Category Archives: Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

As we walk through various trials and attacks of the enemy God is our refuge, our strength and our shield. He equips us with all we need to wrest the Kingdom back from the one who stole dominion on Earth. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much: as events count down to the return of Jesus Christ we need to focus our energy on drawing closer to God in prayer and worship.

Living by Faith, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

The Prayer of Faith

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“The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16)

When the heavens are made of brass

I often wonder, as I’m sure you do, why so many prayers just don’t seem to be answered. We can, and do, find all sorts of ways to justify the lack of change in our circumstances, or in the circumstances of those we prayed for even when we spent a long time on our knees (or however, you pray – I hardly ever actually get onto my knees . Perhaps I should do more often…) But the fact is it often doesn’t appear that heaven is manifesting on earth, or the Kingdom of God is coming  as a result of our prayers. Sometimes it is a matter of timing, and there are many powerful testimonies of long period of time elapsing before the prayer and the answer: years, and even decades. God dwells outside of time, and we know that His timing is always perfect, and our timing very often leads to disappointment and frustration. And sometimes there’s a battle to be fought in the heavenlies, such as we see at work in the book of Daniel and the opposition of the “Prince of Persia“ to Daniel’s prayers being answered. These are not the situations I am talking about. And I’m not talking about the times when we console ourselves with the thought that the answer is “No,” or that it comes gradually. I am referring to those specific needs that arise within a specified timeframe, outside of which they cease to exist, and yet where God does not appear to do anything. I’m talking about the times when the heavens seem to be “made of brass.“

Yet we know they aren’t, we know our God of Love does not ignore his children, and we know that He is faithful. As Smith Wigglesworth famously put it, our God loves to answer our prayers more than we love to ask. James 5: 16 tells us “the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.“ If this is what the Bible says, it must be true. So if our prayers don’t seem to avail anything (let alone much) it must be either because they aren’t effective and fervent, or because we aren’t righteous. And since we are “the righteousness of God in Christ,” (2 Cor 5:21) that can’t be the issue; so it has to be to do with whether or not our prayers are effective and fervent.

The Electric Current

Actually it all comes down to one word, because the phrase “effective fervent” (This is the new King James translation: NIV says “powerful and effective.”) is only one word in Greek, which is energeo, meaning operative, putting forth power. Our word energy – think of an electric current – obviously comes from it. If we want to know why some of our prayers don’t “avail much,“ I think we need to ask ourselves what it means for a prayer to have energeo.

We can get some light on this by seeing where else it’s used. In Ephesians 4:16, Paul says that the body (the Church) grows in Christ according to the “effective working“ by which every part does it share. It’s the same word: “effective working” is what enables all the joints in the body to work together and grow in love.  And here’s what struck me: energeo is what enables every part – that is each member of the body – to do its share. The word for share  is metros. Effective working is something that is meted out to each one of us, so that we can function in the power of the Spirit and the life of Christ can flow in His body. What do we all have a share (metros) of?  

 Paul writes: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3. My underlining.)

What God measures out to us is faith. I think that this is the key to energeo. A prayer isn’t “fervent and effective” because we have spent hours in crying out to God fervently, or because we have used words that we think are effective because other people have used them effectively: a prayer has energeo when we know that we know that God has given us the answer. Not because of our theology, and not even because it’s written in the Bible, but because He has told us personally. We might still have to cry out for hours to see that answer manifest, but we cry out in faith because the powers of darkness may need to be cleared out of the way, not in desperation because we think we need to get God’s attention. The full context of  James 5:16 is this:

“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5: 14-16)

The effective fervent prayer is the prayer of faith. Churches that apply James 5: 14-16 to prayer for healing tend to focus on the oil and the eldership, and hope that these two will carry the faith. But 2 out of 3 won’t work. In the time of James, the elders of a church will have been people who knew what it was to pray with energeo, and so it was safe to assume that their prayers would be answered, and the body of Christ built up in love (Ephesians 4:16) as a result. Unfortunately that is not necessarily the case today. Without energeo, the elders and the oil avail nothing.

Seeing and Hearing

We all know Hebrews 11:1 “ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The evidence of things that are seen is what our eyes have witnessed. When we say “I saw it with my own eyes,” it is not my eyes or the thing that I saw which are the evidence, but the fact that I saw it. My sense of that reality tells me and tells others that it exists. In the same way, faith is the sense by which our spirit experiences the unseen dimension. We also know that “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of God.”  (Rom 10:17) How do we hear the word of God? From the Good Shepherd, whose voice we hear, and whom we have decided to follow. (John 10:27) We can’t follow Him, unless we’re close to Him, so being close to Him must be our first priority. And when we are close to Him our sense of faith is sharpened, and it is in His proximity that we can hear His voice, sometimes through and always agreeing with the word of God.  Biblical hope is not a wish; it’s a destination. When we hear Him speak and our spiritual sense of faith perceives the substance of the answered prayer that we are hoping for, we have that Mark 11:22  mover of  mountains; the faith of God.

“So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mark 11:22-23. The Greek translated “in God” is actually the genitive case “of God.”)

Faith is always a gift of God: we can’t draw it out of our own thinking, our own understanding. Jesus tells us that faith as a grain of mustard seed is enough to uproot and move a tree. The Bible is a whole sack full of seeds in lots of different packets – seeds for healing, seeds for provision, for victory and so on. I believe we can only see which seeds to sow when the Holy Spirit shows us the life that they contain. We need to see the mustard tree in the Spirit and not just read about it on the packet, and that can only come from God, and not by leaning on our understanding – even if it’s our understanding of the Bible. When God has shown us the tree inside the seed and we have evidence of it with our spiritual sense of faith, that is the faith of God that Jesus tells us will move mountains.

So it is in that place of mustard seed faith, granted by the Holy Spirit through a word from the Shepherd, that we can pray the effective fervent prayers that avail much. We are so often like people going into a dark room and groping around to we find the light switch. There can be a lot of hidden wires carrying electricity (energeo) in the cavity of a wall, but there is only one switch that activates their power. The power is there: it’s been given to us. The entire circuit is the gift of God’s grace, and Jesus flipped the mains to a permanent “ON” at Calvary. But in the dark rooms where we can find ourselves we need to learn to seek and find the switches, instead of just tapping at the blank wall blindly and wondering why the light doesn’t come on.

Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Pursuing Love

Pictures from China: 1) The confluence.

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A Pattern of Heavenly Things

Anne and I have just arrived in China, where we’re going to be for the next three weeks.  Our hotel window looks out onto the confluence of the two rivers that join to become  the Yangtze Qiang, one of the world’s greatest rivers. Before we left the UK, a friend commented that this will be a time of attack and a time of revelation; and indeed it is, because what is on earth is “a shadow and a pattern of heavenly things.” (Heb 5:8) Every time the Lord takes His people to a new place, it is an opportunity to learn new things from Him and take new steps on the path of faith. So whenever God takes us to new places, the enemy will have a contingent targeting our movements and briefed to keep us out of  God’s purposes for as much of the time as possible. This is an article about relationships and warfare.

Swirling currents

Where the two rivers join, the currents swirl around one another before they merge into the greater stream. For every Christian couple seeking looking to move forward in unity, the enemy will seek to pit one partner’s flesh against the other, aiming always for a clash of interests, arguments, and fruitless discord. His plan is for the currents of the two rivers to keep swirling around each other and never to become one, and he has his forces constantly on the lookout to goad us into self-centred and unsubmitted decisions that will ensure that this happens for as long as possible.

God’s Way

But where the Yangtze is flowing, the other two rivers have ceased to exist: you cannot pick out their identities anymore. They have died. We cannot choose God’s direction and still maintain our own. When we die to self and pick up our cross we have to let go of our personal agendas. But when we do, we are free to flow in God’s direction as one, it is His current that carries us, and we can rest in His peace, knowing that we are flowing His way.

Being sober and vigilant

It is no use deceiving ourselves that the battle is only raging at key moments in our lives: it is all around us all the time, whether we are getting in the car, putting the children to bed, washing up, or just going out in the garden.  Unless we are “sober and vigilant,” as Peter writes, the enemy is always prowling around, seeking to divert our attention from the purposes of Love and the Kingdom of God onto the purposes of self, the flesh, and ultimately destruction. If the devil shoots us down while we’re clearing away breakfast, we’re no use to the Holy Spirit when we’re leading worship. And Peter knew from his own experience with Jesus how easy it is to be taken unawares in the most well-meaning moments…

Epistles of Christ

Walking in the Spirit is not just about seeking spiritual experiences and looking for opportunities to preach the gospel, prophesy, or bring healing; it is about winning the battle at the confluence of streams and applying the words that are spirit and life to everyday actions, moment by moment, so that we become the gospel ourselves, or as Paul puts it  living “epistles of Christ.“  (2 Cor 3:3) It is  actually when we are carrying our own cross  that other people can see the cross of Christ most clearly.

Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Understanding Spiritual Warfare in Christ

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I have been hearing a lot about being a warrior lately: spiritual warfare is a term all believers are familiar with. Two of the principals of spiritual warfare that we know from Scripture are that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12)  and “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…”(2 Cor 10: 3-4) The text from Ephesians introduces the passage on the armour of God and the need to “stand against the wiles of the devil,” and the passage in the letter to the Corinthians is written in a context of matters pertaining to Church discipline. But I think it’s appropriate that we look beyond these contexts to consider some principles behind the matter of spiritual warfare. In particular, what are “carnal” weapons, and what are the weapons that are “mighty in God?” Or to put it differently, when are we fighting our enemy in the flesh, and when are we fighting in the Spirit?

The place of peace

The most important aspect of any battle is not the clamour of the fight, but the peace that is won. When Christ came as an infant, the angels announced peace on Earth. Jesus promised us “peace, not as the world gives.“ (John 14:27) The psalmist exhorted us “to seek peace and pursue it,“ (Ps 34:14) and Paul urged the Romans “pursue those things that make for peace.” (Romans 14:19) As has often been said, we may well do battle with principalities and powers in the heavenly realms, but Jesus has already won the war at Calvary. So one thing at least is obvious from these scriptures: peace is already ours, and so we carry it into our battles with us. This peace is neither worldly nor carnal,  but is brought to us from Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Our peace is actually one of our main weapons of spiritual warfare, and all the protective items of the Ephesians six armour of God help us to keep it in our hearts. Indeed, if we are not operating out of the place of peace, we are not moving in the victory Jesus has won for us, and we are not going to see our enemies vanquished and our giants fall.

Gentleness

Proverbs 15:1 says “a gentle answer turns away wrath,“ and James writes: “The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God “ (James 1:20) I have referred to this scripture elsewhere, and pointed out that the Greek word “orge,” translated as “wrath,“ is not limited to anger but to any uncontrolled outburst of passion. Jesus cast out demons “with a word,“ not by shouting at them. This is how He is described prophetically by Isaiah:

“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench;
He will bring forth justice for truth.

He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
And the coastlands shall wait for His law.” (Isaiah 42: 1-4)

He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. Yet I’ve been to a couple of conferences recently where the voices of some of the speakers could definitely “be heard in the street.” I’ve certainly done my share of shouting at demons and generally raising my voice, as if my carnal loudness, or even any display of human emotion, could somehow demolish a spiritual stronghold. We do need to use spiritual gifts to identify the enemies that we are fighting against, but to go on and win the battles we need to fight in the same spirit as the Christ of Isaiah 42, not with raised fists and human “orge”. We cannot fight Goliath with the armour of Saul. It’s not by might, nor by power.

Building the church

“Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:7)

Jesus said that he would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The increase of His government and peace will come as He builds His church. Paul writes “let us pursue the things which make for peace, and by which one may build up another.” (Romans 14:19). So if Jesus is going to build His church through us, the spiritual weapons of our warfare must be the ones Jesus used. He said: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” The last lesson of the Jesus Christ 3-year Discipleship Training Programme was not “How to attain Third Heaven Revelation,” but “How to wash each others’ feet;” not “How to build your ministry,” but “How to build up one another.” These are the weapons of warfare that are mighty in God: the peace and the humility of Jesus, a servant heart, and love for one another. With them we work with the Holy Spirit to build the church in the face of the gates of hell.

The Battle Plan

I could go on. We fight the enemy of lack by giving: “Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.” Luke 6:38) We fight the enemy of destructive emotions with kindness and tender hearts: “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph 4: 31-32) In fact Jesus laid out the battle plan for His warriors when He gave us the Sermon on the Mount, contrasting the light of Heaven against the darkness of the world. And end-time revival will be led by those whose feet stand securely on this Mount and no other, because it is when the Light of Life is seen burning in our hearts that the darkness is pushed back and ground is taken for the Kingdom of God.

The prayer of a fruitful apostle

I’ll end with a prayer. Not mine, but from someone who was one of the greatest apostles of the church age, although he never identified himself by his fivefold ministry title.  Christianity had become a ruin of corruption, and Jesus called a young man from a wealthy family to turn away from the life of luxury he had known and rebuild His church. The young man committed himself to the call and gave his life to preaching the gospel and establishing communities of believers. The weapons of his warfare were not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.  His name was Francis of Assisi.

This was his prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Living by Faith, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Peace Be With You…

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“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4: 6-7)

Jesus is the Prince of peace. The Angels announced peace on Earth. Jesus promised to leave us His peace. The above scripture is a very familiar one. But when our hearts and minds are assailed, and our prayer life seems to have packed its bags and moved to another planet, where do we find this peace?

We know Jesus is always with us because He promised that He would be, and because His Spirit dwells in us. But at the heart of a victorious and fruitful Christian life has to be the experience of walking in the reality of His presence. And if we are experiencing His presence we will be experiencing His peace. If you are like me these experiences are often short lived and irregular, like those occasional moments on a cloudy day when the sun breaks through and illuminates life in liquid gold. How do we get to walk in the sunshine?

There are different areas where this applies, but the main one – for a people called dwell in love – has to be the area of our relationships. This is where we need our hearts to be guarded. Following close behind that must be wisdom in decision-making, and here it’s our minds we need to guard; but I will look at this in another article.

As we know, the devil’s mission is always to destroy, and as often as not our sunshine is ruined not by destruction in our circumstances, but by destruction in our relationships. Paul famously goes into detail about how to stand against the onslaughts of the enemy In his letter to the Ephesians. Specifically, he writes about “all the fiery darts of the evil one.” Fiery darts often come in the form of unexpected negative reactions from someone close, often a loved one. if we let those darts penetrate our hearts, we flare up too: fighting ensues, and a fire starts, damaging the relationship. Yet we have been given a resource in that will extinguish those darts, and we all know what it is:

“Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” (Ephesians 6:16)

If we quench those darts with the shield of faith there is no fire. Behind the shield of faith we can find the peace of Christ.

All well and good, but how? There are 2000 years’ worth of applications of the image of the shield of faith, so I do not pretend that the following is the only way of understanding the scripture. But in this context I see the shield that we hold as the one that tells us that Jesus has overcome the world, and has lifted us into a heavenly place of fellowship with Himself and the Father. Now it becomes simple. When a fiery dart comes our way, do we sit on our heavenly seat with Jesus, and say: “excuse me Lord, while I just pop down there and argue with my spouse?“   Or do we receive His peace and hide our hearts behind the shield that tells us that His peace is ours?

This still may sound easier said than done, and I am sure it is, especially when she said this! And he said that! And that’s just not true! Maybe so. But at His trial Jesus said nothing to His accusers, and went on to tear down the veil of the temple with His love. The trials of “unfair“  words that come our way are not even the tiniest whispers in comparison with what Jesus went through on our behalf, so if we cannot respond with a healing word  to the hurt/anger/disappointment that in some way we have caused, then at least we can say nothing and stay behind our shield where God’s peace reigns. We don’t put our heads out again until we can share what the Prince of peace has given us.

If we hold up our shield to the darts that come our way we can be peacemakers, but if we don’t we become peace breakers. We know which of the two groups are called the children of God.

Discipleship and witness, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

The prayer of the unprofitable servant. 

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“So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? 8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded [a]him? I think not. 10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ “ (Luke 17: 6-10)

The parable of the unprofitable servant was the Lord’s answer to His disciples’ request to increase their faith. We can read it as saying that increased faith comes from increased obedience, but the context that we are given is far less straightforward than such a simple equation: real faith, even as tiny as a grain of mustard seed, will accomplish impossible acts. Even a tree that has no ears will obey a command that is given out of faith, when that faith is itself an obedient response to a command from Above.

Every believer wants to increase their faith, and we all long to command those mulberry trees to be planted in the sea. Whether we spiritualise the image or take it literally, we want to see God’s hand transforming our landscape. And all the while that this desire motivates us, we can be wrestling with another question: what is it that God has asked me to do, so that I can obey Him?

If we know our Bibles at all, we can quote any number of Bible verses that give us the answer, and many of them will be found in the writings of John: if we want to obey Jesus, we love one another. Simple. The trouble is that obedience to the New Commandment isn’t of itself a guarantee of progress along the pathway of faith: the imperative to love can be a guiding principle in the Christian life without being a requirement for mustard-seed faith, and while this guiding principle is fundamental – there is no Christian life without it –  it is not enough alone to equip us to “be strong and do exploits” as promised in Daniel 11:32. Love is the only good ground where the seeds of faith will be fruitful, but the seeds have to come from the Sower as well. The question is, how do we get those seeds?

Again, many answers come readily to mind, because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and His sheep hear His voice in many ways. But about a week ago I said something to the Lord that I have never said before. It was this: “Lord, are there any jobs you want me to do today?” I suppose you could say it was the prayer of the unprofitable servant. And there was. It wasn’t a miracle on the streets, and no-one fell to their knees and said ‘What must I do to be saved?’ It was just (just?) a simple manifestation of our Heavenly Father’s lovingkindness. This is what happened.

I was on a birding mini-break, driving out of a pub where I had had lunch, and was flagged down by an elderly lady walking up the road who asked me if I knew how far we were from a certain village. I checked on Google maps and told her, “Two miles.” She was devastated: she actually lived there and had gone for a walk, but had taken a wrong turning and got lost. When I offered to drive her home her gratitude was palpable. I was able to tell her that I had asked the Lord that very morning if He had any jobs for me, and this was clearly one – so He was the one to thank for sending me to rescue her! She said “I will!” She was a Christian herself, and told me that she had been at church the previous day to celebrate Ascencion Day. We chatted a little more on the short journey, and she arrived home thoroughly blessed, and with a story to tell about how much the Good Shepherd cared for her by sending a “good Samaritan” (this is what she called me) to rescue her when she was lost.

I was so encouraged by this unexpected answer to my  prayer that I asked the Lord the same question the following morning. “Is there anything you want me to do today, Lord?” I said. I was spending the day at RSPB Minsmere, which is a lovely nature reserve in Suffolk (Google it if you’re interested). I arrived early and saw no-one else around (birder’s bonus!) until I was walking along a path and saw a chap behind me looking with binoculars into a field that a rare protected species is known to frequent. I waited for him to catch up. “Did you see the stone-curlews?” I asked. “Nah,” he replied, and we fell into step and started chatting birders’ talk. We were heading for the same hide, and went in together. As we both watched the birds through our optics – me with my camera and zoom lens, he with his binoculars – we soon started chatting about ourselves. He was about 15 years younger than me, but looked fairly grizzled by life’s mill. We warmed to each other, beyond the pages of our field guides, and defences came down. His name was Bert.

Bert told me he used to be a new age traveller, living off-grid for years in the 1980’s. He was steeped in new age spirituality, actually calling himself a “born-again pagan.” Before I met Jesus in 1983 I too was a “new ager,” so we had many touching points in our pasts; and before long I was not only sharing the gospel in the context of my testimony in a depth of detail that he could identify with, but was suggesting that he should read the gospel of John and revisit the account of Jesus with fresh eyes. And all of this was happening as we looked out from the bird hide and shared what we were seeing. The conversation went something like this: “Look! Little ringed plover there on the mudflat! Actually my background is Catholic”– “Yes, got it! Look at him running along the water’s edge. I love those little birds. But if you read John you get the spiritual truth behind the packaging of religion. You need to know Jesus for yourself. There’s a black-tailed godwit by the reeds – have you got it?” “Yes, I can see it. Beautiful male. It’s Matthew Mark, Luke and John, isn’t it?”

And so it went on. It was one of the warmest and most authentic evangelistic conversations I have ever had, and by Bert’s question about the location of John’s gospel I know he was listening – please pray for him with me. You can read the story that I shared with him here, (scroll down the the section entitled “Which Yoke?”) and you’ll see how significant it was in the context of that meeting; but the main point is that I had asked the Lord if He had any jobs for me that day, and that’s what He gave me to do.  

I pray that prayer every morning now, and each day so far has been marked in some way by a fresh and unexpected unveiling of God’s purposes for my life in the path that I am walking. And what is more is that I am more aware of the reality of His Love and of that guiding principle of the New Commandment as I walk it, because I am looking out for the next job He has got lined up.

Try it for yourself. We are unprofitable servants. All you are doing is showing up for work, doing what it is your duty to do. The Sower will send the seeds.

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

…And his hand stuck to the sword.

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“And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel had retreated. He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword. The LORD brought about a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to plunder. “ (2 Sam 23: 9-10)

2 Samuel 23,  “The last words of David,” begins with a description – that looks forward to Jesus – of the man who rules “in the fear of God,” continues with the confession he doesn’t match up to this standard because his house “is not so with God,”  goes on with the declaration of faith that God has nevertheless made a covenant with him, “ordered in all things and secure,” that is “all his salvation and desire;” adds that that the “sons of rebellion shall all be as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands,” and concludes with a tribute to David’s 37 “mighty men” whom God used to defeat those sons of rebellion.

If we look at this chapter as a whole, we see a wonderful expression of God’s plan: because we are mortals and Jesus is God, our “house” will never be perfect this side of Heaven. Nevertheless He has made a covenant with us that secures our salvation: He will give us the weapons to “thrust away” the enemy, and even though we are weak and imperfect we can be mighty men and women of God, using the weapons that we are given to see our enemy utterly defeated: “But the man who touches them Must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear, And they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place.” Among the items of the Ephesians 6 armour of God, the sword is the only offensive weapon. If we read this passage on a symbolic level I think we can understand the “iron” in this scripture as the iron of a sword, and in particular the Sword of the Spirit. The spear that we throw can be seen as prayer. It is through prayer and faith in the word of God that the enemy is “thrust away.”

Eleazar fought; he grew weary – but it was the Lord “who brought about a great victory that day.” Sometimes God tells us to “stand still and see the salvation of our God,” and at other times He asks us to fight until we are weary. In the campaigns that were fought in, and over, the Promised Land, the Commander of the Lord’s Army (Joshua 5: 13-15) directs His troops with a variety of strategies, but it is always His victory, not our own. Whether we have to battle through a situation until we are weary, whether we praise our way to victory or whether we just look over the ramparts and see that our enemy has completely self-destructed, one truth remains constant: “through God we will do valiantly,
For it is He who shall tread down our enemies.” (Psalm 60:12)

A key point in this little story is not so much that Eleazar fought till he was weary, but that his hand stuck to his sword. Are our hands stuck to the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God? However we fight, it must be with our hands glued to the Word of God, because it’s the Word that is living and active; not our dead flesh. “The help of man is useless,” (psalm 60:11) but through God we will do valiantly. Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world (1 John 5:4), and faith comes by hearing (Rom 10:17). Like the Israelites, we have to fight for our promised land; and the first part of each battle is to know how God wants us to fight. Before we fight with our sword, we have to pick it up. What has God said to us about this battle? If we have heard nothing there can be no faith, and without faith there can be no victory.

The account of the Mighty Men continues:

“And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines. But he stationed himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. So the LORD brought about a great victory.” (2 Sam 23: 11-12)”

I remember performing in a school play when I was 11 years old, called “The six who pass while the lentils boil.” The pot of lentils was the poor man’s sustenance; uninteresting, unspectacular fare; the stuff of routine; “the daily round, the common task,” from the words of the old hymn that I remember singing – and disliking – at about the same age. Why should I spend time praying about my lentils? But if we have had any experience of brambles we will know that they spread. Every year, long shoots reach out to put down new roots and establish themselves on a fresh area of land. The enemy is constantly prowling round to see whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8) He doesn’t care if it’s our lentils he is ruining or our prized possessions: what he is after is us. If he can’t take our souls because they are given to Jesus, he will try devour our time, our energy and our resources in any way he can, so that at least he can stop us giving them to further the Kingdom of God. He will spread his thorns wherever he can, and if our lentil patch is unprotected that is where he will go.

Our calling is to “take the Kingdom of God by force” (Matt 11:12) – to wrestle it back from the enemy who stole from man the dominion that God had planned for him over His creation. If we are enlisted in the army of Jesus Christ, we are sold out to establishing His Kingdom on Earth, and so all our battles are His battles. Every situation either spreads the light or pushes it back. The way human resources are managed in a business is as much a matter of the Kingdom of God as the battle over the rights of unborn babies. Luxury holiday or lentil patch, God is “through all and in all.” Whether the battle is raging between opposing armies, political factions, or husband and wife, He is either glorifies or ignored; and He is glorified when our hands are stuck to the sword.

What has God said? How do I fight this battle? What are His promises? What does He want? If we keep these thoughts in mind as we face the “sons of rebellion” we will succeed in pushing back the thorns even if it means we have to rise early to pray and then work at the problem till midnight. When God brings about a victory not only is His kingdom extended but we, his soldiers, get to benefit as well: “the people returned after him only to plunder.” We may be feeble and imperfect, but if we hold onto the iron of that sword  and the spear of prayer we stand in the security of God’s faithfulness, the truth of our salvation and the extension of God’s Kingdom. Without them we will be grasping the invading thorns with our bare hands – and that can only lead to a painful defeat.

Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Walking in the Spirit

Honey from the Rock

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“And the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.” So none of the people tasted food. Now all the people of the land came to a forest; and there was honey on the ground. And when the people had come into the woods, there was the honey, dripping; but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath; therefore he stretched out the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in a honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his countenance brightened.” (1 Sam 14: 24-27)

When our TV is switched on but the satellite box is off and there is no signal, a message displays on the screen saying:  “Check external input, or select another input using the INPUT button.” The other evening I was confronting one of the areas in my life where I am still failing to walk in the victory that Jesus gained for me at the cross, and that “no signal” message was displaying on tbe screen: we had switched off the box, but the TV receiver was still on. It caught my attention in a new way. In my reactions to the “battle” situation that I was facing and where I was still losing, was I checking my input? Was I looking with any discernment at where my thoughts were coming from, to determine whether they were flesh or spirit?

There is a very clear litmus test we can apply. Here it is: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) If I am thinking about me – my reasons, my needs, my feelings, my motivation, my struggle, my interests, anything that is about me – I am focussed on self. The litmus says “flesh.” If however my thoughts are just focussed on the interests, feelings, needs etc of the other person, the litmus says “Spirit,” because I am dead to self and am operating in love. Sometimes I really think it can be that simple. Not easy, but simple.

The story of Jonathan and the honeycomb plays out this scenario before our eyes. Saul declared that none would eat or drink until he had taken vengeance on his enemies. The forest was dripping with honey, but none could touch it. Consequently the Israelites were weakened, their victory diminished, and they were so hungry that they fell on the spoils and devoured them with the blood, sinning under the law.

The flesh always drives, and always drives towards sin. God gave the Law to His people as a tool that would enable then to manage their flesh and remain holy. Inevitably they failed, as we continue to fail today whenever we bind ourselves under legalism. Yet the flesh continues to yearn for the Law: my spirit is justified in Christ, but if there is one thing that my flesh wants to do, it is to justify itself. Unfortunately the only law that self can access is the law of sin and death, and not the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (See Romans 8:2). Saul sought to pursue his enemy, but his pursuit was fleshly and his pride and his emotions put the people under the bondage of the law, which they ultimately and inevitably broke. However Jonathan knew nothing of Saul’s oath and ate the honey, and “his countenance brightened” – or as the New Living Translation put is, he was “refreshed.”

The story had started with Jonathan and his armourbearer routing the Philistine garrison, and it ends with Saul discovering that his son had broken the oath; but I just want to focus on this one section rather than look at all the other conclusions that we can draw from the rest of the account. (Maybe another time…)  Whether we see it at times or not, we are always in a battle. However, as we know from Psalm 23, God has prepared a table for us in the face of our enemies. The forests where we face our enemy are dripping with the honey of the Holy Spirit. So do we eat at His table, or do we go hungry? Do we rest in His Spirit, or do we run with our flesh?  God calls us to dip our sticks into the honey; to taste and see that the Lord is good, and to be equipped for the battle by going in His strength and not our own. He is always there; the honey is always available, but we cannot taste and run at the same time. We have to stop and make the choice if we are to dip into what He has provided.

The Lord says in His Word: “With honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” (Psalm 81:16) To return to the image of the “no signal” message on our TV screen: do our thoughts and motivation come from the Holy Spirit and lead to life, or do they come from our own flesh and the law of sin and death? The “litmus test” will tell us. Because we always need to check our input if we don’t want to be exhausted by the battle.

Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Pray for the USA

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“But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, on these we bestow greater honour; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honour to that part which lacks it. that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor 12: 20-26)

If I have trouble with my feet I am going to care for them as much as I am for my eyes or my ears: the fact that my feet are further from my brain, the decision-making centre of my body, does not affect the attention I give to them. So it is with the body of Christ: those members who are further away geographically are no further in the Spirit than our brothers and sisters at our local church. Since the days of John the Baptist, the “violent” – that’s us – have been forcefully wresting the Kingdoms of this earth back from the one who stole it in the Garden (Matt 11:12), and that enemy has been resisting our advance. The battle has never stopped raging.

During World War 2,  the enemy was visible: not in the German nation and its allies, but in the occult-bound cabal headed up by Hitler who led them. He was opposed by the flawed prime minister of a small island who led the nation in prayer every morning. On 4th June 1940, less than two weeks after Dunkirk, Winston Churchill made his most famous speech: “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” What about us: how much are we fighting?

Now the battle is no less intense; the enemy may just be harder to see. But the USA, established by the Pilgrim Fathers to be a nation where Christian principals would be enshrined in the constitution, is a focal point. The enemy is using  liberal legislation and cultural pressure from “woke“ groups to rip up those principals. For example, the state is moving aggressively against the pro-life movement. Led by a strong Christian voice, Texas has passed a law banning abortion within the state as soon as cardiac activity is detectable, which is at around six weeks; but the federal government is attempting to legislate against it and deny Texas its constitutional right to make its own civil laws. Trump-supporting Republicans are being systematically bullied and victimised in many quarters because of their conservative views. The first amendment to the constitution, which protects freedom to worship, is under attack.

Unless you know your UK political history well, or have stumbled – as I have – on the right pages of Wikipedia, you may not know that Churchill’s famous speech was not initially broadcast publicly to the nation, but was made in parliament and was, at least in part, a plea to the USA to come to our aid in the war. Eventually they did. Now the Holy Spirit is calling us to go to the aid of America, and pull down the strongholds that the enemy is trying to establish with our spiritual weapons of warfare. There are members of the body many miles away but joined to us in the Spirit who are suffering, so we suffer with it.  Ask the Lord if he wants you to join the flotilla of small rescue ships that He is gathering for this new Dunkirk (see the post “Join the Flotilla” if you haven’t already) and if He wants you to tell others.

If you want more detail on how the battle is unfolding in the USA, two good and very different places are Dutch Sheets ministries – https://dutchsheets.org,  and the Thomas More Society – a not-for-profit, national public interest law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty: https://thomasmoresociety.org. There are obviously many other places where the enemy is at work and where the Body is hurting, and the Holy Spirit is directing more missions throughout the world than we can count at any one time: this is just one of them.

Be prepared; hold on., Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

USA. Join the flotilla! Turn the dynamo!

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Do not despise the day of small things

This morning I received a message from my friend Jake, who had just read the fiery buzzard post from yesterday. This is what he said:

“Bob, as to your dream I had a picture of a small boat which looked like a paddle board with a sail. The sail itself just looked like a feather. It was approaching America, paddled by what looked like a mouse. It was clearly a rescue boat. I looked and thought how can that rescue anyone.?

What heard the Lord say was: ‘Don’t despise the small things. As my people in the UK rise and pray, they will be that rescue boat among the many rescue boats sent out from around the world, praying and decreeing over USA.’”

When I read Jake’s message I thought immediately of Dunkirk, when a flotilla of over 800 motley small boats sailing back and forth across the English Channel rescued the allied forces from the clutches of Hitler. His armies had swarmed right across Europe and driven them right back to the coast. The rescue was only possible because of “unusually calm” weather: “The waters of the Channel are notoriously treacherous, which could have posed problems for the smaller boats, but thanks to a spell of settled weather the sea remained unusually calm with little more than a light breeze.” (From the BBC website) In addition to the unusual calm, smoke blown over the beaches by light Easterly winds screened the soldiers as they waited to be evacuated, and the beaches were obscured on the 28th and 30th May by cloud cover which preventing the Luftwaffe from bombing the Allied forces and their rescuers as they sailed across the Channel. The same clouds helped the RAF to engage the Luftwaffe in the skies.

The weather conditions that allowed the operation – codenamed “Operation Dynamo” were as supernatural as the parting of the Red Sea: with God’s help, around 338,000 soldiers were rescued.

Just like Hitler in May 1940, the enemy is of the opinion that he has God’s people in the USA on the run; pinned down against the sea where he thinks he will come and finish them off through the puppet presidency of Joe Biden. I believe that it is no coincidence that a major new film of Dunkirk was released only four years ago, and that Operation Dynamo itself was a prophetic event heralding what God would do by His Spirit in these times.

So do not despise the day of small things. You, your ministry, your prayer group, may only be a paddleboard with a feather sail propelled by a mouse, as is this website. But let us hear and spread God’s call to pray for the USA; let’s mount our paddleboards, set our feather sails to the wind and start the dynamo turning. Let’s get that flotilla launched and see God’s power at work.

Be prepared; hold on., Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Prophesy and the prophetic

Fire from the tower block: pray for the USA

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On the morning of Saturday 11th of September I had a dream that I felt was from the Lord. It’s some time since I’ve had a dream that I felt compelled to write down, but I did on this occasion. This was the dream:

I was on top of what seemed like a tall building made of wooden bookshelves, and a buzzard with fiery wings came and landed right next to me. It was big – bigger than a normal buzzard. When it spread its wings they were on fire, and they spread the fire. They were wings of fire, fanning the flames that they had started. The fire spread from the top of the building, and some of the bookshelf storeys started to burn and collapse, but not all of them. I wasn’t hurt by the fire and felt no desire to put it out; I just wondered at it. After the fire, the building/bookcase still stood, even though structurally that would’ve been impossible. Likewise some of the books had gone, and some remained.

The same afternoon Anne told me about a dream that had been submitted to Rick Joyner by a pastor that he is associated with. The dream was of Fire coming out of the top of a New York tower block. Rick felt that with the dream came an urgency to pray.

It seems that there is a strong connection between the two: my large brown bird of prey may well have been an (American) Eagle, and not a buzzard. Given the imprecise nature of dreams and who I am – a UK bird lover – it’s more likely that I would have seen it as a buzzard, particularly as I had been processing some of my photographs of a buzzard that day. But the main connection is the fire starting at the top of the tower block.

In the dream I felt that the fire was burning out rotten wood. In other words, it was burning out corruption. Although I have some ideas, I don’t have a clear interpretation of what the books were, and why the building was a bookcase. If any reader does, please share!

It seems strange that God gives this to me, over here in the UK, a little-known prophet hundreds of miles away, but I can only assume that there is someone reading this in the USA whom the Lord is calling to pray, and He is asking the rest of us to stand with you.

But it doesn’t end here. I wasn’t at work yesterday, so I opened my work emails today. Not all emails sent to my work inbox are about work: one was from a Christian friend  who forwarded a link to me on Saturday – the same morning that I had the dream and that Anne read the message from Rick Joyner. This is the link: https://www.hiskingdomprophecy.com/america-an-urgent-prophetic-warning/

It’s  a message given to UK prophet Veronika West. To save you clicking off, here it is in full.

“An Urgent Prophetic Warning for the United States of America!

“Code Red! Code Red! Mayday, Mayday… Mayday…!”

Suddenly and out of nowhere this evening, I heard an Alarm Bell ringing very loudly in the realm of The Spirit, which immediately felt like a Fire Drill.

I use those words — Fire Drill — because when I heard the sound of the Alarm Bell, It was released to me as a “secret” that was being revealed ahead of time.

This secret came out of the deeper and hidden realms of The Spirit by The Spirit of Revelation, (I hope this makes sense) and though it came very suddenly and unexpectedly, when my spirit connected with the sound, it carried the weight of a Prophetic Warning with Revelation, that demanded an urgent prayerful response.

On hearing the sound, I also felt the weight of God’s Grace and Mercy upon within it as it was a Warning ahead of time — to be prepared — as this was a pre-planned and strategic move of Satan that would try to be fully implemented in the days ahead.

But!…if the remnant will pray now, from a place of Faith and not out of fear, this pre-planned and carefully orchestrated move of the enemy can and will be fully exposed and completely dismantled.

Now, after hearing the loud and sudden Alarm Bell ringing in the realm of The Spirit, I heard these Words, ”Code Red! Code Red! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Watch!

For Martial Law…. yes, Martial Law, shall be a strategic move by the forces of darkness in the days ahead to further mobilise and advance their demonic agenda.

But nay! Nay, I say.. for as My Remnant rises up in this hour to Pray and seek My Face and rightly position themselves, I shall fully expose the plot that seeks to stop a Nation from moving forward, and I shall bring forth a swift and severe counter attack that shall thwart and bring to nought this pre-planned satanic assignment of the enemy in this hour!”

Postscript: Consider sharing this with those you know will pray!“

That’s the end of the message. Brothers and sisters, we need to stand with our friends in the USA. The battle is raging.