Intercessory Prayer Is Not To Be Taken Lightly

In the past few days I’ve been called to go into intercessory prayer for someone, a believer who has been cruelly and repeatedly pummelled by Satan. When Intercessory prayer comes over you it can be intense.

The day after my first session with the Lord in this, I myself was cruelly attacked by Satan. So knocked out in fact, that I told the Lord, “I’ve been shot, I’m wounded, and I’m out of commission. There’s nothing I can do but lay here in the dirt.” The Lord mercifully and sovereignly (and that was obvious) sent a believer to me who picked me up out of the dirt, dusted me off, soothed the wound, and set me back on my feet. And I was re-energized to get back into the intercession I believe I was CALLED to.

Yesterday this intercession came upon me again and I prayed it through with a sense of encouragement, receiving feedback from the Lord which was oh-so-real, as you rarely experience in your walk with him. I was very heartened. But then …incredibly, I was cruelly and viciously attacked again!

At first I could hardly believe it. Another intense attack, again??? But after awhile my eyes were opened and I suddenly connected the dots and realized what was happening. I was involved in warfare. And I was taking on wounds. I had to decide – and it requires a decision – whether I’m willing to pay the price. I’ll get shot. Knocked down. And hurt. But it occurred to me that Satan would not be putting up such a horrendous resistance unless I was seriously interfering in his program. I decided to go forward. No matter what. Actually, if it’s the Lord who brings us to this, how can we not?

Having said all that, I want to arrive at the point, the part of this story that I feel might be of help to someone.

I’m praying for a devoted believer, a faithful, devoted believer who has suffered a great deal. Repeatedly. I can’t begin to tell you the tears, the depth of agony as I was made able to feel this believer’s pain, the depth of agony that was almost unbearable as I cried out to the Lord in prayer. As I was crying out to the Lord, a word came into my mind. The word, “torturers.”

“Huhhh? …Torturers?”

“Yes. Torturers.”

“What do you mean, Lord?”

And then the Lord unfolded it to me.

When a person is ruthlessly abused, especially as a child but this applies also to the hurts we receive even as adults, and when it’s to the point of it being unbearable, we humanly react in anger and hatred, and there isn’t a human being alive who wouldn’t. There is no one on earth so spiritual that they could experience trauma like that and not also experience the horrible emotions that flood the soul because of it. And then – they’re taken captive – to “the torturers.”

When we come to the Lord, we all make an effort to get our whole soul, mind, and spirit right before him, and he receives us and works with us and does wonderful things in our lives. All this can, and does happen to believers who have an intimate relationship with, and right spirit before, the Lord. But many times there are areas so deep and so painful that we just can’t go there, and the Lord understands that. He calls on someone else to pray it through. It’s a delicate thing and must not be touched until the Lord so directs. He has to prepare that person who’s suffering to be ready to follow him into that awful place where he or she was hurt so terribly, and it might take years before the Lord will say it’s time to go there.

There’s a principle at work here. It’s a hard principle, a terrible principle, but it probably explains a lot of why some people never seem to stop suffering. When the Lord spoke “torturers” to me while I was interceding, I had no idea that that word is in the Bible even though I’ve read the entire Bible through many times. Just to make sure it wasn’t in the Bible, I looked it up. Sure enough – it IS there. And this was the word I was being called to stand on and intercede with.

It’s in Matthew 18:33-34.

“‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.
Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant,
just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry,
AND DELIVERED HIM TO THE TORTURERS
until he should pay all that was due to him.”

Jesus said that if we do not forgive, WE WILL BE TURNED OVER TO “THE TORTURERS.”

It goes on to say that forgiveness has to be true forgiveness from the heart.

This stunned me to the core. It can explain the bitterness many believers live in. They’re being tortured because they can’t forgive. They might say the right words, but true forgiveness is impossible to them because of the depth of the hurt. It puts them in an impossible situation.

We have to be honest, it is not humanly possible to forgive from the heart when one has been damaged or severely traumatized. And the Lord showed me that that’s where intercessory prayer comes in. One believer can plead for another believer to be ENABLED to come to this forgiveness which the other believer is in no way able to reach no matter how truly he or she strives to. When we’re talking about something that is humanly impossible, it requires SUPERNATURAL enabling. And it can only come through intercessory prayer.

I am beyond encouraged, because when I began this intercession I had no idea where it was going to go, all I could feel was the depth of the pain of the person I was praying for and a total helplessness as to how to proceed. The Lord met me there and the light he shed has so encouraged me that I just KNOW that this is going to result in victory. And I hope it might encourage you, if you have a loved one or friend who has been mercilessly tortured and it makes no sense to you because he or she is someone who truly loves the Lord.

Ask the Lord before taking something like this on, because you must not venture into these depths without his bidding. Even at his bidding, you will probably get hurt because there’s no way Satan is going to want that person to be set free, someone he has been able to torture for such a long time, and you will take on some wounds in the process of intercession. But IF – the Lord bids you to come into intercession before him, then do it. The miracle that awaits is priceless and is eternal, and will result in a testimony in the greatest glorious praise to the God who loves us so much that he’s willing to take us into those depths on behalf of someone else whom he loves but who is hopelessly bound.

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