think of one of the arguments he had prepared. He drove back home, and when he got there he said to his wife, "I've made an old fool of myself. It was all for nothing. When I saw him I just told him that we had been praying for him, then I broke down and couldn't think of another thing, and came home."

In the meantime the infidel went into his own house and he said to his wife: "I heard a new argument this morning." She said, "What was that?" "Why," he said, "the old deacon drove in to see me this morning and told me that he and his wife had prayed for me until three o'clock in the morning. Then he sobbed and went away." And the infidel said, "I'd like to talk to him." They drove over and he told the deacon why he had come, and it was not long before the deacon had him on his knees and he was saved.

A mother had some daughters, and they were frivolous and coquettish girls. She couldn't get them to give up their pleasures and live for God. She prayed for them, and finally one day she said to them: "I'm ashamed of you. I'm almost sorry that I bore you and held you on my knees. You care more for others than you do for your God or your mother. Others ask you to go with them, and you go. I ask you go go with me, and you won't go. I'm going into my closet and I'm going to pray for you. I don't know that I shall ever come out alive."

She went in and prayed. The hours went by and still she prayed. Finally there was a knock at the door, and one of her daughters stood there. She was weeping, and she said, "Mother, I want to be saved. I've come to pray with you." So the two of them prayed and the hours went by, and presently another daughter came and joined them there; and before night came all those girls had found Jesus!

Then, we learn a lesson of the spirit of deep concern over souls.

The spirit of concern that we find in the Bible puts to shame many who are in Omaha. Some of you have been coming to this tabernacle ever since the meetings were begun, but you have simply sat here. You haven't put forth a hand to bring anyone to Christ. If you are one of these, you are absolutely worthless so far as God is concerned. You are of no use to Him and He looks on you as an unprofitable servant. How can you sit by while souls ae going to hell? What are you going to say to God about it after a while? Go and see an unsaved person die, and read the obituary not once, but twice, and realize that he died unsaved, and then see what you think of it!

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 3)