Dreams, Visions, and Informed Intercession (Part 3)

Recently, I met a wonderful man of God, named Andre' Van Zyl, from South Africa that was called to the United States to challenge Christians to pray. As I've gotten to know him I've learned from him that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world who bow 5 times a day, even in public, toward Mecca and pray to Allah. Yet, you can't get Christians to spend one hour of their time in prayer. Muslim prayers follow a very elaborate, formula. This is what their prayers include:  "Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored, not of those who have incurred your wrath, nor of those who have gone astray.  Shame and misery were stamped upon [the Israelites] and they incurred the wrath of Allah; because they disbelieved Allah’s signs and slew His prophets unjustly; because they were rebels and transgressors. Consider those to whom a portion of the Scriptures was given [i.e., Christians]. They purchase error for themselves and wish to see you go astray."  Don’t you find it interesting that they pray for us and we hardly even think about them? The only thought we are concerned about is securing our borders, yet we seem unconcerned about the principalities and powers that are being unleashed on our nation.   I wonder if God is allowing this religion to prevail and gain ground in our land because American Christians are just too busy to pray!

Andre' Van Zyl points out that the main problem we have in America is that you can hardly get Christians to show up to a prayer meeting for a (“Living God”) and yet 1.6 billion Muslims stop their busy schedules and get on their knees 5 times a day to pray to a God (who is NOT Yahweh) because of their faith and upbringing. Christians all over the world are just too busy to pray and then we wonder why there is no spiritual awakening. Prayer and intercession are a matter of the heart and reflective of our relationship with God.  When our schedules are filled up with important priorities each day and God is not even written in our calendar - we have a problem.  Too many only call out to God in petitions and emergency calls as though He is our “sugar daddy” or a “first responder.”  Then people wonder why God does not answer them when they call on him. Proverbs 1:28 says, "When they cry for help, I will not answer. Though they anxiously search for me, they will not find me."   Why? Because too many of us fail to spend time with the Lord.  What did Jesus mean when He said: "Depart from me I never knew you?" (Matt.7:21-23).  Prayer is the foundation for an intimate relationship with God.  People often wonder why they've never heard God speak, or had a dream, vision or prophecy given to them. It's because they never spend time with the God to whom they claim they are committed; believing their visit to Church once a week is enough. Our Muslim friends are committed to prayer 5 times a day, 7 days a week. They are committed to bathing themselves in the Koran, but we who claim we are in relationship to Jesus, can't even write Him into our schedules because “we don’t have time!”

When I was in Bible College, our college president Owen Carr made a huge statement to those of us who intended to spend our lives in ministry.  He said, "If you read your bible in private, the people in your congregation will read the bible too.  If you commit yourself to a life of prayer and spending time with God, they will too."  Because of his exhortation, I have spent my life devoted to emptying myself of my “self-life” and took the time to spend in quiet moments of prayer with no one looking on.  The unfortunate thing about the Western Contemporary Church is that the show has replaced the importance of prayer meetings. The Holy Spirit and His supernatural presence have been pushed out of the center of all our religious activity. The goal for worship leaders has become the Grammy Awards or the Bill Board charts instead of leading people into an intimate place with the Lord. Don't we understand that prayer is the backbone of the Church? Without prayer and intercession, we cannot and will not experience a major move of God. If leaders don't lead the way, teaching new people the importance of praying and hearing God - then why do they even expect God to honor us with a major move of God? First Things First.  Before you can understand how to discern the voice of the Lord you must position yourself in a quiet place. See Matthew 6:6.

Let me take a moment and get on my soapbox!  There is an argument that some very well-known "Religious Leaders" have made to me.  I asked them; “Why are you pushing the Holy Spirit and expression of spiritual gifts out of their services?  The response was: “(1) We don't want to offend the people we are trying to reach.  (2) Look at the size of the crowds we are gaining, as a result of our Church formula.”  Can I just point out that Muslims are not worried if their faith expressions offend others? In fact, Christian Churches are now inviting bold Muslims into their services and asking them to lead their congregations into Islamic calls to prayer in the name of inter-faith ministry. Secondly, hasn't Jesus made clear through his own ministry, signs and wonders, and teaching that some people will get offended? In Matthew 24:10 Jesus clearly stated, "Many shall be offended."  Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, "The religion of Jesus Christ never was, nor ever can be, the religion of this present evil world. He has chosen a people out of the world who believe it, but the world itself has always hated it. Did not our Lord tell us (John 14:17), concerning the Spirit of Truth, that the world cannot receive Him because it sees Him not, neither knows Him? Whenever you find a religion which unites itself with pomp, show, and worldly power, if there is any truth in it at all, it has, at any rate, deteriorated from the standard of its purity and is not according to the mind of Christ. But there are some who are so fond of everything that is fashionable—everything that is great and famous—that, if the Lord Jesus Christ is despised and rejected of men, they despise and reject Him too." I understand that we need to not become stumbling blocks in our witness to the unchurched but the unchurched cannot come to Christ without the work of the Holy Spirit.  So to relegate the Holy Spirit out of our services, is to ensure that intimacy with God is not a priority.  Why is it that so many contemporary church worships teams are standing in front of a people who don't even sing along them anymore? For those who do not know their theater history: Did you know that theater arts began in the Church? As a result, huge crowds started attending the shows and neglected to engage in worship? Please understand this is not an argument against the use of arts in our corporate and private expressions of worship, but the arts should never take priority over teaching people how to pray in the Spirit, sing in the Spirit, becoming intimate with God and listening for His voice.  John 16:13 speaks to the importance of having the Holy Spirit present in both individual and corporate experiences - "When Holy Spirit comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come."  The job of church leadership is to disciple people into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ so they can, in turn, hear God for themselves and learn how to hear, discern, and engage themselves in informed intercession. It is interesting that the first disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to preach after the Sermon on the Mount. We have no record in the Bible that they asked him to teach them to work miracles after the feeding of the 5,000 or the raising of Lazarus. When we look at all four gospels, prayer is the one thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. I wonder why. Perhaps it is because they knew, and we need to be reminded, that all of Jesus' teaching and preaching and healing came from one source—his life of prayer. And if this is true, surely we should join in this same request, "Lord, teach us to pray...." (Luke 11:1-2).

"Prayer is a universal human desire and experience. 

Every culture in the world has some form of prayer.

 As a Christian, I believe this is because God created us, 

and we naturally desire a relationship with God."

James 5:16 states, "The effectual prayer of a righteous person avails much."  Revivalist, Charles G. Finney in his classic work, “Prevailing Prayer" wrote, "Prayer is an essential link in the chain of causes that lead to a revival; as much so as truth is. Some have zealously used truth to convert men and laid very little stress on prayer. They have preached, and talked, and distributed tracts with great zeal, and then wondered that they had so little success. And the reason was, that they forgot to use the other branch of the means, effectual prayer. They overlooked the fact, that truth by itself will never produce the effect, without the Spirit of God, and that Spirit is given in answer to earnest prayer."  Any student of revival who has examined major outpourings of the Spirit, which resulted in thousands coming to Christ, will learn that every major move of God began when ordinary people prayed.  Simply stated, prayer is communication with God. It is two-way communication—speaking and listening. Prayer can involve spoken words, inward thoughts or sighs too deep for words. It is an act of love that draws us closer to God.  Biblically speaking, prayer is relationship. Adam and Eve enjoyed a close relationship with God, walking and talking with God in the garden (Genesis 1—2). The Old Testament prophets and priests were people of prayer. Prayer is central to Jesus' life and mission. The same is true for the apostles and the early Church.

So, before we go on in explaining how to interpret dreams and informed intercession, I wanted to point out that all spiritual discernment involving dreams, visions, and informed intercession must begin with a commitment to being intimate with God, knowing His voice and opening ourselves up to the intimacy that comes from being in a "Spirit of Prayer." There is a difference between praying prayers and developing a "Spirit of Prayer."  Praying is usually known as a time when people raise their concerns to God. Conscious of your human weakness, and trusting in God’s power, goodness, and fidelity, we can cultivate an awareness of God's presence throughout our day. Because prayer is primarily a living relationship with the Living God, it is spiritual and mysterious. Through prayer, we experience the presence of God; we are nourished and strengthened in ways we cannot always explain or express. Prayer is oxygen for the soul; we cannot live without it. The “Spirit of Prayer” — or habitual prayer — can result in a lasting and sympathetic awareness of God’s pres­ence in our everyday routines of life. John Wesley, Methodism's founder, defined prayer as "lifting the heart to God." He taught that everyone could pray because a sincere desire is an authentic prayer. And, he went so far as to assert, "God does nothing apart from believing prayer." Too many people today keep looking for someone to give them a prophecy or assurance of a better life or future forecast of blessing, instead of taking a time to listen to God for themselves. God hasn't called us to base our lives on prophecies. He called us to base our lives on being intimate with Him. Quite frankly, too many people rely on the professional clergy to tell them what God thinks about them, has for them or how God has designed them to succeed in life - instead of learning to know God's voice for themselves. This results in, many people wondering why their prophecies fail and then they want to blame those who exercise the gift of prophecy. Prophecy fails because intimacy with God is not a part of our daily lives. It's summed up in James 4:3 this way, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  Our motivation for prayer should be to build an intimate relationship with Jesus. The only “prophetic call” that really should catch our attention is a call that draws us closer to Him.  It is the task of Christians everywhere to pray.  I Thessalonians 5:17 exhorts us to "pray without ceasing." He wants us to walk in a garden with Him just as Adam and Eve first did.  This is the purpose of Jesus coming - to restore our relationship with Him.

When Bob Jones gave his Gulliver Prophecy in 2005, (See Part 1 & 2 in this series) the yearning of his message was based on; "God why has the work of your Spirit ceased?"  It's a cry for any of us who been privileged to witness a major revival, awakening, or move of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.  The reason the prophecy should be of importance to the Body of Christ should be seen in the fact, that Gulliver is tied down to the ground, held captive because of the sin in the land and by people who have “little input” (those who have little relationship with God). For those who want to know and discern what this prophecy is calling us to do; it is to begin praying for the Church to be awakened, unentangled and to arise so that it can bring about the transformation of people and cities. Unless the Body of Christ is awakened from its’ sleep, there will be no great awakening.  Only by each of us cultivating a "Spirit of Prayer" in our own individual daily lives, are we going to see God's people rise up and accomplish the mission they have been given to do in their cities?  Every city has its own unique calling.  This is the foundational base of Bob Jones' word.  The only question that still remains in my mind is; "Will we, the Body of Christ, be provoked enough to pray when we see that 1.6 billion Muslims pray fervently each day?”  What I mean is; “Will we ever be provoked enough to seek out every opportunity to make time to pray for a great awakening and revival?  What will cause us to be “broken enough” to want to do what Jesus has called us to do?” Even the disciples fell asleep as Jesus was struggling in prayer over his impending crucifixion.  What does the Body of Christ need, to be awakened and set free from the things that hold us down? Until then it will be business as usual if that is all the corporate Body of Christ and its leadership want.