Pray and Be Alone With God - Paul Washer

Let's open up our Bibles to Luke 11.

Luke 11:1.

"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.

That 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 ark.

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 it goes 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 disiciple 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 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 read

a hodge-podge 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 5:16 it says that,

"Jesus Himself would often slip away

to the wilderness and pray."

Do 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 ballgame.

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 of an evangelist.

He got off the plane

and he was received by the pastors,

and immediately they took
him out to play golf.

I don't have much of a problem with that.

I've never played golf myself.

But they took him out to the golf course

and that's a fine thing.

I guess they saw that he needed to rest,

and 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 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.

It says 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 awhile,

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 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 6:12-13,

"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 twelve 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've 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.

It goes on.

Matthew 26:36,

"Then Jesus came with them

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 could 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 overcome in that garden,

and He overcome 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.

It 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.

Verse 1, 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 really a specific time

in which I pray.

I more 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 the Father,

that is borne 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 pray

and we shouldn't lose heart,

because losing heart is the very end

of all praying.

And then He says in Luke 18:8

what I consider to be one of

the saddest verses in the entire Bible.

It is this in 18:8,

"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 will be opened 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 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 ourself boldly

of the promises.

Either we have no passion

for the advancement of His kingdom,

or we feel that somehow it can be advanced

through 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.

But there was another reason.

I want to read a text thats in Acts 2:22.

"Men of Israel, listen to these words.

Jesus the Nazarene,

a man..." 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 2,000 years
of Christian history,

we have had to build
walls to keep them out.

We have to had to fight.

We have had to amass arms.

We have had to do apologetics.

We have had to do it all.

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 kenosis,

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 McMillan
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.

Now, 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 sent 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 HeartCry?

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 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 reformed 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.

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 bringeth forth much fruit.

His will was to do the will of His Father.

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.

We're 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 5:30,

one of my favorite texts in the Bible,

it says this:

"I can do nothing on My own initiative."

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.

A man needs a car.

Doesn't have money for it.

What does he do? 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 why did you go there?

Or why did you do this?

The answer:

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 in all
of creation fly open

and God says "stop,"

then 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, 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 4:1, "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 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 speed boat 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.

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 4:14, "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 4:14.

Luke 4:18 - He speaks about His ministry

or the 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 the Scripture,

we see these commands, we know it.

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 God give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask Him?

You say, well, Brother Paul, we have it.

Yes, what that text means though,

and Spurgeon took it this way,

meant that although we are born again

and the Holy Spirit indwells 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,

after I was converted,

an old brother - Pitman 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 and 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 them 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 5:17,

"One day He was teaching,

and there were some Pharisees
and teachers of the law sitting there

who had some 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.

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!

How much greater is our need!

Baptists are so reactionary.

We see all this false stuff going on

and about 95% of it is false.

Things being done supposedly

in the name of the Holy Spirit

and the power of the Holy Spirit

that contradict 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 in 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.'"

I believe the King James has here:
"virtue had gone out of Me."

Jesus was a man

enflamed,

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 will wear him to the bone.

It will 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 obedient and victorious man."

Listen to what he says.

He is saying that "it is Jesus' dependence

upon God that 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?

It's a sobering thing to preach.

He 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? He says, "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.

I want to finish with an example

from Jesus in Mark 1.

Mark 1:29,

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

and 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? It was the Sabbath.

I'm reminded when they were giving out

free land in Oklahoma in 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.

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.

To give you an idea of what this is like,

one time in the mountains of Santa Rosa

(unintelligible) in the Andes Mountains.

The people found out that I had

brought a doctor with me.

There were about 1500 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.

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.

And 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 is 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 v. 35,

"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

and be very careful not to wake them up.

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 praying 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've given absolutely
everything I can give,"

it 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 am 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 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?

There are 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'll ask them to put a chalkboard

or a white board out in
the front of the church.

And I'll say, okay,

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.

Then when they're all finished,

and we've got about 68 hours of work

each day lined out on that white board,

I say now, how much time do you want

that man in the Word?

The souls of your children?

They depend upon how he preaches.

How much time do you
want that man in the Word?

Now next question:

how much time do 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

as seeking the Lord as Jesus sought Him,

and being in His presence

and being empowered by Him.

What can not 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,

You're very kind to me tonight.

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 twelve 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.

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