"There you are, Ivan Denisovich, your soul is begging to pray. Why don't you give it its freedom?"
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Up until now I have been writing about external forces in spiritual warfare. This post will address the warring aspect of spiritual warfare from our point of view. In this cosmic warfare between God and the forces of evil, Christians participate in the fight by means of prayer.
In my second post, I discussed the "divine armor" (assurance of salvation) that Christians put on in order to stand against the powers of darkness. In the third post, I said that we gain this assurance (find the "pieces of armor") by hearing the Spirit speak to us through the Word of God. In this post, I will show how prayer is the putting on of the divine armor and the active hearing of the Word, as well as the actual motions of combat performed by Christians in spiritual warfare.
Remember that all people are born sinners; thus, everyone starts off on the side of the devil, as part of the rebel force against God. How do we change sides? By means of surrender. From the rebel camp, we run over to God's army, white flag in hand, begging for mercy. We realize that we've committed cosmic treason and are worthy of eternal death and that we have nothing with which we could please God. This, then, becomes our prayer and our cry:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
—Augustus M. Toplady, "Rock of Ages"
By surrendering to God in prayer, we in effect declare allegiance to King Jesus. In His grace, God does not make us prisoners or slaves but grants us immeasurable honor by enlisting us in His army. From then on, God's power is our power, His army is our army, and His victory will be our victory.
Hence, we understand why prayer has the power to move mountains. It is not because there is power in prayer itself; in fact, prayer is essentially an act of weakness and reliance, as I have just mentioned. Rather, prayer is powerful because God is powerful. When weak men rely on a strong God, He becomes their strength. As John Calvin says, "Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer." This implies that the nature of prayer is not humans telling God what to do—which is how a great majority of Christians treat it—but it is about humans submitting to God. It is recognizing that God is the one who is in total control and responding to Him as such.
Now I digress slightly to address this question: "If God has already determined in His mind what He will do, what is the point of praying to Him?" This question involves a faulty view of the purpose of prayer; again, prayer is not about controlling God, it's about submitting to His will. Think of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What was His petition? "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." (Luke 22:42)
Jesus did not think it pointless to pray just because He expected God to say "no" to Him. On the contrary, that is precisely why He prayed. He prayed so that He could align His own desires and wants with the will of God. And that should be the way we pray too; we don't primarily seek to change things, but rather we let God change us through our prayers. Humble persons will see the importance of this; because if Jesus, who was not a sinner, prayed to align His will with the Father's will, how much more should we as sinners allow God to correct and mold us!
Although the Bible contains the view that God has already predestined everything that will happen, that does not mean that God does not respond to prayer in a real and personal way. In fact, the Bible contains passages like these:
"Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob."
(Exodus 2:23b-24)
"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
(James 5:14-15)
"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
(1 John 5:14-15)
Here we see the tension between God's sovereignty and man's free will; as a Calvinist, I affirm both wholeheartedly. Nothing is outside of God's control, and that does not negate our freedom to choose. This might not make sense to the "enlightened" mind, but this is the only way life can make sense: life would be meaningless without predestination, and it would be loveless without free will. Thus, in prayer we uphold both; we pray with the understanding that God responds to us personally, also knowing that He already has His will in mind. That is true submission.
How, then, should we integrate prayer into our lives? What does that look like? The final passage of our text in Ephesians gives us an answer:
"praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."
(Ephesians 6:18-20)
Here we have our seventh piece of armor, so to speak. This is what John Bunyan calls the weapon of All Prayer. There are two characteristics of it that we can see in this passage.
First is the constancy of it. Note that Paul said to pray at all times. How does one do that? Clearly, Paul does not mean that we should do nothing other than shut ourselves in our rooms and pray. Rather, this refers to a consistent attitude of the heart, in which the default inclination of the person is to pray. This default inclination, I believe, may be termed faith. A Christian who has true faith will experience a growing desire to direct all things in prayer toward God.
Remember that faith is a key requisite for salvation. Faith unites us with Christ and consequently justifies us. Therefore if the heart of prayer is faith, and the exercise of faith is prayer, then we can attain the assurance of salvation ("put on the divine armor") by praying. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean that God washes away our sins because we pray. It is Christ's imputed righteousness that covers our transgressions. However, it is by our God-given faith that we lay hold of that righteousness. Now, faith is unseen because it is in the heart. But prayer is the visible exercise of that faith which God personally responds to. That's why we have verses like:"And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." (Joel 2:32) And when we see ourselves pray, that becomes a visible sign to ourselves that we have faith and are saved.
In light of this, it is good for us to understand prayer in a broader way than it usually is understood. Prayer may be understood as essentially a way of life, a life of surrender to God which flows out of a heart of faith. In a way, everything we do can be done as a "prayer" to God, as long as it is done out of faith in Him. Our petitions can be presented before God by making decisions with a mindset of submission to God's will. We can demonstrate our thankfulness to God by helping others who are in need. We could confess our sins with practical actions of forsaking sin and pursuing holiness. That is how we are to pray at all times. It's ultimately about a heart of faith flowing into daily life, in both word and deed.
Remember that faith is surrender; it is an act of receiving. Therefore, it is also how we ought to receive the Word of God. The way we pick up the sword of the Spirit is by believing in it. For how are we to use Holy Scripture effectively in our lives if we don't believe what it says? So we must have faith in the Word of God. However, again, faith is an unseen thing which is visibly exercised by prayer. Thus, I may conclude that Scripture is worthless to us if we do not pray it and in response to it. Prayer and meditation is the means by which God's Word takes root in our hearts (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). And prayer is also the evidence that the Word of God has taken root in good heart soil and is bearing fruit. Therefore, if a person feels like he is not really "getting" the truths of Scripture, he should do well to pray. He is not called to "wait until something happens". He is called to ask and be given.
Note that the constancy of prayer is something that we must strive for. "To that end keep alert with all perseverance," says Paul, because he knows that as sinners we are constantly tempted to a prayerless attitude. Thus, prayer is not only resting in God but also striving in God. We must be prayer warriors; we wage war against our flesh in order to surrender ourselves to God and be weak and broken before Him with all our flaws and our wants. It probably seems strange that Christians in a sense "strive for weakness"; remember, however, that only in weakness do we find strength in God.
With all that said, it should be an encouragement to Christians that although we might not always find something clear to pray about, yet in a way we are always praying. Paul says that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26) I wish I could write more about the profound, mysterious, miraculous union between our spirit and the Holy Spirit, but that will have to be a topic for another day. Here, it will suffice for me to say that the Spirit of God prays through us, even wordlessly. That constant and deep desire for God that is found in the heart of every Christian, though sin may sometimes overshadow it, is actually a prayer in its essence. It is a wordless prayer for God's kingdom to come. Thus, in a way, we are constantly praying. With confidence, then, let us by God's grace cultivate that seed of prayer to grow into our lives and bear fruits of thanksgiving, petition, intercession, confession, and praise.
The second characteristic of prayer involves its content. We are to make supplication for all the saints, first of all. We pray for the people of God, the body of Christ. At this point I think it worth mentioning that Paul is speaking to the entire church; when he says "you", he means it in the plural sense. We must remember that we are not fighting this war alone. We fight alongside our brethren under one Christian flag, and thus our disposition to prayer must exceed a focus on our individual conditions.
Therefore, Paul here asks for a mindset that seeks the glory of Christ and His body, rather than a mere determination to "set my life straight". We are to have a heart for God's people, wishing that Christians, as Christ prayed in His priestly prayer, "may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:21) This is perhaps the most practical and direct way to love God and love people.
And since the concept of prayer can be understood in terms of lifestyle, our lives should reflect the intercessions we offer up to God on behalf of our brethren; we must "do all to the glory of God... just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:31b, 33) Note especially the connection between God's glory and man's edification. God is glorified when man is saved and sanctified because this highlights God's great mercy and also restores people as glorious image-bearers. Therefore, everything we do must in some way work toward man's salvation (which includes his sanctification) and, consequently, God's glory.
With this in mind, we understand why Paul prays for the churches in the way he does:
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:9-11)
"And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:9-12)
We must not neglect to pray like this, praying that the church will be filled with knowledge which leads to good works. This is especially needed in our individualistic modern/postmodern culture, where a great majority of Christians see their relationship with God as merely a means to personal happiness. That is not the selfless love of Christianity.
Paul also tells the Ephesians to pray "for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." I find it striking that Paul says he needs words to be "given to him" in preaching the gospel. That phrase poignantly communicates the truth that every Christian and every minister relies completely on God to help them live rightly. Although sometimes ministry may seem like something that man is doing for God (which is also true), ultimately it is something that God is doing for man. In which case, we really need to pray for God's grace, so that the proclamation of His great gospel might glorify His name and save His elect.
Paul uses the phrase "ambassador in chains". At this point in our text, I can really taste the reality of our warfare. Up to this point, we have been talking about warfare at the spiritual level. But the spiritual world is unseen. The evidence that we are fighting in the spiritual realm is that we are suffering as real people in the physical realm. For Paul, the practical consequence of his spiritual warfare was being put in prison and being tried unjustly and being persecuted and hated by people he was lovingly trying to minister to. Therefore, Paul asks the Ephesians to pray for his courage; he uses the word "boldly" twice. And it's not hard to see why. It's a tough calling.
How do we fight alongside Paul and other servants of God? In this passage about spiritual warfare, Paul tells us to pray. Pray for the elect. Pray for the ministers. And God will strengthen them somehow. God will strengthen them by His Word, or even by the fellowship of other saints. Perhaps in leading you to pray for certain people, God is also leading you to encourage them in person by some word or deed. Perhaps God is leading you into some Christlike suffering as well.
This has been an immensely difficult subject to write on, and I am fully convinced that I have not done it justice. There are so many things to tie together, and it is hard to explain clearly in different parts what I see to be one great tapestry. To me, assurance of salvation, the Word of God, and prayer are all united in a profound way, almost like different aspects of the same thing. But to sum up what I know so far about prayer (spiritual warfare from our perspective), it is this:
Prayer is how we receive the Word of God and cultivate it in our lives, and therefore prayer is how we put on the divine armor (increase our confidence in God's saving of us) and use the sword of the Spirit (receive and respond to the Word). Prayer, like faith, should be constant and selfless, seeking the glory of God and the good of man at all times.
If all of this sounds easy, I may not have described it well. Prayer is impossible. It requires that you completely surrender to God's will and fight on His side, which means that you are to suffer with Christ and His body, the Church. None of us sinners have the willingness to do that. We are morally unable.
But of course, it will be easy in the sense that it will not be your strength, but God's strength. God's Spirit quickens us to take the leap of faith, or rather the leaps of faith throughout our whole lifetime to trust in Him for our own souls and for the souls of those we are called to love. And certainly, He is worth trusting. He gave His only Son for us.
This concludes my amateur reflection on spiritual warfare. Thank God for a meaningful year, and may He ever help us to fight this impossible war.
"If prayer seems to you a diversion from productivity, remember God does more in five seconds than we can in five hours."
—John Piper
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