The word Gethsemane has not been used accurately sometimes. And it is not
good that it is so, for it keeps us from appreciating what the real
meaning is. In poetry and otherwise it has been used for some great
experience of sorrow in which the soul has struggled alone. But there are
two things in the Gethsemane experience that give it a meaning quite
different from such. The Gethsemane sorrow is on account of the sin of
others, _and_ it comes to us through our own consent, of our own action.
We need not go through the Gethsemane experience save as we make the
choice that comes to include this. It is only as we _choose_ to follow
fully, close up to His bleeding side, where the Lord Jesus is leading,
that this experience of pain will come.

Moses knew what this meant. As he came from the presence of God in the
mount the sin of the people seemed so terrible, that the fear that
possibly it could not be forgiven unless he made some sacrifice sweeps
over him and came out as a great sob.[73] The sight of their sin brought
sorest pain to his spirit. Paul tells us there was a continual cutting of
a knife at his heart because of his racial kinsfolk, their sin, their
stubbornness in sin, the awful blight upon their lives.[74] There was
sore, lone, unspeakable pain of spirit because he felt so keenly the sin
of others. This is the Gethsemane experience. Have you felt something like
this as you have come in touch with the sin, the blighted lives, the
wreckage of lives among both poor and rich, lower class and better? You
will if you follow where He leads.



Calvary.