Ph power point_ch11

PRAYER – THE HEART OF IT ALL – P. DOUGLAS SMALL – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ©
SECTION Three
The Church
and Prayer!
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
 Intercession: The
Uncomfortable
Middle
Inset: From the Diary of
David Brainerd
 Intercession: The Need
for Persistence
Problem of
Interference
The
Strategic
Position
of
Intercession!

SECTION Three
The Church
and Prayer!
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Chapter 11 continued …
Position of a
Watchman
Inset: Watchmen on the
Wall
 Children as Intercessors
Inset: Fifteen Subjective
Identifiers of Intercessors
 Intercession and
Spiritual Power
The
Strategic
Position
of
Intercession!

The Strategic Position of
Intercession…
 Intercession is not simply an activity.
It is a position; a strategic position.
The intercessor takes a position, in the interest of
God, with regard to a person, place or thing.
The power is as much in the strategic position as
in any words spoken.
“Except the Lord watch the city, the watchmen
watch in vain” (Psa. 127:1).
The power is not in the watchmen - but in God.
Yet, God watches in our watching and without
our watching, we are left vulnerable, unguarded.
We were

Watching…
The term guard, shamar, shows up hundreds of
times in the Old Testament.
It means to watch, keep, guard or preserve.
It is a charge to be an ‘intercessor’ between God
and the earth, the garden and the globe, between
things as they were and as they could be.
Shamar became the ‘watchward’ of the prophets.
The New Testament equivalent is used in the
repeated call to ‘watch’ and pray, to be vigilant.
In the failure of Adam to ‘watch,’ to guard, to
protect, Satan gained an advantage and Adam
lost the strategic high ground of the garden.

 Jesus, the last Adam, has legally recovered the
strategic middle which Adam forfeited.
This embattled turf is what Jesus came to the
earth to reclaim.
It is also what Lucifer stubbornly and
illegitimately continues to purport to own.
Intercession is always in this strategic middle,
between God and disconnected men and women,
disconnected peoples and places.
The dominion granted to Adam has now been
reclaimed. Jesus declared,
“All authority is given to me in heaven and
earth” (Mt. 28:18); “therefore go…”

We do not presumptuously aspire to this role in
the middle.
God puts us all in some garden – a family, a
church, a neighborhood or a city, a company or a
circle of friends.
Our role, as with Adam, is to:
‘Grow it,’ – our garden. To cultivate relationships and
spiritual potential; and also,
To ‘guard it,’ serving as a spiritual watchman.
That also means serving as a spiritual mediator.
 Sometimes that is in the posture of a priestly advocate,
praying for another as if we were the person.
 At times, it is in the posture of a prophet, praying for the in-
breaking hand of God to enforce His will.

Intercession: The
Uncomfortable Middle …
 In Luke 11:1, there are three players in the story.
One is a traveler without housing or food.
He locates a friend and knocks on his door. He is
welcomed warmly, but his host has no bread.
The host has a friend who always has plenty.
He goes to that endowed friend and insists he rise and
lend him bread.
The well-supplied friend is resistant.
The story is designed to emphasize our need for
persistence in prayer.
 Will the friend in the uncomfortable middle be denied?
 Is his relationship strong enough to sustain a midnight
intrusion? Will he give up, letting his friend go hungry?

Intercession: The
Uncomfortable Middle …
The friend in the middle will not be denied. He is
as intense as if he were the hungry one.
This is the true spirit of intercession.
We pray as if we are the person we are
representing in prayer.
Their need becomes, by empathy and the
assignment of the Spirit, our need.
Intercession places us in the uncomfortable
middle. All of us have unsaved friends.
We prefer the end of a blessing; with someone
else in the uncomfortable middle. The greater
blessing, however, is in the middle.

Intercession: The Need for
Persistence …
“If a son ask bread of any of you that is a
father…” (Luke 11:11).
A son? A father? No longer are we a friend going to
a resistant friend with plenty.
We are sons, going to the father with plenty who is
never reticent to answer.
Luther said, “We pray for silver, but God
often gives us gold instead.”
We give up too easily. “If you…know how to give
good gifts… how much more shall your heavenly
father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask… (Lk. 11:13)

Persistence …
Notice the - “how much more!” of this passage.
“Ask, seek, knock” – and you will receive, and you
will find, and doors will be opened.
All three terms are in the present tense.
Keep on asking until you get an answer.
Keep on seeking until you make a discovery that leads to
a breakthrough.
Keep on knocking until you disturb heaven and God
opens some doorway.
These terms are in the present tense and the
imperative mood. Ask with intensity. Seek
relentlessly. Knock forcefully. No sissy praying.

Persistence …
This is vigorous prayer. These are weighty
expressions of hunger and need.
They are compelling pleas, animated yearnings,
driving prayers, urgent appeals.
They are reasoned, but throbbing petitions.
Our prayers lack such intensity.
Our words say that we are desperate for God, but our
lack of persistence and less than intense mood reveals
a willingness to live without the requests we say we so
desperately seek.
Without persistent, imperative praying, our friends
may remain lost. If we are not praying - who is?

Intercession: The Problem of
Interference…
In intercession, the middle position, we grasp
the hand of God to touch the world through
prayer.
The greater and more strategic the grip is the
heavenly grasp of God.
Like reaching over a cliff for someone below, the
task is daunting, and it can become a dark
experience if the upward tether is not firm.
Intercessors who do not keep their prayer lives
centered in the simplicity of communion with
God endanger both themselves and their mission.

…
In intercession, it is not uncommon to have
simultaneously a holy and unholy encounter.
To experience peace and a sense of conflict.
To see victory and defeat together.
Sometimes an intercessor steps into a vortex of
swirling powers, like being on the edge of a thunder
cell.
This demands that we pray with an awareness of the
schemes of the Evil One.
Though prayer is focused Godward, it often gains the
attention of the Evil One.
Flashes of warfare are not uncommon, but we cannot
allow ourselves to be conditioned into avoidance of
intercession to escape such warfare moments.

Intercession: The Position
of a Watchman…
In ancient times, a city could perish due to the
negligence of a watchman.
The watchman served as an obstacle to an intruder,
and was the first wave of defense.
The city could sleep because he was awake.
Caught sleeping, death might be the penalty.
The Scripture warns us to be aware of the “devil’s
schemes.”
Watchmen were to be ever “alert,” a term used to
describe a sentry – the watchman were posted on the
wall or at the gate of city.
Prayer’s warning system nurtures obedience and
assures our hearts of certain triumph.

 There is much emphasis today on spiritual
warfare; but the goal of intercession is not
spiritual warfare.
Rather, it is reconciliation.
The Scriptures say, “Wisdom is better than
warfare” (Ecclesiastes 9:18).
When an intercessor steps into the critical,
uncomfortable middle, warfare is inevitable.
That place is occupied illegally by Satan in his attempt
to separate man from God.
The inevitable spiritual conflict cannot be the primary
focus of the intercessor.
His role is to connect the lost or displaced person to
God, and God through prayer, to that person.

Fifteen Subjective Identifiers of
Intercessors …
1. At times, you feel a compelling call to break
away for prayer – to get alone with God.
2. You experience a ‘burden’ to prayer, like an
inner grip on your soul that will not go away.
3. You sense passion and compassion as you pray.
You pray with your heart as much your head.
4. Tears are common, though no one has taught
you the role of ‘lament.’ You weep, you travail.
5. You experience impressions, vague right-brain
intuitive hunches; you are caught between
knowing and not fully knowing – you pray.

Fifteen Subjective Identifiers of
Intercessors …
6. You are frequently awakened in the night –
and called to pray.
7. People come before you – and you pause, and
pray as if some danger or opportunity might be
missed if you did not do so.
8. You may have a dream or open vision that
draws you to pray for a place you have never
been, or someone unfamiliar to you.
9. You are caught up, at times, into a spirit of
prayer. You pray beyond yourself. You know
what it is like to be ‘anointed’ to pray, to lose
track of time in prayer.

Intercessor Identifiers…
10. You pray with groans, sounds not discernible,
as if travailing in birth.
11. You imagine yourself at times in places far
away, yet, it is as if you are here and there at the
same time. As if on some magic carpet of
prayer, you are whisked away.
12. God has whispered to you a secret, perhaps,
more than one – to pray about.
13. God’s secrets are not always delightful. At
times, by the Spirit, you see through a person.
The prophetic dimension of intercession places
you in a terribly uncomfortable situation.

14. Priestly intercessors sometimes feel the pain
of others; they bear the burden of another in
prayer. These ‘sympathy’ pains are clues for
prayer.
15. At times, intimacy with God has placed in you
some vision – and you have learned the
necessity of carrying it to term, not miscarrying,
but giving birth, in prayer, to the purposes of
God.
Remember, intimacy produces the child, but
travail delivers it; and there can never be a birth
without intimacy. Balance prayer between
intimacy and intercession.

LEGAL USAGE LIMITATIONS
This presentation is designed to be a companion to the copyrighted book, Prayer
– The Heart of It All, by P. Douglas Small, Alive Publications, a division of Alive
Ministries, Inc., in cooperation with Project Pray.
All materials are copyrighted. Your legitimate purchases allow us to continue to
produce similar materials. The purchase of this Power Point presentation
constitutes a ‘single user license’ which cannot be legally or morally copied
and/or reproduced. This license is for ‘one’ entity, for teaching use.
The images included here are also subject to copyright laws and therefore
limited to their use in this authorized presentation. Here, they are used by
permission. Alive Publications does not have authorization to extend the
privilege of their use beyond this publication.
Duplication of this material, except for personal use by the purchaser to teach
this material is not allowed. Unauthorized duplication is illegal.
This presentation is meant to be used without alteration. It may be used,
however, either in part or whole, in connection with companion volumes
produced by P. Douglas Small and Alive Publications. Component parts my be
used in various teaching/training in the area of prayer – but may not exported or
presented in a manner inconsistent with the holistic approach to prayer
presented here!
It may not be sold, in part or whole.
Alive Publications – PO Box 1245 – Kannapolis, NC 28082

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