Pleading or executing: what thirty years taught me about prayer
It took me years to understand why certain prayers, fervent as they were, go round in circles.
It was not a question of faith. The people I was walking with believed. It was not a question of intensity: they prayed loudly, at length, sometimes all night. It was a question of position. They were standing before God like beggars at the door of a courthouse, when the case had already been judged.
The judgment is not to be obtained, it is written
“Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen… to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints.”Psalm 149 : 6-9
Read the last line slowly. The psalmist does not say "to obtain a judgment". He says: the judgment written. The court has sat. The sentence is handed down. The order is signed in the blood of the Lamb.
What heaven is waiting for is not a new verdict. It is someone to carry it out.
Most of God's children plead with a Judge who has already ruled. They ask permission for something already granted them, and they wear themselves out asking again, believing that repetition will eventually move someone. But God is not moved: he has already decided. What is missing is not his decision — it is someone willing to stand up as an officer of the heavenly court and serve the order.
The difference can be heard in the voice
I can tell the two prayers apart by ear, and so will you.
The prayer that pleads rises: it calls, it insists, it comes back again. It says "Lord, please", and says it thirty times. Its tone is that of someone hoping to be heard.
The prayer that executes descends: it sets something down. It says "it is written", and then it declares. Its tone is that of a man serving a decision of the court — calm, because he does not need to persuade; firm, because he has no doubt about the text.
The prayer that executes is not louder than the other. It is better founded.
That distinction changes everything in practice. The one who pleads grows tired, because his assurance depends on his energy. The one who executes can pray in a measured voice for two hours without exhausting himself, because his assurance does not come from himself.
The text first, the declaration after
This is why, in my night-watch manuals, every petition is built in two movements, always in the same order.
First the text. One or more verses, quoted in full. That is the legal title. Without it, the declaration that follows is only a pious opinion.
Then the declaration. It puts the text into effect, in a precise situation, in the name of Jesus.
Never the reverse. A declaration without a text is a prayer that authorises itself — and that is exactly where spiritual warfare goes off the rails, here as elsewhere: people start decreeing things Scripture never said, with an authority nobody gave them.
If you remember only one rule from everything I teach, remember this one: we declare only what is written.
How to pray a petition, in practice
Read the verse aloud. Do not run straight on. Let it settle in your mind — a few seconds are enough, but they are necessary: that is the moment the text stops being a formula and becomes a foundation.
Then speak the declaration. Aloud as well, without hurrying, like a man reading out an order, not like a beggar hoping.
And move to the next one. Do not go back to "better" pray a petition already prayed. A court officer does not serve the same document twice because he was unhappy with his tone of voice.
The limits of the mandate
The boundary has to be set here, because this chapter of prayer is the one that goes wrong fastest.
To execute a judgment does not mean to judge someone. This fight targets no human being: "we wrestle not against flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6 : 12). You judge the work, never the worker.
And vengeance still does not belong to you. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12 : 19) An officer of the court does not invent the sentence, he serves it. The day he begins writing the orders himself, he is no longer an officer: he is a forger.
The purpose of executing the judgment is the deliverance of captives and the glory of God. Never the ruin of a man.
Between pleading and executing there is no difference of fervour. There is a difference of standing. One waits at the door hoping to be let in. The other walks in, because the key has been put in his hand.
It is written. That is all you need in order to stand up.
This text takes up the opening of the night-watch manual "Exécuter le jugement qui est écrit" — twenty prayer petitions founded on Psalm 149 : 6-9.
Scripture quoted from the King James Version.