Well, we're into our 16th in our series of Women of Faith, and in Luke chapter 2 and verses 36 through 38. Hear the Word of God. Now, there was one enoch, a prophetess, the Adorathonuel of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant, she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Amen. Father, I thank you for your word, and I pray as we explore the implications of this passage that you would touch our hearts and enable us to lay our lives before you, that you would fill us with your spirit, and that you would cause us more and more to be able to enter into the kind of prayer life that Anna did. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the two Phrases in our passage that capture the heart and life of Anna are found in verse 37, where it says that she did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. Now, you'll have a hard time understanding how this can even be true, let alone identifying with Anna, if you have never travailed in prayer. or if you have never been overwhelmed with a deep spirit given burden for prayer or been caught up to God's throne in the wonder of prayer and adoration. This is something that many men and women down through history have experienced. They've had the heart of Anna. And when I've read their testimony over the years, it has made me weep before the Lord and ask the Lord to give me more and more of what they have, to make me a person of prayer like they had. I think Anna's work is one of the most important works that anyone can do in the entire world, because what she was engaged in was birthing in the Spirit things by praying in the Spirit. That's what she was engaged in, and carnal Christians have a very hard time identifying with that. Carnal Christians tend to look down on the Annas and the Monicas and the Macrinas and the Brainerds of this world and think that they're so heavenly-minded that they're of no earthly good. And yet, when you study the way in which God has worked in history, you see that many revivals and reformations and movements of God were really born out of the prayers of people exactly like Anna, prayer warriors. Even men like Thomas Hare, known as the praying plumber of Lisbon. Yes, he was a plumber, but he was given over to prayer. God gave him a remarkable gift of prayer. Or Leonard Ravenhill, or Rex Andrews, or Edward Payson, or John Hyde, sometimes known as John Praying Hyde. David Brainerd was one such man. He was a Reformed missionary in early America to the northeast section of the country back then. And he saw a powerful move of God among the Indians. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 29. And after his death, Jonathan Edwards found his diary and was so moved in his spirit by what God had been doing in David Brainerd's life that he edited the journal and published it. And that in turn, reading that journal has impacted the lives of countless men and women in the centuries after that. You can think of William Carey or Jim Elliott, you know, the martyr to the Alka Indians and many other heroes, many other heroes of the faith. They recognized that in ourselves, we are nothing. We are totally dependent upon God, and their dependence upon God was really manifested in their prayer lives. Every day, Brainerd would rise at 4 a.m. and pray for six hours. Once a week, he would pray through the night. His burdens for the lost and for the expansion of God's kingdom drove him to prayer. He could not help but pray. Now, when anyone is filled with the Holy Spirit, we become grieved with what grieves the Holy Spirit, and His joys fill us, and the burdens that burden the Holy Spirit burden us and move us to prayer and intercession. And I believe that this kind of prayer is a special gifting. It's a special anointing that is only bestowed by God upon a few people. We really need to treasure men and women like Anna and Monica and Brainerd. Let me read a little bit from Brainerd's diary. Wednesday, August 19, 1742. Spent much of the day in prayer and reading. I see so much of my own extreme vileness that I feel ashamed and guilty before God. before God and man, I look to myself like the vilest fellow in the land. I wonder that God stirs up his people to be so kind to me." Now, he didn't write this for others to read. These were his own private thoughts. And people who read this diary who knew Brainerd, they were just astonished that he would think of himself in these kinds of ways, his own sense of unworthiness, because they saw him as a saintly man who denied himself continually and whose spirit God so moved that God used him powerfully for reaching the Indians. entire tribes of Indians coming to Christ. But the thing is, he spent so much time in the light of God's presence that God's holiness made his own holiness seem vile in comparison. Saturday, December 18, 1742. spent much time in prayer in the woods, and seemed raised above the things of this world. My soul was strong in the Lord of hosts, but was sensible of great barrenness. Thursday, November 3, 1743, this was several months later, spent this day in secret fasting and prayer from morning until night. My soul was much moved observing the faith, zeal, and power of that holy man Elijah, how he wrestled with God in prayer. My soul then cried with Elijah, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Oh, I long for more faith. My soul breathed after God and pleaded with him that a double portion of that spirit which was given to Elijah might rest on me. I was enabled to wrestle with God by prayer in a more affectionate, fervent, humble, intense, and importunate manner than I have ever had for months. Thursday, December 1, 1743, both morning and evening, I enjoyed some intenseness of soul and prayer and longed for the enlargement of Christ's kingdom. I'm just giving tiny little excerpts here. Tuesday, December 6, 1743, was perplexed to see the vanity and levity of professed Christians. Tuesday, Thursday, excuse me, December 22, 1743, spent this day alone in fasting and prayer and reading in God's word the exercises and deliverances of his children. Thursday, February 2, 1744, spent this day in fasting and prayer, seeking the presence and assistance of God that he would enable me to overcome all my corruptions and spiritual enemies. And so you're beginning to see a pattern, entire days spent in prayer. Monday, February 6, 1744, this morning was strengthened in God and found some sweet repose in him in prayer, longing especially for the complete mortification of sensuality and pride. Thursday, February 9, 1744, observe this day. as a day of fasting and prayer, entreating of God to bestow upon me His blessing and grace, especially to enable me to live a life of mortification to the world, as well as of resignation and patience, enjoyed some realizing sense of divine power and goodness in prayer, and was enabled to roll the burden of myself, friends, and Zion upon the goodness and grace of God. July 21, 1744. Towards night, my burden respecting my work among the Indians began to increase much. I began to be in anguish. I withdrew for prayer, hoping for strength from above. And in prayer, I was exceedingly enlarged and my soul was as much drawn out as ever I remember it to have been in my life. I was in such anguish and pleaded with so much earnestness and importunity that when I rose from my knees, I felt extremely weak and overcome. I could scarcely walk straight. The sweat ran down my face and body. One time, Brainerd prayed, he was kneeling, he was in snow up to his chin, but he was in prayer all day. And by the end, his hands were reached out, there was no snow underneath him. He had melted the snow and warmed the ground that was underneath him. Brainerd was a man with an amazingly anointed prayer life. And when he wasn't praying, he was always in God's temple, so to speak. He felt that he walked and talked and ministered before the throne of God. He always had a sense of God's presence and power. And I've had friends with this, not very many, but I've had friends with this gifting of prayer. Men who started praying before me, continued praying after I left. When I came back two hours later, they were still praying, totally oblivious to the fact that other people had left and gone. These are men that I have seen who radiated, literally radiated, the glory of God while they were praying and went among men. And I will confess, I am no Anna. It's my confession. I long to be more like Anna, but I am no Anna. Now, here's the question I want to ask. Is it even right? Is it even realistic for us to want to be more like Anna or Brainerd or Monica or Macrina or other women in church history? And I believe so. I really believe we're not all called to be full-time in prayer. Granted that, but I think we should desire to be more like this woman. Let's take a look at some of the things about her. First of all, she was a prophetess. Verse 36 says, now there was one Anna, a prophetess. Now, this means that God's inspired revelation came through her to others, but it also means you cannot criticize her prayer life as being unbalanced, irrelevant, unbiblical, pietistic, out of the will of God, whatever criticisms people have been given of people like this. You cannot criticize her because as a prophetess, she had the stamp of God's approval on what she was doing. In fact, it was God's Spirit who was speaking through her. probably many times praying through her, and God gave His will through her. Now, she may have been engaged in other ministries in the temple as well, and probably was for many years, but this passage highlights two things. It was her prophetic messages and her fastings and prayers that were her biggest contributions to the kingdom back in that time. Now, if God led her to this life of prayer, we cannot call a Brainerd or a Monica unbalanced or ungodly, and to do so is to slander those saints. And I think many people have slandered those saints. Second, she was real. She was not a theoretical concept. She was a real person. It's easy to write off godly people, you know, as being up there in a class, that they're so irrelevant, they're so beyond us, we can't achieve anything that they have achieved. But I want you to know that she did not come from a remarkable lineage. The text says that she was the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. We don't even know who Phanuel was. We know for sure he wasn't a Levite. He was from the tribe of Asher, which is a small tribe way up north that had become apostate after the time of Solomon. But interestingly, Hezekiah, there was a revival, God's Spirit broke out on Israel. They sent missionaries up to the northern tribes, and as they preached their hearts out, there was a remnant of people from all of the tribes up north that became believers and migrated to Judah in the south. They were believers, But otherwise, they were not particularly remarkable. Anna comes from ordinary background with an ordinary marriage, and she faced the ordinary trials and heartaches that we all do. Heartaches like losing a husband. But God moved her to extraordinary through the Holy Spirit. And it's by the power of the Holy Spirit alone that any human can do extraordinary things. Third, she was old. It says she was of great age. How old was she? Well, translations differ. An early edition of the NIV had it, was a widow until she was 84. So if that translation was correct, then she would have been 84 in this story. Now that's old, but it's not of great age, as the text says. Now later, the NIV changed it to had been a widow for 84 years. So that second edition of the, well, it's not a second edition, it was maybe a fourth or fifth. Anyway, that later edition of the NIV would have her being about 106 years old at this point if she was married at 15. She would be older if she was married at 16, 17, 18, or 20. Okay, but probably at least 106 years old on that translation. So what makes the difference in that translation? There are two things. One is a textual variant, and the other is the translation of an ambiguous, this ambiguous textual variant. A tiny minority of Greek manuscripts at the NIV, ESV, and NASB follow have heos, which could be translated in either of two ways, that she was a widow for 84 years, or she was a widow until she was 84 years, at which something happened. She died, presumably she didn't get married again, but She was a widow until that 84th birthday. But as I, Howard Marshall, and some other commentators point out, even with that minority Greek reading, it would be extremely odd for Luke to say she was a widow until 84, rather than until her death. And so most versions, even that follow that minority reading, make her older than 100. But for those of us who follow the majority text, who believe that every jot and title of the scripture has been perfectly preserved, it's a slam dunk. Majority text uses hos, not heos, and this means that she was indeed a widow for about 84 years, which makes her way over 106, unless you're one of those people who just can't believe it, and so you got her married at age 12, or 13, or 14, or 15. I don't think you have to assume that she got married that young. Okay, enough on the translation. What difference does this make? Well, first of all, there are seasons of life. She would not have been able to pray full-time when she was married. Because she would just have too many responsibilities to engage in cooking and sewing and cleaning, hospitality to strangers. And so don't feel that everyone needs to spend 10 hours a day in prayer. There are seasons of life. But certainly as we get older, prayer is a wonderful area of ministry to emphasize and to transition into. And God may call and gift some of you with the gift of intercession. It's a special ability given by the Spirit to a few. Of all of the giftings, I definitely place this gifting near the top of the continuing gifts. Second, it takes time to learn to pray like this. She probably didn't learn to pray like this overnight. This was something she learned over a lifetime of praying and walking in the Spirit. The Spirit of God creates within us different subjective sensations that tune our hearts with His heart and enable us to pray as we ought as Romans 8 talks about, and we'll talk later about that subjective work of the Holy Spirit within us. But right now, we're just looking at who these descriptions pertain to. She was a woman like you and me, other than being a prophetess and being 106 or over. None of us are there, but these verses go on to say, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, and this woman was a widow of about 84 years. Now, in 1 Timothy 5, Paul indicated that ordinarily widows should consider getting remarried. If she had gotten married at age 15, which is what some people assume, then she would have been a widow at age 22. And if she was poor, she definitely would have fit into Paul's recommendation, a high recommendation that they get remarried. But there are times when God calls women to a unique ministry that cannot be tied down by the home. Paul was in that category when he didn't get remarried. He indicated he had the right to get remarried, but he was called to such a difficult ministry of outreach and evangelism and danger that there was no way he could be tied down with a family life. And that was the case with Anna. It may be that with her husband's death that she was well endowed with money. This is definitely what happened to Monica in church history and a few other women. They had plenty of money to be able to devote their lives to study and to prayer. And Monica actually surrounded herself with a lot of women who had a similar calling. And people sometimes look down on that, you know, they're secluded, they're going off. No, when you look at the impact that those prayer warriors had upon the kingdom, it is phenomenal, the things that God birthed out of their prayers. Now, here's the thing, the blessings that these women and these men have brought in history is something praised by Luke. It's not looked down on by Luke. He puts her up as an example. And so I think this passage warns us not to put women into a box. They too can be led by the Holy Spirit into unique callings. Now, I will say that if God has called a woman to a specific ministry, you better make sure, and you're also called to marriage, you better make sure that the person you're marrying has a calling that dovetails with what you are called to as well. If God is calling you to full-time prayer, he's probably not calling you to get married and have children. you're not going to be able to do full-time prayer and doing that. But let's not judge women who have been called to do different things than you have been called to do. Obviously, there are limits. There are some things the Scripture says women can't do. They can't be elders. They can't be pastors. But I know some women who have this calling of Adam, and I am thankful for them. Now, moving on, some have been puzzled by this next statement, who did not depart from the temple, They don't think it would be possible for a woman to be in the temple permanently. And so they say this must be hyperbole, you know, that any time that the doors were open or any time they had services, she was there. You could always see her there. And so they, you know, she's always she's always around, always being an exaggeration. But this doesn't just say she was always there. It says she did not depart from the temple. And I don't think you can phrase that as hyperbole. And there were numerous apartments all around the temple complex for priests and their families. And it may very well be that she was given one of those apartments for her living, quarters, and for her ministry. Or she may have moved in with one of the other priestly families. The temple complex was huge. It was ginormous. And there was no problem with taking this literally. But let's apply that phrase to ourselves. If the temple was God's throne room, then never leaving the temple also means that God's throne room was at the center of her life, okay? She constantly lived and prayed and ministered in the presence of God. And those of you who have read the book, Practicing the Presence by Brother, what? Lawrence, Brother Lawrence. You know, you can—and there's another book also by the Reformed writer Hugh Martin, The Abiding Presence of God. You know you can experience God's presence when you're peeling potatoes, and when you're playing games with your kids, and every event that you're engaged in—this is the way Calvin worded it, We are continually to sleep and live quorum Deo, before the face of God. So it could be true of us that we never leave God's heavenly temple. And I find it interesting that the apostasy of the leaders of the temple did not stop her ministry from going forward or her focus from being on God. There was a great deal of unbelief at the time of Christ's birth, and that unbelief just kept growing as Jesus grew up. So I find it interesting that God did not reveal himself to the political leaders and very many of the temple leaders. He did reveal himself to John the Baptist's daddy Zacharias, but mostly who was it? You know in Luke chapter 2 he revealed himself to ordinary people like Joseph and Mary and Simeon and Anna. If the Spirit of God fills you and moves you, you're not going to live for the approval of man. You're going to live for the approval of God, nor are you going to take your cues for what is possible by the unbelief that's all around you. You're going to take your cues for what is possible from God and his word and his promises. And so it is possible to live by faith in a culture of unbelief. But now we come to the heart of what it was that she did. It says that she served God with fastings and prayers night and day. First of all, I want you to notice the Godward direction of this. There may have been other people who thought it's fantastic that she's serving me with her prayers, but ultimately she was serving God. And I find that remarkable that God considers our prayers to be service to him. It ministers to his heart. Note, too, the connection of her prayers with fasting. Fasting shows the seriousness of her prayers as well as the seriousness of the sin problems that she is praying against. And there was plenty for her to be burdened about in her culture, in her society. But thirdly, it appears that her life was absolutely saturated with prayer night and day. What would motivate her to do this? Prayer and fasting is hard, difficult, painful work to engage in. Did she just grit her teeth and, you know, with sheer willpower do this? I don't believe so at all. I think this was a sovereign work of God's Spirit. And to understand why we can take this literally, we need to understand the inward work of God's Spirit even today. I mentioned earlier that the Spirit of God creates within us different subjective senses that tune our hearts with His heart and help us to pray as we ought. And there are six main Greek words in your outlines and a couple of synonyms to the right of each of those words that speak of these inward motivations to prayer. The first inward sensation that the Holy Spirit creates is captured by the Greek anastanazo. It's used in Mark 8 verse 12 for Jesus sighing deeply in His Spirit, and it's also used in Romans 8 verse 23 for groaning in the Spirit—exactly the same word. Okay? Romans 8 says, but we also have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves. And so this anastanozo sensation inside of us is an inward burden that is generated by the groaning of the Holy Spirit, and it motivates us to pray, it drives us to pray, it burdens us for prayer. Now, in Romans 8, 26, it uses a virtual synonym where it says, likewise, that's why we can say it's a synonym, likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And so the Spirit's groanings are communicated to our heart and move our heart to prayer, and we can no longer be satisfied with the way things are. We long for God's glory to be manifested in the world. This is the first of six ways in which God moves us to pray in the Holy Spirit. His groanings become our groaning. His burdens become our burdens. And when that happens, we pray. It's not our flesh that is praying. The Holy Spirit enables us to pray, and such prayer touches heaven's throne. Now, the second inward sensation that the Holy Spirit produces is captured by the Greek word embrimaomai. This also has an urgency to speak and pray the scriptures, but it has an aspect of authority that is coupled with it. Authoritatively speaking those scriptures to a situation particularly against the demonic. taking authority over them. Now, if we're sensitive to the Holy Spirit, we're not going to ignore these uncomfortable feelings. It's going to drive us to pray against the demonic. The third inward sensation is captured by the Greek word tarasso, which is translated as being troubled in the Spirit. There may be an overlap of meaning in these words, but I tell you, I've read quite a few books of people who have this gift of the Spirit, and they say, no, there are these six very distinct sensations inside that the Holy Spirit produces. I myself have sensed all six of these, and I think that they are quite distinct. So I believe what is communicated by this word terrazzo is an inward sensation of danger in someone's life that drives us to intercede on their behalf. And so I've been woken up many a time in the middle of the night, and this happens during the day as well, where I suddenly have a sense of foreboding concerning a person that they are in danger. And I pray and I pray and I pray until God releases this terrazzo feeling and replaces it with his peace. And I transition into thanksgiving. It's a huge motivator to pray. I wouldn't have even thought to pray for that person if the Spirit had not put that tarasso sensation of danger within me. So that's the third aspect of praying in the Spirit. Fourth inward sensation is captured by the Greek word paraksuno, which is translated as moved or provoked or stirred up. For example, Paul was, this word is used, was provoked. in his spirit, by all of the idolatry that he saw in Athens, and it made him upset. It made him pray and preach and reason and deal with the problem. And so it's almost like there's a bubbling up of the spirit to do something. Now, frequently it is a holy zeal almost akin to being upset that seizes us and drives us to pray against strongholds or against people who stand against God's purposes. And many times, but not always, this spirit-generated feeling moves me to pray the imprecatory psalms against those people or against those strongholds. And often it is accompanied by a sense that I am seated with Christ in the heavenlies, as Ephesians 2 verse 6 talks about us. We're seated right with Christ in the heavenlies, and we can pray with His authority to back us up. I'm sharing His rod of iron, just as Revelation 2, 26 through 27 says we can. Let me read that passage. This is Jesus speaking, and it says, and he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels, as I also have received from my father. So Jesus is saying that just as the father gave him a rod of iron to smash nations which are in rebellion, Jesus will share this rod of iron with overcomers and give them the same power, and it's actually literally authority, it's exousia, he will give them the same authority over the nations. And so the spirit provokes us, he stirs us up, this paraxuno, to pray against strongholds. The fifth inward sensation stirred up by the Holy Spirit is captured by the Greek word, Suneho, and is translated as to be compelled in the spirit or driven in the spirit to pray. This keeps us praying when others would stop praying. We feel compelled to turn back to the subject matter over and over and over again. Kathy experienced this for weeks while praying for Chaplain Perry. Gouthier almost every moment of the day as she kept being driven back to praying for him and till one day she finally felt release and was able to lift her hands to heaven and praise God for answering her prayers only to discover 15 minutes later that Perry had died at the exact moment that the Spirit gave her release and praise. It's an awesome thing to pray in the Holy Spirit. And though not all of you will be called to pray full time, like Anna was, all of us can pray in the Holy Spirit. We are commanded to so pray. We're commanded to. Ephesians 6, 18 says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. It's not praying in tongues, it's praying in these six different ways. Those are the operative words, in the Spirit. Our fleshly prayers count for nothing. What is wrought by the Holy Spirit prevails. Jude 20 commands us to be, quote, praying in the Holy Spirit. And those who have experienced these things, they know exactly what I'm talking about. While other people think I'm going off into the weeds here, Phil becoming weird. No, no, no. This is something you're commanded to do. pray in the Holy Spirit. And the more time we spend with God, the more we begin to sense the different ways in which the Spirit of God is moving us to pray. And the more we respond appropriately to His promptings to prayer, the more deeply and strongly entrenched this prayer life will become. It was obviously extremely entrenched in Anna by the time she was 106 years old. Now, the sixth sensation that the Holy Spirit sometimes stirs up within us is called travailing prayer. And the Greek word for travailing means giving birth or laboring intensely. And by the way, there are Hebrew terms for all of these These things that I've given the Greek words for as well, won't get into those, but the first time that this happened to me was years into my ministry. I'd never experienced this before, and it actually started in my dreams. praying in my dreams, it woke me up, and I continued to pray so intensely, so involuntarily, that I could not stop the prayer. It was almost doubling me over in agony. There were aspects of it that felt like wrestling in prayer, but there were other aspects that felt like something huge inside of me was just pushing, pushing, pushing those prayers out. And it came so strongly that every muscle in my body was tense. I forget how many hours I was travailing in prayer before I finally felt that God answered the prayers, and it instantly ushered me into joyous praise and thanksgiving. And the next day I checked with the person what on earth was going on, and I found that he was in extreme danger during the time I was praying. And that he was delivered from danger at the exact time that I felt release. Now, I'll be honest with you, it scared me to death the first time that that happened. I didn't know what in the world was going on. So I went to a pastor friend, And they explained that, and I said, man, am I getting weird here? What's going on? He laughed. He says, we've all experienced this. This is travailing in prayer. And so that got me studying in the Bible, what on earth is travailing in prayer? And I had no idea. All of these scriptures that I had missed, I'll just give you a sampling of these scriptures, I was blind to. I'd been a pastor for years. I knew nothing about travailing in prayer. Let me give you just a few examples. Jeremiah uses the word for birth pangs in regard to his prayers. For example, in Jeremiah 4.19 he says, oh my soul, my soul, I am in birth pains in my very heart. My heart makes a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace because you have heard, oh my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. So the spirit was birthing within him something on behalf of the remnant that drove him to prayer. but he likens it to crying out in labor pains. Travailing in prayer is defined by one author as, quote, an intense intercession given by the Holy Spirit whereby an individual or group is gripped by something that grips God's heart. The individual or group labors with him for an opening to be created so that the new life can come forth. Daniel travailed in prayer, and Daniel 7.15, saying, I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body. He travailed in prayer in Daniel 9, pouring out repentance on behalf of the nation, petitions on behalf of the nation, intensely interceding that God would birth something. Now here's the interesting thing about Daniel 9. He had just finished reading in Jeremiah that the exile was going to last exactly 70 years, and the 70 years he calculated was up. So did that make him passive and say, oh, it's up. I guess God's going to do it. No. God's spirit moved him to pray so that what was ordained would be fulfilled. God ordains the means as well as the ends. I want to be clear that this prevailing prayer is not everyday prayer. It is sovereignly given as God is about to birth something new or when the Holy Spirit makes us weep and cry over something that He Himself has grieved over. As one person worded it, it takes place when we experience the burden and grief of the Lord over a situation and allow the Holy Spirit to express His burden through us in prayer. Travail is yielding to the sorrow of God's heart over a situation so as to partner with Him to see the solution come. And it can happen in any number of situations. Some people have this coming over them as they are praying for the salvation of an individual who has been in deep rebellion and God begins to birth something in them. Let me give you a biblical example. Isaiah 66 says, for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. If Zion is the church, the church's travail births something in the Spirit. New life comes. This is how Paul travailed over the Galatians. He said, My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Galatians 4.19. So Paul had travailed for them to come to Christ, and now he's travailing for them for a consistency of God's kingdom life to be birthed in them. Some believe that Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 1 was travailing prayer. There were many who engaged in prevailing prayer among the remnant in Ezekiel 9.4. It says, And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who groan and cry for all the abominations that are being done in the midst of it. Many people believe that Romans 15 verse 30 is a reference to travailing prayer when Paul uses a different word, a word that means to agonizingly wrestle in prayer. It's sunagonizomai. Agonizomai. You can hear the agony in the middle of that, right? He says, Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me. So there's that word, that you wrestle together with me in prayers to God for me. So strive, wrestle, agonize. Now my point in bringing up all of those six types of prayer in the Spirit is not to say you ought to be guilty if you're not praying 10 hours a day. I don't think most of us here, in terms of what God's calling upon our lives, can do that, okay? So it's not to say you can do nothing but pray and fast. The point is, she models to us what can be done part-time or full-time. Stretch your prayer life and ask God to teach you to pray in the Holy Spirit. In verse 38, we see that her prayers are answered. It says, in coming in that instant. What instant? The instant that Simeon took Jesus up in his arms and prophesied that everything that Anna had been praying about was just now fulfilled—it had been answered by God. God had just birthed the answer to her prayers. Reading Luke 2, verses 25-35, this is what Anna heard, okay? And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring Revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother, behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against. Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many may be revealed. Now, had Jesus been crucified yet? Obviously not. which means redemption had not yet been accomplished. But Anna is able to move from groaning in the spirit to giving thanks in the spirit because the person about whom she has been praying so long has finally come. Now, verse 38 says that she spoke about him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. So why did she and so many others anticipate that the Messiah was about to come? Well, you could say, because she's a prophetess, God revealed it to her, and that's true. But what about others? Zacharias had a prophecy six months before. that John the Baptist would be the forerunner of Jesus. Daniel 9 too had prophesied the number of years leading up to Jesus being anointed as the Messiah. And so for these and other reasons, scholars point out that many in Israel anticipated the imminent coming of the promised Messiah. Now here's the point, here's the application of the theology I just gave. God burdens people with prayer when he is about to do something great. It's just the way that he works. If there are no prayer movements, there's nothing great going to happen. Just the way it is. God always burdens people with prayer when he is about to do something great. But as was already mentioned, prayer was paired with thanks. Whenever we pray in the Spirit, there does come a time of release and joy and thanksgiving by faith that God has indeed answered. I've had times where I have fasted for something in prayer, and suddenly, after some days of fasting, God gives me the green light this prayer has been answered, and I can go from fasting to feasting." Now, I have not seen the answer to the prayer, but I know in my spirit that something has happened in the heavenlies because the Holy Spirit has wrought that within me. And you don't have to be charismatic to believe. You don't have to even believe in ongoing prophecy to believe these kinds of things. You know, the authors of the Westminster Confession Many of them were cessationists, and yet they believed exactly the same things I'm talking about right here. They experienced these kinds of things. In the olden days, this was normal Reformed Christianity. Now, the last thing we see in verse 38 is that her prayers spurred her to ministry. She spoke of Jesus to those anticipating redemption in Jerusalem. Prayer ushers us into ministry. It prepares us for ministry. By prophetic insight, she was able to tell who was elect and who was not. She did not waste her words on the apostate priests or those who would have opposed Jesus. She spoke to those whom the Spirit of God had prepared them to receive Jesus. And in a similar way, those who have been given this deep prayer life are often used of God in remarkable ways to advance the gospel. Their prayers transform their ministry and transform the ministry of others. I've got a book of stories of early women of the church that is very moving in this regard. It's so fun to see that what God births through the prayers that God Himself sovereignly stirs up. But since I began with David Brainerd, I'm going to mention that his prayers were beautifully answered. David Brainerd was dying of TB. He had been reduced to a 95-pound skeleton. I mean, he had lost a lot of weight. But his prayer life only intensified. It did not diminish in strength. Here's what happened before God opened the floodgates of salvation for that Indian tribe. In his diary, he wrote, I got up this morning and the Indians were still committing adultery and drinking and beating their tom-toms and shouting like hell itself. I prayed from a half hour after sunrise to a half hour before sunset. There was nowhere to pray in the Indian camp. I went into the woods and knelt in the snow. I was up to my chin. I wrestled in prayer until a half hour before sunset, and I could only touch the snow with the tips of my fingers. The heat of my body had melted the snow. God was with me of the truth. Oh, it was a blessed company indeed. God enabled me to so agonize in prayer that I was quite wet with sweat, though in the shade and the cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much from the world. I grasped for multitudes of souls. I think I had more enlargement for sinners than for the children of God, though I felt as if I could spend my life in cries for both. I enjoyed great sweetness in communion with my dear Savior. I think I've never in my life felt such an entire weanedness from this world and so much resigned to God in everything. Oh, that I may live always so." And God answered in remarkable ways. Remarkable, his story. Incredibly cool story. If you've never read it, you ought to. But I want to end by deducing four additional applications for today. The first additional application is so encouraging for me, because I feel like a nobody. First application that I see here is that God delights to use nobodies to accomplish His will. After all, it's not about you. Sorry to break it to you, but it's not about you. In the big scheme of things, you are unimportant. In the big scheme of things, Phil Kaiser is unimportant. What matters is Christ in you. And when your focus is on God's glory and you're indwelt by Christ and with the power of the Holy Spirit, your prayers are not going to be in the flesh. Ian Bounds says this in his book on prayer. He says, the wrestling quality of importunate prayer does not spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy nor a mere earnestness of soul. It is a wrought force, a faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Holy Spirit in us. Now, again, the point is God loves to use nobody's to accomplish his will. This way he receives far greater glory. When you trace the history of evangelistic breakthroughs and revivals and reformations, they were all started by nobody's praying to the only somebody in the universe, praying to God. I think about the stupendous revival in the Scottish Island of Hebrides. A photograph in your outline is of Pastor Duncan Campbell and two elderly ladies. Those two ladies had prayed for months for revival. And for the first months they began praying, nothing happened other than God just increasing the intensity of their burden for prayer. Peggy Smith was 84 years old and blind. Her sister, Christine Smith, was 82 years old, almost doubled over with arthritis. They could not travel. They could not attend church. Yet for months they agonized in prayer for revival. They prayed for each person in their village by name that God will fulfill His inspired promise in Isaiah 44 verse 3. I will pour water upon him who was thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." Now, unknown to those two sisters, God at the same time raised up seven young men on the other side of town who gathered in a barn three nights a week, who had covenanted together, in the words of Isaiah 62, verses 6-7, to give God no rest until He sent revival into their midst. Now one night in particular as they fervently prayed, Psalm 24, 3-5. By the way, I should point out, all of these prayer warriors prayed the Scriptures. That's what it means to pray according to the will of God. It's praying God's thoughts, His will, back to Him. Anyways, they were praying the Scriptures fervently. The barn where they were praying, filled with the glory of God so strongly, they fell prostrate to the ground, absolutely drenched in the power of God in their prayer life. At exactly the same time, God gave the two sisters across town release that God had answered their prayers, and He was going to bring revival through a visiting preacher. Duncan Smith, and he did. You read that story, it's just a remarkable story. God's Spirit swept up multitudes into God's arms. People crowded into the churches crying, longing. One of the stories was, you know, of a butcher truck just driving along, and the Spirit of God came so heavily upon the truck, all seven of them became converted in that truck and went to church. After one of the church services, someone hurried to the preacher and said very excitedly, come with me. There's a crowd of people outside the police station. They're weeping. They're in awful distress. We don't know what's wrong with them, but they're calling for someone to come and pray with them. So the minister went there and he said, I saw a sight I never thought possible. Something I shall never forget. Under the starlit sky, Men and women were kneeling everywhere, by the roadside, outside the cottages, even behind the peach stacks, crying for God to have mercy upon them. And in the ensuing days, over 90% of that Scottish island of Hebrides became converted, soundly converted. It was a spectacular move of God. Now, here's the thing. This is the point I'm trying to make here. No one who was used in that revival was remarkable. The two sisters were not remarkable. The preacher and his preaching were not particularly remarkable at all. But they were connected heart to heart with the only amazing being in the world, God. And when God moves us to prayer, amazing things happen. Second, age is of absolutely no consequence to God. He could use you. He could use every one of you. Anna was over 106. Peggy Smith was 84. Christine Smith was 82. The men on the other side of the village, they were barely men. They were too young to be of any consequence. You know, many of the revivals, when you trace them through, they were started with prayer meetings that were attended by little children. It moved my heart to see 20 20 of our little children spontaneously crying their hearts out in prayer. Ages of no consequence to God. The question is, does God have your heart? Has His Spirit gripped your prayer life? Pray that it be so. Pray that we elders be given to prayer. I'm thankful that God has begun in the last month stirring up prayer in the Presbytery. but pray that we would have a deeper burden for prayer for our sheep. Third application is that God stirs up prayer when he is about to birth something new. Matthew Henry once said, when God intends to bless his people, the first thing he does is to set them a praying. Brothers and sisters, let's long for a new work of grace in our midst. Let's long for each one of our young people to know the reality of God's presence. Let's long for strongholds in our midst to be broken down. Let's pray our hearts out on behalf of faith and on behalf of the shepherd family. Let's long for the gift of repentance and faith. Let's long for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I mean, if those longings are generated within our hearts, prayer is sure to follow. And God will bring something new in our midst. May it be so, Lord Jesus. May it be so. And then finally, having stirred us up to wrestle with God in prayer, God will surely give us reasons for thanksgiving. He never, ever stirs up anything that he does not finish. Praise God. Praise God. Anna was released from groanings in the spirit to thanksgiving and joy in the Holy Spirit. May our congregation have Annas who would see this congregation through to revival and great joy in the Holy Spirit. Annas. Amen, amen. Father, we long for more of your Holy Spirit. We long to be burdened with the things that burden your hearts. We long to be able to hate the things you hate and to love the things you love and to be passionate about the things that you are passionate about. We long for our hearts to be gripped in prayer. We long, oh God, for these six dimensions of prayer to enable each one of us to pray in the Holy Spirit. Father, we do not want to pray in the flesh. We want you to guide us and direct us, and we want our lives to be changed by your Holy Spirit. And we realize that we are utterly dependent upon you. And so, Father, drive us to prayer on our knees, to receive from you that which we lack, and all of us lack a great deal. Father, some of us feel so inadequate. We feel like the donkey's jawbone that Samson picked up. But Father, whether we're a donkey's jawbone or a dry stick in Moses' hand, if you use it, if your anointing is upon it, it can part the Red Sea. It can destroy your enemies. And I pray, O God, that you would take us as nobodies. And may we pray to the only somebody in this universe to you and have our hearts gripped by you. Father, change our vision, enable our vision to be captured by those things which are above. You've commanded us to seek those things which are above. In the heavenlies, in Christ Jesus, help us, Father, to not be wrapped up in the things of this world, but have everything that we do in our businesses, in our homes, even when we're playing games to be lived out quorum Deo. and lived out by the power of your Holy Spirit. Oh God, send your Spirit into our midst afresh. Bring revival into our hearts and enable us, Father, to have the power to do the things in ourselves that we cannot do. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.