The Most Overlooked Weapon in Spiritual Warfare

When David Watson began leading a church in York as a young pastor, the congregation was expected to fail within six months. The routine gathering was small, the debt was immense—and then there was the leaking roof. Watson canceled every program of the church except two: the Lord’s Day preaching of the Word and the prayer meeting.

Not long after that, the church couldn’t hold all the people who were coming, and what had been a dying congregation was thriving. The bishop came to see and said, in effect, “My, my, my! What a wonder David Watson has worked in this place!” And David Watson used to say, “No, no, no: What a wonder Almighty God has worked in this place!”

When churches fail, they often fail at the fundamentals, and particularly those identified in Acts 6:4: prayer and the ministry of the Word. Yet even churches that emphasize preaching may find themselves weak in the matter of prayer. We can encourage ourselves to shore up this neglected foundation as we remember three important principles.

Prayer Is the Principal Expression of Relationship

First, prayer is our principal expression of our relationship to God through our Lord Jesus Christ . Paul writes to the Romans, “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15). In other words, the Spirit who lives in us moves us to speak to God with the respect and familiarity of a child to a father. Indeed, Jesus says if even earthly fathers know how to give their children what they ask for, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11).

A relationship with God, as with any person, is not something to take for granted, as if it can be established and then left in suspended animation. A strong marriage begins with the longing of a couple to see each other, to talk to each other, simply to hear each other’s voices—and if it remains healthy, it will carry on with steady, familiar, and honoring conversation. Prayerless “Christianity,” like a marriage without conversation, is not worthy of that name,  because the relationship with God that constitutes Christianity is principally expressed in prayer.

Prayer is our principal expression of our relationship to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the words of J. Oswald Sanders, “If prayer is meagre it is because we consider if supplemental, not fundamental.” We might say if a church is shaking, it may be because we see prayer as the spire of the church instead of as a foundational element. As long as we have this wrong perspective, we will fail to give prayer the disciplined attention it is due, and our churches will suffer.

Prayer Is the Principal Area of Attack

Secondly, since prayer is the principal expression of our relationship to God, we should presume it to be a principal target for the Evil One’s attacks. As the Puritan Samuel Chadwick said regarding believers’ engagement in spiritual warfare, Satan dreads nothing but prayer. The devil doesn’t care about big churches as much as he cares about praying churches. The devil doesn’t care about prominent Christians as much as he cares about praying Christians. The devil doesn’t care about pastors who merely talk; he cares about pastors who pray. And so our enemy encourages us, at every opportunity, to put off asking our Father, to avoid conversation that may be difficult or wearying or challenging, and so to be prayerless.

When Paul serves as quartermaster to the Ephesian church, laying out for them the spiritual armor they are to take up in their fight against the Evil One, he encourages them, finally, to be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18). Prayer is both the target of the devil’s attack and the answer to it. As he tries to push us away from God, we cling to God all the more, calling on Him in prayer “at all times … with all prayer”—from the dedicated time on our knees to the simple requests, thanksgivings, and praises we offer through the day as they come to mind.

Prayer Is a Matter of Priority

The only way we’ll ever pray is if we make a commitment to pray. It’s as straightforward as that. No one ever became a praying Christian without a commitment of heart, mind, will, body, strength, and spirit to the task at hand. John Bunyan wrote, “As for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God; and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him.” What honesty!

Paul describes the prayers of Epaphras for the Colossian church not as a breezy afternoon stroll but as “always struggling,” or wrestling, “on your behalf in his prayers” (Col. 4:12). To engage in an activity like that will never be a matter of convenience; it will always be a matter of “time and trouble,” as J. B. Phillips puts it in his paraphrase of Paul: “Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit” (1 Tim. 4:7).

That’s why the New Testament admonition is not “Relax! Be casual.” No, it is “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9). And we ought to strive to prioritize prayer by reminding ourselves that the reason we find it so difficult to do is because it is such an area for the Evil One’s attack.

An Encouraging Reminder

Prayer is hard—but when we find it hard to pray, we should always remember that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).

In other words, though we should never leave prayer aside, we need never come to it believing, “It all depends on me. I’d better get this right.” No, we cannot come to God as experts. We must come as children. And we trust that we have a good Father who knows what we need even before we ask (Matt. 6:8).

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Priority of Prayer” by Alistair Begg.