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The PRA 7ER in GA RDENof GETHSEMANE
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G Broughton, D. D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
Sixth of a series oj sermons on "The Prayers
of Jesus as Recorded in the Gospels. "
TEXT: “0 my Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as
thou wilt”. Matt. 26:39.
E come in our consideration of the pray
ers of Jesus to the most pathetic scene
that we have yet considered; in many
respects it is the most pathetic scene
in the life of our Lord —this scene in
Gethsemane. Jesus, with His desciples
coming fresh from Passover and
from the institution of the Lord’s Sup
per, has come to the gate of Geth-
to
semane’s Garden and He leaves His disciples out
side the gate, except three of them, Peter and the
two sons of Zebedee, whom He takes with Him
through the gate into the garden. He does not go
far until He leaves them telling them to watch with
Him and pray. He goes a bit further on and there
beneath the olive trees upon the cold damp ground
He prostrates Himself and prays this prayer. Jesus, as
He bowed upon the ground, was conscious of every
thing that was taking place around Him and of
everything that had taken place prior to this time,
and of everything that w r as to take place in the near
future. He was conscious of the sleeping of His
disciples, and He knows that this indicates a disre
gard of His suffering and it almost breaks His heart
as it w 7 ould the heart of any man. I do not know
anything that is more calculated to break one’s
heart than to run up with a spirit of disregard at
such a time. Jesus had found these humble, ignor
ant, bare legged fishermen upon the shores of Galilee.
He had called them from this menial service to be
come the pillars of the church of the living God.
He had kept them with Him and provided for them
and instructed them and when He saw them sleeping
while He was in agony it almost crushed that loving
heart. Then He looked beyond these three sleeping
disciples and saw the rest of His disciples as they
slept around the gate; He looked further and saw
Judas, and He knew what Judas had in his mind;
then He saw the assembly of the Roman soldiers
as they prepared to take Him; He saw the court in
w*hich He was to be given a sham trial. He saw
Peter the disciple whose confession He had
used as the foundation of His church; He saw Peter
at this time, this crucial moment of His life, turn
his back upon Him and go out swearing that he
never knew Him. He saw more than this; He saw
the cross and felt the pang of the nails. He saw
that mob as they gathered about and looked up hiss
ing and mocking into His face; He tasted the gall
and the vinegar that they offered. He saw the
women, the faithful women, who had ever stood by
Him as His support, not one of them leaving behind
the record of a traitor, but every one true from the
beginning to the last of their association with Him;
He saw His own beloved mother; He knew what her
grief and anguish would be.
HIS PRAYER.
! u)
But He also saw the great army of earth’s unnum
bered millions from Adam on until time is no more;
all these He saw blinded by sin and chained to iniq
uity, and He realized that it was for their liberation,
for the breaking of the chain that fastened them to
the pit, that He was come to this hour. And with all
this, who wonders that Jesus said Himself, “I am
sorrowing even unto death.” Any one of these things
that I mention is enough to bring mortal man to the
grave of sorrow, and taking them all together no
wonder that even the Son of God Himself was brok
en and crushed with sorrow. In this sorrowing con
dition with all these things pressing heavily upon
Him, Jesus falls upon the ground beneath the trees,
alone with God, and begins this prayer; and I would
have you catch the very first expression of it; it is
deeply significant, “My Father;” it is the cry of the
heart-broken child in the presence of his father;
the cry of one against whom the world has gone,
The Golden Age for March 24, 1910.
who comes trembling and tired and worn in the
presence of His father; “My Father.” “My Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” What
cup? Why, the cup of His betrayal by a friend; the
cup of His rejection by His disciples; the cup of His
physical suffering upon the cross the cup of the pour
ing out of His blood, His life blood; the cup of the
jeers and the sneers of the angry multitude that
gathered about Him while He dies; the cup of that
death in which He is perfectly conscious of the fact
that for the moment the back of God will be turned
upon Him; “Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me;” and then as if He suddenly feared
His Father would hear and answer that prayer, He
interjects. “Nevertheless,” as much as to say, “But
hold on; don’t answer that prayer; it would break
up the whole scheme of redemption;” “Nevertheless,
not my will but thine be done.” In this last expres
sion of Jesus we have the climax of His submission
to the will of His Father and it is the climax of His
truly holy life.
I want that we shall stop and see what these
words, spoken by Jesus under the circumstances
that they were, really and truly signified. First of
all, let me say that it signified a complete and per
fect confidence in the judgment of His Father. No
man can submit Himself without reservation to an
other unless he has perfect confidence in his judg
ment. Jesus submitted Himself to the Father be
cause He had such implicit, unreserved confidence
in His Father’s judgment. He had been with the
Father; He had been with Him from the beginning;
He had observed His Father’s plans all through the
history of the race. He had seen how the race had
failed because His Father’s judgment had been set
aside. He well understood all these things and
hence he could -well afford to say, “Nevertheless, not
my will, but thine be done.” If we do not of our
selves know as much as He did of the unerring judg
ment of our Father, can we not trust Jesus Himself
as the expression and interpreter of the Father for
us? He knew His judgment. He knew its perfection;
He could trust it, and if he could trust it, can not
we? And yet so many of us tremble with fear when
we are called upon in some deep and holy moment
of meditation to yield our lives wholly and without
reservation to the will of God. We tremble lest we
shall be led into something that will hurt us; we
tremble lest we shall be led into something that will
not redound for our greatest good; all such trem
bling and such fear is the outcome of a failure on
our part to rely upon the judgment and the conduct
of Jesus in His interpretation and expression of the
unerring judgment of His Father.
POWER AND ABILITY.
Then again, there is in this act of submission on
the part of Jesus a deep significance of His complete
trust and confidence in the power and the ability
of His Father. It is one thing to know what to do
and it is another thing to know what to do and to
be able to do it. There are many men that I could
point to whose judgment we can rely upon but whose
ability and willingness we can not trust. Jesus had
one to whom He submitted the entire direction of
His life, who was not only wise in judgment, but
He had both the ability and the power to carry out
what He undertook to do. I would call you to note
that there is a vast difference between power to do
and ability to do. There are many men who have
right judgment who have sufficient power, but they
have not the ability. I stood the other day on the
side of a railroad track. I saw a great, huge freight
engine, one of the modern tremendous engines with
great driving wheels and an engine that could pull
at a rapid speed sixty or eighty heavily loaded box
cars. Back of that engine there was fifty or sixty
cars. The engine stood there and puffed and panted
and almost talked of its desire to move. The ma
chinery was in perfect order; the engineer himself
had carefully overlooked it and yet it was not mov
ing, nor were these box cars moving. There was
enough power in that engine to move twice as many
cars as stood on that track. It could easily have
moved at a rapid rate every car there, and yet not
a one moved nor did the engine itself move. It had
the power but it did not have the ability. Im a little
while there was a motion of the hand of the con
ductor, and the engineer, who was looking through
his window for a sign, put his hand upon the throttle
and made a connection, a simple connection, and the
moment that that connection was made the steam
began to distribute itself and the wheels began to
turn and the engine began to move backward until it
came in touch with the cars and then a man dropped
a coupling pin in and the cars were cabled to the
engine and then another movement of the hand of
the conductor and the throttle was opened again
and the steam again begin to distribute itself and
the wheels began to move and the whole train of
cars went on its way. There is power powerless,
and there is power in action. There is power and
ability brought together.
Now Jesus knew His Father well enough to know
that He not only had all power in heaven and upon
earth but He had also the ability; His power would
be made able to accomplish the desire of His heart
and hence Jesus had no hesitancy whatever to hand
His life over to His Father. i
Then again, I want you to see that this act of sub
mission on the part of Jesus under these circum
stances also meant to signify that He had perfect
confidence in the love and the affection of .His Fa
ther. Many men have good judgment, judgment-we
could trust, power and ability to carry into action
their judgment, but we can not trust their love; we
can hot trust their affection for us. Jesus knew His
Father; He had tried His Father’s heart; He had
drawn upon His Father’s affection; He knew His
Father’s love and there was no distrust. There is
never distrust where love reigns supreme.
Some time ago a minister was telling me of a lit
tle incident that happened in his ministry. He had
in his church a widowed mother who had one son,
a very bright, promising lad, and she got it into her
head that that boy was starting the downward road,
and she knew that if anything was to be done it was
to be done at the beginning and she began to bring
pressure to bear and he, boy-like, began to resent it,
and finally his spirit of resentment w T as so manifest
that he decided to leave home. Before he went, she
took him into very close counsel, saying to him:
“There is one thing, my boy, that you can not doubt;
you may doubt your mother’s judgment, but you
can not doubt your mother’s love; if you will come
and step back a few years in your life and let me
point out a few scenes that are very clear to me
you will not doubt it; those scenes in the early part
of your life w r hen you were not able to take care of
yourself, when loving hands administered to‘you.”
The very first night that he was away he got to
thinking about what had transpired and it dawned
upon him just as she tried to impress him, “I may
doubt my mother’s judgment, I may doubt her abil
ity to take care of me, but I can not doubt her love,
and I will go back home, because mother loves me.”
THE OF THE FATHER.
Jesus knew the heart of His Father. It. had been
tested on that day when he left His Father’s pres
ence to come to this earth. We have never had
given us a picture of that parting scene in the skies.
Sometimes in my fancy I have seen Them as They
come up to that parting moment and yet I dare not
speak of it. The Holy Spirit Himself has never dared
to speak of it. That day of parting Jesus knew
the heart of His Father. Jesus knew that this love
that He was going to trust Himself to in this mo
ment of trial was a love that could be trusted, and
especially when this love is reinforced by an uner
ring judgment and ability and power. Why shouldn’t
He hand His life over to God? What else was there
to do, with all Judgment and all powder and all
ability and all love?
But, as I close there is a deeper and more prac
tical question for us than that, and that is the mes
sage that this prayer of Jesus in this garden of suf
fering has for us. Has it a distinct message? I think
(Continued on Page 14.)
