Jesus, I just ask that your presence would
continue just a minute, Lord.
You just give me clarity of thought.
You'd fill in the gaps, the voids, the
things that need to be said that I
have not noticed, and the things that need
to be with my mouth, Lord Jesus.
You would give me an anointing, just rest
on me, Lord, and I pray that you
would help me to do this with all
my heart.
With every inch, every fiber that's within me,
Lord, help me deliver.
Lord, I believe you've started to show me,
and God, I just ask that you'd be
with me and I just declare and confess
that I can't do this without you, Lord
Jesus.
I just humble myself before you, Lord, and
just ask you to strengthen me, God.
I just ask that you would be with
me, and I just declare and confess that
I can't do this without you, Lord Jesus.
I just humble myself before you, Lord, I
didn't just ask you to strengthen me God,
but you just strengthen me Lord Jesus.
Thank you Lord Jesus, praise your holy name,
holy name.
Thank you God, thank you God, thank you
Jesus.
The title of my message is called Extreme
Prayer or Pray Till You Bleed.
That's a real subtle title isn't it?
Extreme Prayer or Pray Till You Bleed.
As I was preparing this just in the
last few weeks, it seems strange to me
in a day when there is such a
lack of fervent prayer in the church, and
when so much of the church is still
what we would call lukewarm, that the term
extreme, praying extremely or doing anything for Jesus
extremely, would catch so much caution and warning.
We are living in a day that we
need God to do some extreme things.
There is extreme need.
How else can we explain the things that
Markita talked about tonight?
The things Brad brought up about the condition
of our world and our communities.
These are extreme times.
People are doing extreme if not excessive things
with the power of the enemy.
We need extreme prayer.
We need extreme Christians.
In the kingdom of God, extreme examples of
devotion serve a very important purpose.
I just want to explain the purpose of
all this and give a few definitions.
Extreme examples reveal to us the possibilities of
grace.
They show us how far God can empower
us.
We shouldn't be condemned about these things.
We shouldn't feel badly.
These things should encourage our heart.
They show us how far the grace of
Jesus Christ can really carry us.
Have we really appropriated the full work of
the cross in our Christian devotion?
This is the question that these things should
raise to us.
Are such examples meant to condemn?
Certainly not.
Such examples stretch us and teach us that
if others have found such grace, we too
can go deeper in Christ.
I'm a real lover of Christian biographies and
talking to people about those.
You either find that people really love them
or they hate them.
They say, oh, what a great biography.
It just changed my life.
Then I'll run into somebody that read exactly
the same biography and they said, oh, I
just felt terrible after I read that thing.
I mean, I felt like, am I a
Christian?
This is the ploy of the enemy.
These kind of extreme examples are meant to
challenge us, again, to show us how we
can go farther in Jesus Christ.
We're going to get to some of these
later, but let me just continue.
Let's first turn with me to Hebrews 12,
3 and 4.
This really lays the foundation for the purpose
of those who seek Jesus in an extreme
way.
Examples of extreme Christianity, examples of extreme prayer.
Hebrews 12, 3 and 4.
For consider him who endured such hostility from
sinners against himself, lest you become weary and
discouraged in your souls.
Hebrews 12, 3 and 4.
You have not yet resisted bloodshed striving against
sin.
Do you see the principle here?
It's that when we feel weary, when we
grow faint, when the Christian walk becomes rough,
we should consider Christ who laid down his
very life in order to fight against sin.
These examples of extreme Christianity, of extreme prayer,
are not meant to condemn us, not meant
to bring us down, but to lift us
up.
Ask the question, have we prayed until we've
bled?
Have we strived in the power and grace
of God until we've shed blood in resisting
against sin in order to establish the kingdom
of God?
How far have we really went?
In light of what Jesus has done on
the cross, all of our consecration, all of
our devotion to him pales and is seemingly
insignificant.
So when you grow weary, when you grow
faint, look at the cross and ask yourself,
have you yet shed blood in resisting against
sin?
This is the purpose for extreme examples, and
perhaps there's no greater and more extreme example
of love and devotion to God the Father
than what Jesus did on the cross.
When someone presents to you, when they raise
the standard, when they tell you how saints
in the past, how people in the scriptures
of the past laid down their life in
love and lordship of Jesus Christ, these things,
if you feel under the pressure, if these
things weigh you down, if these things condemn
you, you need to know right there that
that's the scheme of the enemy.
That is, he's you trying to monopolize, you
know, manipulate these kind of things to wound
you.
But that is not the purpose.
That is not the purpose.
And you just need to deny that work
and to see what God's really trying to
show you.
But don't deny the examples.
See, what's happening a lot is people will
lift up a standard perhaps of holiness, of
devotion, of prayer, real live examples of how
people of God in the past have walked
with Jesus.
And then all of a sudden somebody will
say, well, that makes me feel bad.
I don't like to look at that.
It's either one or two things, folks.
It's either conviction of sin, God's trying to
take you deeper, trying to break the vessel
a little bit, or the enemy is trying
to use that and twist the word.
And we all know how effective the enemy
can twist the words.
What did Satan come to Jesus with in
the wilderness?
The scripture, truth.
What did Satan come to Eve with in
the garden?
Truth, twisted, a little bit of it left
out, a little bit of it added.
So this is a scheme of the enemy,
but it does not necessarily mean that the
standard that's being lifted is not accurate, is
not true.
The title, Pray Till You Bleed, is meant
to communicate a concept of prayer that contains
sacrifice.
In 2 Samuel 24-24, David declared, Nor
will I offer offerings to the Lord my
God, which cost me nothing.
How much does your prayer life cost you?
Much, much of what's called prayer today is
cheap.
It's way too cheap.
It doesn't cost us anything, folks.
Does it cost you anything to shoot up
a prayer while you're driving on the freeway?
We should really be ashamed of some of
the books that line the Christian bookstores today,
the shelves of them.
I was reading through a book list the
other day, and a title caught my eye.
It said, 15 Minutes Alone with God.
Or I've seen another one that was entitled,
Prayer for Busy People.
Folks, this stuff's shameful.
You tell me.
Now, you know, with the big emphasis on
marriage and intimacy and correct family life, you
write a book that's entitled, 15 Minutes Alone
with Your Wife, and you see how long
your ministry would last.
Man, if you were a radio preacher, you'd
be off the air.
Man, it would be over.
Well, how much more intimacy, love, closeness, does
Jesus deserve than our spouses?
In Ephesians 5, the writer there, Paul, is
telling us that God has so organized, so
constructed the marital relationships between a man and
a woman to teach us about our relationship
with Jesus Christ.
And we make special nights to have dates
and spend time, meaningful time with our children,
with our spouses, and yet we can talk
about 15 minutes alone with Jesus.
Can you see how that is twisted?
And it comes, it flows out of something
that says down deep in the back of
our mind, in the recesses of our heart,
that God cannot be hurt, that He cannot
be affected by our careless attitude.
Yet the Scripture is clear that the Holy
Spirit is grieved, that He is quenched, that
His heart is wounded, that God longs for
intimacy with His people.
And we talk about 15 minutes alone with
Him.
Do you begrudge the service like we even
had tonight, where we just take time to
sing songs to Jesus, and we can wait?
Are the long pauses in worship uncomfortable for
you?
We wouldn't dare, you know, begrudge our spouse
the time it takes to listen.
It takes time to listen, folks.
You've got to sit there for a while,
not saying anything, not doing anything.
That's what's going on in worship sometimes.
Give the Holy Spirit time to speak to
people's hearts.
This concept is totally inconsistent with the holy
and loving God who gave everything, everything in
order to redeem us from the eternal death
sentence.
So no one misunderstands me, let me say
this, that we do not desire costly, sacrificial
devotion and prayer in order to obtain God's
love, but as the natural and grateful response
to receiving God's love.
Do you see the difference?
I'm not talking about works here, folks.
I'm not talking about, you know, earning God's
love by praise and worship, by hours spent
in prayer.
But what else is consistent with what Jesus
has done for us?
He's given us it all.
He laid everything down for us.
We love because He first loved us, the
Scripture says.
And if you begrudge Jesus in prayer, the
love that He deserves, in worship, the love
that He desires, all that reveals about you
is that you have never really come into
a revelation of His love for you.
Because if you really, really knew that Jesus
loved you, if you felt the depth of
that love, it would never be a hard
thing.
To the extent that we understand this revelation
is to the extent that we go deeper
in prayer, deeper in love with Christ, deeper
in worship, deeper in devotion, deeper in obedience,
deeper in holiness.
We often equate extreme with excessive.
I was so blessed as I studied about
this word extreme a little bit.
To be excessive is to be beyond established
laws of morality and religion.
To put it simply, it is to go
beyond that which God desires.
Excessive is just that too much.
Excessive is the reason why Nadab and Abihu,
Aaron's sons, were burnt before the congregation of
God.
Because they asked for that which God did
not require.
They offered a strange sacrifice, and like that
they were consumed by the fire of God.
The same fire of God that was being
poured out on the altar to show the
people that He had received their sacrifice freely
was now consuming the very priests of God
because they offered that which He did not
ask for.
They were excessive.
The definition of extreme is the outermost edge.
Uttermost, greatest, most violent, best or worst, depending
on your perspective, or most pressing.
It's the outermost edge.
A derivative of extreme is extremities.
Our extremities, you know what those are?
They're our fingers, they're our hands, our feet,
our head.
They are the outermost edge of our body.
Extremities.
Is this bad stuff, folks?
Or some of the most valuable stuff that
we have?
Some of the things that we get the
kingdom work done with.
What is it that holds the shield of
faith up but an extremity?
An extreme edge.
What is it that takes up the sword
of the Spirit but an extreme edge, an
extremity?
What does God say are beautiful?
The feet of those who bring glad tidings.
The extremity.
The extreme edge.
Do you want to get something done in
the kingdom of God and yet you're so
afraid to be extreme for Jesus?
It won't happen, folks.
Some of the most useful parts in the
body of Christ are the extremities, the extreme
edge.
Now, just talking about it just stirs me.
I want to be extreme for Jesus, to
lose myself in sacrifice and devotion to Him.
I don't want to be way back here.
I want to be out at the edge.
The extreme edge.
That's where the fruit grows, folks, on a
tree.
It's at the extremities, out on the end
of the branches.
But if you want to play it safe,
it may be hard to be on that
extreme edge.
C.
H.
Spurgeon in a great little book called The
Eccentric Preacher puts it another way, but he's
talking about the same thing.
He talks about that...
He just explains that for machinery to operate,
a machine, there must be a large gear
and then several other gears that are eccentric
to the main gear.
They're not...
In other words, the word concentric means everything
to run in the same circle.
But nothing gets done that way, folks.
The eccentric gear, one to another, makes the
machinery operate.
They're on the extreme edge.
You want to be normal?
You want the status quo?
That's not where God's doing things.
God's doing things.
His people are eccentric of one another.
This speaks of the beauty of the body
of Christ, the multifaceted members of Jesus' body.
Amen.
We need to be eccentric.
We need to be extreme.
I hope you have a greater appreciation for
those words and don't confuse them with some
others.
God's mandate is this.
This is one that He laid on my
heart early on as a believer.
Never determine your Christian progress on the basis
of the run-of-the-mill status quo
religious systems.
Folks, get your eyes off what's going on
around here.
Never determine your Christian progress on the basis
of the run-of-the-mill status quo
religious systems.
Surround yourselves with courageous, daring, yes, even extreme
examples of faith.
This is one of the main motivations for
me personally, studying the histories of revival and
studying the biographies.
The Lord early on said, David, don't look
at this stuff that's going on, that they're
calling ministry.
For one thing, I was having a big
trouble, a big problem.
It wasn't lining up with what I felt
the Lord was showing me as a new
believer.
I felt Him pouring out a vision in
my heart, and this wasn't making sense.
And really, too, this is where some of
the precious biographies of time pass, of real
men of God and women of God.
You surround yourself by these folks, and they
will nurture an extreme Christianity.
And praise God, there's still plenty of living
extreme believers to expose ourselves to.
But find somebody that is pushing the edge.
This term extreme is a lot of times
you'll find connected with this, something like this.
They push the envelope.
They're not busting through it.
That would be excessive.
But the boundaries that God is giving, they
are pushing it.
They're going to the outside edge.
Find people like that to surround yourself.
Let's look at some examples though of extreme
devotion to God.
Let's start with Jesus Himself.
He's the extreme Savior.
The extreme Savior.
Hebrews 7, 22 to 25.
And one of my famous sayings throughout the
whole book of Hebrews is, Consider Jesus.
It's all about pointing you back to Christ
to consider the beauty, the depth of Him
as a perfect mediator between God and man.
By so much more, Jesus had become a
surety of a better covenant.
Also, there were many priests because they were
prevented by death from continuing.
But He, because He continues forever, has an
unchangeable priesthood.
Therefore, He is also able to save to
the uttermost those who come to God through
Him, since He always lives to make intercession
for them.
Christ right now is interceding on our behalf.
And because of that, He is able, because
of what He has done on the cross
and being risen from the dead in His
intercessory role right now at the right hand
of the Father, He is able to save
us to the uttermost.
To the uttermost edge.
Right to the extreme.
He is able to do great things in
our life.
Take us from being one kind of person
to the totally opposite extreme and change us
in a radical way.
Jesus always desires to save us extremely.
To save us to the uttermost.
Jesus doesn't do anything halfway.
The only reason why we have a halfway
work of grace is because we got in
the middle of it.
It's not the will of Christ.
Hebrews 7, 22, excuse me, Hebrews 5, 7.
Let's back up and take a look there.
While you're looking for that, let me read
to you a little book that also has
an extreme title.
Heaven Taken by Storm, showing the holy violence
a Christian is to put forth in the
pursuit after glory.
One of my favorite Puritan preachers, Thomas Watson,
he says in regard to Christ and His
perfect work, His extreme work, how violent Christ
was about our salvation.
Remember, one of those definitions for extreme was
with violence.
How violent Christ was about our salvation.
He was in agony.
He continued all night in prayer, Luke 6,
12.
He wept.
He fasted.
He died a violent death.
He rose violently out of the grave.
Was Christ so violent for our salvation and
does it not become us to be violent
who are so intimately concerned in it?
Christ's violence was not only satisfactory, but exemplary.
It was not only to appease God, but
to teach us.
Christ was violent in dying to teach us
to be violent in believing.
Jesus is an extreme Christ, extreme Savior.
Hebrews 5, 7.
Now again, we're talking about, this applies to
the whole gambit of our Christian life.
I'm really trying to focus in here on
prayer.
Speaking again of Christ, who in the days
of His flesh, when He had offered up
prayers and supplications with behemoth cries and tears
to Him, who was able to save Him
from death and was heard because of His
godly fear.
Jesus, how did He pray?
Surely, the Son of God didn't need to
go to any extra effort to communicate with
the Father.
With loud crying, behemoths, tears, strong crying.
This is how Jesus prayed?
And we talk about 15 minutes alone with
God?
Luke 22, 39-46.
Of course, everybody's familiar with the passage.
Christ, before the crucifixion, going into the garden
to pray.
Coming out, He went to the Mount of
Olives as He was accustomed.
This was Jesus' habit.
He was used to going there and praying.
He made prayer a habit.
And His disciples also followed Him.
When He came to the place, He said
to them, Pray that you may not enter
into temptation.
And He was withdrawn from them about a
stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed,
saying, Father, if it is Your will, let
this cup pass away from Me.
Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.
Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven,
strengthening Him.
You notice that?
That's the direct result of prayer.
What does prayer do?
You want to see some angels?
Then start praying, folks.
Prayer is the place where you see God
do miraculous things.
And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly
than His sweat became like great drops of
blood falling down to the ground.
When He rose up from prayer and had
come to His disciples, He found them sleeping
from sorrow.
Then He said to them, Why do you
sleep?
Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
Folks, I don't know about you, but the
kind of agony, the kind of travail that
would produce blood, or as some have interpreted
as sweat as great drops of blood, however
you want to look at it, either way
it does not make any difference.
This is real travail.
This is something that gripped Jesus' heart.
He literally was praying till He bled.
The anxiety, the burden of this whole thing.
He had to touch the heart of Jesus.
He wasn't afraid.
Touch the heart of His Father, excuse me.
He wasn't afraid to be called extreme.
One who would go to the outermost edge
in order to accomplish kingdom business, kingdom work.
If it wasn't for an extreme Savior, none
of us would be here, in this little
place tonight.
If it wasn't for extreme prayer, extreme sacrifice,
taking it right out to the edge, where
would we be today?
Revelations 3, 14-22.
Jesus sums it up nicely, what He desires
from His church in this passage.
And so to the angel of the church
of the Laodiceans write, These things says the
Amen, the faithful, the true witness, and the
beginning of the creation of God, Jesus Himself.
I know your works, that you are neither
cold nor hot.
I would wish you were cold or hot.
What does God want?
How can Jesus deal with you?
When you're either extremely cold or extremely hot.
He has a hard time reaching His people
when they're lukewarm.
He can't do much with us when we
want to be status quo, mediocre, middle of
the road, safe.
If you're extremely cold, He can break you.
He can draw you back.
If you're extremely hot, He can do anything.
He can turn the world upside down through
you.
But God would rather you be extreme one
way or the other.
God wants His church extreme, not middle of
the road.
What does He say in the next verse?
Verse 16, So then because you are lukewarm
and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit
you out of My mouth, spit you out.
You're unpleasant to Me.
I want you to be extreme.
I want you to be the outermost edge,
hot for Me.
What does it mean?
There's all this talk about the fire of
God today.
What is that?
It means be extreme, folks.
Be extreme in your praying, in your devotion,
in your love for Jesus.
The outermost edge.
But we throw these things around like they're
cute little clichés today.
It's little buzzwords in the church, and they've
kind of already lost their meaning.
They were trendy last year, and now we
just say them, and yet live quite middle
of the road.
The Lord doesn't want us to be halfway.
And I'm not standing up here saying that
in every area of my life, I'm at
its extreme edge.
But what I am saying is I know
where the standard is.
It's out at the edge.
See, and one of the things that happens
is if you have shallow Christianity over here
and acceptable Christianity over here, we usually fall
somewhere in between.
The balance, you know, falls somewhere in between.
And if we have disqualified all this part
of seeking Christ as extreme or something unpleasant,
something uncomfortable, something that we really would rather
not have in our life, then, you see,
we've distorted the whole picture of where we
should be and realizing that we'll probably float
more to the center, even though that may
not be God's perfect will.
That's the truth of how things work for
us.
If we chop out this big section of
what we're calling extreme, we're usually going to
fall way down here on the scale.
We've got to keep the thing right.
How's the balance?
Where is it?
Is the word balance acceptable?
Yeah, I believe there's truths that clarify one
another.
But we'd be careful about this.
I got myself in a lot of trouble
trying to play the balance game, trying to
always, oh, yes, I must qualify all this
and qualify all this, and pretty soon I
wasn't walking right with Jesus anymore.
What a lot of that amounts to is
trying to be four or five, maybe six
or eight different members of the body of
Christ a lot of times.
I'm not saying that there's not a place
for clarity, to see in the Scripture a
healthy balance of what the truth is.
But again, the word extreme doesn't really apply.
Excess would apply there better.
Okay, let's look at another extreme follower of
God, Moses, in Exodus 32.
This is right after the incident with the
golden calf and Israel's great sin and great
backsliding.
And Moses is here interceding for the children
of Israel who had broken his heart.
Then Moses returned to the Lord and said,
oh, these people have committed great sin and
made for themselves a God of gold.
And I want you to notice here, you
can say that same thing in a lot
of different ways.
This was not a condemning, this was not
an angry, bitter statement from an outside observer.
This was something that was breaking Moses' heart.
This is something that had driven to his
knees.
And there's a lot of pain you can
hear here in his voice.
Verse 31, excuse me.
Then Moses returned to the Lord and said,
oh, these people have committed great sin and
have made for themselves a God of gold.
Yet now if you will forgive their sin.
So Lord, please forgive them.
Please have mercy on them.
God be merciful.
But look how quick Moses' response is.
He's already got a second plan just out
of his love for these folks.
But if not, I pray, blot me out
of your book, which you have written.
I mean, is that extreme or what?
Is that extreme prayer?
Is that extreme intercession?
That says, Lord, if you can't forgive these
people, if you can't look over this, if
you can't cleanse this, Lord, somehow let me
be a substitute.
Let me take their place.
Let me take their judgment.
I don't know about you folks, but I
can't even comprehend that.
That is extreme.
That is out at the edge.
That is an extremity.
A hand way out here doing something that
others can't touch.
Jacob, Genesis 32.
Another extreme follower of God.
24 through 30.
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man
wrestled with him until the breaking of day.
Now when he saw that he did not
prevail against him, he touched the socket of
his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip
was out of joint as he wrestled with
him.
And he said, let me go for the
daybreak.
Speaking of Jacob here, he said, I will
not let you go unless you bless me.
So he said to him, what is your
name?
He said, Jacob.
And he said, your name shall no longer
be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have
struggled with God and with men and have
prevailed.
Then Jacob asked, saying, tell me your name,
I pray.
And he said, why is it that you
have asked about my name?
And he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the name of that place
Peniel.
Jacob knew without hearing it.
Called the place Peniel, for I have seen
God face to face, and my life has
been preserved.
Is that extreme?
Is that extreme prayer?
Will we begrudge and judge one another because
they perhaps do something that we don't think
is acceptable?
In devotion to Jesus?
You know, I've asked this question many times.
What is too extreme in light of the
Holy God?
Eternal hell and an everlasting heaven?
And a lost world right in the middle
of it?
What is too extreme?
When your brother cries out in praise, when
he weeps, when he worships like there's no
tomorrow?
Is that too extreme?
What's the name of this woman?
Rachel, Genesis 30 verse 1.
Back up.
Now here we see Rachel desiring a son.
But she is the perfect picture of the
intercessory prayer, the ministry of intercession.
She recognizes within her the incapacity to bear
fruit, to produce after her own kind.
This breaks her heart, shatters her.
It creates reproach, a shame.
How many of us have that same shame?
Unable to produce fruit.
Are you a fruitful believer?
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 a sin today that
we have made the books, the epistles, the
writings of Paul into the most bunch of
dribble and escape and back doors 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 the 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 Alini wrote a great little
book called The Alarm to the Unconverted.
He was a Puritan preacher in the 17th
century.
He arrived speaking about his devotional life, his
prayer life.
He did rise constantly at or before 4
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.
Saying 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 4
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.
It 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.
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.
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 is 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 the 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, he 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.
Where are your works?