And in our third reading this morning, the portion we want to consider as we come to God's Word is Mark. Mark's Gospel in the chapter 14, please. Mark's Gospel in the chapter 14. verse 32. Mark's Gospel 14 verse 32. And they came to a place which was called Gethsemane. And he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. Saith unto them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death, tar ye here and watch. And he went forward a little and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass from him. He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee. Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. and he cometh and findeth them sleeping. He saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst not thou watch one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. And again he went away and prayed, and spake the same words. When he returned, he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. Neither wist they what to answer him. He cometh the third time and saith unto them, sleep on now and take your rest. It is enough, the hour has come. Behold, the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Let's have a word of prayer. One of the great preachers in the 20th century was a man by the name of Leonard Ravenhill. Leonard Ravenhill was a minister both in the land of England and then in the land of America. The biggest church which he ever ministered was in the city of Oldham. One particular afternoon as he was making his way home for his supper with his wife, there was a lady as he was making his way through the poor area in Oldham, there was a lady who came out of her house and stopped him. She said, Mr. Ravenhill, you don't know me, but I come to your church. It's such a big church, I come in at the very end, and I, at the very end, just before the service starts, I sit at the very back. I'm so poor I don't, I can't even give money into your church, I have nothing. But Mr. Ravenhill, would you like to come into my house? And he says, it's very kind of you, dear, he says, but it's suppertime, my wife is waiting, I must hurry on home. She said, no, that's not the reason. The reason you don't want to come into my house is because I am poor. And so Mr. Ravenhill, he thought to himself, well, I'd better go in and have a cup of tea. He went in through the front door and as he walked up the corridor of that little shanty house, as it were, little terrace house, there was rubbish gathered all over the house and he literally had to walk with his arms in the air up through the corridor because it was so dirty and so filthy and so much rubbish. He came into the kitchen. He sat down at the kitchen table. And he looked at her sink and at that unit, as it were, with all of the dishes that were stacked up. She had never washed a dish. He looked at one particular plate, which had bacon on it. And now, it was sitting there for so many months, there was enough penicillin to cure a whole ward. And she went into the kitchen sink, and she lifted out a cup, which was once white and was now brown. She went back into the sink, and she lifted out a tea bag out of the sink, and she put it into the cup. She turned on the tap, the cold water tap. and she filled it up. She then got a brown spoon and she stirred it around. I am very thankful that every house I've went into, the cups of tea have been lovely in this church. I've even had Coke in some houses, it's been great. But he watched in that stunned silence as he's sitting there at that table and she took that dirty cup with that stinking teabag and cold water, she stirred it around with a stinking spoon. Then she said, do you take milk? At this stage, he didn't know what to do. He said, yes, I take milk. She says, I don't have any. Do you take sugar? Well, if you do, I don't have any. And she handed him the cup. And that stinking, cold, weak cup was put under his nose. And she said, drink it. You know, it took his mind over 3,000 miles away, almost 2,000 years before, to the Garden of Gethsemane. There in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord was handed a cup, and he was told to drink it. The Lord Jesus Christ, having instituted the Lord's Supper as a sacrament And having prayed the high priestly prayer that is found in John 17, he now enters into the garden beside the Mount of Olives called the Garden of Gethsemane. The name Gethsemane, it simply means an oil press. It's a place where the olives were taken and where the olives were pressed. And those olives were pressed to get all of the oil extracted out of them. And what a perfect name for that garden. What a perfect place for the Lord to be found, for it's in that Garden of Gethsemane. where the Lord would be pressed with the agony and with the anguish of our sins as they come in upon him, to the extent where the blood would come forth as sweat drops. As I have 53 in the verse 10, it speaks of the soul being made an offering for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, he went into that garden with eleven disciples. Judas, already having left at the time of the Last Supper, and he comes into that garden with eleven disciples. He sets eight at the gate. Eight are told, sit at the gate and watch and pray. He then takes Peter, John and James that little bit further. It tells us he became sore amazed and very heavy in front of them. What a sight for those three disciples as they look upon their Master, as they look upon their Saviour, the One who had the confidence, the One who had the assurance, the One who had all of the knowledge and all of the grace and the power. And in their very presence, He becomes so amazed and very heavy. He utters those words that are found in verse 34, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. It's not just a head feeling. It's not just an emotion that we feel and we can conjure up within ourselves that we can have a moment's sadness or a moment's grief. It's not just deep in the head or deep in the heart. Rather, it's this soul is exceeding sorrowful. It goes a little bit further even in the three disciples. Luke informs us the first time he goes away, he kneels to pray. The second and the third time that he goes away, he lies face down in the ground. That prayer comes forth from his lips, and in between the first and the second prayers, it tells us that an angel appeared, and it ministers on to the Lord. It strengthens him there in the garden. Psalm 8 and verse 5, Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. Such is the anguish and the agony that is impressed upon the Lord. Such is the place that he is in that he is truly lower than those angels. Those heavenly creatures which he created. Those heavenly creatures which he governed over. Yet there in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel has to come and minister to him. The prayer that is offered up by Christ is like no other. There has never been a prayer that has been offered to the Lord with as much passion, as much pain, as much agony, as much burden, but with as much submission as the prayer that the Lord offered in the garden. Abba, Father, All things are possible unto thee, take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. I want to look at the cup of Gethsemane with you this morning. That cup which focused the Lord's prayers at that time. You know, spiritually speaking, there is a cup for each and every one of us. Spiritually speaking, for you and I this day, there was a cup prepared. There was a cup that is prepared because it is a cup of wrath. How many times throughout scripture the cup is used to symbolize the wrath and the punishment which God bestows upon mankind for their sins. Isaiah 51 and the verse 17, it speaks of Jerusalem drinking a cup from the hand of the Lord of his fury. Revelation 14 and 10, it speaks of those who follow after the beast. They shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of indignation. My friend, this morning, understand this. You have a cup that is prepared for you. And it's not a cup which I can drink, and it's not a cup which any other person can drink. It's a cup which is particularly individually for you. Every ingredient is just for you. It's divinely appointed, it's divinely designed. If you're in your sins, that cup's in front of you, you must drink it. Two things I want to leave with you this morning in the time that remains. Notice with me firstly in the verses 33 and 34 the contents of the cup. the contents of the cup, and he taketh with him Peter and James and John. He began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy, and he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death, tar ye here and watch. There outside of Jerusalem, as the Lord Jesus Christ enters into the garden, he leaves his disciples at the different intervals his great suffering commences. As he walks further into the garden, as you can just understand this, the darkness is enveloping around him. The darkness of that sin, the darkness is encompassing him on every side, all around him, above him, below him, in front of him, behind him. The darkness of that sin, the darkness of that punishment is coming in upon the Lord Jesus Christ. As he takes step by step further into the garden, the extent of that sin which was being laid upon him becomes ever so evident to him. The Holy Son of God with all of that abhorrence to sin, and yet it's there circulating around him. All of it is darkness and all of it is sorrow. All of it is agony. My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Lord Jesus Christ is known as a man of sorrows. The one who's acquainted with grief. There in Gethsemane, sorrow after sorrow after sorrow was laid upon the Lord. Grief after grief, every single sin of every single one of his children is laid upon the Lord. To the extent where the stress is upon the body, that Luke the doctor, he writes of Christ, sweating great drops of blood. That is a medical condition known as hematohedrosis. Where such a stress comes upon the body that instead of the normal liquid as it were, the sweat coming out of the glands, it actually pushes blood out of them. The Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane is sweating out blood. Out of every sweat pouring his body is coming forth blood. I want you to see the depth of the cup. Just take a moment to consider the size and the depth of that cup which the Father gave to the Son. The sins of every single child of God. From Adam and Eve right through the Old Testament, you think of all of the sins of Abraham. You think of the sins of Isaac. You think of the sins of Jacob. You think of the sins of Samson. You think of the sins of David. You think of the sins of Solomon. You come into the New Testament. You think of the sins of Peter and how very soon Peter would deny the Lord. You think of all of the wickedness of the Apostle Paul and all of that evil that he was involved in before he came to Christ. You think of even the dying thief hanging upon the cross, the one that would turn to the Lord. all of those sins and all of the punishment for those sins, it's all found in that cup. And you think of every single child of God that has ever lived for all eternity past, or for all time past, from the beginning of creation right up till now and right to the end of time. Every single sin of every single child of God was in that cup. been handed to the Lord. Sunday, the 7th of December, 1941 is recorded in history as a day of infamy. It was on that day when the imperial nation of Japan went to war against America. As we have after we have of bombers come in from Japan off their ships, they come in and they bomb the naval base of Pearl Harbor. That attack was led by a Japanese wing commander by the name of Michio Fuchihara. He was the very first leading pilot to take and to fly towards the naval base at Pearl Harbor. He was the very first one to drop his bombs. After the war, you could see it. He spent the rest of his life as a preacher. He even had the opportunity to preach in America. All of his wickedness was in that column. November 1945 to November 1946, after the end of the Second World War, 24 of the top Nazi leaders who were still alive were put in trial at the trials there in Nuremberg. Day after day, as they sat in the dock, and then he went back to their cells at the nighttime. During that year, the job was given to them, or to one of the Americans by the name of Henry Goering. And Henry Goering was an American war chaplain. And he was commissioned that he would go along and provide any pastoral care that would be allowed and that they would want. over the course of that year, he had the privilege of witnessing and speaking to those men. And out of the 24 top Nazi officials that were still alive, eight got saved. And eight came to saving faith in the Lord, and eight testified of the assurance that they had that their sins were forgiven. Their sins are in the cup. After the Second World War finished, Corrie ten Boom commenced her journey as a missionary around the world. She went to every part, every continent within the world, telling of what the Lord had done. She received an invitation to go to Germany. And after some deliberation and prayer, she decided that she would go. Remember, Corrie ten Boom spent most of the war inside a prison camp. At the end of one particular meeting, she looked up and the breath of gasp of air within her. She very quickly caught her breath because she realized walking towards her was one of the old prison guards, a man who had treated the woman of that camp shamefully. He come up to her and he says, Mrs. Ten Boom, I've got saved. And I don't know you specifically, but I simply want to apologize for what I did. His sins are in the cup. What about you, Christian? Every single sin that you have ever committed, and every single sin that I have ever committed, and every single sin that we will ever commit, both in the present and in the future, every single one has been placed in that cup for the Lord Jesus Christ. Or that we would see sin for the evil that it is. That we would not be comfortable around sin. That we would not be complacent to the sins of this world and become, as it were, just immune to them and just enjoy the life and just have it. And regardless of what goes on around us and regardless of what we're involved in, that we think, oh, it's okay, I'm saved, I can do what I want. For child of God, every sin you ever commit is being put in that cup for the Lord to drink. Every sin. Surely it should humble us. We consider all of the grief and the sorrow that the Lord has undertaken. Surely it should cause each child of God to have more sin. to pour the sin within our lives, surely, like the Apostle Paul, we must cry out, O wretched man that I am. And because of the sinful lives that we lead, because of the sinful bodies which we live in, that we're causing the Lord's suffering there in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not only the depth of the cup, but I want you to see the darkness of the cup. As Lord Jesus, he looks into that cup, he's looking into a cup which is divinely devised by the Father. Each and every ingredient that is found within that cup has been chosen specifically for each and every sin. Sins of blasphemy. Sins of hatred. Sins of anger. Sins of jealousy. Sins of murder. Sins of unbelief. sins of disobedience towards God. You think of the city of Nineveh. And all of the sin of that city was such that the Lord was going to overthrow the entire city. But they repented to the Lord and the Lord spared them, the Lord saved them. Therefore, every single sin which the city of Nineveh ever committed is in that cup. You think of the city of Corinth. You think of the church of Corinth, and all of the sin that was involved in that church, that Paul had to write those two letters dealing with them. You think of even their desecration of the Lord's table, and how they were going about worshipping and serving the Lord, and how they were going about remembering the Lord. That Paul had to write that letter to them to challenge them and to change them. Their sins are in that call. So many different sins, some more heinous in the sight of God than others, but yet all of the punishment is found in the one cup. The question I must ask this morning to the unsaved is how dark and how deep is your cup? If you're still in your sins this morning, you've never had your cup drank by the Lord. Each and every child of God, our cup which has been designed for us, when we come to saving faith in the Lord, the cup of God's wrath, the Lord Jesus Christ drinks it, but for everyone that is still in their sins this morning, your cup's still there for you to drink. How deep and how dark is your cup. all of your years of sin. It doesn't matter if you're in your 80s or it doesn't matter if you're in your teens, if you're a sinner, all of your years of sin. And everything that you've been involved in, and the amount of times that you've rejected the gospel, it's there before you. And that cup is there for you to drink. if you don't come in repentance and faith to Christ. You consider the divine wrath which God has for you. I want you to be honest before God this morning. You consider your sins and you consider everything you've done in your life. You have to say like Cian, my sin is greater than I can bear. But yet the Lord is standing ready and willing to take your cup and to drink it for you. The contents of the cup. Then notice with me secondly and finally the consequences of drinking the cup. The consequences of drinking the cup. There were certain consequences which Christ had to endure as a result of drinking the cup of God's wrath. There was suffering. There was suffering at the hands of the Jews and the Romans. There was punishment. There was punishment at the hands of the Father. But I believe there is a greater consequence that outweighs even those two. It's a consequence that is coming to you if you remain in your sins. It's separation from God. That's why Christ prayed what he did in verse 36. This is a passage, even during my years in college, I thought over many, many times. Why did Christ pray what he did in the garden? He had set his face as a flint to Jerusalem. He knew he came from heaven into this world with that desire and that obedience and that will and that wish to go to Calvary and to die for the sins of his people. Why did he pray what he prayed? He had no fear of dying on a cross. He had no fear of the Jews or the Romans. He wasn't afraid of what they would say or what they would do to him. Just remember many martyrs, many children of God have suffered a great horrendous abuse and deaths at the hands of the wicked for their faith in Christ. Christ wasn't worried about being punished and being punched and being scourged. Christ wasn't fearful about that and what they would say to him. And oh, his torment intensified. And all of that sorrow comes in upon them. And all of that sin and that wickedness is laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He knew He'd be separated from His Father. Mark 15, verse 34, it records for us the words of the Lord on the cross. the end of the three hours of darkness. He cries, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? There's no punishment and there's no suffering in this life is as terrible as separation from God. There is nothing you could ever endure at the hands of man that even come close to separation from God. Christ never went into hell. Hell came to Christ and the cross. Because there upon that cross, Christ endured hell for his people. The darkness, the punishment, and the separation from his father. You consider Luke 16, the rich man who went to hell. It tells us there being in torments, he lifted up his eyes. He saw Abraham. He talked with Abraham, but he never talked to God. There was not one word went between the rich man in hell and God in heaven. Because it's impossible. Lord Jesus Christ. Separated from his father. took all of that punishment upon Him for our sin. There in the garden, it was almost too much for the Lord to bear. But He did it because He loves us. That bitter cup Love drank it up. Now blessing flows for me. But I ask the question again. Sinner, what are you going to do with your cup? That cup which is before you, of the wrath of God, what are you gonna do with your cup? Are you taking it to the Lord? You know, it's wonderful when you think of it. The Lord Jesus, he took our cup of sin and our cup of punishment and he drank every last drop. You know on a hot day, whenever you're sitting and it's very warm and you're maybe outside working, and you come in and you grab a glass or you grab a cup, you fill it with cold water and you drink it down. You're so thirsty and you drink that whole cup in one go and you set it down. There's still a couple of drops in the bottom, isn't there? Or you have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and you drink that whole cup and you just love every drop, but yet you look in the bottom and there's still a ring in the bottom, isn't there? Yet when the Lord Jesus Christ takes our cup, he'll drink every single last drop. There won't even be a stain left in it. And instead it'll be filled with the blessings of God. You know, in three hours the Lord Jesus Christ drank that cup. because he was able to cry, it's finished. But my friend, I must be honest with you before God this morning, you die in your sins, you'll never finish your cup. You die in your sins and you go to hell. That cup which was divinely devised and designed by God for you because of the sins in your life, you will never finish that cup. You will drink it for all eternity of the wrath of God. It doesn't matter how quickly you try and drink it, you'll never finish the cup of God's wrath if you're in hell. Because you're there forever. But yet the Lord Jesus Christ is standing ready this morning and he's willing to take your cup. He's willing to drink it all. If you simply but come and ask him to. Now there's a wonderful verse in Psalm 116 in the verse 13. Know I trust and pray today that it's a prayer of the sinner. Since I'm 116 in the verse 13, it says, I will take the cup of salvation and I'll call upon the name of the Lord. Which cup do you want? The cup of God's wrath or the cup of God's salvation? You have to take one. Which is it gonna be?