Tokens of His Compassion - Part 7 — Leonard Ravenhill

Jesus' Love and His Rebuke of Hypocrisy

Was he soft? I'll tell you how soft he was. He said to some people that were usurping authority in his father's house, You're a bunch of hypocrites. You're white, etc. That's not very loving language, is it?

He loved his own. I don't ever read where he loved Pharisees or publicans. He loved sinners. We're supposed to love everybody these days. All you do is throw your Bible over the wall and accept some church dogma, but that's not consistent with this.

He finishes the 17th chapter. I've declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them. And then later he says he loved them right to the end.

So now he's going into Gethsemane. I can't recall the hymn, but I remember we used to sing a hymn in England. Go to dark Gethsemane, ye who feel the tempter's power, your Redeemer's conflict see, and watch with him one little hour.

Turn now from the world away, learn from Jesus Christ to pray. I guess you heard hundreds of times people say, I remember the day I was saved. If you're a Nazarene of the old holiness folk, you'd hear them say, I remember the day I was sanctified.

If you go to a Pentecostal church, you'll hear them say, I remember the day that I was born again, I remember the day I was filled with the Holy Ghost. I've never yet heard a person say, I remember the time when I went to Gethsemane.

You ever heard of Gethsemane? In the heyday of his preaching in the Welsh Revival, and he was only 23 years of age, Evan Roberts, who was an oversized man for a Welshman. They're a small race of men, but he was a kind of a giant.

Twelve or thirteen hundred people there, and suddenly he crumbled. You know, like you see those, I'm not facetious here, you see them dynamite those buildings, and they go down like that. And he just went, fell flat, and he groaned, and he roared on the platform in front of twelve or thirteen hundred people.

Somebody was going to lay hands on him, and somebody wise enough said, the Spirit is upon him, leave him. He's having a Gethsemane. It's an awful price to pay. But God gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.

We want the joy, but not the mourning. The garments of praise, but not the spirit of heaviness. Jesus has prayed this awesome prayer, magnificent prayer, majestic prayer. Call it what you will. Again, he's clothed in moral majesty.

Christ's Solitary Suffering and the Call to Sacrifice

He has a sense of unity with his Father, the creator of the universe. But he's going into the most horrendous, unimaginable horror the world has ever known, by himself. Using a hymn, earthly friends may fail and leave us, one day soothe, the next day grieve us, but our Lord will ne 'er deceive us.

He's going into that mockery, that foolish, burlesque of a trial that he had before Pilate, and before a Roman king. He doesn't tremble. What is he girded with? He's girded with the righteousness of God.

He's girded with the fact, this is the way that God has chosen for me. Again, as Bonner says, this is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still? You know, most of us, if we're honest, we want to go to heaven on easy street.

Don't overburden me. Don't talk to me about sacrifice. Don't talk to me about fasting. Don't talk to me about anguish. He's going into this horrible experience of Gethsemane. Read about it when you go home.

The Prophetic Suffering of the Servant in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53

Read the 22nd chapter, pardon me, the 22nd Psalm. He talks about the dogs are waiting for him, and the lions are waiting for him. The devourers are there. The unimaginable darkness that there is there.

All thy billows have gone over me. If I can use it, because I don't know any better language, from that nerve-wracking experience, that torturous experience on his body, his mind, and his spirit. He goes from there to something even darker, it would seem to me.

What's darker than Gethsemane? What's darker than Gethsemane? Well, the judgment hall again. He's deserted. He's alone. Then he goes on his way to the cross. I've read that over and over again this afternoon in Hebrews 13, 13.

Outside the Camp With the Rejected and Unclean

Let us go with him outside the camp bearing his reproach. Here he is, the Holy One of God, who's of holier eyes than to behold iniquity. He's given his back to the smiters. All the horror of Isaiah 53 becomes real.

We're told that by one man's sin, disobedience, sin entered into the world. And because of that, every graveside testifies to the sin of Adam. Every broken life, every jail that's filled with wicked men tonight, every broken home testifies to the sin of Adam.

But then we're told by one man's obedience, many were made righteous. You have this almost word-perfect picture of Jesus there in Isaiah 53. He's wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.

I've often wondered why the disciples didn't leave the judgment hall behind him, cheering him. Master, you told us this was coming up. You said that wicked men will put you to death. Time and again you've read Isaiah 53.

He goes down from a place of judgment to where? To Golgotha. He was always an outsider. To them, he was born outside of marriage. When he becomes a young, aggressive young man, he's put outside of his own family.

They call him a madman. That's hard when your family do that. Later, they put him out of the synagogue. He used to be a great American evangelist, not often quoted, called Alexander. His wife was English.

Crucifixion Outside the City Wall

She wrote a hymn, a children's hymn, we sang almost every week at home when I was a child. There is a green hill far away without a city wall. I wonder why it was without a city wall. Which means, of course, outside the city wall where our dear Lord was crucified.

There he's staggering under his cross, and he's going to where? Well, whether you like it or not, I'll tell you where he's going. He's going to the sewage farm. Read Leviticus. Read Numbers. Where was he going?

He's going outside of the city. Why? Because all malefactors go outside of the city. All lepers go outside of the city. All the unclean go out of the city. All the filth of the city is poured out there, and there he goes.

Nobody applauding. Nobody cheering him. Men scorning him all the way down, I'm sure. They shut out the lip. They laughed him to scorn. And God is silent. This is his beloved son. And then mystery of mystery says it pleased the Lord.

The Lord's Bruising and the Sin-Bearing Sacrifice

It pleased the Lord to bruise him. The Lord hath laid on him every sin you or anyone else ever committed. Some people make a lot of the cross of Jesus. It wasn't the cross that killed him. Sure, it was our sin that killed him.

There used to be a teacher in Edinburgh University, New College Edinburgh, years ago, a century ago. He was a Scotsman, but he had a fantastic knowledge of Hebrew. He taught Hebrew every morning to those university students in the divinity class.

And he always used a Hebrew text Bible as his textbook. He went through Isaiah 53. And one morning he stopped in his lecture and he said, listen to this. He quoted it in Hebrew, then in English. His soul was.