Let God Arise!

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LET GOD AR I SE!

Prayer is the simple, elegant, and dynamic manner in which we accomplish the mission of God in the earth. As Jack Hayford said once, prayer is violence. It is violence against all things that oppose God, it treads down the darkness that enshrouds people’s lives, and crushes the machinations of the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6.12). Prayer is wrestling with these forces, not with fleshly strength, but with the truth and power of the Spirit. As Christians pray, they take up the armor of God, and bring down strongholds which interfere with the saving Gospel of Christ. Prayer ransacks the kingdom of darkness, it releases the captives, and allows the Lord to intervene and overcome the powers that oppress the city. Only God can win the day; only prayer can open the way. John Piper once declared that prayer is meant to be a walkie-talkie calling down fire on enemy positions on a battlefield where all was at stake. It was not meant, in his view, to be a domestic intercom to call the butler into our rooms for another pillow. Prayer allows us to petition God to provide the exact resources (at the right moment, in the right way, for the right reasons) we need to make headway for the Gospel in the most troubled and darkened communities. We reprint this original version of the booklet with the hope that it will inspire