Living Hope Fellowship Church

INTERCESSOR

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

INTERCESSOR

Preface

(intercessory prayer)

          Apostles, evangelists, prophets, and all Christians must be intercessors.  It is ordained for us to intercede, and that is where we get our direction from God.  The church needs to be in intercessory mode all the time. 

In the Bible, God rewarded people who lived for Him with an honest and contrite heart.  Every miracle recorded in the Word of God happened because somebody prayed, and God answered.  We can pray and believe God, and watch Him work, because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much! 

The next time the devil tells you that your prayers aren’t making any difference, refer him to the Word of God!  I thank God for the victory that is wrought by intercessory prayer!

INTERCESSOR

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

“. . . The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

James 5:16

We need to get a hold of this Scripture and NEVER let go of it.  God will answer if we pray.  Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Christians cannot get a hold of the things that God has promised in His Word, except we pray.  Every believer needs to be interceding not only for his own, but also for people all over the world, kings, priests, nations, ministers, family, and whoever God lays on their heart.  God has called us to be intercessors! 

In the Bible, God rewarded people who lived for Him with an honest and contrite heart.  Every miracle recorded in the Word of God happened because somebody prayed, and God answered.  We can pray and believe God, and watch Him work, because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much! 

Every Christian on earth needs to be an intercessor.  The closest communion with God man has ever had is intercessory prayer.  Every prophet of God in the Bible was an intercessor to God for the nation, individuals, and even for the whole world.  That reminds us of Jesus, but don’t forget Noah!  Noah interceded for the whole world, even though only a few went with him in the ark during the flood that covered the earth. 

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  As we intercede we begin to believe God for things greater than we have already experienced.  Intercession does that, and as we intercede, God remembers us.

Intercessory prayer is a commandment.  After Jesus gave us the Holy Ghost, He told us in 1Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.”  You can even drive down the road and intercede!  Somebody will come before your face.  It may be a family member, a friend, or perhaps someone you don’t even know.  Pray and intercede for them.

If you want to see Jesus, get into intercessory prayer.  Apostles, evangelists, prophets, and all Christians must be intercessors.  That is where we get our direction from God. 

In Mark 14:38 Jesus said, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.”  If a Christian does not pray, it is guaranteed that you will enter into temptation, because John 10:10 says, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. . . .”

If you are in intercessory prayer, the devil will knock on your door, but you can say, Devil, get out.  I am busy talking to Jesus!  The devil will tell you something, but it will stand out like a billboard that it is a lie from the pit.  You can renounce the thing, resist the devil, and he will FLEE. 

Intercessory prayer is our life.  1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”  We are His house.  Matthew 21:13 says, “. . . It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer. . . .”  (See also Isaiah 56:7.)  We are to be a people of prayer!  We are each to be a house of prayer. 

We are supposed to be anointed of God to destroy every yoke by interceding for those who need an answer.  God has a way of doing this thing by giving us the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. 

As we go into the deep prayer life, God lets us know that we are interceding and ruling with utterances that are too marvelous to be understood by the natural man.  God will reward us, because James 5:16 says, “. . . The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Some don’t understand why their family members aren’t coming to God, or why our schools and our country are in bad shape.  There has not been enough intercessory prayer!  No one has stood in the gap.  We shudder when we read in Ezekiel 22:30 – “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” 

God looked for people to intercede.  Angels and devils don’t intercede.  Saints who have gone on to glory cannot intercede!  Only those who are living now who are filled with the Spirit of God and are walking in the truth of God can intercede.  Don’t get mad at the sinner because he doesn’t come in or at the transgressor because he stays in his sin.  Don’t get mad at those who won’t do right.  If you will get on your knees and seek God with fasting and prayer, the Bible says it will break the yoke.  God will cast every devil out.  If it is not coming to pass, we haven’t prayed enough to be able to speak the Word of God in Spirit and in truth.  God’s love is unconditional, but the promises and the blessings of God are conditional.  What is the condition?  It is that someone will stand in the gap, make up the hedge, and pray and believe God to fulfill the promises of His Word!

If people are not praying and seeking God, don’t expect a move of God.  If you want the Spirit of the Lord in your life, your house, your work place, your school, and in your church, stir up the gift that is within you, and pray Him down!  The church needs to be in intercessory mode all the time.  It is ordained for us to intercede. 

We need to intercede with groaning, and utterances, weeping and wailing, and fasting, and saying, God, I’m not moving until you move.  God knows our frame, and that we are just a vapor, and if He doesn’t move, sooner or later we are going to die.  If we die, we will be with Jesus, so we can’t lose by interceding. 

You must pray fervently.  If you are not lined up with the Word of God, you are wasting your time, because God does not hear sinners (except a prayer of repentance).  If you are doing your best, and you pray, He will answer.  Some say everything is fine in their life, and so they coast along.  However, that is confusion.  When everything is going right, and you have confidence toward God, keep praying!  God will hear every syllable and word, and He will avail much in your life. 

In John 17:24 Jesus prayed to the Father, “. . . I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am. . . .”  He was in the temple of God, and our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.  If we pray in the Holy Ghost, it ascends up to heaven as an odor of incense to God’s nostrils, and we can stand before Jesus. 

          Moses stood in the gap for the nation of Israel, because God was mad at them.  He spoke to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend.  No wonder his face shone so that he had to put a veil on it.  God gave him the Ten Commandments and told Moses of the blessings to come if the people would follow the Lord. 

Blessings are conditional.  God told Moses that he’d better go down and check on his people.  Moses was interceding for the people on the mountain, and he was interceding for them when he got down the mountain.  The Lord told Moses to step aside and let Him at them to destroy them.  Moses did step back, but he was gutsy.  He was used to interceding before the Lord.  He was not presumptuous or boastful or proud. 

The Bible says that Moses was the meekest man in all the earth, yet something got hold of him.  It was that intercessory spirit, that way of going before the Lord and saying, Oh, no, Lord.  You can’t do that.  God Almighty was raising His hand to destroy the people, and He was already making a swing when Moses stood between Him and them.  Exodus 32:14 says, “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”

See how, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”  It will turn the hand of God.  Moses prayed in a righteous way fervently in meekness, and the Lord repented of the judgment He was sending.  What did it mean - God repented?  Was He wrong in doing it?  No.  It wasn’t the same kind of repentance man does.  It means He turned away from it. 

Some people’s lives hinge on whether or not you pray for them.  They are waiting on you to fast and pray.  Some are waiting on you to get IN before they come IN.  I believe our intercessory prayer shall heap coals of fire upon their heads (see Proverbs 25:22).  What they are doing will not satisfy them anymore. 

          We know of cases where people had a habit and things that vexed them sorely.  People got together in intercessory agreement, and said, Thus saith the Lord, it shall not be.  God spare their lives and bring them in.  The Lord God Almighty broke the yoke, and He began to deal with them.  Nobody is so devil possessed that a prayer warrior saint can’t break the yoke from the other side of this planet! 

          Some say, SoandSo needs salvation BAD, but everybody needs it bad.  If you want deliverance, God is ready to deliver you.  The man with the legion of devils that came to Jesus had broken chains and acted like an animal.  It wasn’t safe in that whole county.  When Jesus spoke the Word, the devils came out!  Thousands were in that man, but they all came out, because Jesus stayed in intercessory prayer. 

          The Bible reveals to us that many times Jesus stayed up all night and prayed even after He’d been ministering all day long.  He wanted communion with the Father.  He could go out the next day and do mighty miracles. 

God is looking for men and women who will intercede today.  People need to pray down here and get the victory up there, so God will do a mighty work.  Matthew 18:18 says, “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

If you can’t seem to get the victory, get down on your knees and break the yoke.  You can say, Lord, in Jesus’ name, I believe God.  Break every fetter and chain.  Loose those bands of wickedness that hold us back from the great blessings of God.  I command the thing to be loosed.

As you intercede, God will show you things.  As a brother and I were interceding, God showed us things.  This was not made up by our own human suggestion, because we saw it at the same time.  We were on the floor really praying; we were walking and praying; we were in the front of the church, and we were in the back of the church, we were PRAYING!  That is what matters.  Stand on your head and pray if you want to, but PRAY, because James 5:16 says, “. . . The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” !!!

This brother and I saw two great doors with big rivets.  They looked like prison doors, and they were bolted together with huge hinges.  It was an awesome thing.  I looked at those doors, and I said to the brother, Do you see what I see?  He said, I think I do.  You describe it, and I’ll tell you if it is the same thing I am seeing.  I said, I see a door.  He said, Yeah, and I see another one beside it.  I said, Yeah, and it is gray.  He said, And it has rivets.  I said, And it has big hinges.  He said, Yeah, it has four, two on each one.  On and on it went, and that is when you know you are both seeing the same thing! 

As we prayed some more, dents began to appear in the door.  I couldn’t do that, even with a sledge hammer, but prayer can!  Leviticus 26:19 says, “And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:”  However, if we pray, it will break the yoke!

We prayed for hours.  When we got up the door looked like a paper wad or a rag.  God was trying to show us that something was stopping the blessing from coming, but when we got through, the blessing came!  The devil may not be able to build that door against you ever again!  That may have set up a course of action in God’s heaven that you could be blessed and blessed. 

We can get in this place and pray, and no telling where God will take you.  We have preached about translation for years.  I believe, according to the Word of God, that the only ones who will translate will be those who are interceding.  There is no need for God to translate a Christian if they are not in intercessory prayer.  If they are not willing to work in God’s field, why send them? The Spirit of God won’t move in a supernatural mighty way on people who don’t intercede for others.

People say they run out of things to pray for.  Get down and pray in the Holy Ghost, and He will pray for everything.  It also builds us up as we pray.  Jude 1:20 says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,” 

God called Daniel greatly beloved.  When he started praying things happened in heaven.  He was one of the greatest intercessory prayer warriors in the Word of God.  He was a busy man, but he still found time to pray.  He took care of the estate of King Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of the entire world at that time.  Daniel opened his windows toward heaven and toward Jerusalem and prayed three times a day.  They caught him praying, and put him in the den of lions, because he was interceding so much, but God delivered him. 

The church of Jesus Christ today in America will never go to jail if that is the charge, unless it changes.  Some Christians aren’t interceding enough to worry the devil.  If you get to interceding, the Lord will meet you there, and the anointing of God will be upon you.  God will be in your life in a greater fashion.  When you go somewhere, you won’t have to tell anybody you’ve been praying.  Devils will be manifesting and people will be asking, What must I do to be saved?  They will be coming to Jesus.  John 12:32 says, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

Joshua interceded for the people, and he told the Lord if He didn’t do something they were going to perish.  The people were losing the battle, and if they lost, they would have been lost as a nation.  He told the Lord He was going to have to do something awesome to give them more time. 

Joshua 10:12 says, “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”  Verse 13 says, “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.”  Verse 14 says, “And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.”

If Joshua had not been in intercessory prayer on a regular basis, God would not have given them MORE TIME.  That is a classic example where God redeemed the time for His people.  God can make the day longer or shorter.  God can do anything He wants to. 

I was given an account of an attack in World War II.  On one island the tide didn’t come in on time.  It was out all day long.  I believe somebody somewhere was interceding!  Timothy in the Bible didn’t get his commission from God except that he had a praying mother and grandmother.  I wonder if they prayed, Oh, Lord, make him a preacher.  My mama did that to me!  I found out years later!  My Mama was barren for 13 years, because a physical problem kept her from having children.  She said, Lord if you will give me a child, I will give him back to you.  There is no telling what can happen because of a praying mother and grandmother! 

How much spare time, here and there, do you pray and seek the Lord?  You may be really frustrated, because you haven’t prayed like you should.  The Lord is trying to get a hold of you.  You say there is nothing wrong with you, but maybe you haven’t prayed ENOUGH.  Who is going to bring people in?  Jesus has already done HIS work.  He has given us the Spirit of the Lord that we will have power over all the power of the devil.  Intercede for sinners to come in.

Jesus was a man when He prayed in Gethsemane.  Hebrews 5:8 says this about Jesus:  “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;”  Jesus interceded, and God answered.  God is still answering Jesus as He intercedes for us. 

Abraham was sitting under a shade tree one day when the Lord and two angels showed up.  Strange things can happen when you become an intercessor. 

Genesis 18:17 says, “And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;”  He knew that Abraham and all his household followed Him.  He stopped by to see if he would intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah.  God is looking for a people who will intercede.  He is very willing to stop by your house before he goes to the neighbor’s house in judgment.  He may even send angels by to stop and eat with you. 

Abraham was concerned about Lot’s family.  Genesis 18:22 says, “And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.”  Verse 23 says, “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?”  Verse 24 says, “Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?”  Verse 25 says, “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  Verse 26 says, “And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”

The angels were already on their way to those cities to do their work, but the Lord stayed with Abraham to see what he had to say.  Abraham had influence with God.  Genesis 18:32-33 says, “And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.  And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.”  Abraham knew his nephew Lot and his family lived there.  He started out with 50 people and talked the Lord into sparing the city for only 10 righteous people’s sake.

That evening, Lot was in intercessory prayer at the gate.  He was living in a wicked place.  The two angels arrived, and Lot knew why they were there.  He told them to come on over to his house.  The very people Lot was trying to intercede for nearly killed him to get to the angels with their perverseness, but the angels smote the Sodomites with blindness. 

Right before dawn, the angels took Lot and the others out to safety, because Abraham was interceding for them.  Genesis 19:22-24 says, “Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.  The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.  Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;”

The next time the devil tells you that your prayers aren’t making any difference, refer him to the Word of God.  We need to be intercessors to God for others.  I thank God for the victory that is wrought by intercessory prayer!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail 

livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.