The power of prayer and fasting are not confined to the Old Testament kings and prophets, or the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. The testimony to the power of prayer runs through all the long history of Christianity. It shapes the lives and the history of nations, and most of us have seen it demonstrated in our experience on many occasions.
In this study, we shall look at some examples in which different nations and political factors were involved. One of these situations was given by Bible teacher and scholar Derek Prince in his book, Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting.
Derek Prince and his wife Lydia served as educational missionaries in Kenya East Africa from 1957 to 1961, and Derek was also the principal of a teacher training college in Western Kenya. The Scriptures tell us that behind human government, politics and historical events, families, communities there are influences of demonic forces.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NKJV).
The End of Stalin’s Era
From 1949 to 1956, Derek was pastor of a congregation in London, England. He retained a special interest in God’s dealings with the Jewish people, which had first been kindled his experiences in Jerusalem at the time of the birth of the state of Israel.
Early in 1953, he received information from reliable sources that Josef Stalin, who at the time ruled the Soviet Union as an unchallenged dictator, was planning a systematic purge directed against the Russian Jews. As he meditated on this situation, the Lord reminded him of Paul’s exhortation to the gentile Christians concerning the Jews:
Just as you were once disobedient and rebellious toward God but now have obtained His mercy, through their disobedience, So they also now are being disobedient when you are receiving mercy, that they in turn may one day, through the mercy you are enjoying, also receive mercy that they may share the mercy which has been shown to you—through you as messengers of the Gospel to them (Romans 11: 30-31 AMP).
Somehow, he felt that God was laying at his door the responsibility for the Jews in Russia. Derek shared his feelings with the leaders of a few small prayer groups, in various parts of Britain, who also had a special concern for the Jews. Eventually, they decided to set aside one day for special prayer and fasting on behalf of the Russian Jews.
Derek doesn’t recall the exact date chosen but he believes it was a Thursday. All the members of their groups voluntarily committed themselves to abstain from food that day and to devote special time to prayer for God’s intervention on behalf of the Jews in Russia. Their congregation met that evening for group prayer devoted primarily to that topic.
There was no particularly dramatic spiritual manifestation in the meeting, no special sense of being “blessed” or emotionally stirred. But within two weeks from that day, the course of history inside Russia was changed by one decisive event: the death of Stalin. He was seventy-three years old. No advance warning of his sickness or impending death was given to the Russian people. Up to the last moment, sixteen of Russia’s most skilled doctors fought to save his life, but in vain. The cause of death was said to be a brain haemorrhage.
Let it be clearly stated that no member of any of Derek’s groups prayed for the death of Stalin. They simply committed the situation inside Russia to God, and trusted His wisdom for the answer that was needed. Nevertheless, Derek was convinced that God’s answer came in the form of Stalin’s death.
King Herod
In Acts chapter 12, a somewhat similar answer to the prayers of the early church is recorded. King Herod had the apostle James, brother of John, executed. Then he proceeded to arrest Peter and hold him for execution immediately after the Passover. At this point, the church in Jerusalem applied themselves to earnest, persistent prayer on Peter’s behalf.
As a result, God intervened supernaturally through an angelic visitation, and Peter was delivered out of the prison. In this way, the prayers of the church for Peter were answered, but still remained for God to deal with Herod.
In the closing verses of the chapter, Luke gives a vivid picture of Herod, arrayed in his royal apparel, making a speech to the people of Tyre and Sidon. At the end of his oration, the people applauded, shouting, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man” (Acts 12:22 KJV). Puffed with conceit at his own achievements, Herod accepted the applause. However, the record concludes, “Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory” (12:23). And in fearful internal agony, he died. The outworking of the power of prayer in human history can at times be swift and terrible.
It remains to point out the consequences of Stalin’s death. The planned purge of Russian Jews was not carried out. Instead, a period of change in internal Russian policy was initiated, so significant and far-reaching that it later came to be known as the era of “destalinization.”
In due course, Stalin’s successor and former associate, Khrushchev, denounced Stalin as a cruel and unjust persecutor of the Russian people. Later, Stalin’s daughter, who had been raised under the teaching of atheistic communism, fled from her native land and sought refuge in the country that her father had persistently abused. She further professed her faith in a crucified Jew, whose followers her father had cruelly persecuted. In Part 2, we continue to learn of this great pattern of shaping history through prayer and fasting.
