August 6, 2025 • 48 mins
On this Resurrection Sunday, Pastor Chuck Rains takes us deep into Matthew 26 to explore the tension between human will and divine purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus prepares for the cross, we witness not only His obedience but also the disciples’ failure to watch and pray. This powerful message brings to light the cost of surrender, the burden of intercession, and the unmatched hope of the resurrection. A timely reminder that God’s will, though costly, is always perfect.
Show Notes:
•📖 Scripture Focus: Matthew 26, especially verses 29–46
•💡 Key Themes:
•The disciples’ good intentions vs. their actual choices under pressure
•Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane: wrestling with the Father’s will
•The nature of true surrender: “Not my will, but Thine be done”
•The cost of missed opportunities in prayer and obedience
•The proof of God’s will and love in the resurrection of Christ
•🛠️ Practical Takeaways:
•Spiritual strength requires watchfulness and prayer, not just good intentions
•God’s will is revealed not always in the moment, but often in hindsight
•The resurrection is God’s ultimate affirmation of Jesus’ suffering and our salvation
•Faithfulness is choosing surrender—even when we don’t understand the purpose
•🕊️ Reflection: Are you willing to let go of your will and embrace God’s—even when it hurts?
Quote of the Episode:
“There is no greater evidence of the will of God in a matter… than this: the resurrection.”
Thank you for listening and please subscribe
any questions or comments can be sent to legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
website is www.legacybiblepodcast.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello friends and welcome and welcome back.
(00:14):
This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you are hear legacy lessons from
the Bible, taught by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet, Illinois.
These are messages that were originally recorded on cassette tape back in the years
(00:36):
past.
This one that we have today happened to be from March 31, 1991, and it was a message
on Resurrection Sunday.
So it's titled, Not My Will, but Thine Be Done.
Okay?
So that sounds like something good, even though, well, we're not close to Easter right now,
(01:01):
but that was the next one on the list.
So that's all right.
Well, cover it.
So here we go.
Let's listen in.
This sounds like something I would like to listen to.
I hope you'll hope you enjoy it.
See you on the other side of it.
I'd like you to open to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26.
(01:26):
The disciples were after all men, and they had to deal with the same tendencies in their
flesh that we had.
(01:47):
They wanted things on their own terms.
They wanted life to run their own way.
They had their ideas about how it should be, even their spiritual life, even their battles
with problems and maybe even their prayer life.
They had their idea about how things should go.
(02:12):
When we come to the scene of Zorand leading up to the crucifixion and then deal with the
resurrection, this conflict of man's wanting his way and God's will in making things work
his way kind of comes together.
(02:33):
In this 26th chapter, there's something here they wanted to hear, verse 29.
When he was with them at the last supper, he said, 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
(02:54):
Father's kingdom.
They wanted to hear them.
They wanted to hear about the kingdom that they were going to be there.
He was going to drink it with them.
They were going to be there in the kingdom.
The Lord was going to be there.
It was going to be kingdom and they were going to be there.
Great stuff.
They were all for that.
(03:15):
They enjoyed hearing that.
They didn't want to hear some of the other things he had to say.
Verse 31, all shall be offended because of me this night.
For it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad.
You're going to be offended in me.
(03:37):
You're a shepherd.
He was their shepherd.
It was going to be smitten.
Then they liked sheep, which was just scattered.
That wasn't a very nice message.
They didn't want him to be smitten.
And they certainly didn't want to think of themselves as sheep running away, just
scattering out of fear.
(04:00):
They liked the other message.
There's a kingdom.
You're going to be there.
I'm going to reign.
You'll reign with me.
It'll be a glorious kingdom.
They liked that.
They didn't like this.
But after I'm risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
(04:21):
Peter answered and said, the all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never
be offended.
Peter was really thinking about this idea.
Everybody is going to be offended.
You know what it meant to be offended?
Jesus explains this in verse 34.
Verily I said unto thee, this night before the clock crow thou shall deny me thrice.
(04:43):
The denial was how he was going to live out his offense with the Lord.
He was going to turn against him and deny me.
He was going to be offended in him.
Peter said, no, not me.
Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.
And then get this.
Likewise also said all the disciples.
(05:06):
It wasn't really just Peter that said that.
They all said that.
They all said, hey, Lord.
I'm willing to die for you.
I wouldn't turn away from you.
No way in the world would I deny you.
That wasn't just Peter.
All the disciples said it.
We won't deny you.
I won't deny you.
(05:29):
That one over there may be offended in you.
They may deny you, not me, not me.
Don't give us that kind of message.
We don't like that.
Don't agree with it.
We don't want it.
In fact, our will is absolutely set against it.
We reject it.
You say that, Lord.
(05:50):
We don't say that.
What we say is different.
Now which way was it going to be?
There will, as they so stated here.
You might say they're good in tension.
Or was there will really going to be different
when the time came, when the pressure was on,
(06:11):
people were around them that started pointing them out
as his disciples.
When the trial came against him,
when he was captured, when he was being maltreated,
when the world was in control,
when Satan was having his way,
then would this will prevail?
Or would they make the deliberate personal choice again
(06:37):
and say, I never knew the man.
I'm not one of his disciples.
And even back it up with swearing,
the way the world does to show how strong they feel about something.
And say, yeah, I'm not even, you know.
He thought I was going to know I wouldn't do that.
(07:00):
You know how the world does it?
They think they add power to their words by their filth.
Now they do add, in a sense, they do add some power.
They add some power of filth to it,
but not power of truth.
It wasn't going to be that way.
Now what followed is a very interesting example
(07:24):
of how the Lord teaches and how He tried to teach them.
I know you might not see it just right off that way,
and I hope and are looking at it this morning,
this resurrection Sunday morning, you could see it.
It really takes up the story of the Lord in the garden of Gethsemane.
This is where the lesson was.
(07:47):
This is where the lesson came.
Starts at verse 36 and on.
And come with Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane
and said unto the disciples, sit you here while they go and pray you under.
Very innocent kind of setting.
You know, when the Lord teaches us, He doesn't always say,
now I'm going to teach you about trial.
(08:09):
He doesn't always do it that way.
Sometimes the Lord's lessons come to you
when you just aren't expecting them.
Everything's going along fine,
and then suddenly there's a thump, thump, thump on the right front tire.
You know?
(08:31):
If anybody knew that they were going to walk out their front door and fall on the ice,
they wouldn't do it.
You wouldn't do it.
You'd go out the back door and fall on the ice probably.
The Lord brings His lessons at moments you're not quite ready for sometimes.
(08:58):
They weren't going to deny Him, so what does He do?
He goes to Gethsemane with them, going to have a prayer meeting.
How can you deny the Lord in a prayer meeting?
How can your flesh take over in a prayer meeting with the Lord Jesus?
He couldn't be.
(09:19):
No problem, right?
Off they went with Him.
But in verse 37, the Lord chose three men.
He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee.
That's just to make sure you don't mix up on the Jameses here.
He took James and John and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
(09:43):
He took these three men and went a little farther along in the garden.
He began to pray in His Spirit already as He approached the place of prayer, became
sorrowful and heavy.
There's a reason for God telling us that.
I want you to think about this.
(10:04):
It's told to us before He leaves these three because He's going to ask them to pray.
You have to ask yourself, now what could He ask them to pray about?
But we now know His soul has become heavy and sorrowful.
(10:32):
So you know what their privilege was to pray for the Lord Jesus.
The Son of God, as He dealt with this deeply sorrowful soul, as He met this time of heavy
(10:53):
burden and the privilege of praying with the Son of God on that matter and asking the Father
for the grace that He might deal with the heaviness of soul that He was burdened with.
They didn't know what all the cause for the heaviness was.
They didn't fully understand the awfulness of the hour that was coming.
(11:20):
But He told them how heavy His heart was, how sorrowful and heavy it was, then at the
end of them.
My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.
He told them what His burden was.
Tear ye here and watch with me.
(11:42):
Now the watch means really watch in prayer with me.
Give your attention to this, to watch you see is to really give your attention to something.
Give your attention with me to this heavy, heavy burden.
It's just about ready to just crush me.
(12:05):
Life and death were there.
The heaviness of the burden was so great that except by the grace of God, this is hard
for us to understand, but listen to it from God.
That love of our Savior that He had in His heart for us was so heavy that bought by the
grace of the Father it would have killed Him.
(12:26):
Have you ever thought of this?
Have you ever asked God for an increased love for the lost?
You know I thought about that years ago and I thought, how much of the love for the lost
could I really bear?
(12:47):
How much could I take?
And as I thought more and more and more and more and more on it, and I actually came across
this.
I realized that if God allowed me, if He really allowed me to really sense, to bear really,
all of the love, infinite love you see that God has for the lost, if this little human
(13:12):
body and this little frail mind and this little spirit in this little frail body had
to handle infinite love, infinite love for the lost.
And the grief that that infinite love must know because of the offense of the sin in
(13:35):
the lost, then it would kill me.
My psychology isn't built for that.
It would destroy me.
My body, my mind, it's not made for that.
I can't handle that.
Now listen, I get worried about gas, rent and food and silly stuff like that.
(14:04):
I get worried about mosquitoes in the summer and scratches and little pains.
King nails even bother me.
To think that if He brought on me the whole burden for the lost, the whole of His love
(14:26):
for the lost, He would kill me.
Do you understand how burdened He was?
Even unto death?
He was facing the hour when, as Peter says, in his own body, on the tree, he would bear
(14:48):
the sins of the whole world.
He said, now watch with me.
Watch with me.
And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, oh, Father, if it
be possible that this cup passed from me, nevertheless not as I will but as thou willed.
(15:11):
He prayed.
He sent out the matter in human reasoning as man would see it.
By the way, it's good to recognize that Christ Jesus never sinned in His life.
He never sinned.
So when He says, right here, if it be possible that this cup passed from me, when He said
(15:36):
that, He was not sinning, it isn't wrong for you to pray and ask God to do something according
to your best understanding.
Now Lord, it looks to me like if you could just bring a tow truck along, it would really
help me out of this ditch.
Now if you have some other way of doing it, that's fine with me, but it looks to me like
(15:57):
it's going to take a tow truck.
So please, could you bring a tow truck?
Now that was one prayer that I uttered, one December 31st, I remember the date, I slid
off the road in my 49 Chrysler.
(16:19):
Of course, I was an antique car, but it was a...
And I was in a ditch and the snow was about two feet deep and there was no way in the
world was going to get out of there without a tow truck as far as I could tell.
(16:41):
One of the wheels were touching ground.
There were all, you know, both of them back there were spinning and the front was propped
up and it was just, you know, it was sitting there on the snow and there was no way.
It was cold, it was maybe 10 degrees out.
And I just said, well Lord, if you could send a tow truck, of course it was midnight, December
(17:11):
31st, nobody's out on the road.
I'm sitting in a ditch, it was miles away from a telephone, it was 10 degrees out.
I needed help.
I have first...
You know, I sat there for just long enough to say thank you that I'm not hurt, I wasn't
hurt.
(17:32):
And I looked up and there was a tow truck coming across the four-lane highway.
He had been going past me the other way and he just looked over, I still had my lights
on, he saw the lights on the car in the ditch and he just cut across the four lanes and
he came over and he says, hey, could I help you?
(17:53):
No, no, sure.
No way.
I was not rich in those days or since.
But I immediately started to dig her with him.
I said, well, how much would it cost me?
As though that really mattered, there's going to be another truck along any minute, you
(18:18):
know?
He said, well, I'm just returning from a job.
He said, you know, give me $10, I'll pull you out.
And I had $10, it was amazing.
And I had it.
I said, hook on, please, get me out of here.
He had me out in a couple of minutes, I gave him the money, I was going on my way home.
Yeah, that was a very, very difficult night for me, very difficult.
(18:43):
In fact, it was one of the most difficult nights in my whole life because I was at a
crisis moment.
The wreck was just a little added thing from God.
My mind was no more on that sliding off the road.
I had something else in my mind, very deep, very personal, the touch to the very soul,
(19:07):
something that I had to decide on.
It had to do with my whole future, my whole life, my whole ministry.
And just out of the blue, he let me slide into that ditch and provided that tow truck.
You know, once he got me out of the ditch, I was ready for him to speak to me about the
(19:30):
other matter, the deep matter, the one that was really important to me.
It was a big thing.
And because God had worked in this tow truck matter, which really looks like a big thing,
but really it wasn't, I was ready for him to do whatever he wanted to do in this other
(19:54):
matter.
I said, Lord, it is yours.
You have proved to me again that when I put something in your hands, you're faithful to
care for it.
He answered my prayer that night.
(20:16):
I didn't know how he was going to work out some things, but the years have proved that
he answered perfectly.
You see, we don't always get to see the answers to God's prayers, to our prayers to God,
his answers.
We don't always get to see them right away.
And in fact, some of them we don't get to see in this life, but he may give us some
(20:38):
little indications in this life.
He may not.
He may give us some little indications along the way to encourage our trust that he is
working, that he has worked, that we can trust him.
The disciples were there with him in the garden.
(20:59):
He prayed if it be possible that this cup passed from me, but nevertheless, nevertheless,
you see, not as I will, but as thou will.
This is my best suggestion on how in man's reasoning, according to this world, things
(21:22):
could just be taken care of.
But here is the full surrender of the will of the Son to the will of the Father.
It was that surrender that gave us our salvation.
(21:43):
He did this three times.
Come with unto his disciples and find at them a sleep, a sleep, a sleep.
Now you said, well, they wouldn't deny him in the garden of Gethsemane.
They wouldn't turn, they wouldn't fail him there, would they?
(22:09):
They did.
Was there only denial that of Peter standing in the hall when Christ was on trial at the
high priest's house?
Was that all it was?
No.
That was an open denial before people with his mouth, and he did that three times in the
(22:30):
cock-crew, but this was denial.
This was choosing their own way.
How do we know?
Well, because he tells them.
And first he rebukes them.
The Lord would never rebuke you for doing something right, would he?
He says, what?
Could you not watch with me one hour?
(22:55):
Why would the Lord say that if they had done nothing wrong?
They had chosen the wrong way.
Oh, you say, but they were tired.
Have you ever heard that one?
You ever said that?
Well, I was tired.
I used to use that one in school.
Why didn't you do your homework, Chuck?
(23:18):
I was tired.
I don't know why, but I had no teacher that ever cared about that reason.
She just never accepted it.
I used it.
It didn't do any good.
I could tell her all the work I had to do.
And then tell her I'm tired.
That was high fell asleep.
She didn't care.
(23:40):
Didn't do the homework.
Got a bad grade.
Could you not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray that you are not into temptation.
The Spirit indeed is willing.
Here's the problem, but the flesh is weak.
The Spirit is willing.
Don't think that the disciples wanted to deny the Lord.
(24:04):
They let him know earlier.
They didn't want to.
Don't think that the disciples plan to.
Don't think that they chose to in a sense in their minds.
They plotted to do this.
That isn't the only way that one denies the Lord.
It's when the temptations increase, when the trials increase, when the social pressure
(24:27):
increases, when things come against you and you have to make a choice between you and
the Lord or others in the Lord.
Rather than stand with him, you knuckle.
You buckle.
You knuckle under.
You buckle at the knees and you go the way of the people around you.
You go the easy way.
(24:50):
You go the way that doesn't make you have to be uncomfortable.
Why?
Because nobody likes trials.
He was bearing this heavy weight of sorrow even unto death.
Well, given a chance to bear that or not to bear it, what do you think your flesh is
(25:12):
going to choose?
Oh, I love to bear heavy burdens as nigh unto death.
Yes.
Oh, you don't like that.
Now you can bear a heavy burden in your soul unto death or you can sleep.
What?
(25:33):
You can perspire in prayer.
You can be burdened in prayer or you can sleep.
Now which do you think your flesh would choose?
Oh, my flesh loves to perspire in prayer.
No, it doesn't.
(25:56):
Your flesh likes to say, well, it's awfully nice right here laying on these rocks.
It sure could be nice to just sleep in this nice, soft, rocky place.
And off you would go to dreamland.
(26:17):
Not once, not twice, but three times the Lord came to them, had to rebuke them and call
them back to the place of prayer.
As it says in 42, he went away again the second time and prayed saying, oh, my father,
if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
(26:42):
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 cometh he to his disciples and sat under them, sleep on now and take your rest.
(27:05):
I think you have to understand that in prayer there is an opportunity for a while.
And then when the opportunity is gone, it's gone.
They had the opportunity to pray with the Lord.
He was here in body going as man through time and space.
(27:27):
Sequence of event after sequence of event, he is God, but here he's limited himself as
man and he's going through these things as we were and do.
And opportunity is there and opportunity doesn't stay forever in this world of time and space.
It comes and then it's gone.
And God calls on us to pray.
(27:50):
And if we don't pray when we ought to pray, then when that time is gone, we may as well
go on and sleep.
I'll give you an example.
Do you know somebody that's ill?
Somebody who prayed for it?
Let's say you just know that they're ill and you haven't yet prayed for them.
(28:12):
You've had good intentions, but you haven't prayed for them.
And they stay ill for a while and you just keep forgetting to pray for them or you just
don't want to take the time and you don't want to maybe set it aside.
And then they die.
And you say, oh, I think I better pray for them to get well now.
I'm going to tell you something.
(28:33):
It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.
God has resuscitated some people in this world, but that would be a very unusual experience.
Very unusual experience.
You're just going to have to reckon that you missed your opportunity.
(28:58):
Same for someone to be saved.
Have you prayed for them to be saved?
Have you missed your opportunity?
Are they gone now?
I don't suppose anybody has ever passed away when loved ones couldn't stand at the coffin
and wonder why they hadn't said certain things and why they hadn't done certain things
(29:19):
and why they hadn't expressed their love more.
There will be regrets because that's our flesh.
But the Lord Jesus would say to us, there is opportunity.
There's opportunity for prayer.
There's opportunity for surrender to him and it's for right now.
(29:40):
There's opportunity to surrender to and know the will of God and that's for right now.
And if you missed the opportunity, it will be gone and gone forever.
You will not have that opportunity again.
He let them sleep on.
Sleep on, he said to them.
(30:04):
Sleep on now.
Take your rest.
Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
It's done now.
You should have prayed, but not Judas has done his work.
The betrayal is over.
So even in the garden, Jesus knew precisely the moment, precisely the moment when the
(30:29):
deed was accomplished, though it might have been some distance away where Judas was in
the council with the chief priests and elders and received the 30 pieces of silver for
the betrayal where the plan was plotted and worked out there for him to come to them with
them to him and to find him there in the garden and to kiss him so that there would be no
question in the darkness of which was Jesus of Nazareth.
(30:53):
The plan was all accomplished now and they were on their way and so the disciples could
go ahead and sleep.
They had, listen now, they had denied the Lord.
They didn't want to, but when it came right down to whether they would or not, they made
(31:15):
the choice and they slept.
And that's why they were revealed.
They made the wrong choice.
Well, some time went by.
He let them sleep for a bit.
And at verse 46 he says, rise, let us be going.
Behold, he is at hand, that doth betray me.
(31:37):
Enough time now has passed for Judas to come with the soldiers, to come down out of the
gate, Jerusalem down to the Brookhedron, Crosshedron, up the Mount of Olives a little ways, because
that's where the Garden of Dissemane was, up the Mount of Olives a little ways to the
Garden, because he knew the place.
They had often gone there.
(32:00):
And so the Lord woke up to the disciples, said, it's time now.
While he at Spake, lo Judas, one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with
swords and staves from the chief priests and elders of the people.
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying, who shall I rise, shall be kissed the same
as he, hold him fast and forthwith.
He came to Jesus and said, hey, oh, master, and kissed him.
(32:21):
And Jesus said to him, friend, wherefore art thou come?
Then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him and behold, one of them which were
with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword.
This is Peter, by the way, Luke doesn't tell you, but others do.
And struck a servant of the high priest, that's Melchus' name, and smote off his ear, then
said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into its place.
(32:46):
For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to the Father?
Here's prayer, pray to the Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions
of angels.
But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?
Do you see what he wanted?
(33:08):
The will of the Father.
Agreement with the scriptures.
There was a way that he could avoid this one way, twelve legions of angels breaking
through the blue in all their bright glory, making that dark scene bright with the light
(33:29):
of the glory of God, slaying everybody that would dare oppose the Savior.
In an instant, that would have been answered prayer.
But it would not have been answered prayer according to the will of God.
(33:51):
Now which way do we want to live it?
Do we want to enter into life and seek to know the will of God?
Where are we only going to know life as we can see it, as we understand it?
If they didn't want Jesus to die, they were opposed to it.
(34:18):
Not one of them wanted him to suffer.
Peter proves it again here with his sword.
He doesn't want this.
He steps forward and chops a man's error off because he doesn't want it.
He's not in favor of this.
(34:39):
Did you know something?
It served the purpose of God.
And Jesus picked that ear up from the ground and lovingly put it back on that man's head
and he was healed.
It was the will of God for him to be taken.
It was the will of God that he should pass through trial after trial before Anas, before
(35:04):
half us, handed over to the Sanhedrin, handed over to the pilot, handed over to Herod,
back to the pilot.
It was the will of God that he should go through all that night, drug from place to
place, tried.
It was the will of God that he should have a crown of thorns thrust into his brow, that
(35:28):
they should take a whip and lash him with it.
They scourged him, which means they beat him probably the 39 stripes that was so traditional
in those days, laid it across his back and tore the flesh open.
It's important for you to remember that because when he's nailed to the cross and he's forced
to heave for breath because of the weight of the body and the pressure in the lungs
(35:52):
and heave for breath.
You can just think of the torn flesh in his back against that cruel cross.
They hit him with their staves, they spit in his face, they smote him in the face, they
plucked his hair from his beard, they mocked him, they blasphemed and then they made him
(36:23):
drag that cross through the streets of Jerusalem.
At least, at least a mile, three quarters to a mile, he'd drug that thing.
We don't know at what point he just couldn't do it anymore when Simon of Cyrene was engaged
(36:44):
to finish the task, but his strength was gone for dragging the cross, but not the strength
for hanging on it those three hours and suffering and then finally releasing his spirit.
You know what?
It was the will of God.
(37:05):
Why?
Because in three days God was going to prove something.
God was going to in three days show the world, throw the saints really and then through the
saints tell the world that it was his will for his son to die.
(37:26):
And that's how it went.
He died on the cross that morning, that afternoon I should say.
He died on the cross that afternoon.
As Peter says it again, who his own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree that
we being dead to sins should live on the righteousness by whose stripes he were healed,
(37:52):
by whose stripes he were healed.
Isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that a wonderful message?
That through what he went through, we have the healing from our sin.
We have the healing from these frail minds.
Someday you're going to have a perfect mind.
You have the healing from this frail body.
Someday you're going to have a resurrection body through his stripes.
You are healed.
Body, mind and spirit.
(38:13):
You are healed.
What he went through, you're healed.
That was the will of God.
That's why he did it.
Sometimes I said when you pray you do not see the answers to your prayer.
Sometimes you only get little indications of what the will of God is in a matter and sometimes
(38:37):
you just have to wait till heaven.
There is no greater evidence of the will of God in a matter.
Listen, I'm going to say it again.
There is no greater evidence of the will of God in a matter for past ages up through this
present age than this, that there was a resurrection.
(39:06):
There isn't anything you can point to in the scriptures up through all past ages up to this
present moment greater than the resurrection to tell you what the will of God is.
That Jesus should have come, that Jesus should have died, that declares the will of God.
Why?
Because God by his miracle of the resurrection brought right out into this three dimensional
(39:31):
world for the saints to see it.
There's no evidence any centers saw the resurrected Christ.
But for the saints to see it, he brought a witness that it was his will, his working.
The scriptures were right.
The Savior had surrendered to the will of the Father.
The work was done and the victory was his and now they could see the proof of why God
(39:53):
wanted to go that way.
It was a glorious victory.
And now they can enter into it.
They didn't have to wait till heaven to see that this was a victory.
They should have entered into it in prayer and faith, but they hadn't.
They should have wanted it, but they didn't really.
But now it was theirs.
(40:14):
And now they could go out and tell the world, we have proof of what the will of God is.
We have proof and the will of God is this, that Jesus should come and that Jesus should
die and bear the sins of the world.
And through his blood, we might be saved.
(40:35):
And if we would receive him, we can have newness of life.
He has victory over the death, over the grave, and over hell that would come down upon us.
That's the will of God.
The next evidence, the next evidence that we're all going to share in, and it hasn't
happened yet, of the will of God in this matter is the day, the moment, the Lord Jesus
(41:01):
breaks through and catches us out of this place and takes us home to glory.
Boy, is that going to prove the will of God to you?
Man, in the twinkling of an eye, you're going to be changed and caught up to be with the
Lord in the air, and all the saints are going to be there, and you won't have any question
about anything then.
You say, wow, that's it.
Boy, I really know that was right.
(41:24):
When you pray, of course you should say, Lord, could you do it this way?
But I want your will.
I want above all things.
I want your will.
Lord, if you could indicate to me what your will is, I would thank you.
(41:45):
If not, I will trust you, though I don't even see it.
One day you may have the privilege of having it shown to you what his will is in the matter.
Some day you may have many, many proofs, but I'll tell you one glorious day.
(42:06):
You're going to see it all, even as it's all revealed in that instant, when you're caught
up to be with the Lord.
The resurrection is the proof that the Father accepted the sacrifice of the Son, that the
Son's death was right, that he might redeem us, that it has pleased the Father to receive
(42:32):
that offering, and that you are truly saved if you have trusted in him.
It's a glorious message.
If you have anything in this world to point out, to see the hand of your God, proving
his love, proving his acceptance of your offering for your sin, it's this, the resurrection,
(42:58):
proving his will, it's the resurrection, and that you can pray to him on other matters
to know his will because he has a will.
And he would love to reveal it to you, to whatever degree he would, leave that with
him.
But here's your example.
(43:19):
He revealed the resurrection to us, and through it he gives us hope, that if you trust in
Christ, you have life.
It was the will of the Father that he should die, that he should suffer, that he should
bury your sin.
(43:43):
And I had to confess I wouldn't choose it either.
But as your teachers made to say, not my will, but thine be done.
I truly don't know what's best, but I have to learn to surrender to my Lord in everything
as he does know what is best.
(44:06):
And the cross and the anti-tune prove it to me.
And I'm waiting for the next event, the soon coming of my Lord.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you for the victory, that the tomb declares, the victory on the cross,
(44:30):
and the proof through it that it was the will of the Father, and that you should suffer
and die for us, that we can enter into prayer on matters and commit them to your will, that
we can learn in this earth how to look to you and commit all things to you.
And even though we don't understand why some of the hurts may come upon us, we can trust
(44:52):
you with everything in this life, that someday, whether you show it all to us, this side of
glory or not, someday it will all be clear.
If we would but walk that way, surrender to you and only seeking your will, not our own,
we can walk in the joy of the resurrection, in the victory of the resurrection, knowing
(45:16):
that things left in your hands are perfect.
We'll miss no blessing that way, because every good and perfect gift is from above
and does come down from the Father of lights with whom is no variable, neither shadow of
turning, and that Lord, you wouldn't deny any good thing to those that walk uprightly,
(45:40):
to those that love you are called according to your purpose.
And help us pray, not my will, but thine be done so that we can enter into the resurrection
victory in everything.
In Jesus name, amen.
(46:02):
Thank you, Pastor Rains, for another message from this resurrection Sunday back in 1991.
And thank you for listening in listeners and thankful to the people of fellowship Bible
Church who, Let, me use these tapes that I can bring them to you.
(46:23):
And thank you to my team here that helps me do this.
I know Jeff, he leaves a lot of comments, but he's the only one.
So if you want to leave a comment, you can do that at any of your podcast listening outlets
or on YouTube, because yes, we are on YouTube.
So you can look up on the YouTube channel and find us there.
(46:46):
So you can go there, find us, go on any of the podcasts, the apps like Apple Podcasts
or Spotify or Audible or wherever you want to listen to it.
I really like it if you leave comments and also subscribe.
Subscribe really helps.
I don't know if you realize how much subscribing helps.
It helps like boost our podcast up into the upper parts of the podcast list because there
(47:13):
are just billions of podcasts out there.
So in order to make it so that it comes out at the top, need more subscribers.
So subscribing really helps.
All right.
So I hope you enjoyed that.
Come back next week.
I have more from another from the tape archives of the fellowship Bible Church.
(47:37):
And until then I'll say, oh, yeah, reach your Bible.
Yeah.
You can get a podcast and reach your Bible.
Subscribe.
Yeah, you can do that.
But most importantly, have a great day.
All right.
I'll see you next week.
So long.
Hello friends and welcome and welcome back.
(00:14):
This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you are hear legacy lessons from
the Bible, taught by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet, Illinois.
These are messages that were originally recorded on cassette tape back in the years
(00:36):
past.
This one that we have today happened to be from March 31, 1991, and it was a message
on Resurrection Sunday.
So it's titled, Not My Will, but Thine Be Done.
Okay?
So that sounds like something good, even though, well, we're not close to Easter right now,
(01:01):
but that was the next one on the list.
So that's all right.
Well, cover it.
So here we go.
Let's listen in.
This sounds like something I would like to listen to.
I hope you'll hope you enjoy it.
See you on the other side of it.
I'd like you to open to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26.
(01:26):
The disciples were after all men, and they had to deal with the same tendencies in their
flesh that we had.
(01:47):
They wanted things on their own terms.
They wanted life to run their own way.
They had their ideas about how it should be, even their spiritual life, even their battles
with problems and maybe even their prayer life.
They had their idea about how things should go.
(02:12):
When we come to the scene of Zorand leading up to the crucifixion and then deal with the
resurrection, this conflict of man's wanting his way and God's will in making things work
his way kind of comes together.
(02:33):
In this 26th chapter, there's something here they wanted to hear, verse 29.
When he was with them at the last supper, he said, 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
(02:54):
Father's kingdom.
They wanted to hear them.
They wanted to hear about the kingdom that they were going to be there.
He was going to drink it with them.
They were going to be there in the kingdom.
The Lord was going to be there.
It was going to be kingdom and they were going to be there.
Great stuff.
They were all for that.
(03:15):
They enjoyed hearing that.
They didn't want to hear some of the other things he had to say.
Verse 31, all shall be offended because of me this night.
For it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad.
You're going to be offended in me.
(03:37):
You're a shepherd.
He was their shepherd.
It was going to be smitten.
Then they liked sheep, which was just scattered.
That wasn't a very nice message.
They didn't want him to be smitten.
And they certainly didn't want to think of themselves as sheep running away, just
scattering out of fear.
(04:00):
They liked the other message.
There's a kingdom.
You're going to be there.
I'm going to reign.
You'll reign with me.
It'll be a glorious kingdom.
They liked that.
They didn't like this.
But after I'm risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
(04:21):
Peter answered and said, the all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never
be offended.
Peter was really thinking about this idea.
Everybody is going to be offended.
You know what it meant to be offended?
Jesus explains this in verse 34.
Verily I said unto thee, this night before the clock crow thou shall deny me thrice.
(04:43):
The denial was how he was going to live out his offense with the Lord.
He was going to turn against him and deny me.
He was going to be offended in him.
Peter said, no, not me.
Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.
And then get this.
Likewise also said all the disciples.
(05:06):
It wasn't really just Peter that said that.
They all said that.
They all said, hey, Lord.
I'm willing to die for you.
I wouldn't turn away from you.
No way in the world would I deny you.
That wasn't just Peter.
All the disciples said it.
We won't deny you.
I won't deny you.
(05:29):
That one over there may be offended in you.
They may deny you, not me, not me.
Don't give us that kind of message.
We don't like that.
Don't agree with it.
We don't want it.
In fact, our will is absolutely set against it.
We reject it.
You say that, Lord.
(05:50):
We don't say that.
What we say is different.
Now which way was it going to be?
There will, as they so stated here.
You might say they're good in tension.
Or was there will really going to be different
when the time came, when the pressure was on,
(06:11):
people were around them that started pointing them out
as his disciples.
When the trial came against him,
when he was captured, when he was being maltreated,
when the world was in control,
when Satan was having his way,
then would this will prevail?
Or would they make the deliberate personal choice again
(06:37):
and say, I never knew the man.
I'm not one of his disciples.
And even back it up with swearing,
the way the world does to show how strong they feel about something.
And say, yeah, I'm not even, you know.
He thought I was going to know I wouldn't do that.
(07:00):
You know how the world does it?
They think they add power to their words by their filth.
Now they do add, in a sense, they do add some power.
They add some power of filth to it,
but not power of truth.
It wasn't going to be that way.
Now what followed is a very interesting example
(07:24):
of how the Lord teaches and how He tried to teach them.
I know you might not see it just right off that way,
and I hope and are looking at it this morning,
this resurrection Sunday morning, you could see it.
It really takes up the story of the Lord in the garden of Gethsemane.
This is where the lesson was.
(07:47):
This is where the lesson came.
Starts at verse 36 and on.
And come with Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane
and said unto the disciples, sit you here while they go and pray you under.
Very innocent kind of setting.
You know, when the Lord teaches us, He doesn't always say,
now I'm going to teach you about trial.
(08:09):
He doesn't always do it that way.
Sometimes the Lord's lessons come to you
when you just aren't expecting them.
Everything's going along fine,
and then suddenly there's a thump, thump, thump on the right front tire.
You know?
(08:31):
If anybody knew that they were going to walk out their front door and fall on the ice,
they wouldn't do it.
You wouldn't do it.
You'd go out the back door and fall on the ice probably.
The Lord brings His lessons at moments you're not quite ready for sometimes.
(08:58):
They weren't going to deny Him, so what does He do?
He goes to Gethsemane with them, going to have a prayer meeting.
How can you deny the Lord in a prayer meeting?
How can your flesh take over in a prayer meeting with the Lord Jesus?
He couldn't be.
(09:19):
No problem, right?
Off they went with Him.
But in verse 37, the Lord chose three men.
He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee.
That's just to make sure you don't mix up on the Jameses here.
He took James and John and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
(09:43):
He took these three men and went a little farther along in the garden.
He began to pray in His Spirit already as He approached the place of prayer, became
sorrowful and heavy.
There's a reason for God telling us that.
I want you to think about this.
(10:04):
It's told to us before He leaves these three because He's going to ask them to pray.
You have to ask yourself, now what could He ask them to pray about?
But we now know His soul has become heavy and sorrowful.
(10:32):
So you know what their privilege was to pray for the Lord Jesus.
The Son of God, as He dealt with this deeply sorrowful soul, as He met this time of heavy
(10:53):
burden and the privilege of praying with the Son of God on that matter and asking the Father
for the grace that He might deal with the heaviness of soul that He was burdened with.
They didn't know what all the cause for the heaviness was.
They didn't fully understand the awfulness of the hour that was coming.
(11:20):
But He told them how heavy His heart was, how sorrowful and heavy it was, then at the
end of them.
My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.
He told them what His burden was.
Tear ye here and watch with me.
(11:42):
Now the watch means really watch in prayer with me.
Give your attention to this, to watch you see is to really give your attention to something.
Give your attention with me to this heavy, heavy burden.
It's just about ready to just crush me.
(12:05):
Life and death were there.
The heaviness of the burden was so great that except by the grace of God, this is hard
for us to understand, but listen to it from God.
That love of our Savior that He had in His heart for us was so heavy that bought by the
grace of the Father it would have killed Him.
(12:26):
Have you ever thought of this?
Have you ever asked God for an increased love for the lost?
You know I thought about that years ago and I thought, how much of the love for the lost
could I really bear?
(12:47):
How much could I take?
And as I thought more and more and more and more and more on it, and I actually came across
this.
I realized that if God allowed me, if He really allowed me to really sense, to bear really,
all of the love, infinite love you see that God has for the lost, if this little human
(13:12):
body and this little frail mind and this little spirit in this little frail body had
to handle infinite love, infinite love for the lost.
And the grief that that infinite love must know because of the offense of the sin in
(13:35):
the lost, then it would kill me.
My psychology isn't built for that.
It would destroy me.
My body, my mind, it's not made for that.
I can't handle that.
Now listen, I get worried about gas, rent and food and silly stuff like that.
(14:04):
I get worried about mosquitoes in the summer and scratches and little pains.
King nails even bother me.
To think that if He brought on me the whole burden for the lost, the whole of His love
(14:26):
for the lost, He would kill me.
Do you understand how burdened He was?
Even unto death?
He was facing the hour when, as Peter says, in his own body, on the tree, he would bear
(14:48):
the sins of the whole world.
He said, now watch with me.
Watch with me.
And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, oh, Father, if it
be possible that this cup passed from me, nevertheless not as I will but as thou willed.
(15:11):
He prayed.
He sent out the matter in human reasoning as man would see it.
By the way, it's good to recognize that Christ Jesus never sinned in His life.
He never sinned.
So when He says, right here, if it be possible that this cup passed from me, when He said
(15:36):
that, He was not sinning, it isn't wrong for you to pray and ask God to do something according
to your best understanding.
Now Lord, it looks to me like if you could just bring a tow truck along, it would really
help me out of this ditch.
Now if you have some other way of doing it, that's fine with me, but it looks to me like
(15:57):
it's going to take a tow truck.
So please, could you bring a tow truck?
Now that was one prayer that I uttered, one December 31st, I remember the date, I slid
off the road in my 49 Chrysler.
(16:19):
Of course, I was an antique car, but it was a...
And I was in a ditch and the snow was about two feet deep and there was no way in the
world was going to get out of there without a tow truck as far as I could tell.
(16:41):
One of the wheels were touching ground.
There were all, you know, both of them back there were spinning and the front was propped
up and it was just, you know, it was sitting there on the snow and there was no way.
It was cold, it was maybe 10 degrees out.
And I just said, well Lord, if you could send a tow truck, of course it was midnight, December
(17:11):
31st, nobody's out on the road.
I'm sitting in a ditch, it was miles away from a telephone, it was 10 degrees out.
I needed help.
I have first...
You know, I sat there for just long enough to say thank you that I'm not hurt, I wasn't
hurt.
(17:32):
And I looked up and there was a tow truck coming across the four-lane highway.
He had been going past me the other way and he just looked over, I still had my lights
on, he saw the lights on the car in the ditch and he just cut across the four lanes and
he came over and he says, hey, could I help you?
(17:53):
No, no, sure.
No way.
I was not rich in those days or since.
But I immediately started to dig her with him.
I said, well, how much would it cost me?
As though that really mattered, there's going to be another truck along any minute, you
(18:18):
know?
He said, well, I'm just returning from a job.
He said, you know, give me $10, I'll pull you out.
And I had $10, it was amazing.
And I had it.
I said, hook on, please, get me out of here.
He had me out in a couple of minutes, I gave him the money, I was going on my way home.
Yeah, that was a very, very difficult night for me, very difficult.
(18:43):
In fact, it was one of the most difficult nights in my whole life because I was at a
crisis moment.
The wreck was just a little added thing from God.
My mind was no more on that sliding off the road.
I had something else in my mind, very deep, very personal, the touch to the very soul,
(19:07):
something that I had to decide on.
It had to do with my whole future, my whole life, my whole ministry.
And just out of the blue, he let me slide into that ditch and provided that tow truck.
You know, once he got me out of the ditch, I was ready for him to speak to me about the
(19:30):
other matter, the deep matter, the one that was really important to me.
It was a big thing.
And because God had worked in this tow truck matter, which really looks like a big thing,
but really it wasn't, I was ready for him to do whatever he wanted to do in this other
(19:54):
matter.
I said, Lord, it is yours.
You have proved to me again that when I put something in your hands, you're faithful to
care for it.
He answered my prayer that night.
(20:16):
I didn't know how he was going to work out some things, but the years have proved that
he answered perfectly.
You see, we don't always get to see the answers to God's prayers, to our prayers to God,
his answers.
We don't always get to see them right away.
And in fact, some of them we don't get to see in this life, but he may give us some
(20:38):
little indications in this life.
He may not.
He may give us some little indications along the way to encourage our trust that he is
working, that he has worked, that we can trust him.
The disciples were there with him in the garden.
(20:59):
He prayed if it be possible that this cup passed from me, but nevertheless, nevertheless,
you see, not as I will, but as thou will.
This is my best suggestion on how in man's reasoning, according to this world, things
(21:22):
could just be taken care of.
But here is the full surrender of the will of the Son to the will of the Father.
It was that surrender that gave us our salvation.
(21:43):
He did this three times.
Come with unto his disciples and find at them a sleep, a sleep, a sleep.
Now you said, well, they wouldn't deny him in the garden of Gethsemane.
They wouldn't turn, they wouldn't fail him there, would they?
(22:09):
They did.
Was there only denial that of Peter standing in the hall when Christ was on trial at the
high priest's house?
Was that all it was?
No.
That was an open denial before people with his mouth, and he did that three times in the
(22:30):
cock-crew, but this was denial.
This was choosing their own way.
How do we know?
Well, because he tells them.
And first he rebukes them.
The Lord would never rebuke you for doing something right, would he?
He says, what?
Could you not watch with me one hour?
(22:55):
Why would the Lord say that if they had done nothing wrong?
They had chosen the wrong way.
Oh, you say, but they were tired.
Have you ever heard that one?
You ever said that?
Well, I was tired.
I used to use that one in school.
Why didn't you do your homework, Chuck?
(23:18):
I was tired.
I don't know why, but I had no teacher that ever cared about that reason.
She just never accepted it.
I used it.
It didn't do any good.
I could tell her all the work I had to do.
And then tell her I'm tired.
That was high fell asleep.
She didn't care.
(23:40):
Didn't do the homework.
Got a bad grade.
Could you not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray that you are not into temptation.
The Spirit indeed is willing.
Here's the problem, but the flesh is weak.
The Spirit is willing.
Don't think that the disciples wanted to deny the Lord.
(24:04):
They let him know earlier.
They didn't want to.
Don't think that the disciples plan to.
Don't think that they chose to in a sense in their minds.
They plotted to do this.
That isn't the only way that one denies the Lord.
It's when the temptations increase, when the trials increase, when the social pressure
(24:27):
increases, when things come against you and you have to make a choice between you and
the Lord or others in the Lord.
Rather than stand with him, you knuckle.
You buckle.
You knuckle under.
You buckle at the knees and you go the way of the people around you.
You go the easy way.
(24:50):
You go the way that doesn't make you have to be uncomfortable.
Why?
Because nobody likes trials.
He was bearing this heavy weight of sorrow even unto death.
Well, given a chance to bear that or not to bear it, what do you think your flesh is
(25:12):
going to choose?
Oh, I love to bear heavy burdens as nigh unto death.
Yes.
Oh, you don't like that.
Now you can bear a heavy burden in your soul unto death or you can sleep.
What?
(25:33):
You can perspire in prayer.
You can be burdened in prayer or you can sleep.
Now which do you think your flesh would choose?
Oh, my flesh loves to perspire in prayer.
No, it doesn't.
(25:56):
Your flesh likes to say, well, it's awfully nice right here laying on these rocks.
It sure could be nice to just sleep in this nice, soft, rocky place.
And off you would go to dreamland.
(26:17):
Not once, not twice, but three times the Lord came to them, had to rebuke them and call
them back to the place of prayer.
As it says in 42, he went away again the second time and prayed saying, oh, my father,
if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
(26:42):
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 cometh he to his disciples and sat under them, sleep on now and take your rest.
(27:05):
I think you have to understand that in prayer there is an opportunity for a while.
And then when the opportunity is gone, it's gone.
They had the opportunity to pray with the Lord.
He was here in body going as man through time and space.
(27:27):
Sequence of event after sequence of event, he is God, but here he's limited himself as
man and he's going through these things as we were and do.
And opportunity is there and opportunity doesn't stay forever in this world of time and space.
It comes and then it's gone.
And God calls on us to pray.
(27:50):
And if we don't pray when we ought to pray, then when that time is gone, we may as well
go on and sleep.
I'll give you an example.
Do you know somebody that's ill?
Somebody who prayed for it?
Let's say you just know that they're ill and you haven't yet prayed for them.
(28:12):
You've had good intentions, but you haven't prayed for them.
And they stay ill for a while and you just keep forgetting to pray for them or you just
don't want to take the time and you don't want to maybe set it aside.
And then they die.
And you say, oh, I think I better pray for them to get well now.
I'm going to tell you something.
(28:33):
It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.
God has resuscitated some people in this world, but that would be a very unusual experience.
Very unusual experience.
You're just going to have to reckon that you missed your opportunity.
(28:58):
Same for someone to be saved.
Have you prayed for them to be saved?
Have you missed your opportunity?
Are they gone now?
I don't suppose anybody has ever passed away when loved ones couldn't stand at the coffin
and wonder why they hadn't said certain things and why they hadn't done certain things
(29:19):
and why they hadn't expressed their love more.
There will be regrets because that's our flesh.
But the Lord Jesus would say to us, there is opportunity.
There's opportunity for prayer.
There's opportunity for surrender to him and it's for right now.
(29:40):
There's opportunity to surrender to and know the will of God and that's for right now.
And if you missed the opportunity, it will be gone and gone forever.
You will not have that opportunity again.
He let them sleep on.
Sleep on, he said to them.
(30:04):
Sleep on now.
Take your rest.
Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
It's done now.
You should have prayed, but not Judas has done his work.
The betrayal is over.
So even in the garden, Jesus knew precisely the moment, precisely the moment when the
(30:29):
deed was accomplished, though it might have been some distance away where Judas was in
the council with the chief priests and elders and received the 30 pieces of silver for
the betrayal where the plan was plotted and worked out there for him to come to them with
them to him and to find him there in the garden and to kiss him so that there would be no
question in the darkness of which was Jesus of Nazareth.
(30:53):
The plan was all accomplished now and they were on their way and so the disciples could
go ahead and sleep.
They had, listen now, they had denied the Lord.
They didn't want to, but when it came right down to whether they would or not, they made
(31:15):
the choice and they slept.
And that's why they were revealed.
They made the wrong choice.
Well, some time went by.
He let them sleep for a bit.
And at verse 46 he says, rise, let us be going.
Behold, he is at hand, that doth betray me.
(31:37):
Enough time now has passed for Judas to come with the soldiers, to come down out of the
gate, Jerusalem down to the Brookhedron, Crosshedron, up the Mount of Olives a little ways, because
that's where the Garden of Dissemane was, up the Mount of Olives a little ways to the
Garden, because he knew the place.
They had often gone there.
(32:00):
And so the Lord woke up to the disciples, said, it's time now.
While he at Spake, lo Judas, one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with
swords and staves from the chief priests and elders of the people.
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying, who shall I rise, shall be kissed the same
as he, hold him fast and forthwith.
He came to Jesus and said, hey, oh, master, and kissed him.
(32:21):
And Jesus said to him, friend, wherefore art thou come?
Then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him and behold, one of them which were
with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword.
This is Peter, by the way, Luke doesn't tell you, but others do.
And struck a servant of the high priest, that's Melchus' name, and smote off his ear, then
said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into its place.
(32:46):
For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to the Father?
Here's prayer, pray to the Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions
of angels.
But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?
Do you see what he wanted?
(33:08):
The will of the Father.
Agreement with the scriptures.
There was a way that he could avoid this one way, twelve legions of angels breaking
through the blue in all their bright glory, making that dark scene bright with the light
(33:29):
of the glory of God, slaying everybody that would dare oppose the Savior.
In an instant, that would have been answered prayer.
But it would not have been answered prayer according to the will of God.
(33:51):
Now which way do we want to live it?
Do we want to enter into life and seek to know the will of God?
Where are we only going to know life as we can see it, as we understand it?
If they didn't want Jesus to die, they were opposed to it.
(34:18):
Not one of them wanted him to suffer.
Peter proves it again here with his sword.
He doesn't want this.
He steps forward and chops a man's error off because he doesn't want it.
He's not in favor of this.
(34:39):
Did you know something?
It served the purpose of God.
And Jesus picked that ear up from the ground and lovingly put it back on that man's head
and he was healed.
It was the will of God for him to be taken.
It was the will of God that he should pass through trial after trial before Anas, before
(35:04):
half us, handed over to the Sanhedrin, handed over to the pilot, handed over to Herod,
back to the pilot.
It was the will of God that he should go through all that night, drug from place to
place, tried.
It was the will of God that he should have a crown of thorns thrust into his brow, that
(35:28):
they should take a whip and lash him with it.
They scourged him, which means they beat him probably the 39 stripes that was so traditional
in those days, laid it across his back and tore the flesh open.
It's important for you to remember that because when he's nailed to the cross and he's forced
to heave for breath because of the weight of the body and the pressure in the lungs
(35:52):
and heave for breath.
You can just think of the torn flesh in his back against that cruel cross.
They hit him with their staves, they spit in his face, they smote him in the face, they
plucked his hair from his beard, they mocked him, they blasphemed and then they made him
(36:23):
drag that cross through the streets of Jerusalem.
At least, at least a mile, three quarters to a mile, he'd drug that thing.
We don't know at what point he just couldn't do it anymore when Simon of Cyrene was engaged
(36:44):
to finish the task, but his strength was gone for dragging the cross, but not the strength
for hanging on it those three hours and suffering and then finally releasing his spirit.
You know what?
It was the will of God.
(37:05):
Why?
Because in three days God was going to prove something.
God was going to in three days show the world, throw the saints really and then through the
saints tell the world that it was his will for his son to die.
(37:26):
And that's how it went.
He died on the cross that morning, that afternoon I should say.
He died on the cross that afternoon.
As Peter says it again, who his own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree that
we being dead to sins should live on the righteousness by whose stripes he were healed,
(37:52):
by whose stripes he were healed.
Isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that a wonderful message?
That through what he went through, we have the healing from our sin.
We have the healing from these frail minds.
Someday you're going to have a perfect mind.
You have the healing from this frail body.
Someday you're going to have a resurrection body through his stripes.
You are healed.
Body, mind and spirit.
(38:13):
You are healed.
What he went through, you're healed.
That was the will of God.
That's why he did it.
Sometimes I said when you pray you do not see the answers to your prayer.
Sometimes you only get little indications of what the will of God is in a matter and sometimes
(38:37):
you just have to wait till heaven.
There is no greater evidence of the will of God in a matter.
Listen, I'm going to say it again.
There is no greater evidence of the will of God in a matter for past ages up through this
present age than this, that there was a resurrection.
(39:06):
There isn't anything you can point to in the scriptures up through all past ages up to this
present moment greater than the resurrection to tell you what the will of God is.
That Jesus should have come, that Jesus should have died, that declares the will of God.
Why?
Because God by his miracle of the resurrection brought right out into this three dimensional
(39:31):
world for the saints to see it.
There's no evidence any centers saw the resurrected Christ.
But for the saints to see it, he brought a witness that it was his will, his working.
The scriptures were right.
The Savior had surrendered to the will of the Father.
The work was done and the victory was his and now they could see the proof of why God
(39:53):
wanted to go that way.
It was a glorious victory.
And now they can enter into it.
They didn't have to wait till heaven to see that this was a victory.
They should have entered into it in prayer and faith, but they hadn't.
They should have wanted it, but they didn't really.
But now it was theirs.
(40:14):
And now they could go out and tell the world, we have proof of what the will of God is.
We have proof and the will of God is this, that Jesus should come and that Jesus should
die and bear the sins of the world.
And through his blood, we might be saved.
(40:35):
And if we would receive him, we can have newness of life.
He has victory over the death, over the grave, and over hell that would come down upon us.
That's the will of God.
The next evidence, the next evidence that we're all going to share in, and it hasn't
happened yet, of the will of God in this matter is the day, the moment, the Lord Jesus
(41:01):
breaks through and catches us out of this place and takes us home to glory.
Boy, is that going to prove the will of God to you?
Man, in the twinkling of an eye, you're going to be changed and caught up to be with the
Lord in the air, and all the saints are going to be there, and you won't have any question
about anything then.
You say, wow, that's it.
Boy, I really know that was right.
(41:24):
When you pray, of course you should say, Lord, could you do it this way?
But I want your will.
I want above all things.
I want your will.
Lord, if you could indicate to me what your will is, I would thank you.
(41:45):
If not, I will trust you, though I don't even see it.
One day you may have the privilege of having it shown to you what his will is in the matter.
Some day you may have many, many proofs, but I'll tell you one glorious day.
(42:06):
You're going to see it all, even as it's all revealed in that instant, when you're caught
up to be with the Lord.
The resurrection is the proof that the Father accepted the sacrifice of the Son, that the
Son's death was right, that he might redeem us, that it has pleased the Father to receive
(42:32):
that offering, and that you are truly saved if you have trusted in him.
It's a glorious message.
If you have anything in this world to point out, to see the hand of your God, proving
his love, proving his acceptance of your offering for your sin, it's this, the resurrection,
(42:58):
proving his will, it's the resurrection, and that you can pray to him on other matters
to know his will because he has a will.
And he would love to reveal it to you, to whatever degree he would, leave that with
him.
But here's your example.
(43:19):
He revealed the resurrection to us, and through it he gives us hope, that if you trust in
Christ, you have life.
It was the will of the Father that he should die, that he should suffer, that he should
bury your sin.
(43:43):
And I had to confess I wouldn't choose it either.
But as your teachers made to say, not my will, but thine be done.
I truly don't know what's best, but I have to learn to surrender to my Lord in everything
as he does know what is best.
(44:06):
And the cross and the anti-tune prove it to me.
And I'm waiting for the next event, the soon coming of my Lord.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you for the victory, that the tomb declares, the victory on the cross,
(44:30):
and the proof through it that it was the will of the Father, and that you should suffer
and die for us, that we can enter into prayer on matters and commit them to your will, that
we can learn in this earth how to look to you and commit all things to you.
And even though we don't understand why some of the hurts may come upon us, we can trust
(44:52):
you with everything in this life, that someday, whether you show it all to us, this side of
glory or not, someday it will all be clear.
If we would but walk that way, surrender to you and only seeking your will, not our own,
we can walk in the joy of the resurrection, in the victory of the resurrection, knowing
(45:16):
that things left in your hands are perfect.
We'll miss no blessing that way, because every good and perfect gift is from above
and does come down from the Father of lights with whom is no variable, neither shadow of
turning, and that Lord, you wouldn't deny any good thing to those that walk uprightly,
(45:40):
to those that love you are called according to your purpose.
And help us pray, not my will, but thine be done so that we can enter into the resurrection
victory in everything.
In Jesus name, amen.
(46:02):
Thank you, Pastor Rains, for another message from this resurrection Sunday back in 1991.
And thank you for listening in listeners and thankful to the people of fellowship Bible
Church who, Let, me use these tapes that I can bring them to you.
(46:23):
And thank you to my team here that helps me do this.
I know Jeff, he leaves a lot of comments, but he's the only one.
So if you want to leave a comment, you can do that at any of your podcast listening outlets
or on YouTube, because yes, we are on YouTube.
So you can look up on the YouTube channel and find us there.
(46:46):
So you can go there, find us, go on any of the podcasts, the apps like Apple Podcasts
or Spotify or Audible or wherever you want to listen to it.
I really like it if you leave comments and also subscribe.
Subscribe really helps.
I don't know if you realize how much subscribing helps.
It helps like boost our podcast up into the upper parts of the podcast list because there
(47:13):
are just billions of podcasts out there.
So in order to make it so that it comes out at the top, need more subscribers.
So subscribing really helps.
All right.
So I hope you enjoyed that.
Come back next week.
I have more from another from the tape archives of the fellowship Bible Church.
(47:37):
And until then I'll say, oh, yeah, reach your Bible.
Yeah.
You can get a podcast and reach your Bible.
Subscribe.
Yeah, you can do that.
But most importantly, have a great day.
All right.
I'll see you next week.
So long.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.