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Show IN GETHSE.MANE International Sunday School Lesson for May 29, 1949 M-emory Selection "Watch and pray that yon may not enter into temptation ; the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak." Mark 14:38. Lesson Text-Mark 14:32-42 Following the supper in the Upper Room, Jesus and the eleven disciples walked from the house in which they had eaten to the Mount of Olives. The narrow Kidron Valley winds around the eastern side of Jerusalem and across it is the Mount of Olives on whoso slope lay Geth-semanc, Geth-semanc, which, means oil press. The place had olive trees and an oil press and John describes it as a garden. Peter remembers one pathetic incident which occurred during the long walk. Jesus was telling tell-ing the disciples that they would all be "offended" because of him and that they would be scattered. scat-tered. Peter quickly spoke up and declared that, even if all the rest were offended, he would never be. Jesus told him that, before the cock crew that very night, Peter would deny three times that he had ever known him. This horrified Peter and he vehemently replied, "If I were to die with thee, I would not deny thee." And likewise declared all the others. To this Jesus did not reply. He knew what would happen but he was in no mood for further fur-ther conversation. As Dr. J. Paterson-Smith declares, "An awful oppression ot soul was upon him. He has borne up for a long time. He can bear it no longer.. There is a terrible conflict con-flict before him an,d the instinctive instinc-tive craving is on him for solitude soli-tude and prayer. And yet how it touches one's heart that natural nat-ural human desire for some friendly heart near him. 'I must go yonder and pray. But don't be very far from me. Keep quarter at any time comes to me. I will listen to my Master's i voice, "Why sleepest thou? Rise land pray.' No temptation to j any Christ - dishonoring act I would ever overpower me if it did not find me powerless thru , sleep of soul. If my conscience is asleep, if my love is asleep, if my godly fear is asleep, I fall an easy prey." The three disciples who failed Jesus in the Garden were the three who had been more privileged priv-ileged than the rest in being with him on great occasions and one of them was Peter, who just a short time before was loudest in his protestations of willingness willing-ness to die with him. They were good men, who loved Jesus sincerely, and they knew their Master was in great trouble, but they fell asleep. Let us not judge them too harshly, however. how-ever. Had we been there, it would it have been different with us? Jesus' purposes and ideals are on trial in the world today. How are we, as professing profess-ing Christians, acting? Are we like the disciples, asleep when he needs us most? near me, you three, and watch with me'." Leaving the eight at the gate of the garden, he took Peter, James and John a little farther with him aVd, with the request that they , 'watch and pray," he hurried forward about a stone's throw from them into the shadows. shad-ows. There he prayed to his heavenly Father and asked that, if it were possible, this cup might pass from him. Then he added, "How be it, not what I will, but what thou wilt." Francis E. Clark reminds us, "Here is an amazing fact! The petition of Jesus at this supreme moment was not granted. The cup did not pass from him. He drank it to the dregs. What a flood of light does this throw upon the whole subject of prayer! Jesus was denied his petition, for, if it had beeri granted grant-ed and the cup of suffering not only suffering on the cross, but the deeper agony he was enduring endur-ing for the sins of the world had passed from him, the religion reli-gion of the cross could not have been established. Judaism and heathenism would still be triumphant, tri-umphant, and the glorious centuries cen-turies of Christianity would be unwritten. I 'Yet his prayer was answered for his Father's will was done, and that, too, was as much our Lord's prayer as that the cup might pass from him. So, with us and our prayers. They can never be unanswered, if offered m Jesus' way and with Jesus' spirit." George H. Knight says, "I see that Jesus conquered his temptation tempta-tion in the garden by meeting it with prayer. The disciples suc-cumber suc-cumber to their temptation because be-cause they met it without prayer. pray-er. In a temptation to rebellion against the Father's will, the Lord's resource was prayer. In a temptation to cowardice, that resource ought to have been theirs. Prayer would have made them conquerors, as it made him, and therefore when temptation temp-tation of any kind from any |