I wrote the following this month last year and posted it to my Facebook page as an encouragement to pray every single day for your family. We’re living in a compressed time of unusual attack from every angle of life. Many years ago, I began to pray specifically for my immediate family and ask God to protect them from harm as they travel and do life each day. I have done this for several decades now, and I have never missed a day in praying this way.
“Pleading the blood of Jesus” is not found in the Bible. The Bible does say that we overcome our enemy by the blood of the lamb and by the Word of our testimony. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death (Revelation 12:11 - NKJV). The following verse mentions that Satan at some point comes down to earth in great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time (Revelation 12:12). Pleading the blood of Jesus is a term from the early twentieth century that is a simplified way of saying: From all that Jesus did in His death, burial, and resurrection, and the position and seating in heavenly places that we have over all the powers of darkness that His sacrifice provides for me, I stand against you Satan!
So every day, I plead the blood of Jesus over my family, naming each one by name (17 in all including grandchildren and my mother who lives with us) and I command the angels of God to watch over us as we travel and do life. We cannot see them, but angels work on our behalf when we speak God’s Word. Listen to the following verses:
Psalms 103:20 (NKJV)
Bless the LORD, you His angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word.
Hebrews 1:14 - Arthur S. Way Translation
The angels! What are they but all servants, spirits that render service to God, who are hour by hour being despatched on errands of ministration for the help of us who are destined to have salvation as our heritage?
Notice that angels ministered to Jesus when He was in the wilderness and had just finished a forty day fast and temptations from Satan, and they ministered to Him during His praying in Gethsemane just before His death and resurrection:
Matthew 4:11 (NKJV)
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
Luke 22:41-43 (NKJV)
And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.
Jesus had nothing available to help Him that we do not have available to help us today! If angels helped Him, then they are available to help us too. We put our angels to work by commanding them in the name of Jesus to go and protect us. I personally believe that we have the authority to bind Satan and loose the angels of God to help us in life’s affairs:
Matthew 16:19 (NKJV)
And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
I have with success commanded the angels of God to help me with this or that, or to keep me safe as I travel. I have been protected in foreign countries when danger suddenly came out of nowhere. I have been protected from accidents so many times while traveling here in America. Our roads are more dangerous than ever!
So, here is the Facebook post I made from earlier this week which tells the story of my deliverance from harm in a potentially seven car accident!
A disaster that did not happen
Psalms 91:1-7 (NLT)
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him. For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection. Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies in the day. Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,nor the disaster that strikes at midday. Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you.
May, 2022
I drove to Atlanta on Monday to attend a leader’s conference on Tuesday (today). I was driving back today, and started my six hour drive thanking God for His protection and by pleading the blood of Jesus over me and my Red Tundra. I specifically thanked God while praying that His angels would watch over me and keep me in His care, and unusually added that neither me nor my Toyota Tundra truck would have as much as a scratch on us on the trip home. I thought it a bit odd for me to pray that way. Two hours into the trip on I-85 North at mile marker 61, a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and a Honda minivan collided right in front of me. I braked really hard and was just able to stop before hitting the van. At the same time, I looked in the rear view mirror and I saw a huge “18 wheel tractor-trailer semi truck” barreling towards me. I had nowhere to go. I braced for impact, and the truck amazingly stopped just short of plowing into me, leaving a trail of black tire marks on the asphalt. As I continued to look in my rear view mirror, I was so startled as cars continued to hit each other as they tried to stop. All in all, two vehicles in front of me, and three behind the semi crashed. In all, five vehicles were damaged with some setting off their airbags. Of the seven vehicles sitting there one behind another, and with glass and car parts strewn on the roadway, only my Tundra and the tractor-trailer were not damaged. I thanked the Hispanic lady truck driver (Marina) for her excellent skills as a trucker, and she informed me that she too was a Christian and prayed a lot while she drove long distances. She told me that she was able to stop somehow using both the brakes on the truck and the brakes on the trailer. She told me that in her 14 years of driving a big rig, this was the first time she had to use the brakes on the trailer the way she did. She and I were able to pray for several of the traumatized accident victims. One was a man who had just had surgery, and I am sure he was transported to a local hospital for observation.
Lesson for me in this: don’t take for granted your safety. Don’t travel too closely to the car in front of you. The rule of thumb is I think a car space per ten miles per hour of speed between you and the car in front of you (Nobody does that these days, and if you try, then someone will pass you and move into the space!).
Pray before you take a trip. Expect God and the angels to care for you. This could have been a huge disaster, but by the grace of God, no lives were lost. And just as the Lord led me to pray as I began the trip, there was not a scratch on me or my truck. The only two vehicles not damaged were the two believers right in the middle of it all. This is quite a testament to the power of our praying! Thank you Lord Jesus! I pulled into my garage tonight just after ten o’clock, thanking God for Psalm 91, and for His angels that watch over us.