Praying God’s Promises for Justice and a Great Awakening
By Gerard Long
God wants us to be desperate and bold in our prayers—to pray like John Knox who said, “Give me Scotland, or I die.”
I learned to pray this way following a vicious attack by Satan on our family. He had attacked us over several months, but the all-out assault occurred after our beloved youngest son Alex took some marijuana with a boy he was trying to help at school. He had a bad reaction to the drug and became delusional and paranoid. Satan deceived him into committing suicide!
We had served God with all our hearts for 24 years, and now this.
My wife Jeannie nearly died of a broken heart. Suicide brings great grief, but it can also cause terrible “blame and shame.” Jeannie hated herself, me, and God. She lost her faith for a season and looked for a way to leave me.
We were totally broken. I used to get up in the middle of the night and cry from the bottom of my heart, asking God to help me. And He did—with the tragedy of my son’s death and other tragedies to come in our lives.
But more about that later.
Out of the Darkness
The Psalmist said, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps. 119:71).
I can’t yet say that it was good that I suffered, but I do know it was in my deepest pain that I received epiphanies from God and a way to pray to drive out the darkness over the land.
Many Scriptures teach that God wants His people to earnestly pray for justice against our adversary, Satan. We long to see him and his schemes crushed, turning every evil act around for God’s glory and the extension of His Kingdom.
The key passage in the New Testament for this type of prayer is Luke 18:1–8:
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.And will not God bring justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”(emphasis added).
What are the key things we can learn from this passage?
1. This is not a casual, one-off prayer. No, this is a prayer that you continue day and night until you receive your answer.
2. The answer for the prayer is “justice against my adversary [Satan].”
3. Jesus assures us that we, as “His chosen ones,” will have these prayers answered—and quickly.
4. You need faith to pray this way.
5. God expects His disciples to pray this way.
There are several other Scriptures that emphasize this type of prayer, including:
- “No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity” (Isa. 59:4).
- “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12, nkjv).
- “I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth”(Isa. 62:6–7, emphasis added).
The Lord wants us to give Him no rest until He establishes His Kingdom on earth. We’re called to cry out to Him to establish His Kingdom.
Justice Against Evil
Soon after Alex passed, the Lord quickened me to Romans 16:20: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
I realized that everyone God used in the Bible, and through history, had great suffering. And, of course, at the center of our faith is the most terrible suffering—the perfect Son of God tortured to death in front of His mother.
I noticed how God always wants to turn the evil that has happened to us into something good for His glory and His eternal plan and purpose. Joseph understood God’s providence, and he said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20).
What happened to Alex was evil, and I stood on Jesus’ promise in Luke 18:7–8 and cried out to God to give me justice against Satan: “Oh God, turn the pain and suffering of Alex’s suicide into something for Your glory and the extension of Your Kingdom. Use it to do serious damage to Satan’s kingdom on earth. Amen.”
Shortly after Alex went home to heaven, my heart—so broken—was humbled to be appointed the national director of Alpha USA. In the eight years I served with Alpha, it was a great joy to know that God used that wonderful course to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and save thousands of precious souls for eternity.
God answered my prayer for justice against our adversary, and we triumphed in every area that Satan had attacked us. God poured out His amazing grace on us, enabling Jeannie’s faith to reignite and our love to be restored.
More Tragedy and Transformation
Rebecca, our beautiful daughter, also received God’s grace and she gave up what could have been a powerful corporate career by coming to work with me in Alpha USA. As the national director of Alpha Youth, she had a huge impact across America and overseas.
And then the unimaginable happened. On May 8, 2014, in a terrible accident on Lake Michigan, Rebecca went home to heaven!
There are no words to describe the pain, suffering, and brokenness. Jeannie, knowing she couldn’t go on, decided to take her life. But God was merciful, and at the last moment Jeannie had an unbelievable encounter with God. She was completely transformed.
The Lord said to Jeannie in her encounter, “Your grief is not your own!” Out of that, He led us to start a non-profit called Awakening to God Ministries.
Based on Isaiah 61:1–4, for the last several years we have been humbled to comfort and give hope to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners. We’ve also provided clean water, mosquito nets, medical aid, and food to the poorest of the poor in India. Last year we reached 57 million people on social media with messages of comfort and hope.
Adversity to a Great Awakening
Ever since I had a powerful encounter with God in 1980, He has laid it on my heart to pray for another Great Awakening. The Holy Spirit then put a greater burden on me in early 2019 to take this prayer deeper still. In the middle of the night, I wept deeply as I cried out to God for justice against my adversary, for all the pain he had caused us.
I turned the pain into a prayer for a Great Awakening in America and around the world. What had happened to us was not right. God had promised to give us justice—and quickly!
After several weeks the Lord answered me.
“Gerard, your prayer has been heard,” He said, “and it will be answered at the right time.”
Later that year, Satan attacked me again in my health and my finances. I suffered a massive cardiac arrest and flatlined for 30 minutes. God intervened, bringing me back to life with no brain damage!
And then, when we were back in the United Kingdom, we received the call to serve with Prayer at the Heart—to ignite a Great Awakening through a national movement of humble, unified, desperate prayer and action.
I believe all that has happened to Jeannie and me has prepared us for this latest assignment. This is “the big one” and we are expectant that during these dark times, God will once again visit us with a great spiritual awakening over America and around the world.
Our vision is for 63 million souls to be saved and for prayer to be at the heart of every individual, family, church, business, and community. We long for Jesus to have His rightful place, and for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10).
Sixty-three million is the number of precious babies that have been aborted since Roe v. Wade was passed. For anyone involved with abortion, there is mercy, grace, and forgiveness available in Christ. Our hearts and prayers are with them.
However, this evil has happened on our watch and, according to Jesus’ words, He is expecting us to cry out to God for justice against Satan: “Lord, turn every abortion around for the saving of 63 million souls for eternity. Amen.”
That desperation in our prayer—despite any tragedy and pain we face—is the kind of prayer that will change the destiny of a nation.
GERARD LONG is an author, pastor, businessman (30 years with banking giant HSBC), former national director of Alpha USA, and founder and CEO of Prayer at the Heart and founder and CEO of Awakening to God Ministries. You can read more of his story in his book, Living Hope.
