Who for the Joy — Leonard Ravenhill

I want to read you a part of a letter I received just yesterday from a young man somewhere in Illinois. I won't read it all. He just sends his love to us all, gives his name. He says, I'm writing to you representing a local body of believers in so-and-so Illinois.

I won't give any clues. He says something very foolish. I want to come with a party of elders from our church and sit at your feet. But by the time I read this letter, Brother Dale, I wanted to go sit at his feet.

I desire to come and sit with you, with myself and some elders. For how much time could you spare us? We would be happy to come for a few hours. We're willing to travel down any way we can get there and be able to sit with you, share our hearts with you.

Spiritual Hunger and the Manifestation of the Kingdom

We are hungry for the mind of God, Brother Ravenhill. We've been together as a group for about eight years as a body and we've come through much. The Father has been very gracious to us in that time. We have tasted much of the Lord's goodness through the spirit of prayer, having seen the sick healed and on two occasions the dead raised.

More importantly, we have seen precious lives gloriously transformed by the Father as the kingdom realities are again being made manifest among us. We have been, we've suffered much persecution over the past years, which is only increasing at this time.

There have been a few of us beaten for our testimony, for the gospel, as well as some of our numbers kidnapped. We've been written up in major newspapers and being accused of being a cult. In all of these things we have learned more and more to overcome and overcome all real fears.

The most believers only read about, oh that most believers only read about, we've discovered in the word of God. We know that we are living in stark, sorry, there will be some stark relations, realities break out on the nation very shortly.

As a time of ministry of the soul and Eli comes to an end and the work of the Father is more manifested, the Father is purging every passive effeminate American thing out of our spirits and souls and bodies are being brought into a new relationship.

There is so much I could tell you of the mercies of God, how the years are really, we have forged ahead for this, how these things have come to pass. They press upon us with such preciousness of the heart of God is upon us and the blood and the spirit of life are upon us.

We're believing for the body, Hebrews 10 5, that would again fulfill the covenant conditions that he might open the windows of heaven and lift the curse that has rested upon the Israel of God because of disobedience to the heavenly pattern.

As fatherless press, many have sought the Lord with extended fastings as well as the corporate body having been in a perpetual fast over the last two years. That's pretty strong. Right up to this moment, many of us, many of us have spent this time in extended water fasts, obviously meaning they only drink water, desperately seeking the Father on behalf of the body to show us the next step and so progressively take, take us, writing's almost, I wouldn't say it's as bad as mine, but it's not too good.

We have preached publicly in the streets, in the parks, the Lord has had us go to the hungry souls who have gone weary of Babylon and the religion which can only produce unreality in their lives. We have seen precious responses which has been down past the emotional level into the will, thus establishing lives at great cost, bringing forth precious resurrection reality.

The Lord has allowed me to go overseas behind the Iron Curtain and there to be led and there to be touched by lives that have forever put a distaste and hated in me for the superficial Christianity of this nation.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we long to sit with you and consider a privilege from the Lord to make some discoveries in God. Goes on to say something about their own experience. It was this part again because I had a letter this week from another student who's come from Nigeria.

New Testament Christianity and American Superficiality

For years he's wanted to come to America. He's seen all the flashy superficial things, seen the big crusades and what have you got. Came here and found that it's totally unrelated to New Testament Christianity, he says.

My heart is broken. He said the young people in our nation make a commitment American young people don't know a thing about. It's a complete severance from the world. It's a total 24 hour a day commitment to Jesus Christ.

If he says fast for five days, they fast for five days. If he says they fast for 10 days, we fast for 10 days. If he says it's a partial fast, it's a partial fast. If it's complete fast, it's a complete fast.

I remember more than once Dr. Tozer said to me, you know Len, I'll be gone. You'll still be around and here I am unfortunately for some people. But he said, you know, you live to see people come from other countries to preach the gospel to America.

To show us what New Testament Christianity really is. Well, I'd welcome it. Would you welcome that brother Dale? I would welcome it, but it's a sad thing it has to be that way, but it looks as though it will be.

Anyhow, here he is. They've been persecuted, they've been beaten, they have had some of their people kidnapped. Nobody bothers, they're only Christians. If it was Patty Hearst, of course, they'd turn, is it Patty?

Oh yes, and they said the wrong Patty. Anyhow, Patty Hearst, they'd turn the nation upside down for her, wouldn't they? Because her dad is a millionaire. These are just Christians. I love to read that phrase in Hebrews 11, which in which it says, to stimulate the faith of people who are getting wobbly and afraid and ashamed because they're having to hide away.

They were reminded of some people we don't know a thing about, and it says they wandered around in sheepskins and coats and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented. The world says this is junk.

These aren't fit to be third-class citizens. And God turns the whole jolly old thing around, he says, of whom the world isn't worthy. They think they're not worthy that they should be around in our community.

And God says, hold it a minute, your boot's on the other foot. The world is not worthy of these people. Oh my, what revelation is going to be up there in heaven? What changes? Well, I better get reading or we'll be here all night.

The Cloud of Witnesses and the Call to Endurance

Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews 12. Well, that's a wonderful word, wherefore, which means, of course, because of this, because of what? Well, because of what happened in chapter 11. We're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.

Now, who's a great cloud of witnesses? Is a great cloud of witnesses the people cataloged in Hebrews 11? Again, a bunch, I say that they stun me, they knock me out every time I read it, really many times, when I get through my tears.

This marvelous crew of people in Hebrews 11, super saints, if you like. And again, the thing that really gets to me, knocks me flat. With all their marvelous achievements, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, women received their dead raised to life again, and not one of them ever had a Bible.

I say reverently, God Almighty, help us. God hasn't another thing to say to the human race. He said every word in the scriptures. Or is that lovely hymn, Our Firmer Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord, says, What more can he say than to you he has said?

God has nothing else to say. It's for us to dig in, as this precious brother says, we want to get in line with the will of God. Here's a bunch of young men willing to come all the way from where they live up, Illinois.

Expense, inconvenient, they're not rich people. I had pastors from all over the nation yesterday. Thought I'd have a quiet day. I had seven pastors, one from Illinois, one from West Virginia, two from Lufkin, Texas, and I don't know where the others were from.

But all of them eager for God. All of them saying, Mr. Rainer, we've got to a plateau. We can't fight with the weapons we've got. We're treading water. There has to be something. There is something. No, no, forget it.

There is not something. There's somebody. We're not dealing with a something, an abstract, a cloud that blows across the sky. We're talking with a person, infinite in majesty and glory and wisdom, with resources that we're too lazy to get.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let me see who I think the cloud of witnesses are. I suggest the world you and I live in. Well, Shakespeare said it's a stage.

He was right sometimes. The great cloud of witnesses. Who are they? Well, I think that these people in Hebrews 11 that have gone upstairs there, they've gone into glory. I think that we are being watched every day by three kinds of people, three circles, if you like, in this arena.

I believe there are demons not living in people that are up there in the outer atmosphere. I believe there are angels and I believe there are human beings all around us. A great cloud of witnesses. Because of this, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us.

I once heard somebody misread that, but I thought it was good they said the sin which does so easily upset us. The weight and the sin. The sin is inside. The weights are outside. The weights are habits.

The weights are things that we've got used to having in our lives. They're hindrances. They're impediments. And we can lay them aside ourselves. Let us lay aside. Don't ask angels. Don't ask God Almighty.

Do it yourself. Make up your mind to do some disrobing. Get rid of some things that are superfluous in your life. Looking unto Jesus. Well, the question is who else is it to look to? Looking unto Jesus.

Looking to Jesus as Lord of All

There's nobody else worthy of our utter total slavish devotion but Jesus. And he's worthy of nothing less. Again, if he isn't Lord of all in your life, he isn't Lord at all. I do not believe in departmental sanctification.

I don't believe you can have a sanctified tongue without a sanctified heart. I don't believe you can have a sanctified mind without sanctified hands. I love that prayer of Paul to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, where he prays the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly.

People say, well, sanctification only means separation. Read the first epistle of Corinthians. Those people are the most separated from the world, the flesh, the devil, and habits of any people on God's earth.

And he's still praying for their sanctification. In chapter 3 of the first epistle, he says he's praying that their faith, I want to see you. I'm praying night and day. He's not praying for the overthrow of the Roman Empire.

He's not praying for the conversion of the rabbi. He says, I'm praying for you, the elect of God. And this is what I'm praying. I pray night and day. You knock my sleep away. I can't do my normal course of life.

You burden me. Not harlots, not drunks, the church of the living God. I got to preach Sunday morning over at the, I don't know what to call it, what do you call it? Worldwide Outreach or something anyhow.

Dave Wilkerson's praise. Boy, I got a burden from the Lord about that. Okay, so Paul is not praying for revival in the world. He's not praying for the Roman Empire. He's not praying for the Romans to release their hold of the nation.

He's not praying for the rabbis to be converted. He says, I'm praying for you, God's people. You're already missionary hearted. He says, you've already turned from idols to serve the living God. We say they're already sanctified.

He says they're not. He says, I'm praying that I may see your face and supply that which is lacking in your faith. They had faith, but it was imperfect. It begins the second epistle in the first chapter by saying, I rejoice that your faith groweth exceedingly.

You don't, your faith doesn't grow by sitting in a chair. When I talk to young people, I used to talk to young people, they won't listen, I'm too old now. I used to say that my, my muscles are hard to find.

Because you see, I never chopped trees down. I've never done any muscular work, so my muscles haven't got better. Now, if I sit in a chair reading how to put an inch and a half on my muscles, and four inches on my chest, and three inches on my thighs, will it do any good to sit in a chair?

I can memorize the whole thing backwards away. I've got to put it into action. That's what faith does, it grows in action. But he says now, I pray that you, I may see your face and supply that which is lacking in you.

God has answered my prayer. Your faith groweth exceedingly. And though their faith is growing exceedingly. It says in the fifth chapter, verse 23, I'm praying this, the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly.

That's not h-o-l-y, it's w-h-o-l-l-y. The sanctify wholly, entirely. And in case you want to fill the blanks in, there's no blanks to fill in, because he fills them in. Sanctify you wholly, your whole spirit and soul and body.

Well, that's all a man has. He wants the total, total being, from the soles of their feet to the crown of their head, to be God-related and God-governed and God-energized and God-edified. Nothing less than that is going to move our generation to God.

They're not thrilled with miracles. They don't fall down prostrate watching these boys on TV beg for money. The church is going to have to move into a new dimension. And God knows how much I pray for that in this area.

Otherwise, I'd like to leave the area and ask God to take me to glory. We can't live what, what René called a normal Christian life. If this is normal, I'd rather be subnormal. You know, we're so subnormal, if ever we become normal, we'll think we're abnormal.

We've seen so little, we understand so little, we reach out for so little. We're still like children playing in the market. Somebody comes, God works. He pipes, but we don't dance. He mourns, but we don't weep.

Considering Jesus' Endurance Under Contradiction

We're going to look to Jesus. Okay, this is what I put about this here. Looking to Jesus. No one else is worthy of our utter slavish devotion. We look to him constantly. We look to him trustfully. We look to him submissively.

We look to him lovingly. We look to him joyfully. Looking unto Jesus, why? Verse 3, because he is the fire leader. Number 3, verse 3. Consider him that endured such. We need to put an emphasis on that such.

It should strike in us wonderment. It should strike in our hearts worship. He considered such. Consider him that endured such. It's a word you can hardly explain. You'll say, oh, it was, oh, it was such a meeting.

Oh, it was such a big thing. It conveys something you can't expect, except it strikes up wonder. It strikes up new desire in you, at least it should. He suffered what? Contradiction of sin. Do you like to be contradicted?

Why doesn't he slip back to heaven and get out of the way of the whole savage gang of them? Religiously, they were dumb. Religiously, they were set in their ways. They were Pharisees. They were Sadducees, Historicists.

But he endured. That's a key word, of course, in this epistle. He endured such, such contradiction, such bitterness, such maliciousness. Do you remember in John 7, 27, when he went into the temple? Sure, I would like to write on the moral, moral majesty of Jesus.

There's a contract out for him. As soon as he comes through the door, put him to death. And the crowd say, well, you said you put him to death. There it is. Why don't you do it? What did they say? You know, I don't know how he got through the crowd.

I don't know how he got to the podium. He shouldn't have been in the temple. I've reminded you before, the first previous six days, at a given signal, a trumpet blast, the gates of the great big temple are open.

The choir went down the main aisle. They went to the pool of Siloam. They had a golden urn. They dipped it in the pool. They came back. They put it out in the temple to remind them of the time when God split the rock and supplied them with water.

For six days they did that. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus went and stood at that very spot and raised his hands to maybe 3 ,000 people, for he could see, he could at least, standing up, they didn't see it, 5 ,000 could get there.

And he stood there on the last day of the feast and said, if any man thirsts, that's insulting. This is a Jewish monopoly. Why do you tell him, if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. Who is this man?

Does he think he's God? They get very angry about it, but this is what they say in chapter 7, verse 27 of John. That's right, I think, John 7, 27. We know who he is. Do you know what that implies? He's a bastard.

You think that's strong language? Preachers declared that years ago. They said he was born illegitimately, therefore he has no right in the temple. And to stand there and usurp the authority of the high priest of all people.

We know who he is. He's trying to put one over on us. It's implying that he is not the Son of God, therefore he's born illegitimately. He endured the contradiction of sinners. I believe from the very first day that Jesus, at 12 years of age, went into the temple, from then until he was crucified, every day he was harassed.

Every day he met opposition. Every day they planned his death. Every day they resisted him. And yet he endured. Well, if he endured contradiction of sinners, why can't we endure? The same thing is said in verse 17, if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with your sons.

Anybody ask for chastening? Did you pray in your prayer today, Lord, chasten me, please get me chastened by four o 'clock tonight? Huh? Or did he say, Lord, protect me, it's a rough world and things aren't quite right, and that blouse I ordered at Harris' there was the wrong shade, and a few other trials?

Huh? How can you say, Lord, I want to be chastened? I don't want to be a bastard, I want to be a son, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. You know, very often I think we ask God to take things off us that he put on us for our good.

If I took you out in the sunshine today, say, what do you want to do? I want to show you the stars. The what? The stars. The sun shining brilliantly, I want to show you the stars. How can you do it? Well, let's say on Brother Dale's property, there's an old well there, it's a hundred feet deep.

We'll lower you down into that well, and when you've gone into the darkness of the well, you can see every star in the sky. Why can't you see it here? Because there's so many other lights flashing, radiance from the sun, other particles in the air that give us light and cut us off.

And the reason God put you in a hole is that you wanted to see the stars. You can't see them where you are now. What does John say? Our fellowship is what, with who? With who? Our fellowship is with the Father, and with who's the next?

His Son, Jesus Christ, and with one another. Do you know what we do? We've turned it around. We make fellowship with one another, number one. I like fellowship as much as anybody, but for years I was cheated, because I think if I ran to meetings every night, I'd get more spiritual.

That's about the best way to get dissipated, worn out nervously, worn out physically. In the darkest place, here's a man in a dark hole. I say, how long have you been here? He says, two years. Well, why don't you get up and do a healing crusade?

You raise the dead, go and cast out scribbling every day. I've been watching you now for two years, scribbling notes. Why don't you get up and do something? Well, thank God nobody discouraged him. It happened to be a man called Paul that was writing epistles.

The loneliness we don't like. We're made for fellowship. You've only got to say that somebody down the road has a word of knowledge. Boy, we'll be there. There's a man up the road that has the word of God, but what's the word of God when you've got a guy here with a word of knowledge?

Isn't it more interesting and fascinating to hear a man with a word of knowledge? Maybe the wrong knowledge, but that fascinates you anyhow. How many times and how many seminaries have you been to? Seminars, I mean.

They're about as dead as seminaries, anyhow, many of them. Go through the same process. Well, where are you now? Remember the dear old black lady in the hood went to the fair and there was one of these, we call them roundabouts in England.

What do you call them, carousels or something? Merry-go-round. Oh, merry-go-round. You see, there's a voice of experience. I know what you mean. So the lady's, the man says to his wife, Susan, I want to ride on that thing.

Now, Jake, she said, we only have a quarter. Oh, I'd love to ride that thing. All right, here's a quarter. He went round and round and stopped dead where she was. Well, she said, now what? You've been nowhere, you come back and you lost a quarter.

Well, that's just about it with lots of our meetings, isn't it? Oh, I didn't learn too much, but you know, I saw Susie, I haven't seen her for two years, and oh boy, does she look good. And we talked about old days.

You old guys, you should have stayed at home. You see, fellowship with one another, it's so clear. It's nice when you can touch flesh and blood, but when you have to do it in the spirit and there's nobody visible, there's no cheering, no singing.

You know, this singing leads me to heaven nearly. Congregations in America are the worst singers in the world, but we've got the best in Texas here anyhow. He endured contradiction of sinners. I said he endured the bitterness, he endured the severity, he endured the maliciousness.

We know who he is. He endured the protracted experiences. They exhausted all their wicked wit on him, and he never budged. The devil used every hurt he had, and he never turned back. He set his face to do the will of God.

Knowing Christ Beyond Miracles and Activity

Consider him. Don't consider miracles, don't consider all the other stuff that goes around, consider him. I'm determined more than ever this year, to get nearer to Christ than I've ever been in my life.

I want to consider him, I want to know him. This man, after years and years and years of experience, good night, he has had more achievements than a dozen men would have preaching, and he's reaching out in a stinking prison.

He says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. You mean you haven't known him? You've raised the dead, how do you do it? By the power of his resurrection. But I still don't know him. There's a closer walk with God, as Cowper said, a calm and heavenly frame, a light that shines upon the road that leads me to the Lamb.

Two or three times this week I've used that great Quaker poet you had, what was his name, John Greenleaf, which is, he has a song, I wish it was in our book, I don't think it's in our book, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our foolish ways.

That's the American version, that's the English version. The American version is, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our feverish ways. Reclothe us in our rightful mind, in purer lives thy service find, in deeper reverence praise.

Praise. Drop thy still dues of quietness. You know, the dew never falls when there's a wind. And God's dew will never fall on you, rushing here, rushing there, rushing everywhere else. Be still and know that I'm God, is a command as much to be filled with the Spirit.

But it's more exciting to go to a meeting where everybody claps and stamps their feet. Maybe nothing in it, maybe something in it. Drop thy still dues of quietness till all our strivings cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desires, thy fullness and thy balm. Let sense be done, let flesh retire. Speak to the earthquake, the wind or the fire, or the still small voice of calm. I think that's the last stanza.

I didn't look it up, I should have done. It's a beautiful, beautiful, it's got so much in that really gets over my heart. There's an old song that maybe it's in the book, I didn't look. Let it breathe on me, let it breathe on me.

That's what we need, the breath of God. We need more than the word of God, we need more than the messenger of God, we need the breath of God. As an old hymn says, he can be nearer to us than breathing and closer than hands or feet.

What do you think of that? Nearer to us than breathing, closer than hands or feet. If you endure chastening, God is dealing with you. Let me go back to verse 2, a little while here. We have to keep looking unto Jesus.

Do you know that actually, it means keep your eyes glued on Jesus. Do you remember you heard somebody say, you know, oh he's been such a flirt, he looks at every girl. But you know what, this last month he's had eyes for nobody but her.

Why? Because he loves that girl, at least he believes he does. Or she has nobody to look at but him. Looking with your eyes glued on that one, because there's nobody else equal to him. There's nobody worthy of my concentration, nobody worthy of my devotion, nobody else worthy of the exclusiveness that I want to give to him.

Jesus Christ as King and Lord

Looking unto Jesus, I'm a bit weary of hearing him referred to on TV. I don't watch TV anymore anyhow, I haven't done for months. Hearing people say on TV, oh Jesus of Nazareth. I've got news for you, he isn't Jesus of Nazareth.

Paul says in his day, 2 ,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the man that walked the dusty lanes of Galilee, he is now even the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of Don't let the devil kick you around.

We are now, even now, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, at least we should be. This is the normal Christian life, reigning with him, having all things under our feet. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, I want to stress this tonight, the joy that was set before him, well come on, tell me what the joy is.

Oh, he's going to get seminary, is that joyful? He's going to be beaten. Psalm, what is it, the 51st of Isaiah says, his back, I gave my back to the smiters. He's going to have the hair pulled off his face, they're going to spit in his face.

He's going to be whipped like a common thief. He's going to the hell on earth. Why in God's name weren't those disciples there? What a bunch of failures they were. After all the chances they'd had, I would have thought that six of them would be here and six on this side, applauding him as he goes down to the most filthy place in the world, where the lepers live, where the carcasses were thrown, where there were bodies all around like a, like a freeze, decayed corpses, bodies that were just, just skeletons.

He's going down because he goes, the word of God says, what in Hebrews 13, 13, he suffered without the gate. That's where the criminal died, that's where the leper died, that's where the unclean were, that's where the off-scouring were.

That's where every putrid thing of the nation was put, and he was the holiest being the world ever had. Come on now, get off your pettiness. Some trivial thing upset you? I ask you in God's name, how would you and I endure that?

Rejected by his own family, they said he was mad, rejected by the priests, rejected by the nations. They'd read over and over and over again that he would go this way. Have you ever tried to think of Jesus at 12 years of age, plotting his life out according to the prophets?

It's not long now before I'll be scourged, it's not long now before I'll be held up before wicked men, not long before I'll be alone in the garden, not long before I'll be up before the judges, not long before my hand will be riveted to a cross.

He knew every step and yet he never turned back. Who for the joy that was set before him, what was he going to do? I'll tell you a few things he was going to do. After all that I said that the contradiction of sinners, the bitterness, the severity, the maliciousness, the protracted suffering, he says in Psalm 69 verse 20, the reproach has broken my heart.

The Joy Set Before Jesus in His Suffering

But for the joy that was set before him, what was the joy? Do you think it was any joy to be hung on a cross stark naked? Oh, he wasn't stark naked, he sure was. I don't believe there's a stitch on him.

That was part of his humiliation. That was part of the degradation. Once he was nailed to that cross, as a citizen he had no rights in the religious system of the day. You could pick up a rock and throw it at him, you could take rotten fruit, you could take rotten eggs, you could take urine if you want, anything you can pour on him to show him what a filthy rascal he is.

You tried to rub him as it were down in the corruption. He sang the other week that lovely hymn, bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood. I've often wondered what Barabbas felt when he saw Jesus on the cross, he saw his two buddies on either side that he committed murder with and rape and every devilish thing he could, and there's the purest, holiest man in the world in the middle.

And he says, I should be on that cross. Let me tell you tonight, you should be on that cross. And if you really wanted to be spiritual, you would be on that cross. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, if God Almighty wouldn't put up with the old man that it was being crucified in him, he won't put up with the old man living in you.

Who for the joy that was set before him? Is there any joy in being laughed at as God? Oh, he's the king of kings. Look, they put a sign over on his forehead, over his forehead, king of kings. Looks like it, doesn't it?

Is this any way to get a kingdom? He healed others, why doesn't he heal himself? The perennial challenge to the Christian, you make a supreme commitment to God to be nailed to the cross, and your relatives and your preacher most likely will, listen, come down from the cross and save yourself.

God doesn't expect you to be so reckless with your life. You've only one life. Come down from the cross. Notice what it says, he endured it. Doesn't say he enjoyed it. He didn't enjoy the cross. He didn't enjoy bearing the sin of the whole world.

He didn't, he didn't enjoy that blackout when God Almighty put a blind over the sun. The crucifixion was so awesome even Almighty God wouldn't look at it. Nobody ever saw the crucifixion. Not in the exact moment when he became sin, because God put a blind over the sun.

I've forgotten the name of the man I wanted to call. There were two, there was one a Greek and the other an Egyptian. And there's a record that in the moment when Jesus died and the sun was blotted out, that this man wrote in the history books, God must be angry with the world.

And he was a heathen. You say that Jesus wasn't happy. He wasn't rejoicing. No. I'm convinced in my heart that he did not rejoice in what he did. He rejoiced in why he did it. And why he did it, was it was the will of his father.

And he says, father more, more, more if you like. I don't care if you tear my heart in pieces. After all, it wasn't his body that was made in atonement for sin. The Catholics pray on that. It says there in Isaiah 53, he made his soul an offering for sin.

It tore his emotions. There's no emotion of being ever been torn in history. He wasn't smarting for sins. He was smarting for the sin of the whole world. He was doing something that had no precedent. And he was doing something that never had to be repeated.

He is the scapegoat. He is the lamb. He is the perfect sacrifice. He is the darling of God's heart. And God lets him go through all that misery. My heart kind of leapt today as I pondered that. He did not rejoice in what he was doing it, doing.

He rejoiced in why he was doing it. This is the will of my father. And he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. And he says, lo, I come to do thy will, O my God. That's all he came to do. And he did it perfectly, to the satisfaction of God.

Christ's Sacrifice and Redemption

Well, this is what I got out of it. What did he rejoice to do? He rejoiced to be a sin offering. He rejoiced because he knew in that moment when he became blacker than the blackest hell and his father forsook him.

And he says, my God, why dost thou forsake? I can understand Peter and John. There's never too much about them anyhow. They were so volatile. But God, God, God, you're the essence of holiness, the essence of faithfulness.

And now you leave me. And there I am suspended on a cross with the weight of the universe on me. He didn't rejoice, I say, just in what he was doing. He was rejoicing why he was doing it. He knew in the moment when he would cry it is finished, he was going to release people from sins, billions of sins.

He was going to be the sole sacrifice. He was going to be the only redeemer that would last until the end of the ages. He was going to be buried in the ground. He knew he was going down into a prison house.

And he had, according to his own word in Revelation there, I have the keys of death. That has to do with flesh. And of hell, that has to do with spirit. Some stupid people want me to believe the Pope has the keys on his waist.