Christ Prays, Resists Crowd, and Preaches

Driving home: he who spoke the worlds into being and upholds them by the word of his power takes the place of dependence and therefore is a man of prayer for wherever the spirit of dependantness is implanted in a heart by grace there …

Compares Christ's early rising after a busy day to bone-weary preachers who might sleep in, highlighting Christ's exceptional commitment to prayer.

So after the last person had been healed and the last demon cast out perhaps taking our Lord into the wee hours of the morning he placed his weary body upon a bed there in Simon Peter's home in all likelihood caught a few hours of sleep perhaps went through a normal average initial sleep cycle of some four hours but just when we would expect as many bone weary preachers do on a Monday morning that our Lord would sleep in a bit instead of finding him sleeping in the text tells us that a great while before day literally still very much in the night when day and night just hardly begin their stru...

7:23 - 8:50 Read in full sermon

Driving home: he who spoke the worlds into being and upholds them by the word of his power takes the place of dependence and therefore is a man of prayer for wherever the spirit of dependantness is implanted in a heart by grace there …

Suggests that if one had observed Christ praying, there would be no doubt of His earnestness, contrasting it with a casual or 'piddling' approach to prayer.

I have a sneaking suspicion some of us would be reluctant ever to use it sensing how far we come from that climate of delightful filial family intimacy expressed when our Lord prayed there in that early morning and as our Lord taught that earnestness and importunity should mark all of our prayers surely that morning whatever was the specific burden of his prayer we would have learned tremendous lessons of what it is to pray with earnestness and importunity had we sneaked up upon our Lord I doubt we would have seen anything that would in any way have given the idea that this man was just piddli...

11:47 - 13:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: he who spoke the worlds into being and upholds them by the word of his power takes the place of dependence and therefore is a man of prayer for wherever the spirit of dependantness is implanted in a heart by grace there …

Illustrates that while prayer can happen anywhere, sustained prayer requires finding a secret place, using the examples of a busy mother and a man in an office.

he who spoke the worlds into being and upholds them by the word of his power takes the place of dependence and therefore is a man of prayer for wherever the spirit of dependantness is implanted in a heart by grace there you will find the spirit of prayer always always always without exception furthermore his conviction as to the desirability and necessity of prayer is so deep in our Lord that he will not that on this occasion he engages in an act of vigorous self-denial in order that he might truly pray for though it is a blessed truth that we can pray anywhere at any time in any company excep...

14:43 - 16:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to take up our cross daily and say no to ourselves daily that we might pray, making significant progress in the school of prayer.

Quotes Bishop Ryle's strong condemnation of prayerless Christians and those who give little time to prayer, reinforcing the sermon's point on the necessity of prayer.

every morning a great while before day and prayed the scripture doesn't tell us that this was his ordinary pattern I believe the emphasis falls upon the fact that this was an exceptional thing so I'm not trying to bind your conscience to something that would destroy your body after several years by inadequate rest but what I'm saying is this that if in the providence of God the duties that come to you in the will of God are such that the only way you find time to pray is to say no to liberties then you and I must learn to take up our cross daily and say no to ourselves daily that we might pray...

20:38 - 22:07 Read in full sermon

Driving home: oh what a picture of that element in our Lord so seldom found in we sinners found in us sinners so seldom found in a tenderness responsiveness to need coupled with iron inflexibility with respect to and yet it meets in o…

Illustrates the excitement and inability to sleep of those healed by Christ, comparing it to a new father's joy, to explain why the crowds would seek Jesus early the next morning.

the word of God I mean look even a child can see either it was Andrew I mean Peter and the others who went after him or it was the crowds who said it's either or even a child with a believing heart can see the synthesis of the two passages what happened the night before people crowded at Peter's door because they knew Jesus was in that house and they stayed until every last sick person they brought was healed and every demon was cast out and went to their homes but now tell me you've been a cripple all your life and been healed that night you think you went right home and went to bed of course...

26:13 - 27:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Be vulnerable emotionally and psychologically to others' needs and pleas, but maintain iron inflexibility with respect to God's will.

Contrasts the modern generation's obsession with violence and being driven by feelings with Christ's true humanity, which combines tenderness with inflexible commitment to God's will.

we are held captive let us go because this is the purpose for which I was sent you and I was saved that we might prove the good acceptable and perfect will of God and to me there are few things more beautiful in redeemed humanity than a reflection of that apparent contradiction that is seen in our Lord tenderness vulnerability emotional and psychological softness may we say join to that iron clad inflexibility oh my God this generation is a hopeless contradiction of the reverse the generation of the , that is given over to violence feeds its mind upon violence on the boob tube hour upon hour u...

36:52 - 38:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section describes Christ's subsequent ministry throughout Galilee, focusing on His commitment to preaching in synagogues and confirming His message with demon expulsion…

Uses the example of ancient Israel to illustrate how human nature, even in an unbelieving crowd, is quick to take God's blessings but grumble when they are withheld.

some even began to grumble because remember this was fundamentally an unbelieving crowd Capernaum had terrible woes pronounced upon it because Jesus said many mighty works were done but you did not repent multitude saw his miracles and received the benefit of his miracles who were utter strangers to repentance and to true faith in the son of God and such people are glad to take goodies from God's hand but let him withhold the goodies and they'll curse the very God that gave them to it look at ancient Israel God gives them goodies and they rejoice and he withholds for a little bit to test their...

40:56 - 42:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Give to preaching the central and primary place in the church, as Christ did, and pray for God's blessing upon it.

Quotes Bishop Ryle extensively on the infinite honor Christ placed on preaching and its essential role in gathering, maintaining, and extending the church, reinforcing the sermon's argument for the centrality of preaching.

took its rightful place or in the context in which God was restoring it to its rightful place and the fruit of every true visitation of the spirit of God is precisely what we have in our passage men go everywhere preaching men find that they are brought into that sympathy with the heart of our Lord who is our great prophet extended the kingdom of grace through preaching and as Bishop Ryle again so carefully and accurately observed in his comments upon this passage the great activity with occupied our Lord on his way to the cross was the activity of preaching that was his grand activity until h...

46:41 - 48:10 Read in full sermon