SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/25/2024 8:43 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-3
“Supplication”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:39-45a
Message of the verses: “39 And He went a
little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as
You will." 40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said
to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41
“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak." 42 He went away again a second time
and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink
it, Your will be done." 43 Again He came and found them sleeping, for
their eyes were heavy. 44 And He left them again, and went away and prayed a
third time, saying the same thing once more. 45 Then He came to the disciples
and *said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?”
I want to begin to talk about the following "My
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Now by the Lord asking “if it is possible,”
Jesus did not wonder if escaping the cross was within the realm of possibility. Jesus knew that He could walk away from death
at any time that He chose to. “I lay
down My life that I may take it up again,” Jesus explained to the unbelieving
Pharisees. “No one has take it away from
Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative.
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up
again” (John 10:17-18). What Jesus was
asking here if avoiding the cross were possible within the Father’s redemptive
plan and purpose. The agony of becoming
sin was becoming unendurable for the sinless Son of God, and so He wondered
aloud before His Father if there could be another way to deliver men from
sin. The humanness of our Lord surely
can be seen in these requests that He is asking His Father, and this shows that
Jesus Christ was truly both human and God, 100% both, and don’t ask me to
explain that.
MacArthur
writes “God’s wrath and judgment are often pictured in the Old Testament as a
cup to be drunk (see, e. g., Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17: Jer. 49:12). This cup symbolized the suffering Jesus would
endure on the cross, the cup of God’s fury vented against all the sins of
mankind, which the Son would take upon Himself as the sacrificial Lamb of God.
“As
always with Jesus, the determining consideration was God’s will. ‘I did not speak on My own initiative,’ He
declared, ‘but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to
say, and what to speak’ (John 12:49; cf. 14:31; 17:8). He therefore said submissively, ‘Yet not as I
will, but as Thou wilt.’ This conflict
between what I will and what Thou wilt reveal the reality of the amazing fact that
Jesus was truly being tempted. Though
sinless and unable to sin, He clearly could be brought into the real conflict
of temptation (see Heb. 4:14).” “For we
do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One
who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
In the next SD we will see what happens when the
Lord goes back to find His three disciples still sleeping. 5/25/2024 9:07 AM
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