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[00:00:00] Speaker A: Will you turn with me to Isaiah, chapter 62, the 62nd chapter of Isaiah, commencing at verse one.
For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth and the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed desolate, but thou shalt be called Hephzibah and thy land.
For the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee. And as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, o Jerusalem. They shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrances, take ye no rest, and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength. Surely I will no more. Give thy grain to be food for thine enemies. And foreigners shall not drink thy new wine, for which thou hast labored. But they that have garnered it shall eat it and praise the Lord. And they that have gathered it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.
Go through. Go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up, cast up the highway. Gather out the stones. Lift up an ensign for the peoples. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth. Say ye to the daughter of Zion. Behold, thy salvation cometh. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. And they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And thou shalt be called, sought out, a city not forsaken.
And then, if you will, turn to Ezekiel and chapter 22, the prophecy of Ezekiel, chapter 22.
And from verse 23.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: And the word of the Lord came.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Unto me, saying, son of man, say unto her, thou art a land that is not cleansed nor rained upon in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof. Like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made her widows many in the midst thereof, her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common. Neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbath and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves, ravening the prey to shed blood and to destroy souls that they may get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed for them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions and divining lies unto them, saying, thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and exercised a robbery. Yea, they have vexed the poor and needy and have oppressed the sojourner wrongfully. And I sought for a man among them that should build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it. But I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I brought upon their heads, saith the Lord God.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Now this evening I'm going to seek and the grace that God gives to speak about intercession.
Intercession. And this really is a further session of our school of prayer.
And of course we cannot go over anything that we have thus far covered, although obviously there will be a number of things that will come into this matter of intercession that we have already covered in our times. Previous to this, will you notice in Isaiah 62 that the one who speaks throughout this chapter is not the prophet Isaiah, but it is the word of the Lord in the mouth of the prophet Isaiah. In other words, it is the Lord who is speaking quite directly from the very beginning to the end of this chapter. If we understand that, it suddenly makes the whole chapter clear. It is the Lord who is speaking. And the Lord says in verses one to five, the Lord declares, what is his sovereign purpose and his own determination over that purpose of his to be fulfilled. You see these wonderful words, for Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth. And then he goes on to say, what is his purpose, that all nations shall see thy righteousness, all kings, thy glory. Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of of the Lord shall name. And then he goes on, thou shalt be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken, nor thy land called desolate, but you shall be called. And then he uses this beautiful hebrew word, my delight is in her.
And Ba'ullah, which is from the word really to do with husband, ba'au means husband. And so you get this word, ba'ullah, married, you've got a husband.
That's the thought in it. No more desolate or lonely. But you belong. You are married. You belong to someone. What a wonderful purpose we have.
And then we have our responsibility in verses six and seven. For if the Lord has said in verse one, I will not hold my peace and I will not rest, then he says in verse six and seven, I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem. They shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrances, take ye no rest and give him no rest. Now in this one chapter we have the whole mystery of intercession. Here the Lord says, I will not hold my peace. I will not rest. And then he says, I've set watchmen upon thy walls. They shall never hold their peace. Take ye no rest and give him no rest.
That's a mystery.
Ye that are the Lord's remembrances. What a wonderful word that is. Ye that are the Lord's remembrances. That one phrase should lead us, if we meditate and reflect upon it long enough, to the whole secret prayer.
Ye that are the Lord's remembrances.
We're not trying to persuade God to do something he doesn't want to do. He has already declared his purpose on this thing. But we are the Lord's remembrances. And then we have in the next two verses, verses eight and nine, a further promise, and it is a very wonderful one. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength, surely I will no more give thy grain to be food for thine enemies and foreigners shall not drink thy new wine. In other words, the produce of these servants of the Lord, these redeemed ones of God, shall not be dissipated, shall not go to the wrong source. And isn't that a tragic but very, very true word concerning so much christian work that we labor so much? And yet in the end of it, what happens? Enemies take what we have labored for, and foreigners, as it were aliens, drink our new wine. But here is the promise of the Lord. If you understand the secret of intercession and give yourselves to that ministry of intercession at what? No matter what the cost. Then the Lord gives a further promise on top of this declaration of his that you shall no more be called forsaken or desolate, but you shall be called. My delight is in you, and you are married. You belong to me. And here is the further promise of the Lord. What you produce through the grace of God and the activity of the Holy Spirit, you shall enjoy it, shall not be taken away from you, but you shall enjoy it. You shall see a harvest, you shall see an increase. And it says, they that have garnered it shall eat it and praise the Lord.
Theyll see the joy. Theyll not only be the weeping to begin with, connected with the sowing, but there will be the joy of bringing in a harvest.
They shall be there to see the harvest and to enjoy the fruits of it.
And then in the last few verses, we have the practical meaning of all the Lord is seeking to say in this extraordinary chapter.
He says in verse ten, go through, go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up, cast up the highway. Gather out the stones. Lift up an ensign for the peoples. Now I believe that we have here an extraordinary comment, if you like, commentary on true intercession. What do we do in intercession? We go through the gates.
What did the Lord say? Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Unto thee have I given the keys of the kingdom. Now you will remember we dwelt a little upon that. And we said, here we have three things. We have the kingdom of heaven, the gates of hell, and the building work of our Lord Jesus.
And unless you and I are prepared to take the keys of the kingdom of heaven and lock up the gates of hell, then the counsels of hell will prevail against the building work of the Lord Jesus. And unless there are times when we take the keys of the kingdom of heaven and unlock the gates of hell so that those captives of darkness may come out into his marvelous light, we shall never see the building material for the house of God.
And here you have the whole thing summed up in intercession. Go through, go through the gates.
It's not just that we should indulge in evangelism, but rather that we should learn how by taking no rest and giving the Lord no rest, being his remembrances, we should learn how in the secret place to intercede. Go through, go through the gates. Don't you think so often we dither over so many of the matters that come up in prayer because we don't know any direction from the Lord, because we're all following things ring through nose.
Instead of being sensitive and alert to the Holy Spirit, we dont go through the gates. We dither and dither and dither and dither. Instead of going through the gates, go through the gates. Prepare the way of the people. Now heres something also. Prepare the way of the people. A people are coming for the Lord. Theyre locked up by the gates of hell. Theyre coming for the Lord.
Prepare the way for this people. You prepare it in prayer. Prepare the way for this people. And then there is a further thought here. Cast up a highway.
If you ever see one of these big motorways being built, you will see instantly the amount of work that is entailed in casting up a highway. It's no good just preparing a way for the people. It's got to be actually produced. The thing's got to be cast up.
Whether it goes through mountains, over obstacles, over rivers, wherever it is, somehow or other, this highway has got to be made and there's got to be a casting up of the highway. And then we have a further word on this. Gather out the stones.
Now, these days we have bulldozers and many other mechanical means of removing enormous boulders from the way. But in the old days, some of these enormous rocks, especially in mountainous countries such as Israel, were real problems to road builders.
And, you know, you've only got to see some of you who know something of mountain areas. You've only got to see some of these so called roads to wonder how people ever walk up them without breaking their ankles, especially when, after the winter and the rains and snow have all been at work, the thing seems almost impossible. I remember sometime looking at one of these so called roads in Samaria in Israel, and thinking to myself, how on earth does anyone ever walk up such a road? I mean, it wasn't even just a pebbled way.
To call it a road to me was quite extraordinary.
Gather out the stone.
There are so many things that are stumbling blocks, devices of Satan, works of Satan, all these things that lie in the path of people who would come into God's family, who would come into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are so many things, stumbling things, things that would trip them up, things that would break them. They are works of the enemy. And our job in intercession is to gather out the stones and to lift up an ensign for the peoples to, as it were, show the flag something to do with executive prayer, showing the flag, lifting up an ensign for the peoples. Now we have all of this in this one chapter, Isaiah 62.
But I hope that you see straight away that here in this chapter, although we shall not dwell upon it at great length, now this evening you will see that it underlies everything that we have to say, because in this one chapter we have the whole secret of intercession and of the intercessor.
The first thing therefore I would like to underline tonight is the vital need of genuine intercession. The vital need of genuine intercession. Wherever we look, we see on all sides of us the most terrible and dire need. Wherever we look in our country, we see tragic need, don't we? We see the deterioration of national character, we see the breakup of morality, of ethical standards, we see the deterioration in public standards and ethics. On every side we see the inroads, not just of a kind of new ideology, but we see the inroads of darkness. We have to say it, that we see before our eyes the battle being fought for a soul of a nation.
It is incredible to me that the people of God can go along to their dear little meetings and sing their sweet hymns and twitter away as if they are in a paradise when they're teetering on the brink of tragedy.
And wherever we look on all sides, we see this dire need in our land.
We see it in all the nations of the west. I suppose there is hardly a nation in the so called free world where this need is not very apparent.
Everywhere we see the powers of darkness at work and we see, as it were, the battle being fought for, the destiny of nations.
Now that's not just political or economic.
Behind the whole thing lie principalities, powers, world rulers of this darkness, hosts of wicked spirits in heavenly places.
Behind it all lie those strongholds, those fortresses, those satanic fortresses, those satanic strong points, imaginations, speculations, high things exalted against the knowledge of God.
Thoughts that seem so innocuous to begin with, but which in the end emerge to capture millions and millions of human beings and blind them to the truth of the gospel.
We see it on every side need.
When we see our country, it's not only the deterioration and the breakdown that we see, but we see a blood guiltiness as well, spreading all over the country. If we had the time to talk about some of these aspects, maybe we would start to wake up to the tremendous need of our land and of the nations of the world. I take just one simple thing which may provide some with problems. But take this one matter of abortion.
It is a theological problem where does human life begin?
The Bible says that the Lord puts the spirit into a life within its mother's womb.
Where then does that person become a human being and where to abort it? Does it incur murder?
If that is true, our land is covered with blood guiltiness, and nation after nation after nation in the free world is following in this pathway. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the need at times of abortion.
There is undoubtedly, at times medically a need of abortion. But we're talking about the kind of abortion now which is just sort of free, a free for all. Now, that is only one aspect of a dire need. And if that disregard for God given life goes on, in the end, it must incur the anger and wrath of God, for God is the creator and producer of all life.
Now, I say that's only one aspect of a problem that we see on every side of us, the need, tragic need, the hovering judgment of God upon the nations of the west. Is there a nation upon which the hand of God is not hovering in judgment?
And there must be very few indeed in the free world over which the judgment of God is not already beginning to gather.
And if there is need on one side, we may call it the political or economic or moral need. What about the spiritual need of the church of God in the midst of the nations?
If we do not see the vital need of intercession when it comes to the nations of the world, whether on this side of the iron and bamboo curtain or the other, surely we must see the need for intercession, for the work of the Lord in building the church of God, producing the bride of the lamb, do we think that that work is just going to go on willy nilly, that somehow or other, without any cooperation on our part, that work will somehow be fulfilled? What does Isaiah 62 mean? If the Lord says, let alone the earthly Jerusalem and the earthly Israel and the earthly land, what do you think the Lord means when he says, for zions sake will I not hold my peace?
And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as a lamp that burneth?
In other words, the Lord has a consuming passion for the calling out of a people, for himself, from every tongue and kindred and nation on this planet.
Surely we see a tremendous need when we see the church of God in the midst of the nations. We find so much weakness, so much confusion, so much division, so much compromise, even where the spirit of the Lord has come and touched and renewed all the need that there is all over the world. If we were to confine ourselves to those who've known renewal there alone, there is a colossal need for intercession.
The enemy coming in on all sides, the fowls of the air as it were, seizing upon all that the Lord has started to do.
We see this need.
That common market referendum certainly showed up the people of God in this country. Since then I've been around a bit and I have been amazed to hear some of the things I've heard.
People I would have thought would have been as clear as a bell frightened to death because of our dear friend Wedgwood, Ben and a few others, to doing exactly the opposite thing. And it's incredible to me, and that is an indication of people who've known something, of the spirit of the Lord coming upon them, so confused, so weakness, that when it comes to a great crisis, the enemy comes in like a flood and blinds the people of God.
We may be quite sure that we are that were going to stay in, but thank God we have a conscience, that we do not need to compromise, and that in the days that lie ahead, when we see all the outcome of it, at least we can stand with our head erect and say, I was no party to this, and not feel like some were howling for sorrow, that they could have been swept along blind into some prison like system.
My point is simply this, that there is a tremendous need of genuine intercession.
Where does the key to all this need lie?
Does it lie with the people of Britain? There are many christians who tell me that the people of Britain are a hopeless lot, that they are cold, hard, indifferent, pleasure lovers, money grabbers, swindlers, that all they're interested now is in higher wages and less working hours. And so many christians say, oh, well, it's a sign of the times. It's a sign of the times Britain is finished. We can't expect anything to happen because the people of Britain are in this kind of condition and have got this kind of character.
Does the key therefore lie in some kind of mass movement on the part of the whole british people or amongst the peoples of the free world, that if somehow or other, we could find the people of this nation or that nation, if they would only turn to the Lord in sufficient numbers, could somehow or other get blessing? Of course that would be true if they did. But where does the key lie to the situation?
Others will say that the key lies with the church of God, the whole mass of saved men and women, that if only we were all filled with the spirit, if only we were all renewed.
Does the key lie then with the great majority of the redeemed?
It lies with none of those. Make no mistake about it. If a great large number of the british people turned to the Lord, there would be no doubt about the blessing of God that would come upon us or upon any other nation.
And the same with the church of God. But the key does not lie with any of these.
The key lies with the intercessor.
And this is why, dear child of God, you and I have such a solemn responsibility to face tonight in the presence of God, because the key to this national situation does not lie with the british people and does not even lie with the church of God in Britain in general.
But it lies with the intercessor.
And it is that that I want somehow or other this evening to get over to you by the grace God. For instance, you look at a few scriptures. Isaiah 50, 916.
Isaiah 50 916. And the Lord saw it, the last part of verse 15. And it displeased him that there was no justice. And he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness. It upheld him. Now in Isaiah 64 and verse seven in this terrible chapter about all the power of darkness and backsliding, there come these and there is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us and has consumed us by means of our iniquities. In other words, the prophet Isaiah says, the final judgment is this, when there is no intercessor. That is the ultimate judgment of God upon any nation, when there is not even an intercessor.
Now, if you look at Ezekiel 22 that we read together a little earlier, Ezekiel 22.
And from verse 23, we will not read it all because we read it earlier. But you will remember this terrible description of a country that has departed from God, every single part of her, including those who are servants of the Lord. They've all departed from the Lord. And then come these remarkable words in verse 30. And I sought for a man among them, a man, not even men, but a man among them that should build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it. But I found none. Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Will you notice that? Therefore I sought for amen. I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them. The key to the whole situation was a man that would stand in the breach, a man that would build up the wall, that would somehow stop the whole flood of evil coming in over the land, that would plead with God. But there was none. We have the same thing again in Ezekiel 13 and verses three to five. Thus saith the Lord God, woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets have been like foxes in the waste places. Ye have not gone up into the gaps or breaches. Neither built up the wall for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord for a word.
Neither have you built up the wall for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.
The point is, I believe, that the key to all these situations lies with the intercessor.
God does not delight in judgment.
So many of us have got this heathen pagan idea of God, that he is a being with a terrible and dark propensity for destruction, that he loves judgment, that if there are any tipping of the scales, he will always tip the scales in favor of judgment rather than mercy. But this idea you will find in nearly all of us in some form or another, and it destroys so often our relationship with the Lord.
The Lord does not delight in judgment.
He is not some cold, impersonal being, some divine, all knowing, all powerful machinery.
God is a person, and it pains him whenever he judges. Now, if we could get hold of that fact, it will explain everything. You see, there are some people who say that God is love. Therefore they say, because God is love, he cannot be a God of judgment. How can a God of love judge anybody? But God is not only love, he is also truth.
God is a God of judgment as well.
But the fact is this, that because he is love, he never judge, never judges, without pain going right through, as it were, his whole being.
And that's why you have these incredible passages in the word of God. When it seems as if God cries out in one place, he says, I cry out like a woman in travail.
You will not listen to me.
It is hard for people to believe that God could ever go berserk, and that would be almost blasphemous to suggest.
But there are passages, when you read them in a really modern version, like the living Bible, which some christians don't like, just because it brings home so clearly some of these ideas, where it seems as if God is almost out of his mind, where he sort of cries out to people to listen. But they are healers you have it in the words of the Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh. When he said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets and those that are sent to thee. How often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathers her chicks? But ye would not, and he was weeping.
It is incredible to me, therefore, that we should think that somehow or other, God can judge Babylon, Judge Nineveh, judge some great sort of area of the earth without even a feeling.
There are Christians who can sit down and eat a steak when 20,000 people have been destroyed in an earthquake.
And in one way, I don't wholly blame them, because just because 20,000 people have died on the other side of the world, we can't take every one of them on ourselves. Otherwise none of us would eat anything.
But God is not a human being.
Not a single sparrow falls to the ground without God feeling it. It says that thy heavenly Father doth not know how much more then every time something happens to a human being to whom God has breathed in an eternal soul, do we really believe that God can, with a flick of his hand, like some oriental potentate, or like Henry VIII, say, off with their heads, like Alice of Wonderland, the queen?
But some of the people's idea of God is just like that. He's always saying, off with their heads. Off with their heads.
But God loves people.
Jonah's. The great shock of Jonah's life was to find out that God loved Nineveh, that he knew all about the domestic animals in Nineveh, and knew all about the toddlers who could tell their left hand from their right.
Jonah never thought that God had any time for Nineveh. Jerusalem. Jerusalem. God loves Jerusalem. God dwells in Jerusalem. God knows every toddler in Jerusalem. He knows everyone who's in Jerusalem, even the most depraved of them. He knows and he loves and he grieves. But Nineveh, that city of that cruel, hateful people, the Assyrians, God has no time for Nineveh.
In the end, their day will come, and he will judge them without as much as a feeling for them.
But when Jonah went with that message, and the whole city of Nineveh, from the royal house down to the animals, were clothed in sackcloth and ashes, God delighted to show mercy and deferred judgment upon the whole of Nineveh. For one whole generation.
It is true, the judgment came in the end, but for a whole generation, it was deferred.
Jonah couldn't take it. He stomped off out of the city in a great deep sulk.
And all he could do. Every time the Lord came near to him was spit an hiss until a good grew up. It says, within a night.
And as the first rays of the rising sun fell on it, God prepared a worm.
And unbeknown to dear Jonah, who'd enjoyed the gourd so much, that grew up in a few hours, the worm destroyed the gourd in a few hours, and God prepared a sultry east wind.
We used to call it a hamzeen.
That made poor Jonah so, so weary of life altogether. And it was then that God said to him, Jonah, you've almost wept tears over that gourd that grew up in a day and in a night and died in a night. And yet you don't think that I should have mercy upon a city in which there are 120,000 toddlers who can't even tell their left hand from their right, and domestic animals.
Only a great man could have left the story of Jonah where the story of Jonah is left.
I not added that further paragraph that I certainly would have added that Jonah saw the error of his ways and became a man full of love ever after he left it. Just where every preacher can talk about the hardness of Jonah, Jonah was no longer hard. It broke him, woke him. In that moment, he saw the whole destiny of Israel. He saw the purpose of God for Israel. And that's why the Lord said, this evil and adulterous generation seek for a sign, but they shall not be given a sign, only the sign of Jonah, who was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. In other words, just as Jonah saw that the purpose of God was that the gospel should go to the ends of the earth, only through the messiah could that purpose be finally achieved.
But dont we have to say that were just the same?
We dont have all that heart for certain situations or for certain peoples.
God never judges a city or a nation or even a system without grief.
He always looks for an intercessor, just one intercessor who will stand at whatever the cost in the gap, who will build up the walls against the enemy, who will plead from a broken heart.
There are very few occasions when God has ever found such an intercessor.
Do you remember Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah?
Have you ever asked yourself why the Lord had that extraordinary session with his friend Abraham?
Because it is an extraordinary story. No wonder some liberals sort of smirk and say, of course, this is a kind of primitive view of God.
In Genesis 18, it says that the Lord said to himself, shall I withhold from my friend Abraham, what I am going to do to the cities of the plain, to Sodom and Gomorrah. No. I will go down and I will see and I will speak with him. Now, why did the Lord do this thing? Surely we would argue. If the sins of the cities of the plain have reached a certain standard judgment, then must surely come.
Why? Go talk with Abraham about it.
Of course, Abraham had his nephew. He'd got some relatives down there.
Maybe it was that. But it was much more than that. You see, God was training Abraham for eternal vocation. And if I may put it like this, perhaps a little irreverently. There's almost a twinkle in the eye of God when he goes to Abraham and says, Abraham, I feel I shall not withhold this from you. That I am going to judge the cities of the plain. And then God, as it were, just stood and waited.
He knew exactly what Abraham was going to do.
Because what he was doing was finding a reflection of his own character in Abraham. For immediately Abraham said, no, don't be angry, Lord, but just supposing there are 50 righteous people in the city. In those cities, wouldn't you spare them? And the Lord says, if there are 50 righteous people, of course I would spare them.
Then Abraham said, lord, don't be angry. I'll speak just again. Supposing there are only 45? And the Lord said, yes, if there are only 45, I'll spare them. And then Abraham says, don't be angry, lord, what about 40?
And the Lord said, yes, 40.
And then I suppose there was a quietness for a moment. Abraham said, lord, supposing there's only 35 righteous people. Would you judge the whole? No, no, not for 35.
Then Abraham said, don't be angry with me now, lord, what about 30?
And the Lord said, 30.
And Abraham said, 25.
And the Lord said, 25.
And the neighbor said, lord, don't be angry. Angry with me. 20.
And the Lord said, 20. Do you know the Lord was loving Abraham? Every moment they got down to a lower number. Because what he saw in Abraham was himself. Dont you see it? God didnt want to judge the plain, the cities of the plain. He didnt want to do it.
He sought for a man to stand in the gap. And he found one.
Abraham said, lord, supposing theres only 15. The Lord said, 15.
And then Abraham said, I wont say anything more to you, Lord, except this ten.
And the Lord said, ten. It was tragic that Abraham didnt go to five.
But he stopped.
And there were not five righteous people in the cities. Of the plain.
But don't you see something there?
Why did God go through all that with Abraham?
Because God had pain in his heart about judging. Even Sodom and Gomorrah.
If there was the possibility of deferring judgment, he would defer it.
You had the same thing with Moses in Genesis, Exodus 32, from verses nine to 14. Do you remember the story when the Lord said to Moses, stand back, stand back. I'm going to destroy this lot? You remember, they'd all been murmuring, and they were all worshiping the golden calf. And the Lord told Moses, Moses, they're all gone after some egyptian idol.
And Moses was sad. And then the Lord said to him, stand back, stand back. I'm going to destroy the whole lot. I'll make an end to this whole nation, all their murmuring and criticizing and all the rest of it. Stand back, Moses. I'm going to go right down there and destroy them all.
And Moses said to him, lord, Lord, you can't do this thing. You can't do it. What will the nations do? Say, lord, if they find that you brought all these people out and you just destroy the Lord, they'll just think you're capricious.
You know, the Lord had a twinkle in his eye. I mean, you see, he tried to get the pride. Moses, come. You know, if I forgot to say this one thing, that when the Lord said, stand back, stand back, I'll destroy them all, he said, I'll make of you a great nation. Now, many of us would say, oh, well, of course, I am one of the remnant.
I mean, now that sounds good. They are a difficult lot. Maybe you should put an end to them, Lord, and start again with me.
If they were all like me, we wouldn't have any trouble, you know. But many of us would have argued.
So the way God put it was just in order to draw out from Moses any self principle that was in the man. But Moses was a different ilk altogether. You see, what he said was straightway. No, Lord. No, Lord, you can't do it. You can't do it, Lord. Later on in the same chapter, in the last verses of the chapter, you find that when Moses goes down, and it seems that the whole nation would be destroyed, Moses goes before the Lord and says, lord, forgive these people. Forgive them. He pleads with the Lord to forgive them. He says, and if not, lord, block me out of your book.
You know, the Lord saw in Moses the very character of his son.
That's the character of his son. Block me out, but save them.
We find it again and again. It doesn't matter where we turn, we find the same thing everywhere. What a solemn responsibility therefore lies and rests upon all of us, both individually and corporately. Don't you think so?
I say that this isn't just a study.
You may be sorry that you were here tonight, because even if you're half asleep, the word of the Lord has still come and you can't get away from it. The solemn responsibility is a challenge to every single one of us.
It is not the british people that are the key to the situation, nor the peoples of other nations, nor even the church of God in the midst of this nation or in the other nation. The key is the intercessor.
Now, may I say something about the nature of true intercession?
There is an idea that intercession is just locking yourself away for a few moments and uttering a few prayers for some situation, the other side of the earth, or somewhere in this country.
Of course, intercession must, in its simplest, and, if you know what I mean, its most shallow form, involve such prayer.
But intercession is far more than prayer, even pleading, even fervent prayer.
It involves your whole being, spirit, soul and body.
And it identifies you not only with God completely, but with the people for whom you pray.
In other words, anyone who starts on this road, this path of intercession, will find that they are becoming more and more identified with God. They will find a cross, and they will find that they've got to lay down their lives not once, but again and again and again and again and again and every time more painful. You cannot pray for others, you cannot intercede for others, except that you become identified with the very character of God, who puts everyone else first and thinks not of himself.
It's so also that you become identified with the people for whom you pray.
That's why all of you should read Rhys Howells.
Within that life story of one man is contained this whole principle of what it means to be an intercessor. For Louise Howells discovered that it would have been such an easy matter if you could just shut yourself away in a room and say a few prayers and utter a few petitions and weep a few tears.
And that was all there was to it.
But he found out that God required his body, soul, his spirit, soul and body.
And that it meant that God had a claim on every moment of his time, on all his energy, on every single thing that belonged to him.
And that in praying for others, there were times when he came into inexplicable situations where he was identified with the very people for whom he prayed.
It's therefore, as you can see, a most costly and painful ministry.
We hadn't the time this evening to look at it. But if you look at Nehemiah's story in the book of Nehemiah and in chapter one of Nehemiah from verse four, if you want to make a note of it and you can read it yourselves right through to chapter two and verse eight, you will find all of it there. He does not pray in some superior manner for all the rest. Now this is one of the great problems with intercession. Now let me say a word on this matter because I believe it's very, very necessary.
One of the real dangers of intercession is superiority.
Unwittingly because we are praying for others and for the needs there, we begin to pray in a way as if we are above them and they are down there.
The principle of intercession is that you are not only so identified with God, but you become so identified with the people that you pray as if their sins are your sins.
Now Nehemiah had suffered to be in the king's house.
It was no easy thing for him to be there in an uncompromised way. And yet it says of him in this great prayer from verse for onwards, it says all the way through. For he says, I pray for the sin of thy people, Israel.
We have sinned and done wickedly. And all the way through his place is we that is intercession.
You will also notice that he wept and mourned for many days. That's in verse four. And so great was it that the king finally said to him, why are you looking like this when you're not ill?
And it speaks in this beautiful way of sorrow of heart. It says, you must have great sorrow of heart. Now that is intercession. This man isn't just having a little half hour of intercession and then just floating out and enjoying himself. The thing's got right in there to him. This burden of the Lord has got so into the men that it's involving his whole being.
You find the same thing in Daniel chapter nine. Do you know when I read Daniel's great prayer in chapter nine that got him into so much trouble, I begin to wonder if this is the same man who was so saintly, who paid such a price in order to be kosher in Daniel chapter one. It's hard to believe it's the same man because he's all the time saying, Lord, we've rebelled against thee we have done wickedly, we have broken thy commandments, we have dealt treacherously with thy law, and so on the covenant, and so on and so on. But Daniel hasn't.
It's cost Daniel everything not to break the covenant. It's cost Daniel everything to keep the commandments of the Lord. Yet here he is praying as if he is the worst sinner of them all.
That is intercession.
Intercession is far deeper than words or petitions, or even tears. I believe that there are those who believe that if you could weep in the place of prayer, that's intercession. My dear friend, I believe that sometimes the greatest intercession of all is so painful that you cant even weep tears.
It is the travail of the Holy Spirit in and through us. Romans chapter eight, verse 26 and 27. We read these amazing words, and in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we ought, but the spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Travail.
Some people say that when you hear someone groaning in a prayer meeting, that's this ministry. I remember years ago going to a place where there was a person who continually groaned like, well, it sounded very much like a cow in a field.
Every now and again you heard this, and I was told by someone afterwards that this person had the ministry of groanings which cannot be uttered.
And I said that I thought that was extraordinary, since it's called groanings which cannot be uttered, inaudible groanings.
The fact of the matter is this, that when something is conceived in you so deep in your own spirit that it cannot come out, it cannot be communicated in not only human language, your own language, but not even a tongue, and cannot even be communicated through groanings.
But is something imprisoned within you that is intercession. For it says the spirit himself, maketh intercession.
It actually us is not in the original, but it nevertheless maketh intercession for us in us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he says this intercession for the saints is according to the will of God. What an extraordinary thing that you and I can have something conceived in us by the Holy Spirit that we can't even communicate in words of any kind, which is the spirit himself in us travailing.
In other words, then, our spoken ministry of intercession is like the tip of an iceberg. It's only just an 8th above the water. The great, great amount is hidden.
If God had only 20 people in this company with such a ministry, a 1001 situations would be changed.
Galatians 419. The apostle Paul says, my little children, of whom I am again in travail for you, that Christ may be fully formed in you. Do you know that word again? My little children, of whom I am again into he travailed evidently for them before to bring them to Christ. Now he says, I travel again, that Christ may be fully formed in you. Oh, don't we fail.
Some of us have spent time in agonizing prayer and anguish that men and women will be saved. But who prays for the full formation of Christ in those that have been saved?
You see, that is really the building of the house of God, the full formation of Christ, our being fitly framed together, knit together, growing up into him as head, from whom the whole body finds its position and function.
Dear, dear child of God, what a responsibility is ours.
We could see many more people saved if we knew something more of this travail.
The very word travail means childbirth. The pains of childbirth.
They are no enjoyable pains, but they are all part of a process which ends in new life.
Psalm 126 says about the Lord turning again. Our captivity is the streams in the south. Now, the streams in the south in the Negev, they can be dried up river beds for almost twelve months of the year.
And then suddenly, suddenly, without warning, the cloud burst will come and the rivers will be full of water for just a day or two.
Turn again our captivity as the streams in the south.
We would love to sometimes see something happening bit by bit, bit by bit, sort of see it all building up. Oh, we're getting nearer, we're getting nearer, we're getting encouraged. But psalm 126 gives us no encouragement right up to the moment of the cloud burst.
I wish we could stay with that thought because there's some extraordinary things about it. You see, sometimes there will be some riverbeds that are not, that are never filled with water for four or five years.
It's quite unpredictable, just where the cloud burst might come.
But you see what the Lord says in psalm 126. He goes on to say, those that sow in tears shall weep in joy. I've told you the story before. I was in port sign and Auntie Smith and Lib one day said to me, oh, now we're going to be joined by two other missionaries this afternoon. We're going to have a time of intercession. So I said, would you like to join? I said, yes. And I thought Auntie Smith had a twinkle in her eye when she said it, especially the way she said, we're going to have a time of intercession. Now I knew these two knew all about intercession, but I was totally unprepared for the time that we had.
We did. The time went on quite all right until suddenly one of these dear ladies who appeared to be a perfectly normal lady suddenly started, started praying. O Lord, she said, we pray for Egypt.
For five minutes she prayed, punctuated with sniffs and sobs in a high falsetto quavering note. And then almost as suddenly as it had begun, she said, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it stopped. And she was normal.
Of course, I was young and irreverent.
I kept my eyes wide open and looked at her for some time.
And when they'd gone I said to Auntie Liplick, could you tell me, I said, what was that lady?
And she used to think I was very irreverent about elders anyway, but she said she believes that she's fulfilling psalm 126. And she put the accent on. She believes, she believes that she is fulfilling psalm 126. Those that sow in tears shall weep in joy. And I said, duanti Livlick, who's she kidding?
Did she really think that God was taken in by that? Do you think that you can sort of, sort of suddenly in a prayer go, I'm praying now, forgive me. Some people can't help crying in prayer. I mean it's a normal thing for God bless them.
But when people turn it on because they think that somehow or other they're fulfilling a promise and that they're sowing in tears, who are they kidding?
The devil himself must have a laugh at it.
It's a waste of time.
Why? If a real anguish came into that person's heart they'd probably hardly be able to say a word.
This kind of intercession will involve us in all kinds of experiences, situations and circumstances which would not normally come our way. Look out. If you have started on the path of intercession you will find that the Lord will lead you into the most extraordinary circumstances, the most extraordinary situations, things that normally would not come your way but will come your way just because you are an intercessor.
Do you remember Ezekiel? I don't want to frighten all of you, but do you remember Ezekiel? He was an intercessor. He stood in the gap and it was the result of Ezekiels ministry. Along with Daniels, that the people went back to the land in the end.
But you know, it cost him a very happy marriage one day when he was praying. And youve got the record in Ezekiel 20 415 to 18, the Lord said to him, your wife will die today.
You shall not mourn, you shall not cry, because it is a sign.
You shall go out and say to the whole city, as my wife has died, so shall this whole city die.
You may find that a very strange thing for God to do. There are some even stranger things that God led intercessors in in the word.
But what I am saying is this, that in a very real way, intercession will introduce us to the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. You will remember that Paul says in Philippians 310 that I may know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, sufferings being made conformable unto his death. In no other sphere are we introduced to the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, as we are in the realm of intercession. I believe that this is what the apostle Paul meant when in Colossians and chapter one and verse 24, he said, these mysterious now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. In other words, what I'm trying to say to you, dear child of God, dear people of God, is that intercession is not just a matter of words or prayers or even pleading or even tears.
Intercession involves us, body, soul, and spirit, so that it will be as if God will take you into situations like the apostle Paul, which he would never have gone into but for his ministry of intercession.
Intercession therefore results from a burden conceived in us by the spirit, of which the audibly expressed words are but the smallest fraction.
And if there is anyone here who knows anything of that, it must surely come to you as a comfort to hear it even so excited.
For one of our great problems when we know something about intercession is that we find it all locked up inside, just like an unborn babe.
Something within our very being which is alive, something which, as it were, is sort of has life within it, something conceived by the spirit of God and yet unable to communicate.
Such is this ministry of intercession.
I think we will close, and next Thursday I will say something more about this matter of intercession.
I will close by just mentioning this mystery because it rounds up of what I want to say tonight, if God is sovereign and works all things according to the counsel of his own will, why the need of intercession?
I think we face here the mystery of intercession.
Ive often pointed out to you how Daniel saw something that many modern believers do not recognize.
In Daniel chapter nine, verse one and two, it says quite clearly that by the words of the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel understood that the 70 years of captivity were determined, in other words, were finished.
Then he does that which so few modern believers under the new covenant ever dream of doing on the basis of that revelation by the spirit of God as to the meaning of the word of the Lord. Through the prophet Jeremiah, he gets down on his knees and starts to fast and mourn and seek the Lord and confess the sin of the whole people and intercede for them that they might go back to the land. Now, most of us would say, oh, nobody's got it all mean. He's just simply doing what, he's just wasting his breath. The Lord has already said that they're going to go back.
Why therefore start praying if you know that the Lord has revealed it through the prophet Jeremiah, that after 70 years, the people are going to go back. They're going to go back, not Daniel. Daniel knew that this sovereignty, decree and purpose of God had got to be ratified in some way on earth by servants of the living God.
And so he started his ministry. Now, many christians have told me at different times when we've started praying about different things, I think you're just wasting your time wearing yourself out.
No need to pray for such things.
Hell understood only too well the significance of Daniels prayer ministry.
For if you want to compare Daniel chapter nine and verse one, the dating with Daniel chapter five and verse 31, which in the Hebrew is the first verse of the 6th chapter and chapter six, verse one, you will discover, to your amazement, that Daniel being thrown into the lion's den coincides with his prayer ministry in Daniel chapter nine.
In other words, hell became so disturbed by Daniel's prayer ministry, the world went out. It's got to be stopped.
It's got to be stopped.
And I suppose hell, and one thing I'm always thankful to the Lord for is that hell does know everything. We tend to think that the devil is like God, a counterpart of God. He knows everything. He's everywhere. At the same time. He's not. He's a created being, can only be at one place at one time.
And being a created being, although he's got great intelligence, he's nothing like God. He has limited intelligence. I don't mean that in a. In a rude way, but he has limited intelligence in the sense that I've got far, far more limited intelligence.
The fact of the matter is that Satan, with his intelligence, nevertheless did not know everything. And I believe that when he put that thought into the other principles, to go to the King Darius and get that decree passed, that no one should pray except to the king, they thought that's the end of the ministry.
Daniel, of course, will say now, I mustn't be a fool, king. The law's been passed. It's according to the law of the Medes and the Persians. It doesn't alter. I mustn't be a fool. After all, one month. What's one month? One month. Just stop praying for a month, and after a month I'll take it up again.
Why sort of stir up the whole opposition?
But Daniel was such a different type of person.
He got something from the Lord by the spirit of God, through the word of God.
And he knew that the priority was to pray that thing into being.
And so dear old Daniel must have battled it out with his conscience as to whether he should have a sort of render to Caesar what is Caesar's, or to God what is God's. And so finally, he flings the shutters open at the appointed time of prayer, knowing full well that they were all watching him, and started continued with his prayer ministry. Of course, he ended in the lion's den. You know that.
And the fact of the matter was, he never stopped his prayer ministry. He only spent one night in the lion's den and they were like a lot of purring cats. He came out after one night and all the opposition went in and were eaten by the purring cats.
And Daniel overlived the return to Jerusalem by, we believe, at least three years. And as far as we know, he never returned himself. But he was part of the return. Now, my point is just simply this.
We are face to face with a mystery here. Why does God require someone to pray into being something which he has already said is going to come to pass? You work it out.
Anyone who thinks they understand prayer doesn't know how to pray.
I've said in all the schools of prayer, wherever I've been, this one simple thing. You will never learn to really pray until you learn the mystery, until you face the mystery of prayer.
If you think you know the science of prayer, God help you.
The fact is that prayer is a mystery. Don't ask me why God requires my body and my mouth, but in some strange way. Out from the throne of God into my heart, by the spirit of God has got to come the burden that's on the heart of my lord into my heart it comes, by the spirit of God. Out of my lips by the spirit of God it's paid just a faction of the burden and finally goes back to the throne of God and is accomplished. It's like a full circle. It comes from the throne of God by the spirit of God into me, and on the way back through me, by the spirit of God, it goes back to the throne, and then the thing's done.
I can only believe that God wants us to be one with him. In some strange way he says, well, here's my will. If you don't do it, I won't.
Our torko doesn't have to.
We seem to think that God's got some great self interest in doing it. He doesn't have to. Because you say, well, if you don't want to.
People say to me, I can't understand it. It says, upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But they have. Yeah, because people haven't used the keys. God says, if you don't use, the gates of hell will prevail.
In other words, God is training us. Comes a time when you can't carry anyone anymore. They'll never learn to walk.
Got to put them down and let them walk.
And so it is with us, it is practical union with Christ which gives rise to all true intercession in some way beyond our human comprehension. The intercession of Christ overspills into us.
And so that intercession is really the expression, a very faint expression of the intercession of the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God. That's how I find it. The most wonderful way to look at intercession, that my Lord at the right hand of God has a burden. And in some wonderful way, a little faint, as it were, reflection of that burden gets into me and comes out of mine, and somehow or other involves my whole being in the fulfillment of the purposes of God.
That really, again, brings us back to the scripture that we quoted it again and again and again in Matthew 1819 and 20 again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father, who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together into my name, there am I in the midst. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we do pray with all the need that there is around us that thou wilt deliver us from just trying to meet the need ourselves.
But, Lord, we pray that we might be a people who are so given to thyself and in whom thou canst do such a work that, Lord, thou canst conceive in us by the Holy Spirit those burdens, Lord, which will involve us in genuine intercession.
Lord, thou knowest we've known just a little bit in this company of corporate intercession.
Lord, preserve us, we pray, from losing what thou hast given us.
We ask thee, Lord, that thou deepen it and make it more full and more powerful and more influential than ever before in the fulfillment of thy purposes for this area and for this nation and for this world.
Lord, reveal these things to us.
They are beyond us, naturally.
But thou hast given us thy spirit that we might know the things that are from thyself.
O Father, hear us as now we commit this time to thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
