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)

“Is it not written: My House will be called a house of prayer for all nations?” (Mark 11:17)The central focus of Jesus' words in this passage was that the Jewish temple's purpose had been subverted. It was to serve as a "house of prayer for all nations" in line with the original call to Abraham to be a blessing to "all the peoples of the earth" (Gen. 12:3) Israel was called to be a praying and missionary people that would declare His truth to the nations and especially to bring forth the Messiah who would save Gentiles as well as Jews worldwide.

The word in the original Greek for the passage in Mark and Matthew 28 (the Great Commission) is Ethne or ethnic groups and corresponds to the Hebrew word in Gen. 12:3 for people groups. He was not talking about political nation states like India or China but the many ethnolinguistic groups that compose those political entities. Therefore, Jesus was reasserting this original missionary calling and reminding His Jewish hearers that they needed to pray for the people groups of the earth that did not yet have the Good News of the Messiah. A short time later, the book of Acts describes how the early disciples took Jesus’s words seriously and "joined constantly together in prayer" (1:14). That culture of ongoing, united prayer characterized their church life and resulted in the mission to the Gentiles and powerful mission breakthroughs that we read about in the rest of Acts.

God’s people today are also called to become houses of prayer for all peoples. God can use even relatively small groups of believers to have a profound impact on the forgotten, unreached people groups of our world whether their congregation or others go to reach them. The Moravians started praying in this way with about 200 people in the 18th century, a united prayer effort that went over 100 years. That seemingly insignificant prayer effort ended up impacting 5000 locations on earth, sending out the first Protestant missionaries from their little village in eastern Germany to many far-off lands and peoples. It all started with organized, informed, united and persevering prayer. Obviously, the Lord takes such praying very seriously in His scheme of things.

In case they would be useful, here are three important new prayer/mission resources:

1) The first is a video my colleagues and I prepared from our last year’s consultation for international prayer and mission leaders that was held at Herrnhut (the Lord’s watch), that same Moravian village from which such a powerful, world-impacting mission movement was launched through united prayer.

Spirit of the Moravians 9-min
Spirit of the Moravians 3-min

2) Also, linked below is a resource on the 31 largest “frontier” or most unreached people groups that a church can use with its members to practically become a "house of prayer for all peoples". It was created collaborative by a team of prayer and mission leaders from different agencies, thanks be to God.

There is no copyright so these resources can be used far and wide to bless the Body of Christ and the still unreached masses of our world waiting to hear about and be transformed by Jesus Christ. We in the IPC are in the process of circulating both resources internationally and hope that you will help us publicize them so many will be helped.

The 31 Largest Frontier People Groups – booklet download

https://joshuaproject.net/assets/media/handouts/the31.pdf,

https://joshuaproject.net/assets/media/handouts/the31-booklet.pdf

3) A Window on the Darkness: a new “must read” book for praying people

Have you ever wondered just why the darkness in the world today seems to be getting darker, and what can be done about it?

This book sheds fresh light on this topic, and on the spiritual nature of this darkness. It shines the light of Scripture on the evil one and on the way in which so many have become bewitched. This is a clarion call to the church and individual Christians to get ready to do battle with the powers of darkness, and to shine Christ's light more powerfully.

Brian Mills writes out of many years of experience in international prayer ministry. He is a senior advisor in the International Prayer Council and is one of the leaders in the International Reconciliation movement. He has ministered in over 75 nations and authored nine books to date. He is also part of a global group that is seeking to understand more about the dark spiritual powers at work in the world.

"The most informative book for our times I’ve read for a long time."

Order ‘Window on the Darkness’ by Brian Mills in print or Kindle formats from Amazon USA |  Amazon UK .