So let's read together Mark chapter
14 and verse 26 through to verse 31. And when they had sung a hymn,
that is, Jesus and his disciples at the end of their Passover
feast, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the
Mount of Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All
ye shall be offended because of me this night. For it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. But Peter said unto him, Although
all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him,
Verily I say unto thee, that this day, even in this night,
before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. But he
spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will
not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. It is of the utmost importance
that we understand that all spiritual growth and all spiritual well-being
and all spiritual strength comes to us from Christ through faith. Those who teach free will gospel
and those who teach man's involvement in the work of salvation, either
by works or by will or by some eligibility of some kind. They have misled us to think
that faith is just a smart response to a good offer. As if we can make a deal with
God to follow Him, to commit our lives to Him for the blessings
that He gives. And such people, such free will
preachers, they have made faith to be simply a badge of honour
that we get for making the right decision. We believe in God and
God credits us with this faith and then we've got it, we've
got faith. As if it's like children getting a sticker for going to
the dentist. We made the right decision and
we've got faith. But let me repeat what I said
in my opening sentence. It is of the utmost importance
to understand that all spiritual growth, all spiritual strength
and well-being comes to us from Christ through faith. Having faith means that we have
Christ's faith in us. And spiritual growth means growing
faith. If we would have growth in our
spiritual lives, it can only be by the growth of our faith. If we would have spiritual strength,
then that strength comes only by reinforced faith. And our spiritual well-being
is not related to our physical well-being in any way, but to
the state of our faith and our trust and our dependence upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. And these verses that we've read
together from Mark chapter 14, I wanted to take just these few
verses on their own because I feel that they provide us with not
only a fine example of the Saviour's care and concern for his disciples,
but also a reminder of our whole reliance upon Christ for living
faith, or faith to live by. And they also give us an occasion
for personal reflection and opportunity to anticipate times of trouble
and times of hardship and times of doubt and times of difficulty,
which we shall all All of us here today, all of us who are
possessors of faith and understand something of the nature of faith,
all of us shall undoubtedly encounter in our own Christian experience. When the Lord told his disciples
in these verses in Mark 14, all ye shall be offended because
of me this night. He showed how even the Lord's
closest followers could be shaken to the very foundation of their
faith. And we should know this, that
it is the devil's desire. I'm going to be taking some parallels,
both from Matthew, which is really very similar to the Mark account
here of this, the Lord's prediction or foretelling of Peter's denial,
and also Luke, the same parallel passage in Luke. And I'm going
to be drawing from especially Luke in some of the things that
we have to say today. But it's really this passage
and it's this incident that is in my mind. And the Lord says
in the Luke parallel that the devil had desired to sift Peter
as wheat. And knowing this, knowing the
devil's desire to sift and stumble the Lord's little flock, You
and I, we who have faith in Jesus Christ, it can inform us about
and prepare us to expect times of trial and perhaps grant us
some ease during those troublesome experiences. And hopefully these
verses today will also remind us that all strength in spiritual
matters and all firmness in faith comes only from the Lord. And truly, we have nothing in
ourselves of which to boast. Now, just before I bring a few
applications, I want to just draw on one or two little thoughts
from these verses, and then I want to make some applications. I'll
tell you when the applications are beginning. I've got three
of them towards the end and the main part of our thoughts. But
just a few comments from these verses, some of which I referred
to in the little introductory note yesterday. As we've seen in that note, the
ending of the Passover meal was marked by singing a hymn from
the book of Psalms. That hymn was called the Halal,
and that word is from Hallelujah. Praise ye the Lord. So the purpose
of that Halal hymn, that Hallelujah, was the praise of the Lord. And so all the Jewish people
who celebrated Passover ended their Passover meal with a portion
of scripture explicitly directed to the praise of God for his
deliverance of them or their ancestors from Egypt. And Psalms 113 to 118 were used
for that purpose. And so it's likely that the hymn
that was sung on this occasion as the Lord was leaving the upper
room and heading out into the night was from Psalm 113 to 118. But remember what the Lord has
just done. He has just established this breaking of bread service,
this memorial feast for the death of the Lord, what we call communion
or the Lord's Supper. And what he's reminding us here
surely is that when we share the Lord's Supper, remembering
his death, remembering his broken body and his shed blood, our
closing thought in that service too should always be praise to
God. a hallelujah. Our halal, as it
were, is our hallelujah to God for the salvation and deliverance,
not from Egypt any longer, but from the slavery of sin and our
bondage to Satan in our unconverted state. We are slaves to sin until
the Lord brings liberty and the Lord breaks the chain of bondage
and sets us free. And this is a key theme in the
Gospels. John chapter 8 verse 36 says,
If the Son shall make you free, or if the Son therefore shall
make you free, ye shall be free indeed. And we view the great
work of redemption by Christ's blood and the new life we have
by Christ's death in these emblems of bread and wine at the Lord's
Supper, and we praise the Lord for what he has done. Our minds
go to the cross, our minds go to the blood, our minds go to
the body of Christ, our minds go to his death, and what is
drawn forth is gratitude and worship. We have a halal that we can sing
from Psalm 113 also, where in verse 7 and 8 we read, He raiseth
up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of
the dunghill. that he may set him with princes,
even with the princes of his people. And that's what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for us. That is the transformation, that
is the conversion, that is the change that has been made from
death to life as the Lord Jesus Christ has lifted us out of our
bondage and set us amongst the princes of God. That's what the
Lord has done for us by His love and His grace and His mercy. And therefore we declare also
in Psalm 116 verse 13, I will take the cup of salvation. and
call upon the name of the Lord. So the Lord, after the Passover
was finished, he sang this halal, this hallelujah, this praise
to the Lord as a picture of our worship of God at the end of
our communion services with a heart of gratitude. And then the Lord left Jerusalem. He left the upper room, he went
down into the darkness of the streets, which would be largely
deserted, and he made his way to the Mount of Olives, followed
by his disciples. Judas, it would appear at this
time, went off to meet the Jewish authorities and in a few hours
he would bring them to Christ with their swords and with their
staffs in order to arrest the Lord. So Judas made his way at
this stage to meet his accomplices in order to appraise them of
what the Lord was doing, where he would be, and lead them to
that place where he now knew the Lord was going. And let us just get a sense of
timing here. When the Lord left the upper
room and went out into the street and headed towards the Mount
of Olives, in little more than half an hour, the Lord was going
to begin his agonised prayer in Gethsemane. This night was
not going to unfold as the disciples expected. And now it was begun. John, in
his gospel, tells us that the route that the Lord took was
through the Cedron Valley. And I just want to draw a couple
of thoughts from that as well. In the Cedron Valley was a ditch. A ditch in a, excuse me, a ditch
in a ravine. that had featured many times
in Israel's history. It's referred to a goodly number
of times in the Old Testament. It was this brook in the Kedron
Valley that the Lord Jesus Christ crossed on this night between
Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. So Jerusalem is on a hill, Mount
Zion is on a hill, and the Mount of Olives is clearly a hill,
a mountain, and in the space between these two hills is the
Kidron Valley. And this was the route that the
Lord took to the Mount of Olives. David crossed that brook, the
Kidron brook, barefoot and weeping. when he was fleeing from Absalom. And so this is a famous brook
in scripture terms. But now this brook, it acted
as a sewer. It was a sewer for the city of
Jerusalem. It was a sewer for the city and
the waste from the city and particularly the waste from the temple sacrifices,
all the dirt and the blood that came from the animals that were
there in the temple. It was lead, it was channeled
into that ravine, into that stream, and down into the brook. It was full, this brook, it was
full of the filth and the waste of the city. And remember, the
city was full of people. because it was Passover time.
So it was full of the filth and the waste of the city and Jesus
came to this brook and he passed over that brook on his way to
the Mount of Olives. And that has a powerful application. It was prophesied of the Lord
Jesus Christ a thousand years before his birth. In Psalm 110,
verse 7, it was prophesied that he should drink of the brook
in the way. And here is the fulfillment of
that Psalm 110, verse 7. Now, we might think in a hot
land for a thirsty traveller to find a brook by the way from
which to drink would be an attractive thing. But this Cedron brook,
the Cedron brook it's also called, was no pure stream. It was dark. It was vile. It was black. And that's what
the name Kedron actually means. There was a blackness to this
water. It was filthy. And when Jesus
is said to drink of it, the meaning is that all our sin and all our
filth and all the vileness of our life was laid upon him. Here in picture form we are seeing
our sin laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as it were entering into
his soul, laying upon his shoulders. And the Lord Jesus Christ willingly
stooped to drink at this brook. The Lord Jesus Christ willingly
stooped under the rod of divine justice. He knelt to drink voluntarily
the cup of God's wrath against our sin. 2 Corinthians 5.21,
we quote it a lot, he that knew no sin became sin for us that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So Christ fulfilled
this also, that he drank of the brook in the way. And just to
make another application from the history of Israel with regard
to this brook, I imagine that the words of David to Shimei
came to the Lord's mind from 1 Kings 2 and verse 37, where
David said, it shall be on the day that thou goest out and passeth
over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt
surely die thy blood shall be upon thine own head. And certainly
Jesus knew in leaving Jerusalem and passing over this brook that
surely he was about to be put to death. The just for the unjust
to the glorious end that he might bring us to God and save his
elect. But as the Lord walked with his
disciples between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives and the Garden
of Gethsemane, it was not about his own imminent suffering that
Jesus thought. As always, his mind was on the
people that he cherished, the darling of his heart, the little
flock he had come to seek and to save. His mind was on his
people and his bride and these disciples. And now he would prepare them,
his disciples, for the events of this night, readying them
for the disappointments that they were about to meet. They
would learn what it was to be offended because of Jesus. And they would learn something
of the weakness of the flesh, despite the willingness of the
Spirit. And it's this that I want to
finish with today. And these are the three points
of application that I want to draw to your attention. And as
I said, I'm drawing some parallels from the passages or drawing
some thoughts from the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke. The Lord tells his disciples,
all ye shall be offended because of me this night. And he explains
that by drawing a reference from Zechariah chapter 13 and verse
7, where it speaks about the shepherd being slain and the
sheep being scattered. And one might think that the
disciples would hear the Lord's words passively. They had just
listened to glorious revelations from the Lord's lips they had
shared in the most symbolic feast of Passover and then have
that supplemented or augmented by the Lord's Supper, they had
come out into the darkness, and the Lord said these words, all
ye shall be offended of me this night, and backed it up with
Scripture. You might think that the disciples
would hear those words passively, but there's human pride for you
right there. There's man's human nature rising
up. Not us, they said, not us. We
will stand with you. We will be there, even to the
point of death. And we speak about Peter, and
rightly so. And it's Peter that's taken,
and it's Peter's example that is quoted in Matthew and Mark
and Luke and John. And so this is an important point,
and we're not taking away from the fact that it was Peter. But
all the disciples said the same thing. And we have to learn that
we are sinners. and the Lord will have his people
know their true state. So the first application that
I have is this, that these men were offended because of Christ,
the disciples were offended because of Christ, because of Christ. The Lord didn't say that they
would be offended because Judas, one of their own, betrayed him. He didn't say they would be offended
by the treatment of the high priest's guards as they came
to arrest him. He said that they would be offended
because of Christ. Now get that because that's the
important point here in that phrase. they would be offended,
not because of these other things, but because their hopes of his
coming kingdom were dashed in the moment of his arrest. Their minds, at once, given the
circumstances that were about to unfold, ran to doubts about
the Lord himself. And I think that if we're honest,
we might understand something of what was happening in the
minds and in the hearts of the disciples there. I think that
this is a common source of frustration for us too. When our hopes and
expectations, especially regarding spiritual things, but when our
hopes and expectations don't materialise, Very often we don't
look at the circumstances of that situation. Our questions
immediately go to God's power and God's purpose. And we saw
in the little introduction that I sent out yesterday that that
word offended suggests that the disciples would be so stumbled
at Christ's arrest that they would begin to waver in their
faith. even doubting whether Jesus was
the Messiah or not. That's the extent of the meaning,
that's the import of the words that the Lord's speaking here.
And we hear this in the comments of the two that Jesus met on
the road to Emmaus, who said to him, we trusted, we trusted
that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. and now we're disappointed. They
were offended because of Christ. And being offended because of
Christ is a temptation that is peculiar and unique to a true
believer. We can become offended because
of Christ when our troubles cause us to doubt the love and the care of our Saviour for
us. And we find ourselves saying,
why has the Lord brought me to this? That's where the fight
takes place. That is us being offended because
of Christ. We can become offended because
of Christ when disappointment arises because a believer or
the Lord's people in general whom we trust and admire, they
don't live up to their profession or they betray our expectation
in some way. And we feel let down. And we
become offended because of Christ. We can become offended because
of Christ when the doctrines that we love, the gospel that
we believe or the people of God are scorned or criticised and
we don't have the strength or the wisdom or the words or the
will to stand up for the truth and we don't bring those recriminations
back on ourselves but we become offended because of Christ. Or we fall into sin and we bring
shame on the gospel and our fellow believers and we become offended
because of Christ. Or we fall into sin and the devil
convinces us that there's no way back. for sinners like us
and we become offended because of Christ. Or like here in the
experience of the disciples, we have hopes concerning spiritual
things, concerning the way of truth or the life of the church
and they fail to materialise and we become offended. because
of Christ. In times like these, in such
times, believers go through dark times and low periods in their
Christian life where they question sometimes the very basis of their
faith. They question the trustworthiness
of Christ and they even begin to wonder if they are deceived
in all that they have hitherto assumed and believed concerning
him. Even the Lord's disciples had
experiences like these. And the Lord Jesus Christ tells
us that such times must needs be endured by the church. This is not an uncommon thing.
Don't think if you feel like this, if you have had a sense
or a taste or indeed if you have walked long in the sense of being,
finding Christ to be offending in your own heart,
that that is a unique or indeed an unusual thing. The Lord tells
us that that very trial, that very temptation, will be our
portion. He says in Matthew 18, verse
7, Woe unto the world, because of offences, there's that word,
offence, you will be offended, all of you offended, concerning
me this night. Well, woe unto the world because
of offences, for it must needs be that offences come. But woe
to that man by whom the offence cometh. And now the Lord tells
us why these offences come. And he tells Peter, and from
this we're taking it from the Luke passage where the Lord speaks
to Peter and there's a little bit more of the narrative given
to us. But the Lord tells Peter, Satan
hath desired to sift you as wheat. So this is the second of my points
here. There is a source of offence. that is peculiar to believers,
and that is Satan's attacks. Satan doesn't attack his own
followers, but Satan attacks believers. And this is called
by the Lord sifting, sifting, because like sifted wheat, the
true grain or the true believer is thrown up in the air and cast
down to the ground and rubbed and bruised and beaten and altogether
agitated and disturbed. And this is a disruption of the
soul. It's a spiritual bullying that
Satan inflicts on believers. Now he must ask permission of
God to do so. He has to ask. And God will, as with Job in
the Old Testament, God will grant permission to Satan. Only so far. Only so far. Only to the extent that it will
work to our good. and only for the duration that
is absolutely necessary. But I want us to be aware of
this. Some churches preach of victories
and conquests and wins and successes as though the Christian life
was one long path of happiness. Well, if such preachers know
that to be their reality, then good on them. I don't know that
as my experience, nor do the believers that I know know that
as their experience, nor does it seem to me that the apostles
or the saints of scripture knew that either. Listen to what Luke
tells us in Acts chapter 14. He's talking about Paul's missionary
journeys. His missionary journeys, remember. This is him going and preaching
the gospel. This is him trying to enlarge
the flock size of Christian believers. And we're told that he departed
with Barnabas to Derbe. there's one city, and when they
had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many, they
returned again to Lystra, to Iconium, to Antioch, confirming
the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith,
and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom
of God. City after city after city heard
the apostle preaching this message that we must through much tribulation
enter into the kingdom of God. Now I'm not saying that we are
to be sour or mournful pessimists, always expecting trouble, always
looking for the worst. The Lord's people have a joy
unspeakable and full of glory. We have a peace that passeth
understanding. And yet we know that we are in
a battle and we know that there is a conflict between the flesh
and the spirit in which we often feel overwhelmed and downcast. And it's here, here at this moment,
that the Lord's next sentence to Peter should soothe our fear
and give us some hope and some comfort. The Lord said to Peter,
Satan hath desired to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for
you. but I have prayed for you. Brothers
and sisters in the Lord, observe Peter's and yours and mine and
the whole church's safety in these words from the Lord. I have prayed for thee. Let us in the teeth of all our
trials keep this in view. Our faith, though we be offended
because of Christ, will not fail, cannot fail, if Christ prays
for it. It will endure to the end. Not one of God's elect shall
be lost. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And that is preserving grace. I do remark sometimes that I
get great help and direction, where credit is due, from Mr. Robert Hawker and his little
commentary, his poor man's commentary. And he says in one of these parallel
passages, he makes this comment, it is not our prayers our tears,
our strivings, our strength. The devil laughs at all of that,
for they are no more than a feather to the wind in the hour of temptation. Precious Lord, says Hawker, It
is thy advocacy, thy blood, thy covenant righteousness, which
becomes the security of thy people. And that's the end of the inverted
commas. That's a glorious thought. The disciples were all offended
because of Christ that night, all feared, all doubted and questioned. what this man and his message
was all about, but they were no less secure when they were
offended because of Christ and disappointed because of Christ,
they were no less secure at that moment than they were, oh I don't
know, when they were with Christ on the top of the mountain during
his transfiguration and worshipping him there in the presence of
Moses and Elias. no less secure in that moment
of deepest doubt than they were at that moment of highest acclaim
and being overwhelmed by the glory of Christ. And what a blessed
truth to hear that when we are tried and tempted and offended
because of Christ, at the very moment when we are doubting most,
Christ's prayers are accomplishing most. There is more, so much more grace
in Christ than there is unworthiness in us. Our Saviour says, come
what may, whatever that sifting may entail, I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not. And if Jesus prays that our faith
fails not, it will not, and we may be sure of that. Let me just
give you one final thought and then we're done. This is a sort
of final summarising of the whole thing. Peter would indeed deny
that Jesus was his Lord. He would deny that Jesus was
his Lord. They all would. Before the cock
crowed twice, Peter would deny Christ three times over. We're coming to that, that's
in a few weeks time. Two servant girls and a temple
guard elicited from the man who would become the Apostle Peter,
elicited from him denials and oaths and cursings. and it was a humbling experience,
and it caused Peter much bitter weeping and self-doubt and self-recrimination. But it taught him where his true
strength lay, not in himself, but in Christ. It would take
time for him to learn his lesson, but he would be better able to
minister to the Lord's people. He would be better equipped to
encourage his brothers and sisters in the Lord. He would be better
prepared to comfort and strengthen his brethren because of this
experience. His bitter trial would be the
church's good and comfort. And that's the nature of these
experiences for the Lord's people. Though they are dire, though
they are drastic, though they are discouraging in themselves,
they enable and equip us to be more helpful and useful in the
body of Christ. If you are being sifted today,
if you're being tried and tested, if not today, then maybe you
can relate to this as a past experience, or maybe it will
help you to understand the trials that are definitely coming along
the path to meet you. The Lord is on his way to Gethsemane
here when he tells these things to Peter. Then, brothers and
sisters, take courage from Peter's experience and from the Lord's
promise. You're not alone, because the
Saviour is praying for you, and He personally says He has prayed
for you, that your faith fail not. Upon the merit of His blood,
His righteousness, and His everlasting glory, you will overcome this
offence. And though I don't know how,
I can tell you on the authority of the Word of God, your trouble
will prove to be for your good. and for the good of your brothers
and sisters in Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.