Praying with Christ’s authority breaks the control of the powers of darkness over people groups, cities and nations

By John D Robb, IPC Chairman

Chains of spiritual darkness and bondage often link unreached peoples, cities and countries to principalities and powers who seek to control the affairs of humankind. Over the last couple of decades in the missions world, we have been undergoing a rediscovery that the issue in reaching the unreached is one of spiritual power. Just as it was when Elijah faced the gods of Egypt or Baal on Mount Carmel, so today the issue still is one of power encounter between the true God and false gods, those spirit beings who hold sway over segments of humanity.

The late Peter Wagner in a symposium on power evangelism at Fuller Seminary once affirmed: "Satan delegates high-ranking members of the hierarchy of evil spirits to control nations regions, cities, tribes, people groups, neighborhoods and other significant social networks of human beings throughout the world. Their major assignment is to prevent God from being glorified in their territory, which they do through directing the activity of lower-ranking demons."

Ephesians 6 indicates that all Christians are involved in an unseen warfare with the powers of darkness, how much more those of us who are involved in frontier missions as missionaries, intercessors, researchers or strategists? Paul says our struggle or literally "wrestling" is to be carried on through prayer in the Spirit. Apart from the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, prayer is the only offensive weapon available to us in this cosmic warfare.

Obviously, if we are going to see missionary breakthroughs in peoples, cities and countries, we will need to learn how to use the offensive weapon of prayer to dislodge the powers of darkness. While discussing the receptivity or resistance of people groups to Christ, Wagner draws out this implication: "It goes without saying that if this hypothesis concerning territorial spirits is correct, and if we could learn how to break their control through the power of God, positions on the resistance-receptivity axis could change virtually overnight."

Pastor Francis Frangipane, writing about the strongholds the powers of darkness maintain over groups of people, takes a similar line of thinking:

"There are satanic strongholds over countries and communities; there are strongholds which influence churches and individuals.... These fortresses exist in the thought patterns and ideas that govern individuals... as well as communities and nations. Before victory can be claimed, these strongholds must be pulled down, and Satan's armor removed. Then the mighty weapons of the Word and the Spirit can effectively plunder Satan's house."

Studies of the belief systems of pagan peoples attest to the reality of the picture of spirit beings portrayed in Ephesians 6, the book of Daniel and elsewhere. The Burmese believe in supernatural beings called nats arranged hierarchically with control over natural phenomena, villages, regions, and nations. Their link with these beings is maintained through witches or mediums, at least one of whom is found in each village.

In Thailand there are both village and regional spirits, with the village ones being subordinate to the regional ones. Pillars are often erected in villages as a habitat for their guardian spirits. One CMA missionary told me of the increasing oppression and lack of spiritual responsiveness she and her coworker encountered in a village once this pillar was erected. An OMF missionary thinks he has identified the national principality over all of Thailand.

In India a similar cosmology involving guardian spirits over villages and others over regions is found. They are often associated with disease, sudden death and catastrophe. Kali, the goddess of destruction, is a regional deity known especially among the Bengalis of West Bengal in Calcutta. Anyone who has been to Calcutta can see the devastating impact she and her worship have made upon that city and its people. Christian workers living there complain of severe oppression and serious disunity in the churches.

A book on the African country of Zimbabwe reveals that every region, city, village is thought to be under the control of territorial spirits. In Nigeria an Assemblies of God leader, who formerly was a high-ranking occult practitioner before his conversion, said that Satan assigned him control of 12 spirits, each of which controlled 600 demons. He testified, "I was in touch with all the spirits controlling each town in Nigeria, and I had a shrine in all the major cities."

Recently in a meeting with a well-known Japanese evangelist and several missionaries to Japan, I was surprised to discover how much the Japanese are still bound up with occultism. We can be fooled by the highly technological, modern look of Japan, and not realize that large numbers of the Japanese still attend Shinto shrines, that every school child carries an amulet, or that Shinto priests are called upon to dedicate each new building. And a dangerous phenomenon is now facing us in the West as New Age cults advocate "channeling" to communicate with spirit beings, thus reestablishing links with the powers of darkness originally broken by the evangelization and Christianization of Western societies.

The problem is that most of us do not realize we are in a no-holds-barred war, and therefore, they feel no need for prayer as a strategic weapon. John Piper, a Minneapolis pastor, puts it this way:

"The problem is that most Christians don't really believe that life is war, and that our invisible enemy is awesome. How then are you ever going to get them to pray? They'll say they believe these truths but watch their lives. There is a peace-time casualness in the church about spiritual things. There are no bombs falling in their lives, no bullets whizzing overhead, no mines to avoid, no roars on the horizon; all is well in America, the Disneyland of the universe. So why pray?"

In Mark 3:27, Jesus said something that is especially relevant to the activity of frontier missions: "No one can enter a strongman's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strongman. Then he can rob his house." It stands to reason that we as missionaries cannot be successful in entering and carrying off what has belonged to Satan for centuries-portions of humanity under his dominion-without binding the territorial spirits that have delegated control there. Prayer in the Spirit informed by facts uncovered by research is a potent force in binding the strongmen over cities, people groups and countries.

In Matthew 18:18-19, Jesus gave a startling assurance to those who pray in this way: "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you, that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my father in heaven." Effective territorial deliverance prayer occurs when we pray in unity with others. This teaching demonstrates the importance of prayer groups and networks being formed where people pray prayers of agreement for certain people groups, cities or countries in an in-depth way. This, it seems to me, is what will bring the breakthrough.

The Greek word for "bind" in these verses means "to chain or imprison." The prayers of God's people joined together will chain and circumscribe the activity of spirit beings hostile to the glory of God and the expansion of His kingdom on earth. As the Apostle Paul puts it, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds" (II Corinthians 10:3-4).

The experience of the late Omar Cabrera, who was a pastor/evangelist in Argentina, underlines the awesome weaponry that prayer in the Spirit brings to bear on the occult realm. He made it his practice to fast and pray for a number of days before opening an evangelism campaign in a city he was trying to reach. Often during those periods of fasting and prayer, spirit beings would come against him, even appearing in grotesque shapes, to contest his presence and plan to evangelize that city. They often would say, "You have no right to be here. This is my territory." To which he replied, "On the contrary, you have no right to be here. I bind you in the authority of Jesus Christ, the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth." Immediately that spirit fled the scene and a higher principality would often come into place against Cabrera. In the same way, through a protracted struggle in prayer, Cabrera broke the hold of such spirit beingsthat often turned out to be spirits of witchcraft. When the topmost “strongman” was bound, the mood of the whole city changed-often from one of resistance to the gospel to great receptivity-with hundreds and thousands coming to Christ, accompanied by extraordinary signs and wonders, healings and miracles. Using this approach, Cabrera went from ministering to a congregation of under 20, to becoming pastor of the world's third largest church at that time with over 140,000 in attendance.

As zany and outlandish as Cabrera's experiences seem to the materialistic naturalist in all of us, we would do well to apply what he and many other Christian workers are learning about authoritative prayer to the work of frontier missions. As I have traveled around leading consultations and seminars on mission strategy for national Christian workers, the issue of territorial deliverance praying keeps coming up. My growing conviction is that in many resistant contexts we can strategize and evangelize until we are blue in the face with no effect until we identify and bind the strongman over the group we are seeking to reach. Until this happens we are unlikely to see much of a response.

Could it be that whole peoples we have written off as being "resistant" are in themselves really not resistant at all, but are in the grip of spirit beings that are the source of the resistance? Arthur Matthews, a veteran missionary wrote of his burden in intercession for two specific areas of Southeast Asia where the missionaries were unable to make any headway: "So asserting my position with Christ in the heavenlies on the basis of God's word, I took unto me the whole armor of God in order to stand against the wiles of the devil, and to withstand his opposition to the gospel." He held on until news from both places began to change: "The resisting powers in both places were weakened, making possible victories for the Lord."

Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With A Mission, described his experience in praying and fasting for three days with 12 coworkers in 1973. As they prayed the Lord revealed they should pray for the downfall of the "prince of Greece." The same day in New Zealand and Europe, YWAM groups received a similar word from God. All three groups obeyed and came against this principality. Within 24 hours, a political coup changed the government of Greece, bringing greater freedom for mission activity in the country.

While I was in Senegal conducting a seminar years ago, an Assemblies of God mission leader told me their denomination had begun to pray and fast corporately for the Muslims. Afterwards, they saw a new responsiveness on the part of these people and churches have been established among them.

PRAYER

Pray for any unreached peoples, unevangelized cities or countries you are aware of or are especially concerned for as the Holy Spirit brings them to mind. Pray for the breaking of the hold of principalities and powers, liberation to receive Christ, and for Christian workers and ministries among them.

Pray for the development of ongoing prayer networks for every remaining unreached people, unevangelized city or country, that God will raise up intercessors with a special burden for each segment of the unevangelized world.

Ask for God's guidance as to what you and others you are in touch withshould do? How can we work together to martial national and international prayer efforts to focus on those still unreached by the glorious Gospel of Christ?

John D. Robb is Chairman of the International Prayer Council and International Prayer Connect
(Updated from its original publication in the International Journal of Frontier Missiology, Vol. 8:1, January 1991)