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         I want us to have a clear understanding about spiritual warfare. It's a big part of breakthrough. In today’s focus Dr. Peter Wagner gives us three keys about spiritual warfare in his book “Confronting the Queen of Heaven”. As we open the door of warfare today, know that as we ascend there is warfare in the heavens.

Chuck D. Pierce

        There are at least three very important things that the head [Jesus] is telling the body about spiritual warfare:

1.   Stand against the wiles of the devil.  Paul tells the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God ‘that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil’ (Eph. 6:13).  This is not a benign command.  It is not something which is easy to do.  The reason for this is that the devil is an awesome being.  Paul, in the same epistle, calls him ‘the prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2:2).  It is hard for me to understand why some Christian leaders insist on trivializing Satan’s power.  Referring to him as a wimp or as a toothless lion only serves to embolden people to think they can get away with attacking the devil with a fly swatter.

I suspect that by saying things like this, some well-intentioned believers are comparing the power of the devil to the power of God, and it is true that there is no contest between the two of them.  But this is not the scenario at hand.  We are not spectators watching a fight between God and demons.  We are the ones whom God has designated to stand against the wiles of the devil.  The head tells the body to do it, and, clearly, the head is not going to do it for us.

2.   Engage in proactive spiritual warfare.  In the letter to Ephesus Jesus says, ‘To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God’ (Rev. 2:7).  The word ‘overcome,’ which Jesus repeats seven times, is nikao in the original Greek.  It is a military word meaning ‘to conquer, in secular Greek, but, according to The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: ‘In the New Testament [nikao] almost always presupposes the conflict between God and opposing demonic powers’ (Vol. 1, p. 650).  In other words, it means to do spiritual warfare.

3.   Declare God’s wisdom to the principalities.  Paul expresses to the Ephesians his burning desire that ‘the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places’ (Eph. 3:10).  This is another one of the commands from the head of the body, and it explicitly says that the church should make this declaration to the powers in the invisible world.  There are many interpretations as to what exactly this might mean, but one of them would be that we declare the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The church, by deed and also by word, should remind the territorial spirits over places like Ephesus that the kingdom of God has invaded the kingdom of darkness beginning with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And that the god of this age will no longer blind the minds of unbelievers to the glorious gospel of Christ in Ephesus, Turkey, Japan, Nepal, Calcutta, or in any other place.  This kind of a declaration of war will predictably spark negative reactions and counterattacks from the forces of evil and the spiritual battle will be engaged.

One of the major apostles of the extraordinary Argentine Revival, now in its seventeenth year, is evangelist Carlos Annacondia.  In virtually every one of his meetings, he literally declares the wisdom of God to the devil and to any spiritual principalities that might be in the vicinity.  Many times I have heard him do this in a very loud voice and with powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit.  The title of his excellent book is:  Listen to Me, Satan! (Creation House).  When this war cry goes forth, night after night, things begin to happen.  Demons manifest and are summarily dispatched, sick people are healed miraculously, and sinners literally run to the platform to get saved.  More than two million have been born again in his campaigns so far.”

     Of course, Peter Wagner is talking about strategic-level power encounters with demonic structures dealing with whole people groups or territories. There are examples of this throughout the Old and New Testaments involving people such as Moses, David, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul.  God’s heart remains the same today.  We need to enter into a mentality that God will display His power greatly over the earth and over demonic structures in order to see great throngs loosed from Satan’s grip, and from that mentality, pray the prayers of confrontation according to His will.  There are times when God will also call us into confrontation-type warfare over demonic structures on a personal or family level as well, in which case, the same three points that we quoted above also apply.