I pondered long and hard over what to write to you in this article on the eve of the presidential election. I urge you to get out and vote as your Christian and civic duty. I urge you to vote for the candidates who best represent the interests of God, for persons of integrity, honor and valor. Furthermore I exhort you to pray like you have never prayed before for this nation. I believe we are at a great crossroads. We are in a struggle between the forces of light and darkness, between those who honor godly values and those motivated by a materialistic worldview of convenience and expedience. Now more than ever do we need to see the movement of God in the hearts of the people of this nation. And so I am going to write about intercessory prayer, and why it is so imperative that we pray.
First of all, what is intercession? An intercessor is one who stands in for another before God. Paul urges in First Timothy "that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority." Secondly, why is it necessary and important? There are two surface reasons why it is so important to pray for our nation and others. Number one, we intercede "in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity." Number two, because God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Peace and tranquillity is not only more pleasant to live in, but allows the unhindered preaching of the Gospel.
But there is a deeper question I really want to address concerning why intercession is so important. If God has a will for our nation, isn't that going to happen no matter what we pray or do? If God is sovereignly in charge of all things, why doesn't He just take it upon Himself to act? If God is concerned about the salvation of others and the fate of our nation, why doesn't He just act on His own without our prayers? The answer to this question is so shocking that it will probably get me in trouble if I'm misunderstood, so before you read the next sentence, please determine to read the entire article before throwing it down. The reason that God wants us to pray is because in order for something to get done on the earth GOD NEEDS OUR PERMISSION!!!! This is one of the simplest and most important of all revelations, and yet it may seem totally absurd and nearly blasphemous.
Why does God need our permission? What do I mean by that? Well, we need to go back to the beginning. We find in Genesis that after God created the universe, He created mankind and gave us dominion over this world. We rebelled against God and ended up forfeiting our dominion of this world over to Satan, whom Jesus describes in John 12:31 and elsewhere as "the ruler of the world", whom Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 4:4 as "the god of this world", and in Ephesians 2:2 as "the prince of the power of the air." Jesus came to wrest this authority away from Satan, but the very first thing He did was to give the authority back to the New Covenant people of God, the Church. This has already been accomplished, and we now hold "the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19)
This is why God needs our permission then: God has ordained that we are in charge of things on the earth and that we are to exercise His authority on earth. As John Wesley once put it: "It seems God cannot do anything for humanity unless somebody asks Him to do it." God is waiting for our invitation to act. We are legal heirs of this planet and God will not move in on it without our permission!!!! Our intercession gives God permission to move in on the scene.
Of course, God could just sweep the whole thing out of existence if He really wanted to, with or without us, but He has chosen to limit Himself for the sake of His covenant partners, the Church, and to work through our prayers and actions.
The reason the world is in such a mess is the failure of the Church to wake up and exercise our authority over the forces of evil, to pray and bring God's blessing and protection and intervention on the scene. We need to take responsibility instead of always blaming everybody else for what's wrong. We're the only ones with the authority to do anything permanent about the situation.
We need to arouse ourselves to intercession. Isaiah 64:7 laments that "there is no one who calls on Thy name, who arouses himself to take hold of Thee." But later in Isaiah 66:7-8, the Holy Spirit writes "as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her sons." In this prophetic context, Zion is the Church, and travailing is travailing in prayer, which is what intercession is all about.
The movement of God upon the earth depends on us, on our waking up to the authority we have on the earth, doing our part in intercession so that the gospel can be preached to all the earth, after which and only after which Christ will return. Pray like never before over this election process. Ask God to move in and restore our nation to Himself.
@ copyright 1992 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.