The International Sunday School Lessons By J. H. S. LESSON II I .— October 18. — I n th e G arden oe G ethsemane .—Mark 14:32-42. G olden T ext . — Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. —Matt. 26:41.
It was His wont there to “shut to the door” to the outer world and pray to His Father in secret when in no immediate stress or peril, and He did not omit His custom when His enemies plotted to trap Him in that hallowed privacy (Dan. 6:10). The silent streets, the deserted temple area, the echoing steep and the gloom as they descended the canyon of the Kidron, turned their thought to dark Judas and his errand (John 13:27), and forebodings of evil swept over their souls. Jesus (to put them on their guard?) now repeats His warning that all would forsake Him. Peter with a double denial (Greek) vowed he would not; the rest all agreed that they would die first; but Jesus affirmed that they would utterly (Greek) deny Him, as if He already heard Peter “with an oath” : “I tell you I. do not know the man” (Matt. 26:62). Do not miss the lesson, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12), and “have no con fidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). What is written shall come to pass—“Let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). But the smitten Shepherd regathered the flock (1 Cor. 15:6). Do not miss, again, the lesson: That “having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.” Broken vows; neglected warnings; desertion; de nials with “cursing and swearing” all fore known were fore-forgiven. Surely “The love of God is broader T han the m easure of m an’s m ind; They had physical courage to use the sword (Matt. 26:51), and they showed Him two (Luke 22:38). But He tendered them two spiritual swords named, “Watch!” ,and “Pray!” which they had neither faith'nor courage to rely on. And the h e art of the E ternal Is m ost wonderfully kind.”
I. B etween th e L essons . 1. Reverence Demanded. Too much stress cannot be laid on the need of hu mility in approaching this lesson. “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet” (Exod. 3:5). Before this “burning bush” we may turn aside to see, but may not gaze intru sively into its mystery. The Lord is in the fire—but not consumed. Turn to John 13, get on your knees; pray; read on through chapter 17; pause occasionally and think. These chapters are incomparable among utterances human or Divine, and bear the unforgeable signature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Read from where the Son of Man kneels at His disciples’ way-soiled feet in the lowliest service, on to where the Son of God stands at His Father’s throne and demands for them the highest glory (17:24), and you are pre pared to lose yourself where you see Him on His face, with an angel wiping off His bloody sweat, and crucifying His will to the will of the Father. 2. By the Way. The words of comfort, warning, instruction and intercession ended, “when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives." Luke (22: 39) says, that Jesus led and the disciples followed. He led the song on the night of sorrow, the “ Hallel" (“Hallelujah,” Pss. 115, 116, 117) ; He led the way to Gethse mane, to every man’s Gethsemane ; the dis ciples “followed,” not into the deepest shadows of the olives, not so willingly as He, but they followed, and we. It was His “wont,” says Luke, His custom to seek the shade and solitude of those gnarled yet sympathetic olives for “the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to H im : The thorn tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came.”
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