At the close of the day Jesus withdrew to the Mount of Olives, and it is interesting to trace in Him once more that dislike of crowded cities, that love for the pure, sweet, fresh air, and for the quiet of the lonely hill, which we see in all parts of His career.
There was, indeed, in Him nothing of that supercilious sentimentality and morbid egotism which makes men shrink from all contact with their brother men; nor can they who would be His true servants belong to those merely fantastic philanthropists “who,” as Coleridge says, “sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, nursing in some delicious solitude their dainty loves and slothful sympathies.” On the contrary, day after day, while His daytime of work continued, we find Him sacrificing all that was dearest and most elevating to His soul, and in spite of heat and pressure and conflict and weariness, calmly pursuing His labours of love amid “the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.” But in the night time, when men cannot work, no call of duty required His presence within the walls of Jerusalem; and those who are familiar with the oppressive foulness of ancient cities can best imagine the relief His spirit must have felt when He could escape from the close streets and thronged bazaars, to cross the ravine, and climb the green slope beyond it, and be alone with His heavenly Father under the starry night. But when the day dawned His duties lay once more within the city walls, and in that part of the city where, almost alone, we hear of His presence in the courts of His Father’s’ house. And witch the very dawn His enemies contrived a fresh plot against Him, the circumstances of which made their malice more actually painful than it was intentionally perilous. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Praying must alternate with preaching
Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. His usual oratory. There He prayed by night, and then early in the morning He came unto the Temple to preach. Thus He divided His time betwixt praying and preaching. So must all that will do good of it (see 1Co_3:6). (J. Trapp.)
Preachers must pray much
Look at Baxter! he stained his study walls with praying breath, and, after he got anointed with the unction of the Holy Ghost, sent a river of living water over Kidderminster, and converted hundreds. Luther and his coadjutors were men of such mighty pleading with God, that they broke the spell of ages, and laid nations subdued at the foot of the cross. John Knox grasped in his strong arms of faith all Scotland: his prayers terrified tyrants. Whitefield, after much holy, faithful closet pleading, went to the devil’s fair, and took more than a thousand souls out of the paw of the lion in one day. See a praying Wesley turn more than ten thousand souls to the Lord! Look at the praying Finney, whose prayers, faith, sermons, and writings have shaken the half of America, and sent a wave through the British churches. (C. D. Foss.)
