By Jeremy Myers Filed Under Close Your Church for Good, Prayer Written on November 21, 2011

Praying to the Devil

So far in this series called “Let Prayer Meetings Cease” we have looked at a few types of prayer you might hear in a prayer meeting: The Magic Words prayer, the Let God to the Talking prayer, and the Father God Jesus Christ Glory Hallelujah prayer. We now turn to one final example of a type of prayer you might hear in a prayer meeting.

This type may be the worst because although the person thinks they are talking to God, they actually spend a good portion of the prayer talking to the Devil. Have you ever heard a prayer like this? You probably have.

Here is an example of one I heard quite recently:

God, we thank you for your many answers to prayer this week, and—Devil! I rebuke you in the name of Jesus—and God, may you guide us and direct us this week according to your will—Satan! I bind you and cast you out with the authority of the name of Jesus!—and God, we especially want to lift up to you today Sister Maynard—Get out Satan! Get out! Leave her alone!—who is struggling with the flu this week—Evil spirit of the flu, get out of her! Leave foul demon!—may you use your power and might to restore her to health…

I’m not sure God likes to share prayers to Him this way. Half of the prayer is a conversation with Him, and the other half is a conversation with the devil. I know that they are praying against the devil, or praying against Satan, but such a practice is not learned from Scripture (the opposite is actually taught: 2 Pet. 2:10-11; Jude 1:9).

Learning to Pray

Where do people learn to pray in all these ways? Not from Scripture. Not from life. Not from logic. Not from having conversations with other people, for nobody talks to one another in any of these ways. There is primarily one place where people learn to pray this way: In prayer meetings. Prayer meetings teach Christians some very bad prayer habits.

In the next several posts, I want to encourage Christians to pray more and attend prayer meetings less. I intend to show how prayer meetings usually do not help us accomplish God’s mission in the world, but hinder it instead. We will look at a few of the pitfalls of prayer meetings, and address a few passages that teach about prayer, before finally suggesting some ways that churches and Christians can pray with a missional and kingdom-focused mindset.

Check out these related posts on Scripture, Theology, and Church:

Practical Alternative to Prayer Meetings

Bad Habits from Prayer Meetings

Let God do the Talking

Pitfalls of Prayer Meetings

Father God Jesus Christ Glory Hallelujah

Want to read more about Bible and Theology? Try one of these:

Clive Clifton

Come on. I regualy attend prayer meetings, there are groups of people who spend their whole life in praying together, Jesus took three disciples to pray for Him in the garden, why because He knew the power of it. In the prayer meetings I attend we quite often have the same burden put on us by God in what or who to pray for. I’m sure the satanists are praying or a regular basis together, why do they pray together because they knowni its powerful. We are told that where 2 or more Come Together int Name I will be in the midst of them.

Have we learnt nothing from Jesus “have ye not heard hast thou not seen” Come on, stop making up phylosophy, read what Jesus said and did. When Jesus was with His disciples did He send each of them into a room to pray, come on.

If you haven’t got it now, I wonder if you ever will. Will be easier if I translate it to the Greek?.

Clive
Clive Clifton

By the way I would never pray that way you said you heard someone do. I think the evil one gets enough publicity and assistance as it is. When we pray in a group we ask the Lord to lead us in any way that we with our feeble minds can apprehend, this can be in words, a piece of scripture, a picture or a scene like a vidio, a smell or touch. We first ask God to protect us from any other spirits that may want to lead us astray. We share what we receive and pray into that. We meet for prayer for various reasons, we may prayer for a particular person, government, situation, country etc.

To me corporate prayer is the life blood of the Church. Don’t give up and cause division. Clive

http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

Clive,

Maybe this type of prayer is rare. I don’t know. I work in a religious setting where I hear these types of prayer several times a week (and all the prayers I have talked about in the past couple posts). This group is also quite legalistic and judgmental, and nothing I try to teach about grace, love, and forgiveness seems to make the slightest difference.

Of course, maybe my last few posts on the subject of prayer have not been as lovingly worded as they should have been, so I need to examine my own heart as well.

You make some good points about prayer, and I think that in general, we are in agreement on the what, why, and how of prayer.

Beginning tomorrow (11/23) I will start focusing on what Scripture says about prayer, and how we can use prayer to encourage more love and service in the community.

Clive Clifton

Sorry Jeremy, if the people you are with are the way you say they are, I feel you need to find a few like minded friends who will wait on the Lord and take His lead. Jesus said never make a vow, Matthew 5 v 34 as it’s another form of judgement on someone, look what happened to King Saul when he swore many times one example was in 1 Samuel 14 v 44, this type of bragging is a sin and can be used to bully. Jesus said let your yes just be yes and your no the same.

Showing off spiritual gifts to make you look good is just as dangerous as you are not being true to the heart, God knows our heart which is the most deceitful thing. Jeremiah 17 v 9 + Proverbs 12 v 20.
Enough said. Clive

http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

Clive,

I and some like-minded people are waiting on the Lord and trying to follow His lead.

Regarding the scripture references, I am not sure I follow your point since I don’t talk about vows in this post.