|
Gary Wiens wrote a book that strongly influenced how I engage in spiritual warfare. The book's title is "Bridal Intercession". The topic came to the forefront during my travels in Ethiopia. In my first prayer meeting I attended while there, the leader asked me personally to battle the principality over a particular source of evil (I'll omit the name -- it's really not important for understanding what I am writing). I had not actually engaged that item in prayer before, much to my regret. My Ethiopian friend was much better at pinpointing things which needed to be prayed for than I, and much more on the alert to pray. However, while the other members of the prayer group attacked their respective principalities with the standard assault of binding up and rebuking, I tried to put into practice Gary Wiens's teaching -- at least as I remembered it.
Gary invokes the story of Queen Esther, and how she saved the Jewish people (and herself) from destruction at the hands of Hamon. As wife of the King, perhaps she could have used her delegated authority as Queen to battle Hamon herself. But I imagine she felt her delegated authority might not be a match for Hamon's authority. So she turned to the one who had the utmost authority, the King. After all, the King selected her above all the other young ladies in the kingdom. So in her role as wife to the King, she tells him of her problem, and leaves it to the King's authority to sort out. The rest is history. The King rose up in anger against Hamon, he was killed, and the Jewish people were saved.
Bridal intercession is like that. Each one of us is a dearly loved child of God. We are collectively part of the Bride of Christ. In Ephesians 2:6, we are told that even now we are seated in the heavenly places with Jesus. That is, we are in the very throneroom of God. In our roles of intimate friend, child, and Bride, we can turn to our Beloved, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to intervene against the principalities.
In Isaiah 62:7, intercessors are instructed to not give the Lord our God any rest until He fulfills His promises, in this particular case, to make Jerusalem the praise of the earth. Here is something that God wants to accomplish, and yet He instructs mere mortals to remind Him. Our privilege is to intercede. But the other point we get from the verse is that it is God that will take the action, and it is for us only to remind Him.
I know that sometimes when I engaged in spiritual warfare in the past, I was doing it more like a soldier or a servant, and in that regard I often felt isolated from God and even perhaps from by brothers and sisters. I would often feel weary from the battle. I was perhaps in danger of spiritual burnout when the battle did not appear to go my way and discouragement and despair set in. With bridal intercession, I battle in the sense of being with my First Love, telling Him of the need, and then obediently responding if He asks me to do anything personally about the situation.
It reminds me of the story of the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, especially as taught by Mike Bickle (my memory is sketchy here, so I hope I am attributing this to the right person). In the beginning of the Song of Solomon, the Shulamite was sometimes near and sometimes far from her beloved. But by the end of the Song, she is side-by-side with her beloved, leaning upon his arm, never desiring to leave his side. The "traditional" model of spiritual warfare leads us to flit about, sometimes near God, sometimes far. The bridal intercession model has us leaning upon God's arm.
In this particular case in Ethiopia, while I was praying, I felt like the Lord spoke to me and said that the time of defeat of the principality had not yet come. It was yet a little while. Nevertheless, He would protect me and my people. I suppose had I engaged in traditional spiritual warfare I would not have discerned this, and would have simply engaged in a shouting battle that maybe had no real authority, or perhaps exposed me to unnecessary harm.
There have been times in the past where God -- after I brought Him my request -- has instructed me to take authority myself (in His authority, of course), and deal with the situation. Such a prayer of authority, following specific instructions from the King of Kings, seemed to me to have greater power than when I tried to invoke my general authority as a Christian.
I hope these thoughts help you. Gary Wiens shares so much more in his book than I do here that you may want to read his book to learn more. I'm pretty sure some of the thoughts I shared are not from his book, but came to mind as I was thinking about the practice of bridal intercession.
I also want to say that you should not think of me as a great prayer warrior. I pray a little, certainly not nearly as much as many of my brothers and sisters. But I do ask that you would carefully weigh this teaching, and see if it might provide help and insight for your own prayer life.
I felt it important to include on the WowGod.org webpage. Since the page focuses on developing and cultivating an intimate relationship with God, you might not expect a teaching on spiritual warfare there. But in this article we are really saying that an intimate relationship with God might imply that we should try a different approach to spiritual warfare, and that is why it fits here.
|