Turn to the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah 56:6.
Also the foreigners that join themselves to the Lord, to minister unto Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and holdeth fast My covenant;
Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer:
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon Mine altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
The Lord God, who gathereth the outcasts of Israel, saith, Yet will I gather others to him, besides his own that are gathered.
Then turn to the New Covenant, to Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew 21:12.
And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold the doves;
And He saith unto them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer: but ye make it a den of robbers.
Then, in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians 6:17:
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.
Lastly, in the Gospel of Mark, Mark 13:33:
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You, as we are gathered here in Your presence, that You have made provision for us for our time together. We want to avail ourselves of that provision, Lord.
In our Lord Jesus, You have given us all the grace and all the power that we need for both the speaking of Your Word and the hearing of it, and indeed the translating of it where necessary.
Lord, we want very simply, by faith, to stand in that anointing for our time together, that it may live with Yourself, live with Your presence, with Your speaking, and with Your working. Write something in our hearts, Lord, by Your Spirit, that will be ours forever.
Take Your Word and make it flesh and blood in us, we pray. We shall give You all the praise and all the glory, for we ask this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
This afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, I have been asked if I will speak to you on the subject of prayer.
There is no higher calling than intercession, in my estimation. I may be wrong. I think it is a higher calling than apostleship, a higher calling than the prophetic office, a higher calling than to be a teacher or a shepherd, and a higher calling than to be an evangelist.
There is no calling with which God calls His children higher than the calling to be an intercessor.
It is very interesting that, when the Lord was describing His house, He called it a house of prayer for all nations, specifically referring to those who were not Jewish, who one day would, by the salvation of God, be brought into being part of that house.
It is also interesting how the Lord Jesus Himself quoted this very prophecy when He found the temple anything but a house of prayer for all nations. How interesting it is, then, when you really look at this. Yet there are so few people who respond to this call of the Lord.
I think it is because of the cost. It is easier to be a preacher than to be an intercessor. You do not have to lay down your life. You can get away with it. You can be a preacher and be very much yourself.
I am not saying that preaching is particularly valuable, fruitful, or anointed, but there are thousands of preachers who have never laid down their lives and know nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit. There are a thousand and one other things in the house, in the life of God’s people, that we can get away with, if you know what I mean.
But intercession—there is no way any child of God can be an intercessor unless they lay down their lives. It is a twenty-four-hour business. It is not as if it is a few minutes a week, or an hour a week, or a week or a month of a year that you give. It is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for the whole of your lifetime.
It is a cost. There is no way that any man or woman can fulfil an intercessory ministry unless their life is on the altar, unless it has been consumed, as it were, unless it has been fully laid down, and unless the Holy Spirit enables them, in resurrection life and power, to fulfil this ministry of intercession.
There is no calling more strategic, and in many ways more necessary, at the present juncture of the working of the Lord amongst His people, taking an overall picture, than now to be an intercessor.
Those who do respond to the call, who do lay down their lives, will never call themselves intercessors. They are all learners.
I often have people come up to me and tell me, “I am an intercessor.” I know instantly they are not. I have never yet had anyone say to me, in a somewhat proud manner, that they are an intercessor who really is an intercessor.
The further you go on in the ministry of intercession, the more incapable and unable you feel, the poorer you feel. Every single true intercessor is a learner, a beginner almost. We remain like that all the way through our lives, however many lessons we learn about prayer and intercession.
This is a vast subject, and I am only able to touch upon it in these two times. I will trust the Lord that we light upon and touch those things that the Lord really wants to write on our hearts at this time.
How interesting it is that the Lord not only spoke of His house as a house of prayer for all nations, but He also said, in that last address He gave about His coming again, He ended it basically by saying, “Take heed. Watch and pray.”
Just because the times are evil, just because the enormous pressures being exerted upon the people of God, does not mean that we have any excuse for withdrawing from this ministry. It is even more important than normal.
Sadly, we believers have destroyed intercession. Our prayer meeting is normally the most boring meeting in the routine life of any fellowship. It does not matter where I go; if I ask people, they will all tell you that the prayer meeting is the one they have to kick themselves to go to.
We can go to Bible study. We can go to the Lord’s Table, to a time of praise and worship, to almost anything, but it is the prayer meeting that we find so dull. Often we ourselves have made it dull.
We have managed to destroy every divine principle in corporate intercession in such a way that the whole time becomes laboured, heavy, difficult, scattered, confused, and disordered. We spend so much of our time fighting our way through the very heaviness that we ourselves have created.
I always remember Golda Meir, because she used to say about certain friends of Israel, “We do not need enemies when we have friends such as these.” In other words, they managed to do so much damage to Israel that they hardly needed enemies.
I sometimes feel the Lord says, “I hardly need an enemy when I have people like My people. Leave it to them, and they will simply destroy the prayer meeting.”
It will become a completely disordered time: a place for budding creatures to preach in the guise of prayer; a place for the spouting of Scripture not in any way related to the subject at hand. Sometimes it is a place of oratory and eloquence. Sometimes it is for information being given to one another.
We do a thousand and one things in the guise of prayer, and very rarely is it real prayer.
If you see the pattern prayer that our Lord Jesus taught the disciples, a little child could understand it. It is so direct, so practical, so down to earth in a right way, and yet so powerful.
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, or trial,
But deliver us from the evil one.
How simple it all is. How direct it all is. There is no information being given. There is no great eloquence or oratory. It is absolutely to the point.
Now, this is a pattern, clearly. It is not as if, by repeating it, we are somehow earning merit in the eyes of the Lord. The fact of the matter is that He gave us a pattern. This is the way we are supposed to pray.
Actually, if you look carefully in Matthew 6, where this is recorded, you will also see that the Lord says there are those who make long prayers. I always love the way our Lord said that: “Make long prayers.” They are produced out of their own flesh and out of their own mind.
They are not heart prayers; they are head prayers. These head prayers rarely ever get beyond the ceiling. It is normally heart prayer that touches the throne.
Well now, this is a vast subject, as I have said. People are always saying to me, “Why is our prayer meeting so dull?” Well, I can only say, first, because we ourselves make it so; and second, very often—and I am not getting at anybody here, please understand this—we often have leaders who have no experience in prayer.
This is a matter in which the leadership has to go into battle first, and the troops have to follow. You cannot, as it were, use the church as cannon fodder in this battle and push them all forward and let them get on with it while we sit in the background and do nothing.
But the fact of the matter is, we all are learners in this matter. We need to learn something about prayer.
Now, there are one or two things I want to dwell on today, and then I want to go a little deeper into the whole matter tomorrow. First, I want to underline the immense power in true prayer.
There is tremendous power in genuine prayer. Now, I do not mean it is in the prayer itself, as if it is a religious exercise and there is great power in prayer.
Some people make faith power, as if faith in itself works. All faith does is join us to the Lord. He is the power. Prayer is exactly the same. When we are praying genuine prayer that is given to us by the Holy Spirit, there is immense power available in that time—immense power.
If you have any idea of the privilege, dear child of God—let me put it this way—once we begin to understand the real nature of prayer and intercession, especially if we are leaders, and begin to learn the lessons ourselves and lead others, we discover that prayer is not something that can be taught. It has to be caught.
It is an infection. It was because the Lord Jesus prayed in a certain way that the disciples heard Him, caught an infection, and came and said, “Teach us to pray.” In other cases, “Teach us how to pray.”
In other words, it was not that they thought they could somehow be taught religiously or liturgically to pray—the right words or the right manner. Rather, they saw something in the way the Lord Jesus prayed: a relationship to His Father so real, so powerful, so direct. They longed to have that same relationship with the Father.
When the prayer meeting is a real prayer meeting, it becomes one of the most exciting meetings in the life of the church.
It is tremendous when a prayer meeting becomes a real prayer meeting, where people begin, as it were, to learn. Then youngsters come in, people who have just been saved.
I remember years ago at Halford House in Richmond, when youngsters got saved on the Sunday and were in the prayer meeting within a week. They had learned from others that prayer was an exciting place to be. They learned in the prayer meeting that there you saw God at work.
The Bible study was where you learned the principles; the prayer meeting was where you saw it in action.
Then the prayer meeting becomes so exciting. Sometimes, when people prayed about matters to do with the nation or even the locality, you did not find people staying around so long afterwards, because they all rushed home to put on the radio or television to see if the prayer had been answered so quickly.
I am not saying that we are always answered so immediately. But what I am trying to say to you is that there is immense power in prayer. Prayer is more powerful than your being in the White House or the Congress.
There is far more power in a simple little prayer meeting than in the White House or the Congress. They can only do things politically. They have to manipulate, discuss, make alliances, sit down, and compromise.
But in the place of prayer, the Most High, who rules in the affairs of men, can touch any single situation anywhere in the world at any given moment. There is more power in the prayer meeting than in the Kremlin.
Let me give you a few examples of this. I think of Daniel. In Daniel 9, you will all know, I am sure—most of you will—that amazing passage of Daniel’s prayer.
We have there a paraphrase or précis of his prayer, not everything he prayed, but basically, as it were, a paraphrase of how he was praying. There you have an incredible prayer ministry.
Now listen carefully to me. People tell me, especially men, that they are too busy to come to the prayer meeting. They leave it to the women because they say they are too busy to come to prayer.
Here was Daniel, one of the top statesmen in the world at the time, only next to the emperor or sultan. Every single thing had to come to him for his perusal, and only when it had his signature and the emperor’s signature did it become law.
If there was one man in the Persian Empire who could have said, “I think I should be excused from prayer,” it was Daniel. He could have so easily said, “I am too busy, and I believe the Lord has called me to be involved in high politics in the empire for the sake of His purpose, for the coming of the Messiah.”
“Therefore, I believe that my job is to be there in the government and work with the Lord there. Now we will get Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We will get these ones to attend the prayer meeting. They are not so busy as I am. Let them pray, not me.”
Daniel saw that prayer ministry as priority. It is very interesting that, as a result of that, first the Lord showed him in the Scriptures a prophecy uttered almost seventy years previously by the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah the prophet.
The interesting thing is that the Lord revealed to Daniel what that prophecy really meant and when it began. Christian theologians have argued quite a lot about when it began, but Daniel got it quite clearly. It did not begin with King Zedekiah; it began with King Jehoiakim.
That meant, as Daniel worked with his very astute and shrewd mind, he immediately worked out that they were only two, three, or four years away from the end of the seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah.
Now he gets to prayer. In other words, instead of just having a good charismatic praise meeting and saying, “Well now, if the Lord has said He is going to do this, and said it to the prophet Jeremiah almost seventy years ago, we can just praise the Lord. We do not have to do anything. It is going to happen anyway.”
He prays, and he prays almost as if everything depends upon his prayer ministry. As a result, God gives him an understanding of history that is incredible.
You have the four hundred and ninety years. I am not going to go into it, because that is another subject. But the interesting thing is that he sees the whole history terminating and being fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus. That came out of his prayer ministry.
This is the amazing thing: prayer ministry begins with revelation, and then there is further revelation in prayer ministry. So often, it is when you are on your knees and you are battling with something that God has revealed to us that later more light comes and more understanding.
In Daniel 10, you have a very interesting thing. You have three weeks of prayer, and then he has a big headache over it too, so it costs him something.
At the end of the three weeks, suddenly an angel appears. I know I should not put it like this, but some of you have heard me say it, so I might as well say it again. That angel comes in sort of holding on to the door, a bit battered, feathers all over the place, halo on one side, and he says, “O man greatly beloved, from the moment you began to pray, your prayer was heard.”
“The Most High sent me, but on the way I got into a fight.” There was a fight between the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece—two huge principalities, not physical princes, spiritual principalities, world rulers of this present darkness.
He said, “I had to go to the aid of Michael, the archangel, and only now, after three weeks, have I got to you.”
I wonder whether Daniel had any idea what his prayer ministry had done. He thought he was just praying about some matter that was more to do with the coming of the Messiah.
He understood that the people had to go back to Jerusalem. That is why the land had to be reinhabited and the cities rebuilt. All the prophecies through Micah and Isaiah could not be fulfilled unless the Jewish people went back to the land, reinhabited the land, and rebuilt the cities.
He understood it. That is what the Lord meant when He gave him that amazing understanding of the four hundred and ninety years.
But now he saw something else—unbelievable. Wheels within wheels. Dear Daniel had no idea that in his ministry of intercession he had certainly been involved by the Lord in the fulfilment of this purpose of God.
Actually, the Persians were just about to come, as you know. They had almost arrived, and then after them were to come the Hellenists, the Greeks. I am not going to go into all that, but I only want to say: here is an amazing example of prayer.
I am not sure that any child of God really understands fully what they are into when they are called to be an intercessor. No fellowship that begins to experience genuine prayer ministry, genuine corporate intercession, has any idea of what they are into. It is exciting and amazing. I can only touch on it.
Then there is another example I would like to give, this time in the New Testament, in the New Covenant. You find it in Revelation 5:8.
And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Now, is this not interesting? You find this twice in the book of Revelation: these golden bowls that are full of the prayers of the saints.
Dear child of God, later—not today, but probably tomorrow—I will underline this lesson more. But do not think for a single moment that the Lord needs you. Everyone gets this idea: the Lord needs us, the whole of heaven will collapse if we do not respond to the call.
If we do not come in, then the whole of heaven is paralysed. It is almost as if the Lord Jesus will abdicate because we are just not ready. Dear child of God, God does not need you. He does not need me. Actually, we are a problem.
The very introducing of us into this warfare, into this prayer ministry, is a problem to the Lord. He could do it so much more easily without us.
For instance, when He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, He did not have you and me there praying, saying, “Lord, we need light. We must have light. We stand upon Your Word that there shall be light.”
He could do it instantly. Think how easily it was: He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He did not have the church there to mess things up. That is why the thing could be done so easily.
All the way through, you find whenever the Lord said something, He could bring things into being that were not because He did not have us to mess things up. Have you ever understood what a problem you are? That I am?
This leads us to an amazing conclusion, which I will talk about tomorrow. It is not that God needs us; He wants us. It is not that He needs us. He could do all this without us, but He wants us.
That leads us to an incredible discovery: prayer is the highest form of education and instruction for the people of God.
Well, I must be careful. Just wait. Let me give you another Scripture: Revelation 8. I am going to read it from verse 2.
And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets.
And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.
And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. And the first sounded.
Now, what I want just to get over to you is how wonderful this is. Oh, if only the prayer meetings and the fellowships represented here had only a little bit of thunder and lightning and a little earthquake here or there—something that happened as a result of our praying.
How interesting this is. It is not just the prayers of the saints; it is what is added to the prayers of the saints. As they are involved in this ministry of intercession, all the excellences, beauties, and attributes of the Lord Jesus are added to their prayer.
The Intercessor gets, as it were—if I may put it crudely—into the intercession of the people of God, and then something happens. Here is a turning point. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
Here is a turning point in the book of Revelation, however you look at it. These trumpets signify something. They signify a progression. Something is advancing in the purpose of God.
Before it can happen, the saints on earth are in it by the grace of God, by the leadership of the Holy Spirit. They are there praying very poor prayers, very weak prayers. But into their prayers is added something of the power and authority of the Lord Jesus, and then it is fulfilled. Is this not marvellous?
Here is the third thing I want to add in giving you a few examples of the power of prayer. At every turning point in the history of God’s Word, you will find an intercessor.
Abraham. Moses. Samuel. I do not know if you realise Samuel is a great turning point in the work of God, bringing in the kingdom and the right king.
Nehemiah: the rebuilding of Jerusalem, along with Israel, the restoration of the law—a turning point. Daniel: an enormous turning point. And with them as well, he precedes them.
Then, of course, I think in the New Covenant it is the Apostle Paul. This apostle, whose ministry is so incredible that none of us have ever been able to fathom fully what the Lord gave us through him, was supremely a man of prayer.
In almost every letter he makes mention of his prayer. In some, he says quite clearly, as in Ephesians and Colossians, exactly what his prayer is all about and how he is praying for them.
This man is not merely a teacher and not merely a prophet. He is much more: he is a father. He prays for the people of God. He prays for the purpose of God to be fulfilled in them.
In this matter of the power of prayer, the supreme evidence for its power is, of course, the Lord Jesus, because He ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of God the Father.
Can you hear me? Hear really what I am trying to say this afternoon.
Real intercession is when the Spirit of God takes the intercession upon the heart of the Head of the church and brings it into the members of His body.
In other words, it is not that you can do anything on your own, but the Holy Spirit joins you to the Lord Jesus. The burden that is on His heart spills over into your heart, into my heart, into our heart.
Somehow, however weak it is, it comes out through our lips in words. It is verbalised, to use the American term for it. Somehow, it becomes spoken. Then it is almost as if, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, something is established.
That shows you the power of prayer. I cannot think of anything more glorious, more significant, more meaningful, or more powerful than to be joined to the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit and have something, however small, of His burden spill over into my heart.
I am not talking about something emotional, or something that is cooked up or worked up. I am talking about the kind of burden—I will talk about it a little tomorrow—the kind of burden that the Holy Spirit conceives in a human spirit.
You cannot let it go. It follows you. It virtually nearly destroys you. You are pregnant with something. Something has been conceived in you, and it is within you. It is taking, as it were, your very life. It is living in you.
Even if you try to forget it, you will not forget it. It will come back again and again and again until the time of its delivery comes.
That is real prayer.
Most Christian Bible scholars and teachers believe that the letter to the Ephesians is the high watermark of revelation in the New Testament, and indeed in the Bible.
There we have a revelation of God’s eternal purpose. We have the heart of God revealed, the mind of God revealed.
I think it is very interesting that, when the apostle by the Holy Spirit comes to complete and finish this vital letter, he finishes it, completes it, with a challenge to prayer.
He tells us that we stand to lose everything if we do not learn how to stand in Christ.
In other words, you can have tremendous revelation, and you can have tremendous understanding of the purpose of God, but that does not in itself mean that the purpose of God will be fulfilled and that you and I will actually be involved.
It requires something more. It not only requires our obedience and our being committed to the Lord for its fulfilment; it requires that we learn how to guard it in prayer.
The whole of church history is an amazing illustration of what the Holy Spirit has done, and then how it has become institutionalised, denominationalised, traditionalised—error coming in, or whatever else—until finally the Lord will use it and still save people, but it is no longer what the Lord wanted.
You would have thought that the Lord, somewhere along the course of history, could have kept one single movement of the Holy Spirit alive, would you not? Would you not have thought that somehow the Lord could do something so marvellous and wonderful?
Of course the Lord can do it. The question is: why does He not? The answer is very simple. It is because you and I have to learn how to guard it.
It is almost as if the Lord says, “If you do not guard it, surely it will die.” You and I have to guard it.
It is very interesting, is it not?
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, or devices, or strategies, 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.
I think it is an amazing thing. We stand. All we have to do is stand. We have to learn how to stand with the Lord. We do not go forward, we do not go backward; we stand.
We stand with the Lord for the fulfilment and the guarding of His purpose, His work, and His church in our day.
Having said that, having underlined a little about the power of prayer, let me move you on one more step with me.
Prayer itself is a very wide term. It covers a whole number of aspects of prayer ministry. If you look at the best catalogue we have in the Word, it is in 1 Timothy 2:1.
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.
It is interesting that you have here four types of prayer mentioned: supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings. It is all in the broad term.
The word prayer is the word we normally use to cover everything. It covers a family of meanings, aspects related to prayer.
Prayer can range from very self-conscious prayer, or what I would call almost self-centred prayer—“gimme” prayers. “I want this, Lord. I need this, Lord. Please give me.” That kind of prayer can range all the way to standing together with the Lord for His purpose to be fulfilled.
That is an enormous range of prayer. We have also to recognise that spiritual age is involved in this.
When you are a baby, most of your prayers are two words: “Give me.” Nor does anyone hold that against a baby, do they?
Most of us think of little babies: well, that is babyhood. They want this, they want that, they want the other. They do not always get it, but they are always asking for this or that. They see something and want to grab it, want to hold it.
When you are a young believer, most of our prayer is like that. We want very simple things. We want the Lord to answer in very simple ways, and the Lord delights to do so.
But we need to grow up. Maturity is vital to intercession. You cannot be an intercessor without a minimum maturity.
This is the Lord’s enormous problem, if I may put it this way. The Lord cannot do without us—He can do very well without us—but if He is going to bring people to government, to the throne with Him, to reign with Him, then in some very real way He needs to teach us to intercede.
He needs to teach us really to pray in a much deeper way than we have hitherto.
That is why I find the way the Apostle Paul ends his Ephesian letter so remarkable, because really it is a call for maturity.
If we are babes, we are going to lose everything. Why? Because normally we are trying to grab something that may not be good for us.
That explains an awful lot in the church. We are playing around with things that satisfy us. When you are little, little things satisfy.
It is amazing how many of God’s children are satisfied with very little things. People will say to me, “Oh dear, dear, dear, you are against the simple things of the faith.” Yes, of course they are, but simple things are profound. Now, I am talking about little things.
Very often we have whole churches that are just interested only in little things—basically playing with little things, just being happy, just seeing things like little children see a sparkler.
A sparkler will catch a child: “Wonderful! Oh, it goes round!” She will watch it coming all over. “Wonderful, wonderful. Now let us have another. Shall we have another? Now we want another. Every day we want a sparkler.”
You know what a sparkler is? I do not know what you say in American English for a sparkler, but is it the same word? Right. Good.
I always say English is the language that divided the United States from the United Kingdom. That used to be on the masthead of the New York Times in the good old days.
But the fact of the matter is, as a little child we just want sparklers. Life is not worth living without sparklers. Then after a while we get bored with sparklers and we want balls.
Now we have got to have balls and someone there to throw them to us, so that we can throw them back. The whole of life is throwing balls to one another.
It is only when we grow up that we start to play games in a different way. Sometimes it is the same principle, but it is on a much higher level.
But in the end we have to grow up and understand that we have to live for others.
That is why I think Ephesians 6 is so remarkable. I believe that in the last phase of world history we are going to see every form of deception and every form of mixture imaginable.
Those that can be led astray will be led astray. The only answer is to grow up in the Lord—not only to grow up in the Lord, but to learn something about true intercession and prayer.
That is why the Lord Jesus said, “Take heed, watch and pray.”
Now let me take you, if you are still with me, a step further. Let me see, am I all right on time? I am doing well. Thank you so much.
Are you all still with me? I think afternoon meetings are so dreadful, because they are sort of the sleepiest of all the meetings.
I know the Anglo-Saxons do not sleep, but all the Mediterranean peoples and all those sorts of people—I think they have a siesta in the afternoon. I often think that in these meetings we have a siesta with our eyes open.
We have to look to the Lord to revive us and quicken us so that we do not go to sleep and lose out.
If you have followed me so far, are you ready for another step? This step is a very important one, and it is very simple.
No one will ever become an intercessor who has not had their eyes opened to the fact that the world in which we are is essentially a spiritual world.
Now, I know the Scripture says, “First the natural, then the spiritual,” and we have a natural world of time and sense and all those things. But this world that we are born into is essentially a spiritual world.
If I read my Bible rightly, it is filled with immensely powerful beings that you cannot see with these eyes, hear with these ears, or touch with these hands. It is not a fairy tale. It is true.
Principalities, powers, world rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places—it is an invisible world.
No one will ever see the need of intercession who has not had their eyes opened to see that it is an invisible world. It is not only satanic powers of darkness that are invisible spiritual beings; it is the Lord Himself.
We endure as seeing Him who is invisible. The most real thing about you as a child of God is your Lord, but at present you cannot see Him with these eyes, touch Him with these hands, or hear Him with these ears.
Do you understand? In other words, you endure as seeing Him who is invisible. It is the eyes of your heart that are opened to see the Lord.
Let me tell you a story, and then a few more later, but this one is a biblical one. You all remember the story in the Old Covenant of Elisha, that faithful prophet of the Lord, who so faithfully prophesied following Elijah’s ministry.
You know how he went to bed one night in Dothan, near Galilee in Israel. His young servant, who was looking after him and helping him, got up early in the morning and went down to prepare breakfast.
Looking out of the window—or going out to put the rubbish out, or whatever it was—he suddenly saw a whole lot of people in army uniform. He thought, “That is strange. Who are they?”
Then, with a shock, he realised they were Syrians. There is nothing new under the sun, of course; it is now part of the world. He went swiftly back into the kitchen and looked out of another window.
I can imagine him just pulling the curtain aside and looking, and there was another detachment. Then he went to another window and saw another detachment. Suddenly he realised the whole place was surrounded by the Syrian army—and not just a few of them.
Then he rushed to Elisha. He either woke him up or got hold of him in his quiet time and said, “Sir, master, we are lost. We are surrounded by the Syrians. You know how they hate you. They have come.”
Elisha said, “Oh, do not worry. There are more with us than are with them.”
Now, this poor young man must have thought Elisha was nuts. “No, no, no—more with us than with them? What are You talking about? Who is he talking about? I did not see a single Israeli soldier, not anywhere. I only saw Syrians everywhere, all around us.”
Elisha did not bother to give him a Bible study or a heavy word, as many of us would have done, to try and get him in the clear.
He prayed one of the shortest prayers in Scripture:
Lord, open his eyes.
The Lord instantly answered the prayer, and that young man’s eyes were opened. Suddenly he saw the whole mountainside filled with the armies of heaven.
Now, you can understand this young man. He could have said, “Well, is this not wonderful? Suddenly the armies of heaven have all moved in.” No, they were there all the time. It was just that he did not see them. Do you understand?
What an extraordinary person Elisha was. Instead of saying, “Come and sit down. I had better give you a Bible study. Do you not understand spiritual things are spiritual things? Do you not understand that you have to trust the Lord?”
“You are letting me down. You are supposed to be my servant. I am glad nobody heard what you had to say, and I am glad it was within the four walls of this house that these things were said. It is sheer unbelief on your part. You need to understand that the Lord is always with His people.”
No, no, no. He understood the power of prayer: “Open his eyes, Lord.” In one single instant, your whole understanding of a situation can change.
The difference is the eyes of your heart. Do you understand?
In other words, the moment Elisha’s servant saw that there truly were more with them than with the Syrians, he then saw Elisha go out and say, “In the name of the Lord, you are all blind.” The whole lot of them were blinded.
There is this servant of the Lord with this young man, leading them by the hand—the officers, I suppose, and then the men all following, I imagine, in rows together. They went to the king of Israel.
You know the whole story. I do not have to tell you. But is it not an amazing thing? There was an invisible world. Elisha saw that invisible world. He understood that the world is basically a spiritual world.
That young man did not understand that. Because he only looked at things as they were, he was overwhelmed.
Dear Norman Grubb used to say a very interesting thing that has always stuck in my heart. He said—and this is very bad English, but here in the States it does not seem to matter—“Do not be a look-at-er; be a see-through-er.”
I will say it again: do not be a look-at-er; be a see-through-er. Do not just look at things; see through things.
In other words, when you look at something, you just see the facts. The Syrian army is there. We are lost. A huge number of them, armed to the teeth, with orders from the king of Syria to arrest Elisha and take him in chains to Damascus.
That is very, very simple. That is what happens when you look at the circumstances. You say, “Where is our power? We have no power. Where is our army? We have no army. Where are our weapons? We have no weapons. Where is our security? We have no security.”
“Well then, what is going to happen? We are going to be caught.” That is the simple thing, obviously. They are here, we are here. We have nothing. They have everything. That is what happens when you look at something.
But when you see through the whole thing, it is the same situation, but you see through. Do you understand? Now you see: the Lord is with us. There are more with us than are with them.
How can you say such a thing? Because you see through. You are enduring as seeing Him who is invisible.
Then the same army is there. You are still without an army. They have weapons; you do not have weapons. But you have absolute confidence. Then you can speak the Word of the Lord. You can say, “Be blinded in the name of the Lord.”
That was the word for them at that time, because you are under the government of the Holy Spirit. Do you understand?
Oh, dear child of God, think for a moment. This is so wonderful—having the eyes of your heart opened.
I thank God that He opened my eyes many years ago. I do not think I was more than thirteen years of age.
Now, I have told this story before, so those of you who have heard it can go to sleep for a few minutes and have a nap. But those who have not, let me tell you the story.
I remember there was an old sister in the fellowship that I was in. They all thought she was nuts. They thought she had a screw loose. Why? Because she was always talking about the Lord Jesus, always talking about the Lord Jesus.
It was as if He lived in her apartment. She talked about Him day and night—how wonderful He was, what He did, what He had said to her, and all these things.
She used to recite Amy Carmichael poems, Frances Ridley Havergal hymns, Margaret Barber, and all kinds of things. She was a bit of an extraordinary old lady.
She had been an opera singer and had lived a whole life on the stage. Then, only at the end of it, she got wonderfully saved. But she was very impractical in some ways, so they all thought she had a screw loose.
You just did not talk about the Lord in the fellowship hours, which was a very fine evangelical fellowship, and Alan Redpath was the minister. That gives you some idea, for those of you who are older and remember that name.
It was a great fellowship, but you never talked about the Lord. You never talked about the Lord, only when the pastor came to tea.
When the pastor came to tea, you talked about the Lord, because that was the thing to do. Anyway, he was paid to talk about the Lord. So when he came to tea, you talked about the Lord. But you never talked about the Lord to one another. That meant you must be fanatical—gone overboard.
She taught my dear sister to sing, and I used to have to go and fetch my sister after she had had her lesson. When I went that day, Auntie Ella came to the door.
“Oh,” she said, “someone else has come and taken Teresa with her. Oh, come in, dear boy. Have a spot of fellowship.”
So I came in. I always remember, as we sat down, she said, “You know, when I get to heaven, I am going to have a talk with that young man Zephaniah.”
I always remembered that because I thought to myself, who else in that church—years later, who else in that whole fellowship—knew that Zephaniah was a young man? I mean, he was a young man.
Anyway, she said, “Now, I am trying to do something with my sewing machine.” She was putting something through the sewing machine. She sat there, gave me a cup of tea, and was talking about the Lord, saying how wonderful He was.
Suddenly something went wrong with the sewing machine. She could not get it through. She looked at the needle, opened little things, and did all kinds of things. Then she said, “Oh dear, dear, dear. Lance, can you do anything with the sewing machine?”
I said, “Auntie, I have no understanding of sewing machines.”
“Oh dear,” she said, “well then, we must ask our heavenly Father.”
I was thirteen years of age. Then she said, “Kneel.”
So I got on my knees, and she got on her knees. I have never forgotten the prayer; it is imprinted on my memory. Her hand went up and she said, “Heavenly Father, Lance, dear boy, and I have been having a wonderful time of fellowship about Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus—how glorious He is and how beautiful He is.”
“But,” she said, “You know, dear Lord, I am a very impractical old lady. I do not understand anything about sewing machines, and Lance, dear boy, does not understand anything about sewing machines either.”
“I tried; he has tried. Neither of us can do anything. Heavenly Father, all Your promises are yes in Christ and amen through Him.”
This was news to me. “Lance and I are coming to You with one of those promises: Hebrews 1:14, that the angels are sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation.”
Then she bowed and said, “Father, send an angel to put this sewing machine right.”
She bowed her head, and I had my eyes open. My eyes were like big saucers. I was waiting to see if I could see an angel coming in through the door.
I had never had such an experience. We heard all this wonderful preaching from the pulpit, but nobody ever expected you to stand upon the Word of God. That would have been crazy.
You heard these wonderful things, but nobody ever expected anything was going to happen until you were dead and raised in the kingdom to come. Then all these wonderful things would happen.
Then I said, “Auntie—”
“Shush,” she said. “Give the angel time.”
Then she said, “Thank You, dear Lord. Thank You. You never fail.” To my amazement, she stood up, pulled the stool under her, and went straight on with the machine.
I was thirteen years of age, and I had never seen anything like that. I had grown used to the fact that everything that came from the pulpit was marvellous and wonderful, sound and truthful, but you did not expect it to work.
But here was an old lady that most of the church thought was nuts, and she had taken a certain promise and stood on it.
I said to myself, “Did the angel come while we two were on our knees? Did this old sister stand on the Word of God, and did an angel actually answer?” Certainly her machine was working. It changed my life.
Suddenly I looked at the Bible in a new way. Where are all these promises of God? Howsoever many they be, in the Messiah it is yes, and through Him is the amen.
Then I suddenly realised, “I can trust the Lord as well. He is actually with us. He will teach me and lead me.” I came from an unsaved, non-Christian background, so for me it was something tremendous. I cannot tell you how tremendous it was.
Years later I went to Egypt, and there, that was the first time my eyes were opened to a spiritual world.
Of course, I was my normally irreverent self. I was really moving with the Lord, and I had a real experience of the cross and the Holy Spirit, but it did not stop me from being myself.
I had been very ill. I had never enjoyed such robust health, and I had lived by the Lord’s life. The doctor said, “You must go away. You must go down. We will send you to two old retired missionaries in Port Said, and there they will look after you.”
“I will phone them. But,” said the doctor, who was also a mission agent, “now you just watch yourself. These are the most godly missionaries in the whole of Egypt. We do not want them shocked.”
So I imagined that I was going to see two old dragons—saved by the Lord, but dragons, you know what I mean. I thought, “Oh my goodness, what is going to happen?”
Anyway, I got there and we had a wonderful time. That is the cut story. But the thing that always amazed me was that suddenly the phone would ring and I would hear Auntie Kathleen saying, “Yes, yes, just wait. I will get a pencil. Now tell me, what is the problem? Yes, I have got it down.”
It would be from Algiers. She would write it all down, and then she would come and say, “Alex, there is a problem in such-and-such a fellowship in Algiers. A very big problem. We must pray about it.”
Sometimes it was a letter. They had two or three letters. They would come from northern Egypt, from up in Asyut, or somewhere, or from all over the Middle East.
I shall never forget one occasion that I always tell because it sums it all up. There was a phone call, and then I heard Auntie Kathleen saying, “Alex! Alex!”
Alexander was an Estonian, and Auntie Kathleen was from Northern Ireland. She was an Ulster woman. She said, “Alex! Alex!”
Then I heard them both coming down the hallway and into a room, and they shut the door. I was so nosy, because I am Jewish. I could not help it. I was so nosy.
I came out of my bedroom and tried to listen. What in the world was going on in there? They would stay in there for half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and then suddenly they would come out.
They would be very happy. I would say, “Was it a problem?”
“Well, no, we have asked the Lord about it, and He has given us a word to stand on.”
Then later that evening, I remember the phone rang again, and I heard Auntie Kathleen saying, “Yes, yes, yes, we have got the victory. Yes, we knew. We knew. Is it not wonderful? Praise the Lord.”
She would come and say, “It is over. It is finished. Praise the Lord. He answered that well.”
I thought, what in the world is happening in this funny little apartment in Port Said? It seems as if the whole Middle East is somehow or other being touched by these two old sisters who have retired from the mission because they are too old to serve anymore.
Here they are, and all these prayer requests are coming in from all over the Middle East, and they discuss them together.
Then came the famous day when suddenly they had a letter. It was from southern Egypt, on the border of Sudan.
I remember them saying, “Would you like to join us?” So I tried to be as English as I could. “Oh, that is very nice.” I was dying to join them because I wanted to see what went on.
We went into the room, and they both got on their knees. Then they read the letter to me, because they both knew its contents. They said, “Do you understand what the problem is?”
I more or less said, “Yes, I think I do.”
Then they said, “Well, we are going to pray now.” One of them said to the other, “Do you have any word from the Lord about this?”
The other said, “Yes,” and to my amazement it was a verse from Obadiah. I did not even know where Obadiah was. I thought, “Good gracious.”
One read this to the other and said, “Do you want to look it up? Because you must have it before you.” I said, “Well, I will try.” I tried to find Obadiah as quickly as I could.
I was only eighteen or nineteen. I tried to find Obadiah, and they helped me. Then they said, “Now we are going to stand on this word.”
I had never seen anything like it. Those two got hold of that situation in that little town that I had never heard of, on the border of Sudan. They dragged it out into the open, and on that word they stood until, in the end, the whole thing seemed to me to be broken.
Then they began to praise the Lord. One said to the other, “Do you think we are through yet?”
The other said, “Not quite yet.” So they went on praying for a little longer. Then suddenly they just got up.
To me, it was like an eye-opener. It was the beginning for me of real prayer ministry. The first experience had only just opened my eyes to see something.
But the second was like understanding that there are principalities and powers, hosts of wicked spirits, and world rulers of darkness. Somehow or other, we have to put on the whole armour. We have to be hidden in the Lord.
I suddenly realised that the Word of God is our weapon; it is the sword of the Spirit. I cannot tell you what it did for me. It transformed my whole understanding of the work of the Lord and the church of God.
Years later, again, I was unwell and convalescing in the home of a lady—some of you will know she was a titled lady—Lady Ogle.
In the fellowship, in the work in Richmond, there was a couple who were very difficult. They had been dividing and causing problems all through the work and basically paralysing it.
But when I had asked the Lord what to do, the Lord had said to me, “You must wash their feet.”
So I had taken as humble a position as the Lord helped and enabled me to take with this very difficult, self-made businessman.
But dear Lady Ogle and I were having a meal in this amazing dining room. The table was so long that you needed binoculars to see someone at the other end. We were both at one end.
She said, “Now afterwards we will have a time of prayer. I think we should pray about that brother in the fellowship.”
She said to me, “You know, I have a burden from the Lord, and I am going to pray for his removal. Will you join me?”
I said, “Oh, Lady Ogle, I am very sorry, but I feel I have to wash his feet.”
“Well,” she said, “you can wash his feet, but I am praying for his removal.”
I have always remembered this. After we had finished, Lady Ogle was a little lady, very, very short, a tiny little lady.
I have never forgotten: when she got carried away in prayer, she stood up. God gave her some Scripture, and she stood on it. I felt as if the whole of that huge dining room shook.
I have never forgotten. I trembled myself. I had never seen such authority in prayer in my life—not even with the two who were great friends of Lady Ogle in Egypt.
The Lord certainly answered her prayer in a terrible way. The brother died.
I have never forgotten it. That taught me again: there is a spiritual world all around us.
I could go on and on with these things, but I just want you to know that there is no such thing as prayer ministry unless you see this world.
This same amazing Lady Ogle, in the same week, was once having tea with me in the garden. It was a glorious day, one of those days that in England you say is summer—it comes in one day and goes in one day.
There was this wonderful summer day, and everything was so blissful. There was this gorgeous garden which covered the whole side of a terraced hill. I was wandering around, listening to birds singing and seeing grass snakes sleeping on warm hedges and all kinds of things.
Suddenly I heard a voice saying, “Love, love, would you like to take some tea?”
Of course, I said, “Oh yes.” She said, “I have got it up here.” So I climbed up to where there was a swing chair. I sat down, and she poured out the tea.
She said to me, “What an atmosphere of conflict there is today.”
I remember gazing at her and stuttering, “Ah, what did you say?”
“What an atmosphere of conflict there is today,” she said.
“Really? Oh yes,” I said. I thought, “Am I mad? All I can feel is this beautiful day. It is the most peaceful day I have known for years, and I just do not understand.”
She said, “From the moment I woke up at five this morning and had my quiet time, there has been conflict. There is a battle going on in the heavenlies—big movements in the heavenlies.”
“She said, “I asked the Lord about it, and He said to me, ‘Middle East.’ At six o’clock, join me; we will listen to the news.”
Sure enough, at six o’clock we listened to the news. The first item on the news was that the king and queen—the royal family of Iraq—had been murdered, including the governor, who was a friend of Lady Ogle, an outstanding Christian.
I thought to myself, “Is it possible to be so in touch with the Lord that, when everything physically is so beautiful, so glorious, that it almost sends you to sleep, it embalms you, you can sense conflict in the heavenlies and actually know from the Lord where it is in the whole world?”
Intercession.
Dear child of God, I do not know who you are. I do not know what spiritual age you are, but nobody is too young to start the course that will lead to being an intercessor. It is a spiritual thing.
Only the Lord can take hold of you, but I want to tell you something: there is a tremendous need of such intercessors.
I will finish now. But I think again and again of those who have been intercessors in history.
I think of John Knox and his anguished prayer for Scotland, so anguished that he said, “Give me Scotland, or I die.” God gave him Scotland.
I think of Margaret Barber, sent home virtually in disgrace, with very great charges made against her.
When she came back to Britain, she went to the Keswick Convention, her life in pieces, her ministry finished, all her fellow missionaries so much against her. She went to see Bishop Handley Moule.
She said to him, “What should I do? My whole reputation is destroyed. They have made all these charges against me.”
He said to her, “Are they true?”
She said, “No.”
Then he said, “Do you believe God has called you to China?”
She said, “Yes.”
Then he said, “Maybe there is something different that God is going to bring you into—maybe intercession. If God called you to China, to China you go.”
“But,” she said, “how can I? I have no mission.”
“You go,” he said.
Margaret Barber did go, and she prayed for China. I am sure there were others who prayed for China, many over the years.
But it seems to me as if one intercessor—or there were two of them, of course; she took someone with her, so she recovered in the future against the charges that had been made against her—so much came out of that ministry of prayer.
One day, when we get to glory, we will know the real story behind church history.
We will find that the story of Margaret Barber has been reproduced hundreds of times all the way through the history of the church.
We shall discover that every great movement of the Spirit of God was preceded by intercession—not that the Lord needed the intercessor, but that in some wonderful way He introduced the intercessor into His heart and into His burden, that it might be fulfilled.
I do not know who you are. I do not know what condition you are in, as I said, or your spiritual age, but this I know: God is in enormous need, if you understand how I mean the word, of intercessors.
He can do without us, but He does not want to.
May the Lord put it on your heart to respond to Him in a new and deep way. It will cost you everything, but you will not regret it. You will never regret it.
The Lord will do something in your life and in your circumstances wholly to His glory.
I think there could be nothing more wonderful than to be involved in the fulfilment of God’s purpose in any given time in history.
May the Lord touch your heart, and may He call you to intercession.
If you feel, out of what you have heard me say this afternoon, that there is no chance of you being an intercessor—that you are poor material, or too unspiritual, or whatever—put all that on one side for a moment.
If you really respond to the Lord, then the Lord can in fact do something in your life that is to His glory. Every intercessor begins with one single step.
May God enable you to take that step this afternoon. Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we just very simply want to bow here in Your presence. We want to ask, Lord, that You will write on our hearts the lessons of intercession.
Lord, we need You. In many ways, beloved Lord, there is not one of us who does not feel totally unworthy and, in many ways, incapable of being an intercessor.
But Lord, if You call us, You will equip us. You will train us, educate us, discipline us, instruct us.
Lord, our prayer this afternoon is that, poor as we are, poor material as we are, wherever there is a heart that is toward You and open to You, come to us, Lord, we pray.
Begin this whole work of turning us into those who can work together with You, stand together with You, and be in some way unseen and hidden, but involved in the fulfilment of Your purpose in our day and in our generation.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.