Several weeks ago, we received a letter from Voice of the Martyrs informing us that the president, Tom White, had been found dead in his office from an apparent suicide. It’s still under investigation. When I heard that news, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I was dumbfound, speechless at first. Then, tears came to my eyes and I just wanted to weep. This was following quickly by anger at our enemy. As my spirit raged at satan, a thought came to me, “When did you ever pray for him? The enemy simply found some weak spots in his prayer covering.” This caused a sober reflection on how little thought I gave to praying for those outside my circle…and the fact that it is so easy to criticize and judge someone when they fall. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, he probably got too full of himself and God had to bring him down a notch.” or some such nonsense. Or, we discredit much of what they believed to be true if we already held it in suspicion.
This whole thought process lasted about an hour or two that evening. I soon began to feel overwhelmed with the enormity of our responsibility as believers to intercede for one another and not only those in our own circle or those who affect our own little circle, but for believers around the world, particularly high-profile brothers and sisters. In fact, it is incumbent upon us to pray for one another. God calls us to. God needs us to. He limits His activity here on earth to what we request through prayer……even when the desire within Him to act is strong.
We are His representatives, to act and speak on His behalf. He has given man dominion over the earth. Having given us dominion and authority here, He seeks for a man to pray….and then responds to that prayer by His action. We have several examples in Scripture.
First off are the ones I cited in my last post, things He already knows, desires or plans for, but He still tells us to pray for them. Take a look at 1 Kings 18. Here we find a story of God needing and using someone to accomplish His will through prayer. It’s the account where Elijah has already prayed for a drought and after three years, He is told to pray for rain.
“Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth.” I Kings 1:18
Then, at the end of the chapter, Elijah prays seven times and finally the rain comes. He actually is in the posture of a woman in that culture giving birth. Whose idea was it to send rain? Who wanted rain? Who initiated it? God did, not Elijah. Elijah didn’t wake up that day and think, “Well, this drought has gone on long enough. I believe everyone has learned their lesson. I think I’ll pray for rain…..if it’s Your will, Lord.” No, God told him that he was going to send rain, but Elijah still prayed for that to occur….seven times!
Was it just a coincidence that God sent the rain while Elijah was praying or did his prayers produce the rain?
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. James 5:17-18
We know from 1 Kings that God was going to send rain. But, James strongly implies that it was Elijah’s prayers that brought rain. I believe Elijah needed to pray because God has chosen to work through people. And, even when He Himself is initiating something, desiring to act, He still needs us to ask.
Another example of this is found in Daniel 9. Israel had been in captivity because of its sin. Daniel was reading the prophet Jeremiah and realized it was time for their captivity to end. Jeremiah had prophesied this very captivity and its duration: 70 years. So, what did Daniel do? Somehow he knew his involvement was necessary because he said,
“So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. Dan. 9:3
He continued fasting and praying for 21 days. Then, the angle Gabriel comes to him(I imagine the angel to be out of breath and impatient to speak with Daniel) and tells him that his prayers had been heard and he had been dispatched immediately but had been held up by spiritual warfare. This story has often caused me to wonder how many times God’s promises or desires have gone unfufilled because either no one prays, or there is no perseverance in prayer.
“Daniel evidently realized that intercession had a part to play in bringing the prophecy to pass. God had made the prophecy. When it was time for its fulfillment He did not fulfill it arbitrarily outside of His program of prayer. He sought for a man upon whose heart He could lay a burden of intercession…As always, God made the decision in heaven. A man was called upon to enforce that decision on earth through intercession and faith.” Paul E. Billheimer
There is another verse that confirms my belief that although God is independent of us and has all resources in His hands, He still needs our prayers. It completely destroys the idea that God will do what He wants. Our prayers are only for our benefit.
“‘And I searched for a man among them who should build up a wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destory it; but I found no one. Thus I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their way I have brought upon their heads,’ declares the Lord God.” Ez. 22:30-31
It is clear in this verse that God desired to show mercy. He wanted to spare this people. His judgement though demanded His wrath. So, He searched for someone He could burden with this people to intercede on their behalf….and He found none. Someone had to pray for mercy…and He would not have destroyed them! But, there was no one to intercede for them…so although it was NOT His desire….He destroyed them!! The implications of these verses is overwhelming to me. I don’t like the idea that God has somehow limiting HImself to our prayers….but biblical proof brings me to no other conclusion. I MUST PRAY!
“We must understand that our soveriegn God has for His own reasons so designed this world that much of what is truly His will He makes contingent on our attitudes and actions of human beings. He allows humans to make decisions that can influence history….Human inaction does not nullify the atonement, but human inaction can make the atonement ineffective for lost people.” Peter Wagner
Never again will I wonder why God didn’t intervene. Never again will I question how a loving God could allow such-and-such. God is loving and He does NOT desire to allow much of what occurs. It occurs because people are not praying! God is not powerless nor unwilling to act, He needs and is waiting on us to get involved.
Never again will I believe that my prayers are mainly for building my relationship and faith in Him. They are absolutely necessary to bring about His will here on earth. They affect the world!!
By God’s grace, never again will a Tom White on my watch take his own life.