It is a joy for me to be able to be with you in a more local way, as a family here. I know there are others from other parts still around, but it is a joy to be able to share a little bit more with you all.
I would like to turn you to the First Letter of the Apostle Paul to Timothy. I want to read from 1 Timothy 1:18.
This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which led the way to thee, that by them thou mayest war the good warfare;
holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith:
of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.
I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men;
for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity.
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Then, in the Old Testament, turn to Psalm 18, verse 34.
He teacheth my hands to war;
So that mine arms do bend a bow of brass.
And then Psalm 144:1:
Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
Who teacheth my hands to war,
And my fingers to fight.
Shall we bow in a further word of prayer?
Lord, we have already asked that You will be with us in this, and we just want by faith to stand in that anointing which You have provided. Will You make what is said clear to every one of us? By Your Spirit, in some way, deposit something of Yourself in our hearts that will express itself in real prayer and intercession in the days to come. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
As always, the most helpful way we could take this little opportunity to say something more about spiritual warfare is to take up one of the points that I made in the course of the conference just completed, when I talked about how to use the weapons of our warfare.
I did not feel that we had enough time, and in many ways, in a large gathering, it is not always so easy to deal specifically with the weapons of our warfare.
It is very interesting to me that the Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, who was by nature somewhat timid and gentle, said to him, “There were prophecies that led the way to you.” We do not know what those prophecies were, but there must have been something, I suggest, about Timothy being a good soldier of the Lord Jesus—something about being in the front of the fight and leading God’s people into the fight.
In our army, we have a tradition which goes back to Joshua: all those who are officers should lead their men. We do not have officers who remain behind the battle, directing things from a great distance. We have officers who lead the men into the war.
The famous cry of the army is, “Follow me.” In Hebrew, it is the famous cry of the army. Every fellow who has done any service in the army knows this word of his officer: “Follow me.”
Whereas the British army always said, “Forward,” and then they went forward while the officer stayed back. But in our tradition, it is the officer who must lead the way.
Now, this is a very interesting thing to me, because the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, “These prophecies that led the way to you—by these, war the good warfare.” In other words, there must have been something the Lord said concerning Timothy—concerning his ministry, his contribution, and his leadership.
The Apostle Paul reminds him, “Remember what was said by the Spirit of God through the lips of certain brethren, and war the good warfare.” He says, “Holding faith and a good conscience.”
Then he goes on: “I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high place,” and so on.
What an interesting word this is: the apostle saw this whole matter of prayer, intercession, and being priests in the presence of God in terms of warring the good warfare.
That immediately brings me to this: the psalmist says in Psalm 18 and Psalm 144, “Teach my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” There has to be training, and there has to be experience.
In other words, we need the Holy Spirit to teach us how to war the good warfare. I have said a whole lot of things, and some people could try to slavishly follow certain of those things. It will lead nowhere. In the end, it has to be the Holy Spirit Who teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight.
We have to make ourselves available. We have to see that we are called to this warfare. We have to remember that we are to fight the good fight of faith, and we are to lay hold on life eternal, to which we have been called.
All these things are background to really what I want to say this evening. Our problem in prayer is that most believers are afraid to really, by faith, trust the Lord and go forward.
And that is where we need good leadership. We need brothers who are prepared, under the direction of the Holy Spirit and under the captaincy of the Lord of hosts, to go into these battles and thus help the rest of us, who are a little more nervous, to follow. You understand?
Prayer can never be taught; it has to be caught.
I know for myself, I would never have learned anything about prayer warfare but that I saw brothers and sisters engaged in it. They were engaged in something that was not some fantasy, or some sort of fanciful idea that they had, but they were actually using the Word of God in the heavenlies. And there were results.
That created in me, as a young believer, a hunger to know the Lord in that way.
That is why I believe that prayer is, in the end, something that is an infection you have to catch. You see someone who prays fervently. You see someone who prays effectively. You see someone who prays using the Word of God. You see somebody praying with clarity, and it infects you with a desire to be able to work together with the Lord in the same way.
Do you not think it is interesting that the Lord allows so many situations to develop amongst us which all the teaching in the world does not touch, all the energy in the world and all the goodwill in the world does not touch, and even all the fellowship in the world does not touch?
The only way some of these situations will ever be touched is in the secret place. Powers have to be dislodged. Phantoms have to be blown away. Darkness has to yield before light. It is an area in which you and I have to act, because there is no neutrality in this war.
Now, I understand from my brothers here that dear Fred Flack, that extraordinary servant of God—I have known Fred for so many years; he must be near eighty or more—and his wife, if anyone ever asked me whether I could give an example of overcomers, I would say it is Fred and his wife.
They are unbelievable examples to me of overcomers, and I have known them ever since 1953. What is that? Forty years. It makes me feel old when I even think about it. I have known them for forty years. I have seen the way that they moved, the disappointments they had, the battles they had.
Now, I must not get into this, or time will go. What I just wanted to say was, I understand Fred said, “You need to use the Word of God in prayer.” Am I right? He did say that.
He said, “You need to use the Word of God in prayer. Coming to a prayer meeting without your Bible is like going into battle without a gun.”
I mean, you need your Bible. Furthermore, do not leave it closed. That is like saying, “We are in the battle. I know we are in the battle. I have been called into a battle. We are in a warfare,” and you have your gun, but it is neither loaded nor used.
This time you have got the gun with you, which is a step forward from not even bringing it with you, but you do not use it. So we need to learn how to use the Word of God.
There is no way we can merely be taught this. We have to learn it, each one for ourselves. There is a certain way in which we can learn from others.
Some people use the Word of God, unfortunately, in such a flowery and artificial way that it destroys the prayer meeting. You know that I have often said the prayer meeting is a venue of frustrated creatures.
Everyone gets into it, and they believe somehow they have got to use the Word of God. You sometimes feel like saying, “So-and-so, the Lord knows that. I mean, He does not have to have the whole thing explained to Him.”
It is an altogether different thing to learn how to take hold of some promise, or some statement of God’s Word, and stand on it—especially when others witness to it, come with you, and stand on it together. That is the Word of God.
So we need to learn how to use the Word of God and not to be afraid of it. This is the most blessed thing in a time of prayer: when you hear the rustling of Scripture.
Not someone so bored that they are actually having a little private Bible study somewhere in the meeting, but the Lord is actually turning them to something.
I have found it again and again in battle, in warfare. Suddenly something comes into my heart, and I think, “Now, where is that? Where is that? It is either in Isaiah or it is in Psalm 7,” so I have to turn it up to find it.
When I have found it and I read it, the Holy Spirit still witnesses to me, “That is it. I am going to use that. That is the sword of the Spirit in this situation.”
So we need to learn how to use the Word of God. Actually, it is very interesting that in the Ephesian letter there is no other weapon.
There is actually no other weapon mentioned other than this: the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, with all prayer, praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.
It seems to me that you and I need to learn how to use the Word of God in situations. The Word of God can be used in many ways. We may be praying for a particular situation concerning the church of God. I will give you a few examples. I will not go into any personal examples; I will just try to illustrate this.
Supposing we have a real onslaught on the whole testimony of the church. Let us say it is division. Let us say it is faction. Let us say some gross immorality has come, or something like that, and we are conscious that the name of the Lord is going to be mud in this area. We do not know what to do.
Has our Lord not said in the Word that He came for the church, that He might present her spotless, without blemish?
There is a statement of God’s Word in an awful situation. The situation looks so unlike what the Lord has come to do that we can take that Word, stand on it, and appeal to the Head of the church, by the Spirit of God, to come into this situation and turn it to good.
Now, do you understand how we are using the Word of God? Here is a statement. I have only used one; there are dozens of others we can use. I mean, all through the Word, concerning the church and its function.
Are we concerned that somehow the church is not growing? There are Scriptures about this whole matter. We are told that the church should build itself up in love.
Is there somewhere where only a few people are functioning and the rest are not functioning? Why do we not stand on something the Lord might give us—say, in Ephesians 4—about the whole body, fitly joined together and growing?
You have got a statement of God’s Word, something to stand upon. You understand? That is the sword of the Spirit. That statement of God’s Word is worth ten thousand of yours.
I mean it, no matter what some charismatics say. It is worth ten thousand of yours. If once you have the Word of God, and it is given to you by the Lord, and you can contribute that Word and stand on it, and others witness to it, and others take it up and stand on it, that is worth a whole sermon or two.
There is nothing the enemy can do once people start to use the sword of the Spirit in the place of prayer. A thousand situations will yield.
I could go on to many other things. You see, perhaps our problems in fellowship with one another are phantoms.
A problem with the Anglo-Saxon background is that people are far too reserved, and the enemy knows it. He uses that reserve. I include the Chinese in this Anglo-Saxon background. They are so reserved that the enemy can bring all kinds of things into the air.
And we are so stupid, we believe it. There is actually no foundation for it. It is all phantom. It is all satanic propaganda, and it is beamed out the whole time—which we would expect if we were in a warfare.
We would expect that one of the biggest things Satan will do is propaganda. Do you understand? Somehow or other, he creates phantoms, and these phantoms take root within us, and we actually believe that it is so.
Sometimes all we need to do is establish the truth. Sometimes you take hold of a word that God can give you in this matter. For instance, let me put it this way:
I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Now we have a statement of our Lord that could have been given by the Holy Spirit in a situation. We can take this light and announce together: “The Lord Jesus in our midst is the light of the world. Darkness has no fellowship with this light. Darkness has no place in this light. We will drive it out in the name of the Lord, and we are going to look to the Lord that He will give life in us all and deliver us from vain imaginings.”
Sometimes the enemy blockades something. It is very interesting, this blockading of the Lord.
You can have a tremendous amount of outreach and real evangelistic concern. Some, of course, do not have any, but there are those who have real concern. Yet it does not matter what they do or how much they are engaged in: nothing ever happens.
It is almost as if the enemy laughs and says, “I have blockaded this whole thing. It does not matter what they do; they are not going to get through. I have laid siege to it. It will not get through.”
Sometimes it can be other needs—needs of people to help in various aspects, the children, the youth, or something else. No one comes forward. No one offers themselves. Obviously, the enemy says, “There is a blockade on this. I have placed a blockade on this.”
And we all say, “Oh, why is that? Why is everything so hard?” Then people say, “This is a very strange company. They are well taught, but nobody offers. Nobody offers themselves.”
Then the enemy says, “Yes, of course, because they are all hypocrites.” And so we say, “Ah, yes, that is probably right. All of us are hypocrites. We do not offer ourselves.” But it is actually a blockade. It is a spiritual blockade.
Sometimes the enemy blockades financial provision in a work of the Lord, or something where there is great need to go forward. Then we can fall back on all kinds of things—appeals, manipulation, hints, and a thousand and one other things—instead of taking hold of the Lord that He will somehow open up.
Now, there can be no blockade of the Lord. That is how I have always seen it. If the Lord Jesus is here, how can the enemy blockade Him?
I have been in many times in past years where we have announced together, “There is no way the enemy can blockade this. We break this siege in the name of the Lord. He cannot lay siege to the Lord Jesus. He cannot put any limitation on the Spirit of the Lord.”
Once we take a firm stand and begin to really stand together on that matter, the blockade disappears almost overnight.
Then everybody wonders, “How could it be so? We put up with that for a whole year, two years, and then suddenly, when we all stood together and stood on this Word the Lord gave, the whole thing disappeared overnight.”
It is very hard sometimes for us to really believe that we have an actual enemy who is up to intelligent tactics. But that is precisely what it is.
That is why you and I need to learn how to use the Word of God. If we see some believers who are not growing, do you not think there is something that the Holy Spirit would give us from His Word?
I quoted, in the last town where I spoke, from Philippians 1:6:
Being confident of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Now, if the Lord says He will perform it, do you not think we could stand on that for a life?
How do you think the Apostle Paul prayed for the Galatians when he said, “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you”? Do you think he might have stood on such a word as this? He wrote this himself, but if he had been in our day, surely he would have stood on such a thing.
Do you understand what I am saying? Sometimes some of us older brothers and older sisters, who have a burden for younger ones in the fellowship, could get behind the scenes and stand on this kind of Scripture.
Really, not just ask the Lord, but stand on it. Cut a way through. Declare over this life, or that life, or this family, or that family, that this Word is going to be fulfilled.
What about a church situation which gets more and more impossible, until again we are tempted to throw in the glove? What about taking 1 Corinthians 1:9?
God is faithful, through Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Is that not a marvellous word, especially when you think of the Corinthian situation?
I just throw these open as illustrations of this fact: the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
There were some other things I mentioned in that message concerning the weapons of our warfare. I spoke of worship, declaration, and executive action.
May I take this word first? You all understand prayer, I take it. That is no problem with anyone. You know, it just means pouring out.
Do not be artificial in the way you pray. Just be yourself. Only remember: lift up your voice so we can hear. What is the point of your praying if I cannot hear you? You might as well go home, and I might as well go home.
Here I am sitting somewhere in some corner. How can I say “Amen” to it? It might as well be a tongue; I cannot understand what you are saying.
So, when you are being normal and yourself, remember that we do need to hear you. Lift up your voice.
Do not pray into your hands. Some people are extraordinary. They are so nervous that when they finally get through, they bury their heads in their hands. I cannot hear.
As some of us get older, we get hard of hearing, and it is extremely irritating. Then the enemy tempts us to feel, “Why is this person taking up all this time? I cannot even hear them.”
So remember: we need to hear you. Speak up, but be natural. Do not be artificial. Sometimes you can tell where some people come from by the way they pray.
I used to hear people start off very slowly, and then suddenly they would go off like a propeller aircraft on the end of a runway. You could hear the engines whirring up, and then they were off, and up, and up, and up—and then suddenly it was all over.
It is a Pentecostal way of praying—a certain Pentecostal way of praying. I am not saying anything against them; I am just saying that I could tell immediately, “Oh, so-and-so is from such-and-such a group amongst the Pentecostals.”
Then I used to hear this kind of praying: “We praise You, Lord. You will hear us.” One of my brothers said you could write a letter between each word.
Now, our brother, Mr. Sparks, prayed like that, but it was totally normal and natural to him. A whole lot of people decided that was the natural way to pray.
So then you had all these people who were humming and hawing and very slow, when actually they were very volatile people. It became artificial. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
Do not copy anybody. Only copy their faith. Copy their following of the Lord Jesus. Be yourself, but speak up so that we can hear.
Remember, prayer is pouring out. Now, you can pour out your heart. Sometimes, in one sense—I may put it very badly—it is a hit-and-miss affair, prayer, because you are pouring out your heart.
You should always remember what C. T. Studd said in this connection: “Why ask the Lord for an egg if you can ask for an elephant?”
In other words, speak, and if the Lord says no, you will get something. This was C. T. Studd’s way of approaching prayer: pour out your heart.
Amy Carmichael said the Lord has three ways of dealing with prayer, but He always deals with it in one of three ways: He either says yes, He says no, or He says wait.
Now this is prayer. This is pouring out. Let it be fervent. Do not be afraid of fervour.
Do not get emotional. I do not know what it is about some folks. They feel that as soon as they start to pray, they have to start weeping—a weepy kind of thing.
The Lord is not taken in by that kind of thing. If you are going to weep, weep. Have a good weep. The Lord will see your heart, and He will take it as prayer, because the Lord has a bottle into which He puts all those tears.
But do not think you can get all emotional as if, by so doing, you are squeezing something out of some Victorian father who really does not want to yield to you. It really reveals insecurity in our relationship with the Lord.
Be normal. Be fervent in prayer.
Now, what is declaration? Declaration is something more.
If you look in Psalm 145, verse 4:
One generation shall laud Thy works to another,
And shall declare Thy mighty acts.
And verse 6:
And men shall speak of the might of Thy terrible acts;
And I will declare Thy greatness.
Now, just think for a moment. You have this all the way through the Psalms. That is only one example. This word is everywhere through the Psalms. It is one of the favourite phrases of the psalmist: “I will declare Your mercy. I will declare Your greatness. I will declare Your mighty acts.”
What does it mean? It certainly does not mean, “I will ask the Lord about Your mighty acts. I will ask the Lord to reveal His greatness.”
What does it mean when you say you declare? It means you announce something. You proclaim something. You declare something. Do you understand?
So, when you make a declaration, you are not asking. It is not hit and miss. You are taking something which is absolutely established and true.
Now, let me explain. Supposing we have a time of prayer and we are facing a very terrible situation. As we pray through, someone gets up—shall I say, I myself am burdened to do so—and I say, “O Lord, I want to declare here: You are absolutely faithful.”
Even if we are faithless, He remaineth faithful.
Here is a declaration. The enemy cannot stand before such a declaration, because he knows it is truth. He is the father of lies. Once truth is declared, he can do nothing about it. The sword of the Spirit.
You could say something like this: “I declare, we declare together, Your throne, O Lord, is for ever and ever.”
You understand? What you have now established in the unseen, all around us, is something that they already know: the throne of God is for ever.
In spite of the fact that they are using every weapon to try to frustrate that throne of God, the fact of the matter is that most of those weapons are used against us to make us feel that somehow or other the throne of God is not ruling in this situation.
The mighty acts of the Lord—think of the mighty acts all around. I will give you a few straight away.
Here is one mighty act of the Lord: the finished work of the Lord Jesus. To declare the finished work of the Lord Jesus is completeness.
Here is another one: the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. That is a thing Satan cannot abide—the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead.
Here is another mighty act: the ascension of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of God, all authority and power in heaven and on earth being placed in His hands.
I could go on and on. We could talk about other mighty acts that He has done in converting us and saving us. It is a mighty act of salvation, do you not think so?
I do not know about you, but I can only say that saving me is an unbelievably mighty act in my eyes. Maybe not in yours, but in my eyes, that someone could have got hold of me and saved me—delivered me from the power of darkness and transferred me into the kingdom of God’s dear Son—I call that a mighty act.
Nobody else could do it. You can go to university and get two or three degrees. It will not get you into the kingdom of God, even if they are theological.
You can do all kinds of things. You can walk around the whole earth, prostrating yourself for every part of it and fingering the rosary at the same time. It will not get you anywhere. It will not get you into the kingdom, of course.
That is a mighty act. To declare a mighty act—this is tremendous.
So I think this question of declaration is important. How do we use the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit? First, we have the Word of God made real to us in a particular situation. Then we also need to learn when is the right time to declare something.
We turn from prayer and request. We turn even from seeking to establish something, to declaration.
Actually, declaration is when you turn the key in the lock—either unlocking something or locking something up. That is the point at which it is done so often.
Now, worship and praise are yet another way in which, interestingly, we use the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit.
Why? Because when you worship the Lord, there are no maybes and perhapses about it.
You cannot worship the Lord in this way and say, “O Lord, we come into Your presence. We want to thank You that maybe You have saved us. Maybe one day we shall be in the kingdom of God. Perhaps we shall know Your grace.”
There is no worship in it.
But when you come into the presence of God and you say, “Lord, You have saved us. We who are unworthy sinners, hopeless, unable to save ourselves—by Your grace You have saved us, joined us to Yourself, brought us into Your kingdom, and made us members of Your body”—here is worship.
It is pouring us out. It is all facts. The enemy cannot bear it.
That is why a hymn sung in the right place, or a Scripture sung in the right place in a time of prayer, can bring a release. All of a sudden, you know you have got the victory.
Why? Because it is not just a song. It is something in which we are worshipping the Lord.
Now, worship, as you all know, is much more than praise. Praising the Lord is tremendous. Worship requires your whole being.
What a marvellous thing it is when we learn, in prayer warfare, to turn from request, or turn from actual warfare, to praise and worship. When that happens, again, it is the turning of the key.
Executive action is something which only the Lord can lead. I believe it is a special prerogative of those whom the Lord has called to leadership—that they should be able to learn how to take action.
What is executive action? It is actually taking some step by faith in a matter.
I do not know how to explain that. I told you in the conference about a phrase of Lilias Trotter; she is a perfect example of this.
I remember two dear sisters in Senegal, which is one of the most difficult areas of West Africa—Muslim, ninety-eight-point-something percent Muslim, unbelievably difficult.
I remember these two sisters. One had asthma every night; the other had to pray for her that she would live to see the next day. These two had gone on their own to this place, almost forgotten.
They had a clinic; they were medical workers. All kinds of things began to happen in the clinic, and unbelievably, folk began to find the Lord. Just a few, but they found the Lord.
Then they wanted to have a meeting place, and they asked the government if they could have a meeting place, because they knew they would be turned down unless the Lord somehow worked the miracle.
They got on their knees and got this word from the Lord: that He would do this thing for them. They stood on it together, prayed, worked together, and got permission from the government.
The government wanted to know the exact area. Remember, there is a lot of ground in these open wastes. The grass was up to here, and these two sisters felt, after prayer with these few Senegalese believers, that they should use the soles of their feet and go around and mark out a little piece. That is what they did.
The grass was up to here. Then the one with asthma got lost—or at least, that is what the other one, whose name was Ruth, thought. Ruth was a big, matronly lady, as tall as me.
When she found the other one was no longer with her, she did not know what to do, and she called out to her. She never heard any answer.
After a while, she saw the grass waving as the other one came out. So she yelled at her, and the other one said, “Oh, that is all right. I just have a conviction. We need to take a little more ground than we have.”
So she had forgotten to go round this way and took this here. The government gave them precisely what the other one had walked on.
It is just a little example of executive action. Of course, you could say, “Oh, those crazy women.” They were not. “Trust women to do something like that. They needed a few brothers there to sit on them,” you know.
I mean, there they went. They took this little bit of ground, and this other sister wandered off around there, just like that. So stupid, whatever—but it is interesting. She took something. It was executive action. She actually took something. You understand?
I remember on one occasion the most extraordinary thing in Halford House. We had prayed many times for the market garden at the back of the house, a big old garden which used to belong to the house but had been ceded away.
We prayed, but then nothing happened, and we all forgot about it. Then one day the old brother who owned it called me down. He was an old Derbyshire man, and he said to me, “Lance, I want to have a word with you.”
So I went across to him, and I said, “What is it, Dan?” He said, “Well, I am getting too old now. I want to sell this market garden, and I want you to have it for a ridiculous price.”
I looked at him and said, “How much?” He said, “Twelve thousand pounds.” This is in downtown Richmond; there were quite a few acres there.
I looked at him and said, “Twelve thousand?” I thought, “Well, we have not got a penny.” I did not tell him that. He said, “Well, you need a few days to think about it, so you can go to the bank and raise a loan.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Dan, we do not raise a loan. We will give it to you.” “Oh,” he said, “okay. Well, how are you going to give it to me?” I said, “Give it to you in cash.” “Cash, is it?”
I thought to myself, “Oh dear, what have I said?” But I said, “Well, you know what I mean.”
That night we had a prayer meeting at Halford House. Everybody was present, and we already owed money on the building of the big room. It was near completion, and we knew that we owed something on it.
I thought to myself, “There is no point raising this in the fellowship, because a whole lot of people will say, ‘This is wrong. We have got to settle the other debt. We have not got any money. We must settle the other first. We cannot buy that piece of ground up there for twelve thousand pounds.’”
To my great amazement, everyone went to prayer. Everyone asked the Lord, “Show us what it means.” When we had finished, I said, “What do you all feel?” There was a unanimous feeling throughout: “We take it.”
I was so surprised that everybody felt that way. I said, “You do realise we have no money, and we have got to pay the other debt first.” “Yes,” everybody said.
Then one dear old sister said—she regretted it so much afterwards, but she could not help it. She put into words what many Christians feel. She said, “Well, let us trust the Lord first, and if He does not provide, we will raise a loan.”
So I said to my dear sister, “That is not the way we operate. We either trust the Lord, and He does good, or He does not.”
Then we asked everybody, “Please, will you all keep your mouths shut? If this gets out, this piece of ground is worth an enormous amount of money—four, five, six times this sum. Please, you must all promise not to phone anybody, not to write to anybody, not to tell anybody about this matter. It is only for prayer.”
The next morning, a dear sister phoned me from about a hundred miles away. She said, “I want to talk with you about the market garden.”
So I said, “How do you know about the market garden?” She mentioned another sister. I said, “That sister should be ashamed of herself. We have all sworn ourselves to secrecy. None of us are going to speak about this matter, and I am very surprised that she has broken the promise she made along with the rest of us.”
“No,” said this sister. “I had a dream in the night. I saw a house and a garden. I had a funny feeling, because something blotted the house out, that it was to do with the garden.”
“Then I woke up, and the Lord clearly said to me, ‘Do not buy the house. Buy the garden—the market garden.’”
She had been phoning all over the south of England to find somebody with a market garden. When she found someone, she said, “Oh, Lance must have told you about it.” The person said, “No, he has not said a word.” “Oh,” said this sister, “I cannot say anything. You had better phone him.”
The amazing thing is that we had twelve thousand pounds in cash within eight hours. By the end of that day, in our hands was twelve thousand pounds in cash to pay for that market garden. Extraordinary.
It was executive action. In some strange way, all that prayer warfare of years before, which we had forgotten and which had all died down, came to a point when I said to Dan, “Oh yes, we will pay for it.”
I must tell you one other thing. After I said to him, “We will give it to you in cash,” I went back into the study alone. I never told anybody, and I got on my knees because I was so dazed at what I had said. I thought, “Now we are in the soup. Where in the world is this kind of money going to come from?”
I got on my knees and said, “Oh Lord, please deliver me from this thing. If I have made a foolish mistake, help me just to go and tell Dan.”
Quite—not in an audible voice, but in my spirit—the Lord said, “You shall have it.”
Still, we had the battle in the company to get over, and the Lord made them one. You see, there is something about executive action when your lips express something. Do you understand? Even though we are very frail and poor people, this is what we mean by turning the key in the lock.
So now, these ways in which the Lord leads us in prayer in these matters—may the Lord help you.
I have a feeling the Lord is allowing all kinds of situations with His children. We are moving rapidly into the last phase of world history. How near we are to the Lord’s coming, we do not know.
But one thing is very clear: in the atmosphere there is an enormous increase of spiritual activity—demonic activity. Some are more worn out now than they have ever been before. They feel a kind of antagonism in the very air.
You and I are going to have to learn how to deal with things in prayer.
There may come a day when we will not be able to preach outside the walls. We may not be able to fulfil any form of outreach. Even teaching—we may not even be able to publish.
Prayer cannot stop us.
If we learn how to pray, we have a weapon in our hands that will enable the saints of God to go right through to the coming of the Lord Jesus and to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
May the Lord help us in this. That is my prayer, and I hope that these few words will help you.
It is never good to talk about prayer before we are going to pray, because it tends to make us all feel a bit self-conscious. But the fact of the matter is that we have many situations developing, and I believe the Lord is in it.
He is actually allowing situations to develop that can only be touched by prayer.
May the Lord teach us how to touch those things together, with all our weakness—how to touch them for the sake of our Lord Jesus.