Have You Had A Gethsemane?
Pastor Tony Cirigliano
Boone, NC 11-4-2006
Good to be with the brethren here at Boone.
It’s like coming home from a long journey!
The Lord has been blessing our ministry.
Let me share a few letters we receive. . .
You know what I have discovered after much contemplation, thinking, meditating and pondering?
God is good ----- All the time! All the time - God is good!
Today I want to spend a thoughtful ½ hour on one of the closing scenes in the life of Yahshua Jesus our precious Savior.
The Lord’s servant told us that it would be good for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day meditating on the Life of the Savior
Especially, she said, “on the closing scenes.”
So let’s go back in our mind’s eye to the time when the Savior walked on this earth – sent on a mission to save us.
Imagine you’re in the company of the disciples and Jesus as the Saviour slowly made His way to the garden of Gethsemane.
The Passover moon, broad and full, shines from a cloudless sky.
The city filled with tents of those that have come to Jerusalem for the Passover is hushed into silence.
Jesus had been earnestly talking with His disciples and teaching them.
But inspiration tells us that as Jesus neared Gethsemane, He became strangely silent.
He had often visited this spot for meditation and prayer; but never with a heart so full of sorrow as upon this night of His last agony.
The holy One of Israel was beginning to feel the weight of being numbered with the transgressors.
He would bear the guilt of fallen humanity – a weight more terrible than ever borne by any man.
Upon Him who knew no sin must be laid the iniquity of us all.
In the Book, Desire of Ages, on page 685, we are told that “So dreadful does sin appear to Him, so great is the weight of guilt which He must bear, that He is tempted to fear it will shut Him out forever from His Father's love.”
The Savior expressed how terrible this weight was when he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
A modern English translation reads:
“My heart is so full of sorrow and sadness, I feel like I’m going to die!”
As they approached the garden, the disciples noticed the change that came over Jesus.
They had never seen Him so utterly sad and silent.
In vision the Lord’s servant saw Jesus “sway as if He were about to fall. . . Every step that He now took was with labored effort. He groaned aloud, as if suffering under the pressure of a terrible burden. Twice His companions supported Him, or He would have fallen to the earth.” – DA, p. 686.
Near the entrance to the garden, Jesus left all but three of the disciples.
He took with Him Peter, James and John and asked them to pray for themselves and for Him.
These three were Jesus’ closest friends.
They were the ones who were with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration.
They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Yahshua – Yahweh’s only Son!
They even heard Yahweh’s voice as He said, “This is my beloved Son, hear Him.” – Luke 9:35.
In this time of great struggle, Jesus wanted His friends near Him.
Even the Savior of the world needs friends.
As Christians we are to especially love the brethren – love for one another is how people know we’re Christians.
There should be no hard feelings or cherished bitterness among the brethren.
Jesus Himself said, “By this men will know you’re My disciples, if ye have love one for another!”
What do you say?
The disciples often send time at night with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We are told this, “On these occasions, after a season of watching and prayer, they would sleep undisturbed at a little distance from their Master, until He awoke them in the morning to go forth anew to labor.”
But this time Jesus asked them to spend the night with Him in prayer.
But He didn’t even want them to witness the agony He was going through.
He needed time to be alone with His Father.
He said to them as recorded in Matthew 26, verse 38: "Tarry ye here," He said, "and watch with Me."
He went a little distance from them.
They could still see and hear Him because they recorded the Savior’s Words in the gospels.
Jesus, the Holy Bible says in verse 39 of Matthew 26, “fell on His face” in the Garden.
Imagine it! The burden of your sin and mine brought the Savior and Creator of the universe
To the point where His face was in the dirt! Amazing!
He felt that by sin He was being torn away from His Father.
He was holding on to the ground because before Him was a gulf between Him and Yahweh His Father that was so broad, so dark and deep, that His heart was shuddering before it.
The Savior could not use His divine power to escape.
He had to suffer as a Man the consequences of our sins.
As a man He had to feel the wrath of God against transgression of the Ten Commandments which is what sin is.
The Bible tells us that even today, when we sin willingly – break the Holy Commandments we case hurt to the Son of God.
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
The point is “Don’t fall away!” Hold on to Jesus!
Hold on to Jesus and you will go through to the kingdom as Jesus went through Gethsemane
The devil will not be able to use you to bring the Savior to open shame.
I don’t know about you, but I’m holding on to Yahshua.
My brother Tommy and the country dock.
I wasn’t going to let go and drown, and I’m not letting go of Jesus – what do you say?
Before Gethsemane Jesus had been an intercessor for others;
Ellen White wrote: “Now He longed to have an intercessor for Himself.”
In the Garden the devil who had waited three years since he personally tempted Jesus in the desert come for the last fearful struggle.
For this he had been preparing during the three years of Christ's ministry.
Everything was at stake with for the devil.
If he failed here, his hope of mastery would be lost.
If He could not get Jesus to give up the struggle, the kingdoms of the world would finally become Christ's.
The devil knew that if Jesus was lifted up, He would draw all men to Himself.
But the devil also knew that if Christ could be overcome, the earth would become His kingdom, and the human race would be forever in his power.
Inspiration tells us what Satan told Jesus in the Garden.
“Satan told Him that if He became the surety for a sinful world, the separation would be eternal. He would be identified with Satan's kingdom, and would nevermore be one with God.”
Satan also told him, “What was to be gained by this sacrifice?”
He said, “How hopeless appeared the guilt and ingratitude of men!”
He taunted Jesus with the fact that His own people had rejected Him and want to kill Him.
One of Your own disciples, who have listened to Your instruction, and has been among the foremost in church activities, will betray You.
One of Your most zealous followers will deny that he even knows You.
All will forsake You.
Jesus was the Son of God, but He was also the Man Christ Jesus.
It had to hurt terribly that those he came to save, those whom He loved so much were uniting with Satan who wanted to destroy them.
Isn’t it strange that the devil so beguiles men and women so that they run from Jesus who wants to save them to Satan who has a hidden dagger of sin waiting to stab them!
We need to run to Jesus and whatever the devil is for we should be against, and whatever he’s against we should be for!
Let us in our mind’s eye go back to the Garden of Gethsemane.
The chilling dew of the night falls on Jesus as He lays on the ground.
But he does not worry about the cold.
The silence of the night is broken by an bitter and anguishing cry from His pale lips:
"O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me."
Yet even now He adds, "Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt."
Jesus hoped that His disciples would be praying for Him, and ready to encourage Him.
He got up from the cold ground and went over to His disciples with a yearning desire to hear some words of comfort from those whom He had so often blessed and comforted, and shielded in sorrow and distress.
He always had words of sympathy for them.
But now the Savior is suffering superhuman agony, and He longed to know that his friends were praying for him.
How dark it must have seemed to the SAVIOR AS THE SINS OF THE WORLD WERE BEING TRANSFERRED TO Him!
The inspired pen tells us “Terrible was the temptation to let the human race bear the consequences of its own guilt, while He stood innocent before God. If He could only know that His disciples understood and appreciated this, He would be strengthened.” DA, p. 688.
But rising I am sure in pain, Jesus staggers over to His friends.
But the Bible says He "findeth them asleep."
Had He found them praying, He would have been relieved.
Had they been asking Yahweh for strength that the devil would not prevail OVER THEM, Jesus would have been comforted by their faith.
I wonder if there have been times we have been sleeping when Jesus needed us to do His work?
When He needed us to be a friend, or to share the gospel, or to help the needy?
These were Jesus’ good friends, and it was the most terrible night of His life, and they were asleep.
They did not heed the repeated warning, "Watch and pray."
And Jesus gives us that same message. In
1.
Matthew 26:41
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is
willing, but the flesh is weak.
2.
Mark 13:33
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
Just before Jesus entered the garden He said to His disciples, “All ye shall be offended because of Me this night."
They had given Him the strongest assurance that they would go with Him to prison and to death.
And Peter who was feeling self-sufficient said, “Although all shall be offended, yet will not I." Mark 14:27, 29.
How weak and helpless we are when we trust to ourselves and neglect prayer for strength and grace!
But the disciples trusted to themselves.
They did not look to the mighty Helper as Christ had counseled them to do.
And when the Saviour was most in need of their sympathy and prayers, they were sleeping, even Peter was sleeping.
John, the loving disciple who had leaned upon the breast of Jesus, was asleep.
Surely, the love of John for his Master should have kept him awake.
His earnest prayers should have mingled with those of his loved Saviour in the time of His supreme sorrow.
The Redeemer had spent entire nights praying for His disciples, that their faith might not fail.
Should Jesus now put to James and John the question He had once asked them, "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" they would not have ventured to answer, "We are able." Matt. 20:22.
Inspiration tells us this, “The disciples awakened at the voice of Jesus, but they hardly knew Him, His face was so changed by anguish. Addressing Peter, Jesus said, ‘Simon, sleepest thou? Couldest not thou watch one hour?’ Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak."
The weakness of His disciples awakened the sympathy of Jesus.
Jesus was worried about them because He said, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."
He tells us the same thing. He worriers About us and says, “Watch and pray that you don’t enter into temptation.
“Watch and pray that the devil does not have a victory over you.”
“Stay awake.” Paul tells us this in Romans 13:11-14:
11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof
But Jesus is so full of love, He still sought to excuse their weakness.
He said "The spirit truly is ready," He said, "but the flesh is weak."
He also remembers that we are but dust, and is ready to forgive us and strengthen us!
Again Jesus is filled with this great superhuman agony.
Fainting and totally exhausted He goes back to His place of prayer in the midst of the garden.
His struggle against sin is so intense that Luke the Physician when he wrote his gospel put in the detail that "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
He sweat blood over your salvation and mine!
Bloody sweat is physical phenomenon.
Hematidrosis (also called hematohidrosis) is a very rare condition in which a human being sweats blood. It may occur when a person is suffering extreme levels of stress, for example, facing his or her own death.
Leonardo DaVinci described a soldier sweating blood before he went into battle.
Another case was a father who made it to prison to say goodbye to his son before he was executed.
When he got there he was sweating blood.
Jesus sweat blood in the cold garden, and His friends slept a stone’s throw away.
Those who have this rare sweating of blood also experience severe chills.
A second time He cried out, “Father take this cup from Me, nevertheless not My will, but Thy will be done.”
What was in that cup that made the Savior fell going to die, and made Him sweat blood and plead with His Father to take the cup away.
In that cup was all the filth and sin of every one who would ever been forgiven – their sins had to be placed on Yahshua Yahweh’s Son!
Maybe He could hear the hateful words, the sounds of war and death – the curses and foul talk.
O what a terrible cup to drink!
He who knew no sin became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!
And He was so holy and pure and so far removed from sin.
As the sin was coming upon Him inspiration tells us He could not see through the portals of the tomb.
He thought He would never see His Father again!
Yet He not only chose to drink the cup, and stay in the garden, He stood on the cross to save you and I!
He wouldn’t come down to save Himself even if it meant He would never see His Father again.
Oh what love the Savior has for you And I!
When Jesus came to His friends a second time He found them still sleeping.
Inspiration tells us this “their eyes were heavy; "neither wist they what to answer Him." His presence aroused them. They saw His face marked with the bloody sweat of agony, and they were filled with fear. His anguish of mind they could not understand. ‘His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.’” Isa. 52:14. – DA 692.
Jesus went back AND PRAYED A THIRD TIME and said the same WORDS.
“Father, if it be possible take this cup from me, but not My will, Thy will be done.”
The awful moment had come--that moment which was to decide the destiny of the world.
The fate of humanity trembled in the balance.
Jesus could still refuse to drink the cup that guilty men and women deserved to drink for their sins, their law-breaking – their adulteries and idolatry.
It was not yet too late. He could still have wiped the bloody sweat from His brow, and leave man to perish in his iniquity.
He could have said, “I’m not gonna stay, I’m not gonna pay.”
“Let the transgressor receive the penalty of his sin, and I will go back to My Father.”
But the history of the human race comes up before the world's Redeemer.
He sees that the transgressors of the law, if left to themselves, must perish.
He sees the helplessness of man. He sees the power of sin.
The woes and lamentations of a doomed world rise before Him.
His decision is made. He will save man at any cost to Himself.
He accepts His baptism of blood, that through Him perishing millions may gain everlasting life.
He has left the courts of heaven, where all is purity, happiness, and glory, to save the one lost sheep, the one world that has fallen by transgression.
And He will not turn from His mission. He will become the propitiation of a race that has willed to sin.
Jesus then says, "If this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done."
“I’ll drink the cup” Jesus said.
Inspiration tells us this, “Having made the decision, He fell dying to the ground from which He had partially risen. Where now were His disciples, to place their hands tenderly beneath the head of their fainting Master, and bathe that brow, marred indeed more than the sons of men? The Saviour trod the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with Him.
But God suffered with His Son. Angels beheld the Savior’s agony. They saw their Lord enclosed by legions of satanic forces, His nature weighed down with a shuddering, mysterious dread. There was silence in heaven. No harp was touched. Could mortals have viewed the amazement of the angelic host as in silent grief they watched the Father separating His beams of light, love, and glory from His beloved Son, they would better understand how offensive in His sight sin is.
. . . a light shone forth amid the stormy darkness of the crisis hour, and the mighty angel who stands in God's presence, occupying the position from which Satan fell, came to the side of Christ. The angel came not to take the cup from Christ's hand, but to strengthen Him to drink it, with the assurance of the Father's love. He came to give power to the divine-human suppliant. He pointed Him to the open heavens, telling Him of the souls that would be saved as the result of His sufferings. He assured Him that His Father is greater and more powerful than Satan, that His death would result in the utter discomfiture of Satan, and that the kingdom of this world would be given to the saints of the Most High. He told Him that He would see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied, for He would see a multitude of the human race saved, eternally saved.”
Christ's agony did not cease, but His depression and discouragement left Him.
After the angel Gabriel left, Jesus went to His disciples and they were again sleeping.
Looking sorrowfully upon them He says, "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."
Even as He spoke these words, He heard the footsteps of the mob in search of Him, and said, "Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray Me."
The mob led by Judas Iscariot comes forward.
They had had evidence that He who stood before them was the Son of God, but they would not be convinced. To the question, "Whom seek ye?" again they answered, "Jesus of Nazareth."
The Saviour then said, "I have told you that I am He: if therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way" – John 18:8.
“Take Me and let my friends go.” Jesus said!!
Jesus said the same thing to His Father when the covenant of peace was made between them in heaven.
He said, “I’ll go Father, so my friends won’t have to die.”
Did you know that Jesus calls us friends!
He even said to Judas, “Friend, what seekest thou.”
Then Judas betrayed the Son of Man – the Son of Yahweh with a kiss.
A lot more happened, but that’s for other sermons.
Then they led Jesus away to put Him to death.
And He suffered and died, and rose again the third day!
And He is alive forevermore, and He here’s today – this same Jesus!
Call to come up front!