Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according to Matthew
chapter 26, and reading from our text, verse 39. Verse 39. And he went a little further
and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will,
but as Thou wilt. Matthew 26 and verse 39. There are in the sacred Word of God
several prayers of our Lord Jesus Christ that are recorded. We have, of course, the manner
of prayer that the Lord taught his disciples, known to us as
the Lord's Prayer. We know that our Lord spent those
nights in prayer to his Father, and yet during those times we
do not have recorded the words that he uttered to his Father. We have in John 17, the wonderful
prayer of intercession by our Lord for his people and for his
church. We have here the prayer of our
Lord concerning himself, the sufferings that he is to endure,
And it is in this morning hour I desire to look at our Lord's
Prayer here in the garden of Gethsemane. Very short, very
little is told us of it, but how vital this time and this
prayer But before we come to that, specifically, I just want
to go over some of those things that are bound up with this prayer,
before we come to the prayer itself. Firstly, this occasion
is the beginning of a chain of events that brings about the
one sin-atoning sacrifice that this world has ever known and
will ever know. If your sins and mine are put
away, then those things of which are recorded here and in what
follows are vital for us. Here, this garden scene, it begins
it. What happened in the garden?
Here is laid upon the Lord the iniquity, the sins of all of
his people. We read, Thou hast laid upon
him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53. And it is here that
this was done. Then we have our Lord taken from
this place to the judgment hall. He was taken unto judgment. There he was judged. There the
false witnesses were born. There Pilate gave charge. He says, I see, find no fault
in this man. And yet there he was judged and
by his own people to be worthy of death. There he was then brought
forth from that judgment. and brought forth to the cross
to Calvary, where they crucified him, where he made that atonement
for those sins that he bore in his body on the tree, where he
laid down his life, no man taking it from him, though they crucified
him, yet he laid down his life. Father, into thy hands I commit
my spirit." And they marveled that he was dead already. The
dying thieves, they did not die before him. They needed their
legs broken before they died. But he in full strength yielded
up his spirit to God. A sacrifice acceptable unto God. And we find that then, the next
stage, the next place was the grave. Those hidden disciples,
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who came to our Lord by night
because of fear of the Jews. They boldly, they came, they
desired from Pilate the body of our Lord and they laid him
in the tomb. And there he laid with a stone
upon that tomb and a guard guarding it. He laid there for three days
and three nights. And then he rose from the dead,
the resurrection, the next most important aspect of this time,
the empty tomb. He hath given assurance unto
all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. And then,
after 40 days, he ascended up into heaven, and there sits at
the right hand of the throne of God on high. You know, in
Genesis we read of the six days of the creation work. And then the seventh, where God
rested from all his work that he had done. And here, in a way,
we have these six vital, important stages, all these times, in redemption. We have the garden, the judgment
hall, the cross, the grave, the resurrection, the ascension,
and then our Lord in heaven resting from that work that he had done.
And our text this morning is at the very beginning of this
work of redemption that is to be accomplished at the cross,
We have the time when the sins of his people are laid upon him. This place is a garden. We would be reminded that it
was in the Garden of Eden that sin first entered into the world
and death by sin. This place is very different
than that beautiful garden of Eden. This place is a gloomy,
as it were, garden. We could think back 670 years
before this time, when Josiah, he burned the bones of the false
prophets, the prophets of Baal upon the altars. where he cast
those altars and those idols and defilements into the brook
Hedron which runs close to this garden. And here it is, that
the Lord oft met with his disciples, no doubt thinking of this conflict
and what was to be done here, and many times spent nights in
prayer here. But here we have him in this
garden. And in this garden he comes with
his disciples and those that are chosen to accompany him here. And we have recorded his sorrow. He takes with him Peter and two
sons of Zebedee, James and John, and began to be sorrowful and
very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful even unto death, tarry ye here and watch
with me. He tells in what frame of mind
he was in and what was weighing upon him as he comes to utter
this prayer and enter upon this time of this work. I wonder how
many of us as we come to prayer are mindful of what state our
soul and our spirit is. There is an encouragement here,
because sometimes we might think, well, when we come to prayer
and to pray before the Almighty God, then we should be in perhaps
a right state of mind. Well, what is a right state of
mind? Well if we're like our Lord and
if sin is weighing upon us and our future is weighing upon us
and the path that is before us is weighing upon us and we know
how much is depending upon the next few days it perhaps is,
then as we go to prayer it won't be a strange thing If we also
are sorrowful, if we also are very heavy, or exceeding sorrowful,
or even unto death, remember the prayers, the groans,
the sorrows of our Lord well known by His Father. The answers
were given. may be encouragement to us when
we pray with many sorrows and many things weighing upon us
and many distresses. The Lord help us to remember
our Lord and our Lord's sorrows. But we have then also a difference
between our Lord and the disciples. We read in our text, He went
a little further. In the account in Luke, it is
a stone's cast away, a distance away. You know, more
and more at this time, our Lord is separated from his disciples. We know, of course, that right
through his ministry, his whole life, in that sense, he was separated
and that he was sinless and spotless. His disciples were sinners. A
vast, vast difference. He was God manifest in the flesh,
the eternal God. His disciples, but creatures
of a time, sinners. But more and more, we have this
separation, that this work that He has to do is a work for Him
alone. It is God's work, it is Christ's
work. And the disciples, they Not only
cannot be with him in it, but here their reaction is they are
so sorrowful that they're sleeping. And they cannot even watch one
hour with the Lord. Again, what an encouragement
this is for us. Don't we know the same Spirit? Don't we know those times you
think, well here is a time surely must be watchful, you must be
diligent, maybe through this last time, this time of pandemic,
the time of when death is around, when uncertainties, and you think,
surely at this time I should watch and pray, and my soul be
in a lively state, and yet you might have been amazed and staggered
at yourself, how sleepy, how lack of prayer, how not watching,
You stand amazed at this, if in my soul salvation were to
depend on my prayers, my watchfulness, where would I now be? But here
is the Lord, and our souls depend on Him, on His intercession,
His work. And there are those, especially
in the aspects of salvation, where we must centre in this,
that salvation is of God. is not of any works that we have
done, good or bad, and that no man is able to keep alive his
own soul, and judgments, as the hymn writer says, nor mercies
ne'er can sway the roving heart to wisdom's way. In those times
we do stand really amazed at how we react to certain circumstances,
But here is our Lord, and it's emphasised here, the difference,
the distance, the separation between Him and His disciples. And yet the Lord would have them
come near enough to behold His agonies, near enough to record
these things, near enough to be as far in fellowship, you
might say, as they could be. And yet how far? And may we desire to, as it were,
be with the disciples, to sympathise with them, but to sympathise
with our Lord and to come nigh unto Him as He offers His prayer
unto His Father and to notice the aspects of His prayer. He went a little further and
fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will,
but as Thou wilt. So then there are three main
headings I would bring before you. The first is His Father,
the second is His Cup, and the third is His Will. Firstly, his father. He fell
on his face and prayed, saying, O my father. How vital it was at the very
start of these sufferings and in this path, the truth that
Jesus of Nazareth was truly the Son of the Living God. The Jews, they rose up when He
called that God was His Father, when He said that His Father
and He were one. They called that blasphemy. And yet without it being true,
our Lord's sacrifice would have no merit. It would have no warrant
from heaven whatsoever. It's absolutely vital that Jesus
Christ of Nazareth was truly the eternal Son of the Eternal
Father, and that this what He was to be entering upon was fulfilling
His Father's will and commission, and that He was bringing about
a salvation that was a salvation of God, came from God, honoured
God, would lead a people that were alienated from God back
to God and would bring them to heaven. And so he comes in the very first
thing with his prayer and says, O my Father, praying to his Father,
This is not in the same manner as what he taught his disciples,
our father which art in heaven, he says, my father. We think of those many years before
with Abraham and Isaac. My father, says Isaac, here am
I, my son. The fire and the wood, but where
is the lamb for a burnt offering? My son, God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. Here is the lamb, the true Lamb
of God, as John Baptist said, the taker of away the sin of
the world. But here is also the Father,
we could in this instance just concentrate and think on the
sufferings of the son. But especially we'd be reminded
of that account in Genesis 22 of what is said to Abraham, Abraham,
Isaac's father, And our Lord had said to the
disciples, the Father himself loveth you, but the Father loveth
the Son. And we had that with Abraham. The angel of the Lord had said
to him, or God had said to him right at the very beginning,
Verse 2 in Genesis 22. Take now thy son, thine only
son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of
the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham did the
will of God. And then there is saying the substitutionary
lamb, a ram in the thicket. In verse 17 we have, or verse
16, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast
done this thing. And now as we read this, may
we think of the Father. the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. By myself have I sworn saith
the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not
withheld thy Son, thine only Son, that in blessing I will
bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the
stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore,
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy
seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And Paul says,
not seeds as of many, but thy seed, which is Christ, shall
all nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. Abraham and Isaac were a time
Here is the great anti-time. But we would, in this prayer
of our Lord, have a view of the Father, not withholding His only
Son. A Father whose will that His
Son should suffer. No ram caught in the thicket
for our Lord. He is the ram. He is the Lamb
of God. He must suffer. But as he opens
his prayer, he comes before his Father. Now dear friends, when
we pray, when we may be in the same situation in seeking to
do our Father's will, or pressed down with much sorrow and with
much distress, may we also begin our prayers in this same way,
Many of God's dear children, in the depths of their troubles
and their trials, sometimes struggle. Satan says, well, if all these
things were to come upon you, God cannot be your father. You
must be not one of God's children. There's times of great trial
that we need most of all to remember. Your heavenly Father, which is
in heaven, he knoweth, he knoweth. and we come before Him as His
children and we know that He feels for the distressed and
feels for His people in all that they go through and certainly
in this which our Lord Jesus is entering in here. As much
as the sufferings of our Lord we would think of a father's
heart, father that loves his children, father that loveth
the son, and hath given all things into his hand. The father from
whom the son came forth, I came forth from the father, I go unto
the father. But before him is this path,
this cup. So firstly, then his father,
but secondly, his cup. He went a little further and
fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh my father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. This cup. What is this cup? What was in that cup? Or if we
could picture what was in this cup. The first part of it, here
in this garden, was that to be laid on him the sin and iniquity
of all his people. He was not to be made a sinner
himself, but he was made sin for us who knew no sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him, he was made a curse. He had laid on him the iniquity
of us all. He who hated sin, he who loathed
sin, he who came from his father to put away sin, must have those
sins laid on him. If there is something that we
really hated, and abhorred and fled from. And yet someone told
us, you go and you pick that up, you carry that, you bear
that. How would we feel? How would
we hate that? And yet here is our Lord and
the sins of all of his people from Adam's day to the last one
that shall be called by grace all their sins, and he knew them
all. He knew them all. The vile sins of Manasseh, the
sins of David, adultery and murder, your sins and my sins, black
evil sins laid on him. That was part of the cup. Then
the part of the cup, to be forsaken by his disciples, we read, they
all forsook him and fled. Then by his own people, that
they should cry, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Then part of that cup, the physical
sufferings, the scourging of his back, torn, the thorns upon
his head, the mocking, the nails, piercing, the agonies of the
cross, pushing his back up against the wood, every breath he had
to take, the hours on the cross, the hiding
of a father's face in that time, the darkness, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? The mocking of the people, he
saved others, himself he cannot save. Surely his heel was to
be bruised by Satan. Here he endures the wrath of
God in the place of his people, Here he sheds his precious blood
as an atonement for his people. And then to enter into death
itself. God experiencing death in our
Lord Jesus Christ. He who lives forever and ever. He who is the eternal God. He
who said that death should be the sentence of Those that have
sinned in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He experienced death. He must die. He must be buried. He must be laid in the tomb.
This is the cup that is before him. And our Lord says this,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. That cup did not
pass from him. That petition that the cup pass
from him was not granted. It was not possible that this
cup should pass from him. And I want to look then thirdly,
at His will. If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Seems an amazing thing. Our Lord is praying this. The
reality of this cup, reality of these sufferings, We can imply, as it were, in
the words, in the nevertheless, not as I will. And if he would say, I will,
that this can't pass from me. Now, the Lord was willing, as
in conform to his Father's will. But what a picture this is, and
this will be replicated with All the people of God, one of
the hymn writers says, the flesh dislikes the way, but faith approves
it well. And we need to bear this in mind. Our Lord was sinless. Sin was
laid on him, but he was sinless. And yet his flesh shrunk from
that terrible path of suffering that was before him. Now we shrink. from what is before us. We shrink
from taking up the cross, from following the Lord. We don't
like to be forsaken of men, falsely accused. We do not like that
which is associated with the cross of our Lord in a world
that hates the Lord, a world that has no place for the followers
of the Lord. He shall be persecuted I have
all hated, of all men, for my name's sake. I have given them
thy word, and the world hath hated them. And we are in bodies
of death. We are tempted, and our flesh
loves the ways of this world, the things of this world. And
yet, here we have our Lord, and His petition is first, if it
be possible, But there's this nevertheless. May we have that
whatever we pray, whatever we may seek of the Lord, that there
be this, if it be possible. Because we know in this, it was
not possible. If the Lord was to redeem his
people, he must go through this path. We could apply this to
us. If we are to be saved, if we
are to be in heaven at last, We must take up our cross and
follow the Lord. There must be doing the will
of our Father which is in heaven. This was the Father's will and
our Lord was to be in complete submission to His will. May we
be helped to be in complete submission to the Lord's will and as much
see in our lives as what our Lord had here, how vital it was
that God's will be done and not ours. The Father's will be performed. And we may say the will of the
Son as well. What a spirit! May we have that
same spirit, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. If we apply this
to ourselves, we may ask, well, what is the Father's will? We have several places in scripture
where, in these very words it is set before us, In John 6 and
verse 40, if we go from verse 39, And this is the Father's
will that which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life and I'll raise him up at the
last day. And he is seeing the Son as we
see him here in our text, suffering, bearing the sins of his people
and believing our sins are there. His sufferings were for our sins
and he has put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. Then we think of the life of
the people of God. What is the will of the Lord? When Paul writes to the Thessalonians,
in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, he says this, For ye know what
commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. It was that exhorting
to, as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to
please God, so you would abound more and more. In verse 3, for
this is the will of God, even your sanctification or setting
apart for a holy use, that you should abstain from fornication,
that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel
in sanctification and honour. One of the major sins in this
world and what affects so many of the Lord's dear people is
uncleanness, fornication, adultery and uncleanness. If there's anything
that you and I need to be so on guard and so warning about
is what we see, what we hear, what we think about, that is
defiling, that is unclean, and especially in this context here,
for this is the will of God. And how many struggles the Lord's
dear people have with that inward corruption. May we think of the
sufferings of our Lord here, not as I will, but as Thou wilt,
that we resist and cry unto the Lord, specifically concerning
this thing that we might do His will. And then in the following
chapter, in chapter five in Thessalonians, we have in verse 18, in everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. Something that we should, again,
really remember in all of our life. Sometimes we might think
it'd be a hard thing to give thanks for afflictions and trials
and troubles. And yet the Lord has said we
know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them that are the called unto his purpose. And may we then
be helped in that in the will of God. to seek to be able to
give thanks for all that is brought upon us and brought before us. Then we have the account that
was given to the Corinthians. It was said of the Corinthians
that they gave themselves to the Lord in the will of God. God's dear children, not only
doing the will of God, But their language is, Lord, here am I. Do thou with me as thou wouldst
see fit, that I am thy servant, the Lord Jesus Christ as a servant,
to do his Father's will and bidding. Really, his whole self was involved
with it. It wasn't just a compartment
in his life. It wasn't just, here I am, I'll
just give a little bit to thy will and the rest my own. He
gave his whole self, and that is the path, that is the will
of the Lord for his people, that they give themselves wholly unto
the Lord by the grace of God. It is the will of God that he
has redeemed his people. They fully are his soul and body. They shall be in heaven with
him. Now there's some sweet, Encouragement for us too in the
Word, that we do His will. We have in Romans 8, that the
Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, that is prayer for us,
according to the will of God. What an encouragement. Here we
have the Lord's Prayer. Here we would be encouraged to
pray ourselves. But God tells us through Romans
8 that the Holy Spirit of God makes intercession for us according
to the will of God. There is a voice that speaks
for us in heaven's high court for good, we have the Spirit
as well, that our prayers then are right in the sight of God. Then we have in the epistles
of Peter, an encouragement as well. And if I turn to it in
1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 19, we have, wherefore, let them
that suffer according to the will of God. Now, of course,
our Lord in the garden there was suffering according to the
will of God. But let them that suffer according
to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him
in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator. What an encouragement
when we are suffering according to the will of God. And then in 1 John and chapter
2, we have in verse 17, And the world passeth away, and the lust
thereof. But he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. What an encouragement again that
we do the will of God. May the Lord bless this prayer
of our Lord in his agonies and in the garden to us. He went
a little further and fell on his face and prayed saying, O
my Father, if it be possible Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless
not as I will, but as Thou will. May that be our language as well,
not as I will, but as Thou will. May the Lord add His blessing.
Amen.