Thank you, brother. Good morning. A little low on number this morning. Some still coming in. Remember these prayer requests. Okay, I'll announce this. Preacher, pastor announced it Wednesday. Our senior saint's breakfast with the pastor has moved to the last Thursday morning of every month. So just remember that. There's a sign-up sheet out there, be it Hoyts. I know the reason we haven't been to Hoyts before is because on the last Tuesday, they always have another group that's there every week, every month. So we couldn't do that. So we're going to try them out. And we may just stay there if that works out good. Anyway, if you can come, come to that, good fellowship and everything. We're going to finish up or try to finish up lesson number 9 and we're on, let me get my clicker out, I hope it's still working. The Disciples' Silence, number 3. The disciples silenced. I don't know why they don't put the number on the screen sometimes. I'd go in there and do it, but I didn't do it on this lesson. So we're going to read Matthew chapter 26 and verse 40 and Mark chapter 14 and verse 37. Of course, we're talking about the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane and the disciples falling asleep. That's what this lesson is about. So Matthew 26 and 40, And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What could ye not watch with me one hour? And then Mark 14, And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch one hour? Jesus had brought these three disciples further along into the garden than he did the rest of them and asked them to pray with him as he went on a little further as we studied in the lesson. And he went back to check on them twice and they were asleep both times. And Matthew and Mark state that Jesus singled Peter out for reproach. What could you not watch with me one hour? And for once, as we said earlier, Peter had nothing to say. Usually he comes back with something and wishes he hadn't said it. But this time, I guess he did the smart thing and not said anything. But A on this is the heaviness was strong. And we know, well, if you are fortunate enough that you can read your Bible any time of the day and you never get sleepy, that would be a great thing. But I would assume that it makes everybody sleepy to some point and that you have experienced that unless you just don't get sleepy when you read. That's good too. But so if reading makes you sleepy, the Bible is a good thing to read, but we have to Pray this is something about praying. I said reading prayer makes you sleepy, too So it is a we said last week how that we need to recognize the importance of the matter of prayer But Matthew 26 43 says and he came and found them asleep again for their eyes were heavy Mark 14 40 and when he returned he found them asleep again for their eyes were heavy neither wish they what to answer him So, that time he just let him sleep. He just said, sleep on. But you know, they missed something by not staying alert when he asked them to pray. Of course, certainly they missed out on hearing Jesus pray. being able to witness what he had prayed about. The Bible tells us he wasn't that far away. And maybe far enough away they couldn't hear the words that he spoke, but certainly they could see the dedication, Jesus' dedication to prayer to the Father. And then the son pouring out his very heart to the Father. just how in-depth his prayer was. And they missed overhearing his example of total surrender, not my will but thine be done. And then number four, they missed an opportunity to later discuss among themselves the things the Lord had been teaching them. And that's one thing that we need to do more is talk about what the Lord has done for us. We talk about our lives anything might come in our lives what's important but what God has done for us is very important and we should rehearse those things as well especially our testimony of our salvation and they missed that opportunity to revel in the privilege that they had to be that close you know think about the difference now had they been there And they prayed and they witnessed Jesus, how they say, wow, I can't believe I got to see that, I got to hear that. But instead, they'd almost rather not think about it. Because they didn't follow through with what Jesus asked them to do. You ever had those situations in your life where you know you need to do something for the Lord and you fail to get it done? You don't want to go back, you don't rehearse that with anybody, do you? You don't want to and you shouldn't. You discourage somebody. But what about those times when the Lord asked you to do something, he helped you to do that, and you got it done? Or you can go back and say, well, just see what the Lord, let me tell you what the Lord allowed me to do. Let me tell you what the Lord helped me to do. And that's encouraging to us and encouraging to those that we're talking with. One unavoidable aspect of missed opportunities is that we may not even realize some missed opportunities. And, of course, we see the missed opportunities they had, but I think in the Bible, and one of the greatest missed opportunities that maybe we don't think about too much, was the opportunities that Judas missed. Judas Iscariot missed after he left the supper. John 14, 27. Now, imagine as I read these verses, what if you never knew these verses? That you could never rely on these verses? You didn't have them, and you have never heard them, you didn't know them. John 14, 27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now that's a familiar verse to us, but what if we didn't know that? What if we didn't know that we have the peace of Jesus in us? And really realize that and comprehend what it means. And then John 14, 1 through 3, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also. Well, you know, Judas missed this, and of course, He missed it because it really didn't have anything to do with him. But had he listened more before that time and believed, he never believed, he heard but he never believed on the Son of God. And then John 14, 13, And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. So what do we miss when we're absent from church, when we're absent from revival, when we're absent from what God has asked us to do. Every time that happens we miss something and we may never know what it was. But it would be something that God could use to help us. One of the greatest privileges we have is the privilege of prayer. We need to be on guard that the weariness doesn't stop us from doing that. When Satan tempts us to be silent, we must remember God wants us to commune with him. Satan does not want you to pray to God. He does not want that conversation between you and the Heavenly Father because he knows that gives you power to overcome him. Psalm 55, 17, evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. Now that was David and he was, Heavily believed on prayer and in Isaiah 40 28 through 31 Hast thou not known hast thou not heard that the everlasting God the Lord the creator of the ends of the earth Faintest not neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding there sometimes and We really couldn't explain it We won't pray about something because we don't really understand how God could help us. I Well, we're not going to understand it after he helps us. But we know that he can help us if there is something bearing on our lives. He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might, he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Again, familiar verses, scripture. But we need to realize we can trust in that. That's talking to each and every child of God that he can lift us up. He can strengthen us. He can help us through our daily lives. Close fellowship and communion with God will always be a battle with the flesh. It's never going to be over. You're always going to have the battle. but just like with anything else, the more that you overcome, the more that you succeed in what you're doing, you get better at it. But it's a battle worth fighting, and the Lord will help us. And then, see, the hour which comes. Now has come the time that Jesus is about to be crucified, that Judas Iscariot is about to come and identify him to the soldiers. Matthew 26 45 sleep on now and take your rest behold the hour is at hand and the son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners the time has come for Jesus to allow himself to be betrayed by Judas Iscariot now When the disciples began to understand and when this happened, you know, seemingly everything that they had thought, everything that they were expecting was ruined. But we know now looking back at what has happened and through the Word of God, we can see that this was the plan of God the whole time. that he knew this was necessary to bring about our salvation. But put yourself in their shoes. They didn't really understand everything about it until after Pentecost, really, before they fully understood everything that Jesus had told them. And here they are, they're expecting really to follow Jesus for many, many years to come. And here he is taken away and then later crucified of course. So they were a great disappointment. And we have disappointments in our lives. Some that we share with one another some that we don't share with one another because they're too personal. But God can help us with each and every disappointment in our lives that we have. But we have to have that communion with him. Now, although the prophets had foretold the events that were about to unfold, and Jesus was prepared to go all the way, Peter, James, and John must have looked back and wished they had watched and prayed with Jesus as he asked them to. Again, they didn't realize the importance of the hour. Luke finishes his account with Jesus saying, why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. And that's equally true for us today. Prayer can keep us away from temptation. And that's exactly what we should do, that's what Jesus did when he was tempted by Satan, was to pray to the Father. But instead, what do we try to do? We try to battle the temptation on our own. And we don't even include our greatest help, which is God the Father. John 9 and 4 says, I must work the works of him that sent me, While it is day, the night cometh when no man can work. 1 Peter 4, 7. But the end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer. So we've read the end of the book right. We know what's going to happen, but we still have to get through that time. So we need help to get through that time. We know the end exactly. But we don't know when that is, and we don't know everything we're going to go through before that gets here. So we need the prayer to help us. Now we're familiar with the term being called to preach. Now if a man said, well, I'm not called to preach, we'd understand what that meant, and we'd just take his word. But people use that terminology for so many things. Well, I'm not called to... They say something like it's not their calling. Or singing, you know, just not my calling. Or witnessing, that's just not my calling. But God clearly tells us to do both. Now, that doesn't mean you have to get up here and sing a solo. But we have congregations singing. And you can sing unless you're trying to be loudly bad, if I put that adverb and verb correctly. it'll blend in. As bad as you might think it is, it'll still blend in because there's so many voices together. And so we sing as a praise to the Lord and a worship to the Lord. Remember you're singing with the voice that who gave you? God. He knows what's going to come out of your mouth. And we all have Basically, different levels of ability. Some people can sing very well, but can't follow the piano. Some people can follow the piano great, but they can't sing very well. And some people can do both. And some people are very, very good at singing. But when we sing to the Lord and it is a godly song, it will lift us up and God enjoys hearing that. And witnessing is something also that we're commanded to do. Are there some better at it than others? Of course there is. But still we can do it and we are commanded to do it. There's nobody that's not called to witness. Some people have more opportunities. And I know some people are better at speaking, but we can tell people what God did for us. Christ has called us into the ministry of prayer with Him. I don't think I've ever heard that prayer is not my calling. But we don't use it as much as we should use it. It won't always be easy to fulfill his command and we'll find ourselves battling fatigue and Satan himself. We must realize we can still choose to follow and obey. We can still pray. If we fall asleep, pray again later. But we miss something when we don't attempt to pray, when we don't pray. What do we miss? I don't know. But we miss because we don't have that communion with God that we need to have. With Christ's help, we can accomplish that task that He commanded of every believer, to draw close to God and pray without ceasing. We can experience the richness and renewal of time spent with Him. Well, I figured we'd finish this lesson a little early. We're going to be out of town next week. Don't want to go into the next lesson, but I do want to give you the scriptures from when we're back. If you'll write these scriptures down and read these scriptures, you can be prepared for that lesson. So I'll give you all some time to pray, fellowship, whatever, and just remain quiet for this class over here. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity you've given us, Lord. Lord, we thank you for the power of prayer, the opportunity of prayer, the privilege of prayer. Lord, help us all to do a better job of that. And Lord, we all have our ways of communicating with people. And Lord, but we can all communicate with you. And Lord, you're open, you're ready to listen. Let us do that, Lord. And let us seek your wisdom through prayer, your help through prayer. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.