-Is A Pastor’s Intercession Necessary?
-Deep Faith Brings Miracles
Have you ever heard the argument being bandied about on some FM airwaves to the effect that a man can always pray to God direct to get what he wants, and thus it is not necessary for him to go to a pastor or a prophet to pray for his deliverance or for the solutions of his problems?
Do you believe this? I certainly don’t. This is because there are certain critical times when a man is so sick, weak or perplexed that he cannot pray at all or pray effectively, and therefore will need the intercessory intervention of a man of God endued with divine power. In fact, I am ever of the opinion that just as a seriously sick person cannot heal himself unless a doctor intervenes, so shall a weakened or spiritually depressed, immature believer can’t tap divine supply unless a man of God mediates.
The principle of intercession is one of the cardinal pillars of Christianity. And pastoral theology which, among other things, concerns itself with man’s spiritual needs, boldly embraces the principle of intercession, as clearly enunciated in the Bible –namely: Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man (Romans 8:27, 1 Peter 2:5), the Holy Spirit is the intercessor before Christ (Romans 8:26) and Christian believers, especially men of God, are intercessors for others (Matthew 5:4). Colossians 1:9 says “We (the apostles)… do not cease to pray for you”. –the intercessory role of pastors or prophet is clearly defined here!
It can be deduced from the example above that whenever some powerful or really charismatic men of God pray for some people especially by the utterance of the Holy Spirit who ’’intercedes for us with groans that word cannot express’’ (Romans 8:26), divine intervention surely occurs. After all, if intercession were not necessary, why should God choose or appoint pastors, prophets, healers, evangelists, miracle-workers, apostles, etc.? This point is richly self-explanatory and goes to entirely debunk the intellectual whimsicalities of those who speak against the intercessory role of pastors.
Another moot point is the anti-intercessionists’ specious remark that most people don’t get what they want when they route their requests to God through pastors, so this shows how intercession is ineffective and unimportant in a believer’s life. Since the contention that most people don’t receive answers to their intercessory petitions cannot be statistically proven, one cannot draw any cogent conclusion that can be used to denounce intercession. Experientially, however, “most people” have their petitions answered through intercession prayers.
On the other hand, I accept the fact that some people don’t get answers to their intercessory petitions. And here, from my own research analysis, I would blame 20 per cent of the failures on some pastors’ spiritual mismanagement of such petitions, and 80 per cent on the petitioners themselves.
First of all, some petitioners have doubting faith; and these are known as ‘if-believers’ (or doubting Thomases) who would go to the pastor with the thinking that “ah well, let me try there and see, if things will be okay”. In charismatic spiritualism, the word “if” is like a tree that is felled across a road, blocking the way. The argument here is that “without faith”, it is impossible to please God … he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6)
Mind you, Christ ‘s principle of “according to your faith be it done unto you” (Matthew 9:29) is as operative today as it was in the days of old, so an ‘if-believer’ will get a nil result. Fact is, ‘if-believers’ are usually brought to the pastor or church after some lengthy talks or great persuasion by another believer or person. But where an ‘if-believer’ considered that from all that he has heard, there can be the possibility of a miracle, he is likely to get a miracle!
There are also those known as ‘spur-of-the moment’ (or ‘’emotional’’) believers who hear of a charismatically powerful miracle-working pastor, and quickly, happily and hopefully they rush to him. But knowing what advantages or good will come to these hopeful believers, evil forces work through some friends or relatives who will threaten or ill advice these hopeful believers not to go there any longer; or such forces work some laziness in them and they stop going there. Yes, Satan is doing his own thing!
Some of these hopeful believers who allow themselves to be coerced, or deceived or discouraged, make their faith become ‘S-negated’ (Satan-negated or Satan destroyed), and they lose their forthcoming miracle. In the Bible, such “S-Negs” are described by Christ “as the seed that fell along the path and some birds came and ate them up”. (See the ‘Parable of the Sower’ in Matthew 13). The “birds that ate the seeds” are the evil forces that destroy or negate the faith of the hopeful! S-Negs, can’t get anything from God through some pastors’ intercessions.
Again, there are some people who are known as “Miracle-Now” believers, who go to pastors expecting some miracle at once. But sometimes God delays answers, for certain reasons. When that expectation is not met instantly; or if after a short while they the miracle-now believers find their worries either at a stalemate or even worsening, they begin to lose faith and thus back off. In Christ’s “Parable of the Sower” in Matthew 13, these “Miracle-Now people are called “the seeds that fell on rocky places . . . and sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow”. (They had some minimum faith to push them to the pastor, verse 5). But “when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root”. That is, when troubles came up or worsened, their shallow faith got burnt up.
These miracle-now or “shallow-rooted” believers, better known as ‘S-Roos’ (shallow-rooted) have no time to wait to receive answers to their petitions; and therefore can’t get anything from God. But the spiritual secret of “waiting” is “receiving”, and David says it all in Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry”. If only the pastor is powerful (with some track records of miracles), the believers just wait, and their petitions are answered. Therefore, people shouldn’t be ‘S-Roos’. They should be ‘D-Roos’ (Deeply-rooted believers).
Let me be permitted to give a personal example of what happened recently to some two ‘D-Roos’ who showed exceptional faith worth emulating by believers in God. A few years ago, a couple came up to me seeking God’s intervention on behalf of their ward who had almost been refused admission to a Senior High School in Accra in spite of his excellent aggregate. Two days after I had started praying over their petition, a prophecy came to me during our church worship that the boy would be admitted. I announced it.
Ironically, three days after the prophecy, the bad news came that the school authorities had failed to admit the boy into the school. The Lord has never ever failed me in His prophecies since I started my ministry 35 years ago. All the same, the parents were not discouraged and they told me “we still know that God will do it”. I really became surprised at so great a faith –a ‘D-Roo’ belief when all things were hopeless. Then a week after, a sudden urgent message came to the parents that the boy had been offered admission into that Accra school. Wow! What a big surprise! God is always truthful; He is a miracle working God. Certainly it was the strong faith of the parents that pleased Jesus (Hebrew 4:5) to turn the tide when all was hopeless. But how many such ‘D-Roos’ do we have in our society –people whose faith can move mountains, in spite of all odds? Believe it or not, it was God who worked such a miracle, not a man, not a mere luck!
Lastly, uncooperative attitude is one thing that does not bring any good result to a petitioner’s request to God. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit of the pastor prescribes a course of action to be followed by the petitioner, such as, fasting, anointing, prayer course etc. For instance, in the Bible, Naaman, the leper, nearly missed his miracle-healing when he initially wanted to disobey Elisha’s directive that he should bathe “seven times in the Jordan river” and he would be healed (2 Kings 5:10). When, upon persistent advice, Naaman agreed and did that, he was cured!
There is no doubt that an intercession works wonders; and faith, strong faith of the petitioner, is often the catalyst that moves it to tap answers from the heavenly kingdom. So don’t be an ‘if-believer’, nor an ‘S-Neg’ believer nor an ‘S-Roo’ believer, but be a ‘D-Roo’ (a deeply-rooted believer) and answers from God will come to you through his anointed servants to solve your hard problems. Surely, a pastor’s intercessory intervention is necessary when there is crisis in your life!
By Apostle Kwamena Ahinful