TWO BATTLES

As I was thinking and praying for my children a few days ago the thought came across my mind of how Jesus must have felt while He was preparing to die for us.  I have often wondered that if Jesus knew everything and knew how it would all turn out, why was He so fearful and in so much agony.  I know that His death on the cross was an awful event.  I know that it hurt terribly but He knew it would be over in just a matter of hours. He knew His suffering would be turned into glory and that He would not experience it any longer. 

In those last few hours, at least from what we are told in the Word, He was in anguish.  We know that he resorted to that special place where He would go to pray.  We know that He asked His friends, whom He loved and whom He knew loved Him, to pray with Him.  He tried His best to get everything arranged so that they would know what to do and how to do it when He was gone.  And yet still He stressed, and fretted and went through unbelievable torture in His mind. 

Jesus was no wimp.  He would undergo some of the worse torture that human beings could invent and do it without cursing his tormentor or saving Himself when He could. But Jesus was fighting a battle in two worlds. 

The human Jesus naturally feared the torture and humiliation and suffering that He would experience on the cross and He clawed the ground of Gethsemane because of that.  But it was the Devine Jesus who clawed the ground there outside the gates of Jerusalem and He did that for His lost children.

He knew which of them would make a choice not to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  He knew which of them would refuse to accept Him and would be eternally lost in spite of all that He could do or that He would willingly go through for them.  It was the pain that the Devine Jesus felt for the loss of His children that caused Him to sweat blood in the garden.

It would be very difficult to lose a child or a grandchild to death.  But many have gone through that, many will go through that today.  Although I pray that I will not have to lose a child or grandchild I know God will give me strength when and if the time comes.  But I cannot imagine how it would be or how I could deal with it if I were to lose one of those loved ones eternally. 

My old evangelist, pastor Paul J. Stewart made a statement that went something like this:  “When I get to heaven, and look around and my children and grandchildren are not there, God will call a mighty angle to fly back down to earth and with a fiery finger write “FAILURE” across my tombstone”.  Brother Paul Stewart felt that if his loved ones missed heaven it would be a direct reflection on him and his efforts or lack of efforts and he couldn’t stand the thought of that happening.

I don’t want to let a single chance go by, not one minute that I spend with my children or grandchildren or any of the people whose paths I cross, that I don’t do my best to interject Jesus into their lives.  If I casually let them miss heaven they will die eternally and suffer in an unimaginable place but it is I too who will be a failure. I too will suffer because of their loss. I must do anything I can to reach them.

I think that is why the loving Jesus was in so much agony in Gethsemane and on Calvary.  He came for the lost. He suffered for the lost.  He died for the lost and He knew that some would not accept Him.

Can you just slide through this day without telling someone about Him?