Prayer Repenting for Cessationism in the Body of Christ – Heather Baker

It was a sunny morning at Harbor Regional Park in Wilmington. A group of intercessors were meeting to pray for revival to come to our area of Los Angeles County, California. There we were, sitting in our lawn chairs with our visors, sunglasses, and Bibles, chit chatting before we began to pray.

We had been praying together for several years. We had repented for the sins of the First Nations peoples, the Spaniards, the Anglo Americans, and the current sins that we knew of for the area. We had done much onsite praying for specific sins we had found out occurred at certain locations.

There had been some connecting and reconciliation between the churches in the area. There had also been some repentance by the newly united pastors to the city leaders of Torrance, the largest town in the area. A covenant was made between the churches and the city stating that the churches would help the city as they could.

We were thankful for these answers to our prayers, but they just weren’t enough! The churches in the area still didn’t like to allow the Holy Spirit room to operate. Even the Pentecostal denominations were severely limiting prophetic words and opportunities for healing prayer. We wanted to see the people of God operating in all the gifts God had given.

Carol showed up that morning with a workbook she had received at a conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was by Randy Clark, and the topic was the progressive deleting of the supernatural from history (and therefore from today) throughout the history of the Church. This removal had led to a doctrine which is widely taught in most seminaries, called Cessationism. Cessationism is the belief that God no longer operates in prophetic or miraculous ways.

Carol reported that she had been absolutely heartbroken and astonished as she had listened to the history while Randy Clark spoke at the conference. Most of the information was shocking to her, as it revealed the depth of what we have lost. She felt that the Lord wanted our group to use Randy’s information and write up a repentance prayer for the gradual destruction of the belief in the work of the Holy Spirit that could be used by Christians everywhere.

We read a little bit of the workbook, and asked the Lord what to do. We felt we were to write the prayer.

The truth is, God has given us all spiritual blessings in Heavenly places in Christ. It is the enemy who wants to keep these blessings from us.

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

But our leaders have been like the Pharisees, blocking the door to the Kingdom of heaven, and have gradually restricted people’s access to the prophetic and miraculous. Matthew 23:13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”

If faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, how can the church have faith, when the Word of God is neutered by those who are teaching it? In removing the Church’s belief in God’s ability and desire to move on their behalf, the leaders removed the key that opens up so many of heaven’s blessings. Matthew 9:29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. What had been stolen from the Body of Christ was enormous!

So we met, week after week, in the park, reviewing the workbook, listening to the Lord, and writing a repentance prayer. There were always between four and seven of us seeking the Lord’s will, listening for God’s heart on the matter. At the end of each meeting, we would actively pray through what we had just written. At times we wept as we prayed, grieving for what had been taken away from the Church. Other times we manifested as demonic entities left us. We were all baptized in the Holy Spirit, but there were still strongholds coming against each of us that needed to leave.

Each week, I would then take what we had written home, and type it into the computer, trying to use the words carefully and briefly. Someone had suggested that we include scripture references to allow the readers to look up what scripture says regarding each idea, issue, or thought. References were found, and added to the draft.

After several months, the draft was complete. It had taken so long because we wanted it to be able this prayer to be used by any person or group who wanted to be set free from unbelief in the current working of God.

We prayed it again for ourselves. Then we prayed it for our churches and the other churches in our area. We prayed it for the church at large. We also spent time repenting for the seminaries and institutions. There was more weeping and deliverance.

Thankfully, in our area, things are beginning to change. There is at least one large church that is holding once a week healing meetings. The youth in that church go out on prophetic evangelism outings. There is an increase of the Word of God at some of the more traditional denominations in our area. I have noticed more freedom to speak about the Lord in the workplace without reprisals. There is an ease in the area, which wasn’t here before.

Prayer Repenting for Cessationism in the Body of Christ

In Order to break the stronghold of Cessationism, on behalf of ourselves and those who came before us, we repent of and renounce the following sins:

Old Testament time period:

• Adam and Eve’s desire to be like God and eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, believing God’s Word wasn’t true.

• For man’s building of the Tower of Babel, and man’s choice to create his own religious way to God, which the Tower represented.

• For the worship of the Golden Calf (Baal/Satan) while Moses was on the mountain receiving God’s commands.

• For mankind choosing to worship according to their own customs and will, rather than by obeying God’s commands and statutes.

• For the slow devaluation of the Word of the Lord, as evidenced by the loss of the written Word of God until its discovery in Josiah’s time.

• For the persecution and murder of the prophets of the Most High God, who moved in the miraculous, by those who claimed to worship God.

• For the Maccabean Jews’ acceptance that the dead minor prophets’ miracles were “more miraculous” than the prophetic words and miracles occurring in their time, and so they: Stopped expecting or believing that miracles or prophecy could be for them; turned from prophecy and relationship with God to allow only the study of the written Torah, and it’s interpretation; honored what they could control (studies) and devalued what they could not control; accepted the cessation of miracles and prophecy.

• For the monumental influence of Plato’s Dualistic world view which taught that the spiritual realm is superior to the natural and physical realm, which is inferior, worthless, and even evil.

• For the crucial effect Plato’s writings had on the course of Church History. His writings devalued the human body, which Jesus came to save and to heal, and denied any healing ministry.

Early Church time period:

• For Maximilla declaring “After me there will be no more prophecy to the end of the age.”

• For Victorian’s statement that “The mighty signs and wonders of the apostles overcame the unbelievers. After that, the faith was established, the charismata have ceased, and now the church is comforted by the interpreted scripture“.

• For Ambrosiaster’s teachings that only Apostles can perform miracles and miracles have therefore ceased.

• For the Unscriptural Teachings of John Chrysostom (347-407) saying that: Miracles are for those weak in faith; when True Religion took hold, miracles ceased; to suffer for Christ is much greater than to experience miraculous deliverance from that suffering; the sign greater than all signs is deliverance from sin, “therefore, we don’t need any other sign or miracle; if we choose Christian love as the best spiritual gift we shall have no need of signs.

• We repent for Jerome, while translating the Vulgate Bible , choosing to translate the Greek verb sozo, which means saved healed and delivered, as saved only, hiding the healing aspect of the verb.

• We repent for Augustine’s early teachings: that miracles do not need to continue, because they will weaken faith, and keep people from maturing; his many books devaluing the miraculous, which greatly impacted the reformers centuries later; his dependence on Plato’s philosophy, and not adhering only to the Word of God, and the Spirit of Truth; and, for the his teachings that changed the world view of the Church from a scriptural Warfare World View to a more passive Blueprint World View.

Middle Age time period:

• All influence into Christianity from Gnosticism, especially the teaching that our bodies are evil, and that Jesus did not die on the cross and provide forgiveness for our sins and healing for our diseases.

• For the influence of Plato’s Dualistic world view on the Gnostics, who then influenced the Church.

• For Gregory the Great, who said that miracles were necessary at first, but are no longer needed, thus further stifling ordinary believers from using their gifts.

• For Thomas Aquinas’s, statement that the only purpose for miracles was to serve as a visible sign, a testimony to guarantee the divine source and truth of Christian Doctrine, and that enough miracles had been done to prove faith once and for all.

• That the Church Fathers who failed to see the compassion and care of our Father in the healing of the sick, and His great mercy toward the afflicted.

• For the belief of the Church Fathers that: the Apostolic level of the miraculous could not and should not be approached or attempted any longer, as it has ceased; miracles are given out by merit. No one now is righteous enough ; miracles are not needed, they have been replaced by piety and the study of scripture.

• For each way these doctrines limited and grieved the Holy Spirit, throughout the centuries.

• That we have allowed the philosophies and vain deceits of Greece and Rome to influence our belief systems.

• That we have built the foundation of our beliefs on the tradition of the Church Fathers rather than on your Word.

• That we have based the doctrines and practices of the church on the traditions and cultures of the world, and not on Christ Jesus our Lord.

• That the restrictions on learning to read kept people from learning the truth.

• That as true faith and morality gradually declined in church leadership, the power to heal gradually declined as well, which led to the belief that normal persons who operated in the power to heal were accused of operating by the power of the devil.

Reformers and Reformation time period:

• That as the reformers searched for authority, they became more opposed to the supernatural.

• Their extreme concern for maintaining control, believing that this control was necessary in order to stay alive, consequently stifling the Holy Spirit’s moving, speaking, or leading.

• For the Protestant’s rejection, envy, and judgment of the miracles occurring in the Catholic Churches before, during, and after the Reformation, even accusing the Catholics of doing miracles by the Devil’s power.

• For the Protestant Movement’s unbelief and suspicion of the miraculous.

• Wherever the Reformers encouraged legalism, rather than heeding the Spirit of God, to interpret scripture.

• That they did not understand that God’s power flows through relationship with God, not through doctrine.

Age of Enlightenment time period:

• For the changes in belief, doctrine, and practice made during the age of Enlightenment /Reason, which were based on our human desire to be God.

• For the gradual change in the core of Protestantism from the Word of God to a human authority based in perception and reason. We exalted our minds, and devalued His Word.

• For the exaltation of scientific investigation, rather than the Logos and Rhema of the Living God which caused people to explain away miracles as part of the natural order. We repent for redefining miracles into explainable ordinary events.

• That the seminaries taught the pastors not to believe in miracles.

• For allowing skepticism and rationalism to train us that the laws of nature are unbreakable, even by the creator of the universe.

• For rationalism’s influence that revelation is not necessary in Christianity.

• For skepticism encouraging doubt in the church.

• For Dispensationalism

• For teaching that the miraculous ended with the death of the Twelve Apostles.

• For the suspicion and fear of emotion, enthusiasm, and experience that entered the Protestant Church during the 1700’s.

• For the book by Conyers Middleton, and his refusal to believe in the miraculous no matter what.

• For Thomas Reid’s desire to build a foundation of human philosophy instead of the true foundation which is Jesus Christ.

• For the Protestant Church in the USA for establishing Scottish Common Sense Philosophy in our churches and seminaries. In so doing we put ourselves and our minds in the place of God.

• Every way that the church accepted these attitudes, these philosophies, and put faith in human reason.

• Every way the church believed that by education, humanity could be changed for the better, rather than by the Word and Spirit of God.

• For the liberal, humanist, and modern secularist philosophies which crept into the church due to this belief in education and that relying on the Holy Spirit was not important.

• Regarding Benjamin B. Warfield, we ask forgiveness for: 1.His highly influential and prominent book Counterfeit Miracles, taught in US seminaries, which teaches, contrary to scripture, that the only purpose for miracles is to accredit the gospel, therefore all other miracles are counterfeit. 2 His denial that Spiritual Gifts and Miracles ARE the Gospel of the Kingdom. 3. That most US pastors were trained by his teachings. 4 Continuing Calvin’s teaching that Christians cannot have demons. 5. For his statement, “There is no true religion in the world… which is not Calvinistic.”

Present Day time Period:

• All present day Bible commentaries, handbooks, and teachings which state, agree with, or confirm the belief that miracles have ceased and are no longer available to us.
• All present day Bible commentaries, handbooks, and teachings which treat the miraculous or prophetic with suspicion, accusation, or devaluation.

• For the intense, ongoing verbal and written criticism of Spirit filled believers by Cessationist believers, and for the effect this verbal strife has had on the Body of Christ alive today.

• For every believer who did not know they were being taught lies when they were being taught Cessationism. Forgive us for not searching scripture for ourselves. Forgive us for passively accepting Cessationist teachings as truth.

We Declare that:

• Jesus Christ is the only true foundation for the church, her beliefs and practices, and her life.

• In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power.

•Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

• We declare that He has not stopped working miracles on behalf of his people.

• We declare that the Kingdom of God is not of words, but of Power!

• We declare that every need we have has been provided by Jesus’ death and Resurrection, and this includes healing, deliverance, salvation, provision, protection, guidance, Sonship, and relationship with God the Father.

• We declare that By His Stripes we are healed of every infirmity and weakness.

• We declare that He created us to walk in the fullness of all that He is.

• We declare that He will not withhold any good thing from us, and that we sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

• We declare that His Spirit lives in us, who believe in Jesus Christ the Savior, and this Spirit pours life and health into our beings.

• We declare that Jesus was sent to destroy the works of the Devil, including sickness, sin, poverty, and death.

• We declare that Jesus Christ is the only Light, Truth, and Life, in Him are we fully and abundantly equipped, functioning, and made whole.

• We declare that God will move in our lives, and we will keep our confidence in Him.