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  GETHSEMANE
  by Robert Cummins
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Cummins' meditation on Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, exploring the
profound spiritual significance of Jesus' prayer, His submission to the Father's
will, and what this dark hour reveals about the cost of redemption.

  Chapters: 14

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00.3 - Introduction
    2. 01 - Chapter 1
    3. 02 - Chapter 2
    4. 03 - Chapter 3
    5. 04 - Chapter 4
    6. 05 - Chapter 5
    7. 06 - Chapter 6
    8. 07 - Chapter 7
    9. 08 - Chapter 8
   10. 09 - Chapter 9
   11. 10 - Chapter 10
   12. 11 - Chapter 11
   13. 12 - Chapter 12
   14. 13 - Epilogue

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  CHAPTER 1: 00.3 - INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION (by www.BaptistBibleBeliever’s.org) As I continue to post items
from my treasure box I am constantly impressed with the desire to bring you
CHRIST-honoring messages. Here is one written by a missionary to India, Robert
W. Cummins. It was written in 1944!

The subject of this message, in fact, the title of it is "GETHSEMANE", and this
is from the author’s original Foreword:

"Those who have passed through grievous crushings have a peculiar right to speak
to the oppressed and crushed. Life has given to me that right. And because there
came into my hours of bitterest darkness a marvelous light, and hope and life
were restored, the right to speak has become a pressing obligation. My Maker
gave me a song in the night. That song of deliverance I must sing.

Into my sorrow, bondage, and night JESUS has come; JESUS has come; Bringing His
gladness, freedom, and light JESUS has come to me.

Into my sickness bringing His health, Into my poverty bringing His wealth, Into
my sin to bear it Himself, JESUS has come to me.

Yes, into a heart and mind hopelessly blacked out and utterly crushed, came One
who Himself had been crushed; and when He came, darkness changed to day, and the
life that had been ruined was restored. I would that it were possible to present
that crushed Man of Gethsemane, who restored my soul, to every broken, bleeding,
despairing heart in this appalling age! He alone is the solution to our
problems, the answer to our quest.

Back in 1944, when our nation was engaged in a World War, the author of this
pamphlet sought to bless and calm readers hearts and minds. His audience was
certainly limited to a few hundred - if not maybe a thousand. Now it is certain
that this dear missionary is with His Lord, and the words he wrote are long
forgotten. Yet, his book was preserved by a dear old minister who hoped that one
day the words would find new life. Before his quest could be realized, he too,
laid down his armor and went to be with his Saviour.

His dear wife, wishing to continue that dream of her dear husband, by faith,
placed them in the hands of a green, wet-behind-the-ears young Bible student
over twenty years ago. No doubt she also has joined her husband in the presence
of the saints in heaven.

Today, I type. Believing in my spirit that this is the work to which my blessed
Lord has called me, to bring these old uncopyrighted, out-of-print treasures to
a virtually unlimited audience. May they bless hearts again, even as they once
did.

So, beloved readers of these precious treasures, read on and be blessed!


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  CHAPTER 2: 01 - CHAPTER 1
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CHAPTER ONE

Gethsemane is the place of the Great Crushing. The word itself signifies oil
press. It was the name given to a lovely garden just across the valley from the
Temple in Jerusalem. It was a closed garden.

There is a place called the Earth. It is the scene of very grievous crushings.
Outwardly it is a beautiful garden. It is across from the Temple of GOD; but it
is a closed-in place, cut off from heaven by a dark, deep valley. It is a
Gethsemane, and it is full of Gethsemanes. In this great garden there is hidden
a cruel, grinding oil press, and multitudes of men and women are being
ruthlessly crushed, in soul as well as in body.

I have known many a shut-in garden, beautiful to look upon. Riches, comfort,
beauty, and happiness adorned its outward appearance. I said with many of my
fellows, "How fortunate are those who dwell in this lovely home!" But my Elder
Brother took me on into the inner secret place of the home. I found it was not a
garden but a Gethsemane; an oil press, a place of crushing. I could not have
gone with Him from the outer court into the inner, from the garden into the
"shrine of the oil press," had I not known what it was to be crushed in the oil
press of my own Gethsemane.

Only those healed of a broken heart can really minister to broken hearts. They
KNOW there is a balm for Gethsemane.

Those who are being crushed and those who have been crushed by the world’s
presses need the ministry of One who Himself was crushed, and yet overcame, and
opened for others the way of restoration and victory.

The prophet Jeremiah, overwhelmed by the crushing of his people, cried in
anguish: "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?" (Jeremiah
8:22). A world in anguish for its young, its sons and daughters, cries out in
despair, "Is there no balm for our wounds? Is Gethsemane’s crushing the end?"

O broken hearts! Listen to the voice of our Elder Brother. From the press that
crushed His heart flows wondrous oil of healing. O bruised, crushed sons and
daughters of men, hear the message of Gethsemane, telling you that although
there was no crushing like His crushing, nor sorrow like unto His sorrow, no
bloody sweat of agony like unto His; yet He who alone faced the unutterable
anguish and horror of the hour of darkness in the garden, is alive forevermore,
exalted in triumph. Gethsemane itself has been conquered. The devourer has been
devoured.

Listen not to those who know not how deep is thy hurt. They will heal thy wounds
but slightly. Hearken not to those who know not the meaning of agony. O America,
who art being crushed by the horrors of war, seek not physicians that have never
suffered. Leave thy man-made gods, who are not capable of sharing sorrow and
suffering, to senseless, selfish isolationists, and let them wrap them in the
robes of their own cold aloofness, to seek their consolations. Thy true GOD has
passed through deep suffering.

O World, thou art passing through Gethsemane!

Thou needest the CHRIST of Gethsemane. The millstones of war and destruction, of
shameful rape and ruin, of ruthless, cruel sin, and appalling wickedness, are
crushing out the life of thy youth as well as thine aged, thy children as well
as thy parents. Only He who Himself knows the depths of affliction and horror
can minister to thee in this hour of thy deep travail. Thou needst Him who knew
and conquered the crushing of Gethsemane and the death of the Cross. Only He
knows the depths of thine anguish. He alone can give thee deliverance and
restoration. Seek Him, JESUS of the Scars.

"JESUS OF THE SCARS"

"If we have never sought, we seek Thee now; Thine eyes shine through the dark,
our only stars; We must have sight of thorn pricks on Thy brow, We must have
Thee, O JESUS of the scars.

"The heavens frighten us; they are too calm. In all the universe we have no
place, Our wounds are hurting us. Where is the balm? O JESUS, by Thy scars we
claim Thy grace.

"If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near, Only reveal those hands, that
side of Thine; We know today what wounds are, we’ll have no fear, Show us Thy
scars, we know the countersign.

"The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak; They rode but Thou didst
stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only a GOD with wounds can speak, And not
a god has wounds, but Thou alone."

- Edward Shillito ~ end of chapter 1 ~


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  CHAPTER 3: 02 - CHAPTER 2
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CHAPTER TWO

The incarnation is a moral necessity. When GOD says, "Be ye holy, for I am
holy," (Leviticus 11:45) it is natural for me to reply, "Lord, it is impossible
for me to be holy as long as I am in the body, surrounded by temptations, living
among men and women who are weak and erring like me. When I get to heaven where
Thou art, in that world where there is no fear, sorrow, hate, sin, temptation,
or death, then I expect to be holy."

The question must arise, "If GOD were bound by the body and had to live where I
have to live; if He had to do business with hard, cheating, and exasperating
men; if He had nerves that are capable of feeling intense ache and pain; if He
were liable to sickness and death; if He knew what it was, when hungry, thirsty,
and in deep poverty, to be tempted by all the subtle temptations that come to
men and women; if He were wronged and oppressed by injustice and cruelty, not
only to self, but, more agonizing, by wrongs and injustices done to loved ones;
in short, if GOD had to live in the environment in which I have to live, subject
to the limitations of a body of bone and flesh and nerves like mine, would He
then be as holy as He is in heaven? If GOD knew nothing about life in the body,
lived in a world of sinful men and women, what right would He have to tell me to
be holy as He is holy?"

Whatever other right He might have, He would not have the moral right to make
this demand upon me.

Therefore GOD was manifest in the flesh in a real incarnation, beginning life as
a babe, and passing through all the experiences of a spirit incarnate in a human
body in a world like this. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet
without sin. Our Lord, who is one with the Father, gave an eternal "yes" to the
important question, "Would GOD be holy if He had to live in that body where I
have to live?" His answer was that He was more than conqueror.

I will listen to a GOD who speaks to me from a cross, a GOD who has gone the way
of suffering and death, and has lived a holy and victorious life in the place
where I am called upon to live. Yes, I will listen to Him more willingly than to
one who speaks to me from a heaven that knows no temptation, sorrow, sin, or
death. It is wonderful to know that He has loved me and come to share my life
and my environment, and has lived triumphantly. But when I try to imitate Him
and fail miserably, I am more hopeless than before. And my heart cries out a
still more important question, "Can GOD make ME perfect and victorious as CHRIST
was perfect and victorious, in a world like this?"

The private life of our Lord in Nazareth and His public life in the temple, the
synagogues, homes, streets, roads, mountains, and valleys of Palestine is the
answer of GOD to the first question. In His life we see what GOD would do if He
were in our place, because in that life we see what GOD actually did do in
situations more difficult than those in which most of us are called to live.

The second question, and for us the all-important question, "Can GOD empower me
to live a holy life here?" was answered at the table of our Lord’s Passover, in
Gethsemane, in the judgment halls of the Sanhedrin and of Pilate, on Golgotha,
in the grave, on resurrection morning, in the forty days of fellowship with the
risen Lord, in the ascension, and in the outpouring of the Spirit.

We shall look particularly at the place of Gethsemane in this answer, but each
step of the Passion and the Victory has an essential place, which we must know
in order to learn GOD’s full answer to our need of power to be perfect as our
heavenly Father is perfect.

The key to the answer to our second question is found in what our Lord says to
His disciples at the time of the Passion. In John 13:1 we read that JESUS loved
his own "unto the end". When He sat down to eat the Passover with His disciples
(Luke 22:15), He said, "With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer." See Luke 22:14-21. For a long time He has looked forward to
eating this Passover with His disciples because it is the fulfillment of His
yearning and desire. He has undertaken to make Simon into Peter. He has come,
not only to prove that GOD in a human body would live a life of holiness and
perfection in this world, but also, and particularly, to make men perfect, and
empower them to be holy as GOD is holy.

He has lived in hourly contact with twelve ordinary men for three years. In the
same situation in which He has been victorious they have been defeated. While He
has been the unchanging, unshakable Rock, no matter what storms have beaten
against Him, Simon has been like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and
tossed. All the disciples have been failures. Our Lord knows that the secret of
this difference is not in differing environments; it is not because their bodies
are different from His body. The difference is one of LIFE. In the eternal Son
is the life which was with the Father from the beginning, and now has been
manifested to the world. In the body of our Lord is GOD’s life, expressing
itself in the world. In the bodies of His disciples is a different life, the
life of the human race descended from Adam. Therefore JESUS proposes to share
His life with them, to make them partakers of His Spirit. He proposes to impart
to His disciples that life which was with GOD in the beginning, the life which
was the secret of His victory.

So we can imagine His saying to the twelve, "I have longed for this hour when I
could eat the real Passover with you and share with you My life divine. This
bread I now give you has been the medium of the expression of GOD’s life; so
now, to you who eat My body, will be imparted My life, and power to make your
bodies the medium of expression of My life of victory and perfection. This fruit
of the vine is My blood, My real life, pouring through My body, which now I pour
out for you, that ye may have life that is life indeed. My life of victory and
perfection, which I have shown to the world as a life that has overcome, is now
to be yours. I am the true vine, and My life is now to be poured through you as
through living branches of Mine."

No one who has not been touched by the holiness of GOD can conceive the desire
in the heart of GOD to make men holy. The holiness of GOD is not the holiness of
the Pharisee that would keep all else at a distance, so that it would not be
contaminated. GOD’s holiness is the holiness that longs to transform others and
make them holy. It is not the holiness that condemns, but the holiness that
redeems. It is not the holiness that cannot bear contact with iniquity; it is
the holiness of one who cannot endure the presence of sin and unholiness in
those whom He loves, in those who should be holy.

There our question becomes this, "Is GOD’s holiness of such a character that it
not only cannot be corrupted by evil, but also that it can transform unholy
beings into holy and perfect men?" Our Lord’s answer in the symbols of the Last
Supper is, "With a desire unto death I have desired to impart My holiness and
perfectness to you. With a desire great enough to give My body to be broken and
My blood to be poured out, so that you may receive My holy life, I have come to
this hour to give My life a ransom for many." In other words, His holiness is
social, not solitary. It is a holiness that longs to share its perfection with
others.

Underlying this principle of imparting His very life to His disciples, is the
primary fact of a vital union, which must precede such impartation. Our Lord
offers Himself to be the source of life to mankind. He offers to take man into
organic union with Himself, so that man may partake of His holiness and
perfection through partaking of His life. This is in harmony with the whole New
Testament conception of salvation. Vital union with CHRIST is the only possible
way in which any person can obtain the benefits of salvation. "He that hath the
Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of GOD hath not life" (1 John 5:12)

Such a vital union necessitates an exchange of life. If I am to be united with
CHRIST so that I may share His life and strength, then He must be willing to
take my life. Operations have been performed whereby amputated members of human
bodies have been again organically united to their bodies; and although such
possibilities are very limited, they indicate what CHRIST wishes to do for us.
Malchus’ ear was severed from his body, but CHRIST restored it to its original
position.

Sin amputated humanity from the source of its life in GOD.

GOD in CHRIST takes humanity back into His body, the source of true life, that
man may eat the flesh of His body and drink the blood of His body and find life.
Just as a sickly or infected part of my body can find life and strength only
when it eats the flesh of my body and drinks blood supplied by my body, so it is
only as we eat the flesh of the Son of GOD and drink His blood that we can have
life.

This phase of the results of union with CHRIST is vividly presented to us in the
Lord’s Supper. For us this should be central, as CHRIST has made it so. This is
His new covenant. This is the agreement, the union, the solemn league and
covenant with which He binds us to make us one with Him, partakers of His divine
nature, through His solemn promise.

The other part of the exchange is that He must partake of my life. His life must
receive mine. If I am to be grafted into His body, if I am to become a branch of
the living vine, a member of His body, then He must be able to take my life,
accepting and filling what is of use, and doing away with what is not acceptable
- pruning the vine.

Gethsemane is the other side of the picture of the Lord’s Supper. For the
disciples, there is the broken bread that is meat indeed; but for the Master,
"the hand of him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table." (Luke 22:21) For
the disciples, there is the sweetness of the unspoiled fruit of our Lord’s
perfect and holy Spirit. For the Saviour there is the soured and selfish spirit
of the quarreling, place-seeking, boastful disciples.

So in this atmosphere He arises from the table where He had in symbol fed His
disciples bread that was bread indeed, and drink that was drink indeed, and He
goes to the table where "the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,"
(Isaiah 53:6) where the hands of betrayal, the lips of denial, the hearts of
selfishness must be accepted and dealt with. Not for Him now is the sweet cup of
divine Life. Not now for Him the fellowship of love and joy and peace and
perfection with the Father. But the hour is come, and another cup is placed
before Him.

Now He must be "reckoned among the transgressors" (Luke 22:37), and must partake
of their lot. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

How great must have been His desire to make us partake of His holiness, His
perfection, and His victory, if it could make Him willing to give His body to be
broken and His life to be poured out in death. What love He had for us that He
should be willing to come to dark Gethsemane; and I am sure that before you
leave your Lord in the garden, if your eyes have been opened to understand the
picture given us there, you will have no words to express the wonder of your
heart that He should be willing to take your sin, pride, selfishness,
uncleanness and iniquity, and drink its dregs to the full, that you might be
holy and without blemish before Him in love.

Gethsemane is the revelation of GOD’s horror at sin. The holy nature of the Son
and the holy nature of the Father recoil with infinite loathing and anguish in
its presence. To see how repulsive sin is to Him, let us ask His HOLY SPIRIT to
now take us to Gethsemane and open up the meaning of the divine record of the
Son’s agony, and the Father’s anger.

~ end of chapter 2 ~


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  CHAPTER 4: 03 - CHAPTER 3
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CHAPTER THREE

My own interest in Gethsemane began in my first years of missionary service in
Northern India. One of the most frequent objections raised by our non-Christian
audiences to the New Testament portrait of CHRIST was His seeming unwillingness
to do the will of GOD, as He prayed in the garden that the cup might pass from
Him. Our Moslem hearers would constantly bring this forward as an argument
against CHRIST’s deity and atonement. In order to answer their arguments and
objections, I read and listened to many interpretations of the Gethsemane scene.
But none of them satisfied my mind or did justice to the details of the Gospel
record.

Accordingly I began to pray earnestly that GOD would give me an understanding of
the agony in the garden, and of the cross, so that I might be able to answer the
questions of inquirers. I believe it was in answer to these prayers that GOD
allowed me to pass through a nervous breakdown, and immediately after delivering
me, illuminated my mind to picture and understand something of our Lord’s
experiences in the garden, and their bearing on the nature of redemption’s
victory.

There are two notable features of the scene in Gethsemane that have not been
taken into sufficient consideration by those who have attempted to explain its
meaning. The first is the fact that it is the strong, victorious Son of GOD who
is presented to us in this astonishing picture of crushing agony. The second is
the fact that here, and here alone, an almost indescribable depth of horror and
sorrow and anguish is portrayed. Therefore any adequate explanation of
Gethsemane must answer two questions:

(1) How is it possible that any power could bring the mighty, majestic Son of
GOD to such depths of sorrow and agony as are portrayed here by the Gospels? (2)
What was the force or power that could wring such anguish of heart from JESUS,
making Him sweat great drops of blood falling to the ground?

Let us consider first the greatness and power of Him who is here presented to us
as crushed in Gethsemane’s oil press. He is no ordinary, strong, courageous
hero. He is head and shoulder above all human majesties. Calm, masterful poise
is one of His outstanding characteristics. The Gospel narrative presents Him in
one scene after another of difficulty and storm; yet in every situation He is
master of Himself, in control of the forces that are inimical to man, and
undisturbed in the midst of the most distressing circumstances.

As a lad of twelve He stands perfectly at ease, unabashed and unafraid, in the
midst of the doctors of the law, answering their questions and engaging in their
discussions with simple and natural dignity. This quality characterized His
spirit throughout His life. After forty days of fasting in the barren
wilderness, with the beasts and the tempter as His companions, He is assailed by
hunger. How quickly would ordinary men have been disturbed and even
panic-stricken in similar situations, thus making an ideal atmosphere for the
attack of temptation! But CHRIST’s calm faith in His Father makes Him master
through every temptation, and He comes out more than conqueror.

He is brought face-to-face with human need of every description. All the powers
that have defeated men and driven faith and courage from their hearts, He has to
meet. A man full of leprosy throws himself at His feet. Others, aware of their
lack of vitality and power to resist such a disease, would shrink and ask the
leper to keep his distance. But CHRIST knows that He not only has life
sufficient for His own protection, but life so full of divine power that before
it leprosy must disappear; so He places His hand upon the leper and cleanses
him.

***BBB Note: When did JESUS cleanse the leper? After touching him or before? It
is my belief that the leprosy was cured as soon as the leper touched the hem of
the Saviour’s garment. Likewise, many ask the question. When did we get saved?
Was it after we prayed the sinner’s prayer, or the instant in our heart we
wanted to pray that prayer. The answer is so obvious, is it not?

Disease of every kind finds in Him a victor. Confronted with men possessed with
raging demons, His word alone suffices to overcome their power and cast them
out. In the presence of death not only is He undisturbed, but He treats death as
a conquered foe, and delivers its prey.

The storm that drives His apostles into consternation, produces not a vestige of
fear in Him. He calmly sleeps. When awakened by their cries for help, He finds
Himself in the midst of a tempest and, still more disturbing, in the midst of
friends all panic-stricken and filled with terror. He arises and rebukes the
storm, bringing a great calm, which is but the reflection of His own
peace-filled life.

Cruelty and injustice seem to overwhelm Him in the judgment hall, but His
mastery of Himself and His majestic poise tower above His accusers and judges
like a great mountain. Even upon the cross, mocked and scorned and railed upon,
suffering excruciating agony of body and soul, His majestic self-control and
courage overshadow all else, causing the centurion to call out, "Truly this man
was the Son of GOD!" (Mark 15:39)

Only once does the anguish of His soul find expression -- when darkness hides
His Father’s face.

The Gospels present one situation after another in which ordinary men have
exhausted their human resources; their wine has failed, their food has failed,
their strength has failed, their remedies have failed, their courage has failed,
their faith has failed, and even their hope is extinguished. But into each
situation comes JESUS of Nazareth, aware of exhaustless resources, undaunted and
unafraid; and no matter what demand is made upon Him, with sure and masterful
power. He vanquishes every evil and destructive force, and brings life and
health and victory to the crushed and defeated. Matchless picture of the Son of
GOD, the Prince of Peace! Who but a fool would believe that Galilean fishermen
had concocted it from their fertile imaginations.

To the reverent student it is this very characteristic of simple, immovable,
majestic power that makes Gethsemane so perplexing; for He who bows in dread
agony and in fearful struggle, whose sweat becomes as it were great drops of
blood falling to the ground, is none other than this same mighty Son of GOD. How
shall we explain this picture of wrestling, horror, and sorrow? Let us look
carefully at the Gospel records and ask the eternal Spirit, through whom CHRIST
offered Himself a perfect sacrifice to GOD, to lead us into an understanding of
the holy of holies of Gethsemane.

Now consider the depth of agony portrayed. And they came to an enclosed piece of
ground named Oil Press; and He says to His disciples, Sit here, while I pray.
And He takes Peter and James and John. As they go He begins to be horrified and
greatly troubled. (See Mark 14:32-33) Something falls with crushing weight upon
the heart of CHRIST, increasing as He advances into the garden. A horror of
great darkness settles upon His soul. Something more terrible than any foe He
had ever met before in His life of constant battles now presses upon Him. He
seems to be appalled and very greatly disturbed.

The three disciples notice His troubled, perplexed eyes, and their hearts are
filled with dread and sorrow, for their Master had seldom before shown them
anything but loving, majestic mastery of every situation. Seeing the effect of
His sorrow and perplexity and distress reflected in their hearts, He says to
them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, crushed to the point of death; please
remain here and watch and pray." (Mark 14:34) Then He goes about fifty yards
farther, and suddenly falls to the ground on His knees.

"And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it
were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what
I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:35-36).

"Father," He prays, "ABBA Father! Father Beloved! Thou art Lord of heaven and
earth. All things are possible unto Thee! Thou art Almighty, infinite in power
and wisdom; remove this cup from Me. Hold it not to my lips. Father, My lips are
clean and holy. My life has never let anything abominable or unholy find any
entrance. This cup is too loathsome, too unclean, too abominable! Surely there
must be some other way than this! Father, in Thy infinite wisdom and power, Thou
art able to bring Thy purposes to fulfillment without My having to drink this
cup. My whole being revolts and unutterable loathing fills My soul. Dear Father,
let this cup pass from Me! Howbeit, Father, I desire more than all else to do
Thy will, not My own. If it is not Thy will for the hour to pass, then let Thy
will be done." The record given of the prayer in Scripture is very short, but
considerable time had elapsed since JESUS had left Peter and James and John.
Forgive a little poetic license above as I somehow make it seem clearer to us
the great anguish of soul our Saviour endured. The apostles were deeply affected
by their Master’s state. Sorrow and discouragement possessed them. They talked
for a while wondering what was the explanation of this utterly strange sorrow
and heaviness that seemed to be crushing their beloved Teacher. Then they tried
to pray, but after half-hearted attempts all three of them fell asleep. These
events occupied quite a little time, and as we consider it we realize that the
first prayer was indeed a prolonged struggle. The words used in the prayer
itself reveal an intense conflict of soul. On the one hand the will of His
Father, the great love of the Son for His perfect, holy Father, the desire to
carry out His Father’s program of redemption, His delight to do His Father’s
will - these forces are very strong. What could dare to oppose such powerful
motives in the soul of CHRIST?

When CHRIST says to His beloved disciples, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful
unto death," we must remember that it is not an ordinary man making an
exaggerated statement. Something is overwhelming Him. Something is crushing His
soul. He is indeed being pressed out of measure in the Oil Press of Gethsemane.
The sight of my Lord falling to the ground, praying with strong cries and tears
to His loving, tender Father, asking to be delivered from the horror of the hour
of darkness, shrinking from the loathsome cup of iniquity and sin -- all these
things bear witness to the reality of the great crushing in Gethsemane.

One phrase in particular, which is found in Mark’s account, is of terrible
import. This is it: He "prayed that... the hour might pass from Him." (Mark
14:35) He who had set His face as a flint to go up to Jerusalem for this very
hour, now prays that it might pass away from Him. He had constantly spoken of
"the hour," and it was vividly in His consciousness. To the owner of the upper
room He had sent the message, "My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at
thy house with my disciples." (Matthew 26:18) Luke says, "When the hour was
come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him." (Luke 22:14) John says,
"Jesus knew that His hour was come. . . having loved His own which were in the
world, He loved them unto the end." (John 13:1) Just before Gethsemane,
according to John, JESUS had said, "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I
say? Father, save Me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour."
(John 12:27) And just after His discourse in the upper room, in His
high-priestly prayer, He had turned to His Father with the words, "Father, the
hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify Thee." (John 17:1)

I do not suppose the human mind can grasp the import of the prayer that the hour
might pass away from CHRIST. This was the hour for which He had left His throne
and come into the world. This was the hour to which the eternal counsels of the
Almighty had pointed when the LAMB had been slain from the foundation of the
world. This was the hour of the redemption of GOD’s whole creation, the central
hour of the ages, the hour when the holiness of GOD would meet the sin and
unholiness of a rebel world, and redeem it from destruction. But when the hour
actually comes and its force strikes against Him, JESUS falls to the ground and
prays to His Father that the hour might pass away from Him.

What if the hour had passed away from Him!

What if the cost had proved too high! What if He had not been willing to drink
the cup! The heart can hardly conceive the infinite loss and disaster that would
have come to mankind if He had been saved from that hour, if the very hour for
which He had come into the world had been allowed to pass from Him, and He had
been unable to drink the cup. And JESUS knew this. Then what was facing Him in
that hour that caused such a prayer? What did that cup contain to make the
STRONG Son of GOD shrink from it in sorrow and amazement and horror?

I confess that when the reality of this description of the horror and anguish of
our Lord first dawned upon me, I was greatly perplexed.

I had risen early to pray. As it was cold, I had gone to the cellar of the
Mizpah Missionary Home where we were living. While I was praying it seemed as
though GOD took me by the hand into the garden of His agony, and showed me His
Son there. My mind was astonished at what I saw. The Son of GOD appeared to be
crushed. It seemed that He could not stand the horror of the thing that
confronted Him. Almost involuntarily, from my heart arose the question, "Father,
what could have been in the cup to make Him shrink so? What is the meaning of
the hour to Him that He asks Thee, with His soul so sorrowful and horrified, to
allow the hour for which He had come into the world to pass away from Him?"

~ end of chapter 3 ~


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 04 - CHAPTER 4
========================================================================

CHAPTER FOUR

In answer to my question asking for an explanation of the cup that caused such
horror and revulsion to our Lord, the response was immediate and clear: "Do you
not remember the terror through which you passed during the first months of your
nervous breakdown? Do you not remember calling out, ’O GOD, it is impossible for
me to endure another moment of this awful horror’? I was allowing you to taste a
little, a very little, of the cup that My Son drank to its dregs, the cup of the
world’s iniquity and sin."

The experience to which the Lord reminded me was a severe nervous breakdown
which I suffered in 1932. With many Modernistic leanings, I had gone to India in
1920 as a missionary of the United Presbyterian Church. During this first term
of service in the Punjab, in Northern India, I began to realize my great need of
real spiritual power. This awakening led me to seek earnestly a deeper presence
of His Spirit. As I thus sought the Lord, He dealt very definitely with my heart
and life. I was given a new conception of Calvary, and as a result of it made a
complete surrender to GOD. This was followed by what, to me, was a thorough
cleansing. My whole being seemed to be so purged of sin and selfishness that for
four or five months there seemed to be nothing in me that could respond to
temptation. Then in 1925 GOD seemed to so overwhelmingly answer my prayer for a
closer walk with Him.

Then in 1932, while I was engaged in several series of revival meetings in
various parts of India, a nervous breakdown suddenly overwhelmed me. I seemed to
lose all power of will, and became the prey of the most terribly vile and
blasphemous evil powers. Night and day, for about three months, horrible and
obscene suggestions and imaginations poured in an unceasing flood through my
consciousness. I could not sleep, except when given sleeping potions, and as
these vile powers would pour their unmentionable abominations into my mind it
was utterly impossible to resist them, though my whole being shrank in
indescribable revulsion and loathing that passed far beyond the point of agony.

These horrible things seemed to fasten themselves like slime upon my memory and
my consciousness, till I felt as though I had been dragged through the very
sewers of hell. It was then that I would cry out in intense agony of soul, "O
GOD, how can you allow such horror to flood my being? My mind cannot bear such
filth and devilish blasphemy. Far better that I be blotted out of existence than
that another moment of this horror be allowed to flood my soul."

I seemed as if in those months the life of CHRIST in me, the new life that the
Lord had caused to be born in me was being smothered out, and as if I were
watching that life being smothered. Far better to have had some awful physical
pain come over me then to feel the holiness, that divine life I had known in the
Spirit, being drowned out by the floods of sin.

After all this, the devil himself seemed to say, "Do you think, after the Lord
has filled you once, and now that I have trapped you and flooded your soul with
all this evil, that the Lord could ever cleanse you and take you back again?" I
said, "No, I can’t see how it would be possible. How could GOD take me again and
cleanse me? I have committed the unpardonable sin. There is no hope for me."

Then passages in Hebrews came to me with such tremendous power as it is
impossible to describe. "For it is impossible for those who were once
enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of
the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the
world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance"
(Hebrews 6:4-6). "If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge
of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful
looking for of judgment and fiery indignation" (Hebrews 10:26-27).

I believed the accusation of the evil one, that those verses applied to me, and
after three months of such horror, I passed into a condition of hopeless despair
and torment. The terrible, constant flooding of evil into my mind and
consciousness stopped, but it left me in an agony of darkness and despair for
the rest of two years. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t have anything to do with the
Bible, not because I didn’t want to, but because I felt so unclean and separated
from the holy things of GOD by this experience, that I couldn’t bear the thought
of association with those holy things again. I felt I was lost forever. For two
long years I lived, it seemed to me, in the midst of evil spirits, evil beings,
and evil memories. My soul seemed crushed under Himalayas of sin and guilt.

It is not altogether unprofitable for me to tell these things, for many of GOD’s
children have had to go through similar experiences. And right here let me plead
with you not to speak of "insane asylums." A better and more correct name is
"mental hospitals." Don’t speak of losing one’s mind, but of mental sickness;
for there are mental sicknesses just as there are physical sicknesses. There is
no more disgrace in sending a person to a mental hospital than in sending him to
a hospital for physical sickness. I can look back on my own experiences in two
such institutions without a shudder.

GOD has so entirely delivered me from the experience and its effects that I
could revisit those hospitals today and none of the horror would remain.

Many people today who have had nervous or mental breakdowns do have to go to
mental institutions. Personally, I think it is a splendid thing that they do so,
provided the institutions are good ones. For usually it is exceedingly hard on
the individual himself to remain at home, and equally hard on the family, too. I
am glad that my wife was sensible enough to send me to a mental hospital. GOD
had a definite purpose to work out in my life, and although it was not the
physicians or their methods that brought about the cure which I desired, but
which I thought would never come, still GOD used those things in the purpose He
was working out in my life, and the lives of those concerned in the situation
which arose because of my nervous breakdown.

To make a long story short, the Lord spoke to me after two years of agony, on
the morning of October 4, 1934. He used three or four of His dear children to
bring me this message, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews
13:5) Many people had previously tried to comfort me, but I would always refuse
to believe. When my faithful wife or any of my missionary friends tried to
encourage me by quoting GOD’s promises, I could not believe that they were for
me, and so would not listen. But this morning, for the first time in two years,
I began to doubt my doubts, and I said to myself, "I wonder if I could be
wrong?" Then -- and again for the first time in two years -- I slipped to my
knees and began to pray.

"Lord," I said, "I am ashamed even to get into an attitude of prayer. I have
been so resentful. My mind and heart and being have been so filled with things
which must be repulsive to Thee than they are to me. I know now that there is no
hope for me. I don’t believe you could ever take me back. But, Lord, I wonder if
I could be wrong? You see in what terrible darkness and hopelessness every
moment of my experience is spent. Lord, if there is anything you can do for me,
won’t you do it? I would pray if I could, but I can’t pray. There are no words
to describe what I feel. Anyway, I don’t even feel. My heart is like a lump of
stone."

Away down deep in my consciousness a chorus began to sing. I did not know there
was anything so deep within. The Word says, "Deep calleth unto deep." GOD’s
deeps called to the deeps in me, and down in the depths of my heart He himself
started the second verse of that hymn written by an infidel after he had found
the Lord. The hymn was found on his desk after his death. The name of it is "In
JESUS." I had not sung it for years. How could I sing, for I had lost my song?
He began singing it within my being -

"My heart is night; my soul is steel; I cannot see, I cannot feel; For light,
for life, I must appeal, In simple faith to JESUS."

As the last word sang itself out in the silence of my heart, I knew HE stood
with me. He gathered me in His arms and brought me into a place of nearness that
I had never known before. His precious blood cleansed away all the stain and
sin, all the feeling of evil, all the effect of that terrible experience. I had
been under a great mountain, and that mountain, at His Word, was buried in the
sea. I had been bound with all the fetters of hell, but at His word the fetters
snapped and I was free. Oh, the unspeakable joy of that deliverance!

Perhaps some of my readers are going through mental difficulty and darkness.
Don’t listen to the accuser of the brethren. I listened -- GOD had a purpose in
allowing it -- but I ought not to have listened to him. Trust your heavenly
Father. He is true to His Word, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
(Hebrews 13:5). His blood and His cross have utterly answered every claim of
evil powers over you.

How could I forget such an experience? How shall I ever forget! But it was that
experience which helped me to understand to some extent CHRIST’s agony in
Gethsemane. When my mind grasped a little of the impurity and the wickedness and
the foul loathsomeness which He faced in that hour when He bore our sin, my
question was answered; and it changed to deep, adoring wonder that He had been
willing to face that cup for our sakes. I found myself exclaiming, "Father, if
He had not shrunk from that unspeakably detestable cup, if His soul had not been
filled with sorrow even unto death, and with infinite aversion and abhorrence
when ’the hour’ brought before Him the shame and impurity and wickedness and
iniquity of ’us all’ that ’was laid upon Him,’ then He could not have been Thy
most holy Son, sharing Thy holy nature."

Obviously, one who is sinful, impure, and accustomed to the presence of unclean,
selfish, and wicked thoughts and desires, is unable to appreciate the recoil of
a spotless and perfect soul in the presence of sin and vice. We must partake of
the holy nature of GOD if we would understand the things that are repellant to
Him. If GOD had not given me an experience of cleansing from sin and of filling
with His HOLY SPIRIT, I could never have understood the Spirit’s explanation of
Gethsemane’s horror, nor my heavenly Father’s purpose in allowing me to pass
through my nervous breakdown.

This experience taught me that there is no anguish to compare with spirit
anguish. There is no suffering like the suffering of holiness when confronted
with unholiness and sin. Imagine the introduction into a pure and godly home of
some person who insisted on giving expression to impurity and profanity and
vileness. Plunge a chaste and virtuous woman into an environment where nothing
but pollution and lust and selfish strife could find expression, and no
suffering would be more unbearable.

When GOD answered my question concerning Gethsemane all this came back to my
mind. How I had recoiled in terror and loathing! How I had prayed constantly for
only one thing, that I might be blotted out of existence, so that these foul,
devilish powers might not find expression in me!

Reminding me of this, the Lord seemed to continue His explanation thus: "If you,
sinful by nature, imperfect, and far from being holy, as I am holy, recoiled in
such revulsion from the thoughts, imaginations, and feelings of the
unmentionable sins that you thus experienced, what do you suppose was the effect
of the actual sin and degradation of the world upon My Son’s holy soul? He who
know no sin was made sin on your behalf. There was an actual transfer of your
sin to Him, for only thus could there be a transfer of His righteousness to you.

Becoming the last Adam, the head of the new race, necessitated His taking
sin-cursed humanity into organic union with Himself, for only thus could
humanity find a new source of life in His blood and His broken body. He became
the vine and made sinful men the branches.

Taking humanity into union with Himself, making men and women members of His
Body, meant the drawing of all their corruption and iniquity into His blood, or
life, for there was no other way of dealing with it. Just as the blood not only
provides food and moisture for every tissue of your physical body, but also
draws off into itself the waste, infection, and corruption that come through
disease or wounds, so CHRIST offered His body and blood to be the source of life
for the diseased and corrupted human race, gave Himself to provide food and
drink to all mankind, and not only so, but also drew into His own blood the
disease, the infection, the curse, and the corruption of sin-ridden men.

He had given Himself for this purpose from the foundation of the world. He had
been dedicated for this, and for this had been sent into the world. Yet when the
actual poison and corruption of sin came into His life’s blood; when actual
contact was made and He took the cup of corruption and actually began to drink
its contents, it so repelled Him that His whole soul shrank from its corruption
and uncleanness in unimaginable abhorrence. How could it be otherwise in One who
partakes of the holiness of the divine nature?

Sin is the Great Crusher. There is no power in heaven or on earth or in hell
that could bring my mighty Lord to such straits of sorrow and anguish as He
faced in Gethsemane, except sin. To Him who is the Son of the Thrice Holiest,
the ultimate sorrow is sin. One whose very essence is holiness can never be
overwhelmed with physical or mental pain. The only thing that can overwhelm and
crush Him is unholiness.

"The floods of ungodly men made me afraid," is the cry of the HOLY SPIRIT of the
perfect moral CREATOR. Love fears nothing, shrinks from nothing, loathes nothing
-- but SIN. But sin shocks Love, fills Love with horror, overwhelms Love with
sorrow, crushes the very life out of Love. To Love, Sin is the ultimate,
unutterably appalling horror. Sin is the death of Love -- GOD is Love.
Therefore, wherever Sin floods in, and finds expression, that which is divine is
crushed and broken unto death.

Gethsemane’s prayer is Love’s agony in the face of Sin!

~ end of chapter 4 ~


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: 05 - CHAPTER 5
========================================================================

CHAPTER FIVE

At the sight of Gethsemane’s cup, the Son cried out to His Father, "Oh, Father,
never has anything unclean or unholy touched my life! Never has anything evil
been able to come near My soul! How can I now take into My holy being this cup
of the abominations of iniquity? Let it pass from me! Yet not My will, but Thine
be done." CHRIST was but giving expression to the unspeakable loathings and
anguish that sin causes in the soul of GOD the Father, GOD the Son, and GOD the
HOLY SPIRIT. If you would know what sin costs GOD, linger in Gethsemane.

What was the Father’s response to the anguished plea of the Son of His love? Was
there conflict between the will of the Father and the will of the Son? Was the
Son’s prayer, struggle, and revolt against the hour and against the cup, a
revelation of something that was not divine? An expression of a will in
opposition to or differing from the will of the Father? How shall we interpret
the prayer and the rising of our Lord from the place of struggle?

The Spirit mentioned it to me thus: There was no opposition in the will of JESUS
to the will of the Father. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," (John
14:9) was just as true in Gethsemane as in any other scene of our Lord’s life.
"He who hath seen Me in Gethsemane hath seen My Father in Gethsemane. He who
hath seen Me being crushed by the oil press hath seen My Father being crushed.
He who hath seen Me torn and struggling in will, hath seen My Father’s struggle
of will. I and the Father were one in Gethsemane as in all things."

Sin caused a struggle in GOD’s will. "Because of sin GOD repented that He had
made man," shows that such a picture of conflict of will in GOD represents a
reality that exists, even though it may not be comprehended. GOD has been
greatly troubled -- is troubled by sin. So, in the garden, when His Son pleaded
with Him to let the cup pass from Him, the Father consented.

They leave the place of anguish and struggle and crushing together. The loathing
in the heart of the Son, His revolt against the cup of iniquity is a revelation
of the Father’s loathing and revolt. The Father is in perfect accord with the
Son.

It is just as terrible to the holy Father to have His Son undergo such agony, to
have Him whom He loves with infinite tenderness overwhelmed with such floods of
horror and sorrow and iniquity, as it is for the Son Himself. Nothing could be
more repulsive to GOD. No place for sin can be found in the holy nature of the
Son -- neither can any place for sin be found in the holy nature of the Father.
When the Son says, "Father, ABBA Father, beloved Father, the cup of sin and
iniquity is too abominable to drink, the hour is too horrible to endure," the
Father replies, "Yes, My beloved One, sin is infinitely repulsive. No necessity
or compulsion will ever make Thee drink the cup. Arise, let us go."

So they leave the cup of horror behind and start away from the place of the
crushing. They come to the three loved disciples and find them sleeping for
sorrow. The Father makes as though He would go on. The Son stops. "Father, we
cannot leave Peter and James and John in this place of darkness and crushing.
Are we going to leave our loved disciples behind, those whom Thou gavest Me?
Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me; and I have kept them safe so far in
Thy name; and for their sakes I sanctified Myself. Am I to leave them now in
Gethsemane?"

"But, My Son, that sin and iniquity which is so loathsome, so hateful, and so
repulsive to us - that is their sin. It is in them. They all like sheep have
gone astray. I was laying on Thee the iniquity of these men and all the world
that they may be holy and without blemish before Me in love. We cannot bring
them before the throne of Our glory while sin is in them. That sickness of sin
in them must be destroyed. No power can destroy it and at the same time preserve
the life of those who have sinned, except blood. No blood except Thine can
accomplish this double work. They must have blood - blood to draw out and absorb
and dispose of the awful poison of their uncleanness and iniquity. Sin’s hold
upon them is so strong that We cannot deliver them from Gethsemane’s crushing
until we break sin and destroy it; and sin is in them."

So JESUS looked upon the disciples, those whom He loved. Was His love for them
able to endure this horror? The sin that faced Him in the garden, the cup of
horror, was the sin of His loved ones, Peter and James and John, the cup of the
corruption of Thomas, and Matthew, and Saul of Tarsus, and the profligate
Augustine, and the "gutter rat," Jerry MacAuley. It was the corruption of the
selfishness and impurity and meanness of mine and thine; and all these He loved
unto the uttermost.

He had undertaken to make Simon into the unshakeable rock Peter. And Simon’s
weak, vacillating, selfish, boastful, impulsive nature stood in the way. With
great desire He had desired to impart His own perfect nature to Simon. He was
glad to be broken and poured out for Simon’s sake, but to drink the cup of his
corruption! Was that really necessary? Was there not some other way?

All things were possible to GOD; surely there was some other way to deal with
the corrupt nature of man. Perhaps if He kept on setting a perfect example
before His disciples, and continued with the godly instruction He had been
giving them, perhaps that would be the solution.

But as He looked at them He realized that education had not been able to make
the changes He so desired. The disciples were still weak and defeated. For three
years the inner circle, Peter, James, and John, had been receiving such an
education as none before or since had ever had.

Day and night they had lived with the perfect example of the Son of GOD before
them.

If example and education had been able to accomplish what GOD desired, then
these three men would have been the proofs of their power. But at the time when
the redemption of the world hung in the balance, the one time when the Master
had called upon His disciples for their help, when all the powers of evil were
arrayed against GOD and man to destroy forever and utterly the sons of men, not
only the eight near the entrance to the garden, but the three upon whom CHRIST
had spent His best efforts as teacher and example, were all fast asleep.

Depending upon their own loyalty and their own ability to stay true to their
Lord, they thought they would be sufficient. But they were failures, defeated by
sleep. Simon was still Simon. The Peter that CHRIST had foretold, had not yet
come forth.

So JESUS turns to Peter and says, "Simon, sleepest thou? Couldest thou not watch
one hour? Is this the result of all My patient efforts with you, of all My
teaching, and of My life of fellowship? When I needed your sympathy and prayer,
you could not even watch with me for a single hour? Watch and pray that sin may
not overpower you. I know your spirit is willing, but your fleshly nature is
weak."

He realized that for the sake of those whom He loved, the cup must be drunk.
There was no way to remove the corruption from Simon, except by bringing Simon
into vital union with Himself and drawing Simon’s old and corrupt life into His
own divine life stream, there to slay it with the power of His redeeming
holiness. (See Matthew’s account of the second prayer in Matthew 26:42.)

So JESUS looked upon me in this world’s Gethsemane. Could He endure to drink the
cup for my sake?

Oh, my Lord and my GOD! I have watched Thee in the garden! I saw Thee look upon
me, sleeping in blissful ignorance of the terrible forces that were battling for
my soul; I saw Thee look with infinite loathing and horror upon the cup of
iniquity; I saw Thee turn Thine eyes again toward me, and because Thou didst
love me to the uttermost, I saw Thee look up into Thy Father’s face and I heard
Thee say, "Father, I see. There is no other way. There is no other blood. Except
I drink this cup, We cannot deliver him from the crushing which will be his
utter destruction. Father, I came to bring Thee to him, to make him a son of
Thine, to reveal Thee as a Father to him. O Father, I love him with a great and
everlasting love, and Thou, too, lovest him, Father. For the sake of the great
love with which We love him We must endure the hour, We can drink the cup. For
his sake I sanctified Myself, and for his sake I again sanctify Myself that he
may be sanctified." Saying this, He returned to the cup and to the struggle.

How the Father must have loved us, that HE could look upon the agony of the Son
and still not remove the hour or take away the cup, so that we might be
redeemed! In the agony of a well-beloved, only begotten son a Father feels
double agony. How greatly must the Father have desired to deliver the Son! How
the cry of the Son must have wrung the heart of the Father!

Yet His desire and the Son’s desire to bring us into His glory, and the great
love wherewith He has loved us, are still greater than His desire to deliver the
Son from the horror and agony of the cup. So together the Father and Son face
the sorrow and anguish and dreadfulness of Gethsemane. The cup is accepted. The
horror of great darkness, the awful suffering is faced again.

~ end of chapter 5 ~


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: 06 - CHAPTER 6
========================================================================

CHAPTER SIX

The Spirit used another illustration to make the situation real to me. If
anything should happen to my hand to cut it off from my body, it would become a
mass of festering corruption in a short time. This is the condition of humanity,
cut off from GOD by sin.

"Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy
One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken
any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole
heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness
in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment" (Isaiah 1:4-6)

Now there is only one way to save such a hand. Law will not save it, even if it
knew all the laws of a perfect hand. Example cannot save it, even if a perfect
example of a healthy hand were constantly held before it. The hand needs a
bloodstream of clean, powerful, health-giving blood; blood strong enough to
carry off the festering poison and the corruption of the wounds, and replace the
rotten, dead flesh with new, clean living flesh. It needs to be replaced in the
body. So the only hope for the hand is for some physician skillful enough to
graft it back into the body whence it came. This accomplished, the hand will
begin to drink the blood of the body and eat its flesh, and the blood that
brings food and moisture to it, will draw out the waste and poison and
corruption and carry it away.

CHRIST offered His body and His blood to do this for humanity. "Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of MAN, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you" (John
6:53).

"He that is grafted into Me and abides in Me, he it is that eateth My flesh and
drinketh My blood. This is the bread that I give for the life of the world."

What a shock it would be to a human body if a corrupt amputated member were
grafted back into its place! No human body could stand it. But the life of GOD
in CHRIST had such vitality and power that He could offer His body, His life, to
be the means of bringing corrupt, rotten humanity, dead in trespasses and sins,
back into vital union with GOD, the fountain of life. Thus and thus only can an
amputated hand be saved.

In Gethsemane we see the shock and the horror flooding the soul of GOD, when He
brings corrupt, festering humanity into union with Himself. He picks up Jerry
MacAuley, a "gutter rat," filled with all the unspeakable degradation and vice
of one who had sold himself to the most debasing iniquity! Who can describe the
corruption of that member of humanity! Yet GOD redeems this vile man and Jerry
MacAuley becomes a member of the body of CHRIST. Overnight his corruption and
vileness disappear and new life and blood and flesh appear in this once
"amputated hand." Where went the corruption? It was in Gethsemane’s cup. It was
drunk by Him who knew that no power but the power of His own blood could deal
with Jerry MacAuley’s sin. And because He loves all of us Jerry MacAuleys unto
the uttermost, He returned to the place of crushing and put the cup again to His
holy lips.

I say it reverently: It is not the human weakness of JESUS that we see in
Gethsemane; it is the recoil, the revulsion of the nature of the holy Son of
GOD, when the One who was the sharer of GOD’s holiness became sin, that we might
become righteousness. The blood of my body becomes poisoned that my hand might
be delivered of its poison. My heart draws the poison into it that my hand may
become healthy. JESUS took me, the rotting member of humanity, and because the
only way for me to be saved was to be grafted into His body, He took me into His
body; He took my corruption into His own blood, and I became righteousness; He
fought that corruption in His own blood. If His blood had been able to stand it
without horror and anguish He would not be the holy One that the Father sent
into the world.

The struggle was great and the anguish was unutterable. His sweat became as it
were great drops of blood. Angels came to strengthen Him. I saw Him arise and go
for the second time to His disciples. He seemed to stand and look at them a
while.

I said to GOD, "Father, I understand something of the awful revulsion and horror
caused by that dread cup. I understand that, but why should Thy Son rise again
and go to His disciples? In answer the Spirit seemed to bring before me the
picture of a Swedish mother, whose story I had heard. She had an only child, a
little girl. She was a widow, and lived on a farm some distance from any other
habitation. There came a severe snow, piled so deep that it was impossible for
her to reach the outside world for weeks. There wasn’t enough food in the house
to keep both mother and daughter alive. If the mother would save her child from
death she must make the supreme sacrifice and not touch food. Of course she made
her decision as only a mother can. At first it was not so hard, but when hunger
came it sometimes seemed more than she could bear to prepare food for her baby
and resist the temptation to satisfy her own hunger. Yet as she looked at the
child she would tell herself "it would be like eating the flesh of my child,"
and she overcame the temptation. One day she was preparing an especially savory
dish. She was hungry, and she snatched some food for her lips for a taste. The
desire to eat had become almost unbearable. Struggling against it, she went to
the door to look on her child as she slept. The sight of her loved baby girl
brought the mother love surging back into her breast, and she said, "No, no, no,
my child; never could I take that which would mean death to you." She put it
down and never again was tempted. She had to give her life, but her child was
spared. For her child’s sake she sanctified herself -- set herself apart. "And
when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto
thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in
thy blood, Live" (Ezekiel 16:6).

Through that illustration GOD showed me that JESUS for the sake of His own
sanctified Himself, set Himself apart, that His own might be sanctified (John
17:19). He would never have gone through Gethsemane except for one thing.
Nothing could have induced Him to drink that cup except the fact that, having
loved His own, He loved them to the uttermost. He arose the second time that He
might look again on Peter and James and John, whom He loved (and upon you and me
and all the sons and daughters whom He loved and was going to bring into glory).
He looked upon us, His loved ones, again and said, "I could never do it except
for thee -- except that I love thee, except that I love thee unto the uttermost.
I never could take that unclean cup, but if I refuse to drink it I deny My
Father’s love for thee and My love for thee, and that I cannot do." Yes, because
He loves thee, my brother -- because He loves thee, my sister -- He went back
and drank the last dregs of that cup of sin and iniquity. He drank it into His
own blood that He might some day bring thee before the Father without sin and
without blemish, and present thee before the throne of His holiest glory. Thus
GOD made "His soul an offering for sin." (Isaiah 53:10) ~ end of chapter 6 ~


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  CHAPTER 8: 07 - CHAPTER 7
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CHAPTER SEVEN

This is an age that ought to understand the efficacy of the blood of JESUS.
Science is continually in search of blood with sufficient power and vitality to
combat the ills of humanity. Great discoveries have been made already. The
scourge of diphtheria has been practically conquered because of blood. Human
blood does not have the needed vitality and power to combat diphtheria. But
science has discovered that there is a certain kind of horse whose blood is able
to conquer and destroy the poison of diphtheria, and that after it has conquered
and destroyed those dread toxins it has the power to provide immunity to human
beings. So scientists inject the diphtheria germ into the blood of this type of
horse. The horse becomes sick, not with its own sickness, but by taking into its
blood a human ailment. Then the blood of the horse meets the diphtheria germs in
combat, conquers, and destroys them and their poison. Something happens to the
blood of that horse. It produces an antitoxin, a serum that is a remedy for
diphtheria. And when that victorious blood is injected into the human body, it
transfers to the blood of the human body its power of defeating the germs of
diphtheria.

What a wonderful type of the blood of JESUS! He knew no sin. His blood was pure
and uncontaminated. No offering could be found whose blood could do away with
the germs of sins. The blood of bulls and goats could not conquer it. So the Son
of GOD offered His blood. He offered His body to be injected with the germs of
sin and death, that through death He might destroy the power of death. Just as
the horse through being sick with diphtheria, through sickness destroyed the
power of sickness, so JESUS, being made sin and yielding His body and His blood
to the power of death, met in His body and in His blood the awful might of the
power of sin and death, and in that combat between His blood and the germs and
powers of sin and death emerged more than victor. Being put to death, in all
actuality He met death, and His blood had the vitality and virtue that could
meet and conquer death. Man’s blood could not meet sin and death and conquer
them.

JESUS’ blood did what man’s blood could not do, and now that precious blood,
having prevailed over the powers of sin and evil, once and for all had provided
an antitoxin, a remedy, that can meet and overcome the sin of any man who will
by faith take the injection of the victorious antitoxin of the blood of the Son
of GOD - the LAMB slain that takes away the sin of the world.

In Gethsemane CHRIST offered His body and blood to take the sickness of sin and
death, the vileness that had destroyed humanity, in order that His blood might
fight and destroy this archenemy of man. The cost of taking it was very great,
but there was no other way. No power in heaven or in earth could meet sin but
the power of His blood. His blood could and did meet and conquer our destroyer.
Therefore He drank the cup to the dregs. He became sin for our sakes, and the
conflict between His blood and the power of sin and death was no easy, light
battle. It cost the Almighty One His Son. It cost the Son Gethsemane and
Calvary. But He conquered Gethsemane and broke its power. He conquered the Cross
and robbed it of its terror.

The physician who is trying to save the life of a patient suffering from a moral
illness, has lost the battle if his diagnosis is incorrect. If he should call
the dangerous illness only a slight fever, he is worse than no doctor. Only when
he knows the danger facing his patient, and the critical condition, in which he
lies, can he be trusted to provide a suitable remedy.

Herein is one of the wonderful virtues of the Bible. It does not mince matters
when it comes to diagnosing man’s condition. Nowhere else is such a dark picture
of man’s evil situation painted. This very fact gives us confidence; for if the
Bible painted any brighter picture of the sickness that has laid humanity low,
we could well question both its divine origin and the remedy it offers.

The tragedy of mankind’s fallen condition is very, very great. It is so dark
that only a very great Being who has faced and conquered the uttermost depths of
sorrow and anguish can speak to humanity’s heart. The hearts of men have been so
terribly broken that only some Great Heart that has known great crushing will be
able to bring them healing and comfort. As we have seen, the word Gethsemane
means "oil press." And in that oil press the great heart of GOD went through
unutterable crushing that the sweet, healing olive oil of His blessed HOLY
SPIRIT might be pressed out to flow to a world crushed in deep anguish.

Gethsemane tells me that it was no weak foe that met my Lord in the garden.
Gethsemane reveals to me the cruelty, the almost infinite power of sin, and the
dread danger that lurks in its seeming harmlessness. Gethsemane assures me that
GOD has not minimized the forces of sin and death, nor has He lightly treated
the tragedy of man’s fallen estate. Gethsemane shocks me into asking the
question, "What is this awful thing -- sin? What is this force that men enjoy
and welcome so universally? Is this the power that caused my Lord such deep
anguish and such terrible struggle? Is this the thing that wrung from His body
the bloody sweat?" Gethsemane makes me stand aghast at the awful horror of sin!

But Gethsemane does something else. Gethsemane tells me that sin has met its
match. Evil may be, and is, an unspeakably terrible and cruel foe. But in
Gethsemane I see its Mighty Conqueror. Death may be horrible and ruthless and
all but infinitely powerful, but in Gethsemane I see Him who challenges its
power. My Lord is mightier than sin. His blood, incorruptible and full of virtue
and vitality, has destroyed the power of sin’s poison and is an all-sufficient
remedy for humanity’s sad condition.

It would be a marvelous thing if each of us would go to Gethsemane and linger
there until the Spirit shows us our personal part in CHRIST’s terrible
experience. In Gethsemane I see my sin crushing my Saviour, filling His soul
with loathing and horror, making Him exceeding sorrowful even unto death,
causing Him a fearful struggle, filling Him with such anguish that His sweat
becomes as it were great drops of blood. There I begin to understand the nature
of redeeming love. To holiness, impurity is sickness worse than cancer. To
righteousness, the ultimate horror is wickedness. To goodness, there is
something worse than death -- sin. To love, the deepest agony is plumbed when
the dearly loved one falls victim to selfish, debasing wickedness.

I was with my earthly Father when his youngest son, his joy and pride, and best
beloved, fell victim to an incurable, swift cancer. Never will I forget his cry,
"I’d give anything if I could take your cancer, John, into my stomach and set
you free."

In Gethsemane my heavenly Father came down to my low estate. There I saw Him who
loves me with an everlasting love, face the full horror of the cancer of my sin.
There I saw His face of sorrow unto death when I heard Him say, "I have brought
to thee My only Begotten, My Best Beloved. He not only longs to take the deadly
cancer of thy sin into His own blood, to set thee free; He has come to do so
actually."

I saw His sorrow when He faced my pride, my rebellion, my dishonesty,
unfaithfulness, hypocrisy, uncleanness, unbelief, and my stubborn disobedience
and self-will. I saw His distress, His agony, His sweat becoming great drops of
blood. Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow! How it makes
me hate what once I loved! How it makes me long to be holy, as He is holy!

And there I see Him take the full cup of my iniquity and drink it to the dregs.
He who knew no cancer of sin has been made sin for me. My sins have been nailed
to the cross - to His heart. He has taken the sin into His blood. His soul has
been made a sin offering. The Father for my sake laid all my sin on Him!

~ end of chapter 7 ~


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  CHAPTER 9: 08 - CHAPTER 8
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CHAPTER EIGHT

We have seen all that took place in the garden, where our Lord became sin for
us, took the sin of the world upon Him and into His very being. Now we shall see
our Lord suffering further, suffering now the consequences of our sin. This is
the explanation of all that follows Gethsemane. CHRIST not only bore our sins;
He bore all the consequences of those sins as well; He suffered, after
Gethsemane, all those things which, ordinarily and rightfully, we ourselves
should suffer because of our sins.

In our observance of this phase of His suffering, we shall follow the account of
it which is given us in Matthew 26 and 27.

In Matthew 26:47-50, we have the account of CHRIST’s betrayal by one of His own
inner circle. This is what sin would have done to me. It would have brought
bitterness of betrayal, rejection, and of being made a means by which my friends
would strike a bargain. How we see that among sinners today! Brother even sells
brother. Sin makes people take advantage of their own loved ones. Mothers and
fathers betray their children. They sin against friends of their own innermost
circle and use them as a means of gain. Betrayal! That was my lot -- and CHRIST
took it.

In each stroke falling on Him, I see my own life being freed because He was
willing to take my place and receive the blow that should have fallen upon me!

There follows in Matthew 26:50-56 :

"And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and
laid hands on Jesus, and took him. And, behold, one of them which were with
Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the
high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy
sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently
give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be
fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes,
Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat
daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this
was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the
disciples forsook him, and fled."

Peter’s attempt to defend his Master by physical violence. He takes a sword and
strikes off the ear of the servant of the high priest. JESUS brings out
something very wonderful here. "Peter, do you think I am doing this because I am
compelled to? Do you think I am forced to submission? I could summon twelve
legions of angels right here from My Father." JESUS wanted Peter to see that it
was love which made Him choose the Cross. It was love for Judas, for these men,
for His betrayers, His deniers, His cruicifiers. He loved them and because He
loved them He would not use His own power to compel them. He wanted them to know
GOD’s method.

This is one of the most serious passages in the Bible. It tells me that GOD has
set me free, that He isn’t going to use His power to force my will. Oh, He could
do it, but He won’t. He will set me free to the extent that He will let me even
crucify Him; but He will not compel me to do what is good.

In the background of most of our thinking we feel that if GOD wanted to make us
good, He would do so. GOD is Almighty, and if He really wanted something He
would get it. When we have power to get something which we really want, we go
ahead and get it if we can; so we judge GOD by ourselves.

But this story tells me that GOD will let me go to the length even of betraying,
insulting, and crucifying Him. He goes the way of the Cross in order to make me
realize that I have not a GOD who is going to compel me to be good. He will
suffer right down through the whole program of my self-will in order to show me
that He wants to win me in only one way and that is through love. What He is
after is righteousness; but when you compel righteousness it ceases to be
righteousness. If you get righteousness by bribery, it ceases to be true
righteousness. So because of what our Lord is after, He will not compel our
obedience or compel us to be good or to go the way He wants us to go, but He
will let us see what it costs Him for us to go our own way.

If He were like ordinary human beings, as soon as we stretched forth our hands
to disobey Him, He would wither those hands. GOD supplies our life; He could
take away that life at will if He chose. And JESUS told Peter He could easily
stop His crucifiers but that the Scripture, GOD’s will, must be fulfilled. This
does not mean a mere mechanical fulfillment. No! The whole purport of the Word
of GOD is that He is after righteousness, and if so, it is not something that
can be compelled.

The righteousness of the law isn’t enough. The law can save no one; it is
inadequate. There must be a new righteousness, and the purpose of GOD in
bringing this righteousness to us is at stake in what JESUS is doing. So He goes
to the cross and brings me to the Cross; and there I see what sin is. I see what
would have happened to me. I see Him taking the stroke that was due to me.

O GOD, let us really see it, not only when we hear it or read it in a book, but
by the revelation of the HOLY SPIRIT.

As we are taken by the Spirit through the suffering of CHRIST from the garden to
the Cross, as we see stroke upon stroke fall upon Him which should have fallen
upon us, something is accomplished in us that no punishment, no preaching, no
schooling could ever do. We discover something about sin that we cannot discover
anywhere else, and we come to hate it. We learn lessons about GOD and His
righteousness that we can learn nowhere else.

The Cross throws marvelous illumination upon our lives, showing us what we are
and what our Saviour is, and then binding our hearts to Him in such loyalty and
devotion and love as nothing in the world can do. That is why GOD has given us
in such detail the story of Gethsemane and Calvary.

"Are ye come out as against a thief?" (Matthew 26:55) CHRIST further asked those
who came to take Him. Certainly! For He took our place and we are robbers.

"I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on Me. But all
this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all
the disciples forsook Him, and fled." (Matthew 26:55-56) Again CHRIST accepts
what was our portion -- utter forsaking even by those who were His own disciples
who had given up all to follow Him -- condemnation by His people’s religious
leaders -- Peter’s denial -- denial by the one He loved almost as He loved John,
the one who He knew loved Him. That is the portion of sin, your portion and
mine. What a bitter portion it is when you are denied by one whom you have loved
and trusted, by one on whom you have depended. Denial with cursing and swearing!
Then condemnation by the judicial authority!

They bound Him and led Him away to Pilate. Then Judas begins to realize what he
has done. The Cross is already beginning to exert its power, and Judas is
feeling something of its effect. Unfortunately he didn’t see beyond the Cross.
He didn’t see the resurrection. He didn’t see the victory that was going to
issue from the Cross. He saw only something of what he had done and went and
hanged himself.

"And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art
thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest" (Matthew
27:11). Yes, a king, and that is what we were made to be -- kings. GOD said,
"Have dominion over all the earth and subdue it." (Genesis 1:26-28) GOD has put
into us the impulses and instinct of ruling. Look at a little baby when it is
born; it wants to rule the household! Everybody comes at its beck and call. This
instinct stays with a person right through life. All of us are dictators. We
have that instinct that GOD created in us, only we have used it in the wrong
way. Satan says, "If you get your way you have dominion." GOD says, "If you rule
your spirit, your will, your inner being, not your outward, that is real
dominion." We want to get the outward into subjection. But GOD says, "First rule
yourself. Get yourself into subjection. Rule your own spirit."

JESUS testifies that He is a king, yet He is treated like a criminal. The King
takes the place of Barabbas. He knew there was a cross prepared for Barabbas at
Jerusalem, yet He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.

He didn’t want to see Barabbas crucified even though he was a criminal. He
wanted rather to deliver him. Barabbas is your name and mine. Barabbas is
released and set free and CHRIST is delivered up to be crucified.

Then comes the account of the mocking:

"Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered
unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a
scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his
head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and
mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the
reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took
the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to
crucify him" (Matthew 27:27-31)

CHRIST is mocked by the mob as well as by the authorities! They took Him and
mocked Him. This mocking was our portion! Man was meant to be a king and a
priest, to have dominion and rule in the universe: but because of sin, he is a
slave of the devil, a captive of sin, mocked by all the demons of hell, and
clothed in the purple robes of sham kingship. What gloating the devil and his
imps have over the soul made in the image of GOD, who, by his own choice, has
taken the way of sin!

A minister friend of mine told me this story. In one of his meetings a traveling
man sat under deep conviction, such conviction that the sweat poured from his
brow and his whole being was shaken. The power of the Spirit of GOD was very
evidently upon him. But there was a certain pleasure ahead of him, something
upon which he had set his heart. After that pleasure he would yield to CHRIST --
but not now. He fought stubbornly against the wooing of the Spirit. He would
yield afterwards -- but afterwards never came! He suddenly became ill and died.
Perhaps we can visualize his experience if we use our sanctified imaginations.

When released from the body, the man’s first experience was one of freedom. His
spirit had been released from the flesh. Almost at once, however, the devil
appeared and a host of his demons. They seized him to lead him away captive. As
they went the frenzied man shook his finger in the devil’s face and said, "It is
you, it is you, it is you, that have brought me down into this misery."

"No, fool!" laughed the devil. "You, yourself, are responsible for your being
here. The HOLY SPIRIT told you that this was perhaps your last chance, that you
had to choose. I could not make you refuse. I merely told you about the pleasure
you would miss, and what your friends would say; but I couldn’t make you choose.
You turned the HOLY SPIRIT down. You chose my arguments against His. Come along
with us now, for you are responsible for your choice."

Oh, the look of anguish, despair, and horror which came over his face, as the
man realized that he actually had made the choice himself.

Such an experience awaited you and me. How little we realize what horror we have
been delivered from because of the Cross!

CHRIST took not only our sin, but all the poison, cursing, mocking, betrayal,
condemnation, scourging, and spitting that goes with that sin. He takes stroke
after stroke that was due to you and me. GOD make us really see it! Then we
couldn’t bear to hurt Him. We don’t appreciate the dangers that awaited us as
sinners until the HOLY SPIRIT makes us see the stroke that was due to us and
then lets us see His back, His face, His cheek, His head, His hands, His feet,
and His heart taking the stroke that was due to you and me!

Then they stripped Him and crucified Him at the place of the skull. Well was it
named the place of the skull! That is what humanity has become -- a skull --
empty of all brains! This world that so prides itself upon its brains put a
crown of thorns upon Him who was the very wisdom of GOD. It crowned His brow
with thorns because its own brow was an empty skull.

~ end of chapter 8 ~


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  CHAPTER 10: 09 - CHAPTER 9
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CHAPTER NINE

"They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted
thereof he would not drink." (Matthew 27:34) No, He came to bear it all. He
would have us see that He took ALL the suffering, and that because He took it
all, we do not have to bear it.

"And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments, casting lots upon
them. . . . And set up over His head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE
KING OF THE JEWS." (Matthew 27:35-37) That too, awaited us! "This is So-and-So,
made in the image of GOD, meant to be a king, but because of sin, brought to
this place."

Separation, too, was His lot, that terrible period of darkness from the sixth to
the ninth hour. Those of you who have never been through such an experience of
darkness can scarcely conceive what it means to have GOD hide His face from you,
to have come over you the feeling that there is no hope, the conviction that the
darkness which has settled down upon you is forever, and will only increase.

GOD let me go through just that. I knew there was no hope ever again for me. I
knew it. No one could convince me otherwise. My wife, my dearest friends, my
brother, my father, my spiritual leaders -- none of them could convince me
otherwise. And no one knows the agony of those awful years of the experience to
which I have already referred.

This same darkness was awaiting all of us -- and for all eternity! Utter
separation from Him who is light and life and joy and peace and all that is good
or of any value! Who can realize it! GOD does sometimes let some of us go
through an experience in which we taste just a bit of it. We need to be patient
with anyone who is going through such a time. GOD allows such things to come to
more of His children than we think. Many have spoken to me of having gone
through such a test. Be patient. If you are ever tempted to believe it is
hopeless for you, don’t give way to it. It may seem impossible for you to do so,
but deep down inside of you hold on to this -- GOD let JESUS go through it for
you.

He may let you taste something of what He went through; but He will bring you
out victorious.

Would you know and understand the depth of His love? He lets you taste something
of the stroke that was your due in order that you may know His love. He loves
you and would not have you cold toward His love. Therefore, He lets you
experience a little of the stroke that was your due, but which instead fell upon
Him, your Saviour, your Lover, your GOD -- crucified for you that you might not
be crucified, entering the darkness for you that you might be spared!

As JESUS hangs there upon the cross, all the powers of darkness descend to claim
Him as their victim. "Sinners are our prey," they cry as they surround Him and
fasten their awful clutches upon Him. That is what would have been my lot. But
He took my place! Sickness claims Him, the curse claims Him; grief claims Him;
pain and torture claim Him; death claims Him; and the devil takes Him captive
while the tomb claims His body.

I look. I gaze, and the sight transfixes me. But as I look again I become aware
that the sickness that fastened itself upon Him has left my body, the curse that
rested upon my mind and soul has sat upon His thorn-crowned head. He took my
cancer of sin and with it went guilt, sickness, curse, condemnation, death, and
the legions of demons. He took all claims against me. Every writing, every
ordinance, every accusation, every charge against me. He took with Him to
Calvary. And as I gaze, I become conscious that they are gone, I am free. The
strokes due to me have fallen on Him!

O glorious Redeemer! O wondrous Savior! What depths and heights of love!

I kiss Thy hand, nail scarred for me, And through hot, blinding tears, Inscribed
upon Thy blessed palm, My name, in blood divine, appears.

My Lord, my GOD, my KING, my ALL, I count my gain but loss; Forever let Thy love
enthrall And keep me at the Cross.

What could bewitch me that I should ever leave the cross! Beneath the cross of
JESUS I take my stand, and as I linger there the Spirit lets me see my Saviour
taking my place in the tomb. Into the realms of that devouring lion, the devil,
into the kingdom of darkness He goes, in my place.

Sin and death, darkness and hell, the hosts of evil and their awful king, the
devil, rejoice. They gloat over their captive. But they know not the power of
the blood of this victim! That incorruptible blood has been engaged in a death
grapple with sin. It triumphs. Now sin is blotted out; yes, just as the hosts of
the Philistines of hell are gloating over their victory, the mighty power of Him
who is the Resurrection and the Life, surges within, and sin is blotted out.

Then all the chains and fetters of sickness and the curse, the ropes and bonds
of death and the devil’s power, snap like the ropes with which the Philistines
bound Samson, and He who was dead takes the keys of death and hell from the king
of death in his own den and then rises in victorious and complete triumph!

The Son of GOD has destroyed the works of the devil! He has taken away the sins
of the world! He has smashed the power of him who had the power of death! The
one who took my place was the mighty Son of GOD, the conqueror. Gethsemane’s sin
and horror are surpassed by the overwhelming victory of the Resurrection. In
Gethsemane and Calvary, sin and sickness, death and the devil, did their worst.
They would have done it unto me. But He took my place. Their worst was
unutterably awful. If it had happened to me-- but He could not bear to have it
happen to me! It would have crushed me to eternal doom! So He took my place. In
the garden and on the cross and in death He bared His body and His soul to take
all the weight of the blows of the hosts of evil that were meant for me. How He
suffered! How He was wounded and bruised! How He was crushed and broken! But He
bore it all. He let every ounce of the weight and every blow of sin and the
curse that I had earned and deserved, fall upon Him. And after they had been
laid upon Him, He made sure that they were all there, that not one sin was
missing. And then with a shout of triumph, He did away with every sin, broke
every fetter, flung off every principality and power, and rose the last Adam,
the crown of GOD’s new creation.

He who rose triumphant from the grave is the conqueror of sin’s poison, of
Calvary’s curse, of death’s power. The world’s horror has been met, and now
there is Balm in Gilead. There is a blood that is more than a match for sin,
sickness, and death. It is not my blood, but the blood of Him who took my place.
And now the horror of Gethsemane’s great crushing, and the dread breaking of the
cross, and the silence and coldness and darkness of the tomb have simply become
the pathway to the victory of the Resurrection.

The victory of the empty tomb was a great victory, because it was a victory over
all the curse by Him who become a curse in order to deliver us from the curse;
because it was a victory over all sickness and infirmity by Him who carried our
sicknesses and bore our infirmities; because it was a victory over death by Him
who robbed death of its prey.

~ end of chapter 9 ~


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  CHAPTER 11: 10 - CHAPTER 10
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CHAPTER TEN

The importance of any victory depends upon four factors: What enemies were
engaged in battle? What price did the victor have to pay? How completely were
the enemies conquered? And what steps were taken to secure the fruits of
victory?

We speak of the resurrection as a glorious victory. It was. It is the very
foundation of our faith. "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching
vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). But is it possible for
us to miss the significance of that victory, and to fail to secure its results?

In 1918 the Allies won a great victory over their enemies. That victory brought
us great joy and relief. We staged tremendous celebrations. We made Armistice
Day almost a world-wide holiday. November 11, the day of that victory, became
almost sacred to our nation. But because we did not know the sinister, evil
forces which had been fighting us; because we did not know how completely we had
them in our power; because we did not appreciate the blood our boys had shed;
and because we did not know the steps necessary for securing the peace that had
been won -- because of our failure to take these four factors into account, we
"kept not faith with those who fell in Flanders Field," and today we are not
able to enjoy the fruits of their victory.

We let the peace that the boys of my generation won on the battle fields of
France be snatched from our fingers, and we brought upon our own heads the
cataclysm of another world war, because we failed to appreciate our victory.

The CAPTAIN of our salvation won a mighty triumph 1900 years ago, and with a
mighty shout on the day of that triumph, resurrection day has become one of the
most sacred days for all Christians. Every week, on the Lord’s Day, we pay
tribute to Him whose resurrection was the greatest day of history. But are we
enjoying the fruits of that victory as we should? Will is not be said of the
church as it was said of the Allies, "They did not appreciate the victory that
was theirs"? Do we know the cruel sinister forces of evil our Lord faced in the
battle preceding His resurrection? Do we know how completely He crushed those
dread enemies of ours? Do we appreciate the price He paid for victory, the toll
of blood and toil, of tears and agony, of suffering and death which was
required? Do we know what steps should be taken to secure the fruits of His
triumph? And, most important question of all, are we taking the steps necessary
to appropriate and secure the fruits of His victory, the peace and joy and
riches of grace which He has won for us? Until we can answer "yes" to these
questions, we cannot reap the benefits of the resurrection.

Our churches are filled with Christians who are willing to live defeated lives
because they do not know what enemies the Captain of our salvation defeated, nor
how crushing was the defeat He administered. They do not appreciate the price He
paid for victory; they are ignorant of the steps to be taken to secure the
fruits of His triumph, and they are not stirred to actually possess the riches
won, to take and enjoy the peace and power and fullness of GOD.

Can we be content to let a crushed and defeated foe rise and rob us of what
CHRIST won for us at Calvary? Shall we listen to the father of lies and his
propaganda machine and allow him to deceive us into believing that CHRIST’s
victory was not complete? GOD give us a clearer vision of the completeness of
the victory of the Resurrection!

Now to take up the first of these four questions: What enemies did CHRIST engage
in battle? Primarily, He came to fight sin. "Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for
He shall save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). The Son of GOD "was
manifested to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5). "The blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7) "Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). These scriptures and countless
others testify that the enemy above all enemies against whom CHRIST joined
battle was man’s sin. The objective of the CAPTAIN of our salvation was the
total destruction of sin in us, to blot it out, not to leave it name or
remembrance, to bury it in the deepest depths, to remove it as far as the east
is from the west, until no place be found for it, even in memory.

Sin is of such a nature that it can never be understood except by Him who is
infinitely holy. The sinner can never understand sin. A thief cannot understand
what stealing is. An adulterer cannot understand the nature of impurity. A
deceitful person cannot see the nature of lying. A person who worries cannot
know the deadliness of the poison of worry. An unloving man cannot perceive the
character of selfishness. A critical spirit is oblivious to the nature of
unkindness.

On the other hand, it is the holy nature that can understand unholiness. It is
the upright and honest man who knows what dishonesty and crookedness are. The
pure in heart understand infinitely more about impurity than the unclean. The
soul that is full of faith can tell us the nature of worry. The loving spirit
appraises the true nature of criticism and selfishness and unkindness. To those
who are true and holy, sin is the ultimate horror. Death, persecution, poverty
and torture of the most diabolical forms are to be preferred to sin by men and
women whose hearts are holy and upright.

Therefore it is essential for us to behold the holy and spotless LAMB of GOD
girding on His armor to meet our sin in battle to the death. Come, my soul, gaze
upon thy Saviour battling thy sin. Follow Him to Gethsemane and watch Him in the
struggle. And as thou gazest upon Him who endured the cross in His striving
against sin, thou shalt know that thou, too, must join the battle against this
archenemy of GOD and man.

The name of JESUS stands for One who came to save His people from their sins:
and it is no more possible for me to claim to be a follower of JESUS without
throwing myself into the battle against sin, than it would be for me to claim to
have been a soldier of MacArthur’s without having thrown myself into the battle
against Japan. He who does otherwise only deludes himself.

One of the tactics of the enemy is to get his opponent confused; to get him to
fight some side issue; to divert his attacks. How often he has succeeded in
getting the church of JESUS CHRIST to let up on her attacks upon sin? But he did
not succeed in diverting our Saviour from the main issue. Straight against the
sin of man He drove His attack, and in doing so He revealed to us, His people,
the archenemy of our souls. Have we resisted unto blood, striving against sin?
We need to consider Him who did, lest we become weary and faint in the battle.

"For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself,
lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin" (Hebrews 12:3-4).

~ end of chapter 10 ~


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  CHAPTER 12: 11 - CHAPTER 11
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CHAPTER ELEVEN

The answer to the second question, "What price did CHRIST pay for His victory?"
we have already considered to some extent. The full price we shall never
understand this side of Heaven. He did not consider equality with GOD too great
a price to pay, but emptied Himself and then paid the additional price of
Bethlehem’s manager, Nazareth’s poverty-stricken life, of the going forth in
public ministry as a lamb amid ravening wolves, and meeting all the
contradiction and opposition of sinful men. Finally Gethsemane, Calvary, and the
horrors of death and darkness He suffered in order to conquer our enemies. The
price was infinitely great. GOD give us an understanding of it, that we might
appreciate our REDEEMER more, as well as the great redemption victory He
wrought!

Now for the third question:

How completely were our enemies conquered? What did CHRIST accomplish? "Death is
swallowed up in victory(1 Corinthians 15:54)." "Death hath no more hath dominion
over Him" (Romans 6:9); nor over those that are in Him. The world was crucified
upon that cross, the old man was crucified upon that cross, the curse was
destroyed, and we were crucified there with CHRIST. "The Son of God was
manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)," and "to
take away our sins (1 John 3:5)." "Through death He... [destroyed] him that had
the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of
death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15)." "Now once
in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself (Hebrews 9:26)." "But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for
sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till
His enemies be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:12-13)." His victory was complete.

The fourth question you must answer. What steps are you taking to secure the
fruits of His great victory? Sin has been blotted out, pardon has been procured,
every ordinance and claim against us has been nailed to the cross,
principalities and powers have been despoiled, the enemy has been utterly
routed. This is what GOD wrought in JESUS CHRIST. The only place left to the
enemy is the unbelief of human hearts. He has been dislodged from every other
place. Victory over him is complete. Therefore GOD conditions our partaking of
the fruits of that victory upon faith. All things are possible to him that
believeth, because all things are ours in CHRIST. So the devil centers his
attack upon our faith. Believe and thou shalt be saved. Believe and thou shalt
be delivered from the oppression of the enemy. Believe and thou shalt have
victory over all the power of the enemy.

To a nervous breakdown such as I experienced, there are always many contributing
causes. The doctors said overwork was the reason. I have never had a strong
body. I was born in India, and malaria had taken its toll from my vitality.
During the years preceding my breakdown I had had several very severe attacks of
intermittent malaria, and the resulting weakness doubtless contributed to the
breakdown. But I am also aware of the fact that I had much unbelief in my mind.
I was often hounded by accusations of failure. I worked too hard to establish my
own righteousness instead of believing. There are subtle forces of darkness in
India that oppose the missionary of CHRIST, and their false accusations and
subtle attacks in the guise of angels of light are well known to every servant
of CHRIST who tries to preach the Cross. I can look back upon my experience and
see that now I am free from much that I did not recognize as oppression before.
And I date my freedom from the date of my deliverance from my nervous breakdown.
Through that experience I have been taught that there is no victory or
righteousness worth anything except that righteousness of CHRIST received by
faith. In Him we have everything, every victory, if we believe.

CHRIST went to Gethsemane to fully and adequately deal with my sin. He wore the
crown of thorns to do away with the curse that rested on my brow. He was
scourged that He might provide ointment and medicine for my infirmities. He went
to the cross to remove the sting of death and sin; into the tomb to break
death’s hold on me. He took my place in Gethsemane, on Calvary, and in the
rock-hewn tomb, that He might deliver me from the power of evil. If it was for
me, then my life must be the proof of the efficacy of His finished work.

How? Through living faith in the power of the risen CHRIST. This is the proof of
His victory that CHRIST desires. He wants to show in my life the greatness and
the power of what He accomplished on the cross in the resurrection.

CHRIST wants my victory over sin to prove Gethsemane. He wants my victory over
the curse and death to prove Calvary. He wants my resurrection into newness of
life to prove the power and reality of His resurrection.

We were studying the subject of the Resurrection in a Bible class in India. The
question was raised, "Why did the Lord JESUS appear only to His disciples after
His resurrection? Why did He not appear to Pilate, to the chief priests and
elders of His people, to the Jews who had rejected and crucified Him?" Many
answers were given, helpful and to the point; but the answer given by one of the
members of the class deserves to be read and pondered by every man and woman who
claims to believe on the Lord JESUS, the risen CHRIST. The answer was this: "Our
Lord wanted His disciples to be the proof of His resurrection."

He did not want the truth of the resurrection to rest upon some miraculous,
awe-inspiring appearance to the world, but upon the victorious lives of those
who believed on Him. Our Lord became incarnate, lived, died, and rose from the
dead in order to transform the lives of those who believed on Him. Therefore He
wanted them to be the proof of His resurrection. He did not rise from the dead
in order to impress the world with the greatness of His miraculous power; so He
did not want His resurrection to be proved by awe-inspiring appearances of one
who had been dead and had risen again. He rose from the dead as one who had
conquered on our behalf. He came forth on the Resurrection morning, the Victor
over man’s sin, not His own, for He never sinned; the Victor over man’s curse,
not His own; the Victor over man’s bondage to death and the fear of death. He
rose to deliver man and to set man free.

The transforming power and the benefits of this Victory were to be obtained
through faith. Therefore, according to the claims of CHRIST Himself, His
resurrection stands or falls with the lives of those who believed on Him. For
this reason it was useless for Him to appear to those whose hearts were sealed
through unbelief. He had gone through Gethsemane, Calvary, and the darkness of
the grave and hell, in order to deliver those who were subject to bondage
because of the fear of death. That deliverance comes to the true believer.

Did the risen CHRIST need historical proofs for the resurrection? Was He
interested in proving before a skeptical, antagonistic world that His disciples
had not stolen His body? Was He anxious that Pilate and Caiaphas should
acknowledge that the hand that had been pierced by the nails, and the body that
had been broken on the cross, had triumphed over all their cruelty? I do not
think so. Do not misunderstand me. I know He arose from the dead in the body. I
know His flesh did not see corruption. But I did not know it until I believed
and met the risen Lord. The Lord JESUS, after the resurrection, was not
interested in Pilate. But He was extremely anxious that Peter and James and
Thomas and the other disciples and believers should know that His hands had
conquered the nails, His head the crown of earth’s curse-born thorns, His feet
the spikes of iron, His face the shame and spitting, His back the cruel scourge,
and His body the horror of the cross. He had undertaken to take Simon, the
Galilean fisherman, and make him into a Peter, the unshakable rock. He knew
Simon had a body, and because that body was subject to pain, weakness, terror,
and death, He wanted to deliver Simon from all fear of those who could harm the
body, so as to make him into a fearless witness of the resurrection. So for
forty days He showed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs to Simon and
to the rest who believed on Him, that through association with Him, the risen
Lord, the victorious CHRIST, they might be prepared for the work of being
witnesses unto Him, and so be able to receive power from on high for their task.

~ end of chapter 11 ~


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  CHAPTER 13: 12 - CHAPTER 12
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CHAPTER TWELVE

The disciples caught the purpose of their Lord. They became witnesses of His
resurrection. When they chose Matthias in the place of Judas, it was in order
that he might be a witness with them of His resurrection. (Acts 1:22). When
Peter preached the first sermon of the church age on the day of Pentecost, he
made the resurrection the theme of his message. (See Acts 2:24-36; Acts
2:38-39). In his second recorded sermon he presents himself as a witness of the
resurrection. (Acts 3:15). In the summary of the life and activity of the early
believers in the 4th chapter of Acts, we read that "with great power gave the
apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 4:33). Study Acts
from this viewpoint.

The evidence is overwhelming that the power of the Spirit manifested itself in
the birth of a band of fearless, joyous, gracious, mighty witnesses of the
risen, victorious CHRIST. Paul, the greatest of them all, to whom the risen Lord
appeared as to a child untimely born, founds his whole message and theology,
yes, his whole life, upon the Resurrection. The onrushing, thunderous,
conquering glory of his life and ministry are epitomized in the scene in the
dungeon at Philippi. His back has been scourged raw. Led into the inner chamber,
his feet have been fastened to the stocks. Cramped and sore, seated in damp,
foul-smelling darkness, he and his companion Silas found themselves checkmated.
Their work has been stopped. Their enemies have triumphed. Is that what they are
now conscious of?

Listen, their songs and prayer at midnight are bearing witness to the presence
of the risen Lord. The inner dungeon and the darkness of midnight hold no
terrors for them. One is with them who was bound in the inner dungeon of hell,
but triumphed gloriously over death and hell. The eyes of the hearts of Paul and
Silas have been enlightened, and He who said, "Lo, I am with you alway (Matthew
28:20)," is with them in the stocks. By the eyes of faith they see the feet that
were bound by spikes of iron to a dreadful cross. Those feet conquered the iron
nails. What are wooden stocks to the Victor of the cross? CHRIST is in them the
hopes of glory! By the eyes of faith they see the back of their Lord, cruelly
gashed by the Roman scourge, but yet victorious. Will their lacerated backs
prove too much for Him who is with them in the dungeon, who after being
scourged, was nailed with His torn and bleeding back to the harsh wood of
Barabbas’ cross? What are wooden stocks to the Conqueror of Calvary? What is the
darkness of the dungeon at midnight to the Victor of the grave? To Paul and
Silas, the most important facts of their immediate environment were not the
visible facts of the dungeon and the stocks and their bleeding backs, but the
invisible facts of the resurrection. "Our bonds, our curse, our sin, our
darkness, our death, our every enemy has been conquered by the risen King who is
with us." No wonder they sang songs and were taken up with the unseen Presence
in prayer.

And the prisoners heard. Never before had they heard songs and prayers coming
from those who had been cast into the inner dungeon. Never before had witnesses
of the resurrection been placed into its stocks. But now there were two men in
its dark bonds who knew the great fact of the triumph of the LIGHT of the world
over the power of darkness. How could they help but sing and pray in triumphant
faith? And because they trusted the great VICTOR and His glorious victory, He
had the chance to vindicate their testimony to the "And what is the exceeding
greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his
mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and
set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:19-20). No
wonder there was an earthquake and a mighty deliverance! There would be more
deliverances today if we knew the risen Lord and were true witnesses of His
resurrection.

The early church was the proof of the resurrection that CHRIST desired. Its
members were His evidences, for the power of the resurrection worked mightily in
them.

~ end of chapter 12 ~


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  CHAPTER 14: 13 - EPILOGUE
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EPILOGUE Are we living proofs of His resurrection? Do we walk with the CONQUEROR
of every bond, the VICTOR over every difficulty, the One who has overcome the
world, the flesh, and the devil? Are we witnesses of the final victory of
CHRIST? If we are not, we do not know Him in the power of His resurrection.

I know a humble mission worker who used to be weak, and frail, and lazy. Almost
overnight he was transformed. He became like a flaming torch. Whereas formerly
he would half-heartedly pray and ask CHRIST if He were really alive, to reveal
Himself; now he spends hours with the UNSEEN, pleading in wholehearted
earnestness for the salvation of the souls of the district where he has been
appointed as worker. Where formerly even Hindus and Moslems would tell him that
he ought to be ashamed to take missionary money and do so little in return, now
he goes from house to house, irrespective of who the inhabitant may be, pleading
with Hindu, Moslem, and Sikh to make peace with CHRIST, the risen, coming KING.
Ask him why the difference. "Because I have met the risen CHRIST," will be his
instant, convincing reply. He is a real witness of the resurrection. My
Christian brothers and sisters, we have been placing the emphasis wrongly.
CHRIST rose from the dead, with one supreme purpose, to make a company of
victors, to bring life and immortality to light, to present to the world a
church of overcomers as the indisputable evidence of His resurrection. The most
significant fact of the universe is the Resurrection. From the invisible world
in which we live, and move, and have our being, comes a living voice, "Behold My
hands and My feet, that it is I, your Lord, the CONQUEROR of sin and death! And
lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Let us walk with our
risen KING, the Prince of life, until the truth and the power of His great
victory swallows up all fear and bondage and sin. Does sin have dominion over
you?

Behold the LAMB of GOD who has conquered the sin of the world. Does the fear of
death and pain bring you into bondage? Behold His hands that have triumphed over
pain and death, and have torn their fetters and bars away. The city of Richmond,
Virginia, at one time grew very rapidly. Its fashionable and wealthy citizens
began to build in a certain district. In the midst of this district was a church
belonging to some poor but very enthusiastic Christians who loved to sing and
pray. Their presence was very objectionable to the proper, prim, and
fashionable. Accordingly, some of those in the neighborhood undertook to secure
signatures to a petition that these enthusiastic worshipers be required to cease
disturbing others. The committee in charge first waited upon an influential,
wealthy Jewish man, who had been one of the first to come into the district.
When they made their object known and requested his signature, he flatly
refused, saying, "If I believed as these people do, that my MESSIAH had come, I
would shout the news from the housetops and proclaim the tidings far and near;
and none could stop me."

O thou that tellest good tidings to this sorrowing, crushed, and bleeding world,
lift up thy voice. Be not afraid. Say unto the cities of India and of all the
earth, Behold thy GOD! The VICTOR over the grave! Sin and sorrow have been
overcome! Death and the grave have lost their sting! Evil has met its Waterloo!
He is risen! Hallelujah! He upon whom all the hosts of sin launched their
concentrated venom in Gethsemane’s bloody horror, was not crushed for long. He
has risen triumphant over sin! Worthy is He to be Saviour! He who bared His
heart to the most cruel blows of tragedy and death -- He is risen, more than
victor! Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Did you not see that it was
my sin, my curse, my sorrow, my pain, and my death that He bore? And because it
was my grief, sorrow, sin, and pain that He bore, when He rose, I looked and
saw, and behold, in His resurrection my death was swallowed up of life; my
sorrow was turned into joy; my defeat was blotted out in the finality of His
victory!

Lord JESUS, make me a living, incontrovertible proof of Thy resurrection! I
stand with the hosts of the disciples of the ages, in the room where we have
closed ourselves in for fear of the unbelieving, cruel world, and suddenly He
stands in our midst, saying, "Peace be unto you!" He shows us His hands and His
side. He breathes on us, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." You see My hands.
They are conquering hands, conquerors of sin, death, and the cross. You see My
side. From it flows the double cure. Henceforth these hands are with you. This
side is ever present. You are witnesses of GOD’s cure for the curse. Tarry until
ye receive power - the resurrection power - then go forth, witnesses unto Me,
the living, victorious CHRIST, CONQUEROR of Gethsemane and Calvary and death."

~ end of book ~


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/cummins-robert-gethsemane/
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