Jesus was sweating blood in gethsemane

JESUS WAS SWEATING BLOOD IN GETHSEMANE
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
“And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly:
and His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood
fallingdown to the ground.” Luke 22:44.
THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE NO. 1199
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAYMORNING. OCTOBER 18,
1874, BYC. H. SPURGEON,AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
NEWINGTON.
“And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly:and His sweatwas, as it
were, greatdrops of blood falling down to the ground.” Luke 22:44.
OUR Lord, after having eatenthe Passover, andcelebratedthe supper with
His disciples, wentwith them to the Mount of Olives, and entered the Garden
of Gethsemane. Whatinduced Him to selectthat place to be the scene ofHis
terrible agony? Why there, in preference to anywhere else would He be
arrestedby His enemies? Maywe not conceive that as in a garden, Adam’s
self-indulgence ruined us, so in another garden the agonies ofthe Second
Adam should restore us? Gethsemane supplies the medicine for the ills which
followedupon the forbidden fruit of Eden! No flowers which bloomed upon
the banks of the four-fold river were ever so precious to our race as the bitter

herbs which grew hard by the black and sullen stream of Kidron. Maynot our
Lord also have thought of David, when on that memorable occasionhe fled
out of the city from his rebellions son, and it is written, “The king also,
himself, passedover the Brook Kidron,” and he and his people went up
barefootand bareheaded, weeping as they went? Behold, the GreaterDavid
leaves the temple to become desolate, andforsakesthe city which had rejected
His admonitions, and with a sorrowful heart He crossesthe foul brook to find
in solitude a solace forHis woes. OurLord Jesus, moreover, meant us to see
that our sin changedeverything about Him into sorrow;it turned His riches
into poverty, His peace into travail, His glory into shame, and so the place of
His peacefulretirement, where, in hallowed devotion He had been nearest
heaven in communion with God, our sin transformed into the focus of His
sorrow, the centerof His woe!Where He had enjoyed most, there He must be
calledto suffer most! Our Lord may also, have chosenthe garden because,
needing every remembrance that could sustain Him in the conflict, He felt
refreshedby the memory of former hours there which had passedawayso
quietly. He had prayed there, and gainedstrength and comfort; those gnarled
and twisted olive trees knew Him well; there was scarcelya blade of grass in
the gardenwhich He had not knelt upon. He had consecratedthe spot to
fellowship with God! What wonder, then, that He preferred this favoredsoil?
Just as a man would choosein sickness to lie in his own bed, so Jesus chose to
endure His agony in His own place of prayer where the recollections offormer
communings with His Father would come vividly before Him. But probably
the chief reasonfor His resort to Gethsemane was that it was His well-known
haunt. John tells us, “Judas also knew the place.” Our Lord did not wish to
concealHimself; He did not need to be hunted down like a thief, or searched
out by spies;He went boldly to the place where His enemies knew that He was
accustomedto pray, for He was willing to be takento suffering and to death!
They did not drag Him off to Pilate’s Hall againstHis will, but He went with
them voluntarily. When the hour was come for Him to be betrayed; there He
was, in a place where the traitor could readily find Him; and when Judas
would betray Him with a kiss, His cheek was readyto receive the traitorous
salutation. The blessedSaviordelighted to do the will of the Lord though it
involved obedience unto death! We have thus come to the gate of the garden
of Gethsemane, letus now enter—but first let us take off our shoes, as Moses

did, when he saw the bush which burned with fire, and was not consumed.
Surely we may say with Jacob, “How dreadful is this place!” I tremble at the
task which lies before me, for how shall my feeble speechdescribe those
agonies forwhich strong crying and tears were scarcelyan adequate
expression? I desire, with you, to survey the sufferings of our Redeemer, but
oh, may the Spirit of God prevent our mind from thinking anything amiss, or
our tongue from speaking even one word which would be derogatoryto Him
either in His immaculate manhood, or His glorious Godhead!
The Agony in Gethsemane Sermon#1199
Tellsomeone today how much you love Jesus Christ. Volume 20
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It is not easy, when you are speaking ofHim who is both God and man, to
observe the exact line of correctspeech;it is easyto describe the divine side in
such a manner as to trench upon the human, or to depict the human at the
costof the divine. Make me not an offender for a word if I should err! A man
had need, himself, to be Inspired, or to confine himself to the very Words of
Inspiration to fitly speak, atall times, upon the great“mystery of godliness”—
God manifest in the flesh, and especiallywhen he has to dwell most upon God
so manifest in suffering flesh that the weakesttraits in manhood become the
most conspicuous. O Lord, open my lips that my tongue may utter right
words! Meditating upon the agonizing scene in Gethsemane we are compelled
to observe that our Saviorendured there, a grief unknown to any previous
period of His life! Therefore we will commence our discourse by raising the
question, WHAT WAS THE CAUSE OF THE PECULIAR GRIEF OF
GETHSEMANE?Our Lord was the “Man of Sorrows, andacquainted with
grief” throughout His whole life, and yet, though it may sound paradoxical, I
scarcelythink there existed on the face of the earth a happier man than Jesus
of Nazareth! The griefs which He endured were counterbalancedby the peace
of purity, the calm of fellowship with God, and the joy of benevolence. This
last, every goodman knows to be very sweet—andall the sweeterin
proportion to the pain which is voluntarily endured for the carrying out of its

kind designs. It is always joy to do good, costwhatit may! Moreover, Jesus
dwelt at perfect peace with God at all times. We know that He did so, for He
regardedthat peace as a choice legacywhichHe could bequeath to His
disciples. Before He died, He said to them, “Peace Ileave with you, My peace I
give unto you.” He was meek and lowly of heart, and therefore His soul had
rest; He was one of the meek who inherit the earth; He was one of the
peacemakers who are and must be blessed. I think I am not mistakenwhen I
say that our Lord was far from being an unhappy man, but in Gethsemane all
seems changed;His peace is gone; His calm is turned to tempest. After supper
our Lord had sung a hymn, but there was no singing in Gethsemane!Down
the steepbank which led from Jerusalemto the Kidron, He talked very
cheerfully, saying, “I am the Vine, and you are the branches,” and that
wondrous prayer which He prayed with His disciples after that discourse is
full of majesty—“Father, Iwill that they, also, whom You have given Me be
with Me where I am”—is a very different prayer from that inside
Gethsemane’s walls, where He cries, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from
Me.” Notice that all His life you scarcelyfind Him uttering an expressionof
grief; but here He says, not only by His sighs and by His bloody sweat, but in
so many words, “My soulis exceedinglysorrowful, even unto death.” In the
garden the sufferer could not concealHis grief, and does not appear to have
wished to do so. Thrice he ran backwardand forward to His disciples;He let
them see His sorrow, and appealed to them for sympathy. His exclamations
were very piteous, and His sighs and groans were, I doubt not, very terrible to
hear. Chiefly did that sorrow revealitself in bloody sweat, whichis a very
unusual phenomenon, although I suppose we must believe those writers who
record instances somewhatsimilar. The old physician, Galen, gives an
instance in which, through extremity of horror, an individual poured forth a
discoloredsweat, as nearlycrimson as, at any rate, to appear to have been
blood. Other cases are givenby medical authorities. We do not, however, on
any previous occasionobserve anything like this in our Lord’s life. It was only
in the lastgrim struggle among the olive trees that our champion resistedunto
blood, agonizing againstsin. What ailed You, O Lord, that You should be so
sorelytroubled just then? We are clearthat His deep sorrow and distress
were not occasionedby any bodily pain. Our Saviorhad doubtless been
familiar with weakness andpain, for He took our sicknesses, but He never, in

any previous instance, complained of physical suffering. Neither at the time
when He entered Gethsemane had He been grieved by any bereavement. We
know why it is written, “Jesus wept”—itwas becauseHis friend Lazarus was
dead, but here there was no funeral, nor sick bed, nor particular cause of grief
in that direction. Nor was it the revived remembrance of any pastreproaches
which had lain dormant in His mind. Long before this “reproachhad broken
His heart,” He had known to the fullest, the vexations of contumely and scorn.
They had calledHim a “drunken man, and a winebibber.” They had charged
Him with casting out devils by the prince of the devils; they could not say
more, and yet He had bravely facedit all—it could not be possible that He was
now sorrowfulunto death for such a cause!There must have been a
something sharper than pain, more cutting than reproach, more terrible than
bereavement, which now, at this time, grappled with the Savior and made
Him “exceedinglysorrowful, and very heavy.”
Sermon #1199 The Agony in Gethsemane
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Do you suppose it was the fearof coming scorn, or the dread of crucifixion?
Was it terror at the thought of death? Is not such a supposition impossible?
Every man dreads death, and as man, Jesus couldnot but shrink from it.
When we were originally made, we were createdfor immortality, and
therefore, to die is strange and uncongenial work to us. The instincts of self-
preservationcause us to start back from it, but surely in our Lord’s case that
natural cause couldnot have produced such especiallypainful results!It does
not make even such poor cowards as we are sweatgreatdrops of blood! Why,
then, should it work such terror in Him? It is dishonoring to our Lord to
imagine Him less brave than His owndisciples, yet we have seensome of the
feeblestof His saints triumphant in the prospectof departing. Read the stories
of the martyrs, and you will frequently find them exultant in the near
approachof the cruelestsufferings. The joy of the Lord has given such
strength to them that no cowardlythought has alarmed them for a single

moment—they have gone to the stake, orto the block with songs ofvictory
upon their lips! Our Mastermust not be thought of as inferior to His boldest
servants!It cannot be that He should tremble where they were brave! Oh, no!
The noblest spirit among yon band of martyrs is the leader, Himself, who in
suffering and heroism surpassedthem all! None could so defy the pangs of
death as the Lord Jesus, who, for the joy which was setbefore Him, endured
the cross, despising the shame! I cannotconceive that the pangs of
Gethsemane were occasionedby any extraordinary attack from Satan. It is
possible that Satanwas there, and that his presence may have darkenedthe
shade—but he was not the most prominent cause of that hour of darkness!
This much is quite clear, that our Lord, at the commencementof His ministry,
engagedin a very severe duel with the Prince of Darkness,and yet we do not
read concerning that temptation in the wilderness a single syllable as to His
soul’s being exceedinglysorrowful!Neither do we find that He “was sore
amazed and was very heavy.” Noris there a solitary hint at anything
approaching to bloody sweat. When the Lord of Angels condescendedto stand
foot to foot with the Prince of the powerof the air, He had no such dread of
him as to utter strong cries and tears, and fall prostrate on the ground with
threefold appeals to the GreatFather! Comparatively speaking, to put His
foot on the old serpent was an easytask for Christ, and did but costHim a
bruised heel. But this Gethsemane agonywounded His very soul even unto
death! What is it then, do you think, that so peculiarly marks Gethsemane and
the griefs thereof? We believe that then, the Father put Him to grief for us. It
was then that our Lord had to take a certain cup from the Father’s hand. Not
from the Jews;not from the traitor, Judas; not from the sleeping disciples,
nor from the devil came the trial then—it was a cup filled by one whom He
knew to be His Father, but who, nevertheless, He understood to have
appointed Him a very bitter potion, a cup not to be drunk by His body, and to
spend its gallupon His flesh, but a cup which speciallyamazed His soul, and
troubled His inmost heart! He shrunk from it, and, therefore, you canbe sure
that it was a draught more dreadful than physical pain, since from that He did
not shrink! It was a potion more dreadful than reproach; from that He had
not turned aside; it was more dreadful than satanic temptation—that He had
overcome!It was a something inconceivably terrible, and amazingly full of
dread—which came from the Father’s hand. This removes all doubt as to

what it was, for we read, “It pleasedthe Lord to bruise Him, He has put Him
to grief: when You shall make His soul an offering for sin.” “The Lord has
made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.” He has made Him to be sin for us
though He knew no sin. This, then, is that which causedthe Saviorsuch
extraordinary depression. He was now about to “taste deathfor every man.”
He was about to bear the curse which was due to sinners because He stoodin
the sinner’s place, and must suffer in the sinner’s stead. Here is the secretof
those agonies whichit is not possible for me to set forth before you! It is so
true that— “‘Tis to God, and God alone, That His griefs are fully known.”
Yet would I exhort you to considerthese griefs, that you may love the
sufferer! He now realized, perhaps for the first time, that He was to be a sin-
bearer; as God, He was perfectly holy and incapable of sin; and as man He
was without original taint—He was spotlesslypure, yet He had to bear sin, to
be led forth as the scapegoatbearing the iniquity of Israelupon His head! He
had to be taken and made a sinoffering—andas a loathsome thing, (for
nothing was more loathsome than the sin-offering)—to be takenoutside the
camp and utterly consumedwith the fire of divine wrath!
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Do you wonder that His infinite purity startedback from that? Would He
have been what He was if it had not been a very solemn thing for Him to stand
before God in the position of a sinner? Yes, and as Luther would have said it,
to be lookedupon by God as if He were all the sinners in the world, and as if
He had committed all the sin that ever had been committed by His people—
for it was all laid on Him, and on Him must the vengeance due for it all be
poured! He must be the center of all the vengeance, and bear awayupon
Himself what ought to have fallen upon the guilty sons of men! To stand in
such a position, when once it was realized, must have been very terrible to the
Redeemer’s holy soul. Then, also, the Savior’s mind was intently fixed upon
the dreadful nature of sin! Sin had always beenabhorrent to Him, but now

His thoughts were engrossedwith it. He saw its worse than deadly nature, its
heinous character, and horrible aim; probably at this time, beyond any
former period, He had, as man, a view of the wide range and all-pervading
evil of sin, and a sense ofthe blackness ofits darkness—andthe desperateness
of its guilt as being a direct attack upon the truth of God! Yes, and upon the
very being of God! He saw, in His own person, to what lengths sinners would
go; He saw how they would sell their Lord, like Judas, and seek to destroy
Him as did the Jews. The cruel and ungenerous treatment He had Himself
receiveddisplayed man’s hate of God, and, as He saw it, horror took hold
upon Him, and His soul was heavy to think that He must bear such an evil,
and be numbered with such transgressors;to be wounded for their
transgressions, andbruised for their iniquities! But the wounding and the
bruising did not distress Him as much as the sin itself; that utterly
overwhelmed His soul! Then, too, no doubt, the penalty of sin beganto be
realized by Him in the garden—first the sin which had put Him in the position
of a suffering substitute; then the penalty which must be borne because He
was in that position. I dread, to the last degree, that kind of theologywhich is
so common, nowadays, which seeksto depreciate and diminish our estimate of
the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, thatwas no
trifling suffering which made recompense to the justice of God for the sins of
men! I am never afraid of exaggerationwhenI speak of what my Lord
endured. All hell was distilled into that cup of which our God and Savior,
Jesus Christ, was made to drink! It was not eternalsuffering, but since He
was divine, He could, in a short time, offer unto God a vindication of His
justice which sinners in hell could not have offeredhad they been left to suffer
in their own persons forever! The woe that broke over the Savior’s spirit; the
greatand fathomless ocean ofinexpressible anguish which dashed over the
Savior’s soul when He died, is so inconceivable that I must not venture far lest
I be accusedofa vain attempt to express the unutterable! But this I will say—
the very spray from that greattempestuous deep—as it fell on Christ,
baptized Him in a bloody sweat!He had not yet come to the raging billows of
the penalty, itself, but even standing on the shore, as He heard the awful surf
breaking at His feet, His soul was sorelyamazed and very heavy! It was the
shadow of the coming tempest; it was the prelude of the dread desertionwhich
He had to endure when He stoodwhere we ought to have stood, and paid to

His Father’s justice the debt which was due from us! It was this which laid
Him low! To be treatedas a sinner, to be smitten as a sinner, though in Him
was no sin—this it was which causedHim the agonyof which our text speaks!
Having thus spokenof the cause of His peculiar grief, I think we shall be able
to support our view of the matter while we lead you to considerWHAT WAS
THE CHARACTER OF THE GRIEF ITSELF? I shall trouble you, as little as
possible, with the Greek words used by the evangelists. Ihave studied eachof
them to try and find out the shades oftheir meaning, but it will suffice if I give
you the results of my carefulinvestigation. What was the grief itself? How was
it described? This greatsorrow assailedourLord some four days before He
suffered. If you turn to John 12:27, you find that remarkable utterance, “Now
is My soul troubled.” We never knew Him saythat before! This was a
foretaste ofthe greatdepressionof spirit which was so soonto lay Him
prostrate in Gethsemane!“Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say?
‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this cause came I unto this hour.”
After that we read of Him in Matthew 26:37, that, “He began to be sorrowful
and deeply distressed.” The depressionhad come over Him again; it was not
pain; it was not a palpitation of the heart, or an aching of the brow; it was
worse than these! Trouble of spirit is worse than pain of body—pain may
bring trouble, and be the incidental cause ofsorrow, but if the mind is
perfectly at peace, how well a man can bear pain! And when the soulis
exhilarated and lifted up with inward joy, bodily pain is almostforgotten, the
soul
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conquering the body! On the other hand, the soul’s sorrow will create bodily
pain, the lowernature sympathizing with the higher. Our Lord’s main
suffering lay in His soul—His soul-suffering was the soul of His suffering. “A
wounded spirit who can bear?” Pain of spirit is the worstof pain; sorrow of
heart is the climax of griefs!Let those who have ever knownsinking spirits,

despondency, and mental gloom, attestthe truth of what I say! This sorrow of
heart appears to have led to a very deep depressionof our Lord’s spirit. In
Matthew 26:37, you find it recordedthat He was “deeply distressed,” andthat
expressionis full of meaning—ofmore meaning, indeed, than it would be easy
to explain! The word, in the original, is a very difficult one to translate. It may
signify the abstractionof the mind, and its complete occupation, by sorrow, to
the exclusionof every thought which might have alleviated the distress. One
burning thought consumed His whole soul, and burned up all that might have
yielded comfort. For a while His mind refused to dwell upon the result of His
death, the consequentjoy which was set before Him. His position as a sin-
bearer, and the desertionby His Father which was necessary, engrossedHis
contemplation, and hurried His soul awayfrom all else. Some have seenin the
word a measure of distraction—and though I will not go far in that
direction—yet it does seemas if our Savior’s mind underwent perturbations
and convulsions widely different from His usual calm, collectedspirit. He was
tossedto and fro as upon a mighty sea of trouble, which was workedto a
tempest, and carried Him awayin its fury. “We did esteemHim stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted.” As the psalmist said, innumerable evils
compassedHim about so that His heart failed Him; His heart was melted with
sheerdismay! He was “deeplydistressed.” Some considerthe word to signify
at its root, “separatedfrom the people,” as if He had become unlike other
men, even as one whose mind is staggeredby a sudden blow, or pressedwith
some astounding calamity, is no more as ordinary men are. Mere onlookers
would have thought our Lord to be a man distraught, burdened beyond the
possibility of men, and borne down by a sorrow unparalleled among men. The
learned Thomas Goodwinsays, “The word denotes a failing, deficiency, and
sinking of spirit such as happens to men in sicknessand wounding.”
Epaphroditus’ sickness, wherebyhe was brought near to death, is calledby
the same word, so that we see that Christ’s soul was sick and faint—was not
His sweatproducedby exhaustion? The cold, clammy sweatof dying men
comes through faintness of body. But the bloody sweatofJesus came from an
utter faintness and prostration of soul; He was in an awful soul-swoon, and
suffered an inward death whose accompanimentwas not watery tears from
the eyes, but a weeping of blood from the entire man! Many of you, however,
know in your measure what it is to be deeply distressedwithout my

multiplying words. And if you do not know by personalexperience, all
explanations I could give would be in vain. When deep despondency comes on;
when you forgeteverything that would sustain you and your spirit sinks
down, down, down—then can you sympathize with our Lord! Others think
you foolish, call you nervous, and bid you rally yourself, but they know not
your case;if they understood it, they would not mock you with such
admonitions! Our Lord was “deeply distressed,” very sinking, very
despondent, overwhelmedwith grief! Mark tells us, next, in his 14th chapter
and 33rd verse that our Lord was “sore amazed.” The Greek worddoes not
merely import that He was astonishedand surprised, but that His amazement
went to an extremity of horror, such as men fall into when their hair stands on
end, and their flesh trembles. As the delivery of the law made Moses
exceedinglyfear and quake, and as David said, “My flesh trembles because of
Your judgments,” so our Lord was strickenwith horror at the sight of the sin
which was laid upon Him, and the vengeance whichwas due on accountof it!
The Saviorwas first distressed, then depressed, heavy, and lastly, sore
amazed, and filled with amazement—for even He, as a man, could scarcely
have known what it was that He had undertaken to bear! He had lookedat it
calmly and quietly, and felt that whateverit was He would bear it for our
sake;but when it actually came to the bearing of sin, He was utterly
astonishedand takenaback atthe dreadful position of standing in the sinner’s
place before God—ofhaving His Holy Father look upon Him as the sinner’s
representative, and of being forsakenby that Father with whom He had lived
on terms of amity and delight from old eternity! It staggeredHis holy, tender,
loving nature—and He was “sore amazed,” and was “very heavy.” We are
further taught that there surrounded, encompassed, and overwhelmedHim
an oceanof sorrow, for the 38th verse of the 26th of Matthew contains the
word perilupos, which signifies an encom
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passing around with sorrows. In all ordinary miseries there is, generally, some
loophole of escape, some breathing place for hope. We can generallyremind
our friends in trouble that their case might be worse;but in our Lord’s griefs,
worse could not be imagined, for He could saywith David, “The pains of hell
get hold upon Me.” All God’s waves and billows went over Him! Above Him,
beneath and around Him, outside Him, and within! All; all was anguish, and
neither was there one alleviation or source of consolation!His disciples could
not help Him; they were all, but one, sleeping, and he who was awake was on
the road to betray Him! His spirit cried out in the presence ofthe Almighty
God beneath the crushing burden and unbearable load of His miseries!No
griefs could have gone further than Christ’s, and He, Himself, said, “My soul
is exceedinglysorrowful,” or surrounded with sorrow “evenunto death.” He
did not die in the garden, but He suffered as much as if He had died! He
endured death intensively, though not extensively; it did not extend to the
making His body a corpse, but it went as far in pain as if it had been so!His
pangs and anguish went up to the mortal agony, and only paused on the verge
of death. Luke, to crown all, tells us in our text, that our Lord was in an
agony. The expression, “agony,”signifies a conflict, a contest, a wrestling.
With whom was the agony? With whom did He wrestle? I believe it was with
Himself! The contesthere intended was not with His God—no—“Notas I will,
but as You will,” does not look like wrestling with God. It was not a contest
with Satan, for, as we have already seen, He would not have been so sorely
amazed had that been the conflict. It was a terrible combat within Himself, an
agonywithin His ownsoul! Remember that He could have escapedfrom all
this grief with one resolve of His will and, naturally, the manhood in Him said,
“Do not bear it!” And the purity of His heart said, “Oh, do not bear it; do not
stand in the place of the sinner.” The delicate sensitiveness ofHis mysterious
nature shrunk altogetherfrom any form of connectionwith sin—yet infinite
love said, “Bearit; stoopbeneath the load.” And so there was agonybetween
the attributes of His nature—a battle on an awful scale in the arena of His
soul! The purity which cannotbear to come into contactwith sin must have
been very mighty in Christ—while the love which would not let His people
perish was very mighty, too. It was a struggle on a titanic scale, as if a
Hercules had met another Hercules—two tremendous forces strove, and
fought, and agonizedwithin the bleeding heart of Jesus!Nothing causes a man

more torture than to be draggedhere and there with contending emotions. As
civil war is the worst and cruelestkind of war, so a war within a man’s soul,
when two greatpassions in him struggle for the mastery, and both noble
passions, too, cause a trouble and distress which none but he that feels it can
understand. I marvel not that our Lord’s sweatwas, as it were, greatdrops of
blood, when such an inward pressure made Him like a cluster trod in the
winepress!I hope I have not presumptuously looked into the ark, or gazed
within the veiled holy of holies. God forbid that curiosity or pride should urge
me to intrude where the Lord has set a barrier; I have brought you as far as I
can, and must againdrop the curtain with the words I used just now— “‘Tis
to God, and God alone, ThatHis griefs are fully known.” Our third question
shall be, WHAT WAS OUR LORD’S SOLACE IN ALL THIS? He sought
help in human companionship, and it was very natural that He should do so.
God has createdin our human nature a craving for sympathy. We do not err
when we expectour brethren to watch with us in our hour of trial. But our
Lord did not find that men were able to assistHim—howeverwilling their
spirit might be, their flesh was weak. What, then, did He do? He resorted to
prayer, and especiallyprayer to God under the characterof Father. I have
learned by experience that we never know the sweetnessofthe Fatherhoodof
God so much as when we are in very bitter anguish. I can understand why the
Savior said, “Abba, Father”—itwas anguish that brought Him down as a
chastenedchild to appealplaintively to a Father’s love. In the bitterness of my
soul I have cried, “If, indeed, You are my Father, by the heart of Your
Fatherhoodhave pity on Your child.” And here Jesus pleads with His Father
as we have done; and He finds comfort in that pleading. Prayer was the
channel of the Redeemer’s comfort—earnest,intense, reverent, repeated
prayer—and after eachtime of prayer He seems to have grown quiet, and to
have gone to His disciples with a measure of restoredpeace of mind. The sight
of their sleeping helped to bring back His griefs, and, therefore, He returned
to pray again. And eachtime He was comforted, so that when He had prayed
for the third time, He was prepared to meet Judas and the soldiers, and to go

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with silent patience to judgment and to death! His greatcomfort was prayer
and submission to the divine will, for when He had laid His own will down at
His Father’s feet, the feebleness ofHis flesh spoke no more complainingly—
but in sweetsilence, like a sheepdumb before her shearers, He contained His
soul in patience and rest. Dearbrothers and sisters, if any of you shall have
your Gethsemane and your heavy griefs, imitate your Masterby resorting to
prayer, by crying to your Father, and by learning submission to His will. I
shall conclude by drawing two or three inferences from the whole subject.
May the Holy Spirit instruct us! The first is this—learn dear brothers and
sisters, the realhumanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not think of Him
merely as God, though He is assuredlydivine, but feel Him to be near of kin to
you, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh. How thoroughly can He
sympathize with you! He has been burdened with all your burdens, and
grieved with all your griefs! Are the waters very deep through which you are
passing? Theyare not deep comparedwith the torrents with which He was
buffeted! Never a pang penetrates your spirit to which your covenant head
was a stranger!Jesus cansympathize with you in all your sorrows, forHe has
suffered far more than you have ever suffered! He is able, therefore, to succor
you in your temptations; lay hold on Jesus as your familiar friend, your
brother born for adversity, and you will have obtained a consolationwhich
will bear you through the uttermost deeps! Next, see here the intolerable evil
of sin. You are a sinner, which Jesus never was—yetevento stand in the
sinner’s place was so dreadful to Him that He was sorrowfuleven unto death!
What will sin one day be to you if you should be found guilty at the last? Oh,
could we understand the horror of sin, there is not one among us that would
be satisfiedto remain in sin for a single moment! I believe there would go up
from this house of prayer this morning a weeping and a wailing such as might
be heard in the very streets, if men and women here who are living in sin
could really know what sin is, and what the wrath of God is that rests upon
them—and what the judgments of Godwill be that will shortly surround them
and destroy them! Oh soul, sin must be an awful thing if it so crushed our
Lord! If the very imputation of it fetched bloody sweatfrom the pure and holy

Savior, what must sin, itself, be? Avoid it; pass not by it; turn awayfrom the
very appearance ofit; walk humbly and carefully with your God that sin may
not harm you, for it is an exceeding plague, an infinite pest! Learn next, but
oh, how few minutes have I in which to speak of such a lesson, the matchless
love of Jesus, that for your sakes andmine, He would not merely suffer in
body, but consentedeven to bear the horror of being accounteda sinner!
Coming under the wrath of Godbecause of our sins, though it costHim
suffering unto death, and sore amazement; yet rather than that we should
perish, the Lord stoodas our surety! Can we not cheerfully endure
persecutionfor His sake? Canwe not labor earnestlyfor Him? Are we so
ungenerous that His cause shallsuffer lack while we have the means of
helping it? Are we so base that His work shall flag while we have strength to
carry it on? I charge you by Gethsemane, my brothers and sisters, if you have
a part and lot in the passionof your Savior, love Him much who loved you so
immeasurably! Spend and be spent for Him! Again, looking at Jesus in the
garden, we learn the excellenceand completeness ofthe atonement. How
black I am; how filthy, how loathsome in the sight of God! I feel myself only
fit to be castinto the lowesthell, and I wonderthat God has not long ago cast
me there! But I go into Gethsemane;I peer under those gnarledolive trees,
and I see my Savior! Yes, I see Him wallowing on the ground in anguish, and
hear such groans come from Him as never came from human lips before! I
look upon the ground, and see it red with His blood, while His face is smeared
with gory sweat!And I say to Him, “My God, my Savior, what ails You?” I
hear Him reply, “I am suffering for your sins.” And then I take comfort, for
while I gladly would have spared my Lord such anguish, now that the anguish
is over I can understand how Jehovahcanspare me, because He smote His
Son in my place!Now I have hope of justification, for I bring before the
justice of God and my own conscience, the remembrance of my bleeding
Savior, and I say, “CanYou twice demand payment, first at the hand of Your
agonizing Son, and then, again, at mine? Sinner as I am, I stand before the
burning throne of the severity of God, and am not afraid of it! Can You
scorchme, O consuming fire, when You have not only scorchedbut utterly
consumed my substitute?” No, by faith my soul sees justice satisfied, the law
honored, the moral government of God established, and yet my once guilty
soul absolvedand setfree! The fire of avenging justice has spent itself, and the

law has exhausted its most rigorous demands upon the person of Him who
was
8
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made a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness ofGodin Him!
Oh the sweetnessofthe comfort which flows from the atoning blood! Obtain
that comfort, my brothers and sisters, and never leave it! Cling to your Lord’s
bleeding heart, and drink in abundant consolation! Last of all, what must be
the terror of the punishment which will fall upon those men who rejectthe
atoning blood, and who will have to stand before God in their own proper
persons to suffer for their sins? I will tell you, sirs, with pain in my heart as I
tell you, what will happen to those of you who rejectmy Lord! Jesus Christ,
my Lord and Master, is a sign and prophecy to you of what will happen to
you! Not in a garden, but on that bed of yours where you have so often been
refreshed, you will be surprised and overtaken, and the pains of death will get
hold upon you! With an exceedinglysorrow and remorse for your misspent
life, and for a rejectedSavior, you will be made very miserable!Then will
your darling sin, your favorite lust, like another Judas, betray you with a kiss!
While yet your soul lingers on your lips, you will be seizedand takenoff by a
body of evil ones, and carried awayto the bar of God, just as Jesus was taken
to the judgment seatof Caiaphas. There shall be a speedy, personal, and
somewhatprivate judgment by which you shall be committed to prison where,
in darkness and weeping, and wailing, you shall spend the night before the
greatassize of the judgment morning! Then shall the day break, and the
resurrectionmorning come, and as our Lord then appearedbefore Pilate, so
will you appear before the highest tribunal, not that of Pilate, but the dread
Judgment Seatof the Son of God whom you have despised and rejected!Then
will witnessescome againstyou, not false witnesses,but true— and you will
stand speechless, evenas Jesus saidnot a word before His accusers!Then will
conscienceanddespair buffet you! You will become such a monument of

misery, such a spectacle ofcontempt as to be fitly noted by another Ecce
Homo, and men shall look at you and say, “Beholdthe man and the suffering
which has come upon him, because he despisedhis God and found pleasure in
sin.” Thenyou shall be condemned. “Depart, you cursed,” shallbe your
sentence, evenas, “Let Him be crucified!” was the doom of Jesus. Youshall be
takenawayby the officers of justice to your doom. Then, like the sinner’s
substitute, you will cry, “I thirst,” but not a drop of watershall be given you!
You shall taste nothing but the gall of bitterness; you shall be executed
publicly with your crimes written over your head that all may read and
understand that you are justly condemned; and then will you be mockedas
Jesus was, especiallyif you have been a professorof religion, and a false one!
All that pass by will say, “He savedothers, he preached to others, but himself
he cannot save.” GodHimself will mock you! No, think not that I dream! Has
He not said it—“I, also, will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your
fear comes”?Cry unto your gods that you once trusted in! Get comfort out of
the lusts you once delighted in, O you that are castawayforever! To your
shame, and to the confusionof your nakedness, you shall, that have despised
the Savior, be made a spectacle ofthe justice of God FOREVER!It is right it
should be so;justice rightly demands it; sin made the Saviorsuffer an
agony—shallit not make you suffer? Moreover, in addition to your sin, you
have rejectedthe Savior!You have said, “He shall not be my trust and
confidence.” Voluntarily, presumptuously, and againstyour own conscience
you have refused eternallife! And if you die rejecting His mercy, what can
come of it but that first, your sin, and secondly, your unbelief shall condemn
you to misery without limit or end? Let Gethsemane warn you! Let its groans,
tears, and bloody sweatadmonish you! Repent of your sin, and believe in
Jesus!May His Spirit enable you, for Jesus’sake!Amen.
CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE NO. 3190

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1910,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,AT THE METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD’S-DAYEVENING, JUNE 1,
1879.
“And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane.” Mark 14:32.
OUR Lord had been sitting at the table of happy fellowshipwith His
disciples, talking to them in a very solemn and impressive manner. He then
delivered those choice discourses whichare recordedby John and offered that
wonderful prayer which deserves to always be called, “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Knowing all that was to befall Him, He and His disciples left the upper room
and startedto go to His usual place of quiet retreat, “a place which was
named Gethsemane.”You caneasily picture their descentinto the street. The
moon was at the full on the Paschalnight and it was very cold, for we read
that the high priest’s servants had kindled a fire and warmed themselves,
because it was cold. As Jesus walkedalong the narrow streets of Jerusalem,
He doubtless still spoke to His disciples in calm and helpful tones. And before
long they came to the Brook Kidron over which David passedwhen Absalom
stole awaythe hearts of the people from his father. So now, “greatDavid’s
greaterSon” must go the same way to the olive gardenwhere He had often
been before with His disciples. It was calledGethsemane, “the olive press.” As
we think of Christ in Gethsemane, Iwant you who love Him not only to adore
Him, but to learn to imitate Him, so that when you are calledto “drink of His
cup,” and to be baptized with the baptism wherewithHe was baptized, you
may behave as His true followers should and come forth from your conflict
victorious as He came forth from His! At the very outset, there is one fact
that I wish you to observe very particularly. Sudden changes from joy to grief
have produced extraordinary results in those who have been affectedby them.
We have often read or heard of persons whose hair has turned white in a
single night—such an extreme convulsion of mind has happened to them that
they have seemedto be hurried forward into premature old age—atleastin

appearance, if not in fact. Many have died through unusual excitements of
spirit. Some have dropped down dead through a sudden excess ofjoy and
others have been killed by a sudden excess ofgrief. Our blessedMastermust
have experienceda very sudden change of feeling on that memorable night. In
that greatintercessoryprayer of His, there is nothing like distress or tumult of
spirit. It is as calm—as a lake unruffled by the zephyr’s breath. Yet He is no
soonerin Gethsemane than He says to the three especiallyfavored disciples,
“My soul is exceedinglysorrowful, even unto death: tarry you here and watch
with Me.” I do not think that this greatconflict arose through our dear
Master’s fearof death, nor through His fearof the physical pain and all the
disgrace and shame that He was so soonto endure. But, surely, the agony in
Gethsemane was part of the greatburden that was already resting upon Him
as His people’s substitute—it was this that pressedHis spirit down even into
the dust of death. He was to bear the full weight of it upon the cross, but I am
persuaded that the passionbeganin Gethsemane. Youknow that Peter writes,
“Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” But we are not
to gather from that passagethatHis substitutionary sufferings were limited to
the tree, for the original might bear this rendering—that He bore our sins in
His own body up to the tree—thatHe came up to the tree bearing that awful
load and still continued to bear it on the tree! You remember that Peter also
writes, in the same verse, “by whose stripes you were healed.” These stripes
did not fall upon Jesus whenHe was upon the cross—itwas in Pilate’s
judgment hall that He was so cruelly scourged!I believe that He was bearing
our sins all His life, but that the terrible weightof them beganto crush Him
with sevenfoldforce when He came to the olive press, and that the entire mass
restedupon Him with infinite intensity when
2 Christ in Gethsemane Sermon#3190
2 Tell someone todayhow much you love Jesus Christ. Volume 56
He was nailed to the cross—andso forcedfrom Him the agonizing cry, “My
God, My God, why have You forsakenMe?” I. In meditating upon this
commencementof our Savior’s unknown agonies, letus think first of THE
CHOICE OF THE SPOT where those agonies were to be endured. Let us try
to find out why He went to that particular gardenon that dread night of His

betrayal. First, the choice of Gethsemane showedHis serenity of mind and
His courage. He knew that He was to be betrayed, to be draggedbefore Annas
and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod—to be insulted, scourgedand, at lastto be
led awayto be crucified—but (mark the words), “He came out, and went, as
He was known to do, to the Mount of Olives.” It was His usual custom to go
there to pray, so He would not make any change in His habits although He
was approaching the supreme crisis of His earthly life. Let this courageous
conduct of our Lord teacha lessonto all who profess to be His disciples.
Whenever some trouble is about to come upon you, especiallyif it is a trouble
that comes upon you because you are a Christian, do not be perturbed in
spirit. Neglectno duty, but do as you have been knownto do. The bestway of
preparing for whatevermay be coming is to go on with the next thing in the
order of providence. If any child of God knew that he had to die tonight, I
would recommend him to do just what he would do on any other Sabbath
night, only to do it more earnestlyand more devoutly than ever he had done it
before! Blessedis that servant who, when his Mastercomes, shallbe found
discharging his duty as a servant—waiting upon his Master’s householdwith
all due orderliness and care. To go and stand outside the front door and stare
up into the skyto see if the Masteris coming, as some I know seemto do, is
not at all as your Lord would have you act! You know how the angels rebuked
the disciples for doing this—“Youmen of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up
into heaven?” Go and preach the gospelin the powerof the Holy Spirit and
then, whether Christ comes soonerorlater, you will be in the right posture to
welcome Him! And He will commend you for carrying out, as far as you can,
His lastgreatcommission to His disciples! Christ’s courage is also evident
from the factthat “Judas, also, who betrayed Him, knew the place, for Jesus
often resortedthere with His disciples.” Nothing would have been easierthan
for our blessedLord to have escapedfrom Judas if He had desired to do so,
but He had no desire to escape,so He went boldly and deliberately to the place
with which “the son of perdition” was wellacquainted—the very place,
indeed, to which the traitor at once conducted the officers who had been
ordered to arrest the Master!May the Lord give to us similar courage
wheneverwe are placed in a position in any respectlike His was then! There
are certaintrials which, as a Christian, you cannotescape, andwhich you
should not wish to escape. You do not like to think of them, but I would urge

you to do so, not with fear and terror, but with the calm confidence of one
who says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with and I am straiteneduntil it is
accomplished. I have a cup of which I must drink, I am eagerto drink it. I do
not court suffering, but if it is for Christ’s sake, forthe glory of God and the
goodof His church, I do not wish to escape from it, but I will go to it calmly
and deliberately, evenas my Lord went to Gethsemane, thoughJudas knew
the place where Jesus oftenresorted with His disciples.” But, next, in the
choice of this spot, our Lord also manifestedHis wisdom. For, first, it was to
Him a place of holy memories. Under those old olive trees, so gnarledand
twisted, He had spent many a night in prayer. And the silver moonbeams,
glancing betweenthe somberfoliage had often illumined His blessedpersonas
He knelt there and wrestledand had communion with His Father. He knew
how His soulhad been refreshed while He had spokenthere, face to face with
the Eternal—how His face had been made to shine—and He had returned to
the battle in Jerusalem’s streets strengthenedby His contactwith the
Almighty. So He went to the old trysting place, the familiar spot where holy
memories clustered thick as bees about a hive, eachone laden with honey. He
went there because those holy memories aided His faith. And, brothers and
sisters in Christ, when your time of trial comes, you will do well to go to the
spot where the Lord has helped you in the past—andwhere you have enjoyed
much hallowed fellowshipwith Him. There are rooms where if the walls could
tell all that has happened within them, a heavenly brightness might be seen
because Godhas so graciouslyrevealedHimself to us there in times of
sicknessand sorrow!One who had long lain in prison for Christ’s sake, used
to say, sometimes, afterhe had been released, “Oh, take me back to my
dungeon, for I never had such blessedseasonsofcommunion with my Lord as
I had within that cold stone cell!” Well, if you have such a place, dear to you
by many hallowedmemories, go to it as your Masterwent to His sacred
oratory in the gardenof Gethsemane, forthere you will be likely to be helped
even by the associationsofthe place. Our Lord’s wisdom, in choosing that
spot is also evident from the fact that it was a place of deep solitude and,
therefore, most suitable for His prayers and cries on that doleful night. The
place which is
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Volume 56 Tell someone todayhow much you love Jesus Christ. 3
now calledthe gardenof Gethsemane does not, according to some of the best
judges, deserve that name. It is in far too exposeda position. But one always
thinks of Gethsemane as a very quiet, lonely spot. And let me saythat in my
judgment, there is no place so suitable for solitude as an olive garden—
especiallyif it is in terrace above terrace as in the south of France. I have
frequently been sitting in an olive garden, and friends whom I would have
been glad to see, have been within a few yards of me, yet I have not known
that they were there! One beautiful afternoon, as two or three of us sat and
read, we could see, a long way down, a black hat moving to and fro, but we
could not see the wearerof it. We afterwards discoveredthat he was a brother
minister whom we were glad to invite to join our little company. If you want
to be alone, you can be so at any time you like in an olive garden—evenif it is
near town. What with the breaking up of the ground into terraces, the great
abundance of foliage and the strange twisted trunks of the old trees, I know no
place in which I would feel so sure of being quite alone as in an olive garden!
And I think our Masterwent to Gethsemane fora similar reason. And
burdened as He was, He needed to be in a solitaryplace. The clamorous
crowdin Jerusalemwould have been no fit companions for Him when His
soul was exceedinglysorrowful, even unto death. It seems to me, also, that
there is about an olive garden, either by day or by night, something congruous
with sorrow. There are some trees that seemconducive to mirth—the very
twinkling of their leaves would make one’s heart dance with delight! But
about the olive there is always something, not suggestive,perhaps, of absolute
melancholy, but a matter of fact soberness as if in extracting oil out of the
flinty rock, it had endured so much suffering that it had no inclination to
smile, but stood there as the picture of everything that is somber and solemn.
Our dear Masterknew that there was something congenialto His exceeding
sorrow in the gloom of the olive gardenand, therefore, He went there on the
night of His betrayal. Act with similar wisdom, brothers and sisters in Christ,
when your hour of trial is approaching!I have known some people rush into
gay societyto try to forget their grief, but that was folly. I have known others,
in seasonsofsorrow, seemto surround themselves with everything that is

sad—thatwas also folly. Some, who have been in greattrouble, have tried to
hide it in frivolity, but that was still greaterfolly. It is a good thing, in times of
grief, not to let your surroundings be either too somber or too bright, but to
seek, in your measure, to be as wise as your Masterwas in His choice of
Gethsemane as the scene ofHis solitary supplication and subsequent betrayal.
II. Now, secondly, let us considerTHE EXERCISE OF THE SAVIOR UPON
THAT SPOT. Everyitem is worthy of attention and imitation. First, He took
all the precautions for others. He left 8 of His disciples at the entrance to the
garden, saying to them, “Praythat you enter not into temptation.” Then He
took Peter, James and John a little further into the garden, saying to them,
“Tarry you here, and watchwith Me.” There ought, thus, to have been two
watching and praying bands. If they had all been on the watch, they might
have heard the footfalls of the approaching band and they would have seenin
the distance the lights of the lanterns and torches of these who were coming to
arresttheir Lord. Probably our Mastertook these precautions more for the
sake ofHis disciples than for His own sake. He bade them pray as wellas
watch, that they might not be takenunawares, nor be overcome with fear
when they saw their Mastercaptured and led awayas a prisoner. From this
actionof our Lord, we may learn that we, also, in our own extremity, should
not forgetto care for others and shield them from harm as much as we can.
Next, our Savior solicitedthe sympathy of friends. As a man, He desired the
prayers and sympathies of those who had been most closelyassociatedwith
Him. Oh, what a prayer meeting they might have held—watching for the
coming of the enemy and praying for their dear Lord and Master!They had a
noble opportunity of showing their devotion to Him, but they missed it. They
could not have kept Judas and the men who came with him awayfrom their
Lord, but they might have let their Masterknow when Judas was coming. It
was almostthe last service that any of them could have rendered to Him
before He died for them—yet they failed to render it and left Him, in that
dread hour of darkness—withouteven the slight consolationthathuman
sympathy might have afforded Him. In our times of trial, we shall not do
wrong if we imitate our Lord in this action of His—yet we need not be
surprised if, like He, we find all human aid fail us in our hour of greatestneed.
Then, leaving all His disciples, and going away alone, Jesus prayedand
wrestledwith God and, in our time of trouble, our resortmust be to prayer.

Restrainnot prayer at any time, even when the sun shines brightly upon you,
but be sure that you pray when the midnight darkness surrounds your spirit.
Prayer is most neededin such an hour as that, so be not slack in it, but pour
out your whole soul in ear
nest supplication to your God and say to yourself, “Now above all other times
I must pray with the utmost intensity.” For considerhow Jesus prayed in
Gethsemane. He adopted the lowliestposture and manner. He fell on His
face and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from
Me.” What an extraordinary sight! The eternal Son of God had taken upon
Himself our nature and there He lay as low as the very dust out of which our
nature was originally formed! There He lay as low as the most unrighteous
sinner or the most humble beggarcan lie before God. Then He beganto cry to
His Fatherin plain and simple language, but oh, what force He put into the
words He used! Thrice He pleaded with His Father, repeating the same
petition—and Luke tells us that, “being in an agonyHe prayed more
earnestly;and His sweatwas, as it were, greatdrops of blood falling down to
the ground.” He was not only in an agonyof suffering, but in an agonyof
prayer at the same time! But while our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane was
thus earnest, intense and repeated, it was, atthe same time, balancedwith a
ready acquiescencein His Father’s will! “Nevertheless,notas I will, but as
You will.” So, suffering one, you whose spirit has sunk within you. You who
are depressedand well near distractedwith grief, may the Holy Spirit help
you to do what Jesus did—to pray, to pray alone, to pray with intensity, to
pray with importunity, to pray even unto an agony—forthis is the way in
which you will prevail with God and be brought through your hour of
darkness and grief. Believe not the devil when he tells you that your prayer is
in vain! Let not your unbelief say, “The Lord has closedHis ears againstyou.”
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither His
ears heavy, that they cannothear.” Yet mind that you also imitate your
Lord’s submission and resignation, for that is not acceptable prayerin which
a man seeksto make his own will prevail over the will of God! That is

presumption and rebellion—not the cry of a true child of God. You may
beseechHim to grant your request, “if it is possible,” but you may not go
beyond that! You must still cry, with your Lord, “Nevertheless notas I will,
but as You will.” I have already reminded you that our Lord soughthuman
sympathy while in Gethsemane, but I want againto refer to that fact so that
we may learn the lessons it is intended to teach us. In our little griefs we often
go to our fellow creatures, but not to God—that habit is apt to breed
dependence upon man. But in our greatestgriefs, we frequently go to God and
feel as if we could not go to man! Now, although that may look like honoring
God, there is a gooddeal of pride mixed with it. Our Lord Jesus Christ
neither depended upon men nor yet renounced the sympathy of men. There
were three of His disciples within calland eight more a little further away, but
probably still within call. He prayed to His Father, yet He askedof His
disciples such sympathy as they might have shown to Him. Still, He did not
depend upon their sympathy for, when He did not getit, He went back to His
praying to His Father! There are some who saythat they will trust in God and
use no means—others saythat they will use the means, but they fall short in
the matter of trusting God. I have read that one of Mohammed’s followers
came to him and said, “O prophet of God, I shall turn my camel loose, tonight,
and trust it to providence.” But Mohammed very wiselyanswered, “Tie your
camelup as securelyas you can—and then trust it to providence.” There was
sound common sense in that remark—andthe principle underlying it can be
applied to far weightiermatters. I believe that I am following the example of
my Lord when I say, “I trust in God so fully that if no man will sympathize
with me, He, alone, will enable me to drink all that is in this cup that He has
placed in my hand. Yet I love my fellow creatures so much that I desire to
have their sympathy with me in my sorrow, althoughif they withhold it, I
shall still place my sole dependence upon my God.” When our Lord came to
His disciples and found them sleeping instead of watching, you know how
prompt He was to find an excuse for them—“The spirit truly is ready, but the
flesh is weak.” His rebuke of Peterwas very gentle—“‘Simon, do you sleep?
Could you not watchone hour?’ Are you sleeping, you who so recently
boastedthat you would go with Me to prison and to death and that though all
others should deny Me, you would not? Ah, Simon, you had better watchand
pray, for you know not how soontemptation may assailyou and cause you to

fall most grievously.” Yet Peterwas included with the restof the disciples in
the excuse whichtheir Lord made for the willing but weak sleepers who ought
to have been watchers. Whata lessonthis is to us! We do not make half the
excuses forone another that Jesus makes forus! Generally, we are so busy
making excuses forourselves that we quite forgetto make excuses forothers.
It was not so with our Lord. Even in His own overwhelming trouble, no sharp
or unkind word escapedfrom His lips! When we are very ill, you know how
apt we are to be irritable to those about us. And if others do not sympathize
with us as we think they should, we wonder what they canbe made of to see us
in such sorrow and not to express more grief on our account!Yet there was
our Mas
Sermon #3190 Christin Gethsemane 5
Volume 56 Tell someone todayhow much you love Jesus Christ. 5
ter, all stainedwith His own blood, for His heart’s floods had burst their
banks and run all over Him in a gory torrent! But when He came to His
disciples, they gave Him no kind word, no help, no sympathy, for they were all
asleep. He knew that they were sleeping for sorrow, so their sleepwas not
causedby indifference to His grief, but by their sorrow at His sorrow. Their
Masterknew this, so He made such excuse for them as He could. And,
beloved, when we are suffering our much smaller sorrows, letus be ready to
make excuses for others as our Lord did in His greatoceanofsuffering! III.
Now, thirdly, let us considerTHE TRIUMPH UPON THAT SPOT. It was a
terrible battle that was wagedin Gethsemane—weshallnever be able to
pronounce that word without thinking of our Lord’s grief and agony—but it
was a battle that He won, a conflict that ended in complete victory for Him!
The victory consisted, first, in His perfect resignation. There was no rebellion
in His heart againstthe will of the Father to whom He had so completely
subjectedHimself. But unreservedly He cried, “Notas I will, but as You will.”
No clarion blast, nor firing of cannons, nor waving of flags, nor acclamationof
the multitudes ever announced such a victory as our Lord achievedin
Gethsemane!He there won the victory over all the griefs that were upon Him

and all the griefs that were soonto roll over Him like huge Atlantic billows!
He there won the victory over death and even over the wrath of God which He
was about to endure to the utmost for His people’s sake!There is true
courage, there is the highest heroism, there is the declarationof the invincible
conqueror in that cry, “Notas I will, but as You will.” With Christ’s perfect
resignation, there was also His strong resolve. He had undertaken the work of
His people’s redemption and He would go through with it until He could
triumphantly sayfrom the Cross, “Itis finished!” A man can sometimes dash
forward and do a deed of extraordinary daring, but it is the long sustained
agonythat is the real testof courageous endurance. Christ’s agonyin
Gethsemane was brokenup into three periods of most intense wrestling in
prayer—with brief intervals which could have given Him no relief as He
turned in vain to the sleeping disciples for the sympathy that His true human
nature neededin that hour of dreadful darkness!But, as He had before
steadfastlysetHis face to go to Jerusalemthough He well knew all that
awaitedHim there, He still kept His face set like a flint toward the great
purpose for which He had come from heaven to earth. It is the wearand tear
of long continued grief that has proved too much for many a truly heroic
spirit, yet our Lord endured it to the end! And so He left us an example that
we shall do well to follow. A part of our Savior’s victory was that He
obtained angelic help. Those prayers of His prevailed with His Father, “and
there appeared an angelunto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.” I know
not how he did it, but in some mysterious way the angel brought Him succor
from on high. We do not know that angel’s name and we do not need to know
it—but somewhere among the bright spirits before the throne of God there is
the angelwho strengthenedChrist in Gethsemane. Whata high honor for
him! The disciples missed the opportunity that Christ put within their reach,
but the angelgladly availed himself of the opportunity as soonas it was
presentedto him. Lastof all, the victory of Christ was manifest in His
majestic bearing towards His enemies. Calmly He rose and facedthe hostile
band. And when the traitor gave the appointed signal by which Jesus was to
be recognized, He simply askedthe searching personalquestion, “Judas, do
you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” How that inquiry must have cut the
betrayer to the heart! When Jesus turned to those who had been sentto arrest
Him and said to them, “Whom do you seek,”He did not speak like a man

whose soulwas exceedinglysorrowful, even unto death. And when they
answeredHim, “Jesus ofNazareth,” He said, “I Am,” and at the very sound
of that greatJehovah’s name, “I Am,” “they went backwardand fell to the
ground.” There was a majestic flash of His deity even in the hour of the
abasementof His humanity—and they fell prostrate before the God who had
thus confessedthat the name of Jehovahrightly belongedto Him! Then He
went with them quietly and without the slightestresistance afterHe had
shown His care for His disciples by saying—“If, therefore, you seek Me, let
these go their way”—andafterHe had healedthe earof Malchus, which Peter
had so rashly cut off! Then, all the while that Christ was before Annas and
Caiaphas, and before Pilate and Herod, and right on to the lastdread scene of
all upon the cross, He was calm and collected—andnever againendured such
tossing to and fro as He had passedthrough in Gethsemane! Well now,
beloved, if the Lord shall bring us into deep waters and cause us to pass
through fiery trials—if His Spirit shall enable us to pray as Jesus did, we shall
see something like the same result in our own experience!We shall rise up
from our knees strengthenedfor all that lies before us and fitted to bear the
cross that our Lord may have ordained for us. In any case,our cup can never
be as deep or as
bitter as His was—there were in His cup some ingredients that never will be
found in ours. The bitterness of sin was there, but He has taken that awayfor
all who believe in Him. His Father’s wrath was there, but He drank that all up
and left not a single drop for any of His people. One of the martyrs, as he was
on his way to the stake, wasso supremely happy that a friend said to him,
“Your Saviorwas full of sorrow when He agonizedfor you in Gethsemane.”
“Yes,” replied the martyr, “and for that very reasonI am so happy, for He
bore all the sorrow for me.” You need not fear to die, if you are a Christian,
since Jesus died to put awayyour sin—and death is but the opening of your
cage to let you fly, to build your happy nest on high! Therefore, fearnot even
the lastenemy, which is death. Besides, Christcould not have a Saviorwith
Him to help Him in His agony, but you have His assurance that He will be

with you! You shall not have merely an angel to strengthen you, but you shall
have that greatangelof the covenantto save and bless you even to the end!
The most of this sermon does not belong to some of you, for you do not belong
to Christ. O dear friends, do not give sleepto your eyes or slumber to your
eyelids till you belong to Him! As surely as you live, you will have sorrows at
some time or other, you will have a bitter cup of which you must drink—and
then what will you do if you have no divine consolationin the trying hour?
What will you do when you come to die if you have no Christ to make your
pillow soft for you, no Savior to go with you through that dark valley? Oh,
seek Him and He will be found of you, even now! The Lord help you to do so,
for Christ’s sake!Amen.
THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL NO. 693
A SERMON DELIVERED BYC. H. SPURGEON,AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
“A place calledGethsemane.” Matthew 26:36.
THOUGH I have taken only these few words for my text, I shall endeavor to
bring the whole narrative before your mind’s eyes. It is a part of the teaching
of Holy Writ that man is a composite being—his nature being divisible into
three parts—“spirit,” “soul,” and “body.” I am not going to draw any nice
distinctions tonight betweenthe spirit and the soul, or to analyze the
connecting link betweenour immaterial life and consciousness, and the
physical condition of our nature, and the materialism of the world around us.

Suffice it to say that whenever our vital organization is mentioned, this triple
constitution is pretty sure to be referred to. If you notice it carefully, you will
see in our Savior’s sufferings on our behalf that the passionextended to His
spirit, soul, and body; for although at the last extremity upon the cross it was
hard to tell in which respectHe suffered most, all three being strained to the
utmost, yet it is certain there were three distinct conflicts in accordancewith
this threefold endowment of humanity. The first part of our Lord’s dolorous
pain fell upon His spirit. This took place at the table in that upper chamber
where He ate the Passoverwith His disciples. Those ofyou who have read the
narrative attentively will have noticed these remarkable words in the 13th
chapter of John and the 21stverse:“WhenJesus had said these things, He
was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I sayunto you,
that one of you shall betray Me.” Of that silent conflict in the Savior’s heart
while He was sitting at the table no one was a spectator. Into any man’s
spiritual apprehensions it was beyond the power of any other creature to
penetrate; how much less into the spiritual conflicts of the man Christ Jesus?
No one could by any possibility have gazed upon these veiled mysteries. He
seems to have satthere for a time like one in the deepestabstraction;He
fought a mighty battle within Himself. When Judas rose and went out it may
have been a relief. The Saviorgave out a hymn as if to celebrate His conflict;
then, rising up, He went forth to the Mount of Olives. His discourse with His
disciples there is recorded in that wonderful chapter, the 15th of John, so full
of holy triumph, beginning thus, “I am the true vine.” He went to the agonyin
the same joyous spirit like a conqueror, and oh, how He prayed! That famous
prayer, what a profound study it is for us! It ought, properly, to be called
“The Lord’s Prayer.” The manner and the matter are alike impressive.
“These words spoke Jesus, andlifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father,
the hour is come;glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.” He
seems to have been chanting a melodious paean just then at the thought that
His first battle had been fought, that His spirit, which had been troubled, had
risen superior to the conflict, and that He was alreadyvictorious in the first of
the three terrible struggles. As soonas this had occurredthere came another
hour, and with it the power of darkness in which not so much the spirit as the
soul of our blessedLord was to sustainthe shock ofthe encounter. This took
place in the garden. You know that after He had come forth triumphant in

this death struggle He went to the conflict more expressly in His body,
undergoing in His physical nature the scourging, the spitting, and the
crucifixion, although in that third case there was a grief of spirit and an
anguish of soul likewise, whichmingled their tributary streams. We would
counselyou to meditate upon eachseparately, according to the time and the
circumstance in which the pre-eminence of any one of these is distinctly
referred to. This secondconflict which we have now before us well deserves
our most reverent attention. I think it has been much misunderstood. Possibly
a few thoughts may be given us tonight which shall clearawaythe mist from
our understanding, and open some of the mystery to our hearts. It seems to
me that the agonyin the garden was a repetition of the temptation in the
wilderness. These two contests withthe prince of darkness have many points
of exactcorrespondence. Ifcarefully pondered, you may discover
The Garden of the Soul Sermon #693
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that there is a singular and striking connectionbetweenthe triple temptation
and the triple prayer. Having fought Satan at the first in the wilderness, on
the threshold of His public ministry, our Lord now finds him at the lastin the
garden as He nears the termination of His mediatorial work on earth. Keep in
mind that it is the soul of Jesus ofwhich we now speak, while I take up the
severalpoints consecutively, offering a few brief words on each. THE
PLACE OF CONFLICT has furnished the theme of so many discourses that
you canhardly expectanything new to be said upon it. Let us, however, stir
up your minds by way of remembrance. Jesus wentto the GARDEN, there to
endure the conflict because it was the place of meditation. It seemedfit that
His mental conflict should be carried on in the place where man is most at
home in the pensive musings of his mind— “The gardencontemplation suits.”
As Jesus had been accustomedto indulge Himself with midnight reveries in
the midst of those olive groves, He fitly choosesa place sacredto the studies of
the mind to be the place memorable for the struggles of His soul— “In a

garden man became Heir of endless death and pain.” It was there the first
Adam fell, and it was meetthat there— “The secondAdam should restore
The ruins of the first.” He went to that particular garden, it strikes me,
because it was within the boundaries of Jerusalem. He might have gone to
Bethany that night as He had on former nights, but why did He not? Do you
not know that it was according to the Levitical law that the Israelites should
sleepwithin the boundaries of Jerusalemon the Paschalnight? When they
came up to the temple to keepthe Passoverthey must not go awaytill that
Paschalnight was over. So our Lord selecteda rendezvous within the liberties
of the city that He might not transgress eventhe slightestjot or tittle of the
law. And again, He chose that garden, among others contiguous to Jerusalem,
because Judas knew the place. He wanted retirement, but He did not want a
place where He could skulk and hide Himself. It was not for Christ to give
Himself up—that were like suicide; but it was not for Him to withdraw and
secrete Himself—thatwere like cowardice. So He goes to a place which He is
quite sure that Judas, who was aware ofHis habits, knows He is accustomed
to visit; and there, like one who, so far from being afraid to meet His death,
pants for the baptism with which He is to be baptized, He awaits the crisis
that He had so distinctly anticipated. “If they seek Me,” He seemedto say, “I
will be where they can readily find Me, and lead Me away.” Every time we
walk in a garden I think we ought to remember the garden where the Savior
walked, and the sorrows that befell Him there. Did He selecta garden, I
wonder, because we are all so fond of such places, thus linking our seasons of
recreationwith the most solemn mementoes of Himself? Did He recollectwhat
forgetful creatures we are, and did He therefore let His blood fall upon the soil
of a garden, that so often as we dig and delve therein we might lift up our
thoughts to Him who fertilized earth’s soil, and delivered it from the curse by
virtue of His own agony and griefs? Our next thought shall be about the
WITNESSES. Christ’s spiritual suffering was altogetherwithin the veil. As I
have said, no one could describe it. But His soul-sufferings had some
witnesses.Notthe rabble, not the multitude; when they saw His bodily
suffering, that was all they could understand, therefore it was all they were
permitted to see. Justso, Jesus had often shownthem the flesh, as it were, or
the carnalthings of His teaching when He gave them a parable; but He had
never shown them the soul, the hidden life of His teaching, this He reserved

for His disciples. And thus it was in His passion;He let the Greek and the
Roman gatheraround in mockery, and see His flesh torn, and rent, and
bleeding, but He did not let them go into the garden with Him to witness His
anguish or His prayer. Within that enclosure none came but the disciples. And
mark, my brothers and sisters, not all the disciples were there. There were a
120 of His disciples, at least, if not more, but only 11 bore Him company then.
Those 11 must cross that gloomy brook of Kidron with Him, and eight of them
are setto keepthe door, their faces towards the world, there to sit and watch;
only three go into the garden, and those three see something of His sufferings;
they behold Him when the agony begins, but still at a distance. He withdraws
from them a stone’s cast, for He must tread the winepress alone, and it is not
possible that the priestly sufferer should have a single peer in the offering
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which He is to present to His God. At the last it came to this, that there was
only one observer. The chosenthree had fallen asleep, God’s unsleeping eyes
alone lookeddown upon Him. The Father’s earalone attended to the piteous
cries of the Redeemer— “He knelt, the Savior knelt and prayed, When but
His Father’s eyes Looked through the lonely garden’s shade On that dread
agony; The Lord of all above, beneath, Was bowedwith sorrow unto death!”
Then there came an unexpected visitor. Amazement wrapped the sky as
Christ was seenofangels to be sweating blood for us! “Give strength to
Christ,” the Father said as He addressedsome strong-wingedspirit— “The
astonishedseraphbowed his head, And flew from worlds on high.” He stood
to strengthen, not to fight, for Christ must fight alone; but applying some holy
cordial, some sacredanointing to the oppressedChampion who was ready to
faint, He, our greatDeliverer, receivedstrength from on high, and rose up to
the lastof His fights. Oh, my dear friends, does not all this teachus that the
outside world knows nothing about Christ’s soul-sufferings? Theydraw a
picture of Him; they carve a piece of woodor ivory, but they do not know His

soul-sufferings;they cannot enter into them! No, the mass of His people do not
know them, for they are not made conformable to those sufferings by a
spiritual fellowship. We have not that keen sense ofmental things to
sympathize with such grieving as He had, and even the favored ones, the
three—the electout of the elect—who have the most of spiritual Graces and
who have therefore the most of suffering to endure, and the most of
depressionof spirits, even they cannot pry into the fullness of the mystery.
God only knows the soul-anguishof the Savior when He sweatgreatdrops of
blood; angels saw it, but yet they could not understand it. They must have
wondered more when they saw the Lord of life and glory sorrowfulwith
exceeding sorrowfulness, evenunto death, than when they saw this round
world spring into beautiful existence from nothingness, or when they saw
Jehovahgarnish the heavens with His Spirit, and with His hand form the
crookedserpent. Beloved, we cannotexpect to know the length and breadth
and height of these things, but only as our own experience deepens and
darkens shall we know more and more of what Christ suffered in the garden.
Having thus spokenabout the place and the witnesses,letus saya little
concerning THE CUP ITSELF. What was this “cup” about which our Savior
prayed—“If it is possible let this cup pass from Me”? Some of us may have
entertained the notion that Christ desired, if possible, to escape fromthe
pangs of death. You may conjecture that although He had undertaken to
redeem His people, yet His human nature flinched and started back at the
perilous hour. I have thought so myself in times past, but on more mature
consideration, I am fully persuadedthat such a supposition would reflecta
dishonor upon the Savior. I do not considerthat the expression“this cup”
refers to death at all. Nor do I imagine that the dear Saviormeant for a single
moment to express even a particle of desire to escape fromthe pangs which
were necessaryfor our redemption. This “cup,” it appears to me, relates to
something altogetherdifferent—not to the lastconflict, but to the conflict in
which He was then engaged. Ifyou study the words—andespeciallythe Greek
words—whichare used by the various evangelists, I think you will find that
they all tend to suggestand confirm this view of the subject. The Savior’s
spirit, having been vexed, and having triumphed, was next attackedby the evil
one upon His mental nature, and this mental nature became in consequence
most horribly despondent and castdown. As when on the pinnacle of the

temple the Savior felt the fear of falling, so when in the garden He felt a
sinking of soul, an awful despondency, and He beganto be very sorrowful.
The cup, then, which He desiredto pass from Him was, I believe, that cup of
despondency, and nothing more. I am the more disposedso to interpret it,
because not a single word recordedby any of the four evangelists seems to
exhibit the slightestwavering on the part of our Savior as to offering Himself
up as an Atoning Sacrifice. Theirtestimony is frequent and conclusive—“He
setHis face to go towards Jerusalem.” “Ihave a baptism to be baptized with,
and how am I straitened till it is accomplished.” “The Sonof Man goes, as it is
written of Him.” You never
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hear a sentence ofreluctance or hesitancy. It does not seemto be consistent
with the characterofour blessedLord, even as man, to suppose that He
desired that final cup of His sufferings to pass awayfrom Him at all.
Moreover, there is this, which I take to be a strong argument. The apostle tells
us that He was “heardin that He feared.” Now, if He feared to die, He was not
heard, for He did die. If He fearedto bear the wrath of God, or the weightof
human sin, and really desired to escape from them, then He was not heard, for
He did feel the weight of sin, and He did suffer the weight of His Father’s
vindictive wrath. Thus it appears to me that what He fearedwas that dreadful
depressionof mind which had suddenly come upon Him, so that His soul was
very heavy. He prayed His Fatherthat that cup might pass away;and so it
did, for I do not see in all the Savior’s griefs afterwards that singular
overwhelming depressionHe endured when in the garden. He suffered much
in Pilate’s hall, He suffered much upon the cross;but there was, I was almost
about to say, a bold cheerfulness aboutHim even to the last, when for the joy
that was setbefore Him He endured the cross;yes, when He cried, “I thirst,”
and, “My God, My God, why have You forsakenMe?” Ithink I notice a holy
force and vigor about the words and thoughts of the sufferer which the weak

and trembling state of His body could not extinguish! The language ofthat
22nd Psalm, which seems to have struck the keynote, if I may so speak, ofHis
devotion on the cross, is full of faith and confidence. If the first verse contains
the bitterest of woe, the 21stverse changes the plaintive strain. “You have
heard (or answered)Me” marks a transition from suffering to satisfaction
which it is delightful to dwell upon. Now, perhaps some of you may think
that if this cup only meant depressionof the spirits and dismay of the soul it
was nothing of much significance, orat leastit weakens the spell of those
words and deeds which twine around Gethsemane. Permitme to beg your
pardon. I know personallythat there is nothing on earth that the human
frame can suffer to be comparedwith despondency and prostration of mind.
Such is the dolefulness and gloom of a heavy soul, yes a soulexceedinglyheavy
even unto death, that I could imagine the pangs of dissolution to be lighter! In
our lasthour joy may lighten up the heart, and the sunshine of heaven within
may bear up the soul when all outside is dark. But when the iron enters into a
man’s soul he is unmanned, indeed. In the cheerlessnessofsuch exhausted
spirits the mind is confused; well canI understand the saying that is written,
“I am a worm and no man,” of one who is a prey to such melancholy. Oh that
cup! When there is not a promise that can give you comfort, when everything
in the world looks dark, when your very mercies frighten you, and rise like
hideous specters and portents of evil before your view, when you are like the
brothers of Benjamin as they opened the sacks andfound the money, but
instead of being comforted said, “What is this that God has done unto us?”
When everything looks black, and you seem, through some morbid
sensitiveness into which you have fallen, to distort every object and every
circumstance into a dismal caricature, letme say to you, that for us poor
sinful men this is a cup more horrible than any which inquisitors could mix. I
can imagine Anne Askew on the rack, braving it out, like the bold womanshe
was, facing all her accusersand saying— “I am not she that lets My anchorto
fall; For every drizzling mist My ship’s substantial,” but I cannot think of a
man in the soul-sickness ofsuchdepressionof spirits as I am referring to,
finding in thought or song a soothing for his woe. When God touches the very
secretof a man’s soul, and his spirit gives way, he cannot bear up very long;
and this seems to me to have been the cup which the Savior had to drink just
then, from which He prayed to be delivered, and concerning which He was

heard. Consider for a moment what depressedHis soul. Everything, my
brothers and sisters, everything was draped in gloom, and overcastwith
darkness that might be felt! There was the past. Putting it as I think He would
look at it, His life had been unsuccessful. He could saywith Isaiah, “Who has
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” “He came
unto His own, and His own receivedHim not.” And how poor was that little
successHe did have! There were His 12 disciples; one of them He knew to be
on the way to betray Him; eight of them were asleepat the entrance to the
garden, and
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three asleepwithin the garden! He knew that they would all forsake Him, and
one of them would deny Him with oaths and curses!What was there to
comfort Him? When a man’s spirit sinks he needs a cheerful companion; he
needs somebody to talk to. Was not this felt by the Savior? Did He not go
three times to His disciples? He knew they were but men, but then a man can
comfort a man in such a time as that. The sight of a friendly face may cheer
one’s own countenance, and enliven one’s heart. But He had to shake them
from their slumber, and then they stared at Him with unmeaning gazes. Did
He not return back againto prayer because there was no eye to pity, and none
that could help? He found no relief. Half a word sometimes, oreven a smile,
even though it is only from a child, will help you when you are sadand
prostrate. But Christ could not get even that. He had to rebuke them almost
bitterly. Is not there a tone of irony about His remonstrance—“Sleeponnow
and take your rest”? He was not angry, but He did feel it. When a man is low-
spirited he feels more keenly and acutelythan at other times; and although
the splendid charity of our Lord made that excuse—“The spiritis willing but
the flesh is weak,”yetit did cut Him to the heart, and He had an anguish of
soul like that which Josephfelt when he was soldinto Egypt by his brothers.
You will see, then, that both the past and the present were sufficient to

depress Him to the greatestdegree. Butthere was the future; and as He
lookedforward to that, devoted as His heart was, and unfaltering as was the
courage ofHis soul (for it were sacrilege andslander, I think, to impute even a
thought of flinching to Him), yet His human heart shrank back in fear; He
seemedto think—“Oh, how shall I bear it?” The mind started back from the
shame, and the body startedback from the pain, and the soul and body both
started back from the thought of death, and of death in such an ignominious
way— “He experiencedthem all—the doubt, the strife, The faint, perplexing
dread; The mists that hang over parting life All gatheredround His head—
That He who gave man’s breath might know The very depths of human woe.”
Brothers and sisters, none of us have such cause for depressionas the Savior
had. We have not His load to carry, and we have a helper to help us whom He
had not, for God, who forsook Him, will never forsake us. Our soul may be
castdown within us, but we cannever have such greatreasonfor it, nor can
we ever know it to so greatan extent as our dear Redeemerdid. I wish I could
picture to you that lovely man, friendless like a stag at bay with the dogs
compassing Him round about, and the assemblyof the wickedenclosing Him;
foreseeing everyincident of His passion, evento the piercing of His hands and
His feet, the parting of His garments, and the lots castupon His vesture, and
anticipating that last deathsweatwithouta drop of waterto coolHis lips! I
can but conceive that His soul must have felt within itself a solemn trembling
such as might wellmake Him say, “I am exceedinglysorrowfuleven unto
death.” This, then, seems to me to be the cup which our Lord Jesus Christ
desired to have passedfrom Him, and which did pass from Him in due time.
Advancing a little further, I want you to think of the AGONY. We have been
accustomedso to callthis scene in the garden. You all know that it is a word
which signifies “wrestling.” Now, there is no wrestling where there is only one
individual. To this agony, therefore, there must have been two parties. Were
there not, however mystically speaking, two parties in Christ? What do I see
in this King of Sharon but, as it were, two armies? There was the stern resolve
to do all, and to accomplishthe work which He had undertaken; and there
was the mental weakness anddepressionwhich seemedto say to Him, “You
cannot; You will never accomplishit.” “Our fathers trusted in You, and You
did deliver them; they cried unto You, and were delivered; they trusted in
You, and were not confounded.” “But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of

men, and despisedof the people.” So that the two thoughts come into
conflict—the shrinking of the soul, and yet the determination of His invincible
will to go on with it, and to work it out. He was in an agonyin that struggle
betweenthe overwhelming fear of His mind, and the noble eagernessofHis
spirit. I think, too, that Satanafflicted Him; that the powers of darkness were
permitted to use their utmost craft in order to drive the Saviorto absolute
despair. One expressionused to depict it I will handle very delicately; a word
that, in its rougher sense, means, and has been applied to persons out of their
mind and bereft for a
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while of reason. The term used concerning the Saviorin Gethsemane canonly
be interpreted by a word equivalent to our “distracted.” He was like one
bewildered with an overwhelming weight of anxiety and terror. But His divine
nature awakenedup His spiritual faculties and His mental energy to display
their full power. His faith resistedthe temptation of unbelief. The heavenly
goodness thatwas within Him so mightily contendedwith the Satanic
suggestionsand insinuations which were thrown in His way that it came to a
wrestling. I should like you to catchthe idea of wrestling as though you saw
two men trying to throw one another, struggling togethertill the muscles
stand out, and the veins start like whip-cord on their brows. That is a fearful
sight when two men in desperate wrath thus close in with eachother. The
Savior was thus wrestling with the powers of darkness, and He grappled with
such terrible earnestnessin the fray that He sweatas it were, greatdrops of
blood— “The powers of hell united pressed, And squeezedHis heart, and
bruised His breast, What dreadful conflicts ragedwithin; When sweatand
blood forced through His skin!” Observe the way in which Christ conducted
the agony. It was by prayer. He turned to His Father three times with the
same words. It is an index of distraction when you repeat yourself. Three
times with the same words He approachedHis God—“MyFather, let this cup

pass from Me.” Prayeris the greatcureall for depressionof spirit. “When my
spirit is overwhelmed within me, I will look to the rock that is higher than I.”
There will be a breaking up altogether, and a bursting of spirit, unless you
pull up the sluices of supplication, and let the soul flow out in secret
communion with God. If we would state our griefs to God they would not fret
and fume within, and wearout our patience as they sometimes do. In
connectionwith the agony and the prayer there seems to have been a bloody
sweat. It has been thought by some that the passageonlymeans that the sweat
was like drops of blood; But then the word “like,” is used in Scripture to
signify not merely resemblance but the identical thing itself. We believe that
the Saviordid sweatfrom His entire person, great drops of blood falling down
to the ground. Such an occurrence is very rare indeed among men. It has
happened some few times. Books ofsurgery recorda few instances, but I
believe that the persons who under some horrifying grief experience such a
sweatnever recover—theyhave always died. Our Savior’s anguish had this
peculiarity about it, that though He sweatas it were greatdrops of blood
falling to the ground so plentiful as if in a crimson shower, yet He survived.
His blood must be shed by the hands of others, and His soulpoured out unto
death in anotherform. Remembering the doom of sinful man—that he should
eat his bread in the sweatof his face, we see the penalty of sin exactedin awful
measure on Him who stood for sinners. As we eat bread this day at the table
of the Lord, we commemorate the drops of blood that He sweat. With
perspiration on his face, and huge drops on his brow man toils for the bread
that perishes;but bread is only the staff of life; when Christ toiled to give life
itself to men He sweat, notthe common perspiration of the outward form, but
the blood which flows from the very heart itself. Would that I had words to
bring all this before you! I want to make you see it; I want to make you feel it.
The heavenly Lover who had nothing to gain except to redeem our souls from
sin and Satan, and to win our hearts for Himself, leaves the shining courts of
His eternalglory and comes down as a poor, feeble, and despisedman. He is
so depressedat the thought of what is yet to be done and suffered, and under
such pressure of Satanic influence, that He sweatdrops of blood, falling upon
the coldfrosty soilin that moon-lit garden. Oh the love of Jesus!Oh the
weight of sin! Oh the debt of gratitude which you and I owe Him!— “Were
the whole realm of nature mine, That were a presentfar too small— Love so

amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!” We must proceed
with the rich narrative to meditate upon our SAVIOR CONQUERING. Our
imagination is slow to fix upon this precious feature of the dolorous history.
Though He had said, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me,” yet
presently we observe how tranquil and calm He is when He rises up from that
scene ofprostrate devotion! He remarks, as though it were in an ordinary
tone of voice, some expectedcircumstance—“He is at hand who shall betray
Me; rise, let us be going.” There is no distraction now, no hurry, no turmoil,
no exceedinglysorrow even unto death. Judas comes, and
7
7
Jesus says, “Friend, why are you come?” Youwould hardly know Him to be
the same man who was so sorrowfuljust now. One word with an emanationof
His Deity suffices to make all the soldiers fall backwards.SoonHe turns
round and touches the earof the high priest’s servant, and heals it as in
happier days He healed the diseasesandthe wounds of the people who flocked
around Him in His journeys. Away He goes, so calmand collectedthat unjust
accusationscannotextort a reply from Him; and though beseton every hand,
yet is He led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheepbefore her shearers is
dumb, so He opens not His mouth. That was a magnificent calmness ofmind
that sealedHis lips, and kept Him passive before His foes. You and I could not
have done it. It must have been a deep profound peace within which enabled
Him to be thus mute and still amidst the hoarse murmur of the counciland
the boisterous tumult of the multitude. I believe that having fought the enemy
within He had achieveda splendid victory; He was heard in that He feared,
and was now able in the fullness of His strength to go out to the last
tremendous conflict in which He met the embattled hosts of earth and hell—
and yet unabashed after He had encountered them all, to wave the banner of
triumph, and to say, “It is finished.” Let us ask, in drawing to a conclusion,
what is the LESSON FROM ALL THIS? I think I could draw out 20 lessons,

but if I did they would not be as goodand profitable as the one lessonwhich
the Saviordraws Himself. What was the lessonwhich He particularly taught
to His disciples? Now, Peter, James,and John, open your ears. And you,
Magdalene, andyou, Mary, and you, the wife of Herod’s steward, and other
gracious women, listen for the inference which I am going to draw. It is not
mine—it is that of our Lord and MasterHimself. With how much heed should
we treasure it up! “What I sayunto you I say unto all, Watch.” “Watch,” and
yet again, “Watchand pray lest you enter into temptation.” I have been
turning this over in my mind to make out the connection. Why on this
particular occasionshouldHe exhort them to watch? It strikes me that there
were two sorts of watching. Did you notice that there were eight disciples at
the gardengate? They were watching, or ought to have been; and three were
inside the garden; they too were watching, or ought to have been. But they
watcheddifferently. Which way were the eight looking? It strikes me that they
were setthere to look outwards—to watchlestChrist should be surprised by
those who would attack Him. That was the reasonfor their being put there.
The other three were set to watchHis actions and His words; to look at the
Savior and see if they could help, or cheer, or encourage Him. Now, you and I
have reasonto look both ways, and the Saviorseems to say as we look upon
the agony—“Youwill have to feel something like this, therefore watch,” watch
outwards; be always on your watchtowerlestsin surprise you. It is through
sin that you will be brought into this agony;it is by giving Satan an advantage
over you that the sorrows ofyour soul will be multiplied. If your footslips
your heart will become the prey of gloom. If you neglectcommunion with
Jesus, if you grow cold or lukewarm in your affections, if you do not live up to
your privileges, you will become the prey of darkness, dejection,
discouragement, and despair; therefore, watch, lestyou enter upon this great
and terrible temptation. Satancannot bring strong faith, when it is in healthy
exercise, into such a state of desolation. It is when your faith declines and your
love grows negligent, and your hope is inanimate, that he canbring you into
such disconsolateheaviness thatyou see not your signs, nor know whether you
are a believer or not. You will not be able to say, “My Father,” for your soul
will doubt whether you are a child of God at all. When the ways of Zion
mourn, the harps of the sons and daughters of Zion are unstrung. Therefore,
keepgoodwatch, you who like the eight disciples are chargedas sentinels at

Jesus was sweating blood in gethsemane

Jesus was sweating blood in gethsemane

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