So congregation, let me invite us this evening to open our Bible to Matthew chapter 26, Matthew chapter 26. And if you have put that blue Psalter hymnal away, we'll want to pull that back out as well. We'll be in the back section where we find help in teaching us in the canons of Dort. We'll begin on page 109 and continue into page 110 in a moment. This evening we want to especially have before us and firstly and primarily the Word of God, and so we're in Matthew 26. We're going to begin our reading at verse 36 and go to 46. It's a very familiar passage. Now we want to consider if I might put it this way, the why the question why? A verse 41. I'll draw that out a little bit more in the sermon. Why we ought to wonder. the Lord's instruction here, and we'll see more of that, and that'll be our text then, verse 41 of Matthew 26. But let's begin our reading at Matthew 26 and verse 36. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, my father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. And he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Would you men not keep watch with me for one hour, he asked Peter. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. He went away a second time and prayed, my father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away, unless I drink it, may your will be done. When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer. So congregation, our text is going to be verse 41. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, the body weak. As far as the word of the living God will keep our Bible open, will turn out to the summary of. It's not the same, but it's a summary of the teaching of the Word of God. In the canons of door that wonderful, helpful pastoral document, a confession of ours. Let's follow along silently as I read. We're on the bottom of page 109 in the back section, Article 4. This again is in the section, The Perseverance of the Saints, Article 4. Although the weakness of the flesh cannot prevail against the power of God, who confirms and preserves true believers in a state of grace, yet converts are not always so influenced and actuated by the Spirit of God, as not in some particular instances, sinfully to deviate from the guidance of divine grace, so as to be seduced by and to comply with the lusts of the flesh. They must therefore be constant in watching and prayer that they may not be led into temptation. When these are neglected, they are not only liable to be drawn into great and heinous sins by the flesh, the world, and Satan, but sometimes by the righteous permission of God actually are drawn into these evils. This, the lamentable fall of David, Peter, and other saints described in Holy Scripture demonstrates. The congregation, we know that these things are true for they are taught to us in the word of God. Let's ask that help that we need by the Holy Spirit's work tonight. So let's pray again, shall we? Our Father in heaven, we come this evening again to the matter of how it is we find perseverance. We know we need to be by you preserved. But we need, Lord, this evening to look into how exactly You do that work of preserving us. And we see that You do it by grace. And this, Lord, the teaching of Your Word, and the calling of our response of obedience, and all of these things we find Your glorious work. But help us this evening. Strengthen us, O Heavenly Father, as Your mercy is for us, very rich in Christ. Lead us into all truth. We pray, asking in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, here in Matthew 26, in the Garden of Gethsemane, is our Savior saving when He was at His hour of need. Our Savior saving when He was at His hour of need. Here he is saving his weak disciples whose flesh, their bodily need for rest overwhelmed them when he had asked for their help. This then is yet another powerful picture of the point of the entire fifth head of the Canons of Dort. God must preserve us or we could not persevere. I've helped us, I think, to struggle with the title that begins the fifth head of doctrine, talking about perseverance, when what we must be talking about is God's preserving work. And what we have here is a powerful picture of that. Indeed, that very work, preserve, what God does appears, In this answer, the fourth article, God preserves true believers in a state of grace. God preserves us in a state of grace. And so now then, the question, how? His preserving of us includes His admonitions to us. This is something hard initially for us to accept. But we could quite simply say it this way, and it's a very basic illustration. If your child at six years old wants to run out into the highway, you don't say, well, go right ahead. No, you admonish them. Indeed, you restrain them. You say, no, don't. Do something else. Why not? Well, because I love you and I want you kept safe. This, beloved, is exactly, and I said it's a very basic illustration, but this is exactly what we have in our text tonight. His admonitions to us go like this. We must trust and obey. Or there's no other way. People of God one way people of God. This is your first fill in the blank. One way God preserves us in a state of grace. Is by the sanctifying commands he issues in his word to us, his covenant people. His command to watch and pray. is issued as a means of preserving us alive. He commands us, watch and pray that we might be preserved alive. We must watch and pray or be led away into outrageous sins. We must watch and pray or be led away into outrageous sins. So notice, firstly, here's our first point under our theme statement. Now, during the hour of darkness, Jesus wants them alert. Alert. This section of Matthew 26 is, of course, incredibly tense, and it's a dynamic time. Things are happening. They're coming to culmination. Things are coming together that have been little tributaries now into the glorious work of Christ to the cross. But on the other side of it, on the perspective of darkness, the one who has been waiting for an opportune time and scheming and watching, that evil one now who has his ducks in a row is ready in such a way that the Lord Jesus might be arrested. And he thinks, and we don't have time to consider this more tonight, but he thinks that evil one does, that by this arrest that he has planned and laid out for, that he's going to have some sort of victory. Little does he know, right? Jesus knows that the cross is ahead. Now even at this moment, if you can think of it in a visual, picturesque way, the shadow of the cross of Golgotha is casting a large grasp even into the Garden of Gethsemane. The power of darkness is at its height. Microbursts of this darkness constantly collide with our lives and into our situations, and we're rebuffed, and we're pushed, and we're harassed by those microbursts of darkness. But the Lord Jesus Christ faced the full fury of them. He confronted the full reality of these things. He is at the epicenter. And Jesus is suffering. And He is engulfed in darkness. And even at that moment of Him being engulfed in that darkness, He issues the warning to His disciples. Watch and pray. You know, we said it already, but there is no greater moment of the need in His earthly ministry, in His human struggles. He is fully divine, of course, but also a completely normal man as well. He is struggling mightily, and He desperately needs their help. You see it in the text. It just leaps off the page. Sit here. Watch over these things, he says to the whole of the disciples. And then he takes the three. My soul is overwhelmed, verse 38, with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here. Keep watch with me. Darkness is raging and temptation might crush. Dearly beloved, Dearly beloved, Jesus warns His disciples, His church, that the presence of darkness mandates our red alert awareness. The presence of darkness mandates our red alert awareness. Now here's something we need to consider, and you need to give an answer to this question yourself. No one else can answer this for you. You have to be able to proffer your own answer. Is darkness still a formidable foe for us? Are we ourselves still buffeted by and wrestling with the world, the flesh, and Satan as the fourth article of the fifth head of doctrine says? Beloved, I trust you can have only one answer to that question, and it is yes. Yes. But let's press that even further. And let's say it now in this way. Christians, we are doomed if we don't accept the spiritual reality of this text. We are doomed because spiritual forces of evil are real. If we don't accept it, we are doomed because those spiritual forces of evil want us destroyed. Read again. We need to read regularly chapter 12 of the book of Revelation, where at the end of chapter 12 of Revelation, we see the reality of the dragon seeking to devour the children of the woman. In other words, seeking Christians is Satan. And that's us. And so we must accept and believe the spiritual reality of this text. This is no story. It isn't simply a historical record either. It's more than that. We are reading something that is real in its drama. It is significant in its weightiness for the church today. Temptation is real. Flesh that out. Did King David really commit adultery? And did he really commit murder? How do you answer that? You say, yes, he did. Did Peter really three times after having just been with his Lord here in this place, did he really moments later deny Jesus Christ three times? Peter, did he really? Yes, he did. And so, beloved, do we reckon with the significance of these things? Are we really, as James will put it in chapter 1 verse 14, are we really dragged away and enticed by our own evil desires which is called temptation? We are, aren't we? As Canons of Dort 5-4 puts it, we are seduced by the lusts of the flesh. People of God. People of God, the spiritual reality set forth in this text is still our reality today. Affirming this is step one of our preservation. I want you for a moment just to ponder that. Because we've been kind of teasing out as we've been moving through the canons of Dort, saying just wait to the fifth. Wait to the fifth head and we'll find such comfort. We'll find such solace and richness for us. And you're saying right now, but Pastor, you said there was so much comfort. Now we're talking about darkness and about the world and the flesh and the devil. Yes, beloved, because we have to deal with reality. And in the midst of it, God is preserving us. and especially if we admit that we need it. If we admit that we need it. Well, then going on in the text, notice secondly, their failure at the moment opens a lifetime application. Three times in this section, Jesus told his disciples to remain alert. Verse 36, sit here. Now you might not think that's too much or that's not saying a whole lot, but look at it again. Verse 36, Jesus says you're not dismissed. You're not off the clock. I need you to be sitting here and watching, all of you, to be engaged in watching. So that's verse 36 in the first time. Verse 41, watch and pray. But verse 38, in the midst of that, stay here and keep watch. Three times he calls them to this, and three times they fail to follow his admonition. But I said to you as we were coming to the beginning of the sermon and as I was about to read the text, I teased out a little bit this question, why is verse 41 even here? Now, let's stress that a little bit. Think about it with me. Does it matter in the movement of the Lord Jesus Christ toward the cross, does it matter whether they stay awake and watch and pray or not? In other words, suppose things were different. And suppose they responded positively to these three admonitions of the Lord, and maybe he didn't need three, just one would have sufficed because they actually were alert and awake and on guard and noticing and watching. Would it have mattered? Would it then have been the case that the Lord Jesus Christ would not have been arrested had they just stayed awake? Now you see where we're going. And you say, well, of course it really wouldn't have mattered in that way. So why this text? Why this admonition? It is here, beloved, for us. It is here for us. For disciples everywhere. We are being admonished. We are being warned. We are being made to be on alert. Because they failed to heed His warning, we are the ones instructed now. The scene is a memorable one because we can, in our minds, we can easily picture them being just regular men, their heads nodding, oh, Lord, I want to stay awake, I'm trying to stay awake, but my eyelids are too heavy and they're out. We can picture that, can't we? We can see it. They're sleeping. We can see it because we would be very prone to do exactly the same thing. That's the point. That's the warning. Spiritually speaking, we must watch. And pray. Dearly beloved, we can relate to this example. We can relate to this example of fleshly weakness and so. Ought to be very eager. To learn how we take steps. to avoid the very same failures. 1 Corinthians 10.13 Another one of those verses we should love to memorize. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. There's going to be another part of that in a moment, but Jesus says here, the spirit is willing, but the body, the flesh, in Greek, sarx, is weak. I don't often give you the actual Greek word behind one of the English renderings. I sometimes will say, well, the Greek here is very interesting and we have different translations, but here it's. It's important to mention it. The word that Jesus speaks here. Verse 41 the body flesh. The Greek word is sarks. And we have an English word. It's kind of an older one. We don't use it all that much anymore. But it's a related English word that comes from this Greek. We would say sarcophagus, coffin, tomb. Literally, the word sarcophagus is two Greek words smashed together. Sarx, flesh, and pharges, consuming. Think about it that way. A coffin consumes flesh. It's hungry in a sense. That's a pretty dark way of thinking of it, isn't it? Which again is exactly the point. The coffin consumes. In our case, given our fallen condition, temptation consumes flesh. The humble, little, seemingly insignificant failure of the disciples here, they only fell asleep, is the perfect example of what happens to us when we're not watching, engaged in prayer. Now, as I just say that, as I just say that, I want you to think about why it was that the delegates sent from various countries to the Netherlands, 1618, 19, the great Synod of Dort, as they were considering now this matter, thought to include as a powerful proof this text in the fourth article of the fifth head of doctrine. They say it very distinctly, very clearly. It's one of our confessional standards. They say they must, that is we must, Christians must, therefore, be constant in watching and prayer that they may not be led into temptation. It's lifted right out of the text. From the words of Jesus into the words of the confession. These things must be. This is the application. This is our situation and this. Becomes then our admonition. It comes as a means of grace whereby God says I'm going to graciously provide to you the means for your perseverance. I'm going to preserve you by my word so that when you reciprocate and respond, you'll be. Persevering. People of God. People of God, as we obey the Lord's command here to watch and pray, so will we, from his spoken grace, be kept safe from wicked darkness. You could put a semicolon there, if you're into grammar, and say or else. And consider the result of not doing these things. Well, we don't want to not do these things. We want to be kept safe. So thirdly. Let's look at them now in detail. We must watch. Or be taken by outrageous sins. We must watch and so beloved. Watch. Be alert. Be observant, be on guard, be defensive. Why? Because you are afraid. Because you are concerned. Because you are fearful. Now, you might be thinking right now, well, with the Lord on our side, so to speak, and with God as our refuge and strength, we shouldn't be afraid of anything. Yes, I understand if we're going in that direction, I would agree with you entirely. But about these matters, we ought to be terrified. And about what things are we thinking of being afraid? We ought to be terrified of temptations. The Canons of Dort warns us that we are liable to be seduced by and comply with, quote, the lusts of the flesh. It is our propensity. It is the rule, not the exception. Oh, beloved, watch, because you are terribly afraid that you can be tempted. It is the one who does not believe he or she can be tempted, who then therefore does not watch. They are not afraid. They are not concerned. They are ambivalent. Beyond defense, because you know if the enemy gets inside the wire, if he gets over the wall, you will be gravely injured by the temptation. So what does that mean? Well, let's think of it this way. Are we watching? There we are, we're on the wall. As every old fort would have done it, the trees have been removed 50 yards or more beyond the wall so that there's clear and open ground between the wall of the fort and the forest beyond it. But we're watching the edge of the trees, we're seeing Carefully what is going on if anything is changing and there it is. We see something we we notice a shifting of a movement in the forest. We see that something is happening, right? It's it's off there in the distance yet, but we can see that something is coming. An issue of temptation is moving toward us. What are we going to do? But do you see that we can consider what we will do because we see it coming? And this is what Jesus is here addressing. When we see that issue of temptation shuffling in the trees, we shoot it. We shoot it. We destroy it. We fire at it with everything we have. It's out there in the distance, but before it gets any closer, we slaughter it. We annihilate it. And those are exactly the words we want to use. It's way over there. It's out there. How is it that you can see it when it's still a long ways off and attack it when it's at some distance? You can because you are watching. You're alert. You saw it early. You saw it early. Dearly beloved, dearly beloved, biblical watchfulness is part of God's way of escape out of the trap of temptation, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. We need to be well-trained expert watchers over our lives. Well-trained expert watchers over our lives. So now what then is biblical watchfulness? There are many things. I'm going to bring before us for our consideration this evening four things. Four things that would constitute a part of an aspect of biblical watchfulness. Well, here's the first. To be able to see our lives and when we talk about watching, that's what we're watching. We're watching our own lives. To be able to see our lives, we need to know the scriptures. We need to read, study, memorize, and meditate upon the word of God. Now, why is that the first thing? Because otherwise, if we're looking at our lives from any other source of authority than the Bible, then we're not gonna be truly biblically watching. If you wanna take up the matter of the culture and the society today as the rule, then it shouldn't be surprising that Christians can watch all sorts of filth on the TV because they think the culture determines what is accessible and allowable and acceptable into our lives. And we're not going to be watching because we don't think we need to be. So the first thing needs to be an understanding of the Word of God so that we can see our lives correctly. Should we be admonishing ourselves about some behavior? Well, if we should, what source of authority will tell us that? Not evolutionary thinking, not any of the world religions around us, but the scripture. Read, study, memorize. Meditate on as we've been saying we need to use these couple of months between now and the first of the year to reorganize our routines and our schedule so that we have time to read the Bible. Are we reading the word? I pray we are. Second. to be able to see our lives, because again, that's what we're watching for, we need to be convinced that we are in real danger all the time. We need to be convinced that we are in real danger all the time. Are we in real danger? Or is it just some super saints? May I ask it this way, because sometimes people put pastors under some kind of pedestal. Is every Christian in real danger from the world, the flesh, and the devil, or is it only spiritual workers, quote-unquote, like pastors, ministers? Or do we say, no, I understand that I, as a Christian, I am in real danger. Again, we say it. If we're not concerned, if we don't think that the trouble can come to us, we won't be watching. But if we are convinced we will watch. Third, to be able to see our lives, we need to admit what are the well-worn pathways of temptation that have regularly come to us. Now, that's a little more complicated, but let's say it again. To be able to see our lives, we need to admit what are the well-worn pathways temptation has regularly taken to get to our hearts. Now, if you're honest with yourself this evening, you will already know what some of those well-worn pathways are. You look out at your life and you see, again, from the wall, the forest off in the distance, but you also see pathways, well-worn ruts through the grass. And those are the ways that temptation has used to get to you in the past. What are those? To see our lives properly, we need to admit that we have those and say, well, I need to be rid of that pathway. I need to cut up the ground there. I need to put up an obstacle. I need to have some other way. There needs to be a clarity and an acceptance that we have those well-worn pathways and to viciously cut them off. Well, fourth, in biblical watching, to be able to see our lives, we must also come to believe that watching can detect most encroaching issues of temptation. In other words, the Lord here is not Instructing us about a method watching that will fail us. He is not giving us a plan that's going to fail, but rather he's giving us a plan, a pattern for biblical success, obedience. Watching will succeed, in other words. We can be aware if we begin to put these things into practice of the encroachment of temptation that comes regularly to us. We can say I know something of my own heart. I know that I'm in danger. I know the Word of God and therefore I'm going to be alert. We will then be protected from all kinds of outrageous sins. I don't know if it is now like it was in the 1980s and 1990s in the early 2000s when we were all kind of Offended and hurt and crushed when that famous Christian fell, whatever his or her name was, we heard it so many times. They were such a paragon of biblical excellence and then some outrageous sin takes them down. But oh beloved, we are the ones in danger. People of God. People of God, once we start watching for the arrival of issues of temptation, We can kill and destroy many of them before our lustful hearts have latched onto them. James 1, 13 and 14. Before our lustful hearts have latched onto them. James 1, 13 and 14. Well then fourthly, we must pray. or be taken by outrageous sins. Now I'll just say it bluntly. Pray or else. And ask you about that. Are you convinced? Pray or else. Are you convinced? Again, it's a question you alone can answer. Nobody else can answer it for you. Because that is what Jesus says. The canons of Dort take Jesus' words out of his mouth and they put them into the confession. Pray or be seduced into complying with the lust of the flesh. Pray church or be taken by outrageous sins. Are we convinced of that? And so do we pray. But Christians, do we pray defensively? as if our continued standing depends on our seeking God's help in prayer. We say, oh, Lord, help me as the psalmist did in Psalm 77. I need You, oh God, where are You? Help me. We pray defensively as here the Lord is commanding us. By the way, this is Matthew 26, chapter 26. What was it that Jesus said in Matthew 6, 20 chapters earlier? Do you remember in the prayer? Lord, lead us what? Not into temptation. You see, beloved, the prayer? The need for it and the glory in it and the power from it? Lord, lead me not into temptation. Don't let temptation take me. but deliver us from the evil one. Pray, dear Christians, because prayer is the means given to us by God to preserve us from falling. If you're not praying, you will be sinning. It is when we stop praying and are lazy about prayer that temptations creep in, get too close, And as James puts it, our lustful hearts, then as they get too close, those temptations, our lustful hearts, reach out and latch onto them and pull them in. Be praying. Be praying in an active, offensive, defensive, clear-minded way against the incursions of temptations. Dearly beloved, Dearly beloved, we can learn to view prayer. We can learn to view prayer as an indispensable tool in the fight against temptation. As we do all we can to avoid. Committing outrageous sins. So what particular things should we be praying about? Again, there are many, and again, I want to consider only four. First. And beloved, may these be our prayers. First, pray for increased understanding of our own particular weaknesses. Pray to the Lord, Lord, please give me clarity about my own particular weaknesses because yours are not like the persons next to you and the person in front and behind of you. You have particular weaknesses, I do. Lord, help me to see what they are. Give me clarity. And He will answer us. Now how He does that is up to Him. He may use a variety of experiences in our lives. He may bring back the movie reel of your history where you say, oh, I see now. That's something I've been struggling with for a long time. He may use your daily Bible reading starting tomorrow morning and something comes to you and you say, oh, That is my propensity, isn't it? So pray for increased understanding of our own particular weaknesses. Second, pray for growing hatred of our pet sins. Do you know what those are, by the way? Some of you have pets, we have pets. You love your pet. It's familiar to you, it's close by, you feed it, you care for it, you don't want it to escape. But when we use that phrase in terms of sins, it's sort of the same thing. That is, we don't like to admit that we struggle with exactly this issue. We like to keep it close. We don't like other people criticizing us for our pet sins. So pray then, pray for a hatred of our pet sins. Don't excuse them, don't say, well, I'm just the way I am because my parents raised me this way or I went through these challenges in my life, no. Pray, O Lord, help me to hate these recurring sins in my life. Third, pray asking the Lord in keeping with 1 Corinthians 10-13. Pray in keeping with 1 Corinthians 10-13 for the Lord to show you the earliest possible moment that you should be using the way of escape. In other words, let's not look 10 yards away from us. Let's not look 50 yards away from us. Let's ask the Lord to help us look 150 yards away. You might need to use field glasses. You might need some telescope or something. You see the analogy here. Lord, help me to understand when that thing begins to come near to me from a far off distance. So that I can get at it when it's so far away. Now you understand that might be a process of conversation that you all of a sudden you realize you're getting yourself into a process of conversation that's going to lead to sin. Or you pick a certain thing on the TV that you know is going to eventuate into sin. Or you got that same food or that same drink that you know before has led you into sin. Lord, show me the earliest moment that I'm beginning to go into that area again and it's coming near to me so that I can cut it off. earliest moment. Well then, fourth. And this one kind of brings the rest of them all together. Fourth, pray for the earnest desire to quickly use that escape route in a spiritual evasive maneuver to avoid committing some outrageous sin. Pray for earnest desire to quickly use that escape route, to spin away, if you're thinking again in terms of some kind of martial arts, to get out of the clutches of that temptation very early. Pray to the Lord that you would desire that above all things. Lord, I want to effect my escape quickly. Give me that earnest urge to do that. What again does the canons say to us by way of warning? And the warning you see, the warning is the grace. The warning is the grace. Listen to it. So as not in some particular instances sinfully to deviate from the guidance of divine grace, so as to be seduced by and comply with the lusts of the flesh, they must, we must, you and I, must therefore be constant in watching and prayer that we may not be led into temptation. What a glorious grace. that God would say in his word and our confessions would rightly echo, this is the way of escape. These things, beloved, this watching and praying will foster in us a spiritual mindedness such that we will want nothing more to avoid these temptations. People of God, People of God, trust that God knows best, and as Jesus tells his church, obey him by always watching and praying to keep away from deadly, outrageous sins. May God have mercy on our struggle. Amen. Our Father in heaven tonight again, we thank you for the wonderful clarity that you bring to us. Through divine inspiration, your word. And the help that we get from instruction from our confessions, which do echo rightly what your word says. Help us, O Lord, to be the ones to say yes and amen that we need this help and you've provided it. Give us to be watching. And ever prayerful. O Lord, toward godliness. For perseverance. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Congregation, let's sing this evening 466 onward Christian soldiers and then after the benediction is the doxology 493. So let's stand. Worship our God in song