Ephesians 6:18 (Aramaic translation):
And with all prayers, and with all petitions, pray at all times
in the spirit, and in prayer, be watchful in every season, praying
continually and making supplication on behalf of all the saints,
Now we get to the prayers. Who is supposed to be doing the praying?
The same one who has put on the armor is now exhorted to continue
by praying at all times in the spirit…and making supplication.
There is the intercession. But the first exhortation before the
intercession is to be watchful. I put on the armor of God and
then continue in prayer and WATCH. As I watch, God show me the
places where the enemy is trying to attack, first in my life and
THEN in the lives of other saints. As I pray in the spirit, God
gives me the knowledge and wisdom (revelation) needed to implement
my “equipment” in order to defeat the enemy. That
is how the armor works. The armor itself is all that Jesus Christ
is in me by way of the spirit. What I do is USE the armor to defeat
the attacks of the enemy. So where does intercession come in?
We make supplication on behalf of all the saints. Why? What
this kind of prayer does is to petition God to energize the spirit
in others. It asks for the wisdom of how to utilize the sword
in the best fashion. If I ask that for you, as well as for myself,
then when you are attacked, I can help you with things that you
may not have seen for yourself. Same way with you. In an attack,
many times the man next to you has a different view and he can
see the enemy sneaking up on you from the side and shout: “Watch
on the right!!” That is intercession. The word intercession
is a great English word and it comes from two Latin words, meaning
to move between. I put my sword (revelation) up to move in between
you and the enemy to help in the battle. This is why we need intercessors.
Now to move away from the armor illustration, I want to share
with you another illustration that works this same way. That illustration
is about the body and comparing the physical body with the body
of Christ. I believe that intercessors and intercession are like
the white cells in the lymphatic system of the body. The purpose
of white cells is to protect the body, to fight off infection
and attack from outside sources and to help the body to heal.
Here is an example. If you get a splinter in your hand, what happens
is that the brain notifies the white cells that they need to marshal
together and go to the area. The white cells of certain kinds
surround the foreign particle and first form a shield around it
so that it doesn’t affect the rest of the body. Then they
multiply and work hard to force the body to reject the foreign
substance. That is the reason white “pus” forms around
a wound like this. It is the white cells attacking the splinter.
Eventually if there are enough white cells and they are allowed
to work, the splinter is forced out and the wound closes and the
body heals itself from there. We can easily see the comparison
in the spiritual realm. Intercessors are notified (by revelation
from the head – the Lord Jesus Christ) and go to surround
the area of hurt in the body. They are supposed to stay there
until the foreign substance is removed and then other cells can
come in to heal the body in that area
There are many different kinds of white cells. It is so marvelous
to see the way that God has designed the physical body to cover
every possibility and also to see what a perfect illustration
it is for the way he designed the body of Christ to work. One
kind of white cell is called a macrophagocyte. It is a very large
cell and is sometimes also called a “scavenger cell.”
It goes around and actually swallows up dirt, bacteria, or any
harmful substance. Do you know any believers that seem to be able
to do that because of their prayers? Another kind of white cell
is a lymphocyte, sometimes called a killer T-cell. Antibodies
can attach to the surface of these cells that search out harmful
viruses. The antibodies are released from the white cell and capture
the harmful viruses, making them harmless so that they can be
eaten by other white cells. The lymphocyte actually “remembers”
the exact shape of the antibody needed and as it divides, the
body can then produce large numbers of free-moving antibodies
useful against the same disease. This is the why inoculation works
for diseases such as smallpox, measles, etc. The body has produced
a large quantity of antibodies to combat those particular viruses.
There are about 100,000 receptors on its cellular membrane that
enable the cell to recognize one specific foreign substance.
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In addition to the fact that white
cells can move in and out of the walls of the blood vessels
to do their work in any part of the body, there is a whole
network of lymph nodes throughout the body. There are 1000-1500
lymph nodes throughout the body. These nodes act as filtering
stations for harmful substances that come in through various
routes into the body. The following is an illustration of
the lymph nodes in the body.[1] See how they are strategically
stationed throughout the center of the body. This is exciting
today to see so many groups of intercessors being drawn together
to form this kind of network and to see “nodes”
forming where believers pray together on a continual basis.
They are the lymph nodes of the body of Christ! |
I want to tell you about one more kind of white cell that is
fascinating. It is called a B cell because it is produced in the
bone marrow. B cells eliminate antigens or foreign substances
by releasing kinds of blood proteins called immunoglubulins. These
products are soluble so they actually dissolve the foreign substance.
With the aid of another kind of T cell called the helper T cell,
they can also transform into a larger cell called a blast cell.
The blast cell begins to divide rapidly, forming a clone of identical
cells.
Some of these transform further into plasma cells, in essence,
antibody-producing factories. These plasma cells can produce a
single type of antibody at a rate of about 2,000 antibodies per
second. Some B cells do not transform into plasma cells but serve
as “memory cells.” They closely resemble the original
B cell but have a memory of the invasion of that antigen, and
so can respond more quickly to a second invasion. Can you see
how important intercessors are??
Now we can see what a crucial role that praying plays in the
utilization of the armor and protection for the individual as
well as the body of Christ. Everyone is supposed to pray as they
put on the armor so they can stand against all the wiles of the
devil. But then God has also designed it so that certain believers
act as the various kinds of white cells and perform specific immune
system functions, so that harmful viruses and bacteria are destroyed
and they do not hurt the body. White cells spend about 30 minutes
a day in the lymph nodes and recirculate about 50 times per day
between the blood and lymphoid tissues. There are approximately
1 trillion T cells and 1 trillion B cells plus about 10 billion
antigen-specific cells in the lymph tissue and the blood. We need
white cells!!!
There is one last comment for this paper. We have seen in previous
newsletters that each believer has a special place in the body
of Christ and they may be like the various kinds of cells. This
chapter illustrates that even within a certain type of ministry
such as intercession, there is tremendous variety. The cells work
together in many different ways. So it is important to remember
that just because you know that you are an intercessor, that does
not mean that your function will be exactly like every other intercessor.
The challenge is to work together to perform similar jobs and
to endeavor to understand how to complement each other. The Christian
singer, Jaci Velasquez, has a song that I think is a great summation
of the power of intercession:
ON YOUR KNEES
There are days when I feel
The best of me is ready to begin
Then there’re days when I feel
I’m letting go and soaring on the wind
‘Cause I’ve learned in laughter or
in pain
How to survive
CHORUS
I get on my knees
I get on my knees
There I am before the love that changes me
See I don’t know how
But there’s power
When I’m on my knees
I can be in a crowd
Or by myself almost anywhere
When I feel there’s a need
To talk with God He is Emmanuel
When I close my eyes
No darkness there
There’s only light
CHORUS
I don’t know how but there’s power
In the blue skies
In the midnight
When I’m on my knees
REPEAT CHORUS
[1] Illustration from Bruun, Ruth Dowling and
Bertel, The Human Body, Random House, New York, 1982, p.65. |