What does it mean to watch and pray?

Watching may mean looking for the Lord's return, but it may have other meanings. When our Lord said to sleeping Peter, "Watch and pray," He was not calling Peter to watch for His coming from heaven. No, He called him to be vigilant at that moment of agonized wrestling in prayer.

It is the Holy Ghost that acts in power; and you never can have power without Him. But we are always responsible for the power of the Holy Ghost, because He is given to the believer, and for ever abides in him. This time was not yet come; but the Lord does say in view of it, as well as of the state in which they then were, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." For remember this, it is not any power conferred by the Spirit of God that keeps, even though He be the Spirit of power — it is not energy in this or that which keeps, but dependence; it is the sense of weakness that watches and prays, and thus has the power of Christ resting on us. His strength made perfect in weakness.

There is nothing that so tends, where it is severed from Christ, to destroy dependence, as a large knowledge of the word of God. And that is where our danger lies. The greater our knowledge of the word of God, where it is separated from the sense of utter weakness, and consequently from the need of watching and praying, the greater the danger. This is a solemn warning for our souls. There is no doubt plenty of knowledge of Scripture, and of what is called intelligence of truth; but do our souls keep up this sense of our need and weakness, and the expression of it to God? "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."

39 - 38. "The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh weak," is not given as aphoristic commiseration of them, but as a reason for, and marking the necessity of watching and prayer. Do not rely on the readiness of your spirit, for the flesh in which you walk is weak; therefore watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. There was special allusion and graciously (for the Lord's soul was stayed and prepared for the evil) to Peter's hasty undertaking to suffer with Him, unsustained in spirit by going through it with God; he would soon sink in going through it with man.

The sorrows of the Garden were too deep, as before the glories of the Mount were too great for poor weak human nature. On both occasions the disciples find relief in sleep. Peter who had gone beyond others in boasting of his devotedness to the Lord, is specially addressed by the Lord when He comes to these sleeping saints and asks, "Simon sleepest thou? Couldest not thou watch one hour?" Prayer, which expresses our dependence upon God, will alone prepare us for coming temptation. The self-confidence of nature leaves us, too often, with little dread of temptation and therefore with little sense of our need of prayer. Yet, with tender compassion the Lord owns the reality of their love for Himself while recognising their weakness; "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak."

Again, He went away and prayed, only to find when He returned to His disciples that they were still asleep. The Lord's warnings had been unheeded, for their eyes were heavy with sleep. The third time the Lord returns to the disciples, He has to say, "Sleep on now and take your rest." They had missed the opportunity of watching with the Lord and proved their own weakness, and the Lord has to say, "It is enough." The time for watching and praying had passed; the time of trial had come; the betrayer was at hand, and the One who had watched and prayed, can now say in confidence and dependence upon God, "Rise up, let us go."

In saying to Peter, "The spirit truly is ready," the Lord evidently acknowledged that there was in His disciples that which He could appreciate and recognize. Yet "the flesh is weak," and Satan just then was terribly active, so that nothing but watchfulness and prayer would have met the situation. Let us take the word home to ourselves. As the end of the age approaches Satan's activities are to become more rather than less, and we need to be awake with every spiritual faculty alert, and also to be filled with the spirit of prayerful dependence upon God.

Col. 4:2-4. These special exhortations to different individuals, are closed by a general exhortation to prayer that applies to all saints. The mere fact of knowing the mind of the Lord for each one in these relationships, is not enough. Knowledge of itself is not power. We need to be kept in the dependent attitude of prayer, if we are to carry out the exhortations in practice. We are therefore exhorted to "Persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving." Persevering in prayer would imply, not only turning to God in some special need, but the habitual attitude of dependence upon God. The psalmist can say, "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray" (Ps. 55:17). Whatever the difficulty, however prolonged the trial, though the answer may be delayed, we are to "persevere in prayer". The prayer is to be accompanied with watching and thanksgiving. The Lord warned His disciples to watch and pray. It is useless to pray in reference to a particular temptation, or snare, if at the same time we do not watch against it. Prayer without watchfulness has reference to the expectation of an answer to the prayer, and in this sense we are to watch for the answer.

329 - 40-46. Note the warning of the Lord bears the stamp of what He was passing through faithfully. He urges to watch and pray; He was doing it. And so afterwards, with the increased sense of it. "Why sleep ye? Rise up and pray." But further, I would note the faithful watching and praying of the saint keeps him safe from the temptation, i.e., the power of God in answer to it. We know not what is coming, though some temptations may be anticipated. The last thing we thought of, Peter never would have supposed the question of a little maid where all seemed easy and a friend had brought him in, was the danger to be apprehended in that night of violence. But with God temptation has not this character. The quiet path of obedience is before us. Who so calm as Jesus when Judas came? Our prayer, through grace, is to produce this, but if not, Christ's prayer for us meets the truth, and need of our case exactly. Satan, though there are special moments of trial, is an ever active enemy: "Satan hath desired." Had Peter been less confident, and looked to the Lord, Satan would not have had him at all. We are always the subjects of this mighty spiritual conflict, and when flesh is not put down and God present, Satan can touch us; the temptation is felt, we fall into it. Watching and prayer, before the temptation, keep us clear. Christ's intercession fits itself to our actual state. Satan would sift; He does not pray he might not. Peter wanted it; so do we often, all. If I am with God about it all goes well; at the utmost, the chaff is sifted away, the bands burned in the fire, but the smell of fire does not pass on our clothes. The devil's fire, in God's hands, burns the devil's bands. So with Job. But He prayed that, when failure had come through Satan's sifting, and Peter's want of prayer, faith, confidence in the heart of Christ and of God might not fail. Thus he learned weakness and incapacity of standing, and that Christ's grace met all, and, the worst of cases, he could strengthen his brethren. There is an active desire and purpose of Satan; he was to sift the Lord - he had nothing in Him; the flesh is in us. If we are with God by the Spirit actively watching and praying, it is, when needed, judged there, and the wicked touches us not as born of God. We do not so, we are sifted, nor does, where needed, Christ ask we should not be, but in His intercession demands the exactly fitted process, and the maintenance of a conscious link with Himself. He looks at the right moment, then it is with Him we have to say, and He goes on with divine wisdom to deal with the root that bore the outward sin, and to which some other inward one had exposed us, which was not judged before. Warning, watching and prayer is the path of security - but, if humbled, it is a blessed thing to know that Christ's prayer for us, though not sparing the needed humiliation, is put up when we have not prayed ourselves. Had Christ been their only Object, they would have watched, and been led to pray in that dark hour. Feeling their own sorrow, they cannot bear it, and are overpowered, and sleep is their resource; the rest fly. Sorrowful enough! But boasting Peter must learn a sadder tale of the self he too much trusted. The place of our prayer is thus learnt. It is previous watchfulness with Christ when the temptation is not there; its fruit, the temptation, is not at all entered into when it is, and the extreme goodness and mercy of Christ which suits itself to the exact circumstances of the case.

Pressed in spirit by that which was coming, He exhorts His disciples to pray, that they enter not into temptation; that is to say, that when the time came that they should be put to the test, walking with God, it should be for them obedience to God, and not a means of departure from Him. There are such moments, if God permits them to come, in which everything is put to the proof by the enemy's power.

73 The depth of His misery He went through perfectly in His spirit with God; it was fully out with God: and for that reason being thus fully out, He could turn with perfect peace to say to others, "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation." It is the only place you get His sense of where He was - His saying, "Watch and pray." Everything that meets us is either a temptation or an occasion of obedience. It was to Him an occasion of perfect obedience: "The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it?" Everything you meet with is a case in which you serve Christ or do your own will, and this is entering into temptation. See how He speaks in grace to Peter: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Oh I know you love Me; your hearts are all right, but it is this poor weakness. What perfect grace! Counting on their hearts in one sense when the temptation was coming; and when they had totally failed, He thought of the danger to them and says as to it, "Watch and pray … the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"; when the instant before His sweat was as it were great drops of blood. What perfect submission! What lowliness of heart! And therefore what perfection of service, of love to God and to others! Just what we should do. "He went away again the second time and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them and went away again, and prayed the third time saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples and saith unto them, Sleep on now and take your rest, behold the hour is at hand." You have no need to watch now; the time for it is over.

But that is not what I am going to draw your attention to now, but this — that when the Lord leads them out to the mount of Olives, and the disciples follow Him, when He was at the place He said unto them, "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." This is a very serious thing. It is just as true as another word that we might not be able to put along with it, and that is, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation." No, it is blessed to fall into temptation, but it is never blessed to enter into temptation. There is all the difference between entering into temptation and enduring temptation. And there was exactly what Peter had to learn most bitterly — to enter into temptation. Now the man that endures temptation is the man that prays before the temptation comes. He does not enter into it. When it comes he is blest; he endures. Peter did not. Peter entered; that is to say, that the entrance into temptation shows that there is a want of sense of danger — a want of sense that I need God, that I need God now. No doubt there is. But if the Lord tells me that temptation is at hand, and I do not pray, it is evident that I am not depending upon God; and so, instead of falling into temptation, the temptation, on the contrary, if I may say so, falls upon me, and, more than that, I enter into it instead of enduring it. The endurance of temptation is when the person suffers, and suffers because he does not yield. The entrance into temptation is when he does yield because he does not pray; because he is not in dependence upon God, for there was exactly what was now coming out. "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." He did not pray, and he did enter into temptation.