THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: MATTHEW 26:36-46; HEBREWS 5:7




INTRODUCTION:


    1. The Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36), the word Gethsemane is Aramaic for "oil press."
    2. It was an olive yard at the foot of the Mount of Olives. It was a place our Lord frequently visited (cf. Luke 22:39; John 18:1, 2).
    3. This is a difficult passage to fathom. The depths of the meaning of our Lord’s agony we are not able to comprehend. William MacDonald wrote: "No one can approach this account of the Garden of Gethsemane without realizing that he is walking on holy ground. Anyone who attempts to comment on it feels a tremendous sense of awe and reticence. As Guy King wrote, ‘The supernal character of the event causes one to fear lest one should in any way spoil it by touching it."
    4. John Walvoord wrote: "No man, in sinful and mortal flesh, can understand the conflict in the holy soul of Jesus who had never experienced the slightest shadow of sin and had never known any barrier between Himself and the Father. Now upon this holy One had come the hour when He would bear all the terrible sin of the world -- past, present, and future -- and would experience being the sin offering forsaken by the Father."
    5. Spurgeon said: "No man can rightly expound such a passage as this; it is a subject for prayerful, heartbroken meditation, more than for human language."

I. THE AGONY OF OUR LORD

    1. Our Lord left eight of the disciples at the entrance to the Garden, while He and Peter, James, and John went further into the Garden (Matt. 26:36, 37).
    2. Our Lord was going through a very difficult time, and He wanted these three disciples to watch and pray (26:36-38).
    3. As I prepared this message, I realized again how difficult it is to describe our Lord’s agony.
    4. We must not think it was the fear of death that made our Lord agonize in the Garden. He did not fear death, but faced it willingly and with courage (cf. John 10:17, 18).
    5. Our Lord knew His soul would be made an offering for sin (cf. Isaiah 53:10).
    6. To properly understand our Lord’s agony in the Garden, we should turn to II Cor. 5:21. God made the sinless Saviour sin for us. There is no scripture more profound in the whole Bible. God the Father made His sinless, innocent incarnate Son the object of His fierce wrath and judgment, for our sakes.
    7. Why? "...That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
    8. Some commentators have tried to diminish the force of this Scripture by changing it to, "For He hath made Him to be a sin-offering for us," but this is not what the Bible says. It says: SIN (not "sinner" but "sin"). The same Greek word for sin is used here both times in II Cor. 5:21, and it must mean the same thing on both occasions.
    9. God the Father made God the Son "to be sin for us" (II Cor. 5:21; cf. Gal. 3:13). And as our Lord hung there on the cross, He cried out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps. 22:1).
    10. As our Lord thought on these things, the Bible says He "began to be sorrowful and very heavy" (Matt. 26:37, 38).
    11. Our Lord felt the awful burden of sin, and His sinless, holy soul was repelled by it, and horrified by it, and disgusted by it, and yet, all the while He knew that in a very short time all the wicked sins of the world would be placed on Him. Peter says "in His own body" (I Peter 2:24), which is even more horrible. Since all the terrible sins of the world were in the "cup" (Matt. 26:39), I Peter 2:24 makes sense.
    12. Words cannot adequately describe our Lord’s agony in the Garden (cf. Luke 22:43, 44). The mystery of the two natures of Christ -- both very God and very man -- is seen here in the Garden of Gethsemane. As a man, our Lord dreaded going to the cross, but as God He never wavered in doing the Father’s will.

II. THE PRAYERS OF OUR LORD

    1. Notice our Lord is getting close to the cross. He is no longer surrounded by the multitudes. He had His last passover meal with the disciples. Then He left eight of them at the entrance to the Garden. Then He left the remaining three and retired to pray. He is all alone now because He is now ready for the loneliness of the cross (26:39).
    2. Our Lord prayed three different times in the Garden (26:39, 42, 44).
    3. The "cup" (26:39, 42, 44) represents our Lord’s death as our Substitute.
    4. Our Lord was reluctant. He was not wrestling with God’s will, but submitting to God’s will (26:39, 42, 44).

III. THE CARNALITY OF THE DISCIPLES

    1. The disciples had promised to be faithful unto death, but they could not even stay awake for one hour (26:40-43).
    2. The key word here in verse 41 is "flesh." The flesh indeed is weak. I heard an excellent message last year up in Maine on this verse. The preacher used the acrostic F-L-E-S-H:
    3. Fruitless -- Our Lord said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63).

      Lustful -- "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness..." (Gal. 5:19).

      Enemy of the Holy Spirit -- "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. 5:17).

      Sentenced to death -- "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die" (Rom. 8:13).

      Hopeless -- "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 15:50).

    4. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:5).
    5. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
    6. We had a problem awhile back with a preacher on the FORUM who was teaching Christians could not be carnal. John MacArthur, Al Martin, and other radio preachers teach this as well. But the book of I Corinthians deals extensively with problems caused by carnal Christians, not carnal unbelievers (cf. I Cor. 3:1).

CONCLUSION:

    1. Our Lord shrunk from drinking the cup, but in obedience and submission to God the Father, He drank it (26:39).
    2. The symbol of the cup of God’s judgment is used often in the Bible (cf. Psalm 11:6; 75:8; Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15).
    3. God will make the wicked drink every last drop of this cup. There is a scene at the end of Hamlet where Hamlet makes his wicked uncle drink the cup which he himself had poisoned. In like manner, sinners are filling their own cups to the top and some day God will force them to drink it.
    4. But for those who repent, God has a better cup (Psalm 116:13).
    5. The poet wrote:

Death and the curse were in that cup,

O Christ, ‘twas full for Thee;

But Thou hast drained the last dark drop,

‘Tis empty now for me.



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