HE WITHDREW HIMSELF -- Luke 5:16.

Here is the prime reason of spiritual weakness, powerlessness, and inefficiency everywhere prevalent; here is the why of seekers not constantly at our altars; here is the cause for so little manifest pungent conviction for sin; for so little of the supernatural power of the Lord present to heal; for so few bright conversions; here is the why of personal failure in life, in fact, of all failure -- of unctionless, powerless sermons -- Ye have not with Christlike insistence drawn yourself apart -- torn yourself away to some desert place to pray!

Jesus, though surrounded by the multitudes clamoring for His attention and pressing to be near Him, many of whom He had just personally touched and healed and who consequently felt a claim on His time; and also, no doubt, by His mother, brothers, sisters, and disciples, still insisted on one thing of paramount importance to the Son of God. This one dominant thing He would allow no time, nor place, nor circumstance or consideration, or demands of the people, His loved ones, or disciples, to dissuade Him from. He literally tore Himself away from the crowd pressing Him for help and healing -- elbowed His way through them. He said to all virtually, "Excuse me, I have an important date to commune with and intercede the Father. I must keep this appointment:... AND HE WITHDREW HIMSELF INTO THE WILDERNESS AND PRAYED!" He drew, or dragged, literally, Himself away. If He found it necessary to thus insist on prayer time, how much more shall we in this busy age of multiplied duties, activities, and demands on our time, many of them important and necessary, have to insist on drawing ourselves away from legitimate cares, social duties, society of friends, loved ones, and walk as He walked in His prayer life. Let none say, "I cannot find time, "in face of this example of Christ's drawing away from a multitude of folks and duties. Shall we tell you how?- "Excuse me, wife, children, social duties, etc., etc., I must go now and be with God."

Unless we resolve, with strong resolve, and insist on prayer time, it will not be ours. The "Inspired Word" speaks of "stirring one's self up to pray." "No man stirs himself up to pray." It is fallacious to wait for a spirit of prayer to come on us. We may now follow Jesus in His insistence on prayer-time, stir ourselves up to pray, go at it until we have a spirit of prayer, and then pray because we have it, and it spontaneously prays.

It is amazing to us, how, in the face of this example of the insistence of the Son of God to keep prayer appointment, professors of Perfect Love can claim to be beyond the necessity of special seasons of prayer. They claim to pray on the run, but our observation is they run out of tenderness, sweetness, Christlikeness, heavenly unction, and we fear unless they awake to this fearful deception of hell they will run out of God, salvation, and heaven, and run into hell. God help us draw ourselves often away!

There are some valuable lessons drawn from this brief statement:

I.

Jesus Withdrew Himself When Surrounded by a Great Opportunity for Service!

Time spent alone with God is never lost. Contrary to popular notion, His example illustrates the truest, best, and most effective service done for God is through the power of "Intercession." The greatest thing anyone can do for God in the short space of life's allotted days is to be much alone with God! One only has real power to grip men and fasten awakening conviction on them in proportion to time spent in secret with God.

When great multitudes came together to hear and be healed by Him of their infirmities, He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed! Think of it! He withdrew Himself from what we, in our spiritual blindness, would call a great opportunity for service and into which we would, Samson-like, go, in the energy of the flesh and shake ourselves (without prayer) as formerly when under the anointing of the Spirit, but, Alas! no one else would shake.

Alas for the workers who are going without the unction which always comes from withdrawing ourselves from men to some secret desert place, alone with God! They may make noble efforts, deliver great orations, preach eloquent sermons (even holiness), and the people may say, "Choice diction, fine rhetoric, easy style, well rounded periods, original, striking, beautiful, sublime conceptions of God, perfect language, graceful position and gestures, -- an intellectual feast; but they know as well as the speaker the unction and anointing of God was not there to grip and pierce men to the heart with conviction. The writer has learned that poor sermons saturated by the communion and intercession of the "alone with God" periods have a power to cut like a knife and bring men to a consciousness of their standing with God where great intellectual efforts fail to do more than entertain and please. If the ministry spent time in prayer proportionately to time consumed in intellectual preparation, their preaching would be more effectual and the world would be turned upside down for God!

The revival that is coming will not by led by those who claim long drawn out seasons of prayer should be few, or who lean to "Higher Criticism," or contend for a more highly cultured ministry, or sneer at holiness; or yet, by those who are waiting for a vague historic period, or psychological moment in which God is especially pleased (they say) to save souls (though they may plunge into hell by the millions while waiting for these periods and moments to roll around), but it will come through the Lord's little ones who walk as Jesus walked in His lonely nights on the mountain, or with Him, up a great while before day, and withdrawing apart into the desert to pray. When it comes, as in Wales, philosophers, psychologists, officials, leading preachers, D. D.'s, L.

L. D.'s, will be thousands of leagues from touch with the mighty sweeping power of the Holy Ghost. And God, who ever delights to confound the wise and prudent and bring to naught their carnal wisdom, will set them aside and have some humble, praying Evan Roberts at the helm, leading to mighty victory the Lord's hosts on true spiritual lines, with no compromise with, or quarter to, sin.

II.

What Does This Example Mean? The Son of God withdrawing Himself to pray! Why should He need to pray at all? He was holy, full of the Holy Ghost! The only explanation to our mind of this oft repeated habit of Jesus is that He used up spiritual energy in God's work and was under necessity, as a man, to have seasons of prayer to replenish His supplies, refresh His soul, and for Divine Guidance, as well as to make intercession for transgressors.

In the immediate context He had just been healing leprosy, casting out devils, and laying hands on all that were sick, and healing them. That this process consumed spiritual energy is seen in the healing of the woman who said, "If I may but touch the hem of His garment I shall be whole of my plague," and when she touched Him He turned and said, "Who touched Me?" because He perceived VIRTUE HAD GONE OUT OF HIM! The touch of faith extracted virtue from Him. There is no break with God, but simply spiritual energy used up in the miracles and mighty works He did, and He must, as man, keep in touch with God through prayer and constantly replenish exhausted supplies and "in this momentary dependence on God for the ,Spirit's help, Dr. Mahan says, "He is our example."

So we logically deduce: If the Son of God was under necessity of momentary dependence on God ("the Son can do nothing of Himself, the Father dwelling in me, He doeth the works") and of replenishing and renewing His supplies of the Spirit of God to maintain strength to do God's work, the most holy and advanced may have these special seasons for the renewing of "Spiritual Strength," with the most perfect consistency with their profession of holiness!

"But," says a perplexed one, "am I not full of the Holy Ghost, and is He not all I need, ever present in me, to meet all life's demands? And if I have Him in His fullness, why need I seek refreshment and enlargement? (Observe we do not mean a third crisis, but refreshment continuously throughout life as needed.) We answer in the face of the example now under consideration, "Was not the Son of God also full of the Holy Ghost, and yet we have here prima facie evidence of His custom of withdrawing Himself when in the presence of a great, pressing, urgent opportunity for service, to pray, and coming back from the season of communion with God with new power on Him, and present to heal in spite of ridiculing and opposing Pharisees and doctors of the law. Let this example of Jesus suffice to answer your question, "How can it be?" The how we know not. It passes understanding. The fact, however, remains. I know I am full of physical strength and vigor and still I often nourish my body and refresh it with food. So it is with the soul, it is full, still frequently refreshed.

Dr. Sheridan Baker, eminent teacher and writer on the deep things of God, makes this point clear:

"Believers may be filled with the Spirit, as a settled religious state or habit of the soul, and yet need these gracious refreshings more or less frequently, and some more frequently than others. This is according to the analogy of nature and is as rational as it is Scriptural. Persons free from physical disease of every kind, and "filled with natural vigor," (mark) nevertheless must take physical nourishment two and three times every day to supply the waste of their vital forces. So believers may be spiritually healthy and filled with spiritual vigor (the Spirit), and yet need these spiritual refreshings; and if they feel a sense of qualmishness or disrelish to come to an altar of prayer or anything proper to receive spiritual refreshing, they should be alarmed at their condition. IF PAUL, WHEN HE WROTE THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS, NEEDED REFRESHINGS, AND URGED THIS GREAT CHURCH TO STRIVE TOGETHER FOR THIS END, SURELY ALL CHRISTIANS, HOWEVER ADVANCED IN SPIRITUALITY, NEED THE SAME."

Many claim exemption from necessity to pray for effusions of the Holy Ghost imparting greater effectiveness in service because they have received the Holy Ghost as their sanctifier. But we are contending for facts. Is the effectiveness manifest in their work? If any have the conceit they are now as possessed of God as they may be possessed of Him and anointed and used to the utmost limit of their capacity or God's ability, they are welcome to it. The writer's soul is clean, satisfied of this, and full, still he is on the stretch for more of God.

Finney would frequently find himself used up, so to speak, in the service of God, not possessed as fully as formerly, with power in service. Said he, "I would set apart a day for fasting and prayer, humbling and crying to God for the cause, when there would be a return and increase, and I could go out and do more for God in a short while than without it in months."

III.

He Withdrew Himself When in Danger of Popularity.

"But so much more there went a fame abroad of Him, and great multitudes came to hear and be healed by Him... and He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed."

"Some men's praise ought to fill us with alarm and drive us to our knees." Have not many been shorn of power here? Not that Jesus felt any inclination to yield to such temptation, still it is significant (and our example) that here and previously when tempted by the devil to give place to popularity He withdrew and communed with the Father. Is not the ambition of the majority to gain what He here spurned -- Fame? To gain the commendation of the people? To please all men, which the Apostle Paul said if a man do he cannot please God?

Said a popular pastor-friend to the writer: "There are certain truths which I would like to preach, but cannot, because out there, and over here, and yonder, sits someone who would be displeased if I do." We thought God would be displeased if he did not. How many are failing to follow Jesus in His contempt for the opinions of men! Men knew where He stood. They knew He had other than a string for a backbone. "Master, we know thou art true and carest not for the person of any man." How many have fallen into this snare of the devil that if they pleased all by their affability they would first win men to their own congenial personalities and then to Christ! Alas, how often they have gotten them no further than to themselves! God help us seek popularity where it counts: at the court of God!

"Woe unto you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers of the false prophets." But, "blessed are ye (now) when men shall revile you and separate you from their company and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake, for so persecuted they the (true) prophets which were before you."