CHAPTER 9
PRAYER POWER FOR THE NATIONS
T
to retreat.
ONE HUNDRED BAPTISMS FOR ONE HUNDRED HEADS
Not long ago, the government attempted to calm down the Wa by sending them a gift of some
statues of buddha. Much
to the surprise and consternation of the
authorities, the Wa returned the presents immediately and asked that the statues be replaced
by 100 bibles and some Christian
mis- sionaries! they said they wanted to know more about God.
Some
burmese missionaries were able to go and minis- ter to the Wa, and soon the
chief, a headhunter, was saved. his baptism proved to be one of a kind. After
he was im- mersed in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit, he then
commenced to duck himself under the water 100 more times—one for every human
head he had taken during his nefarious career! he then volunteered to become a
speaker for the Jesus film team that was evangelizing the region!1
how could such an amazing thing have happened? human explanations fall short. only the hand of God
could have brought about such a
change. based on what has been said
in virtually every chapter of
this book, prayer, more than
anything else, is the spiritual force that releases the hand of God. Myanmar, including
its cities and people groups, has never been prayed for so much as now, and both the quantity and the quality of prayer on behalf of Myan- mar and its people groups are escalating so rapidly that no one
can keep up with it.
that
wonderful incident adds the Wa as one more stanza to the “new song” the 24
elders and the four living creatures will sing to the Lamb on the throne:“[you]
have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and
people and nation” (rev. 5:9). this song cannot
be sung quite yet because many more nations, tribes, and peoples still
need salvation. however, the number of the signifi- cantly-large (more than
10,000) and least-reached people
“10/40
WINDoW
CAN OUR GENERATION COMPLETE THE GREAT COMMISSION?
right now, a baby born
in most places inside the 10/40 Window will
have no reasonable opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his or her lifetime. As I mentioned
in Chapter 5, this is the first
time
in human history that we have
a viable opportunity of completing the Great Com-
mission of Jesus in our generation.
by this, I do not mean
everyone in the world will be saved. I do mean, however,
to paraphrase the words of
Jesus,“this gospel of the kingdom will
have been preached
in all the world as a witness to all the nations” (see Matt. 24:14).
Modestly claiming some credentials of a professional missiologist,
including specialization in strategies of mis- sions and evangelism, let me
hasten to say that no known human missiological or evangelistic strategy
could be de- signed to accomplish such a task. only the sovereign God, through
the most awesome outpouring of supernatural power ever imagined, could make
this happen. Just as in the case of the Wa of Myanmar, so the almighty hand of
God must be released if we are going to see the vision of A.D. 2000
materialize. there is no other way!
As I
reissue this book in 2008, it should be mentioned that by the year 2000 not
every one of the 1,739 targeted people groups had been reached, but the number
of those that did not have at least an initial church planting move- ment had
been reduced to less than 500. It could be argued that this was perhaps the
most encouraging missiological report in history. WhAt IS It thAt
MoVeS the hAND oF
GoD to reDeeM the NAtIoNS? APPAreNtLy It
IS PrAyer—the PrAyerS oF the SAINtS. back to the 24 elders and
the four living creatures around the throne. Scripture
says that each one of them had, besides a harp,“golden bowls full of incense, which
are the prayers of the saint” (rev. 5:8, emphasis mine). What is it that moves
the hand of God to redeem the nations? Apparently
it is prayer—the
prayers of the saints. I realize there are few exegetical grounds for doing this, but could I be pardoned for expanding this vision a bit and imagining
that there could be a golden bowl for each one of the world’s
people groups? If so, we might surmise that the bowls for the un- reached people groups are not yet full.
the metaphor of the incense
being the prayers of the saints is mentioned again in
revelation 8:3-4, where it adds that fire from God’s altar is added and amazing
things hap- pen on earth (see rev. 8:5). Dutch Sheets says, “According to these
verses, either when [God] knows it is the right time to do something or when
enough prayer has accumulated to get the job done, he releases power. he takes
the bowl and mixes it with fire from the altar.”2
FILLING THE GOLDEN BOWLS
If this is the case, and if the real situation is at least something like that, it follows that the most crucial mis- siological
activity at the moment is to fill those bowls as quickly as possible. It is essential that the prayers of the saints be mobilized as they never have been before to com- plete the Great
Commission in our
lifetime. For several years my wife,
Doris, and I have been deeply engaged in that effort. We
feel privileged to have been entrusted
with the coordination
of the united Prayer track
of the A.D. 2000 Movement,
and we are amazed at
how prayer actually is being mobilized on every continent. I would not be surprised if
the year 1990 will eventu- ally be looked upon as a hinge year in the history
of the Christian movement. As I have previously indicated, in this decade we
are seeing the greatest harvest of souls ever known, the greatest outward
manifestation of spiritual power, the greatest Christian unity in 1,600 years,
the great- est influence of the third World in Christian affairs, and the
greatest worldwide prayer movement. Little of what we are seeing now was being
predicted with any degree of ac- curacy or recognition in the 1980s or prior to
that. our task of mobilizing prayer for
world evangelization is easier now than it ever could have been in the past. We look at
our job not as to get people praying—God is doing that in the most amazing ways—but as to get praying people. We attempt to put the
intercessors and the prayer min- istries of
the
world in touch with each
other and get them
praying in “one accord,”
as it says in Acts 1:14.
It has oc- curred to me that if Luke thought
it significant enough to record in Acts 1
that 120 individuals were praying in
one accord, what would
he think if he knew we are
now getting 120 nations
to pray together in
one accord? but it is happening!
HYPOTHESIS: THE MORE PRAYER THE BETTER
My
hypothesis is that the more prayer
the better. the bible teaches about the benefits of agreement in prayer
in several places. Jesus said,“Where two or three are gathered together in My
name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). by this I do not mean one
person praying alone has no value or does no good. I am saying, though, that
when two or more agree in prayer, it is incrementally more powerful than just
one person praying. We read in the old testament that if one can put 1,000 to
flight, two can put 10,000 to flight (see Deut.
32:30). I heard that the winner of a horse-pull contest at a county fair pulled
5,000 pounds, and the runner-up
pulled 4,000 pounds. SoMe KIND oF
eXPoNeNtIAL INCreASe IN the PoWer oF PrAyer oCCurS WheN
More PeoPLe Are PrAyING toGether About the SAMe thING. hitched together, though,
the two horses pulled 13,000 pounds! Likewise, some kind of exponential increase in the power of prayer
occurs when more people are praying to-
gether about the same thing.
I thought of
this when I was in Colombia
recently. I learned that in Cali, the vortex of the South American
drug cartels, believers have come together for prayer in a magni- tude
and with a scheduled
regularity I have not heard of in any other city. they rent the largest soccer stadium in Cali
three
times a year for all-night prayer
meetings. In the last
two meetings, 50,000 believers
packed the stadium, and thousands were turned away. you know
that something ex- traordinary is happening
when stadiums begin to be packed
all night long just for prayer!
In Seoul, Korea, those numbers have been exceeded sev- eral times,
although not on such a regularly-scheduled basis. Certain events, however, have
drawn more than 1 million to pray together in yoido Plaza on two or three
occasions. up to 90,000 pack the new olympic stadium for prayer meet- ings from
time to time.
PRAYING THROUGH THE WINDOW
Let me go back a few years
and tell you the story of one of the most exciting initiatives
in the modern prayer move- ment.
From time to time I
have mentioned
the A.D. 2000 Movement. through the decade of the 1990s, Doris and I had the honor of leading the united Prayer track.
the A.D. 2000 united Prayer track had been moving in
several parallel directions, not the least being the so-called
“Praying through
the Window” initiative. In 1991, Luis bush, International Director of the A.D. 2000 Movement, woke up in the middle of the night in bangladesh and wrote a letter to me. the letter said, in part,“Peter, if we are to see
a spiritual breakthrough and an advance of the Gospel so that the church is established in the 10/40 Window
World by A.D. 2000, it
is going to take an enormous
prayer and fasting initiative.
We need a mighty army of strategic-level
prayer warriors saying: Lord, give me the 10/40 Window or i’ll die. We
need at least
one million who
are prepared
to pray
until breakthrough occurs.” Soon after that, a group
consisting of Dick eastman, Jane hansen hoyt, bobbye byerly, Luis bush, Doris
Wagner, and Alvin Low gathered with me in Colorado Springs to pray and seek
God’s direction. We boldly asked the question: “Might it be possible to do as
Luis bush suggests and mobilize one million Christians to pray in one accord
for the nations and unreached peoples of the 10/40 Window?” our response:“Why
not? Let’s go for it!” We thought at the time we were exercising great faith.
Now we look back and say, in undisguised delight:“oh, we of little faith!”
Praying through the window, for example,
focused prayers on the 62 nations of the 10/40 Window. I want to emphasize that targeting our prayers toward
these nations in no way is intended to make a statement
that lost souls else- where in any part of the world do not need powerful prayer.
Sweden needs prayer as much as Sri Lanka; brazil needs prayer as much as bangladesh; toronto needs prayer as much as tokyo; and the Navajo need prayer as much as the
Nepali. the
leaders of the A.D. 2000
Movement, however, believed that God gave them a special mandate to focus primarily
on the 10/40 Window until the year
2000, when, by charter, the
organization ceased to exist. Meanwhile, other movements were focusing on other parts of the world, and
the body of Christ is praying for the lost wherever
they may be found.
During
october 1993, not 1 million, but more than 21 million believers around the
world prayed for the same two nations on the same day.
they followed a prayer calendar that had been
translated into numerous languages and dis- tributed far and wide. Some said
the prayer calendar could well have been the most duplicated piece of paper in
the world during the whole year. Many people, particularly in China, were
following the prayer calendar through daily radio broadcasts. It could well be
that this event, called Praying through the Window I, set
a record for the most Christians participating in a
synchronized way in a global prayer effort.
SHAKING UP INDIA’S GOD OF GOOD LUCK
India was one of the two nations targeted
for prayer the first day, october
1, 1993, and the nation was strongly affected. Apparently, on that day the prayers must have filled some golden bowl to which God added his “fire from the
altar” (rev. 8:5),
for when this happens the bible says there will be
“noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.” I am not arguing that this prophecy
was altogether literally fulfilled
on october 1, 1993,
but the parallel is fascinating, to say the least.
the following
is the story of that day’s earthquake in India from time magazine:
With the head of an elephant and the body of a pot- bellied man, Lord Ganesha is one of hinduism’s most beloved
deities, a god of new beginnings and good luck. Multitudes of peasants in the hinterland reaches of Maharashtra, a western
Indian state that is home to the god’s
most devout cult…were concluding a 10-day festival in Ganesha’s honor celebrated late into the night
with dancing, singing, and blowing horns. In Killari, a village of about
15,500 near the Karnataka state
border, the ceremonies culminated in the ritual dipping of the god’s idols in the village pond. Around 1 A.M., worshippers
struggled home and fell into a deep slumber. It was a sleep from which most of them never awoke. At 3:56 P.M., an
earthquake struck with a deafening roar and a rattling movement that swept across
the southern sector of the Deccan Plateau.3 this was
not a
routine earthquake. the
following
year the Geological Society of India published a book about that earthquake,
claiming it will go down in history as the deadliest earthquake ever to strike a stable continental
region, occurring in a place long considered by geologists as being virtually immune to such shocks.
Professor b.e. Vijayam, a member of the Geological
So- ciety and a committed Christian believer who the previous year had won India’s Scientist
of the year Award,
was awak- ened by the shaking of his windows as he was sleeping in another
state many miles away. realizing
at once that earth- quakes should not be happening in this part of India, the
Lord impressed on him Jesus’ words that earthquakes
in various places would be a sign of the end times. he located these words in Matthew 24:7, and read on to verse 14:“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached
in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.”this
became a personal
word from God to him to devote his life to seeing that
every unreached people group
of India
is reached with the gospel. Little did he know that he became one of the answers
to the prayers of 21 million Christians on the day
of the earthquake.
that is not all. up till that time, not much progress had been made in spreading the gospel in the state of Sikkim in
northern India. on october 1, 1993, however, the spiritual forces
keeping the Sikkim people in captivity
seemed to weaken, and since then approximately 100 a day have been converted from tibetan buddhism. reports claim that between 10 percent and 20 percent of the people in
Sikkim are believers at
this writing.
Dick eastman, who was the co-chairperson (along with Jane
hansen hoyt of Aglow International) of Praying through
the Window I, reports that his ministry, every home for Christ, was starting three new “Christ groups,” many of which
are embryonic churches, in India every day. they were happy
with that kind
of fruit. In the year
fol- lowing the october event, however,
the number increased
to as many as 17 Christ groups a day! eastman knows of nothing else that could have caused the dramatic
change other than 21 million people praying in one accord for India
on october 1, 1993.
Praying through the Window II was conceived
in the extraordinary wave of faith following Praying through the
Window I. Michael Little, president of the Christian
broad- casting Network (CbN), agreed to chair the committee, and the target became the 100 “Gateway Cities” of the 10/40 Window. these were not necessarily
the 100 largest
cities, but there was reason to believe they were among the most spiritually-significant cities. each of the
nations had a min- imum of one Gateway City on the
list. to help increase the number of those praying “in one ac- cord,”
several high-quality resources were released.
A prayer calendar, similar
to the first one, featured three cities on some days and
four on other
days of october 1995. the worldwide
circulation of that prayer calendar in
many lan- guages was amazing.
A LOCAL CHURCH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
one local
church vowed not to shy away from formida- ble challenges. When
the reports from Praying through the Window I were
released by Christian Information Net- work, only one of the 62 nations of the
10/40 Window had not been visited by a prayer journey team in 1993—qatar, a
small peninsula in the Arabian Gulf next to Saudi Ara- bia. that
information was enough to prompt the
leaders of this church to pray, “God, how
about qatar?” the an- swer was,“Go for it!”—or words to that
effect.
PRAYER IN A SECRET MEETING
qatar is
far from the easiest country to visit. Visas for Westerners are next to
nonexistent. God opened the door, however, and a couple of days after the team
arrived they- were met by some expatriate secret believers. Invited to attend
the clandestine meeting late one night, the team was led through what seemed to
be mazes of streets and alleys until they came to an apparently empty building.
then passing through another maze of
doors and corri- dors and stairways, they finally entered the dark
meeting room. only after the door was closed was a small light bulb
turned on. the windows had been cemented
shut so no noise could be heard outside. you can imagine their utter amazement
when they saw a Praying through the Window II Gateway Cities prayer calendar
pasted on
one wall! the believers had not made the
connection that this prayer team from the u.S. was some- how associated with the calendar. For all they knew,
they were the only ones who had it and who were faithfully pray- ing
for the cities day by day! What incredible delight it was for
them when they learned that millions of fellow believers
in virtually every nation of the world were praying “in one
accord” with them and for them!
besides the prayer calendar, which appeared in such un- expected
places, yWAM Publishing printed a
150-page book, praying through the 100 gateway Cities of the 10/40
Window. the book contains a one-page profile of each city, including
a map and significant prayer points for
the city. Added to that,
CbN produced a full-length video
called Light the World,which was translated into several languages. Copies
of the video were distributed and run
in churches and on television stations around the world.
REPORTING THE ANSWERS: WINDOWATCHMAN
by october 1995, we had faith enough to expect that the 21 million Praying through
the Window I
would be ex-
ceeded. So we were elated when beverly Pegues, director of the Christian Information Network, released the figure of more than 36 million praying for the Gateway
Cities in one
accord! the results of each of the first two Praying through the Window initiatives are
published in books edited by Pegues called WindoWatchman and WindoWatchman
ii.these books make an effort to report back to the intercessors and to the
body of Christ in general how their prayers have been answered.
PRAYER JOURNEYS
Let me repeat Jack Graham’s statement
from the last chapter:“revival will come when we get the walls down be-
tween the church and the community.” I mentioned
there that two of the exciting new ways Christians
are getting into their cities with prayer are through praise marches and prayerwalking.
two
other forms of prayer outside the
churches could relate more to the category of praying for whole nations
rather than for specific cities: namely, prayer journeys and prayer expeditions.
In the reports about the Praying through the Window initiatives, I mentioned
“prayer jour- neys” several times, such as the prayer journey to qatar. these
require a bit more explanation.
each one of the prayer efforts combines millions of home-based and church-based pray-ers as well as those who
are called
and equipped to go on prayer journeys in which they pray “on site with
insight.” both of them are impor- tant if we are going to pray seriously
and powerfully for the nations. In WindoWatchman,
for example, beverly Pegues
shows how they fit together:
As you read about [the prayer journeyers’] experiences in the various countries, you’ll be thrilled to see how the Lord spoke to their home-based
intercessors to pray when the battles became fierce. through their prayers, situations were reversed, language barriers became non- existent, healings
and miracles took place as lives were touched by the power of the
holy Spirit.4
In 1993, 188 prayer journey teams took 257 prayer jour-
neys into the nations of the 10/40 Window. this figure only includes
those from which Christian Information
Network received reports. how many others also journeyed but
did not report is difficult to say, but some think it might have been an equal number. the teams were equipped this first time by
receiving only a minimum of spiritual
mapping in- formation— in this case a one-half
page miniprofile of the nation prepared by George otis Jr.’s Sentinel Group.
Later on, however, this information was expanded into a four-page profile of each nation, including
historical background, un- reached
peoples, spiritual competition, noteworthy trends,
and national prayer concerns for each.
the resultant book, strongholds of the 10/40 Window, is
one of the most vital information-packed
guides available for intercessors. In it, George
otis Jr. mentions
the “vora- cious appetite”
intercessors have for information.“People don’t just want to pray,” otis says,“they
want to pray intel- ligently. they want to ensure that their prayers will have a genuine impact on the spiritual battle raging over specific communities and people
groups. to accomplish this, they understand, requires accurate targeting coordinates.”5
LOVING OUR ENEMIES
When the project was first taking shape, I shared with Paul Ariga, the A.D. 2000 united Prayer track coordinator for Japan,
that four of the Gateway Cities
were located in his nation. I also told him that some 400 intercessors would be coming to Japan,
100 to each of the
cities, simply to pray
God’s blessing on the Japanese. then I challenged him:“If
Japan is receiving 400 intercessors in october
1995, how about reciprocating by sending 400 Japanese intercessors to other cities in the 10/40 Window?”
he responded somberly,“No, we’re not
going to do that!” After giving me a
moment to absorb such an unexpected
statement, a wide smile came over his face and Ariga said, “We would not send only 400, we will send 800—two Japan-
ese for
each one who comes here!”
Sure enough, 800 Japanese intercessors went out to pray. Where did they go? the Japanese chose to take prayer jour- neys to the 23 Asian cities Japan had invaded
in World War I. they repented
to the people there for the
atrocities their
nation had committed against them and beseeched God for rich blessings upon their former enemies!
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
the
three most formidable anti-Christian blocs
in the world are buddhism, hinduism, and Islam. there are many others,
but none more deeply entrenched, better informed and corporately determined to
thwart the advance of the Kingdom of God. If we are correct in saying that
the great prayer movement truly began to blossom in the 1990s, we expect that
powerful prayer will begin to make a difference. As might be expected, prayer
has been making a consider- able difference.
Let’s
look at the three major anti-Christian forces.
BUDDHISM: “ON THE RUN!”
My
observations lead me to believe that the principali- ties over buddhism are “on
the run.” this may be the first large wall, after Communism, to come down in
our genera- tion. For years buddhism has been taking serious hits in South
Korea, and more recently, on a greater scale, in main- land China. China was
the brightest new light for the gospel in the 10/40 window in the 1980s, and it
continues even brighter today.
the bright new light of the buddhist world in the 1990s,
however, seems to be thailand. two recent trips have
con- vinced me that our prayers are being answered there, and also that thailand will be a chief instrument in the hands of
God for taking the gospel to Laos, Myanmar (burma), Cam- bodia, and
Vietnam.
My first
visit to thailand was
with an indigenous thai network called
the hope of God for a teaching assignment at their annual church camp. I was amazed, in
a nation where Christianity has struggled for 150 years, to see 10,000 believers meeting in a beautiful beachside resort hotel for praise,
prayer, refreshment, training, and
inspiration. My friend
Joseph C. Wongsak, the founder, told me they have 24 weekly services in their huge bangkok
church, 722 churches
throughout almost
every
district of
thailand,
and 32
hope of God churches in 16 other nations.
My second
ministry assignment in thailand was to teach at a conference of 3,500 leaders
during the day, and crowds of up to 6,000 in
the evenings. they were mostly Pente- costals, but
leaders from many of the traditional denomi- nations were there as well. the
two other featured speakers were t.L. osborn and David yonggi Cho, both of whom
knew the thai situation better than I did.
When I
questioned them, osborn said, “I had been preaching the gospel in many nations
of the world, some ex- tremely difficult, before I
first came to thailand in 1956. thailand turned out to
be the darkest nation I had visited up to that time, and I have not been in a
darker one since. however, something has changed. Now the Spirit of God is
clearly flowing freely in this nation.”
Cho
said, “I have been coming to thailand
regularly for 20 years. every time I have come, I have felt sick from the
pervasive spiritual oppression in this country. this is the first time in
memory that I am here feeling total spir- itual freedom!”
Several thai
church leaders told me that
it is now easy
to lead
the thai
to Christ.
When I
asked them
when they
had noticed the change, their estimates
seemed to revolve around october 1993,
perhaps the first month 21 million believers
had prayed in one accord on one day for the evan- gelization of thailand.
yes,
prayer truly is making a difference!
HINDUISM: “BADLY BATTERED!”
the demonic principalities over hinduism are “badly
battered.” Nepal, in the himalayan Mountains,
was until re- cently the
only hindu kingdom in the world,
and it
has now become one of the brightest lights for the gospel in the 10/40 Window.
Seeds were planted through the years by the social work of the united Mission to Nepal and more re- cently by the Jesus film of Campus Crusade for Christ,
by literature distributed by every home
for Christ, and by other ministries.
Many
Nepali Christians were willing to serve six-year jail sentences as a penalty
for their conversions to Christ. then in 1990, some technical changes were made
in the na- tional constitution to allow a bit more freedom. When I more
recently visited Nepal to help dedicate a large wor- ship center and bible
school, leaders were estimating that 200,000 to 300,000 people had become
Christians in their country. one said that churches were multiplying so
rapidly, just in the capital city of Katmandu, that it was impossible to keep
count.
the
dramatic earthquake I mentioned earlier was
but one indication that India, the largest stronghold of hin- duism, has been
battered. Most Christians in India have come from the south, but many reports
of breakthroughs and of multiplying churches through signs and wonders are now
coming out of northern India. For example, the hi- malayan state of Sikkim,
previously staunchly resistant to Christianity, has opened substantially
since october 1993— some reports place the number of believers there at 20 per-
cent, even 30 percent in some places. John DeVries of Mission 21 India visited
Calcutta in october 1995. he re- ports the following:
I have been to Calcutta many times, and every time
I go it is a most depressing experience. I get depressed dreading
going; the depression is increased being there; and it takes a few weeks afterwards
to recover. but it was totally different in october 1995. I landed in the
airport on Monday and was
amazed at how clear and sunny and clean it all looked! As I went to my hotel,
my emotions were light. I was full of opti- mism and a sense of victory. I was utterly
surprised at the hymns of praise which were arising in my spirit as
I traveled the streets of Calcutta, which suddenly and mysteriously that day did not look nearly as dark and dreary as usual.
When I
checked in to my hotel, I was informed that there was a prayer team from
Calgary, Alberta, on the fourth floor, and then I realized what was happening.
It was the month of Praying through the
Window II! Christians from around the world were praying for the Gateway Cities
of the 10/40 Window. this was Monday, and on Wednesday
my prayer calendar told me that what turned out to be 36
million would be focusing on Calcutta.
I had a strange sensation that Kali,
the black goddess of
destruction and the patron deity
of the area, had temporarily va-
cated the premises and had taken many
companion demons with her. the usual
dark, dismal, spiritual
cloud which hangs over that city as demonic smog had
been blown away by the prayers of God’s people!6
Does
prayer make a difference in the hindu strongholds of the 10/40 Window? Ask John
DeVries.
ISLAM: “DEEPLY CONCERNED!”
the principalities over Islam
are the
strongest of the
three
religions. I cannot say they are “on the run” or “badly battered,”
but they definitely seem to be “deeply con- cerned.” one development that has shaken them is the em- barrassingly-large number of Muslims
in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, who are becoming Chris- tians, although conversions are officially frowned upon by the government. For obvious face-saving reasons the gov- ernment does not make public their religious
census. Some informed sources are estimating that Christians are now thirty-five percent of the population.
Praying through
Ramadan. the government must also
be deeply
concerned by the annual 30 days of Muslim prayer focus
during the high holy time of fasting in
ra- madan, which is observed
in January and February at different times
each
year. this is
one of
the Muslims’“five pillars
of the faith,” and they fast from sunrise to sunset for 30 days. A superb
30-day prayer guide is now available to pray for the Muslims, and is updated
each year. An attrac- tive version for children is also available. Now that the
prayer guide is on the Internet, it is possible that 10 million Christians will
be fervently praying for Muslims “in one ac- cord” for 30 days each year.
We instruct our people always to pray blessing
on Mus- lims. We never pray curses. Furthermore, we recommend praying to God that he will answer the Muslims’ prayers.
this may sound strange at first until we realize that one of the chief prayers
of Muslims during their time of fasting is,
“God, please reveal yourself
to me.” We agree with them on
that. It cannot be a coincidence that in recent years, more
reports of divine visitations
to Muslims are coming in than
perhaps in the previous 100 years combined. In areas where it is forbidden to share the gospel in any way, bright lights are
shining, angels are appearing,
Jesus shows up, healings
take place, voices are heard, visions materialize, and vivid dreams communicate the
gospel message.
PRAYER EXPEDITIONS
As I have
said, two of the newer forms of prayer outside of our churches are prayer
journeys and prayer expeditions. the prayer journey typically involves a team
traveling to a certain predetermined place, praying for a few days or a week,
and then returning home. the prayer expedition
requires considerably higher commitment because the team travels,
usually by foot, from one determined place to another, opening entire regions
to the presence and flow of the holy Spirit. Prayer expeditions have recently
taken place from berlin to Moscow, from San Diego to San Francisco, and
following the path of General Sherman’s march during the War between the States
in the South of the united States, to heal wounds inflicted by the North on the
South and by the South on the North, just to name a few. Such expeditions
require a substantial amount of planning and the highest quality of spiritual
mapping if they are going to meet standards and if the prayer action is to be
of the powerful kind.
REPENTING FOR THE CRUSADES
back to
Islam. I would not be greatly surprised if the one current prayer initiative
that has the principalities over Islam the most concerned was the
reconciliation Walk. I had the privilege of being in Cologne, Germany, on
easter Sunday 1996, the nine-hundredth anniversary of the de- parture of the
First Crusade, led by Peter the hermit.
Along with Loren Cunningham and Lynn Green, both of yWAM (youth With A Mission), I helped pray for and
commission the first prayer expedition team, setting out to walk all the known routes of the First
Crusade through eu- rope, the balkans, turkey, and the Middle east and timed to
enter Jerusalem in July 1999. tens of thousands of Chris- tians joined this
expedition for shorter or longer periods of time, coordinated by Lynn Green’s
office in London, eng- land, having only one agenda item: sincere corporate re-
pentance for the sins committed by our Christian forebears against Muslims and
Jews.
on that easter Sunday afternoon, the prayer team se- cured permission to enter the mosque in Cologne to read its
one-page declaration of repentance to the imam, the Muslim equivalent of a pastor. When they finished,
tears were noticeable in the eyes of the imam.“this message
is astonishing,” he said.“Whoever had this idea must have had an epiphany of God!”
the imam was
so moved that
he promised to send the
message to all 600 mosques in Germany,
which he subse- quently did. Weeks later a prayer team member stumbled
onto a huge open-air gathering of some 3,000 Muslims in Vienna, Austria.
She was amazed when she heard the leader say to the crowd,“the Christians are going through europe repenting of the sins of the Crusades against us Muslims.
this is wonderful. Now, I think, it is time that we begin to repent
of our sins against the Christians!”
In turkey, an
awesome reception
met the prayer
teams when they arrived in october
1996. Lynn Green reports,
From their arrival
at the border of turkey, the
team experienced a welcome far beyond their expectations.
I had been in Istanbul ten days earlier and had given an interview
to the General Secretary of the Press
Association. that article was published on the day the team
arrived, so they were met by tV cameras, re- porters, and an official guard of
anti-terrorist police to accompany them.7
In
Istanbul, the Deputy Mufti, the second most power- ful Muslim leader in the
city, held a personal reception for 25 of the team in his office, welcomed them
with warmth and appreciation, and said,“this message is very important for
turkey.”
HEALING WOUNDS OF THE PAST
the reason this seems so important to me ties in with what
was
said about identificational repentance in Chapter
5. Mus- lims have been the most resistant of the major anti-Christ-
ian blocs for centuries.
In all probability, the major stronghold providing satan a legal excuse for blinding their minds to the gospel of Christ was erected by the
Christian crusaders who, among other things, mercilessly slaughtered
30,000 Muslims and burned alive 6,000 Jews when they en- tered Jerusalem in 1099. they did all this under the banner
of the cross, announcing that they were doing things such as murdering
women and children in the name of Jesus!
Al- though many Christians in
our churches are unaware of these and some even worse atrocities, Muslims are not.
As far as they are concerned,
these things are as real as if they had
happened last week.
I like the way Kjell Sjoberg of Sweden explains
this kind of thing.
he says,
Guilt
that has never been dealt with is an open invitation to demonic powers.
before we can bind the strong- man, we need to deal with sins that have given
the enemy a legal right to occupy. the devil and his prin- cipalities have been
defeated by Jesus on the cross, and they would not be able to stay on unless they
were relying on old invitations that have never been canceled.8
Sincere repentance, on a scale proportionate to the mag-
nitude of the offense, is a major tool
to help neutralize the powerful forces of darkness that have succeeded in keeping followers of Mohammed captive through the centuries.
the reconciliation Walk was a powerful
instrument God has used to begin to
crack open the Islamic barriers to the gospel. If this is correct, it is little wonder the demonic pow- ers
over Islam are “deeply concerned.”
SINGING THE “NEW SONG”
the holy
Spirit is calling God’s
people everywhere to
pray for the nations. they are responding in exponentially-
increasing numbers.the golden bowls are filling fast. It may
not be too long from now that the elders and living
creatures are able to sing the “new song” to the Lamb on the throne: “[you] have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (rev. 5:9).
240 PRAYING
WITH POWER
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
All nations of the world need prayer. Why, then,
was so much emphasis given
to the nations of the 10/40 Window?
What do you think of the idea “the more prayer the bet- ter”? Is there more power in larger quantities of prayer?
REFLECTION QUESTIONS 241
review the reports of spiritual powers over buddhism, hinduism, and Islam and then comment on them.
Discuss the possible effects of the reconciliation Walk along the
routes of the First Crusade.
CHAPTER 10
INNOVATIVE PRAYING
T
face and mention but a few interesting
cases.
For
example, in the united States, every first thursday of May has been designated
as the National Day of Prayer. Since 1995, a nationally-televised concert of
prayer has be- come part of this event, drawing the personal participation of
scores of top-ranking Christian leaders, and uniting mil- lions in simultaneous
prayer right in their homes and in church groups that meet for that purpose.
A PRAYER INVASION BY LAND, SEA, AND AIR
Among the most innovative
of prayer leaders is ed Sil- voso of
harvest evangelism and author of a key book
about prayer evangelism, that none
should perish (regal books). After a fact-finding tour to meet with
pastors of the San Francisco bay area not too long ago, Silvoso
perceived a kind of “spiritual
pregnancy” pervaded the region. In
almost every city of the area, pastors had begun joining together for prayer. It seemed as if the time was ripe to do something un- usual in the entire
bay Area on the National Day of Prayer in 1996. Few
cities have ever been prayed for this way.
on May 2,
1996, at 9:00 A.M., four major prayer actions
began simultaneously:
Airplanes took off from every airport in the area, carrying
intercessors who established a mantle of prayer
over the metropolitan area.
boats full of pray-ers lifted anchor and sailed throughout all the waters of the bay, beseeching God for his power.
Motorcyclists revved up their engines and prayed all day along the freeway arteries.
Intercessors boarded all forms of public
trans- portation from buses to trolleys to ferries to tramways, criss-crossing the entire area with prayer.
A group
prayed on the steps of City hall. teams that had previously done appropriate
spiritual mapping took prayer journeys to key strongholds of darkness,
combating spiri- tual hosts of wickedness over the area.
Meanwhile,
believers gathered in nine cities surround- ing the bay Area at 7:14 P.M.
(reflecting 2 Chron. 7:14). A group of pastors from each of the cities was
commissioned before the Lord by the participants of their own city’s prayer
meeting. they then boarded a bus and traveled to- gether to the next city,
praying for certain places and needs that had been
mapped out along the way. they joined to-
gether for prayer with the group gathered there. In that way, the pastors
generated a complete circle of prayer around the bay Area by each group
traveling to the next city. that evening, a local radio station connected all
nine cities together for praise, celebration, and celebrating the Lord’s
Supper. What an awesome day of prayer it was for greater San Francisco!1
but it
did not end there. Since then, a new spiritual cli- mate has permeated the bay Area.
In January 1997, more than 240 pastors joined together in a Prayer Summit.
billy Graham agreed to conduct a crusade there, and at this writ- ing
believers are moving toward establishing 15,000 “light- houses of prayer”
throughout the region.
PRAYER
ON THE RADIO WAVES
In Chapter 8, I mentioned the women intercessors of Goiania,
brazil, who were called in by government officials
to give direction in handling a serious prison riot. the key to opening the way for such a thing to happen was their daily radio prayer meeting that blanketed the city. It is es-
timated they now have more than 100,000 in Goiania who pray
“in one accord” next to the radios
in their homes each Friday
for a minimum of two hours.
When we
report that 36 million participated in the Pray- ing through the Window
initiative, interceding for the same cities on the same day for 31 days, an
important fact emerges. the largest single bloc of the pray-ers is found in
mainland China. these are people in house
churches, per- secuted for their faith, who have few resources such as books,
magazines, or bibles.
these
Chinese Christians have found ways, though, of tuning
in to Christian radio stations such as the Far eastern broadcasting Company,
and the majority of them are very faithful listeners. they form habits of
listening to the same programs at the same times every single day. All the
major international Christian radio ministries are aware of this and
are participating in the Praying through the
Window efforts. the radio broadcasters, whose voices are well known to the
millions of loyal listeners, lead actual prayer meetings in Mandarin or
Cantonese or other Chinese dialects. they follow the prayer calendars, books,
and other resources being circulated for the purpose of stimulating powerful
si- multaneous prayer.
Peru
entered this decade under a deep cloud of dark- ness perpetrated by the
notorious Shining Path guerrillas. Few other nations have been more tormented
by murder, arson, terrorism, and anarchy than Peru was in those days. It was
powerful enough to put a virtual lid on the activities of the evangelical
churches of the nation for a time. things are totally different now, however,
and Peru is enjoying some of the most dynamic evangelism and church growth in
all of Latin America.
What
brought about the change? I recently visited Peru and sought the answer to that
question from Christian lead- ers. Many pointed to a series of visits by harold
Caballeros, a Guatemalan pastor and the leader of the hispanic Ameri- can
Spiritual Warfare Network. he began to teach them that strategic-level
intercession could push back the oppressive powers of darkness. that was an
important key. More lead- ers, though, mentioned the change was brought about
by radio Pacifico, a Christian radio station that began uniting believers in
prayer over the radio waves regularly around 1993. At the time of my visit,
20,000 were regularly praying “in one accord” for their nation and for those in
authority. the result? Peru has taken a radical change for the good!
CHILDREN ARE PRAYING
Many are surprised
when they first hear that God is rais- ing
up large
numbers of children,
6 to 14 years of
age or
so, who are praying on an adult level. this does not seem to be
an isolated phenomenon,
because consistent reports of this are coming
in from many diverse nations of the world.
biblical Christians will have no problem believing that God would do such a thing. Jesus’ words when he cleansed the temple are well
known: “It is written, ‘My house shall
be called
a house of prayer’” (Matt. 21:13). on the
same oc- casion, though, the chief priests and scribes were complain-
ing that children were loudly lifting up their voices in praise,
saying,“hosanna to the Son of
David!” (Matt. 21:15). Jesus responded to them:“have you never read,‘out of
the mouth
of [children]…you have perfected praise?” (Matt. 21:16). there is more.
Jesus was
quoting Psalm 8 where it goes on to indicate that the prayers of children
have great power in spiritual warfare, saying
that what comes out of their mouths will “si-
lence the enemy and the avenger” (Ps. 8:2).
Perhaps that is one of the reasons Jesus
tells us that unless we “become as little children, [we] will by
no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
the esther Network International of West Palm beach,
Florida, is taking the lead in mobilizing and networking
children from around the world to pray for world evange-
lization. Linked with the A.D. 2000 united Prayer track, esther Ilnisky formed a team of 40 children intercessors
from various nations who were enrolled (having the same status as adults) as official delegates to the huge A.D. 2000 Global
Consultation on World evangelization (GCoWe) held in Seoul, Korea, in 1995. the word about powerful
children’s prayers was made public, and day after day long
lines of adults, among them some of the most highly- respected Christian leaders of the world, were patiently
waiting their turn to receive
individual prayer ministry from
the children.
oN A CertAIN
DAte eVery
SePteMber…Stu-DeNtS
Are JoINING hANDS AND PrAyING
ArouND
theIr SChooL FLAGPoLe….[It] DoeS Not
VIoLAte the SePArAtIoN oF
ChurCh AND StAte. Subsequent
reports from GCoWe ’95 delegates fre- quently mentioned how significant the prayers
of the children had been in their own lives and ministries. esther
Ilnisky re- ports that, at this writing,
she has established contact with and is networking nearly 2 million
praying children.
“See you at the Pole” is an innovative prayer initiative aimed first at middle schools and high schools of the united
States, but has since spread to other continents of the world.
In
1990, a group of students
from a Christian
youth group in burleson, texas, sensed that the Lord wanted them to go to their school and pray. they obeyed God.
At first it seemed to their pastor,
billy beacham, that it was just an- other prayer meeting. In the providence of God, however, the news got out and young people across the country began to say,“We want to do what they’re doing in texas.” Now the National
Network of youth Ministries in San Diego, Cali- fornia, helps
coordinate what has become a movement.
because
every school has a flagpole in its yard, that be- came the place to pray. Now
on a certain date every Sep- tember, near the beginning of the school year,
students are joining hands and praying around their school flagpole. In 1996,
it was estimated that up to 3 million children in the united States from approximately
75 percent of our high schools participated. responding to the complaints of
some staunch opponents of prayer, the Supreme Court declared “See you at the
Pole” as a constitutional activity that does not violate the separation of
church and state.
FASTING AND PRAYER
through the years in my Christian experience, I recog-
nized
that fasting was biblical and that Christians
probably should do it, but it never became
much of a part of my per- sonal lifestyle. For one
thing, I had no
role models. I sensed an
unspoken general agreement not to talk about fasting too much,
and particularly not to tell anyone else if you did hap- pen to fast. After all, did Jesus not say that when we fast we
should do it in a secret place and not let anyone know (see Matt.
6:18)? because of a wrong application
of this Scrip- ture, I believe the prayers
of many of us in those days lacked the
true power they should have had. however,
fasting has become a hot topic, high on the agendas of Christian leaders across
the theological spec- trum. the icebreaker was bill
bright of Campus Crusade, who was led by the Lord to go on a
personal 40-day fast early in the ‘90s. unlike some of his peers, bright was
not reticent to talk about and to recommend serious fasting to the whole body
of Christ.
In
December 1994, bill bright called together the Chris- tian leaders of America
for nothing but three days of fast- ing and prayer in orlando, Florida. because
such a thing had never been done before, he had no idea what the re- sponse
might be. he gave only a few months’ advance notice, and many of the leaders he
was inviting typically had calendars filled one to two years in advance. the
response, however, was amazing. More than 600 leaders, representing more than
100 denominations, came together at their own expense to get down on their
knees before the Lord on be- half of their nation and other nations of the
world.
PrAyer ALoNG
WIth SerIouS
FAStING, IF DoNe IN oNe ACCorD AND oN A MASSIVe
SCALe
by the PeoPLe oF GoD IN A GIVeN NAtIoN,
CAN AND WILL reLeASe the hAND oF GoD to LIterALLy
trANSForM the WhoLe NAtIoN.
Such
events, growing in size, have become part of Amer- ican Christian life for some
years now. A 1996 Prayer and Fasting meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, drew an
astounding 3,700 who gave up food for three days to pray for revival.
FASTING AND SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
bright is convinced that “America and much of the world
will,
before the end of the year 2000, experience
a great spir- itual awakening. this
divine visit of the holy
Spirit from
heaven will kindle the greatest spiritual harvest in the his- tory of the Church. but before God comes in revival
power, the holy Spirit will call millions of God’s people to repent, fast, and pray in the spirit of 2 Chronicles 7:14.”2 In that Scripture God says,“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves,
and pray and seek My face, and
turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from
heaven, and will forgive
their sin and heal their land.”
Although
fasting is not specifically mentioned in that Scripture passage, bill bright
argues convincingly:
Fasting
is the only discipline that meets all the condi- tions of 2 Chronicles 7:14.When one fasts, he humbles
himself; he has more time to pray, more time to seek God’s face, and certainly he would turn from all known
sin. one could read the bible, pray, or witness for Christ
without repenting of his sins. but one cannot enter into
a genuine fast with a pure heart and pure motive and not meet the conditions of
the passage.3
elmer towns, author of the excellent book
fasting for
spiritual Breakthrough, agrees. he says,
Fasting
is not an end in itself; it is a means by which we can worship the Lord and
submit ourselves in humility to him….one of the greatest spiritual benefits of
fasting is becoming more attentive to God—becoming more aware of our own
inadequa- cies and his adequacy, our own contingencies and his
self-sufficiency—and listening to what he wants us to be and do.4
In his
book, towns suggests nine different ways to fast, each one aimed at solving
nine different needs in individu- als and churches. each fast follows a
different prescription to accomplish its purpose.
both bill
bright and elmer towns are saying that prayer along with
serious fasting, if done in one
accord and on a massive scale by the people of God in a given
nation, can and will release the hand of God to literally transform the
whole nation. towns says,“If all our
churches fasted, they would move forward in evangelism and reach out in
feed- ing and helping others. God would then pour his presence upon his
people.”5
THE WORLD’S LONGEST, RUNNING PRAYER CHAIN
on easter Sunday 1988, some energetic youth With a Mission young adults climbed the Mount of olives, lit an olympic-style torch, and began running the torch around
the world to help stimulate
prayer for world evangelization. Since then, thousands have taken part in carrying the prayer
torch from city to city and from nation to
nation. on one north-south run from Alaska to Antarctica,
the team had to
change from running shoes to snow boots to complete
the route! As of this writing, the “torch run,” as it is called, has
covered 40 countries and logged some 50,000 miles, twice the distance around the earth. Interest continues to build,
and the end is nowhere in sight. the torch run may
be only
one of many
causes, but it
is a fact
that since yWAM began this innovative kind
of praying in 1988, prayer
for world evangelization in many forms has reached a peak
never before seen, and it is con- tinuing to soar to new heights every year.
PRAYER QUANTITY: MILLIONS OF HOURS
In these days of the great world prayer movement, prayer has increased in both quantity and quality.
Not surprisingly, the Japanese have taken the lead in applying
high technol- ogy to monitor massive quantities of prayer.
Paul Ariga, who heads
the A.D. 2000
united Prayer track in Japan, is
also one of the founders of the All-Japan
revival Koshien Mis-
sion. In 1993, they held a massive three-day revival
mission in the 60,000-seat baseball stadium of osaka. In prepara-
tion, they decided to enlist what they called “prayer war- riors” who would agree to pray regularly for the revival.
Along with them they also enlisted a more select group of “fasting
prayer warriors” who would promise to combine serious
fasting with their prayers.
each intercessor was required to keep a careful log
of the amount of time spent praying
for the revival meetings and to record it on a printed
card. When ten hours had
been completed, a card was mailed
into the office, and a new card was begun. A database was set up to keep track of the intercessors and the number of hours they had prayed.their
first goal was 180,000 hours, one hour for each seat in the stadium for the
three days, but by the
time of the meetings it had been doubled to 350,000 hours of
prayer, two hours for each seat. A record 22,000 attendees registered conver-
sions to Christ at the meetings!
the intercessors did not want to stop, though. they were so encouraged by the first results that Paul Ariga and oth-
ers decided to aim their sights higher and set a goal of 1 million recorded hours of prayer
for revival in Japan.
In oc- tober 1996, they were able to announce they had reached
1,001,104 hours! by then, they had registered
15,175 prayer warriors and 2,896 fasting prayer warriors. they still did not want to stop. their current prayer plan began by research- ing the
number of square kilometers in Japan—377,750— and aiming for one hour of prayer for each square kilometer before their
next revival meeting in tokyo in 1998. they now publish a national toll-free number for new people who desire
to enroll as prayer warriors.
PRAYER QUALITY: VIOLENT PRAYER
by the
power of the holy Spirit we are now invading the territory of the enemy in
overt and unprecedented ways. Warfare, by definition, involves violence. our
violence is not physical, though; it is spiritual violence. “For the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down
strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).
because our major weapon of spiritual warfare is prayer, it could be expected
that the prayers
of the 1990s might be of a more violent quality than much of our previous pray-
ing. this is, in fact, happening. For example, the subtitle of Cindy Jacobs’ influential book possessing
the gates of the enemy (Chosen books) is a training manual for militant
in- tercession. In the 1980s this kind of a book probably would not have become
a bestseller, as it was in the 1990s.
In a recent bulletin of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys,
California, Pastor Jack hayford wrote a column he called “A time
for holy Violence!” A
woman, praying
for her city in front of a large group of Los Angeles pastors and
leaders, had a week prior to that cried out emotionally,“be
violent! be violent!”
hayford reports, the
call was instantly responded to;
understood clearly by the large team of spiritual leaders present who knew
Jesus’ words:“the kingdom of heaven suf- fers violence, and the violent take it
by force” (Matt. 11:12). It’s the central statement in a passage where our Lord
declares the principle: there are no slick or smooth ways to break through unto
spiritual victory-
—a holy violence is necessary!6
urging
his congregation to engage in “holy war in the invisible realm,” hayford goes
on to say:
there is
nothing—again, nothing—more basic or es- sential to victorious prayer than
violent prayer. It’s prayer that breaks the rules of human reserve; tears that
erode our neat composure; strong cries that rise above recitations
of religious words. this praying be- comes powerful, not because it’s vibrant with emo- tion, but because it has broken the bonds
of mere reason alone. It has reason, and the words spoken
do have a coherence born of the mind of God, but the passion that gives them force streams
from his heart!7
this is a
highly significant word, not only for Jack hay- ford’s congregation, but also
for the whole body of Christ.
PROPHETIC PRAYER ACTS
the term “prophetic prayer acts” was new to me when I
first heard it not too long ago. As the
worldwide prayer
movement expands,
though, and as the power behind our
praying increases
tremendously, prophetic prayer acts are
becoming more and more common. often in the prophetic prayer act the violence about which Jack hayford speaks reaches
peaks of intensity.
I include prophetic prayer
acts in a chapter about inno- vative prayer not because prophetic prayer acts
are new— the Scripture is full of them. I include them because (1) they are so different
from the ways a large number of us who come from the more traditional streams have been used to praying,
and (2) innovation and creativity seem to be woven into the very fabric of prophetic prayer acts. how- ever,
this does not refer to human innovation or creativity. the word “prophetic” is used partly because the design for any given prayer
act, if it is authentic, comes through reve- lation through two-way
prayer, as I described in Chapter 2. In a
word, it is divine innovation and creativity. to get in tune with the concept of prophetic prayer acts,
we need only to flash back
to our basic knowledge of the old testament. At one point, for example, God
told Jere- miah to
bury his underwear under a rock on the banks of the euphrates river. My
version does not use the term “un- derwear,” but
the Contemporary english Version
calls them “linen shorts,” which needs no
further explanation (see Jer. 13:1
CeV). After a long time, God sent Jeremiah back to dig them up, and they had rotted and been ruined. the les-
son? God said, “In this manner I will ruin the pride of Judah” (Jer. 13:9 CeV).
Isaiah was told to walk around naked as a prophetic act. God
then said,“Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against egypt and ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria
lead away the egyptians…naked
and barefoot, with their buttocks
un- covered” (Isa. 20:3,4). this would seem strange if it had not
come explicitly from God. ezekiel was instructed to shave off his hair and beard at one point and to burn one-third
of the hair, to strike one-third
with a sword, and to scatter one- third to the wind (see ezek. 5:1-4). these acts are innovative and creative, to
say the least. but, again, it is god’s
innova- tion and creativity. our role is simply to hear and to obey.
HEARING AND OBEYING
Steve
hawthorne and Graham Kendrick say,“Prophetic actions are commonplace in
Scripture. People of every gen- eration of faith utilized gesture and
demonstrative action. God rolled back the red Sea, but he put a rod in Moses’
hand as a bridge to heaven’s power.”8
they then
remind us of Joshua taking Jericho by marching around the city seven
times, and they comment,“the parade was not designed to be a war dance to
intimidate enemies or psych up the war- riors. the marches, the
shouts, the trumpets were in fact demonstrative
prayers, enacted statements of faith.”9
Nehemiah was facing a serious rash of usury among his people.
he had made them promise to return goods to their victims that they should never have taken. then he said,“I shook out the fold of my garment and said, ‘So may God shake
out each man from his house, and from his properly, who does not perform this promise’” (Neh. 5:13).
Kjell Sjoberg, the head of the Spiritual Warfare
Network in Sweden, was on a prayer journey to budapest,
hungary, when God led him to
review Nehemiah’s prophetic act. they had
already discerned
that the
territorial spirit op-
posing the Kingdom of God was a spirit of
slavery.
here is
how Sjoberg tells it, When we came against the spirit of slavery and
pro- claimed freedom in budapest,
we all stood and shook our jackets and clothes as
a prophetic act. May the
Lord shake up those who do not release
their broth- ers, just as we are shaking our jackets! We shook them
violently under the power of the holy Spirit.10
once
again, that word “violence” surfaces. Dutch
Sheets gives us an excellent definition of a prophetic act:“Prophetic action or declaration is something
said or done in the natural realm at the direction of God that prepares the way for him to move in the
spiritual realm, which then
consequently effects change in the natu- ral realm.” he then rephrases it: “God says to do or say something. We obey. our
words or actions impact the heav- enly
realm, which then impacts the natural realm.”11
ELISHA’S SALT
the water in Jericho
was bad. elisha had just received the prophetic mantle from elijah. undoubtedly the elders
of Jericho had certain doubts about whether elisha could
fill the shoes of elijah. So they came to him with the prob- lem
of the bad water. elisha sensed that the time had ar-
rived for a public prophetic act. he said,“bring
me a new bowl, and put salt in it” (2 Kings 2:20). When they did, el-
isha went to the source of the water and threw the salt into it. he said to the elders,“thus says the Lord:‘I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barren-
ness’” (v. 21). that
is exactly
what happened and Jericho’s
water was fine after that.
Lars-Goran Gustafson of Sweden was living with his family in a large home
shared by other Christian families. one morning
they turned on the faucet,
and the water came out dark and had a terrible
odor. City officials came
to inspect it and condemned
the water, shutting off the water main between the well and the house. the families had no idea what to do except to pray and ask God for a solution. that
evening two of the
residents
of the house went to
church, and the pastor read 2 Kings 2:19-22.
they looked at each other and were amazed to find that each of them, in- dependent of the other, had read exactly the same passage in
their devotions that very morning. they concluded they must be
hearing from God.
So they gathered the group living in the house, read the 2 Kings Scripture and then asked themselves if they had
enough nerve to try to do what elisha did. It was not easy because this was back in the 1980s when few people were talking about bold prayers and prophetic acts. they prayed and asked each other if they could have faith equal to that of elisha. one of
them
said,“Faith is
to act on the Word of God and do what it says. So let’s go over the passage again. First,
the prophet asked for a new bowl.”12
It so happened that one of the women had just received a gift of two new bowls, so they put salt in one of them,
formed a circle around the well
house in the backyard, prayed, and threw the salt into
the well. When they went back to the house, the water came out of the faucet
crystal clear. After four days of testing, the puzzled city officials presented
a document to them, which said they now had the best water
in the community!
THIRTY SACKS OF RICE
ravikumar
Kurapati, an Indian evangelist, was in trou- ble. he had gone to a village to
plant a new church and one of his first converts was a hindu farmer. As the
season’s rice crop grew, the new believer’s rice turned out to be the worst in town, full of weeds and wilting plants. he was
becoming the butt of jokes, and at one point he wondered whether he
should have given his life to Jesus.
he went to his pastor for prayer.
Kurapati encouraged him through the Word of God.
by the next morning,
Kurapati had heard from God. he says,“the next day I went with him to his field where almost all the villagers were watching me. I took a bucket of fresh water and prayed.then I asked the farmer to sprinkle it over his crops.”13 When harvest time came, the amazed farmer
reaped no fewer than 30 bags of rice from his field, much more than a plot that size should ever have produced
in the best
of conditions. the
villagers’ lives
were then opened to
the Gospel, and a strong church has since been planted. this is not magic. Salt in water or water over rice crops
has
no intrinsic power.
Prophetic acts do not coerce God to do something we decide he should do.
An authentic prophetic
act is not the seed for developing a new formula. Steve
hawthorne and Graham Kendrick say, recipes for vaporizing evil too easily become magic formulas
devoid of the power of the person of Jesus.
Satan is always as ready to enchant us with our sup- posed power as we are to believe that our actions co- erce the very heavens
into compliance. A good rule of thumb
is to assume that most prophetic actions are intended for one
time use.14
this is good advice.
HEAVENLY SEEDS IN A BULGARIAN PARK
Dick eastman of every home for Christ knew about and was practicing innovative
forms of prayer long before many of us could spell “prophetic acts,” so to speak. back in the days before
the fall of the iron curtain, he had taken a prayer journey team to Sofia, bulgaria. bulgaria’s
ruthless dictator, todor zhivkov, had been in power longer than any
Communist dictator since Stalin. As several prayer groups, mostly youth, began to prayerwalk Sofia’s
central park, Wes Wilson, then
a vice president of every home
for Christ, sensed that he heard the Lord telling him to take his group to a certain clearing to do a prophetic act.
the more they prayed, the bolder they became. Wes led each person in his group to dig a small hole in the dirt as if preparing to plant a seed. then they all reached up toward
heaven as if they were grasping a heavenly seed, and they
symbolically planted the invisible
seeds into the ground. by that time the holy Spirit had come among them powerfully, and many were weeping. they concluded by spending time
praising God. emboldened beyond his usual demeanor, Wes prophesied aloud: “Someday I believe a revolution over- throwing Communism will come to bulgaria, and I believe it will begin right here on this very spot.” he then added:“I
also believe that someday I’ll read the answer to this prayer
on the front page of the Los angeles times.”15
Sure enough. More than a year later the November 13, 1989, issue of the Los angeles times carried the headline,
“bulgarians Greet Change With Caution, Suspicion.” the
story
told how the revolution
in bulgaria had begun when a
table was set up in a clearing in Sofia’s
central park so that opponents of the government could sign a petition.
Dick eastman comments,“the initial group of signers was no
more than
the size of our team of
intercessors. but that
number would soon grow into hundreds and then thou- sands. the bulgarian revolution had begun! And, as the ar-
ticle
explained, it all started in a clearing in Sofia’s central
park. I think some of our youthful intercessors might rec-
ognize that clearing!”16
WHAT REALLY CHANGED NEPAL?
In the
last chapter, I described the radical changes that came over the spiritual
atmosphere of the himalayan hindu kingdom of Nepal in the 1990s. recent events
in Nepal are incredible faith builders. If it can happen there, it can hap- pen
virtually anywhere.
What really changed Nepal?
the groundwork for the
changes was laid in previous
years, when Nepal was a
tightly-closed nation and where
only the bravest of the
missionaries would venture.
the social workers of the
united Mission to Nepal created positive attitudes toward Christians, although
they were not allowed to share the Gospel. the bible translators paid a price to bring the Word of God into
Nepal. early converts were willing to risk imprison- ment or their lives for
the Gospel. Although not on today’s massive scale, believers in many other
parts of the world were praying fervently for a breakthrough in Nepal.
one
person who had prayed several days a week for Nepal for many years was roger
Mitchell of Great britain, the head of the Spiritual Warfare Network for
Northern eu- rope. he had come to faith in Christ as a 16-year-old through
Isaiah 55:6: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is
near.”
roger’s
conversion was of the more radical, life-changing kind, and in the early days of his new faith, Isaiah 55 would naturally
be a focal point for seeking
the Lord’s direction through the Scriptures.therefore, roger read,“For you shall
go out with joy, and be led out with peace;
the mountains and the
hills shall break forth into singing before you” (Isa. 55:12). God impressed
him so strongly and so personally through
these words that roger acquired an atlas
to find out where the highest mountains in the world
were located.When he found
they were the himalayan Mountains in Nepal, he was ready to dedicate his life as a missionary to Nepal.
Nepal was
closed to missionaries in those days; there- fore, the actual missionary call
never materialized. Since that time, however, roger Mitchell never faltered as
a con- stant prayer warrior for Nepal. by 1990, he had become a full-time leader in the dynamic Icthus apostolic network led by roger Forster. once a year, Icthus
planned a large in- ternational conference in which they sought God, prayed, and strategized their
worldwide outreach. Icthus is one of those groups that understood spiritual mapping, strategic-
level spiritual warfare,
violent prayer, and prophetic
acts for years before it caught on in the rest of the body of
Christ. therefore, doing
a prophetic act in their annual interna-
tional conference was nothing out of the ordinary.
“FALL FROM THE CHAIR WHEN THE STRONG-
HOLD IS BROKEN!”
At one point, God moved the Icthus group to tape
a map of Nepal onto the floor. one of
the Nepali friends of Icthus had recently been
imprisoned for his faith, and that had prompted
the special prayer concentration on
Nepal. As a prophetic act, they placed
a chair on the map, and roger, recognized as carrying an extraordinary burden for Nepal,
was asked to stand on the chair. the
kind of violent
inter- cession Jack hayford advocates then began in earnest. After a
time of
fervent prayer, one of the
prophetic intercessors said,“roger, you
are now representing the demonic strong- hold
of darkness over Nepal. We
are going to call on the Lord to break that stronghold that has been there for cen-
turies. When it is broken we will
know
it, and you will then fall off the chair.”
they began to pray more
aggressively
than before. the Lord
instructed one of them to read
Isaiah 49:7: “the re-
deemer of Israel, their holy one, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of
rulers: ‘Kings shall see and arise, princes shall also worship.’”
the
“princes” were taken by the group to signify the ter- ritorial spirits that had
maintained Nepal in spiritual cap- tivity. the intercessors
took authority over them in the name of Jesus
Christ and through his blood shed on the cross, telling them they were no
longer going to rule over Nepal. the release by the holy Spirit eventually
came, and roger Mitchell fell from the chair to the floor and laid there as if
dead for a time. the prophetic act had been completed as God had indicated.
that
very weekend, the newspapers carried the head-
lines that the king of Nepal had agreed to change the con- stitution, to allow
more freedom for the Christians, and to release those who had been imprisoned
for their faith in Christ! Nepal has never been the same since. As I men-
tioned before, reports at this writing reveal that 3,000 Christian churches
have been planted in Nepal, at least an equal number of every home for Christ
“Christ Groups” have started, and possibly 300,000 people are believers. Nepal
is now beginning to send missionaries to the equally- closed neighboring
nations of bhutan and tibet.
Was it a
mere coincidence that the Icthus group did a prophetic act just days before the
change was announced in the media? Skeptics may say yes. those who understand the
power prayer can have on the invisible world, however, will
agree
that it was no coincidence. Prayers in england played a part in pushing back
the territorial spirits over Nepal.
THE LAST DROP IN THE BOWL
remember the golden bowls of revelation 5? No Icthus leader would ever claim that their prayers were the only ones that filled the bowl representing
Nepal. they know, and we know, that God had also been leading untold num- bers of other believers on virtually every continent
to pray fervently for Nepal, and the incense of their prayers through the years kept filling and filling and filling the bowl. It also could
well be that the prophetic act in england provided
the final drops that then completely
filled the Nepal bowl. If so, this is the point, as Dutch Sheets would say, when God knows that enough prayer has accumulated
to get the job done. then, “he releases
power.
he takes the bowl and
mixes
it with fire from the altar.”17 (See revelation 8:5.)
God’s fire opened Nepal for a massive advance of the Kingdom of God. that will continue to happen more
and more as God’s people grow
in their understanding and ap- plication of
the meaning of the title of this book: praying with power.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS 269
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
have you personally noticed any special prayer activity among children? have you heard reports from others?
Fasting seems to be more popular among Christians
than it has been in the
past.
What difference do you think
this will make?
270 PRAYING
WITH POWER
Prophetic prayer acts, whether in bible days or today, can seem strange. Why would people do such odd things?
Which chapter in
this book was most meaningful to you? explain why.
(Note By Blogger: Due to the length of the book which this content is from I have broken it up into a short series of blog posts.)
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