You ever try to run a little bit?
Many of us, it won't take long to
get us breathless.
But do you pant like that?
Taking a deep breath.
Oh God, I need more of you, I'm
thirsty for you.
Is this not the scripture?
Is this not the truth?
Is this not what this book is all
about?
About us loving God like that, being extreme.
And what are we content with?
Ask yourself, what are you content with?
Where have you been living?
On the edge or in the safe place?
Paul, Romans 9, 1-3.
Talk about an extreme brother.
You know, it is such a sin today
that we have made the books, the epistles,
the writings of Paul into the most bunch
of dribble and escape and backdoor.
You ever try to run a little bit?
Many of us, it won't take long to
get us breathless.
But do you pant like that?
Taking a deep breath.
Oh God, I need more of you, I'm
thirsty for you.
Is this not the scripture?
Is this not the truth?
Is this not what this book is all
about?
About us loving God like that, being extreme.
And what are we content with?
Ask yourself, what are you content with?
Where have you been living?
On the edge or in the safe place?
Paul, Romans 9, 1-3.
Talk about an extreme brother.
You know, it is such a sin today
that we have made the books, the epistles,
the writings of Paul into the most bunch
of dribble and escape and backdoors out of
obedience to Jesus there is.
When the man's life was so sacrificial, it's
not even funny.
He laid his life down, he was beaten,
he was stoned, he was whipped, shipwrecked.
You know, this man prayed, he nurtured the
church with such love and devotion and yet
we've tried to take his writings to make
it an easy way in the Christian church.
There's going to be a lot of folks
accountable, I believe, on judgment day.
Listen to the man's devotion.
It's just like Moses.
Here again, we see him with that same
vein, that extreme vein.
I tell you the truth in Christ, I
am not lying.
My conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and
continual grief in my heart.
Extreme language.
For I could wish that I myself were
accursed from Christ for my brethren, for my
countrymen, according to the flesh.
Are we there in prayer?
I'm not.
I tell you, I'm not there.
Remember folks, we're holding up this standard.
We're holding the extreme edge up so it
can build within us a desire to want
more, to go more.
These are lifting up the possibilities of grace.
These are not fairy tales.
These are not just old stories in history.
These are the possibilities of grace.
How much are you appropriating in Jesus Christ
today?
How much of the grace of God, the
unmerited power of God are you using to
go into greater sacrifice, devotion and prayer for
the lost and for the church around us?
Philippians 3, 7-15 But what
things were gained to me, these I have
counted lost for Christ, for Jesus.
Yet indeed, I also count all things lost
for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things.
And count them as rubbish, or more literally,
dung.
And count them as rubbish that I may
gain Christ and be found in Him not
having my own righteousness, which is from the
law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is from God by
faith.
That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His
sufferings being conformed to His death, if by
any means I may attain to the resurrection
from the dead.
Extreme language.
Giving it all up.
Praise God.
Acts 12, 5 It talks about when Peter
had been put in prison that it was
the constant prayer.
The saints were giving up constant prayer in
behalf of Peter.
It would more literally be translated fervent or
uttermost, extreme.
What kind of prayer opens the prison gates?
Opens the prison doors?
What kind of prayer lets you be ushered
on by the arm of an angel?
Extreme prayer.
Out here on the edge.
It's not safe.
On the very edge.
Okay, let's talk about some other folks.
Let's talk about some folks in church history.
Let me read you a portion of a
man named Joseph Eleni.
He wrote a great little book called The
Alarm to the Unconverted.
He was a Puritan preacher in the 17th
century.
He arrives speaking about his devotional life, his
prayer life.
He said, He did rise constantly at or
before four o'clock and on the Sabbath
sooner if he did wake.
He would be much troubled if he heard
any smiths or shoemakers or such trademans at
work at their trades before he was in
his duties with God, before he was in
prayer.
He sang to me after, Oh, how this
noise shames me!
Doth not my master deserve more than theirs?
From four till eight he spent in prayer,
holy contemplation and singing of psalms, which he
much delighted in, and did daily practice alone
as well as in his family.
This man, if he got up at four
o'clock and he heard another trade working,
it broke his heart.
Doesn't my master deserve more than theirs does?
David Brainerd, the great missionary to the American
Indians, what a man of sacrifice, lived in
the most harshest conditions, gave himself to constant
prayer, was literally translated, it seems, if you
read his journal, just in being enraptured with
the glory of Jesus, just in love for
Christ.
He prayed till he sweat profusely, he just
was exhausted where he could not walk, the
man prayed, where there was no strength left
in him to get up and go back
home after praying in the woods.
Extreme prayer.
Daniel Nash, this was a man that accompanied
Charles D.
Finney almost everywhere he went and preached.
This man would go and lock himself up
in a motel room while Finney preached.
He would not come out for meal.
You ever try to run a little bit?
Many of us, it won't take long to
get us breathless.
But do you pant like that?
Taking a deep breath.
Oh God, I need more of you, I'm
thirsty for you.
Is this not the scripture?
Is this not the truth?
Is this not what this book is all
about?
About us loving God like that, being extreme.
And what are we content with?
Ask yourself, what are you content with?
Where have you been living?
On the edge or in the safe place?
Paul, Romans 9, 1-3.
Talk about an extreme brother.
You know, it is such a sin today
that we have made the books, the epistles,
the writings of Paul into the most bunch
of dribble and escape and backdoor.
You ever try to run a little bit?
Many of us, it won't take long to
get us breathless.
But do you pant like that?
Taking a deep breath.
Oh God, I need more of you, I'm
thirsty for you.
Is this not the scripture?
Is this not the truth?
Is this not what this book is all
about?
About us loving God like that, being extreme.
And what are we content with?
Ask yourself, what are you content with?
Where have you been living?
On the edge or in the safe place?
Paul, Romans 9, 1-3.
Talk about an extreme brother.
You know, it is such a sin today
that we have made the books, the epistles,
the writings of Paul into the most bunch
of dribble and escape and backdoors out of
obedience to Jesus there is.
When the man's life was so sacrificial, it's
not even funny.
He laid his life down.
He was beaten.
He was stoned.
He was whipped, shipwrecked.
You know, this man prayed.
He nurtured the church with such love and
devotion.
And yet, we've tried to take his writings
to make it an easy way in the
Christian church.
There's going to be a lot of folks
accountable, I believe, on Judgment Day.
Listen to the man's devotion.
It's just like Moses.
Here again, we see him with that same
vein, that extreme vein.
I tell you the truth in Christ, I
am not lying.
My conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and
continual grief in my heart.
Extreme language.
For I could wish that I myself were
accursed from Christ for my brethren, for my
countrymen, according to the flesh.
Are we there in prayer?
I'm not.
I tell you, I'm not there.
Remember folks, we're holding up this standard.
We're holding the extreme edge up so it
can build within us a desire to want
more, to go more.
These are lifting up the possibilities of grace.
These are not fairy tales.
These are not just old stories in history.
These are the possibilities of grace.
How much are you appropriating in Jesus Christ
today?
How much of the grace of God, the
unmerited power of God are you using to
go into greater sacrifice, devotion and prayer for
the lost and for the church around us?
Philippians 3, 7-15 But
what things were gained to me, these I
have counted lost for Christ, for Jesus.
Yet indeed, I also count all things lost
for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things.
And count them as rubbish, or more literally,
dung.
And count them as rubbish that I may
gain Christ and be found in Him not
having my own righteousness, which is from the
law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is from God by
faith, that I may know Him, and the
power of His resurrection and the fellowship of
His sufferings being conformed to His death, if
by any means I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.
Extreme language.
Giving it all up.
Praise God.
Acts 12, 5 It talks about when Peter
had been put in prison, that it was
the constant prayer.
The saints were giving up constant prayer in
behalf of Peter.
It would more literally be translated fervent, or
uttermost, extreme.
What kind of prayer opens the prison gates,
opens the prison doors?
What kind of prayer lets you be ushered
on by the arm of an angel?
Extreme prayer.
Out here on the edge.
It's not safe.
On the very edge.
Okay, let's talk about some other folks.
Let's talk about some folks in church history.
Let me read you a portion of a
man named Joseph Eleni.
He wrote a great little book called The
Alarm to the Unconverted.
He was a Puritan preacher in the 17th
century.
He arrives speaking about his devotional life, his
prayer life.
He said, He did rise constantly at or
before four o'clock, and on the Sabbath
sooner if he did wake.
He would be much troubled if he heard
any smiths or shoemakers or such trademen at
work at their trades before he was in
his duties with God, before he was in
prayer.
He sang to me after, Oh, how this
noise shames me!
Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs?
From four till eight he spent in prayer,
holy contemplation and singing of psalms, which he
much delighted in, and did daily practice alone,
as well as in his family.
This man, if he got up at four
o'clock and he heard another trade working,
it broke his heart.
Doesn't my Master deserve more than theirs does?
David Brainerd, the great missionary to the American
Indians.
What a man of sacrifice.
Lived in the most harshest conditions.
Gave himself the constant prayer.
Was literally translated, it seems, if you read
his journal, just in being enraptured with the
glory of Jesus, just in love for Christ.
He prayed till he sweat profusely.
He just was exhausted where he could not
walk, the man prayed.
Where there was no strength left in him
to get up and go back home after
praying in the woods.
Extreme prayer.
Daniel Nash.
This was a man that accompanied Charles D.
Finney almost everywhere he went and preached.
This man would go and lock himself up
in a motel room while Finney preached.
He wouldn't come out for meals, he wouldn't
come out hardly at all many times till
revival broke.
He'd find the worst sinner in the town,
he'd take their names down and get alone
with God in the closet till that man
broke and then a huge revival would break
out as a response to seeing the worst
sinner come to Christ.
But referring to Daniel Nash, this is what
Charles Finney has to say, I have never
known a person sweat blood, but I have
known a person pray till the blood started
from his nose.
And I have known persons pray till they
were all wet with perspiration in the coldest
weather in winter.
This man prayed till he bled from his
nose.
Oh, that's extreme, that's crazy.
Why would God want us to do that?
If we could literally see what's at stake
today, see eternity, would it be too extreme?
If we saw souls perishing in hell, if
we saw the state of some men's lives,
if we saw the tragedies that are going
on like Markita talked about, little babies being
thrown away, other children abused and molested in
their own homes, would it be too extreme
to pray like that?
Mothers beaten and battered on a daily basis.
For nothing at all.
To live in that kind of suffering, to
see it, to witness it, and yet it's
too extreme, it's too crazy to pray like
that?
You let one of your children get out
here on this highway with oncoming traffic, and
you tell me what's too extreme.
Won't you raise your voice?
Won't you run?
Wouldn't you do anything?
Maybe dive in front of the car yourself
to block and save that child?
What's the difference, folks?
That's just temporal life.
That's nothing of eternal life.
Edward Payson, or as Leonard Ravenhill called him,
Praying Payson of Portland.
What a man of prayer.
A precious Presbyterian minister would kneel down next
to his bed and rock with fervency and
intercession on a daily basis.
After he died, they said he had huge
calluses on his knees.
And there next to his bed were long
grooves like this, and this wide, worn into
the hardwood floor next to his bed where
he rocked with fervent intercession.
We don't know anything about that, folks.
What was the fruit of that?
Revival.
We don't know what's at stake.
We don't know what its cost is.
Mrs. McCauley.
Let me read a little section about her.
Jerry McCauley was a drunkard given up by
everybody at the rescue missions.
Went to the altar time and time and
time again until people ignored him.
One day, it stuck.
He got gloriously saved.
He had a great mission on the Water
Street Mission, it was called, to the winos,
the derelicts, the drunkards there.
And him and his wife moved to the
east side of London.
Let me read about her life, though.
She was a real woman of prayer, Mrs.
McCauley, Jerry McCauley's wife.
When Mrs. McCauley went to toil in the
east of London with her devoted husband, she
was so brokenhearted at what she saw of
the ravages of sin, at the impotence of
the Christian church, that she cried herself blind.
She lost her sight.
The sight of one eye was restored, but
she carried one sightless eye to her grave,
thus bearing in her body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
She knew indeed what it was to sigh
and cry over the abominations done in that
city.
Am I losing you?
Is that too far out there?
Is that too far out there on the
edge?
These things, they should shame us.
They should show us that we've been living
in a fairy tale.
We really don't know what's going on.
We don't know what's at stake.
The greatest of our concerns a lot of
times is if the sanctuary's cool or if
the seat doesn't hurt our backside.
Some of you young people, what are you
concerned about?
What's going on at school?
Don't all of our deepest concerns pale in
significance in light of these kind of things?
Let me talk about Thomas Hare.
He was a man that traveled with Leonard
Ravenhill, and while Ravenhill preached, Thomas Hare would
pray.
Thomas Hare and Leonard Ravenhill were both together
in a great fire when they were preaching
at A.W. Tozer's church where they both
had to jump out, I believe, of the
12-story window.
Thomas Hare was given to all-night prayer
sessions.
This man would pray throughout the night on
a regular basis.
That sounds pretty extreme, doesn't it?
Giving up whole nights of sleep, fasting sleep.
But what I understand is that Thomas Hare,
to help himself in this discipline so he
would wake up, so he could travail and
intercede for lost souls, used to take his
belt and tie himself to the side of
his bed on his knees.
So if he started to fall off asleep,
he'd catch himself.
Crazy, right?
I mean, that doesn't make sense.