Mark chapter 14 and verse 43. So this is the Lord, he's with
his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane and this is what Mark
tells us. And immediately, while he yet
spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great
multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the
scribes and the elders. And he that betrayed him had
given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he. Take him, and lead him away safely. And as soon as he was come, he
goeth straightway to him, and saith, Master, Master, and kissed
him. And they laid their hands on
him, and took him. And one of them that stood by
drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off
his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto
them, Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and with
staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple
teaching, and ye took me not, but the Scriptures must be fulfilled. And they all forsook him and
fled. And there followed him a certain
young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And
the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and
fled from them naked. Amen. May the Lord bless Tuas,
this reading also from his word. The arrival of Judas and a band
of Christ's enemies at Gethsemane, just as the Lord's agonized prayers
were coming to an end, reminds us and shows us the overruling
providence of God. in every aspect of this scene,
even in the detail of Judas's shameful betrayal of his friend. The Lord was finished his prayer. The hour that it took had come
to its end. And God, in his providence, had
given Christ this hour. No enemy hand was laid upon Christ's
shoulder while he prayed. The mob arrived on cue. No human foe interrupted our
Saviour in his solemn dealings with his Father. From now on, Jesus would be in
the hands of the three most prominent men in Jerusalem, the high priest,
Herod, the king, and Pilate, the Roman governor. Between them,
they would determine the fate of Jesus of Nazareth. Or so it seemed. In truth, they
all were tools in the hand of Almighty God. They were mere
pawns in the outworking of the purpose and decree of God. The eternal councils of the Godhead
had looked and established this way of sacrifice and the death
of Christ and every detail appertaining to it. This was the great focus of the
eternal purpose of redemption. and it was moving inexorably
to its climax. As the Lord gave himself willingly
into the hands of these wicked men, he remarked these words,
the scriptures must be fulfilled. They must be fulfilled. That is they must be fulfilled
not merely in the incidental details of his arrest, but in
the great message of reconciliation and atonement and salvation. We've seen that in our thoughts
already today, in the children's talk and even in Solomon's proverbs,
how the Old Testament scriptures had pictures and types and metaphors
and prophecies about what would happen when the Lord would visit
his people. And this is what the Lord was
referring to when he said the scriptures must be fulfilled.
The scriptures not only declared these things should be, but they
insisted that they must be. They must be fulfilled. They
must be because the purposes and decrees of God are eternal,
immutable. They cannot be frustrated. God
determined to save his people by his Son and by Christ's suffering
and death. Accordingly, all these contributing
aspects were also predetermined by God, including the timing
and the nature and the manner and the individuals and all the
circumstances of them. They must be because the covenant
of grace required it. The covenant of grace that was
sure and unalterable and constant must stand and in that covenant
Christ agreed to assume human nature, to obey, to suffer and
to die as a man and thereby do all His Father's will, to drink
the cup of suffering. He would represent and become
sin for us. He would bear the penalty of
the law against our transgressions. He would undergo the sufferings
of death for our iniquities. So these also must be or else
Christ's faithfulness would fail, and that's an impossibility. So now we are going today, if
the Lord will, we are going to have the privilege of seeing
in this nighttime arrest of our Lord in Gethsemane, we will have
the privilege of seeing our Savior's dominion his power, his authority,
and his glory. And yet we will also witness
his meekness and his submissiveness and his compliance with the will
of his father and of his foes, so that he might willingly and
voluntarily take this cup of suffering and fulfil all the
counsel of God on behalf of his people. So the first thing we're
going to be thinking about is the glory of God in Christ manifested
in the events of this Gethsemane arrest. The Lord's enemies, we
are told, came upon him with swords and staves. swords and
staves, or swords and sticks, clubs, if you like, we would
maybe call them heavy-weighted clubs. They gathered themselves
together into a great multitude, and they draped themselves with
the cover of darkness, and they hoped that they would have the
element of surprise. They enlisted the help of an
intimate friend of Jesus to betray the Lord, and they took every
possible advantage that they could. But what a measly, miserable
sight they make. And I don't want to be dismissive
or inappropriate in any way here. But when we look at this crowd
of people coming against the Lord Jesus Christ, we might even
think that they were objectively laughable. We have a saying, it goes something
like, it's like taking a knife to a gunfight and although the
likeness isn't at all appropriate because the Lord never did anyone
any harm, there is nevertheless a parallel Christ's enemies armed
themselves with the very best means of attack and ammunition
and advantage that they could muster. But it will never be any more
successful against God than the swords and the sticks and the
torches that these people brought against the Lord Jesus. Anyone who tries to go against
God with the weapons of man's ability doesn't have a chance,
doesn't have the inkling of what it is that they're really doing.
The worldly wise foes of the church, they might bring the
sword of science or the rod of reason or the lantern of enlightenment
to defeat God. but they fail to realise that
the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of
God is stronger than men. Here was a great multitude of
men with swords and sticks and lanterns coming against the Lord
Jesus Christ and they did not appreciate for a moment just
what they were doing. Moving against the Son of God
with a stick in your hand. The Lord here showed the stupidity
of man trying to fight against God by declaring in the presence
of them all and in the presence of his disciples that if this
was a fight about numbers, if this was a fight about weapons,
he could call more than 12 legions of angels Now, maybe it doesn't need to
be said, but that's about 75,000 angels. that the Lord said he could call
upon. And we're told in the Book of
Second Kings that a single angel slew in one night 185,000 armed
Assyrian soldiers. So what if the high priest's
great multitude that he sent to arrest Jesus vastly outnumbered
Jesus' 11 disciples? Or if their swords and their
staves outmatched the disciples' two swords? It wasn't the disciples
that they were fighting against. It was God. It was God. And that is something for us
to remember. This age in which we live imagines
that it is so clever, so smart, so wise. And the wise of this
world with their philosophies and their religion and their
anti-religion, they can outnumber the Lord's people. They can out-talk
us. They can out-resource us. They
can out-manoeuvre the Lord's little flock. But it isn't us
that they're fighting against, it's God himself. And if we stand
upon what is in this book, and if I as a preacher preach only
the gospel in this book, then it isn't me that the unbeliever
has the problem with. It's God. And the God of this
book, the God of the Bible, is well able to defend himself. I do mention from time to time
the preacher Robert Hawker, and Robert Hawker had a little commentary
called the Poor Man's Commentary. And he writes in that commentary
with respect to this incident of the great multitude of the
high priest's soldiers, men and soldiers coming to arrest the
Lord in the garden. He says this about it, this incident
of Christ's arrest and the miracle which occurred when the Lord
identified himself to the multitude. We're told that John, it is in
the parallel passage, tells us that they all fell backward onto
the ground. And just commenting on that incident,
Robert Hawker says this, He says, according to my apprehension
of things, this was the greatest miracle Pause there and think
about that. So for all the miracles that
the Lord performed, Hawker is telling us that in his opinion,
this incident in Gethsemane is the greatest miracle that we
have upon record, produced by apparently the slightest exertion
of Christ's power. He goes on, reader, figure to
yourself an army of soldiers with weapons falling backward
to the earth only at the simple words of Jesus, I am. And then ask your own heart,
who but God could have wrought such a miracle? And I think,
this is me speaking now, I think Mr Hawker may have a point in
what he has said here. And I would add, as I suggested
in yesterday's little introduction, that I suspect that not only
did the Lord knock them down with his I Am, but I suspect
that he also held them down. He knocked that great multitude
down and he silenced them on the ground. until he had conducted
all the other business that is recorded by the other gospel
writers. Now, if this had just been a
big chaotic mess in the darkness, then the words that Jesus spoke
and the interactions that took place hardly would seem likely. But if the Lord held those men
in place, while he spoke both to the priests and to his disciples. Remember, he censured the priests
because they didn't arrest him when he was in the temple daily
preaching. He rebukes his disciples concerning
the use of a sword. And he even gained the mob's
agreement that the disciples should go free and only Christ
himself be detained. And I suspect that the Lord was
exerting some force upon them in order to exact those concessions. But I want to mention another
evidence of the Lord's power. Not only did he make all these
men fall by the simple statement, I am. I am he. Who are you looking
for? I am he. And they all fell down.
But here's another evidence of the Lord's power. And we have
it recorded here in our passage in Mark. And it's the healing
of the high priest's servant's severed ear. That ear, we're
told, was cut off And the healing of that ear, the healing of the
gash in the side of that man's head, ought to have affected
all those who saw what happened. Yet even confronted with the
clear evidence of a miracle and the divine power of Jesus, To
do what he did, the man's name was Malchus, to do what he did
with Malchus's ear shows us that these men who came to arrest
Jesus were blind to Christ's true identity. even though they saw the evidence
of his miracles before their very eyes. And it shows us the
hardness of the human heart and the deadness of the human soul
in its natural state. People think that if they only
saw a miracle, they would believe in God. And some preachers and
some churches imagine that if they can engineer a miracle,
then people will come to faith. And these meetings go on all
the time, faith meetings and miracle working meetings. And it's just not true. And here
in the Garden of Gethsemane is proof of the fact that it's not
true. Except God the Holy Spirit creates
new life in a dead soul, there will be no faith and no experience
of grace, supposing they saw the most wonderful miracles ever
performed. These men were as much Christ's
enemies on the return journey to Jerusalem as they were before
they saw his power, and even in the case of Malchus, felt
his healing hand. Now I'm not going to repeat the
story that's in the passage, but you'll remember how Peter
had wounded Malchus. We're not told that it's Peter
in Mark's gospel, but we are in John's gospel. Peter evidently
tried to kill this man. And we shouldn't be under any
illusions about that. If you lunge at someone's head
with a sword with the force that you're going to slice off his
ear, then you're trying to kill that man by cleaving his head. And that was what Peter was trying
to do. And we should be in no doubt
that the Lord's healing of the gash in the side of that man's
head very lightly saved his life. Many bad things could have flowed
from Peter's act, and yet the Lord overruled in that moment. He healed the injury. He restored
the man. and he exonerated his disciple. Now we could apply this lesson
generally in the context of the church's role in society or personally
as a pastor's role in the pulpit in the church. and we could remind
ourselves that the only sword that we should wield is the sword
of the Spirit, the Word of God and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I've said it often, I'll
repeat myself again, because increasingly I perceive that
the church is becoming militant and political. It's not our job. It's not the church's role to
be political. It's not the church's role to
be a pressure group, and it's not the preacher's job to exercise
a ministry using the weapons of a carnal kind. The gospel wins converts, not
slick tricks of some kind of emotional manipulation. Paul
tells the Corinthians, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. That was what Peter tried to
do. He tried to use a sword. He tried to use a carnal weapon
to defend Christ and to defend the gospel. But the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds. I say we might apply it like
that. But in truth, perhaps the greatest
application is Christ's overruling Peter's fault and failure and
Christ overruling our faults and failures for his glory and
for our good. Then, in the Garden of Gethsemane
and now, the Lord even takes the wrong things that we do. Peter's mistake, Peter's wrongdoing,
Peter's sin was taken by the Lord and used for the greater
good. Can you imagine the consequences
if Peter's action had begun that course of events which it most
likely would have done and everybody had started fighting there. A
great multitude armed with swords and staves and this little group
of disciples with two swords between them. But the Lord intervened. The Lord overruled. the faults
and failures of his people, yours and mine, then and now. And we should not only think
of the preserving grace of God in the context of taking us to
heaven someday, but in the countless ways in which the Lord preserves
us and protects us day by day from ourselves and from our own
foolishness and from our own stupidity. So much for thinking about the
power and authority of the Lord. I want to mention, too, the meekness
of the Lord in the face of this provocation, because this is
the other aspect that we see shining forth from the actions
and the witness of our Savior at this moment. At no time ever
was the God-man's power used to harm men or women. It was only ever used to help. And having healed the ear of
Malchus, and having secured the liberty of his disciples, it's
me you're after, let these go. And having explained to his disciples
his purpose in submitting to these men that the scripture
must be fulfilled. And having deterred them from
using their swords to achieve their objectives, the Lord calmly
complied with the wishes of his enemies. Isaiah tells us that he was led
as a lamb to the slaughter, and that is what we see taking place
here. And so the prophecy was fulfilled,
Matthew chapter 12, verse 19, he shall not strive nor cry,
neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. Our saviour
went willingly, voluntarily to his execution and to his death
for us. The obedience of Christ, to the
will of his Father, led the Saviour to the cross and to the shedding
of his blood, his obedience. He was obedient unto death. Drinking this cup of suffering
was his Father's will and it was Christ's will too. He allows himself to be detained
to be bound and to be returned to Jerusalem to the high priest
and Herod and Pilate. Just as the sacrificial lamb
was taken and bound and delivered to the high priest before it
was sacrificed upon the altar, so Christ was bound and Christ
was led away. And here we see the Lord's commitment
to his covenant obligations. And we never lose sight of these
things because this is what the Lord is telling us in the fullness
of his life was always the great objective, the fulfillment of
his covenant obligations, the responsibilities that he had
taken as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Our Saviour knew exactly what the next few hours held for Him. He knew what suffering lay before
Him. He knew the death that He would
die. He knew about the high priest
in Herod and Pilate. He knew about the beatings and
the scourgings by the soldiers. He knew about the crown of thorns.
He knew all the scriptures had foretold about Him. He knew what
he must endure and he knew why he must endure it. The prophet
Isaiah tells us, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. sometimes read these passages
and we become overly familiar with them, but hear that word
pleased in there. It pleased Christ's father to
bruise his son. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Here and now, the Lord
Jesus Christ was being made an offering for the sins of his
church and for the sins of his people. This is the greatest
night in the history of the world and here is the Lord Jesus Christ
willingly complying with the will of these enemies in order
to fulfil the will of his Father and his own will for the sake
of his church and people. Our Saviour knew his role in
the eternal covenant and the end for which his blood would
be spilled He knew the divine obligation that rested upon him. And he knew and approved the
purpose of God, set up before time to supply a substitute for
chosen sinners and a redeemer for captive souls. This is the
manifestation of our Saviour's love for us. This is the fulfilment
of the Saviour doing good for us, willingly, gladly laying
down His life as a ransom to secure the salvation and freedom
of His people. And as His disciples turned and
fled into the darkness of the Mount of Olives, up onto the
hillside and amongst the trees, the Lord Jesus Christ The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the Son of Man, slipped his wrists into the hand ties
of those priests and followed them all the way back to Jerusalem. There's a little postscript to
this passage. It's an account of a young man
that no other gospel writer mentions. It's peculiar to Mark's gospel,
and I take it that he was not one of the Lord's immediate disciples,
although it is clear that he followed the Lord. We don't know
who this young man is. Maybe he lived in a little house
on the hillside somewhere close to the Garden of Gethsemane,
Maybe as he was sleeping in his bed, he heard a noise and rising
from sleep, he drew this sheet around about him and went out
onto the hillside to see what all the noise and what all the
activity was about. Maybe he was simply venturing
out to see what was happening. Maybe he was a young man from
the house where Jesus had shared the last supper with his disciples. And he had followed the disciples
from there, hiding in amongst the bushes and behind the trees
and watching the things that transpired there in the garden. We don't know who he was. But I'm going to give you my
idea anyway. Personally, I like to think that
this was Mark, the writer of this gospel. That this was the
man we have come to know as John Mark, who one day would become
a preacher in his own right, an evangelist in his own right,
and who went with Paul and Barnabas, and was a bit of a disappointment
to the Apostle Paul, and then ultimately a help to him. I like
to think that this was Mark. I may be completely wrong. The
Holy Spirit has withheld any conclusive identification, so
it remains so. But there's two lessons that
I just want to draw quickly, and then we're done. Two quick
lessons just from the fact that the Holy Spirit has recorded,
Mark has recorded these two verses with respect to this young man.
First is this. Judas was gone, but there were others behind
him. Soon another would rise up to
take Judas's place. Now it wasn't Mark, it was another
man called Matthias, I know that, but here's the point. God will
not leave himself without a witness. And in the very moment that Judas'
usefulness, Judas' wickedness, Judas' betrayal of the Lord was
manifested and seen, Judas would ultimately be gone in just a
short time. Here we see God the Holy Spirit
reminding us that there were others who followed the Lord.
and God will not leave himself without a witness. And the second
is this. We saw how the Lord secured the
deliverance from arrest of all his disciples. Remember what
he says in John, I'm the one that you're seeking, let these
go. So the Lord interposed himself between the mob and his disciples,
and he secured their freedom. Lovely picture in itself of the
redemptive work and the intercessory work of Christ. But the soldiers
thought that they could take one who wasn't of the 12. They
discovered this young man hiding amongst the trees, and they thought
that they could take him. Well, that wasn't to be either.
And though Satan tries to enslave all in sin, he cannot restrain
any for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died, and all of the elect will
escape his clutches. None whom Christ represents will
fail to be delivered from this body of sin. And this young man
fleeing naked speaks of every sinner who flees to Christ for
forgiveness and salvation. May the Lord enable us to be
amongst those who find in the Lord Jesus Christ that deliverance,
that freedom, that liberty, that forgiveness of sin as we seek
him at the throne of his mercy and grace. Amen.