If anyone thinks that the church today is as strong as ever, they need to take a step back and re-evaluate things. Many today think that everything in the church, and in their lives is going just fine and nothing is wrong. It’s just the world that is crazy. They think we’re doing good and the church is right on course. This is the church in general worldwide and in this nation, of course, not a specific church. Those people are wrong.

If you look at the world today, it should be obvious to everyone, especially the Christian, that something is wrong. There is unrest everywhere. Rioters and protesters are destroying lives and property and being touted as the victim. Violence is taking place in places that it shouldn’t be allowed, even being encouraged by top officials. Children are being killed for riding their bikes. Cities are bowing down to devils and giving their cities over to those who threaten violence. The world is silencing and harming those who disagree with them. Good is being called evil and evil is being called good. The nation is being torn apart.

And most in the church world think everything in the church is just fine and dandy. Many think that this is all part of the end times. Many churchgoers are waiting for an election to make things better. Many are going on with their normal (as much as can be) lives, while others struggle to survive in the midst of the oppression in their community. And many in the church think the church is doing just fine.

It’s not.

What is going on? What is happening?

Simply put, the church isn’t praying like it should – and it shows.

If the church was praying like it should, you wouldn’t have the unrest, riots, and upheavals that you do. But we’re not, as a whole – or at least in a good majority, praying to push back the darkness. Yes, some churches may be praying, but most are playing. We’re going about with “church as usual” even in these unusual times.

That’s why all this stuff is going on. I’m not saying it – the Bible says it. Jesus says it.

1 Timothy 2:1-4
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The church is being told right here that we are supposed to pray for our leaders. We’re not supposed to pray for them if we like them or if they’re a Democrat or Republican, or if they fit this category or our opinion of them is this or that. No. We’re supposed to pray for our leaders – period!

And why are we supposed to do it? …That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. If we want a quiet and peaceable life, we need to be praying for our leaders. We’re not seeing that so it is obvious that either God is a liar (I don’t think so) or we’re not doing what He says.

Even in the Old Testament we are told to pray for our nation and God would intervene.

2 Chronicles 7:14
if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Why though are we supposed to pray for our leaders? Why not someone else? Why doesn’t God leave it up to the rest of society? It’s because we are the one ones with the authority and the power to make things change. Others may have authority, some may have power, but only one group has the authority and power to pray and make things happen. That’s the church!

Matthew 18:18-20
“Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

The church has been given the authority to change things in prayer. But not only that, the church has a call, a mandate – is told directly by the head of the church – the Lord Jesus Christ- that we are specifically to be known as a house of prayer. Jesus tells us this specifically when He went into the temple and drove out the money changers.

Matthew 21:12-13
Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

The church is called to be known as a house of prayer. Not a house of blessing, of fellowship, of fun, of worship, etc. All those things are good, have their place and are necessary. But we’re called to be a house of prayer. And the church as a whole hasn’t been doing that and it shows.

This was so important of a statement that it is recorded in three different Gospels. It’s found in Mark 11 and Luke 19, but it’s here in Matthew 21 that we see what the results of Jesus’ removal of the things of the world from the church had. After He had preached the truth – that the church is to be a house of prayer, and after the things of the world were removed – the money changers and those not dedicated to the ways of God, great things happened.

Matthew 21:14
Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.

Miracles!

Jesus didn’t go out into the community to teach and preach and heal and do mighty signs and wonders. People who needed a touch from God were able to come and be healed, be blessed, have their life forever changed. And you know that word went out to the community even more how there was a God in Heaven who was working miracles in the church.

After Jesus removed the things of the world from the temple, people saw that the church wasn’t just for the religious practices. It wasn’t just to make a profit. It wasn’t just to sell this gimmick or that. No! People saw what the real church was all about. The church that God actually showed up in, where He moved, where He changed lives, and where His ways were honored was visible to everyone. And God was pleased with it! He was pleased because people were dedicated to Him, not the social club. People were consecrated to a life of holiness, not entertainment and religious practices.

When people today make that change – a change to dedication and consecration to the things of God, not the way things have been done for years – things change – in a big way. When we move back to holiness instead of a come as you are and stay as you were – God shows up. Then there is power in the church, then there is true prayer in the church. And then things change. Nations change. They change because people have the power of God. They understand the responsibility and call the church has. It’s not a flippant and careless thing. It’s a serious, sacred thing.

To understand a little better about the responsibility that we as believers, look at an experience that Dr. Kenneth E Hagin had. Set it side by side with the scriptures and see if it doesn’t line right up. See if Jesus isn’t speaking the same thing to us today.

    I had two very similar and unusual spiritual experiences, one in 1970 and the other in 1979, that showed me how real our responsibility is to pray for our nation and for the world. In both visions I saw three huge, black, frog-like creatures coming up out of the Atlantic Ocean. They looked like huge frogs except they were much larger — about the size of whales.

In the first vision in 1970, I saw these dark beings come up out of the Atlantic, and they seemed to leap all the way across the land. In the second vision in 1979, I again saw three frog-like creatures, and one of those creatures came up out of the water and looked like it was about to land on our shores.

    You need to know how to interpret spiritual visions. Because these creatures came out of the ocean doesn’t mean they came up out of a literal ocean. From Genesis to Revelation, “seas” or “waters” often symbolizes a multitude of people.

    In the first vision, I knew that the three frog-like creatures leaping across our country meant that three strategies of the devil would arise out of the multitude of peoples against our nation. The first strategy of Satan would be riots and disturbances. The second, would be political upheaval (Watergate, as it turned out). And the third, problems in the economic sector of our nation.

    These evil strategies from the enemy don’t arise from the Christian population; they come from the masses of those walking in darkness because sinners are held bondage and dominated by the devil in the kingdom of darkness.

It seems that these same strategies of the devil are being implemented against our nation again. Why haven’t we learned to stand against them? The enemies schemes never change. They’re always the same.

    In the second vision in 1979, Jesus said to me, “If the Christians of this nation had done what I told them to do in My Word and had prayed for the leaders of their country, they could have kept those evil spirits you saw in 1970 from operating in this nation. None of those upheavals would have occurred in your nation. You would not have had the political, social, and economic disturbances in this nation, and the President never would have made the mistakes he made. In fact, I’m holding the Church responsible for the President’s mistakes.”

    When I heard Jesus say that, I cried out, “My God!” and began to weep. Jesus continued,“Yes, the Church is responsible before God Almighty. I know when you tell that to some Christians, they will laugh. But you wait until they stand before My Judgment Seat and see if they laugh when they are the ones who will receive the judgment.”

Today, Jesus is telling us to do the same thing. How do I know this? Because His Word says so. We are to pray for our leader, bind the devil and his plans, stand in faith and see things change. The reason all of the riots, pandemics, unrest, and disturbances are going on is because the church is allowing it. We’re too concerned about our own lives, getting back in a building, getting distracted by this thing or that thing, that we’re letting the devil take over our nation.

    Jesus was saying that Christians could have stopped those evil strategies of the devil by taking their place in prayer based on the Word of God. Christians have authority on the earth in Jesus’ Name, and if Christians had prayed for those in authority, America would not have had the riots or the political and economic upheavals we experienced in our nation in the 1970s.

    In this vision in 1979, I saw those other frogs about to land on our shores again, and Jesus said to me, “You can see that three similar evil strategies of the devil are about to happen again in this nation. First, unless Christians pray, there will arise another time of riots and tumults and disturbances all across the nation, coming from different causes than the disturbances of the early 1970s.

    “Second,” He said, “something is about to happen to your President that should not happen and will not happen if Christians will pray, and take authority over the devil’s strategies and bind his works in My Name. And third, unless Christians pray, there is something about to happen that will bring further trouble in the economic scene and in the financial structure of this nation.

    Jesus concluded, “Once again, Christians can stop all three of these strategies of the devil against this nation. They can stop the upheaval through riots, tumults, and disturbances in the social structure. They can stop the upheaval and the activity of the devil in the political scene of their nation. And they can stop the devil from disrupting the financial scene of their nation.”

    Many Christians did pray and the plan of the enemy was greatly averted and thwarted. Because Christians stood in their place of authority in Jesus’ Name and began to pray and exercise their authority over the devil, God intervened on our behalf.

What Jesus told Dr. Kenneth E Hagin agrees 100% with what the Word of God says. The church, the Christian, has been given authority in the name of Jesus. But just because you have authority, that doesn’t mean things are going to magically happen. There’s still something we have to do. We have to use that authority!

Dr. Hagin made an excellent point in one of his books about how the unbeliever sees the issues going on in world. It also stresses our responsibility to use the authority Jesus has given us.

    Some people are so taken up with the evil in the world that they think the universe is basically evil instead of good. Some people have accused God of being the author and creator of evil. For example, I read an article some time ago written by a well-known newspaper columnist here in America. He said he was not religiously inclined, didn’t belong to any church, and never had. He didn’t believe the Bible was the Word of God, and he didn’t know if God existed or not.

    In his article he said, “Christians say there is a God who created everything and that God is running this universe. Logically speaking, it would seem a Supreme Being did create the universe. But if God is the Ruler of this universe and He’s running everything, He surely has things in a mess. Why doesn’t He put a stop to war and poverty and innocent babies dying?

    He was trying to understand why a good God who is ruling the world would allow evil to exist. But this newspaper columnist had only heard one side of the argument — he didn’t know that the Bible says Satan is the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4).

    If this journalist had known and believed the Bible, he would have known that God made the world in the beginning and saw that everything was good (Gen. 1:10,12,18,21,25,31; James 1:17). God made man and gave man dominion over the work of His hands.

GENESIS 1:26,28

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over ALL THE EARTH, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. . . .

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

PSALM 8:4-6

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 THOU MADEST HIM TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE WORKS OF THY HANDS: thou hast put all things under his feet.

PSALM 115:16

16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth HATH HE GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN.

God has given us the responsibility and the authority to pray for our nation and see things changed. And I 100% believe that Christians will be held responsible for the things that happen in our nation because of that responsibility and authority. It only makes sense. Would you not hold a police officer responsible for events that would happen if he stood there and watched without doing anything? Of course you would, because he was the one with the authority and the responsibility

The world is in the mess that it is in because Christians have not stood up and done something about it. The devil is attacking our nation, the presidential office, the very fabric that our nation was founded on as a beacon of hope for the world, and we are sitting back and letting it happen. We MUST stop playing church, stop being consumed with our own lives and use our authority IN THE NAME OF JESUS to change things.

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