Tuesday, May 28, 2024

PT-6 "Supplication" (Matt. 26:39-45a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/28/2024 9:18 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  PT-6 “Supplication”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Matthew 26:39-45a

 

            Message of the verses:  Me." 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 have to say that most of today’s SD will be quoted from John MacArthur’s commentary, as I have explained earlier that there are times in his commentary where he just writes a lot between the verses that he is looking at and give great information, so I think it best just to copy what he writes and share it with those who read these SD’s on my internet blog posts.

 

            “The fact that Jesus again…came and found them sleeping indicates that the disciples fell asleep even after He had awakened and admonished them.  Their eyes were heavy, and because they would not seep the Father’s help they found themselves powerless even to stay awake, much less to offer intercession for or consolation to their Master.

 

            After He found the disciples sleeping the second time, Jesus left them again, and went away and prayed a third time.  Although the gospels do not indicate it specifically, it would seem possible that, as already mentioned, Jesus had three sessions of prayer in response to three specific waves of Satanic attack, just as in the wilderness.  It took three attempts for Satan to exhaust his malevolent strategy against the Son of God.  Each time Jesus suffered more extreme torment of soul, but each time He responded with absolute resolution to do the Father’s will.  After the third siege, our Lord said the same thing once more to His heavenly Father, that is, ‘Thy will be done’ (see v. 42).

 

            In these prayers, as in all His others, Jesus gives His followers a perfect example.   Not only do we learn to confront temptation with prayer but we learn that prayer is not a means of bending God’s will to our own but of submitting our wills to His.  If Jesus submitted His perfect will to the Father’s, how much more should we submit our imperfect will to His?  True prayer is yielding to what God wants for and of us, regardless of the cost—even if the cost is death.  The nature or character of our praying in the face of temptation should be to cry out to the Lord for His strength to resist the impulse to rebel against God’s will, which is what all sin is.

 

            “We can be sure that the more sincerely we seek to do God’s will, the more severely Satan will attempt to lure us from it, just as he did with Christ.  And like our Lord, our response should be prayerful, single-minded determination to draw near to God.

 

            “After the third time of supplication Jesus was the victor and Satan was vanquished.  The enemy of His soul was defeated, and Christ remained unscathed in perfect harmony with the will of His Father, calmly and submissively ready to suffer and to die.  And in that death He was prepared to take upon Himself the sins of the world.  If the very Son of God needed to cry out to His heavenly Father in time of temptation and grief, how much more do we?  That was the lesson He wanted the eleven and all His other disciples after them, to learn.

 

            “After the third session of prayer, Jesus came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?’  Even after that two rebukes and heartfelt admonitions from the Lord, the three men were still sleeping.  Their eyes were still heavy (cf. v. 43) because they were controlled by the natural rather than by the spiritual.  They were so totally subject to the flesh and its needs that they were indifferent to the needs of Christ.  They were even indifferent to their own deepest needs, because, just as Jesus had warned a short while before, they were about to be overwhelmed by fear for their own lives and by shame of Christ.  Yet instead of following their Master’ example through agonizing in prayer, the blissfully rested in sleep.

 

            “Jesus was teaching the disciples that spiritual victory goes to those who are alert in prayer and who depend on their heavenly Father.  The other side of that lesson, and the one the disciples would learn first, was that self-confidence and unpreparedness are the way to certain spiritual defeat.”

 

            I have studied the gospels of both Mark and John, but my study of Matthew has enlightened me more on what Christ and His disciples went through in learning than the other two gospels I studied.

 

5/28/2024 9:47 AM

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