Pestilence is a sign of the times, and it’s killing people around the world as we speak.

The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern over an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa. A deadly hantavirus outbreak has crossed international borders through a single cruise ship, reaching over a dozen nations. Tick-borne disease is surging across the Northern Hemisphere at alarming rates. 

This is not one crisis. This is a pattern. And it demands a prayer response.

Let me give you the facts so you can pray with intelligence.

What the Bible Says About Pestilence

The word pestilence appears throughout Scripture. In Hebrew, it is the word deber, which means a plague. This is a category of assault against the nations that God has given His people authority to confront.

Jesus Himself said in Luke 21:11, “And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.” He listed pestilence alongside earthquakes and famines as signs of the times. He told us what was coming. He told us to watch and pray.

In Luke 10:19 He said, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” The Greek word for authority there is exousia, which means delegated power. It’s the legal right to pray in His name against enemy operations. You have been given jurisdiction over the works of the enemy. Pestilence is one of those works.

When plague struck Israel in Numbers 16, Aaron took his censer and ran into the middle of the congregation and stood between the living and the dead and the plague stopped. One man with a censer and an assignment from God stopped a plague in its tracks.

That is the model. The intercessor stands in the gap between the living and the dead and commands it to stop in the name of Jesus.

Second Chronicles 7:13-14 makes this explicit. “If I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

The assignment is intervention. The intercessor stands between the plague and the nations and says no further.

Why This Matters for Intercessors

When pestilence is moving on multiple fronts and multiple continents simultaneously, that is not coincidence. That is a coordinated assault. And it requires a coordinated prayer response.

There are over 900 suspected Ebola cases in the DRC with no cure available. A hantavirus has reached 32 countries through a single ship. Tick-borne disease is escalating across the Northern Hemisphere with no signs of slowing down. The medical community is responding. But the medical community does not have the authority to bind what is driving this. We do.

This is not a season to pray defensively. This is a season to take authority over pestilence and command it to stop. To pray for containment. To pray for the outbreak in the DRC to be cut off at the root. To pray for every trace of hantavirus spreading across those 32 nations to be neutralized. To pray for the surge of tick-borne disease to be broken.

We are not spectators. We are not victims hoping for protection. We are intercessors with delegated authority from the King of Kings. And we are praying to stop this.

This Is the Assignment

Awakening Prayer Hubs is mobilizing prayer across our global network for this moment. This is our prayer focus. 

We are asking every intercessor to take this assignment seriously. It’s time for strategic intercession. 

Whether you are praying from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, or the Pacific, this is your assignment. Pestilence is global, and so is the prayer response.

The nations are under assault. The prayer room is open. And the intercessors are taking their positions.

Let’s pray:

1. We take authority over the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the name of Jesus and we command this outbreak to be contained. We put a cease and desist order on this pestilence. We say to this plague, you have gone far enough.

2. We bind the spread of Ebola at every border crossing between the DRC and its neighboring nations. We command every transmission chain to be broken, every undetected case to surface, and every point of contact to be identified and isolated.

3. We speak to the hantavirus that has reached 32 countries and territories through the MV Hondius and we command every active case to be neutralized. We declare this outbreak dead at the root.

4. We take authority over the surge of tick-borne disease across the Northern Hemisphere. We break the cycle of escalation. We speak to Lyme disease, to the Andes virus, to every vector-borne pestilence advancing year over year and we say your increase stops now.

5. We pray for the medical workers and first responders on the ground in eastern Congo and Uganda. We ask you, Lord, to give them supernatural wisdom and accuracy in diagnosis. We declare divine protection over every doctor, nurse, and aid worker operating in the outbreak zone.

6. We lift up the missionaries and pastors serving in the affected regions of the DRC. We speak life over their bodies. We declare Ebola have no foothold in the congregations and communities where believers are serving.

7. We ask you to give wisdom to every health official, every government leader, and every international organization involved in the response. We pray for rapid containment strategies, effective coordination across borders, and no bureaucratic delays that cost lives.

8. We bind the spirit of fear to be silenced over the nations. We stand in the authority of Luke 10:19 and we declare that we have been given jurisdiction over all the power of the enemy and pestilence is under our feet.

9. We command the plague to stop in every nation where Ebola hantavirus has spread and across every region where tick-borne disease is advancing. 

10. We declare Psalm 91:6 over the nations. The pestilence that walks in darkness and the destruction that lays waste at noonday will not prevail. Heal the land, Lord. Heal the nations.

I am raising up watchmen, prophetic intercessors and prayer warriors in almost every nation of the earth. Launch a hub or find a hub today at www.awakeningprayerhubs.com.