The podcast episode centers on the profound theme of "travail" in the context of prayer and spiritual growth. The speaker emphasizes the importance of approaching prayer with intensity and earnestness, akin to the physical and emotional pain associated with childbirth. Drawing from scripture, particularly Isaiah 66, the speaker illustrates how genuine prayer can lead to spiritual breakthroughs, urging listeners to reflect on their own prayer lives and the necessity of fervent supplication. Additionally, the speaker discusses the significance of travailing not only in prayer but also in caring for the souls of others, highlighting the need for a deep, heartfelt concern for the lost. Ultimately, the episode calls for a revival of passion in prayer, encouraging listeners to cultivate a more profound relationship with God through dedicated and earnest communication. The podcast episode presents a profound exploration of the concept of spiritual travail, particularly in the context of prayer. Speaker A opens the dialogue by delving into Isaiah 66, where he highlights God's desire for a relationship with those who are humble and contrite. This sets the stage for a deeper understanding of prayer as more than a ritualistic practice; it is portrayed as an intense and often challenging experience akin to childbirth. Speaker A emphasizes that true prayer involves a level of emotional investment and commitment that reflects a believer's earnestness in communicating with God. Throughout the discussion, Speaker A shares personal stories that illustrate the struggles and triumphs associated with a fervent prayer life. He invites listeners to consider their own prayer practices and to reflect on whether they approach prayer with the necessary seriousness and intensity. The metaphor of travailing in prayer becomes central to the conversation, with Speaker A encouraging listeners to engage in prayer that is both passionate and persistent. He articulates that such prayer is vital for spiritual growth and transformation, suggesting that the journey of prayer can lead to profound insights and answers from God. Additionally, the episode addresses the collective dimension of prayer within the church community. Speaker A calls for a unified approach to prayer, urging listeners to support one another through shared prayer efforts. He underscores the historical significance of prayer in the lives of great spiritual leaders, reinforcing the idea that collective prayer can yield powerful results. By the end of the episode, listeners are encouraged to embrace the challenge of deepening their prayer lives, recognizing the importance of both individual and communal prayer as essential to their spiritual journeys. This multifaceted exploration of prayer as travail not only enriches the understanding of its significance but also inspires a commitment to a more earnest and engaged prayer life.

Takeaways:

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of the Bible in understanding God's nature and our need for salvation, stating that without it, one cannot truly know God or the path to salvation.
• He discusses the concept of 'travail' in prayer, suggesting that genuine prayer can often be a deep, emotional struggle akin to childbirth, highlighting the need for fervent and heartfelt communication with God.
• The speaker reflects on societal trends, noting the removal of the Ten Commandments from schools, which he argues diminishes the awareness of moral law and, consequently, the realization of humanity's need for redemption.
• He shares personal anecdotes about prayer, illustrating how moments of deep concern and emotional investment in prayer can lead to significant spiritual breakthroughs and a stronger relationship with God.
• The discussion includes a call to action for believers to engage in more meaningful prayer and to seek revival in their spiritual lives, stressing that true prayer should come from the heart rather than rote recitation.
• Finally, the speaker highlights the transformative power of prayer, asserting that even in times of despair or difficulty, fervent prayer can lead to peace and assurance of God's provision.

All right. You still glad you came? Okay. Take it one step at a time. You bring your Bible tonight, okay. That pick. You lonely, brother?

Stone just fell inside the guitar. Just let you know. Isaiah, chapter number 66. Isaiah, chapter number 66. Begin reading. In verse number one. Thus saith the Lord.

The heavens is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest?

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord, but to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word. You might want to underline that. I don't know if you've noticed it or not. That trembleth at my word.

When you realize the beauty and the glory and the power and the wisdom that's in the Bible and that God gave us a book, gave us the Bible. And sometimes when I think about how amazing it is, because I wouldn't know. We couldn't know God without the Bible.

We couldn't know anything about God. We couldn't know how to be saved. And even the laws in the Old Testament, if we didn't have the law, we wouldn't even know we needed to be saved.

Is that right? Yeah. If there was no law, we figured, well, we haven't broken the law. We haven't done anything.

And of course, they've taken the ten Commandments out of most public schools because they don't want the kids to feel guilty and they don't want them to see the laws. So if they don't see them, they don't memorize them, they don't know them. Well, then what have they got to worry about? Just do the best you can.

Be a good person. Okay. Look at verse number five. Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word.

Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name sakes, said, let the Lord be glorified. But he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.

A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies. Now, here's what I want you to start focusing on. Before she travailed, she brought forth.

Before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child who hath heard such a thing, who hath seen such things. Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed She brought forth her children.

Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth, saith the Lord. Shall I cause to bring forth and shut the womb, saith thy God. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her. All ye that love her.

Rejoice for joy with her all ye that mourn for her. Now, it will not be very deep tonight, but I think it's interesting that it's mentioned.

Trembling is mentioned, but it also speaks very clearly of travail. Travail. Now, this was before modern times and modern medicines. But generally speaking, most women who give birth have some kind of pain.

Okay, travail. Am I right? Most of the time, that's what we associate that with. I remember when I was first becoming a father and my wife went into the hospital.

They didn't have a labor room. It was an old house that they had converted into a hospital. And they just had a long haul. And the women in labor had a curtain around them.

And back in those days, they didn't allow any husbands around. I had to sit in the corner and twiddle my thumbs and pray and read and just kind of wait. But I could hear travailing.

How'd you ladies like to be just shoved over into a hallway with a curtain? I don't think too many of you go. Sound like fun to me. I don't think so, but.

And the same thing happened a little bit better when our daughter was born. She was born in a regular hospital in Columbus, but they still wouldn't let daddies go in. You just had to sit there.

And they did have a little waiting room. And I remember. All I remember about my daughter's birth is I was watching I Love Lucy on television. My wife was. Well, she was travailing, okay.

And I used to tease her, boy, honey, it must have been rough. I know how you feel. No man knows how a woman feels. But we understand travail.

And it says here, we just read in verse seven, before she travailed, she brought forth. Before her pain came. Verse 8. Who hath heard such things? That's just not. That doesn't happen.

And so I want you to take that word and think about it for a moment. Because I think we can apply that to a lot of things in our Christian walk with God. Let me give you the first one.

And you think about it for a moment. Do you ever travail in prayer?

Do you feel the pain sometimes when you're praying, you women that have had children and you experience the deep pain and all that that we can't really understand or explain as men, but for men and women, think about that and think about that word travail. Travail. I sometimes wonder if the passion and fervency of our prayer could be measured like a thermometer.

Wouldn't that be kind of something to have a thermometer that says, how fervent is our prayer life? I don't know about you, but sometimes my prayer life needs a little revival. Sometimes it needs a little tune up.

Sometimes I can find myself repeating things a lot. And I don't know that God frowns at that necessarily.

But you know, the Pharisees were famous for reciting their prayers and praying real loud so everybody could hear them and go, wow, what a spiritual person they are. Well, they weren't even saved, but they were saying prayers. I never cared for that, that phrase, saying prayer. Maybe some people meant just praying.

They don't mean necessarily reciting a prayer. But a lot of people do recite prayers.

I'm not, you know, saying that's necessarily wrong, but praying from the heart and not rehearsing your prayers I think is a good thing.

And sometimes I preached just a few weeks ago, some of you may remember about groaning and sometimes I can't find the words when I'm praying about something.

I've had some of those things just recently in prayer for the church here and for the future and all that and praying and say, lord, I don't really know how to put it in words, but in my heart. There's kind of a wrenching in my heart, it's uncomfortable. But, Lord, you know what I want to say.

I may not say it right and then I'll pray about it and sometimes I'll start praying again with words that I didn't think about and then I'll stop and groan a little more. But I'm talking about travailing, praying, praying until you get through, praying until you find the answer.

Praying until your peace floods over your soul and your heart and you say, God's gonna take care of this. I won't ask you to raise your hand, but have you ever had that in prayer?

To be praying and enjoyed prayer and enjoyed the time with God so much that you got up and says, God's going to take care of it.

That's foreign to a lot of people because many times we, again, like I said, we kind of time our prayers and we got things to do, places to go, people to see and call and check our emails and all that kind of stuff. And again, it's not always about the good and the bad, but the good and the best. And the best time you'll ever have is your time with God.

And it's a challenge today to find a place and a time to where maybe the phone won't ring or the dog won't bark or somebody knock on the door. But you know when you get a burden for prayer. Here it was talking about travailing. Travailing.

A woman has pain and travail before the beauty of a birth and the excitement of a birth and the crying and hurting turns into a laughter and a joy. Travailing in prayer is not common. It's soul wrenching. It's agonizing. Not all the time. I'm not saying that all the time. Sometimes prayers work.

Sometimes prayer is like fighting a battle. Sometimes prayer is just wonderful. You smile while you pray and you just thank God for who he is and all that he's done. But sometimes it's agonizing.

Agonizing, desperate. Like in an emergency room.

I've been in many emergency rooms where people's life was ebbing away quickly and we would hold hands and I guarantee you we weren't praying. Now I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep. We eat and I never even and nothing wrong. So don't get upset.

But I never said, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

No, I was crying out to God, lord, help us and help this family and help this person, Lord, if it be your will to save them and raise them up and heal them. Sometimes God says there's. There's something better. The ultimate healing is in heaven. You ever heard that before? The ultimate healing?

I mean, if God heals you down here, something else is going to come very probably pretty soon, right? Not being negative, it's just the fact of life. This body that we have and all the things we deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes God heals.

God doesn't always heal. Even Paul asked God to heal him three times. God said no, but I'll give you all the grace that you'll need. My grace will be sufficient.

If God doesn't heal everybody doesn't mean they're not worth it or they're not worthy. It means that God has a better plan and purpose and all things work together for good. To them that love God and all means all.

It's kind of a misnomer to say, well, almost all. What is that supposed to mean? Almost all things work together for good. We gotta decide the sooner the better.

Does all mean all the worst things that can happen, even sin in our life or failures or problems? Is that included in that word? All things work together? Yes. Yes, it is. It means all things. Sometimes God can turn bad into good.

Sometimes God can turn a tragedy into triumph. Sometimes God can turn a battle. God can do anything but fail. He can't lie either.

You need to anchor your soul with, we sang a moment ago, promises about the promises of God. The apostle Paul said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.

And then he went on to say, I would wish myself accursed if they could be saved. I've never prayed a prayer like that. Maybe you have. I've never prayed, lord, just take my salvation away, but save this nation or these people.

Men who have moved God have been men of travailing prayer. And when I say men, certainly talking about mankind, Christian men, not just men, women have just as much power in prayer as the men do.

They really do. They're not the backup prayer, okay? They're not.

And you men out there, you husbands and fathers and grandfathers, you need to get on your knees and fight like a man. Amen. David Brainerd died at age 29, missionary to Indians.

And the history tells us that literally when he would pray outside a camp of Indians, that actually the snow would melt where he was kneeling, praying. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The only righteous we have is Christ's righteousness. Amen. There is none righteous.

No, not one. But we claim the righteousness of Christ. But it says the effectual fervent prayer, boiling hot prayer. We're trying to get.

Still trying to get the push ministry off the ground.

Brother Cox reminds me each week, we're still putting it out there and trying to get people to say, yeah, I could do that for a couple of minutes a week, meet with two or three people or however many and pray just for one thing. That's it, you know, way ahead of time. It's the same thing. Every week. You pray one thing.

And so if you're still interested in that or at least find out more about it, some people say, well, I don't know if I can lead it or not. Get somebody else to come with you, and you're in charge. But they pray, okay? So, you know, people do what they want to do. And everybody here is busy.

Some of you are very, very busy. But we should always have a little time to pray. And then the travail, not only of Prayer.

But the travail of concern I mentioned a moment ago in Romans chapter 9. I have great heaviness, Paul said, continual sorrow, continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish myself a curse from Christ.

For my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, we seldom lose sleep or appetite or travail over the lost. Billy Sunday was walking back to the hotel one night after preaching. He heard someone following behind him, and he turned and met a young teenager.

The boy asked if he could walk with Mr. Sunday, and of course he said yes. He said to Mr. Sunday, Billy Sunday, he said, my dad is a Christian. He's a leader in the church. My mom is, too. She teaches Sunday school.

My sister is a Christian and president of the youth class. And brother Sunday, I've never been saved.

Mr. Sunday asked, well, has any of your family ever spoken to you about where you're going to spend eternity? About being saved? The boy said, no, sir, they never have. Nobody has. Do you think, Mr. Sunday, that they care about my soul?

The preacher put his hand on the young man's shoulder and said, son, I must be honest. I don't think they do, or else they would have spoken to you by now. And Billy Sunday sat on the park bench with that boy and led him to Christ.

Just think about that for a minute. Everybody in the family, and no one ever talked to the boy in the family about the need to be saved.

The question is, have you ever travailed over a lost soul? What about travail of tears? God puts a premium on tears. I've mentioned that in several messages, but I want you to just see it again.

I don't know if you've actually read it with me, but in the book of Psalms, if you can turn there, right in the middle of your Bible, to chapter number 56, Psalm 56, And I want you to look in verse number eight of Psalm 56. Thou tellest my wanderings. Put thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book?

When he said, are they not in thy book, that was not asking for an answer. He was declaring, they're in your book. You're a God of detail.

I mean, if God even gave instruction on the size and color of the curtain rings in the tabernacle, you think he might be interested in the prayers of his children, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. I've seen a lot of people.

And, you know, I'm thinking right now, I've seen some of you men, and again, we don't measure somebody's spirituality by how many tears they shed. But I've noticed people here in the church weep, cry during prayer or during discussion or during a sermon.

And men, let me just tell you, I don't cry easily either, but never be ashamed of tears. So many men turn around and want to hide and kind of suck it up.

Pardon the expression, but just men have been taught for years that it's a sign of weakness for a man to cry. I think it's a sign of strength. Again, I'm not comparing you and saying men that never cry are not very strong Christians.

They may be much stronger than me or you, but I just want to make the point. Travailing in tears. Remember that illustration I gave you a few weeks ago?

The man, the preacher that was afraid to share the gospel, he knocked on the door, mean old man, blacksmith, you remember that? And he just broke down and cried. He couldn't even speak to the man. As soon as the man opened the door, he just broke down and cried.

And it embarrassed him so bad that he ran home and he told his wife that he had failed. And she said, well, just try again. And the very next night did the same thing. And the same thing happened.

Knocked on the door already, took a deep breath, going to ask the man about his soul. The man opened the door and the preacher started crying. He went back home, told his wife, sat in the chair. I guess it's no use.

I'm just not a soul winner. But it wasn't long after that that old man, that silversmith, knocked on the door of that man, said, could I come in?

And preacher said, well, of course. He said, I need to be saved. He said, well, I've been coming to talk to you about your salvation. He said, yeah, but I never.

I've never in my life seen a man cry over my soul. I want to be saved. Tears are a language. And again, it's not the only language. But it is a language.

Paul said in Acts 20, or Peter, maybe I'll have to go back and check. I don't remember. I think it was Paul. Yes, it was.

He said, therefore watch and remember that in the space of three years, I cease not to warn everyone. Night and day with tears. It's just hard to ignore somebody who has a broken heart.

And by the way, I don't know that it's necessarily wrong for you to pray for God to give you tears. And give you a broken heart. For people you may have a broken heart, you just don't cry much.

Maybe you would say, God, if you could use my tears, then give me tears. It's hard for people to slam the door and forget about it and say, don't bother me ever again.

When you're sitting there crying for them and saying, please, could I just share a minute with you of what God's done in my life and what he can do in your life. And then there's the travail of planting. You know, the Bible says some men sow and plant some water, but God gives the increase.

Sometimes you witness to people and nothing really happens. And you think you failed, but what you did was plant a seed.

Somebody else may come along maybe a year later, two years, and they'll remember and they'll understand and they'll say, yes, someone shared that with me one time. And somebody else may water and then someone else come along and reap the harvest. But planting seed is not necessarily an easy job.

Most of us know little about that at all. Travailing and planting. We have a grocery store right down the street, so why would you? I mean, my wife has a little garden about this long.

She loves to do that, but she don't want to depend on that to feed her husband. She goes to the grocery store. But for those that may were raised in a farm or know people that have, Planting's a pretty hard work.

Breaking up the soil, pulling out roots and rocks, working from dawn till dusk, and then praying that it might rain or not rain too much. I'm talking about planting the word of God in the hearts of family and friends and strangers and maybe even our enemies.

I remember walking behind the plow of my granddad. I called him Granddaddy, actually. He had a plow. And when I was very little, I'd follow behind him every day.

I remember him, except on Sunday, he always wore a suit. But to church, but every other day that I can remember.

I never remember ever seeing my granddad without a pair of khaki pants and a khaki shirt to match. And it was my job back then to iron them. I was the oldest of four kids, and mom taught me how to iron. So I had to iron granddaddy's shirt and pants.

But I remember seeing him in the sweat as he would fight that plow.

And I would go behind him barefooted, filling that nice, cool black soil, dropping seeds in, you know, to clear and cultivate the soil in the human heart is not an easy thing to do, winning people to yourself and tearing down the blockades that they put up and the excuses and just reaching out to them and gradually through time winning them over to you.

It takes travail, kindness and caring and serving and giving and going out of your way and postponing maybe your personal plans so that you can maybe win them to Christ. There are many reasons we don't win more people to Christ than we do.

But one is that we're usually too tired from doing other things that may not be as important as we think they are. And then there's the travail of remorse.

And when I think of this, I think about revival, travailing for revival, spending a long time with God saying, lord, I need revival.

Or our church needs a good old revival to shake people and to break their hearts and to help them to not just stroll up to the altar, but almost run to the altar and fall on their face before God and say, oh, God, oh, we need you so desperately. Help us, Lord, help us. I need revival in my life and in my family. Repentance. We hardly even hear the word much anymore. Repentance.

Yet the Bible clearly says without repentance there's no remission of sins. Modern Christianity want to take that word completely out.

They don't want to talk about repentance because they think that means being sorry for your sin. Number one, most people don't think they've sinned that bad. But repentance, that just goes straight. Do you want to go to heaven one day?

Well, all you gotta do is pray and ask Jesus in your heart. We don't need to mention repentance. Well, Jesus did. Jesus did. And I think a lot of people today maybe are religiously lost. They left one ingredient.

There's only three, but you leave out a third of the ingredient. Amen. Repent, believe and receive a remorse, a repentance, a travailing. Peter, after the wordless sermon of Christ, he had denied Jesus three times.

And then one of the greatest sermons Jesus ever preached to Peter. He didn't even open his mouth. He didn't say a word. He just turned around and looked at Peter.

And the Bible says, their eyes met each other and immediately Peter went out and wept bitterly and repented. Got things straightened out with God. He was wonderfully used for God. Soul winning is one of the great results and evidences of true revival.

We don't think we have revival unless somebody gets saved. Well, we always want people to get saved. But if we had a revival and people quit just saying what they believe and live what they believe.

It might make a very big difference when people hear the gospel preached. Hyman Appleman, I don't know if you've ever heard of him or not. He was a great preacher years ago, I think. He was Jewish, wasn't he?

Hyman Appelman, I think, was a Jewish preacher, preached a revival in Oklahoma. He. Years ago, a family was in that church, and there were four sons and four sisters, and they all attended church except for one.

He was a barber by trade. But he wasn't saved. And during that week of the revival, he died in a lake. Drowned. He drowned. And they couldn't find his body.

And they wanted to recover his body. So they hired divers, paid like $400. This was way back in the 30s. That would have been quite a bit of money in those days.

Paid the divers $400 and they found the body. They had a funeral. The preacher looked down in that casket and called his name.

He said, bob, if we had loved your soul like we loved your body, you probably wouldn't be in hell today. We spent $400 to find him, but we didn't spend a penny on your soul. Think that might have got people's attention?

I know that's not a happy ending, but I'm talking about travail. Being bothered enough to wrestle with God and pray through. Pray until God gives you confidence and God gives you a peace. I'll take care of it.

May not be in the exact day you want it or the exact way you want it, but God answers prayer, the travail. Think of that, and we'll have a closing. But think about the travail of Christ on the cross. Wow. Think about that.

The songwriter said he could have called 10,000 angels, but he died alone. For you and me, the mockers all around them, they laughed. He saved everybody else, but he can't save himself.

Well, that was true, even though it was the mockers that said it. He could have saved himself. But if he had saved himself, you and I would have never been saved. It was either them or him.

And he who knew no sin became sin for us, Took the punishment, the full judgment. The wrath of God poured out on one single man named Jesus, the son of God. He knew something about travail. Amen. We had more time and we're out.

But we'd read Isaiah 53. You ever heard people say, well, why do bad things happen to good people? You ever heard that saying? You thought it? Probably.

Well, let me tell you something. It only happened one time because There was only one good. Bad things happened to Jesus because he was good. He was perfect. He was righteous, flawless.

I find no fault in him. And yet he suffered. But what about you? I'm talking about your life. And how would that word fit into your mind right now and into your heart?

Travail, say, well, maybe I've been there a few times, but it might been a while since you travailed, since you prayed. Almost like a woman in labor trying to give birth to a child. You women can understand that a lot better than us men.

But I think you men know what I'm trying to say. We get ahold of prayer and prayer gets ahold of us. Remember Jacob wrestling? He said, I'll not let you go. I'll not let you go until you bless me. Amen.

I don't know if you read the text I sent you this week, very short, very brief, but I ask you to maybe consider maybe a time of fasting. If you can't fast a whole day, maybe one meal or half a day, just get along with God instead of eating and pray for the church and for the vote.

That's coming up here pretty quick. You think you might consider that? I already have and I'm going to do some more. And I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm just asking.

You might want to consider that some of you have to take a lot of medication and so you can't go without a meal. You have to take your medicine with meals. And God knows that God never asked you to do something you couldn't do.

But maybe at least you could find a little space of time and get along with God. Would you bow your head and stand to your feet, please, for just a moment? We're almost through.

We give you an opportunity to just come and maybe you'd like to kneel before God and say, lord, I just need more revival in my prayer. They're getting kind of flat. They're getting kind of like some leftover food that been in the refrigerator too long.

Maybe God's touched your heart about praying for revival or praying for the lost or travailing for your church or for a loved one in your family that's not saved. I don't know. I'm just ask you to think about it and you can pray where you're standing.

But I'm gonna ask you if you felt led to come pray a minute or two and go back to your seat. Heavenly Father, I pray you would touch our hearts. We need your touch desperately.

Lord, deliver us from just being mediocre Christians, just doing what most Christians do. Lord, I pray you might get ahold of the hearts of some men and women in my own heart about this matter.

And Lord, I pray that we can see some victories won and some great things begin to happen because somebody prayed. And Lord, most of the time we don't even know who they are. We will. At the judgment day. We will.

When we receive rewards, people will be called up and rewarded for their ministry of prayer. But Lord, all of us can pray more. And I pray that you would bless this invitation. In Jesus name I ask it. Amen.