THE KING’S BUSINESS
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and such prayer could be also a man of sorrow? This “contradiction,” too, we ac cept since Jesus did. “Abba, Father (what pathos! what appeal!), all things are pos sible unto thee (“Father” is not Fate. We may lay the apparently impossible at His feet) take away this cup from me, never theless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” This condition must qualify all true prayer. Too many assume to know God’s will, and determine before what must be done, and assume that their will is His will.'" There is no prayer promise without that condi tion. This was consecration; submission; surrender absolute to God, and victory over the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Luke, the physician, says that, "being in an agony (in anguish) his sweat was as great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44), as if the tempter had grappled with and wrung sweat and blood from His Straining soul. What was the “hour,” or “cup”? We are not definitely told. We must press our in quiry diffidently; and curbing our curiosity, in no prying spirit, seek only what it to edi fication and the Divine praise. Believing students are agreed that the “cup” was not physical suffering incident to the Cross. Men, women and tender youth have en dured fearful tortures, crucifixion itself without flinching, for His sake. Some think, quite opposite, that He feared that His frail humanity would succomb to the strain and He miss the Cross, where He longed to hang for us. But this is doubtful. There was bitterness enough in the cup we know to make it dreadful to the Holy One. Sa tanic triumphs, were there and spiritual persecutions of which we can have no con ception ; there was the actual bearing of the whole world’s guilt and shame, in sight of principalities and powers innumer able and unseen; there was the aversion of His Father’s face,, which had always smiled on Him (Matt. 27:46) ; there was the descent into Hades; and the horror of death viewed as “the wages of sin,” the very essence of the abhorrent and unnat ural and unfit to the normal, the ideal man.
II. A t the G arden . 1. Gethsemane. The Garden lay a short distance beyond the temple mountain on the Mount of Olives, east. A deep gorge, the brook Kidron divided them. It was a little off from the main road, and almost certainly then as now was shut in by a low wall. It was not a flower garden, rather an olive orchard, with some shrubery. It had in it an oil press which gave the name Gethsemane, “Oil Press,” to the spot. From the pressure on the soul (Mark 14:33, 34) of Jesus that night has flowed the oil of grace through the ages. 2. Setting the Watch. Our Lord said, "Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder” (Matt. 26:36). Perhaps He placed them there to guard against the approach of in terruption. No doubt He meant that they should watch and pray with Him. Taking Peter, James and John (Matt. 17:1), men whose personal qualities and training when refined by grace made them afterward "pil lars’’ in the Church (Gal. 2:9) He led them into “the School of Prayer.” 3. The Holy Agony. "He began to be sore amazed, very heavy, exceeding sor rowful unto death.” •As if something had suddenly been imposed and assumed for the occasion. The statement is as mysteri ous as it is intense. There was “laid »on him the iniquity of us all.” • “Himself took our infirmities, and carried our sorrows.” “Tarry ye here” He said, “and watch.” Be hold the example of our Master in the hour of His temptation! “Cast thy burden on the Lord.” None ever bore so weighty a burden, or had such reason to despair. “And he went a little forward” { farther-?-' Matt. 26:39) ; farther than the eight, than the three, than alL Go as far as you may or can in sacrifice, suffering, prayer or ser vice, or submission to the Father’s will— He went a little farther. “And fell on the ground (on His “face”—Matt. 26:39), and prayed thdt if it were possible the hour might pass from him.” This was the “hour” off supreme sorrow to the Man of Sor row.' If “prayer moves the arm that moves the world,” how is it that a man of prayer,
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