Let us open our Bibles this evening
to Matthew chapter 26. Before we observe the Lord's
table tonight, I would like for us all to especially think of
our Lord's agony in Gethsemane. his agony in Gethsemane. But I want to begin my reading
in verse 26. And as they were eating, Jesus
took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples
and said, take eat. This is my body. And he took
the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink you
all of it. For this is my blood of the New
Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not
drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when
I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And when they
had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then
saith Jesus unto them, all ye shall be offended because of
me this night. For it is written, I will smite
the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad. But after I am risen again, I
will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto
him, though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet
will I never be offended. Jesus saith unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow thou shalt
deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, though I
should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also
said all the disciples. Then cometh Jesus with them unto
a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, set
you 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 exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. Terry, you hear and
watch with me. And he went a little farther
and fell on his face and prayed saying, oh my father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as I 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 the 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. The agony the Lord Jesus Christ
experienced in Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane literally
means olive press. And it was a place, according
to the Apostle John in John chapter 18, where the Lord Jesus Christ
resorted often. A place where he often went to
pray so that Judas would know exactly where he would be when
he would lead them out to arrest him. But I have three truths
I want to present to us tonight from these verses. Three very
simple truths, but I trust the Lord would bless His word to
all of us here. First of all, the weakness of
the Lord's disciples. the weakness of the Lord's disciples. The last Passover supper had
been eaten, and the Lord had instituted the Lord's supper,
taking the bread and blessing it, breaking it, and giving it
to the disciples to eat, saying, this is my body, and also taking
the cup, the wine, saying, this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of sin. He'd given
them the broken bread to eat and the wine to drink and to
do so recognizing that his body would soon be broken and his
blood would soon be shed for their redemption. And he forewarned
them. He forewarned them of the fulfillment
of this prophecy. I will smite the shepherd and
the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. Now they
showed, these disciples, these 11 disciples, they showed their
weakness and they showed their ignorance in presuming and thinking
that they were competent in themselves, no matter what would come that
they were capable to endure it. Peter, of course, said, I will
never be offended. And we think of him most often
because we know that he eventually denied the Lord Jesus Christ,
but each of these disciples, they all joined in saying the
same thing. Peter wasn't the only one who
said, I will never be offended. They all said that. They all
confessed they were ready not only to go to prison, but to
death with him. And yet we know they all fled.
They all fled when they arrested the Lord Jesus Christ. They showed
their weakness, for they could not watch even one hour. They all showed their weakness.
And this is to serve you and I to remind us of how weak we
all are. The flesh is weak. What a reminder
unto us to pray as the Lord told us to pray. Lead us not into
temptation. That's part of our prayer. That's
part of the prayer the Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples. And we need always to remember
that. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil or the evil one. We need His
grace, we need His strength, we need His power. Also, this
reminds us of the Apostle Paul's warning when he said, let him
that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall. Now, we see their weakness and
I point this out to us, not to speak disparagingly of them,
not to malign them in any way. But just to recognize, all of
us to recognize that this is true of all of the Lord's disciples. All of the Lord's disciples.
I recently read an author who spoke of what he called the rougher
side of the Christian life. The rougher side of the Christian
life. And he had three things that
he mentioned as part of the rougher side. of Christianity. The first
was daily chastening. Remember the Lord said, whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son that
he receiveth. The daily chastening that God's
children experience. And then second, the endless
war that goes on between the believer and sin. and Satan,
and third, what he called the parodic walk in darkness, that
sometimes God's children walk in darkness. We do not always
walk in the sunshine of his countenance, that sometimes we walk in darkness. Now, he was making this point,
this man that I was reading, he was making this point. He
said some preachers, and I quote, give the impression that normal
Christian living is a perfect bed of roses. A state of affairs
in which everything in the garden is lovely all the time. And problems
no longer exist. Or if they come, they have only
to be taken to the throne of grace. and they will melt away
at once. This is to suggest that the world,
the flesh, and the devil will give a man no serious trouble
once he is a Christian, nor will his circumstances and personal
relationships ever be a problem to him, nor will he ever be a
problem to himself. Such, and I'm still quoting,
such suggestions are not only mischievous, however, they are
false. The rougher side of the Christian
life. And every Christian in this building
tonight, every true child of God, you know by experience what
he meant. The rougher side of the Christian
life. It's not always a bed of roses. When I read that, I thought about
a garden. Many of you have flower gardens,
and we love our flower gardens, but you know the flowers are
not always blooming, right? And sometimes the plant looks
almost dead in the wintertime. But then spring comes, and summer,
fall, and there's different seasons, even in a believer's life. the
rougher side. But the point is, we see the
weakness, the weakness of the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to remind us that we too are weak in ourselves. We're strong. The Apostle Paul said, I can
do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. But it's
only through Christ. The second point, the sinfulness
of sin. First of all, the weakness of
the Lord's disciples. Second, the sinfulness of sin. What was the cup? What was the
cup of which he prayed three times? The same words, three
times. Oh my father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. No doubt it included many things,
the cup did, it included many things, but all things that it
included all had to do with sin. Sin. It all had to do with that
abominable thing. That's what God calls sin, that
abominable thing that I hate. It all had to do with sin. In school, we learned that if
you are defining a word, you cannot use that word in the definition. When you want to define a word,
you use other words. You don't use that words. Well,
the Apostle Paul, when he was speaking in Romans chapter seven,
he could find no word, no other word to define sin So he just
added exceeding, exceeding. That sin by the commandment might
become what? That it might become exceedingly
sinful. There's no word really to define
sin. I know that this cup had to do
with sin, it involved other things of course, but all in relation
to sin. Not his own personal sin, you
understand that, for he had none of his own. It all had to do
with sin, the father forsaking him, the wrath of God being poured
out upon him. the hell that he endured. When you study the cross, and
I challenge you to do this sometime, look at the cross and see if
you don't see everything described there that is true about hell. Everything. The darkness. The bottomless pit. Not able
to find firm ground. and the forsaking of the Father. The hell, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He didn't go to hell when He died. You know, some people like
to say that, that He died and then entered into hell. No, He
experienced the hell for every child of God while upon that
cross, separated from His Father. And that's what hell is. It's separation from God. It all had to do with sin, this
cup. He was made to be sin for us. For he who knew no sin, the scripture
says, let me read this verse of scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter
five and verse 21. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin. Who was it who knew no sin? It
was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God. Who made him
to be sin? The Father, God Almighty. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. I was talking with a preacher
some time back about this verse of scripture, and we differed
from what I was hearing when he said that Christ was made
sin. And so he asked me, he said,
well, how do you believe that He was made to be sin for us?
And I answered this, He was made to be sin for us in the same
way that we are made to be the righteousness of God in Him. And how is that? Is righteousness
infused unto us? Are we somehow turned into righteousness? Or is the righteousness of God
imputed or charged under our account so that God is just and
justifier of the ungodly? That's the way he was made to
be seen. He wasn't turned into sin. The sins of his people were
charged to his account and he became responsible for them. So responsible for them that
he could even say, my sins are more than the hairs of my head. Someone said, well that's just
a legal transaction. It may be legal, no doubt it
was, but the Lord Jesus Christ felt the sins of his people charged
unto him, imputed unto him. So first of all, we see the weakness
of believers, the sinfulness of sin, and third, the separateness
of the Lord Jesus. The separateness. In Isaiah,
we read, I have trodden the winepress alone. He left eight disciples
in one place, and then he took the three farther into the garden
with him. And these three are the three
who had witnessed the transfiguration. They are the three who had witnessed
him raising the daughter of Jairus. But then he separates himself
even from them. He sanctified himself. That's
what the word sanctification means, isn't it? Separate or
set apart. John chapter 17, in his prayer,
that's what he said. For their sakes, I sanctify myself. I set myself apart for the cross. The disciples, they might watch
and pray with him, but as he had foretold, That night, he
would be alone, and yet not alone. This is what he said in John
chapter 16. Behold, the hour cometh, yea,
is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone, yet I am not alone, because the Father
is with me. Now he said that before he came
to the garden of Gethsemane. We know on the cross, the father
did forsake him because those were his words. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? But that night, he was not alone. Even when the disciples fled,
he was not alone. He knew his father's presence,
we see that when he prayed, because every time he prayed, he said,
oh, my father. Three times we're told he prayed
the same words, oh, my father. His father was with him, he was
praying to his father there in the garden. The writer of Hebrews
gives some light on what took place at this time when he said,
who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that
was able to save him from death. That has to be referring to this
time here in the garden when he prayed. With strong crying
and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was
heard in that he feared. He was heard. Someone might say,
well, How can you say he was heard? His prayer was that this
cup might pass from him, and this cup did not pass from him. That's not all he said, was it?
Oh, my father, if it be possible that this cup pass from me. Nevertheless,
not my will, but thy will. He was heard. We know he was
heard because on the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter said this about
Christ and his crucifixion, him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. God's will was done. He was heard in that he feared. If it be, oh Father, if it be
possible, If this cup may not pass away
from me except I drink it, thy will be done. He was heard. God's will was done. God had
purposed to save an innumerable company of men and women who
he had given unto his son in that everlasting covenant. And
the only way for them to be saved was for Christ to die. for the
substitute to die in the stead and in the place of his chosen
people. That's what we celebrate here
tonight, isn't it? The death of Christ. And this strictly pictures his
death. We serve a risen Savior. We know that. But this ordinance
that he gave us, he gave his church, is a picture to remind
us of his death. The agony that the Lord Jesus
Christ must have or did experience for you and for me, for all of
his people. I'm going to ask the brethren,
if you will, those who are going to help with the Lord's Supper
tonight to come. We're going to do just