Prayer Summit - Discovery Baptist Church - Session 2

Well, thank you so much. I was so tempted to figure out a way to get you all closer because you look like the Twelve Scattered Tribes of Israel. I met a man some time ago and I said to him, how did you become a Christian? And he wanted to tell me it was through someone who had given him a Gideonite, a Gideon New Testament.

So I said, how did you become a Christian? And he said, I met the Philistines, you know, so that didn't work well. But thank you so much for allowing us to just be with you. We've got until what time, Chris? And in 1051 Jesus is coming and we're all gone.

So great. You know, this concept of trying for us to understand prayer and what prayer is all about. I've always believed through the years that we never get to the place where we really know how to pray.

We don't get to know prayer, but prayer really gets to know us. And the big thing about beginning to understand intimacy with God, and I want to get into the Scriptures as it relates to that because it's so rich in these levels of developing intimacy with God, but the great concept that we need to come to grips with, I don't really hear through these years, and to be honest with you, you know, I've been collecting material on prayer for many years. And the sad thing about so many books on prayer, and to be honest with you, the last five or ten years, there's a lot of books been written about prayer, but you know, they are so experiential orientated.

And you know, experience is good, but brother and sister, you cannot go from experience to truth. It's very dangerous. If you go from experience to truth, you're going to interpret Scripture in the light of experience.

And you know, the enemy, if he can't keep us back, he's going to try and push us over, you know. And so, my passion is when it comes to understanding, begin to understand the language of what I refer to as learning the language of prayer, is that that which God is saying to us in His Word about prayer, and I want you to get this, because we are born with personality, but brother and sister, God is in the process of building up Christian character. And so, what needs to happen is that that which God's Word is saying to us about prayer needs to become part of our lives as He builds up Christian character.

And the consequences of that, if I may say so, is that we come to a place in our relationships with God where we pray, not because we feel like it, but we pray as the Spirit of God is working in our hearts and creating us this hunger and this thirst after God. So, when it comes to the reality of what we are speaking about, we need to understand that God is the initiator of prayer. You see, I don't know, maybe it didn't happen to you, but a lot of the Christian perceptions has been that we need to pray, we need to do this, and it almost can become a legalistic perception.

And I'm so afraid of legalism, because you see, legalism is when my convictions determine my relationship with God. We don't want that. You say, what is the opposite of legalism? The opposite of legalism is that I have an intimacy and a relationship with God that determine the things that I do and the things that I don't do.

So what needs to happen is that we need to come to an understanding, and I just want to give you some general perceptions here before we jump into the Scripture. We need to come to an understanding, my brother and sister, that God is the initiator of prayer long before we have any perception of developing a hunger and a thirst to allow God to spend time with us. He is the initiator of prayer.

So can you give me an example? Of course. You know, when God created Adam and Eve, and I love this, Dr. Andrew Murray said God created us body, soul, and spirit. And when God created Adam and Eve, and He put them in the Garden of Eden, what happened? They were sinless, and they were innocent, and they were in the Garden of Eden, and they were God's creation.

And God had a responsibility towards them. And the responsibility, I would say to my students, the responsibility is our response to the ability of God. So when He created them body, soul, and spirit, why did He do that? He gave them a body to be conscious of their environment and its senses.

He gave them a soul to become conscious of themselves. You see, when we become Christians, we don't lose our personalities. We discover the beauty of our identity in Christ.

We discover, I just shared the Gospel with a man a few days ago, and the first thing I said to him as we were talking about it, and I began to share Christ with him, and I just said to him, I said, you know, you're probably lost and you need to find Christ. And we began to go through that. But then in the conversation, I got to a place where I turned to him, and I said to him, I said, you know my friend, I need to tell you something.

And he said, what is it? And I said, your life is so important to God. Now I know, you know, you would maybe say, oh, you know, from a certain theological perspective, you can't really say that. Well, you know, sometimes we say it and God forgives us.

And I said to him, I said, I need to tell you something, and he said, what is it? I said, your life is so important to God, that if you were the only person on the whole of this planet, He still would have sent Jesus just to save you. And if I can share this with you, we were, I was in the U.S. years ago, and did a conference in a church in Virginia, and the evening after the service, they had a whole bunch of pastors, and they said, oh, let's go take you to a restaurant and you get something to eat close to the hotel where I stayed. And I have this habit in my life that when we are in a restaurant and someone comes to serve us, I want to show an interest in these people, and I say, hey, thanks for serving us.

What's your name? And they give us, give me their names, and I say, so why do you work here? And so we talk back and forth. And then at some point, I do this, and I've never been turned down. You wouldn't believe it, but it's true.

I said, hey, I want to ask you something, and they said, what is it? I said, thank you for serving us. We so appreciate this, but I want to ask you about, and they said, what is it? I said, I'm a Christian, and I said, when you bring the food, would you mind if we pray over the food? And they said, oh, no, sure. And I always say, well, you don't understand this.

I'm going to get on the table and pray as loud as I can. By the end of my prayer, no one's going to be left in the restaurant. And then they say, oh, no, you're not going to do that, are you? I said, no, I won't do that.

But I've got this thing, you know, and I say, okay, this is what I want you to think about. I want you to think of one thing that I can pray for you about. I said, I don't want to put you in a corner, and if something comes to mind, when you bring our food, tell me about that one thing, and then we pray.

And so that night, these pastors took me to this restaurant, and there was a fellow that's serving us, getting late, and so he came, and I said, hey, what's your name? And he said, Lonnie. And I said, Lonnie, thanks for what you're doing here for us, we appreciate it. And I said to Lonnie, I said, you know, we are Christians, and he probably said, oh yeah, this is a bunch of pastors from an independent Baptist church, and they are so independent, they're independent of God, you know? No, I didn't say that.

So, and I said, Lonnie, I said, if there's anything that we can pray for you about, would you mind to share it with us, if you're comfortable by doing that? And he looked at me, you know, and he wondered. And so when everything was through, the guys were leaving, he came and he said to me, why did you do that? And I said to him, I said, Lonnie, your life is so important to God, that if you were alone on the planet, Jesus still would have come for you. And he said, are you serious? I said, yes.

And he said, so, talk to me. And I shared with him my testimony. Your testimony is that which you were, that which happens to you, and that which you're looking forward to.

Remember that. And I shared my testimony with him. And three nights later, last meeting in this church, pastors came again and they said, let's go somewhere.

Where do you want to go? And I said, let's go back to the same place. And there was the same guy coming to serve us, and he recognized me. And so when the guys were leaving, he said to me, I gave him some tracts the first night.

And when the people were, pastors were leaving, he came back and he said, he said, can I talk to you some more? I said, oh, sure. And we sat and I shared Christ with him in great detail. And I turned to him and I said, Lonnie, I said, we've been in many countries in the world and we have people praying for us, you know, and I said, would you mind if I mentioned your name to them and ask them to pray? And I said, Lonnie, if God is real, which I know he is, would you mind if I pray that he will reveal himself to you? You know, you know, people are as dumb as donkeys.

They don't know that they let themselves into, you know. I said, go ahead. I thought, you're in trouble.

You know what happened? Oh, I love this. A year later, we were in the church about 10, 15 miles from that church that I was in previous year. And I walk into the foyer on a Sunday morning.

Guess what? Here was this guy standing there. And I saw him and he saw me and he said, Gerard, I said, Lonnie, what are you doing here? He said, I got saved. Now, you know, God is the initiator of prayer.

So guess what happened? When he created Adam and Eve and he put them in the garden of Eden, that he created them and just say to them, okay, you are my creation after my likeness and after my image. And I mean, how beautiful that would have been. After my likeness and after my image, I created you.

You are the body and the soul and the spirit. Your body makes you conscious of your environment. Adam and Eve were brilliant people.

I mean, he had huge responsibilities in the garden of Eden. Your bodies make you conscious of your mind. Your soul make you conscious of yourself, your identity, who you are in Christ, and that there's no one like you.

And then God has given you a spirit. Why did he give him a spirit? And Dr. Andrew Murray said he gave him a spirit and others would say the same, because we are a trichonomy, body, soul and spirit. He said God gave him a spirit to make them conscious of God.

How do you know that? Of course you know that, because what did God do? Did he create them, put them in the garden of Eden and just say, Adam and Eve, I've created you after my likeness, after my image. You're on your own from now on. That's not the kind of God that we are serving.

You say, what do you mean? He came to them. You know, the Hebrew language is beautiful. It almost is saying, and it connects with Isaiah chapter 50, when the prophet Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah.

And he said about Jesus, he said, morning after morning, he was awakened. And the Hebrew text is precious. It was the concept of that he was awakened so that his father could spend time with him.

Can you remember what Jesus said? I and the father, we are one. The son can do nothing unless he sees the father doing it. The son works, he does too, and so do I. And so you say, what happened? God came, and I love this.

God came in the old translation. It's just beautiful. It says, God came in the cool of the evening.

You know what's that word cool? It's a word in the Hebrew language. It is the word ruach. And it's the word for spirit.

And it's found 87 places in the Old Testament. And so here, God came. And my brother and sister, what did he do? He came to have fellowship with Adam and Eve.

Now, we are in 2023. Mercy me. No, no, we stay in 23 for a bit.

My wife, you know, her voice always sounds like the voice of the Holy Spirit. It's not funny. Listen, we are in a time, and I can't remember which year we're talking about.

No, I do. We are in a time where all that people do is to rush into the presence of God. You know, we are treating God like a piece of dirt.

No wonder that he said, I'm not even interested in listening. So you say, when you say that God is the initiator of prayer, how does this work? I mentioned in the first service just a statement that in the Old Testament, you know, there are 11 Hebrew words that speaks about prayer. And the majority of those words deal with concepts of waiting upon God.

One of those words in the Hebrew language for prayer is found in the Psalms, where the psalmist is thinking and virtually prophesying about the coming of the Messiah. And as he prophesies or mentions about the coming of the Messiah, he uses a Hebrew word that is beautiful, and the word for Messiah is the same word in that Hebrew perception that speaks about prayer. So, here it is.

Christ came. John the Baptist saw Him. And he said, there is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

And Jesus came to him and said, I want you to baptize Me. And you remember that He said, I'm not worthy to undress in your shoelaces. But Christ said, let it happen so that all the righteousness would be fulfilled.

And here is the beauty of this. He said, when John said to Him, I can't do it, and Jesus said, you're going to need to do this. And when he baptized Christ, you know what happened.

The Spirit of God came upon Jesus. And He was anointed for service. And my brother and my sister, from that moment on, the life of the Messiah was a life of intimacy with God.

You know, this thing of the life of Christ, because you see, here's our problem. If we are Christians, what's happened to us? We receive the Holy Spirit. Now what normally happens, or what we accept theologically, is to say that, because people say, so where does the Spirit of God dwell in me? And theologically, it's been predominantly accepted that the Spirit of God, because Paul said in Romans, the Spirit of God do what? He bear witness of my spirit, that I am a child of God.

And it's generally being accepted that the Spirit of God probably comes to dwell within the realm of my spirit. So here comes the Holy Spirit as it relates to prayer. I mean, the Scriptures are so beautiful.

So, when the life of Christ comes, and when Christ is in my life, one of the things that needs to happen to us is that we need to develop a relationship with God. And I don't want you to misunderstand me when it comes to this, because it can sound superficial and that's not what I mean. But we need to develop a relationship with God, my brother and sister, where we, and I don't mean this wrong, but where we put ourselves in a position where God can come and meet with us.

You don't rush. You say, why do you say that? You know, I've met people through the years that have developed these levels of intimacy with God. And I just don't think of Andrew Murray or Peter Osmalipa, but just people through the years and they've developed an intimacy with God.

You know, I know there are people running around and say, oh, you know, just don't become so heavenly minded that you are no earthly use. That's not my problem. My problem is the opposite of that.

But I've met these people. And when I've met these people, you say, what do you do when you meet these people? I attach myself like a leech to them. I want to know what is it that God has taken them through that brought them to this place in their lives where they live this Christian life that demands a supernatural explanation.

They carry with them an atmosphere and a presence and an unction. And they carry with them a level of purity. Last night at the table we were talking about the revival that took place on the island of Lewis in 1948-53 when God used a man by the name of Duncan Campbell.

I brought, in fact, when we put out the books this evening, and there could be more than 150 books that we're going to put out. And we want you to help yourself to those books. Because here's the issue, you know, God do not bypass the mind.

These young people. Do you ever have to protect your mind? 75% of your growth as a Christian is going to be determined by what you expose your mind. God's not going to grab you by the back of your neck and throw you into an intimacy and an experience with Him.

It doesn't work like that. You need to understand what God wants to do because the Spirit of God witnessed to the Word and the Spirit of God witnessed to the blood. And apply it to our lives.

And so you say, what needs to happen? We need to come to a place where we put ourselves in a position. You know, I have a dream in my heart for this church. I love to dream, you know.

You know, they say a leader is a monomaniac with a mission. He's got a compass in his head and a magnet in his heart. He doesn't wait for things to happen.

He makes them happen. And I always say to my daughter, my darling, you cannot become a great leader unless you've become a great follower. Don't even think about it.

And so when God brings us to a place, and the dream of my heart for this church is every young father who's in part of this Discovery Baptist Church, that there will be a time that he will not miss a morning without allowing God to meet with him. And to take him and look him in the eyes and say, how dare you go into this society where artificial intelligence can try to take over every aspect of the planet. And how dare we not to walk with God when it comes to that.

So, here comes the life of Christ. The fullness of God dwelleth in him, Paul said, and we have that fullness. So what if he's part of my life? And I have been indwelled by the indwelling life of Christ, and the Spirit of God is not just resident in my relationship with God, but the Spirit of God is precedent.

That means that he has the right to every aspect of my life. And when I live this life in the Spirit, and the Spirit-filled life, my brother and sister, it's not a goal. You say, what is it? It's a gateway.

And when I indwell by the life of Christ, we, in order to learn the language of prayer, we need to understand whatever happened in the life of Christ, or whatever Jesus said, or whatever the Scripture says, because we said you can't go from experience to truth. You need to go from truth to experience. What He said about prayer needs to become part of my relationship with God.

Now let me give you an idea. You know, there's 7,957 verses in the New Testament. And I love languages.

Janice, my wife, I mean, she's so precious. I said to her at some point, I said, you know my darling, one of the dreams of my heart is I want to memorize the whole of the New Testament. And she's a calm, cool, calculated, controlled Canadian.

They are surely different. You know? She said, why do you say that? Well, opposites attract each other and then they attack each other. Oh, you say, of course it doesn't happen in the Discovery Baptist Church.

Ah, welcome to humanity. Anyway, I said, you know my dream of my heart is I want to memorize the New Testament. And she kind of would whisper and say, so Papa, if you memorize the New Testament, who in the mental institution is going to come and listen to you? You know these wretched Canadians? And I said, my darling, you don't understand.

And she said, what? I said, there will be four. And she said, who will that be? I said, Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and you. Why would I be there? She would say, well, isn't there a verse that says, that which God has drawn together, let no man try to separate? And you know, when you love the Scriptures, and you begin to study the New Testament as it relates to prayer, I have discovered 24 words in the emphaticness of the construction of the New Testament.

There's only about 4,500 words in the Greek New Testament. And if you really want to know, the Apostle Paul and Luke the physician, the Gospel of Luke is 1,151 verses and the book of Acts is 1,051. And then you've got the epistles of the Apostle Paul.

And what the Apostle Paul said and the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, I don't know if you know this, that's close to 70% of New Testament information. And I don't know if you know this, that in the construction of the Greek language, there are virtually between 50 and 60% of the vocabulary of a New Testament that is predominantly Pauline, which means it's Luke and it's Paul. And if you want to get the depth of prayer, what Jesus said, the majority of what Jesus said in the Gospels is coming out of the Gospel of Luke towards us.

Now, I have found, and I'm still finding, 24 incredible words in the New Testament that if you and I will be in what we call we sometimes spend a week with the church and call it a week in the school of prayer with Christ, and we just go to what the New Testament is about. If you take those 24 words, you know what I've discovered and it's so beautiful. I have discovered those 24 words almost gives me a perception of a tabernacle in prayer.

You say, so why do you say that? Did you find it in the book? No, no, no, no. I've just said, God, You need to open this. So I took those 24 words and I put them in the categories and say, okay, so this word is found so many times because those 24 words are found in 248 passages in the New Testament.

My wife always says, oh, don't bother them with all these statistics, Daddy. I say, no, no, no, no. We need to know.

Now listen here. 248 passages. 24 words.

I found the tabernacle. You say, what do you mean? Six pillars. Six pillars.

Six words in the Greek language. The roof of the tabernacle. Twelve words that are found less than the six.

That's the roof of the tabernacle. Then I found six words that's used the least for prayer in the understanding of the Greek text in the New Testament. They found the least.

Those are the ropes of the tabernacle. And ah, brother and sister, here it comes. When we found this tabernacle of prayer, in this tabernacle of developing intimacy with God, are there twelve aspects of the prayer life of Christ and others to come to the surface? What does it mean to pray in the Spirit? What does it mean to pray through? What is the prayer of faith that we read about in James 5? And the praying in the realm of the Holy Spirit.

The promises as it relates to... What is persevering of prayer? What is prayer agonizing? And twelve aspects of New Testament prayer coming out of the life of Christ to the surface. Now, how do we get it in our times? Why do we have to have another service? Can't we just stay here all morning and send the rest of them somewhere to another room? Oh, you say, the church is finished. Well, who knows, you know? Anyway, listen here.

Why did I say that? I'm sorry. So, here we go. Do you know what is so precious? When Jesus began to teach on prayer in Matthew chapter six, do you remember what he said? In chapter six, he spoke about giving.

In the Sermon on the Mount, he spoke about giving. And he spoke about... Oh, why can't I get it now? He spoke about giving. He spoke about prayer.

And there was something else. That's what my daughter is speaking on today. What's it? Fasting.

How can I not get that? He spoke about those three things. But when he spoke about prayer, that's where he put the emphasis on. And he said, when you pray... He didn't say if.

He said, when you pray. Because what will happen if we live a spiritual life, brother and sister, God will give us a spirit of prayer. And when God gives us a spirit of prayer, it's so precious and so unique because the spirit of prayer leads us to the will of God in prayer.

And do you know what happened to the will of God in prayer? The will of God in prayer, when we pray it through, and what we said in the first service, systematically dissecting the will of God, and the promises come and infiltrate the will of God like George Muller of Worcester. When we pray, and we do that, and we infiltrate that burden until we pray this through when it comes to the realm of the will of God. So you say, what happened? Here comes the Lord Jesus.

And do you remember what He said? He said, when you pray, He said, go into your... and I love the old translation, go into your closet. Now that word in the Greek language is a secret den, or some place alone with God. And here you need to make the connection as it relates to the rest of New Testament prayer which is so precious.

Listen to this. And the early church fathers, they picked up this thing. Men like Josephus and some of those early church fathers.

When Jesus said, go into your secret den or your closet, they picked this thing up to this degree that the perception is that when Jesus died on the cross, you know what happened. The moment when He died on the cross and He said, tatsalatzai in the Greek language, finished. The veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom.

Why did that happen? The way into the Holiest was open. And ah, my brother and my sister, here comes a life of dwelling in the presence of God. How do we know that? Well, listen to the writer to the Hebrews.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest of all through the blood of Jesus by a new interliving way which has opened for us. And then he takes it further and he said through the blood of Jesus, he said, let us draw near with a true heart, full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. You see, it's in Christ.

You know, when we talk about the Lord's Prayer and people come with all kinds of different philosophies and say, it must be like this, it must be like this. And you know, I used to probably say that myself. And then God came and broke my heart one day, you know? You know, we need to learn what it means to linger in the presence of God.

And God tore my heart apart. And I became conscious of this thing that we speak of as the Lord's Prayer. And tonight if we have time, I would love to explore a little bit of that, but I don't want to take anything away from our time of prayer.

You know, the apostles are going to leave and so, but the beauty of that, so when He gave us the Lord's Prayer, and they said, oh, this is it, you know, it's His plan to pray. It's His priority. It's His purpose.

It's His promise. It's His penitence. And I said, no, no, no, no.

It could be all of those things. And they say, what is the Lord's Prayer? I said it's the manifestation of the prayer life of Jesus. It is the holiest of all that has been opened.

The veil of a temple has been rented. God has opened the way for us. And Dr. Andrew Murray said, we can come into the holiest of all.

We can live in the holiest of all. We can breathe in the holiest of all. We can practice the presence of God in the holiest of all.

You know, I don't even want to talk about it because I get so convicted by these things because I feel even in my own heart that sometimes we're so distant from these great mystical biblical truths. And when He said, Our Father who art in Heaven, He's talking about the sovereignty of God. Hallowed be Your name.

He said, listen, the holiness of God is not going to flow through your life. And He was Shekinah Glorian. I mean, you know that great, great concept in Isaiah 6. When Isaiah, which was the chaplain to the king, and he said the year when King Uzziah died, and he said, I also saw the Lord.

And he was chaplain to the king and the rope got pulled out from underneath him. And he said, I saw the Lord. And He was high and lifted up.

And strains for the temple. And then he said, the seraphim came. The chrite, Qadosh, the Hebrew word.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And the prophet Isaiah, he said when this happened, he realized what was going on and he said, woe to me. I'm a man of unclean lips and I'm dwelling amongst the people of unclean lips.

And you remember how one of those seraphims came and took a call from on the altar and touched his lips. And got purified. Now listen to this.

This is where we are in a disaster. Because he said, I heard a voice that says, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Now what was the problem? Oswald Chambers said, that voice was there 24 hours a day. But because of the fact that there was not purity, he couldn't hear the voice.

And here is this life. This life in the presence of God that in North America, it's virtually impossible to know the depth of those levels of intimacy with God. I've just been reading the life story of a man with the name of David Brainard.

He was supposed to be the son-in-law of the great Jonathan Edwards. And God came upon him and he became one of the greatest men of prayer. I've just gone through the life story of a man with the name of Praying Hyde of India.

That when God gave him the spirit of prayer and he was in India, and God gave him a burden, and he began to pray for one soul a day in India. And he prayed through. Man, I wish we had tonight just look at this thing.

What does it mean to pray through? The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And Praying Hyde of India prayed through for one soul a day. And in one year, 365, almost 400 people in India got gloriously saved.

And then the burden of God came for two souls a day. Can you imagine? We sit here this morning as Christians in this church here in this community. If God could give you and me a burden to begin to pray just to lead one soul a year to Jesus Christ.

Listen, we would come back next year and the church is twice as full. And then God gave him a burden for two souls a day. And he climbed underneath the burden of God and systematically dissected it and prayed it through.

And then John Hyde of India would go into the streets of India and he would go into that area. And he gave people Gospel tracts. And as he spoke to them, suddenly the Holy Spirit would come and say, this is the one.

And then one year, about 800 people were saved. And then the burden of God came. You say, for what? It came for three souls a day.

And he prayed them through to God. And then the burden of God came for four souls a day. And you say, what happened? He prayed them through to God.

Through. And then the great revival came. And John Hyde of India spent 17 days in prayer.

And thousands were swept into the Kingdom of God. You know this thing of COVID? I'm in Canada. I was in a mess.

I was asked to go to churches. And they have two morning services. One for the vaccinated.

One for the unvaccinated. I thought, where in the world is this going to? And my wife came to me and said, what do you think, Daria? I said, God is in the process of revealing a line of demarcation in the lives of people that are serious of Him and those that are not. And she said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm going to go through the book of Revelation for as long as it takes every single morning in my times of God.

And that's what I did. And at the end of the time, she came to me and she said, so, Papa, what is God saying to you? And I said, I don't know. And she said, what is God saying to you about the church? I said, the only thing that I hear, and I don't hear voices, you know.

If God doesn't speak to me through His Word, I would be very uncomfortable. She said, so what are you thinking? I said, if I do hear anything from the sovereign God in heaven, it's that the church in North America has become fat. She said, what does that mean? I said, it means that God needs to bring us to the end of ourselves.

And you sit here this morning. And you say, so what is it going to cost us? We're in deep trouble in the United States. If you can't see that, you're pretty dumb.

And I tell you what's going to save this country. A God-centric Bible. And I tell you where it's going to start.

These older people here. These saints. These young people.

These mothers and these fathers. We're going to need to get on our faces before God. You see, the Bible says in the foundations we turn over, what will the righteous do? And the psalmist prayed and he said, in wrath will you have mercy.

And you sit here this morning. Maybe this is the most important session of this day. You sit here this morning and you say, Gerard, what is it going to cost me? It's going to cost us absolutely everything.

Let's close in prayer. Can I ask you something? Can we close in prayer on our knees before God? I mean, the people are going to come in 5-10 minutes. Can I ask you if it's possible, can you go on your knees with me before God? And we just take a few minutes alone with Him.

Would you mind to do that? Now, if you can't kneel, we understand. Just find a place, just turn around on your knees. When you get on your knees before God, can you just become absolutely honest and just say, God, I want to draw a circle around my life.

I want You to come and pour out Your Spirit right within my heart. I want You to cleanse me through the efficacy of the blood. And that's how we're going to close this Sunday School class.

And in a few minutes, Chris is going to come and close in prayer.