Gleanings from Gethsemane

Introduction: Gleanings from Gethsemane

0:06 Gethsemane, the shadow of Golgotha, the mysterious agony, the intense wrestlings with his father, the repeated prostrations upon the cold, dew-dampened earth. All of these have meaning only as we understand that the shadow of the horrible realities of the cross was being cast backward upon the very place where our Lord with the three was found in Gethsemane. In our previous studies of this portion of Mark's gospel, we have noted that the primary focus of verses, verses 32 through 36, is this whole matter of our Lord's wrestlings in prayer as he faced the cup which he must drink in order that his obedience might be obedience unto death, even the death of the cross by which he would secure the salvation of his people. In verses 37 to 42, the focus, the focus is primarily upon the slumbering disciples, particularly Peter, James, and John,

1:34 who had the unspeakable privilege of being closer to our Lord in his wrestlings with his father. Three times our Lord interrupts his prayer. Three times he interrupts his wrestlings with his father to visit these favored three. And all of this points to his tender, tender concern for them as they are about to be tested as never before.

2:04 In our last study, we focused upon the words of verse 38, words which contain our Lord's instructions in seeking to prepare the disciples for their coming temptation. And now this morning, we come back to Gethsemane for this last time in this present series of expositions in the gospel of Mark. And as we do, we shall be focusing our attention upon several vital observations and applications, which it was either not convenient or appropriate to include in the previous expositions and applications. So as we came for a final time to the Olivet Discourse, and I entitled our visit Gleanings from the Olivet Discourse. So this morning, I want to speak to you. On Gleanings from Gethsemane. We come back to this entire incident in order to reap and gather, as it were, in the arms of our minds and hearts, sheaves of precious truth that are standing there in the passage that which it was not expedient to reap and to gather in our previous traversing through this portion of the Word of God.

Gleaning 1: A Searching Example of Christ's Prayerfulness

3:27 And there are four sheaves of Gleanings that I would attempt to open up in your hearing this morning. And the first is what I am calling a searching example. This passage contains for us a searching example. As our Lord draws near to his final ordeal, the one great spiritual discipline to which he turns, is the discipline of prayer.

4:01 I remind you of those opening words in verse 32. Sit here while I pray. And in the Gospel of Mark, this is the last of three recorded explicit instances of concentrated and protracted seasons of prayer in the life of our Lord. One came at the very beginning in chapter 1 of Mark's Gospel.

4:31 We read in verse 35, And a great while before day, Jesus went out into a secret place and there prayed. Mark is informing us at the very beginning of his Gospel that this Gospel that focuses upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God, focuses upon one who in his humility, who in his humiliation, would derive his strength to do the will of the Father, to perform the mighty miracles by which his identity was attested. He would carry out this work in strength received at the throne of grace. And then in the middle of the account of his ministry, in Mark 6 and verses 45 and following, Mark records our Lord going up into a mountain, a mountain place to spend a whole night in prayer, to demonstrate that what he indicated at the beginning of our Lord's ministry was now sustained through the height of its popularity. He did not become a man of prayer at the beginning of his ministry because he was uncertain of himself and inexperienced in the performance of messianic duty, only to find in the middle of his ministry,

5:55 now that he is assured of the Father's power resting upon him, the Father's wisdom being given to him, that he need not give himself to protracted prayer. Just the opposite is true. By giving us this incident in Mark 6, 45 and following, in the middle and at the height of our Lord's usefulness, Mark is telling us that the one who is our Savior not only begins his ministry, deriving strength and power in seasons of intense and protracted communion with God, but he carries on his ministry in that same spirit of intense, real protracted communion with his Father. Now as we come to just a few hours before this ministry will come to its climactic expression as he lays down his life for his sheep, Mark underscores once again that he who began and continued his ministry as a man of prayer is the one who carries it to completion in the strength and grace received in the presence of his Father. And what our Lord is telling us is that in facing the crucial issues

7:22 in his life and mission, all that he receives, he receives because he is eminently, consistently and supremely a man of prayer. He knew that the wisdom, the strength and the grace and power needed to do the will of God were to be found as Isaiah the prophet described it, that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. He knew according to the very decree of his Father recorded in Psalm 2 that he as Messiah must ask if he was to receive the inheritance that was his by right. Now why do I call these facts a gleaning in which we have a searching example? Well, for the simple reason that among other things what is recorded of our Lord's life is a divinely ordained pattern for the life of his people. We read in 1 John 2.6

8:47 He that saith he abideth in him, he that saith he is in living connection with the Lord Jesus, ought himself so to walk even as he walked. Or in 1 Peter 2.21 Christ has suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. Now I did not say that the only reason for which these details are recorded is that they might form a pattern for us, but I did say that among the other things for which the details of the life of Christ are recorded is this purpose that we might have a living picture of what we are to as the followers of the Lord Jesus. Think of our blessed Lord with no indwelling sin with which to contend whose own sin was byation from the devil and though in his perfectly sinless humanity it meant an agony an excruciating pain that we dwelling in sin

10:13 will never experience. Nonetheless in perfect but true humanity in a present state of weakness our Lord innately, a man of prayer. He does not rely upon his unique identity as God the Son. He does not assume that all is of being others grace automatically be fulfilled on his behalf so long as his feet are in the path of obedience.

10:50 But again and again we are given glimpses of our Lord as one who was engaged in the exercise of real, earnest, loving, communion and petition at his Father's throne and in so doing this pattern revealed in the scriptures becomes what I have called the first of our gleanings a searching example to us. For did he not make it clear at the very outset of his ministry on the Sermon on the Mount that what was true of him was to be true of his people? Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find.

11:35 Knock and it shall be opened unto you. If ye who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him? And toward the end of his ministry in John 15 in that beautiful extended analogy of our Lord as the vine and his people as the branches he says if you abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be given unto you and here is much fruit. And are we not rebuked people of God that he who confess any sin of his own struggled with the reality of indwelling sin who was the beloved of the Father surrounded with promise that he would be successful in his mission upheld by divine enablement in his task yet he is eminently a man of God and as he faces his greatest work he has recourse to the greatest means open to him to receive strength and power

13:00 to face and he receives it prostrate upon the damp earth of Gethsemane in an agony with God in an agony of the Lord a conflict of his own holy human will that recoils from all the involved the drinking of the cup and yet the commitment of that same will to the things that please the Father and it is in the wrestlings of prayer that that inner conflict is poured out in the ears of his Father and I say that this example constitutes for us as the people of God a searching example for how often do we undertake our tasks so prayerlessly so that when we lack the wisdom to deal with a problem with our children when we lack the grace to be patient with a difficulty in our place of work when we lack the grace necessary to carry our through the day in the way of the Father's appointment and will overwritten at the end of that day

14:26 not James 4.2 oh how we need to gaze upon our Lord again and again and again and again and Christ's exercise of real fervent that strength is received to break through that impasse of that problem with our child strength is received to bear that difficult circumstance with that providential arrangement that galls and constantly embitters and pressures and we run lens run the own of prayer it is indeed a searching example

Gleaning 2: A Sober Warning from the Slumbering Disciples

15:53 of his eminent prayerfulness sit ye here while I pray but then the second gleaning in the passage is what I am calling a sober warning not only the searching example of our Lord's eminent prayerfulness but a sober warning as we have seen in our previous expositions the eight disciples were left just inside the outer perimeter of the garden of Gethsemane and it was this group which I have previously called the elect of the elect who were privileged to be taken deeper into the garden with our Lord it was this same privileged three Peter, James and John who were with him on the mount of transfiguration these three who were with him when in private he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead one of them Peter was privileged to be the spokesman with respect to the identity of the Son of God privileged to be identified as the unique person in the purposes of the building of the church of Christ another one had the unique privilege of being described as the disciple whom Jesus loved

17:20 who leaned upon his breast yet with all of this privilege they failed in the hour of testing though they had been witnessed to his mighty works though they had that very power which he exercised to heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead conferred upon them with the other twelve though they had been taken into this inner circle of privilege greater intimacy with their Lord to behold his works to behold him upon the mount of transfiguration seeing his resurrection power in that room when he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead in spite of that of communion beholding the works of Christ receiving life from Christ what happened? in the hour of testing they failed and therein is the sober warning the warning is this no amount of past privilege of communion with Christ beholding the works of Christ receiving life from Christ will immunize you

18:48 from the danger of falling before temptation if you neglect the God appointed means to help you that's the sober warning when they were about to face their conjunction with his trial he said temptation and in the failing trial engage it and you will meet the trial fail in those disciplines and you will be overcome in the hour of trial and you see they could not draw upon their past privileges of communion with Christ their past beholding of the works of Christ light received from Christ no will kill in that hour why does the Bible record

20:14 the tragic falls of the best of men David's lust and adultery and murder Asa's later years of rejection of the prophetic authority Abraham's lie not that we may imitate them more and over war with Gethsemane James and John among them such a departure to a light and privilege in their face they did not watch and they did not pray people of God when will some of you

21:40 learn the lesson of Gethsemane yes you have had great light in the past you have had great seasons of communion with Christ you have known his felt presence in the secret place in the public place in the gathering of the saints of God you have known his nearness when you have opened his word he has spoken of his word and you have so did they but in the hour of temptation when they were sleeping instead of watching slumbered and they fell before the pressure of temptation I tell you one of my greatest fears lies right here I look back over 38 years of being in a state of grace and I think of the reservoir of all of the privileges of grace the reservoir of light received experiences of Christ known witnessing his grace and power in my life and the lives of others surely I can sing with John many dangers toils and snares

23:08 I have come but this is what frightens me that if by degrees yet lie in that river and I'm not saying horrible thing to join of those since the closing canon who first lapped well and the second lapped well and the third that past blessings of grace were a stock of insurance against present and future temptation do you hear me

24:30 they began was indeed that that's possible that's why you are the most likely candidates to fall there's some of you been true to your wives for 10 15 20 years and you've begun to be so confident you'd never fall to indulge the second look you can hardly watch an ad on TV now but what it doesn't drip with seductiveness to relax a tired mind I tried to watch a little baseball yesterday and what did I have to get in the middle of a car activeness of the most blatant kind semi-pornographic had to turn my head away but you said oh I've been 30 years true to my

25:59 wife and you've begun to take the second glance and kind of wait for that ad to come on the next time you've allowed your eyes to be the inlet of the second look and where once you found I cannot then keep a pure mind go into indiscriminate mixed bathing situations now you've said well I'm old enough and mature enough and strong enough and I've been true to my wife I can glance at other flesh and it won't bother me you're a sitting duck to fall I'm happy

27:19 you let it get out that you hadn't made it with a girl that you came through that and you've stood and you've said well if I got through that I can stand that stock of grace and now I'm just interested in Christian guys and Christian girls and therefore I can afford my friend listen God nowhere said that the Holy Spirit dwelling in anyone's heart without the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Spirit you can takes the Holy Spirit from

Gleaning 3: A Simple Observation – Understanding Gethsemane Through Suffering

28:21 any of our Lord's prayerfulness, we have the sober warning from Peter, James, and John. But then thirdly, we have what I'm calling as our third gleaning, a simple observation. A simple observation. And may I urge you in your own devotions whenever you come in any of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to read of the Gethsemane account all the way to the book of Hebrews. And I'm going to ask you to do that with me for a moment.

29:31 Always take the time to flip over to Hebrews 5 and read the words that I shall read in your hearing. Hebrews chapter 5, speaking of Christ, the writer says, having offered up supplications with strong cryings and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and having been heard for His godly fear. That's a description of Gethsemane. Now notice the great lesson of Gethsemane.

30:08 Though He was a son, yet learned to obey by the things which He suffered.

30:21 Though the Son, the perfect, sinless, incarnate Son of God,

30:29 in conjunction with the strong cryings and tears of Gethsemane, in which He was heard for His godly lesson He was learning in Gethsemane, it was enough to learn from His suffering. And here I say we have a simple observation. And the simple observation is this. It is only those who choose suffering as the price of doing the will of God who can understand Gethsemane.

31:12 It is only those who choose suffering as the price of doing the will of God who can understand Gethsemane. None of us can fully understand it. Maybe I should change my wording and rewrite it this way. It is only those who choose suffering at the price of doing the will of God who can begin to begin to understand Gethsemane.

31:42 Because according to Hebrews 5 this is what our Lord was experiencing.

31:48 Here was the path of the Father's will before Him. The cup had to be drunk for the first time in consciousness what it would mean to drink the cup to be plunged into the darkness of abandonment while the heavens were shrouded in darkness to feel the of His own soul from His Father. And He shrunk. And as we saw in our exposition it was both holy and right for Him to seek if at all possible to avoid that cup. Oh my Father if it be possible let the cup pass if it cannot pass except I drink it He doesn't push it aside He doesn't dictate to God His hands are passive His heart is come to do Thy will and I am determined to do Thy will knowing

33:12 suffer here in the garden falling upon my face the rupturing of my blood vessels the mingling with the sweat the clots of bloody sweat falling to the ground obedience go before Caiaphas and I will not and Pilate and Herod and if I must be stripped must be scourged and spat must be impaired my Father obedience to You is why I came and obedience to You is that to which I am committed and the scripture says this is how He lured through suffering through suffering and so we come to this final glimpse at Gethsemane I say it not only sets before us this searching example this sober warning

34:41 but this simple observation if you would even begin to begin to understand Gethsemane you know the point at which you'll understand it when doing the revealing and there's no way to avoid the suffering but to refuse the will of God that's when you will learn what Gethsemane is all about there's the next step in the corporate job ladder there's the next step in the corporate job ladder but the prior weekends away from the house of God from the people of God from the means of grace from the family and you tell your superiors that you're honored you're thankful for their recognition of your honest and upright efforts you're thankful for the offer of an increase of salary and all the rest but you say I'm willing to be locked in to my present position present salary present prestige prestige prestige I'm willing to be dead ended and let go but I will not and you're prepared

36:08 in the crucible of suffering for some of you as parents you know what it will mean like Joshua you've said as for me and my house we will serve the Lord and as the head of your house you have established that the rule of God will be maintained you can't save your kids but you can and must establish a framework of God's rule in that home and the children come to age and they don't like that rule and they begin to negotiate for you to lower it and you know that the price for keeping it is this that they're going to walk out the front door and you're going to lose your kids are you ready for the suffering of watching their back not knowing where they're going what they'll go into the scars they may bring upon themselves or do you bypass the suffering and you lower the standards at one time you had determined any child living in my home whether five to sit down at family worship will be expected to be at the decent hour

37:31 until you saw you were going to have to suffer the rejection of your own children and then you compromised rather than suffer you can't understand Gethsemane I might as well have been preaching from the Quran you've sat there perhaps bored to death while I preached them Gethsemane why because you've never known what it is to suffer to do the will of God I think of some of you parents with little ones and the suffering that yet awaits you through your own children oh remember remember Gethsemane don't be reluctant to pour out into the ear of your father your dread of

38:25 some of you

39:12 and then into your third year single you get panicky in your teens and early twenties you set certain standards I will not respond in my high luxury of the first flutter of romantic interest let alone conversation let alone a date principle has nothing to do with the width of his shoulders it has to twenty twenty-two twenty-four twenty-seven now you're getting near panic stage and you find someone who makes your heart flutter and you didn't ask those questions now what is his character

40:32 and to say do I like him? is he like me? and before long you know what you've done because the path of obedience would have meant the suffering of asking God to dry up those romantic interest and to shrivel them and even if God didn't shrivel them not to give in to them one iota you bypass suffering and in so doing you bypass the will of God and the reverse is true men with women this is why frankly you sat there and wondered what in the world is pastor martin talking about expounding Gethsemane how could Christ have took wills oh if it be possible let this pass not my will thine be done I tell you

41:34 if you've had one will of Gethsemane

Gleaning 4: A Significant Conclusion – Christ's Outward Position and Inward Disposition

42:37 the power is over you and you don't have the courage to self-impose celibacy until God breaks her look yourself in the mirror and say I am a Christian man when you can be intimidated by your wife's refusal to respond in bed in a day of self-indulgence Gethsemane is not a popular place to be because there our Lord says forth gleaming we not only have in this passage a searching example of our Lord's prayerfulness the sober warning that comes from Peter James and John the simple observation but a significant conclusion

43:59 see our Lord's wrestling in Gethsemane mark a clear turning point in the whole narrative of what we commonly called the passion of our Lord the days of His suffering upon the cross and two things are very significant and clear his outward position and his inward disposition A very significant conclusion can be seen from this passage with regard to his outward position as we present it in this passage can be seen from this passage which is clear and clear in development from the rise to double Origin His outward position is clear啊 Now we really should stop by the Holy voice to say, position and his inward disposition in his outward position from this point onward our lord appears in one posture and in one posture only the moment we start reading verse 43 straightway while he spake came judas one of the twelve with a multitude with swords and staves and the chief priests from that point onward to this crucifixion except for that moment recorded in john when he says i am he and there's a burst of his inherent glory and they fall to the ground except for that one incident our lord appears in one position and one only in terms of all

45:17 of his outward circumstances it's the position of a guilty criminal he's apprehended he's apprehended and he's in a position of a guilty criminal you have to be in a position of a guilty criminal you have to be in a position of a guilty criminal He's arraigned, he's killed, and then he's executed, and then he's buried. You had been estranged from the Jesus of Nazareth, and your first inter was with the mob that went to the garden.

46:01 Execute it.

46:07 Arrange it that way. Hugh Martin perceptibly suggests this. God's theater of the circumstances where men could see so that we might have a vivid illustration and demonstration of what was going on in the world where human eyes cannot see. The world of spiritual reality where God sits upon his throne as judge, where he keeps the record of all the sins of all men.

46:41 In the court of heaven he indicts sinners with the right and proper judgment of death for their sins. In the court of heaven in the unseen spiritual world Christ was being by the Father precisely as he was. He was being treated by men as a guilty criminal.

47:08 And while he was arraigned before Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod, he was being arraigned before his own Father. And while they inflict wounds for sin,

47:27 he is being treated as a criminal in human courts because in the divine court he who knew no sin is being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And from now on we're going to see him a guilty criminal. A guilty criminal. That's his outward position and then his inward disposition from here on in.

47:54 What is it? We alluded to it two weeks ago. Behold the Son of Man is betrayed. Arise!

48:01 Let us be going to his crucifixion and to his death. Why? Because when he said, Not my will but thine be done. He was committed to the will of the Father that by his suffering, He was committed to the will of the Father that by his suffering, and death, he should redeem an innumerable company of hell-deserving sinners.

48:26 And he was so anxious to do it that he went forth to the most frightening treatment, almost with what we would call a reckless abandonment. And that's the significant conclusion of Gethsemane. He goes into it so amazed out of Gethsemane, resolute, willing of a common criminal. And to take the actual pot of a criminal in the court of heaven, that we might never meet a sentence there, but one of absolute acquittal. And my sinner friend who trifles with sin, you need to look at Gethsemane,

49:41 and Jesus falling on his knees, falling to his face, sweat drops like unto drops of blood, blood falling to the ground. Your sin might trifle with that which caused his bloody sweat. If you don't repent of those sins and flee to Christ, do you see how God could do nothing else if He loves His Son but send you to hell forever? How could He prove His love to His Son if He lets you despise His sacrifice and love the things that caused His bloody sweat and lets you go scot-free? It would be an insult to His Son. O sinner, run to such a Savior. Run to the Savior who agonized in Gethsemane, that He might go triumphantly to Golgotha.

Conclusion and Prayer: Call to Obedience and Repentance

50:43 And dear people of God, is He not worthy of our obedience no matter what suffering we must endure? For whatever suffering comes to us in the way of obedience, we'll never know one suffering, suffering for a moment in the pangs of hell. O deliver us from our religion of convenience and grant us such a commitment to Christ that we say with Job, though he will I trust him. Let us pray. What can we say when we look upon your beloved Son in Gethsemane? We confess that our prayerlessness becomes ugly, and our suffering becomes exceedingly nauseous to Him. Wash us in the blood of Jesus from our vacillation, our self-indulgence, our love of ease, our compromise of conscience,

52:08 to please our flesh. O may these gleanings from Gethsemane become the means of wedding our wills to the will of Jesus, wedding our hearts to the heart of Jesus. And O God, for those who sit here, strangers to your grace, have mercy upon them. May their sins suddenly appear in their eyes as they appeared before the eyes of Jesus when He looked in the cup and quaked.

52:38 Lord, make their sin ugly. Make your grace lovely. Draw them to the Son of God. Seal then your word to our hearts, and may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place.

52:53 We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.