GOD’S WORD FOR OCTOBER 18

We are using Charles Spurgeon book, “The Risen King.”  It’s a collection of well chosen excerpts from Spurgeon’s  “Easter” sermons in devotional form, put together by Jeff Medders.   Pastor Spurgeon lived from 1834 to 1892  in London, England, and had a unique gift of understanding and showing the depth of our faith.  Thus, his reverential title as the Prince of Preachers.   Even though we’re not in or near that season, every day is a good day to focus on Christ’s sacrifice and victory for us!

GREAT DROPS OF BLOOD

Luke 22:42-44

(Jesus said), “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.  And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Our Lord, after having eaten and celebrated the Passover supper with His disciples, went with them to the Mount of Olives and entered the Garden of Gethsemane.  What induced Him to select that place to be the scene of His terrible agony?  As in a garden Adam’s self-indulgence ruined us, so in another garden the agonies of the second Adam should restore us.  Gethsemane supplies the medicine for the ills which followed the forbidden fruit of Eden.  It was in this garden where our Lord Jesus meant us to see that our sin changed everything about Him into sorrow; it turned His riches into poverty, His peace into pain, His glory into shame.

So, in the place of His peaceful retirement, where in holy devotion He had been in communion with God, our sin transformed into the focus of His sorrow, the center of His woe.

His pleading in the garden became so fervent, so intense, that it forced from Him a bloody sweat.  We believe that, at this time, our Lord had a very clear view of all the shame and suffering of His crucifixion.  The agony was just one of the first drops of the tremendous shower which discharged itself upon His head.  He foresaw the speedy coming of the traitor-disciple, the seizure by the officers, the mock trials before the Sanhedrin,  Pilate and Herod, the scourging and beating, the crown of thorns, the shame, the spitting.  All these rose up before His mind, and as it is a general law of our nature that the foresight of trial is more grievous than the trial itself, we can conceive of how it was that He did not speak a word when in the midst of the conflict but could not restrain Himself from strong crying and tears at the prospect of it. 

Beloved readers, if you can bring before your mind’s eye the terrible incidents of His death – the hounding through the streets of Jerusalem, the nailing to the cross, the fever, the thirst, and, above all, the forsaking of His God – you cannot wonder that He began to be in great agony and physical weakness.

We see that Christ became exceedingly weak because an angel came from heaven to strengthen Him – for the holy angels never do anything that is superfluous.  But how strange it sounds to our ears that the Lord of life and glory would become so weak that He should need to be strengthened by one of His own creatures!  How extraordinary it seems that He, who is “very God of very God.” Should, nevertheless,  when He appeared on earth as Immanuel, so completely take on our nature that He should become so weak as to need to be sustained by angelic agency!  Yet, this incident proves the reality of our Savior’s human frailty.

Here you can perceive how fully He shares the weakness of our humanity – not in spiritual weakness, so as to become guilty of any sin, but in mental weakness, so as to be capable of great depression of spirit; and in physical weakness, so as to be exhausted, to the last degree by His terrible bloody sweat.  Learn the real humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Do not think of Him as God only, though He is assuredly divine, but feel Him to be close in likeness to you:  bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh.  How thoroughly He can sympathize with you!  He has been burdened with all your burdens and grieved with all your griefs.  Jesus can sympathize with you in all your sorrows, for He has suffered far more than you have ever suffered and is able to help you in your temptations.  Take hold of Jesus as your familiar friend – your brother born for adversity – and you will have obtained a comfort which will bear you through the uttermost deeps.

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Matthew 26:39

“He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

Romans 5:9

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Mark 14:38

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Matthew 26:40

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?’

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Below is something from my website,    www.liveinthelightofourlord.com   that I wrote  sometime before 2015  and I think it would fit with today’s writing:  There are over 400 writings on that website that I put on through the years.  

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE?

We know of the cross, of the Resurrection, but how much do we know about what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before Christ was crucified? The Bible tells us that Our Lord was in agony, to the point of sweating great drops of blood.

He prayed to His Father that this cup would be taken from Him, if possible, but then His great love for you and me caused Him to willingly take the cup. What cup? Many assume He meant the agony of dying on the cross. Partly, that was true, but I don’t believe that was the primary dread on His mind. He, no doubt, had seen crucifixions, He knew what He was in for, but there was something far more important on His mind right then.

That important thing was His future Bride. His Bride that was to become His as a result of what was going to happen the next day. But the great joy in knowing this was blackened by the knowledge of what she will have to suffer before they can become one.

The Bride I speak of, of course, is the Christian church. That body of people who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The people who have gone down the “strait and narrow path”  that He spoke of in Matthew 7:13 &14. Those who have submitted their entire body, mind and spirit to His Lordship, wanting ONLY HIS WILL in their lives and that of their loved ones. These people, drawn together by His love, make up the Bride of Christ.

Just as any man cannot stand to see His bride suffer, and will do anything in his power to take it away, Jesus wanted to take away the pain and suffering that He knew His bride will have to suffer throughout life on earth. Just as any man would want to take the place of his bride and take the pain onto himself, Jesus yearned so much for this!!!! And, as part of the Great Plan, He did just that!!!!!!

In that Garden, Jesus BECAME each of us…..He took on your sin and my sin, and with it, He took on the consequences, the disease, pain, filthiness, the rejection by others, the handicaps, the loneliness and sadness and dread.  He took on the pain of the innocent ones as well as those who have grossly sinned because the sin of the world has oozed in every crack and crevice of mankind and corrupted everything on the earth!!!!!

So, when we ask, why do the innocent suffer…..it is because of the corruption of the earth by sin. But, a better question would be…why did Jesus suffer…..the innocent of the innocent…..Almighty God, no less,…..He suffered incredibly before He was ever nailed to the cross. The pain of the nails and the whips could only give pain to His physical body, but the pain of knowing that you will have to suffer eternally for your  sin, tore Him down to His very being….to His very life……to His heart of LOVE, and it was almost more than His spirit could take. His love for you is that great, that it almost killed Him. The angels had to come to minister to Him……they didn’t even do that during the scourging and crucifixion…or, the terrible agony of being separated from the Father.   This was much worse!!! He loves you so much that if you were the only person on earth, He would have died for you. GOD would have died for YOU!!!   Just YOU….He DID just that. Think about that!!! Do you still think after all that, He would let you suffer alone?

When you have to go through whatever you are enduring, He is taking your burden still. Oh, dear one, you have no idea what it would be like if He wasn’t taking the weight for you!!!! He is sheltering you, protecting you, and He can take an even greater weight off you if you will come to Him and ask for it.

Please, if you haven’t, ask Him into your heart, and submit to Him your whole being, and your situation. Don’t let Him have gone through what He did for nothing….Accept the Gift He offers you, and be one with Him, as He intended for you.   Don’t suffer eternally when He wants to take that suffering from you!!!!   All you need to do is talk to Him from your heart, and tell Him how you feel.   Spend time with Him alone, and you will be able to hear His voice in your spirit.

Keep your spiritual eyes on Him and your spirit will revive and see Him holding you up.

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