The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: There's been something in your past that has crushed you, has hindered you spiritually, but today you can come back to this altar and remember the one who took your crushing and gave me life everlasting.

Guest (Male): In Mark chapter 13, we find Jesus and His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, days before He would sacrifice Himself on the cross, taking the sin of all humanity upon Him. Join Pastor Jack Morris as he takes us into those solemn and dark moments of anguish and shows us how His despair and suffering can free you and me from the darkness in our lives if we trust in Him. Join us now for the message, "Jesus Drank My Cup."

Pastor Jack Morris: Jesus in Gethsemane is perhaps the least understood of the events in all of the Bible. When I considered what I'm going to be talking about this morning, I became awed. But I want to say that again because hopefully we will look and pay attention and with open hearts hear and receive that Jesus in Gethsemane is perhaps the least understood of all the events. There are a lot of events, a lot of stories, but this one, dear God, this one is perhaps the least. I'm going to attempt today to do something that I feel is just far, far beyond me.

For years I have studied and meditated and taught and preached from this very passage of scripture. Today I'm going to be brief, I'm going to be accurate as far as accuracy can be, but I am going to be far from incomplete. And I thought, well, if I had more time... but if I had more time, I would run out of words. Time isn't the challenge here. It's the truth. It's what happened here. Who can get into that? I pray the Holy Spirit will help us to hear something and feel something, experience something of God's divine grace today.

With that being said, I'm going to now attempt to move forward and talk about Jesus and what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. As I said, for years, and I tried to remember as I was putting this together, the final touches to this message, it was about 1960 when God began to deal with me and I began to look at this passage and pray over it and wrestle over it. I would be outside, I would be in the house, I would be at church, I would be at my desk. All of those years, and I am more awed today by this passage than I was back then.

This is how it happened. A missionary by the name of Robert C. Cummings went to India as a United Presbyterian missionary in the year 1920. He went there to reach the Muslims with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This man, Robert C. Cummings, later became a faculty member at the Bible college where I was studying, and he began to talk about this passage of scripture. It spoke to my heart. It touched my life. I couldn't sit in that classroom and hear. My heart would break and the fountains of the deep would open up. There was something happening inside me. Praise be to God that it'll happen today inside you as you hear about what happened in the garden.

Robert Cummings went to India and he tried to witness to the Muslims. The Muslims would reject the gospel because they said if Jesus were the son of God, like you Robert Cummings is teaching us, then why did he three times... it took three efforts, three times to receive the cup and to drink the cup. If He were the son of God, He would have immediately obeyed God and drank it the first time. He would not have questioned is this the will of God. I can't accept somebody that has a tendency and has to be coaxed into receiving the word of God and being obedient to the word of God.

So Robert Cummings said in 1920, "I had modernistic leanings, but I couldn't get through to them. I couldn't reach them because they kept telling me I can't accept somebody like you are asking me to accept and call Him the son of God when He refused to do the will of God and had to be coaxed into doing it." So Robert Cummings said, "I began to pray. God, what's the answer here? How can I reach souls for Christ? People don't understand. I don't understand."

Here's some of the teachings that I got. I want you to look at verse 32. "They went to a place called Gethsemane." That's the first thing I want you to hear today. Read those words on the screen right now, "a place called Gethsemane." Gethsemane was a garden on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. It's called the Mount of Olives because olives grew on that mountain. Gethsemane was a garden that Jesus would often frequent for prayer. He loved that place. It was an enclosed garden and inside that garden, there was a big instrument, a press, that the olive would be put on that press and then they would turn the crank and it would come down and it would press the juice or the oil out of it. The word Gethsemane simply means olive press.

There the pressure, the burden, the weight of all my sins and the sins of the whole human race came down upon Jesus and literally pressed the blood out of Him mingled with sweat. This is what the Muslims could not understand. I believe with all my heart most Christians in America don't understand it either. I'm having a very difficult time understanding and receiving, but I appreciate it. Though we don't understand completely, perhaps all of us here this morning can appreciate more fully what the Lord did for us in Gethsemane.

It was in that garden that Jesus took my sin. He carried it then into the judgment hall. He carried it into the police barracks where He was whipped. He carried it all the way up the Via Dolorosa on the... carrying the cross. He carried my sin all the way to Calvary. My sin, my sin. What was that chorus we just sang? "Who am I?" Do you understand why I sang that today? "Who am I that God would love a sinner such as I am?" Reverend Cummings didn't understand that he could explain to the Muslims. The Muslims didn't understand because nobody could explain it to them why Jesus refused the cup.

But that was in Gethsemane. That's the place where it happened. Now look at verse 36. Verse 36, in the garden, in Gethsemane, Jesus says, "Abba, Father," meaning "Father, Father" or "Father, beloved, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me." Now in order to understand what He was saying there, I have to back up just a little bit and go back to verse 34. I'm going to read verse 34 so I can understand verse 36. Verse 34, Jesus says, "My soul, my inmost being, the very life of me that's in my blood, the life that's in my blood, my soul, my very being, all of me, I am my soul." He said, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." My soul.

One translation has it, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." Another translation has it, "My soul is crushed," the oil press, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death." Another translation has verse 34, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death." What's happening, Jesus? What's happening to Jesus? He's overwhelmed. Something has come down upon him. Something is overwhelming him. There's a power. Now Jesus could handle any and all situations. He was superior to all situations. He was superior to nature, the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still," He's superior. He was superior to blindness, "Receive your sight," blind Bartimaeus could see. He was superior to lack of food. He took the five loaves and the two fishes and fed thousands.

There wasn't a situation in the Bible that Jesus didn't confront and was superior to. But this one situation, that's why I said a moment ago of all the events in the Bible, this is the one that is most misunderstood. Jesus was superior. Something is overwhelming him. Something is crushing the very life out of him. Look at verse 35. Let me read verse 35 and then we'll go back to verse 36. Going a little further, He fell to the ground. Now friend, you tell me. Can you see Jesus on the ground, fallen to the ground? What caused Him to back off? What caused Him to fall? I mean, I'm looking at Jesus in the dirt. What was it? What overcame Him? What's going on in this garden that is overwhelming Him, crushing Him, and causing Him to fall to the ground? The sight of our Lord on the ground. What's happening?

Now let's go back to verse 36. "Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me." What in the world, what on earth, what in heaven above or hell beneath, what did He see in that cup that caused Him to act and behave and fall limp on the ground like He did? And then pray, "Father, take this cup." Well, I wonder if God had taken the cup from Him. Where would it leave us today if God would have answered that prayer? Where would we be? I can't conceive of the infinite loss that you and I would be experiencing now and all people everywhere if God had answered that prayer. What if that hour had passed? Jesus said, "For this purpose, for this hour... this is not my hour," He kept saying up until the time that it became His hour. And then when it became His hour, He said, "This is my hour." But if that hour had passed, where would it have left us? Could he have gone back and recaptured that moment again? Would he have wanted to go back and recapture it?

What if the cost had been too high for Him? It almost appeared that it was too high for Him. See, in the upper room, just maybe a couple of hours before this event, Jesus instituted the Lord's supper and He gave His cup to the disciples. First He said He gave them the bread, He blessed the bread, He gave it. Then He blessed the cup and He gave it. He said, "This is my cup. This is a new covenant. This is a contract I'm making with you. I'm signing the bottom line in my own blood. Not with ink, but with my own blood, I'm entering into a blood contract relationship with my people." And He gave them the cup. His cup was pure. It was clean. It was full of forgiveness and love and mercy and everything that is good and beautiful and divine. He said, "I want you to take the very best that heaven can offer." And He gave the very best to His disciples.

And then He went into the garden of Gethsemane and He took their cup. You see, He gave His cup. We took His cup. And in His cup, all the sin of humanity, that's what He saw in that cup. And here is the pure son of God putting the filth and slime of the world to His sacred sanctified lips. Nothing unclean had ever touched His body before. He looked into that cup. Someone says, "All the sins of the world? Do you know how many sins are in the world, Pastor?" No, I really don't. But I know that on a computer chip, it can carry a whole lot of information, can it not? Well, all the sins of the world were in that cup and He knew that if He drank that cup, He knew what it meant. He knew what it meant. It meant that He would become the greatest sinner of all times.

He would become the greatest sinner that ever lived. And He knew that He would be separated from the Father which throughout all eternity past, He had been one with the Father. He knew the cost. That's what I'm trying to say today, friend. It's hard for me to grasp the meaning of the price that He paid and the cost. He knew it. He gave me His cup. I'm going to take it this morning, but this is only symbolic of what I've already experienced in the Lord. I've already experienced the cleansing where I shouldn't come. I've already experienced the purification where I shouldn't come. I've already experienced the forgiveness. And if I haven't experienced any of that, then I should pray and ask Him to come into my heart this morning and cleanse me and purify me, and then I should come.

He's offering me His cup of forgiveness. A lot of people are trying to make up their mind whether or not they want to receive His forgiveness. The price that He paid and now I'm debating whether or not I should give Him my heart and give Him my all. You see, in a cup, a cup is symbolic of two things: of great sorrow and a cup is also symbolic of great joy. And when He gave His cup to the disciples, great joy, wonderful joy, heavenly joy, more joy than you could ever receive anywhere else in all the world in receiving Jesus. But when He gave... when the disciples gave their cup and He took their cup, great sorrow. Great sorrow.

Something happened when Jesus was in Gethsemane and He fell to the ground and He rolled in the dirt. Something, a medical term: hematidrosis. Hematidrosis, that's when the blood vessels, because of anguish and trauma, one's blood vessels dilate and burst and mingle with sweat, and then blood and sweat comes forth. The pressure that was upon him, like the oil press that pressed the juice or the oil out of the olive. The pressure that was on him came down so heavily upon him that he couldn't bear the sin of all the world because he was in a human body. And the scripture said it was so great that an angel had to come and touch him.

Friend, do you know what it cost Jesus? I'm still trying to learn. I am trying to learn. God's people, is there someone here, you're carrying such a heavy weight? You made it to church today. You made it last week. You keep coming. But the weight of the sin, the guilt that is upon you is crushing you. And it won't be long, friend, until there'll be no more life, no Christian spiritual life at all. I pray today in the name of the Lord Jesus, for God's sake and for your sake, that you will come in all humility and experience again the renewing and the cleansing and the washing and the purification of the blood of Jesus.

Why hinder? Why hold back? Why damn your own soul? What are you doing to yourself? Look at what God through Jesus has done for you. And you're saying no, I want my sin, I want my corruption, I think this is the better life for me. I reject all of that. Friend, only as you confess and repent, come to this holy table. Don't mock God. Don't mock God. And when you confess, repent, which means stop doing it. Don't go back and do it again. Friend, God isn't a big dummy that we can pull it over his eyes. Oh, he sees our heart. He wants our heart. He's given his heart to us. You'll never have it better than you have it right now this morning. This is your day. This is the day of salvation. There is never going to be another moment. Jesus didn't let His hour pass. Don't let your opportunity pass. Amen.

Shall we bow before the Lord? Father God, with humble hearts we've talked about a truth, an event that goes far beyond our thoughts, our imaginations, anything that we can possibly conceive. This love is beyond limits. Oh, love of God, how rich and pure. Help us today to experience again the blood of Jesus that brings to us the moisture and the food that our body and soul, spirit need. His body and His blood is indeed food and drink. God bless. Pray for those who do not know you as Lord and Savior. They've never given their hearts to the Lord. That this will be the moment with their heads bowed and their eyes closed, they'll ask Jesus to come into their hearts, to forgive them, to purify them, to sanctify their life and make it pure. This You will do in a moment of time. The price has been paid. The door has been open. The opportunity has been presented. We give You praise for Your mercy and Your grace.

Guest (Male): God has given us His best in sending His Son Jesus to the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, providing the hope of salvation and eternal life to all who will receive Him. If today's healing word message has spoken to your heart, we invite you to reach out to God in prayer right now and share your problems, heartaches, and requests with Him. God knows who you are and He's waiting to respond in love. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.