Sid: Now I have to ask you a question. When you pray do you absolutely believe God is going to answer your prayer if for no other reason than every time you pray you get an answer to prayer? If the answer is no but you still persevere through faith wouldn’t it be wonderful if your payers started being answered every time and not twenty years from today but immediately? What if there are some revelation clues, revelation mysteries that would cause God to move on your behalf instantly and you began to see these results. And when you see it even though you’re supposed to believe before you see it but when you see it it has something to do with building your faith and you could get to a point where every word that comes out of your mouth would be a word of power. Well my guest is Dr. John Benefiel and he’s Senior Pastor of Church on the Rock in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is also the leader of the Oklahoma Apostolic Prayer Network and that’s made up of 700 churches over 4,000 intercessors. And He’s been teaching a revelation that has been from what I have been reading some leading Christians are saying that it is the best way to have answered prayer I’ve ever had. Now John you’re the one that has the most experience praying this way what are you seeing as far as God answering your prayers after you’ve been praying this way as opposed to before?
John: Sid we’ve got wonderful results, some leaders like Peter Wagner says that the results that he hears from the heartland Apostolic Prayer Network which is the prayer network actually that I lead now I have a leader and a network in all 50 states and 42 foreign nations. He says it’s the most tangible measurable results of high level prayer and spiritual warfare that he’s heard yet in his life. And so God led us in all of this starting back in 1999, or actually really before that. And we knew that we were dealing with the ruler of the demons.
Sid: Now who is the ruler of the demons?
John: Well, according to Matthew 12:24 it says “Beelzebub or Beelzebull is the ruler of the demons.” It used to throw me because I thought that you look it up and it means lord of the flies.
Sid: Right.
John: You look a little bit deeper and you find out that’s simply a variation of the name of Baal or actually Ba-ahl that we actually say here in the United States. And so Baal I believe because of the scripture is the ruler of the demons. Jesus went on to say “That you needed to bind the strongman in order to plunder his house and get the spoils.” Well he was naming Baal as the strongman and if he was the strong man then he’s still the strong man now. And I believe that he’s the strongman over our nation; in my opinion I like to teach it this way that Baal is the false, is the counterfeit of Jesus. He is the false Jesus or another Jesus as Paul talks about. And just as Jesus is the executor the Father’s will Baal is the executor of satan’s will. So if we know that that’s our true enemy and the ruler of the demons then we deal with him but we deal with him in a legal way by approaching the throne of God. And what we have developed is to approach the throne of God and ask God for a legal decree to divorce us from Baal.
Sid: Now why do we have to be divorced from Baal if we never been using your terminology married to Baal? (laughing)
John: If you look at the book of Jeremiah you’ll find that he talks about being in covenant with the enemy to a large extent Israel broke covenant with God and married or made covenant with him. When they began to worship Baal and in my contention is that we have worshipped Baal in a lot of ways that we didn’t even understand because Baal is god of a 1000 faces; in other words it’s very well disguised as the enemy you know the enemy appears as an angel of light. Whoever you worship that becomes your god; even if you do so ignorantly which I believe as Christians that we have done so and so that’s part of what I teach.
Sid: Well you know I’m reminded in a court room you always hear ignorance of the law is no excuse.
John: That’s exactly right and II Corinthians Chapter 2 and verse 11 when Paul said, “Lest satan take advantage of us for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” So it’s obvious that satan, or Baal, can take advantage of us if we’re ignorant of his schemes.
Sid: Give me some definitions; what does the word Baal really mean?
John: Well, Baal means a lot of things but the simplest way to answer that it means lord, master, the Hebrew word Baal now and not the false god. But the Hebrew word Baal actually means lord, master, owner, husband. So the word itself means husband and the Jews actually used that word Baal or Baaleem, the plural of Baal to mean husband. And then God said, “I don’t want you to call me Baal I want you to call me “My Eeshee which means husband.” So Baal means owner or possessor or lord or master or husband.” And so we have to be free of him and I like to say “But you can’t bind the strongman if you don’t know who he is and sure can’t bind him if you’re married to him.” In 2007 Dutch Sheets did a great teaching on Baal and the need to divorce Baal and remarry the Lord. Really again what this basically is it really is repentance but it’s repentance in a deeper way than maybe we have understood.
Sid: I have to tell you because I’ve looked over your literature I see things that use the terminology Baal has a thousand faces but I’ve seen things that I didn’t even think would apply to me that do. And so in effect this is what I’m understanding but I want you to put it maybe in better word that when we pray that supernatural prayer that you actually paid an attorney to develop. It literally gives no place to the evil one to hinder our prayers. Is that correct?
John: That’s very right Sid exactly right, what happened when Dutch Sheets said we need to divorce Baal and remarry the Lord. Immediately I got on the phone and called my attorney friend who’s also one of our leaders of our prayer network and I said, “Jerry draw us up this legal decree of divorce from Baal” I said “I knew he knew how to do it” and he said “I’m already on it” because he was hearing what Dutch said and Jerry was one of our best under stander teachers about Baal; he had a great understanding about it. So he drew up this legal petition, now does it have to be exactly the way we do it? Well no of course not but this is a form of prayer approaching the throne of God asking God to grant us legal freedom from Baal. Now people can say “Yeah but we’re all ready free from the devil by the blood of Jesus,” well I agree with that but if you don’t appropriate what the blood of Jesus has done you don’t enjoy it. So the enemy uses legal tactics before us, before God’s throne in order to ensnare us. And God I mean I remember hearing Kenneth Copeland years ago say this he said, “You know God has to be just and righteous even to the devil.” I don’t like that but it’s true. The basis of God’s throne is righteous and justice, so if we’re accused before God’s throne we’ve got to answer that accusation and immediately God will grant what we want. You know in a natural court you may have a wonderful case but unless you bring your case before the judge in the protocol that the judge sets and in accordance with the law you’re not going to get a favorable ruling. You may be right, you may be just you may have a really good case but really that’s what effective prayer is, is using the word of God to appeal to God based on His word to grant us what we ask for.
Sid: And then the second phase of the prayer is just as important once you get rid of that stronghold in your life that’s stopping literally God from answering your prayers then you do something called the Writ of Assistance. What is that?
John: Okay, good question you know we were getting so many tangible measureable results from the Baal divorce decree which was very happy about but then I began to think, “But Lord we haven’t seen the amount of wealth transfer yet that I think we ought to see.” So I gathered together a lot of scriptures on wealth and wealth transfer, again gave them to my attorney friend and I said, “Draw us up a legal decree with this,” because even though we got this just decree, divorce from Baal from the throne of God that doesn’t mean that the enemy is going to lay down and play dead. You know in a natural court of law when you get a favorable judgment from a judge that most of the time or a lot of times that’s not the end of it. You have to get law enforcement officials involved to enforce the decree of the court and that’s called the Writ of Assistance. And that’s a legal term by the way in real estate especially if you used to dispossess occupants of property and so…
Sid: I got a lot of beings in the invisible world, I would like to evict, is that what you are saying. (laughing)
John: Exactly, exactly Sid. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the invisible realm we have to deal with that.
Sid: So when you pray this prayer and I’m rushing you now because we’re almost out of time, when you pray this prayer what is the legal effect of this prayer when you pray this writ of assistance?
John: It is not only to take away the legal right of enemy to be there but also so release the angels, not praying to angels now, we don’t do that. But to release the angels to go and bind the strong man of Baal and plunder his house and bring us the spoils.
Sid: Okay I understand that at your church you’ve been having a lot of miracles, my question is “Are you seeing greater results of prayer, greater miracles after you’ve prayed this way as opposed to before you prayed this way?”
John: Absolutely, absolutely because we’re not yelling at the devil, we’re simply taking away his legal right to mess up our lives.
