Getting Your Eyes Open

Let us look at the 29th verse of the 24th chapter of Luke. This is just one verse out of what, to me, is one of the most wonderful eye-opening stories in the Word of God, “But they constrained him, saying, Abide within us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.”

This one that they asked in, of course we know was Jesus, but those who asked Him in did not know it. Jesus had been crucified, and buried, and the hearts of the disciples were very sad—more sad than anything we can imagine. They had seen the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. This very same Jesus they had thought was going to be the Messiah, the very Son of God. They had such great hopes about Him. Their hearts had thrilled with hope, and they had shouted about it, and imagined He would at once take the throne. But no; He was crucified, dead, buried.

Can you imagine how they felt about His death after seeing all His miracles? Can you imagine how you would have felt if you had seen that woman standing aloof from the crowd, and Jesus turning to the disciples, saying, “Someone has touched me.” “Master, hundreds of people have touched you since we started on this journey,” they answered Him.

“No, someone touched me,” he reiterated, and, knowing she was found out, she came forward and said that she was the one who had touched Him, and that the minute she touched Jesus she knew she was healed.

Those standing around began to recall her record, how she had suffered for twelve years, with no chance for recovery, and now she was made perfectly whole before their eyes.

Can you imagine how you would walk home from a meeting like that and talk about what had happened? Thank God, I have seen things just like that happen by the healing power of Jesus, and my heart has thrilled as yours has.

Real Table Talk

One of the most remarkable experiences of my short life was at Binghamton, N.Y., about four years ago. We were holding a convention. We had a season of prayer. Brother Collett and myself had been praying for the sick, as we do here. I had preached in the morning, and then I preached in the afternoon, and at the close we had a healing service, and the people had come forward to the altar.

A man who had been a banker, a very religious man, who belonged to the Presbyterian Church, was there. His wife had entered the deeper spiritual life, and because of her prayers, God had been dealing with this man. He was wealthy, and thought he could pay little attention to Jesus, but his wife had been transformed, and she asked him if he would not pray about getting an automobile, instead of getting it. He would not pray about it, but made fun of her, and bought the machine. Three days later the thing skidded and threw him against a post, dislocating his elbow and the bones of his hand.

He went to the best physician and had the thing set, and then took the braces off of it; but it was stiff. It stuck out so you would think he wanted to shake hands with you. He was a little crushed in spirit, and consented to come to this kind of an intensely spiritual meeting, although he thought it was beneath his dignity. He was accustomed to taking up the Lord’s collection, but wouldn’t take anything else for the Lord, and never even took up what the preacher had to say, but just passed the plate of what the preacher said to someone else.

He thought this tent conference would be a little bit strange, but he had been feeling depressed and was willing to take a chance. His wife asked him to talk to me. I went to see him, and he talked to me about his hand and about healing. I said, “I would not be a bit surprised but what the Lord wanted to talk to you about something else besides healing.”

He said, “Mr. Rader, I am suffering intensely. There is a straining of the nerves, and I am conscious of it every minute, and am really nervous wreck. I cannot go back into business.”

“The Lord is getting you about where He wants you,” I replied. “You will have to find out that God wants to run your life. He has answered your wife’s prayers, in all probability.”

We talked together about his nervous condition and his soul condition, and then I told him that afternoon we were to have an altar service and that he had better come up and talk to God about it. I said, “It does not make any difference about people. You settle this thing with God. God wants to talk to you about your business. Put everything in God’s hands and have a salvation and an experience that is really worthwhile.”

I talked along that line that afternoon, and afterwards about healing, and we had this healing service. The altar was filled and, as we went along praying and talking with people, we passed him. It was an especially joyful time, and I put my hand on his head and Brother Collette prayed.

I whispered to Brother Collette, “This man has more than physical trouble; he has spiritual trouble.”

We went on praying, and I said, “Trust the Lord. He will bless you.”

The tears came into his eyes, although he was a very conservative Presbyterian. He went down broken in spirit before Jesus. The Lord became very real to him.

We went down the line praying with different people, and finally when we had finished, asked the people to rise. I saw his face filled with joy and went over to shake hands with him. I said, “You believe Jesus, don’t you?”

“Yes, praise God, I do,” he answered.

He gave me his hand, and I reached and put my hand into it and pulled him toward me. As I drew him toward me, that arm straightened out, and every bone inside his hand cracked.

He gave a shout, a terrible shout, for he knew what had happened, and he stretched forth his hand again. His bones were all right, and his fingers back in joint. His wife jumped and began to kiss the hand, and after a while, he got his hand up and commenced to shout, waving it up and down five or six times.

When we got home to supper, we had something to talk about. Jesus had done something real and positive, something nobody could doubt. We were rejoicing in the glory of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, and the fear of God fell on many, and a deep sense of the power of God came on the people roundabout.

A Wholesome Department

You can imagine what people felt as they walked along with Jesus and saw these things happen right along. Everyone that came near Him received help.

I do not know what your need is spiritually, financially, mentally, your soul-need, but there is enough in Jesus for everything you need. Do not try to work it out and struggle, but say, “Lord, I am going to take it from you.” It is grace, it is a gift, not something you work for, but just taking what Jesus has. I wish we were more simple, and trusted Jesus like simple children. You ask, “Do you think He does these things today?”

My Bible says He is “the same yesterday and today and forever,” and it is the simple people who believe it. I have seen colored* people get more than white folks in the way of blessing. Brother Collette says, “Colored folks...do not try to get it head-first, but go after it with the heart.” It is “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” The cold-storage formality of our times comes because of a lack of faith, because folks shut down on everything childlike, on simple faith and simple prayer.

Why, of course He will do it. He says He will do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. God must be ashamed of what we ask. He has a big wholesale department, and angels are waiting for orders from this meeting. They wonder if you are not going to send up an order. We send up an order as if it would cost us a million dollars; but He says He “giveth liberally and upbraideth not,” and “ye have not, because ye ask not.”

No wonder the devil wants to keep us out of a night of prayer. That is what he would love to do, because at such a time you get to the place where you can ask of God, and ask from God, and expect from God.

A Conversational Topic

Perhaps these men were with Jesus when He looked up into the tree and said, “Zacchaeus, come down.” How did He know that was Zacchaeus? He never saw him before. How did He know he was there?

Another time there was a whole rabble around Jesus, and He stilled the whole multitude and said, “Bring that man to me.” He was brought over against the wall, crying out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me!”

Do you not think they had a lot to talk about? They were so busy talking about the things Jesus had to say, it was hard to talk of anything else. I just wonder if, in your home, you have a lot to talk about in regard to Jesus? What do you talk about when you sit around the table? [Do you] talk about Jesus? Has He done something today, and is He a reality in your life, so you have something to talk about, or do you soon run out of talk?

How much is He to you? Oh, He is a wonderful topic of conversation. Learn what He can do in His marvelous power. There is no joy like talking about Him.

Jesus was always their delight and their sun, and there was always something new to talk about in connection with Him; but now all that had stopped. Can you imagine what it meant, not only to the twelve disciples, but to the other friends of Jesus—men and women who were not disciples, but who were just as close, and loved Him as much, and might be more?

He was the topic of conversation about all the towns, so much so, that even Pilate’s wife had heard about Him. I imagine one of her maids went to a street meeting, and afterwards said to Mrs. Pilate, “Well, Mrs. Pilate, I wish you could see Jesus.”

“Why, what about Him? She would ask.

“Oh, He is a wonderful man. My sister was sick, and He healed her, and she is so happy. We have the happiest home. It is just delightful. And what do you think?”

“Well, what?”

“Why, Jesus came around to our house. We lived not very far from Vice and Poverty streets, and Jesus came in to see us. We’ve moved now. We have an awfully happy home.”

She told Mrs. Pilate so much that she became interested, and when Pilate was about to crucify Jesus, his wife wrote him a note and slipped it to him on his judgment throne and said, “Don’t you have anything to do with this just man. I have suffered terrible things in a dream because of Him. Do not have anything to do with Him.”

Can you imagine what Pilate felt like with his wife’s note in his pocket, and washing his hands at the same time, looking at this man, knowing there was nothing wrong with Him? His heart must have thumped from one side to the other as he said, “There is nothing wrong with that man, but if I turn Him loose, I will lose my job. I am supposed to keep these Jews straight for the Roman government.”

He tried to appease them, saying, “Let me release [sic] Barabbas to you. He is a robber. Let me release [sic] him, and let Jesus go.”

They said, “No, take Barabbas, and crucify Jesus.”

He read the note again and said, “I hate to go against my wife’s judgment. When she gets a hunch like that, she is generally right.” But he went out, and washed his hands before the multitude, and let Him go [to be crucified], because he was not brave enough to stand up for what was right, against his desire for his job.

“Himself He Could Not Save”

Jesus was soon crucified. Those who loved Him were on the outside of the crowd, saying, “What have they got against our friend? Isn’t it strange? That is the same Jesus that healed the woman and fed the multitude. We saw Him break those loaves and feed five thousand people. Just wait a minute. He will break those cords and all those people will fall dead. Jesus, we are loyal to you.”

But pretty soon they saw Him scourged and beaten, and then they dragged Him back, after they had mocked Him, and He was the most pitiful-looking thing they had never seen. They could hardly recognize Him when He came from the judgment hall, with His face all beaten, His head bleeding and bruised, with the marks of the crown of thorns showing across the lacerations. He had been slapped on the cheek, and they had spit all over Him. Can you imagine what He looked like?

The cross side is the side people do not like. The cross is to them that perish foolishness, but, thank God, Jesus ever took that spit for me, and took my place and my sin, and died for me on the cross. Thank God, I am free through Him this afternoon, and I love Him. Men are talking and arguing about Him who have no love in their hearts for Him. He is just looking for simple people who will love Him and trust Him.

He is God Himself, my Saviour and your Saviour, and we love Him. Let us give Him everything that we are today. He will soon be here. We see the conditions roundabout. While other people are turning to pleasure and the things of self, let us be out-and-out for Jesus.

You can imagine how the disciples felt to see Him beaten, and spit upon. Imagine their feeling as they see Him walk out of the hall, the multitude yelling and howling at Him. See Him faint beneath His cross. The crowd and Jesus arrive at the place of death. There He makes no resistance, but allows them to crucify Him.

The soldiers take up the spikes and drive them through His hands and feet, and lift up the cross until the cross stands upright, with His body hanging from it. They malign Him, and mock Him, saying, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save. Save yourself. Come down from the cross, and we will believe you.”

All this time this body of believers, a little further behind, were hearing all these things, going through a conflict in their own hearts, and asking what it meant. They did not understand the cross, and the world today does not understand the cross. They do not see why it was necessary for God to die for sin.

I tell you, the majority of professed Christians do not glory in the cross. They do not see that the cross has purchased redemption for us; that we were lost and undone, and that this Jesus on the cross paid the price of our redemption. Men never find the joy of Jesus’ salvation until they see themselves as lost. Jesus is not appreciated and loved, because people do not believe He has rescued them. They say He is a good pattern, but they do not see that Jesus had to suffer and die and be raised from the dead and conquer death in order to be able to give the gift of eternal life, and of new birth.

Only An Ideal?

I was reading an article in a magazine describing a businessman’s experience who took Jesus as a silent partner. He had always thought of Jesus as sort of effeminate, with soft hands, and had never thought of Him as a man. All of a sudden it came to him one day that He was a carpenter.

When a foreman came in one day he said, “Do you know anything about how they made houses when Jesus was alive?”

He answered, “I will go to the library and find out, and tell you.”

He found out that the Jewish carpenters had had to do some heavy work. They did not have any machinery, and no saws like they have now, but they had great big axes, and they would have to bend over a log and chip it. Every timber they put into a house and to be shaped out with hand work, and this was the work of Jesus.

When he found out how the houses were built, and the heavy work a carpenter had to do in those days, he went and closed his door and said, “Jesus was a man. When John baptized Him, he baptized a man with great big muscles and horny hands, a rough laboring man. He was a real man and knew what it was to be tired, and [to] sweat, and enjoy His rest when it came.”

He had a laboring man pose for an artist, getting what he conceived to be a better picture of Jesus. When friends would come in, they would say, “Who is your friend?”

“That is my partner,” he would answer.

“Oh, was he a blacksmith?”

“No, that is Jesus.”

He took Jesus as his partner. That is a beautiful thing, but that man could never take Jesus as his partner unless he saw the death of Jesus. The story went on to say that this man became acquainted with God through his new conception of Jesus.

That is a kind of folderol. It is sweet and sounds nice to have a man take Jesus as his ideal, but if I were to go in there and give him my hand and say, “Hallelujah, old boy, I am so glad Jesus has saved you from sin,” he would say, “Saved me from sin? I do not know what you are talking about. What do you mean?”

“Well, you have the gift of eternal life, haven’t you?” I would ask.

“Not that I know of,” the answer would be.

“Well, Jesus has washed your sin away? You have Jesus as your partner?”

“Don’t know.”

“Are you saved?”

“Don’t know anything about it.”

That is all taking Jesus as a beautiful example would do. Lots of people wear a little cold chain and cross around their neck, and never stop to think about what it means. Many wear crucifixes and do not know that the price is paid for sin. The very people who wear the cross go and ask the priest to forgive their sins, and get someone else to pray for them, then pray through the Virgin Mary. Oh this poor, foolish humanity. How far they miss the meaning of the cross.

That is exactly what is being preached today, talking about Jesus as a good man, and praying to God, but they can’t hold communion with God outside of the blood of Jesus Christ. You can have no relation to God until you see that His blood has cleansed you, and that you are complete in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You will never know what it means to commune with God until the Holy Spirit witnesses that you have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

If you are not here trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ and the cross of Jesus Christ, it does not make any difference what else you believe about Jesus, it will never get you anywhere. There is only one way to get to God, and that is to come clean. What will cleans you? “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin,” thank God, and when sin is put away, He smiles, and then the Holy Ghost witnesses to your heart, and you have the communion and the new birth, and your soul is regenerated, and you know in whom you believe, and you have a testimony and a thankfulness in your heart that you have been washed by the precious blood.

You see how easy it is to talk about Jesus, and not talk about the thing He came to do.

Those people saw Him crucified and thought that was a catastrophe and the end of all their hopes; but that was just the beginning, the one thing He had to do for us before He could do anything else for us. He cannot take us into heaven, but by His precious blood, by which He makes us clean, and He comes into our hearts. The blood itself cleanses the minute we believe. Whom the Son makes free is free indeed.

Darkness

The two on the way to Emmaus were in darkness yet. They had been lingering around Jerusalem a day or two, and said, “Well, there were some promises of His resurrection, but guess it is all off.”

They did not know whether to hope or be discouraged, saying, “Isn’t it strange that the one who used to do such mighty works and about whom we used to talk is dead and is no more?”

If someone were to come and prove to me that my hope in Jesus Christ was all off, it would not take me thirty minutes to commit suicide. I would not want to live. After you have seen Jesus, this old world hasn’t anything for you, and it is nothing but hell—that is all it is. I might grit my teeth and say, “I will stick it out for my family’s sake,” but I want to tell you that the old world would get mighty dark to me if I did not know about Jesus.

“Oh, I am so glad I ever heard that story—so glad my heart ever believed it—and that I found Him. Can you imagine what it would be with Jesus wiped out? If any of you are here without my Jesus, my heart goes out to you with abject pity. How can you ever keep away from Him? How anyone who ever hears about Him does not want to come and accept Him, I cannot understand. If you are here outside of Jesus, and haven’t Him in your heart, and do not know for sure that He is in your heart, let Him save you and give you His blessed life.

The Stranger

Cleopas said, “Come on, let’s go home,” and the third day they started walking up to Emmaus. A stranger came and drew near, and said, “What are you so sad about? Why are you talking about these dark things?”

“Why, don’t you know? Are you only a stranger and do not know these things?” they asked.

“What things?”

“The things concerning Christ of Nazareth. All Jerusalem knows. Everybody in the city knew it. Everybody in Judea knows it. It has not been done behind closed doors. They took Him out to the hill and the whole crowd of people went out, and all the Jews. There were hundreds of thousands of people around there, and everybody knows it, because the whole Earth trembled, and the veil in the temple was rent, and people saw dead people come out of the graves. Where were you when the earthquake came, and the darkness all over the earth? Everybody is talking about this thing, and you do not know about it?”

“Oh,” He answered, “ye fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have said. Ought not Jesus to have suffered these things, and returned to glory?”

They began to say to each other, “My, isn’t that strange? That is a little bit of comfort.”

Then He began to open to them the Scriptures, and to show them where Jesus was “the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world,” and they began to prick up their ears and say, “Isn’t that fine? Death is not the end at all. He went through that so He could rise and redeem us. He is the Lamb of God.”

They said, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us?” Oh, that burning of heart when God begins to convince you, and you see the truth! “Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked to us by the way?”

Jesus just opened the Scriptures to them and began to show them Isaac led up by Abraham to be made a sacrifice, and then how God took the ram out of the bushes and sacrificed it. “Don’t you see,” He explained, “that the lamb was a substitute? Is it not necessary that the Messiah should die for you and all the people?”

Abide With Is

They began to rejoice, and as they came close to their home, Jesus said, “Good evening.”

“Oh,” they answered, “don’t leave us.”

Whenever He has made your heart burn, you do not want to leave Him. That is old-fashioned, real conviction. I have seen men come to a revival meeting, and their hearts burned, and the next night, the wife would say, “John, are you going tonight?”

“No, I am not going,” he would growl.

She would look around in the meeting, and there he was in the back seat. The next day he would say, “I wouldn’t hear that fellow again for anything in the world,” and the next night he is on the back seat again, and he keeps hanging around and doesn’t want the evangelist to go, and finally he finds Jesus. Oh, bid Him tarry with you.

They said, “Stop. It is evening time, and the sun is going down and there is no other village for quite a ways. Come on in and stay.”

Oh, I am glad He turned aside when I said, “Jesus, come in.” He came in to stay. It has been a glad day in our house since then, and it has been a different home. It has been a place of blessing since Jesus came into our hearts; and He never has left from the day He came in.

Isn’t it beautiful to have Him in our hearts? Trouble may come, and sorrow, but if Jesus comes in, it is all right; we can stand it if He is there. I do not see how you can stand it if Jesus is not in your heart.

They said, “We haven’t much to eat,” but He came, and they said, “He made our hearts burn within us, and He knows the Bible, and we love Him.”

He sat down with them, and they said, “Will you have some bread, and ask the blessing?” He looked up and reached for the loaf, and as He took the bread, they saw a hole in one hand and a hole in the other, and their eyes were opened. They cried, “My Lord and my God. This same Jesus,” and He vanished out of their sight.

I have never seen those holes, but, thank God, I will soon. But now in our hearts He abides. Will you bid Him tarry?

 

* Editor’s note: The term “colored” was once commonplace in the American society of Pastor Rader’s day. The term was complex in meaning; however as used here, it was not meant in a derogatory manner.