Matthew 6:9: In this manner, therefore pray: Our Father
in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts
and we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us
from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
What is Intercession?
here's a lot of talk today about the ministry of intercession, and
intercessors, and people who intercede. This word is thrown around quite loosely
especially in Charismatic circles today and you often hear people saying,
"Well, I'm an intercessor." Well, what is an intercessor and what is
intercession? Is it just praying? Is it a prayer? Can anyone do it? Is
intercession something that any believer can do? And does it have any special
relationship as regards the ministry of a prophet?
We’re dealing with the prophetic ministry and this message is part of the
same series that relates to the ministry of a prophet so I especially want us to
consider how intercession and the intercessory ministry relates to the prophet.
But in order to understand the subject better I'm going to look at whole subject
of intercession tonight. It's a very big subject. We could probably preach a
whole series just on this subject. Whole books have been written on it, so don't
expect me to go into too much detail here otherwise it's going to take too long.
I want us to look at and understand clearly what the ministry of intercession
is and how it relates specifically to the office of the prophet because there
seems to be a lot of confusion in prophetic circles regarding this ministry of
intercession. I hear people say, "Well, I am an intercessor, but I'm not
sure if God's called me to the prophetic ministry." And I hear people
saying, "Well I know God's called me to be a prophet, but I'm not sure if I
should also intercede." These are some of the issues that I want to address
here.
I want to look at the subject of prayer generally, and I'm going to see how
prophets get involved in and approach the subject of prayer generally. The Lord
gave us a pattern for prayer in the passage we just read, and He gave a pattern
to His disciples of how they should pray. Most people in Christendom today who
have been exposed to Christianity in some way have learnt the Lord's prayer by
rote and can say it, but haven't a clue what it means. Ninety percent or more
are like this, and the ten percent who have a clue what it means, still don't
know what it means. You'll understand what I'm talking about when I'm finished
this message because I'm going to explain to you what it means. I'm going to
show you what the Lord was talking about. I'm going to show you what He was
getting at when He gave them that pattern of prayer. And you'll begin to
understand how to use that pattern, and how to get involved in true
intercession.
The Four P's of Prayer
I always like to create a little skeleton on which to hang principles when we
study a subject like this, so I'd like to give you a skeleton on the subject of
prayer. I like to call them the 4 P's. I actually used to originally preach this
as the 3 P's, but when I came to look at it from the point of view of the
prophetic ministry I discovered that there was a fourth P. So I'm going to share
all the 4 P's with you now.
The 4 P's are easy to remember - P for Prayer, and four different words that
begin with P that are all related to prayer and describe a different type of
prayer. I'm going to give you the 4 P's and then we're going to look at each one
of them in detail.
The first P of prayer is praise, and worship associated with it.
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The second P is petition.
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The third P is penitence.
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The fourth P strangely enough is prophetic proclamation.
Praise, petition, penitence and prophetic - you'll see all four of those in
the Lord's prayer, and I'm going to show you that. Let's start with praise and
worship. Jesus said you must pray this way, "Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name." This is praise and worship. You start with
praise. In Psalm 22:3 David said, "But You are holy, O You that inhabits
the praises of Israel." David knew all about praise. God inhabits the
praises of His people.
Praise
What does praise do? Praise turns our attention from our problem to God.
Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to
those who love God and are the called according to His purpose." In
recent decades there's been a resurgence and a revelation of fresh revival and
restoration of praise in the church of the living God. At one time there was a
whole release of books on the subject, and a man by the name of Merlin
Corruthers spearheaded a lot of this with a very famous book. Some of you may
have read it if you're old enough. It is still around, but it was released a
long time ago, and it was called "Prison to Praise" and it sparked off
something.
He wrote a whole lot more books on the subject, and the gist of the teaching
was this: To learn to praise God for everything. For everything? Yes, praise God
for everything. Many people thought that Merlin Corruthers was an absolute
heretic because if you came to him and said, "My husband just left
me," he would say, "Praise the Lord for it, sister. Start saying,
'Lord, I praise you that my husband left me.' " Are you mad?
You know what it did? It took your eyes off the problem and started to see
that God was in control. It got you saying, "Lord I thank You and I praise
You that no matter what has happened, You are in control." It took your
attention of yourself. It took your attention off what the devil was doing. It
put your attention on what God is doing. Today the church is so concerned about
what the devil's doing. I get newsletters and publications in my email box all
the time telling me about what the devil's doing all over the world. And
everybody's getting ready for the mark of the beast and the antichrist and all
the things that are going wrong, and all over the world Satan is moving. It's
given to you under the guise of 'pray'.
All the time we're hearing what Satan is doing. We're not seeing what God is
doing, and we become so focused on what Satan is doing, we become so focused on
the evil that's in the world that our hearts become filled with fear and we
wonder if God is there, and we tremble. Praise lifts your eyes off what is going
on about you and in the world and puts your attention on the One who is on the
throne.
Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat knew about praise. When he sent his army out to battle he put the
singers right in the front lines. What a stupid thing to do. Here they were
going into battle against the enemy, and instead of putting the best soldiers
that he had at the front to face the onslaught of the enemy, he puts a bunch of
stupid namby-pamby singers, a bunch of arty types you know. These musical types
are usually effeminate aren't they? There's no masculinity in them. They're all
softies. (;-) But Jehoshaphat knew the power that there was in praise. He knew
the power that was released when the very first people who went out praised the
beauty of holiness. They glorified the Lord and they sang praises to God, and
when they did that, you know the story, the enemy just turned on themselves and
killed each other. By the time the army got there it was all over.
Praise has a greater power than any physical force in this world. King David
praised before the Lord. He knew the power of it. He set up singers and
worshippers and musicians who would praise God and worship Him around the clock
all the time. They were employed full-time to do that. The power in praise and
worship, expressing love to the Lord, coming into His presence in loving
communion and face to face relationship, even as Moses came into the presence of
God and spoke to Him mouth to mouth and face to face. Even as Joshua went into
the tent of meeting and after Moses left he stayed even longer to be in the
presence of God.
Coming Into the Throne Room
If you are going to do anything by prayer, you're going to have to start by
coming into the throne room of Almighty God. You know who has the special
ability to do that? That's right, the prophet. The prophet has a very special
ability to come into the presence of God because his spirit is in tune with God
and he can see and he can hear in the Spirit, and he can sense in the Spirit.
You start with praise and worship, and you begin to get lifted up from this
world. And as you praise and as you worship it's as though you're ascending in
the air like a hot air balloon going up, up, up. And you begin to look down at
the ground below you there. And that problem that seemed so big and you couldn't
see over it, you start to lift above it until you're looking down on top of it;
until you begin to realize as the Scripture says, that when Jesus was raised
from the dead and He was lifted up and raised up to be seated in heavenly
places, we have been raised up together with Him and we're seated in heavenly
places. We're seated in heavenly places with Him right now.
Do you know where you should be praying from? Not from down here. "Oh
Lord, we're in trouble. Please help us!" No, you need to get up there to
the throne. And you need to get onto the throne with the Lord, because you're in
Him and He's in you. And if we're seated with Christ in heavenly places,
spiritually we're seated on the throne. You need to get your eyes off this
physical plane and be lifted up so that you may now look down. That's where
you're praying from. That's the first step of intercession.
Prophetic Intercessors
If you're a prophetic intercessor, prophetic and intercessor are synonymous,
because intercession is the main function of a prophet is not to predict and
speak nice words of personal prophesy over people and tell them what their life
purpose is going to be and who they're going to get married to, and whether
they're going to be rich. People read horoscopes for that. Satan does that. That
is not the work of the prophetic ministry.
The work of the prophetic ministry is to release the will of God into the
earth. That's what we're supposed to be doing as prophets, and if we're going to
do that we're going to have to start by coming into the throne room. You start
your intercession with praise and worship until you become lifted up, and you
come into the presence of Almighty God and you find yourself seated in the
throne room in heavenly places. And from there you do your warfare. And from
there you do your intercession. And from there you do your prayer and you cause
change to take place in the earth. But you're not going to get there except you
start in praise and worship. That's why the Lord gave that as the very first
instruction for prayer.
A prophet has the ability to bring the anointing presence of God into a
meeting. You know why? Because a prophet has the ability to move into the throne
room very quickly. And when you move into the throne room you begin to
communicate down where your body is, while your spirit is there, and you begin
to communicate outwards into the very place that you are. You begin to
communicate outwards the very presence of God.
Using Music
Prophets can use music and singing to release the power of God, and I have
yet to meet a prophet who doesn't have some ability in this area. I don't care
if you can't sing well. I don't care if you're not much of a musician. There is
just something about the prophetic ministry that leads you into expressing and
releasing the anointing of God through music and singing and worship. You might
start just by walking around and singing in tongues. You'll be amazed how you
can sing in key just by singing in tongues. It doesn't really matter. You don't
even know what you're singing. You don't understand the words you're singing and
you can go up and down the scales and change the notes as much as you like. It
doesn't matter. You are creating a harmony in spirit, soul and body which
releases the anointing power of God.
That's a subject all on it's own and we're going to cover it some time, but
music has the ability to bring resonance in the soul. Music is the only thing
that has the ability to take your mind and your emotions and your will, and
bring them to flow all together in harmony at the same time, in tune with your
spirit. And your whole spirit, soul and body begin to vibrate with the very
power of God. And His glory begins to come upon you and begins to radiate forth
from you as you begin to move into that. It's a powerful subject.
So the prophet enters into the presence of God through praise and worship,
and having come into the throne room, then begins to wage warfare in the Spirit.
I'm not going to go into detail in warfare now because that is also a subject on
it's own and we're just talking about prayer and intercession and I'm only
touching on the main points.
Petition
The second 'P' is petition. Actually in the Lord's prayer the second 'P' was
prophetic, but I'm leaving that for last seeing as we're speaking about
prophetic intercession. Petition - Give us this day our daily bread. This is
about the only prayer that most people know.
"Well did you pray today?"
"Yes, I got down on my knees and I prayed for auntie and uncle, and
mommy and daddy, and Aunt Suzie and everybody else in church … and pastor and
everybody I know. I asked the Lord to provide my needs. I prayed the prayer of
petition."
"So, did God answer your prayer?"
"Well, sometimes He does."
"Are you sure?"
"Well I prayed. Sometimes He answers, I really don't know. We're
supposed to pray aren't we?"
1 John 5:14 says this:
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything
according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we
ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.
Praying According to God's Will
Petitionary prayer, in order to be effective, has to be made in accordance
with the will of God.
"I’ve been praying for a wife."
"Are you sure that it’s God’s will for you to have a wife?"
"Well, it must be because my current wife is just bad and I need to get
rid of her."
Hold it! (;-) How do I know what the will of God is? Well, He’s written a
few chapters about it, and if you’d like to have a read sometime, it’s the
first place you’re going to find out about His will. And if what you’re
praying is contrary to what’s in the word, if I were you I wouldn’t waste my
breath because God is not even going to listen to your prayer. You’re out of
order. You’re asking something that God has specifically forbidden.
There are areas that could be, or could not be. We’re praying something
that could be in agreement with the word, but there’s two alternatives, and
both of them could be in accordance with the word, but which is the right one in
our circumstances? What is the right one? What is God’s will in the situation?
I find that for most people they seem to think that God has planned out your
life for you and decided for you which way you’re going to go exactly. So God
has decided that you are going to be poor, so it’s pointless you praying for
finance. God has decided that you are going to have ill health so it’s
pointless praying for divine health. God has decided that you’re going to
marry somebody ugly, so don’t ask for somebody attractive. God has decided
that you’re going to be an evangelist, so forget about being a prophet.
People have this idea that God is this cruel tyrant who said, "I know
that you don‘t want to do this, but it’s My will, so you’ll have to!
Tough!" No, God’s will actually takes into account the very desires of
your heart, and the Lord never imposes anything on us. God knows what you’re
capable of, and He knows the end from the beginning, and so in terms of His
foreknowledge, in terms of what He knows concerning you and your abilities and
the experiences you’ve had in life, according to those things God makes a
plan, according to your prayer. I want you to think about that. It’s according
to your prayer.
I remember before Daphne and I met I was praying and I’d asked the Lord for
a new wife. I told Him what I wanted. I had about fourteen points that I had
laid down, and I was waiting for God now to choose my wife. I didn’t know how
He was going to do it, but I figured I would be standing up there preaching one
day, and she would walk in the room and our eyes would meet and @#! (;-) And God
would say, "This is she!" But nobody ever walked in while I was
preaching.
But one day I began to pray and said, "Lord, where is this woman that
You promised me?" The Lord said, "I’m not going to choose your wife
for you." He said, "This is within the limit of your own free will.
But tell Me what kind of wife you want and I’ll show you were you can find one
like that." You see, there’s a difference. And God brought to me somebody
who matched the exact specifications that I’d asked for. Of course, some
people give specifications that are not easy to meet and they have to travel all
the way overseas to Mexico before they find their partner. (;-) Do you
understand what I’m saying? God has not decreed, "This is the person you’re
going to marry, so I don’t care if you don’t like it. I don’t care if it
doesn’t match what you want. This is My will and you must submit to it!"
So people go round looking for a prophet to tell them who they’re supposed to
marry. Nonsense. God will never overrule your will.
Recognising God's Plan
When I speak about knowing the will of God I’m not talking about that kind
of thing. I’m talking about knowing, in the circumstances, what it is that God
is going to accomplish in the earth. So when I come to pray and I wait on the
Lord, the Lord has taken what I have given to Him and He’s formulated a plan
for me, and all I need to do is get in line with that plan and let it run it’s
course. And if I miss the plan, I’m going to miss the course that He’s laid
for me and He may have to start all over again.
You know what it’s like on these modern freeways? You go dashing along and
suddenly a sign flashes in front of you and before you know it you’ve ridden
past the sign and you say, "Oh no, that was the turnoff we were meant to
take." It’s too late. And you’ve got to go about 20 kilometers down the
road before you find another place where you can turn around and go all the way
back again.
You know sometimes we’re like that in our spiritual lives. We’ve asked
the Lord to do something and He’s arranged the circumstances very nicely for
us, and He’s brought people into place and brought finances into place. He’s
arranged certain situations and it’s all there ready to go. You think He’s
going to take a long time to do it, and suddenly the sign flashes in front of
you and you miss it. You ride right past. I want to tell you, sometimes you can
catch it, but sometimes by the time you get back to the turnoff your chance has
gone, the circumstances have changed. There’s people that were there that aren’t
there anymore. There’s situations that existed that don’t exist anymore.
They’re gone.
You see, that is why you need to know the will of God in a situation and you
need to be in tune to hear His voice so say, "Now is the time for this plan
to be set in motion." That is what the prophet does in petitionary prayer.
The prophet knows, now is the time, now is the moment for this request to be
fulfilled. You’ve got to be in tune with the Spirit of God. You’ve got to be
able to hear His voice to know, to walk in step with Him, to get His perfect
timing.
Praying in Faith
Mark 11:24 says:
Therefore I say to you, "Whatever things you desire, when you pray
believe that you receive them and you shall have them."
Prayer has to be made in faith. If you do not believe that you are going to
receive you won't get it. But actually this verse goes one step further. It
doesn't say, "Believe that when you pray you're going to receive what
you've prayed for." It says, "Whatever things you desire when you
pray believe that you receive them." When did you receive them? When
you prayed. Faith is always a past tense. Faith does not say, "Well, I
believe that God can provide my needs." Faith does not say, "I believe
that God wants to provide my needs." Faith does not say, "I believe
God is going to provide my needs." That one threw you didn't it? Do you
know what faith says? Faith says, "I believe God has provided my needs. It
is done. It is mine. It is finished." And faith then walks out and says,
"I have a beautiful new Dodge Ram. I have whatever my heart desires. I have
the petition that I have brought to Him."
Yonggi Cho was reported to have said that he had asked God for something and
God had shown him that he had conceived that thing in his spirit, and he began
to tell everybody, "The Lord's given it to me." And when they came to
see where it was he said, "I'm pregnant with it. It's inside me." (;-)
You'll all know the story if you've read his books.
"I've got it, it's mine, it just hasn't manifested yet." That's the
prayer of faith. Now how is it going to get manifested? I want to tell you that
God answers your prayer of faith most of the time through somebody else. If you
are believing God for a healing touch in your body, and you've reached out and
by faith received your healing - you can't see it, you can't feel it, your still
suffering - but when I prayed I know God gave me what I asked for." A lot
of people get it wrong right at that point. They say, "Well I've prayed,
and therefore God's given it to me and it's going to come one of these days.
I'll wait for it to come."
Do you know what God does? God sends you somebody with a gift of healing. And
they come to you and they say, "I feel led to pray for you for the healing
of your body." You say, "I'm not sick. I believe I'm healed by faith.
I don't need you to pray for me. I have received my healing." You could
die. You know why? God answered your faith by sending you the answer through
somebody else, and they came to you with the gift of healing from Almighty God.
God Works Through People
How does God do things in the earth? He does it through people. Until
somebody prays God does nothing! When God created this world He put His man Adam
in control and He said, "Adam whatever happens in this world is up to you.
I’ll come and visit and give you all the help you want, but I’m not
interfering here. You’re in charge." God does nothing except through
human agency. It is whatever you bind on earth that is bound in heaven
and whatever you loose on earth that is loosed in heaven.
If God is going to answer your prayer He’s going to do it when a man prays.
He’s going to send forth His word, and we’re going to look at it just now
especially as it relates to the prophet. God answers your prayer through
another. I’ve seen people who pray and say, "Father we have a financial
need. Lord please provide." Then somebody comes to them and says, "I
feel led of the Lord to give you $100." And they say, "No, I can’t
accept money from you. God’s going to provide, I’m trusting God, don’t
worry you don’t need to give me any money." He just provided it and you
turned it down.
God provides through human agency. Do you see what I’m saying? I’m
leading onto something and you’ll see it shortly. You see, God provides the
ministry of intercession, the prophetic intercessor especially, the authority to
release into the earth, the word of authority that will bring the answer to your
petition which you prayed by the prayer of faith. When you reached out to God in
prayer and by faith embraced His promises and claimed them as yours, and
received at the hand of God the thing that you asked Him for, God is going to
answer your faith through a person. He might give it to you, but a lot of the
time He gives it to somebody else.
So as I’ve stood here in prayer and prayed and asked God to intervene in my
situation, God moves on an intercessor who is somewhere else, and God moves upon
that person and says, "There is somebody I want you to pray for. There is
somebody who is believing Me who has stood on My word in faith to receive at My
hand. Now you speak the word of authority into the earth for that thing to be
released." And all the intercessor does is speak forth the word, the rhema
word of God which has been revealed to release the authority in the earth for
that thing to take place.
Praying on Behalf of Another
And finally, prophets can do a lot more than simply pray for another person
in bringing petitions and requests. A prophet can carry out true intercession
which means not only praying for another person, but praying as another person.
You see, intercession involves praying on behalf of another. Now, how can you
fully pray on behalf of another without fully understanding their situation,
without fully understanding what’s going on in their heart, without fully
understanding the conflict that is going on within them. God at times gives the
intercessor, the ability by the word of knowledge, to actually enter into the
experience of a person, and the prophet actually enters in the spirit and begins
to feel and know and experience the very conflict that that person is going
through.
You’ll have an intercessor, having risen up into that heavenly realm to
prepare for intercession, and God will show the intercessor somebody across the
world who is lying sick and suffering. And the intercessor will sometimes begin
to experience the very pain that is in the body of that person. The intercessor
will begin to sigh and to groan, and to wail and to feel travail and despair.
Sometimes it can be very confusing if you don’t understand what’s happening,
but what is actually happening is you as an intercessor have actually become
that person in the spirit. You are not praying for that person anymore, you are
praying as that person. You have literally become that person in the spirit, and
now as that person you are petitioning God on behalf of that person.
In Charismatic circles there is a common expression that is used, and it’s
called standing proxy for someone. And sometimes someone will go forward in a
meeting for prayer and they will say, "I don’t have a need myself, but I’m
standing proxy for someone else. There is someone who is at home lying in bed
sick, and so I’m standing in their place and I want you to pray over me as
though you were praying over that person." It’s the same kind of thing.
You actually become that person and pray as that person in the spirit. Therefore
you can pray with full authority on that person’s behalf.
Perhaps the person you’re praying for has been beaten into unconsciousness
and is dying and therefore cannot pray for themselves, but their spirit has
reached out to God. God will move upon you as an intercessor and you will enter
into the experience of that person who’s lying unconscious, and you will pray
for them the prayer that they cannot pray. And you will release the authority of
God to bring about deliverance, victory and healing or whatever is needed.
Penitence
The third P is the prayer of penitence. Penitence means confession of sin.
Jesus said in the Lord’s prayer that we must pray, "Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." The prayer of
repentance clears the conscience and opens the way for faith. Why is that
necessary? 1 John 3:21 says:
Beloved if our heart does not condemn us then we have confidence towards God.
And whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do
those things that are pleasing in His sight.
If our heart does not condemn us we have confidence towards God. This means
that the opposite is true. When my heart is condemning me, I cannot have
confidence towards God. If I have sinned and if I have failed, and if I feel
guilty before God, how can I come boldly into His presence and say, "Lord,
I need this. Please provide my need."? I’ve got to have confidence
towards God, and I cannot have that confidence while I’m under condemnation so
the prayer of penitence clears my heart.
A lot of people get this all wrong and they seem to think that if your heart
is not right before God, God is going to judge you, and God is going to refuse
to answer your prayer. NO. The Scripture says that "Without faith it is
impossible to please Him. He that comes to God must believe that He is and that
He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
God is moved by faith, but you see when you sin, your heart condemns you not
the Lord. The Lord never condemns you. "There is therefore now no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Your heart condemns
you, and when your heart condemns you, you do not have faith towards God. And if
you do not have faith towards God you’re not going to get an answer to your
prayer. We’ve got it all back to front. It’s you that’s condemning
yourself. It’s your own conscience that’s condemning you. It’s not the
Lord, it is your heart.
The prayer of penitence, the prayer of confession of sin is not a bribery to
the Lord. It’s not an attempt to try and curry favor with Him. You say,
"Well, if I confess all my sins I must come with a list and say, ‘What
did I do today, and yesterday and the day before and the last week? Hey, I may
as well go through the last week and the last 10 or 20 years and make a list of
all the things that I did that I haven’t confessed yet because obviously the
Lord is not going to bless me until I’ve dealt with all those sins back
there."
Hey if I can’t remember them do you think He does? He forgot them as soon
as you did them because He covered them already on the right hand of the Father.
How? In intercession. Did you know that? Jesus is the greatest intercessor that
there ever was. Do you know what He’s doing? He’s praying as you. Do you
know that? Every time you sin He’s stood before the Father and said,
"Father, forgive me, I have sinned." Think about it. The prayer of
penitence is to clear your heart. Just say it out loud. "Father, forgive
me." You’re under condemnation, your heart is condemning you.
Repenting on Behalf of Others
You know, we can pray also on behalf of others. Some of the early prophets
like Daniel would fast and pray and intercede and confess the sins of the
nation. "Father we have sinned. We have forsaken You." He was praying
on behalf of someone else. An intercessor very often will receive the burden and
the guilt of sin as they’re interceding on behalf of somebody else and they
will take that burden to the Lord in prayer. 1 John 5:16 says:
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask,
and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.
This is a big subject and I'm not going to go into detail here, but John is
talking about sins that affect people that we can pray for. He's saying that we
can pray concerning another person's sin. Do you remember when they brought the
sick man to Jesus and his four friends let him down by making a hole in the
roof? Jesus came to the man who was lying there sick in bed and paralyzed and He
said, "Son, your sins are forgiven you." And everybody started to
think evil thoughts and say to themselves, "How can He forgive sins, He's a
man. Only God can forgive sins." And Jesus said to them, "Why are you
thinking these thoughts?" He said, "Just to show you that the Son of
Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins, rise up and walk."
The Son of God - is that what He said, that the Son of God has authority on
the earth to forgive sins? No, He said the Son of Man. And I can show you a
verse where Jesus, after He'd risen from the dead came to His disciples at an
event called the insufflation. You'll find it at the end of John's gospel. Jesus
came and He breathed into them and He said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
And He said to them, "Whosever sins you remit, they are remitted, and
whosever sins you retain they are retained." He said that to the disciples.
Do you know that you have power to speak forgiveness of sins to God's people?
It's one of the most powerful ministries involved in inner healing of past
hurts, and especially past events that have left a scar of guilt on the lives of
people, and they need to confess and share that failure with a fellow human
being, with another believer in Christ who can, on behalf of the Lord say,
"You are forgiven in Jesus' Name. You are cleansed in Jesus' Name. Maybe
the Catholics aren't so far off after all.
Do you know that Agnus Sanford who was one of the early pioneers of inner
healing came to experience it for the first time? She was an Episcopalian who
didn't believe in confessional, and one day somebody said to her, "Why
don't you go and confess your sins to a priest?" She really didn't like
that idea at all, but she did it as an experiment. And she said the power when
he spoke those things out loud and somebody else said to her, "Your sins
are forgiven," really set her free.
I don't want to get into all of this now and say it is a load of heresy.
Don't misunderstand me. We have the power to pray concerning other people's sins
at times. There are sins that we cannot. John says there is a sin that is unto
death. There are sins that are deliberately bringing curses on others and
speaking words of destruction, and willfully coming against the kingdom of God.
Breaking Curses Over Others
There are different kinds of sins. But there are the sins that people are
caught in. There are the sins that are affecting people because they are under
the curse of sins from family generations, and under the curse of people they
are associated with, and other people that have spoken words over them. We have
the authority, especially the prophet of God has authority to intercede on
behalf of somebody else and to break the curses over them, and to break the
power of sin over them, and to speak life to them. We can set them free from
that bondage that’s binding them and speak to them in the Spirit and say,
"In the Name of Jesus I speak forgiveness, I speak cleansing, I speak
forgiveness to you now and I set you free." And the power will be broken.
This is a very powerful type of prayer that is often left out, but is part of
the prophet’s ministry. Perhaps you’re burdened for your nation and your
country. You can pray and you can intercede that God will move on behalf of that
nation and that country. Perhaps you’re burdened for your church and for
people in your church that are not living the way they should. Why don’t you
speak the power of God into them and the cleansing of sin and set them free.
Take upon yourself the burden to pray as them to confess on their behalf that
God would release His blessing towards them.
Prophetic Decree
And so we come to the final type of prayer – the prophetic decree. Jesus
said, "Pray this way. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We miss
the true power of that by not understanding the actual grammatical Greek
structure that is given there, but both of those are in the imperative. The
imperative tense means a command. When the Lord said we are to say, "Thy
Kingdom come," He was saying we are to give forth a command, "Come
Thy Kingdom! Come! Be done Thy will on the earth." There’s a big
difference there.
You see, when you’re sitting on the throne and interceding from the throne
you are issuing decrees from the throne. You’re not praying up to the throne,
you’re praying down from the throne. And when you stand in that place as God’s
spokesman in the earth, His prophet, ordained and anointed by Him to speak forth
His word into the earth, He wants you to issue a decree, a commandment.
If you read the book of Esther you find out how the King Ahasuerus had a ring
on his finger, and when the King made a decree and he sealed that decree with
his ring, that decree went forth into the land and could not be broken or
disobeyed. And in terms of the laws of the Medes and the Persians it could not
be retracted either, so much so that when the King gave his ring to Haman, and
Haman issued the decree to destroy the Jews, afterwards they said to him,
"Stop the decree." But the King said, "I can’t stop it. It is
the law of the Medes and Persians. Once the decree is issued it cannot be
retracted.
In Isaiah 55:11 the Lord said:
So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth; it shall not return to
Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in
the thing for which I sent it.
"It’s going to go out and it’s going to do it’s job. When that
word goes out of My mouth, you’d better believe it, It’s going to hit the
target!" Have you ever tried to get a bullet back into the mouth of a rifle
after you’ve pulled the trigger? Too late! (;-) When a prophet of God opens
his mouth to speak forth the word that God places in his mouth, he is sending
forth a decree into the earth that is the very word of God, and it goes forth
like the law of the Medes and the Persians. It cannot be retracted.
Amos 3:7 says:
Surely the Lord God will do nothing, except He reveals His secrets to His
servants the prophets.
His secrets – what does it mean? It means that God plans to do things in
the earth. And when God plans to do things in the earth, God looks for a man (or
a woman) to be His agent in the earth. You see, if God’s word is going to go
into the earth, it doesn’t come out of the ether, it comes out through a body
that is made from the elements of the earth, because only a spirit living in a
human body can speak forth the words of authority into the earth. It’s the way
God has made it. That is the way God has decreed it, because He put man in
control of this earth. And when God is going to speak forth His words into the
earth, he’s going to speak it through human lips.
When the prophets of old spoke, and they predicted we’re taught, and they
made decrees of what was going to happen in the last days and in the end times,
they were not predicting, they were speaking into existence the very thing that
God had decreed. They were sending into the earth the very decree of Almighty
God. They were uttering and issuing a decree which could not be retracted.
Do you realize the awesome responsibility that there is on a prophetic
intercessor, that when he opens his mouth to utter into the earth the authority
and the word of God, that the words he speaks are the words of God, and that
they are sent to the right place at the right time, in the right way? Do you
know what an awesome responsibility God has placed upon us as His prophets, then
you wonder why He puts us through such a preparation. Then you wonder why He has
to bring us to a place of total dependence on Him; why He has to destroy all
self in us; why He has to bring us low; why He has to teach us to have no
confidence in the flesh whatsoever, because He’s called us to be His
intercessors.
He’s called us to speak forth His word into the earth. And as He speaks
forth His rhema words to you of His will and His purpose, you speak it forth.
And if somebody’s looking to God in faith, exercising their faith in prayer
and believing God, God sends the answer by coming to you and He says,
"Issue the decree. Speak it forth now, that My servant’s prayer may be
answered."
Waiting on God for Direction
Can you see the difference? So many people think that intercession is taking
a whole list of requests and bringing them to the Lord and bombarding Him, and
bombarding Him, and hammering it, and hopefully one of us will get it right and
we’ll get the answer. No! I’ve found that the kind of prayers that bring
instant results is when the intercessor comes into the presence of God and
starts out by getting into the throne room and then waits. He says, "Okay,
Lord, I’m charged, I’m ready! Just give me the decree and I’ll issue
it."
You can bring a request to the Lord, and you can bring a need to the Lord,
and you can bring a person to the Lord and say, "Here is a need, Father, I
see it. Lord, what do I pray?" And God says, "Nothing." Drop it.
Drop it right there. Put it down, God’s not dealing with that one. Maybe that
person never exercised faith, I don’t know. It’s not your problem, so don’t
you care pray about it.
As you begin to pray suddenly somebody comes into your mind that you haven’t
thought about for a long time, and it comes strong, and God says, "Speak it
forth. Pray for that person, I’m going to work in their situation. Issue the
decree." Intercessors should be spending their time not coming to God with
a prayer list, but coming to God to get a prayer list. And when God gives you
the word, you speak the word.
Sometimes it helps to write it down. A large part of our Bible are the
writings of the decrees that were issued by the prophets of old. It makes it a
legal document in the earth. It’s sealed there, it’s recorded for all the
world to see, that such a decree was issued at such and such a time on such and
such a date in the Name of the Lord, and it shall not return void, but it shall
accomplish that for which it is sent.
You see, we can all pray, but the prophet is called especially to do this. It’s
the main part of the prophetic call. The prophet is given the authority to issue
decrees into the earth, and when you prophesy over an individual you’re not
just predicting, you’re speaking the very will of God over them. And most of
the time you’re actually unlocking a door for them. That’s why the golden
key has always been the symbol. Whenever I’ve prayed with somebody and God
instructs me to impart the prophetic office He shows me the golden key.
The prophet has the authority to bind and loose, to open and to shut. We all
have it as believers in some way, but the prophet especially has been given that
authority to issue a decree to open the way, or to issue a decree to shut the
door. That is what the prophet should be doing, and that is done through the
ministry of intercession. So can you see that prophet ministry and intercession
are virtually synonymous? The one runs into the other. And if you’re an
intercessor, God’s leading you into the prophetic ministry. And if you’re a
prophet, you will be an intercessor, you can count on it.
