SPIRITUAL WARFARE

I have had some great times as a Christian.

Lots of fun as a teenager being mentored to be a preacher and leader; enjoying fellowship with other believers six days a week; Christian camps where I was involved in the spiritual lives of teenage kids; being used by God to bring renewal to a Baptist church in England; deputy leader of a youth ministry in my early 20s and bringing young people to Christ; two years at a Brethren Bible College; organising residential conferences for 1,700 people; being part of a church that was at the forefront of the charismatic renewal in the 60s and 70s and regularly involved in ministry of various kinds; leader of two para-church ministries; discipling a group of Baptists into the Spirit filled life; senior management of a Christian book distributor; scattering the enemy at university and putting the wind up them to name a few.

You can probably guess that I am not one to sit on the premises when the need is to stand on the promises of God. The bible is full of God’s promises…and commands. Really there is enough there to fill a lifetime…and a half.

You wonder sometimes why we find time to do anything else other than to go into all the world and make disciples. In my home town we have 9,000 residents who do not know Jesus personally. We have about a dozen different churches and not one of them is doing anything about the unbeliever’s parlous state.

I say they are doing nothing. One or two are doing this and that because it was a good idea and one is providing support and care to the marginalised, but none are doing what they should be doing. The one thing that will make all the difference.

And just what is that you might ask?

Well, I am glad you asked because that means I can tell you. The one thing that they are not doing and which they have to do to bring the gospel to the 9,000 is spiritual warfare. The sort that involves a lot of praying against principalities and powers.

The only praying that most churches do is 15 minutes before the Sunday morning meeting, maybe a short cursory prayer during the meeting and maybe an hour one night a week.

Sustained, determined and effective prayer is almost none existent despite the fact that the scriptures say that the “prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with”. Another version says “Prayers offered by those who have God's approval are effective”. Seems like we don’t believe that.

Fervent prayer will demand energy as the Greek word is “energo”. To be mighty in prayer is to be mighty in “petition, request, or supplication”. The focus is others, not ourselves.

In the King James it talks about this prayer “availing” much. This word means to exercise force. The sort that will remove territorial spirits over towns and the institutions in them.

That will require committed, agonizing prayer and battles with principalities and powers. The sort that most of us don’t want to get involved in. The sort that needs to precede all evangelism otherwise it will be a case of using a hammer to knock down a skyscraper.