W A R F A
R E
P R AY E R
BO O K S B Y C . PE T E R WA G N E R
Let’s
Laugh
Praying
With Power
AVAILABLE FROM DESTINY IMAGE PUBLISHERS
C. PETER WAGNER
Previously published as
Warfare Prayer © Copyright 1992 C. Peter Wagner All rights reserved. ISBN:
0-8307-1513-4
Previously published as
Spiritual Warfare © Copyright 2001 C. Peter Wagner All rights reserved. ISBN:
0-8307-2906-2
All rights reserved. This
book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This
book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of
short quota-tions or occasional page copying for personal or group study is
permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless
otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James
Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights
reserved. Emphasis within Scripture quotations is author’s own. Please note
that Destiny Image’s publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture
that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some publishers’
styles. Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We
choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical
rules.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 / 13 12 11 10 09
CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Chapter 1. Frontline Warfare . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Argentina has been the frontline in a highly
significant experi-ment helping us to learn more about the spiritual dimensions
of world evangelization.
All the evangelistic technology in the world
will have only a minimal effect unless the spiritual battle is won.
Instead of going about His business and allowing
satan to choose the time and place of attack, Jesus took the initiative and
went on the offensive immediately after His baptism.
Frequently, there is a pernicious relationship
between demonic beings and physical objects, even though the objects in
them-selves are only wood, metal, stone, plastic, and such.
Throughout the Old Testament, it is evident that
the peoples of that day—unfortunately including Israel at certain times—
regarded gods, deities, spirits, or angelic powers of various kinds as having
territorial jurisdiction.
To successfully resist the devil we must submit
to God, draw near to God, cleanse our hands, and purify our hearts. These are
three essential parts of a spiritual boot camp designed to equip the warriors.
Those who remit the sins of nations must not fail
to identify per-sonally with the sins that were or are being committed, even
though they might not personally be as guilty of them as some other sins.
Anthropologists and missiologists who live among
certain people groups of the world today discover that principalities and
powers are currently known by name.
Let’s lift up Christ’s banner in the dirtiest,
darkest places. Let’s take on the giant of the impersonal, looming city.
Doing battle against the spiritual
principalities and powers is not an activity for the timid or the fainthearted.
It is war, and casualties are to be expected.
Twenty-one Crucial Questions
Concerning Spiritual Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 191
Introduction: Before We Get to the Questions . . . . . . . . . . 193 Question 1 . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
How does strategic-level spiritual warfare
differ from other types of spiritual warfare?
Since Scripture teaches that Jesus defeated the
principalities and powers on the Cross (see Col. 2:14-15), is there really
anything left for us to do except to claim Jesus’ victory?
Do Christians have the authority to confront
higher-ranking satanic principalities just as they have authority over ordinary
demons in individuals?
Our usual concept of prayer is talking with God.
How then can we say that “we pray against evil spirits” as, for example,
Fran-cis Frangipane did in his book The House of the Lord?
Isn’t there a danger that command prayers, such
as command-ing a territorial spirit to leave a city, could lead us into
unautho-rized areas of ministry? Shouldn’t we call upon almighty God to do
this?
Jude 9 says that even Michael the archangel
would not bring a reviling accusation against satan. Isn’t this a biblical indication
that we should steer away from strategic-level spiritual warfare?
In Matthew 18:15-20, binding and loosing are
used in the con-text of exercising Church discipline. Why do you associate
bind-ing and loosing with spiritual warfare?
As He did with His disciples, Jesus commands us
to cast demons out of people, but He gives no explicit command to cast demons
out of cities or territories. Therefore, shouldn’t we restrict our ministry of
spiritual warfare to delivering individuals?
How do you know that there is some kind of
organized hierarchy among demons? What are the different ranks in such a
hierarchy?
Is it essential to learn the names of the
principalities over a city as a part of the process of city transformation? How
can such a thing be justified?
The name of your book is Warfare Prayer. Since
that is not a bib-lical term, why do you use it?
Terminology is one thing, but there does not
seem to be any direct instruction in the New Testament for engaging in
strategic-level spiritual warfare. Doesn’t this go beyond the established
bounds of Scripture?
Paul may not have stressed evangelism in his
epistles, but in the Book of Acts we see him actually doing the ministry of
evangel-ism. Why don’t we see examples of Paul doing strategic-level spiritual
warfare?
If we examine standard Christian theological
works written across the centuries, we do not find sections in any of them
dealing with strategic-level spiritual warfare. What do you think of this?
How about history? Do we have examples in Church
history where Christian leaders used strategic-level spiritual warfare as part
of their evangelistic advance?
Preaching the Gospel has always been the divine
method of evan-gelism. Only the Gospel saves. Why should we consider adding
anything like spiritual warfare to it?
Directing so much attention to things like
spiritual mapping, identifying territorial spirits, and prophetic acts can
result in giving too much credit to satan and the powers of darkness. Why
should we be glorifying satan?
Is it possible for too much publicity about
spiritual warfare to actu-ally empower demonic spirits and make them more
dangerous?
Could strategic-level spiritual warfare simply
be a fad? Couldn’t it turn out to be like the discredited shepherding movement,
which started well but later caused harm to the Body of Christ?
Isn’t there risk in confronting high-ranking
principalities as Paul and Silas did in Philippi? They ended up beaten and
thrown into
jail. Shouldn’t Christians just take a defensive posture and “stand,” as
it says in Ephesians 6:13? Is it possible that some of us could become needless
casualties of war?
How would you respond to the suggestion that
those engaged in spiritual warfare tend to substitute technique and methodology
for holiness, evangelism, and Spirit-guided teaching?
Notes . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
INTRODUCTION
Dear Reader,
As you will soon discover,
you have a very unusual book in your hands. I first wrote Warfare Prayer in the beginning of the 1990s when the Holy Spirit
began speaking strongly to the churches about strategic-level spiritual
warfare. This book, along with Cindy Jacobs’ Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, was widely circulated among the
churches representing what I like to call “Charismatically-inclined
evangelicals.” These two books helped initiate a widespread paradigm shift.
Instead of just praying for individual souls to be saved, prophetic
inter-cessors also began wrestling with principalities and powers as Paul
describes in Ephesians 6.
Through prayer initiatives
such as the AD 2000 United Prayer Track, an army of God began to be raised up
interna-tionally to combat the enemy on high levels, with notable changes in
the spiritual atmosphere in many places.
However, two unfortunate
things happened to slow the prayer movement down: (1) some influential leaders
became fearful that such warfare might involve casualties, and they spread this
fear among many, causing harmful desertions from God’s army, and (2) a new
generation of believers in the 2000s, who were intent on confronting the powers
of dark-ness, did not understand some of the basics that these books provided
because they were no longer circulating well.
Remarkably, two Christian
publishers, almost 20 years later, have now stepped up to the plate and agreed
to reissue
– 11 –
both of the books in
revised and updated form in order to get us back to the basics.
Part of my update in Warfare Prayer is a response to an
intense barrage of criticism that came in the later 1990s. You will see this in
the section “Twenty-One Crucial Questions Concerning Spiritual Warfare.” I
chose not to confront the crit-ics directly by name, but rather to address the
issues raised and to respond to each one in question-and-answer format. You
will easily read between the lines in this section, and you will greatly enjoy
this spirited dialogue as well as the rest of the book.
Yes, this is an unusual
book, and my prayer is that through it God will light a fire in your heart to
join the grow-ing number of believers who are intent to drive back the enemy so
that Jesus’ desire that God’s Kingdom come and His will be done here on earth
as it is in Heaven (see Matt. 6:10) will be fulfilled in this generation!
Blessings,
Peter
(Note By Blogger: Due to the length of the book which this content is from I have broken it up into a short series of blog posts.)
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