Gethsemane # 3

Gethsemane # 3

Someone may say, "How do I know how God feels about it?" How do I know whether he is really concerned over sinners? I know it. It would be a sin of presumption if I did not. If God cared as little for the souls of men as some of you care, not a soul ever would have been saved - it is not possible for the human mind to have a greater conception of God than is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. For a man to say he loves God and then turn his back on Jesus Christ is an insult to the Almighty. You will find in Him just what your heart has been looking for, and you'll find it nowhere else.

I can see Jesus in the Garden looking down on Jerusalem and saying, "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stoned them which are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." It is a matter of history that from that day Jesus turned away from the Jews. He never appealed to them again, but turned to the Gentiles  - but God's got a plan for the Jews. So Jesus is God made manifest in the flesh.

Did you ever weep over the sins of the people? Did you ever weep over the evil of the multitudes? If you never did then there's something wrong with your religion. If God Almighty had no more concern about the salvation of Omaha than some of you, Omaha would have been in hell long ago. If God were no more anxious about Omaha than some of the preachers I could name, this city would have been damned long ago. I've been here long enough to see that.

Salvation all comes through Jesus. You've got to see Jesus in order to see God, and you've got to see God in order to enter Heaven. The hope of the world is in Jesus Christ. The hope of America is in Christ, not in free trade; it's not in the banking system, it's not in tariff reform, or conservation of natural resources or the ship problem of universities. We need a great tidal wave of religion.

Another lesson we find is that much concern moves the unsaved for God.

Much concern is aroused by prayer. Doctor Chapman told me that when he was a young minister and was pastor of a little Dutch Presbyterian church in New York state, he started what he called a Revival. He told me that he had often apologized to God since then for calling it that. He would preach, and then he would say, "If anyone would like to join the Church, let them step in and meet the session." If that isn't as cold-blooded a proposition as you can find, I'll give it up. Nobody stepped in to meet the session. They didn't believe in excitement in the church. No, sir. 

Doctor Chapman became concerned for one young man. He felt that he ought to speak for him, but he feared that he might show more zeal than knowledge. He felt the man might be offended if he went to him in that way. He had the wrong idea. If anyone is offended because you try to do right, let them go. If anyone is offended because you ask them to be a Christian, let them go to hell. You've done your duty. He thought it over and made up his mind to speak that very night. The young man did not come that night, so on the next day Doctor Chapman drove out to see him. He met the man and said, "I want you to be a Christian."

The man was angry. He said, "You blankety-blank little preacher, I don't want you to come to me about that." Doctor Chapman turned and left him and drove away. He caught a cold while driving out there and it stayed with him that winter, and soon after he left the place and took up Evangelistic work.

One night ten years after, he was holding a meeting at Saratoga, when he saw a man coming down the aisle.

"Don't you know me?" the man asked. Doctor Chapman didn't know him.

"Why," the man said, "I'm Benedict from Schuylerville. I'm the man who cursed you when you drove out to my home and asked me to be a Christian. I want to be a Christian now."

"What changed you?" Doctor Chapman asked.

"I'll tell you," said the man. "I never heard a sermon that touched me, nor a song. It was your tears, the tears that were in your eyes as I cursed you and you turned away. I've never been able to forget them. I've never had a day's peace since that moment."

Oh, if you knew the power of tears for the sinner. If you only felt enough concern to weep over those who are in danger of being lost. The sight of such tears would win many souls for Christ!

If Church people get right, the whole world would get right. The world is challenging the Church instead of the Church challenging the world. If it was as easy to get the Church on its knees as it is to get the unsaved world into the kingdom, we wouldn't have any more trouble about religion. And God can't save you unless you're willing. He won't coerce you to it!

I often think of what Bob Ingersoll might have been if he had only been turned into Christianity. What a power for God that man could have been! I often think of what a power Voltaire could have been for God - that brilliant man over whose writings many have stumbled to hell. Carey translated the Bible into twenty-four languages and dialects. Finney brought over 1,000,000 into the Kingdom of God. Moody brought hundreds of thousands to Christ. I have never seen a minister who preached doctrines and creeds and evolution and all such things who had any real concern for the souls of his people. Jesus Christ is in a hurry to save this world and there never was an age when people were so hungry for the truth as they are today.

If you want to make the bells of Heaven ring, get down on your knees. Tell a sinner about Jesus Christ if you want to hear the heavenly bells. Nothing will swing open the prison doors and bring men out of sin like prayer. I never see a man or a woman or boy or girl but I do not thing that God has a plan for them, and wonder what it is. He has a plan for each of us. He will use each of us to His glory if we will only let Him. We can defeat His plan if we want to.

Finally, we find that God honors this spirit in deep concern for the unsaved. This concern comes from a clear realization of man's relation. I never knew a higher critical preacher to save them from hell. Such preaching is not of God and He will not bless it. It is of the devil. If you haven't got in your heart an agonized concern for the unsaved go right down there in front and ask God to forgive you.

Nothing makes such joy in Heaven as the salvation of a soul. The angels don't care a rap about your wealth; they don't care about your social position, they don't care about your culture. It's the salvation of sinners the angels care about.

~Billy Sunday~

(The End)