All Sermons

Teach Us to Pray Part 4 By John McCallum

Ephesians chapter six, we've already had some reference to that in our first session this morning concerning the armor of God.
Ephesians chapter six, and I want to read for us from verse 10 to verse 20 from that chapter.
Ephesians chapter six, and reading from verse 10.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled
around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness
in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness
that comes from the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith
with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows
of the evil one.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God, and pray in the spirit
on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying
for all the saints.
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth,
words may be given me, so that I will fearlessly
make known the mystery of the gospel,
for which I am an ambassador in chains.
Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.
Amen.
Let us turn this morning to the gospel according to Matthew.
Chapter 26, and our text is in verse 41.
Matthew chapter 26 at verse 41.
Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Now as we read the gospels, we find that there are
several places where in his teaching, the Lord Jesus Christ
teaches concerning prayer.
We can think, for example, of the sixth chapter
of this gospel of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount,
where Christ, you remember, forbids his disciples
to pray as the heathen and the hypocrites.
And then he says, but when you pray, pray after this manner.
And then he teaches them, you remember, the form of prayer,
the Lord's model prayer.
We read in, you remember, the gospel of Luke,
of how he taught a parable that men
ought always to pray and not to faint.
We read of how he responded to the disciples' request,
Lord, teach us to pray.
And we have in those portions of scripture from Christ
a recurring theme where he was addressing his disciples
concerning not only the importance of prayer,
but the pattern of prayer, because he knows that we need
to be reminded both of the importance
and of the method of prayer.
In other words, there is a right way and a wrong way
to do everything in life.
And in the realm of Christian things, there is a right
and a wrong way to do things.
There's a right and a wrong way to read the Bible.
There's a right and a wrong way to pray, and so on.
And we find this emphasis, this teaching on prayer.
We find it in the preaching of the prophets
in the Old Testament.
They were continually urging the people of God
to return from their wicked ways and to seek God's face
and to call upon the name of the Lord.
We have the psalmists recording not only their own
experience of prayer, but urging the people
to rejoice with them and to praise God with them
and to articulate prayer to God and so on.
You have the same thing in the writings of the apostles.
The apostles says in 1 Thessalonians five at verse 17,
pray without ceasing.
We were reading in Ephesians chapter six at verse 18,
praying in the spirit with all prayer and supplication
and for all the saints and for me.
And you have it in other places also,
as well as in the scriptures, you have not only teachings
concerning prayer and commandments to pray,
but also examples.
The Old Testament has several examples of very full prayer.
Abraham's prayer, Daniel's prayer, Nehemiah's prayer.
You have the apostle Paul reminding us
in the Acts of the Apostles of how he prayed
and in his epistles, how he continually was making prayer
for his converts and so on.
And so the Bible has a great deal to say about prayer.
And what we have before us in our text this morning
is Christ in the midst of his own prayer,
an example of him praying,
which we have been considering rather briefly
for the past number of occasions.
We find him now teaching his disciples concerning prayer.
And he says, watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation, the spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak.
And what I want to do on this particular occasion now
is having looked in broad outline, not exhaustive details,
there are things in the experience of Christ in Gethsemane
with regards to prayer that we haven't even touched on.
But what I want to having looked at it briefly and broadly,
to look now at Christ addressing his disciples
and bear in mind, it is his disciples that he is addressing
when he speaks in verse 41.
And by implication, that means that what he said then
applies to those of us who are his disciples now.
And what was relevant and indeed needful
for those disciples on that occasion,
in principle, and we shall see in a moment,
in principle, it is equally needful for the Church of God
in all ages and in all places.
This text therefore is relevant for you and for me
in Warner's Bay this particular Lord's Day 1995.
And so I want us again to be encouraged
and instructed to pray in the light of these words
in verse number 41, watch and pray.
Now notice that the Lord Jesus Christ in this verse,
he is linking two things together.
He is linking watching and prayer,
and prayer and watching.
And the danger is that because that we are considering
the subject of prayer, that we would isolate a prayer
and simply preach on the subject of prayer in verse 41.
But the Lord is not simply speaking
about prayer in isolation.
He is speaking about prayer in the context of watchfulness.
And he is not simply speaking of watching
and being alert to spiritual realities
and spiritual dangers.
He is saying that in our watchfulness concerning
these things, be sure also that we are engaging
in the activity of prayer.
So he's linking together watchfulness and prayerfulness,
because that is what he himself is exemplifying
in the garden of Gethsemane.
And that is what in fact he is asking us to do.
And so he is asking us really in a sense
to follow his example as he is now before those disciples,
sung a little way off within their vision
and within their hearing, himself engaging in prayer.
He comes to them now and in verse 41 he is urging them
in a sense to do what he himself is doing
on this particular occasion.
And so that's the general context
and that's the general way in which we're to understand
this particular exhortation in verse number 41.
And so for our encouragement
and indeed edification this morning,
I want us to make some general comments
about this verse in particular.
And then later on this evening, God willing,
we should look finally at another example
of our Lord Jesus Christ in prayer.
You remember on the cross of Calvary itself
in the gospel of Luke chapter 24,
where he prayed,
Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
And that also is a prayer of Christ,
which has a great deal to tell us,
not only about his prayer life,
but about the prayer life that we ourselves ought
to be following as we are followers of Christ.
But we turn this morning to this text,
verse 41, watch and pray.
And there are several things it seems to me
that we should emphasize in relationship
to this particular text.
And the first thing is that I want us to notice
the note of urgency,
a deed with which Christ evidently gives this exhortation
or indeed an imperative to his disciples,
because the whole context as we have seen
of the Garden of Gethsemane is one of conflict,
it is one of tension,
it is one in which there are great issues at stake,
there are great decisions that must be ratified
and clarified, not only on the part of Christ,
but also on the part of the disciples of Christ.
And so what I'm saying therefore is that when Christ
gives to us this commandment, this imperative,
it is something that he does so with a sense of urgency.
In other words, when he says here, watch and pray,
this doesn't come to us in some casual relaxed atmosphere,
it comes to us in an atmosphere that is charged
on the one hand with the powers of darkness unleashed
against the cause of God in the world,
but on the other hand in an atmosphere
in which the cause of God and the cause of righteousness
is unleashed into the world that is dominated
by the powers of darkness.
And so it is in this tremendous moment of confrontation
that Christ comes and speaks to his disciples,
watch and pray that you enter not into temptation and so on.
Now, and we should remember this also,
that when Christ comes with this sense of urgency,
he is giving to us an imperative and this is a commandment
and this commandment has all the authority
of any other commandments.
I think that as we read the scriptures,
we must be on the alert for the various moods of the verbs.
I'm not asking us that we all be Greek scholars
or anything like that, but the point is this,
that there are indicative and there are imperatives
and there are other moods as well.
But the point is that here we have an imperative
and so Christ is not saying to his disciples,
I know that you do watch and pray
or I hope that it would be a good thing
if you would occasionally watch and pray.
He is coming with a commandment.
This is something that we must absolutely do.
We must watch and we must pray together,
watching and to pray and praying
with an alertness and a watchfulness.
And I'm emphasizing those things
because as we read the scriptures,
we should be on the alert for those indicative
where God is telling us of what he is doing for us.
And on the other hand, those imperatives
where God is commanding us to do things for God.
And we must know the difference between those two.
And here Christ is asking us to do something
and there is no one can do this watching
and praying for us but ourselves.
And if I for example will not watch and pray in obedience
to this commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ,
then there is no one else can ever watch for me
or pray for me.
It is something that I must do for myself
and it comes therefore with this tremendous sense
of urgency.
Now when Christ comes then with this urgency,
we should remember that he is speaking
out of a sense of compassion for his disciples.
He understands perfectly the difficulties
of their circumstances.
He knows how tired they are.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
It is now late at night
or in the early hours of the morning.
They have had a long day, they've had a long week
and they are physically tired
but they are also emotionally spent.
They are spiritually weary, they are falling asleep
as we have seen already with sorrow in their heart.
They are sad men and the Lord Jesus Christ
knows the effects of all their experiences
and all the teaching that he has given to them
in past days and in the most recent hours
in the upper room.
He is aware of the tremendous impact
that all of these things are having upon the disciples.
And yet in the midst of his own troubles,
his concern is for them.
So that when he is saying to us
with this tremendous sense of urgency to watch and pray,
he is not trying to make life hard for us.
He is not trying to add to our burdens.
There is a sense in which he's trying
to make life easy for us.
He is trying to ease the burdens
and if you and I will watch and pray,
we will find that the Christian life
will not become easy but it will become easier
than if we did not watch and pray.
The scripture has a most interesting comparison to make
between the life of righteousness
and the life of unrighteousness.
And the comparison is this,
the way of the transgressor is hard.
There are difficulties in the life of salvation
but there are far, far more difficulties
and there are more burdens to be born
in the life of unrighteousness and sin.
Sin is what makes life difficult for men and women.
And in comparison to the great truth
that the way of the unrighteous or the ungodly man
is the hard way to live.
On the other hand, the Lord Jesus Christ
in Matthew chapter 11 at verse 28 onwards
invites us to come with our burdens and our weakness.
Come unto me, all ye that are laboring
and are weary and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, learn of me.
I am meek and I am lowly in heart
and what takes place in the life of an individual
when he comes to Christ and takes the yoke of Christ
and learns to put into practice the precepts of Christ,
we find rest for our souls.
So all of these great imperatives
when God says to us, do this, do this, do this,
they are not intended to make life hard.
They are intended to give rest and ease
and to take away the burdensomeness
of the burdens of this present life.
And in our Lord Jesus Christ addressing the disciples
in this particular way,
he knows the burdens that are upon them
but he's asking them to do something in addition,
not to add to the burdens and to their sorrows
but to ease and to enable them to endure
with a measure of rest and peace for their souls
and so there is urgency.
He wants his people to have rest in their souls.
He longs for us.
He tells us this in the Gospel of John chapter 15
that his desire for us as his people
is not that we should be sad and morose
and defeated Christians but that his joy,
his joy should be fulfilled in us.
These things have I spoken unto you,
John chapter 16, the last verse,
these things have I spoken unto you
that in me you might have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world
and I tell you this as one who has lived in sin
and one who is now trying to live in righteousness
that in the world we're going to have tribulation
and there will be tribulation for the Christian believer
but there will be tribulation for the atheist
and there will be tribulation for the Christ rejecter
and the man who resists and resents the Gospel
is simply adding to the tribulations of this present time
and it is only as we believe in Christ
and listen to what Christ would ask us,
believe and ask us to do that there is the possibility
that in him we will have peace.
In the midst of our tribulations we will have peace
and there is the great danger that we will see
the terms of Christ, the teaching of Christ
in terms only of hardship and do and do and do and do
and always, always adding more and more burdens
to our lives, that is the exact opposite
of the presentation of the Christian Gospel
and so the urgency here is that these disciples
would learn a measure of rest and peace for their souls
but there's also another aspect of the urgency
with which Christ speaks and it's this.
These disciples are in danger.
These disciples are in this occasion
and on this particular experience in the garden
they are being exposed to what the Lord speaks of
in Luke chapter 22 as the powers of darkness,
this is your hour and the powers of darkness
and they are exposed.
Do you remember when in Luke chapter 22
that was already read this morning,
that Christ addressed Simon Peter
and Simon Peter is one of the ones that he's addressing here
and the Lord addressed Simon Peter and he said,
Simon, Satan has desired to have all of you
but Simon I am praying for you in particular.
Now when was it that Satan was desiring
to have those disciples and to sift them as wheat?
Was it a temporary thing?
Was it something that was in the upper room
at the institution of the Lord's Supper
and then because Christ prayed for them
that somehow or other the desire of Satan
to sift and to possess and to destroy these disciples
was something that then passed away?
No, Satan is still desiring to sift Simon
and James and John and all the disciples.
Satan is still active against the people of Christ
even as they are weary and heavy laden
in the Garden of Gethsemane.
They are exposed to danger
and they don't seem to understand the danger
that they are exposed to.
There are powers of darkness and evil abroad that night
and in that place and these disciples were quite unaware
of what was taking place in the heavenly realms
but Christ knew what was taking place
and he knew the terrible danger
that these disciples were exposed to the sifting
and the tempting of Satan.
You must watch and pray and the only thing
that stood before those disciples and apostasy that night
was the fact that Christ himself had reminded Simon,
you remember, I have prayed that thy faith fail not.
You remember Satan sifted Judas Iscariot that night
and I'm not so very sure that the sin of Simon Peter
against the Lord Jesus Christ was of any less
a serious nature than the sin of Judas
in being a thief and a betrayer of Christ
because you remember in the court
of the high priest's house, Simon Peter,
three times with oaths and curses, blasphemy, swearing,
what you and I would recognize as curses.
I don't know this so-and-so man, I don't know him.
Simon Peter was on the verge of final apostasy.
He was on the verge of perdition
and the only thing that stood between him
and lostness that night was I have prayed for you
that your faith fail not and here the Lord
is giving a sense of warning and urgency to his people
because there are around us as Christian men and women,
the apostle speaks of it in Ephesians chapter six,
there are those hosts of evil powers and wickedness
and authorities, the wiles of the devil
and who can understand the wiles
and the ways of the devil and we know them not
but these are realities and that is our conflict
and the wiles of the devil are peculiarly centered
upon the people of God and there are times
when we are very vulnerable to those evil powers
and so Christ is concerned that his people watch
and that his people pray because there are real dangers
for the people of God.
We could go on and on and on about this all day long
but the point I think has made,
there is a sense of urgency.
That's simply what I want to establish first of all.
Christ is concerned and this is something
that we must take to heart.
This is not a casual, well, do your best.
It is a commandment to you and to me, watch and pray.
That's the first thing.
There's an urgency about it but then the second thing
I want to emphasize is this.
I want us to think particularly of the temptation
that Christ has in mind.
When he says here, watch and pray
that you enter not into temptation,
that you enter not into temptation
and the temptation has to do with watching and praying
or not watching and praying.
Now there are many temptations
and we could spend a long time dealing
with the various kinds of temptations.
All kinds of temptations come to men and women
and boys and girls in the various circumstances of life
but it seems to me that when Christ is speaking here
of watching and praying,
he has in mind a particular kind of temptation
and the temptation is the temptation
not to pray in those particular kinds of circumstances,
that you enter not into temptation.
What is the deliverance from the particular temptation
that they are being subjected to on this occasion?
It is the temptation not to be watching,
the temptation not to be praying.
When they ought to be watching and they ought to be praying
and that it seems to me is something that is relevant
for you and for me from this particular perspective.
There is a danger, you see,
that despite all the information that the Bible gives to us
concerning the importance of prayer
and all the patterns and all the examples
and all the encouragements that the Bible gives to us
concerning our own practice, our implementing
of the Bible's teaching concerning prayer,
yet at the end of it all, we still will not watch.
We still will not pray.
It is one thing to be listening to sermons about prayer
and saying, yes, we should all be praying.
Well, the point is, are we then going to pray?
You see, agreeing to pray is not praying.
Reading about prayer, listening to prayer is not praying
and the danger is this, that we cannot prove of prayer
and we would never find in our minds
any argument in the least with any biblical
doctrine of prayer and yet we still will not pray
and that's the temptation, the temptation not to pray,
not to realize the actual importance
of the activity of prayer, not to recognize,
the temptation not to recognize
my individual need of prayer.
I am committing a sin if I do not watch and pray.
If the word of God again and again
tells me to do certain things
and if throughout my life I find a neglect
of those things that God says do,
I am sinning against God.
I'm sinning against my own soul.
I'm sinning against the people of God.
I'm sinning against the world
and I'm sinning against my witness to the world.
I am not doing and being what God would have me do and be
and that's the temptation it seems to me
and it's a temptation that we are all susceptible to
because how difficult it is for us
to realize the power that there is
unleashed by God in the activity of prayer.
James chapter five, you remember it, verse 16.
The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.
The temptation for you and me to imagine
that these teachings about prayer
are all just words written in a book
but they're not just words written in a book.
The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man
availes much, not because prayer does anything
but God does things in response to prayer.
Ask and you shall receive.
James says, you remember, to his readers,
you don't have because you're not asking.
You're not asking for things
and God never hears you knocking
and therefore his door is never open to you.
You're not seeking.
That's why you're not finding.
Prayer itself isn't anything.
Prayer is just speaking to God
but God responds and hears and works and answers
and God's word tells us in the Old Testament
and the New Testament alike
that God does in response to prayer
and the temptation for you and for me
is not to understand the tremendous things
that can be accomplished by prayer.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is praying in this situation
in the Garden of Gethsemane,
not to be a pious man but in order for God to overcome
and in order for God to make him willing and gladly
and clearly committed to drinking that cup
and only God can do that and that's the point, you see.
In prayer, we have a tremendous privilege.
Let us come with boldness to the throne of grace.
Do you know that there are some doors in Australia
in the high and the mighty
and they're not open to you and to me?
There's a big sign against us, keep out private property.
There are certain places in this world,
the high and the mighty.
They're not interested in you and me knocking at their door.
We will never have the privilege
and we don't want the privilege
but here is a privilege to come to God's door,
the King of Kings or the Lord of Lords, God Most High,
to come to his throne of grace.
What a privilege to come to have communication
with the God who is the living God.
I wonder if in our temptations to ignore prayer,
we are regarding prayer as a trite
and an insignificant thing.
Do you realize what God is asking you to do
when he says call upon the name of the Lord?
There are people in this world
and they're not interested in your cries.
They don't want to hear your problems.
They are not concerned about the pains
and the sorrows of our lives.
What does God's word say?
Cast all your cares upon him because he cares for you.
He wants to know the problems
and that's the temptation that Christ is asking us
to be delivered from, to be delivered from prayerlessness,
to be delivered from a low estimation of prayer,
to be delivered from a counting prayer
as a cheap and a shoddy and a casual thing.
If only we could understand the great privilege
and the great potential for our lives
that God is presenting before us when he says,
call upon me in the day of trouble.
Prayer.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached many sermons on prayer
and he has books on prayer.
And Charles Haddon Spurgeon was perhaps
one of the greatest preachers
that the Christian church has ever known
and I'm sure you all know that.
I don't need to tell you that.
Nor perhaps do I need to tell you,
but I will just to refresh our memories.
On that occasion when someone asked Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
Mr. Spurgeon, what is the secret of your ministry?
And Spurgeon's reply was, my people pray for me.
My people pray for me.
That was where the powerhouse
of the whole of Spurgeon's ministry,
and he knew, he knew better than anyone
where the secret of his ministry lay
and it was to do with men engaging in prayer
and speaking to God about the issues
of Mr. Spurgeon's preaching the word of God.
Spurgeon said, that's where it all stems from.
And in principle, that is what the Bible says
and that's what Christ is saying.
Watch and pray that you enter not
into the temptation of prayerlessness.
Now, why am I emphasizing that?
I'm emphasizing it because in this whole passage
of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane,
there is not one word about the disciples
watching and praying.
Now, I'm not saying that they didn't try to pray.
Maybe they did, I don't know.
We don't know, the scriptures have.
But we're not told that they did.
We're told that Christ was praying.
And we're told in John's Gospel
that Jesus often resorted to this place with his disciples.
And I would argue, as I've already emphasized,
that this probably does, and I would argue that it does,
that Jesus and his disciples would go
to this Garden of Gethsemane,
indeed the whole previous week,
out to the Mount of Olives,
and that they would be engaging in prayer and so on.
Now, I would argue that I wouldn't be overdogmatic on that.
But these disciples knew perfectly well
that this was a place where prayer was want to be made.
And there is no word that on this occasion
they themselves were actually praying.
Now, of course they were sleepy,
they were tired, they were weary.
But that is the whole point that our situations in life
where we mustn't allow our weariness
to deviate us from the activity of prayer.
That's the point.
That's the temptation.
There are times in life
when there is an overwhelming temptation not to pray,
and we perhaps will say, I'm too tired to pray.
This is not the time to pray when Christ is saying,
this is the very time to pray.
You see the point.
The temptation to regard prayer
as something perhaps for good, pleasant moments,
and not to regard prayer as that cry of desperation
and weakness where the issues of life and death
are really what is at stake.
We must understand something about prayer
that perhaps we don't sufficiently understand.
But Christ is understanding it perfectly well, and it's this.
We might think, and this is where some of the books
on prayer go terribly, terribly wrong, I would say.
We might think that prayer is the mark
of a strong Christian, a strong man.
I would say to you, prayer is the mark of the very opposite.
Prayer is a cry of weakness.
It's a cry of dependence.
It is a cry that recognizes that in myself, I cannot do.
I can't resolve these difficulties.
I can't do this thing.
I can't control the circumstances.
I can't undo the damage that perhaps has been done.
And so I can't overcome the world
and the flesh and the devil.
Praying to God is not a mark of our strength at all.
Praying to God is a mark of our weakness,
our creatureiness.
And these disciples were weak, the flesh is weak.
This isn't their body.
Because the Bible doesn't speak of the body
in those lowly, demeaning terms.
It speaks of flesh, and the word flesh encompasses
the whole of the fallen constitution and humanity of man.
It is my whole being that is weak.
Everything about me is weak, not just my body.
My spirit, my mind, my emotions, my faculty of choice,
everything about me is weak.
My flesh in me dwells, no good thing.
And the terrible temptation is that in times of crisis,
my flesh will just rest passively and inactively
when I should be watching and praying for God to do things,
to change me or to change my circumstances,
to overcome for me.
That is the temptation.
Watch and pray that you enter into the temptation,
not to watch and pray.
This takes me to a third point that I want to mention
this morning, and again, I know that time passes.
I'm not deliberately referring to this,
but every time I look at the watch,
it seems to have gone 15 minutes ahead.
The third point I want to emphasize is this.
There are certain implications,
not only is there urgency in this text,
and not only the particular temptation,
but it seems to me that the Lord is saying here
that there are certain implications
that we must keep in mind,
and the implications are that there are times
when it is more important for us to watch
and to pray than at other times.
Now, the Christian is to pray without ceasing.
There is to be the daily activity of prayer,
and perhaps, as we have already seen in the Old Testament,
there was the morning prayer, the noonday prayer,
and the time of the evening prayer,
but there were other times
when they gave themselves to prayer.
The ordinary prayer, at times,
must become extraordinary prayer.
There are circumstances into which we enter
where the ordinary prayer is not going to be sufficient.
There are times in life when an army
must be put on red alert, as it were.
There are times when the Christian church,
because of the times in which we live,
or the circumstances, we must be on extra alert,
extra prayer.
We read, for example, you remember how,
in Acts chapter five, Acts chapter 12 also,
where the church of God gathered together to pray,
the disciples were imprisoned,
and the whole church gathered together to pray.
We read, for example, in Acts 13,
of how when they were sending out the missionaries,
you remember, they prayed with fasting.
There are times for fasting in prayer,
according to the scriptures.
The apostle Paul, when he was making requests
for the Ephesians to pray,
for all the saints with all prayer and supplication,
and for me, don't forget to pray for me,
in order that he would open his mouth
and make the gospel plain and speak boldly,
as he ought to speak the gospel.
He makes the same kind of petition.
In Colossians chapter four, you remember,
that a door would be opened unto him.
He was asking those Christians to pray
that he would be given an access and an ear
in the preaching of the word, and so on.
And what I'm saying is that there are times
when it is more incumbent upon us to be watching
and to be praying than at other times.
Crises come in life.
When was it that David began to pray again?
It was after he had fallen into sin of murder and adultery.
We have the great penitential prayer of Psalm 51.
And it began with a recognition
when Nathan the prophet spoke to David.
David, you're the man, you are the man, David,
who has taken another man's wife.
You had all of these, the parable of the sheep,
and he went and took the poor man's only lamb.
David, you are the man.
I have sinned against the Lord.
And David began to pray again.
Now, why do I say that?
I'm saying it because David wasn't praying.
When he wandered up on his rooftop and saw the woman.
Who's the woman?
She's Uriah's wife.
Send her to me.
David had been in a backsliding condition
for a number of years.
David was about 50-odd years of age.
And with the time for kings to go to war,
David was snoring and sleeping and snoozing on his bed.
And David was indulging himself at home.
David had ceased to watch and to pray.
David was a far, far different man at the age of 55
than he had been at the age of 25.
Certain sins had begun to accumulate
and to overcome his spiritual sensitivities.
And David had to learn the hard way
that he must watch and pray because his flesh also was weak.
And the point is this, there are times in life
when the temptations come to us with renewed vigor.
There are times in life when we must watch and pray
because the devil is abroad like a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour.
The planting of new church trees
is a time to be watching and praying.
The time when God would teach us new truths
is a time to be watching and praying.
The time when trouble comes into our family circle,
when perhaps some calamity comes unexpectedly
is a time to be watching and praying.
A time when God would send a reviving, renewing
when some calamity comes into our family circle.
A time to be watching and praying
is a time when the desert rotates