Gethsemane: Shadow of Golgotha #2

Introduction and Review of Gethsemane's Prelude

0:09 Now let us turn together in the word of God to the 14th chapter of Mark's gospel, the gospel of Mark chapter 14, and I shall read in your hearing verses 32 through 42. And if ever we need to be mindful of the words of the prophet Isaiah, to this man will I look, even to him who is of poor and contrite spirit, and who trembles, who trembles at my word.

0:47 It is when we read such a passage as this, may there not be found one careless, indifferent listener to the reading of this portion of the word of God. And from the youngest to the oldest. Mark 14 and verse 32. And they come unto a place which was named Gethsemane. And he saith unto his disciples, Sit ye here while I pray.

1:20 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled. And he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Abide 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.

1:51 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee. Remove this cup from me, how be it? And he said unto Peter, Not what I will, but what thou wilt. And he cometh and findeth them sleeping.

2:11 And saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? Couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

2:31 And again he went away and prayed, Saying the same words, and that is a poor translation, it is a singular of the word logos, a singular, logon, that is, saying essentially the same thing, not repeating precisely the same words. He went away and prayed, saying essentially the same thing.

3:03 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were filled. They were very heavy, and they knew not what to answer him. And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest, it is enough, the hour is come. Behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

3:28 Arise, let us be going. Behold, he that betrayeth me is at hand. Our expositions of the Gospel of Mark 5 and 6. Our expositions of the Gospel of Mark 5 and 6.

3:42 Our expositions of the Gospel of Mark 5 and 6. Remind us for the second time, contemplating the mysterious agony, the crushing sorrow, and the mighty wrestlings of soul, which our Lord underwent in the garden of Gethsemane. And while freely acknowledging that I felt a very deep reluctance to do anything more than read the passage, And then cry to God to give me a new life, And then cry to God to give me a new life, And then cry to God to give me a new life, And then cry to God to give us eyes to see its true meaning, to feel its horrors, and to be broken by its realities,

4:24 Nonetheless, I made an effort last Lord's Day at least to preach around the opening words of this passage that we might call the prelude to Gethsemane, the shadow of Golgotha. And while considering together verses 32 to 32,

4:44 And while considering together verses 32 to 32, And while considering together verses 32 to 32,

5:15 And while considering together verses 32 to 32, And then we noted thirdly the purpose for which he entered the garden with the eleven. It's stated very clearly in verse 32, Sit here while I pray.

5:59 Our Lord's expressed purpose in entering the garden was to give himself to a concentrated season of holy wrestling with his Father. And then we spent the bulk of our time considering, In the fourth place, the pressure or the profound shock which came to our Lord as he entered beyond the opening into the garden and left the eight, Took the three with him, and as in their company he was moving deeper into the heart of the garden of Gethsemane,

6:36 Our Lord experienced nothing short of a profound shock to the entirety of his holy life, And in the fourth place, the great But the scripture tells us he began to be greatly amazed, and to be sore troubled. So deep was this shock, and so profound was the distress and the trouble, That he says that he felt it would crush him to death right there in the garden. And this is verified and validated by Hebrews 5 verses 5,

7:16 Now, as we considered this part of the passage, the facts unfolded, forced us to ask the question reverently, and I trust with chastened and sanctified curiosity, what could have caused such a staggering, withering, and crushing blow to the mind, the spirit, and the emotions, and the whole soul of the sinless humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ?

7:49 And we saw that the answer was nothing less than the felt experience of the wrath of God as the vicarious sin-bearer. As on the threshold of other crises, our Lord went into the garden to hold communion with His Father, expecting, as in other crises of the past, that as He gave Himself to prayer, the Father would lift up the light of His countenance upon Him, and He would, in that intimate, felt, delightful communion with His Father, find the fulfillment of His love for us.

8:33 The promise of Isaiah's word of promise, that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, but instead of the Father lifting up the light of His countenance upon His beloved Son, in a manner unrevealed to us, but very clearly revealed to Christ, the Father drops down suddenly out of heaven, this horrible cup, full of His own righteous anger against the sins of His people. and holds it so close to the humanity of our Lord Jesus that he is able, as it were, to smell its horrible contents,

9:16 to look into that seething cup, to taste, as it were, its bitterness. And what would be involved in actually emptying the cup comes with such pressure to his holy soul that he says it will crush him even unto death there in the garden, so overcome with the weight and the pressure of it. Now, in a real sense, all that we contemplated last Lord's Day was but the prelude to the very heart of the Gethsemane experience.

The Physical Posture of Christ's Prayer

9:59 And that which constitutes the heart of the Gethsemane experience is the very heart of the Gethsemane experience. The very heart of the Gethsemane experience is the very heart of the Gethsemane experience. It's the prayers that he prayed under that tremendous pressure and the horrible shock of that revelation of the cup. And if ever you prayed for a preacher, do so today, that I may be given grace to expound the unexpoundable, to proclaim the unproclaimable, to explain the inexplicable, and that you, my hearers, may be given grace to know the unknowable

10:41 and to comprehend the incomprehensible. So we come today to verses 35 and 36. And if the earlier verses, 32 to 34, constitute the prelude to the heart of Gethsemane, we come now to the prayer of Gethsemane, which is indeed the very heart of the Gethsemane experience. The very heart and soul of the agony which our Lord experienced.

11:15 Note with me, first of all, as we attempt to understand what is contained in this portion of the Word of God, that to which the Holy Spirit first draws our attention, namely, the physical posture in which our Lord prayed. The physical posture in which our Lord prayed. Verse 35. And he went forward a little, that is, a little bit, from the presence of the favored three, Peter, James, and John.

11:52 Luke says about the distance of a stone's cast, about as far as an ordinary man could throw a one or two inch stone. He went that far beyond the three. And then Mark tells us, that he fell upon the ground. The first thing revealed to us is this factor of the physical posture out of which he prayed.

12:27 And this is true in all three accounts of the Gethsemane experience. God has so made us as body-soul entities, that there is indeed an intimate connection, between the inner state of the soul, and the outward posture, or positions, or actions of the body. And although the term body-language is of relatively recent origin, the reality of body-language is as old as the words recorded in Genesis chapter 4. Why is thy countenance cast down?

13:09 Body-language is a part of human experience. For example, had I unbuttoned my jacket

13:21 and sauntered up to the pulpit this morning with my hands

13:27 in my pockets and casually leaned over the pulpit, before I ever opened my mouth I would have conveyed words to you about the nature of my mission. I would have been saying that I did not come with a message of weight and of constraint and burden upon my spirit. did not come to make you think long and hard and seriously about profound mysteries, I would have been saying by that body language, sit back, breathe easy, relax, we're going to have a nice little chat on the pulpit this morning. Body language. It's a part of human

14:07 experience. Because the Bible does not bypass what man is as man in spite of all of its glorious revelations of the majesty and the mystery of him who is God. It is not at all reluctant to draw our attention to such a mundane matter on the threshold of going into the very heart of the Gethsemane experience, the physical posture of our Lord. Matthew 26, 39 reads, and he went forward a little and fell upon his face and prayed.

14:46 Luke 22, 41 reads, and he was parted from them about a stone's cast and he kneeled down and prayed. Mark writes, and he went forward a little, and it's an imperfect which speaks of action in the past that was repeated action. And therefore a more wooden translation would be, he went forward a little and was falling. Upon the ground and was prayed. Now bringing the three witnesses together, what do we learn

15:29 about the posture of our Lord's prayer in Gethsemane? Well, surely we learn at least this much, that having left the eight by the very gate or the entrance to Gethsemane, having pressed a bit. Further with the three, and now having gone some yards beyond them to be alone, our Lord as he faces that horrible shock that came in that walk from the eight with the three

16:08 to the point where he leaves the three and goes a stone's cast further to pray, under the tremendous weight and shock of the Father. A true 말을, having dropped the cup down before his eyes, our Lord, as it were, begins to stagger beneath that weight and first of all, as though an invisible hand were pressing Him down, and drops to His knees and there upon his knees He begins to pour out his agony of soul. But He's not long upon his knee until that invisible hand had pressed Him from the upright position to His heart.íve the Apollo der narrah.ô. different image is thestoppable

16:51 to his knees, presses him even further until in the language of Matthew he is prostrate upon his very face on the damp, cold clods of an olive grove on a night so cold that in a few hours the soldiers will light a fire in order to warm their hands. As we bring the witness of the three gospel records together, the emphasis falls, you see, upon his physical posture in this agony of prayer, from standing and walking to kneeling,

17:35 from kneeling to being prostrate and bringing the imperfect of Mark into the picture. This apparently was repeated each time he broke off his prayer for a period of respite and went. He went and spoke to his disciples and came back once again. That hand was upon him, pressing him to his knees and then upon his face.

18:01 The scripture gives us many indications of postures that were assumed by men of God in their prayers in both the Old and the New Testaments. We find men praying, standing, sitting, kneeling, lifting up their hands to heaven, but almost without exception. Whenever a man or a woman is found praying in the prostrate posture, it is an index of the most excruciating state of either shock or humiliation or being overcome with awe and wonder in the presence of God.

18:44 For example, in Joshua 7 in verse 6, after the defeated Ai. And the people of...

18:50 God are shamed before their enemies. Joshua with the elders it is said rent his garments fell upon the ground with his face covering himself with sackcloth and ashes. Here was deep humiliation expressed by total prostration upon the ground. You remember in Revelation chapter 1 the very John who leaned upon the bosom of Jesus in the days of his flesh. His

19:22 intimate confidant the one whom Jesus loved when he is given this vision on the isle of Patmos of the glorified Christ it so overcomes him that John says I fell at his feet as one dead. It's as though someone put a 44 magnum slug through the back of my head and down I went prostrate. Like a dead man all of my strength gone out of me. Now dear people I don't care who you are saith or lost young or old surely, surely standing before this passage is worthy of

20:05 your attention to note when God underscores for us that his own beloved son his own dear son who is the creator. A thousand times a day. and upholder of the universe, is so overcome with grief that he finds himself on a little plot of the very earth that he made by the word of his power and upholds by the power of that same word.

20:44 Whatever is going on in Gethsemane, you and I cannot afford the luxury of indifference. We cannot be unconcerned, beholding deity sucking in dust in an olive grove.

The Essential Substance of Christ's Prayer: Mark's Summary

21:12 And the passage begins with pointing our attention to the physical posture of our Lord. But now then, notice in the second place, the essential substance of our Lord's prayer in Gethsemane. Having considered his physical posture, the fact that there must be something weighty, profound, and pregnant with issues of cosmic dimensions that God should be so prostrated, let us now note the essential substance of his prayer as it is given to us in the latter part, verse 35,

21:56 through verse 36, and then the hint of verse 39. Now I use the words the essential substance, because as we were informed years back when Mark and I began this study, we are not given an exact word-for-word transcript as though someone had planted a tape recorder in the olive tree nearest to where Jesus prayed. .........

22:25 and had electronically triggered it, and then transcribed his prayer word for word and passed it on to Mark, the gospel writers do not in any way purport to give us such a court transcript, word for word transcript, of the words of Jesus. They are spirit-directed, spirit-inspired accounts, so that what is preserved is indeed the mind of Christ, the verbally inspired word of the living God, but what we have are the essential and the leading lines of that prayer,

23:09 but there is no indication that what we are given is an exhaustive word. Word. By word transcript of that prayer. And in Mark's account, the essential substance of the prayer comes to us in two categories.

23:26 It's very evident as you look at your Bibles. Notice, there is a summary statement given by Mark himself.

23:35 And he went forward a little, verse 35, and fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. That's Mark. Spirit-inspired summary of our Lord's prayer in its essential substance. But then we have, secondly, a loose quotation of our Lord's own words.

24:00 And he said, and now we have a loose quotation of our Lord's words, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee. Remove this cup from me, how be it not what I will. But what? What thou wilt.

24:19 So as we attempt then to open up the essential substance of the prayer, let us do so in terms of the categories that the text itself has made for us. First of all, the summary statement by Mark in verse 35. Now it is clear for those of you who have read Matthew's account, chapter 26, verses 39, 42, and 44, that there were at least three, three distinct segments of the prayer broken up by these visits to the three disciples. That is very clear from Matthew's gospel.

24:59 He even says he went back a second time and then a third or a final time. And while it is clear that in these segments or rounds of prayer, there was a decided progression, and hopefully we'll consider that, two messages from now when we look at some of the vital lessons and the subject of prayer contained in the passage, the heart of the entire time of prayer is captured in the words of Mark. This is the central issue, the central substance of those various rounds or segments of prayer

25:43 and wrestling with his Father. Verse 35, Now, obviously, if that is the heart of his prayer, then the great question is, what was this hour that he desired should pass away from him? And I know of no better way to answer that question than simply to read a few lines from William Hendrickson's commentary on the, Note the words, this hour.

26:24 It is not true that whenever Jesus uses this or a similar expression, that he always has reference to the same event. What is true is that the words, the hour or this hour, in the phraseology of Jesus means the predestined moment, season or time for something to happen. Thus, there was a proper, a predestined moment for Jesus to perform the sign at Cana in Galilee. Remember what he said when his mother tried to have him come to the rescue in that situation?

27:03 He said, My hour is not yet come. What hour? The hour for the performance of the miracle has not yet come. And then in John 5, 25, there is a predestined season for him to awake the spiritually dead.

27:20 The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live. The hour is now upon us when sinners hearing the voice of the Son of God are coming to spiritual life. The predestined hour for the calling of sinners through the living ministry of the Son of God. And then also, and here is the meaning in this passage, there was a predestined hour for the Son of Man to depart, from this world.

27:52 John 13, 1, Jesus knowing that his hour had come, that he should depart out of this world, having loved his own, he loved them even unto the end. And it is in that sense that the words are used here by Mark, that the sum and substance, the pith, the heart of this season of prayer on behalf, on the part, of our Lord, was that if possible, the hour, that is the hour in which it was predetermined by the Father, that our Lord Jesus would stand trial, be mocked,

28:37 be scourged, be taken out and executed, and be raised from the dead, the hour in which he would, in a space of a few hours, accomplish all of that might, all of that mighty redemptive activity, promised and prophesied over many centuries, now the hour for those things to come to pass, was upon him. Now having established the meaning of the word, the hour, what was the great burden of our Lord's prayer? It was this, that the hour might pass away from him. That is,

29:21 that he might not have to drink the cup, but that it would pass and not touch him. In other words, the great burden, the central concern of his prayer, grew out of this holy aversion of Jesus to the drinking of the cup of the wrath of God against the sins of his people. As the appointed, appointed time comes, as the cup is introduced to our Lord, and he enters a qualitatively new realm of felt consciousness

30:03 of what it will mean to drink that cup. He always knew from eternity he would drink it. He himself has said, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I constrained till it be accomplished? Are you able to drink the cup that I shall drink, and to be baptized with the baptism with which I shall be baptized?

30:27 He knew from all eternity. He knew through his life history. But now in his own felt experience, he entered a realm of qualitatively new consciousness, what it would mean actually to drain the cup of the Father's wrath unmixed with mercy, to feel in his own holy spirit, the soul, the fury of spotless justice unleashed upon him, to feel the fury of the powers of hell seeking to submerge and obliterate him. And when he feels in that qualitatively new way

31:11 the consciousness of what it will mean, the great central burden of Gethsemane's prayer is this, that if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. Now holding in abeyance all of the questions which this raises, note in the essential substance of the prayer not only the summary statement by Mark, but the loose quotation of our Lord's own words, verse 36.

The Essential Substance of Christ's Prayer: His Own Words

31:49 And as we do, I want you to notice very carefully for almost everyone, the word is pregnant with meaning. We'll look at the climate of his prayer, the confidence that undergirds his prayer, the concern that is central to his prayer, and the qualification which conditions his prayer. First of all, we consider the climate of his prayer. Look at the text.

32:20 And he said, and here is the only place in the gospel record, where we have any record of Jesus addressing his Father in this term of intimate endearment in the Aramaic. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee. Remove this cup from me, how be it not what I will, but what thou wilt. And I say these opening words, Abba, literally, rendered my Father, indicate something of the climate of our Lord's prayer.

33:04 Listen to these very helpful words of one commentator. The preservation of Abba, my Father, indicates that Jesus prayed to God in the everyday language of the family. When Jesus addressed God this way, he did something new. For in the literature of early Palestinian Jews, Judaism, there is no evidence of Abba being used as a personal address to God.

33:34 And then he footnotes a learned dissertation by someone competent in that field to address such a subject. To the Jewish mind, the use of this familiar household term would have to be considered disrespectful in prayer and therefore inconceivable. Yet Jesus did not hesitate. He did not hesitate to speak to God as a child to its Father, simply, inwardly, confidently.

34:03 Jesus' use of Abba in addressing God reveals the heart of his relationship with God. In verse 36, Abba is an expression of obedient surrender and unconditional faith in the Father. But now pause and let something of the wonder and the mystery of this dawn upon your own hearts afresh. Consider what it meant at this particular time for Jesus to address my Father.

34:48 It is the Father who has just presented to him the cup. The Father who has initiated this shock to his soul. It is the Father who holds before him the horrible dark specter of having to drink that cup full of his own fury so that at this very moment, Jesus stands or kneels, is prostrate before his Father with his soul filled with the awareness

35:31 of the majesty of the Father's love. The purity of the Father's burning holiness, which necessitates the cup. The purity of the Father's absolute justice, which necessitates the cup. The awesomeness of the Father's fiery indignation against sin, which is the very essence of the cup.

35:58 Yet he knows that all of these glorious and even threatening attributes of the Father, though they will make the cup bitter, they are still the attributes of him who is his Father. And while trembling in every fiber in his holy soul, with recoil from the cup, a cup which is constructed out of the stuff of the eternal, immutable attributes of God, coming into contact with human sin, even when that sin is imputed to a sin-bearer,

36:40 yet his confidence in the heart of his own Father is such, his confidence of his filial relationships, that he is still able to address him as my Father. And the intimacy is reciprocal. The Father has already boasted from heaven, saying, this is my Son, my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased. And Jesus was conscious of that.

37:15 He could say, therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life. Jesus was able to say, I do always the things that please my Father. So that as the Father was never more admired and confided in as the Father in the face of the cup, so the Father may I say it reverently, was never more proud of his obedient and beloved Son than when, while facing the cup, he could still address him as Father. For he had not reversed or retracted the words,

38:00 this is my Son, my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased. He had no reason to believe that the disposition of the Father towards him was changed. And in reality, he was never more loved by the Father when his obedience was on the verge of its greatest testing. His own real humanity, though upheld and supported by the Spirit, is being crushed by the weight of the presence of the Father.

38:34 And yet the filial consciousness that he stands in relationship to God as Son to Father is stamped on the very face of his prayer. Now whatever mysteries surround and hold captive the clear doctrine of the Trinity, let us not be robbed of what is clear in the distinct persons of the Son and of the Father, and that is that there is real, delightful, filial knowledge, communion, and affection. As at the human level of Father and Son, if they rightly nurture their relationship, can have depths of mutual affection

39:19 and knowledge perhaps unsurpassed by any other relationship but that of a husband and a wife. So Jesus said, No one knows the Son save the Father, and no one knows the Father save the Son. And here, in the midst of the shock of the confrontation with the cup, the climate of his prayer is that of a loving, obedient Son in the presence of the large, loving heart of his heavenly Father. And if we don't capture that, we'll stumble over what follows.

40:03 If anything is the key to what follows, it is the climate of his prayer. It is not a prayer that is left on record for theologians to sort out, the strands of the various mysteries of the two natures in the one person or the mysteries of the Trinity. No! It is a prayer recorded that we, beholding the Son in the presence of the Father, might know something of how he faced his coming ordeal and then, by analogy, might know something of how we are to face those ordeals into which God

40:47 may bring us. If we forget this climate in which our Lord prayed, we shall either be reluctant to let the obvious meaning of the word shape our understanding or, or, we shall read into the obvious meaning things unworthy of our Lord. But when we see that the climate is that of my Father, Abba, a word of intimacy, the word a little Hebrew boy would use when running into his daddy's arms in Palestine at that time, that is the term our Lord uses. Now having looked at the climate of his prayer, now notice secondly

41:32 the confidence which undergirds his prayer. The first thing he says to his Father is this, All things are possible unto thee. What's he doing? He is praying.

41:46 He is verbalizing his confidence in his Father's absolute omnipotence. All things are possible unto thee. Knowing that God his Father is bound only by his own character and his own decrees, as the man Christ Jesus confesses this confidence in the Father's omnipotence, he is letting us see what undergirds his prayer. According to Matthew 26, 39, he adds the words, Therefore,

42:30 if it be possible, if there is any way that my request can be granted consistent with who and what you are and what you have decreed, O my Father, all contingencies are possible with you, and the only qualification and limitation is your own holy character and your own eternal decree. Therefore he confesses as a son in the presence of a father his absolute confidence in the unfettered omnipotence of his Father.

The Qualification Conditioning Christ's Prayer: 'Not My Will'

43:14 Now having looked at the climate of his prayer, the confidence which undergirds his prayer, now notice the concern central to his prayer. And we have what is called here the imperative of petition. There are times when in prayer the imperative is used and it's called the imperative of petition, not that Jesus is ordering God around, no, but the petition is so real that it comes in the form of the imperative, and this is what he prays. Remove this cup from me.

43:52 Remove this cup from me. In secular literature this particular verb would be the verb that would be used when you called the waiter to clear the table and take away the dishes, take away the glasses, take away the cup, to clear the table. And the central concern of our Lord's prayer is O my Father, all things are possible, Matthew's insight, if it be possible, remove this cup. Now in praying that, what is our Lord acknowledging?

44:34 Well, he's acknowledging that the Father had set the cup before him. There's no record who put the cup before him, but now we have the acknowledgement of our Lord himself. He knows it is the Father who's presented the cup. This is why I cannot accept those who say, that primarily what happened in Gethsemane there was an unleashing of the powers of hell to torment him.

44:59 I cannot establish that from the text of scripture. There may be inferences that the powers of darkness began to be active for Jesus said, this is your hour and the power of darkness, but the focus is not upon the devil and demons, it's upon the Father. And he acknowledges it is the Father who has set the cup before him. Secondly, he acknowledges that only the Father can remove it.

45:28 How could anyone say there's petulance or rejection of the will of God? He says, oh my Father, if it be possible, you've set the cup before me, but I will not reach up to push it away, nor will I turn my mouth away. Father, if it be possible, you and your sovereignty have set the cup before me. And if it be possible, consistent with all that you are as God, remove it.

45:58 But that's the only way I desire to have it removed is if you remove it. How many times have you, as parents, in feeding your little ones, you put a spoonful of a certain food they don't like right up to their lips and what do they do? Whoops, they've lost their glasses. Let them go.

46:19 Just forget them. They turn their heads away. You see, they may not remove the spoon, but they remove their mouths and what they're saying is, I'll not eat it. Sometimes they look right at you and they'll slap the spoon away.

46:33 Or they'll see that the bottle has juice and they want milk and they'll slap it away. That's the petulance. That's the Adamic nature of the child manifesting itself in that way. But not so, our Lord.

46:46 The language is precise. He says, Father, you've put the cup here. And my prayer is, if it be possible, you remove the cup from me. Our Lord is here acknowledging that all within His sanctified and holy humanity would desire to have the cup removed, but He will not raise a finger to remove it.

47:19 That is the Father's prerogative. But then having looked at the climate of His prayer, the confidence that undergirded His prayer, the concern central to His prayer, now notice the qualification conditioning His prayer. The qualification conditioning His prayer. And what is that qualification?

47:40 Though all things are possible unto His Father, and He prays, if it be possible, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt. And there's a very strong particle called an adversity, Allah. It's a strong one.

48:01 How be it, though I've prayed, my Father, if it be possible, remove the cup, clear from me the cup as that which stands in the path of my duty. Nevertheless, not what I, even I will, but what Thou wilt. And here is the qualifying condition of His prayer. He acknowledges in this prayer that in asking for the cup to be removed, He is expressing His own holy, sanctified, human will.

48:45 Let me repeat that. He is expressing His own holy, sanctified, human will. And yet in so doing, He acknowledges that there is a will supreme over the holy, sanctified, human will of Jesus. And that is the will of His Father.

49:09 And when He says, not what I will, but what Thou wilt, He is not praying, Thy will be done to me, as though the cup, as it were, would be poured out upon Him, or His mouth forced open. No, what He's saying is, not my will, but Thy will be done. He is saying, not Thy will be done upon me, as though this were a passive acquiescence, but my Father, You've held the cup before me. And You have said in that action, I must drink it.

49:47 If in so drinking, the salvation of Your people will be secured. And while my prayer is, if it be possible, let this cup pass, nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. That is, Thy will be done by me. I shall take the cup, and in the strength and grace that You will give me, as my Father committed to uphold me as the suffering servant, I shall drink it.

50:16 And in drinking it, secure the salvation of all those for whom we have covenanted such a salvation in the councils of eternity. And so in spite of an aversion that was real, an aversion that was deep, our Lord just affirms what had been the whole pattern and rationale of His life. At His conception, His last words, leaving heaven, were these, Lo, I come in the role of the book it is written of me, to do Thy will, O God. He had said, I came down from heaven, John chapter 6,

51:01 not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And now He affirms in the face of that most crucial dimension of the will of God, the actual becoming sin for us, He who knew no sin, becoming a curse for us, bearing away the sins of His people by taking the punishment due to them. His qualification is not what I will, but what You will. Now having looked at the posture of His prayer, having looked together at the essential substance of His prayer, what I want us to do

Application: Was Christ's Aversion Right?

51:45 in the time that remains this morning is just to consider two very vital points of application. God willing, next week we will bring in the sidelights and the profound insights that Luke adds to this whole scene, but I judged it would be impossible to do it all today. And I want to make just these two points of application. First of all, there is a question which demands an answer.

52:18 There is a question which demands an answer. As we have sought to be honest with the words of the text, surely a question has pressed itself upon our minds. And that question is this, was it right for our Lord, was it proper for our Lord to have an aversion to an aspect of the will of God and then to express that aversion in a fervent petition to His Father? That's a question that this passage presses upon us.

52:57 In the will of the Father the cup is presented. The Son responds by saying in what Mark says was the very heart of His prayer, if it be possible that the hour might pass and the hour is synonymous with the drinking of the cup. And in the language of His prayer it is the cup that is central. If it be possible let this cup pass.

53:22 And the question that presses it upon us is this, was it right for Him to pray? And the answer is this, not only was it right but any other response would have been both inhuman and ungodly. The response would have been inhuman. Inhuman and ungodly.

53:55 Now at this point I want to be very careful. Joe, would you go in the back and you'll see in my satchel another set of glasses, a glasses case. Bring it to me, all right? Because I need my bifocals to read a quote that I want to read in a moment.

54:08 All right? A reminder that we have the treasure in earthen vessels. Coming back to this question, I say if our Lord had done anything other than this He would have been both inhuman and ungodly. Now why do I say that?

54:27 He would have first of all been inhuman. God has made us as men and women with an aversion to that which leads to suffering, to pain, to sorrow, to grief and to death. All of those things are intrusions upon the original order of things. The original order of things with all of the vast array of its realities would have had nothing of sorrow, of pain and of death.

55:03 And therefore woven into the very texture of what we are as human beings is an aversion to pain. That's why you don't need to instruct a child if you happen to touch a hot stove don't leave your hand on it. Take your hand away. His nerve endings do the job for him.

55:22 His nerve endings do the job for him. You don't need to train him to recoil. He automatically, he's looking at you, he's talking to you and in his excitement he touches a hot stove. He jumps away immediately, instinctively.

55:37 It's the way God has made us. And for our Lord to all that the cup involved of the lacerations of his body for he said the son of man shall be he had seen people impaled upon crosses. Therefore hour upon hour amidst the burning Palestinian sun by degrees of dehydration in the shade of nakedness and he knew that that was in the cup. And for our Lord to have envisioned just the physical aspects

56:21 of the cross and not recoiled and prayed would have been inhuman. God does not call us to be stoics so stoic when he faced the cup and all that was involved in justice he recoiled. But further than that it would have been ungodly for the worst dregs of that cup were not the physical sufferings they were the spiritual agonies of being bruised by the Father. Being abandoned by the Father.

57:04 Having put to his account and record and being treated as Luther shockingly says the greatest sinner that ever touched God's earth was his son. He became the greatest sinner by imputation of all the sins of his people to him. God was now to treat him as the greatest sinner and heap upon him all of the vengeance which his own holiness and justice demands. And for anyone to look into the jaws of almighty fury with a cavalier attitude is the height

57:48 of ungodliness.

57:53 That's the very height of the ungodliness of some of you this morning. You can hear of you can hear of hell you'll walk out of here with nothing on your mind but filling your belly. Is that a sign of godliness? To be in before the wrath of God

58:34 for our Lord not to have quaked not to have trembled for our Lord not to have prayed oh my Father my Holy Father perfect not only in love in mercy in kindness in compassion but perfect in your holiness perfect in your justice perfect in your wrath not only infinite in your love and in your mercy and in your grace but infinite in your holiness and justiceness to the Father fully.

59:18 No one knows the Father save the Son. Therefore knowing fully what the fury of holy wrath would be it would have been indeed ungodly for our Lord not to have shrunk back. Any other response than the one recorded would be both inhuman and ungodly. Listen to the saintly Hugh Martin an old Scottish theologian who has written the most profound work in the English language

60:02 on the Gethsemane experience called The Shadow of Calvary. Some of the chapters I've read over a half a dozen times and I'm rereading many of the chapters in preparation for these messages. Listen as Hugh Martin addresses this question but did not this that is his prayer let this cup pass from me did not this imply at least that in some respect Jesus longed earnestly to escape from his sufferings? It did indeed.

60:37 It implied that save for his Father's will appointing them and appointing his people's salvation by means of them that is his sufferings save for this it was most desirable that he should have no such sufferings to undergo. Could they have been real? Could they have been anything else than imaginary and feigned? Had not this been the Savior's feeling concerning them?

61:06 Could he have had a true body and a reasonable soul and not sensitively shrunk from undergoing the terrors of God's wrath? Could his soul have been holy? Could he have truly feared God and not trembled in sorrow and in anguish in the prospect of his anger or in the presence of his wrath? How could he have learned obedience by the things which he suffered save by subduing his natural and sinless repugnance to endure them and thus denying and sacrificing himself?

61:45 But still it was not something like a weakness and imperfection on the part of Jesus that he should speak as if he thought it possible that this cup should pass from him? Was it not something of a weakness to even speak of the possibility? Father, if it be possible let this cup pass? And truly it is not to be denied that here we have Jesus revealed to us in weakness even as the Holy Ghost testifies he was crucified through weakness.

62:16 Let us mark of what nature this imperfection was. It consisted in nothing more than the powerful predominance or we may perhaps say the sole presence in his mind for a moment of the one thought of the desirableness of being exempted from the abyss of misery that yawned before him in the Father's curse. That his holy human nature considered the matter solely in itself could not but desire to be exempt from such woe we've already seen. And then he goes on to say this since in the actings of the human mind of Jesus that mind was not infinite he says, the Son does not know

63:00 the hour of his return. That is not an omniscient mind his human mind is not omniscient and there in self-imposed weakness with his holy human mind and soul contemplating only one thing the fury of God's wrath. For that moment for him to say if it be possible let this pass is no sign of sin or rebellion. It is a sign of true and real humanity.

63:32 Not to be filled with an earnest longing to escape from that wrath would have argued that he did not possess a true human nature with all the sinless sensibilities which are the very essence of real humanity. Now for some of you you may say well that's just a lot of highfalutin language Pastor but I hope for some of you it's a word from God. Because the Jesus of the Bible is not one who just walks in a way that has no faltering steps no internal reservation no struggle no trauma into the jaws of divine wrath because he's the son of God

64:16 he can do it! God lets us into the mystery of Gethsemane that we might know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If it's true that the Holy Son of letting some people say he was running from doing the Father's will it must be a horrible thing my friend don't play with such a God like that. That you better run from the wrath to come and go to the only place where you can be protected and that's in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Application: A Pattern for Our Obedience

64:56 But then in closing I say we have not only a question which demands an answer but my final application quickly is this we have a pattern which constitutes an example a pattern which constitutes an example and what is the example? It is this here our Lord has set before him something in the will of the Father to which there is an aversion of every cell of his being has an aversion yet he says this I will not lift my hand to change the Father's will I will entreat the Father but then I will give this

65:39 qualifying condition nevertheless not thy will my will but thine be done and though it is blasphemous for us ever to speak of our personal Gethsemane none of us will have a personal Gethsemane Gethsemane is as unique to Jesus as Golgotha but the principle is there and the principle is this when in our loving obedience to Christ there is set before us a decision there is set before us a dimension of God's revealed will in the scriptures or God's imposed will

66:19 in providence how we must learn not to be governed by our natural and even our holy aversions but to say concerning everything not my will but thine be done do you think there is no aversion in my heart as I anticipate going over to Australia and the Philippines for three weeks and leaving this flock and my wife and my children and grandchildren you think I say oh boy I can't wait for August to come get on the plane preach three four times a day whoopee

67:03 no I go through nothing short of the closest thing I have ever known to depression at least a full week before I leave a weight comes over my soul and I find myself almost hoping that I'll come down with the flu yes I'm being honest almost hoping I'll fall and break a leg why have an aversion to being away from my wife any wrong with that no God says it's not good for a man to be alone I feel like half of me is dropped out of existence not seeing my children my grandchildren not having my son's phone call every Sunday morning seven thirty

67:45 but if I allow that to deter me from what we have judged in prayerful deliberation to be the will of God how wicked how evil is the grace of man of marriage and of children and grandchildren and pastor to flock those very noble God-given bonds to deter me from doing the will of God now multiply that many times over when you think of Pastor and Mrs. Dixon and when you think of what Pastor and Mrs. Barker face in the anticipation of Jonathan and Allison how wicked

68:30 it would be for them to carry on a subtle emotional pressure to try to persuade them they can serve God just as effectively as they can in the midst of all this they are actively here at home because they cannot and will not bear the pain of that separation now you start applying it I've applied it to us now you start applying it just saying no on that young woman you have no reason to have solace that they are true and prove nothing wrong

69:08 with that you pray oh God if it be possible nevertheless I'll not be governed by my emotions and affection but by the word of God of God you start applying it issue and this generation is the generation brought up on instant gratification if it feels good it must and that runs into the teeth of Gethsemane nothing felt good and yet it was the only good that would secure

69:53 your salvation and while our Lord had a holy aversion he had a holy submission nevertheless not my will but thine be done and mine be done and mine but thine be done oh what a pattern our Lord is and I remind you who face things that are unpleasant and draw back from doing the will of God because of fear do you know that God puts fearful right along with whoremongers and liars as those who go to hell Revelation 28 21 in verse 8 but the fearful as well as the unbelieving and liars and whoremongers

70:38 and idolaters and idolaters have their part in the lake of fire some of you are on dangerous ground because anything to which your emotions your physical well-being has an aversion though it may be a God-given human aversion if you rule through fear of doing shall burn along with the whoremongers I didn't write it God said it and you need to get to Christ and become so bonded to him in faith in faith in love that no matter what stands before you

Conclusion and Prayer

71:23 to which there is a fearful natural and even a whole you're prepared to say if it be possible nevertheless not my will but thine be done oh our Father when we seek to contemplate our blessed Lord Jesus in all of the agony and the travail of Gethsemane you know that our inward spirits feel paralyzed

72:08 and numb even with the effort to enter in to the great realities that he knew come by your spirit and teach us of him and oh God for those who look right into the eye of the storm of your fierce wrath and don't even twitch but have mercy on them will you not open their blinded eyes to the wrath to come and then Father for us who are your people forgive us for the many times when we've been ruled by our aversions and not by your will

72:52 cleanse us we pray of this horrible propensity to make our felt aversions the rule for our conduct and may we like your beloved son do always the things that please you may bring great displeasure to our flesh write your word upon our hearts dismiss us with your blessing we plead in Jesus name Amen