Means of Our Spiritual Health: Secret Prayer

Introduction: Back to the Basics – Foundations of Spiritual Health

0:01 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, January 19th, 1997, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the words of Psalm 11 and verse 3, in which the question is asked, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Now, such a question is based upon the general observation

0:40 that no structure of any kind is more stable than is its foundation. Many of us remember how our Lord based an entire illustration upon that common observation. At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, He spoke of two builders who built their houses upon the foundation of the Holy Spirit. Two differing foundations.

1:10 And in the time of testing, the fate of each house was determined by the state of its foundation. Now, what is true with respect to material, literal buildings is equally true in the spiritual realm. In all of the ongoing superstructure of the Christian life and experience, we must periodically pause and honestly consider again the condition of our foundations upon which we are constructing that superstructure

1:51 of Christian life and experience. For if the foundation is unstable, the superstructure will sooner or later be eloquent testimony to that instruction. If there is erosion in the foundation, that erosion will eventually be manifested in the crumbling of the superstructure. Therefore, since coming to a new calendar year nudges us in the direction of being more reflective, I'm seeking to engage your minds and hearts in a series of sermons entitled Back to the Basics

2:36 at the beginning of a new year. And the format of this series of sermons is comprised of several very simple and straightforward exhortations. The first of these exhortations was this. Consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for the coming year.

3:01 Consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for the coming year. And the essence of that entire message can be reduced to the following statements. Christ himself and Christ alone is the source of all of our spiritual strength. And we can experience the strength of Christ only if we are united to Christ and if we cultivate a believing of Christ.

3:35 And that which is the essence of the message in those two statements can in a very real sense be reduced even further to two simple texts of scripture. John 15, 5, the words of Jesus without me, apart from me, severed from me, cut off from living union with me and the virtue of my life flowing into you as the life of Christ. The life of the vine flows into the branches without me you can do nothing. And then Philippians 4, 13 in which the apostle affirmed

4:19 I can do all things through him or in him who strengthens me. Then last Lord's Day we took up the second exhortation in this series of sermons and it was the verse not only are you exhorted to consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for the coming year but secondly to consider afresh the appointed means for your spiritual health in the coming year. And I spent some 20 minutes with an extended analogy of physical health

5:03 to underscore why it is necessary for us to consider the appointed means for our spiritual health. And the bottom line of that consideration was simply this that God in his sovereignty and in his wisdom has appointed these means to function in this way. And if God has appointed certain means to function to certain ends we do not honor God nor honor God nor his son by saying if Christ is the ultimate and exclusive source of my strength all I need do is fix my mind on Christ

5:47 and that strength will be my portion. No, the same God who points us to his son as the exclusive and adequate source of our strength points us to specific means which he has appointed as the ultimate source of my strength. As as it were the conduits through which the very virtue and strength of Christ will be conveyed to us. We then began to look at the identity of these means having established their necessity and I suggested that it is helpful to think of them in three broad categories.

6:28 The private or the individual means secondly the corporate or social means and thirdly the physical familial or the domestic means and under that first category of the private or individual means we had time to take up only one of those means and it was this the disciplined assimilation of the scriptures the disciplined assimilation of the scriptures and the pivotal texts we examined were Psalm 1 1 to 3 Matthew 3 Matthew 4 and verse 4 Colossians 3 and verse 16 and then we focused

7:13 on the example of our Lord himself as that example is so beautifully described in Isaiah 50 and verse 4 where our Lord as the servant of Jehovah is taught the scriptures in the same way that we are taught the scriptures. He does not as it were take a ladle and reach into his omniscient divine mind which contains not only the full knowledge of all the scriptures but the most perfect accurate understanding of all them but the servant of Jehovah says he wakens my ear

7:56 morning by morning as one that is taught and if our Lord Jesus Christ could not know the strength of his father that strength to be imparted for his own guidance for his own encouragement for his own direction if he could not get it apart from the means of disciplined assimilation of the scriptures who are you and who am I to think that we can get it any other way or that we can be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Explanation of 'Habitual Engagement in Secret Prayer'

8:39 without the disciplined assimilation of the scriptures. Now then we come this morning to the second of these individual or private means ordained by God for our spiritual health and what is that second of these individual means. I'm describing it this way the habitual engagement in secret prayer the habitual engagement in secret prayer and in opening up this second of the private or individual

9:24 personal means there will be explanation demonstration and application. First of all then I want to explain the use of the word the words and their biblical basis. When I say that we must consider afresh the appointed means for our spiritual health and I move on from the disciplined assimilation of the word of God to consider with you what I'm calling the habitual engagement in secret prayer. Why have I chosen those words?

10:03 What do I mean by those words? And on what biblical basis do they rest? That's my explanation. Note first of all I use the word habitual engagement in secret prayer.

10:20 And what do I mean by that? Well just as you and I have habits that is fixed or normal and predictable patterns with respect to sleep to eating to bed to sleep to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to bed To personal hygiene to recreation to social activities so I want us to consider this means of secret prayer in the framework of an habitual engagement in secret prayer. And that is in direct contrast to the occasional secret prayer precipitated

11:04 by a crisis that is God's wake-up call to drive us to our knees. The sporadic or kind of feverish occasional prayer that is the result of a troubled conscience that says surely no man or woman boy or girl can long maintain any assurance that he's a Christian if he prays so infrequently as I do so I must stir myself up to a little more occasional and sporadic prayer to quiet my conscience. No no I'm not speaking I am not speaking of the kind of prayer that is merely occasioned by a crisis that is a wake-up call or the sporadic

11:48 agitated spasmodic prayer that is the result of a troubled conscience but I'm speaking of habitual prayer that is prayer that is found in a category that all things being equal is purposeful planned and predictable just as your habits of eating and sleeping and showering and shaving and combing and applying makeup and dressing and catching the 805 or leaving for work are habits

12:34 of our ordinary life. Yes there are unusual circumstances in which we do not eat sleep drink dress drive to work at our normal time I understand that but those exceptional disruptions do not negate the legitimate description of those things in our lives as the habits of sleep the habits of eating the habits of dressing the habits of bathing the habits of shaving and what I am saying is this God has appointed as a vital means

13:18 for your growth and mine habitual engagement in secret prayer and the biblical roots of this are so many that I could without much effort except the effort at organization quote dozens of texts that point in this direction but I give you but several samples the psalmist in Psalm 5 and verse 3 lays bare to all who read his resolution his commitment to habitual engagement in secret prayer

14:03 give ear to my words oh lord consider my meditation harken unto the voice of my cry my king and my God for unto you do I pray oh lord in the morning you shall hear my voice in the morning will I order my prayer unto you and will keep watch here is the psalmist that is not praying under the pressure of an unusual crisis though certain psalms were the result of the pressure of a crisis this is not the psalmist

14:48 praying under the agitation of a bloodied conscience through some grievous fall into sin though there are such psalms here is the psalmist telling us that he is committed to habitual engagement in secret prayer and he says as it were God one thing you can count on tomorrow morning is you're going to hear my voice at prayer as surely as my wife can count on the fact that I'm going to show up at 7.15 for breakfast and my boss can count on the fact that I'm going to show up somewhere between 8.15 and 8.25 in my office and as surely as I can count on the fact that there's a lunch break at 12 to 12.30

15:32 so God count on it you're going to hear my voice in the morning that's habitual engagement in prayer you find a similar thing when the psalmist was in a deep dark dismal hole of despair saw no light saw no way out if ever there were a time when a man could give over the habitual engagement in prayer it was in the circumstances recorded in psalm 88 but listen to the words of the psalmist here of Haman the Ezraite

16:14 verses 13 and 14 but unto you O Lord have I cried looking upon this present trial he says I have cried out to you O God and I'm not going to give over the crying out and in the morning shall my prayer come before you Lord why do you cast off my soul why do you hide your face from me here's a man finding no delight and no pleasure and no profit from his prayers but he says I am going to continue to pray

16:58 you see he wasn't one who prayed when he got his spiritual jollies in prayer he prayed out of a principled commitment to habitual engagement of God in the secret place you find it again in psalm 55 verses 15 and 16 psalm 55 verses 15 and 16 I'm sorry 16 and 17 here's a man bitterly betrayed by a close friend if anything will knock the wind out of your sails and cripple your spirit and turn you into

17:42 spiritual navel gazing and self-pity it's when a close friend proves himself to be a Judas friend and that's what the psalmist has experienced but he says in spite of this verse 16 as for me I will call upon God and the Lord will save me evening and morning and at noonday will I complain and moan and he will hear my voice there's a man committed to habitual engagement of his God and if I were to ask you children

18:25 tell me one Old Testament character that is the most clear the most well-known illustration of a man committed to the habit of secret prayer who do you think of immediately I'll give you a little hint whenever you think of him you often think of animals that are very frightening with big hairy manes and they growl and he had to face being thrown into a whole den of him now you all know what is my name it's Daniel isn't it and what do we read in Daniel chapter 6 in verse 10

19:10 we read a beautiful description of a man who was committed to hebrewism habitual engagement in secret prayer Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10 right after the book of Ezekiel then the book of Daniel Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10 and when Daniel knew that the writing was signed the writing that said no one is to pray to any other God but a man whom people have proclaimed a deity Daniel doesn't pray in order to have wisdom

19:54 to know what to do and all the rest no no this is no emergency praying the scripture tells us he went into his house now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God because things were really good getting hot and it was now time to be stirred up to pray no the rationale is this and he gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime in other words the circumstances didn't change his

20:38 habits of prayer they put them to the test but they didn't create them they didn't change them they didn't overturn them here is the man manifesting habitual engagement in secret prayer now that's what I mean by habitual I've explained the analogies in ordinary life I've taken you to four passages of the word of God if that doesn't help you to understand what I mean by habitual then frankly I think another hour wouldn't help and if those scriptures don't persuade your conscience another fifty wouldn't do it you're just perverse and determined to go on in your non habitual

21:23 life of non prayer but then I've used another word I've said habitual engagement in secret prayer and I wish I'd charted how long how many minutes were spent laboring over this word I don't mean five ten fifteen some of you perhaps have heard me quote a famous writer who was known to have paced the floor more than once into the wee hours of the morning mumbling to himself synonyms synonyms synonyms there are no such things as synonyms there is the right word and there's the wrong word well I thought of him when I was laboring with this

22:08 and the moment of truth comes when you've got to put pen to paper and watch the clock and say I've got to get into my habit of leading the study by such and such a time if I'm going to shower and shave and I'll have to go with the best word though I'm not satisfied but let me tell you why I chose the word engagement and what I mean by the use of that word by the word engagement I'm trying to avoid the idea of the habitual merely saying of prayers or going through the motion of prayers to be engaged is to have all of our faculties locked in to what we are doing the word is used

22:51 for example if in a moment of silence in a military conflict a captain were to send out a lieutenant and under him a platoon of soldiers to reconnoiter a given area where enemy forces were known to be holed up or to be operating when they would return the superior officer would say to the inferior officer did you engage the enemy in other words did you have any real combat were there real bullets being exchanged was there a real engagement of the enemy the other illustration and I can use this because she's not here

23:35 I've tried to avoid using illustrations of my children or grandchildren when they're present and I'm speaking of my oldest daughter Heidi and when she was a little girl she had a very strange element in her personality that those big brown eyes when you'd speak to her would look just three degrees left or three degrees right or below or above or even if they looked at you they seemed to be looking at something that was focused about three feet behind your head and many a time when we were having to give her instructions to make sure she understood the will of her mummy or daddy or she were going to be punished for something we'd say now Heidi look at daddy or mummy's eyes and more than once

24:20 we'd cup her little face in our hand turn it up and say now look at my eyes and I can still see those brown eyes Heidi into my eyes I could tell she was focusing back here somewhere or over here over here what was I doing I was trying to make sure she was engaged with her mental faculties and since the eyes are the window of the soul most frequently an engaged mind and heart is mirrored in the way the eyes meet you you see when I look out on some of you giving all due allowance for getting an eyelash in your eye it's obvious you're not engaged some of you it's obvious you're doing your best not to be but once in a while you forget yourself and you get engaged in spite of it

25:04 because I'm not standing up here just blethering and droning on and you forget yourself and lo and behold you get engaged and then when my eyes meet you it's like you're trying to prove oh I don't want the preacher to think I'm interested and then your eyes go glassy again or your head goes down it's amazing what you see up here especially now that we've got such good lighting but you see I want you engaged Heidi Heidi listen to daddy I want you fully engaged now it's that sense of the word that has caused me to choose it and the means that God has ordained for our spiritual strength is not the habitual saying of prayers or the habitual mouthing of prayers

25:46 but the habitual engagement in secret prayer that is the heart is locked with God in real living interaction in which there is real contact with spiritual realities even the realities of evil spiritual forces for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but principalities and powers and what scriptures reflect that which I've tried to capture in this non biblical word engagement well again let's look at a couple of witnesses first of all psalm sixty two and verse eight

26:31 psalm sixty two and verse eight having defined what I mean and what I'm trying to convey by the word now the biblical basis of that psalm sixty two and verse eight the exhortation goes forth trust in him at all times you people pour out your heart before him what a beautiful image of what prayer is it doesn't say just pour out a cataract of words that you can say without any thought it doesn't say frame and mouth

27:16 impressive language it says take your heart and as I would turn up this glass and gravity would take over and all the water would be poured out God says you come into his presence take your heart and tip it over and make sure that whatever comes out in your prayers are the effusions the spilling out and the spilling over of the deepest thoughts and yearnings and desires and griefs and disappointments of your heart the very essence and citadel of

27:51 your being that's engagement in prayer psalm 119 in verse 10 psalm 119 and verse 10 verse nine the question familiar to many of us wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way the answer by taking heed thereto according to your word with my whole heart have i sought you oh let me not blink wander from your commandments notice he doesn't say with great repetition and regularity and

28:31 habit i've said my prayers nor does he merely say with my whole heart have i sought to pray he says with my whole heart have i sought you here was the engagement of the person of the psalmist with the person of god himself and it was the engagement of heart not the mere mouthing of words not the mere repetition of phrases that could be mouthed without thought without mental psychological spiritual energy here was a seeking of god himself with the whole heart

29:13 or verse 145 in this same 119th psalm i have called with my whole heart and and and me oh lord i have called not with a part of my heart here and a part of it somewhere else and he was conscious of the tendency of a fragmented heart he prays elsewhere in this very psalm unite my heart to fear your name incline my heart unto your statutes and not unto covetousness he was conscious that even in prayer his heart could be divided but

29:55 he was never content to pray with an unengaged heart until the heart was united until a whole heart was engaging god he was not satisfied he may not have attained what he desired and in that sense he left his prayer closet disappointed not stroking himself on the back saying i had my devotions and said my prayers whether he was or was not engaged that's the issue you see it's just the opposite of the thing jesus condemns in matthew 15 8 this people honoreth me with their lips

Biblical Basis for 'Secret Prayer' and its Necessity

30:32 but their hearts are far from me now that's what i mean when i say that god has appointed as a means of our spiritual strength the habitual engagement in secret prayer secret prayer now by the use of the word secret i'm seeking to exclude family prayers table prayers prayers with your wife prayers with your closest spiritual companion prayers with a

31:12 group of men or women with whom you may meet for specific concerns of intercession i'm speaking of those prayers in which it is you and your god but not just you and your god but you and your god in a circumstance where you and your god are in a relationship and you and your god are in a circumstance where prayer is the primary occupation you see there are those breathings out of the spirit of prayer that are a vital means of grace the kind of thing that is recorded of nehemiah in chapter 2 in verse 4 where in a crisis he says i prayed unto the lord and i said unto the king

31:54 the kind of prayers that i hope all of us engaged in driving here today some of my precious times of prayer are driving here to church where i'm praying and making up songs and singing to the lord and the rest the kind of prayers that you can engage in in the midst of traffic when you're praying as i had to today trying to keep to the time schedule and get here on time and lo and behold the last part of my trip here some dude pulled in front of me driving no faster than 25 miles a day an hour even in the 40 mile an hour zone and 35 looking all over the i don't have a clue what he

32:37 was looking for i almost wanted to blink my lights and push him over and say sir my curiosity is killing me what in the world are you looking for are you out looking for visitors from mars and extraterrestrial beings or what i don't have a clue but you know i recognized that i had to pray lord this dude's beginning to get under my skin and the devil would love to have me indulge in spirit of irritation and i hear the hiss of the serpent and i had to pray and cry to god yes i hope all of us know what that is ejaculatory prayers prayers in the midst of any activity but when i say secret prayer what i'm trying to do is to articulate what jesus focuses upon in

33:19 matthew chapter 6 and here again we turn to the scriptural basis for that terminology matthew chapter 6 you remember that in this section of the sermon in the mount jesus is exposing the hypocrisy of the pharisees and all of their disciples and all who learn their theology of the christian life from the pharisees and he's exposing that for what it is it is shot through with rotten stinking corrupting hypocrisy in which all of their religious activities have a preoccupation not with the eye of god but with the eye of men that's the organizing principle of these first

34:04 uh... what nineteen or uh... the first eighteen verses of matthew six

34:10 pharisees are concerned about to be seen of men the true son or daughter of the kingdom is concerned about being seen and heard by the father in secret now when it comes to prayer notice what our lord says in verse five and when you pray assuming that he has no true sons it's of his kingdom who do not pray for remember the sermon on the mount is primarily instruction given to his disciples one tells us that and when he sat down his disciples came into him in the open his mouth and he talked then say it was primarily instruction for his disciples others were listening

34:54 they were astounded his authority but here that instruction if we may use the term is even more intensified in its focus upon the disciples he assumes they're all going to pray and so he says when you pray don't be as the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets in order that they may be seen of men you see their religion goes no farther than what it does in giving them acceptance with men whereas the essence of all true religion is where do i stand before god that's it in a nutshell i'd say to you truly they've received their reward but now for six but you but you

35:38 when you pray and here are more than moves to the singular but you not he but the when the oppressed one of the benefits of the older versions that give us the elizabethan english in which we can make a distinction between the second and third person singular and plural but the how when the oppressed enter into the line in their chamber and having shocked by door pray to the high father who was in secret here is a deliberate activity that involves going somewhere shutting out something and giving oneself to the activity

36:23 of prayer now this is not to exclude the duty and the privilege and the vast array of the kinds of prayer that can be included on the family prayers under husband wife prayers other circumstances of prayer ejaculatory prayer living in the spirit of prayer no no none of those things are being demeaned but the focus of this passage and of my exhortation is secret prayer as a specific discipline with specific

36:57 periods of time and specific places conducive to that discipline and it is jesus who establishes such a framework in these very words so then under explanation when i say that the second major means appointed by god for our spiritual strength is habitual engagement engagement in secret prayer this is what i mean by those words and i've laid out before you the biblical

37:37 basis for concocting that phrase now with respect to this appointed means of the habitual engagement in secret prayer since the whole includes all of its parts that little axiom that you learned in one of your first courses in calligraphy and magic to put together in the sentence that is used to say Bibliography because i've laid out before you the biblical basis for concocting that phrase now with or another mathematical discipline, when Jesus says in Luke 18.1, men ought always to pray and not to faint, not be discouraged or tired of engagement in a given activity.

38:18 You and I ought, we are under solemn obligation to pray. That is, to give ourselves to habitual engagement in secret prayer. And that word in 1 Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing, it's interesting.

38:38 That adverb, used three other times in the New Testament, in every usage applies directly to prayer. Romans 1.9, 1 Thessalonians 1.3, and 1 Thessalonians 2.13, pray.

38:54 Pray without ceasing. Not just with secret prayer, yes, but certainly with secret prayer as the foundation of our ability to engage effectively in all other kinds of prayer. For it is our growth or our backsliding in secret prayer that will determine our effectiveness in every aspect. There is no other kind of prayer.

39:27 There is no one who lives in the spirit of prayer, who spends his day lifting up his heart in ejaculatory prayers, who is a perpetual stranger to the closet of secret prayer. It is impossible in the integrated circuitry of the Christian life.

Demonstration: Christ's Supreme Example of Secret Prayer

39:50 Now I have begun with explanation. Now we come, secondly, to what I want to...

39:56 What I want to call demonstration, namely the supreme demonstration of the use of this God-appointed means in the person and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. The supreme demonstration of the use of this God-appointed means in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Last Lord's Day, I sought to prove that the Lord Jesus is the God-man. He assimilated the scriptures in precisely the same way that we do, Isaiah 50 and verse 4.

40:34 So today I want to demonstrate the same principle with respect to his habitual engagement in secret prayer. And here, as we were reminded in the previous hour, we must gaze into the blinding brilliance of the mystery, of the person of Christ. While on the one hand, he fully possessed a nature of undiluted deity, so he had a second nature of undiluted and unaugmented humanity.

41:19 While possessing the dignity, the power, the rights, and majesty of the Creator, he voluntarily... He voluntarily took the posture, the vulnerability, and the dependantness of a creature.

41:38 Now you're going to let that sink in for a minute?

41:42 While fully possessing, not relinquishing, while fully possessing all of the dignity, all of the power, all of the rights, and all of the majesty of God the Creator, he voluntarily... He voluntarily took the posture, the vulnerability, and the dependantness of the creature.

42:12 If anything marks the Creator, it is utter, total independence. The old theologians called it the aseity of God. If you come across an old writer and he speaks of the aseity of God, what he is saying is God don't need nothing from anybody. He is utterly, totally glorified.

42:33 gloriously complete in himself. So when you hear woolly-headed people writing songs and twanging guitars, God was so lonely, had to make a man, you just rise up and say, shut your mouth with your blasphemy and smash your CDs. And if any of you listen to that kind of garbage, I hope you go home and throw it out.

42:57 God was gloriously and blissfully contented in all of the wonder of his own internal glorious triune being from all eternity. And whatever he did in creation, and whatever he purposed in the fall and redemption, it added nothing to God.

43:20 Only God can satisfy God, and God had God from all eternity.

43:25 He didn't need anything else.

43:30 But the creature, if total independence, is synonymous with God, then synonymous with creature is utter dependence. The scripture says, in him we what? We live, we move, we have our very being. He gives to all life and breath and all things.

43:56 Whether you acknowledge it or not, every breath you've drawn in this building this morning was the gift of God your creator. And any breath you draw to you, God! God is his gift. He gives life and breath and all things.

44:14 Colossians says in Christ, all things adhere, they hold together. And in the mystery of what we know, the little we know, of the energy bound up in the atoms that constitute our being, and something of the frightening terror when men learned how to unleash that power that was there. They didn't create it. They simply had controlled unleashing of that power.

44:39 What keeps any one of us from becoming a veritable mass of atomic bombs and blowing into a billion pieces? It's Jesus Christ. In him all things hold together.

44:55 They're not sheer, abstract, physical laws that cause it to be so. It is the personal, imminent presence and power of Jesus Christ.

45:08 Now, think of it. He who partakes fully, of all of the undiluted independence of Godhead, takes to that Godhead, without relinquishing the Godhead, takes to that Godhead true humanity, a human soul, a human body, and the human dependantness, human vulnerability, human weakness. Jesus, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by a well.

45:45 Jesus, so weary that on a turbulent sea he's taking a nap when the boat is filling with water. You talk about someone drugged with sleep, bone-weary. He who keeps the universe from just exploding out to infinity, so weary that he's got to take a nap amidst a turbulent sea and he has to be shaken to be awakened.

46:18 That's the mystery. But now, I haven't lost my track. I'm right on track.

46:26 There is no clearer expression of the felt acceptance of creaturely dependence than the exercise of prayer.

46:40 And therefore, if Jesus is the perfect man, the God-man, yes, but the God-man who voluntarily chooses to take the posture of real creature, the God-man who is the God-man, and the God-man who is the God-man, and the God-man who is the God-man, then surely we should expect in Jesus eminent prayerfulness. And we are not disappointed.

Jesus' Prayer Life in the Gospel of Luke

47:11 And what I want you to do is to open your Bibles with me and with very little comment, I want you to see how in the Gospel of Luke alone there are no fewer than nine explicit references to Jesus' praying and two inescapable inferences that he was praying. He was praying in one Gospel record. Tighten your seatbelt and just follow them through and pray, Lord, help me to feel the impress of this cumulative testimony of the Word of God. We're looking at the supreme demonstration of the use of this God-appointed means.

47:46 The first reference is in Luke chapter three in conjunction with our Lord's baptism. Luke chapter three and verse 21. Now it came to pass when all the people were baptized that Jesus also having been baptized and praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove and came upon him. He is praying.

48:17 The fascinating thing to ask and seek to answer from the scriptures, what was he praying for? But I pass over that hopefully for another time. He was praying. So that his inauguration into his official identity as the anointed one, as Messiah, to take up his task is shrouded in this context of our Lord unashamedly praying.

48:47 And then in chapter four, verse 42, we read, and when it was day after an evening of healing beyond sunset, a short night of sleep, he came out and went to a desert place in the multitude, sought after him and came to him and would have stayed him. The parallel passage, clearly the same incident described by Mark in Mark 1.35 says that he was a great while before day, went out into a desert place and there prayed, there prayed. He who was healing all manner of sickness and disease the night before.

49:24 And people get the idea, well, he was doing this because he was reaching, as it were, with this huge unseen dipper into the resource, of his divine nature and the divine nature that can speak worlds into being can speak away leprosy and and all forms of sickness. No, no. The scripture is clear that his ministry of healing was accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit. The same way any one of his servants is a servant, accomplishes anything in his name and in his cause.

49:57 He took the posture of dependant ness and the spirit was the agent who empowered him for his miracles and therefore not leaving the posture of dependant ness. He is found early the next morning praying, seeking fresh strength and supplies of wisdom from his father in the secret place. Chapter 5 and verse 16. Chapter 5 and verse 16.

50:25 He has healed a man of leprosy. His fame is spreading through the whole region. What does Jesus do? But he withdrew himself.

50:31 In the desert. In the desert. In the desert and prayed, withdrew and prayed. He did not withdraw to exalt and rejoice in what he had accomplished, but to pray and no doubt the prayers were suffused with thanksgiving.

50:50 As we find in several other passages, Jesus giving thanks to his father. But the focus is upon the fact that he prayed. Chapter 6 and verse 12. And it came to pass.

51:03 In those days that he went out into the mountains to pray and he continued all night in prayer. Notice not to himself but to God. Here was Jesus. I say it reverently because we're in that blinding mystery of the two distinct unmixed natures joined in the one person.

51:32 In the full embrace of voluntary dependence. In the full embrace of voluntary dependence. contentness with human weakness and human necessity he prays all night in the light of the great crisis of decision that is before him in the selection of the 12 i say again he doesn't just say now father before i go to sleep you'll excuse me while i take the dipper of my humanity and reach into my divine nature and there pull out the names of those whom you have chosen to bypass all of the wrestlings and prayerfully assessing my inner circle and who of that

52:14 circle should be set apart for apostleship no that would be to leave the posture of true humanity and that he would not do and independent as he prays even all night chapter 9 verse 18 chapter 9 and verse 18 and it came to pass as he was praying apart you see the apartness the secretness of his prayers emphasized so often in these passages it came to pass

52:52 as he was praying apart the disciples were with him and he asked them apparently this deep exercise of prayer had to do with the time of prayer and the time of prayer and the time of prayer and the of the disclosure of his true identity to his inner circle with increasing clarity and the now explicit announcements that in his identity as Messiah and Son of God he had to suffer and be killed and be raised again the third day. It was prayer that in the context seemed to be precipitated by the dependent creature

53:29 desiring to know the will of the all-wise Father with respect to critical elements in his ministry. And I say again, he does not ladle into his divine omniscience. He keeps the posture of dependantness and he is a part praying. Then further on in the chapter, verse 28, and it came to pass about eight days after these sayings that he took with him Peter and James, and John, and went up into the mountain.

54:06 That was his intention, not to teach, not to preach, not to have R&R. He went up to pray. There was something overcoming his soul with a heightened sense of his dependantness and it drove him to pray. And as he was praying, the context would seem to indicate it was the growing pressure of the realization of what was coming.

54:32 At Jerusalem, and in this marvelous thing we call the Mount of Transfiguration, God is going to give this final verbal attestation from heaven and this visible demonstration of his true identity. And he lets something of the glory of his divine nature break through the thin veil of that humanity. And then the Father speaks out of heaven those words of approbation, but they come in answer to his prayers. And then chapter 11 and verse 1.

55:06 Didn't know Luke said so much about Jesus praying, did you? And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased. You see, this was not ejaculatory prayer, this was not the spirit of prayer. This was specific engagement in a season of prayer that had a beginning, middle, and an end.

55:29 And the disciples knew when it was ended. And out of it came the Holy Spirit. And out of it came their request that they might be taught to pray. And then in chapter 22, we know from the parallel passage in John that after he institutes the Lord's Supper, they sing the last Hallel song, that as he goes out over the brook Kedron, he prays John 17.

55:53 Isn't it interesting? His last extended, quote, discourse ringing in the years of the 11 was his high priestly prayer. The last intimate, personal interaction of their Lord before he goes to all the shameful mock trials at Annas' and Caiaphas' place and before Herod and Pilate and back to Pilate. He doesn't preach to them.

56:22 He prays. He lets his disciples see him in the posture of utter dependantness upon his Father. And then when he goes into his ordination, he prays. He prays.

56:36 Jesus prayed at the table with a great till. Do you remember the deal? Do you remember Gethsemane, if ever anyone ever prayed? It was Jesus who prayed.

56:49 Luke 22 and verse 39 and following. Luke 22, 39 and following. And he came out and went as his custom was to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him and when he perished. And when he was at the place he said to them, Pray that you enter not into temptation, you are creatures.

57:01 Further, you are something I am not. You are sinful creatures, to sin as well as creatures who need the sustaining grace and power of your creator god pray that you enter not into temptation and he was parted from them about a stone's cast he went far enough to be alone and he kneeled down and prayed saying and there's the mystery of gethsemane wherein his sanctified holy human dependentness he says if it be possible let the cup pass surely he knows in

57:42 his omniscience and in his divine mind this was ordained from eternity yes but gethsemane focuses upon jesus embracing humanity in all of its vulnerability and weakness and saying in essence my father this cup will crush me if i drink it book of hebrews says that he prayed with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death he said my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death jesus said as to his

58:19 vulnerable weak humanity my father the cup if i drink it it will crush me and kill me if there's another way may it pass that's vulnerable weak dependent humanity at prayer and then when he goes to the cross what does he do from his cross he prays look at luke chapter 23 and verse 34 luke 23 and verse 34 and jesus said this is a prayer father forgive them for

59:00 they know not what they do is he not god does he not have authority to forgive sins wasn't that part of the scandal when he said to a certain man son your sins be forgiven you here in the posture of dependent mess in the vulnerability of creatureliness he prays father forgive them his disposition is one of no auditorium no simple vindictive lifts farther forgive them but they know not what they do many praise again from the cross we know from the parallel passage is before

59:37 His last prayer, he prays in the abysmal, dark horror of the heaven shrouded and his soul sunk into the pangs of hell. This is a prayer. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You see, the idea that Jesus, well, why didn't he just take the ladle and dip into his divine mind where all the mysteries of imputed guilt are fully known and fully understood?

60:09 Why did he not dip in, as it were, to all the resources of his divine mind and draw comfort? Why leave himself thrust under the terror of forsakenness? Because that was the posture of real humanity.

60:25 No one will be that for you if you don't repent.

60:31 He did woe and abandonment and he took that posture and felt the full weight of it. And cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And his last words from the cross were words of prayer. Luke chapter 23 and verse 46.

60:55 And after the veil of the temple is rent, Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, it's a prayer of committal. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. The last thing he did on the cross. Now I ask you, and this is just a survey of one gospel with very little comment.

61:23 Any one of those passages is worthy of the exposition of Spurgeon and Whitfield and Hendrickson and Professor Murray and Warfield and Calvin and every exegete combined. And then we can only skirt the edges of the truth contained in them. But one thing is clear.

61:43 One thing is clear. This. This profusely attested pattern of Jesus as a man in whom habitual engagement in secret prayer is so undeniably evident. Do you get the message?

61:58 With no indwelling sin to struggle with. With no confession and penitence to engage in. Possessed of a divine nature capable at any moment, if it were the Father's will, to speak into existence. Existence of a thousand more universes.

62:19 How does Luke record our blessed Lord? A man in creaturely dependantness. Imposing upon himself all the dependantness, vulnerability, weakness of the creature. And his prayers were real dependantness and felt weakness.

62:43 Engaging God. For the appearing. For the attaining of strength.

The Parallel: Christ's Dependence and Our Own

62:50 Now do you see the tremendous parallel? I hope you begin to see it. Jesus in John 5, 19 said words that I hope will have a ring of familiarity. Look at them.

63:01 John 5 and verse 19.

63:06 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, verily, verily, whenever he had an extremely important statement to make, particularly in John's gospel, you have the double. Amen, amen, what again the theologians call the asseverations of Jesus, verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself. Does that sound familiar? The Son can do nothing of himself.

63:42 Udonatai. The Son not is able to do anything of himself. Without me, you can do nothing. Very similar construction in the Greek.

63:58 Without me, you can do nothing. The Son can do nothing of himself. And how does the Son manifest his conviction? That all of the wisdom and all of the strength and all of the power to do what the Father wants him to do is in the Father?

64:18 By going around the world. And saying, all my strength is in the Father, hallelujah. All the strength is in the Father, hallelujah. No.

64:26 He becomes eminently the man of prayer. Because for Jesus as the Son of Man, prayer was the divinely appointed means for obtaining the strength. Now God looks at you and me and says, who do you think you are? Brethren, my dear sisters, preparing this sermon, I have been buried in shame.

64:59 At my arrogance. At my undetected pride. At my creaturely confidence. Not manifested in a swagger.

65:11 Not in the boast that I am the captain of my own soul, the master of my own fate. But in my pathetic prayer life. If I really believed I was what God says I am as a creature, and add to that which Jesus did not have, what I am and what I do as a sinner. How do we think we can live without habitual engagement in secret prayer?

Application: Do You Have Habits of Secret Prayer?

65:49 I've given you explanation of my words, demonstration of the great example, and I close very briefly with application. And the application I want to make, is simply in the form of a question. A very simple question. And I want you to answer as honestly as you'd have to answer if God were to summon you into his presence in the day of judgment and ask you the question.

66:21 And there'd be no blowing God off with smoke. There'd be no fooling God. You know you'd have to answer truly. Here's the simple question.

66:32 Do you have, right now, do you have habits of secret prayer? I didn't say do you have a perfect, uninterrupted, never disrupted, always even, consistent, and ever...

66:50 I didn't add all the qualifiers. I'm just asking a simple question. Do you have habits of secret prayer? I'm not sure.

67:00 Okay, let me help you. I know you all have habits of getting dressed, at least for Sunday morning. There ain't a one of you here in your pajamas. Not a one of you here in your nightgown.

67:14 Why? You've got habits to get your Sunday go-to meat and clothes on before you come to church. Right? Anyone want to argue with me?

67:25 Stand up and show me your pajamas. Stand up and show everyone. You got no habits for getting dressed Sunday morning. Most of you have habits about when you're going to leave the house.

67:35 That's why the vast majority of you here got pretty close on time. Do you have habits? Do you have habits of eating? Well, yes.

67:45 Most of the moms know what's going to be for the meal this afternoon. Some of it's already in the oven. Maybe the timer's already cut it off and all the rest. Do you have habits of eating?

67:55 You don't need to ask and say, Well, I'm not sure I could ask. I ask you, do you have habits of dressing? Habits of personal hygiene? Oh, yes, I take my shower in the afternoon and night.

68:05 I take in the morning, whatever. Do you have habits of work, recreation? Yes. Well, come off all the blowing of things.

68:13 Blowing of smoke into your own eyes. Do you have habits of secret prayer? Yes or no? Yes or no?

68:22 Answer out loud. But answer in your own conscience. And then be prepared in the presence of God to defend your answer with facts. Not good intentions and broken resolutions.

68:38 But to be able to say yes this past week as an ordinary pattern at such and such a time. I was in such and such a place. Kneeling, sitting, standing, walking. The posture is irrelevant.

68:50 And I was alone with God. I had shut the door. And I was praying to my Father in secret. Can you say that?

68:59 If not, I ask you a very simple question now. Just two words. Why not? You say, Pastor, I don't like it when you do that.

69:14 You ask questions and look us in the eye and then pause. I know some of you don't like it. But I'm not here in a popularity contest. I'm committed to try to get you safely to heaven.

69:27 And to get you there in as good a shape possible to the glory of God. And dear people in an age that Owen and other men knew nothing about in terms of the demonic distractions that claw for precious time that needs to be husbanded for the secret place. We must determine that we're going to wage an all-out war on anything and everything that will keep us from having habits of secret prayer. And if it means canceling the newspaper, pulling the plug on the radio, if it means putting the TV away,

70:10 if it means putting away the telephone for everything except emerge, whatever we must do, generations have lived and died without newspapers. Generations have lived and died without telephones. Generations have lived and died without TV and videos. But no generation has lived and died godly without habits of secret prayer.

70:33 And if we in this wicked generation are to stand and having done all to stand, we've got to take Ephesians 6 seriously. For that exhortation, and I don't have time to open it up, but you can salt it this afternoon, begins with stand fast. Fast, therefore, and concludes with the capstone exhortation, with all prayer and supplication. Praying at all times in the spirit.

Warning to the Wicked and the Careless

71:10 But what about you who say, no, I don't have any habits of secret prayer, and frankly, I don't have any intention to even go home and think about it. You know what God says about you? He calls you a wicked man, a wicked woman, a wicked boy, a wicked girl. Boy or girl, man or woman.

71:27 Psalm 14.4 describes the wicked in this very simple way. The wicked who call not upon God. It is wickedness to be a creature and add to that a sinful creature who desperately needs forgiveness and grace and pardon, who needs strength and upholding mercy as a creature for you not to call upon God is the essence of demonic satan.

71:57 A satanic Lucifer-like wickedness that says, I can make it on my own. My wicked friend, repent of your wicked, your wicked devil-like pride and independence. Humble yourself and go to a place called Calvary. There in an immolated, obedient, prayerful son of God, son of man, see your only hope for life and salvation.

72:28 When God wants to comfort Ananias, that this guy Saul who'd been beaten up on God's people had really been converted, what did he say of all the things he could have said? He said, Ananias, it's all right. Acts chapter 9 and verse 11. He says, Behold, he's praying.

72:46 Ananias tips his hat and says, Lord, that's enough for me. If you'd taken that proud Pharisee that thought religion and forms and ceremonies were all he needed, you got him on his knees praying. He's all right. I'm going.

72:57 And off he went. You know what would be the indication that God had saved some of you this morning? Your mom and dad would go by your room and see the shut door and put their ear to the door and instead of hearing you or looking through the keyhole perhaps and seeing you put on your headphone and listen to your jungle hell music, they'd hear you on your knees saying, Oh, God, I've lived without you. I've lived without prayer.

73:24 I've lived without any burden of my sin. And if they said tonight, you know, Pastor, I went by the door. I went by the door. My son or daughter, they were praying.

73:35 Be one of the sure signs that you'd laid hold of Christ. Behold, he prays. If you're not praying at all, you're a wicked man, a wicked woman, a wicked boy, a wicked girl. And I call upon you to repent and seek the Lord.

73:50 And if you're a Christian and you do not have present habits of secret prayer, you are careless and backslidden and weak. And you're going to go on in that careless, backslidden, weak way. And you're going to do one of two things. You're going to get worse and worse until your carelessness and weakness will break out in open sin and apostasy.

74:08 Or, listen carefully, because you don't want to own that the fault is your own lack of habitual secret prayer, you'll start blaming the ministry that it doesn't give you the spiritual vitamins you need. There's not enough practical. There's not enough Christ. There's not enough love.

74:25 There's not enough duty. It's amazing how we can get blamed on both ends of the spectrum at one and the same time. In the course of a brief time, a short time ago in my ministry, I got laced out on the one hand for preaching nothing but duty and laced out on the other for not preaching enough duty. I said, Lord, what am I going to do?

74:49 Well, you see, in most cases, the problem is there's spiritual sickness and you don't want to own that the cause is in your own heart. Now, there can be ministries that are too much duty or not enough duty. I'm not saying this ministry is perfect. Nor am I saying that I do not welcome loving, constructive criticism and input about this ministry.

75:11 And many of you here can witness that that is a fact. That when you've come and sought to bare your heart, you've not been met with magisterial rebuff. But some of you need to face the fact you're in the state you're in, not because of defects in the ministry, but because of the absence of habitual engagement in secret prayer. When you wantonly neglect God's means for your spiritual health, your spiritual impoverishment is God's chastisement for your own arrogance and pride.

A Personal Commitment and Final Exhortation

75:46 I have cried to God on the threshold of this year and said, Lord, if I see the end of 1997, there's two things I want. If nothing else is true of me, I want to say that my personal heart communion with Christ has never been more real and vital and rich than in any period of my life. And secondly, I want to have a good conscience that I have grown in the discipline of habitual engagement in secret prayer. And now I'm going public, and that makes every one of you someone who can come to me at the end of the year and say, has God answered your two prayers?

76:31 Where are you this morning? I believe God is dealing with us on these issues, dear people. And we've got to do one of two things. Say, oh, well, the heat will go off.

76:42 Pastor Martin will get it out of his gut and then we'll get on to something. My friend, what a horribly wretched perspective. Don't you want to know God better? Don't you want to know more of the grace and strength and power of Christ in every facet of your life, in every sphere of duty?

76:59 Then you'll know it as you take God's means, these private means, the disciplined assimilation of the scriptures and the habitual engagement in secret prayer. Let's pray. Our Father, you know each of our hearts in your holy presence. And we beg of you that out of your perfect knowledge of our hearts, you would have deep and lasting dealings with every one of us.

77:42 May your word be a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. May it be to others the song of Gilead. May it be to us what you know we need. And may we not be found as those who stiff-arm your voice speaking through the scriptures.

77:59 Help us. Oh, help us individually. Help us as a church that in the coming days, with all of the growing opportunities and challenges, we may be marked as a people who love the secret place. God, do a new thing for every single member of this assembly that will bring us to the end of this year more acquainted with you in the secret place.

78:26 Help us to know what the price is for each one of us in the individuality of our own lives. Give us grace. Help us. We throw ourselves upon your mercy, asking you to seal your word to our good and to your glory.

78:44 Amen.