Journey through the pages of the Bible as we explore the last prayers and moments of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. This episode dissects the humanity of Jesus, expressing both his divine mission and his human struggles with fear and pain. We bring to light how his prayers for unity among believers transcend time, reaching into our hearts today. Discover the story of Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, the arrest, and the powerful message of sanctification through truth. Our conversation invites listeners to confront personal fears and understand that, even in suffering, there is hope and strength found in faith.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 03 :
Love is no defense against fear. Neither is faith, for that matter. And if you are afraid, you are no different from any other man. not even from those great pillars of faith that formed the foundation of the Christian church. They also knew what fear was. It may shock you, but in this very human trait of fear, you are not very different from Jesus Christ himself. After the Last Supper, Jesus completed a rather long discourse with his disciples, and they were totally enthusiastic about what he said. They gave him rave reviews. They said, Lo, now speak you plainly, and you are not using allegories now. Now we are sure that you know all things, and you don’t need any man to ask you. Now we believe that you came forth from God. And Jesus fixed him with an eye and said, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes. In fact, it’s already here. That you will be scattered, every man to his own, and will leave me alone. They were going to be so afraid that they would run and that they would leave him. I know these men loved Jesus. I think they believed him as far as they were able. They just did not know what they still had to face. But Jesus knew. He said, I’ve spoken these things to you, that in me you might have peace. In the world, oh boys, you’re going to have a lot of tribulation. But cheer up. I have overcome the world. And then Jesus paused to pray for them, and strangely enough, to pray for us. This long prayer is found in the 17th chapter of John. After he’d spoken these words, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you. as you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I suppose that Jesus, in a way, is saying that eternal life without the knowledge of God would be meaningless and worthless, and I suppose could be a kind of hell all of itself. But he says, this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God. I have glorified you on the earth, Jesus continued. I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory I had with you before the world was. This is an amazing statement. And it’s hard for me reading this to think that people would not grasp what he means by this. Now, you can discount John. You can throw out the whole gospel of John if you want to. You can discount the New Testament if you would like. But if you accept the words of Jesus, if you basically believe in the inspiration of the New Testament, then here you’re stuck with something. Jesus Christ had that glory with the Father before there was a planet here. He existed then. He existed now, exists now, and he will exist forever. He said, I have manifested your name to the men that you have given me out of the world. And by name, he doesn’t just mean I told them what your name was. The manifestation of a name in this context, in this culture, a person’s name comprised all that he was. He said, basically, to bring it down to modern English, I have declared all about you. to those that you have given me. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they have known all things whatsoever you have given me are from you. Everything that Jesus did, all the power he had, all the people he healed, he said, I want these people to know that all this comes from you. You have given it to me. For I have received unto them, or I have given unto them, the words which you gave me, and they have received them. And they have known surely that I came out from you, and they have believed that you did send me. That’s encouraging. And I imagine it was somewhat encouraging to John to recall these words and write them down because the disciples were caught in unbelief so many times. But I suppose in a way there are degrees of belief. We believe, we really believe, and yet somehow down inside of us there are these little bits of unbelief that hang with us. But Jesus said, they believe that you sent me. And I guess, folks, that’s got to be a starting place. He continued to say, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them that you have given me. Now, there’s a heavy distinction there, because Jesus loved the world. He loved the world so much he was willing to die for the world. The Father loves the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son that he would die for the world. But he said, I pray for these. I’m not praying for the world. I pray for them that you have given me, for they are yours. and all mine are yours. And I know that all of yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now, I’m not going to be in the world anymore, but these are going to be in the world while I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. And when he says this, again, he’s not just talking about a word that stands for God. He says, keep through your own name. He means keep through your own power, your authority, through everything that you are, those that you have given me that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those that you gave me, I have kept. And none of them is lost except the son of perdition. And that had to be done so the scripture could be fulfilled. And now I come to you. And these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. He is saying, I’m making this prayer right here, right now, in the world, in the hearing of these men. And they will write it down and record it so that the world may know that they might have my joy. I have given them your word. And the world, well, the world has hated them. I don’t really think the disciples yet had come to grips with that. Jesus certainly had. He had throughout all of his ministry virtually had experienced hatred from the religious establishment of the time. He didn’t get it from the common people. He didn’t get it from the publicans. He didn’t get it from the sinners. He didn’t get it from the harlots. He got the hatred from people who thought, claimed that they loved God. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just like I am not of the world. And Jesus’ disciples, because they were going to go out with the Spirit of Christ, with the Word of Christ, with the Word of God, were going to encounter the same kind of hatred against themselves. You know, it’s easy to read this. Just sit back in the comfort of your chair and have another cup of coffee and read this and think, yeah, the world’s going to hate them. That’s really too bad. But until you have experienced hatred, until you have actually had it thrown in your face, you cannot know what these men were going to feel like, or for that matter, what Jesus was going to feel like. I pray not, he said, that you should take them out of the world. I guess we’re stuck with that, aren’t we? He said, I’m not going to pray that you’ll take them out of the world. And he doesn’t mean off the planet, folks. He means out of society. I’m not going to ask that. I’m just going to ask that you would keep them from the evil. What this amounts to is he’s asking them to put a hedge around us and around our family and around our children. There’s a funny thing that Paul says back in 1 Corinthians, the seventh chapter. He tells a woman who has an unbelieving husband and the marriage may be going bad, don’t leave the man if you can help it. Stay with him because if you stay with him, your children, which might otherwise be with him, will be holy. In other words, the hedge that I’m going to put about you will include your children, and will include that not-headed husband of yours as well. This prayer of Jesus Christ is for that hedge to be put around us and around our family. There was a time when it was around us as a whole nation and as a people, but we’ve torn it down. We’ve messed it up. We haven’t maintained it. And evil is starting to seep in at the cracks everywhere. I pray for these, Jesus said. They are not of the world, just like I am not of the world. Sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. That, folks, is a mouthful. To sanctify is to set someone apart for God. He said, set them apart through your truth. And then he identifies the truth. It is God’s word. which is exalted above all. It’s even exalted above his name. He continued, as you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. He’s talking about the disciples who were there, but he’s indirectly talking about us too. We’re not allowed to go off by ourselves somewhere. We’ve got to go out and engage the world, even though the world will hate us for what we do. And for their sakes, he said, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. And now we come to the place to where Jesus is not only going to pray for his disciples. He’s going to pray for you and me. I’ll tell you about that when I come back.
SPEAKER 02 :
One of the best ways to learn to pray is by example. In the pages of the Bible, we find some of the truly great prayers of great men of God. For a free program titled Great Prayers, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791 or call toll free 1-888- Bible 44, and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Jesus is standing, surrounded by the remaining 11 apostles, and he’s praying with them and for them for the last time. And he said in the course of the prayer, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word. This thing reaches down through 2,000 years of time, And those of us who sit down and open the Bible to the beginning of the New Testament and start with Matthew and then read Mark and then read Luke and then read John and come to believe on Jesus Christ, we are prayed for right here. And his prayer is that they all may be one. As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, and that they may also be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. Why does he want us all to be one? So the whole world will believe that Jesus has sent me. He had said elsewhere earlier to these same men, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Now, love and the love for one another ought to, in a sense, make us one. But look at us. Look at Christianity. Look at the splits and the divisions, the bickering that goes on about Christian doctrine, about Christian practice all around the world. Sure, there are differences of opinion. There’s no earthly reason why we should all believe everything exactly the same way. But Jesus said the time would come when people would kill one another thinking they would do God a service. And folks, Christians have in history killed other Christians just like he said they would. I’m not calling for an ecumenical movement. Nothing like that. But it would be nice if we could just stop beating up on one another, wouldn’t it? He went on to say that the glory which you gave me, I have given them also. that they may be one like we are, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. Oh, man, to know that we are loved by God as God loved Jesus, that’s what he’s saying. He wants us to understand. He prays to God that we can come to know that. Father, I will that also they whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. And I have declared unto them your name, and I will declare it, that the love wherewith you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. And when he had finished saying these things, they all turned and walked further and crossed over the book Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he entered with his disciples. The name of the garden is Gethsemane. You can go there, you know. And there are old, old olive trees in that place. They say olive trees can live for over 2,000 years, and surely when you stand among those trees and look at them, you have the feeling that some of them might have been seedlings or saplings in that garden when Jesus was there. He took with him Peter and James and John and went off a little ways from the other disciples. And he began to be sorrowful and very heavy. And he said to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. Wait right here, would you, and watch with me. Do you think that Jesus was never depressed? Is that what you thought? Did you think that he was so strong that none of this bothered him? He was sorrowful, it says. He was heavy. He was very depressed, even unto death. Remember that all of this is because of us. Jesus bore our sins, our sickness, our pain, all of the things that sin brings into the world. He knows what it is like to have one of your closest friends betray you. He knows what it is like to be told you only have a few weeks to live. And to know that the last hours of your life will be in excruciating pain. And I know there are people out there listening to me who have been told they don’t have long to live. And they know that the last hours will be terribly painful. A human being will be depressed at the thought of it. So was Jesus. Like I said in the beginning, love doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. Belief does not mean that you’re not afraid. Knowing does not mean you’re not afraid. Even Jesus was afraid. He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and he kneeled down and he prayed, saying, Father, if you’d be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. It’s such a simple prayer. It seems so easy. I mean, well, just let this go away if it’s okay, but if it’s not, well, I’ll go along with you on it. It almost reads like that, but I can assure you it was nothing like that. There appeared an angel from heaven strengthening him, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like great drops of blood falling on the ground. I know this may disturb some people. But Jesus on this night felt cold, mortal fear, and he prayed earnestly in agony, and he asked God, is there any other way we can do this? Can I get out of it? He actually did not want to do it. Theologians are fond of arguments about Jesus’ humanity and divinity, and he was 100% human, 100% divine, and some people think it’s other percentages. I don’t know. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, there was no room for arguments. No room for theology. There was a Savior who suffered so badly that God sent an angel to strengthen him, and one can only presume that that was necessary, that he needed, that he must have the extra strength for the ordeal that he was about to go through. Jesus was tempted in every way that you and I are tempted. He wanted with all his being not to have to do this. He was afraid. He could not be above fear because we are not above fear. He had to suffer just like we do. And just like us, he could not bear it alone. An angel was sent to strengthen him, and so there is no reason why we should be embarrassed to think that we might need a little help. And when he rose up from prayer, and he came to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow. And he said to them, What are you sleeping for? Get up and pray, lest you enter into temptation. And Jesus knew what it felt like to have his friends so apathetic about what he was doing. Well, I don’t know. It says they were sleeping for sorrow. And one of the things when you’re sorrowful and you’re depressed that you want to do sometimes is just go to sleep. And maybe that’s what was happening. And Jesus knew, though, what it was like to have his friends go to sleep on him when he really needed them to be awake. He went away again the second time and prayed, saying, Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, your will be done. There’s a change, a subtle change in the wording that takes place here. And I think this is one of the things that goes on in prayer as we talk to God and we ask for what we want and we recognize that maybe we can get it and maybe we can’t. And we go back and we pray again and we say, I don’t think I’m going to get this, am I, God? I’m still asking. I still hope I can, but I’m certainly willing to accept your will. And he came and found them asleep again. Their eyes were heavy. And he left them and went again the third time and prayed the same words. And finally, he came back to his disciples and said, go ahead, keep on sleeping, take your rest. The hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Stay with me.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ll be right back after these words. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled The Words of Jesus, number 43. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Judas knew where they were, because Jesus went there all the time. And he got a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, and they came down there with lanterns and torches and weapons. A real motley crowd, I guess. And Jesus, knowing everything that’s going to happen to him, didn’t hide. He got up and went out and said to them, Who are you looking for? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said, I’m he. Judas was standing there with them. And as soon as he had said to them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. A really strange thing happened there that night. Then he asked them again, who are you looking for? And they said, well, Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve told you I am he. If you’re looking for me, let these other men go their way. He said that, that the saying might be fulfilled, which he spoke. Of them which you gave me, have I lost none. Now, in the law at that time, there was a necessity for a criminal to be identified. And I think it may be a lot like we have in our courts today where they will ask the person on the stand if he saw anyone do anything at this time or saw anyone in this place. And he will say, yes, I did. And he said, well, is that man in this courtroom? Well, yes, he is. Well, would you point him out to the jury? And so he had to stand up and point his finger at the defendant, the accused, to identify him. Well, and sometimes in places, they’ve actually required the person to go over and touch, to lay their hand on the person that they are identifying, so that there is no question in the record that they identified this person as the accused. Judas had given them this token. He wasn’t going to go over and point at Jesus. He wasn’t going to go over and just put his hand on him because he didn’t want to appear to be the accuser. He said, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that’s he. You take him, and you get him safely away. You really wonder. I don’t think this man understood at this point in time what he was doing. I know Satan had entered him. I know Satan had put the thoughts and all in his mind. But what does he mean, take him away safely? I think Judas had something else in mind than the death of Jesus. But he had given them the sign. He would go over like nothing had happened, and he would kiss Jesus, and that would be the identifying sign. So as soon as he was come, he went straight to him, said, Master, Master, and kissed him. And they laid their hands on Jesus, and they took him. One of them that stood by pulled out a sword and smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear to defend Jesus. And Jesus said, stop this. I mean, he said, are you coming out like a thief with swords and staves to take me? I was with you every day in the temple teaching. You don’t have to have clubs and swords. You didn’t take me there. This is being done so the scriptures can be fulfilled. And the disciples all forsook him and fled. They ran off into the dark. They followed a certain young man. Tradition says it was Mark, because Mark wrote this down. A certain young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And the young man laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth in their hand and fled off into the dark, stark naked. I know that in our lives we have our times when we’re up against the wall and we turn around to look for our friends and find that they’re nowhere to be found. And it happens to us sometimes over relatively smaller things. And you just really wonder, you know, what are friends for when they disappear on us right when we need them most? Well, Jesus in this night had to go through the kind of thing that you and I face in our lives day in and day out in different ways at different times. He was betrayed by one of his closest friends. He went to the garden and suffered great fear and agony, sweating blood, as it were. He knew what it was like to have then his friends run off into the night. I mean, a total humiliation to see people you love behaving like a pack of cowards. And yet he understood. These men fled away from Jesus for things a lot greater, I guess, than a lot of our friends flee away from us. But betrayal and being forsaken and having our friends run off from us, these are a part of life. And so they had to be a part of the sufferings of Jesus all night long. Then the captain and the officers took Jesus, and they tied him up, and they led him away to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. Now Caiaphas was he that gave counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. But you know, it was expedient not only that one man die for the people, but that one man suffer for the people. People including you and me. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart. And remember, when the time comes for suffering… for being forsaken. Don’t forget, you’re not the first.
SPEAKER 02 :
Jesus was there before you. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-877-7000. 888-BIBLE-44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
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