The weapon of prayer
In this account Joshua and his army are right on the verge of winning a major victory, yet, the sun is about to go down. Joshua fears some of the enemy will manage to escape because it is hard to win battles in complete darkness. In this dilemma he prayed to the Lord that the sun would stand still in the sky. Amazingly, God answered his prayer! It is as if time suddenly stood still!
The first question I want to ask is this: what is the difference between this miracle and all the other miracles up to this point? Up to this point, God always revealed to Joshua the miracle before it happened. For example, God led Joshua to the Jordan, revealing to him He was going to part the river. God led Joshua to Jericho, revealing He was going to cause the walls to fall down flat. But in Joshua 10 the Lord did not tell Joshua He was going to make the sun stand still so Joshua could destroy the enemy. Joshua was in battle and suddenly he needed a miracle so he prayed for it. And here is the lesson we learn: "God not only leads us, He listens to us." When we are suddenly faced with obstacles and oppositions and pray to Him, He hears and is so willing to help.
And what a HUGE and OUTRAGEOUS prayer Joshua prayed: sun, stand still! He not only prayed, he prayed with such authority! And the question becomes, "Where does the confidence come from to pray such HUGE and OUTRAGEOUS prayers?"
1 John 5:14 "And this is THE CONFIDENCE we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." So where does this confidence come from? The will of God.
When we are walking in the will of God, the Holy Spirit will inspire confidence in our hearts to pray huge prayers. The Holy Spirit will infuse our hearts with confidence to believe God for outrageous answers. The Holy Spirit will speak to our hearts, "You are going to need this. Don't be afraid to ask for it. You are going to have to have this to fulfill God's calling, so believe for it. I know you are asking for the impossible, but no matter how big the need, if this is what you have to have, ask for it."
This is one of the things I love about walking in the will of God, the confidence to believe and ask God for outrageous things! When we are walking in the will of God the Holy Spirit infuses our hearts with confidence to believe for the absolute impossible. How exciting is that?!
Since we are talking about prayer, here is another thought I would like to add.
So according to Jeremiah 27, when are we to make intercession? When the Word of the Lord is with us. The Word of God is the power behind intercessory prayer.
Let me explain it this way: when we are engaging in intercessory prayer, have you ever realized what the Holy Spirit's favorite thing to do is? His favorite thing to do is to bring scriptures to our hearts. In those times we are fervently praying, out of nowhere scriptures seem to flood our minds and we find ourselves praying the Word of God. This is the Holy Spirit's doing. You see, there is nothing more powerful than praying the Word of God when inspired by the Spirit of God.
Like Joshua, God has given us a mighty weapon in prayer. I like to think of it this way: in physical battles, often before the ground troops are sent in to defeat the enemy in close combat, the artillery unit spends hours-if not days-bombing the enemy entrenchment, demolishing the enemy stronghold. Then the infantry unit is sent in to take the ground. This is exactly how it is in spiritual warfare. Often before our ministry teams go into the devil's territory to take ground, we spend quality time in intercessory prayer pulling down enemy strongholds. Then are teams can go in and accomplish their objective.
Prayer is a powerful weapon in our spiritual arsenal. James 5:16 The effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much.
Thank you Pastor Tim!
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