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  5 MARKS OF A PRAYER WARRIOR (VIDEO)
  by Shane Idleman
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the characteristics of a true prayer
warrior, highlighting the importance of pure hearts, praying according
to God's will, desire, intensity, perseverance, compassion, and
commitment. It stresses the need for anguish, travailing, and calling
upon the name of Jesus in times of trouble, with a focus on humility,
brokenness, and deep prayer life. The ultimate prayer warrior, Jesus, is
highlighted as the intercessor who helps in our weaknesses and delivers
us in times of need.

Topics: "Characteristics of a Prayer Warrior", "The Role of Jesus as Intercessor"
Scripture References: Isaiah 59:2, James 4:3, Luke 11:9, Ephesians 6:18, Psalms 50:15, Psalms 51:17, Hebrews 7:25, Joel 2:12

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the characteristics of a true prayer warrior,
highlighting the importance of pure hearts, praying according to God's
will, desire, intensity, perseverance, compassion, and commitment. It
stresses the need for anguish, travailing, and calling upon the name of
Jesus in times of trouble, with a focus on humility, brokenness, and
deep prayer life. The ultimate prayer warrior, Jesus, is highlighted as
the intercessor who helps in our weaknesses and delivers us in times of
need.

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CONTENT
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Prayer warrior, I think we need to first mention what a prayer warrior
is not. At least, it doesn't mean that this person has these
characteristics. They are not necessarily loud.

You ever think that loud is where God is at? And boy, he's a prayer
warrior, he's loud. Hmm, not necessarily. Boisterous, you know, and talk
spiritual.

Oh, thou heavenly father, great creator of, you know, the King James
language. And it's not that, it's also not long-winded. And now, prayers
can go long.

But sometimes we define these things if it's just long-winded and loud
and the right language. And we kind of think that, you know, maybe
that's a prayer warrior, that's my goal. And really, prayer is gonna
come through these things right here.

And it's gonna, I think, really help you as we get into when these weeks
are over, real life. Because when real life gets here, that's when the
rubber's really gonna meet the road. When we have the certain things
happening in our country.

And I'm convinced the only thing that's gonna get us through is prayer
and being anchored to God's word. And I mean, if you took to heart what
Kevin said, there's a lot of truth in that with humility and owning it.
And the point I really got to with forgiveness is reconciliation,
because we can say, okay, I forgive you, but there's not a
reconciliation.

There's not a, you know, okay, I made the decision to forgive you, but,
and really, forgiveness is reconciling. It goes together. But number
one, five marks of a prayer warrior, if you want to just be infused with
the power of God, really change your life in this area.

Number one, they strive for pure hearts and clean hands. Isaiah 59, two,
I think we have it up there. But your wrongdoings have caused a
separation, meaning a barrier.

There's a wall between you and your God and your sins have hidden his
face from you so that he does not hear. Now, people might say, well,
Shane, that was true for the children of Israel in Isaiah's time, and
okay, context, I'm a context guy. I love context.

I don't like just grabbing things. What's the context? Well, the
principle, though, is very true. When there's a besetting sin, when
there's things that, and that's why it was so important when we talked
about, if you're just skipping around the issues that really need to be
dealt with and you're not dealing with them, you're not dealing with the
besetting sin and the wrong attitudes and things like that, and they can
really hinder your prayer life.

And I've talked to so many people. I've been guilty of this myself. You
know, I'm just passionate.

No, you're angry. Or I'm just this, and no, I'm controlling. Unless you
own those things and really repent and what are the, and husbands, I
hate to break it to you, but your prayers will be hindered if you're not
treating your wives correctly.

If you hold anything against someone, and you go, why are my prayers not
being answered? Jesus actually said, go and deal with that. Leave your
gift at the altar. During their worship services in the temple, they
would actually bring, part of that was bringing their offering or their
tithe, and that's where a lot of churches get the concept of passing the
plate and things like that.

But he would say, don't even go do that. Go and be reconciled. Get your
heart right first.

So really, striving for pure hearts and clean hands, and it comes from
the verse, I don't wanna just throw up so many verses, but that talks
about who may ascend into the heel of the Lord or stand in his holy
place. He who has clean hands and a pure heart is not lifted up his soul
to an idol. And what happens when holiness is sought again, and not
legalism, not being rigid, and this kind of stuff, but it's a desire.

Out of a Christian should come a desire for holiness, and wanting that
and searching that. And then I've noticed, from that holiness, here
comes the filling of the Holy Spirit. Here comes that deep and abiding
prayer life.

Here comes that passion. I might spend an hour on my knees, weeping,
listening to worship and praying, because God, give me clean hands and a
pure heart. Lord, I want to repent of my sin, and I want that line of
communication to be open again.

First step number one. And I think that this is why some people are
hitting that block. They're hitting that prayer block, because there's
some things that they're not dealing with.

And it's one thing if you don't know it, but it's something else when we
know that God is convicting us about something, and we say, nope, nope.
You ever been there? Just me. Oh, very few.

Okay, I hope. No, I know. I'm being sarcastic, right, of course.

But that opens up. That opens up that line of communication. So a strong
prayer warrior, and I know my mom was, and we had other people here at
this church, and we still do right now, without a shadow of doubt, this
is a mark of their heart.

It's a pure heart. It's a clean hands, and there's a desire for
holiness. And then number two, this is vitally important.

They pray according to their own will. Oh, I misread that one too. They
pray according to God's will.

James 4, three, you ask and you do not receive because you ask and miss.
In other words, you're missing it by your prayers. That you may spend it
on your pleasures.

And if we examine our prayer life, and we say, Lord, why is this not
happening? And even looking back over my own life, it was, Lord, give me
this better job. And there's nothing wrong with a better job. But then
give me this, and I want more of this.

And it's really not about people anymore. It's about me. It's really not
about what God wants to do.

It's about what I want. And I don't know, have you ever prayed those
prayers where, go get them, God, prayers? Okay, good. The go get them,
God, prayers.

Lord, you go get them. You take care, and my heart's not right. Because,
Lord, what is your will? Go get them in the right way.

Bring them to you, and bring them to repentance. And so, even this last
couple weeks has been really, last 10 days, I guess, or how many days? I
don't even know how many days we're, 12 days. Surrendering my agenda.

To really get into deep prayer, you have to surrender your agenda. And
surrender the agenda of your family, or your, I mean, just, because we
come in with agendas, and basically, it's like saying, God, here's what
I'm doing, now bless it. Versus finding out what God is doing in our own
hearts.

And I think when we can get that heart is right through pure hearts and
clean hands, and then we say, Lord, what is your will? And then once you
begin to get his will through scripture, even through your own personal
life, praying for your spouses, your kids, the church, those in need,
you begin to be energized. Because those prayers are powerful, and the
Holy Spirit is interceding on our behalf, and you can really feel the
weight of your prayers, and you see people come to know the Lord. Many
have come to know the Lord this last week and a half.

It's been amazing to see that, too. And then number three, marks of a
prayer warrior. They are marked by desire and intensity.

Now, you can't, you've heard me say this, you can't work it up. Do you
remember in high school, those pep rallies? Do they still have those?
What are they, are they still called pep rallies? I don't know. You
know, it was, yeah, it was, you know, you're working it up, and you're
getting the crowd ready, and you got a football game tonight, and
sometimes we handle a church like that.

You know, if we could just get a loud worship team, or a well-known
worship team, and we could, can we get some smoke mister things here,
and smoke coming up, and the ambiance, and that's the wrong type of
intensity. But a true prayer warrior, prayer is their desire, and their
intensity. Luke 11, nine, 10.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and
the door will be opened to you.

You have permission tonight to bother God. It's okay to bother God. He
actually, Jesus gives the illustration of going to your friend's house
in the middle of the night.

If you just knock once, he's not gonna open the door, but if you keep
persisting, he will get up out of the bed, and get you what you need,
and then Jesus ties it in with praying to God. Ask, ask, and you will
receive. Seek, and you will find.

Knock, and the door will be opened to you. They are marked by, prayer
warriors have this mark of desire and intensity. There's a hunger,
there's a, you know what, we have desire and intensity for other things,
but to have that for prayer, and no, you can't just, okay, let me turn
on that switch.

It's gotta be worked up, it's gotta be fueled. You read books on prayer,
you go to church more often, you put on worship, you look at positive
news instead of negative news, and you begin to fill your mind with
things that edify you, and the men's study, or the women's study, or the
other studies, and your iron sharpens iron, and now there's desire is
welling up inside of you, and it's intense. There's an intensity.

It's targeted, and then number four, they are marked by perseverance. A
true prayer warrior will have perseverance, even in the midst of
adversity, even in the midst of challenges, because they know, they used
to call it praying through. I don't know if you've heard that a while.

We haven't used that language in quite a while, but in old church
history, you know, 50, 60 years ago, 100 years ago, the books I read,
it's like, we pray through. We were there until God answered. Can you
imagine saying, I'm not getting up, Lord, until you answer? Now, he
might not answer physically, but there's a confirmation in your spirit.

There's a confirmation within you that says, God has heard my prayers,
and if there is God in heaven, that situation will be dealt with.
There's something about pressing in, and pressing through, and holding
on, and laboring, and travailing, and this energy all towards prayer.
They're marked by perseverance.

Ephesians 6, 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the
spirit. Now, this is interesting, because, you know, I get the
questions, people email, well, how can I pray all day, Shane? I've gotta
work. Of course, but it's the spirit of prayer.

Do you know we can walk around with an attitude? We can walk around
angry, and arrogant, and condescending, and it's who we are. It's our
aura, or whatever you call that, or the ambiance of your spirit,
whatever, this emotion, but this is a spirit of prayer throughout the
day, so challenges come up. You pray, and traffic, and you're praying,
and at work, and it's hard to explain, because it's part of who you are.

It's, you've already saturated the atmosphere of your prayer life with
prayer, at church, and you probably can experience it, those who've been
coming to this regularly. There's a new dynamic of prayer that takes
place throughout the week, throughout the day. You're finding yourself
praying more, and looking to God, so basically, it's a mark of who you
are inside, because our mind can go other places, media, not good
places, anybody ever dwelt on just things that happen in your life? You
know, bitterness, just somebody makes you upset, and you're dwelling on
that all day, and that could really, really alter our prayer life, so he
says, just pray in the spirit, and with this in view, be on alert with
all perseverance.

Now, I don't think it's an accident there that he's throwing in the word
alert, because you have to be alert in your prayer life, because things
will happen to knock you off course. I am convinced that the number one
weapon the enemy uses is discouragement, and it comes in many forms. We
could list a whole bunch right now, but discouragement, things aren't
working out the way we thought they would work out.

Somebody's not treating me the way I thought they would treat me, and
I'm discouraged. That happens, does that happen in church, Shane? Yes, I
do to people, they do to me, right? You can become discouraged, and the
enemy will be on alert in these areas. He looks for opportune times, and
the day isn't going like I planned.

I don't know how many times me and my wife talk about this, but we'll
talk like, this day, this day is not going like I, and so we are alert.
We know, okay, things are not gonna go my way, but I've got to, and
that's why it says with all perseverance. See, perseverance pushes
through.

Perseverance continues regardless of setbacks, and like what Kevin had
to get through, to get through that type of training, there is nothing
more important than perseverance, in my opinion, because you're gonna
quit if you listen to the voices up here. Your body's not gonna be able
to take that type of training unless it's just perseverance. I've got to
finish this.

I've got to prove it to myself, and the same thing with prayer. Be on
alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. In other
words, we're actually supposed to pray for others.

How many of our prayer lives are focused on me, myself, and I? And it
can really drain you because there's a lack there. There's a lack of
desire. There's not too much intensity because you're just, you're not
designed to just pray for you and you and you.

It's good, though. You need to pray for you and your wife and different
situations, but ultimately, petition for all the saints. So be
encouraged.

The power of perseverance. Many times, I pray when I don't feel like it.
I pray in spite of how I feel sometimes.

Sometimes, I don't want to come to this altar, but that's why I do
because I'm saying, come on, feelings, you're coming with me. I'm not
coming with you. I'm gonna persevere in prayer, and within sometimes
five, 10, 15 minutes, the heavens are rent open and my heart is ripped
open and begin to focus on what the prayer for a nation or for this
church or for unity, and you begin to really, maybe an hour will go by,
a half hour will go by because you fought your feelings and God began to
honor that perseverance.

See, the thing we forget about perseverance is the whole word means
you're not gonna like what you're doing, but you do it anyway. If you
like, it's called fun if it's not perseverance, and it's a mark of the
Christian faith throughout all the scriptural text. I mean, there's
different words they would use.

God told Moses, be of good courage, keep going forward. Same thing,
Joshua, now my servant Moses is dead. Be of good courage, move forward,
keep going forward, keep persevering, keep trusting in me because bottom
line, I'm not gonna rehash this, but I did last week, I think, is
perseverance and faith and trust go hand in hand.

I'm moving forward because I trust God. I don't see the results. I don't
feel the results.

As a matter of fact, I don't like my current circumstance, but I'm not
gonna be a baby and backtrack. I'm gonna persevere despite how I feel
and it's trust and faith in God, and God honors that. Oh, that's faith
that pleases me.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God, and then this is a no-
brainer for sure, number five. They are marked, prayer warriors. Once
you deal with sin, once you pray according to God's will, once there's
that desire, intensity, once you decide to persevere no matter what,
come to the prayer meetings.

We actually have prayer meetings now at 6 a.m. every Sunday morning, 6
a.m. to 6.30 every single Sunday morning right next door in this multi-
purpose room, and we're praying for the service. We're praying for
different needs out there, and you can tell people they're spiritually
hungrier here because now, do they feel like it initially? Nope, but
once they get here, the story changes. They persevere, and without
perseverance, you will not see God move because without perseverance,
you don't go deep.

You don't get intense. You don't camp out there for a while. You don't
pull down heaven.

You don't rent the heavens. You don't let God work in your heart without
perseverance, and then finally, they are marked by compassion and
commitment. They are marked.

A prayer warrior is, you will not be a true prayer warrior or somebody
known for prayer or prayers that get heard by God without compassion.
They are marked by compassion and commitment to do what they've been
called to do by God. Jeremiah 23, nine, my heart within me is broken
because of the prophets.

All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man and like a man who wine has
overcome because of the Lord and because of his holy words, and if you
go through and read more of this with Jeremiah, his heart, he's
lamenting, and he had a compassion for the people. You find me a prophet
in the Old Testament, even those in the New Testament who prayed without
compassion.

You will not find one because it was out of that deep wellspring of
their heart, that compassion, and we have to pray. I would encourage you
tonight to pray, God, break my heart for the things that break yours. If
your prayer life is stagnant, if you have no prayer life, if prayer
seems dead or formal or indifferent, it's because God has not broken
your heart.

It's okay to shed some tears during prayer. It's okay to really focus.
Now, you can't work it up, but it's God, God, help me.

I pray, God, I don't want to. My will, self-will, doesn't want to, but
Lord, you override my will. Give me a broken heart.

Go deep inside of me. Begin to cut out the things that are just stopping
this powerful prayer life, and as Kevin mentioned, pride is a biggie.
It's a big deal that we don't like to deal with.

Isn't that interesting? Prideful people don't like to deal with pride
because it's pride that stops us from dealing with pride. We can't, and
it blocks this. It actually does not lead to compassion.

Have you noticed that? Prideful hearts are not compassionate. That's why
they're mean to their spouses. They're mean to their kids.

They're mean to others, their tone. Why? It's all from pride. Pride and
compassion, they're at odds.

And so I know we mentioned this a lot, but when we close this evening, I
would encourage some of you in the balcony, if you feel led, to come
down here and come to this altar and just say, Lord, break me. Break me.
I want that prayer life.

I need to be broken by God Almighty, and it's stepping out in faith. I
remember my breaking process 20 years ago. I remembered, I fought it
because we know when we need to be broken, we just don't want to.

That's the struggle teenagers have a lot. I know what they're saying,
but I don't wanna go. I don't wanna be part of that.

I don't want to, and Christians can do that too, and pride is keeping
us, but there should be, that's why Jeremiah was called the weeping
prophet. Isaiah wept and Moses wept over the people. David wept, and
what about the apostle Paul? And see, it's a compassion, but it's hard
to explain because you can't, it's not like a verb in the New Testament
where we say, okay, be holy, be filled with the Spirit, do these things,
don't do this, be quick to listen, so to speak.

You know, you can't say just be compassionate because it's not natural.
It has to be supernatural. To actually be compassionate and show love is
not natural.

It doesn't come naturally. It comes supernaturally by saying, God, break
my heart for the things that break yours, and I've shared this before,
but there's so many new people. I might as well share it again.

When I first just became, you know, there's a process of breaking, and
it's hard to, you know, we fight it, and sometimes we reverse, we go
forward. A lot of the brokenness that started was when I was humbled,
you know, 20 some years ago, and through the humility of certain
situations and being humbled, I was at 24 Hour Fitness. I've told a lot
of you, and I'd worked my way up and was a district manager over many
fitness facilities and good money and board meetings in Irvine and Suit
and Tie, and as I came back to the Lord, God said, okay, now it's time
to humble you, but often, you don't humble yourself, so through a series
of events, I was one of the top district managers, numbers, I was their
numbers guy to produce like $300,000, $400,000 a month, and I was rated
on that same store growth, projected budgets, all that stuff, you know,
6%, 8%, I'd shoot for 12%, the board of directors is happy, okay, good,
I'm happy, but I had to keep beating myself every month.

It got to a point, now I'm back to the Lord, I'm like, oh, let's not
work these guys seven days a week, let's give them some time off, let's
not pressure people, you know, my whole, I'm changing, so guess what
changes? So the numbers drop big time, because, you know, salesmen,
right, you're pushing and you're pushing products and supplements and
nutrition, and what are the numbers, what are your numbers? Pushing the
numbers, you can't take a vacation, you need to hit your numbers, and so
my whole heart changed and numbers dropped, and then I got demoted to
one gym, and now I'm working one underneath the people that I used to be
equal with, or they would be under me, and it was part of that humbling
process, humbling process, that I decided to leave there, and God,
there's no other work out there, and my brother said, I'll pay you $100
a day, and you can come work for me in construction, and so now I'm the
older brother, yeah, but to his credit, probably one of the best people
I've ever worked with, it was a good time, I miss those times, but
humbling, humbling, you selling everything, I'm moving back home with my
mom, I ran into people around town, so Shane, what are you doing now,
just, you live with your mom? I remember when I first met Morgan and met
her dad, he was in the Marines, and, sorry Kevin, he, but he said, he's
like, well yeah, you know, he's, I live with my mom, you know, he's
like, oh, okay, any plans for the future, and I'm like, boy, oh boy, I
don't know what God has in the future, but it was just a complete
breaking, in order to build back up, you often have, so just the broken
and humbled, and it was just embarrassing, I guess is that a better,
that's a good word, embarrassing, and humbled, and going from this to
this, and then through that process, to, and then even getting married,
that's humbling, because you're single, I'm a single Christian, I think,
man, I'm so humble, I got this, this, Morgan's gonna love me, and then,
you know, kind of like Kevin, type A alpha male, marries a butterfly,
so, you know, rhinoceros and butterflies, and I shared, I think it's in
one of my books, and articles, many, gosh, I don't even know, 2000, I
don't know what year it was, 2007 or eight, I read, you know, she left
her journal out, and said, I married a man, who will not allow me to
fulfill my dreams, and I'm not gonna let him do this to the kids, like,
I thought everything was fine, and so I was so mad, I drove for a couple
hours, and came home, and I was just like, what is this, and she began
to share, and God just began to break me, and I was controlling, not in
the, you know, I just, you know, you're the guy, you want, okay, we're
gonna save money here, and, you know, let's just be honest, sometimes
women have ideas that don't pan out, and, you know, right, so, well, I
wanna do makeup, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do
scrapbooking, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, let's just focus, it's to
save money, so that kind of controlling, but not in a, you know, it was
just like, no, it's, we're saving money, and I'm gonna save her, she's a
spender, so that was interesting, but reading those words, you know,
that was a turning point for sure, because I'm like, okay, what does
that look like, how can I help you guys fulfill your dreams, and what do
you wanna do, and so being more encouraging in sports, because I used to
say, you know, that's stupid, we're not gonna do that, instead of, oh,
okay, why do you want, let's try it, you know, and you learn the tone,
things like that, you don't control things, and then also, very hard
time, 2005, I think it was, I was five years back to the Lord, and you
know, knowledge puffs up, a lot of times when I preach, people say, oh,
that really hit my heart right, because it hit mine first, and I had to
live this stuff, and so I'm reading the word, I'm buying books on
systematic theology, and studying pneumatology, and reading the
Puritans, and eschatology, and I've got my views on the rapture now, I
can break down Calvinism, and the five points of tulip, and oh, man, I
can tell you about church history, and how it started, and how the Roman
authority, and the Roman empire married the Catholic church, and became
the Roman Catholic church, and the corruption, and different things that
happened, and I just had all this knowledge, and whether or not living
the way that I should be living, and my mom said, Shane, your family
doesn't even wanna be around you anymore, so you can be a Christian, and
be arrogant, be careful, and it's ready to sneak right up into me any
day of the week, that's why remaining humble, remaining, opening the
altar, keeping your heart open before God, and that's why I don't take a
lot of positions as hard as I used to, because I can beat people up, I
can make them feel stupid, that's not good, and then the final thing for
our nation, God gave me a desire for our nation, revival, and the
nation, and I was just looking for that compassion, Lord, I need to be
more compassionate, because this is during the hard season, being harsh,
and I went to, it was a California renewal project in 2008, I think Mike
Huckabee was speaking, and some Newt Gingrich, and I was just invited to
this by Jim Garlow, I think, but anyways, 2008, I'm in construction, I
don't know how I got invited to this, but God knows, you're sitting
among all these, David Barton, and wall builders, and all these guys
back then, and for some reason, I've never had anything hit me this
deeply, so every time I remember it, because you know, something just
sears your memory, I've never really knew, or saw a picture of a partial
birth abortion, and they decided to talk about it for an hour, and I'm
watching it, and all I remember is the abortion, I conceded to, 20 some
years ago, 28, 29 years ago, not that, it was at six weeks, so it wasn't
the same thing, but all these memories come back, now I'm a Christian,
now I wanna do the right thing, and now I'm watching this, and it just
hit me, I went back to my room, and never really, you know, you cried
yourself to sleep, I can relate to that, just in the pillow, and crying,
oh God help us, and just waking up that moment, that morning, with just
a fire, and I think that's kind of the turning point, of the fire, and
God and Lord give me that compassion, and now my heart breaks for these
sins of our nation, and my heart breaks for these different things, and
without that compassion and commitment, I think we just go through the
motions, that's why many prayers are cold, and calloused, and just
formal, I've been in dead prayer meetings, most of them are, and I've
been in live prayer meetings, and it's night and day, complete
difference, I remember when we started the Sunday morning thing, it was
me, Phil De La Tova, and Jack Rose, that was right next door in the
prayer room, and we would be all three on our face, at six in the
morning, with worship on, and just literally, God would be breaking, and
just we'd get up, and you could see, you know, and it wasn't, you can't
work that up, you can't fake it, but that breaking, and it's just that
heart, prayer comes from the deep reserves of the heart, that has
compassion, and you would think, if somebody walked by the hallway, they
would probably think it was a little strange, because Jack's right in
Phil, and I'm going, Lord God help us, God help us, we need you, we're
tired of this, and I'm just, God please, we've got to hear from you, and
it's just your calling, God you're so desperate, because it's the
compassion, you feel the pain, of what's going on, there's a deep hurt
in your heart, that can only be healed by God, it's a pain filled
process, let me tell you, real prayer, is a pain filled process, and I
don't mean to say, that I suggest all prayer meetings, okay Shane said,
we need to be crying, and we need to be loud, and we need to be this,
and actually that's fake, and I don't like that, I've been in plenty,
I'm like, you might as well just not have a prayer meeting, but there,
and if it is kind of dull, say Lord spark it, God spark it, God spark
it, I remember the new Hebrews revival, I believe it was it started,
there in a prayer meeting, it was a little dead, you know, and the
deacons elders, one deacon got up though, and he said, he said, oh God
give me clean hands, and a pure heart, I truly desire it, and tears were
beginning to stream, I want, I got to have clean hands, and a pure
heart, and the spirit of God came upon that place, and it lasted till
midnight, and they traced some of that early revival, to those things,
where people confess, God my heart's not right, give me clean hands, and
a pure heart, God my heart is hard as a stone, I don't feel anything, I
want to feel the power, and presence of your Holy Spirit, God I need to
be broken, and ripped apart, by your word, and by the Holy Spirit,
because you have to begin to weep, for the people you pray for, that's
how you really really see results, weep for the people you pray for,
those trapped in sexual sin, you weep for those, you weep for those on
the broad road of destruction, it has to come from you spending time
with God, and God breaking your heart, that's why I love Leonard
Ravenhill, when he used to say, Jesus would weep before he whipped, he
came into Jerusalem, and cried over the city, he saw, oh they're going
to reject me, I see, I can see in the future, they're going to reject
me, and in AD 70, the Roman general Titus, is going to come in, and
conquer the city, and kill a million Jews, women, their children will be
thrown against the walls, and I see that all because they're rejecting
me, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if I could just gather you, as a mother
would gather her children, or a chick, what do they call those?
Chickens, who gather their hens, and if I could just gather you like
that, and I could pull you to me, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you rejected
the prophets, and the compassion of Christ, and you see you've got to
have that, you have your prayers heard by God, it's really a call to
anguish, isn't it? Prayer is a call to anguish, who cannot pray, who
cannot look at the news, and really pray, my goodness, they're calling
good evil, and evil good, they're saying perversion is the right thing,
and holiness is the wrong thing, and they're degrading our children, the
sexual abuse, you've got people thinking they can switch genders, and
then go into the girl's bathroom, and then do all these things, and they
can, that perversion is just increasing, and there's a call to anguish,
there's a travail, you know when women give birth, it's travail, that is
prayer, that's why I'm so exhausted on Sunday, and maybe if you really
pray for people, it's tiring, because there's something, you're praying
from the depths of your being, something is like, God help these people,
we come against demonic influencers, we come against these addictions,
oh God, and you can feel there's a battle, there's a struggle, Lord give
me a heart for this person, give me a word for them, give me something,
and you're battling with the spiritual realm, because the enemy's
planting fiery darts, saying this guy's out of his mind, you just need
to leave, don't come back to this church, but you're saying, thus say
the living God, no demonic opposition will fight you right now, and
there's a spiritual battle, it's travail, when Zion travail, sons and
daughters are born, there's a travailing that takes place, and when
God's in it, it can happen quick, it's actually interesting, the verse,
when Zion travails, sons and daughters are born, it's really not about a
long travailing process, it's when God rebuilds a nation like that, when
God does something like that, but there's a travailing that takes place,
there's an anguish, there's a heartache, it's difficult, there's
distress, and it's always perplexed me, that when parents who have
prodigals, why isn't prayer a mark of their daily life? Why aren't they
at this altar, praying and fasting? I'll never forget, I keep using the
same examples, but it's all I have right now, in Lancaster, this lady,
it was bad, her daughter was caught up, I think it was in heroin or
something, and I said, ma'am, you gotta get into praying and fasting, it
was almost something along the lines, I'm just, I'm too busy, I work 50
hours, I get, that just broke my heart, because how bad do you want it?
How bad do you want to see freedom in her life? Because sometimes we
have to intercede on behalf of those, who are not looking to God, we
have to travail, there has to be anguish, that's why prayer is
exhausting, there was the cry of the prophets in this area of
compassion, Isaiah said, he will be very gracious to us at the sound of
our cry, there we go, he will be very gracious to us at the sound of our
cry, Jeremiah said, return to God, backsliding Israel, and he will
return to you, Hosea, they did not cry out to me with all their heart,
so you tell me there isn't a consistent theme here, of crying out to
God, and Joel turn to me with all your heart, rend your hearts, not your
garments, blow the trumpet in Zion, call the sacred assembly, and begin
to call on the name of the Lord, and he shall set you free, there's
always a cry, there's always a plea, there's always a desperation, this
nation is not gonna turn back from the brink of destruction, with just
the everyday Christian, just sitting around doing little quick prayers
on their way to work, there's gonna be traveling, and anguish, and
pulling down heaven, and going into spiritual battle, there is one bonus
point, we can call on the ultimate prayer warrior, did you know that
Jesus intercedes on our behalf, you know how many times I said, Lord I
need a little help, Hebrews 7.25, he always lives to intercede, to make
intercession for us, the spirit helps in our weakness, the spirit helps
in our weakness, Psalm 50.15, this should be for some of you this
evening, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you,
hard situation at work, hard, any of you, if you're coming back to the
Lord, or you're walking with the Lord, the enemy doesn't like that, he
will tempt you to go back to the old lifestyle, to the old way, to the
old attitudes, and calling on Lord, call upon me in the day of trouble,
Lord my kids are in trouble, my grandkids are in trouble, or get them
before they're in trouble, I believe you can put a guard and a shelf,
not that they'll live perfectly, but you can begin to secure them, and
save them at an early age, by calling down heaven now, Psalm 51.17, my
sacrifice O God, is a broken spirit, and a broken and contrite heart,
God you will not despise, in other words, he will not turn it away, if
we come to God with a broken heart saying, God I'm completely broken,
I'm completely dependent upon you, and I'm just humbling myself before
you, God will not despise that, so I love that song we sang before I
came up, shout Jesus from the mountains, I was listening on YouTube,
getting ready for this all week, and that's what I've been hitting
rewind on, I don't know about you, but there's certain songs where, you
know, I think there's a feature, we can actually just keep hitting
rewind and rewind, and there's a part in the song, I don't remember her
name, she's singing and it kind of just, okay I think the song's over,
and then it just gets, you know, she just starts, it's that crescendo,
it's that calling upon the name of the Lord, shout Jesus from the
mountains, shout Jesus in the streets, shout Jesus over darkness, over
every enemy, shout Jesus over your family, speak that holy name, and
there is power in the name of Jesus, when we say that, sometimes we say
it, we'll even clap, and I clap, but we don't realize, that when you
gravitate towards that name, when you call, see, I believe God always
says, call upon me, call upon me, so when you call and say, Jesus, I'm
in trouble, Jesus, my kids are in trouble, Jesus, my family needs you, I
will publicly declare right now, Jesus, this nation needs you, Jesus,
this state needs you, we're not gonna go down the toilet and do nothing
God, we're gonna fight on our knees, this is how I fight my battles,
fight my battles on my knees, Jesus, we need you over our families, we
need you to conquer the darkness, we know it's not gonna be utopia, or a
fun place on earth, but we're not here Lord, just about ourselves, we
wanna pull down heaven, we wanna call on the only name that saves, we
know that every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, that Jesus
Christ is Lord, there's no second,

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/HmscEuRS3jY.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/shane-idleman/5-marks-of-a-prayer-warrior-video/
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