FEbruary 16, 2006

Countdown to War

On Saturday, February 11, 2006, the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued his threats against the state of Israel.  Here’s part of his declaration to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians in a mass rally in Tehran and his challenge to the West:    

“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago, and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them. Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,”Ahmadinejad said.

Following his previous comment to “wipe Israel off the map,” it appears Ahmadinijad will not be making any solidarity trips to Israel anytime soon.  If he is to be believed – and Israel’s top intelligence official, IDF Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, “These are not slips of the tongue.” -- then it appears Iran, Israel, and the West might be headed beyond the current crisis toward war.

If you’ve read any articles recently on the Iran crisis, the media are buzzing with the winds of war.  Here’s a sampling from the past few days: 

“Will Israel Blast the Iranian Bomb” by A.E.I. Online
“Later than We Think” by Arnaud de Borchgrave.
“Playing Poker with Armageddon” by Kenneth R. Timmerman
“U.S. Prepares Military Blitz against Iran’s Nuclear Sites” by News.Telegraph.
“Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn” by The Boston Globe. 

When one considers the geo-political standoff on a scale like this, one might feel overwhelmed with the size and scope of the situation--that you don’t have a role to play and that events “will just play out”.  But is it possible to play a redemptive role in world history through prayer? Can intercession play a role in world politics?  Do Christians have any influence on world events?  In essence, do our prayers affect history? 

The late Bible teacher Derek Prince believed the answer to those questions was yes.  He wrote a book called “Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting” where he made the biblical case that Christians can change world events through simple yet powerful tools. 

Prince saw that first-hand as a British officer in World War II during the critical North African campaign.  Prior to the pivotal battle of El Alamein, the British command suffered from a lack of leadership and appeared headed for defeat.  A British defeat would have opened up Egypt, the strategic Suez Canal and the Jewish community in the Holy Land to German troops and Nazi Germany.  In light of this specter, Prince prayed a simple prayer:  “Lord, give us leaders such that it will be for your glory to give us victory through them.”       

Just a short while later, Winston Churchill appointed B.L. Montgomery, the son of an evangelical Anglican bishop as commander of British troops.  Montgomery rallied the British troops and led them to victory over Rommel’s German corps at El Alamein.  Here’s how Prince described this profound answer to prayer:      

Without a doubt, the Battle of El Alamein was the turning point of the war in North Africa.  Two or three days after the battle, I found myself in the desert a few miles behind the advancing Allied forces.  A small portable radio beside me on the tailboard of a military truck was relaying a news commentator’s description of the scene at Montgomery’s headquarters as he had witnessed it on the eve of the battle.  He recalled how Montgomery publicly called his officers and men to prayer, saying, “Let us ask the Lord, mighty in battle, to give us the victory.”  As these words came through that portable radio, God spoke very clearly to my spirit, ‘That is the answer to your prayer.’

World War II was also the setting for some of the most dramatic accounts of intercession in the twentieth century.  Rees Howells founded the Bible College of Wales and during the critical days of the war, intercessors there cried out to Heaven for divine intervention.  Some of their most fervent and desperate prayers came during the Battle of Britain.  The German Luftwaffe pounded England in preparation for a German invasion.  Outmanned and outgunned, the plucky Royal Air Force stood between the British Isle and the German onslaught.  Yet as the British Spitfires went up in the air to face a foe of far superior numbers, it seemed as if an unseen hand shifted the outcome of the battle.  Here’s the conclusion of the battle as described in Rees Howells: Intercessor.    

Mr. Churchill, in his War Memoirs, gives September 15 (1940) as ‘the culminating date’ in that Battle of the Air.  He tells how he visited the Operations Room of the Air.  He tells how he visited the Operations Room of the R.A.F. that day and watched as the enemy squadrons poured over and ours went up to meet them, until the moment came when he asked the Air Marshal, ‘What other reserves have we?’  ‘There are none,’ he answered, and reported afterwards how grave Mr. Churchill looked, ‘and well I might,’ added Churchill.  Then another five minutes passed, and ‘it appeared the enemy were going home.  The shifting of the discs on the table showed a continuous eastward movement of German bombers and fighters.  No new attack appeared.  In another ten minutes the action was ended.’  There seemed no reason why the Luftwaffe should have turned for home, just at the moment when victory was in their grasp.  But we know why.

After the war, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain, made this significant comment:  ‘Even during the battle one realized from day to day how much external support was coming in.  At the end of the battle one had the sort of feeling that there had been some special Divine intervention to alter some sequence of events which would otherwise have occurred.’     

Today, the focus of the battle is not at El Alamein in North Africa or over the skies of Britain, but rather over the city of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.  IDF Intelligence Chief Yadlin went onto tell the Knesset Committee that “Iran’s plan is to engulf or destroy Israel in three ways.”  He said those three ways were 1) supporting Palestinian terror groups, 2) psychological pressure on Israel, and 3) pursuing its drive for nuclear weapons. 

The scenes of Tehran’s mass rallies calling for the destruction of Israel are eerily reminiscent to the mass rallies at Nuremburg in the 1930s when Adolf Hitler called for the destruction of the Jews.  The threats are real.  The stakes are high and as usual, God is looking for intercessors:  Ezekiel 22:30 reads:  "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land ...”

James encouraged us that prayer is a powerful tool to intervene in situations: “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a man just like us.  He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.”  James 5: 16, 17

Home groups, cell groups, and prayer groups--both small and large, all over the earth--are part of God’s great army of prayer.  Yesterday, whether in the skies above England or on the desert sands of North Africa, God’s unseen and yet powerful Hand moved events.  Today, His power is no less able to move among the challenges of our day.  Once again, perhaps, it will be said that “history belongs to the intercessors.”

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