 keeping us, being in a fellowship with us. Lord, thank you Lord for this day and we are going to listen the lessons and be with us and let us understand everything what Ma'am says and let us store all of those things in our hearts. Lord, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen, amen. Thank you, thank you for praying and once again good morning and warm welcome to everyone. I hope your assignments went on well and shortly you will get the marks as well. So the second assessment is of a greater weightage towards the end of the year. So you can pay attention no matter how your first assessment went. The second one is of more weightage. So concentrate, study, I'm sure you'll be able to score really well in the upcoming one as well. So yes, end of the semester. Yeah, yeah, end of the semester. Okay, so let's continue with our chapters here. So far we have learned about prayer. We've learned about personal prayer. We have learned about developing a discipline of prayer, a pattern of prayer and all of those things. But now we are moving into praying at a deeper level and what that means and what we have in scripture that talks about praying with intensity, praying with persistence and praying at a spiritual level which is definitely deeper. So there is something known as travail or travailing in prayer. The Bible talks about travailing in prayer. Now what is travail? For us to understand usually when there is a child birth, a woman is just about to give birth to a child, we all know that there is a cry that these women let out because of this entire process of delivering the child. So that cry is known as travail. So we can understand just by the fact that travail is associated with childbirth that our plea to God, when we say travailing in prayer, it is desperate, it is intense. It is also something that you can associate with the result around the corner because a woman would travail before the child is born. So in the same way, when we are in prayer, sometimes what happens, we have our general kind of prayer. We go before God, we petition, we ask, we declare, we do so many things, but you come to a place in prayer where it's beyond that, okay? And when does travail happen? It can happen regarding very many things. It can happen regarding our own personal prayer requests or it can happen with regard to the burden that we have for the nations and people to be saved. So generally, like when you study about some of the people who were engaged in revivals, you would see that some of them have this experience of travailing in prayer. So it went beyond asking, receiving, petitioning and all those things. It went to a deeper level where there is an intensity and a depth in the prayer. So that is what we call as travail, okay? And whenever you think of travail, you think about a woman who is going, you know, who is going to deliver a child. Okay, so that is travail. Now, why is there this form of prayer? We don't know, but it's just revealing to us that when we are engaging with God to see the fulfillment of His promises for us or the, you know, the world around us, we can call labour in such a way as if, you know, it is on God's heart. He puts it on our heart in a very strong way. Okay, He puts it on our heart in a very strong way. So a good example is, you know, of this person called as Father Nash. Who was helpful in the ministry of Charles Phinney. Many of you would have heard about Charles Phinney, a very famous, you know, a person whom God used to bring revival. And in the ministry of Charles Phinney, it is said that he would go and preach and people would come to the altar by the hundreds and thousands and repent, you know, in no time like that. They would just repent and many, many people would give their lives to Christ. So this phenomenon which was going on in his ministry was amazing because, you know, sometimes preachers preach, but you actually don't see this kind of a response. And Phinney was seeing this quite regularly in all his meetings. So one of the secrets behind this kind of meeting was a person known as Father Nash. Okay, Father Nash. So Father Nash was, you could say, a kind of an associate. He decided that he is going to partner with Phinney's ministries only in prayer. So Phinney would do the preaching and Father Nash would do the praying. So the kind of prayer people say Father Nash did was this travail in prayer. So what he used to do is he would go to the places, you know, where the ministry was planned, the meetings were planned. He would go there a few months before or a few weeks before with two to three people and they would rent a house, there they'll start praying. So they used to pray, pray, pray, pray, pray to such an extent that it seems, you know, people say that they wouldn't eat, they wouldn't drink water, they would even be in such an intense level of prayer that you can only hear groans and cries, you know, something like travail coming from that place. And, you know, when you study about the life of Charles Phinney and the ministry of Father Nash, you read that as long as Father Nash was alive and he was praying like this, the ministry of Phinney was very successful. He had a lot of results, but Father Nash died early. Once he died and he was buried, Phinney continued his ministry and he realized that, you know, the way he used to have people coming to the altar, that was not happening anymore. He tried a lot to continue preaching the way he did earlier, but the results were nowhere close to what it was when Nash was alive and, you know, praying for Phinney. So then Phinney understood what is the difference now in my ministry. I don't have the kind of prayer backup, you know, which Nash and his team were providing, okay? So one of the examples of people who travailed in prayer for souls to come into the kingdom would be Father Nash. I'm sure there are many other examples that we can talk about, but I just wanted to share this for us to understand that we can have the burden of what God puts on our hearts to this extent that we even travail in prayer, okay? And before we go any further into this particular subject, I want to tell us that travailing is not something which we can manufacture. For example, I said that a travail happens before, you know, we are ready to see the promised birthed. Isn't it? So does it mean that if I travail, I will see the answers soon? We cannot make travail happen. It's something that has to come from within. You know, it comes through that spiritual connect with God. So we cannot create it or make it happen. You understand what I'm saying? Though it's a great thing, it's a wonderful thing to pray at, you know, this deeper level and this deeper intensity, you and I cannot make it happen. We have to faithfully engage in prayer and as we engage in prayer, we might experience, you know, this travail at some point, okay? Okay? And when is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? We can't make it happen, right? So we just engage with God and we would see that there is this kind of travail that comes forth. So scriptures tell us even before, you know, Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. We always say, right, that Jesus went, he commanded, there was a dead man in the tomb. He went, he said, Lazarus come forth. But just before he said Lazarus come forth, the scriptures record that he let out, you know, a sigh, he let out this kind of a travail, okay? So we know that Jesus was engaging deeply with God and this is a kind of prayer which he prayed. So what we recognize is Jesus didn't just go there and do a surface level prayer. It was a deep prayer because he went there and you know, the family was there and scriptures tell us Jesus wept. This is in John chapter 11. If you can go through verses 33 to 43, okay? I'm not going to read through the entire passage now, but Jesus went there, he wept and before he calls Lazarus out, scriptures say that he did let out a sigh, okay? So this sigh or this kind of, you know, a cry from Jesus is comparable to a travail. So is it possible that Jesus was engaging in a very deep form of prayer before resurrecting a dead man? Yes, it is possible, okay? So it tells us that Jesus knew how to engage at a deeper level of prayer. The other place where Jesus had or expressed this deep kind of prayer was in the Garden of Gethsemane, okay? So even in the Garden of Gethsemane, we know that, you know, he was preparing to go to the cross and so his heart was very troubled. Can somebody read John chapter 12 verses 27 to 32, please? Please read into the mic. John 12 verses 27 to 32. Now my soul is troubled and ironing. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thunder. Others said, an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now this, now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Rin. So as you can see here, Jesus is predicting his going away and what is the condition of his heart at that time? He says, my soul is troubled. Okay, my soul is troubled. And he has troubled to an extent where, though he knows the will of God, his prayer is something like, Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose, I came to this hour. So he is under a lot of pressure. Okay, emotional pressure. He just doesn't know how he is going to go through the cross. And we read in Matthew 26, you know, under this kind of pressure, he goes for prayer. He goes for prayer and over there, you know, he has his disciples with him. He prays intensely in the garden of Gethsemane. Okay, so how intensely we read that he even was sweating blood. So obviously, it's a very intense form of prayer that Jesus engaged in. It was a serious prayer. We know that he himself prayed because he was under this kind of tremendous tension. But he asked his disciples also, do you recall? He said, okay, you know, watch one hour, you pray. He comes back and he sees what did the disciples do? He was sleeping. So he goes back, you know, he continues to pray. He comes back and he looks at the disciples and he says, what is this? What are you doing? You know, you're sleeping, my hour is coming. Could you not, you know, watch and pray even for one hour? So he himself is engaging at a deep level of prayer, expects his disciples to engage in prayer, but they are not able to. At this point, they are not able to. So he says, you know, your spirit is willing, your flesh is weak. Okay, but he continues to engage and we read how, you know, he sweats blood. So what is happening? All that we're talking about, you know, women laboring to just deliver, travail, Jesus is travailing, you know, for the manifestation of what needs to happen next, which is him being crucified on the cross. Okay, so Jesus, of course, engaged in this form of intense prayer and we know that, you know, definitely, definitely it would have been helped or strengthened by the Holy Spirit, because remember we read about the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, 26 to 27, that he himself helps us in our weaknesses. So when we do not know what to pray, he gives us, right? He leads us into the groans and sighs and all of, all of those expressions. So the Holy Spirit would have, of course, enabled Jesus in this form of travailing prayer, okay? And he engaged in it. If you look at some of the other passages that talk about Jesus praying and, you know, Jesus seeking God before the cross, like Hebrew says, with vehement cries, you know, he offered up his prayers. So did Jesus cry? Did Jesus, you know, express intensity in prayer? Yes. Yes, he did. And it was with regard to the matter of the cross. Okay? So if he himself experienced this form of prayer in our own lives, sometimes, I'm not saying every prayer is a travailing prayer. Some prayers can come under this category. Okay? So what could be those prayers that come under the travail category? What do you think? I'm not able to hear you. It changes? Person to person. Person to person. Okay. Yeah, that's true. I get that. It is different from person to person, you know, the intensity. But I'm saying in general, what could be those prayers which have this intensity? Okay? Sickness. When you're praying for somebody who's sick? Yes. Yeah. When you have more burden? Okay. When you have more burden? Okay. Sure. Burden for what? Okay. Okay. Sure. So you have a burden about anything. Maybe God's plan for your life and you really want to see it fulfilled. Or somebody said souls. I agree with that. Many times God gives us that burden for souls, that burden for, you know, maybe a region. You really wanted to be saved. So, yeah, it's possible. You can have a burden, okay? From God. Anything else? Okay. Sickness and, you know, close to death. Somebody is close to death. Then you are travailing. Okay. That's true. Yes. Repentance. Who's repentance? Oh, oneself. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. You know, when you when you come to that place where you are travailing for a breakthrough in your own life, you know, you're repenting of, let's say a habit that has enslaved you or something of that kind. Then yes, you are in that place where you're crying out to God. You're deeply engaging with God, right? So, travail. Traveil happens. How about praying for family members who don't know Jesus or family members who know Jesus and who have gone far away. You know, into their own thing and their lifestyle. So, these are all matters where we usually see us engaging in a very deep way in prayer. Okay. And the surface level of prayer is not going to help. It's not going to help. We have to come to that place, you know, where we are before God and enabled by the Holy Spirit. We are praying, we are claiming every promise of God's word and you know, we are there travailing but another beauty of travailing as I already told us is generally after travail comes the childbirth. So, the Holy Spirit takes us into that place and if we sustain in that phase of travailing, the next is the result or the promise itself. Okay, the promise fulfilled. But, know that this is not something you and I can create. As we journey with God in prayer, God will strengthen us to go into this place of travail. Okay, but we have to allow him. Yes, Anand. Okay. How can you compare the childbirth? Sure, sure. So, you see if you notice you know the delivery process, right? The labor, the strain, the pains, yeah, the pains that the mother goes through. So, the expression of that pain is what is travail. Got it? That is why we are comparing it to childbirth. Okay, great. Now, you know, Paul in his ministry even he talks about travailing. He talks about travailing unto childbirth. Okay, so Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19 if one of us could please read and please read into the mic. Galatians 4 verse 19 I live my little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you I would like to be present with you now and to change my tone for I have doubts about you. Okay, so can you just read the first part of it again Vimal? My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you. Okay, very nice. So, what does Paul say there? He says, I labor in birth, right? So, the terminology he uses is I labor in birth again I labor in birth again so what is he laboring for that last part it says until Christ is formed in you so the fulfillment that he wants to see in the believer is Christ being formed in the believer. Okay, so in a simple way for us to understand the result of Paul's ministry it is to see Jesus formed in every believer okay, and that should be the result of all our ministry you know if we are doing ministry what should be the result? Christ should be formed in the people okay, by that we mean the character of Christ the faith of Christ okay, so Christ is formed in people and Paul is saying I labor in birth what is he doing? He is also travelling so did Paul pray? we know that he prayed a lot do you think he labored in prayer along with his teaching and other forms of ministry so that believers will become more like Jesus? Yes he did definitely we can say that he would have travelled in prayer for Christ to be formed in the people and in many places we notice that Paul you know you have people who he says okay he says things in my children or my son he uses terminology like that you have many teachers but you don't have enough fathers so he is using terminology where he is talking about a spiritual birth of or rather it's not really a spiritual birth but it's a spiritual parenting that he does and for that he says in my ministry I have travelled I labor in birth so it's a very tough kind of ministry till he sees Christ formed in the people and even prayer I am sure would have been in that place of prayer where he prayed for the believers he prayed much for the believers and even travelled so that he can see the character you know and the faith and the power of Jesus manifest in each and every believer so this concept of giving birth is nothing new in scripture it's an intense suffering you want to call it in the inner man okay it's hard to explain actually it's very hard to explain what exactly this travail is in a spiritual sense in the natural we said a mother travells before she gives birth to her child but in a spiritual sense it's a suffering in the inner man and it is comparable to the pangs of childbirth one thing that we must recognize is God somehow has called us as human beings to partner with him in prayer partner with him even in a very intense way so the way Paul said I labor in childbirth and if you look at someone like Elijah we talked about him isn't it and we said persistence in prayer God already promised but here is a person who is praying seven times do you think that's easy to have a mindset you are not seeing the result but you continue to trust that God is going to do it it's not easy so definitely Elijah would have gone into prayer with that determination and there would have been a sense of suffering within for him to do whatever it takes to see the results so now we don't know how long Elijah prayed we only know he told his servant to go see as the cloud come once twice did he pray for 10 minutes did he pray for 30 minutes or did he pray I don't know how long he prayed those seven times how many hours he prayed we don't know but there was a need for somebody to labor unless somebody labors it's very difficult to see the results so can somebody quickly read John chapter 7 and verse 38 we will read that again with the mic he who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow reverse of living water ok thank you so we who believe in Jesus out of our hearts will flow rivers of living water in some translations it says belly out of your belly will flow rivers of living water and you know some translations and it's comparable to the womb to the womb as well we know exactly if you go very technically you might say oh look heart is not belly and belly is not womb but the idea or the picture is from the depths of our being from the depths of our being will flow rivers of living water so we have to understand that God can release ok God can give birth to his promises to the work of the spirit through our belly and in the natural we do recognize that you know a woman gives birth through her womb ok so when you compare this with prayer you know when we are praying what are we saying we will see the fulfillment of God's promise when we travel we will see the result or the birthing of the promise of God so in a sense you know what God is doing is out of our belly he is releasing his works and his promises so you know some people put it this way we are the womb of God when we pray we are the womb of God so how is it that God is going to make things happen in this world through the womb and that womb is nothing but praying believers when we pray and we pray with intensity before God we become the womb of God we are able to give birth now if a woman does not travel what happens generally travel is associated with delivery ok the baby comes out if a woman doesn't do that or she doesn't go into that process of traveling there will never be the delivery of that child in the same way if believers or I am using the word the church the church doesn't travel imagine we don't pray we don't pray intensely we just go with the flow we are just happy by ourselves we will not see the manifestation of the purposes of God through our lives you get it so travel is very important if we have to give birth we are praying for the city we are praying for the nation if the church is not prevailing at some point there is no question of seeing the results of people coming to the kingdom of God so the point is as believers as the church of Jesus Christ we need to come to that place of travel if the church is not the womb of God or the prayers of the church are not the womb of God we will not see the release of God's promises ok so prevailing is very important we have to help we have to ask God to help us journey into that to reveal in Isaiah 66 verses 7 and 8 again could somebody please read this ok ok so this passage talks about Israel and it talks about how Israel was formed in a day look at history you will see that the whole political process you know it just took about a day for the nation to actually be formed so it is a prophetic word about literal Israel God's people and the term used there is Zion before she labored she gave birth it is just to give us an understanding that the birth was very quick very quickly the nation was born and the term used for God's people was Zion ok now if you look at passage in Hebrews 12 we believers are called as the spiritual Zion we are the spiritual Zion so the way the real Zion or Israel was able to be formed you know because when she the birth happened in the same way we as God's spiritual Zion we too must go to that place of travelling only then we will see the spiritual promises of God fulfilled ok do you get the comparison yeah so it is not talking about literal nation or anything like that it is just talking about the spiritual people of God which is the only believer who accepts the Lord Jesus Christ so as God's people you know we go to that place and we travelling prayer now one of the things that we must get very clear in our minds is that travelling even though we are saying childbirth and you know all the pain and the agony of the suffering of childbirth it need not look like us shouting and screaming and weeping all the time when we pray sometimes we could be praying and I am sure all of you have had this experience and we are praying very intensely right but we are not expressing it in these forms you know all the veiling and screaming none of that so we cannot judge the intensity of the prayer by the volume or the loudness of that prayer or the expression of that prayer somebody could be praying very very softly or very you know quietly only they can hear themselves but they could be travelling so don't judge based on voice levels or the expressions you know somebody could be crying and shouting and all but it may not be a travelling in the first place so travelling is a spiritual intensity it's an inner man's suffering you could say which you sense only deep inside but we have to get to that place it's only when we get to that place that you know we will become the womb of God and give birth to the promises of God and you know God is in the process of creating how many of us know that God is in the process of creating yeah so any questions no questions okay yeah it says that the Holy Spirit is there like he he he groans and utters cries that we cannot express so why do we have to the Holy Spirit is already doing on our behalf why do we have to groan and sigh and all that and travelling the Holy Spirit is already doing it okay so see it's about co-labering Holy Spirit even when you read that scripture it says he helps us in our weaknesses so he has a part to play he will help us but we have to do our part okay and similarly whenever you read about the the aid of the Holy Spirit or the help of the Holy Spirit you recognize that he will not take over our responsibility of praying so for example again going back to the praying in the spirit you know lesson you read Paul says I will pray with my understanding I will pray with the spirit okay so whenever we say I will will is is my capacity to decide so I have the opportunity to say I will or I will not so for example if Paul said I will not you know pray with my understanding what is he doing his part he is shutting the door on the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit is helping but he is saying I will not pray with my understanding I will not pray with my spirit he has decided Paul has decided what can Holy Spirit do Holy Spirit will not push he will say it's okay it's up to you you understand so there is something that God is doing the spirit is doing but we also have to partner we have to collaborate so the moment see that is will okay that is where when you look at the way God has created human beings salvation is not dumped into every human being you have to be saved no what are we all doing we are exercising our will we are exercising our choice isn't it in the same way when it comes to prayer prayer in the spirit receiving the help of the Holy Spirit I will it's a decision if I decide I don't want Holy Spirit cannot pray all the groaning nothing will come out of me because that is my role I have to do it or in other words I am yielding my faculties what are my faculties you know my vocal system my body I am yielding it to the Holy Spirit and I am saying okay you release you know you do what you are doing I will express it so that's how it works so in your question you ask if Holy Spirit is doing then why should we it's half and half you know if you want to look at it that way he will do but if I don't yield it will never be complete did you get what I am trying to say so our will is involved our cooperation is involved we have a role we have a responsibility that's why I have been saying we are the womb of God so if we don't begin to pray like that cry out to God like that there will never be a childbirth or the birthing of God's promises does God want to do yes he wants to do people are not willing so he can't do it okay so that's the whole point the sovereignty of God he can't do everything but he has chosen to work with us if we say no he has to go find somebody who will say yes okay till such time you will there will be a hindrance to what God wants to perform okay so anyway think about this we will just come back after the 10 minute break and pick up from where we have stopped even if the online students have any questions please feel free to post it thank you