If you read carefully the first
chapter of the Gospel according to its mark, which is the second
book of the New Testament, you will see how the Lord Jesus spent
the Sabbath day. First of all, he went to the
synagogue. We read in verses 23 to 28. And there he healed
a soul that had an impure spirit. Then he went to Peter. We read it in verses 29 to 31,
and there we see the story of the healing of the beautiful
mother of Peter. After that, in the evening, we
see him among the crowd where he healed many illnesses. We see this in verses 32 to 34.
Then, it seems that he spent the night at Peter's. and in verse 35 of the first
chapter of the Gospel of Mark, we find him the next morning.
And what does he do? I will read this verse to you. Towards the morning, while it
was still very dark, he got up and went out to go to a deserted
place where he prayed. We will stop a little here today
to talk about prayer. And I have three things to tell
you about prayer. First, it is necessary. If Christ, the Son of God, felt
the need to spend time alone in prayer, shouldn't we do the
same? Yet it is something that many
of us don't like to do. We would say, we don't have the
time, we have too many other things to do. But our day is
not more charged than that of the Lord. And yet, he finds time to pray,
and he gets up very early to do it. And there are three things
in prayer. First of all, it is communion. It is the place where man can
enter into direct communion with God. And he does it only through
Jesus Christ. that is, by basing ourselves
solely on the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his work
on the cross of Calvary. Note that the Bible leaves no
room for prayers to the saints, or prayer to God based on the
merits of another person other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Prayer must be addressed to God
alone by the merits of Jesus Christ. Prayer is also an adoration,
because it is in prayer that we enter into the presence of
God to worship Him. Oh, how beautiful it is to worship
God directly in prayer, and that is what God asks of us. Prayer is also a request, because
it is in prayer that we can place our requests before God. Of course, I know that there
are many people who think that prayer is nothing more than requests. When they pray, they do nothing
but ask God for things. But prayer is much more than
that. It is a place of communion, of
worship, and of prayer. We see in this verse 35 of the
first chapter of the Gospel of Mark that prayer requires an
effort from us. We see that the Lord Jesus got
up very early in the morning. while it was still very dark,
and he went to a deserted place to pray. Certainly for the Lord
it was not easy to get up early in the morning to pray. Remember
that the Lord had spent a very busy Sabbath day. He was a man
like us, and he was certainly very tired. But despite his fatigue,
he got up early to go pray. Do you know this effort of prayer? Or, for you, prayer is nothing
more than a way out of your problems? You pray when you are in need,
but prayer is not part of your ordinary day. Thirdly, we see in this passage,
Mark 1, verse 35, that prayer is something intimate, because
we read that the Lord went out to go to a deserted place where
he prayed. In a deserted place. Alone with God. There are people
who, when they pray, prefer not to be alone. They prefer to go
to churches where there are a lot of people, or to a prayer meeting
where they get up to pray. They like others to see them
or hear them in prayer. When the Lord Jesus was on earth,
he condemned the people who did this. He even called them hypocrites,
because he said to them in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6,
verse 5, When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who like
to pray standing in synagogues and in the corners of the streets
to be seen by men. And then he continues, and he
says to them, But when you pray, Go into your room, close your
door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place.
And your Father, who sees in the secret, will give it to you.
This is the intimacy of prayer, and we have an example of this
in the life of our Lord Jesus. To conclude today, I would like
to ask a question that I find very important. Here it is. Who has the right to pray? To answer this question, I invite
you to look in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, and from
verse 9. There we have the instructions
of the Lord Jesus on the subject of prayer. This is where he teaches
us this beautiful prayer, which we call Our Father. Let's look
at it for a moment. The first thing we notice is
that it begins with this sentence, Our Father who art in heaven. But is God the Father of all
men? In a certain sense, He is, because
He is the Creator of all men. But in another sense, the spiritual
sense, He is not, because when the Lord Jesus speaks to religious
people of His time, He tells them in the Gospel of John, chapter
8, and verse 44, you have the devil as your father, and you
want to fulfill the desires of your father. God is not the Father
in the spiritual sense of all men, so all men cannot say, Our
Father. It is only those who are in Christ
Jesus. But let us go further. Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Can all men say from the heart
that they desire that the name of God be sanctified? Those who
take his name in vain, those who live as if God did not exist,
can they say that they desire, above all else, that the name
of God be sanctified in their daily lives? If not, they cannot
pray this prayer. And I continue to read it. May your kingdom come. Let us all desire that the kingdom
of God may come. Would we like to live under the
kingdom of God, in all his holiness and majesty? Would we not be
embarrassed if we had to live every day in the presence of
our God? But then all men cannot pray
that. that Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Let us all desire that the will
of God be done in our lives. Let us live to please God before
anything else, or let us live to please ourselves. Thus we
see that this prayer, which we call Our Father, cannot be prayed
by all men. So who can pray this model prayer,
those who belong to Jesus Christ and who live for God? Others
cannot pray. There is only one prayer that
the Lord has promised to hear from those who live in sin, and
that is the prayer of repentance. I invite you to pray it today. We are always very happy to receive
letters from our listeners. If you have a problem, or if
you think that we can help you, write to us and we will be very
happy to answer you. Here is the address to which
you must write. Echo of the truth Mailbox 505
71322 Chalon-sur-Saône It's written C-H-A-L-O-N, France. I repeat this address. Echo of
the truth, mailbox 505, 71322, Jalon-sur-Saône, France. Jésus-Sauve aujourd'hui Jésus-Sauve
aujourd'hui Que la parole à notre peau Nous relâche notre parole Jesus chants