Sender:
Jacqueline, Lawton, Oklahoma, USA
"Why
are intercessors sometimes referred to as armor bearers?
Please explain the role that they fulfill in this capacity."
IN
THEIR PRIMARY ROLE, intercessors stand before God appealing for
His mercy and intervention in the lives of others who are in
need of prayer. We usually think of intercessors as those
who are gifted and anointed by God to pray for others who may
not yet know the power of prayer and do not know how to pray for
themselves. While this is an accurate picture of the
primary role of the intercessor, it is also important to
remember that those who pray for others often need prayer
themselves. Prayer is spiritual warfare, and those who
struggle in prayer on behalf of others often become the target
of spiritual assault themselves. In such cases,
intercessors need prayer support from other intercessors.
Powerful
Partnership:
Warrior and Armor Bearer
When
one or more intercessors assume the role of praying for another
intercessor, they are functioning as armor bearers. This
picture of intercession is actually taken from an Old Testament
story that is a picture of vision, faith, courage,
loyalty, and divine intervention. (See 1 Samuel
13:16-14:15.) It is the story of how Jonathan and his
armor bearer dual-handedly defeated a Philistine outpost.
The Philistines were oppressing the Israelites and had so
totally plundered them that only King Saul and his son Jonathan
had access to a sword of spear. In the natural, the
Philistines could have easily wiped out Saul and his six hundred
weaponless soldiers. However, they preferred to simply
plunder and demoralize them. Enter Jonathan and his
armor-bearer.
The
story of the victory wrought through Jonathan and his armor
bearer against the Philistines underscores several
components required for effective intercession. They are:
1.
Faith and vision. Against impossible odds,
Jonathan had a vision prompted by His faith in God. He
said to his armor-bearer, "Come, let's go over to the
outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the Lord
will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from
saving whether by many or by few." (verse
6) Jonathan had a covenant relationship with God, and he
considered God's power as greater than the entire Philistine
army.
2.
Courage and loyalty. Jonathan's armor
bearer replied, "Go ahead; I am with you heart and
soul." (verse 7) The courage of Jonathan was
contagious. His armor bearer stood in agreement with him,
was committed to a common cause, and gave himself fully to the
task. He was faithful.
3.
Divine intervention. Against the taunts of
the Philistines, Jonathan and his armor bearer climbed a cliff
in full view of the Philistines and began to slaughter them left
and right until they "struck panic in the whole
army." (See verse 15a.) The NIV Bible
Commentary says the two men won "a skirmish with a
heavily armed enemy against overwhelming odds."
How did two men accomplish such a feat? God was fighting
with them. The Bible says, " . . . the ground
shook. It was a panic sent by God."
(See verse 15b.)
Jonathan
and his armor bearer were fighting a war that only God could
win. They gained the victory because they were fighting
God's battle and depending on His intervention for the
outcome. This is what intercession is all about. We
are fighting in behalf of others to enforce the victory that
Christ has already won for them. We are expecting God's
power to be released to strike the winning blow. And, we
are fighting in partnership with God and with other
intercessors.
A
Winning Team:
Intercessors and Armor Bearers
Intercessors
are warriors. They are fighting to advance the kingdom of
God and drive back the forces of evil in the world. As
with the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer, intercessors
wage war best when they bond together in a common cause.
One of
the most dramatic stories of militant intercession I've ever
read depicts intercessors and their armor bearers fighting
together. They also were fighting against impossible odds
from a human perspective, but God worked through them to
liberate an entire city from heavy oppression caused by a
demonic stranglehold. [Summarized from C. Peter Wagner, Praying
With Power (Ventura, California: Regal
Books, 1997), pp. 16-28.]
Powerful
Prayer Takes a City
The
story of the liberation of Kiambu reaches its climax in the
discovery of how to release the greatest potential of
intercession through implementing the strategy of the
intercessor/armor bearer partnership. We will summarize
this story by referencing one couple's call to Kiambu, their
strategy to embark upon that calling, and several phases of
intercession through which they discovered God's way of
liberating the city.
Calling
to Kiambu
The
story begins in the late 1980s when Thomas Muthee and his wife
returned from Scotland to Nairobi, Kenya. He was serving
as an itinerant evangelist and his wife as a school
teacher. In 1988, the Lord spoke to him in a time of
prayer and said, "I want you to plant a church in
Kiambu."
Muthee
had never planted a church anywhere, and Kiambu would not have
been the place he would have wanted to start. It had a
reputation of moral degradation, violence, crime. It was
the murder capital of Kenya. The economy was so bad that
government officials bribed their superiors to keep from being
sent there. One area of the city was known for mysterious
auto accidents where bodies were mangled but blood was never
shed. Numerous evangelical preachers had tried to start
churches there and left defeated though churches thrived in
other parts of Kenya. If the Muthees were to succeed in
starting a church in Kiambu, they needed a divinely-given
strategy.
Strategy
for Conquest
Thomas
Muthee knew the need to understand the Enemy's strategy in order
to effective engage in spiritual warfare. He and his wife
committed to six months of prayer with various types of fasting
before ever entering Kiambu. Their goal in prayer and
fasting was to ask God to reveal the name of the demonic
principality ruling over Kiambu and keeping the city under such
oppression. God revealed through a vision that a spirit of
witchcraft was the ruling principality there and that a number
of other demonic spirits were functioning under the headship of
witchcraft. An effective strategy for conquest would be to
topple the spirit of witchcraft first and thus bring the
coalition of evil spirits into disarray and drive them from the
city.
Phases
of Intercession
There
were several phases of intercession that led to victory in the
liberation of Kiambu. We will organize the meat of this
saga around identifying these phases of intercession.
1.
Staging an air raid.
The Muthees first step in taking Kiambu was staging an air
raid. Since God had shown them that witchcraft was the
ruling principality over the city, they spent the remainder of
their six months in prayer and fasting attacking this
stronghold. They were essentially doing "battle in
the heavenlies" through prayer and fasting to topple this
demonic spirit from its seat of power. Once they knew in
their spirits that this initial phase of the battle had been
won, they were ready for phase two.
2.
Sending in the ground troops.
The Muthees called their second phase of
intercession simply sending in the ground troops, and they were
it. The two of them moved their residency 10 miles away
into Kiambu and set to work on starting a church. God gave
them tremendous favor, and they were the first evangelical
ministers allowed to hold meetings at the municipal hall.
Eight people came to Christ the first night. While this
was a promising start, Thomas Muthee was unhappy about the fact
that the municipal hall was only available to them twice
weekly. He knew they needed a place where 24 hour prayer
could be launched. They moved into the basement of a
nearby building to which they would have access 24 hours per
day, 7 days per week.
3.
Rallying an army of prayer warriors. The
third phase of intercession for the Muthees was rallying an army
of prayer warriors. As their numbers grew and they had
access to their new facility at all times, they began prayer
vigils in which someone was always in the facility
praying. It came to be know as The Prayer Cave. This
militant prayer began to bring spiritual counter-attacks.
They soon found out that the principality of witchcraft had its
chief human counterpart in a woman named Mamma Jane, a sorceress
who practiced witchcraft and fortune-telling in a facility she
called Emmanuel Clinic. They discovered that the reason
for much of the political and economic oppression of the city
could be traced to the fact that many prominent political
leaders and business men in the city were going to Mamma
Jane to have their fortunes told thus submitting to the
spiritual forces at work through her. They also learned
that Emmanuel Clinic was located very close to the location
where the mysterious traffic accidents were occurring.
Once
Mamma Jane was discovered, she began an overt
counter-attack. She went to the location of The Prayer
Cave every Saturday night to cast spells and curses on the
work. She was determined to stop the work of The Prayer
Cave because she realized that they were "cutting her lines
of communication," and she was very vocal in telling city
officials that this was happening. The result was that
these city officials and even pastors of other churches turned
against The Prayer Cave in respect to Mamma Jane.
Mamma
Jane's counter-attack was felt to the extent that spiritual
distractions were occurring during public worship services at
The Prayer Cave. Those attending found that they were
having difficulty praying together or even finishing a worship
song. On one such occasion, the believers went outside of
the building and found the remains of fresh animal sacrifices
that Mamma Jane had placed around the building.
4.
Designating divinely called intercessors. Thomas
Muthee knew that the 24 hour prayer vigil was not cutting it and
something more was needed. He reached a point of
desperation and tears and feared he would be the next statistic
of pastors who gave up on Kiambu. Then, the Lord revealed
to him the fourth phase of intercession that was needed.
The Lord said, "My son, I want you to get the intercessors
on the job." Muthee knew what God meant. While
there was 24 hour prayer going up, most of those who were
praying were filling the Christian role of prayer but were not
anointed and gifted as intercessors. Muthee asked God who
the designated intercessors were, and God gave him five
names. He immediately assigned these five intercessors to
fast and pray on alternating days so that every day there was
one designated intercessor fasting and praying. While the
results of this strategy were initially positive, the designated
intercessors came under strong attack on their assigned
days. They might become sick, weakened, or distracted on
their day of duty.
5.
Adding in the Armor Bearers.
When Muthee asked the Lord how to deal with the
attack on the intercessors, the Lord directed him to the story
of Jonathan and his armor bearer to show the wisdom of going to
war with an armor bearer at one's side. Each intercessor
needed armor bearers on the day they were assigned to fast and
pray. The group of designated intercessors had now grown
to nine. Muthee assigned to them a new strategy. On
a day that a given intercessor was assigned to fast and pray,
two other intercessors would be a covering to the intercessor on
assignment. These two included the intercessor assigned to
the previous day and the one assigned to the following
day. As this new strategy was implemented, the spiritual
counter-attack suddenly stopped. Victory in prayer has
remained unhindered ever since, and the team of committed
intercessors has grown to 400. Now 15 or 20 intercessors
are fasting and praying every day, and each one is covered by 2
armor bearers.
The
Liberation of Kiambu
The
addition of armor bearers to the strategy of intercession
brought about the liberation of Kiambu. Muthee issued
the challenge: "Mama Jane either gets saved and
serves the Lord or she leaves town!" Many of Mama
Jane's clients began to become Christians and burned their
charms and fetishes in public. The public was
suddenly enlightened to what was happening and began to suspect
it was more than coincidence that Mama Jane's Emmanuel Clinic
was near the site of the mysterious auto accidents. When a
subsequent accident claimed the lives of three children, public
outrage led to police involvement. They visited Mama Jane,
saw that she had a huge python in one of her rooms, and shot the
snake. They took Mama Jane in for questioning and then
released her. She decided to pack up and leave town.
The
changes that came to Kiambu were truly revolutionary. The
city is now economically prosperous. Government officials
are now said to offer bribes to be assigned to Kiambu.
Crime and violence is virtually gone. The mysterious
accidents have ceased. Many of the worst criminals have
become Christians and attend The Prayer Cave. One of the
infamous drug dealers is a believer now and taking classes in
the Bible School. He plays guitar for the worship team and
evangelizes in the hospitals. Alcoholism is at an all time
low. Prayer walks around ballrooms that once blared rock
music throughout the night has caused these public disturbances
to cease. One such ballroom has become a church. A
nearby valley that was notorious for bootlegging on the black
market has resulted in the still being closed down and the
property purchased as a site for building a sanctuary for The
Prayer Cave.
The
results of the prayer efforts for Kiambu have brought unity to
the churches. Hostility from other pastors has ceased,
churches of all denominations are growing, and the churches have
come together for joint crusades to evangelize the city.
The Prayer Cave itself has 4,000 active members which
constitutes 5% of Kiambu's population of 80,000.
On
Becoming an Armor Bearer
Our
discussion of the role of intercessors as armor bearers
underscores our need as intercessors and aspiring intercessors to uphold each other in prayer
and to stand together in the common
cause for which we pray. As we intercede for others, we
will come under attack. For we are snatching souls from
Satan's kingdom, and the Enemy does not take this lying
down. My hope and prayer is that many
who are effective intercessors, and others of us who aspire to
become more effective intercessors, will be envisioned to take
our prayer experience
to the next level. We need to ask God to lead us to other prayer
partners functioning in intercession who can stand with us and
we with them in concerted prayer. Not only will we
experience greater results through the partnership of agreement
in prayer,
but we will provide a genuine protective covering for each other
in the battle. The writer of Ecclesiastes states: "Though
one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord
of three strands is not quickly broken." (4:12)
As intercessors and armor bearers come together, we experience
protection, solidarity, and increased effectiveness in our
battle against evil forces. We became a potent force for
the advancement of God's reign in the lives of those for whom we
pray.
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