Believe it or not, you can make your own Bible script with Matthias. First I was 6, from verse 5, and then after that I was 26. 6 from verse 5 to 13, and then I was 26 from verse 36 to 46. Now hear the word of the Lord. And when you pray, you should not be like the enemies, no? Because they love to stand in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets and pray, to be seen by the people. For what? I said to them that they want to get away. But you, when you pray, go into your room, close your door and pray for your Father who is in hiding. And your Father, who is in heaven, will judge you in public. And if you pray, do not use idle words like the Gentiles. For they think that they will be overpowered by their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. So you must pray, Our Father who art in heaven, Let thy name be hallowed. Let thy kingdom come. Let thy will be done, as it is in heaven, as it is on earth. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we also have forgiven our trespassers. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For unto thee belongs the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Now, And I say, free disciples, sit here while I go there and pray. And he took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee together and began to grieve and mourn. Then he said to them, My soul is deeply saddened to death. Stay here and wake up with me. And he went a little further and fell on his face and prayed and said, My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Not as I want, but as you want." And he came to the disciples and found them asleep. And he said to Peter, Were you not able to wake me up for one hour? Wake up and pray that you will not come in search of me. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Here he prayed for the second time and said, My father, if you cannot pass by my cup without me drinking it, Let evil be done. Then he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them in peace, and again, for the third time, he went to pray and said the same words. Then he came to his disciples and said to them, Go to sleep in peace. Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of Sonders. Stand up. Let us go. Look, He is close by who betrays me. Amen. It is the Word of God. It is difficult, possible, but difficult to underestimate the importance of prayer. Try to think for a moment about this idea. A Christian who does not pray. Make sense. A Christian who does not pray. A Christian who says, this is my God. but his heart does not move to prayer. This is the highest being, but it does not flow out of it that you want to praise this being. This is my redeemer, but there is nothing in me that wants to thank him. This is the source of everything I need, but I do not run to him to ask for it. This is my father who is in heaven. But I don't want to talk to him. Something about that doesn't make sense. Or does it? After all, it's how much you live. You can think about your own life. There are times when you've lived exactly like that. Days, or weeks, even months. that you tried to get rid of without prayer. It's also easy for us to say the right things, to say that Christians can't live without prayer. But the test is, do we live it? Is it in my heart? Is it that I say, the Christian cannot go without prayer? Is it that I say, I cannot go without prayer? This soul cannot go without prayer. Is it that I say, God is my salvation and I enjoy Him when I come before Him in prayer. God is my treasure. We can often say one thing and do another. Or we can do things that don't make sense. There is often the thought that Jesus can be my redeemer, but he is not my Lord. He can save me, but he is not the one who has the power to tell me how to live. It doesn't make sense. You can't choose between those two. And it's the same when it comes to prayer. If you say, this is my God. Then it follows, you have to pray to him. You have to pray. Let's go from another angle. Do you realize that the only reason why a sinner can pray and be heard by God, is to thank Christ? You see, in the Old Testament, and we already touched on this in the previous sermon, prayer is compared to sacrifice. The sacrifice of the Old Testament was the scale that wanted to announce something about what Christ, the believer, has done. But look at what happened there. The Resurrection Sacrifice is brought on the ground of what happened on the altar. First, something had to die on the altar. It is on the ground of the blood that was sacrificed there that the Resurrection Sacrifice is brought. The Resurrection Sacrifice is then also given to the Lord as a gift. Christ is His life and sacrifice. Change our prayers that stink into a pleasant gift. You see, one of the reasons for Christ's life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his destruction of the Holy Spirit, is to make people from Sunday to pray. Where do we see our faith? We see it in prayer. In the inner chamber, in a living prayer life, there you see a living faith. So what is the Holy Spirit doing to make it without? He makes people who truly pray to God. It is possible, but difficult to overestimate the importance of prayer. But dear sister, like I say these things, Even deeply aware of how flat, how superficial and how deficient my own prayer life is. And I hope you experience something of that too. Something of a realization that I'm looking for more. It has to grow. What I have now can't be everything. and the precious treasure of prayer may enjoy and may live. One can ask, dear friends, is it that things are like this in marriage, in relationships between parents and children, in communities, in the state of the churches in South Africa and maybe even further? Could it be that part of the cause of this is that Christianity stopped praying? Or also because Christians don't pray the right way. Because they don't pray like the Master taught us to pray. This is part of the argument of Don Carson in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation. In his book, he is only concerned with the prayers that the Lord has given to us through the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. To pull that out and say, look! There is so much to learn for our prayers from the Bible. And that is where we need to go. If you sit here and say, yes, I also need to grow in my prayer life. Yes, I also want to repent of my days without prayer. I want to stop with that. I want to grow. I also want to bring my prayer sacrifices as the main part of my gratitude to the Lord. Where can I go? Where can we go? And his answer was, the Lord has given you everything. He has given you the Scripture. And therefore he has given you everything you need to grow in your prayer life. You just heard it. Spirit-inspired events in many of the letters. In our whole book, what actually happened, and it is special. And also in the Gospels. In the Gospels, we have these special moments, where Jesus Christ, God and man, the one to whom we pray, and the one who is the perfect man, where there is no deficiency, where he comes to teach you how to pray, and where he comes to show you like prayer. So you can rightly sit at his feet and say, Master, teach me to pray. But also, you can sit at places and listen to the prayers of Jesus Christ. You can hear that. And it is written down for you. So let's take a look First what he learns in Matthew 6, and then what he does in Matthew 26. What does he learn? Matthew 6, and there is a lot we can say about this part, but only a few thoughts. Matthew 6, verse 5 and 6 is one unity, one thought that he says about events in which he teaches his disciples. Matthew 7 and 8 is the second thought from which he teaches his disciples. And then 9 to 13 are actually the second thoughts. So the first thing he teaches is, do not be like the enemies. And he repeats this with the second thought. Look, verse 5. And when you pray, do not be like the enemies. Verse 7. And when you pray, do not use the repetition of words like the enemies. He says, look over there. That's not what you have to do. You don't have to pray like the prisoners. You don't have to pray like the elders. I'm going to teach you how I want my disciples' actions to be. So we're not going to the prisoners. We're not going to the elders. We're going to Christ. To our Master. And we're going to learn from Him. Now what does he say about the hostages? He says the hostages are kept in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, they are in prayer, in the public places where they can see a lot of people. And that's what you'll read about later. That's why they do it. To be seen by people. To be seen by the people. For which I say to you, that they are already gone. But it is in essence what moves you to pray in a public place like this. A public prayer is not a bad thing, it is a core part of the service of the Lord. But the question is, why don't I do that? Why do these people want to pray in the synagogues where a lot of people come together? Why is it that they will first of all say, I will pray, I will be the one who will go forward, or that they will even stand on the street corners and there, big, clearly, for everyone to see, is busy praying. Because these prayers, at these funerals, are not really about God. It's actually a form of I want people who love me. I want people to close their eyes. That is why I am praying. And now we have to look at this beautifully. You have never stood on a street corner and prayed like this. You have never stood in the community where the believers come together and said, I will pray that you all can hear what I say. It could be that you have prayed at a Bible study, or at another occasion. That you have prayed as you pray, because you are aware of how people will think about it. You pray through certain themes, you use certain words, because you try to catch people's attention. That they should love you, that they should think a lot about you, because you are praying like a prisoner. Because prayer is not to catch people's attention. The Lord said to them, let them go. They had already received everything they were going to receive. They will not receive anything more from the Lord. They wanted to receive people's attention. They had received a certain form of it. The Lord will not give them anything more. There will not come from God a hearing of their prayers. What does the Lord teach us then? But you, you who say you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you who say you want to follow Jesus, you who say He is not only my Redeemer, He is also my Master, He is also my King, and I am going to learn from Him how to pray. He says then, when you pray, go into your room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in the hidden, and your Father who is seen in the hidden, will reveal Himself to you. You see, the opposition. Here it can be impossible that people have a certain opinion of you. You can't make a mistake yourself if you announce everything. I'm going to the inner chamber. And I'm going to sit here for an hour. They're still trying to get people's attention. But what are we doing? We're looking for honor. We're looking for glory. We want to have His ears. We want to be with Him. We want to get closer to Him. And that is what you are doing here, what you are saying here. Your focus is not on people around you. Your focus is more on your Father who is in heaven. And He will publicly forgive you. He will hear you. And He will forgive you. Verse 5 and 6. Verse 7 is the same pattern again. Not like this, but like this. For if you pray, do not use an idle repetition of words like the Jews. For they think that they will be heard by their many words. So, an idyll, a lege, a repetition, all the time over and over, a meaningless lege repetition of words. You're not busy saying the same things over and over again and mumbling. It's almost like stupid words that you just repeat and repeat and repeat. Not like the idyll in a bit, right? They think that because of this many repetitions of words, that they will hear and hear good things. Almost as if I'm going to be bitter and angry and annoying with him until he hears me. But that's not the case. It's empty. It's an empty repetition of meaningless words. It doesn't work like that. Don't think that the reason God hears your prayers is that you just say words. Live words without meaning. No, the reason God hears your prayers is because He is your Father. That's how you go. Is that you have faith in yourself. I believe that through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, God is now my Father. That is why I have faith that He will hear me. Because your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. It is the believer. It is through faith. It is when you say to the believer, My Father. is the believer who says, I run to my father. No, with empty words, and my words are the basis for him not to hear me. So, again, in contrast with an idyllic, empty repetition of words, then Jesus says, this is how you should pray, verse 9. That is our Father. You see the contrast there. Empty repetition, and our Father. Because if you look at how much has already been written, and thought, and spoken about these few verses. Then you have to say, this is not a empty, senseless, empty book. There is so much in here. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive our trespassers. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Our Father, As we think of the writers of our Bible, they are the previous generations, the fathers of faith, the ones that preceded us. And they study the Bible, and then they sum up what they find in the Bible. And they pass it on to the next generations to be able to use and to enjoy. And then they say, after they speak of our Father, they say, what should a believer pray for? And they say, everything that the body and soul needs. What they sometimes say is, In this prayer, Jesus summed up everything that you need in body and soul. Everything is summed up in this prayer. This doesn't mean that you have to repeat our Father like a robot. You can even make this precious prayer an idyllic repetition of words. Empty. If you just say it out loud, like a magic word, like a formula that you have to repeat and repeat and repeat, and in that God will hear you. Because if you don't realize what you're saying, So that's why the Fathers and the Catechism have explained it to you. If you say, believers, realize what you are praying for. Realize how big these things are, how big and heavy these prayers are. How comprehensive it is for your whole life and the whole existence is enclosed in these simple prayers. And so we come to the third prayer. Let your will be done, as it is in heaven, just as it is on earth. What does that mean? What do you pray for when you pray, let your will be done, as it is in heaven, just as it is on earth? You have certainly prayed that before. But what do we say? What do the Fathers say in Catechism Sunday 49? What is the third prayer? Let the will be done, as the devil did on the earth. That is, give us and all people our own will, but you will, which is only good, without any contradiction, to be obedient. So that everyone can do his job and profession just as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven. What he has here, it is that we should think about the Bible. Should we just throw away the Bible like old people think? Or this mantra of nothing but the Bible. It is impossible. No confession except the scriptures. It is a senseless attempt. As soon as you start to study the scriptures, you will start to derive your own form of an admonition. Even if it is in your mind, or you realize it, recognize it or not, a type of admonition is inevitable. But what do we have here? We have generations of generations of believers who went to the scriptures and said, what do I see? What do I see here? What does the Lord say? What does He reveal about Himself and about prayer? And we take it together, we give it to others. For other believers and for the following generations. And then we see that here the word is spoken of three wills. Three wills. God's will. Our will. and the angels will. God's will, our will, and the angels' will. God's will, which alone is good, us and all people's will, and the angels, which are in heaven's will. God's will, first. God's will, which alone is good. Something is said here about God. He alone, He is the only one. He is the only one with such a will. There is no other one like Him. You can't compare Him to any other being that you can think of. You can't even think of anything like Him. He is the only being. And if you talk about His will, then you can talk about His essence. You can say, He is an unchangeable will. He is not like us, who are so fickle. One moment I want one thing, and the next day I want something completely different. No, this is a being in which there is no change, not what you want. It is always, always the same. It is a will of a being that is completely wise. It was not in him something of a realization how my will was in this direction, but it was actually there. And the consequences of that will be terrible things. No, right? That's how it is with us. Sometimes I can come back and think, oh man... It's a terrible thing that I just thought of here. It's a terrible thing that I wanted to do here. Or that I did here. But it's not like that with these beings. It's a divine being that is completely wise. It's a being that is not good. There is nothing bad in Him. His will is just as good. It is impossible for God to want something bad, to want something evil. It is a good will. But our people are not like that. We can be so bold and go in the evil direction. But He is not like that. He is the most joyful fountain of all that is good. And so a person can go through his physical characteristics and you can say, but you also see everything in the divine will, the one divine will, is also so. So then, is it only logical if you say, God, whose will alone is good, it makes sense, That she wants everything back. It makes sense that if there is something of my will, that is at odds with her will, that hers is far better. So let me go. But what do we do when we start to talk? We say no, but... I think I also have a good plan. I think this is better, this way. I am trying to question something of Him. Of His will. That His will is not the only good will. Arminius is slowly, practice yourself on him. But it is not what happens in the heart of a believer. When the Holy Spirit comes and changes you. Then your will also begins to change. You change your will, so that you realize, evil, not my will. That's how faith sounds. When the Holy Spirit, through the Evangelical true faith in my heart, touches my prayer, not my will, but evil. And now I can ask a person, if Christians are people who give their own will as a prize, What does it mean when we say, give price? Does it mean that a Christian is in a way, a being without a will? Is that what we mean when we say, give price? That a Christian is a being without a will? Well, it's basically the same as saying that a Christian is no longer a human being. A human being has a human will. So it is not what we, Samaritan Fathers, mean when we say that Christians should be rewarded. So what does it mean? And it is where the part about the angels is so important. It helps so much. The angels are said so that everyone can do his work as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven. The angels, it is said here, They have a task, they have a calling, they have an ambit, they have a calling. And they are doing, willingly and faithfully, what the Lord has called them to do, what the Lord has created them to do. They are doing it willingly and faithfully. So what happens when the Christian gives his will as a prize? It speaks of our sinful will. I do not want to do anything that is in conflict with what you want and not. Take it upon yourself to change my will, that I will be willing to do anything for which you call me. And we can actually talk for a long time about this part that says, your name and profession. It says that every part of society is taken into account. You are in a certain profession. Let ye want to make history in my name, in my calling, in that for which ye call me to work concretely in society. There I will willingly and faithfully live, here on earth, as the angels are busy calling their work, their calling, which the Lord has called them to do in heaven. If you are going to be at the house, please go to 3-4, section 1, articles 11 and 16. There are beautiful things being said about what the Lord wants to do with the sinners. Just as it appears. But through the powerful work of the same Spirit that is given to the redeemed, He also pushes through to the innermost parts of the human being, opens the closed heart, softens what is hard, and cuts what is uncut. In the will, he instills new qualities, and makes the will that was dead, alive, that was bad, good, that was unwilling, willing, and that was unobedient, obedient. He moves and reinforces the will so that it, like a good tree, can bear the fruits of good works. in Article 16. The human nature, through the sin, does not cease to be a human being, enriched with wisdom and will. The sin that the entire human race has endured, has not taken away the nature of the human being, but has killed it, and in a spiritual sense. A little further. The grace makes the will spiritually alive, heal, improve and bend at the same time loving and powerful. While sinful abstinence and defiance before perfect dominion, a willful and upright obedience to the Spirit now begins to prevail. Herein lies the true and spiritual renewal and the freedom of the will. Let the will take place, as in heaven, just as it is on earth. This is something we pray for. Now let's look at what we do here in Jesus. We can continue with Matthew 26. Let's look at verse 36. Dear friends, in these 10 verses we are on holy ground. This is holy ground. And there are things in these verses that are far too big. which is hidden from us by our filthy hands. But we read in verse 36, how our Lord Jesus, together with his disciples, arrived in the garden of Gethsemane. And said to them, all of you sit here, while I go and pray there. At the end, verse 46, he said, stand up, let us go. Look, he is close to me who betrays me. Then if you look again at the beginning, verse 7-38, then he takes three with him. It is often spoken of them as the inner circle. Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. It is the same three that we have seen here on the mountain of the disciples. What an awe-inspiring sight it must have been. And here they are taken together again, to step a little further into the garden, to pray there together with the lords. So that's 37 and 38. Verse 45. And read to us how he, together with those three, goes back to the rest. So, verse 36. Come to the garden. Take three of them and go a little further. In verse 45 they come back to where the rest is, and in verse 46 they all stand up and go. There is a bit of a time gap between them. For example, in verse 45 they say, go to sleep, and in verse 46 they say, stand up and let us go. So there must have been a bit of a time gap between 45 and 46. And what we see here is Jesus Christ the Messiah. He knows what is coming. He knows what the path is. And then we read in verse 7, where he is saddened and anxious. These are strong words. We read what he says to these three that he takes with him. My soul is deeply saddened to the point of death. He says, my soul is dead. That's how saddened and worried he is, because he knows what's coming. And it's not just about one of his disciples betraying him. Betrayal is something that makes you terribly sad. If any one of you has ever experienced something like that, then you know how deep it cuts into you when someone betrays you. There's more than that. But it's not just the physical guidance. The leading is terrible, what you have led to the cross. And think now, if you have to go in with the realization of all the physical leading that now goes through a guard with crosses. The Roman system was very effective to lead the person terribly to death. Don't you see that? I'm going to talk about what he knows. where the terrible judgment of God is. He knows. He knows this is what is coming. This is what is coming. So that our lives, not in this Evangelical man's life, sweat blood. Now, medicine has found that there is such a medical condition. Which means that if you enter under terrible tension and fear, then you start bleeding. Which says something about the state he is in, but it also says something more. It says his blood will be shed. It is what we are going to celebrate at the nightmare. is Christ's blood that has been poured out to a complete purification of all sins. And here it begins. In the garden, his body is busy letting out blood through every sweat gorge. Even before he is an angel, he is busy blooming. So he brings his disciples to pray. He goes a little further with 3. And then he goes one more verse further. Verse 39 to 44. Then read to us of this... This holy moment. Where Christ alone prays and returns to the 3. Alone prays and returns to the 3. Alone prays and returns to the 3. Again and again. We read how, in verse 39, he falls on his face. He prays and says, My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Not as I want, but as you want. Something of the same prayer in verse 42. My father, if this cup cannot pass by me without me drinking it, Let evil be done. Verse 44. They had already prayed and said the same words. Now, what we have to realize is that when Matthew and the other Evangelical scribes wrote this, there was not a single other person in charge of it. Our Lord released the three, and then he went alone to pray. How could they write this down? Certainly, because Christ had sent the message of the resurrection, Did he teach them anything else? Did he share anything with them? Did he tell them what happened in the garden? Did he want us to be here? It is my ear of his intense protest in the garden of Gethsemane. And every time he comes back to his disciples and asks them to pray with him. And then we sleep. Over and over. Three times. That the disciples sleep, every time their master says, Pray, together, awake, together. That they don't get lost in the search. That they see his fear, that they see how he starts to bleed. His sweat runs out like blood. And then, they sleep again. In the end, it is then, that our Lord is alone. He is already alone here. In his intense struggle and through the crucifixion, it shows just how far he truly lived. And if you have this gripping moment, where Christ did what he taught his disciples to do. If it is possible, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Not as I want, but as you want. Now here it is important in our teaching of God, to realize that when Christ speaks here, He is not speaking of two wills in God's time. That there is a will of God the Father, and a will of God the Son, and a will of God the Holy Spirit. The will, the divine will, is still settled in beings. The divine being has one divine will. There are not three wills in God. There is one will. This does not speak of that. This speaks of the human will. That is what we just talked about. We have to deal with a hiddenness here. that we have to be very careful with, the holiness of the two natures of Christ, divine and human. Where he can pray to the Father, with whom he is one to God, and say, at least not, He wants me, not just you. There is a mystery in this, that we have to be very careful with. But what do we see? What is happening here? Do we see someone who is talking against God the Father? Do we see someone who says, I have a better plan? Do we see someone who wants to be disobedient? I would say no. We see someone who, under terrible suffering and fear, says, Father, if there is another way, if there is another way to save all the people you have given to me, if there is another way to take the burden away from them, so that they can have eternal life, if there is another way, Can we do that? And then you see, people, how it goes from... If this glass can't pass me without me drinking it, then you want to shoot. This is an acceptance of it. There is no other way. There is no other way. He is the only way. There is no plan B. There is no plan B possible. Christ is the only way. There is no other way to take away the terrible judgment of God from us. If Christ has to come and take that judgment cup and empty it, that is the only way that can be for us. And so, Christ went from here, willingly, to the cross. Not forced, but willingly. He carried the burden. Dear ones, what you see here, is the Messiah that leads. For everyone who believes in Him, for everyone that the Father has given to Him, Christ came and said, also for Him, I will take His cup of judgment and drink from it, so that you can be a part of His life. He is going to die, so that you may live. How sweet it is that tonight, with grace, we can celebrate. May we be happy that Christ bled here, fell on his face with fear and prayed and said, not like me, but like you. That we had a mediator who did not resist. It was a middle-aged man who said, I will do willingly what the Trinity God decided to do in eternity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic war in the person of the Trinity. It was not a cosmic Every single one of us was lost forever. Because this happened. What we can say tonight is, live. Live. For everyone who believed in Jesus Christ, live. So, dear ones. Come to the table. And think about it. That Christ's body has been broken. and that his blood may be purified, also literally purified, to a perfect reconciliation of all your sins. Amen.