August 2013 PRayer

Let us pray that Jesus will continue to intervene with signs and wonders, visions and dreams, in the hearts of Muslims.

This piece was prepared on August the 8,th 2013 during the time when the Lord was directing our prayer against an impending major terrorist attack which US intelligence had uncovered.

Remember that the intel appeared to be so certain, that the US, UK and France closed their embassies in a number of locations across Northern Africa and the Middle East.

It needs to be noted that no attack took place.

The extent to which our prayers were effective as well as the work of Joshua workers on the ground to defeat possible plots of evil, we don’t know. We only praise our God that no terror attack took place! Now, let us continue to remain engaged in the work of intercessory prayer as led by the Holy Spirit.

Watch the following nine minute video, Praying into the Heart of Islam

The call to prayer at the end is focused on asking the Father to reveal Jesus Christ to Muslims through dreams and visions, signs and wonders in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The call to the work of prayer to defeat the stronghold of Al Qaeda continues but the spotlight has shifted to the ongoing battle in Syria and the stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The Holy Spirit has given me insight into those areas as well, but I haven’t had time yet to compile that discernment and pass it on to you.

Background and Strategy for Prayer

1. We have been asking the Lord to show us how to pray for the in-breaking of the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the demonic structure of Islamic terrorism, especially as it has been formed in the spiritual, social, cultural, and military structures of Al Qaeda.

2. In early 2011, during the Arab Spring, much guidance came from intercessors that we needed to ask our Father to break and constrain the power of Leviathan. There is a biblical basis for this.

Psalm 74:14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you fed him to the people who live along the coast.

Notice the plural, the heads of Leviathan.

3. From the NET Bible note on Psalm: 74:13-14 “In Canaanite Myths and Legends, Leviathan is a sea creature that symbolizes the destructive water of the sea and, in turn, the forces of chaos that threaten the established order. In the OT, the battle with the sea motif is applied to Yahweh’s victories over the forces of chaos at creation and in history (see Psalm_74:13-14; Psalm_77:16-20; Psalm_89:9-10; Isaiah 51:9-10). Apocalyptic literature employs the imagery as well. The beasts of Daniel 7 emerge from the sea, while Revelation 13 speaks of a seven-headed beast coming from the sea.

4. On August 8, 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an insightful article that described how while we had gotten Osama Ben Laden and destroyed much of the central command structure of Al Qaeda, we had failed to cut off both the root as well as the multiple expressions that are springing up around the world. This article, How Al Qaeda Made Its Comeback, was written by Ali H. Soufan, an FBI supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005. Soufan, currently chairman of the Soufan Group, a strategic intelligence consultancy, is also author of The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al Qaeda (Norton, 2011). For an excellent video of Soufan giving a report on this to the British Parliament in 2011, see http://www.qiass.org/multimedia/?VideoId=33.
5. The picture below was run next to Soufan’s article. It struck me immediately that this was a visual of the spirit of Leviathan at work in the world through the various expressions of Al Qaeda to bring death and chaos into the world. The credit for this drawing goes to David Klein.

6. I believe the Holy Spirit has revealed to us the identity of Leviathan. In the last Discerning the Times, we named some of the people involved in the plot which led to the shutdown of the embassies. I don’t think it is a stretch to attach their names to each of the serpent heads. We may boldly pray with this detailed visual in mind, but how, exactly?

7. How do we pray against a monster like this? I received the following guidance from Kelly, another intercessor with profound discernment. She wrote me,

As I read the article in Discerning the Times, it struck me that my friend and I had just been sharing what strange dreams we each had been having lately. Esther’s, in particular, were about snares and traps being laid—secret gatherings to plot evil. We asked the Lord to unravel the lies. So when I received your letter, I knew the Lord was in it.

The very next day I was speaking to a dear friend who is a missionary to Nigeria. She shared with me that a conference had been put together recently, billed as an event for Christians to be strengthened and encouraged in their faith. When these disciples of Jesus arrived at the conference, they were greeted by Islamic teachers mocking and humiliating the Christian leaders. Satan’s deception, evil plotting against Christians, just as my friend had dreamed

True, the attack was not physical as if a bomb had been dropped on them, but it had the devastation of a bomb in the minds and in the hearts of the Christians in the church there. Many have already fallen away and returned to Islam.

• It occurs to me that we need to direct strategic prayer toward the minds of would-be terrorists.

• Every act of terrorism has to be born first in the mind.

• Yes, we do want to pray that the evil be exposed and stopped. But instead of always praying on the defensive, why not pray strategically, on the offensive?

• Father, would you speak into the hearts and minds of those would-be terrorists to show them Jesus?

My friend from Nigeria tells me the Muslim people are very receptive to dreams and visions. We have been praying for God to speak to them this way and many are, in fact, seeing Jesus in visions and dreams. Then follow the questions about Jesus and the desire to know Him.

Respectfully,
Kelly

I believe this is just what we need to do! Let us trust the Holy Spirit to guide us to pray and cooperate with Jesus Christ as He brings revelations of Himself into the minds of would-be terrorists.
We can cut off heads again and again, but until we get to the root, the body of Leviathan, the Church’s march against this gate of hell will avail little. May the Holy Spirit free the hearts of those in bondage to the power of Satan embodied in the deception of Islam, that the Gospel may go forth to reach our Father’s Muslim children not yet safely adopted in Jesus!

In Christ,

Brad Long