I've titled our lesson this morning, Lessons from Gethsemane. And our lesson begins in Mark 14, verse 32. And when they came to a place which was named Gethsemane, he saith to his disciples, sit ye here while I shall pray. Now, when the Lord entered Gethsemane, this was a place he often went to, seems like it was one of his favorite places to pray and commune with his father. But this time when he goes to Gethsemane, it's the beginning of his suffering. I don't know the exact moment that our Savior was made sin, but this is when it's beginning, when he would be made sin and he would suffer for the sins of his people. And what is on his heart and on his mind and it weighs so heavily on his soul is not the physical sufferings. It's to be made what he's not, to be made sin for his people. The word Gethsemane means oil press. This is where in Gethsemane, our Lord's soul began to be crushed by the wrath of his father. Luke said this suffering just in anticipation of what was gonna happen to him was so bad that blood ran out of the pores of his skin. And the father had to send an angel to comfort him and strengthen him or his body would have died right there just at the thought of being made sin. And that angel had to come and strengthen him and preserve his body to strengthen him as a man so he could go make the sacrifice to put away our sin. Now you think that if this, the man, Jesus of Nazareth, thought he was going to die, just thinking about being made sin, just thinking about having his father turn his wrath upon him, that gives us a pretty good hint to what sin really is, doesn't it? I mean, you and I don't know what sin really is, because sin is all we are, but what our Lord is suffering and what is on his heart and on his mind gives us a pretty good hint of how vile our sin really is. So what did the Lord do? As this is the beginning of his sufferings, it's unfolding. What does the Lord do? Let me give you four or five things. First, our Lord prayed. Verse 33 says, and he taketh with him Peter and James and John and began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. And he saith unto them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Tarry 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. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee. Take away this cut from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. And he cometh and findeth them sleeping. And saith unto Peter and Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst not thou watch with me one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. And he went away again and prayed and spake the same words. And when he returned, he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, neither wist they what to answer him. And he cometh the third time and saith unto them, sleep on now, take your rest, it's enough. The hours come, behold the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Now our Lord, at the beginning of his sufferings, He prayed. How many times do we read about our Lord praying? Sometimes we read of him praying all night. And a few of his prayers are recorded in scripture. So we know some of the things that he prayed, that he prayed for and how it was he communicated with his father. And now the hour of hours is here. The hour that the whole earth was created for is now here. And our Lord's praying again. And I find that so instructive. What an example to us. Our Lord Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to him. Didn't he? He told his disciples everything that was going to happen to him. From eternity, he knew what was going to happen because he's the one that ordained for it to happen. There wasn't the slightest doubt in his mind that he was not going to offer a sacrifice that his father would accept and would save his people from their sin. There wasn't the slightest doubt in his mind. Because when we read of him praying in John 17, he said, Father, I will, that all those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. He knew his sacrifice would be successful. There wasn't a doubt in his mind. Yet he's praying. He's praying. He wasn't trying to get out of that suffering. He's praying. He's not hiding at all. Look over at John chapter 12. What our Lord tells us here in John chapter 12. Verse 27. He says, now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour. For this cause came I under this hour. He said, I'm not gonna ask the father to deliver me from this hour. This is the whole reason I came, to sacrifice myself, to put away the sin of his people, but he's praying. He's praying because as a man, he needed the Father to strengthen him so that he could go do what he was sent here to do, so that he could endure all the suffering and the shame and the humiliation and the pain, so he could endure all that, so that he could put away the sin of his people. As God, he needed no help, did he? As God, he knew what was gonna happen. He knew this sacrifice would be successful. But as a man, he needed help. And we know that the father helped him. He sent that angel to help him. And when our Lord says, if it's possible, take this cut from me. He's not asking that the father take this cut from me. This is more for our benefit. If it's possible, take this cut from me. So that you and I would know it's not possible. It's impossible for the father to take this cup away from him, this cup of suffering, this cup of being made sin for his people and his people still be saved. There's only one way his people can be saved is if the savior takes this cup and drinks it dry and puts away the sin of his people. And I think we often think about this cup as the Lord drinking this cup and his physical sufferings, or even the sufferings of his soul. But that's not what this cup is. He's talking about the cup of the sin of his people. He's going to drink that cup, the sin of his people, he's gonna drink it dry, right down to the very bottom, the dregs, the kind of thick gross stuff that gets down there at the bottom. He drank it all. Now, to you and me, yeah, I mean, you know, that doesn't sound so bad because we drink iniquity like water, don't we? But our savior is holy. He never sinned, he never experienced sin, and how horrible it was to his holy soul to drink this cup of the sin of his people, to take our sin into his own body on the tree. That was horrible enough. He thought he was gonna die at the thought of having to drink that cup. And when he drank that cup dry and took the sin of his people away from them and made it his, then he suffered and died to put it away. He made his soul an offering to his father to put that sin away. And this cup is so awful because all we are is sin, we can't understand it. But verse 33 says that the Lord began to be sore amazed. When he saw this mountain of black sin and filth and rebellion and what he was going to have to drink, what he was going to have to take on his own body on the tree to put away, he was amazed. And the word means astonished. Even though as God, he knew what this sin was. He knew what it was gonna take to put this sin away. He still began to be astonished. And again, all we can get is just a hint of the horror of the Holy Son of God being made sin. This cup is the cup of trembling for our Savior. It's the cup of just this horrible transaction when he was made sin for his people. But because he drank that cup dry, you know the cup that's left for you and me? Let me show you in Psalm 116. If Christ drank this cup, dry for you, this cup that you have now to take is the cup of salvation, not the cup of trembling, not the cup of wrath, the cup of salvation. Psalm 116 verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I'll take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. You and I can reach out our hand and take the cup of salvation and drink it. Enjoy it. We can take that and call upon the name of the Lord We can can worship him and praise him and be accepted by him because the Savior first took this cup of trembling the cup of the horrible sin of his people and drank it dry and put it away by his own precious blood and once that sins gone the only cup that's left for his people is the cup of salvation and There'll never be a cup of punishment because Christ already suffered punishment for your sin. Now, our father will correct us, but he won't punish us for our sin because he already punished Christ for our sin. It's the cup of salvation that we take freely because our Savior drank this cup of trembling for us. And as our Lord prayed, there's a couple of keys in prayer here that I see. Our Savior, now He's God. He is God. He prayed, thy will be done. Not my will, but as you will. Father, as you will, your will be done. Isn't that a good example for us? How often do we pray and ask the Father to give us what's on our heart? Give us our need, our desire, whatever it is. And how often do we truly pray, Father, this is what I desire, but your will be done. Your will be done. I think it would be a good, maybe you don't have the same weakness I do, but it'd be a good way for us to pray. Father, here's the desire of my heart. And don't feel guilty about laying out the desire of your heart because our Lord told us to be in prayer about everything. Be in prayer about everything. But then we should always pray, Father, your will be done, and give me the grace to be glad about it. Not just to accept it. Not just to unwillingly bow to it. Father, give me the grace to be happy about your will, whatever it is. And I can tell you this, unless our God gives us the grace to be happy about his will, when it crosses ours, we'll never be happy about it unless he gives us the grace to do it. Just the way we are, you know, in his flesh. And then here's another key. Even though our Lord is God, the Lord Jesus is God, he prayed humbly. He prayed humbly. I've heard public prayers before that seem to be coming full of pride. You and I have no reason to be proud about anything. God deliver us from ever praying any way but humbly. I mean, how can we not approach God Almighty humbly? Just crawling on our bellies up, you know, to his feet. That's the prayer that our father answers. That's the one that he hears. And then our Lord prayed fervently. He prayed with importunity. You remember the story that he taught us to pray this way, to pray and not quit. And the parable he gave of the widow woman and the unjust judge, and she kept crying to him until the judge finally gave her what she wanted. Our Lord taught us to pray that way, to pray without ceasing, to continue praying, to continue calling to our God. Oh, what an example to us. Never quit praying about everything and anything. I'll just give you one example. There are many parents here. I don't care how old our children get, they're still our babies. I mean, they're still our babies. And we pray for our children, don't we? We pray for our children. Some of them, are lost. Some of them don't know the Lord. Don't ever quit praying for them. I don't care till you're on your deathbed. Don't quit praying for them. There was a dear, dear friend that I had. He was an older man and he was still in me. He's with the Lord now, but Oh, he was dear to me. So dear to me. And he had two daughters and they were believers. But he had a son that was a rebel. I mean, oh, he was a rebel. And I bet you 99% of the time I was with my friend, he talked about that boy. He called him that boy of mine. didn't know the Lord, had no interest in the Lord, had no interest in the gospel, and he prayed for that man. It's his boy, but I mean, he's in his 50s probably by this time, maybe his 60s, I don't know. And he kept praying for him, and kept praying for him, and he died. About two years later, the Lord saved that boy. Don't ever quit. Don't ever quit. Our Lord prayed three times. In this hour of hours, he prayed three times, don't quit. And here's something else that is precious, precious, and oh, we ought to pray this way. Our Lord prayed for the benefit of others. He prayed that the Father would strengthen him so that he could go to the cross and save his people from their sin. He prayed for the benefit of others. Let's not be selfish in praying. Our Lord prayed for the benefit of others and it mattered. James said in James 5 verse 16, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Well, who's the righteous man? Our Savior. His prayer availed much. His prayer, the Father strengthened him and enabled him to go to the cross and put away the sin of his people. And everyone, without exception, everyone that the Lord prayed for, everyone he suffered for is completely and utterly saved from their sin, completely. I'll show you that in Hebrews chapter five. Hebrews 5 verse 7. who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard, in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." Now the word feared there means the reverence of God. He prayed in the reverence of God. He prayed not for his own benefit, but for the glory of God. He cried out. The writer of the Hebrews here is without question talking about the Lord praying in Gethsemane that he prayed with strong crying and tears. And it says in verse 8 that he learned obedience. And that word learned means learned by experience. Our savior is the only man who ever lived who can say that. That he learned by experience obedience. That he was perfectly obedient to his father in every way. And as the result of his obedience, as a result of him praying to his father, look at the result of it, verse nine. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. And that obey means, what is it means to obey Christ? Believing, that's his commandment, to believe him. And everyone that he prayed for is made perfect. So our Lord prayed, and second of all, he prayed so that you and I could hear, so that we could hear, and what he said can give us assurance in believing. You know, when our Lord prayed, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Well, the Father didn't let it pass from him, did he? You know why? Because there's no way you and I could be saved unless Christ took our sin away from us and drank that cup dry, took our sin into his own body on the tree and go be the sacrifice for that sin. There's no other way that his people could be saved. So our Lord went and did it. There's no other way for you and me to be saved. Our decisions, our good works, nothing will contribute to it. There's only one way a sinner can be saved and be accepted by the Father. It's through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the one and only way and our Lord went and opened the way by his precious blood. He opened the way. Our Lord, as he always was, was in complete submission to the will of his father. He desired, this was his desire, his goal, the thing that he was always focused on was accomplishing his father's will. That's the first thing we ever read that Jesus of Nazareth ever said, wish ye not that I must be about my father's business. He would rather take that cup of the sin of his people and drink it dry. He would rather suffer everything that that sin deserves, rather than let sin go unpunished and tarnish the reputation and glory of his father. Suppose the father had taken that cup from him. There'd be no salvation and the reputation of the father, his grace, his love, his pity, his mercy would be tarnished because if he takes that cup away from the savior, there can be no mercy, no grace, no love, no acceptance for you and me. The father's reputation would have been tarnished. If our Lord had not suffered for our sin, if he had not taken our sin away from us and in horror, taking it into his own body on the tree. But the father... saved his people anyway. He called them saved. He called them righteous even though they're not. He would call them holy even though they're still in their sin. The father's reputation would be tarnished. He'd be calling something righteous that's unrighteous. He'd be calling something just that's unjust. He'd be allowing people in his presence whose sin has never been put away. His glory would be tarnished. And our Savior would rather suffer than see his father's reputation damaged. If our Savior does not suffer, does not take the sin of his people and die as our substitute, the wisdom of the Father and the reputation of his wisdom would be tarnished. If God can save you and me without putting away our sin, Where's the wisdom in that? That's the religion men come up with, isn't it? Some way to call ourselves saved, even though Christ didn't suffer for us. If salvation is me making a decision, or walking an aisle, or starting to live a better life, or get off drugs, and act a fool, or whatever, if that's salvation, why do I need the Lord? Why do I need a substitute? Our Savior would rather suffer, rather than escape this suffering, he would rather suffer so that we could see the wisdom of God in salvation. It's through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ that God is just and justifies the ungodly. God can justify an ungodly, unrighteous, completely depraved sinner like me. because he punished Christ my substitute for my sin. He's just in punishing my substitute and he's just in showing me mercy because of it. And we would never be able to revel. I mean, I do, I revel in the wisdom of that salvation because that salvation can never be taken away from God's people because it's both just and merciful. And we never would have seen that if Christ did not suffer for our sins. This is also a display of Christ's love for his people. He would rather suffer this astonishing. He was astonished at this mountain of sin and the horror of suffering for it. He would rather suffer. being made sin. He would rather suffer having his father turn his back on him. He would rather suffer the father plunging the sword of justice into the heart of his fellow than see his people, his bride that he loves be condemned. Now you think of that. Our Savior would rather be condemned for you than see you be condemned. What do you say to that? I mean, if Jesus Christ suffered for you, the Father answered this prayer for you. I mean, I know he did it for all of his elect. He did it for a number that no man can number. I know that, but he did it individually for you by name on purpose. What a Savior. One of the great difficulty in preaching is how can you talk about the Savior and give him the glory and the credit that he really deserves? You can't do it. You can't do it. That's the difficulty. The joy of preaching is getting to talk about the Savior. Oh, who he is and what he's done for his people and his people love him. We love him. I love him. I love his person. I love him because he first loved me. I love him for his mercy and his grace and his truth and his justice. I love him for doing this. Oh, I love him. And I trust him. I mean, I do. I trust my eternal soul to him. He's either all by salvation or I'm going to hell. I mean, I just fully, completely trust him. You do too. I want to glorify his precious name. I want to be able to sit down and tell some preacher, you tell me about him again. Tell me that old, old story again. Point me to him again, because I never get tired of hearing about him. Just tell me about him. I was with my dear. She never wanted me to call her my mother-in-law. She's my mother-in-law. She said, I don't like that term. Don't use that. She's on her deathbed. And she and I had a few minutes alone occasionally. Her daughters hardly ever let her out of their sight. But a couple of times I was alone with her. And you know what she wanted to talk about? You know, don't you? Let's just talk about him. Ain't nothing to talk about me. Let's just talk about him. Oh, she'd smile. telling me how she listens to all of our messages here and how much she's enjoying the study on the tabernacle. And I told her, I got a message prepared for the next lesson on the tabernacle. I said, you want to hear it in a nutshell? She said, oh yeah. And we talked about the holiness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, and that in Him, we're righteous and we can never be made unrighteous. That's our savior. Oh, just, I mean, thinking about those things, doesn't that make your heart just burst in your chest? Well, here's the third lesson from Gethsemane. The believer needs to always be on guard against shocking indifference and spiritual darkness that's in us. Every time the Lord came back to Peter, James, and John, he found them asleep. Our Lord had given these three men such a wonderful opportunity to be eyewitnesses to the beginning of our Lord's suffering, to learn more of our Savior, to hear what He's saying and be just awed and just to worship Him. They're eyewitnesses to the power of ours. And these are saved men. I mean, these men know Christ. They trust Christ. And they could not stay awake. They're just asleep. The spirit indeed is willing. Boy, the flesh is weak, isn't it? The flesh is weak. We are always, I don't care how long ago it is that you first trusted Christ. We need him just as much today as we did then because of how weak the flesh is. And remember that, remember that, especially when judging other believers. We see them do something that they ought not do. We see the spiritual indifference in them and these things. It's a whole lot easier to see it in somebody else than see it in myself, isn't it? Well, just remember this, we got the same sin they do. We have the same weaknesses they do. We got the same weak faith that they do. So be on guard. Be on guard for this thing that we don't, do not become spiritually indifferent because Lord has blessed us for so many years. So many years having the gospel preached to us for, I mean, I don't know how long it's been. 70 years, 75 years the gospel's been in this town and we've just been able to come every Sunday and every Wednesday and hear it, you know, and be blessed by it. Oh, let's not become indifferent to that. Let's not become indifferent. And here's the last thing I want us to see. Our Lord is ever in control of these proceedings. Everything that happens to him leading up to the cross, all his life long, the whole time of everything in creation, the Lord's in control of it. Look what he says back in our text, verse 41. And he cometh a third time and saith unto them, sleep on now, take your rest, it's enough. The hour has come. Behold, the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up and let us go. Lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." The Lord's in control of this thing. He said, rise up and let's go meet him. I'm not even gonna make him come find me here. Let's go meet him because this is what I came to do. And when the Lord told his sleepy, drowsy, spiritually indifferent disciples, it's enough. You know what that word means? It means this sin is paid for too. Even this sin is paid for too. He said it in compassion to them and compassion for their weakness. I know you're tired, sleep on. But now let's get up and go. I'm on my way to redeem even sleepy, drowsy believers like you. That thrills my soul. That thrills my soul. That gives hope to a sinner like me. I hope it will you too. All right, Lord bless you.