“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” John 12:27-28.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Jesus spoke of His hour and knew of His hour. He, like Me, is very conscious of appointed times. And you should be as well. I have not kept things secret from you. I have spoken the end from the beginning.
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for appointed times and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Genesis 1:14-15.
And when I gave Moses the timeline of the appointed times (in Hebrew “moed (מוֹעֵד),” appointed time, place, or meeting), Leviticus 23, the first one named is the weekly Shabbat, and the very first one after that is Passover. And both of these appointed times were and are perpetually fulfilled in Jesus. Next comes unleavened bread, first fruits, and Pentecost, which have also been fulfilled at their appointed times in Jesus. All that remains are Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. And I address all of these appointed times and when they will be fulfilled in the Letters of Paul and the book of Revelation.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John 13:1.
At various times during His earthly ministry, the townspeople of Nazareth, the Jews in Jerusalem, and others tried to kill Jesus, but they could not because “his hour had not yet come.”
So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come. John 8:19-20.
But in the days directly preceding the Passover at the time Judas had already approached the chief priests in consultation about betraying Him, He knew His hour had come. And before He entered into that hour, He gave you His body and blood to strengthen you and join you with Him in what He was about to undergo. For what He did, by substitution and identification before Me, you did, and what He gained, you gained. But He went through all the pain and death so that you would never have to do so. He took your sins and went to the dust of death so that you will never have to do so. He did it all to save you from your sins and from eternal death. But before Me He did it for you and with you all in Him as One in the Spirit, but not in the fleshly suffering. It transcends the temporal into the eternal. It is an eternal redemption. There is cause for rejoicing here.
Jesus often thought about this hour, it troubled Him, for He knew what it meant in His fellowship with Me.
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’” John 12:27-28.
And then My Son gave an indication of what that hour was headed for, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.” John 12:31-33.
His hour had not yet come. Pilate could not have killed the indestructible life of My Son who had no sin and was not been born of Adam’s perishable blood except for that hour. He had, as Adam did originally, a body that could not die. Man dies since Adam because sin entered the world through him and the wages of sin is death and thus Adam passed death to all men. Adam’s sin turned into death. Which I warned him it would surely do. And not just death but the double death, the second death.
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:4-8.
So what is that hour that changed your eternal separation and death, the second death, to unification and life, the inheritance of My glorious Kingdom forever? It the appointed time that began the night of the Last Supper in a Garden called Gethsemane. The sin that plummeted all into death took place in a garden and the redemption that reversed death to life took place in a Garden. The sin was by the first Adam, but the redemption was by the second and last Adam.
So let us start where we left off yesterday at the drinking of the fourth cup and the singing of the final hymn. After this joyous song, they went out to the Mount of Olives to pray.
And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, because it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” But Peter said to Him, “Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny Me three times.” But Peter kept saying insistently, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And they all were saying the same thing also. Matthew 26:27-31.
Everything Jesus did fulfilled prophecy. My prophets were being led by the inspiration of My Spirit on them to point to Christ. Every detail of His triumphant entry the Sunday of Passover week to His burial in a rich man’s tomb to His resurrection on the third day and even His ascension back to Me had been foretold in detail in partial and varied ways throughout the Old Testament. Every move He made can be backed up with a prophetic utterance. But this should not surprise you for Jesus told you that the Spirit testifies to Him and that you who are indwelt by My Spirit will as well.
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look. 1 Peter 1:10-12.
Peter was sincere in saying he would never deny Jesus and that he would die with Him. He did not calculate betraying him as Judas did. And there is a eat difference. Judas calculated, hid, and planned his part in the murder of My Son. His heart was intentional in evil. I tell you that the devil had put that thought in the heart of Judas, John 13:2, and he did not reject it but let it in and meditated on it till he did it and then Satan, at the Last Supper actually entered and took dominion over the heart of Judas and at that point he was captured to do the devil’s will. John 13:27. But it did not have to be like that. I tell you to submit to My Word, to resist the devil with that Word of Mine, and he MUST flee from you. And He not only flees but he does so in terror. For My Word puts him out of commission. When he comes, do not entertain him even for a moment. Cast out the bad thoughts and evil schemes, bitterness and offense, before he gets a place in you. Before he entrenches himself in your thoughts.
Peter loved Jesus in a very committed way. He took out his sword in the Garden when Judas came with crowd to arrest Jesus and was ready to fight to the death. But when Jesus made him put the sword away and left him vulnerable to arrest, he ran in fear. But he still followed, but because he had not done what Jesus told him in the Garden and prayed that he not be put to the test (he slept instead), he fell into temptation. It is important you pray as I advise you to. It would save you a lot of heart ache.
And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:40-41.
But I am jumping ahead here. Let us go to when Jesus crossed the Kidron Valley and entered the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. John 18:1. This was not unusual. Judas knew this place as well, John 18:2, and figured that is where Jesus would go to pray beneath the olive trees after the Passover seder.
They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” Matthew 26:26-28/
And He went a little beyond them and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:34-36. And you remember what the three disciples did? They fell asleep and did not watch one hour with Him. Mark 14:37.
And that was the one hour that changed the course of history for every life on earth—for every man, woman, and child—everything changed for all people back to the beginning through the end of time in just one hour that night in the Garden of Gethsemane. The power of sin began in a Garden, Eden, and its power ended in a Garden, Gethsemane, that night. The first Adam put it on all of you, the last Adam took it off all of you. He paid the ransom for ALL. 1 Timothy 2:5-6.
Of what hour am I speaking?
The hour I transferred all your sins from the beginning to the end of time to My Son. It was as if every one of you had laid your hand on the Head of the Lamb, the sin offering, and your sins, defilements, uncleanness, guilt, shame, sickness, pain, iniquity went on Him—imputed to His account and zeroing out yours, all gone off you to Him and His righteousness, His purity, His freedom from every stain of sin, His perfect health, and His unblemished life was transferred to you and imputed to your account. Leviticus 16:21. And then, being sin, He had to die. The wages of sin is death and He had taken your debt as His own and would pay that wage by His death.
“The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree; he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green, to declare that the LORD is upright; my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Psalm 92:12-15.
In one hour that night in Gethsemane you became established in righteousness in Him, no matter when you were born or died. I AM, I was and I AM to come, all are alive for Me. My Son suffered and died in time as a Man, according to the flesh, but as My Son, according to the Spirit, He died out of the hindrance of time in eternity. He is able to save to the uttermost, that is, eternally.
I had showed you this transfer many years before Jesus came. I prepared you for the truth in stages, the Law was a shadow of the good things to come, but not the form of those very things. Hebrews 10:1. Jesus is the substance of the shadow you see falling across every page of the Old Testament. It is His shadow you are looking at but the shadow is cast by the substance, the true reality. Colossians 2:17.
I could take you to all five of the sacrificial offerings that I gave Moses under the Law, and four of those are blood sacrifices but let Me take you back to the Day of Atonement, the day of the sin offering and the scapegoat and you will understand what happened that night in the hour at Gethsemane.
On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest was to take two goats and present them before the Me at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Then he would cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Me and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then the High Priest would offer the goat, after laying hands on its head to transfer the sins of the people onto the goat, on which the lot for Me fell as a sin offering for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and sprinkle it on and in front of the mercy seat seven times. When he finished atoning with the blood on the altar and the mercy seat for the people, he would then offer the live goat. And this was done in a very specific way. The High Priest would lay both of his hands on the head of the scapegoat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Leviticus 16:7-22.
Do you see? ALL their iniquities and all their transgressions in regard to ALL their sins were laid on the head of the goat and the goat was sent into the wilderness to die by the hand of a man who stands in readiness, bearing all the people’s iniquities in a solitary land.
That night in the Garden of Gethsemane My Son, who had never sinned or allowed Satan to have any place in Him, whose eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil and who could not tolerate wickedness, Habakkuk 1:13, had to look sin and all its consequences full in the face and receive it all into His very being, into His flesh, His eternal flesh. This caused Him tremendous agony for the sin not only defiled Him but it also separated Him from Me. Sin puts up a dividing wall between My purity and the impurity of sin and the next day on the cross He as sin was abandoned by Me who am love.
And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Luke 22:44-46.
In that hour, I made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on your behalf, so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21. He did not just receive the punishment for your sins, He became your sins and then He drank the cup of My wrath for you as He died upon the Cross.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life [a]in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, [b]weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4.
What is the “cup” of which He speaks? Let us go back to what the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet Isaiah: Thus says your LORD, the LORD, even your God, who contends for His people, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, the chalice of My anger; you will never drink it again.” Isaiah 51:22.
Why will you never drink it, you who are My people? Because I gave it to Jesus to drink on your behalf. How? Jesus in that Garden was taking all our sins from the beginning to the end of time on Himself and becoming sin. He alone would receive all the wrath that would have fallen on you and it would fall that day. That is why when Pilate threatened Jesus that He had authority to crucify Him, Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above.” John 19:11. Pilate could not have crucified Jesus if Jesus had not made Himself susceptible to death by become sin. But then He had to die.
“How you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Romans 5:8-9.
And like the shadow of the scapegoat, Jesus upon the Cross was deserted into the outer darkness of a solitary wilderness by Me and upon His death went down to the deepest darkest part of Hell with all your sins, diseases, pain, guilt and shame upon His head. Yes, He was willing to go there for you so that you would never have to face that place of torment. I sent My Word to heal you and deliver you from the pit. Psalm 107:20. And He did. He bore the full brunt of My wrath and drank the chalice of it to its depths.
But I raised Him from the dead by the power of My Word and My Spirit. “I will surely tell of the decree: The LORD said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” Psalm 2:7.
And as I decreed that over His wasted and withering body in the depths of Hell, suddenly the ancient portals swung open wide as I raised Him triumphant out of the pit as your King of Glory, for He became the first born again Man, the firstborn of many brethren. He was the first fruits of those who believe and you too, who are His little flock, will be raised by the Blood of the eternal Covenant, just as I raised Him to be your great good Shepherd, on the last day. Hebrews 13:20-21. Follow Him into eternity, for just as I made Him sin for you, I have made Him your resurrection and your life. And I made Him your great good Shepherd who laid down His life to the very dust of death for His sheep.
Yes, that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, in one hour, I changed your life on earth and your eternal destination forever. I took you up to a whole new level and seated you in Heaven with Him according to My righteousness which is now your own, transferred to you from the Godman Jesus Christ, your scapegoat.
I love you. You will never be done exploring the unfathomable riches of Christ the true and only Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is your treasure.