Displaying items by tag: strategic prayer

By John D Robb

1. God desires and requires intercessory prayer for the accomplishment of His salvific purpose for the peoples of the earth.

Jesus told us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven." Abraham interceded for Lot in Sodom, Moses prayed that God would turn from His wrath against Israel, Daniel for the return of Israel from Babylon. Ezekiel was told by God, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it but I found none" (Ez. 22:30}

Why does God desire and require His people's intercession? Most likely because God originally gave dominion of the earth to humankind. That dominion has never been revoked by God. Satan's dominion achieved through rebellion against the Creator is a false, illegitimate, usurped dominion. Redeemed through Christ, we can exercise our God-given right to influence the affairs of this world through the exercise of intercessory prayer. Like Kuwait's request for the multi-national force to come against the illegitimate dominion of Iraq, so we in prayer as God's redeemed children, pray that His will be done, His kingdom come on earth. Prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit breaks through the false dominion of the enemy, and clears the way for His deliverance and shalom to come to all peoples. Linked through prayer with the risen Christ, sitting at His side (Eph. 2) far above all authority and dominion, we share in the accomplishment of His redemptive purposes.

Dick Eastman, president of World Literature Crusade, recently shared with our staff at World Vision how early in 1988, God had led him to take a team of intercessors throughout Eastern Europe. Their mission was "to confront the strongholds of Communism." In obedience to God's leading, they carried out a "prayer walk" around the Politbureau building in Bucharest where less than two years later, Ceaucescu made his last stand after pridefully announcing his regime would last for a thousand years. While in Berlin, God led Dick to go out with a German friend in the middle of the night to face that still forbidding wall. Moved in intercessory prayer, they both laid their hands on the wall and prayed, "In the name of Jesus, come down!"

In the dramatic events of the last year in Eastern Europe God has used the prayers of His people to shake the nations. He can do the same thing in the unevangelized world. He is seeking those who will stand before him in the gap for the 2,000 major unreached peoples, the 1,000 unevangelized cities, and the 30 unevangelized countries.

2. Victory in the spiritual realm is primary, and it is won by prayer.

Remember Moses' intercession as he held up his hands before God while Joshua and the army of Israel fought the Amalekites in the valley below? Each time Moses' arms grew tired and faltered, Israel's army was pushed back. But as he sustained his stance in prayer with uplifted arms, the Israelites were victorious.

Later in Israel's history. King Jehoshaphat relied on the weapons of united fasting and prayer, public worship and praise which brought God's intervention against the invading armies of Israel's enemies. Bible teacher, Derek Prince, writes: "These weapons, scripturally employed by Christians today, will gain victories as powerful and dramatic as they gained for the people of Judah in the days of Jehoshaphat.... Victory in the spiritual realm is primary. It is to be obtained by spiritual weapons. Thereafter its outcome will be manifested in every area of the natural and material realm."

These two Biblical episodes vividly portray intercessory prayer as being the winning factor. Why should this be any different in today's battle for world evangelization?

3. Prayer has always undergirded and extended the missionary outreach of the church.

Prayer is mentioned over 30 times in the Book of Acts alone, and generally it is mentioned as occurring just before major breakthroughs in the outward expansion of the early Christian movement. For the Apostles extended times of united prayer and waiting on God together were pivotal in their mission to the unreached. Before the first great outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and Peter's mighty sermon that brought 3,000 into the church, it is recorded that the Apostles "all joined together constantly in prayer" (Acts 1:14). Then, as the Apostles and their new converts "devoted themselves to prayer," signs and wonders occurred, the city was filled with awe, and people were added to the church daily (2:42-44). It was "after they had prayed" that the place where they were meeting was shaken, all were filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness (4:31).

The Apostles early on let it be known what their priority in mission was- "We will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word" (6:4). The result of the Apostles determined adherence to this priority was that "The word of God spread and the number of disciples increased rapidly, and a large number of the priests became obedient to the faith" (6:7).

Peter's prayer resulted in signs and wonders such as the raising of Tabitha. Later it was a time of prayer that opened his eyes to the revelation that the gospel was also for the Gentiles, making him willing to go and preach to Cornelius. It was also the church's prayer that brought the release of Peter from prison.

A period of prayer and fasting by five leaders of the Antioch church led to the setting apart of Paul and Barnabus for their frontier mission to the Gentiles. Afterwards they were sent out with more fasting and prayer (13:1-3). It was through prayer that Paul was not allowed by the Spirit of Jesus to enter Bithynia, but redirected into Macedonia. And it was through the prayer and praise of God by the imprisoned Paul and Silas that an earthquake helped to originate the church at Philippi!

The whole European side of the modern Protestant missionary enterprise grew out of Pietism, a revival movement that was steeped in earnest prayer. From its influence the Danish-Halle Mission to India went forth and the Moravian movement under Count Zinzendorf emerged. One author writing about the Moravians said that "the glorious movement of the Spirit... among the Moravians at Herrnhut in 1727 [which] transformed them into what has been the mightiest evangelizing force in the world for the past two centuries, was borne in prayer."

The prayer meeting which the Moravians began in 1727 went on 100 years! By relays they offered unceasing prayer for the church and needs all around the world. This prayer effort kindled their desire to proclaim Christ to the unreached and led to the beginning of modem missions. And from this one small village, over 100 missionaries went out in 25 years.

Decades later, William Carey, while still employed as a humble shoe repairman to support his part-time preaching, drew a homemade map of the world, entering all information he could find about its regions and countries. As he mused over the world's appalling needs and problems, he turned the information gathered into heartfelt intercession. His biographer reveals: "Often in the silence of the night... by the dim rush light, he would scan that map and then kneeling before it, pour out his soul to God." Prayer for the world was a definite motive force in the call and service of the one who came to be known as "the father of modern Protestant missions."

In 1806, a few college students from William's College took refuge from a sudden rainstorm beneath a haystack. Sitting in the midst of hay, they used the time to pray for the world and its needs. Out of that unlikely venue for a prayer meeting, the American mission movement was born.

Robert Glover sums up the role of prayer in the history of missions:

"From Pentecost and the Apostle Paul, right down through the centuries to the present day, the story of missions has been the story of answered prayer. Every fresh outbreak of missionary energy has been the result of believing prayer. Every new missionary undertaking that has been owned and blessed of God has been the germinating of seed planted by the divine spirit in the hearts of praying saints."

John Robb, IPC Chairman

(Excerpted and adapted from the article by John Robb “Prayer as a Strategic Weapon in Frontier Mission” Published in the International Journal of Frontier Missiology in 1991)

By John D. Robb

For today's hyperactive missions leaders, apart from opening and closing meetings, saying grace at the table or as a special consolation in time of emergency or stress, prayer is most often treated as a harmless pastime rather than a strategic resource. In our attitude we often relegate it to the likes of doting old ladies who have nothing better to do with the autumn time of life. Certainly, for most mission leaders, prayer does not seem to be where the action is, otherwise wouldn't we be giving it far more attention in our busy lives?

A Revealing Case Study

One of the greatest illustrations of prayer as a strategic resource in frontier missions is found in the experience of J.O. Fraser, the pioneer missionary to the Lisu tribe of southwest China. As a young missionary with the China Inland Mission in the early 1900s, he preached Christ for several years among the far-flung mountain villages of this people with almost no outward results, Fraser's few converts fell back into the clutches of demonism, and he himself, attacked by severe depression and suicidal despair, almost gave up his mission. Breakthrough occurred when two things happened:

1. The Spirit of God enabled him to pray "the prayer of faith" for several hundred Lisu families to come to Christ.
2. He succeeded in forming a prayer support group of eight to ten Christians in his home country to back up the work in ongoing prayer.

His wife later wrote about the difference this prayer effort made in Fraser's work: "He described to me how in his early years he had been all but defeated by the forces of darkness arrayed against him.... He came to the place where he asked God to take away his life rather than allow him to labor on without results. He would then tell me of the prayer forces that took up the burden at home and the tremendous lifting of the cloud over his soul, of the gift of faith that was given him and how God seemed suddenly to step in, drive back the forces of darkness and take the field"

Fraser himself said:

"Work on our knees. I am feeling more and more that it is after all just the prayer of God's people that call down blessing upon the work, whether they are directly engaged in it or not. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase, and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer whether offered in China or in England......If this is so, then Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field. I believe it will only be known on the last day how much has been accomplished in missionary work by the prayers of earnest believers at home...

Solid lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I covet more than anything else is earnest believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue in prayer for me and the work here."

"I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth....We are not dealing with an enemy that fires at the head only- that keeps the mind only in ignorance-but with an enemy who uses poison gas attacks which wrap the people around with deadly effect and yet are impalpable, elusive...Nor would it be of any more avail to teach or preach to Lisu here while they are held back by these invisible forces...But the breath of God can blow away all those miasmic vapors from the atmosphere of a village in answer to your prayers. We are not fighting against flesh and blood. You deal with the fundamental issues of this Lisu work when you pray against the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies (Eph. 6:12)."

In the years that followed hundreds of families accepted Christ and ultimately a people movement involving tens of thousands of Lisus ensued. Today in southwest China and northern Burma they are a missionary tribe taking the Gospel to other tribes about them.

What would have happened if Fraser had not formed that prayer support group which he so faithfully kept informed with up-dates from the field? Would the breakthrough have occurred? In the decades since, how many potential breakthroughs among the unreached have not occurred because:

1) Prayer was not perceived and used as a strategic weapon.
2) Prayer supporters were not kept linked ongoingly to a particular unreached group or provided with a supply of up-to-date information? In relation to our society's theme for this year, could it be that prayer as perceived and practiced by "Great Commission Christians" is a crucial missing link in the accomplishment of world evangelization?

After dealing with the nature and importance of prayer briefly, I would like to enumerate some reasons from Scripture, history and current experience, why prayer may be the crucial link, the strategic weapon in frontier missions. Having demonstrated the importance of strengthening this link, we will then put our minds together in discussion to discover new ways we might operationalize the linkage of focused intercession and the unevangelized world.

Prayer at its very heart is a linking activity. First, prayer links us with God to receive His power and direction as we pray for the world and carry out our own ministries. Secondly, as we pray for the unevangelized world, it links us with particular unreached groups and the Christian workers laboring among them. It links our efforts and their efforts to God in His almightiness, without whose help all such efforts ultimately are in vain. O. Hallesby writes:

"The work of prayer is prerequisite to all other work in the Kingdom of God for the simple reason that it is by prayer that we couple (italics mine) the powers of Heaven to our helplessness, the powers which can turn water into wine and remove mountains in our own life and the lives of others, the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise up the dead, the powers which can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.

Yet having said this, prayer can often be the missing link in our efforts on behalf of the unevangelized world. As important as good organization, planning, and strategy are in world evangelization, in our busyness for God we may have neglected to link up with His power and direction to carry out that particular part of His mission given to us. And that is a crucial omission!

John D. Robb is Chairman of the International Prayer Council and International Prayer Connect