Intervention Prayers - 3 - Standing in the Gap

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele.

I'm so glad that you tuned in today to this episode of Faith Builders.

I am talking today about a very important subject.

It's intervention praying.

What is intervention praying?

When I was in a life of addiction and drugs and crime, there were people who prayed for me.

There were people in my family who asked God to intervene and to make a difference in my life.

And that's what you and I can do now that we know God and that we have a relationship with Him on the behalf of those who might be walking in a place of darkness today.

Whether it's your child, your grandchild, your niece, your nephew, your aunt, your uncle, your husband, your wife, your prayers are powerful instruments in the hand of God.

We've spent the last two weeks talking about your prayer being like an instrument, like a power tool.

And today we're going to talk about the basis of our claim, the foundation, how to stand in the gap.

What does it mean to stand in the gap?

Because you are bringing the power of God onto the scene in that situation where it doesn't look like God's working, it doesn't seem like that person's interested in receiving anything from God.

But because of your praying, God's knocking on the door of their heart.

Because of your praying, God is opening the eyes of their understanding, showing them his love, showing them the mercy that's available through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Your prayers are entry points for the power of God.

We've looked in James chapter 5, where he said that the effectual prayer of the righteous makes tremendous power available.

James 5 · chapter mention

That power supply is made available through that person taking that stand of faith, through that person initiating the conversation with God.

You know, there was a Shunammite woman in the Old Testament whose son had died, and she initiated a conversation with God.

She went to go get the man of God and bring the man of God back to her house because she said, I'm not gonna be missing or broken.

I have a covenant of peace, the shalom with me, shalom with my child.

And so she became an instrument through which God could move.

She was a living instrument.

Yes, we know it was the man of God, but the man of God wasn't on his way to her house until she went and got him.

And so your prayer is bringing the power of God onto the scene.

David, he went after his family had been taken captive.

He encouraged himself in the Lord.

And the Lord said, pursue, overtake, and recover all.

He went in the power of that instruction and he rescued his family.

His family didn't have the power to rescue themselves.

They didn't have the ability to get themselves free.

It took someone who knew God.

It took someone who could invite God in to bring a change in the situation.

And that's what you're doing.

You're inviting God in.

You're picking up the phone and you're saying, Father, in the name of Jesus, come calling 911 and I'm saying, This is the address.

I need you to come here.

This is the kind of help I need.

And that is what intervention prayers are providing.

This intervention praying is a process through which we partner with God.

We're laboring together with God to see his plan come to pass in the life of our loved one.

In Ezekiel 22 and verse 30, we find this phrase, stand in the gap.

And I want to read it to you.

There's two phrases I want to point out in here.

Ezekiel 22, 30.

God said this.

He said, I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none.

He said, I was interested in finding someone.

I was seeking for someone.

I searched for someone who would do these two things, make up a hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, so that I don't have to destroy it.

So the judgment was necessary unless someone called for mercy, unless someone invited mercy, unless someone brought the power of God to bring mercy into the situation and to reach the people.

And so he God wanted someone to make that prayer.

And he said, I found none.

Let that not be said in our families.

No, Lord, you could here I am.

Here I am.

Let me be that one who's making up the hedge and standing in the gap.

So what does this word gap mean?

And this is in the book of Ezekiel, this is written in Hebrew, and the Hebrew dictionary defines this word gap as the word breach.

It indicates a broken place, an opening in the wall.

So this gap was a place the enemy had entered, a place that the enemy could gain an advantage and gain an entrance into the city to destroy the city.

And he said, I'm looking for someone who would stand there in that broken place, in that entry point, and stop the entrance of the enemy.

A similar verse is found in Ezekiel 13 and verse 5.

Let me read Ezekiel 13 and 5, uh, because these two verses, Ezekiel 22, 30 and Ezekiel 13.5, this is where we get this phrase, standing in the gap.

This is God correcting or reprimanding the men of God.

He said, You have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.

And he said, if they, in other words, the standing in the gap would have prepared them for that day.

It would have prepared them to stand in the battle.

And he said, You've not gone into the gaps, and you've not made up the hedge for the nation.

And so this is an example for us that our praying is providing a resistance for the enemy to gain entrance into our loved one's life.

If we don't when you when you when you drive by a property that has a hedgerow dividing one neighbor's plot of property from the other's, it becomes a mark, a demarcation of where the property line is.

That's how they used to mark the lines of property before they would just put up a fence.

That that hedgerow is establishing this area is Mr.

Jones's ground, and this is Mr.

Smith's property over here.

And how do we know?

Because here's where the hedgerow is.

And so God is saying, I'm looking for somebody to mark the property.

This is God's property.

This this person, this is my child, and I plead the blood of Jesus over them, and no weapon formed against them is going to be able to prosper.

I have a promise here.

And so I'm marking that territory, making up the hedge.

Uh, I'm I'm stopping the entry.

That that making up the hedge is also in that identifying this ground is not for the enemy.

This ground is not open for the attack of the enemy, I am setting a resistance against him.

I'm setting a mark that the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ is flying high over this person's life, and they are not open prey for the enemy just to come in and do whatever he wants to do.

You know, when we look at that picture from uh World War II at the Battle of Iwo Jima, where the Marines were raising that flag and and and what an what an imagery that provides of that heroic moment to, but it it provides a recognition that now we've gained victory, and this is a sign of our victory.

This is a sign that we're making progress.

This is a sign of who's in charge here.

The flag that's flying is the flag of the Lord Jesus Christ, the flag of his shed blood, the flag of his promise that's established unto me.

Glory to God.

So God's looking for someone who'll take that stand.

He's looking for someone.

In um Psalm 106, verse 23, uh, we see this as well.

Psalms 106:23

It says, Therefore he said that he would not destroy them, had not Moses, his chosen, stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

So this word breach is the word gap that we see used in Ezekiel 13 and Ezekiel 22.

Moses stood before him in the breach.

Well, when did Moses do that?

Well, Moses was the one who went between that word intercede again.

We talked about the word last week.

Intercede means to go between, and a go-between, the work of interceding for us is accomplished in Jesus' redemption.

Jesus is the intercessor.

Jesus went between us and God, and he paved the new and the living way through his laying down of his life, through his death on the cross, through his triumph over Satan in it.

In that Jesus says, I'm the door.

No man comes unto the Father except by me.

So he has gone between us and God, and he has made a way for us to approach God and to be in relationship with God.

And he's also gone between us and Satan.

He who knew no sin became sin for us.

He has redeemed us from the power of Satan unto the power of God.

Satan, he has translated us out of the kingdom or the ability of the darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear son.

So that going between, Jesus has done it.

When we pray, we are applying that.

We're employing that.

We're putting that over the situation.

We're putting that into operation in the situation.

We're coming and we're saying, Father, because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, I plead that blood over my loved one right this minute.

I plead that blood over my son so that his mind is free from the mind blinding of the enemy.

I plead that blood over him.

I pray, Father, for you to send someone across their path that will preach to them, that will testify to them, that will witness to them what Jesus has done for them.

Lord, let the eyes of their understanding be enlightened today that they may know what is the height and the depth and the width and the breadth of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Father, that they would know what is the hope of your calling.

Father, that they would know.

All of those things are available in Christ, but we're praying for that to be on the shelf of our loved one.

One of the things that I talk about in the book Intervention Prayers is how to stock the shelves.

Honey, we gotta we gotta put something on the shelf so that when they get ready to reach for God, there's something there for them to find.

We've got to put some wisdom out there for them so that when they say, God, what do I do?

There's something on the shelf.

And you can stock the shelves in prayer.

You can make things available for your loved ones so that when they begin to hunger for the a change in their life, when they have that moment where they are willing to hear that that God has that entry point right at that very moment to bring to the situation that that which is going to turn the situation.

But he said, I'm looking for someone.

If Moses had not stood before him, he would not have been able to turn away his wrath from them.

And Moses just said the will of God.

Moses just said, now, Lord, you don't, this is your will.

You brought them here, you raised them up, you promised Abraham.

And so we're just bringing the will of God to him.

We're just speaking what God had said.

We're not trying to turn, we're not trying to change God's mind.

We're just trying to give God the open door into the situation.

And so, just like Abram when he went after Light, he brought God into the situation.

Just like David when he went after his loved ones who had been taken captive, he brought God into the situation.

Just like that Shunammite woman who went after the man of God and brought him back, she brought God into the situation.

Just like the centurion who went to Jesus and brought God into the situation, the power of God, just like the woman of Canaan in Matthew 13, who went to Jesus and said, My daughter is grievously vexed.

She brought the power of God into the situation.

And that's what we're doing.

We're hedging up the hedge.

We're marking the property line.

This, this child, this husband, this person, this niece, this nephew, they belong to God.

I claim them for the kingdom.

I put the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ over their life.

I declare Jesus is Lord over their life.

And the enemy, he has no answer for that.

He has to, he has to back off when he's resisted.

If you will resist him, and that's what you're doing in prayer, you're resisting him with the word, with the blood, with the promise of God, with your faith, with this prayer, you are resisting the enemy.

So this praying, then, that we're seeing here described as making up the hedge, standing in the gap, is connecting the will of God to have mercy, to save, to pardon, to forgive their sins.

You're bringing that power into a supply on behalf of that person who has not invited God.

They've not asked for God's help, but you're asking.

And he's doing it because you're asking.

And they haven't opened their heart yet.

But what you're doing is you're making the power available so that when they do, and you're asking God, do you know the Bible says that no man, Jesus said that no man can come to me except the father draw him?

Wow.

The father draws.

Well, our prayers give God the opportunity to draw.

Our prayers again, if your loved one is is in addiction right now, they have not opened the door to the power of God.

They've opened the door to the power of the enemy to bind them.

But you're opening the door to the power of God.

And so when they have that desire to get out of the life that they're living, they're gonna find the answer of how.

Because they're gonna empower, they're gonna be, uh, they're gonna encounter the power of God.

Glory to God.

So the will of God is the basis of our claim.

We've got the word as our foundation in the praying, not our feelings.

And and listen, we can't use the pressure of the situation to move God.

We can't go to him with the desperation and the weight of the carrying of the care of it, and and God, it's just so bad.

That's not moving the situation.

It's not gonna move God, and it's not gonna move the devil.

But what's gonna happen is it's gonna weaken the person who's yielding to the the worry, the weight.

And so that's why we've got to depend on our foundation, which is the will of God.

So when you're feeling the weight of the worry or the care, when you're feeling the desperation because you see them losing weight, you see them about to get arrested, you see them running with the wrong people.

And what you're seeing, you know, we can't pray by the news.

You know, too many, but too many Christians are trying to pray, get in their prayer queues by the five o'clock, six o'clock news.

That's already happened.

We need to get out in advance.

We need to get over here into the word, and we need to pray the word, and we need to pray the will, and we need to get in with the Holy Spirit and let Him lead us.

What do I pray next?

And then you'll get out ahead of it and you won't see it on the news because you've already changed it in prayer before it hit the news desk.

And that's why you can't look at what your loved one is doing and how they're acting and what they're saying and what they're posting.

Don't look at what they're posting.

That's not going to help you.

No, you need to get over here, unless here's one, 2 Peter 3.9.

2 Peter 3.9.

The God's Word translation says, God doesn't want to destroy anyone, but wants all people to have an opportunity to turn to Him and change the way they think and act.

The Bible in basic English says, God is not desiring the destruction of any, but that all may be turned from their evil ways.

So what does God desire?

That your loved one turn from their ways.

The Weymouth translation says, his desire being that no one should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And repentance is not just an I'm sorry, but it's a turning and going in the other direction.

So God desires, he wants them to turn and go in the other direction.

Now we know what to pray.

Father, I thank you.

And so I'm not having to talk God into doing this.

He already wants to.

He's already on board.

I'm convinced that God wants them to turn and change, turn to him and change the way they think and act.

I'm convinced that he wants them to be turned from their ways.

I'm convinced that he does not want them to perish, but he wants them to come to a realization that causes them to change their mind and change their actions.

Hallelujah.

So now I get my praying in line with that.

Father, I thank you.

For those of us who are born again, we have another level of claim because God promises the salvation of our family as part of his covenant agreement with us.

Genesis 17 7.

He said, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto you and to your seed after you.

So his seed, the seed wasn't even born yet, and God already promised to save them.

Isaiah 49, 25, he said, I will save your children.

You've got his word on it.

You've got God's word on it.

He said, I will save your children.

Isaiah 49, 25.

Isaiah 54, 13, and this is the amplified translation.

He said, All your children shall be disciples, taught by the Lord and obedient to his will.

Can you see it?

I know if you closed your eyes that the image that the enemy has been putting in your vision has been seeing them die of a drug overdose, or seeing them drinking and driving and having a car wreck, or seeing them getting arrested for DUI, seeing them lose their marriage, seeing them lose their job.

But that's the enemy's vision.

God wants you to take this Isaiah 54, 13, and get a new vision.

Get a vision of your children taught by the Lord and obedient to his will.

And great shall be the peace and the undisturbed composure of your children.

That's the foundation that we have to stand in the gap and to make up the hedge.

Your prayers are making tremendous power available as you intervene, as you bring the power of God on the scene.

You are praying intervention prayers.

You are calling 911 and getting heaven on the line to bring supernatural help to change the situation that your loved one is in.

I encourage you to stand and stand strong and stand confident that God is working with you.

You are co-laborers together with him in prayer.

You are contending vigorously and making great power available for God to move in the life of your loved one.

We have so much more available at lifeoffaith.net.

Go to our new website, log in, get, or you don't have to log in.

You can just go there and you can find links to our YouTube channel.

We've got podcasts, we've got a lot of resources to help you grow by hearing and and receiving the word of God.

I'm so thankful you tuned in today.

Thank you for being a part of this teaching on intervention prayers.

I look forward to seeing you next week.

Build your faith and frame your world by the word of God.

Are they battling drug addiction or alcoholism?

Are they cutting themselves or being tormented with thoughts of suicide?

Whatever evil force is driving your loved one to destruction, you have someone to turn to for supernatural help.

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele.

God supernaturally set me free from a life of addiction and crime.

I am a result of the intervention prayers my family prayed.

I've written this book to help you connect with God's rescue and deliverance for your loved one.

Intervention prayers is more than just a book, it's a life-saving manual.

It holds keys to unlock the power of God and bring divine intervention.

With this book, you can leave behind the desperate begging prayers that leave you feeling helpless and enter the throne room of God with the confidence to get the help you need.

Intervention Prayers is formatted with 28 days of teachings from God's Word that will establish your faith and God's will to intervene in your loved one's life.

The daily chapters include guided prayers and faith-filled confessions to help you activate the truth you have received.

I want you to know that God is willing and ready to intervene and rescue your loved one.

Are you concerned about family members who are struggling with addictions or destructive lifestyles?

My name is Michelle Steele, and I invite you to join me and Pastor Philip Steele for a powerful weekly podcast dedicated to helping you stand strong in faith and pray for the salvation of your loved ones.

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