Luke chapter 11, verse one, it
happened that while Jesus was praying in a
certain place after he had finished, one of
his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us
to pray just as John also taught his
disciples.
I want us to notice some things that
are very, very important here.
I believe with all my heart it was
a fearful thing to watch Jesus pray, but
it was an awesome event higher than any
other thing he did, because if you notice
here, it says it happened that while Jesus
was praying in a certain place after he
had finished.
No one dared touch that arc when he
was bowed on his knees, when he was
calling out to his father, it was like
no other thing anyone had ever seen on
the face of the earth.
And then he goes on and it says
one of his disciples said to him, Lord,
teach us to pray.
Now, I find this a most amazing statement,
and I find it a statement that is
very, very overlooked among those who study this
text.
If you'll notice something very, very important, a
disciple never came to Jesus and said, teach
us to preach, a disciple never came to
Jesus and said, teach us to walk on
water, a disciple never came to Jesus and
said, teach us to raise the dead, a
disciple never came to Jesus and said, teach
us to cast out demons.
Now, if you were to want to know
how to play basketball.
You probably wouldn't come to me because I
know so little about basketball.
You would try to find out what my
expertise truly was, and then you would ask
me about that, you ask a man about
his expertise, you ask a man about the
thing which most impresses you about that man.
I believe that without a doubt.
The greatest demonstration of divine power was seen
not when Jesus Christ raised the dead and
not when he walked on water, but when
he prayed.
And I believe that when the disciples saw
Jesus pray.
They could not believe their eyes, they could
not believe even what their ears were telling
them.
Jesus was a man of prayer.
A man of prayer.
Now, let me ask you a question, when
people hear you pray.
Do they hear someone who knows God, do
they hear the rhythm of a religion?
Do they hear words that have been taught
to you by other men?
Do they hear form?
Do they hear intellect or do they hear
a man or a woman or a child
who spends much time in the presence of
God?
Has anyone ever come to you and said,
teach me to preach like you preach?
Well, that may be something to boast about,
but not before God.
Has anyone ever come to you and said,
teach me to administrate like you administrate?
Has anyone ever come to you and said,
teach me to pray?
I am not much of a man, but
I have had the privilege in my life
to be in the presence of many men
used by God.
And the one thing that I noticed they
had very little in common, except one thing,
when they bowed their knee, something unusual happened.
There's a saying when someone achieves a certain
thing, he may look over and with a
twinkle in his eye say, you can't learn
that.
You've got to be born with that.
You can't fake prayer.
Jesus was a man of prayer.
And when he prayed, people saw the difference.
Now, I want to look for a moment
at the idea that Jesus was a man
of prayer, and I've just scribbled down here
a bunch of verses, and I'm going to
kind of read a hodgepodge of verses that
you might come to understand the importance of
prayer in the life of Jesus Christ and
then come to understand that if prayer was
so important to the incarnate son of the
living God.
Then how much more important should prayer be
to us, how much more should we depend
upon prayer, Jesus lived a life of prayer,
that's the first thing I want you to
see in Luke 516, it says, but Jesus
himself would often slip away to the wilderness
and pray.
You know, oftentimes when we find something that
we greatly enjoy, as opposed to what we
grudgingly must do, we try to slip away
to it.
A man might want to avoid his yard
duty by slipping away to watch a ball
game.
A man may come into work early so
he can slip away to go hunting.
A wife may want to slip away to
go to the mall.
They slip away to the things that they
most enjoy.
Isn't it a crime?
That Jesus Christ and the labor of the
kingdom seems almost to be work that we
want to slip away from.
I heard tell of a story evangelist, he
came, he got off the plane and was
received by the pastors and immediately they took
him out to play golf.
I don't have much of a problem with
that.
Never played golf myself, but they took him
took him out to the golf course and
that's a fine thing.
I guess they saw that he needed to
rest and as as they were going out
there across whatever you cross to do whatever
you do when you play golf, the evangelist
just happened to mention, he said, well, you
know, the Lord is so good.
The other day he was just and the
preacher stopped him and says, let's not talk
shop out here.
This is the place where we're going to
rest.
The only place you'll ever rest is in
Jesus Christ and, you know, when you're walking
with God, when when you slip away to
him, when you say there's so much, there's
so much I have to do, so much
grudging work, so much labor.
I just wish that I could slip away
to him for a moment because he's the
one to whom I escape.
He's the place I rest.
When prayer becomes a labor, we're not like
the Christ.
We're not like Jesus, but as he would
slip away into the wilderness and pray, notice
he would go into the wilderness.
My friend, the world, even the church is
just so filled up with noise, so filled
up with noise that every once in a
while, especially those of you who are pastors,
you have got to slip away and you've
got to go to a wilderness where no
one can find you and seek your God
and be very careful that sometimes you don't
take around, take along all those books with
you, because to many, Jesus Christ can just
become proper exegesis, proper hermeneutic, a thing to
be studied instead of a person to be
loved.
Jesus would slip away in Matthew 14, 23,
it says after he had sent the crowds
away, he went up on the mountain by
himself to pray.
And when it was evening, he was there
alone.
Someone said, why did Jesus need to pray
so much?
He was the incarnate son of God.
We're going to talk about that.
But let me show you just the foolishness
of that question.
Could it just be possible that he always
wanted to slip away and be alone with
God simply because he loved him, because he
loved him?
It says in Luke 6, 12 to 13,
it was at this time that he went
off to a mountain to pray and he
spent the whole night in prayer to God.
And when day came, he called his disciples
to him and chose 12 of them, whom
he also named apostles.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever had to make a really
tough decision?
Did you ever pass the entire night in
prayer to do so?
If you say no, I say to you,
behold, we found a man stronger than Jesus.
Isn't it amazing that the Christ would slip
away and spend the entire night in prayer
to discern the father's voice, to pick the
men that had to be picked?
But we've got the upper hand on that.
That's not so much needed anymore.
He goes on, Matthew 26, 36, when Jesus,
then Jesus came with him to a place
called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, sit
here while I go over there and pray.
Sit here while I go over there and
pray.
Who could forget Gethsemane?
Who can forget the war that was fought
in that place?
My friend, when he got up off his
knees, the battle was over.
The war was fought there.
How many things do we have to fight
with?
How many Philistines do we have to put
up with that stay in the land?
And they're like thorns to us.
Why?
Because we do not take the matter by
the horns.
We do not go to the Lord and
wrestle until the victory is won.
Jesus Christ overcame in that garden and he
overcame by struggling through it in prayer and
gaining the victory.
That passage, this kind only comes out through
prayer and fasting.
That just doesn't have to do with demons,
my dear friend.
There are so many mountains in your life,
so many obstacles in your life, so many
things in your life that seek to derail
you, to stop you.
And they're going to stay there because some
of those things just don't go away by
counseling.
They go away by falling on your face
before God until he delivers you.
Jesus was a man of prayer.
He showed it in every aspect of his
life.
And he goes on, Jesus taught on prayer.
He taught prayer, the scriptures are so filled
with the teachings of Jesus Christ on prayer
that there's just nothing we can do with
that tonight.
There's two passages that I want to point
out, and they're both found in Luke 18
and verse one.
He says now he was telling them a
parable to show that at all times they
ought to pray and not lose heart.
That's the teaching of Jesus Christ right there.
If you want to sum up everything he
taught about prayer, we ought to pray at
all times.
Now, for you young men here, let me
just teach you something that will help you.
I hear so many young men today saying,
well, I don't have a really a specific
time in which I pray.
I'm more, you know, throughout my day, I
just kind of practice the presence of God.
But I don't really have that secret place
I go to.
Let me tell you something, young man, there
is no way you can learn to practice
the presence of God if you do not
spend much time in secret prayer.
The power to practice the presence of God,
the power to live a life of prayer,
to always be speaking with a father that
is born out of.
Secret time with the Lord, segments of time
with the Lord in prayer, and he said
we ought to be praying always and not
to lose heart.
The initiating of prayer is never a problem,
do you realize that you have initiated so
many petitions before the throne?
The question is, have you wrestled them through?
Have you pressed on in to lay hold?
Have you kept going?
Are there petitions in your heart, in your
mind, down on pieces of paper that possibly
have been there for 15 years?
But you say to the Lord, I will
not let you go.
It is so easy to initiate prayer.
But to persevere in that praying.
So he said we ought to we ought
to pray and we shouldn't lose heart because
losing heart is the very end of all
praying.
And then he says in 18, eight, what
I consider to be one of the most
one of the saddest verses in the entire
Bible, it is this in 18, eight, I
tell you that he will bring about justice
for them quickly.
However, when the Son of Man comes, will
he find faith on the earth?
Now, why is that so sad?
Jesus has just given them a parable to
demonstrate to them why they should always pray
and not lose heart.
It's almost as though Christ is going, listen,
my father is faithful, my word is true.
He's willing to do far more than anything
you could ever ask or think.
I am telling you, ask and you'll receive.
Knock and it'll be open to you.
Seek, you'll find.
And then the Lord stops and goes.
But then again, when I return, will I
find anybody believing this?
Is anyone going to take me at his
word, at my word?
We cast so much doubt, not just upon
the infallible written word of God.
We cast so much doubt on the character
of God.
When we do not avail ourselves boldly of
the promises.
Either we have no passion for the advancement
of his kingdom or we feel that somehow
it can be advanced to the power of
the flesh, the power of the intellect, the
power of ecclesiastical structure.
Now he goes on.
He taught on prayer.
Now, I want to point out something to
you, why it was necessary that Christ pray.
And I mentioned already his love for the
father, love for God.
Will cause you to desire to talk to
God and to hear from God.
There was another reason I want to read
a text, it's in Acts 222, men of
Israel listen to these words, Jesus, the Nazarene,
a man.
Now, let me read that again.
Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you
by God with miracles and wonders and signs
which God performed, which God performed through him
in your midst, just as you yourselves know.
You mark my words whenever a cult attacks
Christianity, the first place they're going to go
is they're going to attack the deity of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Is that not true?
They are going to attack his deity throughout
2000 years of Christian history.
We have had to build walls to keep
them out.
We have had to fight.
We have had to amass arms.
We have had to do apologetics.
We have had to do it all.
We it is our purpose and our responsibility
to proclaim that Jesus Christ is God.
But one of the things that we have
done is not so much forgotten, but we
no longer comprehend what it means that this
God became flesh in his humiliation, in his
kinesis, in his incarnation.
The Son of God, although he did not
stop being what he always was, he became
something he never was.
He continued to be the fullness of deity,
but that fullness of deity took on human
flesh and he walked on this earth as
a man.
And one of the things, and there's a
fine line here, but it's very important, one
of the things we have done is we
have relegated every work, every action of Jesus
to deity.
Well, he did that.
How did he do that?
Well, he's God and that's true.
But what we need to see is that
the emphasis placed in the scripture is that
Jesus Christ walked on this earth as a
man and the things he taught and the
miracles he performed, he performed as a man,
totally and completely submitted to the will of
the Father and totally and completely dependent upon
the Holy Spirit.
And in recognizing that, what happens?
Jesus Christ, our elder brother, becomes also our
model.
He becomes our model.
I believe it was a Macmillan who wrote
the book Power Without Measure, excellent book if
you can get a hold of it.
And what I want us to see is
that in his humiliation, in his incarnation, God
becoming man, yes, very God, but at the
same time, very and completely man.
And as a man, he lived a perfect
life.
He taught the perfect word.
He did miracles without number.
He wrought redemption with his own two hands,
completely submitted to the will of God and
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And I want us just to look at
some things for a moment I believe will
help us.
First of all, I want us to look
at Jesus Christ, the man totally and completely
submitted to the will of the Father.
He says in John 4, 34, Jesus said
to them, my food is to do the
will of him who sends me and to
accomplish his work.
I can't say that.
You know what most bothered me back there
in the back while we were praying, would
I be praying so zealously and would I
be so concerned about these meetings if they
weren't ours, if they weren't sponsored by heart
cry?
And if I was not preaching, I do
so much for me, so much of my
food stinks, it's fodder, I'd be a hypocrite
to stand before you and say those words
are mine.
But Jesus could always say, my food, my
sustenance, the thing I live for is to
do the will of my father.
That's why how much a man prays will
tell you a lot more about him than
how much how much a man preaches.
You can preach for a lot of reasons.
But to pray in secret.
Is to do the will of the father
and to eat a pure food off the
Lord's table.
One of our greatest problems, and we learn
this, we say this.
But listen to what we're saying.
One of our greatest problems is, yes, we
really are not like Jesus.
There is much in the reform movement talking
about the law.
Men will be judged by the law and
there is truth in that men will be
judged by the law.
But it is a small thing for me
to be judged by the law.
Put Paul Washer in the scale, put the
law on the other side of the scale,
that's one thing.
Yes, I will fail, but you know something
that is a harder measure, put Paul Washer
in one side of the scale and put
the perfect man, Jesus Christ, on the other
side of the scale to be compared to
him.
That is our goal.
It could be said that is our only
need to be like Jesus, the most dangerous
prayer a human being could ever pray.
Lord, make me like Christ.
I don't care if you have to dethrone
me.
I don't care if you have to tear
apart my ministry.
I don't care if you have to destroy
me.
I don't care what happens.
Make me like Jesus Christ.
It's practically calling a death sentence upon yourself.
But then again, unless a grain of wheat
falls to the ground and dies, it abideth
alone.
But if it dies, it bring it forth
much fruit.
His will was to do the will of
his father, it also, it says in John
5, 19, therefore, Jesus answered and said to
them, truly, truly, I say to you, the
son can do nothing of himself unless it
is something he sees the father doing for
whatever the father does.
These things the son also does in like
manner.
The son can do nothing of himself.
A Chinese Christian, after visiting the United States
and seeing all our churches and everything, do
you know what he said?
He said, I am absolutely amazed all that
you people can do without God.
It's absolutely astounding what you can achieve.
But Jesus said, I can do nothing.
I can do nothing apart from him.
We marvel at the declaration of independence.
What we need is a declaration of dependence,
absolute dependence.
It is so hard for those of us
raised in a democracy to understand absolute sovereignty,
to understand that he is Lord.
And we're not to run behind him.
And we're not to run ahead of him
or to walk beside him, walk beside him.
Hopefully, as a young man grows in his
ministry, usually a young man, his ministry is
marked by activity, just activity everywhere.
And when all the sawdust finally hits the
floor, well, there's just nothing but sawdust.
But as he grows older, there's less activity
so that he would even be labeled as
not quite as zealous as before, but much
more is done because he's seeking only to
do what the father would have him to
do.
Now, also in John 530, one of my
favorite texts in the Bible, it says this,
I can do nothing on my own initiative.
How much do we do on our own
initiative?
Is it not the great sin to take
the matter into our own hands?
And we've been taught that even in our
own culture, man needs a car, doesn't have
money for it.
What does he do?
What goes to the bank?
Takes the matter into his own hands, by
his own initiative, and he gets the job
done and he's in bondage to it instead
of a man saying, I need a car,
I have no money.
Father, I need a house, I have no
money.
Father, I want to do this thing in
the name of Jesus Christ and in the
ministry, but father, I will initiate nothing.
Show me, lead me, guide me, absolute surrender
to him, absolute surrender.
It's not something I'm giving testimony about with
regards to myself, but it is something I'm
telling you about with regard to Jesus Christ.
I want you to see him, yes, as
God in the flesh, but I want you
to see him as a man totally submitted
to the will of God.
And I want you to see that that
is what you are called to.
Prayer is a little thing, unless this giant
is first slain, it is the end of
self-will and submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ.
There ought to be a way in which
we could answer every question like this.
Someone says, well, why did you go there
or why did you do this?
The answer is because I believed it to
be God's will.
Well, that's an absolutely great opportunity that's open
to you.
No, I have no opportunity except the doing
of God's will.
If all the doors and all of creation
fly open and God says stop and you
bring glory to God by stopping.
And you'll save yourself from a whole lot
of peril, not only that.
And this is the part that I really
want us to look at in the absolute
submission of Jesus Christ to the will of
the Father.
He was absolutely dependent upon the working of
the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ, you see, in his in his
humiliation, in his incarnation, laying aside his robes
of glory, yes, still God.
But yet walking on this earth as man,
he did what he did in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Submitted to the will of God, empowered by
the Holy Spirit, and therefore, again, our elder
brother is our example.
We can't simply write him off as, well,
I'll never be like my elder brother because
he was God.
Well, there is a great deal of truth
in that your elder brother was God.
No, you will never be like him.
But you should learn from this, your elder
brother, who was God, became a man and
as a man, he walked perfectly submitted to
the will of the Father and absolutely dependent
upon the working of the Holy Spirit.
And that is something we do not strive
for deity, but we do strive to be
like him.
To be submitted to the will of the
Father.
And to be empowered, dependent upon the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I want to read a few passages
that are eye openers.
Luke four one, Jesus, full of the Holy
Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led
around by the spirit in the wilderness.
Do you see that it's a forceful word?
He was cast out into the wilderness by
the spirit, Matthew tells us.
He was led around in the wilderness by
the Holy Spirit.
Here we have God incarnate and yet being
sensitive to the working of the Holy Spirit
and the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
How much more must we?
In Peru, there's this illustration that they always
use, and it's like this, it's when a
man is not walking in a godly way.
They tell him you're like you're like a
drunken man going down the Amazon, which is
fraught with many a peril.
You're like a drunken man going down the
Amazon, blindfolded at night in a speedboat with
your family seated in the boat and the
boat filled with dynamite.
My dear friend, the Christian not seeking to
be led of the Holy Spirit is in
greater peril.
Greater peril, and I want to tell you
something, there are two extremes in this and
both of them are just that extremes.
There are men over here who have no
knowledge of the word whatsoever, and they claim
to be led of the spirit and the
spirit that's leading them contradicts the word.
We know that's false.
But then there are men who say we'll
have nothing of that and everything is just
a proposition and a figuring out and correct
exegesis.
And that is all.
And they know nothing of being led and
directed by the spirit of God, who will
sometimes make men do unusual things to accomplish
his end, never things that contradict scripture, but
nonetheless unusual things.
We must be in the word and grounded
in the word, we must also cry out
for the spirit to reveal God's will through
his word.
But we must be sensitive in all things
to follow him.
Not only to start our journey into the
wilderness, but to be led throughout the wilderness
by the power of the Holy Spirit, Luke
414, and Jesus returned to Galilee.
Look at this.
He returned from the Jordan full of the
Holy Spirit.
Now he returns to Galilee in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 414.
Luke 418, he speaks about his ministry and
scriptures speak about his ministry.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to
the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to set free those who are oppressed.
The ministry of Jesus Christ was a spirit
empowered ministry.
A ministry sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
How much more do we need the same?
My dear friend, many people treat the word
of God and the new covenant as though
it were the law written on tablets of
stone.
There they are now.
Obey them in the power of the flesh.
It's impossible.
We read this scripture.
We see these commands.
We know how many husbands have declared, I
know this is right, but I can't make
it work.
I know I'm supposed to love my wife
this way, but I just don't have the
strength.
Of course you don't.
You have the strength to do nothing.
So when you open that book and you
see those commands, you must realize that the
only way you're going to be brought through
this wilderness.
Is through the power of the Holy Spirit
crying out as you read those commands, Oh,
God, fill me, fill me.
Fill me, fill me, fill me.
The constant cry of the believer.
Fill me and will not give will not
God give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask him to say, well, Brother Paul, we
have it.
Yes.
What that text means, though, is Spurgeon took
it this way, meant that although we are
born again in the Holy Spirit and dwells
in us, we should constantly be crying out
for greater and greater manifestations of his power
so that we might fulfill the commandments of
God and live a godly life in constant
dependence upon the work of the Holy Spirit.
One of the things that I noticed as
a young man, I after I was converted
and old brother Pittman was his name, came
to me with a stack of books and
he said, read these books.
And they were the autobiography of Hudson Taylor.
Of George Mueller, the spiritual secret of Hudson
Taylor and every book Leonard Ravenhill ever wrote,
I began to go from there and look
at a lot of different men down through
history, those on this side, those on that
side.
Those of different places and denominations in time,
and I found so little in common with
those men and women who had served God
so mightily, except this, their prayer life.
And they acknowledging their greatest need of being
filled with the Holy Spirit, that they could
do absolutely nothing apart from the work of
the Holy Spirit, that they could initiate nothing
apart from the work of the Holy Spirit,
it says in Luke 517.
One day he was teaching and there were
some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting
there who had come from every village of
Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem.
Now, listen to this.
And the power of the Lord was present
for him to perform healing.
I want you to look at that.
The Holy Spirit was present.
So that Jesus might heal.
And my dear friend, let's go back again,
another step, this Jesus was God.
This Nazarene, this guy from Nazareth, he was
God in the flesh, but in his humiliation
to walk before God as the one true
servant of Yahweh, the one true man of
God, he humbled himself, laid aside his robes
of glory, took on the form of a
man and he walked in the power of
the Holy Spirit and he did what he
did because he was submitted to the will
of God and he was filled with the
Holy Spirit.
How much greater is our need?
Baptists are so reactionary.
We see all this false stuff going on
and about 95 percent of it is false.
Things being done supposedly in the name of
the Holy Spirit and the power of the
Holy Spirit that contradicts Scripture.
But we as Baptists, oftentimes what we do
instead of going back to center, we run
to the other extreme.
We have a constant need to be filled.
And to be crying out for greater filling,
it says Luke 6, 19, and all the
people were trying to touch him for power
was coming from him and healing them all.
It's amazing.
Luke 8, 46, but Jesus said someone did
touch me, for I was aware that power
had gone out of me.
Believe the King James has here, virtue had
gone out.
Jesus was a man inflamed.
Filled with the Holy Spirit and the works
that he did, he did in the power
of the Holy Spirit and when a work
was done, the power of the Holy Spirit
came out of him.
Sometimes I equate this to preaching in this
way.
It's a small, small similarity, but there is
one.
I have noticed that when men preach and
they're exercising their gifts of preaching and they're
doing so in the power of the Holy
Spirit.
After the event is over, they are absolutely
worn out.
Virtue has gone out from them.
The spirit has so lifted them up and
so empowered them that when it's all over
the man, it's like a woman who knows
her child is trapped in a car and
with mighty adrenaline, she grabs the door and
rips it off its hinges.
And later, her arms are swollen and tired
because of the force that has gone through
her.
In the same way, preaching the power of
the Holy Spirit, when a man is doing
it according to his gifts and according to
Scripture and God's in it, it'll wear him
to the bone.
It'll wear him to the bone.
It goes on.
Prayer was essential to Jesus Christ, and I
want to read a few things.
This one commentator, I don't even know who
he is.
He said this, Jesus is the dependent man,
and this is just where we fail.
He withdraws himself into the wilderness and prays
ever the dependent as the obedience and victorious
man.
Let's listen to what he says that he
is saying that it is Jesus dependence upon
God.
It wrought the obedience and the victory.
Now, Matthew Poole writes this, we meet with
Christ often commending to us the duty of
secret prayer by his own example, that is
so convicting.
Because I am commending you to secret prayer
by my word, but would I by my
example is a sobering thing to preach, says
we meet Christ often compelling us to the
duty of secret prayer by his own example,
as he had done by his precept and
always choosing for it the most private and
retired places to teach us to go and
to do likewise, often to pray to our
father, which seeth in secret and his example
more presses us because we have much more
business with God in prayer than he had.
Do you know what he means by that?
Matthew Poole is saying we have more business
to do with God in prayer than Jesus.
Why?
This is for this reason.
Jesus had no sins to confess, nor to
beg pardon for no need to ask for
any sanctifying habits of grace.
Jesus lived a life of prayer and frequently
it was his custom to participate in hidden
prayer with his father, and yet he had
nothing of the need that we have.
He had no need of confessing sin.
He had no pardon to beg.
He had no need to cry out for
grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy like
we do.
And I want to finish with an example
from Jesus in Mark, chapter one, Mark, chapter
one, verse twenty nine.
I'm just going to begin to read and
immediately after they came out of the synagogue,
they came into the house of Simon and
Andrew with James and John.
Now, Simon's mother in law was lying sick
with a fever and immediately they spoke to
Jesus about her and he came to her
and raised her up, taking her by the
hand and the fever left her and she
waited on them.
Then evening came after the sun had set.
They began bringing to him all who were
ill and those who were demon possessed in
the whole city had gathered at the door
and he healed many who were ill with
various diseases and casting out many demons.
And he was not permitting the demons to
speak because they knew who he was in
the early morning while it was still dark.
Jesus got up, left the house and went
away to a secluded place and was praying
there.
Simon and his companions searched for him.
They found him and said to him, everyone
is looking for you.
He said to them, let us go somewhere
else.
Now, briefly, what I want to put before
you is, first of all, what's going on
here?
He was teaching in the synagogue.
He was dealing with the demonic.
He comes in from there and Mark is
fond of using this word immediately, immediately, immediately.
The book of Mark, if you read it
properly, when you're done, you should be wore
out because it's like snapshots of Jesus Christ
and his activity and there's no rest in
it immediately, immediately.
And so he says immediately after they came
out of the synagogue, they went to the
house of Simon and Simon's mother-in-law
was sick and he healed her more virtue
going out of him.
Then when evening came after the sun had
set, they began bringing to him all who
were ill, demon possessed.
The whole city had gathered.
Now, let me explain to you when evening
had come, they did this.
Why was the Sabbath?
I'm reminded when they were giving out free
land in Oklahoma and the West, how they
put everyone on a line and there were
literally hundreds of men on horseback and carriages
and all such, because the moment the gun
went off, they were all going to race
to try to find their land.
And people died in the stampede.
I want you to know that there on
the Sabbath, thousands of people are waiting for
the night to fall to make a Sabbath
day journey, to make a journey to him,
to get to him.
And the moment it was proper, the moment
it was time, the gun went off and
the race began.
Now, I'll give you an idea what this
like one time in the in the mountains
of Santa Rosa in near the Pueblo Ayabaca,
it's in it's in the Andes mountains.
The people found out that I had brought
a doctor with me.
There are about fifteen hundred people there gathered
for the Bible conference and they discovered that
I had brought a physician, even though the
physician had no medicine and they knew it,
even though the physician had no tools to
work with.
And even if he had, he couldn't have
done anything in that filthy place.
You have never seen such a war break
out in all your life.
Not because they were evil people or bad
people, they were desperate people.
No physician had ever been.
There before they were poor, they were broken,
they had children who were dying and sick,
men with tuberculosis, other men suffering, people who
had cuts and wounds, and it just turned
into a nightmare.
They stormed the door of the hut, we
moved up to the second floor, I had
to stop preaching for three days, I translated
for the doctor.
Now, I want you to realize what's going
on here.
You may think that Jesus is in a
quiet little village and a few people come
to him to be healed.
No, thousands of people.
And they are violent and they are angry
and they are pressing and they are wanting
to get in and they are wanting to
be healed and he has working and they
are angry and they are distraught and they
are afraid that their time is going to
come and pass and they're not going to
see him.
And there's a battleground going on out there.
It is a horrid scene, and if anyone
has ever ministered, they would know that this
type of thing will absolutely wear you out.
Wear you out.
Now, it says here.
In this passage, it says that when evening
came after the sun had set, they began
bringing them to Jesus.
Now, look at verse thirty five.
But in the early morning, while it was
still dark.
There's not a lot of time in between
the two.
There's not a lot of time, I would
imagine that people were camped out all around
the house.
I would imagine that when Jesus went out
of the house, he had to make his
way as he made his way through angry
crowds at times that wanted to kill him
or wanted to make him king.
I believe he had to make his way
through that crowd.
Be very careful not to wake him up.
And here is a man who has poured
himself out.
Did he grab any sleep at all?
It seems.
And then he arises to do what?
To pray.
Now, I have to be careful here because
there is a great need for ministers to
rest.
There's a great need for ministers not to
work themselves to the bone or to be
involved in activities that will take them away
from their proper activity of prayer and and
reading the word and preaching.
But I want you to see something here
about the life of Jesus Christ.
If any man had a reason to say,
I've done enough.
I mean, I've given absolutely everything I can
give was Jesus.
If there ever was a man who had
a reason to say, Lord, I can't pray
now, there's just too many hurting people that
I still haven't touched.
There's too much ministry to do.
I don't have time to pray.
If anyone ever had the right to say
that at that moment, it was Jesus Christ.
I love what Martin Luther said one time,
he said, I have so much work activity
to do today, I must pray at least
three hours or I will never get done.
That's the direct opposite of us, isn't it?
I have so much to do today, I
have no time to pray.
Look what we're saying, we are saying with
that declaration, I'm going to go out and
accomplish things in the power of my own.
Now, Jesus goes out and look at this,
I think I may be reading into this
a bit, but I think what we've got
going on here is a guilt trip by
Simon.
Verse 36, Simon and his companions searched for
him and they found him and they said
to him, everyone is looking for you.
What are you doing out here?
Don't you realize there's all these people.
What are you doing out here in the
dark praying?
Don't you know that everyone's looking for you,
that people out here that are hurting and
they need you?
Jesus never bought into that.
He knew his priority was to be in
the presence of his God, to seek the
face of his God, to follow his God
and that the greatest thing he could do
for humanity.
Is the greatest thing you can do for
humanity to seek your God, for those of
you who are in churches, maybe some pastors
here, sometimes I'm asked to go to churches
and preach to churches that are looking for
a pastor.
I do a special thing on the way
you should approach it.
And I'll always sit down, I asked him
to put a chalkboard or a whiteboard out
in the front of the church and I
say, OK, what do you want your pastor
to do?
And they will come up with all sorts
and manner of things that that man should
be doing.
And then when they're all finished and we've
got about 68 hours of work each day
lined out on that whiteboard, I say, now,
how much time do you want that man
in the word?
The souls of your children may depend upon
how he preaches.
How much time do you want that man
in the word?
Now, next question, how much time you want
that man interceding, seeking the face of God
so that he knows him, the greatest
need.
I don't know about you, but I see
the greatest need.
Seeking the Lord as Jesus sought him.
And being in his presence and being empowered
by him.
What cannot be overcome in prayer?
Answer me.
What can not be done by the hand
of the Almighty?
Answer me.
What can be done by your feeble arms?
Answer me.
He can take down the Iron Curtain in
a day.
He can convert a nation in an hour.
Call upon him.
Believe him.
Let's pray.
Father, I come before you and very kind
to me tonight and.
I greatly appreciate it, Lord, you have been
a help and you have been merciful.
Lord, I pray for your people, I pray
for your people, your dear saints here.
Pour out on them the spirit of prayer
and supplication.
Let them see, Lord, pressing in and pressing
on is where the battle is won and
that the feeblest.
The least gifted among us, the smallest man
of the smallest tribe of Zion can gather
more victories.
Than the greatest warrior in 12 tribes.
By praying, by seeking your face.
By glorying in your power and putting no
confidence in the flesh.
God help us.
In Jesus name, Amen.