The Human Face of the Cherubim — Keith Malcomson

The Four Faces of the Cherubim and the Human Season of Life

I want you to go to Ezekiel 1 10 again this morning. We're going to part three in our series, the four seasons of life. The four seasons of life. We've already dealt with two messages on nine aspects of these four cherubims that speak to us.

We don't even have time to list them here this morning. You can go back and listen to those two messages in order to give you the backdrop of this, but I want to move straight on here. And my message here this morning is part three in this series, dealing with the four seasons of life.

And I've called this, I might change the title before we post it online because I think I had another title, but it's just gone from my mind. There's some things I do ad lib as I go along, rely on, but the title I'm going to give you now, it may change by the time it hits online, is the human season of life.

Just to give it a title. We're going to deal with this first of the four faces, the human face of the cherubim. And I believe there's a message here for us, but let's just read one verse together. Ezekiel 1 10.

As for the likeness of their faces, they four, all four of them, had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side. And they had the face of an ox on the left side. They four also had the face of an eagle.

Let's pray. Father, I do pray that again this morning that you'd speak to us individually and cooperatively as the church, the body of Christ, that you'd show us what you want to say through these creatures, through these living creatures that dwell in your very presence.

Lord God, they're as zealous for your glory and for your honour. Lord God, I pray, will you speak out of the midst of the fire? Will you use them to bring us a message to the redeemed of the Lord? Now, what we are to be as Christians, what the reality of this Christian life is and how we walk as Christian through every season and realm of life.

Father, I pray that this human face of the cherubim, Lord God, will you speak by your Holy Spirit? Will you open up our eyes that no matter the season, we can live for Christ, we can live this Christian life, Lord God, with the same faith, the same love and the same obedience, whether it's summer or whether it's winter, whether the leaves are falling off the trees in autumn, Lord God, we can live for the glory of the Lamb of God.

Father, I pray, put a shout in our heart, Lord God, concerning Zion this morning. Now, victory shout, O God, that you've redeemed us by the precious blood of the Lamb, that our sins are forgiven. That's more than feeling our emotions, our circumstance.

My God, we are redeemed men and women. And Lord God, we give you glory, O God, that we're not perishing in hell, that we're not sitting, O God, with our brains blown with drugs, our immorality, our dead religion, but O God, that we have a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord God, bless your word this morning. Let your Holy Spirit open up the word of God and lead us into all truth, that you might be glorified in Jesus' mighty name, amen. This one simple verse, we've gone through these creatures, their hooves, their wings, their eyes, extraordinary vision in Ezekiel 1.

But now, this morning and over the following three weeks, I wanna deal with the four different faces of each of these cherubims, because I believe there's a message in these four faces. It says here in verse 10, as for the likeness of their faces.

Now, the word likeness means the closest resemblance. And hear this very carefully. It's not saying this is exactly what they look like. It's not saying that this vision is explicitly and literally exactly as it appears.

In fact, in Ezekiel 1, we're told very carefully that this is the likeness. This is as close as we can get. This is the only thing that we can use to describe these living creatures. As best as I can, I have to use the face of a man, the face of an eagle, the face of a lion, and the face of an ox.

That is as best as I can describe it. In other words, this is a glorious, spiritual, supernatural vision. And in the midst of seeing these literal, actual living creatures that are real beings, this is what they are.

As Ezekiel looks at them, he says, as best as I can describe them, this is their likeness. So I want you to be aware of this. And this is the reason, because here in Ezekiel 1, the cherubims have four wings.

When you go over to Revelation 4 -6, they have six wings. So there is a distinction here. They are the same creatures, the same four creatures. And yet in one place, four wings, the other place, six wings, and there is more symbolic meaning behind that.

When you read Ezekiel 1, each of the four creatures have four distinct, different faces. But when you go over to Revelation 4, you don't have four distinct faces. Each creature is a different creature.

Another one, in other words, the first living creature looks like a lion, the second, like an eagle, the third, like an ox, and the fourth, like a man. And yet they are the same creature. Now this could partially be that they are shape changers.

You remember what Christ taught us concerning angels, or what the apostle taught us concerning angels, that you ought to entertain strangers, visitors who come through, Christians who pass through the city, or through our midst, you ought to entertain them, or have them in your house, or make them a cup of tea, or make them a meal, or have them to stay over, and be careful because it could be dangerous.

I'm saying that just as one aspect. But why are we told to entertain strangers? Do you know why? Some have entertained angels unawares. In other words, an angel came to visit them, and they were utterly unaware.

They couldn't tell it by the features or the conversation. There was nothing to give that away. It seemed like a man, looked like a man, spoke like a man, and yet it was an angel that was there in your home.

And so the Bible teaches you ought to be pleasant. Can you imagine that you shutting the door on the face of an angelic being? Can you imagine that you missed the opportunity to have a cup of tea with Gabriel, or Michael, or one of the cherubims?

I'm not being silly or flipping, but I'm saying what the Bible actually says is a real potential that some unawares have entertained, or have provided for an angel, not realizing what they're actually doing.

So we realize that angelic beings can take other forms. They can change their shape, their appearance, their likeness, their form. Maybe if we seen some of these angels, we would tremble like Daniel did in the Old Testament, or like John in the New Testament, he fell down and began to worship.

And what did they say? Don't do that. Don't worship. You only worship God. But the appearance of the angelic realm can be so extraordinary that you would quake, or get sick, or collapse. It is an extraordinary thing.

And so we have here is the likeness of these creatures. As Ezekiel looks at these living creatures in Ezekiel 1, each one of the four creatures has four distinct faces. It also says in Ezekiel 10, 14, and everyone had four faces.

Each one had four faces. The first was the face of a cherub. The second, the face of a man. Notice it comes second here. In chapter one, the first face looking at you is that of a man. In chapter 10, it's the second face that's listed.

And the third, the face of a lamb. The fourth, the face of an eagle. Then over in Revelation chapter four and seven, it says, and the first beast was like a lion. The second beast like a calf. The third beast had the face of a man.

And the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. So whether we look at this first, second, or third doesn't really matter. But we're gonna deal with these four faces because they represent something. We've already seen that the cherubim, all of their faculties have a message for you and for I.

They actually reveal something of redeemed humanity, of what it is to be born again, washed in the blood, saved out of this world, made a spiritual being. Remember, being full of eyes is to be filled with the spirit.

Remember those wings is the heavenly life that you're not living as a part of this world. Each of those nine things show us something and they have a message. It's not just a vision of a creature. It has a message.

All these things were written for your learning. They're written to correct you and encourage you and to instruct you and to help you. They're literally revealed to us so we learn something about the spiritual life.

But when you look at Ezekiel chapter one, verse 10, let me just explain it for a moment. The four had the face of a man. In other words, in this description in verse 10, what it seems to be saying is the front face looking directly at Ezekiel is the face of an actual man.

The front face looking forward on each of the creatures, the most prominent, the first face, the one that you see first. You know, you don't recognize someone by their hand, do you? My hand is my hand.

It's very personal. But you rarely look at someone's hand and say, oh, that's Keith or that's Jason or that's Tom or that's Sally Ann or whoever else. You rarely do that. You know what you do? You look at the face and go, ah, I reckon.

That is such and such. That is, in other words, the face reveals who you are. It's the countenance. It's the identification. It's the personality. The face reveals who I am. It identifies me. In other words, if you can see the face, you understand the person.

You know who the person is. You know the character of the person or the ways of the person. And so in verse 10, what we have is the face of a man was the most prominent, the forefront one, the first one or the one that met your gaze at the first.

And the face of a lion on the right side. So think about, you've got four faces. The front is a man. On the right side is the lion's face. And then on the left side is the ox's face. And the eagle is on the back of the head looking back the way.

It was the four faces, but the face of the man is the most prominent and it's looking forward. I want you to see that each of these creatures, they had one body, they had one head, but they had four faces, one body, one personality.

And yet they have four faces. I believe the four faces represent four distinct seasons in the human Christian life. Very, very different, radically different, yet the same person. This is one creature with four faces.

And what we're gonna deal with in these four messages is one person or one church or one preacher, but four distinct faces. And every Christian is gonna experience this at a different stage in your Christian walk or a different time throughout each year where you're gonna walk through a season.

And I'm not being mathematical or measuring this out or giving you dates or months of the year. I'm not doing that. I'm just talking there are seasons and periods of time that you see all through the Bible.

These four beasts represent the four seasons of life that we're gonna look at. We know that our entire year is broken into winter, spring, summer, and autumn. We've just left summer. I was very sad about that.

We began to enter autumn and I thought we'd missed autumn and jumped to winter. At first, I thought we'd literally jumped straight there and forgotten autumn. Then suddenly autumn begins to come in, the beauty of autumn.

I'd forgotten how beautiful it is. Everything changes color. All the leaves begin to fall. I am enjoying autumn season. It's different than summer. It's very different than winter. All of them have their disadvantages.

All of them have their good points. But you know what? Nobody can live in summer. Nobody can stay in summer. Nobody could survive in winter by itself. And so in the Christian life or the spiritual life, you cannot just dwell in one season of life.

You can't just dwell as a man only. Neither could you be like a lion all the time or you couldn't function like an eagle all of the time. If you ever meet an eagle Christian that is always an eagle, every meeting is an eagle manifestation.

There's something wrong with that. If you get a church and it's always summer, every meeting, every preaching, every experience of life, all of it is mountaintop experience. I'm gonna tell you, that's a shallow church.

There's something very wrong. I'd wanna know, why aren't you going through a winter season? Oh, I don't wanna walk through a winter season. Don't you know that God has ordained winter? Don't you know winter is good for you?

Don't you know autumn is good in your spiritual life? When all of the leaves begin to fall off, everything changes color and here you are trying to hold on to everything. Don't you realize if you don't pass through death, you can't enter into life again?

If you don't have an autumn, you can't have a springtime. If you don't have a winter, you're not gonna come back through to summertime. And so all of this balances out in a tremendous way. And I believe in these four distinct faces of each cherubim.

There is a message here. The Bible speaks about four very often, the four corners of the earth. It's not saying the earth is flat. For anyone online, the earth isn't flat, okay? Don't send me emails or make comments on any video.

I'm not interested, but the earth isn't flat. I wanna tell you, it's a globe. It's circular. I've been up in a plane. I can, I've got eyes. Anyway, cut that out. There are four winds of the heavens talking about the influence of God on the earth.

There are four gospels in our New Testament which give us four different faces of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the number four speaks about entirety or the global worldwide aspect or a fullness or entirety.

In other words, when you look at four, you've covered everything of the full circumference of the year or the full vision of the Lord Jesus Christ or the full aspect of the different seasons of the Christian life.

This is what God is trying to show us. God has set four seasons in our year. You see, he is sovereign. He is mighty. He is powerful. You know, he's got a purpose for the four seasons of nature. When you go back to Genesis chapter one and you read of the six days of creation, notice day four, what is day four?

I believe day four ties into this. On day four, God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, Genesis chapter one and 14. And listen to what it says. Why did he create them? To divide the day from the night and let them be for signs, for seasons, and for days and years.

When were the four seasons created? On the fourth day of creation. In other words, God had a divine purpose. He split light from darkness, night from day. He actually introduced seasons that had unique, unusual purposes.

And where these four seasons are going to work together. You know what the Bible says? Until the end of time, seed time and harvest will never cease. No matter what man does, no matter all the chaos and the pollution and the wars and the weapons.

You know what my Bible says? There's always gonna be seed time and harvest. All of this process, no matter what man does, no matter if it looks like he's gonna destroy everything. I wanna tell you, God has put in his purpose different seasons of time.

And you know what? You are gonna get sun in Ireland in the year to come, and you are gonna get rain, and you are gonna get frost, and you are gonna get least fallen off. God has ordained these things.

They're not accidental. And you know what? Each of them has a totally radical, different purpose and effect and influence. There's a season in your life you'll walk through and you'll go, I don't like this.

That doesn't mean God's hand isn't in it. You may say, I wanna be like an eagle all the time. Praise God, so do I. I love eagles. You may say, I wanna be courageous like a lion all the time. Very few say, I wanna be like an ox all the time.

Oh, we'll get to the ox all right. It's a season, it's a time, it's a part of your Christian life. But you don't get many people saying, I wish I could perpetually be in the ox season. No, no, no. You wanna be an eagle or you wanna be a lion.

But we're gonna deal here this morning with this man face or that season of man. And so we see that God has introduced seasons on the fourth day of creation. And in those seasons, they are appointed. They are fixed times or they are seasons that work together hand in hand.

If you only had a summer, it would be disaster. If you only had a winter, it would be a disaster. You need the mixture of this. If you only had mountain top experiences and no low valleys, shadows of death, it would be bad for your spiritual good.

The giants are important. The trials are important. The suffering loss that you don't understand is absolutely vital to your spiritual walk. If it was all God blessing you, answering all your prayers immediately, you'd say, oh, but that's what I want.

Isn't that the Christian life? Give me, give me, give me. Get, get, get. Do you realize how that would destroy you? Just any one of your children, keep giving them every day, everything they want. Keep them happy.

Keep them on the mountain top. Keep giving whatever the request is immediately. You know what that would do to the child. You may think, no, I'm sure it'll be okay. No, you will destroy that child. There's gotta be curbing.

There's gotta be boundaries. There's gotta be a removal. You know, growing up as a kid, Candace had the same two different families, two different continents, two different countries. I never asked my parents for a thing growing up.

I never stopped in the shop window and say, can I have that? Can I have that? Can I have that? Now, I don't know whether it was my education in that home and whether it was done early enough. You didn't ask for anything.

Maybe it was my generation. And now we've so lifted the restraints. It's give me, give me, give me. You never done that. Never, never. Candace was the same growing up. They never asked for things. You got given things and you're glad to have them.

Now, we give the kids everything. They don't appreciate anything they get in this generation. It's broken after an hour. They throw it down. They don't like it. They don't thank you. Something has changed.

You know why? We have tried to give them one sunny season in raising children. You better introduce an autumn season in that home. You better introduce a winter season in that home. You better have a spring time and of course a summer, but it balances out.

Any one season alone would destroy you. And if it was only the human face, if that's all it was, it would be too much for any one of us. Listen to what it says in Psalm 8, verse four. And this is the Psalm is speaking.

What is man that art mindful of him? You God, why would you look on me? Do you know when we begin to deal with the face of a man, humanity, what you are as a person, do you realize if we see correctly, we're gonna be in awe and say, what is man?

What am I? That you God would even look upon such as me, a worm like me. I mean, when you see yourself as a man, you know the problem in the church, too many people get too big for their boots. They get redeemed, forgiven, saved.

They think they know everything. Christians are terrible for this. They are proud, they are arrogant, they are willful. Sinners aren't usually, but as soon as a man gets a bit down the road, you can't teach him, he knows everything.

And you know what? They get in a position, they're arrogant, and they look down on everyone else. That is a very, very dangerous position. What is man that art mindful of him? Are the son of man that you visited as him, for thou has made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things under his feet. This is an extraordinary thing. Let me add, I'm just building some things here for a moment. Very fascinating.

When you go to the tabernacle in the Old Testament, you know the tabernacle, 40 years they walked through the wilderness, the entire people of God. They are 12 different tribes. They marched as a tribe.

They camped as a tribe. They were organized as a tribe, an entire family having grown out of one man and an entire military force and family has grown up. Do you know when the tabernacle camped at night and it was laid up and the priests began to minister in there and the glory cloud was over it and God revealed himself and manifested himself and spoke in there and they made sacrifices.

Do you know the 12 tribes camped in round the tabernacle? There was three to the north, three to the west, three to the east and three to the south and each of those three camps had a flag. Listen to me very carefully.

When you go into scripture and begin to look at Numbers chapter two, you see that they were camped, all 12 tribes in groups of three, four groups of three and each of those three tribes had a standard, a different flag with an emblem.

Now the Bible doesn't tell us what was on the flag. The Bible doesn't explain or describe what was the emblem or the symbol but you know Jewish history does and you know what they tell us? They say the four flags at the four different points of the tabernacle, one of them was a lion, one of them was an eagle, one of them was an ox and one of them was the face of a man.

There's all the old Jewish historians and scholars, they tell us to the south of the tabernacle was the camp of Reuben along with the tribe of Gad and Simeon, all three tribes and their standard was risen and it had the emblem of a man's face.

I don't think this is accidental that the four standards and the emblems of the entire people of Israel, whether they camp or whether they march down the road seeking God's will, do you know what a standard is for?

It is a gathering place. In other words, when the standard is raised, this is where you gather, this is where you need to be, you need to be in your position. A standard is a military emblem for gathering, for stirring, for equipping and for making ready and so we see that Reuben was camped under the standard of the human face.

All this is gonna tie in. You see from Genesis all the way through Numbers, all the Ezekiel, then the Revelation, you have these four faces everywhere throughout scripture. Do you think that's accidental that it comes up time and time and time again?

And so they're on four different sides of the tabernacle but here is Reuben is the embodiment of this human face. Listen to what it says, Jacob prophesied to Reuben in Genesis 49 and three and we begin to understand something of this human element.

Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity. In other words, that man symbol, that's what it represents, the best of humanity, the best of what a man is, the glory of birth and the excellency of power.

Then he gives another prophecy. I wish he had stopped there but he says, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. Do you realize with humanity, with man, there's great potential but great weakness and that's what this human face represents.

It is looking at the human element of our life. I wish it was always lion or eagles, sometimes oxes but I wish we could be free in our Christian life of the human element. Do you realize as a man, you can live as a Christian in this world because with man there are thoughts, there are emotions, there are struggles with sin, there are fights against the devil.

You don't have to face the devil as an eagle. You know when you ascend as an eagle, you know what the eagle does when the enemy comes? He locks his wings, I'm giving you a foretaste. Boy, one of these days I'll do a series on the eagle.

That eagle locks its wings and it flies into the sun. It doesn't fight the enemy, it doesn't engage the enemy. An enemy comes, it just turns towards the sun, locks its wings, covers its eyes and it simply goes for the sun.

No enemy can pursue after that eagle, it's extraordinary. But you know what, as a man, I'm gonna have to face many, many real things. I'm gonna have to face valleys. I'm gonna have to face a winter time.

I'm gonna have to face all the realm of humanity, all the experiences of this human life. I wish I could live above the earth, but no, you're gonna live your Christian life in this world. You're gonna face the devil.

You're gonna have all of the emotions. You're gonna feel like giving up at times. You're gonna face trials along this way and you're gonna feel like throwing in the towel. And yet the human face says, march on Christian soldier, stand your ground.

All you feel is the humanity of this walk, but that's fine. You know, with all that's gone on in my life, I feel like a man. This isn't a lion season, I wanna tell you. This is not an eagle season in my life.

You know, all I feel is to be a man, but it doesn't stop me preaching or praying or reading the Bible or evangelizing. You know why? I am a man. I don't have eagle feeling or lion-like feelings. I don't even feel the intensity of labor.

You know what? All I feel is the numbness of my humanity. I am dominated by a season where I'm thinking naturally and facing everything as a man. And it's not easy. In the book of Kells, I'm just piecing all this in together for you.

In the book of Kells, and all you Irish people should know this like the back of your hand, the book of Kells or sometimes called the book of Columbus was written and drawn about the year 800. It's an extraordinary copy of the four gospels in the Irish tongue.

And it's one of our greatest treasures in this entire country. One of our oldest treasures, one of our greatest treasures. And on the opening page, there are four pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

That's the opening page. Do you know what they're depicted as? A man, a ox, an eagle, a lion. In other words, the four authors of the four gospels have been depicted by the old ancient Irish church that was still in revival from the days of Patrick and reaching out all across Europe to evangelize.

When they come to the four gospels, they connected it to the cherubims of Ezekiel chapter one. That is extraordinary, I wanna tell you. And I believe that each of the gospels and a lot of the old Christian writers, this is what they do.

They lined up the cherubims with the four gospels. And so Bible teachers have frequently and often when they come to Matthew, they reveal Christ as King in Matthew. And dealing with Christians, they talk about the kingdom of God.

You're a kingdom citizen. Or when you go to Mark, it's the servant, it's the ox. Matthew's the lion. Mark is the ox. Luke is the man. We're gonna come to that. And John is the eagle. And so you have this unity.

And it doesn't matter if you don't believe this or no point arguing over these things. They're just symbols to teach us and to instruct us. When you come to Luke's gospel, the dominant theme is Christ as the son of man.

Listen up very carefully. The gospel of Luke that is actually the gospel of humanity or man, or Christ the man, he's revealed as the son of God. When you come to the New Testament, the term son of man is used 88 times in our New Testament.

25 of those times appear in Luke more than any other book in the New Testament. So Luke reveals Christ as the son of man or the divine Messiah as a man, his humanity more than any other New Testament book.

When you go into the Old Testament, you find the same term son of man used 88 times in the Old Testament. Guess which book uses it the most? It is the book of Ezekiel. Sorry, let me say that again. In the Old Testament, the term son of man is used 101 times.

93 of those times is in the book of Ezekiel that we're reading about the cherubims. So in other words, the main book on our entire Bible that reveals the son, the title, the son of man, it's in the book of Ezekiel.

It dominates there. 90, 93 times Ezekiel uses it in an extraordinary way. Now I wanna tie this right together here for a moment because I believe that this human face reveals the humanity of you and I, of the church of Christ, but also of the Lord Jesus Christ.

His humanity is revealed in Luke. It's revealed in Ezekiel. You know, Christ came as the son of man. He came from heaven. He didn't stay in heaven. He came from heaven with the divine mission, a divine calling to walk as a man amidst you and I.

And you know what we also are called? Not to come from heaven. We are called to come from earth, to walk as sons of the most high God, that in the humanity of our flesh, that we'll live in the light of eternity and heaven coming.

And you know what? In winter time, that is not easy. And when we're in the valleys of life, that isn't easy. And when all our prayers aren't answered, that is not easy. But do you know what God is doing in even denials to your prayers?

He is raising up sons onto himself. If you want to stay a spoiled little brat in the house of God, just sidestep the dealings of God. Get in a tantrum when you don't get your way. Don't trust him and say, you are God.

You're my God. You're sovereign. All I am is a man. All I am is a woman. Begin to demand. Throw your toys out of the pram. Begin to rip everything up around you. You know, there's nothing worse than a spoiled brat on the high street, in the shop, in the church, at a meal time.

I'm in a spoiled brat that demands, that's rude to parents, that speaks anything. You know, I'm sitting there, I haven't had children, but believe me, I've got the Bible's authority. I can tell you how to raise your children.

I know how you ought to raise your children. I don't need to be married. When I was a single guy, I used to teach on what a husband used to be. They could have said, well, who are you? You're not married.

You don't have children. I've got an authority from God and I've got a bit of common sense. Most of those were kids. I tell you, they don't even know what they're trying to do. They're gonna destroy those children, make them reprobates and children of hell.

What a crisis and disaster. But when we come to this, we begin to see that the gospel of Luke reveals the image of a man and I wanna look at this before we close. In Luke's gospel, which is the gospel of the son of man, it reveals the humanity of Christ.

It reveals the humanity of man himself and how God deals with our humanity in a real way. The book of Luke or the gospel of Luke is the longest gospel of the four. It begins earlier. It ends later and it's extraordinary.

And I've got three points for you here. I want you to listen very carefully as we go into Luke. I want you to see this emblem. I want you to look in the face of the cherubim. You're not gonna look at a lamb today.

You're not looking at the eagle today. We're not looking at the ox today. You know what? We're looking straight into fire, spiritual life, extraordinary manifestations. I care about the glory, but I'm gonna force you to look into the face of a man.

You see, we get so spiritual. We don't think as a man, as a redeemed man, as a human being with all my natural thoughts, that I can be a blazing fire for God. That's not true. You know what? We are only men.

That's the best of what you are. And yet we can come out of the midst of the fire in all of the glory of our humanity. You know Christ hungered, didn't he, when he was tempted? When he's in the wilderness, is he less God?

Is he less the son of God? You see him hungry. You see him tired. You see him sleeping. You see all of the elements of his humanity in our New Testament. And you know what? He's held forth as a man. He wasn't 50 man and 50 God.

That's heresy. He was 100 God and 100 man. He was absolutely a man in all of his faculties, in all of his understanding. He grew in wisdom. How can you do that unless you've grown as a man? He knew what it was to be hungry in his belly and to have thoughts in his mind of maybe a hamburger.

No, they didn't have that then. Of maybe a lamb chop that was kosher. These are very, very real things. You know what the Bible says? He was tempted in every manner as you and I were. Don't tell me he was tempted.

Don't tell me he didn't understand that. Don't tell me the tears in Gethsemane saying, please let this cup pass from me. Don't tell me he didn't really experience that grief of heart, confusion in his mind.