It's really the verse 35 that I want to draw your attention to because it, of course, speaks of a very important and vital ministry, not only in the life of Christ, of course, but in the life of every believer. It says, In the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. A little book was published a number of years ago entitled Dear God. It was a series of children's letters that were written to the Lord. They were asked to write a letter and ask God whatever they wanted and just put it down on paper. I read some of them and some of them are quite humorous. A wee girl named Lucy She said, Dear God, are you really invisible or is that just a trick? Little Norma asked the question, Dear God, did you mean for a giraffe to look like that or was that just a mistake? Another said, Dear Lord, who draws the lines around all the various countries? Someone said, Lord, I went to this wedding. And they kissed right in church. Is that alright? Lois asked, I like the Lord's Prayer best of all. Did you have to write it a lot or did you get it right the first time? Then Peter said, I don't think it was Peter Lund now, but it was Peter. And he said, Dear God, will you please send Dennis Clark to a different youth camp this year? I don't want him You know, these little humorous remarks, and yet, although the prayers and requests of children may be very simple, there is a tremendous sincerity about them. Sometimes I think the Lord maybe is more impressed with prayers like that than with some of the praying that the believers growing up offer to Him. Children are good teachers maybe, when it comes to our praying. But of course, the greatest example of prayer in all of the Bible is the Lord Jesus himself. And our text says that in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. If you really want to know how to pray, I think we would need to look at the Lord Jesus in His prayer life. It certainly impressed the disciples over there in Luke chapter 11 and verse 1. There is a most interesting comment. It says this, Luke chapter 11 and verse 1. It came to pass that as He was praying in a certain place, when he ceased. One of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. You notice they didn't interrupt him while he was praying. It was when he ceased. But they had evidently been watching him. Their eyes were focused on the Lord Jesus as he sought his Father in prayer. It must have been very impressive. And these men, although they knew Christ well, and they could pray and no doubt every day did spend time in prayer and communion with the Lord, no question about that, yet they felt they couldn't really pray or write. I had a wee man, he was the caretaker of the church in Dunganan many years ago, And he was telling me one day that he met a man in the town centre that he hadn't seen for years. And he says to him when he met him, well Willie John, are you still saying your prayers? Willie John looked at him and he said, no, I haven't said my prayers for the last 30 or 40 years. But he says, I spend time praying every day. A big difference between saying prayers and praying. And that's true. Because folks all over the world tonight, as we meet here, there are people who are engaged in what they term prayer. You go to Islamic countries, and you will find men even walking about the streets carrying their beads, numbering and fingering their beads, and have a little wheel, the prayer wheel, and they're praying. The mosques are filled. I was in a mosque once to see it. It's quite an experience because you've got to take off your shoes, And I can tell you, when 5,000 Muslim men are in praying in the mosque, and they've all their shoes off at the door, and you follow them in, it would put you over. It's like an anesthetic. It's horrendous. I often wonder, when they come out, how they figure out whose shoes. 10,000 shoes on the ground. Who belongs to them? But they're praying. The chapels in our country and all over the world are filled with people praying. In liberal Protestant churches, there are people who gather for prayer. But the question is, brethren and sisters, is it really praying? Because if you want to know how to pray, you need to come to the Saviour. You need to watch Him. You need to take instruction from Him. A preacher of another generation said this, when the Lord Jesus came to a new town, his first thought was, what's the shortest way to the mountain? That was his priority, you see. And it should be ours. You've read the two epistles called the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy, a young preacher. And there's many wonderful exhortations that Paul gives to this young man, he says to him, preach the Word. Timothy, be instant in season, out of season, give attention to reading, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And he tells him many things, but he tells him something that's vital, he says this, I exhort therefore that first of all, supplication, prayer, intercession, giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour." Now you notice the parts of prayer, supplication, prayer, intercession, giving of thanks, but it's not the part, it's the place. First of all, Never forget something the late Pastor Mullen said. I went to hear him preach one night. I love to hear him preach. He was saying that that particular meeting was the 13th or 14th time that week that he had preached. And then he made this comment. I would like to think that I'd spent twice as long praying as I did preaching. That thought has never left my mind. We need to give attention to prayer. It needs to be first, I confess, as a preacher trying to prepare sermons every week, that that's your main thought very often. I need to get this sermon done. But what we need to do is pray, first of all. Now when they're watching Christ, the first thing is this, the first suggestion is this. This was a ritual carried out by Jesus that is scriptural. Not all rituals are bad things. Not all habits are bad habits. Well here's a good one. Christ was praying. He had a very Busy day, if you look at verses 21 through 34, all in, you'll see the day was busy. He goes to the synagogue as his custom. He was always working. Verse 33 tells us all the city was gathered together at the door. The Lord was healing the sick, ministering to the needs of the folk, spending time in the doing of this. Indeed, God's work was His passion. You'll read in Luke 2.49 that He must be about His Father's business. This compelled Christ. He wanted to work for the Father. It was why He came. But folks, rising a great while before day, we find Him praying. This is a divine precept. In verse 38 it says, Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also. For therefore came I forth." Pre-eminently, the Lord Jesus, you know, was a preacher. God had only one Son, and He made Him a preacher. The preaching is the most important part of any service, any gathering of God's children. The preaching. Ah, but listen. Before He got to the preaching, He took to the praying. That's the order, the scriptural order. The come that's involved in salvation is always followed by the call to serve. Yes, we are sons of God. The Bible calls us that. Interesting that it always refers in that word to the plural. The sons of God. Uniquely, only Christ is the Son of God. But we are gathered among the sons of God. But friends, we're not only sons, we're servants. And like the Master, we must take time to pray. The story is told of a lady. She was what was called in the States a scrub lady. That's not a bad term. It just means she was really a cleaner. An honorable task to do. Nothing wrong with that. She was known as Aunt Sophia. She was always telling the folk, God has called me to scrub and to preach. Someone made fun of her because one day they saw her talking about Jesus to a wooden Indian standing in front of a cigar store. She heard about the ridicule and she said, well, maybe I did do that. My eyesight is not as good as it used to be. But talking about Christ to a wooden Indian is not as bad as being a wooden Christian and never talking to anyone about Christ. And you know she had something, this woman. She had learned a secret. That woman knew how to pray. She might not have been able to see that well, but she was a prayer warrior and a witness. Because the God that saves you and makes you one of His sons is the God that called you to serve. And Jesus is saying here in verse 38, let us go. There's always a go in the gospel. There's always a go when it comes to preaching and to praying. And I'll tell you something else, it's not only a divine precept, it was a daily practice. The Lord just wasn't a dish you knew one day a week. They used to talk about hypocritical Christians as hanging their fiddle at the door. You know you're something on Sunday, but all the rest of the week you're not what you are on the Lord's Day. That's very sad. The Lord Jesus, folks, had a time for prayer every day. And how important it is for you and me not only to come to the prayer meeting like this, of a Wednesday night, but to have a time when we get alone with God. Our quiet time, it's called. I often wonder why it was called the quiet time. I know in the Maidaes in Ravenhill there were men, and when they started to pray, Ma and Dee could have heard them down at the shore strand. And I know of people who walked past the houses of some of these Christian folk, and they could hear them pray, unashamed, like Daniel, who opened all their windows and cried to God. Someone said once to the preacher, complaining about some fella who prayed too loud, and you know he said to the preacher, God's not deaf, you know. He can hear. And the preacher said, and he's not nervous either. And I have enough trouble getting people to pray without trying to stop them praying. But there it is, it's every day. And I'll tell you something else, folks, it's a demanding program. The work of God, the work of prayer is not easy. Everything in your flesh and my flesh rebels against praying. I am more anxious to get my sermons sorted out very often rather than getting my praying right. It's just a failure most of us have and need to own up to. God's work is difficult. I remember sitting one day, in fact several times, just counting up the men that I trained with in our college and men that I have known in the ministry over many years. Far abler men than me. Yet tonight, they're far away from God. Far away. That's tragic, but it's true. There's a preacher I could name, I'm not going to do it. And he made this confession once in a church building, a meeting. He said, you know, I haven't prayed personally in times of prayer by myself for three months. What an awful indictment on a servant of Christ Jesus. Think of it. I don't know that I could stand on a pulpit if I had to make that particular confession. It's bad enough failing my own standards, but imagine three months. You couldn't be going on with God, Fred, if you haven't sought Him for three months. No, we need to take time to pray. God's work is demanding. It takes something out of you. It says of Jesus in Mark chapter 5 that virtue went out of him. The word there is power. I tell you, it drains you. Who'd ever think that the sermons fall out of heaven and you just gather them up and you get there and that's it. There's more to it than that. And so it is with prayer. Prayer is a ministry. You need to be taught. And you need to develop. And it's demanding. Not only is it a ritual that's scriptural, there's a removal here that's sensible. The Lord Jesus Christ leaves the throne that crowded around him to get to the throne. If you're too busy to pray, man, you're too busy. Luther's old maxim stands true. I've so much to do this day, I'll have to spend the first three hours in prayer. And you should never be too busy. No one was busier in all the history of the world in the work of God than the Lord Jesus himself. But he always took time to pray. He had a busy day behind him. He had a busy day before him. But he always put prayer first of all Graham Scroggie, the famous pastor of Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, said of this event, quote, Imagine that figure quietly rising from a short sleep, waking no one, and without breaking his fast, slipping out of Peter's house, swiftly walked along the deserted streets in the early twilight, out beyond the city boundary to a slope of one of the hills overlooking the lake, or into one of the ravines and there, kneeling or walking, praying about what happened yesterday and about what would happen that day. We're told by the scholars that that time was between 3 and 6 a.m. in the morning when no one would disturb him. It's a good practice, you know, to get out of bed early to seek God. You'll get more peace that way. to get alone with God. The Lord took it for granted that Christians would pray. Enter into thy closet when thou shalt thy door. Pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee. Let's never sacrifice personal prayer time for anything else. There's a reverence here, last of all, that is spiritual. It says of our Lord Jesus Christ that He departed into a solitary place and there prayed. There's more in that expression than mere asking. It's going before God with desires for answers. It's a word for worship, in fact. Not just to get something from God, but to give something to Him. We are to worship the Lord Beloved in the beauty of holiness. We are worshippers. At least we ought to be. And sometimes we always want the gifts, but we neglect the Giver. Take time to worship Him. In Mark 1.36 it talks about those that followed after Him. Look at the text. When they had found Him, they said unto Him, All men seek for Thee. So they didn't only seek Him in verse 36, followed after Him, but in verse 37 they found Him. And here's a great thought. When you seek the Lord in prayer, you'll find Him. When you follow after Him, you'll find Him. He will not hide his face from you. The Lord Jesus was ready for the day ahead with God, for he had begun the day with God. The poet said, and I finish, I met God in the morning when my day was at its best. His presence came like sunrise, like a glory in my breast. All day long the presence lingered, All day long he stayed with me, And we sailed in perfect calmness O'er a very troubled sea. Other ships were blown and battered, Other ships were so distressed, But the winds that seemed to drive them Brought to us a peace and rest. Then I thought of other mornings, With a keen remorse of mind, When I too had loosed the moorings With the presence left behind. So I think I know the secret Learn from many a troubled way. You must seek God in the morning if you want him through the day. What about the sweet hour of prayer? Surely, with some, can we get the sweet minute of prayer, not the sweet hour of prayer.