Essays on Prayer - No. 15 - By Robert Dean Steel

Essays on Prayer - No. 15 - By Robert Dean Steel

   This following essay is about taking down demonic strongholds in a spiritual warfare.  In an earlier essay I talked about how we are involved in warfare where are enemies are not carnal.  They are spiritual and must be confronted and defeated through spiritual means.  For example praising and worship with songs and prayers has a powerful effect on the heavenly realm.  I have often wondered how singing a worship song can change a spiritual atmosphere but it does.  One time our children were fighting and carrying on as children can do.  We were about lower the boom and send them all to their rooms but my wife got an idea.  She went to the stereo and put on a worship album within a few minutes the children had settled down and were playing well together and for the rest of the afternoon there was peace in the house .  This became our practice through out the years. 
   When you are confronting and doing spiritual warfare you must use the authority of the blood, the word and the name.  Let me explain.  It is the blood of Jesus Christ that has secured us the victory.  Through His blood we have victory and power.  Through the blood of Jesus every foe standing in the way of God must leave.  We have authority through the blood of Jesus.  The second thing that has given us victory is the name of Jesus.  In the name of Jesus, all authority has been given unto us.  In the name of Jesus, we have anything we ask in His name.  Jesus said that when two or three gather in His name, He is there in their midst and when two or three agree as touching anything it shall be done for them.  In Jesus name, we have the victory.  He tells us we have all authority, power and victory in His name.  Lastly, we have victory because of the word.  Isaiah tells us that the Lord has put His word of His name.  When we stand upon the word we shall see every demon flee.  When Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by the devil He used the word each time to defeat him.  We must do the same.  I have been in many confrontations with the devil and have seen the victory in Jesus name.
   Now when you are praying against demonic strongholds whatever they may be.  You can if you wish, name them if the Holy Spirit leads that direction.  You may have spirits of death, suicide, or destruction in your area.  Maybe you have ancient deities such as Baal, Astarte, Molech, Chemosh, Baal or Jezebel.  You may be dealing with sexual spirits or occultic forces.  Wizards, warlocks, new agers, eastern mysticism, religion of the marshal arts.  In Japan for example, Shinto and Buddhism are strongholds.  In some areas of Canada you may be dealing with so called Christian cults.  I grew up one community like that.  Ask the Holy Spirit to show you and with the confirmation of others you will be able over time identify and confront these spirits.  In my last essay I talked about how Patrick over came the druids. 
   I am not in any way saying you should focus on finding the name of every demon in your city for example I live in a city of 60,000 people so they must be at least close to that many spirits in my city.  I do not have time to try and name them all.  What I do know is that everyone of them is defeated through Jesus Christ.  From His book the Bondage Breaker, Neil Anderson gives us some ideas on how we can overcome and defeat the enemy in prayer.  I will use his thoughts.

1.  When you confront them.  Pray that God will confuse the enemies camp.  If the enemy is in confusion they will not know how to re group or counter attack. 
2.  Ask the Lord to give you discernment on know how to defeat the enemy.  God has certain means and methods to defeat the enemy.  When you read the Bible God uses many methods.  You have Moses using a rod, Elijah calls down fire, David uses a sling and five stones, Elijah uses salt to make the water of Jericho sweet.  There is a means and method you can use to defeat the enemy that is where discernment, knowledge and wisdom in the Holy Spirit can come into play.
3.  Ask that the enemy have no communication between each other or their commanders.  When communication breaks down in warfare orders get missed, troop movement can be slow and even misplaced.  The enemy relies on communication like any force.  When they cannot communicate among themselves or their commanders they lose every time.
4.  Pray for sterility, barrenness and un-fruitfulness.  This is obvious when the enemy cannot be fruitful in what they do they will shrivel up and die.
5.  Invite the angels into the battle.  Angels are ministering spirits to help the saints.  For every demonic spirit there is two angels confronting them.  You can invite them into the battle.  We see for example that the nation of Israel had an angel leading them through out their time in the wilderness.  Another angel destroyed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers.
6.  Use the means and methods we have talked about in spiritual warfare.  Stand on the name, word and blood of Jesus.
7.  Stand in the authority of Jesus Christ and refuse to back down until you have the victory.  Sometimes it takes months and even years to breakthrough.  I close with this story.  John Nash and Abel Clary were Charles Finney's prayer team.  It was reported that the two of them would go into a community and spend weeks in prayer until they have cleared the air of all opposition.  They would groan, weep, sing and pray hour after hour until they felt the peace and power of God.  We must do the same and clear our community of evil because souls are hanging in the balance.