SPEAKER_00: Show the glory to the Lord and uh comfort to us, but quite frankly, the thoughts are heavy until we see the completion of it.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to uh look with you at something that's written in starting with the Hebrew letter, the letter to the Hebrews, but we'll end up going to the gospel accounts as well.
SPEAKER_00: What I particularly want us to consider about our Lord Jesus Christ this morning would be found in the seventh verse of the fifth chapter.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to kind of get it there by going up to start in the fourth chapter and the fourteenth verse.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just start there, just because we need to start somewhere that's not the first verse of the first chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Um as he writes, seeing then, this is the fourth chapter, 14th verse, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
SPEAKER_00: For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_00: Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is such a beautiful truth, to know that we have access to the very throne that the king of the universe sits on right now and rules and reigns.
SPEAKER_00: He is in perfect control of all things.
SPEAKER_00: He is not, it does not tell us he controls all things or that he is involved in any way in the movements of sin in this world.
SPEAKER_00: He is not using them to bring about something good.
SPEAKER_00: He is, in fact, so opposed to sin that what we're gonna find later, that's what's gonna weigh heavy on my mind.
SPEAKER_00: He is not working sin for our good or any sin or the consequences of sin, which includes all of the sorrows and woes that come upon us in this life.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that when God made this world, there was no sorrows, there was no tears, there was no pain, there was no sickness, there was nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It was good, and in fact, very good, he says.
SPEAKER_00: God made man upright.
SPEAKER_00: It says, but man has sought out many inventions.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's man's fault for everything bad that has ever happened.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice something, and I've said this before, I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_00: It's not woman's fault.
SPEAKER_00: The woman was in the man.
SPEAKER_00: The law was given to Adam, to the man, he created the man, and he gave him the law.
SPEAKER_00: Romans tells us plainly that by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not to say, all of you women, you your mothers, that you're sinless.
SPEAKER_00: You're not, you're just as big a sinner as every man.
SPEAKER_00: But the ultimate, because we all come from the one source of all sin, and that's the first man Adam.
SPEAKER_00: He brought sin into this world, he brought death by sin, cursed this earth and all creation.
SPEAKER_00: Every bad thing that happens is laid at the feet of the first man Adam that sinned against God.
SPEAKER_00: And he brought death in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want you to understand is death, God did not, people have asked the question.
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it this way.
SPEAKER_00: People have asked the question, why did God even do that?
SPEAKER_00: If he was going to have to punish them for why'd he give them a law that he would then have to punish them for God did not say that if you send, that if you eat the fruit, I will punish you with death.
SPEAKER_00: No, what he said is God said, It the day you eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a punishment, it's a consequence.
SPEAKER_00: It's just as sure as if I tell my children, if you touch that hot stove, you're gonna get burned.
SPEAKER_00: And then they touched the hot stove.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't punish them with a burn.
SPEAKER_00: The burn is just what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural consequence for sin.
SPEAKER_00: God told them what will happen.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he mean by death?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't mean I'll strike you down dead.
SPEAKER_00: We know that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: Adam did not fall down dead.
SPEAKER_00: What happened was he immediately, instantaneously, as soon as he broke God's commandment, was separated from God, and that's called death.
SPEAKER_00: Death is separation.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the word death means separation of the life, the soul and spirit, from the body.
SPEAKER_00: And we call that corporal death or natural death or the death of the body.
SPEAKER_00: But you you um hope are aware that the soul and the spirit never dies.
SPEAKER_00: Like the soul of a child of God who's already been quickened by the spirit of God, that has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: You have eternal life dwelling in you.
SPEAKER_00: The moment this body lays down the death, no matter what the age is, when that body lays down, that soul and spirit is immediately in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's alive, it's awake, aware, it is rejoicing in the presence of God, like it will be forever.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more change to that soul and spirit.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as it's made alive by God, it is perfect, holy, and ready for heaven, and it goes straight there.
SPEAKER_00: The soul doesn't die, but the body dies.
SPEAKER_00: That's a separation of the life from the body.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's other ways we use the term death in scripture and even in our common terminology.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard someone say, You're dead to me?
SPEAKER_00: You're not actually dead, you're just separated from the fellowship of that person, maybe forever.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Or there's a scripture that in Colossians, I think it tells us if you then be risen with Christ, set your affections on things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God on that throne.
SPEAKER_00: Um, like then it says, for ye are dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's a present tense, dead.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying this to church people who he just said are risen with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next thing he says is, You are dead.
SPEAKER_00: How's that work?
SPEAKER_00: He says, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
SPEAKER_00: How's that work?
SPEAKER_00: How do you understand that someone who is risen with Christ and whose life is hid with Christ is dead?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the way you explain that is what there you're now dead to sin.
SPEAKER_00: You were dead in sins.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 2 says, You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to explain wherein and wherein, in that state, in time past, you walked, according to the Prince of the Power of the air.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying you acted, you moved, you had the motions of sin working in you, but you were dead in sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know when that happened for each of you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know when it happened for me.
SPEAKER_00: To be honest with you, I don't know when God made me alive in Christ and dead to sin.
SPEAKER_00: When he separated me from the dominion and power of sin, but not from the presence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But it happened at some early point in my life because I don't recall a time when I had no love toward God.
SPEAKER_00: Some people might say they recall a time they had no love toward God, but I will tell you, for the vast majority of people, I believe it works a lot more like natural life than you would ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning you were a naturally alive, born child of your parents for a long time before you ever understood you were alive and who your parents were, right?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anyone in here who remembers the day of their birth?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: If you can tell me what it was like the day you were born, I want to hear that story.
SPEAKER_00: I think it would be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: No one knows, no one knows their natural life's beginning, but you do know there was a time that you started to understand that you were a living person and you started to understand who that beautiful voice was, and then you knew someone told you, maybe, to call that person mother, right?
SPEAKER_00: To call them mama, and you're like, I now know who that voice is that I've been hearing for so long, and it and it's resonating.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what it's like with spiritual birth.
SPEAKER_00: I believe more often than than not, you were born again at a time before that you really didn't know you weren't alive.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't even know you weren't alive, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then you're quickened.
SPEAKER_00: God says, live and you live.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Ezekiel tells us he's gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus tells us that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
SPEAKER_00: So God does this work, does it all by himself.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need help, he doesn't need means, he certainly doesn't need some poor person like me to preach something to you so that he can work his will and you know he comes to his children and he says, live, and you live.
SPEAKER_00: Then there starts to be the process of living.
SPEAKER_00: And the process of living spiritually is a lot like the process of living naturally.
SPEAKER_00: You grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes your growth is stunted, sometimes your growth doesn't happen at all.
SPEAKER_00: But but there's a growing process, but none of that is making you more alive.
SPEAKER_00: You understand?
SPEAKER_00: You're as alive as you'll ever be spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've gone off on a tangent, but the point that I want us to understand is that death doesn't always mean the body dies.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's readily just apparent, it's clear.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you look at a few ways that the word death is used, death is not a punishment for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Originally speaking, I'm not saying God doesn't use death as a punishment, but the fact that death entered the world was a consequence.
SPEAKER_00: So we can't charge God with having set us up to fail by even giving a law.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't give a law that we could be like, well, if they'll keep it, then it'll go be good.
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't keep it, no, he gave a law because he is holy and required of his made in his image creature.
SPEAKER_00: The only creature made in his image, the only thing he made of all creation that he loved with an everlasting love and has a desire to have them as his family.
SPEAKER_00: They must be like he is, holy.
SPEAKER_00: And so he gives a law, a law that defines holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Just do what God said.
SPEAKER_00: All right, and he's like, one little law, one seemingly simple thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, to not do.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he didn't even give Adam a hard thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: He gave him one thing not to do.
SPEAKER_00: You would think of all the things you could ever command someone, just don't do that one thing, and that would be.
SPEAKER_00: But you know the phrase, you can't unbite the apple.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God could not say, well, that was a mulligan.
SPEAKER_00: You get a mulligan, you get a past, and we'll try again.
SPEAKER_00: God could not do that.
SPEAKER_00: God is holy and righteous, and he was instantly offended.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not just like he felt bad.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we say when we're offended.
SPEAKER_00: Like we say, we we you offended me, you know, it I feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what God means when He when He was offended.
SPEAKER_00: It means that His very nature of holiness and righteousness had been crossed in a way it was marred, it He wasn't marred, but the relationship with God and His creature who he loved was marred forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: It could not be erased except righteously and justly, God could not just ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what we will find throughout Scripture is God hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: He hates sin by nature, by his nature.
SPEAKER_00: It is so diametrically opposed to the holiness and righteousness of God that he must deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: And there's anger and indignation against sin.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 7, he says the Lord is angry with the wicked every day.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get it exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it when I don't quote things exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 7, I believe that's where it is.
SPEAKER_00: Um to see if I'm right.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just scan real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe it's not.
SPEAKER_00: So but there is a uh there is a verse that says that the Lord is angry with the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it is in some.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, verse 11, I found it.
SPEAKER_00: God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
SPEAKER_00: So there's not a single day that God is like at peace or with the wicked or with sin.
SPEAKER_00: You might say, was that us too?
SPEAKER_00: Well, by nature, it includes me.
SPEAKER_00: By nature.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Ephesians chapter 2 does tell me that I was by nature, and you too, by the way, children of wrath.
SPEAKER_00: It says, even as others.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, the next verse says, but God, who was rich in rich.
SPEAKER_00: The next verse tells us God did something about this.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to understand first our nature.
SPEAKER_00: Our nature is no different.
SPEAKER_00: Every single person who will be in heaven is no different by nature than every person who will be in hell.
SPEAKER_00: So what makes the difference?
SPEAKER_00: There's a verse where it says, Who maketh thee to differ?
SPEAKER_00: God makes you to differ, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You don't make you to differ.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to understand God hates sin, he's angry with the wicked every day, he has indignation.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Malachi about uh Esau, when Paul quotes this in the New Testament in Romans, when he says, Um, I've loved Jacob, Jacob have I love, but Esau have I hated, he stops there.
SPEAKER_00: But Malachi, the continuation of the quote, is not just how he feels about Esau and the people that he represents, which is those that are not God's elect people.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's laid his heritage to waste, and he has indignation, a people that the Lord shall have indignation for forever.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now what makes that difference?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it isn't Jacob, it wasn't Esau, it isn't you, it isn't me, it's not what we do.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually based on the love of God, which he had before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 1, he tells us, You hath he are according to he has chosen us in him from for the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end goal, purpose, and will of God for those that he loved before the world even began.
SPEAKER_00: When he made the world, when he said, Let there be light, he didn't do that as a, oh, let's just see what we can do, let's make some things.
SPEAKER_00: He had you in mind.
SPEAKER_00: He already knew you, he already loved you, and he had already chosen you because he loved you and placed you in Christ, where Christ would be your second.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about second man Adam or second representative head.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a whole subject that I'd have to back time up to start into, but let's just point out there are only two men ever in the world that represented those that God put him as the representative of.
SPEAKER_00: Adam, the first man, Adam, and then Christ is called the second man Adam.
SPEAKER_00: The second man that represents men.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's why Adam is used.
SPEAKER_00: The word Adam actually means man, and therefore Christ is called the second man that represents men.
SPEAKER_00: Adam brought the consequence of his action on all that he represented.
SPEAKER_00: Christ brought the salvation, the redemption, the atonement to all that he represented.
SPEAKER_00: So we're told that he was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: He knew no sin, but he was made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember we have a problem.
SPEAKER_00: We are sinners by nature, and God hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: What's the remedy?
SPEAKER_00: It isn't that he overlooks it, he couldn't just pass it by, couldn't sweep it under the rug, it must be dealt with the same way he'll deal with everyone that Christ didn't represent, the exact same way.
SPEAKER_00: But if we had to face it, we couldn't.
SPEAKER_00: David writes, Lord, if thou shouldest mark iniquity, who will stand?
SPEAKER_00: Who can stand?
SPEAKER_00: If God's keeping a tally of iniquities, one is enough.
SPEAKER_00: We can't stand before God.
SPEAKER_00: He hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: You ever hear the phrase love the sinner, hate the sin?
SPEAKER_00: That's something we're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: See, God loves sinners, his people, he hates the sin so much so that if the sin is before him, he cannot embrace that.
SPEAKER_00: We could not stand before God if he marked iniquity, if he actually took account of it.
SPEAKER_00: But he must take account because he is a righteous and holy God.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we reconcile those things?
SPEAKER_00: It's done in the person of our high priest, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why when we talk about this text that we were bequoting, we have this high priest.
SPEAKER_00: We can come boldly to this throne of grace, it says, is a throne of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Because he, it says, um, was in all points tempted, like as we are yet without sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now that goes deeper than he was hungry.
SPEAKER_00: It definitely starts out.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't get me wrong, he understands what the physical life is like being in this way.
SPEAKER_00: He walked everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: I just walked a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Um, like a few weeks we were over helping Kaylee move out of her dorm, and I got tired.
SPEAKER_00: Like up and down the stairs, you know, carrying some stuff, and I got physically tired.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the best in shape person either, but the Lord knows what it's like to get tired.
SPEAKER_00: He walked everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what it's like to um spend a night um not in a comfortable bed, getting a great night's sleep because he had nowhere to lay his head.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He um he knows what it's like to be hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really hungry.
SPEAKER_00: A hunger that some of you I know have never faced.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of you you're like, I'm hungry, I haven't eaten in three hours.
SPEAKER_00: Like the Lord knew what it was like to be really hungry.
SPEAKER_00: He went 40 days without food.
SPEAKER_00: He knows, and he he wasn't like superman who didn't feel those things, he felt them.
SPEAKER_00: But he also knew what it was like to be alone, to have people forsake him, even his closest people forsook him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, eventually, all forsook him.
SPEAKER_00: He knew more than we do because even his father had to forsake him.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never know that.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel like you know that, but you don't know that.
SPEAKER_00: Because God, because Christ suffered being forsaken in your stead, you'll never.
SPEAKER_00: Ever be forsaken.
SPEAKER_00: God will keep his promise when he said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: When you feel like you're all alone, you aren't.
SPEAKER_00: You have a high priest who has felt everything that you could possibly feel.
SPEAKER_00: But it goes deeper than that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it goes to a place that we can't understand.
SPEAKER_00: We can't comprehend what the Lord felt in our place.
SPEAKER_00: He who was without sin, when he was made to be sin for us, he felt something that we'll never feel.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I do feel at times the chastisement of my Father God against my sins.
SPEAKER_00: I feel his displeasure.
SPEAKER_00: I feel his anger at his righteous anger against my sinfulness and the way I disobey him.
SPEAKER_00: But that's what is referred to as chastisement, which Scripture tells us is for the time is not joyous.
SPEAKER_00: It's not joyous, it's grievous, but afterward yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just, let me put that in a little like more modern and easier for me to understand terms.
SPEAKER_00: It means that when God is like bringing chastisement, it's for your good and your correction so that you will do it better next time.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same reason we're supposed to chastise our children, it's to teach, to instruct, to encourage the proper behavior.
SPEAKER_00: It's not punishment in the sense that it is meant to inflict just pain.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to bring about righteousness or pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does with his children.
SPEAKER_00: It says that he chastises everyone he loves and every son he receives.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get that exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: But basically, if you're a child of God, he's going to bring correction.
SPEAKER_00: But let's never conflate that with wrath.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the right terminology.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: As we move forward, I'm going to skip some of these verses in Hebrews to get to the seventh verse just because of time.
SPEAKER_00: But the verses that I'm skipping are basically saying that there's no high priest that ever chose to be the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: They had to be God's chosen high priest.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron was chosen by God.
SPEAKER_00: His children, God said they're going to be the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: Same with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christ didn't glorify himself and said, I'm going to be the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: God said, You're my son, you're my high priest.
SPEAKER_00: This is on you.
SPEAKER_00: God placed him in that position.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Christ is God.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that that gets somewhat, sometimes it's confusing in my brain.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, God, Christ is God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he is.
SPEAKER_00: But we have the trinity, the triumph Godhead, the Father, and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: And the Son said, Jesus said, I came to do not my will, but the will of him that sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So he came to do his father's will.
SPEAKER_00: His father gave him a job, if you'll let me say it that way.
SPEAKER_00: He gave him a job to go and to take on these very sins of all of my children, of all God's children.
SPEAKER_00: Now, um what he's going to say here in verse 6, he says, in another place, this is God saying, You're my priest, thou art a priest forever.
SPEAKER_00: Um after the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: And kind of like the writer of Hebrews, I'm like, I can't talk about that right now.
SPEAKER_00: Um I love that subject.
SPEAKER_00: But basically, what he's saying is, God had said a long time ago in history, even before there was a Levitical or Aaronic priesthood, even before there was the law, God said, I choose my priest.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I picked this guy named Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come from a lineage, didn't come from Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he was older than Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he's the priest of the most high God.
SPEAKER_00: So God says, I choose my priest.
SPEAKER_00: It's basically what that's about.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next verse talking about Jesus Christ, not Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: The next verse is talking about who, talking about Christ, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard, and that he feared.
SPEAKER_00: That's a, again, it seems a pretty heady verse.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, while he was alive on this earth, once he was, God manifest in the flesh, he was here on this earth, it's saying that he, in those, in that time, he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we know that Jesus prayed to the Father all throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed and he tells us a lot of his prayers.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I prayed for you.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, he says, I have prayed for thee.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He prays for these that God has that the Father had given him, his disciples, that they would be one.
SPEAKER_00: He prays for those that will hear their word and believe on him through their word.
SPEAKER_00: That's even you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Christ prayed a lot.
SPEAKER_00: It said that he went up into a mountain and prayed, like the day before he went and chose his twelve apostles.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed a lot, but there's one particular time of prayer that you can look, when you look at that event in Christ's life and you think about strong crying and tears, you're gonna have to feel like this fits more than any other prayer the Lord offered up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when he was sitting there in front of Lazarus' tomb, and he said, I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearst me always.
SPEAKER_00: He was praying to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't strong crying or tears there.
SPEAKER_00: I know it said Jesus wept in that context, but I wouldn't put that in this strong crying and tears.
SPEAKER_00: This seems to be a very heavy prayer in particular.
SPEAKER_00: If we go and look in look in Matthew first, Matthew chapter 26.
SPEAKER_00: Now this would come right after the Lord had in that upper room instituted what we will here do at grace next Sunday, the Lord's Supper, the taking from the Passover the bread, the wine, he would teach about his suffering that would shortly come to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And then they went out into the Garden of Gethsemane, it was called.
SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 36, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: Now he had already, by the way, told Peter, who said, I'll die with you, I'll die for you.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what, I'll never forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You're going to deny me three times before the rooster even crows.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out in verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: Then cometh Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said unto the disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder.
SPEAKER_00: And he took with him Peter and two sons of Zebedeeus, James and John, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
SPEAKER_00: This is a different prayer than anything he had faced or that we had read about him praying before.
SPEAKER_00: Sorrowful, very heavy.
SPEAKER_00: He says unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: Tear ye here and watch with me.
SPEAKER_00: And he went a little further.
SPEAKER_00: He fell on his face, and here's what he prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
SPEAKER_00: You might have heard this before, and I hope if you have, you've heard it from an old Baptist minister who preached what I'm about to say about this, because it, but regardless.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand right off the bat, he is not asking for a way out.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing we want to lay out.
SPEAKER_00: Back in Hebrews, I don't think I finished reading that verse, but what he said was he offered up prayers of strong or crying and strong tears.
SPEAKER_00: And he was to him that was able to save him from death.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you might say, well, see, he was praying to the one who's able to keep this from all happening.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what it says, and it's not what the Lord was doing.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Lord was specifically many times telling his disciples that I've come for this purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And there were times he'd say, For this hour came I, or he'd say, This my hour is not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I think it's in Matthew chapter 7 or 16.
SPEAKER_00: You might remember the Lord telling Peter, like, or asking him, who say men that I am, and who do ye say that I am?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter speaks up and says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood is not revealed this to thee.
SPEAKER_00: It was right after that, blessed statement of Peter, that Jesus begins to tell them, this is verse 21 of Matthew 16, that from that time forward Jesus began to show to his disciples how that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day.
SPEAKER_00: This is really early in Matthew here, and then we get to Matthew 26, he's gonna all of a sudden be praying for another way.
SPEAKER_00: No, in fact, Peter says, There must be another way.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a be it far from thee, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That won't happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to Peter in verse 23, he says, He turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: For thou art an offense unto me, for thou savorest not the things of God, but those that be of men.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he's not confused that who Peter is.
SPEAKER_00: He knows who Peter is.
SPEAKER_00: He knows Peter's his child.
SPEAKER_00: He loves Peter.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, he's not saying Peter is Satan.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is the idea that Jesus would not do the will of the Father, that's an idea that comes from Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Get that behind me.
SPEAKER_00: That is an offense.
SPEAKER_00: To even think that Jesus would not willingly and completely go through with exactly what God told him and sent him to do is an offense to him.
SPEAKER_00: No way.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Isaiah 51, it tells us that he set his face as it were a flint.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard and firm, straight direction.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to go.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 41, maybe two, I don't know, but it says, Behold my servant whom my elect and whom my soul delight.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, He shall not fail nor be discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't be turned from doing exactly what God said.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't, in the garden, all of a sudden, decide to pray for another way.
SPEAKER_00: He's not praying to the one, he's not praying to God to save him from dying.
SPEAKER_00: He's praying that he would be saved from death.
SPEAKER_00: This cup that he prayed, if it be possible, that it would pass.
SPEAKER_00: There's other places that the cup is used.
SPEAKER_00: The cup is referred to.
SPEAKER_00: There's a cup referred to in Psalm 75.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 75, verse 7, says, But God is the judge, he putth down one and setteth up another.
SPEAKER_00: For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup.
SPEAKER_00: And the wine is red.
SPEAKER_00: It is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same.
SPEAKER_00: But the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them.
SPEAKER_00: In this psalm, he's saying that there's a cup in the hand of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds, it's like, oh, that sounds good.
SPEAKER_00: There's a cup.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, that right?
SPEAKER_00: Is that a joyful cup?
SPEAKER_00: Like David when he writes, uh, My cup overfloweth.
SPEAKER_00: That's a joyful cup overflowing, but this doesn't sound like a joyful cup.
SPEAKER_00: This sounds like a cup that's gonna be wrung out and drank by the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: In another place, um, and I gotta remember where this place is.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna go the one in Revelation so that we can move forward and close and get to a place to close.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation, um about the um verse chapter fourteen.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it is now.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Found it.
SPEAKER_00: Um verse nine and and then ten.
SPEAKER_00: Verse nine says, and the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast in his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds horrible.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wrath of God against sin.
SPEAKER_00: That, quite frankly, anyone who Christ did not die for is going to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to.
SPEAKER_00: We are by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to remember that you're not what you were.
SPEAKER_00: You were dead in sins, but now you're quickened, you're alive.
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ drank that cup.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what he's praying is not, and I want you to understand the sorrow and the heaviness.
SPEAKER_00: The sorrow and the heaviness is not that he has to go through it, it's that he's going to go through it.
SPEAKER_00: It's that he already feels, though it hasn't happened yet, he can see it.
SPEAKER_00: He's always known he was going to do this.
SPEAKER_00: He knew this was why he came.
SPEAKER_00: But here it is.
SPEAKER_00: This moment has come.
SPEAKER_00: And he hasn't, he's not yet bearing our sins because it says he bore our sins and his body on the tree, but he's feeling it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is heavy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Luke gives us a descriptive term.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's account of this says that he was bowed down.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's in Luke chapter 22.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing, it says the same thing in verse 43, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit different wording, but he's praying the same prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.
SPEAKER_00: And there appeared an oh where?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening him.
SPEAKER_00: And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And let's not misread that.
SPEAKER_00: His sweat was falling to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: The metaphor is his sweat was so heavy that when it fell to the ground, it was like great drops of blood.
SPEAKER_00: As it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in that much agony?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever, I haven't even come close, but I will tell you there was one time that I sweated more than I ever remember sweating.
SPEAKER_00: Like um recently I was doing some work and I was sweating.
SPEAKER_00: It was just a little bit of sweat, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But I one time, one time in the middle of the summer in a sweltering day, I had a tire that was um I needed to change.
SPEAKER_00: And I was having a hard time with that lug nut thing.
SPEAKER_00: And I was so I was bent over and I was sweating profusely.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the the point is I was bent over.
SPEAKER_00: And so my sweat didn't run down my head, my sweat dropped, and I'd watched it plop on the ground like it was a raindrop that had hit the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when I understood what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't anywhere near in the agony of the Lord, don't get me wrong, but I was in a posture like the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: What he's telling us here is the agony the Lord felt at the at what's coming was so great, he was so in drenched with sweat, and his posture was such that it just fell straight to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: He was praying head down, and it was just falling, big drops hitting the ground.
SPEAKER_00: So don't misread this.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying he was bleeding in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: There was no blood here.
SPEAKER_00: There was sweat that was like blood, as it were, great drops of, as it were, is a metaphor.
SPEAKER_00: So that I put that to bed.
SPEAKER_00: But don't lighten this moment.
SPEAKER_00: What he's feeling is this impending moment where the wrath of God, the cup of the wrath of God that will be wringed out and drank by the wicked, that will, to the very dreads we read, be drank by all the wicked, that he's going to have to take.
SPEAKER_00: The next verse or few down, he says, verse 42, he went away again the second time and prayed, saying, Oh my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, that might sound like he's saying, Okay, if I have to drink it, but no, he's actually saying, Let it finish.
SPEAKER_00: Let this come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, it's not gonna pass.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't we don't do a whole lot of passing the cups.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't, um, in our communion service, we have individual cups.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I know my dad grew up in a church that had one cup.
SPEAKER_00: So they literally passed the cup, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But you weren't supposed to drink the whole cup.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to take ASIP and then pass it.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is the only one that is going to drink this cup.
SPEAKER_00: And this cup, he's saying, it's not, let it pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: But there's no way it can pass if there's anything left in it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the cup of the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying is, let me come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: If it, but then, and this is the really amazing point.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.
SPEAKER_00: So, what he's saying is, if I I I know I have to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: The wrath of God the judge against the sin that is my people's, I have to suffer that wrath.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, let it come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: Now the wicked will be forever.
SPEAKER_00: He says, indignation forever.
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they can never finish.
SPEAKER_00: They can never finish suffering for their sins against an eternal, holy God.
SPEAKER_00: They can't satisfy that.
SPEAKER_00: But Christ, being eternal and holy and harmless himself, had the ability to satisfy the righteous law of God, the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying is if I must forever suffer for my people, then thy will be done.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying he's willing to drink that cup of wrath for you, so you don't have to, if it was necessary, forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's to me the most amazing and heavy thing.
SPEAKER_00: And yet what we find is in Hebrews it says, he offered up those strong prayers and cryings unto him that was able to save him from death.
SPEAKER_00: Again, not save him from dying, but save him from death.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ must die.
SPEAKER_00: He must die not just physically, but the death, the eternal separation from God, and the wrath against sin that we owed.
SPEAKER_00: Every bit of it, all the way to the very dregs.
SPEAKER_00: You ever drink a cup, and then at the end, it's still, you think it's finished, but it tips over and still spills a little because there's still a little in there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about you over where you leave like a quarter of it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about like, I think I got it all, and it still spills out.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't leave a drop.
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't leave a drop.
SPEAKER_00: If there was one bit of wrath that is still owed by a child of his that Christ did not completely suffer, then we're doomed.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can't stand before God.
SPEAKER_00: But he prayed and God heard his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and he was heard in that he feared.
SPEAKER_00: Not that he was scared, but that he respected and reverenced God as the judge who must deal with sin.
SPEAKER_00: He respected that and he prayed, if it be possible, let this pass from me, meaning, let it be finished.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, if it's not possible, nevertheless not my will but thine be done.
SPEAKER_00: And he knew that God must deal with that sin and he was heard.
SPEAKER_00: And God delivered him from that death because he was satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: He was completely satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: There is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: He suffered all of the condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: There is no wrath of God that is ever going to come on you.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered all of the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: There is no more debt of sin for you to pay.
SPEAKER_00: Now there is now for us, as children of God, who are alive in Christ, a commandment to follow him as his children, to obey him as his children.
SPEAKER_00: He will deal with us as children, but he will never deal with us in our sins, in our wrath, because Christ has completely covered it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we can go boldly before the throne of grace and have find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because our high priest didn't just feel the natural things we feel.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just feel the emotions and sorrows that we feel.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just one who was tempted in all natural points like we are.
SPEAKER_00: He was one that very, that bore the very sins that would separate us from God and took them out of the way so that they never separate you from God again.
SPEAKER_00: You are never going to be alone or forsaken because Christ endured that for you.
SPEAKER_00: I hope and pray that that was clear and that it was a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Most of all, that it glorified our Lord, our Savior, and our God.
SPEAKER_00: If there's any that wish to join with Grace Church, you have that opportunity and we stand and sing a hymn.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have a number?
SPEAKER_00: Number two hundred and ninety one.
SPEAKER_00: Number two nine one.