March 24, 2026
- Mar 24
- 5 min read
Appealing to Heaven: Making A Difference
In yesterday’s post, I talked about the Appeal To Heaven flag. America’s Founders believed so much in the power of prayer that they commissioned a flag to fly throughout the nation during the War of Independence as a reminder. And they believed that God answered their prayers, giving them victory. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon is credited as saying, “…prayer moves the hand that moves the world.”(1)
Does a sovereign, all-powerful God really need our involvement to accomplish His will on earth? Is prayer really necessary? Most people in America, including pastors, do not believe prayer is truly necessary in order for God to accomplish His purposes on earth. One need only attend a typical church service to know this. If pastors believed prayer impacted nations and shaped history, they would make time for it in their services…more than just over the offerings, messages, and the dismissal of the saints.
No sincere and caring person - which I believe most pastors are - would refuse to do something they believed could change nations and make the world better, safer, more peaceful, etc. They don’t give time in their services for prayer because they don’t actually believe it accomplishes anything other than connecting people to God devotionally, which people can do at home. Contrary to Christ’s wishes, the vast majority of churches are anything but houses of prayer (see Isaiah 56:7; Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).
My purpose today, however, is not to convince you that prayer causes the hand of God to move. You most likely believe that, or you wouldn’t be reading or listening to my posts. It is simply to remind you of this and to encourage you that your prayers are making a difference. Nations are being impacted, lives are changing, and eternal destinies are being shaped because you are praying. Our appeals to heaven bring revival, release healing, and produce breakthroughs. Strongholds come down when we pray. I agree with E. M. Bounds when he said:
“God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil... The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work upon earth. God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.”(2)
Though God is sovereign and all-powerful, Scripture clearly tells us that He limited Himself, concerning the affairs of earth, to working through human beings. Is this not the story woven throughout the Scriptures:
God and humans, for better or worse, doing it together?
God needing faithful men and women?
God needing a nation through whom to bring the Messiah into the world?
God needing prophets?
God needing judges?
God needing a human Messiah?
God needing human hands to heal, human voices to speak, and human feet to go?
Doesn’t He need us to ask and decree for His Kingdom to come, His will to be done (see Matthew 6:10)? Surely He wouldn’t want us to waste our time asking for something that was going to happen anyway, would He?
Didn’t He tell us to ask for our daily bread (see Matthew 6:11)? And yet, He knows our needs before we even ask.
Didn’t He tell us to ask that laborers be sent into the harvest (see Matthew 9:38)? But, doesn’t the Lord of the harvest want that more than we do?
Didn’t Paul say, “Pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified” (2 Thessalonians 3:1)? Wasn’t God already planning to do this?
Are not these things God’s will? Why, then, are we supposed to ask Him for something He already wants to do if it’s not that our asking somehow releases Him to do it?
In 606 BC, Israel had been taken captive by another nation because of its sin. Jeremiah had prophesied the timing and duration of this. Years later, in Daniel 9, we’re told that while reading the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel realized it was time for Israel’s captivity to end. Jeremiah had not only prophesied the captivity, of which Daniel was a part, but also its duration: 70 years.
At this point, Daniel did something very different from what most of us would do. When we receive a promise of revival, deliverance, healing, restoration, etc., we tend to passively wait for its fulfillment— but not Daniel. He knew better. Somehow, he knew God needed his involvement, as he said, “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). God heard his prayers, and the restoration occurred.
Paul E. Billhelmer said:
“Daniel evidently realized that intercession had a part to play in bringing the prophecy to pass. God had made the prophecy. When it was time for its fulfillment, He did not fulfill it arbitrarily outside of His program of prayer. He sought for a man upon whose heart He could lay a burden of intercession.... As always, God made the decision in heaven. A man was called upon to enforce that decision on earth through intercession and faith.”(3)
The late C. Peter Wagner agreed with this when he stated:
“We must understand that our sovereign God has, for His own reasons, so designed this world that much of what is truly His will He makes contingent on the attitudes and actions of human beings. He allows humans to make decisions that can influence history....”(4)
Never forget, friend: appeals to heaven change the earth.
Pray with me:
Father, we thank You for the progress being made to defeat evil here in America and around the world. You are using many people to accomplish these things, including President Trump, but we give You the glory. You are empowering their efforts. We ask for continued favor upon the efforts of the righteous, and failure to those who promote evil and violence.
Although we know there is much more change needed, thank You for answering prayers regarding the Presidency, Congress, and judicial system of America. We ask for these breakthroughs to continue.
We also thank You for the victories in the Middle East. We ask for the total destruction of “the prince of Persia’s” control over the region (Daniel 10), and the greatest revival in the region’s history. Bring freedom to the people of Iran and release a great revival there, but also use them to facilitate revival throughout the entire Middle East.
And we continue to ask for revival in America. Give great strategy and favor, especially to those working to produce revival among the youth and young adults of our nation. Cause the revival that has begun among this age group to continue and multiply exponentially. Raise them up as the greatest army of reformers the world has ever seen. Once again, we thank You for all the breakthroughs we are seeing and ask that this continue. And we ask all of this in Yeshua’s name, amen.
Our decree:
We decree that appealing to heaven is the believer’s right and America’s heritage.
Today’s post was adapted from one of the chapters in my book, Intercessory Prayer, published by Baker Books.
Click on the link below to watch the full video.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/559908-prayer-bends-the-omnipotence-of-heaven-to-your-desire-prayer
Paul E. Billheimer, Destined for the Throne (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1975), p. 51.
Ibid., p. 107.
C. Peter Wagner, Confronting the Powers (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1996), p. 242.
As I listened to you today I had a small vision of a map of the world, specifically the Middle East. A clear but amber in color thick substance was being poured over that part of the world, slowly spreading....it turned out to be honey. I immediately thought of the properties of honey, that it is sweet and incorruptible with an antibiotic nature to cleanse and heal. Then I saw many honey bees hovering, darting around and guarding the honey as it slowly spread over that part of the world. 🦟