CONTENTS  Preface  1. Born Anew  2. Scriptural Teaching on Evangelism  3. Practicing Evangelism  4. How to Pray  5. Sanctified Christian Living  6. In the Spirit 7. Forming Fellowships  8. Training for Ministry  9. Prayer and Ministry  10. One in the Body  11. New Testament Order 12. On to Maturity

9. Prayer and Ministry Spiritual ministry must begin with prayer and be carried on in the spirit of prayer. Ultimately, the ministry which counts for God has to be based on a life of prayer. The ministry of Jesus began with forty days and nights of very intense prayer in the wilderness. Fasting was not the real issue. We are told that, “afterwards He was hungry” (Matthew 4:2). Or, to state it another way, fasting is not just abstaining from food, it is an intensity of prayer that causes food not to be important for a season. At His baptism in the Jordan, Jesus had received the anointing of the Spirit for His ministry. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is the first requirement for spiritual ministry. But Jesus did not immediately start doing miracles. The Holy Spirit “led Him out to the desert to be tempted” (Matthew 4:1). Only as He was ready and equipped to start His ministry could He be tempted to misuse the power He had been given. We too, when we receive the power of the Spirit, must spend some time in the wilderness. We do not simply live happily ever after. The Lord has to break down some old attitudes, ego-trips, and tendencies to misuse the Lord's gifts. The chaff in our lives needs to be burned up in a baptism of fire. In fact, those whom the Lord really uses will spend considerable time in the wilderness or in the fire, getting purged and reconstructed according to His specifications and made ready for His use. The Apostle Paul spent quite a few years in the desert getting shaped into the kind of instrument the Lord could use for His purpose. My own experience has been that long periods of preparation, seeking the Lord, and being worked over are interspersed with short and glorious intervals of seeing the Lord use me in ministry. In a sense, all of Jesus' ministry grew out of that forty days in the wilderness. It was there that the limits were clearly defined and the vision and direction clearly given. In addition, our Lord took time each morning to be alone with His Father and get direction for the day. Important decisions, like the choice of disciples or new directions of ministry, were made after all-night prayer. We too need to have a vision for the Lord's work, both in the general or long-range sense and also in the specific, day-by-day guidance or direction. I know a middle-aged widow in a small town in Java named Mrs. Piet. She is illiterate and talks mainly in malapropisms and bad grammar. The first time I met her, she told me she evangelized in three hundred and sixty villages. I initially thought she was making an empty boast. But eventually, I found out that in each of these villages people had indeed been healed and led to the Lord. Hundreds had been baptized and little congregations started in many of the villages. This ministry is purely the fruit of vision and prayer. Her vision is a single-minded desire to see people healed and led to the Lord. Except for a couple hours of sleep, she prays all night. The Lord gives her clear instructions as to where she is to go and what she is to do. Sometimes angels come in the middle of the night and tell her what to do the next day. When she is going to a visit a village she has not been to before, she is often given a vision of the village and the house to which she is to go. The ministry is simply obedience to the guidance she has received in prayer. Intercession in the Spirit. Spiritual ministry requires prayer in the Spirit. Jesus said, “I do not speak my own words, but the words of Him who sent Me” (John 12:49). This means that our prayer and our ministry need to be carried out by the manifestations of the Spirit. Actually, there are two types of apostolate — the apostolate of those who go forth to minister in the power and direction of the Spirit, and the intercessors who support them by praying in the Spirit. In fact, those whose apostolate will lead them out for ministry need to begin by much prayer in the Spirit, and then simply practice on the outside what they have learned in the prayer room. The apostle Paul says to the people at Ephesus: "Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains." Ephesians 6:18-20 No effective apostolate has ever been carried out without the support of intercessors. Paul was sent out by the church in Antioch with prayer and fasting. Their prayers continued to follow him on his journeys. In due course, he came back and reported on the results of their prayers. In turn, Paul bore daily in prayer the burden of all the new churches he had founded. People do not usually get praised or become famous for being intercessors. It is lonely and difficult work. But the work they do is of the utmost importance. Those of us who have been on the forefront of the battle on the mission field know that we can tell immediately if the prayer support increases or slacks off. When we take on a burden of intercession, we often experience the same thing as the people for whom we are praying. Paul says: Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? 2 Corinthians 11:28, 29 One time, I went with a team into a little village in the interior of Borneo. As we began to pray there, the four members of our team all began to feel angry at each other. We discussed our feelings and realized we were bearing a burden for the people. That evening in the church, each of us spoke on different aspects of the Christian approach to anger and how to be set free from it. At the end, I said, “If anyone here is angry at someone else, please come forward for prayer.” About thirty people came forward. They confessed their anger with each other, forgave one another, shook hands and prayed together. Peace descended on that village. The pastor of the church said afterward, “I didn't want to tell you ahead of time what the problem was here. But tonight the Lord has removed an obstacle which has been hindering His work and the life of this church for ten years.” Sometimes we will even feel physical symptoms of people for whom we pray. One time I was praying in my room. Some people came in and said, “You must come and help us pray for a woman who needs healing.” I said, “I can't come. I myself have a terrible headache and can't move.” They said, “You have to come anyway.” So I went out, and discovered that the woman had been troubled with terrible headaches for years. We commanded that she be released from the torment. She was immediately healed, and so was I. We should not go out of our way to take upon ourselves this type of burden of intercession. But when the Holy Spirit gives it to us, we deal with it under His direction until we feel the burden lift. Then we give thanks and rejoice. In the passage we quoted above from Ephesians, Paul said, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions.” Effective intercession is prayer in the Spirit. In Romans 8 Paul says: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Romans 8:26, 27 Jesus said that, if we ask anything according to God's will, He will do it. The way to be sure that we are praying in accordance with God's will is to let the Spirit pray through us. He knows exactly the needs of those for whom we pray. He also knows exactly what God wants to do about it. A couple of years ago, we had a team on a boat they had built. They were on their way to Irian, but stopping off at islands along the way. At our center on Java we were praying for them each day at our noon time intercessions. For several days I heard the same prayer every day: “Lord, we don't know what the team on the boat is experiencing today. But you know, and we ask you to bless them richly and help them with whatever they are doing.” It was too vague and too boring. After a few days I could stand it no longer. I said, “You've got to pray in the Spirit. The prayer has to be specific. The Spirit knows what they are doing and what their needs are. From now on you can either pray in tongues and interpret, or you can give a word of knowledge. But no more making up your own prayers.” After that the prayers got specific. One day it was, “Today they are on the water, traveling. A storm is brewing. Lord, in the name of Jesus we rebuke the storm, and we speak protection for the boat and its crew. Guide them clearly to the next place you want them to go.” Another day they prayed, “Lord, today they are having a great open air meeting on the shore of an island. Lord anoint those who are speaking Your Word, that they may be given the right words to say. Stretch forth your hand to heal and manifest your power.” Later we heard the results of some of these prayers. Among other things, a tremendous harvest of souls occurred in the open air meetings of the island of Alor. Our teams are still following up the results of that campaign. The door of ministry was opened wide by prayer in the Spirit, and by the Spirit-led ministry of the boat team. One member of the team was put in prison and was repeatedly brought to trial in successively higher courts. Each time, he trusted the Lord's promise that the Holy Spirit would give him the words to say. One time, all his accusers were converted right in the courtroom. Prayer in the Heavenlies In the Gospels, we read about the disciples' being unable to cast a demon out of a little boy. When Jesus had cast it out, the disciples asked “Why couldn't we do that?” Jesus said, “This kind only comes out by prayer” (Mark 9:29). But, obviously, Jesus did not pray for the demon to come out, He commanded it. The prayer was done earlier that day on the mountain top. That was the day that three of His disciples had the privilege of seeing what happened to Jesus when He came into the Father's presence. As He prayed, He was transfigured. The glory of God shone all about Him, and they saw Him raised into heavenly places. In Ephesians 2:6 Paul says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” We are seated with Jesus on His throne, where He sits on the Father's right hand “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21). How silly to pray in a natural earth realm when we can be doing it from that place of victory! So we need to appropriate this sense of being present to God in the heavenly realm in our worship. The Book of Hebrews explains at great length that earthly places of worship are simply shadows of that true heavenly Temple. When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not part of this creation . . . . For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Hebrews 9:11, 24 When Christ died on the Cross, the veil in the Temple in Jerusalem was torn in two from top to bottom (that is, from God's side). This symbolizes the opening of the way for us to come into the divine presence in the heavenly realm. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God in full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:19-22 The body and blood of Christ is not just a remembrance of His sacrifice, it is our access to the presence of the living God. It gives us an audience with the King. God wants us to dwell with Christ in those heavenly realms. He wants us to enter into the silence where God is and stand before His throne in awe and wonder and adoration. In 1972 we had a Bible Camp at our training center in Lawang on the topic: The World Mission of the Church. We were concerned with the enormity of the task, with so many millions still totally unreached by the Gospel. We wanted to know how the task could be accomplished more effectively. It was a very supernatural gathering. People came several days before the scheduled starting date. Through visions and prophetic utterance, the Lord called out His army to go forth into the warfare of these last days. Darto, the head of our training center, saw a vision of God's army lined up for battle and surrounded by fire. Jesus was the Commander-in-Chief, and the fire was going out before Him and coming out of His eyes and a sword out of His mouth. The wall of fire around us was God's protection. Anyone who tried to step out of the ranks was burned just enough to be reminded to get quickly back into the place of safety in the ranks. But people who wanted to break in from the outside to attack God's people could not get through the barrier of fire. In his vision, Darto saw a cloud of dust rising behind the Lord's army. The Lord said that cloud was the enemies of the Lord's army, who would be as dust under our feet. The Lord called us to become His soldiers, to get into the ranks of His army, and to be united as one army with the angels of heaven. “This is the time when I am calling My army.” He said, “Who among you is ready to die for Me?” We raised our hands as if to reply, “We are ready.” “Many of you will die as martyrs for My Gospel's sake,” the Lord told us, “but, because of your lives and because of your deaths, many others will come to know Me and enter My kingdom.” A bit later, He spoke more specifically about our ministry: I will send you to places which you would not choose. There you will preach My Good News and show forth My righteousness. You must encounter much persecution and suffering along the way. But do not be afraid, for My power will rest upon you to protect you. Sit quietly now, and look upon My Ark of the Covenant, for My glory is all about you. For there is a right time for you to go to the courtyard to minister to those who are awaiting what I am entrusting to you. As the camp went on, the Lord spoke more and more of priesthood. He said that His army is really an army of priests — a royal priesthood ? priests and kings to serve our God. This priesthood will rule by learning submission, following the example of Christ's humility. The warfare of the priests begins with prayer and intercession, representing the people before the throne of God. As priests of the New Covenant we are to enter into the presence of God in the Most Holy Place, where His presence is represented by the Ark of the Covenant. Through the centuries, there have been individual saints who have entered the silence of eternity and have received the revelation of the presence of God in moments of high contemplation. But now the Lord wants to move His people together into the Most Holy Place to experience the heavenly worship as His royal priesthood. Only after this are we to go forth into the world bearing the Ark — the presence of God ? just as the priests of old went across Jordan and entered the promised land, marching around Jericho with the Ark of God's presence in their midst. The city fell, and the enemies of God were brought down by the glory of His presence. Several times we have entered as a corporate body into that silence where God is, and where He reveals Himself to His people in His glory and majesty. No individual or group of people who have ever experienced even a few moments in that glorious presence will ever be the same again. Life is transformed and ministry is raised to a new plane. Peter testifies to the effect on his life of that experience on the Mount of Transfiguration: We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of prophecy made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:16-19 Paul had a similar experience in preparation for his apostolate, which he talks about in the third person singular: "I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or not I do not know — God knows. And I know that this man — whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows — was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things that man is not permitted to tell." 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 The presence of the Lord is a place of revelation — revelation of the deepest secrets of the Lord's heart. There, we catch an indescribable glimpse of Him as He is, in His infinite and eternal majesty. Our self-image has to be revised. Our concept of Him is transformed. Our life and ministry can never be the same again. The presence of the Lord is also the place of ordination and equipping for ministry. Ephesians 2 precedes Ephesians 6. We sit with Him in the heavenly places, and then we are equipped to carry out the warfare on the earth. The Mount of Transfiguration prepares for the Garden of Gethsemane and the suffering and victory of the Cross. Prayer as Warfare. Intercessory prayer is a warfare and the principal way in which the warfare is carried on. The warfare has to be won first in prayer and then worked out in practice. The Transfiguration and the Garden of Gethsemane are two aspects of our Lord's preparation for His ministry on the Cross. These two aspects of priesthood — the contemplative entrance into the presence, and the spiritual warfare against the powers of darkness of this world — need to be kept in balance. In the Garden, the real agony of the Passion was fought out. From that point on, Jesus was free to minister to people — to forgive the crowds, to show love for His mother and disciple, to minister in love to the thief on His right — because the victory had really already been won in prayer in the Garden. Intercessory prayer breaks down the principalities and powers. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 The enemy has to be accurately identified. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12 In the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter took a natural sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest's slave. This was a silly thing to do, and Jesus had to put the ear back in its place. Peter had mistakenly identified the enemy as a person. Jesus had a spiritual battle to fight. Peter, at that time, was so ill-equipped for that battle that he went to sleep. Peter did not really start to understand spiritual warfare until after Pentecost, nor do we. When my family and I moved to Nongkojajar, a little village high in the mountains of East Java, there was already a well established church there as well as a Christian Junior High School and orphanage. A few years before, a woman from one of the villages had been very sick and had been brought in for prayer. The children and the head of the orphanage were praying for her. About ten o'clock at night she died, but they kept on praying. Around midnight they all got filled with the Holy Spirit and began to pray in the Spirit. Towards morning, the woman came back to life, and is living there to this day. This caused an excitement among the children and young people which spread to the adult members of the congregation. Children and adults began to go out to the villages round about to evangelize. Miracles were reported on all sides, new converts were being made in large numbers, and congregations were springing up in the villages. But up above us on the higher parts of the mountain were about 300,000 people of the Tengger tribe who had totally resisted the Gospel for years. When sick people were prayed for, they got sicker and died. The center of worship for Tenggerese was the crater of Mount Bromo which towered above them. They used to sacrifice children there, but now only animals and produce. The Lord said that this was the center of the principalities and powers which were keeping the Tenggerese in bondage. In May of 1967, seven of us camped for five days on the edge of the crater and took authority over those powers of darkness. After that, evangelism in the mountain villages began to be fruitful. We began in the highest village, where thirteen people received the Lord in three days. Two of the women from our town went to Pangananjeru, a village seven kilometers up the mountain from us. They felt led to go into one of the little huts. There they found a most hideous old hag sitting before the fire. She had neither washed nor combed her hair for fifteen years. She just sat there and stared at the fire day after day. The women told her about Jesus and prayed for her to be delivered from the demonic powers that bound her. She accepted the Lord, and they took her down to the river and baptized her. After that, she was no longer afraid to wash and turned out to be a nice looking young woman, completely in her right mind. Through that and other miracles that happened, there was soon a congregation of thirty in that little village. The powers of darkness had been broken and driven out by the prayer on the top of the mountain and the whole area was, and is, open to the acceptance of the Gospel. I believe that it is inappropriate for Christians to be weak and half-hearted at this point in history. There is a war going on, the last great battle of history. The kingdoms of this world need to be torn out of Satan's hands so that they can become the Kingdom of God and of His Christ. In the Book of Joel, the prophet describes a locust plague that was happening in his day. He saw this as a type of the day of the Lord, which was to be a time of terrible darkness, suffering and disaster. Joel issued an urgent call to the people to come together in intercession: Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations.’ Joel 2:15-17 The priests are called to weep for the people. They are “between the porch and the altar;” that is, they are out in the courtyard. They cannot enter the Holy Place because they are bearing the sins of the people. The people of God have gone far from Him. There needs to be an army of intercessors who will agonize for the Church of God that it may come back to its first love. Prayer in the Spirit is often referred to as travail. Paul says, “How I suffer in travail that Christ might be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). It is a travail because, through agony, something new is brought to birth. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:22, 23 This travail is carried out by intercessors praying in the language of the Spirit. The Lord will give language for spiritual warfare. Sometimes it will be so deep that no language is adequate any more, even the language of the Spirit. Then the deep groanings of unutterable soul-agony take over. This is not something which we can manufacture, nor should we volunteer; but rather it is a ministry to which we yield ourselves as the Holy Spirit gives it to us. One time, our church in Montana was in trouble. The Lord's people and His work were in confusion. One day, a woman appeared, saying the Lord had sent her to intercede for our church. She rented a little house and retreated inside it. She then proceeded to intercede, praying in the Spirit all day, every day for six months, until victory came. Much of this spiritual warfare needs to be carried on in the heavenly realm. Every section of the Book of Revelation begins in the heavenly realm. In Chapters 4 and 5, for example, we are given a graphic picture of that heavenly Temple that was alluded to in Hebrews. God sits on His throne in the midst. All the heavenly hosts join in the praise around the throne. In response to a travailing prayer from John, the Lamb appears and opens the scroll. As the heavenly hosts continue to praise and worship God, the warfare starts on the earth and God's plan for world conquest unfolds. In Chapter 8, the prayers of the saints have a direct part in the beginning of God's judgments on the earth: Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. Revelation 8:3-6 The same fire that caused the worship to go up in the presence of God was able to cause the unfolding of God's plan on earth. The fuel used for fire on the altar of incense before the throne always consists of incense and prayers of the saints. “Prayers of the saints” means those of holy people, people who have been washed and made pure in the blood of Jesus. Their prayers are prayers in the Spirit, prayers that can enter into the presence of God behind the veil in the Holy of Holies. Prayer that will be effective in the warfare of these days must be in the heavenlies, not on earth. It must be supernatural, Spirit-controlled prayer. Such prayers make a pleasant odor before the Lord. When the angel took fire from the altar in his censer and threw it down on earth, there was a great cataclysm. The same fire which makes a lovely pleasing act of worship in the heavenlies, also causes dire results on the earth. Our prayers, united with the heavenly worship, have a profound effect upon the fulfillment of God's purposes in history. All that follows is the result of this heavenly worship. The angels sound their trumpets, and God's judgments happen. In Revelation 12, the Church, represented by the woman, gives birth to a body of overcomers, the man child, who enters into the realm of the heavenly worship. His entrance there sets off a great warfare in the heavenlies, resulting in Satan's getting overthrown and kicked out of heaven. This apparently is a direct result of the manchild's intercession or spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. The Lord is seeking those who will become overcomers, who have the courage to join with the heavenly host in that warfare. The ultimate unfolding of His plan awaits our commitment to that task and our entrance into that realm of intercession and spiritual warfare. The victory has to be won first in the heavenlies, and after that on earth. The earthly is the result or outworking of the heavenly. After the dragon (Satan) has been kicked out of the heavenlies, he really stirs up a fuss on the earth. The warfare gets more furious “because he knows his time is short” (Revelation 12:12). The brunt of the warfare on earth is carried out by “the remnant of the woman's offspring — those who obey God's commandments and hold the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 12:17). “Those who obey God's commandments” cannot refer to adherence to Old Testament Law, but rather to the New Testament Law of Love and Law of the Spirit. These are people who are full of the Love of Christ and who have been set free from the Old Testament Law and the law of sin and death and have learned to walk in the Spirit. They are led and empowered by the Spirit of God. Revelation 19:10 explains that “the witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” This refers to Jesus' testimony that everything He said was given Him by His Father. All His words have the character of prophecy. The spirit of prophecy is deeper than a word of prophecy. The spirit of prophecy is a way of life and not just an occasional revelation. This needs to become our testimony too. The Church needs to speak as the oracles of God. Just as Ezekiel spoke to a valley full of bones, causing them to assemble, come to life, and stand up as a mighty army, so in these days there need to be those who can speak a word of command in the churches, causing them to come together as God's mighty army, equipped for spiritual warfare. The Church must be revived and equipped by the Word of God, not opinions of people. The Church needs to have the power and the authority to be able to speak the prophetic word of God to the world, so that the world will know what God thinks about it and intends to do about it. Miracles happen through words of command in the Name of the Lord. God is seeking those who can carry on the warfare here on earth in the spirit of prophecy. Worship in the heavenlies will break the power of the enemy. It will also equip God's people for effective ministry and warfare. Travail in the Spirit will get the Word of God into our hearts and on our lips. As we speak it forth in boldness, the power and glory of God will be revealed. Let us enter the presence of God. Let us be prepared to experience the travail that can bring forth effective ministry.

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