CLASSIC-CHRISTIANITY/THE INDEX “INTERCESSORY PRAYER WARFARE”
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1) THE PUBLISHER ON “ARMIN GESSWEIN IS WITH THE LORD”
2) THE EDITOR ON “EFFECTIVE INTERCESSORY WARFARE”
3) A.W. TOZER ON “BATTLES ARE WON OR LOST BEFORE THEY ARE FOUGHT”
4) CHARLES SPURGEON ON “SHAKING SOCIETY THROUGH INTERCESSION”
5) E.M. BOUNDS ON “PRAYER OF COMMANDING FAITH”
6) RECOMMENDED READING
7) A.B. SIMPSON ON “VICTORIES WITHIN THE SILENT WALLS OF YOUR ROOM”
JESSIE PENN-LEWIS ON “BINDING THE STRONG MAN”
9) JOHN A. MACMILLAN ON “PRAYING GEOGRAPHICALLY”
10) WATCHMAN NEE ON “BINDING AND LOOSING”
11) NORMAN GRUBB ON “THE IMPACT OF REES HOWELLS’ INTERCESSION ON
WORLD WAR II”
12) RECOMMENDED READING
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1) THE PUBLISHER ON “ARMIN GESSWEIN IS WITH THE LORD”
The last time I saw Armin Gesswein was in a hotel lobby in Tampa,
Florida. As a 90-year-old man, he was on his way to be the honored
guest at a gathering of Campus Crusade leaders, nearly a thousand
strong. He was not going as “senior decor.” He was going to speak.
Saturday, March 10, his earthly remains were laid to rest.
On the phone, he always pressed me to get to the prayer summits and
the College of Prayer. And he would always tell me to “shake the love
around.” His calls were always a delight to receive. And a treasure
to remember.
Armin’s last letter was “something else,” as we say. And I quote: “I
spent a lot of time with Tozer. Whenever possible, we got together. I
also drove him around a lot. What times we had together–both in his
South Chicago home, and in prayer together under some tree in a C&MA
Camp Meeting!”
“As I recall it, Tozer spent five hours in prayer, `entering in’ to
the Holy Spirit’s fullness, and settled it all. [Then there was] one
bold follow- through time of prayer. I believe it was his mother-in-
law who sparked his inner plug on this. . . . To my knowledge none of
this appears in any of the biographies of his life.”
Those stories may not get written. Tozer is gone and now Armin, the
man whose doctrine was prayer, has left us. But his advice certainly
remains, and emphatically would be, “The Holy Spirit hasn’t gone
anywhere.” Amen and glory to God!
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2) THE EDITOR ON “EFFECTIVE INTERCESSORY WARFARE”
The last issue focused on intercession generally; this issue focuses
on intercession as spiritual warfare. Before we can do intercessory
warfare, we must be prepared by close communion with God.
Intercession must flow out of fellowship. If we try to enter into
warfare without having spent time with the Commander-in-Chief we will
find ourselves unequipped to do battle, unaware of the Commander’s
battle instructions and undiscerning of the Enemy’s deceptive
strategies. We will come under spiritual attack, oppression,
deception and defeat.
Effective intercessory prayer is often expressed in terms of
struggle. “We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers . . .” (Ephesians 6:12). In order for
intercessory warfare to be effective, we must wrestle, agonize and be
fervent. Paul said that Epaphras was “always laboring earnestly”
(Greek, “agonizo”–agonizing) in prayer. Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemene (Luke 22:44) and the Church (Acts 12:5) are said to
be “fervent” (Greek, “ektenos”–extended, stretched out) in prayer.
It is the effective (Greek, “energia”–energetic) prayer of a
righteous man that avails much (James 5:16). We can learn from these
classic intercessors how to be effective in our prayers against the
Enemy.
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3) A.W. TOZER (1897-1963) ON “BATTLES ARE WON OR LOST BEFORE THEY ARE
FOUGHT”
The whole Bible and all past history unite to teach that battles are
always won before the armies take the field. The critical moment for
any army is not the day it engages the foe in actual combat; it is
the day before or the month before or the year before. . . . The
pugilist must win his fight weeks before he steps into the ring or he
will lose it. . . . The rule is, prepare or fail. It is an old saying
that the wars of England were won on the playing fields of
Eton. . . . Again that rule holds for all of us everywhere, even up
on the high levels of spiritual warfare. . . .
Christ could endure the anguish of the cross because He had suffered
the pains of Gethsemane the night before; there was a direct
relationship between the two experiences. One served as a preparation
for the other.
The converse of this is true also. Battles are never lost the day
they are fought. They are lost the day or the year before; the
results merely become manifest when the armies meet. . . .
Preparation is vital. Let this be noted by everyone. We can seek God
today and get prepared to meet temptation tomorrow; but if we meet
the enemy without first having met God, the outcome is not
conjectural; the issue is already decided. We can only lose.
A.W. Tozer, THE NEXT CHAPTER AFTER THE LAST (Camp Hill, PA: Christian
Publications, 1987), 78.
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4) CHARLES SPURGEON (1834-1892) ON “SHAKING SOCIETY THROUGH
INTERCESSION”
When the censer of God’s church is well filled with prayer
[Revelation 8:6] and presented to the Lord, He will begin to work.
And the censer that has been a weapon before God to prevail with Him
shall then become against men a weapon to prevail with them. . . .
Then will come voices–preachers here and there rise, voices
denouncing oppression, voices crying against false religion, voices
preaching truth, voices declaring Christ. Then will come thunderings,
for with the Gospel will go the voice of God, which thunders louder
than the voice of man. Then will flash forth lightnings, for the
light of God’s power and truth will come forth with majesty, and
men’s hearts shall be smitten with it and be made obedient to it. And
then shall earthquakes shake society, till the thrones of despots
reel, till ancient customs are dashed in pieces, till the land that
could not be plowed with the Gospel shall be broken up with secret
heavings from the Eternal God.
We have only to pray. . . . You have the key in the door of heaven–
keep it there and turn it till the gate shall open. Pray, for prayer
holds the chain that binds the old dragon. Prayer can hold fast and
restrain even Satan himself.
Charles Spurgeon, THE POWER OF PRAYER IN A BELIEVER’S LIFE (Lynnwood, WA: Emerald Books, 1993), 192.
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5) E.M. BOUNDS (1835-1913) ON “PRAYER OF COMMANDING FAITH”
Prayer issues from a character which is made up of the elements of a
vigorous and commanding faith. . . . Prayer brings God into the
situation with commanding force. “Ask Me of things to come concerning
My sons,” says God, “and concerning the work of My hand command ye
Me” (Isaiah 45:11, KJV). (1)
The church seems almost wholly unaware of the power God puts into her
hand; this spiritual carte blanche on the infinite resources of God’s
wisdom and power is rarely, if ever, used. . . . Prayer is our most
formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least
skilled. . . . The angel takes the fire kindled by prayer and casts
it earthward, “and there were voices, and thundering, and lightning,
and an earthquake” (Revelation 8:6, KJV). Prayer is the force that
creates all these alarms, stirs, and throes. (2)
(1) E.M. Bounds, WINNING THE INVISIBLE WAR (Springdale, PA: Whitaker
House, 1984), 151.
(2) E.M. Bounds, PURPOSE IN PRAYER (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, n.d.),
38, 82.
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7) A.B. SIMPSON (1843-1919) ON “VICTORIES WITHIN THE SILENT WALLS OF
YOUR ROOM”
The best way to keep the devil off our territory is to keep him busy
on his own, defending his kingdom from our bold attacks. . . . Many
of our battles are fought in view of heaven alone. Have you not felt,
in some quiet hour of fellowship with God, that you were going
through a decisive battle that no mortal saw? Within the silent walls
of your room, an issue was being decided that would affect all
eternity. . . . Do you know that Christ’s greatest victories were
accomplished alone with God and the devil? No human eye saw that
victory in the wilderness, but God saw it and was glorified. . . .
God wants men and women today on whom He can depend to stand as
bulwarks and battlements against the shocks of hell’s artillery. He
wants men and women of whom He can say, “On this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18).
Will we then not only be conquerors but trusted soldiers whom God can
use as His weapons of war? Will we be His mighty battleships to carry
the fight to the vessels of the enemy, not fearing their hardest
blows but hurling against them the thunderbolts of His victorious
power?
A.B. Simpson, A LARGER CHRISTIAN LIFE, (Camp Hill, PA: Christian
Publications, 1988), 94.
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JESSIE PENN-LEWIS (1861-1927) ON “BINDING THE STRONG MAN”
Once in northern England on a great market square, crowds of people
were listening to the communists and atheists speaking. Some of their
best speakers were trying to stir up the people, and attacking the
Christian workers of the town and their work. A minister who knew
something of this prayer warfare called his Christian people
together, and showed them from the Scriptures how Satan was at the
back of this attack, and that the thing to do was to “bind” the
adversary. The Spirit of God made it so clear that about one hundred
Christians took Christ at His word, and with united hearts and voices
they declared aloud, “In the name of Jesus Christ we bind the strong
man from stirring up these people and from attacking God’s work.”
They sang a hymn of victory and committed themselves in faith to a
position of absolute reliance upon God to fulfill His Word. The next
day a division arose among the atheists; their leader disappeared
from the town, and a week later he was arraigned before the court and
sentenced for other matters in his life. Then the authorities
intervened, and stopped the whole campaign on the market square, and
the devil’s attack was defeated.
Jessie Penn-Lewis, “How to Pray for Missionaries,” THE ALLIANCE
WEEKLY, June 12, 1937, 373-374.
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9) JOHN A. MACMILLAN (1873-1956) ON “PRAYING GEOGRAPHICALLY”
There is among the saints of the Most High a chosen group–perhaps
larger than we think–whose divinely appointed ministry is that of
the prayer closet. There, on their knees with a world map before
them, its members individually and methodically pray out the problems
of the advance of the kingdom. They precede missionaries into areas
where Christ has not been named; they observe them as they attack
firmly-placed barriers, breaking down by the high explosive of
authoritative prayer the satanic opposition that continues to impede
the forward progress of the gospel. Because the working of the Spirit
of God is everywhere, working through some mysterious law, dependent
on intercession, these unseen workers are the real pioneers of Christian missions. Unknown to themselves their word in the
heavenlies is mighty through God to the overthrowing of
principalities and powers. National boundaries are melting down
before the faith and fervor of their supplications. . . . True
geographic prayer ministry needs close abiding in God. . . . They are
trained in spiritual observation and can discern constant shifting of
the lines of combat, which is not obvious to others.
John A. MacMillan, “Praying Geographically,” THE ALLIANCE WEEKLY,
September 14, 1946, 579.
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10) WATCHMAN NEE (1903-1972) ON “BINDING AND LOOSING”
This prayer [Matthew 18:18-19] is action, not petition. It is a
binding, not an asking God to bind. This commanding prayer has two
aspects:
(1) Bind–bind all the inordinate activities of the brothers and
sisters in the meeting; bind all the disturbances to the work that
come from people of the world; bind all the evil spirits and demons;
and bind Satan and all his activities. We may rule as king over all
things. Whenever a thing happens in the world or among the brethren,
that is the moment for us to rule as kings.
(2) Loose–we may also loose people. Loose all the timid brethren;
loose all who ought to come out and work for the Lord; loose money in
the grip of people that it might be given for God’s use; and loose
the truths of God.
We are ambassadors of God, and therefore we enjoy extraterritoriality
on earth. We may call in heaven to rule over the earth.
Watchman Nee, GOD’S PLAN AND THE OVERCOMERS (New York, NY: Christian
Fellowship Publishers, 1977), 76-77.
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11) NORMAN GRUBB ON “THE IMPACT OF REES HOWELLS’ INTERCESSION ON
WORLD WAR II”
In the battle for Italy, the danger spot was Salerno, where our
troops landed in September 1943, to capture strategic heights and
open the way for the invading forces from the south. . . . The day of
the landing at Salerno and its sequel will always be outstanding in
my memory. . . . We had the first evening prayer meeting, . . . and
gathered again at 9:45 p.m.
. . . It had a solemn tone at the outset, Rees Howells’ voice
trembling with his message: “The Lord has burdened me . . . with the
invasion at Salerno. I believe our men are in great difficulties, and
the Lord has told me that unless we can pray through, they are in
danger of losing their hold.” The awe of God settled down upon
us, . . . We went on our knees, crying to God to intervene. The
Spirit of God took hold of us, and suddenly broke through, and we found ourselves praising and rejoicing, believing that God had heard
and answered. . . . It was on the stroke of 11 p.m. . . .
The next morning, the daily newspaper displayed a front-page headline
in large print, “THE MIRACLE OF SALERNO.” It was reported: “The enemy
artillery was advancing rapidly with ceaseless firing. The noise was
terrible and it was obvious that unless a miracle happened, our
troops could never hold up. . . . Suddenly, for no accountable
reason, the firing ceased and the Nazi artillery stopped its
advance. . . . I looked at my watch–it was 11 p.m.”
Norman Grubb, REES HOWELLS INTERCESSOR (Fort Washington, PA:
Christian Literature Crusade, 1952), 270-272.
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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE:
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