Sunday, May 26, 2024

PT-4 "Supplication" (Matt. 26:39-45a"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2024 7:26 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  PT-4 “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?”

 

            The following is something that I find very interesting, and it has to do with who Jesus Christ really is as He is 100% God and 100% human and so Jesus knew that His disciples would be sleeping  when He returned to them He found them sleeping.  The point I am trying to make is that even though Jesus found them sleeping because of His deity He knew that they would be sleeping, but because of His humanness it still hurt Him that they could not stay awake to watch and pray with him in the last hours of His life.

 

            When one goes back and looks at what is called the “transfiguration” found in Luke 9:28, and 32 they will see that the disciples were also sleeping at the moment to. Now they were sleeping at the moment of the greatest spiritual conflict in the history of the world.  These three were oblivious to the agony and need of their Lord.  However despite His warnings of their abandonment and of Peter’s denial, they felt no need to be alert, much less to seek God’s strength and protection.  MacArthur writes (How we can thank the Lord for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who continually prays for us!  See Rom. 8:26-27.)”  “26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27  and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

 

            MacArthur explains the following:  “It was probably after midnight, and the need for sleep at that hour was natural.  Jesus and the disciples had had a long and eventful day, and the they had just finished a large meal and walked perhaps a mile or so from the upper room to the Mount of Olives.  But even the disciples’ limited and confused perception of His imminent ordeal and of their desertion of Him that He had predicted should have motivated and engerized them enough to stay awake with Him at this obviously grave time.

 

            “In fairness, it should be noted that sleep is often a means of escape, and the disciples may have slept more out of frustration, confusion, and depression than apathy.  They could not bring themselves to face the truth that their dear friend and Lord, the promised Messiah of Israel, not only would suffer mockery and pain at the hands of wicked men but would even be put to death by them.  As a physician, Luke perhaps was especially diagnostic in viewing their emotional state, and he reports that, as we might expect, they were ‘sleeping from sorrow’ (22:45).

 

            “But even that reason did not excuse their lack of vigilance.  They did not fully believe Jesus’ predictions of His death and of their desertion primarily because they did not want to believe them.  Had they accepted Jesus’ word at face value, their minds and emotions would have been far too exercised to allow sleep.

 

            “The startling events and controversies of the last few days—the institution of the Lord’s Super, Jesus’ repeated predictions of His suffering and death, the prediction of their fleeing in the time of trial, and the obvious anguish He now experienced—should have provided more than sufficient motivation and energy to keep them awake.  But it did not.  Had they sought the Father’s help in prayer as Jesus did and as He exhorted them to do, they not only would have stayed awake but would have been given the spiritual strength and courage they so desperately needed.”

 

            With that we will, Lord willing pick up more in the next SD.  This is a very long section in MacArthur’s commentary as he has much to say about these verses.

 

5/26/2024 7:54 AM

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