SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/17/2024 9:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Sorrow”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 26:36-38
Message of the verses: “36 Then Jesus came
with them to a place called Gethsemane, and *said to His disciples, "Sit
here while I go over there and pray." 37 And He took with Him Peter and
the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. 38 Then He said
to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here
and keep watch with Me.’”
Today
we begin looking at the first aspect of Jesus’ striving in the garden of
Gethsemane, which is entitled “Sorrow.”
This is a fairly long section and so it will probably take several days
to get through it as those who read these Spiritual Diaries on the internet
know that I do not like to hurry when it comes to the study of the Bible, and
that is one reason that I usually get help from John MacArthur’s commentaries
and listen to his sermons on the subject that I am looking at as he certainly
takes his time. It took him five years
to go through the book of Matthew, and I am now in my fifth year in studying
this wonderful gospel account that Matthew wrote.
You
may remember that in verse 35 of Matthew chapter 26 that all of the disciples
echoed Peter’s boast and insisted on their loyalty to Jesus even to the point
of dying with Him if necessary. After
that they moved with Jesus to a place on the Mount of Olives which is called
Gethsemane which was a familiar place that Jesus went to in order to pray and
so Judas knew of this place even though Jesus did not say where they were going
that night.
MacArthur
writes “The name Gethsemane means ‘olive press’ and the garden probably
belonged to a believer who allowed Jesus to use it as a place of retreat and
prayer. As William Barclay points out,
the owner of Gethsemane, like the owner of the donkey which Jesus rode into
Jerusalem and the owner of the upper room, was a nameless friend who ministered
to the Lord during His final hours. ‘In
a desert of hatred,’ Barkley observes, ‘there were still oases of love’ (Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 [Westminster,
1958], p. 384).”
We
do not know for sure but it is likely that the garden had a wall around it and
even a gate which would be where the disciples other than the three he took a
little further in with him, Peter, James and John. MacArthur notes that “He did not use the
normal word for praying (euchomai),
which was often used of asking or petitioning other people, but intensified proseuchomai, which was used only of
praying to God.
I
think that it would be best for me to quote a rather long paragraph from
MacArthur’s commentary at this point. “Jesus
told the disciples two days earlier that ‘after two days the Passover is
coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion’ (26:2). And just a few moments earlier He had told
them, ‘You will all fall away because of Me this night’ (v.31). They knew they were at a crisis point, and,
like their Lord, they should have seen it as a time for deep concern and
fervent prayer. Luke reports that Jesus
told the disciples now that they should ‘pray that [they might] not enter into
temptation’ (Luke 22:40; cf. Matt. 6:13), a warning He later repeated (Matt.
26:41). But there is no indication that
they uttered a single breath of prayer, no hint that they called on the Father
to strengthen them. In smug
self-confidence, they still thought of themselves as loyal, dependable, and
invincible. Like many believers
throughout the history of the church, they foolishly mistook their good
intentions for strength. The sinless Son
of God felt a desperate need for communion with His heaven Father, but His
sinful, weak disciples, as so often they do today, felt no desperation about
their weakness and vulnerability.”
As
mentioned Jesus left the eight disciples at what we described as a possible
gate he took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. Jesus did not want to have his prayer with
His Father interrupted and that is why he left eight of His disciples to watch
for Him. Why he took those three with
Him, Peter, James, and John has been somewhat of a mystery to many
commentators. Jesus had a reason as to why
He did everything that He did, and I think that there may have been several
reasons why He took those three. When He
was on the Mt. of transfiguration those are who He took with Him. Another reason was because of what this did
to them in later years, even in later weeks as they would have remembered
falling asleep and this would bring about growth in their walk with the
Lord. These three men were the leaders
of the disciples would be another reason that Jesus took them with Him to watch
and pray. MacArthur adds “They were, in
fact, the obvious leaders among the Twelve and were the inner circle to whom
Jesus gave special attention throughout His ministry.” With all of this said these were the obvious
choices for whom Jesus took with Him.
In
the next SD I will pick up right where I am leaving off today as I continue
looking at these very important verses from Matthew’s gospel.
5/17/2024 10:24 AM
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