Why Christ Is Not Esteemed

Why Christ Is Not Esteemed

(No. 3033)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

AT MAZE POND CHAPEL, LONDON

"We esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53:3.

This must be the universal confession of the human race. From the
highest monarch to the meanest peasant, from the loftiest intellect to
the most degraded mind, from the admired of all men to the unknown and
insignificant, this one confession must come–"We esteemed Him not."
Whether we examine the sensualist rioting in the delights of the flesh
or the formalist starving his body to fatten his pride, the merchant
laboring to acquire wealth or the spendthrift recklessly scattering
gold with both his hands, the profligate black with profanity, the
moralist rejoicing in his goodness, or even the devoted Christian, we
shall make them all acknowledge that either now or at some past period,
they esteemed not Jesus! We make no exception, for even the holiest of
God's saints, those who now are–

"Foremost of the sons of light, Nearest the eternal Throne"– those who
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb–even they once "esteemed Him not." And the brightest saints still
upon the earth, those who are most earnestly and faithfully serving the
Savior, at one time "esteemed Him not." I am going, first, to prove
that this was true. Next, to dive deeper and try to find out the
reasons why we esteemednot Jesus. And, afterwards, I want to remind you
ofthe emotions which this fact ought to create in our minds–the fact
that at one time–and in the case of many of us it was true not many
years ago that "we esteemed Him

not."

I. First, then, I have TO PROVE THAT THIS WAS TRUE.

Look, then, my Friends, first, at the overt acts of your transgression
against the Lord Jesus Christ Go back in imagination to the scenes of
your youth and recollect your former transgressions. Some of you have
your heads covered with the snows of many a winter and you have been
for 40 or 50 years wearing the harness of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.
You have fought the good fight ever since you enlisted under the
blood-stained banner of the Cross, yet you can never forget some things
that happened before that happy day when you first sang from your
heart–

"'Tis done! The great transaction's done– I am my Lord's, and He is
mine." It might not be profitable to mention in detail those sins of
long ago, yet some of you have a very vivid remembrance of them and,
although the Lord has graciously forgiven them and blotted them out of
His Book of Remembrance, your own conscience will not let you forget
them.

There are others of you who were, either by your early associations, or
by the restraints of Sovereign Grace, kept from openly sinning against
God as many others did, yet you know that your lives were not in
accordance with the Law of God. You were, in comparison with many of
your fellows, moral, upright, amiable, yet, as far as Christ was
concerned, you "esteemed Him not." Your friends and companions could
find no fault with your character, but you know, now, that all the
while there was a fatal flaw which was plainly manifest to the eyes of
God. In the case of some, the apparent excellence was all on the
surface, but, underneath there was a mass of rottenness and sin of
which they can only think now with shame and sorrow. That, too, has all
been forgiven and forgotten by God–yet it lingers in their own
remembrance in a most salutary fashion, for it makes them hate all
forms of iniquity and turn from them with utter loathing.

Besides the overt acts of sin which some of you committed–and the less
public but none the less deadly evils of which others of you were
guilty–there was further evidence that you did not esteem Christ in
the fact that you did not esteem His Word as you should have done.
Possible, just to quiet your conscience, you read a chapter from it in
the morning and another in the evening, or you listened to it while
your parents read it at family prayer. But how dull and dry it seemed
to you! You could revel in a novel and be completely fascinated with
fiction, but the Inspired Truth of God was a weariness and a burden to
you. I must honestly confess that before I knew the Lord, or was
seriously seeking Him, although I found the historical parts of the
Bible interesting, a great portion of the Scriptures appeared to me to
be dull and meaningless. As for anyone reading the Word as a treat, I
could no more understand how that could be done than a blind man could
appreciate the beauties of the scenery that could be discerned by
sightseers on the top of a mountain! I might perhaps be mentally
charmed by some beautiful passages in the Bible, but as to its hidden
spiritual meaning, I had no true perception. If I were sick and in fear
lest I was about to die, down would come my Bible and I would read it
diligently for a while! But as for taking it as my everyday
companion–that idea never occurred to me until the Holy Spirit began
to work conviction in my heart. And then I was glad enough to turn to
the neglected Book to find an answer to the all-important question,
"What must I do to be saved?" If you, my Brothers and Sisters in
Christ, could each one relate your own experience, I expect you would,
many of you, have to join with me in saying, "We esteemed Him not, for
we did not hold in proper esteem the Sacred Scriptures in which He had
been revealed to us."

many privileges, in this enlightened age–and some of whom even profess
and call themselves Christians! Instead of bowing down to blocks of
wood and stone, or worshipping the sun, moon and all the host of
heavenly bodies, they are worse heathens than even you are, for they
prostrate themselves before themselvesand adore their own merits, their
own good deeds, their own charity, and so on! Christian, was not this
the reason why you did not esteem Christ–because self was everything
to you in the days of your unregeneracy? If anyone had then told you
that your heart was corrupt to its very core, what would you have
replied? You would have answered, "I feel that I am as good as anyone
else whom I know and better than most of those I see around me." If you
had been informed that all your good works were but varnished sins and
that the very best of them were foul and full of faults, would not your
blood have boiled with indignation? Or if someone had told you that
your best righteousness was only like a heap of filthy rags, fit for
nothing but to be burned, you would surely have replied, "I have a
righteousness of which I have no reason to be ashamed. And although I
do not say that it is perfect, yet I hope I shall have as good a chance
of standing before God's Throne as anybody else will have."

"Such were some of you" and, as long as you thus highly esteemed
yourselves, of course you did not esteem the Lord Jesus Christ! Does
the man who is in perfect health esteem the physician? If all were
always well, who would care for the doctors? Would they not laugh them
to scorn? Does the man who is rich hold in high esteem the one who
would give him alms? "No," he says, "give your alms to those who need
them. I do not require them." Will a man who has the proper use of his
limbs care for crutches? "No," he says, "hand them over to the lame. I
have no need of them." In like manner, we did not esteem Christ because
we felt that we had no need of Him. We thought that we could do very
well without Him, at least for the present. There might come a time
when He might be able to give us a lift over a fence, or if we came to
a muddy place in the road, He might be willing to lay His cloak down
for us to step on so that we might not soil our feet. But as for the
rest of our journey, we thought we could get on very well by ourselves,
though we might be glad for Christ to help us into Heaven at the last.
Perhaps no one of us would have put the matter quite so plainly as I
have done, but that would have been the practical effect of our
self-esteem–and that is why we did not esteem Christ, for self-love
had completely engrossed our hearts. Self and the Savior can never live
in one heart. He will have all, or none. So, where self is on the
throne, it cannot be expected that Christ should meekly come and sit
upon the footstool.

Another reason why we esteemed not Jesus was because we esteemed the
world so highly. We were like the man of whom John Bunyan tells us, who
was quite willing that others should have the joys of the world to come
so long as he could have all that he wanted in the present life. The
worldling still says, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,"
and to him this present evil world is the bird in the hand–and he
thinks of all the bliss of Heaven as though it were but a bird in the
bush. "Let me live while I live," he says, "and have all the happiness
that I can here. And let them have the next world who can win it." With
some of us, it is not very long ago since we also talked like that–and
scorned the glories that are everlasting! And we put far away from us
Jesus Christ and His great salvation. "We esteemed Him not" because we
loved the earth and all its follies, because we were so busy gathering
its poisoned dust into heaps, or delighting ourselves in its
unsatisfying pleasures. It is not until the rope is cast loose that the
balloon can soar above the clouds–and it is not until the cord that
binds us to the things of this earth has been cut that our soul can
hope to mount towards the things which are unseen and eternal! Until we
have been weaned from the world, we shall never esteem Jesus as the
chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One in whom is all our
delight!

A third reason why we did not esteem Christ was because we did not know
Him. It is true that we knew a great deal aboutHim, but we did not know
HIM. We had read what the Evangelists had recorded concerning Him. We
knew much concerning His doctrines. Perhaps we had even tried to keep
some of His precepts, yet we did not personally and savingly know Him.
There is a great distinction between knowing about Christ and knowing
Christ Himself–between knowing what He did and knowing Who and what He
is–really knowing Him in the sense in which He used that expression
when He said, in His great intercessory prayer to His Father, "This is
life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom You have sent." Yet it is only through Him, by the
Infallible instruction of His ever-blessed Spirit, that we can thus
know Him! As the Apostle John writes, "We know that the Son of God is
come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is
true, and we are in Him who is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This
is the true God and eternal life." The poet was right when he wrote–

"His worth, if all the nations knew, Surely the whole world would love
Him too."

And Rutherford said, "Surely, my Lord, if the whole world could see
You, the whole world must love You. If You would but open only one of
Your eyes and look upon them, they must run unto You, ravished with
delight, for You are so fair, my precious Jesus, that You only need to
be seen to be loved." But the worldling has never seen Christ, so he
does not know Christ and does not love Christ! Ah, poor worldling! If
you had but seen my lord as I saw Him in the hour when He said to me,
"I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake,
and I will not remember your sins"–if you could, with the ear of
faith, have heard that Divine declaration, sweeter even than the music
of the harps of Heaven–in a single moment you would have loved the
Lord Jesus with such an ardent passion that the bonds of life would
scarcely have been strong enough to keep you in this clay tenement, but
you would have longed to fly away and be with your beloved Lord
forever! And, Worldling, could you have such a visit from Jesus as, now
and then, the Believer is privileged to have–if you could experience
but five minutes of the bliss that a Christian has, "Whether in the
body, I cannot tell. Or whether out of the body, I cannot tell. God
knows"–if you could thus be "caught up to the third Heaven" and hear
unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter. If you
could once behold our blessed Savior, you would be compelled to love
Him, for He is so lovely, so gracious, so glorious that you could not
any longer think unkindly of Him! Those who think wrongly of Christ
have never known Him. And we who do know Him, confess with shame that
the reason why, for so long "we esteemed Him not," was because we then
knew Him not.

The last reason I will mention is the very core of all the other
reasons. There need be no surprise that we did not esteem Christ, for
we were spiritually dead. I will suppose that there sits, away yonder,
a man over whom I want to exert a certain influence. I will further
imagine that I am a skillful musician and that I touch the strings of
my harp in such a manner as to bring forth the most delightful melody,
yet the man takes no notice whatever of it. Then I turn to an
instrument of quite another sort–a cornet or a bugle–and blow a blast
that startles all of you–yet that one man still gives no heed to the
sound! Why is it that, charm we ever so wisely, he is like the deaf
adder and regards neither the sweetest nor the shrillest or loudest
noise? I try to attract his attention in another way. I place before
him the daintiest dish that the cleverest cook in all England can
prepare, or I bring some rare delicacy from a distant land–but he
regards the food no more than he did the music. I will try another plan
to reach his senses. I will bring Him–

"The choicest flowers that were ever grown Since Eden's joys were
blasted." I will hold them close to his face and let their fragrance
ascend to his nostrils. Yet he heeds not! What will awake him? Let
Heaven's thunder peals roll like the drums in the march of some mighty
war-lord, but the man moves not. Let the lightning flash all around us
till it seems as though the end of the world had come, but the man
stirs not. What shall I do to awake him? Shall I beat him with a whip,
or strike him with a sword? All is in vain and, at last, I perceive
that the man is dead and that all my efforts have been wasted! Now the
riddle is solved, the secret revealed, the knot untied–the man is
dead. And so I wonder no longer that he esteemed not music, or food, or
flowers. Or that he feared not thunder, lightning, or the sword. And,
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, though the Holy Spirit has quickened
us, there was a time when we were "dead in trespasses and sins" and,
like Lazarus in his grave, we were becoming more and more corrupt as
every moment passed!

III. Now, having proved the Truth of the text, and given you various
reasons why we did not esteem Christ, let me, in conclusion, ask WHAT
EMOTIONS OUGHT THIS FACT TO CREATE WITHIN OUR SOULS?

First, I think that the recollection of this Truth of God, that "we
esteemed Him not," ought to produce in us the deepest penitence. I
cannot understand that Christian who can look back upon his past life
without a tear. If he can turn to the black pages of his history, which
not only have no record of goodness, but are full of entries concerning
his sins against his present Lord and Master, and yet not weep at the
remembrance of them, surely he can never have learned the true nature
of sin! O Christian, it would be becoming on your part to catch the
spirit, if not literally to imitate the action of that "woman in the
city, who was a sinner," of whom we read that, "when she knew that
Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house," she, "brought an alabaster
box of ointment and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to
wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head,
and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment." Our Lord's
explanation of her conduct was that "she loved much." Is it because you
love your Lord so little that you do not manifest your grief over your
past sin as that poor woman did? Recollect that although you did not
esteem Him, He had loved you with an everlasting love and He had
purchased your soul's redemption at the great price of

His own most precious blood! He stood before you, holding in His
pierced hands the roll of the Eternal Covenant which set your soul at
liberty and gave you a full discharge! Yet you did not esteem Him. O
Christian, will you not weep even at the remembrance of the way in
which you did treat the best Friend you have ever had? Recollect that
you did virtually nail Him to the tree and pierce Him to the heart. Dr.
Watts spoke for all Believers when he wrote the self-condemning words–

"'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins, His chief tormentors were! Each of
my crimes became a nail, And unbelief the spear. 'Twasyou that pulled
the vengeance down Upon His guiltless head– Break, break, my heart, oh
burst my eyes! And let my sorrows bleed."

And now, beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, having for a while
allowed our penitential sorrow thus to find suitable expression, let us
strike a higher note and, remembering that there was a time when we did
not esteem Christ, let us now rejoice in the great salvation which He
has procured for us. It is true that we have great reason for sorrow
that we should ever have been so vile as not to esteem Him to whom we
owe everything for time and for eternity. Yet we have much more reason
to adore the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of that love of
Christ which passes knowledge and which carried out to completion the
wondrous plan whereby all our iniquities have been blotted out and we
have become "accepted in the Beloved!" It was right that we should weep
at the remembrance that we were numbered among the fallen, yet it is
equally right that we should rejoice over the fact that we have been
reclaimed! And what should be the very key-note of our song of
rejoicing? Should it not be the Sovereign Grace of God? The reason why
the Lord chose us unto salvation was certainly not because we esteemed
His Son, Jesus Christ, more than others did, for, "we esteemed Him
not." If you ask me why God chose His people, I can only answer that it
is for the same reason that Christ gave concerning the things that were
hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed unto babes, "Even so,
Father: for so it seemed good in Your sight."

There is one other emotion which every true Christian should feel–that
is hope for his fellows. If I feel sorrow for my sin and joy for my
deliverance, I ought also to have hope for other people! Perhaps
someone here is saying, "I have brought my son to the House of Prayer
time after time and I used to hope that God would have mercy upon him,
but now I have given up all hope." Stop, my Brother! Do not talk like
that! Do you not remember the time when it might have been said,
concerning you and me, that we did not esteem Christ and, although your
son does not now esteem Him, is that any reason why he should not yet
do so? On the contrary, is not the manifestation of Divine Grace in
your own case an encouragement to you in hoping for your son's
conversion?

"Oh," says another venerable father, "I have long prayed in vain for
one of my children. These hands, which are now palsied with age, have
been lifted up year after year to the God of Grace, but I have lost all
hope of my child's salvation." But, my hoary-headed Friend, think not
that your prayers have failed, even though they still remain
unanswered! They are all filed in Heaven and when the required number
shall be complete, when that petition which God has determined shall be
the "effectual" one shall be presented, your child shall be saved! But
why should you despair concerning your dear one? You know that for many
years you did not esteem Christ, yet He is "altogether lovely" to you
now! Then why should not your experience be repeated in the case of
your child?

"Ah," says another, "I live in such-and-such a district among many of
the worst people in London. I have tried to bring them under the sound
of the Word of God, but cannot induce even one of them to come! I feel
as if I must give up even hoping for their salvation. They seem to me
to be too bad to ever be saved." But, my dear Friend, you and I at one
time did not esteem Christ–and if we really know what was in our own
hearts, we shall say that these people are not much worse than we were!
Yet suppose they areas bad as you think they are–remember that
striking saying of Whitefield's–"Jesus Christ is willing to receive
the devil's castaways." A very fastidious lady who heard that he said
that, complained to the Countess of Huntingdon and said how sad it was
that he should talk in such a vulgar way! The Countess said, "Mr.
Whitefield is downstairs. I will send for him and let him answer for
himself." When he came up and

heard the lady's remark, he simply replied, "I had just been talking to
a poor, sinful woman who had been to hear me preach, and the one thing
that comforted her was the sentence to which this lady objects, 'Jesus
Christ is willing to receive the devil's castaways.'" "Ah," said Lady
Huntingdon and others who agreed with her, "That is quite sufficient
justification for you."

I can testify from my own experience that God often blesses some of our
rough expressions more than our highly-polished ones. I have seen so
many souls saved through some of the odd and singular sayings that I
have felt moved to utter that I intend, God helping me, to go on in the
same style, even though some people may continue to find fault with me
for doing so. I can certainly endorse Mr. Whitefield's remark, "Jesus
Christ is willing to receive the devil's castaways." However vile and
foul a sinner may be, I always feel, "That is just what I would have
been but for the Grace of God." Therefore, instead of imitating the
priest and the Levite who left the poor wounded traveler to die so far
as they cared, I feel anxious to go to the very worst of my fellow men
and to say to them, "Why, my dear Brother, there was a time when I did
not esteem Christ, so I will not be angry with you because you say that
you are not religious. I will not scold you because you do not read the
Bible, or pray to God, or go to a place of worship. But I will try to
win your esteem for my Master by telling you of His great love to
sinners just like you. Though He was reigning with His Father in
Heaven, He gave up all His Glory and came down to earth to live just as
any other poor man might have lived, only that He was without sin. He
went about doing good, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising
the dead and, at last, He willingly gave Himself up into the hands of
wicked men and died, 'the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us
to

God.'"

So I would try to make the Gospel very plain to my poor friend and tell
him what the Lord had done for mysoul– and assure him that, having
saved me, there was no limit to His Grace and mercy! I always admire
the argument of Charles Wesley in those familiar lines–

"His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me."

That was the same kind of argument that Paul used when he wrote, "This
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for
this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show
forth all long-suffering, for the pattern to them which should
hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." Christian men and women,
as you retire from this building, I leave these thoughts with you. At
one time you did not esteem Christ, so now you have no right to be
proud of your position as His followers, but should give to Him all the
glory for your salvation! And you should hope for the salvation of
others, even the very worst of your fellow creatures–

"While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."

You may go to the very worst haunts of sin and vice in this city or
anywhere else and, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit, you may
proclaim the Gospel of Christ to be the most abandoned men and women
whom you can find, knowing that He is able "to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make
intercession for

them."

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW26:14-45.

Verse 14, 15. Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went unto
the chief priests and said unto them, What will you give me, and I will
deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of
silver At what a price did the traitor sell our blessed Master! O you
who have been redeemed with His precious blood, set a high value upon
Him! Think much of Him, say much in praise of Him! Remember these
thirty pieces of silver and never be guilty of despising the Lord of
Glory, as these chief priests did when they paid the price of a slave
for Him.

16-19. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him. Now the
first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus,
saying unto Him, Where will You that we prepare for You to eat the
Passover? And He said, go into the city to such a man, and say unto
him, The Master says, My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at
your house with My disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had
appointed them; and they made ready the Passover. See the

absolute control which Jesus has over the minds of men! He can have any
man's house that He wants and He knows who will be glad to welcome Him.
Yet this same Jesus was about to die–and this shows how perfectly
voluntary was His Sacrifice. He was not forced to stand in our place,
nor was He compelled to suffer except by the constraint of His own
great love. All was free, as became the freedom of His Grace. Then
shall not our heart's love flow out freely to Him? Shall we need to be
scourged to obedience? Oh, no, Beloved! So let us think what we can
voluntarily do in honor of our Divine Lord who gave His all for us.

20-22. Now when the evening was come, He sat down with the twelve. And
as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall
betray Me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, And well might they be
sad.

22. And began, every one of them, to say unto Him, Lord, is it I?What
anguish does that question always stir within the heart and mind of
every true Believer! "Shall I ever betray my Lord and Master? Shall I
ever deny or forsake Him?" God grant that none of us may ever do as
Judas did!

23. And He answered and said, He that dips His hand with Me in the
dish, the same shall betray Me. He who had been entrusted with the
charge of the finances of the little band of Christ's immediate
disciples–he who carried the bag–was the one who was about to betray
his Lord. Since then, Christ has often been betrayed by those who have
been in positions of trust, those who have led the way among the
disciples of Christ, those who have, as it were, been so familiar with
Christ as to dip their hand with Him in the dish!

24. 25. The Son of Man goes as it is written of Him: but woe unto that
man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!It had been good for that man if
he hadnot been born. Then Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said,
Master, is it I? He said unto him, You have said.Judas seems to have
been the last to ask the question, "Master, is it I?" Yet he was the
guilty one–the one who had already covenanted with the chief priests
to sell His Lord.

26-31. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and
broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My
body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and give it to them,
saying, Drink you all of it; for this is My blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I
will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when
I drink it new with you in My Father's Kingdom. And when they had sung
a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then said Jesus unto
them, All you shall be made to stumble because of Me this night for it
is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered abroad. Observe our blessed Lord's habit of quoting
Scripture. He was able to utter words of Infallible Truth which had
never before been used, yet He constantly quoted from the Inspired
Scriptures! Those who nowadays quibble at the Word of God and yet
profess to be followers of Christ, find no excuse for their conduct in
the example that He has left us, for He sometimes quoted Scripture when
it might not have seemed to be necessary to do so! Brothers and Sisters
in Christ, have your Bible first in your hearts, then at the tip of
your tongue. I was going to say at your fingertips, so that you may
always be able to give a good reason–a solid and
divinely-authoritative reason–for any statement that you may make!

32, 33. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
Peter answered and said unto Him, Though all men shall be made to
stumble because of You, yet will I never be made to stumble.No doubt
Peter said this from his heart, but "the heart is deceitful above all
things." Peter may have thought that he was stronger than his brethren,
yet he was the very one who proved to be the weakest of the whole
Apostolic band! "Though all men shall be made to stumble because of
You, yet will I never be made to stumble."

34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, That this night, before
the cock crow. That is to say, before that period of time which was
called the cock-crowing.

34. You shall deny Me thrice. According to Mrk'srecord, the cock was to
crow once before Peter had denied his Lord thrice, and this it did. And
when he had given his third denial, it crowed a second time. And then
his slumbering conscience was awakened and, "He went out and wept
bitterly." Some persons who are well acquainted with the religious
ceremonies of the Jews, say that the period called the cock-crowing was
the time for the sacrifice of the morning lamb, and that it was about
that time that Peter denied his Lord.

35. Peter said unto Him, Though I should die with You, yet will I not
deny You. It is a great pity that Peter said this after he had received
so plain a warning from his Master, yet he was not alone in his
boasting.

35. Likewise also said all the disciples. They all felt quite sure that
under no circumstances could they be so base as to forsake their Lord.
And if you think of the washing of their feet by their Lord and Master,
the wonderful words of Christ to which they had listened and that
solemn Communion Service in the large upper room, you may not be
surprised that they felt themselves bound to Christ forever–felt that
they could never leave Him, nor forsake Him! Yet they all did.

36-39. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said
to His disciples, Sit you here, while I go and pray yonder. And He took
with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful
and very heavy. Then said He unto them, My soul is exceedingly
sorrowful, even unto death; tarry you here, and watch with Me. And He
went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not
as I will, but as You will. Christ had to tread the winepress alone,
yet He showed how complete was His Humanity by wishing to have a few
choice friends near at hand. Yet even the chosen three failed Him in
His hour of greatest need.

40. And He came unto the disciples, and found them asleep, and said
unto Peter, What? Could you not watch with Me one hour? Peter had
constituted himself the spokesman of the Apostolic company, so the
Master addressed the question to him, though it also applied to his
companions–"What? Could you not watch with Me one hour?" They had all
declared their devotion to Him, yet they had fallen asleep while He had
bid them watch.

41-45. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second
time, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away
from Me, except I drink it, Your will be done. And He came and found
them asleep again; for their eyes were heavy. And He left them, and
went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then
He came to His disciples, and said unto them, Sleep on now, and take
your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed
into the hands of sinners.