Overcoming Temptation!

Matthew 26:36-39

Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46;

Matthew 26:36-46, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” 39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” 40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” 43 And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. 45 Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and

resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.” Jesus is said to be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. When we study the life of the Lord realize that indeed He was a man of sorrows. There is no record in Scripture that Jesus ever laughed.

There are statements about His grief. There are statements about His sighing out loud, being grieved, and feeling sad. John 11 when He wept at the grave of Lazarus. Prior to His weeping He groaned deep within Himself when He saw the impact of sin and death.

Luke 19:41, Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, Jesus looks over the city of Jerusalem, sees that evil, wicked, unbelieving population and weeps. He indeed is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

But there has been no sorrow in His life, not the sorrow of disease, or unbelief, or disobedience, or ignorance, or rejection that can match the sorrow that we see Him experiencing.

The Lord knew sorrow upon sorrow. But the sorrow here seems to be an accumulation and intensification of all the sorrow He ever knew which was yet to be experienced. It is almost impossible to describe in my own understanding what happened here. We do not understand the profound nature of the suffering of Jesus Christ, because He, as infinite God, could experience something that we cannot comprehend.

Jesus here tread on very holy ground, and to try to understand something that is ultimately not understandable and to try to explain something that is inexplicable. There is mystery here that is too profound for us or any other human being, or maybe even the holy angels.

We find here that we stand in awe of the God Man, fully aware that He is God, and yet seeing Him suffer in pain as a human, almost as if He were not God. Our Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, immediately before His capture, mock trial, and execution. It is part of the preparation of the cross.

It is part of our Lord’s being made ready to die.

• We saw the preparation of God’s plan.
• The preparation of the religious leaders, who were setting the plot to capture Christ.
• We saw the preparation of beloved sister, who loved Him and anointed Him for burial.
• We saw the preparation of Judas, who set out to betray Him.

We saw our Lord end the old Jewish economy in the final Passover. We saw Him introduce the Lord’s supper. We saw Him warn the disciples about what they were going to go through when He was captured, and they were scattered.

All those elements of preparation moving toward the cross, and this is His preparation. Jesus must go through to bring Himself fully into harmony with the plan of God, and to once more defeat the devil. It is also an important element of preparation for the disciples, because out of it they will learn a profound lesson.

V 41, Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus always the teacher, even in the midst of this unbelievable, inexplicable struggle with the enemy, who would

divert Him from the cross, the Lord goes beyond His own experience to teach His own. Jesus sees in His own struggle a great lesson that we must learn about how we are to face temptation and severe trial. As we look at the passage, we will not only see Him preparing Himself for His death but preparing the disciples as well.

They should learn from this, and we should learn with them from this, the proper way to face severe temptation.

• The Lord becomes the pattern.
• The Lord becomes the example.

V 36-37, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

Setting the Scene

The first word is “then,” is a word that is intended to put us in a chronological flow.

Then – when is then? Right after the Lord just stopped on the Mount of Olives to tell His disciples that they were going to leave Him. They were

going to forsake Him and going to be scandalized, offended, trapped, and they were going to deny Him, and run from Him. They said, “No, it will never happen.” But it would.

What is going on here? This is midnight Tuesday of the last week of our Lord’s life. The years of ministry are over. Jesus finished everything! Jesus is now come to Jerusalem at the Passover, in the year 33 A.D., most likely, perhaps 30 A.D., one of those two years. He has come not only to attend the Passover but to be the Passover.

Tuesday was the day to get ready, because that evening they ate the Passover. The meal is over, the final hymn has been sung, they have left the upper room, gone through the city of Jerusalem with the bustling crowds near midnight because of the festival holiday of Passover season. Out the gate north of the temple, which would be the eastern gate, down the slope of the temple mount, across the Kidron, up the Mount of Olives.

After the little interlude on the Mount of Olives where the Lord warned them about their defection, they now come to the garden of Gethsemane.

It will be in that garden in a very brief time that Jesus will be taken prisoner.

• It is imminent.
• It is momentary.

Before that must occur time of intercession with the Father. But the Lord uses this time to be instructive to His disciples and to us as well. It is instructive in so many ways, but primarily it gives us profound insight into how to deal with temptation in severe cases.

He came to a place called Gethsemane. Gethsemane means “olive press.” Apparently was the name of a garden, or an area in which there was a garden, on the mountainside. It was on that hillside, the western slope of the Mount of Olives, on the east of Jerusalem.

Just beyond the temple mount, that the wealthy people of Jerusalem had their gardens. They didn’t have them in the walled city since there was no room for that. The gardens were on the hillsides outside. A garden called Gethsemane, a familiar place.

John 18:2, And Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples. Jesus went there often with His disciples.

It was a place of privacy, a shaded place, away from the crowd, the thoroughfare, the city, the busyness. It was a place where He could go and be uninvolved for just a time, to spend the night in prayer with His Father or instruction with His beloved.

We don’t know who owned the garden. He is another one of those wonderful nameless people who came to the aid of Jesus Christ toward the end of His life.

• A nameless man who gave Him the donkey to ride.
• A nameless host who gave Him the upper room.
• A nameless owner of the garden.

Some nameless people who are known to God but unknown to us, gave to Jesus in those final hours what He needed. Jesus reaches this place on the gentle slopes of the Mount of Olives, no doubt somewhere near the top. said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”

He entered in, and probably the garden was fenced or walled in some way to keep it from the other things that were there on the hillside. He says to them you stay here.

The disciples are told to stay. They know what is to happen. They have already been told that this is the time for Him to die.

Matthew 26:2, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

This was the time. Those days had passed. V 31, Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

They knew they were at the significant time. They were at a crisis point. They should have seen this as a time to pray. When they were told to stay here, and He said, “I Am going to go and pray,” they should have caught the drift of what He was saying.

You stay and pray and I will go and pray. He had a couple of things in mind. He wanted seclusion, and if He piled the disciples up toward the entrance, there wouldn’t be people coming to try to bother Him. He didn’t want that.

He didn’t want any intrusion into His time with the Father, as He wrestled through this unbelievable and beyond an understanding experience. Jesus set the disciples like a watch, to guard Him and also to pray. V 41, “Watch and pray”

Be on the alert and spend your time in intercession. But there is no indication that they even uttered a breath of prayer. There is no indication anywhere in the gospel records that they called on the Father at all. They knew what was coming and they had heard it. But they existed in a kind of smug self-confidence.

• They thought themselves to be somewhat invincible.
• They mistook their good intentions for power.
• They mistook their good intentions for strength, and that was foolish.

They didn’t pray, from all that we know. They just were left there, and the Lord went on. V 37, “He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, who were James and John.”

When Jesus said “while I go and pray,” He uses a very intensive word, the normal word would be Archomai, this is Proerchomai, an intense word always used of praying to God. Other words may refer to begging or asking something from someone else, but this word always refers to God.

It is an intense word of prayer to God. I Am going to go and talk to God and pour out My heart to God. Jesus leaves the disciples there, except for Peter, James and John. Jesus takes them with Him the three.

• They were there when He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead.
• They were there at His transfiguration, when He showed Himself in glory.

They fell asleep there, too. Maybe it was because they had seen His glory that He specially wants them now to see His humiliation.

Why did Jesus take Peter, James and John? He couldn’t take them all, because if He took them all there would be no one to guard the gate. He had to leave enough people at the gate so that there was a significant guard there.

In case a group of people came looking for Him, they would be able to stop them. Furthermore, if the group of disciples were at the gate, they would attract the attention of anyone coming and looking for Him until He was done with His prayer, and He could find some seclusion that way. He had to leave a large group there.

Why would He take these three? Some say that He wanted those who loved Him the most to spend some time with Him and be sympathetic and supportive of Him. A nice sentiment, there may be an element of truth in the fact that He loved their companionship. But I don’t think that was the reason He took them.

Someone else has said that He took them because they were the weakest of the group, and He couldn’t let them out of His sight. When we study the New Testament, and watch Peter and James and John, we might come to that conclusion.

But that doesn’t really fit either, because after all, He had given more of Himself to these three than any others. The truth of the matter is He took them because they were the three leaders.

Jesus took them because there was a lesson that had to be taught to the rest of the apostles. He couldn’t take them all or there wouldn’t be anybody left there to watch. But He took the significant leaders, because He wanted them to learn and be able to communicate it to the rest. They were the ones who would be the teachers.

The Lord being the teacher always took them to teach even when He was going on to do and agonize over the cross. He sees it also an opportunity to instruct them. Jesus wants to teach them how to face temptation not with a self-confidence, not denying the possibility of failure, and not imagining yourself invincible. But through dependence on God in passionate prayer to face a trial.

Jesus wasn’t looking for their help. Jesus wasn’t looking for their sympathy. Jesus never asked them to pray for Him. Jesus wasn’t taking them so He could watch them, because if He did that, why did He leave them and go on further?

Because it says Jesus took the three with Him and He went a little further in verse 39. Probably Jesus went 30 to 50 yards beyond them. Luke says a stone’s throw.

Jesus wasn’t there to patrol them, and He didn’t have them there to support and sympathize with Him, or He wouldn’t have left them and gone on alone. Jesus had them there because there was something they needed to learn out of this experience about how to face a trial that they could pass on to others.

They might see something of the agony of their Savior and they might understand His love. Jesus wasn’t looking for their help. There is a Gethsemane in all our lives. There may be many of them. There may be many agonizing experiences, trials, and temptations. There seem a deep sorrow and trial through which we all must pass sooner or later.

The dark hour of death lurks around all of us, and the bitter cup we drink at some time or another. Our social nature pushes us manward, to reach out to men for our strength, and we expect too much from them. Even our dearest and holiest friends, however willing their spirit may be, will find their flesh is feeble, and we need to learn to turn to God.

Jesus wasn’t taking them for support. Jesus wasn’t taking them for sympathy. Jesus found support in God, and He asked no sympathy. Jesus wasn’t taking them to patrol them, because He wouldn’t have left them alone. Jesus had done His work for three years, and He was ready to leave, and the Spirit would take over where He finished.

Jesus took them for instruction’s sake, that they might learn how He faced a trial.

Remarkable contrast

Because we have just come out of the confident boasting of Peter and the other disciples, who said, “O Lord, we are going to be able to handle this trial, we will never deny You, we will never forsake you, why, we will die before we do that.”

Out of the confident boasting of the disciples, we come immediately to the humble acceptance of Christ to the fact that humanity is weak. Sinful, fallen humanity will not acknowledge its weakness. Unfallen, sinless humanity acknowledges its weakness.

Does that mean the humanity of Jesus was weak? Yes, the humanity of Jesus was weak.

If you don’t think then remember that He died. Death is the essence of weakness. Jesus was fully human, and He knew that in humanity is weakness.

• Tears are a sign of human weakness, because they are a sign of pain.
• Agony is a sign of human weakness.
• Suffering is a sign of human weakness.

God knows no pain, no agony, no suffering, eternal God in deity except that which He chooses to consider on behalf of man. Jesus could die, and in that was weakness. Jesus could hurt, and in that was weakness. Jesus could hunger, and in that was weakness.

Jesus could thirst, and in that was weakness. Jesus knew humanity was weak. Jesus knew, in His unfallen sinlessness, what those foolish disciples wouldn’t recognize in their fallenness that when you enter into a severe trial.

If you are human, you must not look to men, but you must look to God. Jesus did what they refused to do. They flunked a less severe test. He passed the severest test in the history of humanity.

Hebrews 4:15, For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

When you go to the Lord Jesus Christ with your needs, you are not talking to a high priest who doesn’t know how you feel. He is fully human. He has been touched with the feelings of our weaknesses. He knows weakness. He feels infirmity.

He is touched with the feeling of infirmity. He knows what it is to experience the weakness of humanness not at sin, yet without sin, but its weakness. As He went to that cross, in the garden, and in all the suffering, sorrow, and grief of His life, He experienced what it is to be human.

Here Jesus is tempted severely by Satan we begin to see His dependence on God. Out of that victory we learn the lesson from this passage: To trust God during our trials. Now, let me give it to you in a bigger perspective.

Jesus’ ministry began and ended with a severe temptation. Matthew 4, Satan came to Him, after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, and Satan tempted Him.

How many waves of temptation came to Jesus in that first temptation? Three times. How many waves of temptation come to Jesus here?

How many times did He go to pray? Three times. Satan came at Him at the beginning and came at Him at the end, in three great waves of temptation. Jesus was victorious in both of those, the beginning and the end of His ministry.

What is so marvellous about them is they were both very personal, intimate, and private solicitations to evil between Satan and Christ. We would have no knowledge of them and no insight into them if they had not been revealed to us in Scripture. Even the disciples couldn’t know, because they were asleep through the whole thing, and they weren’t even there the first time.

But Jesus reveals both of those encounters to teach us profound truth.

• The first wave of temptation early in His ministry, Jesus replied every time with Scripture.

• The second time He responded to every wave of temptation with Prayer.

Jesus teaches us the lesson is that when you face temptation, you face it with two weapons. The weapons of our warfare that are not carnal but that are spiritual are the weapons of the Word of God and prayer.

Ephesians 6:17-18, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— “Take the sword of the Spirit, praying always.”

There are the weapons of our warfare. If the disciples never learned anything else but that, that would be enough to meet the enemy. Jesus is completing the lesson He began in His early temptation, teaching them how are they going to handle temptation.

Handle the temptations on the strength of the Word of God and the power of God sought through prayer. Sorrow.

I only wish to God that I were a person of eloquent words and could express what I feel in my heart about this. V 38, Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” Here our Lord is entering into deep anguish.

Jesus just lived His life, and went to the cross and died, and rose again, and it is done, then you are wrong. Every single thought of anticipation of that cross that dwelt in His omniscience repulsed everything about Him. He agonized every conscious moment of His incarnation over the reality of the cross, because everything in it He despised the guilt, the sin, the death, the isolation, the loneliness, and the separation from God.

This is not something Jesus coolly and calmly engaged in, as if it were turning the page of a book on redemptive history. But something which brought Jesus to an indescribable agony. Jesus whole soul is so repulsed with everything that has to do with the cross, the horror of it is so large, that it’s beyond our description. Here comprises of a new understanding of the love and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus not only died on the cross when He died on the cross, but He died on the cross every conscious moment before He died on the cross. Because in His knowledge He pre-lived through His own death every conscious moment.

Because He fully understood everything, He fully experienced it before it ever happened. No wonder that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The pain was always there! Here it reaches its apex, epitome, climax.

But the fact that He endures this, that He goes through this victoriously, shows how much He loves the Father, how submissive He is to the Father’s will, how much He loves sinners who need salvation. But the anticipation of this brings terror and pain and sorrow.

John 11:33-35, When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 35 Jesus wept. Jesus walked up to that grave, and began to ache on the inside, and groan for sorrow, and finally it burst out in tears as He began to anticipate the meaning of sin and death, even in the case of Lazarus.

Jesus could no doubt see Himself dying as well as Lazarus had. Jesus certainly wasn’t weeping for Lazarus because He was about to bring him out of the grave. What made Jesus’s soul to weep, and cry was the power of sin and death, just a little time before this event.

The word here for being sorrowful means deep sadness. Not superficial, but deep. The word used here means, to be away from home, so it’s a beautiful concept.

• Home is where comfortable things are.
• Home is where you belong.
• Home is where your family is.
• Home is where love is.
• Home is where you are at ease.
• Home is where you are accepted.
• Jesus was away from home.
• Jesus was isolated in conflict with hell.

This was depressing, so that the word “to be away from home” ultimately came to mean “depressed.” Psalm 42, a Messianic way describing Christ’s experience, that wave upon wave rolled over Him, waves of grief, deep called

unto deep. There is a desolate, profound kind of loneliness and sorrow here that causes Him to be depressed, deeply depressed.

Why was Jesus so depressed? Jesus was depressed not only about what had happened, but He knew what would happen. All of it came together to give this depression. First there was the defection of Judas. Jesus Christ was the all-together lovely one, the most attractive human that had ever walked on the earth, the God- Man who knew only love. He did only what was right, goodness, grace, mercy, and kindness, the trusted friend, the lover of souls, the gracious master adored by holy angels, and guarded by Seraphim.

Is He to be brought to this humiliation by a wretched traitor? By an earthly Lucifer who spits on his holy privilege? Is He to be the victim of a Judas, who is the God of Gods?

How can Judas treat Him this way? Depressing. Then there was the desertion of the eleven.

• He who was the source of their life,
• He who was the resource for all they ever needed,
• He who was the comforter for every grief,

• He who was the lesson for every point of ignorance,
• He who was the faithful teacher, loyal friend, encourager, forgiver, and supporter.

Is He to be forsaken by those He would never think to forsake Himself?

Is He to be so humiliated? Is He to have spent three years with men who will turn their backs on Him in the night and run to save their own life? Depressing. One would be depressed by the forsaking of all those you loved and invested your life in.

Then the denial by Peter. If He invested anything in anyone, He invested most in Peter. He was the one who was not ashamed to call sinful Peter His friend. He was the one who was not ashamed to give Peter the leadership of His disciples.

He was not ashamed to make Peter His brother, and to share with Him all His eternal riches, including His own Kingdom. Is He to be the object of Peter’s shame? Wretched Peter, sinful, unfaithful, denying, a sinner ashamed of a holy Lord?

Peter with whom He had spent so much time, and to whom He had given so much, will deny Him and curse His name? Depressing.

The rejection by Israel. This is His people, beloved, called by His name. He is the Lord of the covenant. He is the King of glory, the King of grace, the source of their hope. He is the bringer of the Kingdom, who loved Israel and calls Himself Israel’s Lord and King.

He came to redeem this people.

Is He to be rejected by them?

Is He to be murdered by their unbelief? Then there is the injustice of men. He comes into a world in which He has made the laws. He is the God of equity and the God of what is fair, and what is just, and what is true, and what is right.

Is He to be cheated in the petty courts of lying men who will deny Him His right to justice and truth? Depressing. There are the cursing and the mocking that’s going to come, already has come. But He is the one whom angel’s praise.

He is the one for all eternity who knew nothing but the praise and the adoration of holy creatures.

He is the one always exalted. He is the one blessed beyond all, glorified, adored for eternal perfection.

Is He to be spit on?

Is He to be mocked? Is He to be blasted by the profanity of stupid men? Then there is the loneliness. He who is the companion of God, who is the fellow of the Holy Spirit, who is a part of the angelic association, who communes with holy creatures, the eternally glorious friend.

is He to be alone, forsaken by all, so that even the holy hosts turn their back? The bearing of sin. The spotless, sinless, without blemish, holy Son of God is to become sin. He is so identified with sin He becomes, in the moment of death, so sinful that He is called sin who knew no sin.

Such an event repulses everything in His holy nature. Depressing. Jesus must have been depressed by the forsaking of God. He is the beloved of the Father. He is the one of whom the Father says, “In whom I am well pleased.” He is the object of eternal love.

Is He to be abandoned by God? Depressing. The death itself. Jesus as God is the undying one. Jesus as God is immortal and eternal and knows no death. We as human beings come into the world with the taste of death in our mouth, and we taste it all our life long.

Even though we are fallen and sinful, we are repulsed by death, which we taste all the time. How much more would death repulse one who never knew its taste?

Hebrews 2:9, But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Jesus faces something which an eternally undying being can never face. Jesus does not face it for Himself, for He cannot die, but He dies as man for man. All of this was overwhelmingly depressing.

This is not theatre but reality. This is the struggle of the Saviour. All this came because Satan was approaching Him again.

What was Satan saying to Jesus? Satan’s temptation the first time was he came and said, “Make stones into bread, then jump off the tower and then look at the kingdoms of the world, bow down to me, and I will give them to You.

What was Satan doing?

Did Jesus have a right to eat? Sure. Did Jesus have a right to have anything He wanted? Sure, He is sovereign God. Did Jesus have a right to be hailed as the Messiah? Yes. Did He have a right to rule the kingdoms of the world?

Yes. Do you know what Satan was saying to Him? Take Your rights!

You have been out here in the wilderness 40 days, and You have not eaten, and You are the Son of God. Don’t let that happen to You, grab some satisfaction. You deserve it. This isn’t right that You should be deprived of food, turn those stones into bread.

You are to be hailed as the Messiah, don’t wait for a life of humiliation, and don’t wait for rejection. Just dive off the high point of the temple and land in front of the crowd, and they will hail You as a Messiah who can fly right out of heaven. You can bypass all the pain and all the agony and the cross and the whole thing.

Take a look at all the kingdoms of the world that You can see from this mountain. I will give them all to You if You just bow down to me, and you can bypass the cross and bypass the agony and bypass the rejection. You are too worthy for that.

This is how Satan came. Satan came playing on Jesus Christ’s worthiness. “You should not be so deprived.” When Satan came back in the garden he was repeating the same thing.

What are You doing here?

Why are You doing humiliated? What are You doing with a rabble coming out of the city of Jerusalem to take You captive and execute You? Why are You here on the ground with Your face in the dirt, crying out to God in agony, sweating great drops or clots of blood?

You are the Son of God. Why are You to be humiliated by eleven deserting disciples and one betraying wretched traitor named Judas? You deserve better than this, don’t let this happen to You. You are too worthy for this. You are the Son of God. Take what You are entitled to.

Satan wanted to keep Him from the cross, always.

• First temptation, “Take it now without the cross.”
• Here, “Take it now without the cross.”

Matthew 16:23, But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

When Peter said to Him, “Don’t go to the cross” Jesus said, “Get thee behind Me Satan” because that was Satan’s approach all the time. I believe Satan was coming at Him in these three waves:

• Trying to get Him to stop trusting God for the plan the way the plan was designed,
• To short circuit the thing,
• Avoid the cross,

That was the temptation. V 38, Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” That word “exceedingly sorrowful” means to be surrounded by sorrow, like the periphery.

He was surrounded by sadness. He was engulfed in sadness. Jesus uses the word “My soul,” My inner person. He is a real person. “My inner being is literally drowning in sorrow.”

How sorrowful? “Even unto death.” The sorrow was enough to kill Him. One can die from sheer anguish. They can burst your capillaries, which later begins to happen as He sweats, and His

sweat is mingled with the blood escaping through the sweat glands. Jesus could die from sheer anguish. If it were not for the fact that God sent an angel to strengthen Him, He would have died in the garden before He ever got to the cross. When He did get to the cross, He died very fast, so fast they didn’t even need to break His legs. The anguish was so severe that death was imminent.

We can’t look at the cross as if it’s some isolated event of anguish. His life was a life of sorrow, and His anguish anticipated the cross. Jesus did it for you, and He did it for me. V 38, Stay here and watch with Me.” Obviously, Jesus wanted them to pray.

He had warned them about what was coming. He would go to a more secluded place, in the shade of a tree, away from the rest. Luke says, “He went about a stone’s throw,” 30 or 50 yards away, “to pray.” His heart is at the breaking point, and He does the right thing.

V 39, He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, V 42, Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, V 44, So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. With each wave of temptation, there came the response of retreat to the place of seclusion with the Father in prayer.

His grief, His sorrow begins to accumulate. V 37, “He began to be sorrowful.” This was a continual process of increasing sorrow.

Luke 22:41, And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, V 39, He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, Obviously, He started in the kneeling position, but not much time passed before He was prostrate with His face on the ground.

What does this show to us? Supplication.

V 39, He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus said, “O My Father.” Jesus called God “Father” every time He prayed to Him except one, and that was on the cross when God forsook Him.

But this is the only time in Scripture He ever said, “O My Father.” He takes the idea of intimacy, which was so foreign to Judaism. When Jesus called God “Father”, the Jews just couldn’t handle that, because they didn’t call God their personal Father. He was the Father to the nation, but there was no intimacy to that.

Here Jesus goes a step further, and doesn’t only say “O Father,” He says, “O My Father”

Mark 14:36, And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” “Abba,” Daddy. Jesus is holding on to intimacy. As if Satan is trying to rip Him apart from the Father, and the Father’s will, purpose, and Jesus is holding on.

Jesus is articulating the intimacy of His relationship with the Father, which He will not release. “O My Father,” very possessive, personal, intimate, and He holds on to that.

• He will not distrust God, like He wouldn’t make bread on His own,
• He wouldn’t credit Himself as Messiah on His own,
• He wouldn’t take the kingdoms of the world on His own, but He waited for the Father.
• He will not here divert the cross or divert from the cross on His own.
• He will go through the plan.

So Jesus says, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus says, “If it is possible to do this any other way, I would want that, but if it is not, let it be.”

This is a prayer of resolution and resignation to the will of God. Jesus says “if it be possible” Jesus is not asking if it’s possible within the power of God. Because anything is possible within the power of God. God has the power to do it.

Jesus is asking, is it possible in the plan of God. If it is possible morally, redemptively, consistency with the plan to save sinners, is there any other way, let it happen another way. This is an unbearable thing that is killing Him in the garden. It was after this first prayer of the three that He began to sweat clots of blood.

The Greek word ‘Thrombos’ used here is from we get thrombosis, means clots. The agony was almost killing Him, and He says, “If there is any other way, if it is possible to do it any other way.” Jesus is not trying to avoid redemption.

Jesus is just at the point of dire agony. “This cup” the cup is the symbol of the experience He will endure. He will drink the experience. He will consume the cup to the bitter dregs. The cup is often associated with divine wrath.

Psalm 75:8, For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, And the wine is red; It is fully mixed, and He pours it out; Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth Drain and drink down.

Isaiah 51:17, Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk at the hand of the Lord The cup of His fury; You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, And drained it out.

Jeremiah 49:12, For thus says the Lord: “Behold, those whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drunk. And are you the one who will altogether go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink of it.

The cup of judgment, or the cup of wrath. The cup that Christ was going to drink was the fury of God over sin, was the attack of Satan, the power of death, the guilt of iniquity. All of that was in the cup. Jesus could wish that He could escape if there was any other way.

But you remember, He said, “I have come for this purpose.” Jesus came into the world to do God’s will, and that was His absolute total commitment.

The Lord Jesus Christ then begins the supplication, and the supplication shows us genuine agony because it shows us the desire to be relieved of it. Please, if there is any way it could be done through another means let it be. But if not, whatever Your will.”

That is the way to face temptation, in confident prayer and commitment to the will of God. He trusted God. The intensity of the struggle brings out in Him the very best, because of how He approached it.