The
Life of an Intercessor - By Wayne Weaver
I have
heard many messages on intercessory prayer, but God calls us to do more than
just pray. He wants action. He wants someone who will stand in the gap, someone
who will respond to God's call like Elijah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, those prophets
of old who saw a field ripe for harvest and said, "Here am I, Lord. Send
me."
It's an easy thing to shut our doors and
go into a closet and pray against wickedness or pray for the lost. It's
something else entirely to stand up and live as an intercessor, to actually intercede
for others. We won't be appreciated for what we do. All the great intercessors
in the Bible were misunderstood and persecuted. But that is the call God has
placed on our lives.
Moses heard God's call from the burning
bush, and he became an intercessor for God's people. God said to him,
"Take off your shoes, Moses. You are standing on holy ground." From
that moment on, when Moses took off his shoes, he never walked the same again.
There was holiness under his feet. The fire of the Holy Spirit burned in his
bosom. The anointing was placed upon him, and he could never walk away from it.
He was being prepared for the enormous task of intercession.
In Numbers 16 the Israelites rebelled in a
big way against Moses and his leadership. The Lord grew angry and told Moses to
"Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a
moment." But Moses interceded for his wayward people. "And Moses said
unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on
incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them;
for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun." Aaron did
what Moses commanded: "And he stood between the dead and the living; and
the plague was stayed" (verse 48).
In this passage we glimpse the magnitude
of true intercession. As the plague started rolling over the multitudes of
people, the dead fell in waves, like wheat falling before a sickle. Over 14,000
were consumed by God's wrath. And Aaron, at the command of Moses, grabbed the
censer and ran to save his people, standing on that awful line of dying people,
not thinking of his own life.
This is intercession. We are called to
walk between the dead and the living, between liars and the truth, between the
unholy and the holy, between the encouragers and the accusers. Aaron walked
that line because he had a censer--the fire of God--in his hand. He had a
burning in his heart for God's people, the fire of the Holy Ghost moving him to
action.
Joshua walked with Moses, and he, too,
became an intercessor. When he came to the Jordan, God parted the waters, just
as He had for Moses at the Red Sea. Joshua interceded for the Israelites and
led them across on dry land.
Joshua knew he was called to fight. As
intercessor for his people he was called to lead them in victory over their
enemies, to conquer the land God had given them. So when, near Jericho, he came
upon a man with a sword in his hand, he asked him, "Are you for us or
against us?" The man answered, "As captain of the host of the Lord am
I now come." The Captain of the Lord of Hosts Himself came to fight for
Joshua!
When we look into Canaan, the land God has
given us, we see enemies and barriers and mountains and mighty fortresses that
bar our way, and we easily get discouraged. But when in obedience we step out
and cross the Jordan, we meet the Captain of the Lord of Hosts, who carries a
sword and fights for us. The calling of an intercessor is an extremely
difficult calling, but it is God Almighty who does the fighting for us.
The Captain commanded Joshua to take off
his shoes, just like Moses, for he was standing on holy ground. Do you remember
when you first came to the Lord Jesus Christ and stood on holy ground? When you
were asked to take off your shoes, and you did? When you were filled with the
Holy Ghost and sensed the urgency of that heavenly calling on your life, the
burning and power filling your heart? You were called to be an intercessor, to
walk in places where man has never walked, to seize the land God promised you
through the power of the Captain of the Lord of Hosts.
But things changed. You glimpsed the
giants in Canaan and grew afraid. You wouldn't enter the land. You wouldn't
stand in the gap for others, like Moses and Joshua did. Your own strength
failed, and you never stepped out in faith to cross the Jordan where the
Captain would appear.
God doesn't call us to such a mighty
calling in our own strength. He has paved the way, for who is a greater
intercessor than our Lord Himself? God looked down upon the earth and saw His
people suffering under the curse of sin, on their way to hell. He was talking
to His son and said, "The only way to save these people is to have You go
down and become like them, to take the curse upon Yourself and stand in their
place."
So Jesus came down and stood in our place.
When the Father sent Him, Jesus said, "I want to do your will. I will
go." Imagine the Godhead--the holy Godhead who created the earth and rules
it in power, who makes the volcano spew its fire and the thunder shake the
earth--coming down as a baby, a tiny, vulnerable baby, buffeted by the storms
just as we are. He started life in just the way you and I start life. As an
intercessor He had to be as vulnerable as we. He had to become fully human.
That's what intercession is all about. An
intercessor steps into the shoes of another, fights the fight of another, goes
through the trials of another. He is tempted with another's temptation. Jesus
understands our temptations because He suffered them Himself. He took our curse
upon Himself. It's essential to understand that Jesus Christ came in the flesh,
not as a spirit. He had flesh and bones and nerves and a heart of blood. That's
the only way He could fight our fight for us.
Some argue that because He came from the
Godhead, Jesus couldn't have sinned or fallen. Friends, that's just not true.
That's a lie from Satan, who would have you believe that Jesus can't understand
what you're going through. No, Jesus was a man, and He could fall. If he had
not been able to fall, He could not be our intercessor.
What made Jesus supernatural was the
presence of the Holy Ghost within Him. But because of His work of
intercession--His taking away our sins and bringing us back to God--we, too,
can have the presence of the Holy Ghost within us, leading us to victory. We,
too, can live a supernatural life. Holy God in heaven, cursed man on earth,
Jesus in between bridging that gap--that's the work of true intercession.
Like Moses, Jesus was despised by the very
ones He came to help. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. He
loves His people and intercedes for them in spite of their sin and rebellion.
Hebrews 7:25: "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for
them."
After Jesus was baptized and the Holy
Ghost came upon Him in the form of a dove, He fasted for 40 days and was
tempted by Satan. That's when the fight started, and the fight continues today,
with Him interceding, interceding, interceding, day in and day out, year after
year for 2,000 years, for His people.
It's easy to say, "Lord Jesus, save
my brother." But to stand in your brother's temptations and fight the
devil for him is another story. We are commanded to be like Jesus, to quit
finding fault and start interceding--even if we are treated cruelly in return.
Like our great Intercessor we will be misunderstood and insulted, but like Him
we must stand in the gap for others.
Last week the Lord showed me that I was
not walking where He had called me, in the place of an intercessor. The Holy
Ghost came down and started changing things in my life. My heart started
burning for the lost again. Unless we reach right into the smoking flames of
hell and pull people out, we are not doing what God called us to do. We must
reach right in, despising even the flames, to get to the soul that is dying and
on the way to hell. We back away because we're afraid, unsure of what God has
called us to do. It's pleasant enough to pray in the Spirit and sing in the
Spirit, but this is something else entirely. We're just not sure what to do.
But He has made clear our calling: we're to be intercessors as Christ was our
intercessor.
Abraham,
a 75-year-old cattle farmer, had a lot of gold and silver. He was comfortable.
But God spoke to him and said, "Leave your family." And Abraham went.
Abraham had a faith most of us don't have. When God tells us to do something,
we say, "Yes, Lord, but how will I do it?" We worry and wonder and
look for confirmation. We go to one brother, and then another, and then want
the whole church to confirm it. But God spoke to Abraham one time and Abraham
was on his way.
When God said, "Let there be
light," there was light. The earth didn't argue. He threw the stars out
and they are still moving at the same speed. But when He speaks to us, we begin
to doubt the very next hour. Satan planted doubts in Eve, and he continues to
plant doubts today. And so we don't walk where God calls us. We look for short
cuts. We simply pray and go on our merry way, refusing to become the
intercessors God has called us to be.
Abraham's obedient heart and his desire to
be an intercessor went together. He thought of others, not of himself. In
Genesis 18, when God was preparing to punish Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin,
Abraham stood before the Lord and asked, "If there are 50 righteous people
there, won't you spare the place for their sake?" He kept pleading with
God until God agreed to spare the place even for just 10 righteous people.
Abraham stood in the gap, intervening for his brothers and sisters. He spoke to
God and actually changed God's mind. Abraham had power with God because the
Holy Ghost had been brought into his life and enabled him to become an
intercessor.
In Judges we find what you may think an
unlikely intercessor in Samson. I began studying Samson about eight months ago,
and the Lord has brought him to my mind constantly. Samson was a Nazarite with
a special calling on his life. The Lord had called him to begin to deliver
Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. He wasn't called to bring about
full deliverance but only to begin the process. The Israelites were held tight
by their enemies. They needed someone to break that rein. God chose Samson to
stand in the gap, to intercede for His struggling people.
God first had him go down and marry a
woman from Timnath, a woman forbidden by Mom and Dad. Some teachings have been
floating around that a man should be under the authority of his parents, no
matter what. That's not biblical. We are under the authority of God, whose
commands will often run contrary to those of sinful parents. Who is our dad? If
we've been born again, our father is Jesus. We need to honor our parents, but
Jesus is our ultimate parent, the one we get our instructions from. So Samson
married the woman God called him to marry, even though he was misunderstood.
When we become intercessors we, too, will be misunderstood.
As God had foreseen, the marriage angered the
Philistines and started the conflict. The Philistines persecuted Samson and
then burned his wife and father-in-law. They hadn't reckoned on the enormity of
Samson's strength. The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he took
the jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand people.
Afterward Samson was so thirsty he said to
God, "I am going to die unless I get something to drink." God opened
a well out of the jawbone and Samson drank and drank until he was strengthened
again. The hard work of intercession will take everything out of us. We will
give and give until we think we have nothing left to give. But God Himself will
provide the strength we need.
Samson has been criticized because he told
Delilah about his hair. But nowhere does the Bible say that God was displeased
with the incident. On the contrary, the book of Hebrews lists Samson as one of
the great men of the faith. I believe God allowed his strength to fail and his
eyes to be gouged out as part of his calling, as a work of redemption. He had
been fighting the Philistines for many years. Perhaps he was growing tired.
Like intercessors today, he probably got little support from his people. Then
he was captured, maimed, and imprisoned by the Philistines. But his faith began
to grow. When 3,000 Philistines were making fun of him at a party, he prayed
that God would restore his strength--and God did, in greater measure than ever
before. Samson trusted God to accomplish what He had called him to do, even
though everyone thought Samson had become far too weak to do it. He thought
nothing of his own life--"Let me die with the Philistines," he
said--but he put his faith to work for the good of his people. He pulled the
building down and destroyed more Philistines than he had throughout his entire
life.
The Philistines had taunted him,
"Where's your strength? Where's your power?" Intercessors today hear
the same taunts. They wear themselves out to intercede for others, and then
must endure ridicule for their weakness. But God's power never runs out. The
Philistines' taunts died on their lips. Samson paid the price of an
intercessor: he gave his life to start freeing his people from bondage.
Elijah, too, knew the cost of being an
intercessor. After his big victory on the mountain, where the false prophets of
Baal were defeated, he went down and killed 400 people. He enjoyed great
victory. But then Jezebel once again took up the fight, and Elijah realized
just how tired he was. He could take no more. "God, let me die. All are
against me. I'm tired of it. My soul is weak. Just let me die." He had
gone against the powers of hell and saved his country, only to have to begin
fighting again. That's the life of an intercessor.
An intercessor knows the depths of
sacrifice. He must stand between right and wrong, between life and death,
between heaven and hell--standing where God has placed him, perhaps losing his
own life and even his spiritual life. Sometimes in his intense intercession he
walks where devils walk, talks where devils talk, and stands where devils
stand. Sometimes he gives so much of himself that he almost loses his own
eternal life. The burdens of his soul consume him.
I have experienced the struggling of an
intercessor in my own life. I struggle with the sins of my people. If someone
is struggling with lust or even adultery, I can feel it, I can know it. When I
get up to preach, I can preach with authority because I have gone through the
same struggles the week before. Jesus knows our infirmities because He is
interceding for us. And preachers today who practice intercession know the
infirmities of their people.
It would astound most of you to hear what
our preachers have to go through. Sometimes, in struggling with others, they
suffer great loss, great spiritual loss. For instance, they may be haunted by
unbelief, tempted even to doubt the existence of God--and then someone comes up
in a revival meeting and says, "I have been struggling with believing
there even is a God."
But the life of an intercessor is not just
for preachers. It's time for all of us to go back to the calling we received
from God. When we become intercessors we become completely vulnerable to the
Holy Spirit, and He brings us into holiness and into effectiveness for God.
Don't be deceived. Satan will not let you
walk in that calling without tempting you to question and hold back. Peter was
a man of God, but he spoke the words of Satan one day. If Satan can speak
through an apostle, he can also speak through you and me, can't he? It's in the
church itself, among the remnant, that God will separate the sheep from the
goats. I am afraid, brothers and sisters. I am concerned there are people who
are deceived and don't even know it. They dress right, look right, and go to
church, but a wicked spirit within them consumes the goodness in the church.
They are not interceding for their fellow believers but complaining against
them, gossiping and tearing the church apart. They have no heart for the people
of God like Moses and Abraham did. They tear down, not build up.
If a work of God is going on, the devil is
going to be against it. If we begin to intercede for one another, the devil
will enter the church and try to tear the work apart from the inside. We must
say, "Get behind me, Satan." Satan's work will be defeated only when
we begin to intercede for one another and fight together with the power of God
Almighty.
Moses had a rod. Joshua had the Captain of
the Hosts. Abraham had a promise. Samson had a jawbone. Elijah had a mantle.
What do you have that makes you an effective intercessor? Ephesians 6:10-13:
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his
might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the ruler of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the
whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and
having done all, to stand." It's in God's power that we intercede. It's in
his armour that we stand. Make your stand today.
Determine in your heart to live the life of
an intercessor through the power of the Captain of the Lord of Hosts.
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