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Life is hard. And one of the great comforts of life is sweet friendships. The Lord uses friendships to get us through hard times. That's one of the ways He does. True friends are those who stand with you through thick and thin.
They are with you during the good times and they are with you during the bad. During one's life, some friends come in seasons. You are close to a friend for a time, and when that time passes, a friendship distances.
It doesn't mean the friendship is gone, but the time of close friendship has passed. But there are other friends one is close to through the whole course of life. It is hard to explain why some friendships last longer than others, but there is no question that some do.
The strongest friendships endure over the long haul. As Proverbs 17, 17 says, a friend loves at all times. You can think of these sweet of all friendships in your life. These sweetest of all friendships.
Now as we think about the life of Christ, He's not just fully God, He's fully man. As we read the Gospels, it is so interesting looking at the humanity of Jesus. One of the aspects of His humanity is the close friendships He had.
A couple weeks ago, we saw this when Mary poured the alabaster flask of expensive ointment upon Jesus. Mary loved Jesus and showed her great love for Him by pouring this perfume on Him. Not only were Mary close friends with Jesus, but so were her two siblings, Martha and Lazarus.
But these were not His only close friends. The people Jesus spent the most time with during His ministry, He was obviously close to. Jesus called them to follow Him, and for three and a half years, Jesus and these men spent every day together.
Certainly, a close bond grew during this time, and His deepest bond was with three of the disciples, Peter, James, and John. Even though there was a deep bond between His disciples, and especially these three, sometimes friends let other friends down.
At the end of Jesus' life, this sadly happened to Him. As we look at the end of His life, the time was coming for Him to be arrested and given over into the hands of sinful men. As this occurred, this would be a test for His close friends where we would find out who were truly the good friends and who failed in their friendship.
What we are going to see this morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, is that these men who spent so much time with Jesus will let Him down when loyalty to Him was too great a cost for them.
We will see this great difficulty that Jesus faces. And not only this difficulty, but much more deep heartache the last two days of His life. So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 26.
We will be looking at verses 30 -75. And if you do not have a Bible with you, you are welcome to use one of the red Bibles in the pews. And this sermon is titled, Darkness Descends on the Light. Darkness Descends on the Light.
And here's our big idea. What this sermon is calling you to do. Know that Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross. Know that Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross.
And we're going to see five ways how. And by the way, this sermon is going to be a longer sermon. And I don't mean like today, but I mean like it's going to take us several Sundays to get through this.
I don't know if it's going to be two or three, we'll find out. But today we're going to look at the first two points. Verses one, the first two ways how Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross.
But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we've been. Last week we looked at verses 17 -29 of Matthew 26. In these verses, Jesus and his disciples take part in a Passover meal. It is the last Passover meal that God's people were to eat.
At this final Passover, what we saw is that Jesus made this ancient meal into a new one. This meal is what we know as the Lord's Supper. At this Passover meal, they ate a sacrificed lamb and they also had unleavened bread present since the Passover kicked off the week of unleavened bread.
Jesus highlighted this bread to make a new meal. What Jesus told his disciples is that this bread and the wine that they would drink held a significant meaning. The bread represented his body that he broke on behalf of his people, while the wine represented the blood that he shed for his people.
This would be a meal that his church would take part in until the day that he returns. What I stressed a week ago is that this was an exclusive meal. What I meant by this is that not everyone is invited.
One receives admittance to this table by believing in Jesus as Lord, Savior and treasure. So only believers are allowed at this table, not unbelievers. This was evident on the final night before Jesus' death.
Judas left before they ate the meal. And it was just the other 11 disciples who remained and these were the ones who were believers and they ate together. And Jesus said, this is my body. This is my blood.
These are for you. These were done on your behalf. These point ahead to the cross, what he would do for them. To share in this meal is the greatest of honors. Every time we take part in this meal, it is a reminder of what Jesus has done on our behalf.
He broke his body and he shed his blood for his people so that our sins are forgiven and we have eternal life. As we eat this meal and are reminded of what Christ has done, this points ahead to a future meal where Christ will sit at the head of the table as he shares this meal with his people in the age to come.
Now that we have looked at that recap, this leads us to our text this morning. I'm gonna begin by reading verses 30 through 32. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. As we look at the beginning of verse 30, what we read is that Jesus and his disciples sung a hymn. This is so sweet to think about that every Sunday when we sing together, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus and his disciples.
Truth is not just meant to be spoken. It is meant to be sung. And as we sing the profound truths of scripture, what joy fills our hearts. When we sing every Sunday, we sing some hymns that were written hundreds of years ago and others that were written just a few years ago.
But whether the songs we sing are old or young, the aim of our church is to sing rich biblical songs. During Jesus' ministry, it's obvious that he and his disciples sang rich songs that were glorifying to the Lord.
The songs that they sang were much different for what passes as worship in our modern day. So what hymns do you suppose that they sung? The answer is they sang the Psalms. In the middle of our Old Testaments in our Bibles is this Hebrew poetry known as the Psalms.
Every Psalm written is a song. We do not have the music written with the words, but during Jesus' time, they would have understood how to sing each of the Psalms. We probably know which Psalms Jesus and his disciples sang this last night of his life.
In a document known as the Talmud, actually Keith mentioned that this morning in Sunday school, this was Jewish tradition. There were Psalms designated as the praise Psalms of Egypt. These Psalms were Psalms 113 through 118.
Every Passover, these Psalms were sung as praises to the Lord for his deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. Now what the second half of verse 30 says is that once they finished the hymn, they went to the Mount of Olives.
The Mount of Olives was located right outside the sprawling area of Jerusalem. You could probably remember that the Mount of Olives was the location where Jesus told his disciples about the signs that would come before his return.
Now they return there in this episode. As they return there, Jesus says something very sobering to them. In verse 31 he says, you will all fall away because of me this night. That's a sobering thought.
Then he quotes a passage to show that this would be so. He quotes Zechariah 13 seven. Could you imagine having a prophecy written about you in a negative way? They were about to experience this here. Zechariah 13 seven says, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
Zechariah 13 seven is a prophecy concerning the crucifixion of Christ. And verses eight and nine are prophecies concerning his second coming. The reference in verse seven to the shepherd being struck is a clear reference predicting the crucifixion of Christ where Jesus would be crucified and then the sheep would be scattered.
In different directions. Jesus tells us who these sheep are referring to. As we saw in verse 31, Jesus told his disciples that this prophecy is mentioning them scattering once he is struck. They are the ones who are gonna fall away.
To fall away here does not mean apostasy. This same Greek word is used in Matthew 24 10 that describes many falling away from the Lord in the end times. But in our passage, this same Greek word is describing his disciples not falling away but abandoning him as he is arrested.
Jesus knows that his arrest is coming. He knows that his arrest is coming this night as he says in verse 31. And therefore his disciples will abandon him this very evening. But Jesus also tells them something in verse 32 that they will not stay away from him forever.
There he says, after I'm raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. In a parallel account in Luke 22, while Jesus is having this conversation with his disciples, Jesus tells Simon Peter in verse 31, in verse 32, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to assist all of you as to wheat.
But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. This prayer would be answered. Peter and the other disciples would not be lost forever. One of the amazing realities of our journey through the life of faith is that Jesus prays for you.
He does. He does it all the time. We need people to pray for us. As I walked in this morning, Linda said, I prayed for this service. And when you hear those words, you think, okay, we can expect good things to happen because good things happen when prayer happens.
But what is amazing is that there is one who prays for us and his prayers are always answered because he always prays the right way. Romans 8, 34 says that he is interceding for us. It's interesting that when we offer prayers to God, sometimes God likes what we say.
Sometimes he doesn't like what we say. God knows his people. And sometimes when we pray to him, he's like, you know what? I like the prayers that this person brings. I don't like as much the prayers that this person brings.
They're just not in the level of maturity where they're bringing the right kind of prayers to him. But Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the God-man, always prays things that the Father loves to hear.
And he always answers them. What we learn in our text is that Satan wants us. He wants to sift you like wheat. He wants to devour you. 1 Peter 5, 8 says that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
Satan wanted Peter and he wants you. He wants to tear apart your marriage. He wants to tear apart your family. He wants to tear apart this church. When a work of God is happening, he does not like that.
Sometimes you're wondering like, what's going on? Why does it feel like there's so much tension? Why does it feel like this hard thing is happening? You may be experiencing this in your life. Just this week, I had a very serious conversation with a family member.
And afterwards it was like, that was intense. There was spiritual warfare. As I was talking to a loved one who is not walking with the Lord and attacking the Christian faith in the process, you can just feel the spiritual warfare.
You can see Satan working and he's doing so much work all over the world. He has people in the grip of his hands. He prowls around looking for people to devour. He wants to take people out. He wants to take you out.
But Jesus is praying. He's praying for you that your faith may not fail. Satan wants you to fall away from Jesus forever. He wants you to think there's a better path out there. We have an enemy of our soul and he is active.
His goal is to destroy. But what Jesus does is preserve his people to the end. One of the greatest promises of Scripture is that those who are genuinely converted will persevere all the way to the finish line.
We read that this morning, 1 Peter 1 .5. You are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. True believers may have weak faith for a time, but that faith will endure.
One of the means of this faith enduring is that Jesus prays for your faith not to fail. And as he prays, you persevere. It's amazing. I mean, you look at your life, like why is this person not following the Lord and why am I?
It's mysterious. It truly is. Where people can say with honesty, I do not love Jesus. I do not believe the Bible is the word of God. Like their hearts are so hard and yet those words to you as a Christian are just, it's blasphemy because it is blasphemy.
It's alarming. It's upsetting. And yet, on this end, you're thinking, I love Jesus. And I don't just love a worldly Jesus that people manufacture to make them still think that they're somehow a Christian.
You love the biblical Jesus. You love the Jesus who says, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. He said that. You love the Jesus of Matthew 23 who goes after the Jewish establishment. And then you also love the Jesus who says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
In other words, you love the full Jesus. You love who He really is. Jesus prays for you. He causes you to persevere. You follow as He prays for you. I mean, think about how amazing that is. What a mystery and how amazing it is.
But as Jesus tells Peter and his disciples that they will abandon Him this night, Peter's not convinced. This is what Peter says in verse 33. He says, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.
Wow. We like confidence, right? Not in this case. What we see here is that Peter has an inflated view of himself. He thinks he is special. He holds a higher view of himself than the other disciples. He doesn't say we won't fall away.
You notice that? He says, oh yeah, they might fall away. I'm not falling away though. Not me. I will never leave you. But Jesus tells him that what he says is right. Jesus is never wrong. What he says is always right.
They will indeed all fall away. And he tells Peter how specifically he will fall away in verse 34. Jesus said to him, truly I tell you, this very night, okay, so it's not gonna take long, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.
Jesus tells Peter that three times this night he will reject Jesus before others. This would be a humbling reality for Peter. He thinks his loyalty is greater than the other disciples. And the irony is that he will have a major fall.
The major fall we're gonna see at the end of this chapter. But Peter's still not convinced in verse 35. In verse 35, Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And all the disciples said the same.
Peter's not convinced he will abandon Christ. And the other disciples are not convinced they will abandon him. But the sad reality is that they will all abandon him as Jesus said they would. This would have been a hard pill for Jesus to swallow as he spent so much time with these men.
He knew that their loyalty would fade as the pressure heated up on him. That's when you really find out who you are. When the pressure heats up. Once it became inconvenient and unpopular to follow Jesus, their commitment to him would fade.
And they would temporarily disassociate themselves from him. One thing that struck me recently is that to follow the whole truth, it's gonna put you in inconvenient places. To follow Jesus fully, it's gonna put you at odds with lots of people.
And we have to understand that. And yet integrity says, righteousness says, I'm gonna do it anyways. I'm gonna do the right thing. Even though this is unpopular. Christians are never to be calculated people.
A calculated person is, okay, I'll say this because I'll get lots of applause. I won't say this because I'll get lots of scorn. A man of integrity, a woman of integrity says, you know what, I don't care.
I'm gonna do what's right. I'm gonna say what's right. And things are heating up here as we see and they're like, okay, we're not gonna fall away, but Jesus says they will fall away. Once it becomes inconvenient and unpopular to follow Jesus, their commitment to him would fade as they would temporarily disassociate themselves from him.
What I've said many times is that in our day, it is becoming increasingly unpopular to follow Jesus. To be a biblical Christian is seen as taboo in this increasingly secular society that we find ourselves in.
But the question is, when the secular mob comes after a believer, will we distance ourselves from that person and say, that's not the way of Christ? Or will we stand with our fellow believer who stands with Christ?
I've shared the story before about a pastor in Osceola, Pastor Larry Medrick. He pastors at Osceola Community Church. Pastor Larry heard reports about a boy identifying as a girl, going into the girls locker rooms in the high school and he made a public proclamation condemning what happened.
His public condemnation of what happened was not popular with many in the community. There were people in Osceola who made it their mission to bring him down. They even made a Facebook page that promoted his demise.
It's obvious as Christians that we should have his back. His church had his back and I know that many other Christians have as well. But I'm sure there were many Christians who were silent, who said, we don't want to be associated with this.
Let's keep our distance. Not Eureka Baptist Church. We will not keep our distance from that. We need to be willing to stand by those who are ridiculed by the world, that we are not ashamed and distance ourselves from them.
But we say, I stand with this person, and it's he or she stands with Christ. When we do this, we are willing to enter difficulty with that person. What a loving thing it is when you stand with someone during a time of difficulty.
In fact, I wrote something recently that was controversial and Mark read it and he's like, I have your back. You know, and I'm thinking, thank you. Appreciate that, you know, and I have yours too. If something happens to you, we need to be willing to do that.
We need to be willing to enter those difficulties. What a loving thing it is when you stand with someone during a time of difficulty, when it is inconvenient to be friends with that person, to be associated with that person.
It comes at a cost. Everybody wants to be friends with the cool kid when everybody loves the cool kid. But what about when everybody's after this person? When it's no longer popular? That's when it's tested.
That's when your commitment to Christ is tested. In our text, Jesus tells His disciples that they're not going to do that, but are going to disassociate themselves from Him for a time. How painful this experience would be for Jesus to be abandoned by His friends.
Some of you have experienced abandonment of some kind from a friend or family member because of your relationship with Christ. To experience that is very painful. Jesus knows what it is like to experience that.
He sympathizes with you as one has gone through it. And the abandonment that He experienced is greater than the abandonment that any of His followers will ever face. Jesus was the most popular man in history for a time, but as His arrest came, just about everyone left His side.
But He would endure it as He endured every trial at the end of His life. So as we wrap up this first point here, know that Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross. In this text, this is the first way how, through enduring abandonment from His closest friends.
Enduring abandonment from His closest friends. And here's the second way how. You are to know that Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross. Here's the second one. Facing the reality that His Father's wrath would soon come upon Him.
Facing the reality that His Father's wrath would soon come upon Him. So Jesus would face the suffering of abandonment from just about everyone, even His disciples, but this would pale in comparison to the greatest suffering that was coming on the horizon that is described in verses 36 through 46.
So I'm gonna read this section here, 36 through 46. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled.
Then He said to them, My soul is very sorrowful even to death. Remain here and watch with Me. And going a little farther, He fell on His face and prayed saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And He said to Peter, So you cannot watch with Me in one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
The Spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time, He went away and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again, He came and found them sleeping for their eyes were heavy.
So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Now Jesus goes to the final place with His disciples where He would be arrested. This place is known as the Garden of Gethsemane. As they are in this garden, He tells His disciples in verse 36 that they are to sit in a specific location while Jesus goes to another part of the garden to pray.
But Jesus did not go alone to this other part of the garden. He took with Him His three closest friends, Peter, James, and John. James and John are the sons of Zebedee. What the end of verse 37 tells us is that as Jesus prayed in the garden with these three disciples beside Him, He began to feel sorrowful and troubled.
Verse 38 goes one step further. Jesus says in verse 38, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. And then He tells them to remain here and watch with Me. The second Greek word here, troubled, is the strongest word for depression in the New Testament.
There's three different words used to describe depression. This is the strongest of them. So He's at the lowest of lows here, thinking about what is to come upon Him. He was so sorrowful and His body so stressed that the parallel passage in Luke in chapter 22, verse 44, that verse says that He sweat blood.
Okay, anybody here ever sweat blood? I haven't. None of us could ever imagine someone being so distressed as Jesus was in this moment. There's a medical condition that describes this happening to someone under immense stress.
Now what Jesus means when He says to His disciples, watch with Me, what He means is stay awake. Don't fall asleep. Stay awake and pray. Because remember, He told them to pray. In verse 40, we learn that Peter, James, and John did not listen to Jesus, but fell asleep.
And Jesus tells them, could you not watch with Me one hour? Then Jesus says in verse 41, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. All that verse means is you might be really set to do something, but in your weakness, in your bodily weakness, you might not carry it out.
And this is one of those examples. They might've been saying, yes, we're gonna pray, but they got tired and they fell asleep. What verse 43 says is that when He came to them once again, He once again found them asleep.
But as all of this is going on, He has something on His mind that causes Him to be overcome with great emotion. Some of you experience moments in your life where emotion overtakes you and it comes suddenly.
When people lose a loved one, certain memories bring sudden emotion as the person remembers the one who has passed. But in this moment, it's not something past that makes Jesus feel sorrowful. It's what's coming that makes Him feel this way.
It is not just sorrow that Jesus is experiencing. It is dread. He is troubled. There is something that He greatly fears. Jesus tells us what He is sorrowful and troubled about in the second half of verse 39.
He says, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But then He says, not as I will, but as you will. So He's willing to submit Himself to what the Lord's will is. But He says, Lord, if there is another way, let this cup pass from me.
He prays this to His Father again in verse 42. And then in verse 44, He prayed this to His Father a third time. Jesus is asking His Father if the cup would pass from Him. What cup is Jesus talking about?
In Mark 10, 39, Jesus describes this cup as He said to His disciples, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. To be baptized means to be immersed. In this church, we practice believers baptism.
What this means is that once one decides to turn from one's sins and follow Jesus, we take that person to the waters of baptism. A baptized person is immersed in the waters, which is why when churches practice sprinkling, it doesn't make any sense.
Baptism means to be immersed in water. But Jesus is not talking about being immersed by water here. He's talking about being immersed by something else. In a parallel passage in John 18, 11, Jesus told Peter, shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?
The cup that Jesus is referring to is the holy wrath of His Father. In the Old Testament, the cup was used figuratively to describe God's wrath poured out on sinners. So you can just see God from heaven just pouring out this judgment upon sinners.
And He would do this on His beloved Son. This is an incredibly important biblical truth to understand. And by the way, most of American evangelicalism does not understand this. Either doesn't understand it or neglects to talk about it.
One of the two. To be a sinner means that you deserve judgment. Romans 3 .23 says, 6 .23 that is, the wages of sin is death. This death is not just physical death. It is eternal death. And what is eternal death?
Eternal death is hell. Hell is a place of torment where the wrath of God is poured out on the sinner. Revelation 14 verses 9 through 11 describes this wrath. And this is describing an end times event, but it's relevant here.
If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger. And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb.
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And they have no rest day or night. These worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name. Now, this passage from Revelation describes unbelievers at the end of the world who followed the antichrist and reject Jesus.
But this is also the future of every unbeliever from the beginning of the world to the end. Everyone who dies in his or her sins deserves death. And this is eternal death. Eternal death means spending eternity in hell.
And what hell is is a place where a person forever experiences the father's anger and displeasure. Hell is a place of suffering where people no longer experience God's blessing, but are now under his curse.
Think about unbelievers alive in this world right now. They do experience some of God's blessing. Think about it. They enjoy the beautiful weather. They enjoy a spouse, some of them. They enjoy kids. They enjoy good food.
They enjoy vacations. They enjoy the pleasure that work can bring. I mean, think of all the blessings that unbelievers enjoy in this life. All of those will be gone in hell. An unbeliever dies and there is no more enjoyment.
There's only pain. And the pain is forever and ever and ever. This is the future for every sinner. But by the grace of God, he made a way for people never to go to this place. The only way is the cross.
It's the only way. Jesus knows what is coming the next day. And he is eager to earn the salvation of anyone who would believe in him. Jesus was focused on the cross. We've seen that throughout Matthew.
He's so focused. He knows what his mission is. In John 10, 18, he said, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. He does it willingly. But Jesus is fully human and he knows what's coming.
When Jesus goes to the cross, sure, he knows of his physical suffering. And some of you have seen the passion of the Christ. The physical suffering is enormous. Enormous. But that's not what his greatest fear is.
He's not fearing the scourging and hanging on the cross. And the cross, by the way, historians have said it was the worst way to die possible. They would hang there and they'd reach a point where they were so exhausted that they would suffocate.
Because every time they'd have to push up to be able to take a breath, and they would reach a point where they couldn't do that anymore, then they would suffocate. That's how they would die. But this is not the greatest fear of Jesus as he goes to the cross.
The greatest fear was experiencing the displeasure of his Father. Some of you may be seeing shows and movies where a person somehow is able to see what their greatest fear is, or share what their greatest fear is.
There's all these phobias, right? What is your greatest fear? The greatest fear of Jesus Christ was experiencing the displeasure of his Father. Because from eternity past, he had never experienced anything but bliss with his Father.
They enjoyed eternal fellowship together. And there would be a time at Golgotha where that would be gone. And it would be the worst experience of his life, his existence, by far. He had never experienced this before.
He has always had perfect fellowship with his Father. And he has always had perfect joy going back to eternity past. But this would be gone for a moment, for several hours, as he hung on the cross, as God the Father's wrath would be directed to him.
He dreaded the cup of wrath that his Father would pour out on him. When Jesus hung on the cross, he said in Matthew 27, 46, My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? Some theologians have mistakenly said that Jesus was abandoned by his Father.
That would have been merciful. He wasn't abandoned by his Father. He experienced the Father's curse on the cross. He faced the full fury of the wrath of God. Romans 3 .25 says that God put him forward as a propitiation by his blood.
The word propitiation means that God's favor turned toward anger. Another way to say this is when Jesus went to the cross, he faced hell for you. Remember, sin deserves eternal death. But God made a way that one perfect man, the God-man, would face his wrath.
And anyone who believes in that man would be allied with that man in such a way where the penalty that he faced would be applied to them. This is called the substitutionary atonement in theology. It's called the penal substitutionary atonement.
He died in your place. Martin Luther called it the great exchange. His work is applied to you. Your sin goes to him. 2 Corinthians 5 .21 says, He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
When Jesus went to the cross, he took our sins upon him and he was treated as our sins deserve. Another way to say what Jesus endured is that he faced hell for you, as I said, so that you would never have to.
Romans 5 .9 says, We have now been justified by his blood. Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath to come. Think about this. Jesus did this for you. If you belong to him and you belong to him by believing that he did this on your behalf, you believe that you deserve hell and you gladly grab the life vest of Jesus Christ that was thrown to you.
As we look at our text, that Jesus stands in the Garden of Gethsemane, he will go through this. And he will accomplish our salvation. But before he goes through this, what we see here is his humanity.
He does not want to be under the curse of his Father. That's noble. He loves his Father with the deepest love there is. He does not want to be cut off from his blessing. And so he asks Him, is there another way?
But he knows the answer. Which is why he says at the end of v. 42, Your will be done. Jesus would face much suffering during this last day of his life, but the greatest suffering that he would experience is he would be under his Father's wrath.
Jesus knew what Isaiah 53 .10 predicted would happen to him. That verse says it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He knew what was coming. He would go to the cross and it was at Calvary where he would bear the full fury of God's wrath.
And as we think about how we can apply the suffering of the Father's wrath that Jesus faced, the application is simple. Any unbelievers need to believe in what Christ has done on your behalf. Do not spurn this offer.
Sometimes people entertain receiving the Gospel for years and years, but they never receive it and a point passes where they can no longer receive it. Hebrews 10 v. 26 -31 describes this. Verse 26 says,.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. And then verse 31 says, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This is the future of anyone who rejects the Gospel. And let me say this too. This doctrine called the penal substitutionary atonement which is clearly taught. I went through verse after verse after verse to show you it.
It's not just in the New Testament, it's in the Old Testament. It's been under attack. People don't want to think of God as a wrathful God. So you hear Gospel presentations where all they talk about is the love of God.
God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life. And that's the Gospel. That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is you deserve hell. And He faced hell for you so that you don't have to. Okay, understand that.
If we don't get the Gospel right, there's problems. Okay, there's problems. And this has been under attack. In the hymn, In Christ Alone, there was an effort to change the lyrics. I don't know if you know about this.
There's a line in that song that says, the wrath of God was satisfied. There were some progressive evangelicals, that's an oxymoron, by the way. There's no such thing as a progressive evangelical. But they try to be.
These progressive evangelicals said, well, let's change the lyrics. The love of God was magnified. Sounds so nice. That's demonic. It's taking the truth of God's word and replacing it with something. A half truth is a lie.
You need the whole truth. Okay, so now I made that clear. So any unbelievers believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then for the believer, here's the application. Be eternally grateful that Jesus did this for you.
We will be singing praises to Jesus forever and ever and ever because of what he did for us. And what's amazing is that in Revelation, there's a picture of Jesus in heaven. John has this vision. And Jesus still has the scars from his crucifixion.
Isn't it a glorified body? Aren't we not supposed to have scars? God leaves his scars there, at least somewhat, so that we can see what he did for us. Isn't that amazing? And we're gonna be praising him forever more for what he did.
And that just shows the physical suffering that he faced. But again, the greatest suffering that Jesus faced was he faced the full fury of the wrath of his Father. He faced hell so that you don't have to.
And we will praise him forever more. We just did that this morning. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. But this I know with all my heart, his sin has, or sorry, his wounds. That was a blasphemy statement.
His wounds have paid my ransom. We'll sing that forever and ever and ever. Okay, so Jesus did this because he loves you. He did this for his people. He faced the greatest suffering there is to rescue you.
So here we have it. Know that Jesus experienced enormous suffering even before the cross. And the second way how was through facing the reality that his Father's wrath would come upon him soon. So what we have seen is that Jesus faced great difficulty leading up to his death.
He was abandoned by just about everyone, including his closest friends. And as we just saw, he was preparing himself to experience his Father's displeasure. He went through this for you. What a great friend and savior we have in Jesus.
Now what we're gonna do the next Sunday or two is see the final three points of this. And we are marching. It's kind of hard to see this because there's so much snow on the ground. We are marching toward Holy Week.
That's coming up here pretty soon where we will see Jesus crucified. We will see him raised from the dead. And it's a bittersweet time as we think about what he did. But it ends in joy knowing what he accomplished.
But at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, this is the greatest story there is. It's the story of life. And it was accomplished by the greatest man there is, Jesus Christ. As we read in Peter this morning, though you have not seen him, you love him.
And my prayer is that everyone in this room would truly love Jesus. We can all love him more, but that we would love him because unbelievers do not love him. I pray that everyone here would love him and understand what he did, understand the promise that is there for the believer.
And there's also this fear. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. People play with fire. Most people play with fire and they will be burned. And may no one in this room be in that number.
In Jesus' name, Amen.