Altars 2025 | Corey Russell - Teach us how to Pray

Thank you. Oh, I feel the love, man. Turn in 48 today, man. I'm excited. Let's go. Getting closer to discounts and dinnies. Just one more year closer, man. I'm looking forward to it. My goodness, John is my older brother, four months older than me. So anyway, guys, I am just, how about, what do you love it about? I am so happy. I just want you to know that I feel so much love. Just give it up to the full team, Sam, and the whole team. Thank you. All the, I mean, my goodness. What God can do in 48 hours is absolutely stunning. Even less than that, but just all of the speakers from JT to Bishop this morning to Luke to everyone in between. I am just blown away and honored to be here. And from the depths of my heart, I met, I met John in probably, I think it was 2018 or 2017, one of it. And he got a hold of one of my prayer albums and just wrote me. I've never got an email like this. And he just said, hey, I don't, I don't really want you to speak. I want to fly you out here and I want to spend the day with you. And I want to talk about prayer, prayer for revival. And I'm, I've never received an invite like that, but I just love the energy and I felt good. I go, yeah, I'm going. So I literally flew in did a day trip and we set in a panero bread and just cried all day long over the beauty of God, over revival, over prayer. And I literally have found my brother from another mother right here. John Tyson, I love you. The Lord knit our hearts together and little did I know that the Lord was bringing one of the greatest gifts to me that I've ever had. And I'm just, you really pay attention to those comrades, those brothers that are born for adversity that I like to say, sing your song back to you when you forget it. That's what you want to find. You want to find brothers and sisters that sing your song back to you when you forget it. And so I look at John and Sam and what you guys are plowing into Ashley and the whole pray NYC crew and I'm just, I'm just so filled with joy, excitement and ready to keep my calendar empty so I can shoot over here as revival starts breaking out all over New York City. Because I'm telling you guys, I'm just, I just feel it, man. We are in that season and I am so grateful, so grateful of this morning, man, all those deliverances. I feel like a thousand people got delivered from a spirit of fear, huh? Who felt just free since this morning? Good, three of you. Let's go. Awesome. Well, I want to just jump right in and we'll see where we go tonight. It is such an honor to be with you. I'm in Denver now at House Denver and come on. All right. And doing that and then traveling and I'm doing an online family prayer family called Cory Russell online. We got in Crow crew in here. Come on. We're walking through, we're in our 40 days teaches to pray. We're walking through the Bible and just going after raising up intercessors and raising up preachers is what I'm going after. Lord, we love you. We thank you. Everything that you've done, God, thank you. Everything that you've done, thank you, God. We just say, Lord, just enlarge our capacity so that we may run the course of your commandments. enlarge our capacities, Lord tonight. Father, ask you to help me. I ask you to pour out that spirit of revelation and prophetic inspiration and that you would awaken us and God, I just pray for fire to be placed to every church and city represented in this room and those that will view it. And let wildfires shoot all across the world in the name of Jesus. Amen. I also want to just mention my niece shares my same birthday. Today is her birthday February 1st. Come on. [Applause] We're from Arkansas and so that's where my niece lives and she graduated from high school with this girl doing cameras right here. From Arkansas. I mean, my goodness. I don't even know the New York let Arkansas people come up here. But well, they let South Carolina people come. So. [Laughter] All right, good. I got my beautiful daughter. I got my middle daughter Maya. She's here. Let's go. 21-year-old. I got a 25-year-old, 21 and 14. All girls and so on blessed. Yeah, and pray for your brother. So in my ministry for all these weddings coming. Let's go. [Laughter] Bishop, a maternity prayer this morning about the disciples didn't ask Jesus to preach or teach us to heal or do miracles. After spending three and a half years with the Son of God walking with him day and night. I mean, we don't understand this because I may not see many of you maybe for a year, maybe longer, or maybe ever. I don't know. These guys were old with Jesus day and night for three and a half years. They heard every message. They were there for the sermon on the Mount with mouths hanging open, astonished, saying we've never heard anyone talk this way. They witnessed every deliverance. Jesus did more deliverance than anything. They witnessed every healing, every miracle, blind eyes, deaf ears, lame jumping. They watched Lazarus walk out of a tomb. They saw the five loaves, you know what I'm saying. They were in every revival service. And then John tells us that if everything Jesus said and did were put into books, there would not be enough books to contain everything that they saw and heard. You know what that tells us? That gives you insight into what they talked about in the walks between cities. That gives you insight into the campfire chats at the end of revival services. When the disciples got to ask questions like Jesus, the woman with the issue of blood, when she touched you, you said, "Who touched me for I perceived power coming out of me?" "Who touched me for I was talking about the transference of the anointing and power leaving you." And then Jesus going off for two hours and they don't have a clue what he's talking about. Jesus, this is what Ambound says, is that it was worth a trip from heaven to earth to teach men how to pray. I believe Jesus is the greatest leader ever, don't you? I believe he's the greatest pastor, the greatest leader, the greatest He is the one. And if He produced that in the ones who are around Him the most, heard the most, witnessed the most, and they were able to connect the dots that Jesus's public life of ministry was the result of His private life of prayer. I believe that replumblines all of our leadership strategies, all of our leadership ambitions, all of our goals, all of our assignments. The question is this, after people have been around you, do they want your preaching gift or your prayer life? After people have been around you, do they want your administration skills or what happens when you close your eyes and talk to God? That is the greatest lasting impact that Jesus made on those twelve. And it's so rocked them and I need you to understand it's because He modeled it. He modeled it in friends. I remember in 2017, that's why it's so important that I cross paths with John in 2017 because I had just come through some of the darkest seasons. In 2017, the Lord whispered to me, "Corey, I was asking the Lord teach me to pray." And He said, "Corey, it's time for you to begin to teach this generation how to pray." I want you to take the things that you've learned and give it to the next generation. I mean, think about this and I gave some slides here. I mean, that's what the disciples asked. Teach us to pray. And not just tell us to pray. We end up weakening and weakening out and we tell you to pray. And we tell you to pray. And we're like, "I want to." But the thing that the disciples saw is not only someone who did it but someone who could take them by the hand and begin to introduce them to the Father. Fathers, because you can't take people to where you're not. You cannot teach what you don't know. And teaching requires a whole other aspect of knowing the things of the spirit. Understanding the movements of the spirit to hear Bishop Matara and us hear about travail and you're like, "I goodness, I don't even know what he's talking about." And yet Paul says, "My little children for whom I prevail in birth again until Christ is formed in you." How much birthing is a part of our leadership strategies? How much labor in prayer is a part of our leadership strategies? This blows me away. And I put a slide. I don't normally have this. I'm not going to be as sophisticated as JT and John and others. But I've got some slides too and they're pretty powerful. When in Rome, man, you've got to come with your slides. I've got my blunced-on-boots to match John's. I pulled his out from my New York City trip. All right? That's not the verse I'm looking at. But I'm looking at that slide where it says, "Jesus pray." And I just want to run through this quickly because I want you to understand they asked him because they saw something. And this is what I love about Jesus. He did all of it for those three years and he did it all alone. And he didn't beat him up for not being there. He just modeled it. All right. Here we go. Go back to that other one. That first one. He prayed alone. How about this? I could literally preach a message off this slide, but I'm not. We're going to have fun tonight, okay? Are you with me? I know you're tired. But the message tonight is wake up and pray. I love Mark 1. You've got to check this out because this gives you insight into that Jesus was not into capitalizing on just moments, but he's an obedience to the will of the Father. In Mark 1.35, it says in Mark 1.32, it says that evening when the sun had set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were demon possessed. The whole city was gathered together at the door. He healed many who were sick, cast out many demons. He did not allow the demons to speak though they knew it. All right. So revival goes to midnight. Okay? It says in the next verse. Now in the morning, having risen alone while before daylight. So Jesus probably goes to bed. The whole city is at his door when the sun had gone down. Revival went on till about 11 or midnight and here he is around three to four in the morning. And he's withdrawn and he's in the place of prayer and Peter runs to him and said, Lord, everybody's looking for you. Jesus, if you played your cards right, we could set up Jesus Revival Ministries International right here. And we could get t-shirts and we could get, we can make this thing matter. And Jesus said, no, Father just spoke to me. We're moving on to the next city. Prayer delivers you from the expectation of men. Prayer delivers you from the status quo of what the wisdom of man says you ought to do and it brings you into obedience to the Father and delivers you from the expectation of people. You got to get delivered from people so you can love them. I'm not going to do this with every one of them, but Luke 5 is another principle. The next one he prayed early. Everybody say he prayed early. I'd encourage many of you. I love it when I get around these guys and I'm here in 4 a.m. Some of y'all like I and heard 4 a.m. and forever. And I'm telling you, I believe God's going to real wake in this kind of early morning praying. That's going to begin to lay whole of us. Same principle, Luke 5, it says in 15, it says the report went out all concerning him all the more. Great multitudes came together and to be healed by him of their infirmities. So he himself often withdrew from the wilderness and prayed. And I wrote it here in my Bible, this is what you do when you get famous. The more opportunities you get, the more often you withdraw. He prayed all night. I could walk through that one. He prayed before selecting the apostles. Do you know he prayed all night before naming the 12? Do you know he prayed all night before walking on water? He was actually grieving John the Baptist death. Trying to have some time alone to be with the father grieving John's death. And then he looks out there and he sees the guys and it's the fourth watch of the night. And things are starting to get stressed out. And so Jesus starts walking on water out of the overflow of intimacy with the father. He prayed in grief over John's death. He prayed at his baptism. Luke 3, and as he prayed the heavens were open. He prayed at the amount of transfiguration he prayed and his face was altered and he became glistening and Moses and Elijah came to his prayer meeting. How about Jesus praying and joy? The 70 returns saying Jesus even the demons respond to his act your name. And Jesus rejoiced in the spirit. He said, Father, thank you. You've hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and you've revealed them to the babes. Even so it seemed good in your side. Jesus loved to pray and joy. See the disciples got a front row seat watching him talk to Abba watching the intimacy and the connection and prayer wasn't a religious exercise. He could move from talking to you to moving to Abba effortlessly because it wasn't a religious exercise. It was his breath. He prayed, yes he did, John 17. Everybody say he prayed. And Jesus didn't close his eyes when he prayed. Sometimes I understand I told my kids to close their eyes but sometimes we're just coming up. It's like come up with something imaginary in your mind. Jesus lifted his eyes and he said, Father, the hours come. Glorify your son. That he may glorify you. Who would have loved to have heard God the son talking to God the father through God the spirit. And to hear how God talks to God and what God cares about and what's burdening God's heart and what they talk about. And I'll tell you what Jesus is meditating on life before Genesis 1. Glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was. Present disciples. I love Jesus. Keep them in your vice grip. Abba. Keep them from the evil one. He prayed on the cross. The more you cut Jesus, the more he bled prayer. The more you cut Jesus, the more he bleeds prayer. And guess what he's doing now. He's in full-time ministry. Isn't that amazing? Outside of three and a half years, Jesus's life has been hidden and yet we're all in this room. You're in this room because of a hidden man's prayer life. He Bruce 7 said that he forever lives to make intercession and he's able to save us to the uttermost since he always lives to make intercession. Jesus is in full-time ministry right now. And you've been born again into the eternal ministry of intercession. Intercession isn't a few loud women in a back room. Thank you loud women. Thank you women for carrying the torch for the last 2000 years. But there's an intercessor in heaven and it's not a woman. Man are about to wake up and come out of the slumber and out of the apathy. You're going to come out of the complacency and say, "Women, you do the praying. We'll do the work." No, there is no real work outside a real praying. He is the intercessor and the disciples didn't ask him to teach him because they didn't see anything. It's because they saw this times a million. It's what he bled. It's where he lived. And we need to get delivered from the spirit of this age and the spirit of the wisdom of this age and get replummed to the leader of heaven. I love it as I'm talking to John about the leadership team that's surrounding him with Tim. He goes, "He's got an administration and an ops anointing. But I want to tell you, we'll be going to talk about the spirituality of Tim. I want to look for people that are operating at high levels in churches. But at the end of the day, they move in their gifts but they're always seeking to retreat to be alone with the Father. They've got oil on their hearts. They've got a spirit of authority upon them when they talk to God. He prayed, he prayed, he prayed. And I want to bring you into the last night of Jesus' life tonight. Because I want to tell you that that which was lost in the Garden of Eden, I believe was secured in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gal, Gal, Gal, our Calvary was won and gethsemane. It's in the place of prayer to where your will is transferred to his will. It's in the place of prayer to where you secure obedience to the well of the Father. Let's look right here in Luke 22. We good? We okay? By Tegadee Brat? This night, this night, this night, this night's different than any other night. For three years, he had modeled it. They saw it. They witnessed it. But they didn't really have a clue. The last six months, kind of the wills began to fall off their carts as they began to realize. Because I really believe they were walking under Jesus' umbrella of anointing and authority. And then Jesus began to pull things back because you got the demonized mute kid. The disciples couldn't cast it out. The disciples said, "Hey Jesus, why can't we cast this out?" He goes, "Cuz of unbelief." He goes, "However, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting. That you're not going to be able to ride underneath my coattails much longer, but you got to get your own breakthroughs." He was beginning to expose prayerlessness and in the light of prayerlessness was rising the contention over who's the greatest. They were seeking proximity organizationally to Jesus, but they didn't want spiritual authority. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And he brings them to this last night, John 13 washes their feet. He brings them to the upper room, washes their feet. This is a different night because Jesus seems different. He washes their feet, takes communion, and as soon as the bread goes into Judas Satan, entered him. In one of the last phrases of John 13, it says, "And Judas immediately left and it was night." That's more than a physical darkness. I literally believe the spiritual intensity and darkness begin to increase and the sombreness begin to increase upon Jesus. He's visibly distressed, he's beginning to talk with urgency, and he's not wasting a lot of time and every phrase holds such weight. He's securing these young fledgling immature, shaky disciples for the greatest hour of transition. And all that Jesus can think about is securing them in union with him and the Father through the Holy Spirit. I love Jesus' pastoral care with the weight of the world growing on him. He's pastoring these young disciples that don't have a clue what's coming. They get done with John 14 and Jesus says, "Let's arise and go from here." And they begin the walk to the Mount of Olives, a place where they frequented. And as they're walking through the Kid John Valley, undoubtedly they passed by a vineyard and Jesus began to give us divine and the branches. If you begin to talk about boys, you better learn how to abide in me and draw on the life of the Holy Spirit. Human wisdom, human strength, and human ingenuity is not going to be able to carry you in this next season. You've got to learn how to abide within me. I've designed you for union. Now learn how to receive and draw on the life of giving you. He talks about the Holy Spirit not just in you but upon you. And he's going to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Holy Spirit's coming. You're going to be hated. Let's do this. You're my boys. He stands outside the garden and he prays John 17 so that they can audibly hear what Jesus is praying to the Father about and it's about securing us in his name. And then he tells eight of them. You eight stay here and who's he going to take? Peter, James, and John. And he says, "You three come with me." The three pillars of the early church is going to be brought into their first lesson and they are going to be a visible witness of this night in the garden. In Jesus is taking his leadership team and bringing them into a place of prayer that they had never seen before and yet he wanted them to be a part of this with him. He says, "You boys, you need to pray. The hour is intensified. Let's go ahead and read this and then I'll give some thoughts." He came to the place. He told them, "We know the places get simmony. The oil press, the olive press. The place where they frequent it." And he tells them, "What do you need to do? How are you going to be able to survive this season? Pray that you may not enter into temptation." You ever asked, "What's the temptation? What was the temptation? Were they going to go to the club that night? Were they going to cause? What was the temptation?" It's the temptation to fall asleep when you need to be alert and awake so that you can discern what's going on. And he said, "Boys, it's about to intensify. I'm taking you beyond the curtain. This is a holy of holy's moment." It says in Matthew 26 that he began to be deeply distressed, which means he pulls back. All right, guys, I've held it as long as I can and he opens his distressed heart in such vulnerability to his disciples and they don't even know how to navigate nor what to do with this face of Jesus. And he goes from them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and he prayed, "Keep singing the word prayer." Father, if it's your will, take this cup away from it. If there's another way to secure eternal redemption, I'm in. Anybody ever had to wrestle it out with God? Who knows what I'm talking about wrestling it out with God? God asked you to do something impossible and you got to wrestle it out. Jesus said, "Father, if there's another way, nevertheless, he replumbs his soul to the Father and he goes, 'Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.'" And then we just run by a verse like this, an angel appeared to him from heaven. I want some of you to know that when you're in these seasons of pressing, laboring prayer, wrestling prayer, God sends divine resource from above to come into strengthen you. An angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him and here's the phrase I can't get out of and being an agony, he prayed more earnestly. The more anguish came upon Jesus' soul, the more he bled prayer. When you get caught, do you bleed complaining, meditating, insulating, isolating, or do you bleed prayer? And then he began to experience this medical condition where his great drops of blood began to fall to the ground. His sweat became great drops of blood. And they fell to the ground and when he rose up from prayer, he came to his disciples and he found them. And here's the phrase that I've been hearing as a whisperer for the last year. I've been hearing this for a year but it's starting to get loud to me. Here's the phrase, he found them sleeping from sorrow. Luke, why didn't you say they're sleeping because it's late? Why didn't you say that they're sleeping because they're tired? What are you saying, Luke? He says, "Cory, their internal capacities were unable to bear up underneath the external pressure. They had not cultivated internal realities and capacities and that when external pressures increased upon them, all that they could do was go to sleep. They were not equipped to deal with such happiness. I'm going to get to something here in a little bit. This is interesting as I was preparing for tonight because my daughter Maya, or up before she was born, we have our oldest Trinity in our middle one's Maya and I got gripped with the book of Jeremiah 2002. I came out of this encounter saying, "Honey, let's have a baby and name in Jeremiah." We get pregnant. Jeremiah is coming. Jeremiah is coming. Three ultrasounds. Couldn't tell what he or she was but I said Jeremiah is coming. March 4, 2003, "Outcomes a girl, we name her Maya." That's spirit's honor. Right before she was born, I remember because we had already had her baby room ready. It was literally all boy stuff like Chuchu trains and all kinds of stuff. I had been crying out for that David Brainer, Frank Bartleman, Daniel Nash, spirit for all my life. Give me the spirit of travail that would keep me up all night. When I read about Frank Bartleman before a zoos of street, it says that his wife was scared because he would lay in soul travail. I said, "Lord, keep me up all night in prayer. There's only one problem. I sleep like a rock." I'm out in 10 seconds and nothing happening. Forty robbers could come in and nothing happened. I don't know what's happening. I'll never forget it right before she was born. I'm sleeping and I'm out like I'm out. And all of a sudden my eyes open. I can't see them but I know it's Jesus right there on my bed. And he looks at me and he goes, "Cory, get up and be with me." And I know it's Jesus. I know this is the answer to everything I prayed for. But I said, "God, I'm tired. I'm going back to bed. I want to see you and your encounters, okay?" I go back to sleep. I go back to sleep five minutes later. "Cory, get up and be with me." "Lord, I want to. This is the thing you've cried for, Cory. It's a David-Brainard moment." Spirit of prayer is going to come on you. Lord, I can. I'm tired. Five minutes later. Cory, can you not Terry with me one hour when you hear that one, you get up. I get up. I go into the room. We had the little glider. I'm looking at the choo choo trains and looking at a little bed. And I'm sitting here, his little bed. And I'm sitting there rocking. And I'm saying, "Okay, if you're getting this intercessor up, there must be some big, cosmic stuff happening in the spirit realm. Nations are getting shifted right now. I got my notebook out. What intel do you want to bring me into right now, God?" We about to shift things. I'm feeling a Daniel 10-A-Noin thing. We're going to move some things. I was ready, but guys, that thing was so dry in there. It was so unannoyed. I start falling asleep. I go to bed. I did get up. I still enough fired up. I got up for the 6 a.m. prayer meeting. I come into the prayer room. I angry at myself. You had your big chance and you lost it. You are pathetic. You're the worst intercessor I've ever seen. Can't do nothing. God found him 20 others that he prayed with through the night. Here I am. I went up to a friend and I said, "I don't know what happened. I don't know why he even wanted this. I told her the whole story." She just looked at me and I go, "What did he want?" She goes, "He didn't want anything." Cory, he calls you a friend. And because he was up, he wants you to be up with him. It wasn't about what you're doing for him. It's who you are to him. I've shifted my paradigm of prayer from one that's accomplishing a bunch of things into covenant and into friendship of being with him. Those disciples being awake did not add anything to Jesus per se. He had to wrestle this thing out alone. But yet them being awake won. It was going to preserve their own souls. But I believe it brought comfort to his heart to know that his boys were up with him in an hour of crisis. I don't think we understand who we are before God. I don't think the friend that he thinks about concerning you and the cries of your heart to be with him. We're not just accomplishing something. Friends, he wants to do it with you. But your very presence brings comfort to the heart of God. I've shifted everything. I believe he's calling us into friendship. That's why that last night. No longer servants, but I'm calling you into friends. Because what the Father's made known to me, that's what I'm making known to you. I remember that season and then I remember the last couple of years walking through stories of falls of leaders and crumbling of ministries that took four decades to build and took four weeks to crumble. Watching empires fall in 2024. Watching scandals and the cowardice and how there's just so much disappointment and then all the buzzards and all the stuff around the carcasses, the social media storms and all the stuff, all the back in the forth and the ups and the downs and the pain and all of that. And I found myself because I've been through harder seasons in my life. I've been through about two harder seasons, but the last season hit me at a time in my life that I didn't have the zeal and the strength of my youth just to power through it. Anybody been there? And so when I push go to push through it, I didn't find the same reservoir and I began to fight over the last year of fighting the temptation to fall asleep. Now nobody would know this on the outside. Yes, I had a prayer life. Yes, I was walking and holiness and reaching for God and living in the light. But yes, I was moving in gifts and God was blessing it, but I knew in my heart, I knew in my heart that I was fighting to stay awake and that there was a sleep of sorrow that was seeking to come upon my soul. I knew that the external realities brought such pain and disappointment that it was just putting me to sleep and wanting to move into coast mode and me changing the vision of my life from changing the world into, I just want to end well, loving my family with no scandals and walking and holiness. Now that's awesome. It sounds awesome and the Lord says, "Yeah, buddy, that sounds really nice, but I've called you to change the world." And over the last year, I've been hearing Jesus say this and I think there's been a sleep of sorrow, of disappointment, and pain, and coasting and pulling back of the heart. And there's been a fight to stay awake like no other time. And when I was looking for solace with Jesus, I've been hearing them and think about this. They're watching Jesus. The night the drops coming off his hair, he's probably sweating. If he's sweating great drops of blood, he is drenched. He's drenched in sweat blood. Just coming off his body, hair with the locks of the night, and he's coming to them, and he's looking at them completely trembling under this burden. And he's pleading with them three different times, "Boy, get up. Boy, get up. You can't be sleeping right now. This is not an hour to sleep. This is not an hour to coast. This is not an hour to kick back and to live in the residuals of last season's breakthrough." See, that's the crazy thing in our Christian world. You can get a breakthrough at 20 and ride the wave of it for 15 to 20 years, and nobody will really know the difference. I can write 20 books out of it. I can preach a thousand messages, and because God loves you, He'll annoy you. And we've fallen to the deception of thinking it's about us, and the Lord says, "Nobody, I'm using you, but don't get it twisted. Where are we at? Where are we at? God, I'm not loving your word. I haven't had endless hours in your word, just weeping in the word. I haven't had the spirit of prayer on me in a long time. The grace of fasting, where is it at? The spirit of travail, where is it at? The burden for souls, where is it at? The coasting, the kicking back, and moving in it. And I'm just hearing the Lord. I'm just seeing Him walk towards me, completely drenched in sweat blood, saying, "Boy, you better get up right now. You better get up, boy, you're going to need this moment for what's coming in the birth of the early church. You're going to need this moment for what's coming. The darkness is increasing. You boys better be prepared." Y'all want leadership? This is what leadership looks like. He's taking the three pillars, and he's opening up this facet of praying through dark nights, as the key principle of leadership. If you can't pray through these seasons, and if you're going to run to other things, the Lord says, "But you better get with it. You better wake up, because I'm not coming to your pity party. You're not going to get my violin out. I'm not going to give you. I'm going to call you to wake up, and to get ready, because you need to be alert right now. I'm feeling an urgency, and just knowing my walk with the Lord, when He walks me through a season, and guys, I want you to know, over the last six to seven months, something has shifted. There's a whole other place of light, life, revelation, clarity, purpose, vision, and a spirit of prayer that's resting on me that I've never touched before. And I know that when the Lord walks you, because that's what God does with leaders, He'll first take you through it to shepherd others as they're going to walk through it. That's why the shepherd leads you through the valley of the shadow of death. He's been there. He trusted Abba in Shio. You will not leave my soul in Shio. You will show me the path of life. It's really good. He found them sleeping from sorrow. I believe that God's going to break slumber and sorrow off many of your hearts tonight. Because you need to understand, I believe we are in a new season. Because I was asking the Lord about this. I said, "Okay, Lord, we're always looking to get back to the way it used to be. Maybe pre-COVID. Guys, we crossed over a threshold in 2020 that we're never going back through. I believe we're in a new time, a new era in the cosmic story, the global story leading to the return of Jesus. And when we're asking, when's it going to go back to normal and when's it going to get easier? I'm feeling Jeremiah 12. Jeremiah is complaining to the Lord. Say, "Lord, this isn't fair. The wicked prosper. Everything's easy for them. Look at my life." And he's thinking the Lord is going to come in with a violin and a nice little spalt treatment. You need to understand this how God's showing up to your pity party. Look at Jeremiah 12.5. If you know it, then you know it. Jeremiah 12.5. Let's get it up there. All right, Lord, what violin? What song do you have? Even your brothers? That's not it. There it is. Go back to the other. Yeah, if you've run with the footmen and they've worried you. How can you contend with the horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they worried you. How will you do in the flood plain of the Jordan? I know it's February 1st. Many of our New Year's resolutions are already over. Get that two-week quit thing. But it's like the Lord saying, "Hey, buddy, we had you out of three on speed and a 2.0 on the end climb on the treadmill." And you're over here huffing and puffing saying, "When's it going to get easier?" And the Lord says, "I'm about to kick this thing up to a 10 on the end climb." If you're worn out right now, you are going to get swept away when it really intensifies. Which means if you're still deriving in your own strength, wisdom, and trying to manufacture what worked in the last season. If you keep going to the old books and what worked in the last season and trying to reproduce it for this season, I need you to know what we're moving into is going to be more than human ingenuity, wisdom, strategies, abilities, give some men. You're going to have to enter into a whole 'nother system of reliance and connection to the Lord. I believe it that we are moving into the coming of the Lord. Do you know this is all unto something? All of this? And Jesus talks about birth pangs. We've been talking about travail. Jesus likens the last days to birth pangs upon a pregnant woman. And he talks about birth pangs like deception. He talks about birth pangs like betrayal and offense, hatred. And here's one, cold love. And he says, "When you see these, don't get stressed. It's just the two centimeters dilated." From my mom's out here. It's two centimeters dilated because I need you to know it's going to intensify. There's coming hard labor. There's coming intense times. Luke tells us that the hearts of many will faint from fear. And Jesus goes to 30 verses. Think about this. Who's ever been by somebody's last words around a deathbed? What are they talking to you about? The electric bill? What are they talking about? Usually it's the "I love yous. I'm sorrys. It's the important things are on last words." Jesus's last public message had 35 verses about the last days. He's speaking to his generation and pointing to the coming of the Lord. And he spends 30 verses talking about external. And then he looks at them. He looked 21, 34. And I imagine they're asking, "Jesus, how many roles do a toilet paper do we need? How many bottles of water? How many guns do we need, Jesus? Just tell us. We'll get it." Now this is remarkable. Jesus looked at them and he goes, "Boys, external pressures, 30 verses. What do we do? You take heed to yourselves. You get off of Facebook. You get off of social media. You get off of feeding on the carcasses of what's happened over there. And what's happened over there? And the gossip spirit. And that thing. And talking all the time about what's happening to everybody else. And you begin to prioritize and cultivate your own interior life. Focus on you and your interior capacity. Take heed to yourselves. Pay attention to you. When's the last time you cried when reading the Bible? When's the last time the prayer was upon you? You're like, "I don't even know what you're talking about. The Lord's going to meet you." Because this is what I love and this is what I was getting to night sam. This blows me away. Jesus knew Peter was going to fall asleep. That's why in Luke 22, 31, Simon, Simon, Satan is asked to sift you as we. And I'm asking Peter to look at him and say, "Lord, you told him no, didn't you?" Now, I told him to take his best shot on one condition. I get to pray for you. I'll give this next verse. But I've prayed for you next verse. I've prayed for you that your faith would not fail. And after you've returned, strengthen your brethren. Jesus's prayer for Peter secured him through the sifting season and took him out on the other side of that great shaking that came to his life so that Peter would come through that dark night. And that would be the first vessel. If I look around this room, most of you don't know each other. Do you know if I knew everyone's full story in here? Unfettered, bright light. God gives me every detail about every one of your lives. You know what I'll be thinking right now? How are you in here? Why aren't you dead? Why do you still cry when we say Jesus? Because he prayed for you. He prayed for you. And it's his prayers that take you through your darkest nights, that carry you, that deliver you, that shield you, that protect you. You want to quit on Saturday night and you wake up on Sunday morning going, "No, I'm made for this. God reminds you in a dream of a prophetic word." You knock off an old journal and see an old prophetic word. Nothing is random. Look at Luke 2134. Come on, just a few more minutes. It says this. He says, Jesus says, Luke 2134, he goes, "Take heed to yourselves. Lest your hearts, hearts, guard your heart, guard your heart, guard your heart, fight for your heart, fight for a boy at heart, fight for a free heart, fight for an unoffended heart. I know betrayal is starting to get closer to home. I know offense is ratcheting up like no other time. I know hatred is growing. I know cold love is surrounding. But you better not let that thing, you better not let that virus get on the inside of your heart. You better guard your heart, fight for your heart and it's through prayer that you build a fortress around your heart to stay boy. To stay free." God wants to infuse this heart with the burden of the Lord. Your heart is either going to be weighed down by the spirit of this age or the burden of the Lord. See, we're all about getting the peace and the joy. I'll tell you God's answer for your issues, which is burden. God's going to answer your anxiety problems with his burden. Take heed to your self-slessed, your heart to be weighed down. Three things, corousing, self-indulgence, to drunkenness. Number three, cares of this life. All right, Jesus, you won't find me in the club and I won't be running down the street drunk. And then he drops cares of this life. I think when he's talking about drunkenness, he's talking about all the ways that we medicate, insulate, anesthesize, surround our hearts from not dealing with the pain around us. And he goes, "There's so many substances, so many people, so many places, so many events, so many sports that will allow you to medicate, insulate, and anesthesize." And the Lord says, "Hey, buddy, I really don't want you going into that because if you make it your crutch today, it'll be your best friend tomorrow." And then he talks about the cares of this life. I really feel like it's an hour to stay as unencumbered as we can to give it to prayer and the word. As act six broke out and demands an increase of needs arose in the early church. The apostles made a radical decision. We have to give ourselves continually to prayer and the word. He says, "The cares of this life and that day come on you unexpectedly." He says, "It will come as a snare," next verse. "It will come as a snare on all of those who dwell on the face of the whole earth." What do we do then, Jesus? What's the greatest way to prepare for the last days? Next verse. Watch therefore and pray always. Get an awakened spirit. He's not talking about watching CNN. He's not talking about watching your Twitter feed. He's not talking about watching the news or even watching the constellations. He's saying, "Get your spirit alive. Get your spirit alert. Get your spirit awake. Get clarity on your spirit. Get a sharpness on your spirit. Guard your internal capacity and pray always. Live in a spirit of prayer." And he says, "That you may be counted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of Man." Pray. Pray. I'm not good at prayer. I don't care. You're made for prayer. God's going to break religion off of that word. Pray. Go ahead and put that slide up here. I'm going to tell you when to pray. Pray in secret. Pray with others. Pray early in the morning. Pray late at night. Pray in pain. See, many of you are waiting for your best season before you come to God. And you only relate with him when things are well. Pray in pain, pray in grief, pray in anger. Pray in joy. Pray in confusion. Pray in clarity. Pray in silence, pray out loud. Pray long, pray short, pray the word. Pray in the spirit, pray your heart, pray in confidence, pray in shame, just pray. (audience applauding) Look before you talk. Listen before you speak. You're like I don't know what to say. Grown it. Cry it. Ride it. Traveil it. Sing it. Just come out of hiding. Come out of hiding. I don't care how big your church is. Come out of hiding. I don't care how much is going on in your ministry. Come to me. I don't care what's popping and whatever you touch. Come. I want to restore tenderness to you. You're like I don't like hearing myself talk. Because dad told me he doesn't like my voice and told me to shut up. God loves your voice. He wants to hear you talk. David says in the morning, you will hear my cry. You will hear my voice early. I will bring it to you. Nobody's good at this. Nobody has this down. We're all, I'll tell you the ones that you call the good ones. Are the ones who went on the awkward journey and was okay with the awkwardness. And they just didn't quit being awkward. (audience laughing) So I love JT's wordless and I just sat in my room. After 30 seconds, what else am I gonna pray for? God gave me a song that unlocked a whole season. Nobody does this well. But you've got a thousand distractions. You've got, this is not an issue. This is not another area you need to grow in. This is it. This is it. This is it. I don't care 'cause this is what I was telling JT today. I found the devil will let Cory Russell Ministries travel around the globe. I found the devil will let my calendar be full. But if you wanna put hell on notice, begin to set apart a time and a place that you won't let any amount of opportunity or difficulty talk you out of. And you will find hell, rage. You will find every crisis emerge. You will find such resistance 'cause it's stoned on their knees is the most powerful weapon in the hands of God. That is the source of all power. It's the source of all grace. It's the source of all glory. And we're battling the wisdom of this age, the strength and the ingenuity. How long is it gonna take us that God takes weak things and weak people trusting Him to birth His realities into the earth. I don't like being alone. Well then you're not cut out to be a real leader. Jesus was alone. Leaders, you better learn how to pray alone. You better draw a stake in the ground saying, "If nobody else comes, I'll be in this room." And Quinty, evaluating all the metrics that you've been told about what's successful by how many people come to your prayer meeting. John was talking about a four person prayer meeting 10 years ago and looking at what God is doing right now. He works on a whole different way. 'Cause he's into birth and kingdom realities. But when are we gonna get delivered from it? So much seduction. So much deception. We think deception is a bunch of false prophets going crazy on social media. No, it's the deception of thinking you can do anything in your own strength and wisdom that will last at the judgment seat. That which is born of God will stand the course of time. That which is born in the flesh will be burned up at the judgment seat. I don't care how big it is in this age. The fire will test it. And if it's not born of God, it will be consumed in a moment. - [inaudible] - We need a wake up call. You're like, "I don't need to grow in that." I got a grow in that. No, it's not a growth area. It's it. (crying) A spirit of prayer. A spirit of prayer, come on your life. A spirit of travail, come on your life. A spirit of intercession, come on your life. When the spirit of prayer is on you, you get delivered from you. He's gonna wake us up. I believe we're in a Matthew 24 and 25 moment. It's time to buy oil. It's time to get delivered from the wisdom of this age that God calls foolish. The wisdom of this age puts all their prayer times into what they're preaching and managing their influence. Jesus calls that foolish, 'cause you're just getting enough to keep the machine running. And foolish is called wise in today's American church. But we celebrate it, we buy it, we want it. And Jesus goes, let me tell you what wisdom is, vessels. Wisdom is vessels. Wisdom is reserves. Wisdom is hidden life in God that isn't connected to what you're giving people but who you are to God. Can't tell now. Can't tell the difference between wise and the foolish now. But there's a whisper that's starting to get loud. He's coming. The bridegroom's coming. And as that goes from a whisper to a roar, the discrepancy between the wisdom and the foolish is gonna get clearer. And as that gets clearer, guess what happens? In Matthew 25, the foolish run to the wise. Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out. Two things wrong with that. They have no paradigm of how to acquire oil. They think they can get oil through a fire tunnel. They think they can get it by a ministry time. They think they can get it from a podcast. They think they can get it from a YouTube message. You can't get somebody's oil through anything else but through your history and God. (audience cheering) I can't give you my oil. All I can do is not fuck off you for about a week to go by your own. I can't give you mine and you can't give me yours. I wasn't up at midnight while you were walking through that season. I didn't walk through that betrayal. I didn't walk through that loss and that disappointment and you clung to God in death, so many, and he produced the oil. Second thing, our lamps are going out. They don't care about nothing else but keeping the machine running. Our followers are going down. We're not getting as many views. Hurry, we gotta come up with a new ingenuity moment to catalyze something new. And then they gave, I believe, maybe the most important phrase for leadership in this hour. No. No. Less they're not enough for us and you. You gotta learn how to say no. You gotta stop being everybody's Messiah. Some people need to wrestle some of their things out with God and they want to cling to you to go talk to God for them. I've done this with so many students. They've come to me in full-blown crisis. I said, "Go pray for an hour and then we'll talk." 'Cause I don't know anything and at the end of the day, my wisdom ain't gonna answer much. You need a breakthrough with God. I believe he wants to awaken leaders of prayer in this hour an indomitable spirit, an indomitable spirit, a might that comes on your inner man. Amen? Amen, let's stand. (audience member mumbling) Good. When I'm talking about sorrow, who am I talking to tonight? Raise your hand. I want you to come up here if you're raising your hand. Come on up here. I want you to know, I believe that Jesus had to walk those disciples through that dark night. Don't sit down, I want you to stand. It'll create more room. (sighs) (sighs) Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray. I want to pray. I want to pray. Everybody in the room just open up your hand right now. Lord, I just thank you. Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation. I declare over this awakening network, over this altar's network, over this altar's movement, that there will be hundreds of thousands of pastors that will be fully awake, fully alert, with the spirit of prayer resting on your life. I declare you're going to come out of sleep. Come on, I want you to put your hands over your eyes. We're going to give our eyes to Jesus. He's going to release a wake up call right now. Jesus has eyes of fire burning. Everybody in the room. He has eyes of fire that are burning. I want you to pray a prayer of repentance right now. Just say, Jesus. (congregation laughs) I ask you to forgive me. For opening my eyes to all forms of perversion, all forms of religion and the spirit of this age. Jesus, forgive me. I ask you right now for your blood that was shed at Calvary to wash over me now, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I want my thoughts to be clean, my emotions to be clean, and my desires to be clean. I receive your cleansing, and in the name of Jesus, I shut every door to darkness. I break all agreement with darkness, and I sever every tie with darkness. And in the name of Jesus, I open up new doors, doors of light, truth and revelation. In the name of Jesus, Satan, I command you. Leave my mind, leave my emotions, leave my desires. You are not my master, and I'm not your servant. Jesus is my master, and I'm his servant. So I command you to go. Go, go, go. (congregation laughs) Lift your hands. Faller, in the name of Jesus, that ties me with the spirit of prayer. Work me up. Work me up. Work me up. (gentle music) Come on, lift your voice to the Lord. (gentle music) I'm the hungry spirit of witchcraft. We break your power in the name of Jesus. Work in it in the inner man. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, come to the throne. Come to the throne. Lift me up. Oh, lift me up. Oh, lift me up. ♪ You have a sickness, oh wake me up ♪