Keys to Breakthrough

By David Hobbs

When we find ourselves afflicted and oppressed, there is sometimes a spiritual key that, when inserted into the lock of our oppression, releases us just like a key releasing a lock. It's like a missing puzzle piece, that when placed in its spot in the puzzle, completes the electrical circuit of our healing and allows deliverance to “spring forth speedily” (Isa. 58:8). [Isaiah 58 is full of these spiritual keys for unlocking oppression and bringing God’s blessing down to our lives.]

Consider our friend Job in the Bible. As oppressed and afflicted as he was, yet the Bible says “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10). Praying for his friends, who had falsely accused and maligned him, was the key that immediately freed him from all his troubles and returned him to God’s favor.

In my just-published book, Walking in the Spirit, I experienced a similar key to deliverance in chapter 13: “Demonic Opposition: Graduate School,” in the story “The War Raging Around Us” (pages 130-134). This was an intense spiritual battle which sidelined me while we were having a breakthrough worship conference at our church, leaving me totally unable to enter in. After struggling for the whole weekend, by the last meeting I was too weak to stand or sing along. All I could do was sit in my chair, tap my feet to the music, and raise my hands. But doing those two things which I could do proved to be the key to unlock my deliverance. As I continued doing those two things, the Holy Spirit began pouring into me until I could make some sounds, then sing along to the music, then sing louder, then stand, and by the end of the meeting I was totally restored like the whole thing had never happened!

I’m sure if I had sat through the meeting like a bump on a log feeling sorry for myself, the deliverance would not have occurred. But somehow, by God’s grace, I was able to meet that condition of His deliverance, and it happened miraculously from there on.

I bring all this up because I had a similar experience about 2 weeks ago which showed me again the power of this concept.

I was at our church’s Men’s Camp, which we have once a year about this time. I was desperately hoping for a breakthrough. For a long time I had been feeling rundown, tired and weak. I was finding it difficult to muster up enough strength to pray. I wasn’t able to get up and pray in the middle of the night like I had for so many years because of this fatigue. Even when I could make it out to the church, I was too tired to walk around and sing or pray or worship. All I could do was sit in silence and eventually fall asleep. Bummer! The hypochondriac in me was fearing Chronic Fatigue Syndrone. Satan was leering, “Here you’re coming out with this book on prayer, encouraging other people to pray and seek God and you can’t even do it yourself! Hah! What a hypocrite!”

So I was desperate for a breakthrough at Men’s Camp to restore my strength. Doesn’t the Bible say if we wait on the Lord He will renew our strength so we rise up on wings as eagles? And I was sure waiting on the Lord. In fact in my weakened state that’s about all I could do!

But still it didn’t happen. I was entering in as best I could, but feeling as weak as ever. I got to thinking “How long is this going to be? Am I always going to be this weak from now on? Will I never again feel the power of God’s anointing lifting me as the wind beneath my wings?” Had I been as bold as David of old I would have been praying these things as he did in the Psalms. But I was just thinking them to myself.

The second day came and I was still going through the motions. Then, I’m not sure how it happened, but during the worship service the thought came to me that though I was longing for total strength to be able to worship God in power, yet-yet-yet God said “you are giving Me more glory right now by worshipping Me in your weakness, than you would if you were shouting it from the rooftops in total power!”

“OK,” I said to myself, “if this weak output really glorifies God, then let’s get it on!” I started singing out with all the intensity I could muster, now that I was sure it was pleasing to Him. And lo and behold, I had found the key to unlock my prison! Suddenly I could feel the power of God entering me again and that horrible spirit of weakness draining out of me like water being soaked up by dry sand.

Sometimes, in addition to praying for deliverance, we should pray that God would open our eyes to discover the key to the deliverance. It might just be as simple as that!

The Macedonian Call

By David Hobbs

Acts 16:9—During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

I just returned from a road trip to some of the rural areas of Calif., handing out copies of my book Out of the Fire to fire stations, trying to get it placed in bookstores, and as is my custom, praying over churches in the towns I visit. There is usually nobody at the churches, but I pray and try to sense the leading of the Holy Spirit. At this one particular church, I really wanted to make contact with the pastor and I felt like tarrying on the premises until God sent someone.
After praying and singing in worship for about 45 min., sure enough a nice lady drove up--a member of the church. I told her about my book, why I was there, and my burden for the rural churches to experience revival and the moving of the Spirit like many churches in the cities were. She informed me that the pastor I was seeking was no longer there, and that the church had no pastor at present. She went on to tell me that many of the churches in town had no permanent pastor. (There was a denominational church where the denomination had decided not even to place a permanent pastor there anymore, but a pastor from a neighboring church would come and preach every week.) Furthermore, the attendance at all the churches (except the Catholic Church) was way down—her church had a weekly attendance of 35 average.
I felt such a burden for the dying churches in the town. I told her this was not God’s will; that He wanted to revive the churches and reach the lost through them. I felt like volunteering to take over a pastorless church and tell the people, “Come on, let’s pray-in revival!”
This morning I was back home pondering the situation and praying, “Lord how can I help these people?”
I felt the ever-gentle Holy Spirit remind me of the story from Acts that we refer to as the Macedonian Call. “You can’t do anything until there’s a Macedonian Call.”
I remembered a church in another rural town a year and a half ago. I had felt in my spirit like I needed to make a road trip to this town; I sensed there was someone praying, asking for help. When I got there with my son Daniel, the Lord led me right to a church where this pastor had just been praying to God, asking Him why he didn’t have anyone to help him in this difficult area, asking Him if anybody cared . . . basically throwing a spiritual pity party, but still crying out to God. That very morning we showed up saying we wanted to pray for him and his church. We spent a couple of hours in his office, praying for him and over him, prophesying over him (some of the same prophetic words he had gotten in seminary years ago) and encouraging him. At one point he was literally in tears because of the goodness and sovereignty of God sending us there in response to his cries.
But now the Holy Spirit was telling me, “Where’s the Macedonian call for help from this town? Yes the situation is critical, but who is burdened about it enough to cry out to Me for assistance? I can’t send you or anybody else until someone prays My burden back to Me for aid.”
I remembered the story of Moses being sent to deliver Egypt. It didn’t work until the people “groaned in their slavery and cried out.” Then “their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.” After that, “God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham . . . . and was concerned about them.” [Exodus 2:23-24] The very next passage is God appearing to Moses in the burning bush and commissioning him to return to Egypt to deliver Israel.
God has all the resources we could possibly need. But in many cases He is waiting for us to partner with Him and pray them in.
Are we willing to humble ourselves and pray? Are we willing to seek God until the burden of the Holy Spirit falls on us and we can pray it back to God?