042 - Pray Ekballo
042 - Pray Ekballo
Six years ago in Orlando, Lou Engle first prophesied the coming of The Send. Later, he and a handful of leaders were talking about what they would call the pre-Send rallies. A young woman from Canada spoke up and said, "The name shall be ekballo.” She was referencing Matthew 9:38:
37 He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to SEND out laborers into His harvest.”
In this context, the Greek word for “send" is ekballo. It’s not the normal word for send - it actually means "to violently thrust forth.” Ekballo is the same word that’s used when Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. It’s used again in Luke 11:20 when it says, “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The fact is, when Jesus ekballos demons, they have to go, and when Jesus ekballos laborers, they have to go!
Also in this verse, the word for “pray” is not the ordinary word for pray. It’s the Greek term deomai and it actually means “to beg.” Jesus is not making a suggestion here. He is literally commanding his disciples to beg him to hurl forth laborers into the harvest field!
Rees Howells, the great intercessor during World War II, was gripped with this reality. He quoted Andrew Murray in his journal, writing, “The number of missionaries on the field depends entirely on the extent to which someone obeys that command and prays out the laborers.”
Lou began to pray this prayer morning, noon and night. Then the Lord began to answer it in his own family…
One day, his daughter came to him and said, “Dad, I had a dream.” In her dream she was sitting in the front row of a meeting in which Loren Cunningham, leader of YWAM, was on a stage. Loren was preaching about the mantle of Moses coming upon Joshua. It was as if he was speaking directly to her. Then, in the middle of preaching, Loren suddenly fell to ground and died. She jumped up on the stage to give him CPR while crying out, “You can’t die yet, you’re task isn’t finished!” Suddenly, he rose from the dead, jumped up and grabbed her shoulders and said, “It’s not my task to finish, it’s YOURS!” She got ekballoed by the dream and went to be a missionary in the 10/40 window.
Lou’s son also had a dream that he was at a Loren Cunningham meeting and his heart was burning as he listened to Loren preach. In the dream, he ran out to his car weeping uncontrollably and began to cry out to the Lord saying, “Here am I God, send me!” Soon afterwards, he was ekballoed into the Himalayas where he was leading worship, praying for the sick, and bringing the Jesus film to remote villages.
Lou was seeing firsthand how this prayer worked. He also heard the true story of his friend Dick Simmons. Many years ago, Dick was out praying one night at the Hudson River overlooking New York City. With loud cries and groanings he prayed, "Lord of the Harvest, send forth laborers into the gangs of New York!" Little did he know that at the same time another man was reading LIFE Magazine which featured seven gang members in New York City. It broke his heart and God ekballoed him into New York. His name was David Wilkerson. How many millions of souls from Wilkerson’s ministry go to the account of the hidden intercessor on the banks of the Hudson?
It’s time for a prayer revolution! We want to urge all of you connected with The Briefing to move in united prayer, calling on God for a great hurling forth of evangelists and for the spirit of evangelism to break out all over the nation.
Lord of the harvest, ekballo laborers into the harvest field!
