War of the Worlds

Thoughts have origins. They come from a spiritual realm, either the
human spirit, or the Holy Spirit (or God’s angels), or from unholy
spirits (demons) who hate God and want to destroy mankind which is made
in God’s image. Thoughts may come as arrows fired from a distance. If
we are not fortified with God’s Word and faith in Jesus our Savior,
poisoned thoughts may become lodged in our mind and make us thing
wrongly about ourselves, about God, or about our purpose.

Unsaved people have no shield of faith or bedrock of true knowledge to
protect their minds. Church-going people have the Bible, unless they
have weakened the Scriptures with man’s traditions.

Wrong thinking produces chronic doubt, which is ingrained unbelief.
Evil spirits especially like to pervert holy truth and gut the gospel
of its sacred anointing. We are in a war for how we are to think or to
live. That’s why Jesus came: to destroy the devil’s works, starting
with saving us from our sins; to deliver people from the devil’s grip
on their minds or their emotions or their families, and to invoke the
power of his kingdom to transform nations.

What manner of enemy would thwart such a holy cause? What methods might
he use?

Like birds of a feather flocking together, demons congregate. They are
attracted toward authority; they gather for greed; they linger around
lust; they covet control. Wherever the carcass is, there the vultures
are. Whenever civil or spiritual authority becomes corrupted by
carnally-minded men, flesh-eaters find a feast. Flying in to feed, they
unpack their bags, invite their friends, and set up house for a very
long stay.

Arriving at church, Jesus found foul spirits infesting the flock. “And
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out those who were buying and
selling in the temple…” (Mt. 21:12). He turned the tables on the
merchants of mercy. He knocked over the seats of those who had
enthroned themselves as arbiters of Moses’ wisdom (vs. 12). He scolded
them all saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer!” (vs. 13)

In anger, Jesus displayed genuine emotion against usurpers whose
presence defiled worship and kept his kingdom from coming in power.
Their behavior mocked the holy nature of a generous Father. Like a
surgeon removing a tumor, Jesus delivered the temple by removing the
diseased parts. The cure wasn’t just to drive them out (Greek, ekballo,
as in “expel unclean spirits”), but to replace the stale air that
smelled of death with a fresh breeze of spontaneous praise. Even the
children danced for joy!

After canceling their franchise to merchandise salvation, Jesus
reasserted the rights of grace over law, sonship over structure, holy
presence over empty performance, by doing something that had never
before been done in the temple: he healed people. “And the blind and
the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.” (vs.14) God’s
kingdom had come in power to the temple.

Of course, never to be outdone, the senior pastors and theology
professors were properly indignant about this departure from orthodoxy,
this deviation from tradition. By claiming offense at the children’s
boisterous praise, they cleverly disguised their jealousy that this
unknown outsider, this non-ordained, non-clergy, non-minister, (a
carpenter, of all things) this itinerant street preacher, had done
something they couldn’t do: he healed people. Moreover, he did it on
their church property. Who authorized this outburst?

What was he thinking? They didn’t know him. He didn’t get their
permission. Nor did he allow them to bask in the glory. I mean, surely
he knew that religion wasn’t about results, didn’t he? It was about the
effort, not the effect. It was about form, not substance. It was about
the temple’s dignity, the crowds of people, the appearance of religious
decorum, the sacred traditions, not about seeing the reality of God’s
power displayed, wasn’t it?

It was like their religious world was invaded by someone raised in the
marketplace where real results counted, not someone trained in seminary
where eloquent sermons counted. The scribes and Pharisees thought good
intentions were enough; not quantifiable, measurable, demonstrable
testimonies of grace that could stand up under scrutiny.

This was upsetting to their status quo. Their place of honor was being
threatened! Their share in the temple offerings was being threatened!
Their lifestyle was being threatened! This was not good! Surely, God
would justify their anger at such disorderly conduct.

Since the time of Augustine, the orthodox church of modern history
right up until today has turned away from thinking that prayer has a
purpose, that is, to affect change and deliver people. Now, we assume
prayer is merely a pious discipline. It sounds right to say, “Prayer
doesn’t change God, it changes us.” That’s true, but it isn’t all the
truth. “The primary purpose of prayer as illustrated throughout
Scripture is precisely to change the way things are. Crucial matters,
including much of God’s own activity, are contingent upon our prayer.”
(God at War, Gregory Boyd, Intervarsity Press, 1997, page 204)

When Jesus entered the temple, a war between worlds erupted. Jesus
displayed spiritual assertiveness. He went in to take back what the
enemy had stolen. He didn’t fit the religious mold of his day but
rubbed religious fur the wrong way. Prophets do that. It is a dynamic
of the tension that always exists between what is and what should be,
between order and liberty, between Word and Spirit.

This was the clash of spiritual realities where invisible agents of an
evil domain were exposed and expelled. These spirits had become quite
comfortable in a religious setting where men’s extra-biblical rules had
become common substitutes for faith in God and obedience to the Lord’s
revealed word. People had quit obeying Father’s voice and had started
obeying the dictates of men. These evil entities had insinuated their
thoughts, their motives into good people, putting blinders on the
leaders and leading the flock into confusion. That is, until Jesus
walked in the door.

To this day, lying spirits are deceiving misguided people into thinking
that bad things come from the providential hand of a distant God, while
if anything good happens— like something beyond human explanation, a
miracle or an answer to prayer— it must be occult or more likely, a
coincidence. The devil has made us afraid of God or caused us to doubt
his mercy, all the while robbing us of our birthright; the power of his
holy kingdom displayed on earth to praying people who love his name.

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“War of the Worlds” ©2005 by Ron Wood, Pres., Touched by Grace Inc.
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at www.touchedbygrace.org. Write us at
ron@touchedbygrace.org.

The Faith of Jesus

Peter and John were headed to an afternoon prayer meeting. A routine,
ordinary, scheduled event on the church calendar, called “the hour of
prayer.” Today, another person would intersect their daily routine, a
man lame from birth, laid alongside their path to beg for alms.
Providentially, he was about to become the victim of a drive-by
blessing. That was the moment when God’s aggressive grace intervened.

Suddenly, faith was interjected, words were spoken, action was taken,
and an ordinary day became an extraordinary event as a deeply-felt
human need was immediately met by God’s mercy toward mankind and His
anger against the devil’s deeds. When faith responded to the Spirit’s
discernment, God’s power went to ground. Today, this same Holy Spirit
is here in us and among us. By the Holy Spirit’s gifts (or charismata)
we get to do the same stuff Jesus did when we practice prayer and
exercise faith. How does it happen? Only one way: by the faith that
comes from Jesus (Acts 3:16).

John, the contemplative, was accompanied by his opposite in nature,
Peter, the impulsive. They were the “odd couple” of apostolic partners.
Before Pentecost, they didn’t even seem to like each other, perhaps
were even jealous of each other. As different as night and day, a lover
and a fighter, one doomed to die in a Roman arena, the other to cross
heaven’s threshold from a ripe old age. Peter the preacher at
Pentecost, and John the seer of Revelation. What did they have in
common? They had both been mentored by Jesus. They had both been
empowered by Holy Spirit baptism. And they had begun praying together
in a grace-matrix that was firing up the furnace of an apostolic
factory.

But today they were merely walking side by side to a prayer meeting,
another ordinary day in the life of two plain disciples, another day of
routine faithfulness. But unknown to them, they had crossed the
threshold into kingdom-of-God possibilities. The presence of God had
reached critical mass in their lives. The chain-reaction of the Holy
Spirit’s anointing had built up to a red-hot level of glowing glory and
was about to irradiate a crippled man in a burst of manifest mercy.
This is what happens when prayers crescendo.

Years ago when I helped develop gifts of the Spirit in a local church,
first prophetic gifts and later healing gifts, the Lord showed me that
it was right for us to meet and pray and stir one another up. He said,
“I will forever conceal in isolation what I will freely reveal in
fellowship.” We need to light each other’s fire and stir up each
other’s gifts. The old Pentecostal saints called it “tarrying.” Like
hot coals pushed into a burning heap, we intensify one another’s flame
when we stick tight to seek God together. Then, out of that fire of
burning holy oil, the activated anointing, we can turn from worship to
warfare, and together we can do damage to the devil’s work and deliver
people in Jesus’ name.

We multiply our power when we team up for Jesus. Peter and John, Paul
and Silas, the divine pattern is two by two: a couple with God in the
Garden, animals into the Ark with Noah, pairs out the door to heal the
sick (Luke 10:1). How much good can happen when two believers walk in
the will of God together? What is the possibility when two people start
a divinely-directed spiritual offensive, and then continue praying
together over time, keeping up their assault on hell’s gates, not
stopping until something happens?

There is simply no limit to what God will do when two or three pray
with hearts and voices united in anointed faith (Matthew 18:18-20). I
especially hear the Spirit calling men to this alert today. Listen up:
Go get a prayer-partner! Act valiantly in battle!

Peter spotted the lame man. Something caught his attention. Something
in his spirit stirred. He didn’t look with the eyes of pity, but looked
at the potential for a miracle. He saw a divine opening, a flash of
what could be. It required an instant response or it would easily slip
by like a closing sliding door. Obey your heart or your head? Do what
the Spirit says or stick with common sense? In only a moment, a
pregnant pause while eternity peers down, a glimpse of the powers of
the age to come, a tiny crack in the curtain of time; a mere split
second in which heaven draws near, or… maybe not?

He saw the Holy Spirit brooding over the man. He saw the man no longer
resigned to disease but rising up in hope for wholeness. Out of his
seeing by the Spirit what could be, Peter opened his mouth and spoke
words by faith that stirred a response of faith. Peter said what he
heard so that he could see what he’d said. God’s Spirit agreed with the
words of faith and the man became well. Can you picture it? Does it
thrill you? Can you put yourself in his place? Can you see his wife
when he walked home that day?

The lame man only expected money, but Peter instead gave him something
money can’t buy: his health. Peter said, “Such as I have give I thee.”
And the command of faith came, “In the name of Jesus, walk!” Words
spoken with faith’s authority released the power to receive from God.
Faith acted upon resulted in an affectation of faith, a work of faith.
Words have power when the Holy Spirit is in them. Our words uncover
what we carry inside. Our words are containers that can push grace from
God into another’s needy life.

Whereas in one moment the lame man had only faith to beg for money, in
the next moment, faith for healing was given him by a man sent from
God. One man who had seen a resurrection, who had spent time praying,
gave away a gift of grace to another man who had never taken a normal
step in his life and had seen only lameness and limitations.

When the lame man was dramatically healed in a public way, it stirred
up the city to react. The stage was set for a powerful Christ-honoring
sermon to be proclaimed outside the sanctuary in the dirty streets.
Miracles are still God’s advertisement for the gospel. We often assume
signs and wonders only occur for missionaries in poverty-stricken
countries, but that’s wrong. Apostles may work wonders, but so do
ordinary saints who know Jesus. If we pray, if we get full of God, if
we have boldness to speak, miracles also happen here, next door, today.
We are carriers of God’s infectious kingdom, a kingdom of power and
mercy, and we know that with God speaking, nothing is impossible!

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© 2005 “The Faith of Jesus” by Ronald Wood. Write to us:
ron@touchedbygrace.org.
Notify us to subscribe or unsubscribe or see more articles at
www.touchedbygrace.org.

Honoring Mothers in the Faith

This Sunday is Mother’s Day in America. Twenty-five years ago, on this
very same day, standing beside a hospital bed in Lakeland, Florida, I
held my mother’s hand as she stepped into heaven to see the face of her
beloved Savior. What a special Mother’s Day it was!

At Mom’s funeral a few days later, I remember saying a brief tribute
that included, “She was a good mother,” and “She taught me about
Jesus.” Besides staying true to Dad and successfully raising four boys
and one girl through some difficult times, Mom was a woman of
passionate prayer. I have one of her old Bibles, showing hand-written
dates where she had finished reading it through eleven times. Mom
founded the intercessory prayer team at Carpenter’s Home Church. At an
anniversary service thirty years later for pastor Karl Strader, they
strung up 25,000 cards listing answered prayers. Mom was also a seer, a
prophetess of the Lord. She often saw things by the Spirit in order to
pray effectively for her kids. We never doubted that we were wanted and
we were loved by our Mom.

The Bible says that mothers are to be honored and that’s partly why I
am writing this today. There’s a danger that we might over-focus on
“fathers in the faith” and forget the great company of anointed women
whom God has used in our lives. The Body of Christ wasn’t intended to
be a single-parent family. As I said in my book, Women on the Team, the
Holy Spirit is an equal opportunity Baptizer!

Mom had many visions of Jesus. Some of the promises the Lord made to
her are yet to be fulfilled in her children. I know its true that part
of the reason I know the Lord like I do today is due to her example and
her prayers. Prayers never fade away but are woven into the tapestry of
heaven and constantly remind the Lord of His faithfulness and of our
petitions made in His name.

This past week another “Mother in the Faith” departed to her eternal
reward. Evelyn Roberts, 88, beloved wife of evangelist Oral Roberts,
died not long after falling and hitting her head. Oral will miss her
dearly and he will need our prayers.

I was saddened by the news of the passing of Evelyn Roberts. I grew up
watching Oral Roberts on TV. He was the first preacher to broadcast
divine healings over the airwaves. In many ways, he was a great
innovative pioneer if the faith. My mother was an ardent intercessor
for him. Like Oral, my mother was also healed by Jesus of tuberculosis.
This happened when I was a boy and I remember it well. Even as young
children, my brother and I helped pray it through.

Later, Mom’s devotion to Oral’s ministry paid off when my brother Don
was healed of a heart valve defect in one of his last public healing
crusades in Tampa, Florida, just before he began building his
university. Don said when he walked through the prayer-line in front of
the stage and Oral laid his hand on his chest, it felt like hot oil
poured out and his heart was (and forty years later, still is) healed.

Oral is an icon of the healing revivalists from the 1950’s, a man who
kept his integrity in the midst of fame and glory. He took a stand for
racial integration in the south in his crusades. He kept himself free
of financial and moral scandal and kept himself accountable to his
board members and team, and kept his doctrine true to God’s word. He
modeled humility and holiness as he again and again laid his hands on
over a million people streaming past him in a long line of suffering
humanity, demonstrating and testifying that Jesus is the Healer, not
Oral Roberts. When Australian opponents in the media mocked him in his
first crusade in that nation, asking him, “What’s the source of your
authority to do this?” He answered, “The anointing of the Holy Spirit.”

During the last 500 years, the Lord has been wonderfully restoring the
Church, the Body of Christ, to its original glory and power as seen in
the Book of Acts. From the Reformation on, many wonderful truths have
been restored by men and women of God. Their legacy and labor is often
captured for us by some great denomination, some university, or some
movement named in their honor. I grew up among Pentecostals. We owe
much of our appreciation for and experience of God’s power to those
preachers who paved the way for our enjoyment of the charismatic gifts
of the Holy Spirit.

Whenever I prophesy publicly or speak revelation to a person, revealing
the mind of the Lord by the Holy Spirit’s help, I know I owe a great
deal to men who carried that anointing out of one era and into another.
For me, the key man who impacted me most was Leon Price, a prophet who
came through the Latter Rain Movement which was at its peak in America
in the forties and fifties. Whenever I lay my hands on someone and
sense the surge of divine power to heal their disease, I know I owe a
debt to the late Richard Vinyard, a preacher of faith who walked in a
miracle anointing, having been given that gift by Jesus in the 1950’s.
Whenever I walk and pray and quote verses from the Bible, I owe a debt
to Karl Strader, who was my pastor at the time God called me to preach.
And whenever I see things in the Spirit after spending time in my
prayer closet, I owe that habit of simple trust and sanctified time to
my mother, Myrtle Christenberry Wood.

God has progressively given back to the Church what was lost due to
man’s religious traditions, disbelief, or willful ignorance. In our
lifetimes, the Lord first restored the revelation of the office gifts
in a definite sequence: first, pastor, then the teacher, and then the
evangelist. In the eighties, the Lord began giving us back the
prophets. In the nineties, the apostle’s ministry was highlighted.
We’re still working out those explosive changes! Our wineskins are
being renewed!

Now, the season has turned again. The new season is the Season of the
Saints.

While the famous “Lead Man” was used by God to be a model, the new era
is of “faceless heroes,” multiplied millions of members of the Body of
Christ who don’t have any celebrity but they do have the anointing. It
is time for all of the restored Five-Fold Ministries of the Church to
do the work of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
Listen, church leaders: It isn’t anymore about you running your race;
it is now about them being enabled to run theirs! Give it away,
de-centralize, turn loose, diversify, spread out, mentor, train, send,
stir up, distribute, and empower the people under your influence to
minister Jesus to a lost world. Multiply the ministry by giving it
away. One of the saddest things in the world is for a pioneer to pass
on without any one in line to receive his inheritance. Jesus’ desire
was to “bring many sons to glory.”

Oral’s ministry has run its course as far as pioneering or restoring a
neglected dimension of God’s grace, goodness, and glory. He was a
visible model of Jesus’ healing ministry. He and his wife are beloved
by all who call themselves Spirit-filled Christians. Oral always called
his wife, “My Darling Evelyn,” and you knew he meant it. Her passing is
a reminder that even the giants of the faith will eventually all pass
off the scene. Patriarchs pass on, but their spiritual offspring and
living testimony remains. Oral and Evelyn Roberts have left us a legacy
for which I am grateful. We are indebted to Jesus who healed Oral of TB
when he was a teenager, and indebted to Oral for faithfully carrying
and distributing that grace package—with all of its burden—in behalf of
Jesus and the modern church.

Christianity is a marathon, not a sprint. God is a multi-generational,
covenant-keeping God. And, like Oral used to say, “God is a good God.”
That is still true, even at times of death. Now, another generation has
arisen. The restoration of gifts and offices from Christ has continued
into this century, even into this modern era today.

Will we take up the mantle of the pioneers who fasted and prayed, laid
hold of great gifts from God, and displayed Jesus’ power? Or will we
rest on the achievements of giants and just coast on their faded glory,
recalling the past with affection but no longer walking in its
anointing?

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Ron Wood
ron@touchedbygrace.org