Well, it's lovely to be here.
It's lovely to be gathered with brethren. It's lovely to be gathered
around the word of God and to come before our glorious Lord
and Saviour. And I was just extraordinarily
fascinated last night listening to Tony and Gabe talk about the
history of their church. And at about the same time, the
Lord raised up a fellowship here in Kingsport. He raised up a
fellowship in Australia. And it's just remarkable that
these The Lord is so gracious to gather his people together
and it's so lovely to be here to be able to fellowship with
you and appreciate your prayers for us. I want us to come to
what is the most remarkable passage of scripture and it's the most
significant passage of scripture and it's the reason for this
universe existence is the death and resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The universe was created so that
the Lord Jesus could go to the cross of Calvary and the universe
exists today. because of these events. And
this book is a book that's held together by blood, isn't it?
They're singing of the blood in heaven right now. And the
lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. And Peter summarised
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole Bible is the sufferings
of Christ and the glory that should follow. And so if we are
allowed to enter into that today and just follow the footsteps
of our Lord here and see the remarkable transaction that went
on. And my prayer for you is that
In Psalm 116 it says, I will take the cup of salvation and
call upon the name of the Lord. If we're unable to take the cup
of salvation. The title of my message is The
Cup. I wanted to look at this cup that was placed by God the
Father as as Gabe read to us, is placed by God the Father into
the hands of God the Son. But before I do so, one of the
things that's so fascinating in this whole passage of scripture
is the word glory. The word glory. In John's gospel,
when the Lord thinks of this and knows this is coming, he
says, In verse 27 of John 12, he says, now my soul is troubled,
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour,
but for this cause came I into this hour. This is the cause,
he came into this hour. And then what's he saying? Father,
glorify thy name. As he prays his high priestly
prayer, He says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son
that thy son may also glorify thee. As thou has given him power
over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou has given him. And this is eternal life that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou has sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. "'I have finished the work thou
gavest me to do. "'Oh now, Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, "'with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was.'" And the purpose of it is, isn't it, at
the end of John 17, "'The glory which thou gavest me, "'I have
given them that they may be one.'" They may be one, even as we are
one. And this extraordinary event,
of the blood shed of the Lord Jesus Christ is the way that
glory is revealed. Here we see the glory of God.
Here we see the name of God magnified, the character of God magnified.
All of the glory of God is concentrated on these events of the cross,
this blood shedding that began in this garden. And it's a great
transaction, isn't it? As you saw there in Matthew chapter
26. He speaks of this cup. He speaks of this cup, isn't
it? He says, oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me, nevertheless, verse 39, nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thy will. And then in verse 42, O my Father,
if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will
be done. The great transaction of our
salvation, the great transaction of the glory of God, is a transaction
between God the Father and God the Son as recorded and enacted
by God the Holy Spirit in the lives of his people. Our salvation
is all tied up. All of our hopes for all of our
future are tied up with the transaction between God the Father and God
the Son. And here it is, here it is. After
all of those prophecies and all of those pictures in all of the
Old Testament, here we have the fulfilment of all that. Alone
our Saviour in the darkness. unaided by any men. He says, I have trodden the winepress
alone, and of the people there were none with me. What were
the disciples doing when this happened? They were asleep. They'd been bragging about their
free will at the Last Supper just a little while before, hadn't
they? Anyone that thinks anything of free will hasn't been reading
their Bible for a long, long time. They were bragging, weren't
they? And the best they could do is, he would just ask them
to watch. He asked them to pray. He asked them the simplest things,
but they couldn't even do that. This pictures the fact, of course,
this salvation is of the Lord. But the other thing about it,
of course, is that the whole agonies of the garden are in
the dark and the Lord alone with an angel assisting him. But the
angel doesn't seem to do anything other than witness to him in
any way at all. And one of the reasons for this
being alone and in the dark, the Lord and his father, and
on the cross, the darkness comes, is that we don't pry into this
through human eyes. We go to the word of God and
we hear what God says about, this is the light that is shone
on these events. So we don't go to reason and
we don't go to intelligence. We don't go to knowledge and
we don't go to tradition. We just go to what God says,
what God says about it. The cup. I just want to look
at a few things. I want to look at what was in
the cup. I want to look at the pain of
the cup. I want to look at the Lord Jesus Christ response to
what he saw in that cup. And we've got to remember who
this man is. This is God almighty. This is
the fullness of deity dwelling in a body. And he looks into
the cup that God the Father gave him and it broke his heart and
he fell to the ground and the weight of it caused the blood
that would be finally shed on Calvary's tree to start pouring
from the pores of his body. We're treading on holy ground,
brothers and sisters, at this moment. And it's precious that
all of our salvation, all of the salvation of all of God's
people is here laid out before us in glorious, glorious pictures.
And one of the things I love about it is that the closer you
get to the cross and the closer you get to these events, the
words are simple and the illustrations are simple. He's talking about
a cup, a cup. It's about the second thing you
ever give a baby, isn't it? You give them a spoon and then
later on you might give them a cup. It's simple, isn't it?
God doesn't want the cross to be confused and confounded with
anything else. This is our great God. This is
our great God. This is our saviour. This is
the creator of the universe falling down on his face. and crying
to his father, he whose very food was to do his father's will,
looked into that cup and said, can you take it away from me?
Can you take it away from me? The reality is that only an omniscient
God could look into the cup and see the enormity of it all and
see it in all of its reality. Only holiness could look into
that cup and recoil at the horror of what was in that cup. and
only omnipotence could carry the load, the weight of what
was in that cup. This is a work of God alone. Salvation is of the Lord. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. So the name of the place is Gethsemane. It means an olive press. One
picture I saw of them has a huge sort of oblong block and they
cut a hole in another stone. that the big block fits in and
they'd lift it up with holes through it so they could prop
it up and then they'd pour the olives in and then they let the
big stone down and it's a glorious picture of the crushing of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was crushed. in the garden,
and God the Father was pleased to crush him on Calvary's tree,
and it began here. And as that enormous weight of
that stone crushed cell after cell after cell after cell, out
flowed, out flowed the blood, out flowed the washing of our
salvation, brothers and sisters in it. He bore our sins in his
own body on the tree, our great God. He cries in Matthew 26,
my father. In Mark 14, he says, Abba, father. In the garden, he can still call
him father. On the cross, when he actually
drinks this, he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? As I said, this is an expression
of that blood that was the lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. It's the blood of the everlasting covenant. It's
the blood of salvation. It is this glorious, glorious
work of redemption played out in this beautiful, beautiful
scene before us. The Lord says in Matthew 14,
27, I will smite the shepherd. I will smite the shepherd. God
the Father saw the sin of all of his people in his Son, and
he slew him. Awake, O sword! Awake, O sword
of my holy justice! Against my shepherd, against
the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Zechariah
13, 7. Smite the shepherd. Smite the
shepherd. and the sheep shall be scattered.
I'll turn my hand upon the little ones. I'll turn my hand of love
upon the little ones. He was crushed. He was crushed
in the olive press of Gethsemane and he was crushed under the weight of the full
wrath of God, alone, alone, and in the darkness. And of course,
as you saw in Matthew chapter 17, like everything else that
the Lord Jesus Christ did, there's an absolute necessity marked
over all of the activities of God, known unto God are all his
works from the foundation of the world. There's absolutely
nothing accidental about this. He went there. He set his face
like a flint there. He came into this world to go
there. He was determined to go there. And this is the place
of glory. This is a place of glory for
himself. This is a place of glory for
his father. And this is a place of glory
for us, brothers and sisters. This is special. This is special.
But he says in verse 39, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me, but not as I will, but as thou wilt. And then verse
42, if this cup may not pass from me unless I drink, He must
drink this cup. And he says, thy will be done.
It's the cup in John 18 that the father has given him. There
is a cup. There is a cup that he had. a
particular cup, it's this cup, and it has particular contents
in it, and it was known perfectly to him. And the cup is given
into his hands. And that's the glory of substitution,
brothers and sisters. If the cup's in his hands, it
can't be in my hand. And if he drinks the cup, I can't
drink the cup. And if he drinks the cup and
it's gone, I can never drink the cup. This is the glory of
the gospel in a cup, in a picture of a cup. The cup's with him and not with
us. It becomes the cup of blessing
and the cup of salvation. One of the things people want
to try and get people to see, and it's so important that we
see how sinful sin is, but the best place to go and find how
sinful your sin is is you go to the cross at Calvary. You
go to the garden and you go to the cross, we can read newspapers
all day and we can feel sorry about the things and we ought
to agonize over the sins that defile everything around us and
are with us all the time. It's nothing, we're not winking
at it in any way and we're not excusing it in any way at all.
If you want to see the sinfulness of sin, you come here, you come
to the cross and you'll see, you'll see man, man given the
one opportunity he had to do as he wished with God. And he
says, just listen to some of the, he sweated great drops of
blood in Matthew's, in Luke's account, isn't it? And he says,
my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. This event nearly
killed the Lord Jesus Christ. He was sustained by the power
of omnipotent deity under the weight in the garden. He says
in Mark 14, he says, he's sore amazed and very heavy. And it
means horror of mind and fear and consternation. In Luke 22,
he says, being in agony, that word means combat. In convulsions
as in death throes. He sweated great drops of blood. God Almighty fell to the ground
as he looked into that cup and saw what was going to happen. He says, my soul was troubled
in John 12. That word trouble is the Latin
word for hell. And he doesn't want us to feel
sorry for him. And he doesn't want us to feel
pity for him. He wants us to glorify him and
honour him and look upon this as love, extreme honour and glory. He says in Psalm 22, my heart
is like wax melted in the midst of my bowels as our God is a
consuming fire. He was burned under that wrath
of God. He says in Psalm 40, mine iniquities
have taken hold of me, therefore my heart faileth me. Agony, the reality of the sinful,
sinfulness of sin. So what was in the cup? I need
to know what's in the cup. There's no doubt about what is
in the cup is there. In the cup to cause him such
distress, to cause the Lord of glory to have it taken away from
him. People say, Theologians will
say that there was fury and wrath and indignation and certainly
the Bible speaks of fury and wrath and it speaks in revelation
of the cup of his indignation, the wine of the wrath of God
and the fierceness of his wrath and Zechariah calls it a cup
of trembling and a cup of fury. It's the fierceness of his wrath. But just let me say something.
How do you separate wrath from sin? Wrath is only wholly just righteous
wrath when wrath is exercised against sin. Sure there was wrath. but it was wrath because of sin.
Sin was in the cup. All of the sins of all of God's
people were placed on the Lord Jesus Christ. In the covenant
of grace from before the foundation of the world, he took 100% responsibility
for all of his people's sin and righteousness. He took 100% responsibility
to bring them back to God, wholly spotless, unblameable and unapprovable
in his sight. And the only possible way it
can happen is that all of their sins have to be gone forever
and cease to exist. As I said, omniscience. The omniscient
God can see everything. The knowledge of God is infinite.
He doesn't ever learn anything. He doesn't ever get surprised
by events. He creates all of the events. He did this as a
volunteer. He did it out of love. He did
it out of glory for his father. He did it. He did it for his
bride. He did it. He saw sin. He saw sin as we have never seen
sin, brothers and sisters. That's what the agony is about.
We see sin and we wink at it and we sin horribly and we forget. The Lord Jesus Christ sees sin
and he sees it as sin against an absolutely holy God, a desecration
of his character, a denial of the glory of who he is. Sin is
dishonouring God. Sin brings separation and shame. But sin is infinite. Sin is infinitely
punishable because it's sin against an infinite God. Sin is deserving
of infinite punishment because it's sin against a holy God.
And he alone, he alone looked into that cup. Looked into that
cup and he saw sin. He saw sin and he was absolutely
horrified by it. Make it pass from me. It cannot
pass away, as we read in the text, it cannot pass away from
me except I drink it. Except I drink it. See the sin, one of the things
that we struggle with with people who find objections to our Simple
reading of what the Bible, God says about the Lord Jesus Christ
in Matthew, in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He hath made him to be
sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And every faithful pastor I have
ever heard has immediately wanted to say the Lord Jesus Christ
never sinned. Not only did he never sin, it
is impossible for God to sin. It is impossible. The attributes
of God are not just passive things. His holiness is an emanating
holiness. It is impossible for the Lord
Jesus Christ to have ever sinned. And yet the scriptures say again
and again, God made him sin. So think of the transaction with
the cup. God the Father metaphorically, symbolically takes a cup. Does
he touch the sin? So I can give Gabe a cup of poison,
can't I? The sin's inside and it's not
in the cup. And the Lord Jesus Christ can
hold the cup as the responsibility of the surety of that eternal
covenant and the sin is not his until he drinks. And that's exactly what's going
on, brothers and sisters, in that simple story. When he was
lifted up from the cross of Calvary and he was hung in the air, he
became legally cursed by God. Cursed is everyone who hangs
on a tree. So he took the cup in his hand
and that cup was bound to him in eternal surety covenant relationship
because of his union with his people. He is one with his people. And then when he was made a curse,
he drank and the infinite holy wrath of God fell upon his son
and his blood was shed and we are now washed in his blood.
He never sinned, but he was made sin. And he bore our sins in
his own body on the tree. And that's what the cup's about.
That's what the cup's about. Sometimes we just have to say
the things that people want to say about it and are just wrong
so that you actually are clear about what was in the cup. The
cup is just the sin of all the elect of God, isn't it? It's
the sin of all of his sheep. It's the sin of his bride. It's
the sin of all the redeemed. It's the sin of all who were
in glory. It's the sin of all of those. The transaction between God the
Father and God the Son, which I began with, is a transaction
that must be holy, it must be just, it must be righteous in
every way, it must be perfectly in accord with everything that
God says. And so the religious world, and
I can quote some of them, he said he willingly sacrificed
his sinless life as a substitute for human sin. If he drank human
sin, There is no hell, brothers and sisters. It is impossible
for someone for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died to be punished
again and God to be just and holy. He cannot be just and send
his people to, he can't punish his son and then punish you. It's impossible for God to be
holy. So whenever they say that, they
just don't have a clue what they're saying, do they? They say salvation
is the gift The Lord received only through repentance and faith.
So you actually do something. What were the disciples doing
this night? And what were they doing the next day? Salvation's
of the Lord. He does it all. He has to do
it all from beginning to end. We don't have to contribute.
We've done our bit. Thank you very much. We need
a saviour. We don't need to do any more.
We need a saviour. And some of them say that we
believe that through his perfect life and the sacrificial death
and Victoria resurrection, Jesus Christ brings forgiveness of
sins to those who believe in him. And then they say, how do
you do that? Well, you pray the sinner's prayer.
You walk the aisle, you do something, you do your contribution. As
Bob Gave said earlier, we don't have a contribution, brothers
and sisters. We are the recipients of a gift
of his work entirely. Some people think that it's just
a free will decision, isn't it? Well, I've spoken about free
will already. The other one that's really common is that there's
sufficient for all, in our part of the world amongst the conservative
people, it's sufficient for all and efficient for the elect.
Doesn't that sound nice? Theologians make up these lovely
words, don't they? It's sufficient. If it's sufficient
for all and he drank it for all, then all are saved and it cannot
be any other way. Anyway. The other thing that
some people want to say is that this was just a legal transaction.
This was just a legal transaction. I've only got a couple of things
to say about that. One is how on earth in the court of God's
judicature do you actually separate wrath and sin and the person? We don't do it here, do we? And
yet they think that somehow it's a legal transaction and fancy
you, would you possibly dare go to that bleeding saviour in
the garden and say, this is just a legal activity? This is just
a legal, would you dare do it? I won't be there with you, I'm
very, very sorry. I won't be very with you. And so, It's a glorious picture. It's a simple picture, isn't
it? The cup's in his hand. He came to take the cup. The
Father gave him the cup. He knew exactly what was in the
cup. He knew exactly for everyone, every tiny element of all of
their lives and all of their sins, omniscience knew what was
in the cup. And the father gave it to him.
And in glorifying his father's name, he took the cup into his
hand and then on the cross he drank it. And our sins are in him. And that's exactly what happened
on the cross. And God the father punished them until the Lord
Jesus Christ cries out, it is finished. It is finished. Salvation, that eternal salvation
is finished from the foundation of the world until the glorification
and everything involved in the Lord Jesus Christ gathering his
people to himself is all wrapped up in that one glorious transaction. God in all of his holiness must
with welcome and delight come to his people at the time of
love and reveal himself to them and tell them you're mine. Tell
them you're mine. and it doesn't matter what they
look like, whether they're like saw of tassels breathing out
murderings, they'll have a time, won't they? When it pleased God,
because of this finish, when it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal
his son, where? In me. To reveal his son in me. Why can the Lord Jesus Christ
take up residence in someone like Saul of Tarsus? Because
Saul of Tarsus has no sin, brothers and sisters. It's gone. It was gone. So Paul then can say, with all
of the children of God, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. He drank, and we can't drink,
brothers and sisters. He drank. And the transaction
between God the Father and God the Son is finished and the glorious
resurrection just proves the fact the payment has been made
in full. There's no more offering for
sin. No more offering for sin. He's
washed us in his own blood. That's what they're singing in
heaven right now. That's what we'll be singing
for all eternity. So the blood, this blood that was shed in this
garden, in this agony, is the blood of our great, great Redeemer. It's the blood of all of our
salvation. Everything in the Bible is held together by the
blood of this eternal everlasting covenant. that's pictured in
this cup and then pictured on Calvary's cross. See the blood,
it's the blood that we preach. It's the cross that we preach.
When he's lifted up, he says, I'll draw all men to himself.
We don't have to preach traditions, we preach Christ and him crucified. We preach a successful, sovereign,
reigning, supreme savior for a substitute of sinners who's
sacrificed himself for his people and they're free, and they're
free. And the blood speaks, Abel's
blood speaks. The blood is the purchase. He
purchased his church with his own blood. The blood is atonement. The blood is redemption. The
blood cleanses us. The blood brings peace. The blood
brings pardon. It brings justification. It makes
us as white as snow. And it sanctifies. We overcome Satan by the word
of our testimony and the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's our entry into the Holy of Holies, what is done
here in this blood. It's the seal of our covenant,
the seal of the covenant that God has made with us. It is, according to John 6, it
is the food of our souls to drink upon this. Drink. It's life. The Lord God said that remarkable
gospel declaration in Exodus chapter 12, didn't he? He says,
when I see the blood. It's not about me seeing it,
brothers and sisters. I rejoice in it and I long to
see it and I long to live in it by faith. But God the Father
said to his son, when I see the blood, I will pass. This was a Passover night. When
I see the blood, I will pass over. The blood brings the communion
that we enjoy with each other. I do love what 1 Corinthians
10 says, it's now a cup of blessing. What was a cup of agony in the
hands of the Lord Jesus Christ is now a cup of blessing. Listen
to what Paul says, the word of God says, the cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ
and the bread we break? Isn't not the communion, that's
word communion is fellowship. I do love Ephesians 2 verse 13.
Just listen to it. It speaks of me from another
land. But now in Christ Jesus, you
who were sometimes were far off, I was a long way off. We were
far off, all of us were far off from God. We were far off when
we fell in Adam. Are made nigh, we are made nigh
by the blood of the cross. I just love that picture, isn't
it? If we are made nigh to the Lord Jesus Christ, then I'm made
nigh to you. we may nigh to each other, we
may near to each other, so that we'll commune with each other
about this glorious, glorious saviour and the wonder of his
finished work. I love Mr Hart's hymns, when
I by faith my master see in weakness and distress brought down to
that sad state for me which angels can't express. When that great
God to whom I go, for help amazed I view, by sin and sorrow sunk
so low, as I and lower too. For all our sins we his may call,
as he sustained their weight. How huge the heavy toll of all. when mine alone's so great, then
ravished with this rich belief of such a love of this, I'm lost
in wonder, melt in grief, and faint beneath the bliss. I'll
go back to where I began in Psalm 116 in closing, because this
is a beautiful psalm, isn't it? What shall I render? That's the
question, isn't it? What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits towards me? What shall I render unto
the Lord? I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. So the cross and this scene
in the garden is all about the character of God and the transaction
between God the Father and God the Son. And then he says, I
will pay my vows under the Lord now in the presence of all his
people. And verse 15, precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints. It speaks of union and substitution
and communion with his people, doesn't it? The death of his
saints was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. My death was died
2,000 years ago. The judgment that fell on him
fell on me 2,000 years ago. That's what the cup's about,
he's drunk it. My death has been died. My righteousness has been
perfectly established. I don't have any righteousness
of my own. I've got the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, thank you very much. Robed in his righteousness, washed
in his blood. But that's our death, isn't it
precious? And now he takes the cup of salvation and he calls
on us to take the cup of salvation and just call on his name. Call
on his name. May he grant us, grant us views
again and again and again of the wonder of what it was for
him to love us in that way and to come so gloriously and to
tell us all of that in such simple pictures. So we don't have to
be theologians, brothers and sisters. We just have to be worshippers. Amen.