PRAYER TRENDS IN THE LAST DECADE
By
Jerry Falwell
During the last ten years, several new expressions of prayer evolved in the Body of Christ. Notice that I said “Expressions of Prayer.” This meant that Christians have learned different ways to pray more effectively. Technically, we cannot change prayer, nor can we do it a new way. Prayer is simply “talking to God.” However, notice the different ways that we have emphasized prayer in the past 10 years:
1. Prayerwalking. Many people have defined prayerwalking as “praying on site, with insight.” That means prayer is more effective when people go pray at the actual place where they want answers. As an illustration, if you want God to do something for you in City Hall, walk around City Hall, claiming God’s victory. It is more effective to go to a hospital room to pray with a sick person, than to stay home and pray for that same person. Here’s what I have learned from prayerwalking:
a. When you visualize it, you internalize it. You actually visit a place and can see with your physical eyes what you want God to do, not just seeing with your mind’s eyes. You can pray better for that place at that place. That is why we did prayerwalking through the city of Lynchburg. You remember we divided up the city by streets, blocks, asking you to walk around your neighborhood and pray for all the lost people in your area. When you can visualize your neighbor’s house with your physical eyes, you can internalize prayer much better.
b. On site produces commitment. When you actually go to a place, you go for the purpose of praying. You go to that place and pray. Sometimes when you pray in your closet, your mind will wander. But when you go to a specific place with a specific task, you will pray more specifically.
One of our members comes to this auditorium before church every Sunday and prays over every pew in this building. He can pray better for the people who are going to sit in the pews, by walking and touching each pew.
There are two biblical challenges to prayer walking:
“And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are -- northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, [then] your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”
(Genesis 13:14-17).
“You shall march around the city, all [you] men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long [blast] with the ram’s horn, [and] when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him" (Joshua 6:3-5).
2. Fasting. A second thing that we saw in the past ten years is a renewed emphasis on fasting. While we have always fasted here at Thomas Road Baptist Church, it seems that the entire nation has awakened to the power of fasting. Bill Bright was the first one calling for a national conference on fasting and prayer. This year that conference will meet in Orlando, Florida, and Elmer Towns, Dean, School of Religion, is involved in that conference and speaks at the conference.
Bill Bright was the first one to call for a 40-day fast, ending on Good Friday. Actually, this was not new; the early church practiced fasting for 40 days ending on Good Friday. However, Bill brought a modern day renewal of that practice.
I fasted for 40 days in the summer of 1996, asking God to give us money to pay off the indebtedness of Liberty University. We were faced with losing the University financially, I realized that God had to do a great miracle, so I knew that it would take great spiritual resources, and a great risk; therefore, before I went into the 40-day fast, asking God to give us money. The most interesting thing about that fast was that God did not answer my prayer about money. The more I asked God to give us money, the more the Lord told me, “Seek my heart, not my pocketbook.”
I ended that 40 days of fasting committed to do what was necessary for the survival of Liberty. I was praying 25 days after ending my 40-day fast, when God told me to go into another 40-day fast. Even though everyone warned me about physical complications, and no one seemed to understand what I was doing; I entered a second 40-day fast. Why? Because that morning God told me, “Now, you can ask Me for money.” When I got that release in prayer, I asked God for the financial miracle to save Liberty University. It was then that a financial benefactor gave us approximately $52 million. This amount came in over a period of time, but it was in direct answer to prayer. You can read the story of this fast and others in the book, Fasting Can Change Your Life. I wrote this book about great answers to prayer in the lives of 31 other people. You can order that book from Amazon.com or phone the Thomas Road Baptist Church Bookstore, 1-804-239-9281.
3. A solemn assembly. Many people have seen that phrase solemn assembly in the Bible, but have not acted on it because they didn’t know what it meant. However, in association with prayer, God’s people have called a solemn assembly of prayer. A solemn assembly is a church meeting where we don’t praise God, preach, sing the great hymns of testimony, nor do we come and worship God. A solemn assembly is a response of God’s people to the desperate conditions of society and the desperate conditions within the local Body of Christ. A solemn assembly is when God’s people ask forgiveness, and cry out to God because of their sins.
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where [is] their God? Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people” (Joel 2:15-18).
The vision of a solemn assembly is for Christian people to pray, fast, repent, and ask God to send revival to our nation. It seems that as we have demonstrated against abortion, writing letters, marching, protesting to Congressmen, and other things the church can do; we also need to call a solemn assembly and ask God’s forgiveness of our nation against the unborn.
4. Meet You at the Pole. This is a massive outpouring of high school young people (now many colleges are joining) where early on a school day in October, young people meet at the flagpole for prayer. I think this is an unusual demonstration of the commitment of our Christian young people. Because they can’t read the Bible in high schools nor can a classroom be led in prayer; young people in “spiritual protest” meet at the flagpole to pray for their school, for unsaved people, for their testimony, and for God to be glorified in their school.
I have seen statements that Meet You at the Pole is, “The largest prayer meeting in the United States.” We commend our young people for becoming leaders in prayer. I want to challenge every young person in our church to be involved in Meet You at the Pole, especially when we consider the tragedy of Columbine High School.
5. Identificational repentance. It seems that the Body of Christ has begun to learn how to heal some of the wounds, specifically, racial wounds, by identificational repentance. We saw this first in Promise Keepers, then we saw it at the 1995 Southern Baptist Convention where the Convention apologized to the African-Americans for their part in slavery. Whereas there are many theological ramifications of identificational repentance, there are some practical things that I recommend to you.
As an illustration, in a Promise Keepers meeting, one individual representing the African-American community stood in front of the men who were assembled there.
There was also another member representing the White-Anglo community that also stood before the group of men that were assembled. The White-Anglo spoke for all of the men who were there to his black brothers saying, “We acknowledge the sin of our forefathers who owned slaves, we repent of the sin and we reach our hand out to you in Christian brotherhood, recognizing that you brothers are equal in Christ, equal in humanity and equal before God. Will you forgive us of our sin?
Then the African-American brothers responded to his white brother, “On behalf of my forefathers who were slaves, I hear your confession of sins regarding slavery, and I see your repentance, and I hear your request to be forgiven of your sins; therefore, on behalf of my forefathers and my brothers who are here with me today, and myself, we forgive you. We now want to be one with you as we walk with Christ, one with you as we live as brothers in this nation, and one with you as we serve with Jesus Christ together in His Body.”
I am speaking for Jerry Falwell when I look at identificational repentance, understanding there is some truth in it for us today. Obviously, I do not believe that our confession of sins today in fact forgives the sins of our forefathers. The Bible does not teach that; nor does our confession today change the past. What has been written has been written and what has been done has been done. But I do believe that identificational repentance is good for the church today because it helps our African-American brothers deal with the alienation and segregation that has been levied on them. It also helps our White/Anglo brothers recognize that what they have done, sometimes without social, political or spiritual awareness, was in fact segregation and contrary to what God expects of humans.
I do know this, that God made all of us free. Even the little baby wants to be free from his highchair, free from his playpen, free to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. That desire for freedom is what God has placed in all children, red, yellow, black and white. And I believe that the Church’s turning to identificational repentance recognizes that innate desire for freedom in every individual born on earth.
6. Prayer evangelism. We have always had cottage prayer meetings for revival and evangelistic crusades. We always added prayer onto evangelism, but now we know that prayer can become an integral part of the strategy of evangelism. I like the book, Taking Cities by Prayer, and the great work by Ed Silvoso, who used to be an evangelistic crusade organizer for Luis Palau.
We have seen a mighty growth in the entire body of Christ by prayer evangelism, and I believe this is good for us. In one sense, Thomas Road Baptist Church has always believed in prayer evangelism. There was a group of men who met under a piece of stretched out tarpaulin in back of the old Donald Duck Bottling plant. I credit those prayer warriors with the growth of our church. Later they met in a small room where there used to be a compressor at the Donald Duck Bottling plant, those men were great prayer warriors like Emmett Godsey, R. C. Whorley, and many of you still living in this room. You are the ones responsible for the evangelism of Thomas Road Baptist Church.
7. Prayer partners. There are many people who have taught us personal intercession for key leaders in the church. If you have listened to the ministry of John Maxwell, you have heard how a prayer warrior came to him when he first became pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church. This brother said that he wanted to be the intercessor for John Maxwell; and from that conversation, John Maxwell’s life was changed. Maxwell wrote the book, Partners in Prayer which is the key book to telling people how to pray for leaders. These prayer partners take it upon themselves to be personal intercessors for their pastor, their missionaries, or evangelists like Billy Graham, Luis Palau, or Steve Wingfield.
We are going to organize the Pastor’s Bible Class into prayer partners this Fall. Getting our members to pray with one another for one another will be a major push in the coming months. I expect great things will happen because of concerted prayer.
8. Praying through the 10/40 window. Early in the last decade, many Christians began praying, committing days of prayer and seasons of prayer (usually in October), but praying for the people in the 10/40 window. I first reported this to you in 1993 when the focus of the Church was toward the 10/40 window. This happened again 1995, 1997 and 1999. The 10/40 window includes a latitude and longitude of a box of people stretching from North Africa above the Sahara Desert through the Middle East Muslim countries, through the Hindu country of India, through the Buddhist countries of Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan and Korea. The 10/40 includes the largest key cities in the world, the largest heathen religions in the world and the largest number of unreached people. You’ve not seen many great victories there, but we must continue to pray for all people in the 10/40 window, knowing that is the greatest focus of:
(a) heathen darkness, (b) demonism and Satanism, (c) blindness because of false religions, (e) lawlessness and godlessness, and (f) the greatest amount of unsaved people in the world.
We cannot turn away from the people in the 10/40 window because they are heathen or bound by a false religion. Because God loves the world, God loves all the people in the world. Jesus died for all the people in the world, and God wants us to bring in a great harvest for Him.
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly [is] plenteous, but the labourers [are] few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:36,37,38).
9. Spiritual mapping. This is a strategy developed by our Pentecostal and charismatic brothers that most of us in the Baptist world have not followed. But we should commend them for their efforts and effectiveness in this area. In spiritual mapping, people go and research an area to help target their prayers on spiritual strongholds. They determine the strongholds of demonism, Satanism, and every other manifestation of evil that holds a city in bondage.
In the Scriptures, there seems to be an evil prince of the nation of Persia that prohibited the prayers of Daniel being answered. Just as God has given to each of us a “guardian angel” to watch over us; there seems to be an evil spirit over certain territories, cities or nations. This evil spirit does the work of Satan. Daniel has said,
“And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and [upon] the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision [is] for [many] days” (Daniel 10:10-14).
While I believe in praying for people, and for gospel preachers who go to a certain area to shed the light of the Gospel, and to preach Jesus so that people are won to Him; many of our Pentecostal and charismatic brothers have prayed against evil and the chains that Satan has upon certain areas.
There is a revival going on in Argentina. When I was converted in 1952, only about 1 percent of the population were evangelical Christians. Today, there is a reported 15 percent number of evangelicals among Argentineans. Much of the revival in Argentina has come through Pentecostals and charismatics and their research teams have gone to many cities to map out the strongholds of the Evil One, and then to pray that the bonds of evil be broken as the Gospel is preached.
When somebody asked me what I thought about spiritual mapping, my only response was, “I am for using whatever available means, to reach every available person, with every available time.” When I hear about the great revival in Argentina, and the millions that have been won to Jesus Christ, I praise God.
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God. Contact us and ask for a copy of The How To Book or use The How To Book Online (Falwell.com). It is a booklet that will answer many of the questions you are sure to have about living the Christian life. And when you contact us, tell us about your salvation experience so that we can rejoice with you.
