Gethsemane

By Billy Sunday

Page 1-- Page 2 -- Page 3
"And being more in agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" -- Luke 22:24
 
Infidels have seized upon certain verses of Scripture and have given as reasons for their unbelief that the statement therein contained did not agree with their opinion. One of these verses is the one that I have just read - "and being in great agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
 
For, says the infidel, it is a physical impossibility for men to sweat blood. This is a lot of nonsense. Because you have two good eyes, and have always known good sight, should you say there are no blind? They have never heard of such a thing happening, they say. All right; but because you say that man has never sweat blood, don't say that God didn't.
 
When I was a boy I used to hear men say that the Bible couldn't be true, for it was absolutely impossible for a man to fast for forty days and live. They thought that settled it. Then along came Doctor Tanner, and he fasted for forty days. That was the first time. He fasted again for forty-six days, and he fasted a third time for sixty-two days, and after that we didn't bear any more about a fast of forty days being impossible. The infidels quit quoting Tom Paine's "Age of Reason" on that point.
 
When a man gets chesty and puts his old theories up against God, then God always brings a man forward to show that he is an old marplot and an old liar.
 
Doctor Witheroy, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Chicago - he went there from Boston - says he knew of a man who had a wayward son. He hadn't heard from that boy for nine years. Then, one day, they sent him word that his son was in prison. He had committed a murder, and he had been tried and convicted and was about to be executed. He had refused to tell anything about his family until he was face to face with death; then he told them and they wrote to the father to ask him what should be done with the body.
 
Doctor Witheroy said that in his agony that father sweat drops of blood. If an earthly father sweat drops of blood for one son who has just gone wrong, is it strange that Jesus should sweat drops of blood for all men when they were in danger of hell?
 
When Jesus sweat drops of blood there in the garden, it was a new sight for the angels. They had seen their brother angels rebel against God, and they had seen the conflict which followed and they had seen these rebel angels hurled over the battlements of Heaven. They had seen Sennacherib come up with his men, and they had seen 180,000 Assyrians laid low by the sword when the angel of God smote them in the night. They had seen Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego cast into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow themselves down to idols, and had seen them come out from it unharmed. They had seen the brave Daniel hurled into the lion's den for refusing to bow the knee to anyone save Jehovah, and they had seen him come out from the den of wild beasts alive. But never before had the angels beheld such a sight as when they looked down upon the garden of Gethsemane and saw the son of God kneeling there, sweating drops of blood as He agonized over man.
 
In this text there are many lessons valuable to us, and especially valuable just at this stage of the campaign.
 
The first lesson is that the Divine cup is bitter. It is bitter to fallen angels and fallen man, and it was bitter to the fallen Christ. Think of the sight. Think of Jesus, staining his garments with the bloody sweat, not because of any sin or fault of his own, for He was without sin, but because of His anguish over man.
 
God hates sin and so do I, so will every man on this earth who lays any claim to decency. If you don't hate sin you will if you ever change your ways and try to be decent.
 
He didn't sweat those drops of blood because of any physical suffering. It wasn't because of any fear of death, for if Jesus had been afraid to die He would have been a coward, and He wasn't a coward, although He was willing to die if God said to. I don't want to die. I want to stay here as long as I can. And so did Jesus, but He wasn't afraid to die. No. It was because of His grief for man.
 
A great martyr said as he stood in the midst of the flames that were devouring him: "Though you see the flesh fall from my bones I absolutely feel no pain."
 
If you ever had any doubt about a literal Hell, a fiery Hell, where the wicked must remain forever, it would all vanish as I see Jesus Christ in Gethsemane, agonizing because men would not accept Him and were going to Hell.
 
Hell must be an awful place. The fact that God went to the trouble He did to send Jesus Christ to this earth and to work out His great plan of redemption proves that it must be an awful place. I think this should give us a new vision.
 
Yes, it was a bitter cup for Jesus. Oh, don't be careless professors of Christianity for another minutes. 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.
 
(back to index)NEXT PAGE>>>