206
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
May, 1938
Now this fact explains the strange " I f ’ in Gethsemane, and also the “ Why?” from the cross. As the Suffering Servant takes His place in the steady of sinners, passes under the wrath of a hoiy God, He will not fall back upon any of those divine powers which are His by right, and which might alleviate the awful agony of that dread “ hour.” He might have called upon His Omnipotence to blot out the whole world of His enemies, He might have resorted to His Omniscience to blot out the dark un certainty of the hour, but He did not. The very “ human uncertainty” of the hour was part of the suffering, and He will drink the cup to its final dregs. But there was no divine uncertainty. All is committed into the Father’s hands as He enters the darkness of our doom. Whatever the Father’s will may be, it is best, and it shall be done. Whatever the limitations of knowledge which He had voluntarily im posed upon Himself, there is no limit to His perfect and unreserved obedience to the Father’s will. And so, we are told, He became “ obedient’ unto death, even “ the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Oh, the glories of His infinite grace! Let us not try, as did the ancient Docetic here tics, to subtract one farthing from the price that He paid for our salvation. He was no mere play-actor in these awful scenes. His humanity, His sufferings, His death— all were real, and all the more real because He was God, who is the Perfect Reality in all that He is and does; There is an ancient legend told of one of the primitive saints that will arrest at tention possibly as a figure of ourselves. The paramount regulation of the monastic order to which he belonged was that each monk must obey his superior implicitly; for life or for death was the vow of irrevo cable consecration. The fable goes that once there came into the fraternity a man that proved imperious and refractory. He broke the command of his chief. Instantly he was apprehended. A grave was dug, narrow and deep. They put him standing in it, and earth was trampled in around his body. Then when it had reached his middle, the superior drew nigh the living sepulcher, and, fixing his relentless eye upon him, asked, “Are you yet dead to human w ill?” There came no answer, for that priest was not of any common mold. Stern as doom that horrible burial went forward —to his armpits, to his shoulders, to his neck, to his lips. Then in agony he threw up his nostrils for breath. Again the superior approached him and put the icy question, “ Are you yet dead?” And the brothers waited; on their spades for the final order. The culprit looked into the eye of his chief, and found nothing there in its gray cool depths but unflinching determination. Then the will broke, and the lips murmured, “ I am dead.” This period of our existence as Chris tians is but a burial of our will . . . With the yearning heart of a parent, not with the domineering decree o f a priest— our Lord asks us whether we w ill die unto the world and live unto Him. — C harles S. R obinson , Golden Text Illustration M ark 14:36
THROUGH YOU —GOD WORKS IN RUSSIA! You are His messenger of love and charity. Through you He lifts up His stricken children . . . feeds them . . . clothes them . . . bids them hold steadfast to His Word. For in Russia there are tens of thousands half-starved, terror- stricken Christian families living in daily fear of their lives. The couple pictured here were banished into exile five years ago . . . thousands of others have been banished, too.
Through your unselfish generosity you—the good people of the KING’S BUSINESS—have saved the lives of large numbers of these stricken people. Through you and this Mission God works in Russia. Your gifts will be promptly and gratefully acknowledged and will be used at once to aid believers in Soviet Russia. Rev. John Johnson, Founder and Gen. Dir. RUSSIA INLAND RELIEF MISSION, A CORP. 1265 Broadway Room 610-K New York, N. Y.
complete, for He suffered them to lay their hands upon Him and lead Him away. He went from the scene of His deepest agony to the scene of deepest darkness and of death. The cup would be drained, the hour would pass, and the will of God would be fulfilled. No one can express the meaning of this awful hour. In the offering of His own life, He provided for all who would accept it, the means of lifting them from ignorance and fear and eternal doom. Have you accepted Calvary’s G ift? Have your boys and girls accepted Him? Points and Problems “I f it ivere possible” (Mk. 14:35). This well-known clause from the Gethsemane prayer plunges us immediately into the mystery of the Incarnation. Did He not al ready know that He must drink the “cup” for sinners, that there was no other possible way to save them from their sins? And this problem cannot be escaped by assuming that the “cup’’ referred to was an attempt on the part of Satan to kill Him in the garden before He reached the cross. Even if that were the case, why did He not know that the Sovereign W ill of the Father would infallibly bring Him to the cross of Calvary? Since He was the Second Person of the Godhead, did He not know all things? Why then this apparent un certainty? Some have tried to solve the problem by saying that He gave up the attribute of Omniscience when He became incarnate, and therefore was limited in knowledge as we are. I cannot accept this view, for the Gospel records show Him more than once manifesting and exercising the attributes o f deity. He did not empty Him self of His divine attributes, nor of their exercise, but He did forego the independent exercise of these attributes. Therefore, as the perfect Servant of Jehovah, during the days of flesh He exercises these divine at tributes only under the Father’s direction, and even then only in the interests of others, never for Himself. BLACKBOARD LESSON
learn much concerning our own prayer at times when the will of God is not clearly revealed. The foundation of such prayer lies, first, in the accepted relationship be tween God and the soul; second, in the knowledge that God can do whatever He pleases to do; third, in the freedom o f the child of God to ask anything; fourth, in the confidence that God understands; and fifth,, in the assurance of peace in mind and heart, when such prayer is offered. The supreme purpose of the prayer must be the accom plishment of the will of God. II. T he U nderstanding W arning (37-41) Christ warned His followers concerning the necessity of protection against tempta tion. By means of prayer and watching, and being assured of the Lord’s presence, they could walk with safety amid the pitfalls and snares set by the devil. Instead of heeding the warning, they allowed their physical weariness to over come them, and they promptly fell asleep. They did not listen obediently. Prayer is the guard against presumptuous sins, as well as all temptation, and again and again we are exhorted to give ourselves to prayer (cf. Psa. 19:13; Eph. 6:18; Col. 4:2; Psa. 119:117; Matt. 6:13; 26:41). The disciples missed the opportunity of having fellowship with their Lord in the darkest hour He ever knew apart from the cross itself. That Gethsemane hour passed while they slept, and at length they heard Him say, “ It is enough . . . he that be- trayeth me is at hand” (vs. 41, 42). III. T he F ull S ubmission (40-46) Our Lord consciously and unresistingly faced the traitor’s design and the enemies’ plan. He was entirely aware of all that was taking place, and He deliberately placed Himself in the hands of those commissioned to arrest Him. The very lives of the schemers, as well as of those who sent them, rested in His hands. They arrested Him, not because o f the utility of their staves and swords, but because He willingly sub mitted Himself to their purpose. The Satanic energy manifested in Judas was hateful to Him, but it was endured for the sake of the work He came to perform. He was to do that which would even then have been the salvation of Judas, had Judas, like Peter, taken his sin to the Lord. But the brazen, cowardly, hypocritical kiss sealed his own doom, not the doom of the Lord. The submission of Jesus was not only conscious and voluntary, but it was also
Made with FlippingBook HTML5