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Reading Mark 14:26-42 as Jesus and the disciples go the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, and though Jesus tells them they will fall away, they are insistent they will die with Him. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Oh, the disciples were so confident that even if they had to go and die with Christ, they were not going to run away from him. But Jesus said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.
Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, still in chapter 14, and we're coming back to the passage today, picking up where we left off yesterday. I'm going to read once again verse 26, and we'll go through verse 42 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.
Hear the word of the Lord. And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, You will all fall away, because it is written, I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But Peter said to him, Even though all may fall away, yet I will not. And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you that today, this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times.
But Peter kept saying insistently, If I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And they all were saying the same thing also. Then they came to a place named Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, Sit here until I have prayed.
And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch. And he went a little beyond them and fell to the ground, and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping?
Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.
And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough.
The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us go. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. And so we start this particular section with Peter saying, I will not deny you.
And then we see the weakness in his very flesh, along with James and John and even the rest of the disciples. And so a lesson for us to learn in that as well. The Spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak.
And so we need to continue to hold fast to Christ that we may watch and pray so that when the hour of trial comes for us, that we will be able to stand strong and continue to persevere in Christ Jesus.
I wanted to come back to verse 26 because I kind of skipped it yesterday, even though it really belongs in the context of studying the Lord's table. Verse 26 says, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
I was talking about various traditions concerning the Lord's table or different ways you might see it practiced. Every church that I've been a part of, I might say ever, through my entire life, even when I was a kid, I believe every church that I've been a part of, after we finish the Lord's table, we sing a hymn.
And that is consistent with what we see in the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three saying that after the Lord's table, they sing a hymn and then go out to the Garden of Gethsemane. And one of the hymns that they sang was likely from the Egyptian Hallel, which were the psalms that were sung during the time of Passover.
And of course, they had just partaken in the Passover meal. So the psalm that Jesus sang as he went from that place to the Garden of Gethsemane, it may have been something like Psalm 118, where we see some prophetic things said there about Christ.
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is from Yahweh. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Oh, Yahweh save, oh, Yahweh succeed.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh. And you might remember that line in particular was said by the people at the triumphal entry. What an amazing thing to consider that perhaps Jesus and his disciples were singing Psalm 118 as they went out from just eating the Passover meal.
This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Could it have been that Jesus was singing that line when just a matter of minutes, maybe an hour or two later, he was going to be weeping on the ground and asking that this cup pass from him, if it would be at all possible for it to happen.
But nonetheless, Jesus knew this was all in the Lord's will, hence why he said, not what I will, but what you will, all things are possible for you. So he knows that God is going to fulfill the plan for salvation that he had foreordained from before the foundation of the world.
So Jesus could have sung, this is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it, knowing the day that is being referred to there is the day of salvation and the joy that Christ would have expressed wouldn't have been dependent upon his circumstances.
It was rejoicing in God for he knows and does all things to the praise of his glorious grace. So they sing this hymn, they go out to the Mount of Olives where Jesus is going to feel the greatest burden that he has felt in his entire incarnate life.
In his humanity has never experienced a burden like this before, but he knows what he's about to go to the cross and do, and that's why it causes him such grief. Verse 27, Jesus said to them, you will all fall away, because it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.
This is a reference from Zechariah 13 verse 7, awake, O sword against my shepherd and against the man, my associate, declares Yahweh of hosts, strike the shepherd that the sheep may be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones, and it will be in all the land, declares Yahweh, that two parts in it will be cut off and breed their last, but the third will be left in it.
And I will bring the third part through the fire and refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name and I will answer them and I will say, they are my people and they will say, Yahweh is my God.
We see that fulfilled in the book of Revelation, by the way, that reference is made there to coming straight from Zechariah 13, but that's the reference here in verse 27, Jesus referring to that passage, which likewise refers to a day on which God would save his people.
I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Jesus is about to be struck and the disciples are going to run away. Verse 28, but after I have been raised, Jesus says, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.
Now that is an encouraging word when you think about it, because he's just said that the sheep are going to scatter. They doubt him. They refuse to believe that. Peter even going as far as saying, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.
And the rest of the disciples, it says, they were all saying the same thing. So they are confident that this is not going to happen. But then when it does, surely it sinks into their minds and into their hearts.
Wow.
The very thing that he had said was going to happen is what we did. And remember how confident we were, remember, remember how we pressed him and said, no, we're going to stay with you. We're here with you.
We're in this thing to the end. And now they're filled with guilt because they feel like they lied to him. We lied to our master. But Jesus has said, when I rise again, he's been talking to them about the fact that he was going to die and be raised.
We have three other occasions of this in the chapters before. So here he says, after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. So that's an encouraging word at the moment that they will feel their guilt and the realization of what it is that they have done.
They should remember that word from Christ that he's going to be raised and he will go ahead of them. Now, they're not going to remember that just like in the matter of hours or even a couple of days after Jesus is crucified.
It won't be until after he rises again that they are going to remember that. For in the time that Jesus was in the tomb, they were mourning the loss of their master. They weren't anticipating that he was going to rise from the dead.
Their hearts were too hard, hence why they also run away from him. But those words will come to comfort them later that he is going ahead of them to Galilee. If you'll remember, when we finished up our study in Matthew, in Matthew, chapter 28, the great commission is given to his disciples there on a mountain in Galilee.
So that's where they're going to go and be with him again. And he's going to teach them 40 days, 40 days from his resurrection to his ascension into.
Heaven.
That's how long he remained among them. And hundreds of people saw him risen from the dead. Five hundred brothers, maybe more than that, if you consider women and children as well. Who knows how many witnesses there were?
Well over a thousand. But anyway, after Jesus says this, that the shepherd is going to be struck down, the sheep will scatter, but after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. Once again, just like the other occasions in which he talked about how they were going to go to Jerusalem, he was going to be arrested, beaten, put to death, but I'm going to rise again on the third day.
The disciples didn't hear him. It's like they didn't hear him when he said that. And it's the same thing again. This is now the fourth time that he is telling them that, and they still don't hear it. Because after he says this, verse 29, Peter said to him, even though all may fall away, yet I will not.
So he's kind of saying this about his own brothers around him here, the other disciples. They may all fall away, but I'm not. I'm with you to the end. Now remember what I've said before regarding this.
I preached on this also this past Sunday, but I was preaching for Matthew. I wasn't in Mark. Anyway, they were expecting their Messiah to be an emancipator. He was going to free them from the tyranny of Rome and the wickedness of the Herods that were ruling in the palace in Jerusalem at the time, and then Israel was going to be a great superpower again.
So Peter is thinking, yeah, they're going to come against you. I'm not running away. I'm going to stand and fight, because I know we're winning this thing. That's why Peter was so confident in his answer.
I mean, his confidence is in himself. It's obviously not in God, because he's not even listening to the prophet saying this to him, that he is not only going to run away, but he is even going to deny Jesus three times.
So Peter's confidence is in thinking that nothing is going to strike down Jesus. It's not going to happen. I am so confident that you are the Messiah and that we're taking over this thing that I'm going to stand with you and fight.
But once again, it was not the tyranny of Rome or the wickedness of the Herods, the scheminess of the Herods that Jesus came to save us from. He came to save us from the tyranny of sin and death, setting us free from our bondage to the passions of our flesh, which is much greater, has a much greater hold on people and more people than some tyrannical nation or wicked ruler.
The sin that grips us all is what we need to be emancipated from, and we can only be set free from our sins by faith in Jesus Christ. The curse affects us all. God has cursed all of creation because of man's sinfulness against God.
And that curse stains everything. It affects everything, including us. And there would be no hope. There's no way out for us. If it was dependent upon us to try to get out of this situation, there'd be no way to do it.
But there is hope only in the grace of God that has been shown to us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. God sent his son not only to undo the curse, not only to free us from the curse, but to even turn it backwards.
For as Jesus says in Revelation, behold, I am making all things new. And as we read also in Colossians 1 .20, that God is reconciling all things to himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ, making peace by the blood of his cross.
So the only way that we can be saved, the only way that we can be set free, is by faith in Jesus. The disciples don't yet understand that. They're still expecting a kingdom on earth. And so they are insistent they're going to go with Jesus to the end.
But of course, we know that what Jesus has just prophesied to them is what is going to come true. Jesus said, truly I say to you, this very night before a rooster crows twice, you yourself, talking to Peter, will deny me, deny me three times.
But Peter kept saying insistently, if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And they were all saying the same thing. They were all saying that they were ready to go and die with him. But they couldn't even stay up and pray with him.
That's what we have in the next part. Verse 32, they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here until I have prayed. And he took with him Peter, James, and John and began to be very distressed and troubled.
So the rest of the disciples are in one spot. Remember that I mentioned to you yesterday that there were more than just the 12. And the rest of the disciples have joined them here. We're going to hear about another one of those disciples.
That was not among the 12 coming up later in the chapter. But the rest of the disciples may have been with him. There could have been a few dozen. So not just the 12, but even more than that. Yet you have the three, that inner core of Peter, James, and John that are taken from the rest.
And then they go with Jesus to a special place. And these words that are recalled from Jesus were likely heard by Peter, James, and John. They heard him say this. Even though they fell asleep, of course, there was still enough of an awake time that they heard him pray this much.
And then they didn't stay awake and pray with him. Even though they hear their friend, their savior in such distress, they didn't pray with him. They fell asleep. That lamb that they just ate in the Passover meal was getting in there, making them drowsy, making them feel sleepy.
And though they said that we're with you to the end, couldn't even keep themselves awake. And you know, we should not think of ourselves as being any stronger than they, lest you or I say, I could have done it.
I could have stayed awake with them. Now, I was so tired doing the podcast just a couple of days ago, I couldn't even keep the names of Jesus and Judas straight. So you and I are not any better. Do you spend an hour of time in prayer, even when conditions are good?
Do you spend that much time in prayer? It's hard for us to spend an hour in prayer. Jesus says to his disciples, could you not even pray with me for one hour? So don't think of yourself as being strong enough to do what these guys didn't do.
We would have fallen asleep right along with them. And so Jesus says, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. What grief the son of man experienced that he felt like he was going to die from it.
Remain here and keep watch. Why was it that Jesus was so distressed that he felt that kind of grief, that it would almost kill him, that it would burden him to the point that he felt like he could just fall down and die from the grief that he was experiencing?
Because later on, when the disciples go out in the name of Christ and preach the gospel, they're not distressed knowing what it is that they're going to face. The apostle Paul, he continued to persevere even though he was beaten however many times and shipwrecked and bitten by a snake and mocked and ridiculed beyond anything else you and I have ever been through.
And yet he continued to do it and did it to the glory of God, rejoiced even the disciples rejoiced after they were beaten because they were considered worthy of having been persecuted for the name is what the scriptures say in the book of Acts.
So why is it that they rejoice, but Jesus is so distressed because Jesus is about to experience something that no man has ever experienced, nor will any man ever experience. And that is the wrath of God poured out upon him as he is dying on the cross.
He is about to become the embodiment of what the sacrifices represented in Israel for, you know, that 1500 years that the sacrificial system has been at work. Whenever an animal is sacrificed, be it a bull or a goat or a lamb, the head of the household brings it to the priest.
It is placed upon the altar, the father, the head of the household. He puts his hand upon that animal as it's being slaughtered. And it's as if the sins that are upon the household that are even in the man that has brought this animal to the priest, they're transferred from the man into the animal whose blood is shed, whose life is given as a substitution.
That life is being given in place of the people who deserve to die because of the sin that they have committed against God. Now, as we read in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats was never enough to take away sin.
Anyway.
All of this was foreshadowing Christ who was going to come and fulfill this system and actually do what the animals could not do. All of those, what would it have been? Millions of animals that had been slaughtered for 1500 years.
And yet Jesus was about to give his life, which was worth more than all of them. And only by giving his life, could we be forgiven our sins? Could we actually be atoned for and made right with God? God's wrath was going to be poured out on him in our place.
And Jesus was about to go to the cross and experience that. And what a horrible, awful thing to have to undergo. For as said also in the book of Hebrews, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
And this is what Jesus was about to endure on our behalf so that all who believe in him, we won't have to go through that. We won't have to experience the wrath of God for Christ has took it for us. And by faith in him, we are saved.
So we went a little beyond them and he fell to the ground and he began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And we talked about this when we were in Matthew, we read the same prayer in Matthew for it's in Psalm 75, eight, where it says a cup is in the hand of Yahweh and the wine foams.
It is full of his mixture and he pours from this surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. This is how the wrath of God is being symbolized here as being a cup of wrath that he holds and pours out upon the wicked.
That's the cup that Jesus is talking about in his prayer. If there is any other way, let this cup, this cup, the wrath of God, let it pass from me, but not what I will, but what you will. Even Jesus, the son of God himself trusted the will of God and so must we.
Let's finish up the passage. Verse 37, came and found them sleeping, said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not keep watch for one hour? We sing the hymns, sweet hour of prayer, but we are just as weak in our flesh to fulfill.
It.
Keep watching, Jesus said, and praying that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. This is speaking back into their confidence that they so strongly displayed a moment ago.
We won't fall away. We will die with you. Yeah, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Keep watching and praying. That word watching, you would keep a watch out for the devil's schemes, that these things that wish to pull us away from God would not take us by surprise, but we would be discerning and wise, praying, drawing near to God that the devil may not fool us.
Verse 39, and again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting?
It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. How heartbroken must those words have been when Jesus said that? It's enough. The hour has come. You couldn't pray with me.
And so what I said was going to happen to you, it's happening right now. You're going to be scattered. The son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Get up.
Let us go. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. And that's where we will pick this up next week. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read. And I pray that we too would be kept from temptation.
May we be watchful and pray. May we not be so confident in ourselves, but understand that the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. And so what do we have to do to compensate for our weak flesh, drawing near to Christ that we would not fall into temptation, doing as James and as Peter said, humbling ourselves before God.
And at the proper time, you will exalt us. Forgive us our sins and help us to live lives of gratitude unto you, because we know what you have done for us. Giving your son, Jesus, giving his life so that we would be forgiven and have fellowship.
With God.
As I often pray, lead us in paths of righteousness. For your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.