Denial, Distress, Deception, Desertion, Part 1

Today on Insight for Living, from Chuck Swindoll. Since January, we've been in a comprehensive study through the entire book of Matthew, and today we're looking at one of the final chapters, Matthew 26. In this passage, we read of Jesus' agony over what was to come.

It was no surprise to Him. From the beginning of time, Jesus knew that His earthly mission would include suffering. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to witness the details of the Passion Week and how these grueling events are a beautiful expression of God's sacrifice on our behalf.

Chuck titled his message, Denial, Distress, Deception, Desertion. In our study of Matthew, we have come to the brutal part commonly called Christ's passion, and that is His suffering. The Last Supper has ended. They've sung a hymn together, and Jesus with His 11 faithful disciples, Judas having scurried out into the night, Jesus with His 11 faithful, are now making their way toward the Garden of Gethsemane.

That's where we pick up the story. So turn, if you will, to Matthew 26. I'll begin reading at verse 31, and because the passage is lengthy down through 56, I'll take excerpts along the way as we follow the theme of what took place between that Last Supper and when He was arrested in the Garden. Matthew 26, 31. On the way, Jesus told them, tonight, all of you will desert me, for the Scriptures say God will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet and meet you there.

Peter declared, even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you. Verse 39 or 36. Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and He said, sit here while I go over there to pray. Verse 39, He went on a little farther and bowed His face to the ground, praying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me, yet I want your will to be done, not Mine. Verse 42. Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, My Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done. Verse 44. Verse 44. So we went to pray a third time, saying the same things again.

47. And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. The traitor Judas had given them a pre-arranged signal. You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss. Judas came straight to Jesus.

Greetings, Rav hai, He exclaimed, and gave him the kiss. Verse 55. Then Jesus said to the crowd, Am I some dangerous revolutionary that you come with swords and clubs to arrest Me? Oh, why didn't you arrest Me in the temple? I was there teaching every day. But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the scriptures.

At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies.

And now the message from Chuck titled Denial, Distress, Deception, Desertion. My Aunt Ernestine was an accomplished artist. She did beautiful work in oils on canvas, and my maternal grandparents' home had a number of framed pictures that she had painted here and there in various rooms. I was intrigued by her artwork. I remember my little fingers ruined several pieces that she was painting as I would visit her studio and ask about this, and later realized that I just ruined about eight hours of work on her beautiful piece of art. However, there was one piece in the living room that always intrigued me.

I was about three or maybe four years old. We had gone to my maternal grandparents' home again for a holiday down in the little town of El Campo, Texas. When you walk in the living room of that home, hanging over the fireplace was my Aunt Ernestine's painting.

I was drawn to it because it represented a mystery to me. I remember standing as a little boy at the front of the fireplace, looking at this painting, thinking I was not seeing what was actually there. It looked like blood on this man's face, which didn't seem to fit the pose seemed to fit the pose of the man who was obviously praying.

Large boulders were there. He was resting his arms on them. His hands were folded quietly. He was looking up.

The clouds were were ominous and dark on this moonlit night. I pulled a chair over so I could get up closer to the painting. Sure enough, there was blood on on this person's forehead. I had no idea why. My first thought was perhaps it was the story of a man who was lost in a forest and while trying to find his way through low-lying branches, swept across his face and brought blood. Or maybe there was some enemy that had struck him, but blood was there. In fact, part of it, the blood was running down his face. A little later that afternoon, my grandfather was near Granddaddy Lundy and I asked him, I said, Granddaddy, what is that?

Who is that? Always having time from me. He, I remember it like last week, he picked me up in his arms and held me shoulder high so I could be right about the height of the painting. And he said, this is a picture your aunt Ernestine painted of Jesus. He's in a garden and it's the Garden of Gethsemane and it's just before he was arrested and nailed to the cross for our sins. Here, let me show you.

And we sat down on the sofa. He opened his well-worn Bible to Luke 22, verse 44, which read, and being in agony, he was praying very fervently and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down on the ground. And then my granddaddy, wanting to be absolutely accurate, said, we don't know if it was actually blood or not. It says it was like drops of blood. And he said, you know, when you bleed, the drops are thicker. They're like little globs. But when you sweat, it's usually running.

It's usually a little more like water. But his sweat was thick like blood. And I said, why? And again, patiently, he said, because of the agony he was going through, knowing what was ahead of him, when he took our sins and was nailed to the cross for our sins. As I recall, I began to cry. I must have had several more questions because my grandfather grew weary before I did, and I couldn't put it all together. I still can't, nor can you.

Oh, I see what the words say. I can trace the story through the gospel account, just as you can. But every time I go to the passion scene and walk that, like a sacred path with him, I sit in awe in silence as I try to take the wonder in. There is no way I could even imagine the depth of anguish the depth of anguish he withstood there at Gethsemane. Gethsemane means wine, means oil press, oil press. The Garden of Gethsemane is a walled olive orchard, small, along the western slope of the Mount of Olives.

When you visit Israel and you go to the Mount, you are allowed to go into the garden and you will immediately realize how small it is. There must have been olive presses in several locations, no doubt owned by a rich man who allowed Jesus, a friend, to use the garden whenever he wished to be in a quiet place, which had to have been often, certainly this night. And when you go into the Garden of Gethsemane, you realize it's small enough to toss a ball across from one side to the other, and it's filled with gnarled, old, large olive, twisted olive trees. Their trunks are twisted and their branches are twisted. Jesus is in that garden going through the greatest anguish of his of his life. Let me clarify something. Chances are good, you would think, his greatest suffering was while on the cross.

Physically, yes, but not emotionally, not mentally. His greatest mental and emotional anguish right here at Gethsemane. It is here, the full brunt of the cup, that he was to drink, symbolic of the sins he was to bear on our behalf, when all of that lands on him with enormous weight. As one writer puts it, it is where he underwent a stress of cosmic of cosmic dimensions the greatest in the chronicles of the universe.

I love the way that reads. He underwent a stress of cosmic dimensions the greatest in the chronicles of the universe, realizing the intensity of his mission, for this was in fact the reason he was sent to earth, realizing that there was no further time to put this off. He was now there in the ever-present now of his mission. Interestingly, as they enter this garden, verse 31 of Matthew 26 tells us of a statement he makes, not meant to be insulting, but a prediction with a severe warning. Tonight, he says to his faithful 11, all of you will desert me, for the scriptures say, and here he quotes from Zechariah, God will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered, but after I've been raised from the dead I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there. They didn't hear that part of it. If you've ever been under intense pressure, you usually don't hear the counsel of the other person or you don't hear all of it. They never did get the resurrection until the morning of the resurrection, and even then only partly. They are so distraught to think he's going to leave them that they are missing some of the things being said.

Now admittedly, they're not the brightest bulbs in the hallway. Admittedly, the brightest of the group has left them, Judas, but even though they may not have been that bright, there's something in their emotions that has them preoccupied, and what is that? I am going to leave you. I'm going to send my spirit to take my place. I will be gone, but he will be here.

Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, no. I'm going to rise from the dead. They never really heard that. I'm going to meet you in Galilee, went right past them. All they remembered was, every one of you will desert me. That did it for Peter.

No, you'll read it right here. Verse 33, Peter declared, if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you. And Jesus, perhaps with that long index finger pushed against his sternum, said to Peter, I'll tell you the truth, Peter, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times before it's dawn. Three times, Peter. And in characteristic Simon Peter fashion, no, there's no way over my over my dead body would I desert you, Lord. I will never desert you.

And you will notice at the end of verse 30, 35, all the other disciples vowed the same. No, no, no, that's true. We won't either. We're here. I mean, we're with you all the way.

Whatever this is going to include, we're right there. They didn't have a clue what they were saying because they didn't realize fully the truth of his words. Notice he doesn't argue with him. He came to the place where the dialogue was to stop and prayer was to begin.

So Jesus takes Peter and Zebedee's two sons, verse 37, James and John, his three closest, Peter, James and John, and he slips away with them to a place some distance from where the others are to wait and pray and to keep watch with him. You see, what is difficult for us and the reason I say I don't grasp it fully, this is the most obvious recognition of his humanity. We love the divinity part of Jesus.

He's the God-man. We love the strength of stilling a storm and silencing of the rough seas. We love the healing of the lame. We love it when sight's given to the blind, when those who can't hear the deaf are given hearing, and the enormous miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead.

We love all that. That's all about his divinity, his deity. But he's the God-man, undiminished deity, true humanity, mixed in one person forever. That's Jesus. This is his humanity.

This is why the struggle is so rugged. This is why he takes three men with him to pray. He needs them.

Just as you do when you're in a tough place, you want to know that there are others around you standing or praying with you. So he takes them and he says, you stay here and keep watch. By the way, I don't want you to forget Jesus' words to them earlier. Tonight all of you will desert me, because they deny it and it isn't long before they begin to drift off into sleep.

They're already phasing out. And then we read, he went a little further. Now walk carefully through this. Learn to read your Bible with emotion. Learn there are places that you do not hurry, and on occasion you must read those words aloud, though you are alone, so you can hear the significance of what you are reading. He went on a little further and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, Father, my Father, if it's possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine. Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. And he said to Peter, look at Peter. Peter, already asleep. Peter.

Peter, couldn't you watch with me even one hour ago? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak.

Then Jesus left and went a second time. My Father, my Father, with his cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it. Your will be done.

Your will be done. By the way, let me help you into this scene a little better, a little deeper. Most of the verbs in the Bible a little deeper. Most of the verbs in this section, as Matthew records them, are in the imperfect tense in the original language.

The imperfect tense is continued action in the past. Something is continually going on. It's continually happening.

It is repeatedly happening. Jesus is not, as my Aunt Ernestine pictured him, quietly and serenely resting on the rock praying and looking up into the sky. No, no.

A thousand times no. He is on his knees. He's back on his feet. Then he's falling on his face and he's praying, Lord, let this cup be taken from me. No, not, not my will, but yours be done. But oh, if it's possible, if there's some other way, let's go the other way.

Let me know what that other way, there is no other way. Father Eddie falls back down. He gets back up. So he's moving through a part of the garden and you can hear him at time almost shriek in his prayer.

Then you've got the idea. Listen to Kent Hughes describe it. It was a cup full of sin. He saw all the brutality of a thousand killing fields, all the whoring of earthly civilizations, blasphemy, profanity.

A cup brimming with jealousy, hatred, and covetousness, which he must drink. And Jesus recoiled. Second, he saw that it was a cup full of wrath. As sin bearer, he became the object of the father's holy wrath against sin.

God made him who had no sin to become sin on our behalf. Gazing into the cup, hear this, gazing into the cup, Jesus saw hell open for him and he staggered. It is no wonder that we see the blood-like sweat and the tears that we hear him crying out for deliverance. It is no wonder as we read in Luke that the father sent an angel to strengthen him. It's amazing to think that Jesus, in all of his anguish, surrendered to this duty.

He willingly accepted the cup that was filled with wrath and took it for you and for me. You're listening to Insight for Living, and we're midway through a message from Chuck Swindoll. He's titled, Denial, Distress, Deception, Desertion. And there's much more we need to learn from this gripping passage in Matthew chapter 26. So please make it a point to keep listening through the end of the message. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Did you know Insight for Living produces a free daily devotional for you? We'd be pleased to send you these inspirational emails from Chuck. And by reading what he's prepared for you, you'll have the promises of God's Word fresh on your mind throughout the day.

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God is so good to us. Thank you for being faithful in ministry. Well, we hope this comment from a friend reinforces the impact of your partnership with Insight for Living. When you give a generous gift, you're touching a life just like this one. To give a donation right now, just give us a phone call. If you're listening in the US, dial 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888. Or you can also give online when you go to insight.org slash donate. I'm Dave Spiker. Join us again Tuesday when Chuck Swindoll continues his stirring account of Jesus alone in the garden. That's tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, denial, distress, deception, desertion, was copyrighted in 2017 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.