We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The (Spiritual) War on Terror
Jesus’ ministry was a ministry not of resignation but of revolt. He was about revolting against the cruel tyranny of a world ruler (Satan) that was oppressing God’s people. He was about seeking to give back to people, and to win back for his Father, what the enemy had stolen and destroyed. He was about restoring humanity to its rightful place of dominion over the earth, and thus about empowering humans to rise up against the cosmic thief who had stolen this from them.
Jesus’ very being, and certainly his deeds and his teaching, were about training us to revolt against the enemy in order to make our circumstances a place where we can discern the hand of God. From this perspective, we must never pray to accept “as from the father’s loving hand” any evil event.
We ought rather to pray to change things. Many think that the purpose of prayer is not to change God or to change things but only to change us. And while it sounds pious, it’s altogether unscriptural.
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.
The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective (James 5:15-16). Whether we pray, how faith-filled our prayer is, how persistent it is and even how many people agree together in prayer are all factors that have a real effect in getting God to move and thus in changing the world. Jesus attached real urgency to prayer (see Lk 11:5-13; 18:1-8) and believers are therefore to strive to be involved in it on a nonstop basis (1 Thess 5:17).
According to Scripture, prayer can save a nation (Ex 32;10-14), and the lack of prayer can destroy it (Ezek 22:30). Faith-filled prayer moves God to bless, and the lack of prayer hinders it (2 Chron 30:18-20; Lk 18:1-8). Faith-filled prayer empowers one to free other people from demons, while the lack of faith-filled prayer leaves these very people enslaved.
In the midst of the spiritual war, things genuinely hang upon what free, morally responsible beings do or do not do. To expand God’s kingdom is to revolt against the kingdom of evil and the main thing that we do, as Jesus both teaches and demonstrates, is to exercise prayer and faith. When disciples do this, no demonic obstacle to the kingdom, however formidable, can stand in their way (Mt 21:21-22).
—Adapted from God at War, 201-205
Image by _Pek_ via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Open Theism, Prayer, Warfare Worldview
Related Reading

How do you respond to Malachi 3:6?
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.” Some cite this verse as evidence that God need never be flexible in his plans and change his mind. But this claim contradicts all the explicit declarations in Scripture which state that God does frequently modify his plans and…

The Case for Including Open Theism Within Arminianism
Here is an excellent post by my good friend Roger Olson in which he makes the case that Open Theism should be embraced by Arminians as an orthodox, if somewhat non-traditional, form of their faith. In fact, Roger argues (rightly in my opinion) that Open Theism is much closer to the “heart” of Arminianism than…

Reasons God Does Not Control Everything
First, the belief that God is all-powerful does not mean that God exercises all power. It only means that God is the ultimate source of all power. Fallen people may value the ability to control others and project this attribute onto God (Matthew 20:25-28). But the cross breaks all of our fallen assumptions about what…

Re-Thinking Divine Sovereignty
Many people in the church have been taught that divine sovereignty is synonymous with unilateral control. Some have even argued that if God is not in control of everything, then something must be in control of him. Still others have proposed that if God is not sovereign over all, then he has no sovereignty at…

What is the significance of Ezekiel 22:29–31?
The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God. If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to his call for a Moses-like…

Podcast: If the Future is Open, How Do You Explain Prophecy?
Greg considers prophecy through the lens of open theism. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0448.mp3