Spiritual Warfare – Going on the attack.
In light of the intense spiritual warfare in our world right
now, after praying about mounting a counter-attack against our spiritual enemy,
our Monday Night Community Bible study group came up with the following
guidelines from the Lord.
1.
Know the importance of the Season you are in and
a wise son you will be. But what a waste when an incompetent son sleeps through
his day of opportunity. To gather in summer is a wise son. To sleep through the
harvest is a disgrace. (Prov. 10:5)
a.
We have entered a new season, a new era. This
new season is a season of the Fall Feasts of the Lord, appointed times. It will
be a season of God fulfilling His promises to both the Church and to Israel. It
will be a season of great harvest, the gleaning of the “wheat fields”. It will
be a time of new intimacy with the Lord. It will be a time of fresh vision and
revelations from the Lord and new assignments from the Lord. It will be a time
of shaking yet a time of joy amid the shaking. It will be a time of suddenlies!
i. See
the article “A Word of the Lord for our Day. A New Season” by D. Weary.
b.
This new season will be a season of Harvest, a
season of ingathering just before the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets and
the wedding of the King [Hos 6:11; Joe 2:24 NASB] [Jhn 4:35 ESV] [Rev 7:9-14
NASB].
2.
Spy out the enemy camp. Be aware of what is
going on in the natural and in the spiritual. Identify Satan’s strategies,
tactics, and the specific weapons he is currently using (Spiritual mapping).
a.
Spiritual mapping is a way of viewing the forces at
work behind the scenes in daily life. It is a way of superimposing our
understanding of forces and events in the spiritual domain onto places and
circumstances in the material world.
b.
The fervent and focused prayer required to bind the
strongmen and open the blinded minds of the captives can only be sustained by an
intimate knowledge of the enemy’s deployments, strategies, tactics, and weapons
[2 Cor. 2:11].
3.
Pray for exposure of things hidden in the dark [Jer
16:17; Mat 10:26; Mar 4:22; Luk 8:17; Luk 12:2; 1Co 4:5].
4.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment for specific individuals who are
involved in executing the works of the devil [Jhn 16:7-11].
5.
It will take a team effort [Mat 18:18; Mat
18:19; Mat 18:20; Jas 5:16].
6.
Set up 3 circles of intercessors.
a.
Core intercessors, supporting intercessors, and
covering intercessors.
7.
Always seek advice, direction, and orders (assignments)
from the Commander of the Armies of Heaven Jesus for success [Judges 1:1-4; John
5:19; John 12:49].
a.
Stay on the assignment until you see a change
(and are released).
From “A Handbook for Spiritual Warfare”
D.P. Weary, November
2005. Updated May 2011.
A. Because
of His very nature God operates under a defined set of ground rules. He always operates in perfect righteousness
and justice. His underlying motivation
is perfect love. He never violates a
person’s free will. He always does what
is best for His troops (His children).
He has a well-defined battle plan and strategy that is spelled out in
the Bible. He is raising His Bride to
rule and reign with Him for all eternity and He is establishing His Kingdom on
earth. The end of it all is sure and fixed in all eternity; He Wins!
B. Satan’s
ground rules are simple. Whatever it
takes! He knows no boundaries of
morality, integrity, or justice. He has
no concern for anything except himself and his ambitions and desires. He will attempt to use anything and anybody,
humans and demons alike to achieve his goals.
His only limits or boundaries are those that God imposes on him. He is not all-powerful or all-knowing. He is
limited in time and space. Because of
the cross of Jesus, he is stripped of all real authority, a defeated foe. He has no legal right to anything or anybody
except as people give him authority over them by their own choices. Yet by lies, bluster, deceptions, and through
fear, pride, and presumption he continues to attempt to keep people in bondage
to himself and in the end to destroy all.
1. God’s vision, goals,
strategies, and tactics are all clearly defined in His Word. His vision is an eternal kingdom of love,
peace, and righteousness under His Kingship with His Bride redeemed mankind at
His side. His goal is to love and be
loved in an eternal, perfect husband-wife relationship with the mankind that He
created in His image. His master plan or
strategy is to:
a. Create humans in His image (Gen. 1:27).
Beings with the potential to have an intimate, personal, and loving
relationship with Himself. Beings with
the potential and capability to become one with Him as in a husband-wife
relationship. God wants a wife, a bride
(the church).
b. Create another suitor so that man has to choose
to love and serve God out of his own free will.
A choice that true love can be.
c. When the first man, Adam, chose to be
obedient to Satan rather than God, God being a persistent suitor, did not give
up but continued to woo His love. He
chose a race of men, the Jews as a people that would display to the rest of the
world the Kingdom of God. He sent the Law to man to show him that he, man, had
betrayed God and had fallen short of the potential and destiny that God had
purposed for him. He sent prophets,
priests, judges, kings, women, and children, to show mankind God’s way and the
way back to an intimate relationship with Him.
When all these failed, God came himself to earth as Jesus again through
the Jewish race, to buy mankind back from the other suitor, Satan, by giving
His own life as a ransom for her.
d. God first came to the Jew with the gospel
message of salvation and redemption through Jesus the Messiah (Rom. 1:16). He then spread the message to all the gentile
nations starting from Jerusalem through His first disciples (Acts 1:8).
e. From Jesus’ day until the day that the “full
number of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25) God by His Holy Spirit and
through the Church has been spreading the Gospel and wooing people to come to
Him. He is not willing that any should
perish (2 Pet. 3:9).
f. There is coming a day when the “fullness of
the gentiles has come in”. At this time
God will turn His attention once again back to the Jews to complete His
covenant promises to them (Rom. 11:25-29).
In the Abrahamic covenant, God unconditionally promised them a land
(Gen. 15:9-19; Deut. 30:1-10; Ezek. 16:59-63; 20:33-37; 42:44). In the Davidic covenant, God promises them a
dynasty (a Kingdom of no end), a nation (the house of Jacob), and a throne (the
throne of David) (2 Sam. 7:11, 13 16; Jer. 33:3-26; 31:35-40).
g. At the time of these restorations (Acts 3:20-21)
Jesus is to return to earth not for sin as in His first coming but for
salvation and judgment (Heb. 9:27-28).
At this time He completes His promises to His people and brings judgment
to those refusing Him. It is a time of
God’s wrath, the Day of the Lord (Rev. 6:12-17). God’s enemies are defeated and He comes to
rule and reign on earth for 1000 years.
Satan is bound in the shaft of the abyss for 1000 years.
h. At the end of the 1000 years, there is a
great judgment where all men are judged (Rev. 20:7-15). Satan is released for one final revolt
against God and is finally and totally defeated. He is then thrown into the lake of fire. All men are then judged and men according to
what they had done. Then death and Hades
are thrown into the lake of fire. This
is the second death, the lake of fire.
All whose names are not recorded in the Book of Life are hurled into the
lake of fire.
I. Then God creates a new heaven and a new
earth. He makes all things new! (Rev. 21:1-8). The Bride and the Lamb together rule, reign,
and love forever.
2. Satan’s vision is to take
God’s place as king of the universe. To
take His Throne, His Glory; Satan wants to be God. His goal is to get mankind to submit to, be
obedient to, worship him, and to reject God.
His strategy is to deceive, trick, force, do anything to get mankind to
disobey and reject God. He works at the
individual level, one by one. He works
using fallen man’s natural inclinations for sin (lust, pride, covetousness,
self-centeredness, etc.). He is
continually working to disrupt and make not come to pass the prophecies and
promises of the Word. He must, for if he
cannot, his fate is sure; it is the lake of fire. Satan is continually and by
all means defaming the name and character of God. He is continually denying,
distorting, and trying to destroy the truth of God’s incarnation in Jesus and
Jesus’ sacrificial death and His resurrection.
Since Satan cannot create anything, he must take the things of God and
pervert and corrupt them and then use them for his purposes. Satan’s strategy
for becoming God is to:
a. Get the original man, Adam to disobey God and
break the intimate relationship between them.
Get mankind to give him, Satan, their delegated authority on earth so
that he becomes sovereign of the earth.
b. Keep the people of earth ignorant or in the
dark about the righteousness of God. Keep them seeking to approach God by the
law and their works instead of through God’s righteousness and His free
Grace. Keep them seeking fulfillment and
enlightenment through faith in man and his works, faith in idols or nature
(created things) rather than through faith in God the Creator (Is. 8:14; 28:16;
Rom. 9:30; 10:4).
c. Disrupt God’s plan for Israel by getting them
into idolatry and getting them to seek human kings instead of letting God be
their king.
d. Disrupt God’s plan of salvation through Jesus
by attempting to kill those in Jesus’ genealogy; killing all male babies in
Israel at the time of Jesus' birth, and trying to get Jesus himself to sin and
worship Satan.
e.
Destroy the church through persecution and perversion
f. Pervert the Gospel and prevent it from being
spread.
g. Establish satanic strongholds in individuals,
families, cities, nations, and kingdoms.
h.
Attack and destroy the family as it is intended to be an earthly picture of the
relationship between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32).
i. Pervert sex and sexual relationships, as
these covenant relationships between man and wife are an earthly picture of our
intimate relationship with God as His Bride.
j. Create a universal religion that accepts
anything except the concept of God incarnate in Jesus the Messiah (Rev. 17).
k. Create a universal government and economic
system that is sold out to him and under his direct control (Rev. 18).
l. Create a man that is controlled by him and
fake his death and resurrection that he can claim to be the messiah as he seems
to fulfill the prophecies about Jesus (the Antichrist or Beast) (Dan. 7; 8; 9;
Rev. 13).
m.
Create a false “trinity” (Satan, the
Beast, the False Prophet) (Rev. 13).
n. Establish a physical throne in Jerusalem,
take that throne and demand to be worshipped as God at the penalty of death
(Dan. 12; Matt. 24; Rev. 9).
o. Take the things of God in general and pervert
or twist them to serve his own means and defame God or work against God’s
purposes.
Tactics are the things you do to carry out a strategy that will
eventually get you to your goals and fulfill your vision. In warfare, we need to know what specific
tactics God is using and that we are to use and what tactics are being used
against us.
A.
God’s tactics:
·
Make prayer (intimacy with God) the foundation of
all activity.
·
In fallen mankind and his institutions, find the
God-given gifts and callings that have been distorted by the enemy and restore
them.
·
Find the reasons that Satan claims rights to
individuals, families, cities, nations, and cancel them, bringing cleansing,
redemption, and restoration (breaking chains of bondage).
·
Establish God’s Kingdom by changing individuals,
one at a time (Isa. 27:12).
·
Establish His Kingdom in the hearts of men, and
then He will establish the throne of David on the earth (Rom. 11).
·
Use nationals to change their nations.
·
Make discipling (teaching) others a normal part of
being a Christian (Matt. 28:19).
·
Networking and cooperation, teamwork, unity within
the Church.
·
Bind the strongman, and then plunder his house.
·
Always be other-centered versus self-centered.
·
Use the full 5 fold ministries gifts including the
neglected offices of apostle and prophet.
·
Be empowered by the Holy Spirit and use the gifts
of the Spirit in this power.
·
Know the prophecies of the Bible and work in
harmony with them.
·
Understand the role of and practice praise and
worship.
·
Seek God always for the orders for the moment, the
tasks to be done, the weapons to be used, the training to use them, and the
power and authority to use them.
·
Always operate in “truth and spirit”.
·
Be continually in prayer to get God’s specific
instructions, to open doors, and to bind the strongman (spirit).
·
Research to know the facts of situations, areas,
and the people being dealt with.
·
Operate in the context of relationships. Work to restore and redeem relationships at
all levels.
·
Always be in a servant’s mode and in service to
others to demonstrate the genuine concern and love of God.
·
Always be ready to preach the Gospel in season and
out of season.
·
Signs and wonders will be poured out to confirm the
truth of the Gospel.
·
Gather new believers into groups (church planting).
·
Disciple, teach, train, and mature new believers.
·
Find and develop the giftings and assignments of
new believers.
·
Provide specific training and equipping for service
in specific areas.
·
Send into the assignments and sustain them during
the tasks.
·
Give the enemy no ground (holiness, purity,
humility). Strive for holiness in all
areas of life.
·
Demolish strongholds where Satan has establish
control or influence over individuals or groups of individuals.
·
Demolish arguments and pretensions that are designed
to come against the knowledge of God. (2 Cor. 10:3-5)
·
Uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to
build and to plant. (Jer. 1:10)
·
To preach and proclaim, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to bring inner healing, peace, and joy, to proclaim freedom for
the captives and release from darkness, to proclaim the favor of the Lord and
the righteousness of God, and to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. (Isa. 61:1-3)
B.
Satan’s tactics.
·
Disarm the power of the Cross through unbelief,
confusion, lawlessness, ignorance, fear, manipulation, deception, hate, and
condemnation.
·
Establish belief systems that “tickle men’s ears”,
giving them what they want to hear and denying who Jesus really is.
·
Establishing a universal religion that accepts whatever
you want to believe except that Jesus is the Son of God.
·
Establishing a government that has positive and
universal control of people, finances, and militaries.
·
The destruction of Israel and the Jewish race.
·
Breaking the chain of fulfilled prophecies of the
Bible.
·
Tell people what they want to hear, promise them
whatever they want, do whatever is necessary to get them to disobey God,
operate outside of His principles and commandments; get them to sin in any way,
and ensure that they do not repent and ask forgiveness. Get them to give him, Satan, a right to
control parts of their lives.
·
Make those serving God ineffective in their
assignments by doing nothing, or doing the wrong things and/or at the wrong
time.
·
Robbing people of hope and vision which brings despair
and/or inactivity.
·
Attacking finances especially where they are
feeding or intended to feed God’s work.
·
Working to minimize the power of the Holy Spirit
flowing through people through fear, unbelief, doubt, tradition, and pride.
·
Establishing and using covenants with individuals,
families, groups of people, cities, and nations to control them and keep them
in darkness.
·
Attacking the individual and corporate mind by
establishing strongholds set against the knowledge of God; blinding the mind to
truth, and setting the mind on what the sinful natural nature of man desires.
(Rom. 8:5-8; 2 Cor. 4:4; 2 Cor. 10:3-6; 2 Tim. 4:3)
·
Bruising the emotions of mankind through rejection
and bitterness. (Luke 4:18)
·
Causing or using rebellion, pride, and occult
involvement to get mankind to disobey God, and in any manner, getting mankind
to worship or subject himself to Satan.
·
Attacking the individual and corporate will to make
it passive, broken, or unyeilded to God.
·
Bruising the emotions to cause bitterness,
rejection, isolation, and the inability to love or receive love.
·
Blind the minds of men with lies and deceptions to
keep them from the truth and love of God.
IV. God's weapons of warfare.. 27
A. Prayer; intimacy and communion with God. 27
B. Using the name of Jesus (the names of God) 43
C. The Word of God in warfare. 43
D. The blood of the
Lamb - Heb. 9:14 and Rev. 12:11. 43
E. The word of our testimony - Rev. 12:11. 44
F. Loyalty unto death. 44
G. The power of the Holy Spirit 44
H. The gifts of the Holy Spirit. 45
I. The armor of God
(Eph. 6:10-18) 47
J. Spiritual Mapping and Research. 50
K. Worship and praise
in warfare. 53
L. Reconciliation and forgiveness. 55
M. Service as a weapon of our warfare. 58
N. Unity, a mighty weapon of our warfare. 58
O. Holiness, purity, humility, meekness and
love. 59
V. Satan’s weapons of warfare.. 60
A. Spirits of divination (occult) 61
B. Spirits of jealousy. 64
C. Lying spirits. 64
D. Perverse spirits. 65
E. Spirits of haughtiness or pride. 65
F. Spirits of heaviness. 66
G. The spirits of whoredoms. 67
H. Spirits of infirmity. 68
I. Deaf and mute spirits. 68
J. Spirits of bondage. 69
K. The spirit of fear 70
L. Deceiving or seducing spirits. 70
M. The spirit of the antichrist 71
N. The spirit of error 71
O. The spirit of death. 72
P. The spirit of
Jezebel 73
IV. Battles we are dealing with every day
·
Deception
– lying spirits
·
Perverse
spirits – sexual related sin and perversion
·
Division
- disunity
·
Infirmity
– sickness, disease, accidents
·
Fear
·
Anger
·
Drugs
and alcohol - witchcraft (manipulation
and control in many forms)
·
Lawlessness
·
Greed
·
Rebellion
·
Worthlessness
·
Depression
·
Anxiety
·
False
doctrine, perverted Christianity
·
The
spirit of Islam – the antichrist spirit
·
The
antichrist spirit and anti-Semitism.
·
The occult
cults and open Satan worship.
·
The
rise of globalism and a one-world government.
