[0:00] We shall turn to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 14, reading at verse 32. Mark 14 and verse 32.
[0:18] And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane, and he said to the disciples, sit here while I pray. And I want to look at the verses down to the end of verse 42.
[0:40] I've been asked to talk this weekend on three separate but related themes. Gethsemane, Calvary and the road to Emmaus.
[0:50] And I want first of all to make some general point regarding Gethsemane, and even regard to the whole block of the verses I want to do over to the end tomorrow.
[1:03] To remind you first of all that we are indeed reflecting on the Son of God. I want us to bear in mind exactly who he is.
[1:18] And I say that because we're going to reflect primarily upon Christ in his weakness and humiliation. And I'm going to be skirting some of the most profound aspects of his amazement.
[1:35] I'm going to expose to you some of the key points, the Lord's evident weakness. In other words, our focus is falling very, very firmly upon the man, Christ Jesus, upon his humanity.
[1:56] That's why I want us to bear in mind all the time that it is the humanity of the Son of God. I won't be focusing upon his deity.
[2:10] But I don't want you to forget his deity. That the humiliation, the weakness, is almost that of God's own Son.
[2:22] My second concern is this. That you bear in mind that the Lord's humiliation is a progression. It isn't a point, it's a line.
[2:38] I know that when Christ took flesh and became the child of the manger, that was a momentous step. And I think that many of us are tempted to see that one step as itself the humiliation.
[2:56] Though it wasn't. Though it wasn't. It was indeed a gigantic step. But it is still only the commencement of the humiliation.
[3:08] Because Christ moves on from the manger, further and further and deeper and deeper, into the abyss of his own chosen poverty.
[3:21] Indeed, Gethsemane itself is by no means the lowest point in the Lord's descent. It is still only a point or a line which leads to a much more profound humiliation of Jesus.
[3:41] The climax is upon the cross itself. And on the cross itself, indeed, there is still progression.
[3:52] As you know, it's deeper and deeper into what the cross itself actually means. My third point I mention more briefly, and it's this.
[4:03] That all we say, we are saying of the person, Jesus Christ. Now this is a slightly difficult point.
[4:18] I'm saying it for this reason. That sometimes we are tempted to divide the Lord's experiences and achievements between his divine and his human nature.
[4:35] And especially the budding theologians, I want to warn them that we seldom have the right to say that this is his divinity acting. Or this is his humanity acting.
[4:48] I would seldom feel confident enough to be able to make that kind of allocation. And what I'm saying is simply that he is cursed.
[5:03] That he is tempted. That he experiences pain and poverty. And at last that he dies. In other words, we aren't seeing in Gethsemane the weakness of the human nature of Christ.
[5:22] We are seeing the weakness of the person, Christ, the Son of God. And my fourth general concern is this.
[5:35] I want to remind you of how practical this and all our other subjects are. Let me say that I haven't chosen those topics.
[5:48] Let me say that it is immensely encouraging that you would ask to be addressed on what are profoundly theological themes.
[6:00] I think that for a long time the youth conferences, and I don't mean few church ones only, were very much obsessed with what people would call the very practical subjects.
[6:14] Evangelism and the whole area of how to live this life. And how to do certain things. Now you ask me to deal with what is the profoundest area in the whole range of Christian truth.
[6:30] The suffering, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time, surely, the cross is something which is a measure of the indirectly practical.
[6:44] Because it is at the cross we experience the constraint or the pressure of the love of God.
[6:56] If I would think that I can't avoid stretching your minds, I haven't been asked here to tell you stories or to give you statistics or to give you practical solutions with regard to, say, political problems.
[7:16] I've been asked to draw your attention to the cross. But what is practical in the Christian life? Christian practice begins with the worship of God and the adoration of God.
[7:32] It doesn't begin with helping the poor or evangelism. Worship is practical. Love for Christ is practical. And I would hope that by following your program, by focusing upon Gethsemane and Calvary and Demeus, that you will get new insights into the glory of the Saviour and feeling you the constraint of his love.
[8:03] Well, then, against that background, let's focus on Gethsemane. It reminds us, first of all, of the depth of the Lord's emotional life.
[8:17] The depth of the Lord's emotional life. Now, those of free church background will recall that Christ became a man by taking a true body and a reasonable soul.
[8:35] So, Archdiocese tells us. A reasonable soul. Now, that means that Christ took an ordinary human psychology.
[8:46] The kind of soul. Rational, psychic, emotional, affective soul such as you and I have.
[8:58] And Gethsemane highlights for us just how real and how deep that emotional life was. The Lord had human feelings.
[9:09] Now, I believe that the Lord had the whole range of human feelings. And I believe that he experienced, for example, the bright emotions of a human existence.
[9:23] I believe that the Lord was joyful. That the Lord was blessed. That the Lord was content. I believe that because the New Testament insists that we ourselves as Christians are bound to have those emotions.
[9:46] It even tells us that joy is the fruit of the Spirit. I know that the New Testament never tells us that Jesus laughs.
[9:58] It tells us that he wept. But never that he laughed. But I also believe that we make we make far too much of that fact.
[10:09] Of that omission. We Christians have no right to live lives without joy, without peace and contentment.
[10:20] And I believe that Jesus lived such a life in close fellowship with God. But there is no doubt at all that what the whole Gethsemane merit emphasizes is the dark side of the human emotions.
[10:37] You see how it is in verse 33. He began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said my soul is very sorrowful even to death.
[10:53] Now that brings out very clearly to us just how great the darkness the Lord's soul was. There was sorrow and it was alone most mortal sorrow.
[11:07] He was almost heartbroken exceeding sorrowful and to death. We are told too that he was greatly distressed and troubled.
[11:21] It's rendered sometimes us being overwhelmed. He began to be so amazed to be almost overwhelmed.
[11:33] Indeed we know that the same word is used in one gospel to express for us the kind of emotion disciples had when they came to the tomb on the resurrection morning and they saw the empty tomb and they saw the angels.
[11:52] They were so amazed they were overwhelmed. I think that deep in these words is the idea of the eeriness of the experience.
[12:07] The kind of feeling we might have if we saw a ghost and we found ourselves in the presence of the uncanny of what is overwhelmingly otherworldly what might be called the goose people feeling what makes your hair stand on end.
[12:29] The kind of feeling that we have in the presence of the absolutely holy and the utterly unfamiliar. That's what the Lord was he was overwhelmed.
[12:42] it really expresses for us very very effectively the fact that the Lord was standing on the threshold here of something utterly uncanny that didn't belong to this world at all.
[12:59] Now it's a feeling that some Christians can sometimes have in their own experience that are things we go through maybe bereavements or certain temptations and we are powerfully conscious of the otherworldliness of the eeriness of what we're facing.
[13:19] The Lord had that. He was overwhelmed at this particular point almost overwhelmed. So we have sorrow we have this amazement we know also from Hebrews that the Lord at this point experienced fear.
[13:36] he was heard in that he feared. He was really afraid. Now it may be very difficult for us to believe all of this.
[13:49] Here as I said is God's own son and yet he's in the depths of sorrow he is in the depths of amazement and he is terribly and terribly afraid.
[14:03] Now it seems to me something unspeakably precious. I know that maybe some of us haven't yet experienced indeed none of us has experienced the full range of human emotions but some of us may imagine that Christians will never go through depths of that kind.
[14:29] We imagine that maybe God's will will always be easy and yet here is the hour that God has given to Christ here is the cup given him to drink and he doesn't find it easy and that to me is something of enormous importance because I haven't always found it easy and I'm called on to minister to other Christians who often don't find it easy we find that the way God deals with them is terribly testing emotionally and I live in a world where people tell Christians are or if you are real faith or strong faith you don't feel these things you don't feel temptation you don't feel loss you don't feel pain and yet here is Christ and he is entirely in the will of God there is no question at all of us being on the wrong road or of his emotions being sinful and yet how does he feel he feels that he can hardly handle it that he can't take very much more that is being stretched almost to breaking point and what I'm hoping is that if and when in God's providence these moments of testing come on you that you remember that you heard a man once telling you it wasn't going to be easy for that one day you too might be called upon to experience just a taste of what
[16:21] Christ experienced in terms of the emotional depths and darknesses of his life as some of you know them already better than I do but I'm trying to say to you that the day you feel sorrowful the day you feel overwhelmed the day you feel afraid don't say that day my faith is gone don't say I let the Lord down don't say I need psychiatry treatment because here is somebody God's old son the perfect partner and he's finding it difficult to handle he is here touched with a feeling of our infirmities and I don't believe that the Lord has ever forgotten these moments in the garden of Gethsemane I believe that tonight he remembers very very vividly how terrible and how almost unbearable it was and I believe that when he sees us struggling and when he sees us sorrowful and frightened
[17:36] I believe he says I understand I know how she's feeling because I have been in that kind of situation it's also to notice the comfort that the Lord sought here he is with these great emotions this opening up of the great deeps of his own emotional life we find him in his humanness looking for comfort and I think it's lovely the way our attention is focused upon the avenues along which the Lord did seek comfort the first avenue was this he took with them Peter and James and John he sought comfort first of all in the physical presence of fellow human beings it is you see so magnificent this because maybe you've come to this comfort as we transformed into some kind of superman some spiritual superman not needing comfort not needing help not ever needing others and I find
[19:13] Christ the only spiritual superman that ever walks and here I find him in his extremity and he turns to his human friends and he finds comfort simply in the fact that they're with him in the fact of their physical proximity he takes with him Peter and James and John now Mark who is a great theologian among the New Testament writers he tells us that the reason that Jesus chose twelve was simply to be with him he needed the presence the friendship the comfort of other human beings and here he is in the hour of his anguish when everything is so low because we know from Mark that there are these storms these clouds have been gathering now ever since his year
[20:23] Philippi the Lord has been going deeper and deeper or further and further down into this emotional pit and he turns to these men he takes them with them Peter James and John there are times in life when the best thing for us is human company and I will share this to you too these may be the very times when you least feel that company that when you just want to be alone and left alone you don't want anyone to hear you just as the critical time to keep on attending the means of grace is when you feel disinclined to go that's when you fight that intention it may be the day you don't want to see anybody that may be the day when it is most important that you see somebody and there's something else to enshrine in the heart of this very simple affirmation and it's this the Lord didn't take every human being with him into the garden he didn't even take all his disciples with him he didn't even take the eleven with him he took three with him
[21:47] I wonder how many of us feel guilty about not loving everybody equally about not loving all Christians equally about not being equally fond of everybody in our own youth fellowship somehow we've got the idea that Christian love means that you feel the same for everybody love you now we know that Christ loved his neighbor as himself and yet we also know that there were special circles there were the eleven there were the three Peter, James and John and within the three there was John the beloved disciple I don't love everybody equally in the sense of being equally happy in everybody's company I have my own social preferences
[22:49] I have my own preferred company it depends on how well I know them it depends on shared interests it depends upon whether or not they can speak Gaelic and other kinds but it is a fact of human nature that we all need special circles we cannot sustain on the same level of intensity an infinite number of friendships it was the Lord's human nature that meant that there was this preference for Peter James and John taking with him so often into those very very special situations so here he is first of all seeking comfort in human company especially in the company of his closest friends well if you have them you cherish them and the second comfort was this and it's more remarkable still he found comfort in the prayers of these fellow men he told them remain here or sit here and watch he told them to watch and to pray there's a remarkable thing that
[24:12] God's son would ask people to pray for and find comfort and reassurance in the fact that they were interceding people and yet isn't it saying to us again how close this kinship with ourselves actually was and is we may say to one another sometimes pray for me it's a very great privilege to be asked to do so one of which I accept that we so often ran aid and the disciples of course ran aid they let the Lord down but he was a burden a problem he wanted to share you know he was weak and you know he didn't mind them knowing he was weak he didn't cover up as you would do you hate people knowing they do cracking but the
[25:16] Lord didn't mind that they knew the way he felt he told them how he felt they could see how he felt and they were to pray for him in respect of the way that he felt he went for comfort to their intercession not only his own prayer as we shall see but the intercession of those believers and they were far inferior to him obviously and saying to us look you don't go simply to the older Christians and to ones you admire but sometimes you share burdens with those who are weaker than yourself have we ever done that you know we would say wouldn't we I would say I have no right to transfer my great burden to these people I say it all the time I have no right to share my problems to burden them with my problems and if
[26:20] I did I would probably go to those that one looks up to those who are seen but the Lord has done something so very interesting isn't he he is going to those who are immeasurably his junior years and he is praying then to pray for him why shouldn't you pray for college professors who called mature folk like father because it really is a very important thing to learn to share not only with those that one can regard as in some measure less experienced and less able it was part of their education and of their discipline there's a third remarkable comfort too and it's this Luke tells us that there appeared an angel from heaven to strengthen him now bear in mind all you told in
[27:21] Hebrews 1 as to the relationship between Christ and the angels we know how superior to them Christ was he was their lord he was their maker in him they lived and had their beings and yet one day one was sent to strengthen the son of God now Hugh Martin it was I think he said a very beautiful thing he said the one angel I long to meet in heaven is the one who was sent to comfort the Lord in Gethsemane it seems to us that the strong comfort the weak the stronger comfort the strong the strongest comfort the stronger death it implies almost a kind of superiority and yet one day an angel was sent to comfort his manor there is nothing more remarkable than the whole range of the
[28:41] Lord's humiliation than that that the son of God who was the angel superior in every conceivable direction was yet in such strength and in such weakness that the creature and the servant was sent to strengthen him and the fourth comfort was this his own prayer he sought solace in prayer always bear in mind that prayer is primarily the soul drawing near to God it's always that idea it's an approach to God it is I coming with my problems my anxieties my interests and spreading them before God and that's what Christ does he is comforted by the physical presence of the three disciples he comforted by their intercession he is comforted by the angel sent his shepherd but above all he seeks comfort and strength in drawing near to
[29:57] God before himself it was he as Louis said when his wife was taken from her there is no earthly comfort one or great hymns abide with me says the same thing when other helpers fail and comforts flee help of the helpless who abide with me for the Lord had come I'm sure to the end of every human resource he had used every human resource he wasn't too proud to use human resources but now he was at the outer limit and he turns to God and it is intriguing to watch the narrative of the player and all its fascinating details we note for example this that he went a little further verse 35
[31:07] Luke again gives us more detail he was removed he says a stone's throw from the three disciples now it is a reminder to us of course that there are times when we have to be alone with God bear in mind they were still with a near shot they were still in the garden they were with and yet they weren't quiet with they weren't so near as to distract him he was alone with his Lord and Father his God and Father but I think that there is something to the observation of some commentators that it is really symbolic of the distance between Christ and the disciples that he had out distanced them he went a little further up to a point of course they could understand sorrow but it was always up to a point they too knew what sorrow was what amazement was what fear was but not his sorrow not his fear not his amazement he has outstripped them there is an absolute singularity in the
[32:47] Lord's position there is an uniqueness in his need it was unrepeatable it was unprecedented never before had man been at that point the innocent the incarnate under the anathema of God and that stone's throw to me is symbolic really of the uniqueness of Christ as to who he is and as to what he suffers and as to what he needs so that I can't speak of my Gethsemane any more than I can of my Calvary because always there is that stone's throw and it always means of course that our pain can never outstrip or outmatch the experience of pain which God's Son had my physical pain is never more than his my emotional pain my sorrow my sense have been overwhelmed my fear could never say
[34:02] Christ never hurt like this could never say Christ was never as down as this could ever say Christ was never as afraid as this because always there is the stone's throw which is the measure of the fact that his sorrow exceeds mine and his fear and his total experience exceed mine I never go to the outer limit he is the outer limit between me and that outer limit there is always the stone's throw he went a little further and then we see he fell on the ground you see it wasn't the cold logical prayer of pure reason it was the prayer of passion and the prayer of involvement indeed we might render the words he threw himself on the ground and we know again from
[35:14] Luke with his details from whoever he got them we know that being in an agony he prayed more earnestly he fell on the ground to pray earnestly then he prayed more earnestly and then he agonized in his earnestness and at last Luke tells us that his perspiration fell in great blobs of blood to the ground so terrible was the inward struggle we have cold sweats in times of real fear but the Lord is this extraordinary physical symptom of his inward condition a symptom of the agony and the earnestness and the turmoil of his own soul something he really wanted it is again is it not a symptom of the emotional hurricane that was coursing through his soul the storm at the centre of his life he threw himself he prays with such passion with such earnestness and in such a tremendous agony as
[36:36] I said before there is a storm's throw always between us and him and yet in our way too we are called upon to duplicate and reproduce the commitment of Christ and prayer is there anything we want remotely with the same urgency as Christ wanted this for which he longed and for which he prayed how much passion how much longings there in our own desire to earth for the extension of his kingdom do we know anything do I know anything for that kind of commitment and that kind of intensity and that kind of totally unembarrassed self-forgetful as he didn't say they'll see me they saw they would know the whole world would know the angels in heaven saw throwing himself on the ground it was so unseemly was it not that's how his emotion finds its expression he goes a little further and he throws himself on the ground and then he prays and what is he saying in the prayer itself its actual content is interesting
[38:05] Abba Father the Lord spoke Aramaic and the disciples remembered how he always said Abba and they kept this Aramaic word in the Gospels as they kept the word of great prayer Maranatha come Lord Jesus they remembered that Aramaic as well these are the exact words of Jesus Abba and they they are interesting to me because they're an expression of the Lord's own sense of his divine sonship an expression to the sense of God's love and God's care and God's concern in the garden of Gethsemane but they interest me above all for this theological reason they are the great proof that
[39:05] Gethsemane was not the bottom it was not the end of the line it was not the lowest point in the progression towards ultimate humiliation because I remind you we shall see it may be tomorrow that in the darkest hour the Lord is not able to say Abba in the darkest hour the Lord says Eloi and they remember that too some some of the people thought he was calling on Eli he was calling on my God now it may be of course a very small difference linguistically and in some ways even theologically but it is the register of a huge emotional gulf that point when a soul can say Abba and that point when a soul can only say
[40:07] Eloi some point it can say Father some point it says only God and that's how it was in Gethsemane still Abba still the love was there still the Father was with there had been the angel there was the communion there was the open face there was boldness there was the certainty that God was listening there was still the sense of God's approbation and God's love and God's approval at the darkest point there would be none of that but in Gethsemane the Father's face is still shining upon that's very important and he goes on to say this all things are possible to me well you see there is grasping for us comfort there is grasping at the power of
[41:12] God I don't think that we often regard God's power as a comforting attribute but if you go through the Bible take a simple concordance tonight or tomorrow whatever look at the references to power see how precious power is to God's people I am persuaded that nothing shall be able nothing has the power to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus now unto him who has the power to keep me from falling and beset me fortless with the face of his glory with exceeding joy so here is comfort it isn't the grace or the sweetness or the loveliness or the gentleness or the beauty or the love I don't think we really believe that that's what
[42:17] Jesus turned to for his own comfort all things are possible to thee and then the petition remove this cup from me though I hesitate to go far into this because it brings me to the edge of my own universe and I don't want to weary you it intrigues me at one level because you know he knows it's God's will you see you say if only I knew it was God's will I'd find it all so easy if I knew it was God's will most of the time yes but there are times in life when you know absolutely certainly that something is
[43:22] God's will and yet it's hard he once indifferent prayed that the hour might pass but he is praying for the impossible some of the gospels tell us that he prayed that the cup might pass the cup but here it is the hour the hour you know not simply an hour not simply any hour but the hour the hour for which he had come the hour upon which the whole history of the cosmos depended the hour for which everything had been created the hour was the meaning of everything it was the hour it really was something absolutely all embracing foundation of something of cosmic absolute ultimate significance it was the meaning of every atom of every galaxy of every life ever lived every soul ever born every death ever died it was the meaning of the old testament it was the meaning of greek philosophy it was the meaning of world war ii and hiroshima it was the hour that held everything together the hour isn't it an amazing thing and look and right at the edge of the swan all things are possible and it prays for the one thing which is not possible it could have passed ah yes you say but if it had passed then we couldn't have been saved and that is absolutely true but it's only part of the truth if that hour had passed there would have been no meaning there would have been nothing nothing at all you prayed that the hour might pass and it isn't really simply a futile challenge to
[45:54] God's will because Hebrews tells us that he was heard in respect of what he was afraid of he was heard how was he possibly heard he said let the hour pass he said father this cup is unendurable he said father I don't know if I can handle it sore amazed overwhelmed but he was heard in two great senses he was heard in that he was carried through it by the eternal spirit he offered himself he actually achieved it bear in mind the prayer he is almost overwhelmed he is really asking can my human nature handle it can
[46:57] I my incarnate state can I go through it he was heard he managed he achieved it it is the achievement itself that has been questioned the possibility of the achievement that's been questioned in Gethsemane and the prayer is answered in the achievement itself the hour of failure the hour of the aborted mission that hour didn't come instead we have secondly the deliverance from death he was heard by him who was able to deliver from death so we have the Lord finding comfort in prayer if I can bring up the threads for you again he finds comfort in this prayer by which he goes a little further he throws himself on the ground and he prays
[48:05] Abba he prays all things are possible he prays let the hour pass and then there's the disciples fear there is the Lord's emotional state there is the comfort the Lord's song there is the Lord's prayer and then writ large over the whole narrative there is the disciples failure now that really is again something which gives me enormous personal satisfaction it's one great fault of so many biographies the Christian church that they are totally uncritical when you look at the lives for example of many of the giants of the
[49:05] Christian caste and they obscured all the weaknesses and all the faults of these men I've seen it in regard to men I've known myself people written great lies of those men not a word that there was a crack anyway and then I've got those magnificent New Testament gospels and they show me the heroes of the church and how the church venerated Peter and James and John and yet how ruthlessly guided by God's spirit are their weaknesses exposed and all their human frailty made to stand forth for my comfort and for you well you see empties he came back verse 37 he came and found them sleeping and he said
[50:08] Simon are you sleeping could you not watch one hour no there is a certain irony in it too people tell me when you edit that dreadful magazine don't ever be ironic or sarcastic Simon aren't you the one who said that you would never mark that never forsake Simon did you say never and now one hour one hour afterwards Simon it wasn't a very long never I would never forsake Simon could you not watch one hour and he went away again you see in verse 39 and he came and found them sleeping again and he came the third time and said to them are you still sleeping and taking your rest not once but three times did they fail and there is no glossing over the incident at all it stands there recorded in all its detail to the lasting discredit of the most important men in church and I hope that if and when the day comes that men write not my life but my yulga jury that they write it honestly it'll do me no harm that I made you others a lot of good these men failed and it's an aggravated failure it's aggravated by their position by their status they were apostles
[51:58] I'm sure you know everyone thought well apostles never do anything wrong maybe they thought themselves that their very position would keep them from temptation and keep them in temptation but no they failed these apostles failed now there is a demand in the free church no matter how eminent it's above that possibility and it is hard to offer ministry to God's people those of us who are leaders and teachers and those of you destined to become leaders and teachers your weakness your experience of personal failure is part of what you ought to share with the church don't pretend that unlike the poor folk you minister to you never let them all down because that only discourages life
[52:59] Peter you know I never forgot in his 50% he tells this beautifully that God begat him again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus all my hope had gone I had failed him in Gethsemane I denied him in the praetorium and all my hope was gone that God gave me back my hope an apostle and he failed and it was known it was known for the comfort of God's people even Peter let him down and they failed too despite their experiences they had tremendous experiences they'd been with the Lord for well over a year they'd had tremendous teaching they'd had a tremendous example set before them let me put it to you this way suppose
[54:05] I'm a pastor of some congregation and some members of that congregation or even the whole congregation suppose they did something wrong do you know what they'd be saying they couldn't have had much teaching couldn't have much of a preacher much of a pastor because you know how people live and what they've done if they'd been properly taught wouldn't have happened well you apply that to the present situation would you say they haven't been properly taught properly laid guided did he spend enough time with them did he do enough visiting give him enough counseling could you blame him for what went wrong not for a moment of course people would but we can't do it despite all the teaching they had you know something else only an hour before they'd been at something even pent in a future youth conference they'd been with the lord in the upper room around the last supper and that meant they had sat through the whole magnificent communion address that we have from john 14 to john 16 and they had heard a prayer such as men never heard before or since recorded for us in john 17 and they had got the elements from the lord himself the one lord supper at which the lord was actually corporally and physically present it'd be there well you know you would have thought that it'd have gone years and years in the strength of that an unforgettable experience it was there really
[56:14] I'm sure was never a moment in human history comparable to that except Pentecost itself what did do and now afterwards they're asleep letting the lord down and you must never imagine because you belong to a certain church or a certain teaching or being a certain confidence or a certain courage or had enormous privileges but that's going to keep you because these people had all these things and they go and their dismal failures one hour that was all it took whatever they had they seemed to have lost well I must be in this to a conclusion why did they fail I'll go through it very rapidly they failed first of all because to put it brutally they were tired the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak the lord himself knows that and it's terribly important for you young folk or some middle aged man to tell you how important it is that you present your bodies living sacrifices to God their bodies their physical condition led these people into spiritual problems if you have an exhausted body or an anorexic body or an obese body or an under exercised body or a pampered body then this could lead you to spiritual trauma the spirit indeed willing but the flesh just isn't up to the body won't do it can't stay awake because you have enough sleep diet is wrong whatever else it is no flesh in you present your bodies living sacrifices to
[58:20] God but then again there was this there was sorrow in Luke it is I think it tells us they were sleeping for sorrow and I just mention to you for this reason there is this round of teaching in the churches and all this has been that somehow sorrow and suffering is good for you prosperity pleasure to be happy is dangerous but to be sorrowful that's all the same and all is good for you not at all these people were sorrowful because they knew they could tell that something terrible something unthinkable was going to happen they didn't know what it was but they knew there was something terrible coming and they were sleeping Luke says for sorrow and I tell you many a time treatment illness bad news and all these things are really terribly dangerous spiritually and you say to yourself the moment you find yourself in sorrow or trouble say to yourself
[59:28] I'm in danger there is danger in sorrow at least as much as there is danger in prosperity and then there was this they failed because of their supreme self-confidence Peter is the archetype though all should forsake thee I will never forsake thee I I will go to prison and to death with you I well that was a trouble that at last is the great contrast of the assembly the Lord who knows that he cannot are dated handle God's will and to throw himself on the ground as he seeks
[60:30] God's help to do God's will and to drink the cup and the disciples who don't feel half so weak don't feel half so in danger and therefore don't pray they don't feel weak enough to pray because that's what prayer is it is impotence screaming to underpotence but they weren't impotent well they had much to learn they learned the only way that men are afraid a woman can learn by experience at terrible personal cost they had to learn that they couldn't handle the will of God let's ask ourselves to know just how self-sufficient do we feel do I feel that tomorrow's address is okay no problem do you feel seminars are no problem that witness is no problem that work is no problem you can handle it it is that self-reliance that brought these people so close to a spiritual catastrophe it is really absolutely magnificent a weak praying saviour and three strong prayerless disciples but at the end of the night it is he not they who are fit for the will of
[62:30] God for I shall end with that dawn time p that it goes轉 to the floor it the the how effective technique to advertise to personal not make any example if each a life滅