Please turn first to Ephesians 6, beginning at verse 10.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,
and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,
for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.—Ephesians 6:10-20
Then turn to 2 Corinthians 10, from verse 3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh
(for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.—2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Now turn to Daniel. We shall read from two or three chapters that all concern one particular period in Daniel’s life.
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,
in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made confession.—Daniel 9:1-4
And while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;
yea, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
And he instructed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee wisdom and understanding.
At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment went forth, and I am come to tell thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision.—Daniel 9:20-23
And, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.
And he said unto me, O Daniel, thou man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright; for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, and to humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard: and I am come for thy words’ sake.
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.—Daniel 10:10-13
Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I am come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I go forth, lo, the prince of Greece shall come.
But I will tell thee that which is inscribed in the writing of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me against these, but Michael your prince.—Daniel 10:20-21
I do not think there is any subject of greater strategic importance for the church in the days in which we live than prayer warfare. One of the tragedies that has befallen the work of God worldwide is that there are so few people who know anything about it.
If prayer warfare is understood to some extent on the individual level, you have to travel a long, long way to find a company of God’s children who understand something about corporate prayer warfare. Yet this is the strategic calling of the church for our time here on earth.
I am conscious this evening that we have not much time to expand or go deeply into this matter. I want to leave you with certain seed thoughts that I trust the Holy Spirit will bring to germination in your hearts.
Most prayer meetings in fellowships or families throughout the world are, I hope you understand what I mean, more a religious exercise than God-given prayer.
There is a kind of idea among the people of God that we ought to pray. It is our duty to pray. Therefore, we must come together. If there is a prayer meeting, even when we absent ourselves from it three times out of four, we have a little conscience about it. There is a sense that it is our duty to be there in prayer.
But very few believers understand the call to prayer. After all, why do we not simply pray individually? What is the real value of corporate prayer?
If God hears prayer, and if prayer is only petition and request, why in the world do we not stay at home and pray? Why not have a brother announce on Sunday the matters needing prayer—the needs, the problems among us, and the areas requiring divine illumination—and then have everyone pray during the week in quiet times at home?
Why are we called together to pray? What is the nature of corporate prayer?
I do not think anyone will understand prayer warfare without understanding one simple but profound basic fact.
That fact is this: the world in which we live is essentially and substantially a spiritual world.
Let me say it again. It is so simple—so kindergarten—that it hardly needs saying, and yet it has to be said. It is because we lack understanding of this simple fact that we do not understand what prayer is all about.
This seemingly physical world in which you and I live—a world of time, a world in which we can feel, hear, and taste—is essentially and substantially a spiritual world.
Many believers do not grasp this. They believe this is a physical world and that one day we are going to a spiritual world. According to the prevalent idea among Christians, we are going to be pickled in ether for the rest of eternity—some kind of bodiless, and to some extent soulless, spiritual condition, floating forever in ether.
The idea is that this world is substantially and essentially only physical. It is true that the Bible says, “First the natural, then the spiritual.” It is true that we are in a created world. But from the beginning there have been things visible and things invisible in this world.
There have been thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, world-rulers of darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. These are not flesh and blood. This hierarchy of evil has no bodily existence; they are spiritual beings. You cannot see them with these eyes, touch them with these hands, or grasp them through the senses.
Yet, according to the Apostle Paul, they are the reality that the church confronts.
Some may say, “Of course, you mean this in the New Testament. In the Old Testament it was all physical, was it not?” No, not at all. It never has been.
The one who hardened Pharaoh was Satan. The real secret history behind the whole exodus of God’s people from Egypt was to do with the spiritual world. Did anyone see the angel of death pass through Egypt and strike the firstborn? Yet that was the final stroke that brought about the exodus.
We could go on with one example after another, but what I want to explain very simply is this: we are living in an essentially and substantially spiritual world.
If we are living in such a world, we need spiritual weapons if we are to see the kingdom of God established, the church built up, and living stones quarried out of the everlasting rock. We, as the church of God, must understand that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. They do not belong to the things of time and sense; they are spiritual weapons.
These weapons are mighty before God. In the Greek, this little phrase in 2 Corinthians 10 is very interesting. Literally, it is that the weapons of our warfare are mighty before—or in the presence of—God, to the casting down of strongholds.
In other words, our spiritual weapons are effective and operative only in the presence of God.
This is exactly like Paul’s statement: “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” This does not mean merely that the whole Bible is authorized by the Holy Spirit, or simply that the Holy Spirit is the source of the inspiration of the Word of God, so that it is infallible and inspired. It means more than that.
The Holy Spirit must take the Word and apply it to a given situation. You cannot simply take any Scripture willy-nilly and push it into fulfilment in a situation. The Holy Spirit must take a Word which He Himself inspired and almost reinspire it to us, so that it lives in a given situation.
Then that Word becomes the sword of the Holy Spirit in the hands of the people of God for accomplishing the purpose and will of God in a given locality or situation.
When you go back into the Old Testament, you find this man Daniel. People sometimes tell me they are too busy for prayer. I will not say this of this particular company, but in many companies of God’s children I visit, the most responsible leaders are never in the prayer meeting. They are too busy.
They are businessmen or professional men, too busy for the prayer meeting. In some traditional institutional churches, you are fortunate if you find two out of ten deacons or elders at the prayer meeting. The excuse is that everyone is too busy, including the pastor.
What he means is that he leaves it to some of the old ladies. Evidently, they have all the time on their hands. It is the most incredible attitude.
I once addressed a conference of ministers from a certain denomination in this country. They asked me to speak on prayer warfare, and afterwards there was a discussion. It was one of the most revealing discussions I have ever seen. This was a fundamentalist denomination.
One of their leading men, from a very powerful congregation in Florida, summed up their conclusions. He stood and said, “I think it is a good thing in the routine of the church to have a prayer meeting. It is good for our congregations to be allowed to let off steam.”
That, evidently, was the alpha and omega of the prayer life of the church: let them come to a prayer meeting, let them let off steam, and then they will be easier to manipulate and lead because they have got things off their chests.
The idea was that God does not hear prayer; prayer is merely some kind of hot wind in the ear. But if people get things off their chests in a psychological or psychiatric way, they are better for it, and then everyone is happier. Where are you going to get with such a spirit?
Daniel was not merely a eunuch in the civil service of one of the most powerful empires the world has ever known. He rose to become one of the committee of three, the executive committee of three. Finally, he became president under the emperor of the whole empire.
There was no man busier than Daniel, nor anyone with a greater legitimate excuse for not praying. This was not an age of thousands of computers and clerks doing the work. These were autocratic days, days of absolute monarchy, when the word of the emperor or king was a matter of life and death.
Although the emperor finally had to speak the decree, it was Daniel who had to do all the work. Think of the amount of material on that man’s desk. The empire stretched from India to Europe, and from Ethiopia to Russia.
This one child of God, raised to the highest position of authority and power in a heathen empire, had to sort out the pros and cons of every decision the emperor was to make. We believe he finally became the man who worded many of the decrees.
One wrong word might have cost him his head. If there was anyone who could have said, “I am not the person to pray. Others should pray. I am too busy,” it was Daniel.
He might have said, “God has raised me to this position, and there is no doubt about that. Furthermore, I am in the place where God can use me to answer the prayers of His children. I will not pray; let them pray.”
But not Daniel. Daniel was the man to whom God revealed that the seventy years spoken of by Jeremiah were about to be completed. Then the burden of prayer came into Daniel’s ministry.
How he accomplished this ministry of prayer in such a busy life, we shall never know. It made him ill at times. Scripture says that he was sick for a number of days, so the desk work had to wait. But Daniel considered this matter a priority.
When Daniel began to pray into being something which God had already predicted would come to pass—note this carefully—the whole unseen world went into motion.
It was as though this one man, in his prayer ministry, set in motion a whole spiritual world that nobody could see—not even Daniel.
Only when Gabriel came to him did he understand. Gabriel said, in effect, “Daniel, I got here at last. You are greatly beloved in heaven. From the moment you began to pray, you had the answer to your petitions. But when I was sent to speak with you, I came into conflict with the prince of Persia.”
The prince of Persia and the prince of Greece were not physical princes of flesh and blood. They were invisible principalities. This makes us realize that every superpower has somewhere a principality, every ideology has somewhere a world-ruler of darkness, and every political movement has behind it some spiritual power.
Before the Babylonian Empire disappeared and the Persian Empire took its place, something had to happen in the unseen realm between principalities. When the Greek era was to take over from the Persian era, again something had to happen in the unseen.
Daniel’s prayer somehow set these things in motion. God’s purpose for His chosen people was summed up in Michael, the archangel especially appointed by God to watch over the interests of Israel.
We have only the slightest indication of this enormous conflict. It is like a little window suddenly opened. God does not draw aside the whole curtain and show us everything in detail. But because of Daniel’s prayer ministry, the curtain is drawn aside enough for us to see tremendous movements in the unseen—principalities coming and going, conflicts for sovereignty and authority.
You may say, “What does it all mean?” Honestly, I cannot tell you. Nor do I think we are meant to know all the details.
But I know this: as Daniel occupied a place in the old dispensation, so the church in the new dispensation occupies a place in the heavenlies, in union with God in Christ.
The church is meant to see that the kingdom of God comes in any given situation and that the will of God is done, as it is in heaven, so on earth.
There is no place for some kind of Islamic fatalism: “The Lord is in charge of everything, and at such-and-such a point in His sovereignty this will happen, and at another point that will happen. It does not matter what we do; we can simply coast along.”
God calls for the working together with Him of His church.
Bring this right down to your situation in Richmond. You may not be able at present to do much about the principality of Marxism, the world-ruler behind Islam, or the great principality behind sexual or materialistic humanism. But here you are, a company of God’s people in Richmond.
Do you mean to say that the essential thing about this company of God’s children is that we are all physical human beings with physical circumstances? Do we simply meet physically, read the Bible, make a few requests, sing a few hymns, share the Lord’s Table, and assume that everything automatically happens?
Why does Paul end the letter that is generally accepted as the high-water mark of divine revelation concerning the purpose of God with these words? Why does he not say, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and go out and evangelize”? Or, “Be strong in the Lord and have deep Bible studies”? Or, “Be strong in the Lord and have real spiritual fellowship”?
Instead, he says, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles, the deceits, the cunning devices of the devil.”
Do not think for a single moment that you, as a fellowship of God’s people, can simply coast along and that everything will be all right. You may go from conference to conference or from meeting to meeting, but you will discover colossal enemies in the unseen.
Those enemies will work to divide, bring faction, introduce error, encourage superficiality, inhibit, bind, and bring heaviness. Their purpose is to frustrate the purpose of God for Richmond, Virginia.
Unless we know how to stand against the wiles of the devil—which are adjusted and planned for each particular company of God’s children—we shall not withstand in the evil day.
These wiles are not merely general. The church at Ephesus was evidently going to know an evil day. All of us who have had anything to do with the work of God know what these evil days are.
There are times of blessing, multiplication, and deepening spiritual life. Then comes the evil day. For a while, it seems as if we are given over to the enemy and he can do almost anything. Things become hard. Fellowships become strange. We turn inward and argue with one another. Everything appears wrong.
We go on witch hunts. We do not recognize principalities, powers, world-rulers, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Instead, we turn against one another and look for flesh and blood as the problem.
“It is the leadership that is wrong.” “It is brother so-and-so.” “It is sister so-and-so.” “It is the place where we meet, the time of the meeting, the way we handle the children, the young people.” Something is always wrong.
When you travel around the world, you find the same thing happening everywhere. Where there is a marvellous use of God, the same problems arise. Where there is a wonderful children’s work, the same destructive pressures come. It is as though the enemy works one way or another simply to destroy.
Brothers and sisters, this matter is strategic.
If we, as the people of God, do not begin to learn that this divine strategy is meant to equip and empower us to see the will of God done in our area, the kingdom of God come in power among us, and the will of God accomplished among us as in heaven, it will not simply happen. Indeed, what we have may be taken away.
This is not intended to bring a great heaviness upon us, as though the Christian life were war all the time—no joy, no peace, no relaxation, no going into the pastures for a little run in the sun among the flowers.
Some people think, “We are in battle, battle, battle, morning, noon, and night.” They say, “Goodness, are we going to start all this? We have enough pressures already.”
But it is amazing that when the people of God learn to stand in Christ, stand against the wiles of the devil, and withstand in the evil day, the result is joy.
What is the result? Liberty. What is the result? Fullness. What is the result? Multiplication. What is the result? The purpose of God established. What is the result? The kingdom of God coming in power.
Far from being pressured and heavy by warfare, we find that by simply standing together in Christ in the armour of God, we come into joy and fullness.
How often one comes into a heavy meeting because the enemy is sitting on it. Then one responsible brother says, “There is something sitting on this meeting. Let us reject it together in the name of the Lord.” We begin to praise God, and it is gone—gone for good.
The heavens open above us. Why? Because they are open above us. If the enemy can close the heavens above us, he is producing a lie, because in Christ we have an open heaven.
When we resist the wiles of the devil, we discover that what God says becomes fact among us. The fact is established.
It is interesting that this last portion of Ephesians is so often taken personally: “You, beloved, be strong in the Lord; you take the armour of God personally.” There is nothing wrong with taking it personally, but the passage is not in the singular.
It is “you all”—plural. This church at Ephesus, entrusted with such a tremendous revelation concerning the purpose of God and the nature of the church, was not going to see that revelation come into being merely because it had heard it.
They had to stand together.
When you begin to see this, it brings you to a new place. Some people say that we should not pray for national government or matters within the nation because we are the church and our concern should be only spiritual things and kingdom matters.
But we cannot be more spiritual than the Word of God. The Word of God tells us to pray first of all for kings and all who are in authority. Then it tells us the other things for which we should pray.
This is Paul in his last letters—not at the beginning, when he was young in spiritual experience, but at the end. He tells us what we should pray for, and why: that the gospel may be free and that all people may come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
It is incumbent upon us as the people of God to be the salt in the society in which we are found, halting corruption and maintaining law and order as long as the Lord grants it to us.
We will not let the enemy bring lawlessness and disorder one day, one hour, before that which restrains is taken away. We are going to stand as the church of God for good government, for law and order in our nation, and for freedom to preach the gospel and worship the Lord.
We are going to stand together for the calling out of a people for the name of the Lord Jesus, for the building up of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the purpose of God for the nations, for the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in every nation as a testimony, and for the salvation of the house of Israel.
That really is our call in prayer.
Thank God, He never pitches us into more than we can take. One problem when we speak on this subject is that people immediately decide they must take on the power of Marxism, the Islamic revolution, or some vast global power.
Then we uncover ourselves because we have not reached the point of maturity at which we are able, together, to take on such a matter. But there are local matters, things in our circumstances and fellowship, with which we can begin.
Let me come down to one or two practical matters. How do we pray together?
I do not think the principle of corporate prayer can ever be underlined enough.
The principle of corporate prayer is togetherness. It is so simple. That is the principle of corporate prayer: togetherness.
There is no difference in essential nature between private personal prayer and corporate prayer. The difference is that, in corporate prayer, we are together. That fact changes the context.
If I adopt the same stance and routine as though nobody else were in the room—which is what normally happens in most prayer meetings—I bring heaviness into the whole time.
I may say, “Father, I want to pray for such-and-such a problem. Do this, do that, do the other. There is a family in Los Angeles; bless them and save the wayward boy. There is a missionary in Indonesia. There are dear saints behind the Iron Curtain. There is Mrs. So-and-so, who is ill tonight. Please heal her.”
That may be the kind of prayer I would pray alone. But here I am together with all of you. Did you receive any indication that we were together in that prayer? I do not think you did. You would receive no indication that anyone else was in the room but the Lord and myself.
This is what we do to one another in our corporate prayer times: we shut everybody out. It is “I and You; You and me.”
If that is the case, why do we not send everyone home to pray and cut down the enormous waste of time?
In corporate prayer, someone may begin praying for one matter. Then the Holy Spirit may move in another direction, and we all move together to another matter. We may remain there for a while. Then He may move us again.
Not every matter is settled in one prayer meeting. There are matters the Holy Spirit raises, concerning which we pray, and then He says, “Leave this for now. We will come back to it.” We go on to something else.
On other matters, we know that we have gained victory in that very prayer meeting. It is glorious. We know the Lord has heard us. We have no outward evidence except in our hearts, but we know it is done. Then, in time, we find that it is done.
For even the youngest believer, this becomes a wonderful, nourishing meal that helps them grow in the Lord. In the prayer meeting, you actually see what in the Bible study you only hear.
You suddenly discover that God is at work and that He answers prayer.
This is summed up in Matthew 18:18-20.
Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.—Matthew 18:18-20
This agreement does not mean that you and I decide to agree before we pray, and then twist the arm of God to do something He does not really want to do.
It means that the Holy Spirit agrees us, if I may murder the English language. The Holy Spirit harmonizes us as we are there.
How does He do it? Because the risen Lord Jesus is in our midst by the Holy Spirit. As we pray, we have an identity of burden—or sometimes not an identity but a complementing of burden.
One person prays one thing. Another follows and adds a note. Another adds yet another note. Before long, we begin to see something of the purpose of God in the matter for which we are praying.
That is agreement. It is one of the most exciting things in real prayer warfare. Something is kindled in your heart, and you are waiting for the opportunity to bring it in. Just as you are about to speak, someone else says exactly what you were about to say.
It is amazing.
Some people say, “You only have to pray for one thing once, and it is done.” I do not understand this at all.
I was once in a meeting in Stockholm where some brothers took Stockholm for the Lord and forbade any further prayer. They said, “We have now taken Stockholm. Stockholm is taken.”
But Stockholm went on exactly as it had always gone on. It had no effect upon Stockholm at all. It was presumption, not spiritual direction.
Paul said, “Praying at all seasons in the Spirit.” When he said “in the Spirit,” he meant in the dimension of the Spirit, under the direction of the Spirit, by the inspiration of the Spirit, in the empowering of the Spirit, and with the equipment of the Spirit.
To pray in the Spirit has a tremendously broad meaning.
Every real prayer meeting should be in the Spirit. There should be an anointing upon that time, and everyone who comes must be sensitive to that anointing and learn to sense the Lord’s direction and way through the prayer time.
Someone may ask, “What happens when somebody prays out of line?”
There are a number of natural reactions. One is the reaction of certain leaders who would like to kill the person—I mean, spiritually strangle them. “Why did they have to come in with that? They should have been more in line with the Spirit.”
I suppose that reaction echoes in all our hearts. When we are in real spiritual warfare and feel every bullet is important, someone who fires ammunition in the wrong direction can seem a real nuisance.
Then there is another reaction: “We have lost the way. We are off the path.” So we say, “Flesh got us out of the path; flesh will get us back.” Immediately we say, “As we were praying, Lord…” and a pall of death comes down upon the whole meeting.
We may have got back on the right track, but we did it by the flesh, and death is the result.
Priests were never to touch anything dead. As soon as they touched death, defilement came in. Spiritually, in prayer, it is true: every time we touch a corpse—something we should not be touching—and act in the flesh, death comes in.
But when you have a young believer in your midst who has just found the Lord, who has never prayed before, and who opens their dear mouth and prays the wrong thing at great length, the Lord loves it.
The Lord is far from saying, “Throw it out. Crush them. Discipline them. Have a heavy word with them.” The Lord says, “Was that not lovely?” It is the burbling of a baby.
There need be no sense of death in the meeting. We can move straight on, because that little one will learn in time how to pray.
The problem is sometimes with those who ought to know how to pray and who take us well and truly off the track. Our response may then be, “Let us get back,” but in a fleshly way.
When we have been taken away from the direction of the Spirit, the way back is for all who are responsible to look to God. “Lord, get us back. Get us right back.”
Perhaps the Lord will prompt one person or another to pray, and we are back. A good prayer time is not one that never goes off the rails. A good prayer meeting may sometimes go off the rails and get out of the Lord’s direction, but it comes back into the Lord’s direction.
That is overcoming. There is a peculiar value to the Lord when a prayer time is brought back into the line of God and ends absolutely on course.
Dear children of God, we have to learn these things. There is always a danger in speaking about prayer at a prayer time, because everyone starts to shrivel up and become self-conscious.
We say, “How can we open our mouths and pray now?” If we had been left alone, perhaps we could all have prayed, but after hearing something like this, it may seem difficult.
But we must simply be honest, and we must learn. Prayer warfare is a strategic necessity for the church.
Let me close on this note. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder what the church is for?
One danger in seeing what the church is is that you can stop with the church. Many people do. “I have seen what the church is. It is wonderful, wonderful.”
They stop at the bride and do not go on to the city.
They do not recognize the Lord’s calling for the church. In one sense, the church is a means to an end, if you understand what I mean, because the first word the Lord ever said to human beings was, “Have dominion.”
His first word was not, “Be together.” His first word was, “Have dominion.”
That is the calling of the church: to have dominion.
How do we have dominion? The most powerful expression of dominion is corporate prayer, where we together declare the headship and lordship of the Lord Jesus, and where we declare together in worship and praise what are spiritual and eternal facts.
His dominion is expressed when pressure rests upon us, when heaviness is among us, and when there is a sluggishness about everything.
Brothers and sisters, when we learn this lesson, we can be honest. I go among many groups, and one problem is that people will not face the real problems among them.
We all know there is heaviness among us, but nobody says it because we think we are not meant to have heaviness. Nobody says, “Is it not heavy?”
It is rather like Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the little boy. The king was told he had a wonderful garment, though there was nothing there. They said only the wise could see it, so the king said, “Oh, it is beautiful,” and everybody else said, “Is it not wonderful?”
Then the king went out absolutely naked. A little boy said, “Look, the king is naked,” and everybody suddenly realized that the king was naked.
It is a strange thing that so few of the Lord’s people face facts. We will not say, “There is heaviness among us,” because we feel we are letting the side down. We will not acknowledge the sluggishness or admit that we are not functioning as we should.
We act as if admitting it would make the whole thing collapse. But once you understand the strategic necessity of prayer warfare, you know you are in a battle.
There are times when the enemy injects sluggishness into the body, brings heaviness upon the body, and breathes in lying accusations. These things must be faced together in prayer and thrown out in the name of the Lord until we obtain the victory together and resist the devil, and he flees.
Then we find that we are freer than ever before and functioning more than ever before.
We are in a battle, brothers and sisters. Sometimes I think our prayer meetings are not wrestling matches. It is interesting that the Apostle uses the word “wrestling”: “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood.”
Most prayer meetings I enter seem more like a badminton match: shuttlecock, ping-pong, a little energy, but all very polite.
But wrestling brings you into very close contact with the adversary. It is not polite at all. There are times when the adversary may sit on top of you or twist your arm up your back.
Many times in the fellowship of God’s people, we have had our arm pinned behind our back, our leg nearly pulled off, or some huge heavyweight sitting on top of us.
But when we learn how to stand against the wiles of the devil and withstand in the evil day, we receive the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we get the victory, the power of the enemy is broken in a depth and in a way that brings us into joy, freedom, and fullness.
May the Lord sow these seeds in your hearts. Johannes will help you here and take this a step further in practical matters.
But I want you to know that we are in an essentially and substantially spiritual world. If we are to see the purpose of God fulfilled, we who are saved—and who, by God’s positioning, are in Christ in heavenly places—have a unique position.
We are the only people in the world who are both on earth and in the heavenlies at the same time.
We have a unique position and a unique calling: from our position in Christ and with Christ, to see that the purpose of God is fulfilled and that the kingdom of God is established.
This is our calling.
If this seed thought falls into your heart and, by the Holy Spirit, takes root and germinates, it will bring a whole new conception of prayer and a whole new conception of finding and doing the will of God.
Then we shall discover that even when we need to know what we should do in one matter or another, the principle is basically the same: knowing the Lord’s will together, discerning it together, and taking action.
Thank you.