No Trespassing
by Dutch Sheets
I heard a visiting minister in Eaton, Ohio share this testimony of God's
protection in World War II. He served on a ship and every day he and a few
other sailors would have a prayer time, seeking God for protection for
themselves and the ship. What were they doing? Building boundaries (paga) of
protection. "In one battle," he related, "an enemy place dropped a bomb onto
the deck of our ship. Instead of exploding, however, a to everyone's
astonishment the bomb bounced off the deck and into the water, just like a
rubber ball would!" This minister went on to say that in battle after battle
they and the ship were miraculously spared.
Well-Timed Times to Pray
Boundaries of protection! No trespassing! Life in the secret place! This facet
of intercession is not only to be something we do on a general regular basis
for our family and loves ones. There are also specific times when the Holy
Spirit will alert us to particular situations that need protective prayer.
These are what the Scriptures call kairos times. There are two Greek words for
"time." One is chronos, which is time in general; the general "time in which
anything is done." The other word, kairos, is the strategic or "right time"
the opportune point of time at which something should be done." A window of
opportunity would be a kairos time. A well-timed attack in war would be a
kairos time. When someone is in danger or about to be attacked by Satan, that
is a kairos time. What time it is would be a chronos time.
The Bible speaks of well-timed (kairos) temptations (see Luke 4:13; 8:13). No
doubt coincidental temptations occur—a person just happening to be in the
wrong place at the wrong time—but there are also well-planned, well-timed
temptations. It pays to be alert, both for ourselves and for others. I've had
the Holy Spirit prompt me to pray for individuals, especially young believers,
with the thought, "It's a kairos time of temptation for them" This is what
took place in Luke 22:31,32 when Jesus interceded for Peter, praying that his
faith not fail him after he denied Christ. It worked.
Is it possible that some who have fallen away from Christ would not have if
someone had interceded for them? The Scriptures also inform us of
strategically-timed persecution (see Acts 12:1; 19:23). This is usually to
discourage, distract or, in extreme cases, to destroy us. In these references,
during times of renewal and success in the Early Church, Satan launched
orchestrated attacks of persecution. They failed. Is it possible that much
successful persecution against the Church could be stopped or rendered
unfruitful if we were alert and interceded against it?
Often we forget the instruction to not lean on our own understanding, and fail
to acknowledge Him in our intercession (see Prov. 3:5,6). We do not wait for
or listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, usually to our own hurt. We
forget that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood" (Eph. 6:12, KJV) and that
the "weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (2 Cor. 10:4, KJV). We are so
afraid of becoming demon conscious (putting an overemphasis on them) that we
become unconscious. Sometimes our quest for balance gets us out of balance.
Ephesians 6:18, the context of which is spiritual warfare, says that we are to
"be on the alert...for all the saints" and "pray at all (kairos) times in the
Spirit." He is not telling us here to pray all the time, which would be
chronos, but to pray at all strategic times (kairos). In other words, we are
in a war and if we are alert He will warn us of the well-timed attacks (kairos)
of the enemy, so we can create a boundary (paga) of protection by praying.
Kairos, a Time to Paga
One morning several years ago as I was praying, the Lord gave me a mental
picture. Some might call it a vision. Whatever it is called, I saw something.
A rattlesnake coiled at my dad's feet. Seemed like a kairos time to me! I
spent about 15 minutes praying earnestly for his protection until I felt
released from the urgency. The next day he called me—he was in Florida, I was
in Texas—and said, "You'll never guess what happened yesterday. Jodie (my
stepmother) went out back to the shed. Before walking in as she normally
would, she pushed the door open, stopped and looked down. There where she was
about to step was a coiled rattlesnake. She backed away carefully, came and
got me and I killed it." I said to Dad, "Yeah, I know." Surprised, he asked,
"How did you know?" "I saw it in the spirit," I responded, "and prayed for
your protection. You owe me." (No, I didn't really say the part about owing
me. I acted real humble and said something like, "Praise God" or "Praise
Jesus." You know how we do it!)
What was I doing as I prayed for him? Setting boundaries (paga) of protection
around him and Jodie. How did I pray? I asked the Father to protect them. I
bound any attempt of Satan to harm them. I quoted a verse or two of Scripture
promising protection. Then I prayed in the Spirit. Gail Mummert, a member of
our fellowship in Colorado Springs, shared this remarkable testimony of
protection during a kairos moment in Lancaster, Texas:
"As we were driving home in threatening weather, my husband, Gene, turned on
the radio for a local report. Funnel clouds had indeed been spotted nearby.
After arriving home, things grew strangely calm. In a short while, the wind
started to blow fiercely. Trees were bent over the the very walls of the house
began to flutter. Windows rattled and hail beat on the car port. "Get into the
hall and close the doors," my husband shouted. "Get pillows, blankets and a
flashlight." "Nana, I'm scared," cried our five-year-old grandson, William.
"Jesus will take care of us. Don't be afraid," I told him. Suddenly sirens
began to go off in our small town. The walls moved as thought they weren't
anchored to anything. "If we're not in a tornado, we're close," shouted Gene
as he ran into the hall. "Link arms and sit on the floor," I said. "I love
you," Gene said to us as he surrounded us with blankets and pillows, covered
us with his body and enveloped us with his arms. A might rushing wind was all
around us and sucked us together into a ball. "Pray! Keep praying," he said.
"God Almighty, help us!" we screamed. Explosion! Windows shattered, glass flew
everywhere. Another explosion. The walls caved in. Debris shot everywhere like
arrows toward their target. "Jesus, help us! You are our Savior! You are our
King!" my voice cried. I looked up—the roof was falling on us. A ladder
crashed down on my husband's back. "Now start praising Him," Gene shouted
through the wind. The next blast was the worst. There was nothing we could do.
Only He could help us. Everything was out of control, but we knew the
sovereignty of God. We knew we were at the point of death but we shouted,
"Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord!" Suddenly, peace filled me like a flood. A
sweet voice filled my heart, "I've heard your cry for help. I've bent the
heavens for you. No matter what happens around you, I'm here protecting you."
Tears flooded my face and I knew Jesus was protecting us. It seemed his arms
had surrounded us. I knew we would be safe. The tornado was over. The rain
beat down on us with a force I had never felt before. We were safe. "Mama, I
see the sky," little William said. "William, that's because the roof is gone.
We probably won't have any walls, either," Gene informed him. "I'm so thankful
we're okay," our daugther Wendy cried. ""Jesus protected us, didn't He?"
Though buried under tons of debris, our hair covered with insulation and
glass, we were okay. just a few minor injuries.
Talk about walls of protection! Several people were killed and many injured in
that devastating tornado, but the everlasting arms of the Lord protected the
Memmert family. Gail was privileged to share her entire story with The Dallas
Morning news. The newspaper even printed her testimony about the protection of
the Lord. I had a friend in Dallas several years ago who experienced an
interesting answer to prayer in a kairos situation. She had gone early one
morning to visit her son and daughter-in-law. The son worked an all-night
shift so, awaiting his return from work, his wife and mother visited for
awhile. As time wore on the son didn't arrive, Mom began to feel uneasy.
Something didn't seem right. Thinking that perhaps he was still at work, they
called his place of employement, "No," they were told, "he has already left."
Becoming more alarmed the mother said, "I'm concerned. Let's drive toward his
place of work." She had assumed her son had left work at his mornal time and
should have been home by then wehn, in fact, he had left just moments before
their call. But the Lord was directing even in that because, though he was not
in any danger yet, the Holy Spirit knew a kairos moment was coming for this
young man, and He wanted this praying mother there when it happened.
As Mom and daughter-in-law drove toward his workplace on a busy Dallas
parkway, they saw him coming from the other direction on his motorcycle,
traveling around 40 to 50 feet through the air. He was not even wearing a
helmet. As the boy was moving through the air, Mom was praying, "Jesus,
protect my son!" She continued to pray as they turned around and drove back to
him. A crowd had already gathered around him, and they ran to the scene
wondering what they would find. They found a miracle! No injuries—no bones
broken, no lacerations, no internal injuries. Just a dazed young man wondering
what had happened. Paga happened...Kairos paga happened! Boundaried happened.
A mother picked up on the warning from the Holy Spirit and was therefore in
the right place at the right time.
Does this mean that if you weren't there praying when someone you loved had an
accident, you're to blame for their injury or death? Of course not. If we all
played that guessing game, it would drive us insane. It simply means we must
be alert, and when warnings do come from the Holy Spirit, we must respond by
praying—building some boundaries.
I heard a guest lecturer at Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas tell
another interesting story involving not a kairos moment but a kairos season fo
building boundaries (paga) of protection. He had a vivid reoccurring dream,
which he felt strongly was a warning from the Lord, of his married daugther
dying. In the dream he was not shown how her death happened, but he felt
strongly that Satan had a well-laid plan to take his daughter's life. So as
not to alarm her, he told only his son-in-law and the two of them began to
intercede (paga) daily for her safety. They were building boundaries (paga) of
protection around her.
This minister related how several times a day—while he worked, drove his car,
walked, whenever it came to mind—he would bind Satan's plan to take his
daughter's life. "How would he do this?" some might ask. "What did he say?" He
probably said things like:
• "Father, I bring my daugther to You." That is creating a "meeting" (paga)
with God.
• "I ask You to protect her from any trap Satan has set for her. You said
You would deliver us from the snare of the trapper" (see Ps. 91:3). That is
building "boundaries" (paga) of protection.
• "Thank you for laying this prayer burden on me that I might lift off and
carry away from her (nasa) this assignment of death." That's having someone
else's burden or weakness "laid on" (paga) us.
• "Satan, I blind this plan of yours and break any hold you may have gained
in this situation. your weapons against her won't prosper and your not going
to take her life." That is "meeting" (paga) the enemy to break.
• "I do this in the name of Jesus!" That's basing all our prayers on the
work Christ has already done. It's representing Him...administering what He
has already accomplished...enforcing His victory.
About a month later—remember, I said this was a kairos season and I said he
prayed daily—his daughter received a promotion at work. With the promotion
came a life insurance policy which mandated a physical exam. At one point in
the process, after a blood sample had been taken, a doctor addressed her in a
near panic with the question and comments, "Lady, what have you been doing in
your diet? We can find no potassium in you at all! You should be dead. There
is no reasonable explanation as to why you're alive. When this deficiency
occurs a person normally feels fine but suddenly drops dead. We must get you
to the hospitial immediately and begin to replenish the potassium."
She lived, of course. She had been on a strange diet for several weeks during
which she had eaten only one or two kinds of food. Though there was no
reasonable explanation as to why she lived, we know the spiritual explanation:
A boundary (paga of protection built in the spirit through prayer.
Under the Shadow of the Most High. Keep Out!
Perhaps the most amazing example of kairos-timed intercession in my life
happened on one of my journeys to Guatemala. I was one of 40 to 45 individuals
traveling to a remote place on the Passion River in the Peten Jungle. Our
mission was to build a combination clinic and outreach station on the river.
We were to be constructing two buildings as well as doing a little preaching
in the nearby villages. It was an amazing trip. We ate monkey meat and boa
constrictor. We killed huge tarantulas, a nine-inch scorpion and a coral snake
in our camp. I was attacked by ants which, unbeknownst to us, had taken refule
in the lumber we were hauling and sleeping on as we traveled all night up the
river. We flew in old, rickety army planes and landed on fields from which
goats had to be cleared prior to our arrival. (None of this has anything to do
with prayer, but it lets you know how incredibly brave I am and how much I've
suffered for the cause of Christ.)
Our leader, Hap Brooks, had me leading songs from the front of our long dugout
canoe as we journeyed up and down the river. his favorite was "It's a Good
Life Livin' for the Lord." He also made me utter my famous Tarzan call, which
was incredibly good and would reverberate across the river and into the
jungle. Natives from the villages would stand on the banks and listen. Having
never seen or heard Tarzan, of course, they were not terribly impressed—in
fact they sort of had that "who is that idiot?" look on their faces. That is,
until the animals in the jungle began to come to me! They had the same
expression. (This has nothing to do with prayer, either, but it lets you know
how incredibly talented I am.)
Back to the purpose of the story. Prior to leavin for the jungle, we spent our
first night (Friday) in Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala. We had
arranged months earlier for the Guatemalan airlines to fly us the following
day into the jungle. On our arrival at the airport Saturday afternoon, we were
informed that they had changed their plans and would fly us to our destination
not that day but the next.
Feeling an urgency to go as scheduled due to the limited amount of time to
accomplish our mission, our leaders pressed the airlines for three hours to
honor their original agreement. "No," the manager said in his broken English,"
we take you tomorrow." "But you agreed months ago to take us today," we
argued. "We have no pilot available," they countered. "Find one," we pleaded.
"What is your hurry? Enjoy the city," they encouraged us.
And so it went for three hours, in and out of offices, meeting with one
official, then another. Finally, in exasperation, one of them threw up his
hands and said, "Okay, we take you now! Get on that plane—quickly!" We all ran
to the plane, throwing our bags and tools into the baggage area ourselves. We
wanted to leave before they changed their minds.
That night, while we were 250 miles away, an earthquake hit Guatemala City and
killed 30,000 people in 34 seconds! Had we stayed in the city one more
night—as the airlines wanted us to—some of our team would have been killed and
other injured. We know this for certain because on our return to the city we
saw the building we had stayed in the night before the earthquake—and would
have been staying in again had we not left on Saturday—with huge beams lying
across the beds.
The connection between all this and our subject is that an intercessor from
our home church back in Ohio had receive a strong burden to pray for us on the
second day of our journey. For three hours she was in intense intercession for
us. Can you guess which three hours? Yes. The three hours that our leaders
were negotiating with the airline officials. We didn't know that our lives
were in jeopardy had we stayed another night in Guatemala City, but God did.
This intercessor didn't know either. She only knew that for some reason she
had a strong burden to pray for us. She was alert, as Ephesians 6;18 instructs
us, and perceived the kairos time. There isn't a doubt in my mind that she
helped create the protection and intervention we experienced.
There is a life in the secret place, but it's not automatic for believers.
Although we are promised protection from our enemy, we have a definite part to
play in the securing of it for ourselves and for others. The intercessor knows
this and leaves nothing to chance, posting signs for all the forces of hell to
see: "Under the shadow of the Most High. Keep out!"