INTRODUCTION
1940’s - The Manhattan Project
§ SECRET project; precious few who knew about it
§ To personnel at the assembly plant of the secret project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, it was known as Project "S-Y."
§ To the Joint Chiefs, it was known as "S-1"
§ To the head of the Department of War, "X"
§ To the scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico, "The Gadget", "Thin Man", "Fat Man."
§ August 6, 1945: Hiroshima, Japan. An 18 year old girl describes this "SECRET" in her own words:
Kaz Suyeishi said: "It was a beautiful day. I had just finished breakfast, and my mother told me to go water the front yard. I went outside and saw a friend in the street and went to greet her. We started talking, and then we heard a B-29. It was a sound we knew well. I called it the angel, because it had never dropped a bomb to hurt us. Up in the sky we saw the beautiful airplane, just like a ballerina, dancing against a blue sky. I told my friend to wave at the angel, and then it was gone. The only difference was that this time it left a white spot up in the sky. I thought it was the parachute of an American pilot coming down in enemy territory. Then suddenly there was a very, very powerful yellowish-orange flash-like when you’re taking a picture and you use the flash-only a hundred thousand times more powerful."
A SECRET POWER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A POWER THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. I’ll tell you more about it at the end. But let’s look at a better secret power. The Secret power of Jesus.
MAIN BODY
Scripture Reading, Luke 5:15, 16
A. Jesus heals a leper (Lk 5:13).
B. The news about Jesus spread throughout that area (Lk 5:15).
C. People came to hear Jesus and to be healed by Him (Lk 5:15).
D. Jesus withdrew to lonely places to pray (Lk 15:16).
THIS IS JESUS’ SECRET OF HIS POWER. PRAYER.
There are other instances when Jesus withdrew from the crowds to pray alone. What can we learn from Jesus?
1. Mt. 14:23 (cross references: Mk 6:46; Jn
6:14, 15)
After feeding more than 5000 people, Jesus immediately dismissed His disciples and the crowd and went to pray alone until evening. The text in John says that the reason He withdrew was because the people wanted to make him king by force.
COMMENTARY The people were amazed by this miraculous sign and began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world" (Jn. 6:14). They were in a state of expectation for a long time and were hungry for liberation from their Roman rulers. When they saw and experienced Jesus’ miracle, excitement and ambition overcame them. The people and the disciples were not looking for a suffering Savior, but a conquering King. Here was Jesus’ chance to use His power to destroy the Roman yoke and to establish a glorious kingdom on earth. Undoubtedly Satan was repeating his previous temptation to Christ when both met face to face in the desert: "All this I will give you" (Mt 4:9). Jesus discerned the danger. How was He able to resist such temptation? He would be famous, powerful, rich, and rule the world! He wouldn’t have to suffer criticism, persecution, attacks and death; He would be everyone’s hero! What was His secret? "Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray" (Mk 6:45, 46). At this crucial moment, Jesus sought to be alone with His father for added strength and to seek His Father’s approval, not the people’s.
Mt 26:36 (Mk 14:32)
In the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed apart from Peter, James and John, HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS.
COMMENTARY Going a little farther from where his three disciples were, Jesus sought to pour out his heart to the Father. This was not a public prayer; Jesus agonized with a supreme agony that no human being could ever bear or understand. This prayer was to be prayed alone. Besides, His disciples could not understand such a prayer. The words of Jesus, "if it be possible, take this cup from me" were intimate and heartfelt words that only the Father could understand.
JESUS PRAYED IN ORDER TO KEEP HIS PRIORITIES IN HEAVENLY ORDER.
Time alone spent with God helps us to keep our priorities straight.
2. Lk 6:12:
Jesus spent an entire night praying to God. The next morning, He chose the twelve disciples.
COMMENTARY: Jesus spent the entire night in prayer because He was about to make one of the most important choices in His entire life and ministry: to choose who would carry on the work that He began here on earth. But look at who He chose! Impetuous Peter; doubting Thomas; The thunderous James and John; Matthew the thief; skeptical Philip. Couldn’t He have made a better choice? Well, if He spent the entire night praying and thinking about the matter, perhaps then that they were the best men available whom He could use! On making such an important decision that would affect the entire future of the world, Jesus didn’t offer a 5, 10, or 20 minute prayer; He purposely spent the entire night communing with the Father in order to receive guidance.
The prosperity and spread of the Gospel was to depend on 12 uneducated, rough men! Why did Jesus choose these particular men? Because they were better choices than the educated, religious Jews!
JESUS PRAYED IN ORDER TO PERCEIVE AS GOD PERCEIVES.
Time alone spent with God helps us to see as God sees and not as man sees.
1 Samuel 16:7:
The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
Jesus sees THE HEART of man. He sees what man cannot: THE POSSIBILITIES AND POTENTIAL!
He is not the Lord of the PERFECT; He is not the Lord of the POWERFUL; He is not the Lord of the POPULAR…
Jesus is the Lord of those who STRUGGLE; He is the Lord of those who SUFFER; of those who feel ALONE; of those who make MISTAKES; of the short, tall, fat, skinny, rich, poor…of EVERYONE!
"Jesus doesn’t choose those who are enabled, but He enables those whom He chooses."
3. Mk 1:35:
After a Saturday night of healing the people, Jesus got up very early the next morning while it was still dark in order to pray in a solitary place.
Commentary: Jesus was staying at Peter’s house (vs. 29) in Capernaum (vs. 21). It was Saturday night because they left the synagogue to his home (vss. 29, 32). Verse 33 states that the whole town gathered at the door after sunset. They arrived at night because they did not want to be healed on the Sabbath for fear of the rabbis.
"From the homes, the shops, the market places, the inhabitants of the city pressed toward the humble dwelling that sheltered Jesus…Hour after hour they came and went; for none could know whether tomorrow would find the Healer still among them."2
"Not until the last sufferer had been relieved did Jesus cease His work. It was far into the night when the multitude departed, and silence settled down upon the home of Simon. The long, exciting day was past, and Jesus sought rest."3
Early in the morning, Jesus "snuck" out of the house while it was still dark to be alone with the Father. When His disciples finally woke up, they didn’t find Jesus in the house. They went looking for him because already the people returned to see Jesus. But Jesus was not satisfied to attract attention to Himself merely as a wonder worker or a healer of physical diseases. He was seeking to draw men to Him as their Savior. His answer to His disciples must have disappointed them: "Let us go somewhere else-to the nearby villages-so I can preach there also. That is why I have come" (vs. 38).
JESUS PRAYED IN ORDER TO REMEMBER AND REINFORCE HIS PURPOSE IN LIFE.
Time spent alone with God helps us to remember our purpose and mission in life.
(Lk 9:18: Jesus was praying in private. After His prayer, He asked His disciples who they thought He was. Lk 11:1:
Jesus was praying in a certain place when a disciple asked Him to teach them how to pray.)
4. OTHER TEXTS:
A. Psalm 5:1-3 - A psalm of David where he states that the Lord will hear his prayer in the mornings.
B. Exodus 16:21 - the Israelites gathered manna early in the morning each day except Saturday. The person doing the gathering was to collect about an omer (2 quarts or 2 liters) for every person in his tent (Ex 16:16).
C. Luke 10:38-42 - Mary chose what was better than helping with household chores of the moment: to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His instructions.
D. Psalm 27:4 - One thing David asked of the Lord more than any other thing: to dwell in the Lord’s temple and gaze upon His beauty.
CLOSING
The atomic age began on August 6, 1945. The bomb was nicknamed "Little Boy" and was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT. It was loaded onto Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets’s B-29 christened Enola Gay, after his mother.
When bombardier Tom Ferebee pulled the trigger to release "Little Boy" on Monday, August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m., it descended in 43 seconds. The Enola Gay and its escorts then banked over the site while crew members took pictures, then prepared to flee, the most dramatic hit-and-run in history. But first Lieutenant Colonel Tibbets turned the B-29 to bring the ruined city into view. The image of devastation was stunning. "My God," wrote co-pilot Robert Lewis, "what have we done?"
When the bomb exploded, it completely destroyed 5 square miles of the city of Hiroshima. But the bomb never made contact. It never hit the ground. It was programmed to detonate 2000 feet above Hiroshima.
"An air-detonated nuclear weapon produces energy roughly in the proportion of 50 percent in blast, or shock waves; 35 percent in heat, or thermal radiation; and 15 percent in short-and long-term nuclear radiation. The shock wave, a very high-pressure front, propagates outward at supersonic speed [more than a mile a second].4 Its arrival is experienced as a sudden and shattering blow followed by hurricane-force winds. The thermal radiation generated by a nuclear explosion travels at the speed of light and can burn all combustible materials for miles around."5
This was the "Manhattan Project," the United States’ secret power.
Jesus had a secret power as well, only it is not really a secret. It has been revealed in the gospels and handed down to us.
Jesus found His power in privacy with God. Time spent alone with the Father resulted in power: power to see as God sees, to make the best decisions, to keep His priorities in heavenly order, to please and gain popularity with the Father and not with people, to remember our mission and purpose in life.
Jesus left us an example.
When we spend time alone with Jesus, we receive power from heaven.
The Holy Spirit descends, not in 43 seconds like the bomb, but at the speed of thought. And He doesn’t stay 2000 feet in the air to do His work from above, but penetrates our inner being and detonates in our hearts to do His work from within. Co-pilot Robert Lewis, on seeing the effects of the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima said, "My God, what have we done?"6
Those who have been called out of this world by God-you and I-can see the effects when Jesus spent time alone with our heavenly father and ask, "My God, what can I do?"
The A-bomb’s explosion resulted in a shock wave-a sudden and shattering blow-traveling at supersonic speeds followed by hurricane force winds and thermal radiation that burns all combustible material for miles around.
As a fruit of time spent alone with Jesus, there is also a "shock wave": people around us will be shocked by the transformation of our lives.
As a fruit of time spent alone with Jesus, there is also thermal radiation: people around us will feel the heat of God’s love and be warmed by it.
If Jesus, in His humanity, felt it necessary to spend time alone with the Father, how much more should we do so?
Let’s spend time alone with Jesus. May He help us.
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END NOTES:
1. Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, "The Century" (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 277.
2. Ellen G. White, "The Desire of Ages" p. 259.
3. Ibid.
4. Sound, at room temperature (70 degrees F), travels about 1,129 feet per second, about a fifth of a mile. So in 5 seconds, sound would have traveled a mile.
5. Excerpted from Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia CD. Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
6. Jennings and Brewster, "The Century", p. 279
