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Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Sephardi, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here, and watch with me. Now, when we come to Gethsemane, we come to one of the holies of Scripture, and it becomes us to take off our shoes and off our feet, as it were, and to tread warily and to tread carefully. May the Lord enable us so to do. We shall seek to look at this portion today as follows. First of all, the agony of Gethsemane. Secondly, the prayer of Gethsemane, or the prayer that was made some three times, let this cup pass from me, that not my will but thy will be done. And then, finally, the pastoral care of Gethsemane. These three strands of thought. Looking then at the agony of Gethsemane And the context is that the hand of the Lord is guiding him into all that he must pass through as the Savior of his people. And it is the hand of God that directs him to Gethsemane. And it's there in Gethsemane that he is given a glimpse by the Spirit of all the furnace of afflictions that lie ahead of Him, particularly on the cross that He must pass through. And because He was given that glimpse in advance, there is an adding to the agony there in itself. We don't know what lies ahead of us, any of us. The Lord and His mercy has hidden that from us. But in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, there wasn't a hiding of what lay ahead. He was given a full glimpse of what was there in advance. I have probably told this story several times before, I might even have told it here, but I will tell it again. Reverend Morda Murray who was a minister in Point at one time in the Isle of Lewis. He was brought up in the village of North Tolsta and as a boy he used to play by the seashore and he used to relate how often when he was playing by the seashore as a boy he would leap from one cliff to another cliff quite easily, but in between these two cliffs and these cliffs descending steeply in between there was the ocean and there was the steep abyss that went down on both sides into the Inky Ocean. But he could take that, what we call in Gaelic, acraileama, leap across quite easily. But on one occasion he said, as I was taking that leap, a pebble unbalanced me. And because of that, his sleep was not as sure-footed as on other occasions. And when he got to the other side, but only just, and he got hold of some tussock of something and held on. And he heard the stone that had unsettled him going down into the ocean and disappearing there. I saw where I could have gone, he said, and my heart trembled. But he didn't have to go there. The Lord Jesus Christ saw in advance where he must go, and that was in itself an adding to the difficulty of what lay ahead. Not only is the hand of the Lord in it, guiding him into this, but we must see in the context that there is another who comes into it. It's a temptation scene as well, because the devil is there. And he is there to insinuate his own evil intentions into it, and to seek to, as it were, to thwart the Lord from going on to complete that remit that He had come to complete, to be the surety of His people and to bring forth in the cross the righteousness that the Lord required of them, to frighten Him, as it were, to browbeat Him, as it were, with the knowledge of what lay ahead, that He would not go forward into it. This was not the first occasion that He had tried that method. He had tried it at Caesarea Philippi, when Peter became an instrument in his hands towards that end. You remember the occasion. Peter had been commended for giving a correct answer. Thou art the Christ of God. And Jesus had commended him, Flesh is not, blood is not revealed back unto thee, but my fatherhood is in heaven. And that was a lesson that had been learned, that the Master had been teaching them right up to that point, the lesson of the glory of His person. And it was clear that that lesson had gone home, that they knew Him now as not just mere man, but one who was the Christ of God, the Messiah, the Promised One. Christ was now passing on to the second lesson. the glory of the work that He had come to accomplish. And she tells them that He must be put to death, that He must rise again. And Peter takes notice particularly of His being put to death and, as it were, takes a hold on the Master, be it far from Thee. This cannot be unto Thee. He would hold Him back from that death. And Jesus says, sees the hand of Satan as the instrument, using Peter as an instrument to thwart him from going on to finish that work that he had come to do. Get thee behind me, Satan, was his response. And you see, as you come near the cross again, in fact, it's probably the next chapter after this, the same thing was to happen when Judas and his gang had come and taken hold of the Master. Peter again seeking to thwart him even to the point of using his sword to cut off the ear of one called Marcus. And Jesus had to again gently rebuke him. because he was standing in the way, or seeking to stand in the way. He was an instrument in Satan's hand, seeking to thwart him from going on to this work of the cross. There is that temptation then, that it's God's hand in bringing him here, but there is Satan seeking to thwart him, seeking to frighten, seeking to browbeat, seeking to prevent. And it's in that context that we will see the agony of Gethsemane. Now, some might say, what agony? What agony? Isn't he one who is very God of very God, you can say? And how can he be tempted? They will say, it's impossible that he should sin. And if it's impossible for him to sin on the right, How can there be any agony? How can there be any difficulty for him in any temptation? In fact it can be, the question can be put another way as well. Some people put it And some theologians, some conservative theologians have taken both sides of this. And I'll leave it with you as a talking point at least. Was Jesus able not to sin? Or was it a case that he was unable to sin? There is a distinction. Able not to sin or not able to sin. Able not to sin indicates that there was some possibility that he could have sinned, but that he resisted it, and that he resisted the temptation. Not able to sin, which many take, and I would be inclined to go this way myself, not able to sin because he is God, indwelt by the Spirit of the Lord beyond measure, and therefore as a divine person incapable of sinning. If you take that view, you might say, oh, what difficulty is there for him in temptation then? But this is in fact the way that the agony of the temptation is enhanced. Because with you and with me, there is something in us, there is an indwelling sin in us, that Satan can play upon. And we so readily, like a fifth columnist within us, ready to go on to collude and to connive with the external enemy that is Satan. And because of that, when the temptation comes, we give in so easily. And we give in before the before the agony of the temptation is felt, because we concede quickly. But Jesus did not concede, you see. And it was in the continual resisting that He met the difficulty that was involved. Take, for example, an earlier situation when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. Command these stones to be made into bread. And there was then He could have, as God commanded the stones to be made into bread, but he wouldn't do it because his remit was to fulfill all righteousness in our nature, not calling on the... It was in our nature that he must fulfill the righteousness, and he would not submit to the temptation of being... of what Satan was calling him into. And therefore, he resisted all the hunger that was with them. Forty days without eating. And with every moment that He resisted, the hunger pains became greater, and greater, and greater. Now, it's a similar thing as He goes towards the cross. In the resisting, there is the agony, and the agony being intensified with each progressive step of that resistance. So much for the context then of the scene. What is it that constitutes the agony itself? What are the ingredients that go into the cup that he must partake of. We've already noticed that the prior knowledge of what is there is a part of his agony. We can also say that what was in the cup was that he must be made sin. He must be made sin. Hitherto He has been the sin bearer from the moment of conception in the womb. He is the sin bearer and right through His life He is the sin bearer, meeting the contradictions and the oppositions of the evil one. But in the midst of all of these sufferings, he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and virtuous life. In the midst of all of these, there was the consolation always that he could resort in prayer to the Father, which we gather he frequently did, especially at night when the disciples rested, that he went into the top of a mountain very often and consulted prayerfully with the Father. And he knew there the sweet comfort of the Father's consolation with him. Sweetening is every agony. But here he is not to be merely the sin-bearer, but he is to be made sin. It is where the sin of all his people And all the sins of all His people are to be imputed to Him, so that He will stand before the Holy Judge, bearing their sins as the greatest sinner that ever was. The sinless one standing in that way before the Holy God and Judge. And when he is found thus, the judge, the holy judge must deal with him as the one who has that criminal standing. He must be consuming fire against him in sin. our sins. The holiness of God is an expression, a necessary expression of His enmity against sin, His holy enmity against sin. He ceases to be God if He does not respond in this way to sin. You see that holiness not just in his dealing with creatures, with the satanic angels that rebelled, but even with his own son. He spared not his own son when he was made sin. He must be consuming fire against him. That was something that was taught in the Old Testament Scriptures in the infancy of the church. in the offerings of the Old Testament, particularly in the sin offering. The sin offering entailed the most of the carcass of the slain animal being taken outwith the camp, just as Jesus' must be taken outwith of Jerusalem, outwith the camp, and there put into a pit, and there it must be Sacrificed, it must be holy burned. And the word for burning there in the Old Testament concerning the burning of the sin offering is a word, saraph. It's alliterative. You can almost hear the fierceness of the burning fire. It's a destructive fiery flame that is spoken of. And that destructive fiery flame consumed, fiercely consumed that animal, taking it out dust to dust. Speaking in type of the holy wrath of God against sin. That which you have in type there, Christ as the sin offering, must endure in the room and place of His people. He must bear the wrath of a holy God against sin. Now, when you speak of that wrath, it is what the sinner must eat if he dies Christless. And if we die out of Christ, that wrath of God must be our portion throughout the endless ages of eternity. We must bear extensively in our own passion that wrath and curse of God due to us as transgressors. But in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, It wasn't just the wrath to be born extensively throughout the endless ages of eternity. It was to be born in concentrated form, intensively, in a limited duration of time. That is what composes the bitterness of this ingredient in the cup, being made sin. and bearing the consequences of that in His Passion as the surety of His own. It is as if you take the vials of wrath and in concentrated form they must be poured in this limited duration of time upon His head. And He could bear them in that limited duration of time because of the glory of His Passion. He is a Passion of infinite worth. the divine passion in our nature. But who can measure the quality and the extent of the sufferings that would be entailed in that limited duration of time on the cross when he must be made sin and when the judge must speak to him, when that wrath of God must be expressed against him? We cannot enter into that, and we shall never be able to fathom to exhaustion the extent of the sufferings that He bore in the Roman place of His people. But He saw that ahead of them. He must be made sin. Not only must he be made sin, but there was this ingredient also. Although they are so related, it is difficult to divide them apart. He must be made accursed. Now, to be accursed is the opposite of to be blessed. To be blessed is to be brought into fellowship with God. The words that he shall speak at the last to his people will become, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world. But that which he must speak to those out of Christ at the last must be depart, ye cursed. Depart, ye cursed. Now, Christ must bear the equivalent of that in the Roman place of his people. The equivalent of departure, he cursed. To meet with the equivalent of being expelled from the presence of a holy God. It was that that brought him to the point of crying out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We can never say that there was a breach in the Trinity. Never ever can we say that. But there was certainly the loss, and he saw this ahead of him, the loss of the conscious comfort of the Father's fellowship that was there in the departure he cursed. And remember that fellowship had been meat and drink to his soul from all eternity. The holiest of us here knows but a little of the sweetness of that fellowship. But he knew it as none else could know it. And he knew what was entailed in having that fellowship, the sweetness of that fellowship removed for a season. And the agony that was there. You see it, you can put it another way, he must enter into the hell of his people. He must enter into the damnation of his people in their Roman place. He must enter into the land of far distances, bearing the curse due to their sin. You have it in the Old Testament in the case of the scapegoat. The one that was left living. One was slain, as you know. The other was left alive. And the sins were put to that account and he was brought into a wilderness by a fit man and there to be set free. No one knowing where except God. One sense of one meaning of that type of the Old Testament is that He is carrying the sins of His people away so that there is total forgiveness for them. Another sense, however, is that He was entering into the land of far distances bearing their curse and that He was doing so livingly. He was doing so as the live God. He was doing so livingly. And you see, this was what Christ, this was an ingredient in His agony. He must enter into the damnation and the hell of His people, the accursedness of His people, livingly. Your case and mine, may the Lord avert it, If we were to pass into eternity out of Christ, the way in which we would meet death, that is death threefold, we would meet what we call natural death first of all, separation of body and soul, and then there would come that spiritual and eternal death, which would be separation from God in a lost eternity, the accursedness of a lost eternity. In the case of Christ, it is the other way around. He bore that spiritual and the equivalent of eternal death, the eternal accursedness on the cross. On the cross. Can you and I measure what was entailed there? The ingredients that were to fill that cup as He was made sin. The ingredients that were entailed in that cup as He was the accursed one. bearing livingly the sin of His own. How wonderful that He could say at the last, It is finished. That all this was in advance. How wonderful also that he has left nothing undone. So that's the agony of Gethsemane then in the anticipation of what lay ahead and the brow beatings of the enemy to frighten him from going forward. We know now that He has gained the victory. We know now that unlike the sin offering of the Old Testament where the bullock was consumed in the fiery flames, we know now that He instead consumed the flames in Himself and exhausted them in Himself so that there is now no condemnation to His people. glorious words that he could speak, it is finished. But there in Gethsemane he is looking forward to that and the agony of going forward he knows. Notice also not only the ingredients that were constituting that agony, but notice you see the agony in the effect that it had on him, the effects that it had on himself. His need of fellowship, of human fellowship at that time. Frequently I am told that when someone comes to die, the head of a family, he loves to have his family around. That there is some comfort there. Well, our Savior was fully man. Very man of very man, as well as very God of very God. And as man in the face of these sufferings, He desired that fellowship. And he desired that these three, Peter, James and John, would be with him at this time, prayerfully mindful of him in this trauma of soul that he was passing through. You see the effect of the agony in his own words also. My soul is exceeding sorrowful. And I'm told, I read, that a sense of that exceeding sorrowful is away from home. I'm conscious of being away from home, maybe as he sees ahead what is entailed, the consciousness foreshadowed, as it were, of the loss of the conscious comfort of the father's fellowship with him. Exceeding sorrowful. You see the effects of the of the agony upon him in the way that he, as it were, sweat as it were, great drops of blood. You see the effects of the agony of all this upon him in his prayer. And if you look at Hebrews chapter 5, and undoubtedly there is reference there to Gethsemane, He cried with loud cryings. And truly that speaks of Gethsemane where He cried with loud, intensive prayer unto the Lord. And we also read there in Hebrews, don't we, that He was heard in that He feared. And some people say that He was heard in that He feared. And by the phrase, in that He feared, they say, concerning that which he was afraid of. Well, that is a possible meaning because he was a very man of very man and he wouldn't have been man if he hadn't been afraid of what lay ahead. But there's also the meaning he was heard in that he feared he was heard because of his holy fear. His holy fear before God. And one way in which he was heard was that an angel was sent to comfort Him, to strengthen Him. And that angel would have strengthened Him, not by taking the cup away, but by enabling Him, giving Him the strength to enter into the partaking of that cup to the full. You see, This is as I understand it anyway. You can try the spirits on this yourselves. As man, one who was very man of very man, he would never have been able to partake of all of these sufferings to the full in the sense that as I understand it, he would have passed out. He would have fainted and passed out complete, lost consciousness and therefore in the lost consciousness he wouldn't be able to partake to the full of all the ingredients of the cup. The strengthening as I understand it would be to enable him Not to take the cup away, but to enable him to enter into the exquisiteness to the full of the agonies that he must bear as the sin bearer. But that brings us to the prayer of Gethsemane, doesn't it? We're already into it, but it brings us into it. And we hear him crying out three times in his prayer as he went to part a stone's throw from the disciples. let this cup pass from me." And at first sight it looks there as if there is some concession on his part to the temptation, that he decides not to enter into what is entailed, that he would fall back from it. I don't understand it that way, and I'll share with you the way I understand it. And again, you try the Spirit yourselves, and in your talks and your fellowships afterwards, you can speak about these things. My understanding would be that when He says, let this cup pass from Me, what He is actually saying is this. If it is possible that my people can be saved some other way short of my having to drink of these ingredients, then let me not have to partake of them. You see, if he were to partake of this agony of the cup unnecessarily, If there was some other way that His people could be saved, if He was to partake of these ingredients of that agony unnecessarily, that would be masochism on His part. Just an inflicting of pain upon Himself just for the mere sake of it. Now, that is sinful. And Christ would not do that which was sinful. It is not a falling away. from what was entailed, but rather a determination that he would not sinfully fall from it. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. And the motivation for that was this. He loved his own that were in the world, and he loved them unto the end. He had you in mind, believer. Not just believers as a corporate lump, but each and every one of the elect whom the Father had given Him to redeem individually. That is why you can say with Paul, He loved me and gave Himself for me. That cup He must lovingly partake of in your Roman place. And that cup He will partake of because it is the Father who is putting it into His hands. And out of love for the Father and in the spirit of worship to the Father, He will partake of it to the full. Thy will be done. He would not fall back from it. having loved his own like one in the world did love them unto the end. And finally, the pastoral care of Gethsemane. Look at verse 14. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep. And saith unto Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. And some have interpreted these words as being a bit of gruffness. We were speaking of gruffness last night. Some have been speaking of a bit of gruffness here towards His disciples. You have let me down when I needed you so badly. Well, go on, have your sleep now. And take your rest. But that would seem out of character with the Savior that you and I know. Some have spoken of Him as being irony, that figure of speech called irony. There is irony in the Bible. When we speak of irony, we speak of irony with a tinge of sarcasm to it. But there is irony in the Bible without sarcasm. a sort of a holy irony. You find it, for example, in the book of Ecclesiastes where you reference in the 11th chapter and towards the 11th chapter of following a path of ungodliness. I won't take up your time on it. But you do find occasions in the Bible when there is that holy irony expressed. And some have taken it that it's a holy irony that Christ is here expressing towards his disciples, divested of anything of sin, but a gentle rebuke to them for their failings, but not a condemnatory statement on his part toward them at all. That may be possible. That may be what is entailed. But personally, and again you tie the spirits whenever a minister speaks of giving his own opinion, which is what I'm wanting to do. What I see in it is this, and quite a lot of commentators take this view. that what you have here is sleep on now and take your rest. And then there's a gap of time between the word rest and what comes next. Behold, the hour is at hand. A gap of time of maybe an hour, maybe hours, we don't know. A gap of time anyway before Judas and his cohort of supporters come to lay hand on Christ. And that during that gap of time before Judas comes, and when Jesus will then say, when He comes, behold, the hour is at hand, during that gap, that Jesus says, sleep on now and take your rest, and that you, as it were, see the Master Himself sitting over them. watchfully and lovingly, aware that their eyes were heavy, that they had been into a traumatic situation, and caring for them. He who is about to be betrayed, watchfully, prayerfully guarding them. We don't know for what length of time until he hears Judas and his band coming, and then waking them, as it were, gently, behold the hours at hand. I don't know about you, but I like to think of it that way. You can take it if you wish as holy irony. You can take it as a gentle rebuke. I prefer personally to go along the way that I've said, a pastoral care on the part of the Master at the time when imminent danger was threatening Him, caring so much for His own, having loved His own like one in the world, you see. to the end. May the Lord bless to us this meditation on His Word. Let us pray. Most holy, what more couldst thou have done than thou hast done, giving the darling of thy bosom, sparing him delivering Him up for us all. And what more could He have done than He has done? Who stood where we ought to stand? Who bore intensively in His own Passion the wrath and curse of God due to us in our sin? Who could say, at the last, it is finished? Who cared for His own even in that moment of great sorrow, who could look to his beloved disciple and his earthly mother and speak so caringly towards them. That Thy blessing upon our meditation help us in the remaining of this mental service to do all things decently and well to the glory of Thy name, because we ask it in His precious name. To Thee I lift my soul, O Lord, I trust in Thee. My Lord, let me not be a shepherd, nor foes triumph for me. Let not that which on me be used to shame at all.
Lord's Day Morning - Gethsemane
Series Communion Season
The Lord's Day of the Communion.It is what is known in Scotland as the action sermon. Gethsemane is the place of suffering. Rev John Macleod takes us into the deep heart of that suffering as the Lord wrestle over the cup that is placed into his hand. This is a most appropriate sermon for the Lords Day of a Communion season.
Sermon ID | 117121140549 |
Duration | 46:14 |
Date | |
Category | Special Meeting |
Bible Text | Matthew 26:36-38 |
Language | English |
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