IX. When We Pray for Others--Intercession

Many years ago, as I was reading in the book of Ezekiel, I came across this verse and began crying. Surely this is one of the saddest verses in the Bible:

Ezekiel 22:30 (God speaking) So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

Some people think that God wants to go around punishing people. I even heard a woman say to her young daughter, “God is going to get you!” I wanted tell her how wrong she was. I didn’t. We were at a party at the time. I could only sit there, stunned, feeling so sorry for her daughter who must have a dismal image of God.

God is not out to get people. God is love. He desires to be merciful. Yet He can’t always be so, because He has to follow His own Word, Ps. 138:2, and He must judge sin, Deut. 32:4, Ps. 9:7-8, Ezekiel 7:27; Hebrews 10:30. Yet His heart is not for evil, but for good. Look at these other verses from the book of Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?”

Ezekiel 18:32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!“

Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, “As I live,” says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?”

God does not want to punish sin, yet He must. Still, if there is an intercessor to plead with God, then judgment can be averted. One function of an intercessor is to plead for God’s mercy for another person, city, people or nation.

An intercessor is a person who stands in the gaps:

Ezekiel 13:5 (God addressing false prophets) “You have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the Lord.”


What are these gaps? Here is the definition from Strong’s Concordance:

Gap Strong's # 6556 (Heb.) "perets" A break, breach, gap.

There are two gaps. One is between God and the person an intercessor is praying for. Here is one example:

Psalm 106:23 Therefore He said that He would destroy them had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them.

In the above verse, Moses stood between God and the children of Israel.


Here is an example of a second gap:

Psalm 106:30-31 Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped. And that was accounted to him for righteousness to all generations forevermore.

Phinehas stood between the children of Israel and the plague they had invited when they gave Satan authority by worshiping Baal of Peor, and thus joining themselves to a demon, Numbers 25:3, 1 Cor. 10:20 .


There are TWO gaps: a gap between God and man, and a gap between man and Satan


When we pray for others, we stand in two gaps: First, between God and the person we are praying for; and, second, between the person we are praying for and the destruction that person should be reaping.


Here is a question someone asked in a Sunday school class I was in: Can God change His mind? Every other person said, no, absolutely not, God doesn’t change His mind. I insisted that He can and does--and was vigorously outvoted by somewhere around 18 to one!

But look at these verses:

Jonah 3:4-5, 10 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them…..Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.

Jonah 4:1, 10-11 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry….But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left--and much livestock?”


God can change His mind. Even when a prophecy for disaster is given, that judgment can be averted by the way that prophecy is received. In this case, the people of Nineveh turned from their sin.

A negative prophecy can also be averted by an intercessor standing in the gap for someone, and praying for mercy. Here is an example:

Exodus 32:7-13 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!'” And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all the land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'” So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.[/b]


An intercessor standing in the gap, as prompted by the Holy Spirit, can change God’s mind. In the example above, look at some of the elements. In the beginning, God says that the people are Moses’ people. Moses, however, responds that these are God’s people, and then puts God in remembrance of His promises to His people. We can do the same thing as we pray today. We can identify a people as God’s people, and remind God of His promises to them, asking for His mercy.

It is also possible for an intercessor to confess the sins of a people as their own, even a people who have lived generations before them. Here is an example:

Daniel 9:1-20, especially verses 4-7, 20 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even to departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land….Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God….

See also the complete passage, Daniel 9:1-20. Notice how many times Daniel confesses sin for himself and his people, and how he interjects his plea for mercy based on God’s character and His promises.


Another example is Ezra, Ezra 9:1-15 , especially verse 6:

Ezra 9:6: (Ezra praying) “Oh my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.”


Still another example, Nehemiah in Nehemiah 1:1-11, especially verses 6-7:

Nehemiah 1:6-7 (Nehemiah praying) “please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded Your servant Moses.

It helps, of course, to have a list of sins to confess. I have found it possible to seek the Lord, asking for such a list for my own family, my church, my city and my country. I have also included an appendix at the end of this series called "A Partial List of Sins." This is useful to have when praying for others--or ourselves!


Confession for others is possible for:

Your family:

Job 1:4-5 And his sons would go and feast in their houses…So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly.

Your church:

Joel 2:17 Let the priests who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; let them say, “Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach.”

God‘s people:

1 Kings 8: 57-58 “May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers.”

Nehemiah 1:5-7 And I said: "I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statues, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses."

Your country:

Daniel 9:3-8 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments, neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day…O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.”

Your forefathers:

Lev. 26:40-42 (God speaking) “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me….if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt--then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.”

Your enemies:

Luke 23:34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”




Conditions for intercession.

Over the years, I have spoken with intercessors, some of whom told me that they didn’t like praying for others because they always got attacked, physically, financially and or in their relationships. I took this to the Lord to gain wisdom, and realized that this was part of the reason He had been teaching me to always make sure before I intercede that I am clean, covered by the blood of Jesus, and that I have broken curses against me. These lessons are covered in the first four sections of these notes, but just to reiterate,

Remember that any kind of sin makes prayer ineffective:

Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.

An intercessor must be clean. God is holy. He cannot bear to look on sin. Any person who means to approach such holiness must first be cleansed themselves. Prayer is not effective without it, but we have an Advocate with the Father who will cleanse us if we ask Him, 1 John 1:9.

Second, intercession involves active warfare, often standing between the enemy and the person being prayed for. There can be no sin. Sin--any sin--gives the enemy a legal hold, and a right to attack, Ps. 94:20. Again, we must be clean.

We must be covered as well. We should ask for the blood of Jesus to cover our household and family and for a hedge of protection around us, Job 1:5, 10. Before going into battle also, we need to break curses against us and our household and family. This will greatly reduce the intensity of the battle.

Is this burdensome? How foolish would it be for a soldier to go into battle without first checking and cleaning his gear? How foolish is it for a Christian to say that they have not sinned? 1 John 1:10.

Also, consider how foolish it would be for a soldier to fight without first hearing from his commander. Wouldn't this soldier completely fail? We have a Commander as well. We should listen to Him.


Here is a general pattern for praying effectively for others:

1. First spend time in worship, Psalm 100:4. We need to come to Him with a humble spirit, choosing to honor God and choosing to be submitted to Him.
2. Remember the three C’s--be clean, be covered, and break the curses against us.
3. Follow the Lord, John 12:26.


The most powerful intercession is that done while following God. He may give a verse of Scripture to pray, or remind the intercessor of a promise to claim. He can direct how to pray specifically for a person, but what is needed is the humility to listen, and the capacity to do so.

Be blessed!

Diana Clancy
Copyright November 2007