The Spirit Produces Fervent Devotion to Christ — Zac Poonen

Think of that as the love of God. That means if my assurance of my father in heaven loving me is just this much when I'm born again, my knowledge of my father's love for me must become like a bucket as I grow, must become like a pond, like a river, like many rivers.

So I want to encourage all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, as we conclude this conference, pray that God will give you a tremendous revelation of His love for you. This is the whole secret of the Christian life.

They never could understand it in the old covenant. When you say that the Spirit of God could not dwell within people in the old covenant, they couldn't understand how much God loved them. It is only the power of that love, recognition of that love that God loves us, that's going to make us serve Him till the end of our lives, willing to make any sacrifice.

You think of the early Christians, what is it that made them willing to go to death, to sing when they were being burnt at the stake or thrown to the lions? We faced nothing. What we've got is mosquito bites.

They were thrown to the lions. We should be ashamed of ourselves that we complain about silly little things. Some little petty request of ours, God didn't answer and some believers get all upset about that.

Where do we stand in relation to the early Christians who were thrown to the lions and would sing songs? In my sitting room, I have a big painting of that Roman Colosseum and the early Christians all in torn clothes, few of them kneeling down there and an older person leading them in prayer and lions coming out of the cages to devour them.

I look at it often. My life is very comfortable compared to theirs but I never want to forget that these are my brothers and sisters. These are my forerunners. These are the first spirit-filled people.

They weren't sitting in comfortable chairs singing songs and speaking in tongues and making a lot of noise and jumping and dancing. They were laying down their lives just because they would not say Caesar is Lord.

That's all. They only had to say three words to escape. Caesar is Lord. They say we won't say it. Say Jesus Christ is Lord. I've heard stories how when the lions would come upon them and they would be praising God and every one of them even young girls and without any fear and somebody up in the auditorium would be so convicted seeing that and seeing this is the real faith.

All the idols of worship are nonsense. And he would shout out I'm also a Christian and they would catch him and throw him to the lions too. Imagine that. I think of that and I say Lord make me worthy.

One day when I stand in heaven and I see these people and they ask me for my story, my testimony and they tell me theirs. What will I tell them? But the silly little things I complained about on earth, the worthless mosquito bites that I called problems, I'd be ashamed to open my mouth.

These are our brothers and sisters who have gone ahead of us. I would any day make them my forerunners than all these shallow television evangelists with their million-dollar airplanes fooling simple people.

I have no respect for them. Zero. These are my forerunners. I also have another painting, the one you just saw just now of the father embracing the son. These are the things I look at frequently because I need to remind myself not only of how these people loved the Lord, but also I want to remind myself of the time I came back to my heavenly father and he ran to welcome me when I had dishonored his name and he could have sent me to hell.

I dishonored his name and as a believer, you know, the sins we commit when we are born again, after we are born again, are much more serious than what we commit before we are born again. If you tell a lie after you're born again, to me that's like telling a thousand lies when you're unconverted.

So every little sin becomes magnified. I don't know whether that's happened to you, but I have found as I've come closer to the Lord, sin becomes exceedingly sinful, like the Bible says. That means it's like seeing something under a magnifying glass.

That thing which looked like a small speck is a huge rock. Do you find sin like that? A little bit of a complaining spirit, a little bit of something in your heart and anger that you didn't even express.

Yeah, the only thing that's made me see these things is seeing it all in the light of God's love. The Holy Spirit fills my heart with the love of God, and this has been my testimony. Even though I was converted when I was 19 and a half, I really had a deep and I had an anointing even when I was 23 to be able to preach and it was quite powerful and I had great liberty.

God had gifted me, but in spite of that, I backslid as a preacher. I'm ashamed to say it, but I want to say it for the glory of God, the grace of God that reached out to me and didn't let me go and drew me back and filled me with the Holy Spirit.

It was exactly like that picture. There was a time when I was a sinner. Then I came to the Lord. Then I was a son who'd wandered away like that prodigal son. When I came back, He ran to welcome me, and that's what I can never forget.

Then I owe my whole life to Him. I thought of, you know, when I was first converted, there was a little picture the Lord gave me in my little immature Christian way. I felt, I think in pictures. I read the Bible and I see pictures and it helps me to understand scripture better.

That's how I preach also. Because I see that Jesus always spoke in pictures. And one of the pictures I saw was myself. I don't mean a vision. It was just in my mind. I saw myself as someone about to cross a road and a massive truck came in.

I didn't see it. It was about to run me over. And someone came and pushed me out of the way just in time. And he got run over. He didn't die, but his legs were completely crushed and broken. This is the picture.

It's like a parable. And I go to see this man in the hospital with his amputated legs. And I used to think, I was only about 20, 21 then. What would I tell him? Will my thank you for doing that for me, will that be sufficient?

I owe my life to him. I would be dead if it were not for him, but he's lost his legs. I would say, listen, I don't know what I can do for you in return, but if ever in your life you need anything, anytime, just call on me.

I'll drop the most important thing I'm doing. And I'll come. I don't care where I am. I'll fly around the world or anything. I'll come to help you. You just got to give me a call. I will not wait one moment.

That's how I decided to commit myself to the Lord. I owed my life to him and I said, Lord, I will never again live for my own ambitions. I have none. I'll never again live to make money on earth. I owe my entire life to you.

I wouldn't be alive if it were not for you. I don't know whether you have seen the love of God like that and responded to him. Not a... See, so much of the way a lot of people are asked to give to God now is so commercial.

God is like a banker offering a higher rate of interest than some of these other banks. That's how some preachers preach. Come and give your money to this ministry. God will bless you with a better job, better house.

This is all business. I don't know how in the world Christianity has descended to this level. The merchantmen have come into the temple. What surprises me more is the thousands of Christians who sit and watch all this with their mouths open wondering.

He's not a man of God. He's a trickster. There's hardly anybody available to expose him. If Jesus was here, he would just take the whip and chase them all out. And I'm not afraid of saying it. Some of these people claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues and all.

I don't believe it at all. Because of one reason. When the Holy Spirit filled me, he freed me from the love of money. These people love money. What type of baptism in the Holy Spirit is that? That makes you love money more.

It should make you like Jesus. But these people are not like Jesus. I don't respect them at all. I say this. There's a need to expose these things because nobody else exposes them. There was nobody to expose the Pharisees till Jesus came along.

And because he exposed them, people like Peter and James and John were freed. Some people say you shouldn't criticize any of these people. You may be blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I said, rubbish. I'm not afraid of all that.

The Bible says, Beloved, believe not every spirit. 1 John 4 verse 1. But test the spirits. Do you do that? When you listen to a preacher, do you test his spirit? Do you see whether he's interested in your money or he's interested in your soul?

Do you see whether he's attaching you to himself or drawing you to Christ? So important in these days. These are days of deception. I want to test the spirits. Does listening to him make you want to give your money to him or make you want to give your life totally to Jesus?

That's the test. And I found when the Spirit of God, you know, I was in this backslidden state as a preacher and I came to the place where I said, Lord, I won't continue preaching anymore because I'm just a hypocrite.

That's when the Lord met me. And instead of sending me to hell, he filled me with the Spirit. And I learned one thing that day. That God does not give the Holy Spirit to those who deserve him. He gives to those who don't deserve him.

Because I certainly did not deserve the Holy Spirit when God filled me. I fear that some of you are waiting to deserve the Holy Spirit. You're going in the wrong direction. Turn around. You will never deserve the Holy Spirit.

You will never deserve to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The day you recognize that, you'll be ready to be filled. Because we've heard so many testimonies of people who fasted and prayed and cried out for the Holy Spirit.

I didn't cry out and fast and pray for the Holy Spirit. I said, Lord, I'm such a rotten sinner. What can you do for me? I'm so defeated by sin. That's what I want deliverance from. Please help me. And that's why God filled me with the Spirit.

I was needy. Are you needy? You know, in the Old Testament, there's a promise that I'll pour water upon him who is thirsty and who is needy. Let the poor and needy cry out for water. I, the Lord, will hear them and drench them.

I believe that's what the Lord is looking for. And when we respond to the Lord like that, it's not a business transaction. It's a love relationship. I say, Lord, I love you. And I want to give myself to you completely.

And since that time, that was 41 years ago, nearly. And since that time, more and more, the Lord's been revealing to me his love tremendously and an intimacy with him, you know, where the Lord sometimes tells me things and says, I don't want you to tell anybody else this.

This is only between me and you. You can tell your wife, but don't tell anybody else. You know, it's become a very intimate relationship. Do you have experiences like that where you feel broken and you're just feel like John the Apostle fell down into the Lord's feet as a dead man?

I've had experience like that many times. Lord, you're so wonderful. It's that daily devotion to Christ that's the mark of being constantly filled with the Holy Spirit. If that's not there, my brother, sister, all your Christianity is just a ritual.

It can get boring after a while. My Christianity is not boring. It's never boring. Even the accidents that have along the way. I was once riding my scooter in Bangalore, in India, and I'll never forget this incident.

It happened in 1993, August, 1993. And it was 22 years ago. And I was about to cross a railroad crossing. And they have those bars across either side of the railway line. And they're operated manually in India.

You know, somebody sits in a booth there and raises these one by one. So this man had raised one. I think he was a new guy over there. I was not very familiar with the technique. He raised one bar and I went through.

I was the first person in line and I went through. And he had raised the other one, but then suddenly lowered it. I don't know whether he suddenly realized the train was coming or something. And I went bang into it and fell off the scooter and hit my head on the railway track.

And I was unconscious. I, till today, I don't know how long I lay there because I don't know anybody else who saw me. And I don't know how much later I came to. But when I came to my senses, I saw my moped, my two wheel moped was standing up there.

Somebody had put it on the stand. And I was wondering what happened. I was all shaken. And my shoulder was dislocated and had a crack in my skull. Anyway, I was pulled up before any train came by and I was, I mean, I was alive.

And I went to the hospital and Santosh was there at that time. He drove me to the hospital. That's how I discovered there was a crack in my skull. And I said, Lord, I have not finished saying thank you to you for dying for me.

You've got to give me a few more years to say thank you to you for dying for me. He's given me 22 more years. I want all my life and my service to be like that. I don't want any reward. I don't take any pay for my services anywhere.

In any church, I say, Lord, I live very simply. I don't need any money. What I get is more than enough for me. If people give something, it goes to the church and the ministry to the poor people in India.

God takes care of me, but I will not serve you for money. Never. It's out of love. What would you think of a wife? I am the Lord's wife. I am. That's my relationship. And like I said the other day, I'll never forget that he waited 19 and a half years at the wedding altar for me to come.

Any other bridegroom would have walked away earlier. And I'll never want to forget that till my dying day, that he waited for me. And so, what would you think of a wife who serves her husband if he'll bring flowers for her or buy clothes for her?

That's a pathetic marriage relationship. A real marriage is one where bride wants nothing. My wife and I have had a very happy relationship. She's never asked me to buy clothes for her, these expensive clothes so many wants.

It's not what I, my relationship is like that's not with her. We live with what we have and buy with whatever little we have, whatever we need. It's like that, my relationship with the Lord. I want to ask all of you, is your relationship with Jesus Christ like that?

That's how the fullness of the Spirit, that's the difference it made in my life. And I want to share a revelation that God gave me, which many of you heard me on before. I've mentioned it and I never get tired of saying it because I think of that song.

He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own. He took my sins and my sorrows and He made them His very own. And He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone. How shall I respond?

How marvelous, how wonderful. This is love for a sinner like me and when with the ransomed in glory, that day is coming soon, His face I at last shall see. It will be my joy through the ages to sing of His love for me, that's all.

I don't want any mansions in heaven. There are other people looking for that. What will I do with a 14 bedroom mansion in heaven? You can have it. What will I do with crowns on my head? I'll throw them all at the feet of Jesus.

I don't want any of these things, I'm not looking for these things. To tell you honestly, I'm not waiting to go to heaven, I'm waiting to be with Jesus. A lot of people are waiting to go to heaven, I'm not.

I told the Lord, I'd be happy to go to hell if you're there because it will become heaven for me. Is it like that for you? That's what the fullness of the Spirit did to me. I never get tired of serving the Lord because it's a love relationship.

I read a verse in Genesis chapter 29 and verse 20. You know when Jacob fell in love with Rachel, Laban's daughter, he said I want to marry her and Laban said you got to work for seven years to get her.

Imagine that, working seven years to get a girl. Would you do that? Jacob loved her so much. But the thing that came home to me in Genesis 29 verse 20 was, I read this as a very young man when I was about 20 years old.

Jacob served seven years for Rachel and it seemed unto him but a few days because of the love he had for her. And I said Lord Jesus, if a man can serve seven years for a girl and it seems like a few days, how should I serve you?

I said Lord I'll serve you. I said this when I was 20, more than 55 years ago. I said Lord I'll serve you all my life and it'll only be like a few days. Now I say after 55 years or 56 years, it has been like a few days for me.

I'm ready to serve the Lord another 56 years. It's not money. I never wanted money from God. It's love. There are things people will do for love they'll never do for anything else. And if your Christian life is not satisfying, exciting.

My life is extremely satisfying and exciting. I'm not pretending. I'm not pretending at all. I say before God, the joy of the Lord fills my heart when I serve him. It's because it's a love relationship.

The Spirit of God flooded my heart with love. Sometimes I lie in my bed and I say Lord you can take away everything from my life. You can paralyze me. You can take away my ability to speak that I'll never preach again.

Paralyze my hands that I'll never write another book again. I'll never be able to travel. I'll lie in this bed and I'll be a worshipper. Because that's what I'm going to do for eternity in any case. I'll worship you and love you with all my heart.

That can't be stopped by paralysis or anything. I'm not a servant primarily. I'm a worshipper. My favorite songs are not go out into the vineyard. No. My favorite songs are my God how wonderful thou art.

Thy majesty how bright. How beautiful thy mercy seat in depths of burning light. I sing that often. Father of Jesus loves reward. What rapture it'll be prostrate before your throne to lie and gaze and gaze on thee.

Are you a worshipper? When you're filled with the Holy Spirit you become a worshipper. Jesus said you shall worship and then you shall serve. I'm always serving. I'm traveling almost all the year here and there everywhere.

There's never a Sunday throughout the year that I'm not preaching somewhere. And I'll keep going till my dying day if God gives me help. Or till the Lord comes again. I hope that's earlier. But I want to say to you what a wonderful thing it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Flooding our heart with the love of God. Your life will be exciting every day. Like it says in Proverbs 14 14. Beautiful verse. The Living Bible paraphrases it as the godly man's life is exciting. If your Christian life is not exciting I want to say to you you're not a godly man.

You're just a religious Christian. True Christianity when you're filled with the Spirit is exciting. My family life is exciting. Honestly. I'm excited. I'm not the perfect husband. There are many shortcomings in me.

But I try my best. I make mistakes and I repent. I apologize and set things right and try to do it better. I'm not the perfect father. I apologize to my children as well when I do it wrong. I have apologized to my co-workers.

I'm not a perfect man. I don't deliberately sin. That's gone out of my life. I cannot. How can I hurt my Savior? How can I put another nail into His hands? I've already put enough nails into His body.

I'm not going to hammer any more nails into His hand. Accidentally I slip up now and then. That's different. I immediately repent and come. But it's love that drives me. I wish it would be like that for all of you.

It will change your life completely. I was telling you about this revelation I got which I've shared before. About the love of Jesus for me. As a child and all through my life I saw His love on Calvary.

Dying for me. But I saw a deeper understanding of that when I tried to understand His love for me in Gethsemane. When He was praying to the Father. Father, please don't let me drink this cup. Paraphrasing His words.

Is there any way I can get out of this? There was never a time in Jesus' life when He prayed like that. He always wanted to do His Father's will. But when it came to the cross, He said, He wasn't afraid of physical death.

Far from it. He would have gladly died 10 ,000 physical deaths on Calvary for me. That was something He was shrinking from. And for more than 16 years of my Christian life, I never understood what it was.

But I've always had a passion to find out something in the scripture that I couldn't figure out what it was. And I wanted the real answer. I never wanted a superficial answer that some theologian who studied in a seminary went to the Greek and Hebrew and gave me an answer.

I couldn't care less for those people. I wanted someone who went to the Holy Spirit. And I never, never read a book or heard a message in my life that told me what was the cup that Jesus shrank from. I'm not saying I'm the only one.

Maybe somebody has written about it somewhere or spoken about it somewhere. I never heard it in my life. Maybe you have. If you heard someone speak about it, tell me. I'd like to know who it was. When I was seeking God, I was trying to think, what is the cup?

It was not physical death. He was not afraid of that. I mean, think of the martyrs who would go singing to the grave. I can't imagine Jesus getting scared to go to Calvary. But there was something more serious than physical death he was afraid of.

And I tried to think about it, meditate on it. And the Lord gave me a revelation. The thing that Jesus valued most of all, from all eternity and throughout his earthly life was fellowship with the Father.

You and I have not valued it enough, but from that day, I began to value it more. Jesus never wanted to sin because it would break fellowship with the Father. Even a slight sin, one wrong thought would break fellowship with the Father.

He didn't want it. I don't know how many of us feel that way about sin. It was impossible for him to get angry concerning himself. You know, he had righteous anger. Like if somebody wouldn't let other people get healed, he was angry with them.

Or if somebody was making money in the name of religion, he'd get angry with them. But if they spat on him and killed him or called him the devil, he's always forgiven. And he was never angry. Anger because somebody hurt me or spoke evil of me is always evil.

But I must be angry when it concerns the glory of God, which has got nothing to do with me. So, Jesus had never sinned. He never wanted to sin because it's fellowship with the Father. And he knew as he approached the cross, now something's going to happen that's going to break my fellowship with the Father.

Because, you know, we've always heard of Jesus dying on the cross. He died for my sins. Christ died for my sins. He died for my sins. And that is to me the elementary understanding of Christ's death. And there are these movies called The Passion of Christ where you see Jesus whipped and beaten and bleeding and all that.

And you feel like crying. Oh Lord, you suffered so much for me. But it's all physical. Let me ask you. All of you know the scriptures well. What is the punishment for your sin? How should God punish you and me for our sin?

Is it by whipping? Is it by putting a crown of thorns on your head? Think of all the things that Jesus suffered. If that was what is the punishment for sin, okay, supposing God says, okay, I won't punish Jesus, I'll punish you.

What should he do to me to punish me for my sin? Whip me, beat me, put a crown of thorns on my head, nail me to a cross, kill me. I'm ready to do that. If physical death is the punishment for my sin, when I die, whichever way I die, I've paid the punishment.

I should go to heaven. I can die myself. Everybody should go to heaven because they died, they paid the punishment. And for years I used to think, Jesus died physically, that was the punishment for my sin, till I began to meditate on it.

I said, that's not the punishment for sin. The punishment for sin is eternal hell. And if Jesus did not suffer that, then he has not paid the price for my sin. However much he may have been beaten, however long he hung on the cross, or how many nails were driven into him, he has not paid the price for my sin, if he did not suffer eternal hell.

And my definition of hell, as I understood scripture, was the worst thing about hell is not the worms that never die. It's not the fire. It's not the gnashing of teeth. It's the fact that it's the only place in the universe which is completely forsaken by God.

We talk of a God-forsaken place. There is only one God-forsaken place in the universe. That's hell. No place on earth is forsaken by God. No man on earth is forsaken by God. If men and women were forsaken by God, every human being would be demon-possessed.

Everybody on the streets would be demon-possessed. Demon-possessed, they'll kill each other and kill you and me. Why are they not demon-possessed? Because God has not forsaken the world. The little beautiful babies that are born into the world prove that God has not forsaken this world.

Even terrorists have beautiful babies born to them. It's not only saintly people who have beautiful babies. People are healthy, who are godless atheists. All these things prove that God has not forsaken this world.

There's so much of beauty and goodness in the world. He gives everybody air to breathe and water to drink. And billions and billions of people. God has not forsaken this world. Even the atheists. But there is one place, only one.

That's hell. And because we don't understand a simple statement like God forsaken. God forsaken doesn't mean anything to us. Because human beings are so carnal and earthly that Jesus had to use picture language.

Just like he used picture language for heaven. Mansions, crowns. Because mansions and crowns are big things on earth. Gold on the streets. You say, wow. That's the way he's trying to show the valuable things on earth to make us understand heaven is such a wonderful place.

You get to heaven, you may find it's not like that. It's going to be the glory of Jesus. But if you say the word glory of Jesus, that doesn't appeal to carnal men. People don't understand that. So God, he has to use the mansions there.

The crowns there. And so when he has to describe, he says hell is a God forsaken place. God forsaken, what does it mean? So he has to use picture like fire. Worms that never die. Etc, etc. But that's not the main thing about hell.

There may be no worms in hell, there may be no fire. It's all picture language. It's much worse than that. Fire will be a million times better. Worms biting you all the time will be a million times better than real hell which is God forsaken.

The demons forsaken by God. That's what made them evil. And those who go to hell will become saturated evil. That's why we want to save people from going there. And the only thing that will take people to hell is sin.

Not sickness. Nobody goes to hell for getting cancer. That's why I keep on preaching. You've got to hate sin more than you hate sickness. You've understood the seriousness of sin if you hate sin more than sickness.

If you're disturbed because you got a little tummy upset or a little fever or a little cough or a cold and that disturbs you so much or somebody's got an infectious disease and you want to stay away from them and you don't stay away from sin a hundred times more than that.

You haven't understood the seriousness of sin. You've understood the seriousness of disease. You've been educated. Oh, I don't want to go near people who got infection. But we don't look at sin that way because we haven't seen the seriousness of it.

It breaks fellowship with God. No sickness can break your fellowship with God. Not cancer, not AIDS, not Ebola, nothing. But one little angry word, one angry word you spoke to somebody your fellowship with God is broken.

We take that so lightly. That's why we don't apologize. That's why we don't ask forgiveness. Because we don't value fellowship with God. It's very difficult for God to explain to us how much Jesus valued fellowship with God.

That was the cup. He said, Oh Father, don't take it away. Because he knew that for three hours fellowship with God will be broken on the cross. He had to say, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

The only time in the entire history of Christ that he ever called his father God. He never called him by that name in heaven. He never called him by that name during his entire life on earth. It was always Father.

Father, Father. But for three hours on the cross. The first three hours was okay. He would still call him Father. Father, forgive them. For they don't know what they're doing. We know it was still father-son relationship.

But in the last three hours it was not father-son. It was God, the judge of the universe and a criminal hanging on the cross bearing the sins of humanity. A criminal. One who had never committed a crime.

My sin. He didn't die. He was forsaken. That hell which we picture as fire, worms and everything not for one or two days but for eternity is what Jesus experienced in a concentrated way. You know how sometimes you can concentrate poison and the concentration of eternal hell is concentrated into three hours and Jesus faced it.

It could be done because we are finite beings and what finite beings experience in eternity an infinite being like Jesus can experience even in ten seconds. Because infinity makes it possible to experience eternal suffering.

In a short time. So because he was an infinite being in three hours he could experience the agony of hell that I would experience if I went there. That's what he experienced on the cross. And what was the worst part of it?

Break of fellowship with the father. Which we don't understand that, you know. We don't think of break of fellowship with the father as a serious thing at all. I told you that's why we don't immediately confess sin.

I mean if the lights went off in our house suddenly we'd immediately do something. I mean did the fuse blow or did something trip and let me fix it. But why don't we respond like that when we've committed a small sin because we don't live in that intense fellowship with the father that we feel is broken.

The lights have gone out. When you commit a small sin in your life think of the smallest little one bad thought against somebody else. One bitter thought against somebody else. Do you suddenly feel hey the lights have gone out in my life.

Do you feel like that? If you grow in the fullness of the spirit and allow your heart to be enlarged as you walk the way of the cross that is the place God will bring you to. Where you'll feel the lights have gone out in your heart because you thought of something that is bad towards someone.

Not as a temptation but you relished it. If it only came into your mind it was a temptation. But if you relished it, it was a sin. If you were tempted with a dirty thought that's temptation but if you relished it then it's a sin.

The lights went out. You spoke one unloving word to your marriage partner. The lights have gone out. Do you feel like that? We don't value fellowship with the father. We value it so much that we read in Hebrews 5 that he prayed with loud crying and tears.

Hebrews 5 .7 I don't know whether you know them. Have you ever thought of this verse? In the days of his flesh, in the 33 and a half years that he lived on earth. That's the meaning of the days of his flesh.

He prayed with prayers and supplications. This is not referring to Gethsemane. This is referring to the 33 and a half years on earth. The days of his flesh. Not the last day of his flesh. Scripture is exact.

In the days of his flesh, that's the first clarification that proves that it was referring to his whole life. He prayed with prayers and supplications with the loud crying and tears. I don't know whether he prayed loud in Gethsemane.

I don't think so because if he prayed loud Peter, James and John would have woken up. Can you sleep in the presence of somebody who is praying loud and crying? I don't think so. Peter and James were fast asleep.

He wasn't praying with loud crying and tears in Gethsemane. It was at other times. You know why it says he used to go off into the wilderness to pray? And what did he pray for? He wasn't praying for the silly things Christians pray for.

He wasn't praying for houses and lands and vehicles and chariots to travel from Jerusalem to Nazareth or any such thing. He was praying to be saved from spiritual death. Not from physical death. He would never pray to be saved from physical death.

And we know it is spiritual death because it says next, he was heard. His prayer was answered. His prayer, he was not saved from physical death. So what prayer was heard? He was saved from spiritual death which is a result of sin.