At an IFA gathering I attended recently, the Lord gave this word of encouragement, for me and for every IFA intercessor:
“Stitch us into the fabric of the decades. Allow all our prayers to move the arm of the Lord so that His will is done, and His kingdom will come.
“In this place, I put My covenant seal upon these prayers. Let each intercessor know that he or she labors not in vain, but that each one stands upon the shoulders of the saints of old.
“These are the days of Elijah. Move in confidence through the dark, for witchcraft will not thrive over a people born free. Amen and amen.”
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This word, which I first tested and confirmed, as Scripture exhorts us to do, was a great encouragement to me when I received it, and I hope it will become an ongoing encouragement to us all. As you can see, the word speaks first in the voice of the intercessor and then in the voice of the Lord. This shift is not unknown in Scripture, as seen in a number of psalms. Consider Psalm 91, in which the tense changes from the third person in verse 1, to the first person in verse 2, and then to the voice of the Lord in verses 14–16.
The Lord assures us that our prayers are part of one long prayer meeting that began years ago and is still going on. We are just the most recent prayer circle to join in.
Dutch Sheets has talked about this idea, which the Lord calls synergy in a revelation He gave Dutch, and the intercessor describes synergy as a “multiplication of effort.” In prayer terms, this means that our prayers added to the prayers of the many who’ve gone before us are multiplied in the golden bowls of heaven. And that means our prayers are powerful. It means they are effective. It means they move the Lord to action.
And that’s exactly what the vision says: “Allow all our prayers to move the arm of the Lord so that His will is done, and His kingdom will come.” In Scripture, the arm of the Lord most often refers to His actions. In this case, our prayers move the Lord to establish His will and His kingdom on earth. I can’t imagine a more perfect result for the prayers of the decades!
(Dutch has been publishing a series about a return to America’s roots. You can access Part 1 of this series here.)
I was especially struck by the Lord’s promise: “In this place, I put My covenant seal upon these prayers.” When He speaks of covenant, the Lord is most certainly talking about the ancient ritual mentioned in the Bible.
James L. Garlow and Rob Price simply and elegantly explain the rich significance of the covenant in their book, The Blood Covenant: The Story of God’s Extraordinary Love for You. The meaning of covenant was well known to the ancients, and so the implications of the covenant are never fully explicated in Scripture. Early readers — hearers, actually — of the biblical text would fill in the gaps in the narrative with their cultural and familiar understanding of covenant.
According to Garlow and Price, the ancient Arabs often considered a covenant partner more important than family members. A covenant is an unbreakable agreement, with clearly defined obligations for each party to the covenant. These ancient covenants were sealed by the blood of the animals slaughtered in the ritual. A typical oath might be: “I will keep this covenant even if I have to die. If I break this covenant, may I be ripped apart as these animals were.”
This is particularly poignant when I think about the Lord’s covenant with Abram — known after this ritual as Abraham. The Lord — represented by the smoking pot and the flaming torch — walked between the animal pieces, firmly establishing Himself as the covenant keeper. Because the Lord includes Abram/Abraham and his descendants in the covenant blessings, the covenant encompasses all future generations.
As we know from biblical history, Abraham’s descendants failed to keep their part of the covenant — unconditional loyalty to the Lord — and so Jesus, as the Lord’s representative and also Himself God, actually came to serve as covenant keeper. His own flesh was cut to keep the promises the Lord made to Abraham and his offspring, which includes those of us who have opted into the covenant drawn in Christ’s blood.
Ancient covenants were sealed by the blood of the sacrificed animals — and the New Covenant to which Jesus refers in the Scripture is sealed by His blood. This is most likely the covenant seal of which the Lord speaks in His encouragement to us. Additionally, the Holy Spirit is often referred to as a seal. This double meaning enriches the promise.
The implications for our own prayers are staggering. Our prayers further multiply and are multiplied by the prayers of those who have gone before us — whether our grandparents, the Pilgrims, or Jesus’ disciples! Further, the Lord will act to ensure that His will is done and His kingdom is established on earth. And He is sealing those prayers with the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in an extension of the covenant He has already made and kept in Jesus. These are prayers that will not fail to avail!
For many years, the Lord has been speaking “These are the days of Elijah” to me in prayer. Usually, I am seeking prayer direction or counsel for our pastoral team. As a result, I have never thought particularly hard about what the Lord might have been saying with that Elijah statement — until the day several years ago when the Lord told me, “Witchcraft will not thrive over a people born free.” This statement, which my prayer warfare group is decreeing regularly over America and over all of us, guided me to the historical accounts of Elijah and his power encounters with the witchcraft figure of Jezebel in 1 Kings 18 and 19.
The Lord’s prophet engaged in a fierce battle with the forces of darkness as embodied in government-sponsored Baal worship. On Mount Carmel, Elijah won a decisive victory over those promoting idolatry. Though Elijah was taken into heaven before Jezebel was dethroned and executed, she ultimately ate the fruit of her sin. And in Elijah’s battle with the prophets of Baal, the people of the land witnessed the power of the Lord compared with that of the demonic entity.
I was aided in my understanding of the days of Elijah by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, who discusses in a number of video messages the implications of America’s turning away from the Lord and the resultant rise of ancient demons (false gods) in our own day.
Bottom line, we are in days in which the difference between the Lord’s people and those who are worshipping false gods is increasingly clear. And we will engage in power encounters of epic — sometimes frightening — scale. But we have the covenant promise of the Blood and the Spirit upon our prayers because the Lord is not willing to see His people go under a yoke of witchcraft.
Because this message of encouragement came to me during an IFA prayer meeting, I wanted to share it with all of you. The intercessor’s battle is protracted and can seem fruitless and lonely. But you are not alone! Your prayers are megaphones in the Spirit as you stand on the shoulders of giants in the faith. Soldier on, saints!
Lord, thank You for this encouragement. Help us press on in the certainty of victory. Give wings to our prayers and multiply them. Teach us to thrive in power encounters so that we might strip power and permissions from the enemy. We decree: Witchcraft shall not thrive over a people born free. In Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.
Did this encourage you? Share it with intercessor friends and encourage them!
New York City–based Joyce Swingle is an intercessor and a contributing writer for IFA. With her husband, Rich, also a contributing writer for IFA, Joyce shares the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world through theater, speaking, writing, and film. Prior to going into full-time ministry, Joyce worked for about 20 major magazines and now works in pastoral ministry and Christian counseling. Photo Credit: Canva.