Warfare Prayer By C. Peter Wagner (Pt. 6)

C_HAPTER 9

THE RULES FOR CITY TAKING

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a nation is the city. Two of those who have been clearly bring- ing this to our attention are John Dawson and Floyd McClung. The titles of their books, Taking Our Cities for God and Seeing the City with the Eyes of God, respectively, reflect this insight. Dawson sees the cities as the mind and heart of a nation. He says, “A nation is the sum of its cities.”1 McClung says, “Cities are the mountain peaks of society; trends, ideologies and fash- ions are born in the fermenting cauldron of city life and then flow down and out to influence the populace.”2

Roger Greenway, an urban missiologist, in a recent review of these two books admits that traditional evangelicals should take note. He says, “Perhaps we have drifted, in practice if not in theory, from the biblical world view that takes a personal devil seriously and defines mission as spiritual warfare against the active forces of darkness.”3

Thinking Strategically

As I have mentioned several times, the ultimate focus of this book is world evangelization. Warfare prayer is not an

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end in itself, but a means of opening the way for the Kingdom of God to come, not only in evangelism, but also in social jus- tice and material sufficiency.

As we look at the world, it is only natural that our atten- tion is first drawn to nations as target units. That is why I so strongly support James Montgomery’s DAWN (Discipling a Whole Nation) Ministries, a brilliant strategy to catalyze the Christian forces in each nation to evangelize their country by multiplying churches. A more advanced set of target groups are unreached peoples, and missiologists are discovering within each nation fairly large numbers of diverse people groups, many of whom are virtually untouched by the Gospel.

The other unit we need to look at when we develop evan- gelistic strategy, as I have mentioned, is the city. John Dawson says that if we are serious about discipling nations we must grasp their reality. “That means the gospel must transform the spiritual, philosophical and physical life of a nation’s cities.” He then gives a challenge, which I echo: “Let’s lift up Christ’s banner in the dirtiest, darkest places. Let’s take on the giant of the impersonal, looming city.”4

The most sophisticated strategy for evangelizing a city we have at the present time is Ed Silvoso’s Harvest Evangelism. In Chapter 1, I told of Silvoso’s first experiment in the city of Resistencia, Argentina. Through effective warfare prayer, the number of evangelical believers in the city doubled over the course of the Plan Resistencia. As I write, the city of La Plata is the current focus of a three-year effort, and I look for similar results there.

It may not be long before numerous other cities in Argentina are involved in similar efforts for evangelization, prayer, spiritual warfare, and church multiplication in their cities. It has the potential for transforming a nation to a degree rarely seen in Christian outreach ministries of the past.

My wife, Doris, and I have been working very closely with Ed Silvoso in these cities, and from this experience, along with many other citywide prayer movements we have been directly or indirectly involved with, some rather clear guid- ance for this type of warfare ministry is emerging.

I call these Six Rules for Taking a City. I suspect there may be more than six rules, but I do not suspect there are less. My best advice is not to leave out any of these six rules if you are seri- ous about making a permanent spiritual impact on your city.

Rule #1: The Area

Select a manageable geographical area with discernible spiritual boundaries.

A common tendency for beginners is to select a target area too large for warfare prayer to be very effective. I do not mean there won’t be occasions when God will call some to pray for the large-scale things, especially when the prayers are focused on critical issues.

I believe, for example, that God used the prayers of Dick Eastman, Gwen Shaw, Beth Alves, and many others I will never hear about to bring down the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. I believe God is using Hector Pardo and Christy Gra- ham to open Albania to the Gospel. I believe God used John Dawson to lower the crime rate in Los Angeles during the 1984 Olympics.

I believe God used my wife, Doris, and Cindy Jacobs to turn around the economy in Argentina and to encourage the Argentine government to return 150,000 hectares of land to the native Indians.

Let me explain. I do not think the prayers of any one of these individuals or the group they prayed with bore a one-to- one cause-and-effect relationship to any of these social

changes. But the individuals I named are all personal friends whom God uses powerfully in prayer. I know each one prayed very specifically for the situation described, and each one testified after a particular season of prayer that they sensed something had been changed in the spiritual realm.

The secret behind the effectiveness of these high level warfare prayers is simple. Before they prayed, these interces- sors sought and discerned the will of God, determined the kairos or divinely appointed time, and then obeyed God’s call to pray according to His will. Each of them knew that any number of other intercessors were also hearing from God and praying the same way. When they sensed they had the victory, it did not mean to any of them that they had single-handedly brought down the enemy forces. But they knew they had a part, even though a small one, in the final outcome. They might not have scored touchdowns, but they might well have made several first downs.

Manageable Units

Although only a relatively few intercessors may be called upon to participate in such large-scale prayer efforts, God is calling multitudes of intercessors to engage in warfare pray- ing for the cities of the world. Some cities as such are small enough areas to be manageable. I believe my own city of Pasadena, California, is an example. A prayer effort called “Pasadena for Christ” is underway, and it very intentionally includes only the city of Pasadena and a small annex called Altadena. Neighboring cities such as Arcadia, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena, and San Marino are different and will be developing their own prayer strategies.

This, of course, is a form of spiritual mapping that will resurface frequently as we go through the six rules.

I am one of the participants in an exciting gathering of pastors and other Christian leaders in the “Love L.A.” prayer meetings led by Jack Hayford of Church On The Way and Lloyd Ogilvie of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. We meet three times a year and have had as many as 1300 and as few as 400 in the meetings. These meetings have had several impor- tant benefits. They have built the spiritual morale and faith of hundreds and hundreds of pastors across denominational, racial, sectional, socioeconomic, and church size barriers. Recently, several thousand people from the churches repre- sented gathered for a citywide prayer meeting to pray for revival, unity, and the social problems of Los Angeles.

However, the most important result of these larger meet- ings, in my opinion, is that they have stimulated the formation of smaller gatherings in areas of the greater Los Angeles basin. The advantages of these regional meetings is that the prayer efforts can be directly focused on the specific needs of each region. At this writing, I have in my hand a list of 13 regional prayer groups in the San Fernando Valley, 12 in the San Gabriel Valley, 5 in San Bernardino County, 3 in the Antelope Valley, 11 in Los Angeles, 7 in the Long Beach area, 5 in Orange County and 7 in the South Bay area. Not all of these will become effective warfare prayer units for taking their cities, but it is a significant start: some of them will. Their effectiveness will increase not only as they target specific cities, but also as they discern the smaller units of their city.

Christ for the City

The most sophisticated design I am aware of for praying effectively for the smaller units in the city is the Latin America Mission’s “Christ for the City” program developed by John Huffman. The vision for this ministry came as Huffman was flying over Mexico City when God showed him a picture of huge Indian gods standing behind the mountains over Mexico

City, holding down the city. He said, “God, what will I do? What do you want us to do about this?” God answered by giv- ing him the prayer program for Christ for the City.5

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The maps are distributed to prayer groups in the city, in other parts of the country and in other countries. These are groups who have previously committed themselves to do con- centrated, specific warfare praying for that neighborhood dur- ing a designated period of two weeks. Teams on the site are also praying through the neighborhood itself. If at least three prayer groups report spiritual impressions about a particular household or place, trained workers go right in and solicit specific prayer requests for that house. When the two weeks are over, local team members do a blanket visitation of all the homes in the target neighborhood.

A pilot project was launched in Medellin in 1989. In 1989 the evangelical church grew 44 percent, from 9,000 to 13,000. The following year the evangelical population grew 50 percent,

from 13,000 to 18,500. During that same 2-year span, the total number of churches increased from 103 to 140.

Prayer groups outside the city keep touch through fax machines and computer modems. In Medellin, one of the par- ticipating prayer groups was a Baptist General Conference church in the United States. Even though they had no tradi- tion of receiving prophetic words from the Lord, one day the group heard clearly that there was something wrong with a certain vacant lot in the neighborhood they were praying for, and they faxed the information to Medellin. A ministry team visited the lot and found five occult objects cursed and buried by witches to control the neighborhood. They were destroyed, and the Gospel flowed freely.

On a more personal level, a young man named Fulvio vis- ited a house with nine family members, all staunchly opposed to the Gospel. When Fulvio asked, they said that they would permit him to pray for the healing of one of them who was sick, but that he shouldn’t expect very much to happen. He prayed; the person was healed and came to the Lord. Now all nine people in that home are meeting regularly for Bible study.6

Once you know the manageable area God wants you to pray for, it is time to get the leaders together.

Rule #2: The Pastors

Secure the unity of the pastors and other Christian leaders in the area and begin to pray together on a regular basis.

There is no substitute for the unity of the pastors of the city as a foundation for effective spiritual warfare. Pastors are the spiritual gatekeepers of the city. This is not to disparage numbers of gifted lay leaders and full-time Christian workers who are not pastors. But it is to point out that in a given city the highest spiritual authority has been delegated to pastors,

especially those who are aligned with apostles. If we don’t know this, satan certainly does, and he does his best to keep pastors from getting together, especially to pray.

When asked where one starts when attacking the evil influences over a city, Dick Bernal says that it must start with the churches. “Pray that the pastors of your city will unite in an all out effort to rid your city of alien entities.”7

It is important for pastors to understand that the unity required to take a city for Christ is not doctrinal unity, legal unity, political unity, or philosophy of ministry unity, but spir- itual unity. The basis is mutual agreement as to who the real enemy is. Too many pastors, as well as apostles, have been under the impression that they are each other’s enemy. This, I am happy to report, is breaking down rapidly and dramati- cally across our nation. Our country is in too much of a spiri- tual and social crisis to allow the bickering to continue. Francis Frangipane says, “Today God is calling us to cease fighting with one another and to become a family that fights for each other.”8 I couldn’t agree more.

Although it might be ideal to think of one hundred per- cent of the pastors of an area in spiritual agreement and pray- ing together, in many cases that is unrealistic. If we wait for one hundred percent, we may never get to the battle. It is almost inevitable that certain pastors will be grumpy, indiffer- ent, burned out, hung up on some doctrinal issues, or even effectively screened out by the forces of darkness. Still, it is realistic to expect a consensus of a considerable number of influential pastors and apostles who will agree to meet together for two hours once a month or so to pray.

Until that happens, it is not wise to proceed much further. Joel says, “...Gather the elders…into the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord” (Joel 1:14).

Rule #3: The Body of Christ

Project a clear image that the effort is not an activity simply of Pentecostals and Charismatics, but of the whole Body of Christ

One of satan’s common devices to halt spiritual warfare on any level is to get Christians saying to each other, “Oh, that’s something those Charismatics do!” The unspoken implication is that those of us who are Christians of “the more respectable stripe” would not think of becoming involved in such “disreputable” activity.

Ed Silvoso, a graduate of Multnomah School of the Bible and a member of a non-Charismatic Bible church, carries excellent evangelical credentials and has addressed this issue directly. He says, “Satan’s number one scheme is to turn spiri- tual warfare into a divisive issue. Spiritual warfare is and must remain a Christian issue.”9 Silvoso does spiritual warfare seminars across the country that are particularly geared toward evangelicals who need encouragement.

Predictably, when a citywide prayer effort is announced that includes strategic-level spiritual warfare, the first ones to jump aboard are usually the Charismatics and Pentecostals. If they are not warned against it, they can easily find themselves in control and develop a program of action using a style that sends an unintended message to many evangelical leaders: “We’re going to do it our way, and if you want to be a part of it, you can join us.” If that happens, it can weaken the city- wide effort.

As an evangelical, my plea to our Pentecostal brothers and sisters is patience. A growing number of evangelicals across the country are ready to jump on board and join a prayer movement for their cities, but it usually takes them a little more time, especially when something as new as strategic- level spiritual warfare is involved. Evangelicals are trained to

ask theological questions and to do as the Bereans, who “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). One of my purposes for this book is to argue that praying for the cities does have biblical and theo- logical integrity. But I fear some evangelicals will write it off with the comment that it proves what they have suspected for years—Peter Wagner is really a Charismatic even though he says he is not!

The good news is that the situation is getting better these days, not worse. More and more leaders are being moved powerfully by the Holy Spirit to see themselves not prima- rily as Charismatics, Pentecostals, evangelicals, or liberals, but as members of the Body of Christ. This in itself will has- ten the weakening of the enemy and the advance of God’s Kingdom.

Rule #4: The Spiritual Preparation

Assure the spiritual preparation of participating leaders and other Christians through repentance, humility, and holiness.

Violate this rule or take it lightly, and you will end up with many wounded, discouraged, and unhappy warriors. I need not elaborate on this in great detail because Chapter 6, “Equipping the Warriors,” dealt in depth with the spiritual condition of the individuals who participate in praying for a city.

When Ed Silvoso began to implement the La Plata Plan in Argentina, he found that the spiritual level of the church members in the city was not extremely high. Many of them, as a matter of fact, were demonized to one degree or another. Many had succumbed to temptations of the flesh. They desired to serve God, but they knew they needed some help.

For this reason, Silvoso postponed any public warfare prayer until some inner healing was done. Cindy Jacobs was

called upon to do an inner healing seminar, first for the pas- tors and their spouses and then for the believers in general. When my wife Doris, who accompanied Cindy on the trip, returned, she said that in all her ministry she had never seen an outpouring of the power of God to this degree. At points in the seminar hundreds and hundreds of people were weeping aloud in repentance. Many confessed their sins. Enemies rec- onciled and became friends. One crippled woman who was suffering from polio forgave her mother under the power of the Holy Spirit and was instantly healed. Another who had lost her cheekbone in an automobile accident became the cen- ter of attention as those around her watched the new cheek- bone being formed before their eyes.

The net result is that the faith of the believers is now high. They are praying for each other, they are breaking curses left over from the days when some were in witchcraft, they are casting out demons, and the vessels that God wants to use to take the city are being cleansed. The Body of Christ is more holy than it was before.

Whether they are holy enough for strategic-level warfare or when they will be is not an easy question. One of the signs of this maturity is that believers begin truly obeying Christ as well as just following Him. God’s demand for holiness often separates the sheep from the goats.

Rule #5: The Research

Research the historical background of the city in order to reveal spiritual forces shaping the city.

When I discussed spiritual mapping in the last chapter I mentioned how helpful it was to do research on the city. I will not repeat that, but simply give two illustrations, one from an old city and one from a fairly new city.

Manchester, England

I am in correspondence with Richard C. Lockwood of Manchester who has begun the process of researching his city with spiritual discernment. Spiritual people there agree that they feel a heaviness of spirit in the Manchester area, and this heaviness seems to center on the pre-Roman site on which the Cathedral was constructed. The popular teaching that the name “Manchester” was of Roman origin has proved to be incorrect. It more likely goes back to Celtic times and has a meaning which is connected with a “high place.” It will take time to find the information that might provide important clues to the nature of the city.

Lockwood comments that it requires little spiritual dis- cernment to identify the territorial spirits influencing the city today: rebellion, homosexuality, apathy, and lethargy. “How- ever, it is the overriding power behind these that needs reveal- ing before effective prayer can prevail.”10

Brasilia, Brazil

Let me return to Kjell Sjoberg, whom I introduced in the last chapter. Sjoberg’s international prayer ministry recently took him to Brasilia, the capital of the nation, which was designed and constructed in 1960 by President Juscelino Kubitschek. Sjoberg reports that Kubitschek was a spiritist who believed in reincarnation and who thought he was the reincarnation of Pharaoh Akhnaton who lived 3,300 years ago and built a new capital for his nation. Many buildings are shaped like Egyptian pyramids or temples. The buildings housing the centers of power are located in triangles, making a hexagram. The numerology of the Egyptian Tarot and the Hebrew Kabbala is prominent throughout. The shape of the city is that of an Egyptian Ibis bird (although some tourist guides make it out to be in the shape of an airplane).11

This kind of information, which reveals spiritual forces present from the time of the designing of the city, becomes extremely useful to the intercessors who participate in the citywide prayer effort.

Rule #6: The Intercessors

Work with intercessors especially gifted and called to strategic- level warfare, seeking God’s revelation of:

• the redemptive gift or gifts of the city;
• satan’s strongholds in the city;
• territorial spirits assigned to the city;
• corporate sin past and present that needs to be dealt with;

and

• God’s plan of attack and timing.

Some of the key players in a well-developed warfare

prayer strategy for a city will be top-level intercessors. If the work is going to be done well, gifted and experienced inter- cessors need to be identified, encouraged, and released to stand in the gap.

Every Christian has a role of prayer in general and inter- cession in particular. But God has chosen some Christians and given them a special gift of intercession. If this sounds strange, just compare it to the role that every Christian has to be a wit- ness, but only a small number have received a spiritual gift of evangelist. The whole Body cannot be an eye; only some of the members are supposed to perform the function of an eye.

I describe the gift of intercession in my book Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow. I list it as one of the 28 gifts, but I freely admit it is one that has no direct biblical statement as a gift. Although some may disagree with me, I am certain

enough such a gift exists from simple observation over the years that I am prepared to define it:

The gift of intercession is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to pray for extended periods of time on a regular basis and see frequent and specific answers to their prayers to a degree much greater than that which is expected of the average Christian.12

Some rather extensive research I have done on interces- sors, which I described in detail in my book Prayer Shield (Regal Books), shows that gifted intercessors ordinarily pray from two to five hours a day. Much of their time is spent hear- ing from God. Intercessors will frequently say to each other in a sort of insider’s language: “She’s wonderful. She really hears from God.” Intercessors tend to rate themselves more on what they hear than on what they say.

Cindy Jacobs characterizes intercessors as those who act as enforcers of God’s will on earth. God has chosen that His will be done through our asking and taking dominion. She says, “Through our taking dominion over the works of satan in the earth and praying in the name of our King, we establish His will on earth as it is in heaven.”13

Intercessors are found in almost every church, and cer- tainly in every city with a reasonable number of churches. But I have found that very few pastors are also intercessors. There- fore, both pastors and intercessors are needed to pray effec- tively for a city. The pastors function largely in an authority role, and the intercessors function largely in a prophetic role. They hear from God and can communicate this to others. They should be formed into a group to harmonize, encourage, and hold each other accountable.

Through them and also through pastors and apostles, those who are praying for the city should seek God’s revela- tion of several things:

The Redemptive Gift or Gifts of the City

John Dawson believes each city is intended by God to be a place of personal liberation. He says, “I believe our cities have the mark of God’s sovereign purpose on them. Our cities con- tain what I call a redemptive gift.”14 He argues that it is more important to determine the redemptive gift of the city than to identify the nature of evil principalities, although both are needed.

An example is Omaha, Nebraska. Historically, Omaha was the supply station for wagon trains taking pioneers west- ward. Christian leaders there see today’s Omaha as a center for equipping a new breed of pioneer—those who are taking the Gospel out to the unreached people of the world. I agree with John Dawson who comments, “Now that’s a vision worth living for.”15

Satan’s Strongholds in the City

Historical research and spiritual mapping feed into this activity of the intercessors. Most intercessors called to strategic- level spiritual warfare have the spiritual gift of discernment of spirits. Floyd McClung says, “Exercising the gift of discern- ment of spirits is crucial. We must know if we are battling demonic powers or dealing just with sin and its consequences in the culture. The two are not always the same.”16

McClung tells of his amazement on a ministry trip to Nor- way at the many believers there who were struggling with deep, life-controlling fears. He found that this was a wide- spread problem in the whole nation. Then he went back and discovered how Christianity had first come to Norway. A king

marched through the nation and forced all the citizens to become Christians or face execution. Christianity started with a national bloodbath! McClung comments, “Satan takes advantage of this kind of a national trauma, and seeks to use it to establish spiritual strongholds.”17 Intercessors will pray this kind of information through and seek God’s revelation on how it should be dealt with in quite specific ways.

In a target city, principalities and powers may have differ- ent strongholds in different sectors of the city or even in differ- ent neighborhoods. As we develop our Pasadena for Christ effort here in my city, we are very much aware of differences in the spiritual atmosphere, for example, in Northwest Pasadena as compared to Hastings Ranch, and Linda Vista as compared to East Pasadena. Within Northwest Pasadena itself, residents sense a difference between the King’s Manor area as over against Howard and Navarro where John Perkins has his Harambee Center. We do not yet know the deeper meanings of all this, but we have a team of intercessors led by Lou Engle working on it.

Territorial Spirits Assigned to the City

To the degree possible, the intercessors should seek to know the names, either functional or proper, of the principali- ties assigned to the city as a whole and to various geographi- cal, social, or cultural segments of the city.

Corporate Sin Past and Present That Needs to Be Dealt With

The story Floyd McClung tells of the Norwegian king who murdered those who would not become Christians is an example of past corporate sin that needs to be dealt with. A  good bit of information on this is included in Chapter 7, “Remitting the Sins of Nations.” There I mentioned Japan.

It is encouraging to know that the Japanese Christian leaders are taking national repentance very seriously. In 1990, two high-level apologies were made to the people of Korea. The Church of Christ in Japan published a resolution confess- ing Japan’s sin and offering an apology to the Korean people. Then Rev. Koji Honda, a revered elder statesperson of Japan- ese evangelical Christianity, made a detailed confession and apology at the Asia Missions Congress ‘90 held in Seoul, South Korea. Among many other things he said:

Dear brothers and sisters of Asia, please forgive the sins that the Japanese people committed in your coun- tries. I think especially of Korea and once again beg your forgiveness of these repulsive, unpardonable sins [which he already had listed] in the name of our Lord and Redeemer.18

American sociologists tell us that two of the most oppressed social cohorts in our nation are African American males and Native Americans. Time magazine, in an article ana- lyzing the frightening downward turn in life expectancy for blacks, ran through the standard list of hypotheses why the black community is so depressed. Then it said experts are per- suaded “that there must be other reasons.”19 The article took several guesses for the reasons, but I would not be at all sur- prised to discover the basic problem is spiritual. It goes back to the shameful ways whites have treated blacks in the past and at present. This sinful behavior has provided openings for high-ranking principalities and powers to establish spiritual strongholds that will not be loosened other than through cor- porate humility and repentance. I am aware of some who have begun this, but much more is needed.

How can this be done? John Dawson tells of his ministry in South Africa. He was convinced, “Apartheid is a spirit, not just a political phenomenon. It is a spirit that goes deep into

African colonial history, with its roots in idolatry.” So he preached on the sin of unrighteous judgment, led the large multiracial group in repentance of racial stereotypes and prej- udice, and then challenged each one in the audience to wash the feet of someone of another race. “Thousands of Afrikaners, Zulus, Indians, English, and Colored wept in each other’s arms as a spirit of reconciliation spread.”20

God’s Plan of Attack and Timing

A great danger, which is all too common, is to go into spir- itual warfare in the flesh. It is essential to hear from God what He wants us to do, how He wants us to do it, and when it should be done. This comes through serious prayer. This is where the prophetic dimension of the ministry of intercession is extremely important. Some of the possible consequences of missing God’s plan of attack and timing are explained in the next chapter.

In summary, do not attempt strategic-level spiritual war- fare without following these six rules. Be informed. Find out what many people are saying. I suggest you secure and study two other excellent lists of rules: Cindy Jacob’s list in Possess- ing the Gates of the Enemy (pages 242-245) and John Dawson’s list in Taking Our Cities for God (pages 163-219). Let’s be wise and strong in the power of God’s might.

Reflection Questions

• Can you name any cities that have significant, ongoing citywide prayer efforts? Do you think one for your city would be feasible?
• Discuss what is meant by affirming that pastors prop- erly aligned with apostles are the “spiritual gatekeep- ers” of a city.

• How is the spiritual gift of intercession different from the expectation that all Christians should be praying people? Name some people you know who might have this gift.
• What do you think might be the “redemptive gift” or “redemptive purpose” of your city or town?
• What would be some of the first steps in researching the spiritual history of your city?

C_HAPTER 10

AVOIDING THE PITFALLS

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how they have been wounded in one way or another.

Casualties of the War

Doris and I began going out to the front lines in Argentina in 1990. Within months, we had the worst family fight in 55 years of marriage; we had a severe problem with one of our closest intercessors; and Doris was incapacitated for almost five months with blown-out disks, back surgery, and knee surgery. There is no question at all in our minds, or in those of the people who pray for us, that this was a direct backlash from the spirits who were so riled up by our invad- ing their territory.

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Although I do not believe we can totally avoid the kind of casualties I experienced, I believe we can minimize them as we learn more about strategic-level spiritual warfare. America was amazed at the relatively few casualties in the Persian Gulf War. I hope we learn how to do spiritual warfare as well and that we see the frequency and severity of the casualties signif- icantly reduced.

Learning From Mistakes

Nothing is wrong with making mistakes or failing. I don’t mind failing as long as I keep my long-range vision, regroup after the failure, learn from my mistakes, move ahead once again, and avoid making the same mistake twice.

I will never forget when Doris and I first met Pablo Bot- tari, who I mentioned in Chapter 1 as the leader of the deliv- erance ministries in Carlos Annacondia’s citywide crusades in Argentina. He was giving us a private tour of the “spiritual intensive care unit” tent, which he supervises. We asked him how he learned to do this unusual kind of ministry. He said, “Do you want to know? We learned by making every mistake we could possibly make!” Then, among other things, he told us the humorous story of the “demon of keys.”

The “Demon of Keys”

It seems that a man was standing in the crowd attending one of Carlos Annacondia’s crusades. One of the interesting features of these crusades is that they are held in vacant lots and no chairs are used (except a few up front for the sick and elderly). On an average night, between 5,000 and 20,000 will be standing in dirt, often covered with some grass and weeds, from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. The lighting is adequate, but not excellent.

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This night Annacondia began his usual public rebuke of the evil spirits. The evil spirits started manifesting, demonized people fell to the ground, and the specially trained ministry team called “stretcher bearers” started picking them up, half carrying and half dragging them into the deliverance tent. This man stood there watching the activities when his keys fell out of his hand into the grass and weeds on the ground. The man bent over, and because the light was so poor, began groping around searching for his keys. A team of stretcher bearers spotted him and assumed that he, too, was demon- ized. Before the spectator knew what was happening, they had gripped his arms and were pulling him away.

“The keys! The keys!” he shouted, but to no avail. When he got into the deliverance tent the stretcher bearers an- nounced that he was being attacked by a demon of keys. Pablo Bottari never did tell us whether the man ever got his keys back.

Ten Pitfalls to Avoid

Pablo Bottari and the rest of us have made many mistakes. No doubt, we will continue to make them, but hopefully they will become fewer and fewer as time goes by. Here is a list of common pitfalls of strategic-level spiritual warfare we need to be aware of and avoid to the degree possible.

• Ignorance

Ignorance is first on my list of pitfalls because it is undoubtedly the most effective tool of the enemy. It works in several ways.

Many Christians are ignorant of spiritual warfare in gen- eral, and even among those who do know about spiritual war- fare, many are unaware of the strategic-level variety that deals with territorial spirits. Those who do not know a war is on pose no threat to satan and the forces of darkness.

Some who are aware of strategic-level spiritual warfare and do not deny the existence of principalities and powers, have nevertheless decided it is not an activity intended for the Church today because they have never taken the pains to investigate it deeply enough. They think it has insufficient theological, biblical, and experiential ground. They have decided not to enlist in the army.

Others have a desire to do damage to the spiritual strong- holds over a city or nation, but they are ignorant of sound methodology. Fortunately, resources and teaching in this field are multiplying rapidly and this type of ignorance should soon be a thing of the past.

One of the worst dangers is to become involved in strategic- level spiritual warfare without knowing you are in it. I will not mention the name of the denomination, but a group of American Christian young people who were opposed to pornography decided to attend the Porno Festival in Copen- hagen, Denmark, with the express purpose of denouncing pornography as sin and calling the people there to repentance. Eighteen of them went and preached day after day in front of porno stores and displays. They reported hundreds of conver- sions, although further investigation showed that little or none of that fruit actually remained. But the worst thing was

that within the next few years, every single one of the 18 fell into pornography addiction or illicit sex.

The danger is that ignorance of the spirit world can lead to foolishness. These young people had no idea they were not wrestling with flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and they paid the consequences.

• Fear

Many Christian leaders are inwardly fearful of engaging the enemy on the higher levels. They hear what happened to the likes of Doris Wagner after warfare in Argentina, and they decide they don’t want that sort of thing happening to them. The fear is rarely expressed openly because there is good rea- son not to admit it.

First, these leaders are well aware that Jesus has defeated the enemy once for all, as I have mentioned many times previ- ously, and they know they need not doubt who will win the war.

Second, they believe that perfect love casts out all fear and that “he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). Admitting fear could be regarded as admitting a lack of love, and that is something few leaders are prepared to do.

One leader who did admit his fear is Floyd McClung of Youth With a Mission. He tells how he used to evade ques- tions concerning the devil by saying, “Satan loves sin, fear, and attention. I will not give him any of the three.” But then, after doing this once too often, the Holy Spirit convicted him, and he humbled himself before the Lord. God spoke to him inwardly saying, “I am disappointed in your response. You have little knowledge of the demonic realm and no authority over Satan as did my disciples many years ago. Your answer reflected your own fears.”

This word from the Lord turned him around. He con- fessed that he was responding to the questions in fear: “a well- disguised fear dressed up in theological terms, but fear nonetheless. I may have fooled some people, but not the Lord.” What was McClung’s problem? “I was afraid of extremism. I was afraid of the unknown.”1

During the Middle East crisis of the early 1990s, some Americans formed “anti-war movements” in an attempt to break the nation’s determination to carry out a just war. Rick Joyner sees a similar phenomenon among Christian leaders. He says, “There is a very subtle spiritual anti-war movement that the enemy would use to derail the church’s resolve in spiritual warfare.” In Joyner’s opinion, “The spiritual anti-war movement is rooted in idealism and is combined with a subtle fear of the enemy.”2

Although we should respect the power of the enemy, we should not fear it. This leads me to the next pitfall.

• Underestimating the Enemy

I happen to be a dairy farmer. This is the vocation I learned as a child, and I even have my B.S. degree in dairy production. Most of my experience came in the days before artificial insemination when dairy bulls were very much a part of farm life. Many people do not know that dairy bulls (unlike beef bulls) are amongst the most vicious animals known. Like the devil, they are extremely powerful, and they are extremely mean. Give them the slightest opportunity and they will kill you. In dairy country, like mine in upstate New York, every town has its stories of those who were seriously wounded or killed by bulls.

One of the reasons I was never the victim of a bull’s attack is that I so greatly respect them. I know what they can do, when they do it, and how they do it. But I am not afraid of

them. I can make a dairy bull do nearly anything I want him to do. My power doesn’t even compare to that of a bull, but I know how to lead one into the show ring, for example, just like a little kitten.

Satan and his forces are like the bull. Martin Luther said, “On earth is not his equal.” But through the blood of Jesus Christ and the weapons of our spiritual warfare we need not be afraid. Even so, the minute you underestimate satan’s power and lose your respect for him, you can be dead.

Some, I am sad to report, have actually lost their lives in strategic-level spiritual warfare. One of my Fuller students, Wilson Awasu of Ghana, wrote a research paper describing a Presbyterian pastor, C.Y. Adjanku, who ordered a tree enshrined by satanic priests to be cut down. When the tree fell, he dropped dead.

Among the most highly respected intercessors and spiri- tual warriors today is Johannes Facius of Germany, coordina- tor of Intercessors International. I point this out so that we understand we are not talking about a novice, but a veteran. He tells how back in 1986, a team of intercessors went to the Soviet Union and entered the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow. They felt they should pronounce judgment upon the “god of the Soviet system,” Vladimir Lenin.

What happened in the heavenlies at that time we do not know. We do know that Soviet Communism soon crumbled. But Facius says, “It was through this move against the Enemy that I suffered one of the strangest attacks of sickness that I have ever experienced.” The initial attack lasted one day, but soon afterward came a debilitating heart disease. He sees it as a counterattack of the spirit of death they had resisted in the Lenin Mausoleum. Three years of severe depression fol- lowed. After that he was delivered in a session that lasted less than 30 seconds.3

When Facius mentioned the spirit of death, I shuddered because Doris and I are convinced that the perpetrator of the attacks on her was the spirit of death from Resistencia, Argentina: san la muerte.

• Spiritual Arrogance

If we go into spiritual warfare and expect to have God’s power without humility on our part, we are in trouble. Paul said to the Corinthians, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3) and “...When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). At the same time, Paul was one of the most powerful spiritual warriors in the New Testament. He made even diana of the Ephesians tremble. Effective spiritual warfare requires a delicate balance of weakness and power. The minute we begin to think we are doing it ourselves, we become vulnerable to the enemy’s attack.

Johannes Facius admits this was part of his problem. He knew he was to stay in unbroken, intimate fellowship with the Lord. But he let it slip. Facius says, “Due to too much busyness—busyness in the Lord’s business—I came to the point where I let go of my dependency on the Lord.”4

• Lack of Personal Intercession

I believe intercession for Christian leaders is the most underutilized source of spiritual power in our churches today. In fact, my book Prayer Shield discusses this subject in much more detail. My advice is that no one should become involved in strategic-level spiritual warfare without definite assurance of being covered with intercessory prayer. In the famous spir- itual warfare passage in Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul himself begged the Ephesians to intercede for him (see Eph. 6:18-19). He asked the Colossians for the same thing (see Col. 4:3).

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Silvoso’s intercessor allowed jealousy to creep in when an outsider came into his area and led in some very powerful warfare praying. The intercessor, whom we’ll call Henry, asked his roommate to go out into the city with him one night to war against the spirits—presumably to assure himself and his roommate that he also had spiritual power. When they got back to the hotel and went to bed, two women, one a blonde and one a brunette, entered their room and offered Henry his choice of one to sleep with. His roommate was sleeping. Henry jumped up and locked himself in the bathroom. The women left, and he went back to bed. Before he knew it, three women had come in, the same two with another. They said, “If you don’t like us, why don’t you sleep with her?” Henry got up and ran outside the room.

When Henry returned, the women were gone, but his room- mate woke up choking and totally covered with perspiration.

His breath was almost gone, and they feared he would die. They prayed, and the attack lifted.

The next night Henry was driving the van to the city where he lived, moving at a high speed. Suddenly his body became paralyzed from the waist down, he choked as if there were hands around his throat, and the van veered off the high- way. He could only yell to the other passengers, “Please pray!” The van miraculously stayed upright, came to a stop, and no one was hurt. Later they learned that at that very instant the person he had become jealous of, along with two companions, had heard from God that He wanted them to pray for Henry. They prayed fervently, and God answered!

The good news is they weren’t hurt.

The bad news is that Henry, who previously was known as a powerful intercessor, has not been able to pray well ever since. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a temporary situation as was the case with Johannes Facius. Facius also admits this was one of his problems.

Facius says, “Like the apostle Paul, we need to ask for the covering of prayers from fellow believers. I failed here. We need to mobilize prayer partners for every strategic and war- ring action we undertake.”5

• Unguided Prayer

I have mentioned several times that intimacy with the Father through prayer and clear insight regarding what the Father is doing are crucial for effective warfare praying. With- out this our prayers can be unguided and, therefore, weak. Wesley Duewel says, “When you confine your intercession to your own understanding, you not only may miss God’s intent but may hinder His plan. Wait on God until He con- firms His will to you.”6 This, of course, requires listening to God in prayer.

I like the story Duewel tells about Mrs. Ed Spahr, an inter- cessor who was awakened in the night to pray for Jerry Rose, a missionary in Irian Jaya. This was so clear and at such a spe- cific time that she wrote to Jerry Rose the next day and told him about it. Four other letters arrived from prayer partners telling him that God had them praying at exactly the same time. At the time all five were praying, Rose was standing with his arms tied behind his back, and a Stone Age savage was preparing to thrust a spear through his body. But before he could do it, another man from the tribe stepped up, said something to the spearman, and they immediately released Jerry.

This is an example of guided prayer, the kind of prayer that moves the forces of darkness.7

• Poor Timing

One of the local pastors working with me in the Pasadena for Christ project is my friend, Ché Ahn. He told me how his church went through a very significant month of prayer and fasting not long ago. One of the many things they received from God that month was the revelation that some of the most powerful territorial spirits over Pasadena were centered in City Hall. So they gathered a team of 30 one evening and went to City Hall to tear down strongholds.

They had not prayed long when they realized they were in high-level warfare. The counterattack came. When Ché got home that night he suffered the most severe attack of hay fever he had experienced since he was a child. His children began having nightmares every night. They dreamed of hor- rors such as people being decapitated, limbs torn off, and their father being murdered. Ché explained that since they had no television, his children would have had no way of being mentally programmed with such things in the natural. It had to be spiritual.

As we talked, we agreed that although the revelation had undoubtedly been accurate, the timing of the public warfare might have been off. It may not have been God’s kairos or strategic time for the encounter to take place.

In the neighboring city of Monrovia, a similar incident took place where the timing was not right. Leigh Jackson, an intercessor, had been burdened to start a prayer movement for her city in 1985. In April of 1988, after other successful prayer meetings, she called together the pastors of the city to pray within the council chambers of the City Hall. Much to her con- sternation, one of the pastors usurped control of the meeting and turned it in a direction contrary to the vision she had received. Leigh, as a woman, didn’t feel she could exercise authority and do anything about it. The prayer movement stalled.

She tried it again in 1989, and this also turned out to be a false start. It wasn’t until late 1990 when she finally heard from God about the timing, and at this writing the prayer movement is getting underway as she hoped.

Many of us, including me, have a tendency to be impa- tient. Once we know what needs to be done, we want to get it done now. But if we get ahead of God, we might as well forget about anything significant happening because it will be done in the flesh and not in the Spirit.

• Empty Rhetoric

One of my concerns is that some will become interested in strategic-level spiritual warfare, but do it so unwisely that their excessive praying turns out to be nothing but empty rhetoric. Instead of pushing back the forces of darkness, they are only making noise.

Some of the authors in the field of warfare praying share prayers they have used and found effective. These are good

prayers, and nothing is wrong with using similar prayers over and over again. Those from liturgical traditions find that great spiritual power can be released even through using prayers written by others.

However, the danger needs to be recognized that some rather immature believers can fall into the trap of using the prayers of others as if they were magical formulas. If they  just say the right words and shout them loud enough, satan supposedly will be defeated. If a prayer works for Dick Bernal or Tom White or Gwen Shaw, it will undoubtedly work for me.

I do not believe that empty rhetoric is one of the worst or most dangerous pitfalls. In most cases nothing happens because neither God nor the principalities pay much attention to it. When it is done, everything is much the same as it was before. But the danger comes when the person who prays thinks that something happens in the heavenlies and acts on that assumption. Declaring victory when there is no victory can have serious consequences. This is what the Argentina military leaders attempted in the Falkland Islands War, and as a result they severely traumatized the social psychology of the entire nation.

When many serious, thinking Christians see foolishness disguised as spiritual warfare in churches or on television, they reject the whole idea. This is the point at which satan can gain a victory through empty rhetoric.

• No Covering

If reading a book like this excites you, and if you want to enlist in the army of God for strategic-level spiritual warfare, do not do it under any circumstances without the covering of your spiritual superiors. Your pastor or the elders of your church are agents of God appointed to oversee your spiritual

welfare. Better yet, apostolic alignment helps greatly. You leave yourself vulnerable and open to severe attack if you do not have this spiritual covering.

By this I do not mean your pastor or apostle will necessar- ily need to join you in the hands-on warfare. But he or she needs to give you an explicit blessing in one form or another.

For most this is a simple principle to apply. However, for the top levels of Christian leadership it becomes more com- plex. Who pastors the pastor? This has been a personal prob- lem for me over the years because the church I belong to is so large that the one who holds the title of senior pastor is usu- ally too busy to give me and my family individual pastoral care. God brought this to my attention recently when I was reading what Johannes Facius said: “I believe that every one of us, including God’s servants, needs a pastor.” Then he men- tioned the name of the person who functions as his pastor even though he lives in a different country, Sven Nilsson of Sweden.8

Doris and I prayed about it and agreed to approach John Maxwell and his wife, Margaret, to see if they would be will- ing to carry this burden. They readily agreed, and I believe this relationship will continue for a long time. As my pastor, John now provides the covering and the spiritual authority I need for my ministry, even though his church, Skyline Wes- leyan of San Diego, is more than 100 miles away.

• Moving out Alone

Do not plan on or attempt to do strategic-level spiritual warfare alone. Always do it in a group. Jesus said He will be present where two or three are gathered. This is another way of saying there should be more than one. “If two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone?” (Eccles. 4:11).

This was brought to my attention recently through a con- versation I had with Alfred H. Ells, a Christian marriage coun- selor from Phoenix. He told me how he was driving his car in the city at Christmastime when he heard on the radio that the ACLU was requiring the city to take down the public Christ- mas decorations. He became angry, and in the car he began cursing out loud the spirit of ACLU. He immediately saw a vision of an ugly being and felt a blow in his side. He turned and said, “What is that?” and then took a sharp blow just like a fist on the left side of his face. The pain was terrible. He could hardly open his mouth. Back in the office, some laid on hands and prayed and the pain left.

Later Alfred was praying about it and said to God, “What’s going on?” God answered and said, “You had no business doing that!”

Looking back, we saw that Alfred Ells had violated sev- eral of the items on this list of pitfalls, and one of them was going at it alone.

How Warfare Prayer Can Work

One of the Bible’s most dramatic examples of effective warfare prayer is Elijah coming against baal. Baal was a clas- sic territorial spirit, the principality over the Phoenicians and the Canaanites. What his exact boundaries were I do not know, but I do know he was not the spirit over, for example, China, Scandinavia, the Andes Indians, or Australian Aborig- ines, all of which existed in those days.

Baal succeeded in capturing the allegiance of King Ahab, who married Jezebel, converted to baal worship, and built a temple and an altar to that evil principality.

God raised up Elijah to lead the strategic-level spiritual warfare against baal (see 1 Kings 17:19). Elijah was not wrestling so much against flesh and blood (Jezebel and Ahab),

but against principalities and powers (baal and his forces of darkness). The climax of the story is a dramatic power encounter.

In preparation for the power encounter, Elijah publicly proclaimed a drought on the land (see 1 Kings 17:1). Through it, God sustained Elijah by bringing birds to feed him and by multiplying food at the widow’s house (see 1 Kings 17:6-16). God reminded Elijah of His power by raising the widow’s son from the dead (see 1 Kings 17:17-23).

Then the Lord’s timing (the kairos moment) came for baal to be defeated and the drought to end. Elijah announced it would rain and then openly challenged baal through King Ahab. The events are well-known. Baal could not light the fire called down by his priests, but God did so even after the fire- wood had been soaked with water. This was such a public embarrassment that 450 of baal’s priests were executed. When the power of that territorial spirit was broken, the rain came (see 1 Kings 18).

But the counterattack came also. Jezebel was furious. Eli- jah, weakened by the warfare, fled. God sent an angel to feed him, but he went into a period of severe depression. God met him and spoke to him in a still, small voice and told him there were still 7,000 followers of Jehovah (see 1 Kings 19:1-18).

A Glorious Finale

Then God gave Elijah a glorious finale:

• He anointed a new king (see 2 Kings 9:1-13).
• He identified his replacement, Elisha (see 1 Kings 19:19-21).
• He was taken to Heaven in a chariot of fire (see 2 Kings 2:11).

• Along with Moses, he was one of two people from the past chosen to join Jesus on the Mount of Transfigura- tion (see Matt. 17:1-3). What a reward for the faithful warrior!

But where does warfare prayer enter the picture? Nothing in First Kings says that Elijah prayed.

God did not want to leave us wondering whether Elijah prayed or not. Through James He informs us that Elijah’s major spiritual weapon was the same as ours: warfare prayer.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit (James 5:17-18).

In what context does James mention this prayer, which we know to be warfare prayer from First Kings? James uses it as an illustration of the principle: “...The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16).

This biblical illustration shows that God has been and is calling His people to warfare prayer. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches...” (Rev. 2:7).

Reflection Questions

• Why is it that some Christians are fearful of dealing with the spirit world even if they know that Jesus is on their side?
• If personal intercession is so important for Christian leaders to receive so that they will not turn out to be casualties, why is it so rare?
• How can we be sure that what we are praying for is the will of God at a particular time?

• Suppose we fall into any of the pitfalls mentioned in  this chapter. Will God always overrule, or is the danger real?
• Pray with others around you that God will show you and your friends specifically what steps you should take to implement what you have learned by reading this book.

(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.)