Why is prayer important before Evangelism? There are four reasons we want to talk about here: first, because man is fallen; second, because our struggle is not against flesh and blood; third, because of our 100% dependence on Jesus in Evangelism; and fourth, because knowledge is not enough.

First, because man is fallen. When we say man is fallen, we mean fallen in all that he is: mind, body, spirit, heart, conscience, soul, and emotions. Man is hopelessly corrupted and not what Jesus originally created man to be. (Is 1:5-6). Primarily we want to focus on man's mind, heart, and subconscious.

Man's mind is fallen. Man's Mind, an organ of the soul, is his computer by which he stores information gained through his spirit, soul and body. When man reasons about how to decide on an issue, one of his reference points is his library, the mind. He looks to his memory to see what he has learned in the past on the issue; then, based on this information along with the other information systems of man, man makes a decision. The only problem is, though, that the Bible tells us that the world system is not from God (Col 2:8, 1 John 2:15-17, James 4:4), that our thoughts are not His thoughts, that our ways are not His ways (Is 55:8-9), and that there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Prov 14:12). Because man's mind is educated wrongly and according to the world's ways he is not able to recognize the truth of God's way in the Gospel. The knowledge that he has in his mind from the world tells him that the truth of the Gospel is foolishness (1 Cor 1:18). This is why Paul states in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4,

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

The first step to effective Evangelism in prayer is praying that Jesus will open a man's heart to see that the Gospel, not the knowledge of man's mind, is the truth of God's saving grace for man.

Man's heart is fallen. Jeremiah the prophet states, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9). Man's Heart, the essence of his soul, is the part of man which decides how he will respond to what he has learned through his spirit, soul and body (Prov 6:32, Hosea 4:11, Matt 15:19-20). There are four functions of man’s soul which are manifested through man’s heart because they are all centered in man’s volition: conscious reasoning, subconscious holdings, the soul-expression, and God-implanted giftedness. The Conscious part of man's being is where reasoning takes place, for it takes an act of the will to reason. (Mark 2:6, 8; Luke 5:22). Man's soul is what man becomes and manifests through his physical body in personality, vocation, and lifestyle as a result of his heart response to what he has learned through his mind, body, spirit, conscience, and emotions; and as a result of those abilities and talents God has chosen to give him individually. (Prov 6:32, Matt 16:24-27, 3 John 2, Ex 31:6). Man's Heart, the essence of his soul and volition, was weakened through the fall and personal sin so that the Bible states that our hearts are . . . sold into bondage to sin. (Rom 7:14). This bondage to sin is centered in the soulish subconscious part of man's being. The subconscious part of man's being is where basic presuppositions, decisions made, and talents are stored or implanted as a result of volitional decisions made through conscious reasoning and God-implanted giftedness. Whatever decisions we make with our hearts become a locked-in part of our subconscious and a permanent expression of our soul until something changes it. This includes wrong decisions. Wrong decisions are implanted in our subconscious and become a permanent expression of our soul until something changes it. This is what Paul meant by being sold into bondage to sin. This is also why Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5,

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful in order to destroy strongholds. We are subverting computations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

These strongholds that Paul refers to are in man's subconscious. These strongholds may not keep man from being able to understand the Gospel with his heart, but they will keep him from being able to commit himself to Jesus as Savior and Lord with his heart, his will. You see, knowing the truth does not save you. In order to be saved, the truth of the Gospel we have in our heads must be acted upon by faith with our hearts, our volition. Therefore, before we can be successful in our Evangelistic pursuits, along with praying that the person's heart be opened to recognize that Jesus is the Truth and the only answer to his life and needs, we also need to pray and ask Jesus to tear down the strongholds in the person's subconscious that are keeping him from being able to exercise freely his will to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord or to reject Him.

We also need to pray and ask Jesus to tear down the strongholds of Satan over us that are keeping Jesus from being able to minister to the individuals we are sharing with unhindered through the Holy Spirit. We need to pray and ask Jesus to free us from our own ideas and strife so He can fill us with His ideas and strife about what to say and do. Since only Jesus knows the heart and the mind of men (Ps 64:6, 1 Cor 2:11), we need to pray that He would prepare us during the week intellectually by leading us to appropriate passages of Scripture and book material that we will need to know that will answer the questions of the people we will be sharing with each week. As we do answer their honest questions, the strongholds of Satan over them will be torn down. They then will be able to release their faith and respond to the truth of the Gospel. Jesus said,

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you." (John 16:13-14).

Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, in his book, the God who is there, wrote,

"Therefore, the first consideration in our apologetics for modern man, whether factory-hand or research student, is to find the place where his tension exists. We will not always find it easy to do this. Many people have never analyzed their own point of tension. Since the Fall, man is separated from himself. Therefore, it will take time and it will cost something to discover what the person we are speaking to often has not yet discovered for himself. Down inside of himself man finds it easy to lie to himself. We, in love, looking to the work of the Holy Spirit, must reach down into that person and try to find where the point of tension is."^1/135

The Apostle Paul states in Ephesians 6:12, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Not only do we have strongholds over men's hearts to overcome, but there are also demonic forces at work in people's lives as well. Jesus said about Himself in relation to Satan in the Gospel of John 14:30, ". . . the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me." There was nothing in Jesus that Satan could operate through. Not so in us. Demons attach themselves to us through ideas. When we choose to believe something that is not true, this wrong decision gives Satan access to our souls to work through our fallen natures. Because we as Christians are aware of this access, we are acutely aware of an ongoing battle between the flesh and the Spirit so that we cry out daily as Paul did, "Wretched man that I am; who will free me from the body of this death" (Rom 7:24). An unbeliever is normally unaware of this access of Satan in himself through his fallen soul and flesh and so is unaware of the influence and control that Satan has over his fallen nature. Because this is true, they are blind to their need of deliverance through the power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said though in Luke 10:19, "Behold, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy and to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and nothing shall injure you." Jesus tells us in this passage that we as believers already have present and complete authority and power over all the authority and power of Satan. Therefore before we go out on the field we need to pray and claim authority over these demonic forces that would try to impede the Gospel from going forth through us to those people we are witnessing to. We need to pray also that these hindering spirits would be bound while we are witnessing to men so that their minds and hearts are clear and unhindered in their understanding and response to the Gospel.

Once a previous partner and I went out to an indoor mall to share the Gospel. We always prayed before we went out, but this time because of distractions at home, we forgot to pray. As we approached people to try and share with them, people would walk up and distract us and many other distractions kept happening. It seemed we were arguing instead of sharing the Gospel. We could not seem to get into an intelligent discussion of the claims of Jesus Christ with anyone. I finally turned to my partner and said, "We forgot to pray before we left. Let us go somewhere where it is quiet and pray and bind these spiritual forces which are hindering us!" We did go to a quiet place to pray and prayed as I will show you how in Chapters 2 through 4 of this Section. After we prayed, when we went back out on the mall to share the Gospel with men, we had no more distractions and were able to share the Gospel completely through to the point of decision and beyond. The atmosphere was clear. The demonic forces we had commanded to leave in the name of Jesus had left. They were gone!

The Apostle Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 3:5-6,

"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

And again in 1 Corinthians 2:3-5,

"And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."

As intelligent as the Apostle Paul was, he recognized his total 100% dependence on Jesus and His Holy Spirit if he was to be effective in his ministry. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about this. It centers in what we have already talked about and that is that only Jesus knows what is in the minds and the hearts of men. Therefore, only as we look to His leadership through the Holy Spirit in prayer can we be sure of being effective in our Evangelistic pursuits on the field. Jesus said in John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing."