Unquestionable, Unconditional Surrender — Ian Paisley

Pick up the Bible you'll find in front of you in the pew and turn with me, please, to the 22nd chapter of Luke's Gospel. Luke's Gospel, chapter 22. The 22nd chapter of Luke's Gospel. And we're going to read at the verse 9 of this 22nd chapter of Luke.

And he, that is our Lord Jesus, came out and went as he was wont to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, and the place of course was the Garden of Gethsemane, he said unto them, pray that ye enter not into temptation.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not of my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them wisely, rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.

And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?

Which they which were about him saw what would follow them, they which were about him saw what would follow. They said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.

And Jesus answered and said, suffer ye thus far? And he touched his ear, and healed him. Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and the captains of the temple, and the elders which were come to him, be ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves.

When I was dealing with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness. Then took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house.

And Peter followed afar off. Ending our reading at verse 54, I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost, to fill me to the uttermost, I take. Thank God He undertakes for me. And the people of God said, Amen.

You may be seated. I want to speak tonight on the subject that I have called the unquestionable, unconditional surrender. And I will call your attention to a text of scripture that you will find in Matthew's gospel.

Matthew's gospel at the chapter 26, and at the verse 36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder. There are some plain facts that we are sojourning in this world should remember.

God's Will Is Perfect Even When It Seems Unlikely

Fact number one, that God Almighty's will is perfect. We may not understand it. To us it may seem to be incredible. To us it may seem to be very unlikely. But God's will is not only best, but God's will is.

Secondly, God wills certain things in reference to us all. He has written our life story long before we were ever thought of. And God has a will for you and a will for me. How sad you will be if you do not rise up and take the challenge and do the will of God.

How blessed you will be if you do do the will of God. For God's will in reference to us all is the best thing we could do. Thirdly, perfection is attained when man conforms his will to God's will. And his will becomes the very will that God has ordained for him.

It is in conformity to God's will that conflict between man and God. And that conflict, man rebelling against the will of God, goes on continually, night and day, in the lives of all humanity's millions.

Man's spirit may be willing to do the will of God, but man's flesh is weak. And there is always a battle, and there is always conflict. Do you remember the wrestling of God with a man called Jacob? Two persons grappling all night, and both longing for the break of day.

Jacob's Surrender in the Night of Wrestling

Each one of them was bent on winning, and each battled for the victory. But it was only when Jacob ceased to battle, and ceased his wrestling and his resistance, when he completely surrendered, and all he could do was hang on to the other wrestler, clung to the other wrestler, and he got the victory.

Unquestionable, unconditional surrender. When omnipotent touched the thigh of Jacob, the sinew of the thigh shrank. Jacob was hopeless. His power to wrestle was broken, and all he could do was confess.

But his weakness became his strength. It is he who bows the knee that wins the prize in this great battle for you to conform to the will of God. The apostle Paul had a similar experience. When you go home tonight, open your New Testament, and read Romans chapter 7, and you will see there the wrestling of Paul with his Lord.

I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and death.

O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Here is the wrestling. Then he says, I thank God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Paul's Deliverance Through Jesus Christ

Here was a battle in the life of the apostle Paul. But the apostle Paul, like Jacob, he only won the battle when God put his hand on his spiritual thigh, and then Paul had to cry out, I thank God through Jesus Christ.

Christ's Surrender to the Father's Will in Gethsemane

But the deepest account of this experience is found in the life of our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Gethsemane we have the battle of the two wills. The victory of Christ is most glorious when the blood sweat was in every part of Christ's body, and he was the crimson.

What did he say? He said, Father, thy will. Father, thy will be done. And when a soul robbed of all his own strength and all the power of the flesh is at the feet of the Savior, and he's saying, thy will be done, then that man, that woman, that boy or girl has risen to the highest tops of spiritual.

Like him who came and conquered there in that low garden, so rise we victors from our prayer. Christ is our warden and hold the crowns for us to wear. Thy will be done. We bow and say, what cometh after is but the dawning of the day.

If tears or laughter, God's will and ours move but one way. The real true Christian has no will of his own. He only has the will of God. If we would know that secret, if we would peer into that mystery, we should go to dark Gethsemane.

Gethsemane, the garden of the blood sweat. But in Gethsemane's garden, we can eavesdrop on the Father and the Son's mysterious dialogue. First, let me say this, that the coming of Christ to die for sinners was the Father's purpose.

The Trinity's Purpose in the Salvation of Sinners

And Christ wholly, willingly, lovingly, and zealously abided by his Father's will. If you want to know what happened in the great eternity that has passed, read the sixth chapter of Isaiah. And you will hear there the deliberation between the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost on the plight of sinful mankind.

This was long before the world, let alone man himself, was created. There was a united conference of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And the united voice of the Trinity struck the heavenly rafters of the conference chamber of the everlasting God.

What was God discussing? What was the basis of that conference? It was this, how can sinful man be saved? And how can those sinful men be brought the message of the gospel? Who shall we send? That was the burden of the deliberation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

It came out of the past eternity, and it is now on its journey back to the eternity to come. In time it bounced off sun, moon, and stars, on earth it lured up the oceans, and left its footmark on every human being ever born of Adam's race, or ever a frequenter of the dark stains and house of sin.

It is contained in God's book, and God's book will never pass away. Listen to it. Whom shall I send? Single, not whom shall we send, but whom shall I send? But then the Father went on, who will go for us?

Why the sudden change from the singular to the plural? Because this takes in the whole Godhead. The Father says, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? The other members of the Trinity were included in the use of that plural, us.

Christ Delights to Do God's Will

When I turn to Psalm 40, verses 6 to 10, and I hear the Son speaking. Now what does He say? Mark it well. Verse 8 of Psalm 40, I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. Of the blessed Son to the Holy Father.

If you turn over to Hebrews 10, verses 1 to 9, there's a whole story of Christ doing the will of God. The will of God was the cross. The will of God was the bloody sweat. The will of God was the darkness of Calvary, the blackness of Galbatha's beating, and the crucifying of Golgotha's hill.

This was the will of God. Truly we can say, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh that He might have a body that could be tormented, that He might have blood that could be shed, that He might have nerves to feel the pain.

God is without pain. God cannot be pained as God, but God taking into union with Himself our humanity, and made in the likeness of sinful flesh, He can suffer, He can bleed. The will of God for Christ was in our place condemned.

He stood. Jesus dying of forgiveness. Let it be said, the life and work of our Lord Jesus dotted every eye of God's will, and stroked every tee of God's will. Christ was the only person on earth that ever could look God in the face and say, I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which sent me.

Christ's Perfect Obedience from Childhood to the Cross

How many times have you sought your will and not the will of God? And every time you have sought your will and put your will above God's will, you sin grievously in the sight of God. But Christ never said.

The will of His Father always ruled. At 12 years of age, the first recorded word from the lips of the boy Jesus, what was it? I must be about my Father's business. I must do the will of God. And after that, when he came 30 years of age, he went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And in all three temptations, he answered Satan with the infallible word of God. And he showed Satan that he was on earth to do the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is always the commandment.

Struggle between Christ and the cross approaches. Under the shadows of the vines of Gethsemane, with the burden of the world's sins imputed to him, he had none of his own sins for he was the impeccable, sinless Christ.

But he faced the carrying away of the sin of the world. Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And one great preacher put it, knowing that the drinking of that cup was necessary to salvation, he drank it to the ranks.

He said, Oh, my Father, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, listen to it, thy will be done. So he became obedient unto death for you and me. He won the victory. He won it as our representative.

Christ's Suffering and Victory on Behalf of Sinners

Oh, blessed Christ, thy can be touched with the feeling of our infirmity. Thou knowest what it is to face the king of terrors. Thou knowest what it is to close in with a most divine and gracious purpose while the flesh shrinks and quivers.

Thou hast fought even your way through the valley of the shadow of death for us. Thou wast exceedingly sorrowful. Thou wast sore amused. Thou wast very heavy at the visage of death. But thou didst conquer and conquest now is possible for all who believe in me.

Because Christ strengthens sinners to put their faith and trust in him. How patient was the blessed Savior in the suffering which he endured. Peter drew his sword and widely cut off the high priest's servant's ear.

Christ demonstrated with him and ordered him to put his sword into a sheath. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, he was led, but he opened not his mouth. He hastened through the path of sorrows in his eagerness to go to Calvary's tree.

The evil ones kneeled him through the tree. And what did they say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. When they came to arrest him in the garden, he didn't hide away. He didn't run like the disciples.

They all forsook him and fled. He gave himself. And he said, I am he who is lifted up from the old tree of the cross. And man hissed at him and said, come down. Thou be the Christ. Come down. We'll believe on you if you come down.

But he stayed. He stayed, for if he hadn't stayed on the cross, you would have been in hell for all eternity. But he drunk the last dregs of that awful cup. He sighed the most awful sighs. He groaned the most awful groans.

He wept the most scalding tears. And he said, oh God, thy will be done. Sinners can be saved in this house tonight because the will of the Holy Son was blended with the will of the Holy Father. And by the power of the Holy Ghost, redemption was accomplished.

Surrender to God's Will as the Height of Sanctification

We must ever remember that the crossing of two sins is sinful. But the blending of two wills is purity and obedience. That our surrender to God's will is the height of our sanctification. We all need to follow the superb example of our Lord.

He has told us to follow him. In his birth, in his life's ministry, in his example, in his sufferings and death and resurrection glory. And how do we do it? By doing the will of God. We must take up our cross and follow Christ.

What a blessed soul he or she is who can sing that old hymn of praise from the depths of their body, soul, and spirit. I worship thee, sweet will of God, and all of thy ways adore. And every day I live, I sing to love thee more and more.

I love to kiss each print where thou hast set thine unseen feet. I cannot fear thee, blessed will, thine empire is so sweet. I have no care, so blessed will, for all my cares are thine. I live and triumph, Lord, for thou hast made thy triumphs mine.

Ill that he blesses is good. An unblessed good is ill, and all is right that seems most wrong if it be his own dear will. That's the height of the mountain of holiness, the summit of the mountain of the sanctification of the saint.

Doing the Father's Will as the Test of True Christianity

Jesus Christ defined what a true Christian is. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. That's Christ's standard.

And if you do not do the will of God or haven't got the power to do it, then you're not a Christian. The will of God is the supreme test. I would like to end this sermon with the exhortation of Paul in Romans 12, verse 1 and 2, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

God's not asking an unreasonable thing of you. He's asking a reasonable request. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, listen to it, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

It's not our standard. That's God's standard. May we bow to it, submit to it, and conform to it. And if there's someone here lifeless and godless and sinful and unsaved, come to the cross. Christ will meet you there.

Cry out for salvation. He will save you there. And he'll give you the power to do the will of God. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we bow in my holy, sacred presence. And we would say, teach me thy will, O God.

And we would say, help me to do thy will. Help me to crucify my will and to come to know the sweet and perfect and the good and acceptable will of God, for Jesus' sake. And everybody say, Amen.