Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Matthew 26, beginning with verse 36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto
a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit
ye here, while I go and pray yonder.' And he took with him
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and
very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Carry ye here, and
watch with me. And he went a little further,
fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as Thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples,
and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could
you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. He went away again a second time
and prayed, saying, O my father, if this cup may not pass away
from me except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and
found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he
left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying
the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples,
and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand,
and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise,
let us be going. Behold, he is at hand that doth
betray me. No portion of the Word of God
should be read, considered, or expounded flippantly. To do so would be guilty of what
Paul calls in Hebrews 10, trotting underfoot the Son of God and
doing despite unto the Spirit of God. And it shouldn't be preached,
or considered, or expounded, It should not be done without
prayer and meditation. We're so quick to give answers
or to rebuttal something that's given to us. Somebody tells us
something and we're so quick to jump without even thinking
that this is the Word of God. And Paul told his young understudy
Timothy that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
This is God's Word. God's Word. I remember years
ago, Brother Mahan, he said to us young preachers in the school
that he had, he said, if you'll notice when I come out, and he
said a lot of people think this is just ridiculous, but he said,
my Bible sits on top of my song book. I don't put my song book
on top of my Bible. And he said, you might think
that's funny, but he said, I reverence the Word of God. And I'm not
talking about superstitiously doing something to this book
or trying to make a God out of this book. I'm simply saying
this is the Word of God. This is not like anything else
we go to learn. And when we come to worship,
this is a special time. Don't count this as the same
time as being somewhere else. Don't look at it in the same
manner. Don't think about it in the same
manner. Either this book is the Word
of God, the one sure and true foundation of faith and practice,
or it's the biggest sham ever put over on man, one of those.
There's no gray area. There's nothing in between. No
middle of the road and no straddling of the fence. when it comes to
this book. And because it's the Word of
God, let us be reverent in the study of it. Let's think about
what we hear and think about what we say. No portion of Holy Scripture
should be treated as common and ordinary, but within its pages
are subjects that seem to stick out somehow more than others.
And this that I read to you this morning, where our Lord is entering
upon His suffering, is one of those places. The disciples couldn't
even stay awake long enough to listen to Him pray before the
Father. And there were lessons in that
prayer, lessons in this suffering, lessons in this agony of heart
that our Lord was pouring out before His Father. And I've often told you this, and
I hope, may the Spirit of God be our guide this morning and
teacher as we consider God's testimony concerning our suffering
substitute. Now, I often tell you that there
are four questions that every believing soul is led to ask,
and these four questions are answered in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Now, men don't listen because
they are not asking the questions. It takes a work of God in the
heart before man will begin to seek the Lord. And when he does,
four questions are going to be prominent in that experience. And the first question is this.
And it's answered in the Gospel. Who is this man? Who is this
man? We talk about Jesus. We talk
about Jesus of Nazareth. We talk about the Lord Jesus
Christ. We use His name all the time. We preach Him in our sermons. We talk about Him. I write articles
concerning Him. But who is this man? Who is this
man? When the Lord begins to deal
in the hearts of men, This is the very first question that
comes to them. Who is this man? This ain't who
I thought it was. This is not just some figment
of my imagination. This is not just something that
church people talk about. Who is this man upon whom even
time hinges? Who is this man? Who is this child that drew kings
and wise men to worship him and lay gifts at his feet? Who is
this one who calls the heavenly host to cry out and sing concerning
his birth? Who is this child who baffles
the doctors and professors of religion? Who is this man? Who is this man who put to silence
the greatest scholars of the Bible in the world and left them
speechless? Who is this man who cleansed
lepers and raised the dead and healed the lame? Who is this
man whose words have given hope to the hopeless and mercy to
the guilty and life to dead sinners? Who is this man? Who is this man whose whole life
was a fulfillment of prophecy? And you may have no interest
at all this morning. But if God the Holy Spirit ever
works in your heart, I guarantee you, you'll have an insatiable
appetite to know who this man is. And then the second thing
you'll find a keen interest in is to know why he came. Why he came. Why must the eternal
God of glory robe himself in human flesh? Why must the second
person of the Godhead be put within the womb of a virgin and
be made like unto sinful flesh. Why must that be? Why must this
child live under the same conditions as other men? Be born like them
and live like them and experience pain and heat and cold and all
those things that we experience. Why must this be? Why must he undergo temptation? Why must he be subject to the
law? Why must he be betrayed and suffer
and die such a cruel death? Why did he come? And then thirdly,
what did he do? It's an historical fact that
he came, that he lived among men, but what did he do? What
did he do? Was his life's work done as a
martyr? Was his life lived out to set
before us an example? Was his life the desperate attempt
of God because of some unforeseen circumstance in time? Was his
life and death given as an offer to make salvation possible if
men and women could be persuaded to believe? What did he do? And then the fourth question
every man convicted of the Holy Ghost will come to ask Where
is He now? What happened to Him? He died
on the cross. They took Him out and laid Him
in a borrowed tomb. He rose from the dead on the
third day. The stone was rolled away. His
disciples walked with Him. He was seen above 500 brethren
at one time. And His disciples went with Him
out on the brow of a hill. And He stepped up on a cloud
and ascended into glory. Where is he now? Where is this
one who lived and died for sinners? Where is this one who was crucified
and laid in a borrowed tomb? The Bible said he's seated at
the right hand of God. Now the question I want to deal
with this morning is what did he do? What did he do? Why must the Son of Man suffer
such an agony of mind and soul that He was entering into? Why
must He do that? Why must He be made a man of
sorrows? Why is this one who came into
the world to save sinners suddenly filled with such an agony at
the prospect of death? That man enabled of God to honestly
consider The suffering and death of Christ will arrive at these
three conclusions. He's going to look at this man.
If those disciples who could barely stay awake were to seriously
consider what he was doing, what he was about to do, this was
the beginning of it. He's going to come to three conclusions,
three undeniable facts concerning the suffering and death of Christ. The first thing God the Holy
Spirit will teach him is that there is no other way for God
to save sinners. That's why he's suffering. There
is no other way. Now I'm telling you this. You
listen close to what religion preaches. You can turn your TV
on. You can turn your radio on. Almost any time of day, there's
whole stations and networks set apart for nothing else but the
religion of this world. And you can turn it on and you
listen to them and see if I'm not telling you the truth. They're
telling folks to straighten up their lives. To turn over a new
leaf. To quit walking this way and
start walking that way. To walk down aisles. To shake
somebody's hand. To join the church. To make a
profession of faith. To accept Jesus as their personal
Savior. And on and on and on it goes.
There's no end to the things that they tell men to do. But
none of those things require the sufferings and death of Christ.
None of them. You see what I'm saying? Now,
our Lord is beginning with His disciples to show them something
about His entering into their suffering. And the very first
thing it teaches you is this. There's no other way for a man
to be saved. If He does not, as my substitute,
take my place before the holy God, there is no other way for
me to be saved. No other way. There is no other
man, there is no other priest, there is no other anything in
this world that can satisfy a holy God except the God-man. And our Lord made the God-man
our substitute. Our substitute. And this is why, listen to this,
in Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11, the life of the flesh is in the
blood. And I have given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the
blood that maketh atonement for the souls. And this is why it
was impossible for the cup of God's wrath to pass from the
tender lips of his darling son. He said, if it be possible, let
this cup pass. It's not possible. It's not possible. Turn with me to Romans chapter
3. God's not going to save any man by compromising his character
and glory. He's not going to do it. And
if you look carefully at what men and women are saying, I'm
not jealous of their names, or jealous of their success, or
jealous of the multitudes that go to them. But I'll tell you
this, I'm jealous of His glory. And they're compromising the
glory of God in this salvation that they're trying to sell to
folks. Romans chapter 3, verse 24. Being justified freely by
His grace doesn't end there, does it? Through
the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth,
not man, not some preacher, not some church, not the Pope, God
set him forth. Whom God set forth to be a propitiation. To propitiate means to appease. It means to conciliate. And propitiation
is the act by which this is accomplished. And Christ was set forth of God
as the act by which He is appeased. This is how I can be appeased. This is the only way I can be
appeased. He was set forth of God as the
act by which he can be appeased through faith, he says, in his
blood. That is, believing that his blood
and his death had and always has had the power and value to
appease God. Now watch this. Here's the end
of it. To declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins. You see that? And I know it says
sins that are past. And what he's talking about there
is his setting forth Christ in those Old Testament types and
pictures. He set him forth as a propitiation
for our sins, those sins that are past, talking about Old Testament
saints. He was set forth. Well, how do
I know that's what he was talking about? Well, read verse 26. To
declare, I say, at this time. At this time. his righteousness,
that he may be just, and justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."
Now, God will be just and righteous in His salvation of sinners,
or He won't save anybody at all. That's what this Bible teaches.
So first of all, those men that honestly consider the death of
Christ are going to be brought by the Holy Spirit of God to
accept this fact that the death of Christ is the only way God
can save sinners. Has to be. Has to be. And everything else in the light
of that is foolishness. It's absolute. It wasn't foolishness
to me back then when I was practicing those things and walking down
aisles and making professions of faith and going out to the
creek to be baptized. It wasn't foolishness to me then.
But when I When God revealed His eternal grace in Christ to
me, and revealed that substitute to me, what this man did, everything
else then become foolish. Become foolish. Unto those which
are being saved, this gospel is the power of God unto salvation. But unto those who are perishing
is foolishness. And then the second wondrous
fact that the seeking sinner will discover is that the Lord
Jesus Christ truly became one with his church and was treated
as they deserve to be treated and made by the judgment of God
to suffer and die in their stead. 2 Corinthians 5.21 may be one
of the most controversial scriptures in our day. It seems like this
is where the battle line has been drawn. But in this passage,
the Apostle Paul, by divine inspiration, gives us the basis of that reconciliation
accomplished by our Savior and the reason why their sins were
not imputed to them. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. How
come? Why not? They sinned. Why isn't
their sins being charged to them? For He, that is God, hath made
Him, that is Christ, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Now, it's the argument of some
that the word made in this passage implies legal transfer. And I
fully understand that what took place here has to do with imputation. I understand that. But God never
imputes sin where there is none. Now just let that settle home.
God never imputes sin where there is none, or for that matter,
righteousness. Proverbs chapter 17, verse 15,
you need to take a big red ink pen and make a circle around
that verse of Scripture and read it off. It says, he that justifieth
the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are
an abomination to the Lord. Our Lord agonized in the garden
of Gethsemane, not over fear and dread of crucifixion. He
wasn't afraid of being nailed to the cross. We're talking about
the King of Glory. He wasn't afraid. There had been
a lot of just flesh and blood men who were not God who went
out to that cross without fear and went out to that burning
post without fear. He didn't agonize in his prayer
in the Garden of Gethsemane over the prospect of crucifixion. But over the prospect of bearing
our sins in His own body on the tree before holy God, being looked
on and judged as the sinner, forsaken of God, despised of
God, He cried out on that cross, O Lord, I am in such pain. No, He never did. He never did. But what did He cry out? My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? And you know why he cried that
out? So that you won't have to. That's right. Forsaken of God, despised of
God. Surely, Isaiah said, he hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement
of peace, was upon Him, and the Lord hath laid on Him all our
guilty charges." That ain't what that says. What does that say? The Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. Well, preacher, explain that
to me. Well, let me ask you something. Can you explain how the invisible
God spoke the universe into existence? Huh? Luke, you've been studying
a long time. Can you explain that? I can't
begin to explain. I just know it's so. I can state
it. I can read it. It's stated awful well right
there in the Bible. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. Explain it? I don't think so.
I don't think so. But you believe it, don't you?
Can you explain to me how God could robe Himself, the everywhere
present God, the God in whom we all live and move and have
our being, this God who is everywhere present, born as an infant in
the womb of a baby? Could you explain that? In whom the Scripture said, dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But you believe that,
don't you? You believe it? Explain to me
how Jesus Christ could walk in this world as a man and yet be
said to be in the bosom of the Father. I can't explain that.
And the truth is, you can't explain any of the works of God, but
you believe them because they are declared of God. Our Lord
was made sin for us. That's God's declaration to us.
Believe it or not. Believe it or not. I don't have
to explain it to believe it. I see it there. I know what it
means. Now would it be? And I believe it. He stood before
the Holy God bearing our sins and His own body on the tree.
And I tell you this, if a legal transfer of sin and righteousness
is all that He accomplished, then He did no more than those
types. Because that's exactly what took
place on those types. And then the third conclusion
that an honest man led by the Holy Ghost will be brought to
see is that all for whom our Lord was made sin and all for
whom He lived and died must and shall be saved. That is why they
are going to be saved. My hope is not in the will of
man. I don't stand up here and try
to appeal to your will. I stand up here and declare to
you the Word of God, and His people will be made willing in
the day of His power. They are going to be saved. Anything
short of the salvation of His elect would be a miscarriage
of divine justice and make His death to be of no consequence
at all. I want you to listen to the Scripture.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who
is He that condemneth? It is Christ that dies. Yea,
rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercession for us." Winston and I were talking about
this just before the service. Why would any sinner turn from
that which his nature craves? He's not going to turn from it.
Not going to turn from it. Why would any sinner seek that
which is contrary to his own self? Why would any ignorant
fallen sinner seek the Lord of glory, repent of his sins, and
submit himself to the authority of God? Because the Son of God
bought the right for him to be made one of the sons of God. You can read about that in John
chapter 1. Who were born not of blood, nor the will of the
flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Born of God. Our Lord said, I came down from
heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that of all which
He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but I should raise it
up again at the last day. All for whom Christ suffered
and died, all for whom He was made sin, are going to be saved. There are no ifs, ands, or buts
about it. They're all going to be saved.
They're all going to believe. They're all going to repent.
They're all going to receive Him, rejoice in Him, persevere
in the faith, die in the faith. Every last one of them. Every
last one of them. Know we have sins and buts about
it. And they're going to do it because Christ died for them.