Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The need of every Christian is to be able to resist temptation to sin, or to be able to refuse the flesh its control over you.

But given what the Bible says happens when a person becomes a Christian the presence of sin is still alive and trying to control you.

Let’s review this:

Romans 6:12–19 (NASB95): 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

15 What then?

Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

May it never be!

16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

The reality that we face as those who are regenerate, is that we have a new spirit/soul inside of a body that is still sold into sin.

In other words, our inside is made in the newness of God, but our outside is still the same wicked body that has not been made new.

This is why we find ourselves thinking and doing ungodly things at times.

Sin dwells in us, that is, in our “mortal flesh” to this day.:

However, in our hearts, we agree with the Law of God and the Law of Christ and rejoice in God:

These are lessons that the church must learn and learn well.

These are the lessons that Peter and his men need to learn, although the Holy Spirit has not come to this point yet.

The spotlight is on Peter:

It was Peter to whom the Lord spoke about the sifting of Satan:

It would be Peter who would return and minister to the other apostles for their strengthening:

It was Peter to whom the Lord prophesied of temporary defection:

It would be Peter who would draw the sword and cut off the servant’s ear:

It would be Peter who would deny Christ 3 times:

But, it would be Peter to whom all the disciples looked in the upper room after Jesus’ ascension for direction:

So, you can see the war that rages around Peter, and inside of Peter.

Satan was, indeed sifting him as wheat.

Today....Jesus is praying.

“He came out”

= out of Jerusalem.

He was already leaving the upper room (John 14:31; 18:1).

Now He is traveling towards the east, up the mountain to the spot that they frequented while in Jerusalem.

“…as was His custom...”

= “according to the habit/custom”

Passing out by the gate north of the Temple, we descend into a lonely part of the valley of black Kidron, at that season swelled into a winter torrent.

Crossing it, we turn somewhat to the left, where the road leads towards Olivet.

Not many steps farther (beyond, and on the other side of the present Church of the Sepulchre of the Virgin) we turn aside from the road to the right, and reach what tradition has since earliest times—and probably correctly—pointed out as ‘Gethsemane,’ the ‘Oil-press.’

It was a small property enclosed (χωρίον), ‘a garden’ in the Eastern sense, where probably, amidst a variety of fruit trees and flowering shrubs, was a lowly, quiet summer-retreat, connected with, or near by, the ‘Olive-press.’

The present Gethsemane is only some seventy steps square, and though its old gnarled olives cannot be those (if such there were) of the time of Jesus, since all trees in that valley—those also which stretched their shadows over Jesus—were hewn down in the Roman siege, they may have sprung from the old roots, or from the old kernels.

But we love to think of this ‘Garden’ as the place where Jesus ‘often’—not merely on this occasion, but perhaps on previous visits to Jerusalem—gathered with His disciples.

It was a quiet resting-place, for retirement, prayer, perhaps sleep, and a trysting-place also where not only the Twelve, but others also, may have been wont to meet the Master.

And as such it was known to Judas, and thither he led the armed band, when they found the Upper Chamber no longer occupied by Jesus and His disciples.

That place contained a garden, a place someone would sow seed and harvest for a crop.

κῆπος, -ου, ὁ, [in LXX for גַּן, גִּנָּה, גַּנָּה, De 11:10, Ca 4:12, al.;] a garden: Lk 13:19, Jo 18:1, 26; 19:41.†

It might be that it was Mark’s family garden.

“…coming upon that place...”

Jesus knew that this was the “place.”

It would be where He would be betrayed by His companion.

This “place” was predetermined by God.

In a sense, it is holy ground.

Here, the Son of God would pray/worship, and be betrayed into the hands of godless men.

Whether it had been intended that He should spend part of the night there, before returning to the Temple, and whose that enclosed garden was—the other Eden, in which the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, bore the penalty of the first, and in obeying gained life—we know not, and perhaps ought not to inquire

22:40 On reaching the place, he said to them.

Although Luke did not mention the garden of Gethsemane, his readers may be aware of “the place” where Jesus was betrayed.

Compare John 18:2.

Pray that you will not.

As in Luke 14:7; 18:1, 9; 19:11 the theme of what follows is made clear at the beginning.

Its repetition in 22:46 forms an inclusio.

For similar teachings cf. 1 Cor 16:13; Eph 6:18; 1 Thess 5:6; 1 Pet 5:8.

Fall into temptation.

Literally enter not into temptation.

For the meaning of this phrase, see comments on 11:4.

As in 11:4 the lack of the article before “temptation” should be noted.

The prayer involves not so much a concern not to fall in the time of “The Temptation” at the end of history (cf.

Matt 24:15–31; Rev 3:10) but rather not to fall in the daily encounters with temptation.

This is made even clearer by the context, for Luke had in mind Peter’s temptation in the immediate future (22:31–34, 54–62).

But, as a rule, it is the ingressive aorist subj.

used in prohibitions to forbid a thing not yet done or the durative present imper.

to forbid the continuance of an act.

(β) Ingressive Aorist.

This is the inceptive or inchoative aorist.

It is not, however, like the “constative” idea, a tensenotion at all.

It is purely a matter with the individual verb.1 Thus ἐπτώχευσεν, 2 Cor.

8:9, is ‘became poor’; ἔζησεν, Ro. 14:9, is ‘became alive’ (cf.

ἀπέθανεν just before).2

Perhaps in Jo. 16:3, οὐκ ἔγνωσαν, the meaning is ‘did not recognise.’3

But this could be constative.

But it is clear in Jo. 1:10.

So in ἕσοι ἔλαβον αὐτόν (Jo.

1:12) the ingressive idea occurs, as in οὐ παρέλαβον in verse 11.

Cf. ἔκλαυσεν (Lu.

19:41)=‘burst into tears’ and ἔγνως (vs.

42)=‘camest to know.’

So ἐδάκρυσεν (Jo.

11:35).

In Mt. 22:7 ὠργίσθη=‘became angry.’

Cf. also μὴ δόξητε (Mt.

3:9), ἀφύπνωσεν (Lu.

8:23), ἐθυμώθη (Mt.

2:16).

In Lu. 15:32 ἔζησεν is ingressive, as is ἐκοιμήθη (Ac.

7:60), ἰσχύσαμεν μόλις (Ac.

27:16), μισήσωσιν (Lu.

6:22), ἠγάπησεν (Mk.

10:21), ἐλυπήθητε (2 Cor.

7:9), πλουτήσητε (2 Cor.

8:9).

The notion is common with verbs expressing state or condition (Goodwin, Moods and Tenses, p. 16).

Moulton quotes βασιλεύσας ἀναπαήσεται, ‘having come to his throne he shall rest,’ Agraphon, O.P. 654.