By Frank Vondracek
There was once a rock-’n-roll group called by this name. I’m not much for that sort of music since it’s known to be reprobate so much of the time, and if not morally corrupt, it’s far too loud and noisy for me. I don’t know the significance of this name as applied to that band.
Sometimes we talk about some accomplishment we or others have made in this life, and it is frequently said that “it took blood, sweat and tears” to reach the goal. I guess the closest I have come, up to now at least, to legitimately applying this to my life is when I was trying to get through college - especially a course dealing with “quantum mechanics”. I remember well a whole lot of tears, and maybe my sweat was bloody a couple of times during tests. Then as a father, a preacher and an elder.
But there was an accomplishment completed about 2000 years ago that, for sure, required the literal blood, sweat and tears of one man. These elements symbolize the work of founding the church of Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to save “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10:6).
The Jews were lost because of their sins of rebellion against the will of their God, Jehovah. They lived in violation of His law so often that they were earning the wrath of God. Seventy AD brought about God’s judgment of this people which had brought the Lord Jesus Christ into the world, but would not be saved by their Savior (John 4:22). They became separated from the grace and mercy of God because of their sin. This holds true for all people for all times; from the Garden of Eden to the end of this world.
Jesus means “Savior”, so Jesus was born to save His people, and all people alike, from our sins. Jesus often agonized because of the hardness of the Jews’ hearts (Mt 23). He even pointed to the faith of a Gentile soldier as not having an equal among the people of the Israel of His day (Mt 8:5-10). Surely this must have brought tears to the eyes of the Son of God. After all, they had the advantage of having the “oracles of God committed unto themselves” (Rom 3:1-2). While Jesus was among them, He worked long and hard with His chosen disciples; and with all the people, to open their hearts to the righteousness of God. Towards the end, before His arrest and execution, He saw many turn away in disgust and unbelief (John 6:66). Oh, how His heart must have ached! Yet, Jesus never stopped loving them, though many stopped loving Him. He came to die for such wretched sinners so that they might finally have peace with God.
Jesus never for a moment shrank back from completing His God-given mission. When SWEAT and TEARS were not enough (Lk 22:44), there was still the BLOOD to come.
When Jesus became public, in the eyes of the people, His forerunner, John, pointed Him out as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). There was no mistaking what John meant.
Every Jew would recognize the figure of blood sacrifice for atonement in John’s words. Jesus was to die, shedding His blood. Truly Jesus the Christ gave it His all. He gave much SWEAT, many TEARS and all His BLOOD so that man could have freedom from the guilt and penalty of his own sins.
Jesus purchased the church of God with His blood (Acts 20:28). The blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sins (Mt 26:28). The saved are added to His blood-bought church (Acts 2:47). There is no other “Blood, Sweat and Tears” to compare to that of Jesus Christ, the Head of the church He died to establish.
Frank Vondracek is a former engineer who started preaching full time in mid-1983. He has preached with churches in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky. He served as one of the elders with the Kimberly Road church in Davenport, Iowa. He presently preaches for the church in Tompkinsville, KY. He also has been involved in preaching the gospel in Kenya, East Africa since 1996. He can be contacted at frankv832@alltel.net.