Question: You mentioned that our prayers are too slow, and a number of people have asked what that means. Are we speaking too slowly or too softly? Is there too much silence between prayers? Is there a need for more people to pray within a lot of time of prayer? Do we need to move on to the next topic quickly? What do you mean?
You also said it has something to do with our passion. Could you elaborate on that? Someone else asked, “How do we go about adding more passion or expression? I feel more than I express, but perhaps because we are in such an Anglo-Saxon environment, it seems embarrassing for us to do so. We do not want to be false or artificial, but how do we get there?”
Well, that is part of my general criticism of our prayer times, with the possible exception of Wednesday evening: they lack passion.
I am not so bothered about the slowness of prayer, or sometimes silence between prayers. But the Word of God says in James 5:16, in the last part of the verse:
The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.
The older version, and the New American Standard, says “the earnest prayer.” The word in Greek is basically the energized prayer of a righteous man.
It is not that your flesh needs to be energized, nor sentimentality or emotion. But there is a place for passion. When a person is desperately in need and someone prays in a very calm manner, I wonder how much they really feel for that person.
Now, we do not want the other extreme, where people dissolve completely into tears and there is no point in them praying because we cannot understand what they are saying through the sniffling. Tears are a good thing. But if you are going to lead in corporate prayer, we need to hear you clearly.
Let me put it another way: we need the fire of God in our prayer ministry. It is as simple as that.
We do not need strange fire or foreign fire. We need the fire of God. We should not be afraid of that kind of fire in our prayer. We do not want the kind of prayer that has to shout at the top of its voice, as if that is passion. Satan is not the least bit afraid of people shouting or making a lot of noise. It does not frighten him at all.
What is needed, it seems to me, is the fire of God. When that fire is ignited by the Holy Spirit, it is infectious. It is not hard to follow someone who has prayed with fire if you are alive to the Spirit, because your spirit is immediately inflamed.
That is what I am talking about when I speak about the anointing. The anointing is the fire of God. Once the anointing is in a time of corporate prayer, you can follow it through because it is spiritually infectious.
Somehow, as that person prays, something in you is set on fire, is ignited. Very often, as someone prays, they almost pray the words you are thinking. This is the surest sign that the Holy Spirit is present in our prayer time, because it is the harmonization which the Holy Spirit alone can give.
It is not that you and I agree to agree, and then twist God’s arm and say, “You have to do it because it is so remarkable that here in this assembly, this fellowship, two or three of us have agreed to agree. So now You have to do it.”
Rather, the Holy Spirit gives rise to that agreement. It is a harmonizing of us.
If I were to put it simply again: it is the fire of God. Do not be afraid of the fire.
When Norman Grubb was dying, one of my closest friends went to see him. I knew Norman very well. He came a lot to Halford, and I came to the Lord through his biography of C. T. Studd, who was another incredibly difficult man. It is funny how the Lord uses difficult men.
But the fire of God was in C. T. Studd. To the very end, when he died, thirty thousand Congolese had come to the Lord—most of them cannibals. It is an incredible story.
When Norman was dying, my friend said to him, “Very soon you are going to see the Lord. What would you say is the main thing that you want us to understand who remain behind?”
Norman thought for a few moments and said, “Never do anything without the fire.”
Did you hear me? Never do anything without the fire.
That, I think, explains Norman Grubb. It explains C. T. Studd, and it explains the whole history of the church. Wherever there has been the fire, the work of God has been fulfilled. When the fire has been quenched, put out, or smothered, everything becomes institutional, routine, and dead.
Question: Could our lack of passion be a lack of vision? Do you sense that we are Spirit-led, praying His prayers and in His anointing, or have we become those who have grown rich at corporate prayer after practicing it for twenty years?
I have a very great respect for what the Lord has done in this fellowship. Every fellowship of God’s people has serious faults, failings, and weaknesses, and this fellowship naturally has some of them.
But I have enormous respect for any group that will meet early in the morning for prayer, or will afflict themselves in a right way—not as a religious exercise—to seek the Lord together in prayer. That is precious in His sight.
It reminds me of the words in Malachi 3:16:
Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another:
And the Lord hearkened, and heard,
And a book of remembrance was written before Him
For them that feared the Lord,
And that thought upon His name.
It is precious to the Lord when people do not just chat with one another, but really pray some things through. Conversation which expresses the burden and concern of our hearts is turned into intercession.
I would not say that you have become rich and have need of nothing. I would not say that is your attitude. But neither would I say necessarily that all the prayer is Spirit-led. Some of it is concern, but whether it is truly of the Spirit is another matter.
This is very important: when there is vision, there is fire; and where there is fire, there is passion.
Therefore, it seems to me tremendously important that we ask the Lord to envision us, especially you younger ones. You come in as a second or third generation. Really, we need to pray that we have no second and third generation, but that everyone is a first generation, all in the original vision and understanding.
A problem with vision is that our clammy hands get on it. Take the church. Almost immediately, our dear, sweet, little spiritual clammy hands get hold of it, and we make it a thing. Anything that does not come within the parameters of the church as we understand it is immediately quenched.
But real vision is broad. When we feel we have to guard the vision, there is something wrong. God is well able to guard the vision that He gives.
I go into places where I have never heard a prayer for an unsaved person. I go into places where I have never heard prayer for the city in which they are found. Apparently that is political. Yet we are specifically told by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul to pray for kings and all who are in authority.
To me, that is a terrible mistake. I wonder whether the vision has already died and we have to protect it.
We are meant to be watchmen. We watch what the Lord is doing, and we watch what the enemy is doing. We are custodians, especially those who are leaders in any assembly of God. We have a divine calling to protect the flock of God.
But we must be very careful that we do not get our clammy hands on something vitally important. It becomes our baby.
One of the most incredible things God did with Abraham was when He said, “Take your son—your only son—and take him to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him.”
Abraham could easily have argued that the whole purpose of God was centered in that child. He could have said, “This is ridiculous. This cannot be the Lord. I have waited all these years for the birth of this son. I had one big mistake with Hagar—which, by the way, is with us to this day.”
But he thought it out and said, “Okay, Lord. If I sacrifice my son, I will receive him in resurrection.”
That is a colossal expression of living faith. I think every now and again God brings those of us who have really seen something to the place where we have to sacrifice what has become our baby. We feel that we have to protect it, guard it, hedge it, and smother it. If we go on like that, we will kill it.
In this matter of vision, there often comes a point in our experience where the very thing God has shown us, and the very thing God has been doing among us, has to be sacrificed to the Lord—not to other people, but to the Lord. Then the Lord gives it back in a new way.
You know the whole story of how the ram was found in the thicket. But this question lies at the root of many of our problems.
How long have you been meeting together? Close to forty years? You older ones have to be terribly careful that you are not becoming spiritually middle-aged. We begin to get a tire around the waist, find it difficult to move, and generally become placid. The fire has gone—that belonged to youth.
Vision has to be kept alive. I could never put enough emphasis on the need to have vision.
You know the word in Proverbs 29:18:
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
That is the old version. My version is: “Where there is no vision, the people go to pieces.”
The Hebrew is very interesting. The word for vision is not merely ecstatic vision—seeing something. I believe in visions; I have had them myself. But more important than seeing an angel or seeing the Lord is having a prophetic revelation.
The word is chazon. It means to have a prophetic understanding. Where there is no prophetic understanding of the purpose of God, the work of God, and the goal of God, people go to pieces.
The word gives the picture of a woman with her hair in a plait. When, at night, she undoes it, it falls out. So you get the idea of perishing: it goes to pieces and perishes.
Where there is no prophetic understanding of the purpose and goal of God, people will, after a certain amount of time, begin to go to pieces. Another way of putting it is that they throw off restraint. They simply go all over the place.
Question: If someone brings up a topic for prayer that I have given no previous consideration to personally, should I expect to be able to enter into corporate prayer on that matter anyway, or should I simply say amen and carry the matter home with me?
That question immediately shows that whoever asked it does not understand what amen means. Amen in Hebrew means simply, “Even so.” You have to be in agreement.
A person should never say amen to something they do not understand. It is not a religious exercise. Amen comes from the Hebrew aman: “I believe; I have faith.”
When someone prays something and you say “Amen,” you are saying, “I have faith for that. I believe that. I am in accord with that. I say yes to that.”
Should you be able to enter into a matter you have not considered before? Yes, absolutely. You may never have given any consideration to it, but if the person praying is alive, you may not fully understand or have fully entered into it, yet you are spiritually alive.
If there is a witness in your spirit, the Holy Spirit may well lead you to agree with that person.
There is an idea about prayer that if someone prays something, that is enough. But everything in the Word of God is established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. That is why it is important in prayer that something may be prayed—sometimes almost the same thing—two or three times.
It reveals that the Holy Spirit is harmonizing people on that matter, which means we have the answer.
If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask,
It shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
There am I in the midst of them.
—Matthew 18:19-20
The moment you have genuine agreement and harmonization, it can go on beyond two or three to a whole camp. You know somehow that you are entering into a burden coming from the right hand of God, from the heart of the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and being expressed on earth through different members of the body.
This is how we know something will be answered.
My experience has been that I have listened to matters I had not considered before, and as we were together in prayer, the Lord opened up the whole matter. Prayer is one of the most incredible things.
I learned far more about nations at intercessor leaders’ conferences in different parts of the world than I could have learned merely from reports. The burden people carried in prayer revealed what lay at the root of their nations’ problems.
I remember two men from Uganda. They shook the place in their prayers—little men, tiny men. When one stood and prayed, it was as if the whole place shook.
That is what I mean by passion. I am not saying you should all pray like that; I am not sure most people could. But when you hear someone praying for their country in that way, somehow you gain an understanding of the root problem within that country.
In prayer, you may never have had any understanding at all, but real understanding can be given to you in the prayer time. You may not understand everything, but you have received something from the Lord.
Question: How do you know when and how to pray through a matter, and how do you know when to stop—when it is done?
That is a very good question. How do you know when to pray through a matter? How do you know when you have touched it and it is completed?
Basically, all of us are learners. We have to learn how to take a matter up, how to pursue it, and then how to know when the Holy Spirit says, “Leave it.”
Sometimes the matter is finished there and then. Other times we are led to pray for it, let it go, and then it comes back again in another prayer meeting. It is prayed for again, and then let go.
I remember an awful old hut next to Halford House. It was illegally set up in the First World War and was a trial to us. It was on our ground, but we could not get the occupants off because they had squatters’ rights. The Red Cross had used it since the Second World War, so one could not take legal action against the Red Cross without everyone being horrified.
It was an eyesore, and we desperately needed the ground. The times we prayed for that hut, I cannot tell you. Nothing ever happened.
Even the head of the Red Cross came. She was a wonderful lady who knew the Lord. She told me, “The Red Cross will never let it go. I can ask them to do so, but they will not let it go.”
Then I went to Israel and have lived in Jerusalem since 1973. Five or six years after I left, the Red Cross approached Halford House and asked, “Would you be interested in purchasing the old hut?”
All those prayers that had gone up over the years were answered. The youngsters used to say, “What are we praying for that old hut for? Nothing ever happens.” In the end, it happened.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit inspires a burden, and you take it up. Then the Holy Spirit says, “Now leave it,” and you leave it.
This is quite different from the soulish idea that, once you bring up a matter, you must pray it right through to a conclusion. Often it does not get prayed through to conclusion. Everybody becomes exhausted, because when your soul gets into it too much, you become exhausted.
I once went to T. Austin-Sparks and told him that I was having trouble in prayer. I was praying for different people and matters connected with the assembly, but I felt totally exhausted.
He said to me, as only Mr. Sparks could, “You are far too much into this matter. It is your soul. You have to let go of this and relax, because the Lord will do it.”
He said, “Other people would tell you to go and play golf or tennis, but I would not dream of telling you to do that. What I will tell you is that you are into this yourself too much. Let go of it, for God is in it.”
And I did.
Do you remember Mary’s Magnificat?
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
—Luke 1:46-47
What began in the spirit came into the soul. The soul has a place; emotion has a place. But spiritual worship begins in the spirit and then comes into the soul.
Do you remember the psalmist?
Be still, my soul.
Who is speaking to whom? His spirit is speaking to his soul.
I have quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with his mother,
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
—Psalm 131:2
Your soul can get into something, cry and cry, become distressed, and exhaust itself. But the spirit must speak to the soul and quieten it.
Question: In corporate prayer, what does it look like to inquire of the Lord about a matter? Is it a time of silence? Is each one inquiring while other prayers are going on, or is it something else?
To inquire of the Lord happens both within the prayer meeting and outside it. When we have a matter that is troubling everyone, we begin to seek the Lord for light on it. What does it mean? How would the Lord have us handle this matter?
There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge has to do with facts, and facts are important. Wisdom is knowing how to handle the facts.
You may have all the facts but not know how to handle them. Unfortunately, people often think that once they have the facts straight, they can simply barge in and do something.
When I was first saved, having never read the Bible, I could not understand why Moses and Aaron were always falling on their faces before the Lord. I thought, “What are those stupid men doing? Why do they keep falling on their faces?”
They were the two men who knew the facts. Why did they not bring out the law and say, “This is what the law says. Now obey”? Instead, they fell on their faces before the Lord again and again. Now I understand: it was the difference between knowledge and wisdom.
The Word of God says:
But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God,
Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not;
And it shall be given him.
—James 1:5
God does not investigate you or hold you up for inspection. If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him if he asks in faith, not wavering.
I had a magnificent standard fuchsia outside my study at Halford House. It stood as high as I did, with one great trunk and a huge mass of small branches. Every May it was loaded with bloom.
One year, all the blooms came on without opening and then fell off in a great mass. Within a week or two, the buds came again, and the same thing happened.
We had two renowned botanists in the fellowship. I asked them independently to look at it. They examined the leaves, bark, and roots, then gave me a lecture on the history of the fuchsia. But when I asked what I should do, they said, “You could do this, or you could do that, or you could do the other.”
Then I remembered Dan Archer, the gardener behind Halford House. He was such a character that he became the basis for the BBC series The Archers. I asked him to come and look at the fuchsia.
He examined it in much the same way, then said, “This fuchsia needs a dose of Epsom salts.”
I laughed and asked him to be serious. Epsom salts, after all, are for inner cleanliness; they are a laxative. But he said, “It is not a joke. Give that bush a spoonful each day for a few days, and within a week or two it will be full of bloom.”
I could not bring myself to do it, because I thought the whole assembly would scream with laughter if they heard I was dosing the fuchsia bush with a laxative. So I got Margaret to do it.
She faithfully gave the bush a tablespoonful of Epsom salts each day. Within a week it began to bloom again, and within two weeks it was full of bud and blooming beautifully. Epsom salts, apparently, contain magnesium.
Why am I telling you this? To point out the difference between knowledge and wisdom. The two botanists had unbelievable knowledge. They could give me the whole history of the bush, but they could not handle the facts. Dan Archer had wisdom. Within a few moments, he told me how to handle them.
When we come to prayer, we need not only the facts; we need wisdom. This is what it means to inquire of the Lord.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
—Psalm 27:4
There are two amazing things here: to behold the beauty of the Lord in worship, and to inquire in His temple for intercession and mediation. The priests and Levites stood between God and the people.
We desperately need to know how to inquire, and we need to expect the Lord to answer.
Sometimes a prayer meeting may need to be a little more organized, like a military operation. We began much as you have begun, but after a while we felt that we needed to bring together the different burdens people had.
Anyone in the fellowship could phone one of three elders and say what they felt should be prayed about. Then, in the meeting, we would say, “There seems to be a burden among several people to pray for the nation. We are wondering whether we should inquire of the Lord as to exactly what we should pray for.”
That gave pointedness and direction.
You cannot intercede until you first know the will of God. Once you know it is the will of God, you can pray effectively.
I remember when I was in Egypt and had received from the Lord that a number of men at RAF headquarters were to be saved. I prayed for them earnestly. Then I got jaundice and was confined to a hospital bed in Fanara for three weeks.
I was deeply depressed, especially because I had expected to speak to those unsaved men in the Mediterranean garrisons.
An old missionary, Mrs. Butler, used to cycle to the hospital every day in the midday sun. Often she would simply sit with me in silence, but it was wonderful fellowship.
One day she said, “You seem more depressed than usual.” I told her, “Mrs. Butler, I do not understand the Lord.”
She said, “Join the club.”
Then she said, “I have questioned the Lord a thousand times. I always find out He is right, but I often do not understand Him.”
I told her that I had prayed for all these fellows and believed the Lord had shown me that they would be saved. I had come down to speak to them, and then I got jaundice. “Why did the Lord allow this?” I asked. “Now they will not come to the Lord.”
She said, “Is that the problem?”
“Yes,” I said. “That is the problem in a nutshell.”
Then she said, “If it is your work to bring them to the Lord, it will fail, and we shall all praise the Lord. But if it is the Holy Spirit’s work, it will happen anyway.”
It was like a huge boulder rolling off my shoulders. I thought, “Of course. What am I doing, shouldering all this as if it depends on me?”
I began to be an ordinary person again. I let go of my intercession for them, apart from telling the Lord that I believed He could do it. When I got back, half of them had been saved.
We need to inquire of the Lord. We know, for example, that the Lord intends to bring the Bride to readiness, at least in a faithful remnant. Why do we have to pray that into being? Because if we do not, everything goes to pieces. It is as if the Lord says, “You understand it, and under My guidance, as My fellow workers, we will do this.”
We know Israel will be saved. Praise the Lord. My great burden is that you may seek the Lord to find out what He will do with the United States.
The answer to the question is simple: you must inquire of the Lord, either before the time of prayer or during it.
Question: In Memphis, we tend to have a more open time, with a little less formal direction. Should we consider changing this in some form or fashion?
I do not think you should change the basic principle of the priesthood of all believers. But leadership is leadership. There should be recognition that there are those among us who are leaders and are anointed of the Lord for that task.
We should be able to trust them to help us, especially in prayer. Otherwise, we can spend a large amount of time floundering around until finally we arrive at where we ought to be. I sometimes wonder whether we could know that at the beginning and start on it straight away.
Question: In a corporate prayer meeting, should a sister ever change the direction of the prayer meeting? If a sister has a sense concerning a situation, should she wait until afterward to speak to a brother, or should she offer the sense she has just as a brother would during the time of prayer?
Well, I do not want to get lynched. But I would say first of all that there is no inequality between brothers and sisters. God created man, male and female created He them. There is total equality between men and women in value and quality.
But there is a difference in function. Not inequality—difference. Men need women, and women need men. That is what the Word of God says. In prayer ministry, we need both, and we need them together.
Should a woman change the direction of prayer? I think it is a question of the spirit in which the sister changes the direction.
If it is a bold, dogmatic attitude—“I am here, you do exactly what I say”—then that is wrong. We all know the kind of lady who is like a tank in the midst of a meeting, and if we do not follow her, we are in trouble.
But if a sister begins to pray along a matter that is a burden to us, and there is an anointing there, and it is clear that the Lord is in it, I have no problem with following that. Praise the Lord.
I am asked everywhere why the Word of God seems so hard on women, especially these days when we have women admirals, women generals, women playing rugby, and women wrestlers. We have a false equality, and naturally it seeps into our whole mentality.
Why do you think Satan went for Eve first? Was she so stupid that he thought she would be easier to deceive? I do not think so. I think he knew that she was the incredibly powerful member of the two. “If I get her, I have got him.”
Satan did not even bother with Adam. He went straight for Eve.
Women have enormous power in this world. If you look at history, you will see it again and again. Therefore, the Word of God warns women: “Be careful.”
I hear people say that Paul was a misogynist, a woman-hater, and all the rest of that absolute tripe. Paul was a champion of women’s rights. What he was afraid of was that women would get out of their right calling and uncover not only themselves but the whole church.
In prayer, I cannot see why a woman led by the Spirit cannot change the tenor of the meeting. If we have come to the end of praying about one matter and a sister begins to pray about another, providing the spirit is right and the anointing is there, I would say, “Praise the Lord.”
The problem is manipulation. Sisters, especially strong sisters, must be very careful not to manipulate brothers or push them, particularly in prayer.
I knew two remarkable women who were tremendous in warfare. They worked with a strong brother named Dennis Clark, and they stood behind him almost as his aides. Their work went throughout Britain.
When Dennis died, another brother without the same strength felt almost haunted by those two women. They had not suddenly become stronger; they were as strong as they had always been. But Dennis was no longer there.
Sometimes people complain about strong women in the church when the real problem is that the men are not strong enough. If the men were where they should be, perhaps the women would function more easily under their government.
I do not see a problem with a sister changing the direction of a prayer meeting. But the spirit in which she does it is extremely important.
Women by nature can be manipulative. A true woman will agree with me. It is a natural quality that belongs to femininity, and it can be used for wrong reasons. That is why the Word warns about teaching and exercising authority.
Yet the history of the church contains extraordinary women: Catherine Booth, Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, and others. What are you going to do—say these women should have kept quiet and never exercised a ministry? Of course not.
If only the men were where they should be, it would be tremendous. And strong sisters must take care that they do not attempt to manipulate brothers behind the scenes under the guise of prayer. May the good Lord help us all and save us.
Question: When is it proper to pray at or directly exercise authority over a situation or obstacle, such as commanding a mountain to be removed and cast into the sea? Should we command the Lord concerning the works of His hands, as in Isaiah 45:11? If both are appropriate, should we distinguish between these types of prayer, or simply follow the leading of the Holy Spirit?
You all have authority up to the point of what has been committed to you. Let me explain what I mean.
If you are a businessman and you have your own business, you have authority before God for that business. When the enemy comes in and tries to destroy it, you have the right to stand against the enemy and to bind. The same principle applies if a woman owns a business.
Take a home. Both husband and wife have authority given to them for their home and children. When the enemy comes like a flood into that home, they have every right to stand against that work of darkness in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Paul speaks of not going beyond the area God has given him authority for. It is a principle with the Lord.
If you are responsible for the children in an assembly and see the enemy beginning to cause problems, you have a perfect right before the Lord to exercise authority. You have keys for that smaller domain.
When it comes to bigger matters, it is the church. The problem arises when people go out from the body of Christ and try to act as if they are the body. They are not.
Within the church there is order. When we pray about a matter that troubles us all, the church may have authority before the Lord. You prayed about the proposed football development in this area, and it appears that it has been stopped. That is a good example of authority.
The church has authority to do things, but often there is a run-up to the exercise of that authority. You cannot simply have a sister—or anyone—stand up and say, “I bind you, Satan,” as though that were enough.
I can almost hear Satan cackling in the background, saying, “Silly old girl. Does she really think she can take me on?” God help you if you take on Satan in yourself. He will knock you out.
We are not dealing with a fairy story or a mental picture of darkness. We are dealing with real things.
The Word says that even the archangel did not dare bring a railing judgment against the devil, but said:
The Lord rebuke thee.
—Jude 1:9
We do not deal with Satan by calling the devil names. We deal with him by praising the Lord that He is Lord.
When you praise Jesus that He has finished the work, completed it, and sat down, Satan shivers. When you praise and worship the Lord together—that He is Lord and at the right hand of the Majesty on high—Satan cannot do anything about it. He knows it is truth.
Keep within the truth. If an individual thinks they can take on Satan by calling him names or commanding, “Satan, get out of here,” he is not going to listen merely because some member of the body thinks he can deal with him. That is presumption.
In your home, marriage, children, and business, you have the right to stand against the devil. But when it comes to a nation, nations, the municipality, or the whole locality where you live, that is a church matter.
That is why we need to meet together in prayer and confer together: “Is it time now to use the keys?” There is a wonderful thing when you learn how to use the keys.
Question: What is the role of fasting in prayer? How long should a fast last? Should we fast from more than food? What about a husband and wife fasting from intimacy in order to pray?
The biggest thing about fasting is that you cannot make a fetish of it. That is what has happened in religious circles. People make it into a big thing.
Derek Prince used to fast once a week for twenty-four hours. His fasting was spiritual, but he also did it for health reasons. Both he and Ruth, his second wife, fasted in that way.
Fasting can be good when you want to reduce weight, or when you want to stop for a while, meditate, and become clear.
I heard a rabbi say many years ago something that has always stayed with me: “You fast when you have such a burden that it consumes you and you have no time to eat.”
I think that is the root of the matter. When you are consumed with a burden, a person with a loved one dying may almost forget to eat. When people fall in love, many do not eat. Something greater expels the lesser thing.
If an assembly has a matter before it, it can be very good to say, “We will not have food.” Why? Because eating and drinking interrupt the time. At Halford, we had days of prayer when we had nothing to drink and nothing to eat all day. They were wonderful times.
In an affluent society, abstaining from food and drink can seem horrifying. But if you make fasting a good work, you have stopped the Lord from answering your prayer. You are saying, “Lord, see how good I am. I have gone without food for You.”
The Lord says, “That is not the basis on which I am going to do this. The basis on which I answer your prayer is the finished work of the Lord Jesus, not your fasting.”
Fasting is a symptom of something: a spiritual burden conceived in you by the Holy Spirit. It is not a means of earning an answer from God.
Question: Could you give us clearer and more specific matters on the international front, or in light of the election and changes in our nation—anything that would help us pray more precisely in the days ahead?
There are clear words in the Book about what we are to do in the last days, especially in the final phase of world history. We should take note of what is said about prayer.
Luke 21 speaks about supplication and prayer. Again, we have beseeching, appeal, and inquiry of the Lord. We need to watch and pray. The Lord said it again and again.
I do not believe that the situation into which the United States and the world have come is going to get better. It is entirely possible that the vast sums raised to help banks and other institutions will put off a collapse, but they are not the solution.
The real question is whether the Lord is in this, or whether it is merely man’s mismanagement. I think the Lord is in it. I think the Lord is bringing the whole of society as we know it, and the financial system, toward meltdown in order to shorten the time.
I think we are at the very brink of the coming of Antichrist. A businessman in Britain recently said, “We now have superhuman problems, and we need a superhuman being to solve them.”
When unsaved financial experts begin to speak like that, you understand what the Book says about Antichrist appearing as the answer to huge problems.
I do not believe there is a long-term answer to the financial and economic problems. The system is built on debt. While it rolls, everything appears all right. But when a wrench—or, as we say in England, a spanner—is thrown into the works, the whole thing begins to collapse.
The United States is on the point of losing its superpower status. Russia would very much like to see the United States demoted. China must become a superpower, and so must India.
You have three great superpowers in the wings. Two are pagan and have never had a Christian, biblical foundation. The other has had its Christian foundation destroyed through seventy years of atheistic Marxism.
The powers influencing world society are increasingly pagan.
America, with all her faults, weaknesses, sins, and much else, has been an incredible restraint upon a godless society. She has been a protector of minorities, whether Christian or Jewish. Christians in Indonesia, for instance, would have faced far greater persecution apart from the presence of the United States.
The presence of the United States on the world scene has held back certain forces. In my estimation, that restraint is in decline.
Whatever one thinks of President Bush and whatever mistakes he made, he was courageous in fighting for unpopular biblical principles concerning abortion, homosexual practice, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia.
My feeling is that the floodgates will open in the next year or two on all these levels. But I do not think these issues are what lie at the root of divine judgment on the United States. I believe it is the division of the Promised Land.
The division of the Promised Land is a straw that tells which way the wind is blowing. If a solemn pact that God made can be dismissed as politically incorrect, and if a president of a superpower can oversee the division of that land into two sovereign states, what else can be changed?
The family may be redefined. Society can return to paganism.
I find it extraordinary that the Catholic Church has often been the only body willing to speak on some of these matters. I am no defender of the Catholic Church, but John Paul II pleaded with the European Commission to define the Gospel and the Bible as sources of European civilization. They refused, claiming that Hellenism was the root source of European civilization.
That is not true. What made the Western world powerful was the Bible in the language of the people and the Gospel that changed and transformed lives, producing a society built—despite all its hypocrisy and faults—upon divine principles.
Benedict XVI took up the cause again after John Paul’s death, but the response was rude: “It has nothing whatever to do with European civilization.”
The European Parliament was built on the pattern of a sixteenth-century painting by Pieter Bruegel of the Tower of Babel. Outside the European Commission in Brussels is a statue depicting Europa and the bull, Zeus. It is based on the Greek legend in which Zeus transformed himself into a bull and raped Europa.
I believe such things tell us where matters are going.
America has had more of a residual Christian and biblical conscience than probably any other nation. That is what is evaporating.
If the Lord is judging, then man cannot simply put things right. Scripture says, from Genesis to Revelation, that in the end there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. Once events go beyond this planet, people will understand that this is not merely man’s doing.
Men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world.
—Luke 21:26
Consider the bees. We know that the bee lies at the heart of the cycle of nature. There has been an extraordinary worldwide death of bees. It may be connected with insecticides and pesticides, but worker bees that have always remained with the queen in the hive have been leaving and not returning.
In China, whole towns have been called out with long bamboo poles and feathers on the ends to pollinate fruit trees because there are no bees.
It sounds to me as if God is in this business—as if, if I may put it boldly, the Lord is fed up with mankind and the way we are behaving.
Out of financial meltdown, economic woes, turmoil, and confusion, Antichrist will come. It is written in the Book.
Hitler would never have risen in Germany apart from the collapse of the Weimar Republic. It was financial meltdown and economic disaster. One in every two Germans was unemployed. Hitler came as the savior and deliverer of Germany, hailed by Christians and voted for by them.
I remember old Christians saying, “We voted for him,” only to discover too late what they had done.
Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, Lenin and Stalin in Russia, and Mao Zedong in China all emerged out of turmoil and confusion.
I believe we are very near to the coming of Antichrist. That is a reason for us to be made ready. We need to be ready.
It is not true to say that no one will be saved in the last days. The prophecy of Joel says:
And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.
—Joel 2:32
But they must know the name of the One on whom they are to call.
I do not find this depressing. I praise the Lord. I may or may not be alive to be caught up to be with the Lord, but I would be very happy to do so. What an experience that would be.
If one is put in a grave, it does not matter. We shall not go behind those who have gone before. Whichever way you look at it, we go first. Why should we be downcast?
If your treasure is on earth, you are in trouble. If your treasure is in heaven, you can smile.
I do not want to get into politics concerning the American election. But I am amazed that a nation like the United States should elect a man whom they hardly know.
There are many questions we do not know the answers to. We must accept a person’s profession of conversion, but we should also be discerning about the influences and convictions shaping national leadership.
Many Christians voted for Barack Obama. The key word was “change.” It caught a whole nation tired of war, financial scandals, and much else. We shall see.
How should you pray? There is no point praying that the Lord will not judge America if judgment is already taking place. What should we pray for? We should pray for a massive awakening.
We should pray that God, by His Spirit, will ignite many in this nation and bring them to Himself. I have said for years that even if the Lord judges the United States, North America could become the scene of one of the greatest awakenings in the history of the church.
But that will not come casually. It requires living sacrifices—people prepared to give themselves to prayer and intercession. It will cost everything.
The challenge is enormous. If I understand my Bible rightly, Antichrist will reign for seven years. Is that not wonderful? Seven years can seem a long time when you are young, but as one grows older, time seems to fly.
Those seven years will be the most terrible seven years in human history, but they are only seven years, divided into three and a half years and three and a half years. There are good things to remember in all of this. Praise the Lord.
You should pray for President Obama, because we are commanded to pray for kings and all who are in authority. When Paul wrote that, some of the rulers were demonic people. Yet he said, “Pray for them.”
We have a duty to pray for Obama, for the decisions he makes, and for the team he puts together, even if we feel depressed by it all.
As far as Israel is concerned, that is another whole matter. During the election, much attention was focused on domestic affairs while Iran continued moving forward with its nuclear program. When Iran tests a nuclear device, it will change the world system in a day.
If war breaks out in the Middle East, there is little prospect of peace. Hezbollah has amassed tens of thousands of rockets, many capable of reaching far into Israel.
A Middle Eastern war could push the financial crisis into a proper meltdown. It may take only a massive earthquake or a war to tip the present situation over the edge.
The Lord has a controversy with the nations, and it is basically over Israel.
I believe we are nearer to the spiritual salvation of Israel than ever before. Satan is pulling out all the stops to eradicate the people of Israel before that miracle takes place. But he will fail, just as he failed in the Holocaust.
Israel was recreated as a nation out of the ashes of the Holocaust. It seems to me that Israel will be born again spiritually out of the ashes of some great war. I may be wrong, but that is how I feel.
Thank you very much. I hope we have answered those questions.