SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/20/2013
7:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus: In the
Garden—Forsaken PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark 14:27-31
Message of the
verses: I want to break this section
of Mark into different smaller sections in order to make sure that we can
understand it better. It is best to
begin with a little review of what has taken place in the life of Jesus and His
disciples before moving on to the events that take place in this section. Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem on
Monday, although most think that it was Sunday.
He came into the city and then got onto a donkey to offer Himself as the
King of Israel, just before than He had been anointed by Mary, the sister of
Martha and Lazarus, for burial. He had
taught in the Temple up until Wednesday, and then prepared to eat the last
Passover meal with His disciples, and then would introduce the first Communion
to take the place of the Passover. At
the end of the Passover meal Judas would go out to the chief priests to betray
our Lord, and then the Communion would began after Judas left. It was during this time that Jesus would wash
the disciple’s feet, He would teach the things to the disciples that are
recorded in John 13-16, and then pray to His Father what is recorded in John
chapter 17. They would sing Psalm 136
and then make their way to the Garden of Gethsemane (“oil press”), where Jesus
would tell His now eleven disciples that they would all betray Him. Peter would be the one who would say to Jesus
that he was ready to go to prison and die with Jesus and all the rest would
agree with him. Jesus would quote
Zechariah 13:7 to His disciples, “"Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may
be scattered.”
As we look at what the
disciples would do, that is run away we may begin to think that there is no
difference between them and Judas. John
MacArthur gives some differences in His sermon on this section of Scripture: “This is an insight into the weakness of the
followers of Jesus. You do remember that our Lord said, as recorded in 8:38,
that whoever was ashamed of Him, He would be ashamed of them. Certainly Judas falls
into the category of those who were permanently and terminally ashamed of Him.
But what about the other eleven? How much different than Judas were they? They
didn’t betray the Lord, they wouldn’t sell the Lord. They wouldn’t have turned
the Lord over, but they certainly appear to be ashamed to be identified with
Him. And before the story ends, of course, no one is more on display as one who
was ashamed to be identified with Christ than Peter. The shame of Judas was the
shame of unbelief. The shame of the eleven was the shame of weakness. The shame of Judas was irretrievable,
without remedy. The shame
of the disciples was temporary and could be turned to faith. In fact,
their story, really, is ended in terms of how we view them in the fifth chapter
of Acts and the forty-first verse where it says, “Of the Apostles, they went on
their way from the presence of the council,” that’s the same Jewish Sanhedrin, “rejoicing
that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.’
“Judas went out and
hanged himself and went to his own place, the Lake of Fire, because his shame was
permanent. The disciples ended up offering their lives in the death of martyrs
because they recovered from their temporary shame. The difference is, they
belong to the Lord and the resources of the Lord were at their disposal.
“So what we learn here
is not about the shame of Judas, not about a permanent, damning shame, but about
a temporary shame from which the followers of Jesus can and do recover. It’s
experience that we all have had because there have been times when each of us
have been ashamed to identify with Christ because we thought we’d be rejected,
because we thought we’d see hostility, because we thought it might bring about
negative consequences. It was Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said, “If you have never
been ashamed to openly proclaim the gospel, it is not because you are so
courageous, it is because you probably don’t understand the gospel.” Because if
you really proclaim the full gospel, you have to confront the sinner in a way
that will cause the sinner to reject what you say and you along with it. And
that can drive us to silence.”
We can see from this
long quote that there is a big difference between what Judas did and what Peter
and the rest of the disciples did, however as we move into the Garden of
Gethsemane we see that Jesus would take Peter, James and John with Him to keep
Him company while He prayed to His Father about what was about to take place
and right after stating that they would be ready to die with Him they could not
even stay awake. I don’t want to get too
far ahead of myself for I really only wanted to cover verses 27-31: “27
And Jesus *said to them, "You will all fall away, because it is
written, ’I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP SHALL BE SCATTERED.’
28 "But after I have been raised, I
will go ahead of you to Galilee." 29
But Peter said to Him, "Even though all may fall away, yet I will
not." 30 And Jesus *said to him,
"Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice,
you yourself will deny Me three times." 31
But Peter kept saying insistently, "Even if I have to die with You,
I will not deny You!" And they all were saying the same thing also.”
The disciples of Jesus
did not really understand what Jesus was telling them in this section where He
tells them that when the Shepherd was struck they would scatter and then He
tells them that He will arise from the dead and they were to meet Him in
Galilee. Dr. Wiersbe writes of this, “Had
they listened to His word and believed it, they would have saved themselves a
great deal of anxiety; and Peter would not have denied the Lord.”
He goes on to write “The
quotation from Zechariah told the disciples what to do when the Jews arrested
Jesus; scatter! In fact, at the very time of His arrest,
Jesus said, ‘Let these [disciples] go their way’ (John 18:8). In other words, ‘Men, get out of here!’ I have read eloquent sermons blaming Peter
for ‘following afar off,’ but they completely miss the point. He was not supposed to follow at all! Had he obeyed the Lord, he would not have
attacked a man with his sword or denied the Lord three times.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to think about denying the Lord as I
look at this section of Scripture even though the denying did not take place
until after this section it was talked about in verses 29-31. I suppose that there have been many times
that I have denied the Lord in subtle ways, by not taking an advantage of witnessing
to a person about how they can be saved from their sin and be assured of a home
in heaven. Things like that, but I have
the same hope to accomplish things for the Lord that Peter and the rest of the
disciples did that are seen in the book of Acts.
My Steps of Faith for
Today:
To continue to learn contentment, to continue to have my mind
transformed by the Word of God so that I can accomplish for the Lord what He
has planned for me to accomplish for Him.
Memory verses for the week:
Psalm 121: 1-7
1 I will lift up my
eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD who made heaven
and earth. 3 He will not allow your foot
to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LOED is your
shade on your right hand. 6 The sun will
not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will protect your soul.
Turning Points Wisdom for today:
“The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in
books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.” (St. John Chrysostom) “Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I
might not sin against You.” (Psalm
11:11)
1/20/2013 9:15 AM
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