Again, we are discussing spiritual warfare ⚔️. After that last class, I really feel a need to pray for you, just as I pray for myself as we engage in these kinds of activities and interactions with people 🙏.

Join me in prayer:

Our Father, God , Lord Jesus , powerful Holy Spirit,
We are grateful for what You’ve told us—that You are in us, Holy Spirit 🌿.
And the one in us is greater than he who is in the world, even the prince of the world and all these forces that we’ve described 🌎.

Lord, we’re grateful to know that.
But we have to admit—it’s intimidating 😟, Father, for us to be engaged in this.
Yet, we see so many areas that seem under the control of the enemy 😢.

And so I pray for the people who are taking this class right now 📚,
As they begin to think about how they might put these things that we’ve been talking about into play in their lives 🛠️,
I pray for a real sense of the Holy Spirit, even as they listen to this class 🙌.
That they might begin to get a new vision, a new idea of what their ministry might look like 🌱,
And the people they might do ministry with and ministry for 🤝.

And so Lord, sitting here in studio today 🎥,
I don’t know who’s listening to this—you do 🕊️.
You know who’s going to be taking this class 📖.

And I just pray for power ⚡ to be the characteristic of their life 💪.

I pray it in Jesus’ name, Amen 🙏.

All right ✅, we’ve talked about:

  • When you feel the presence of a demon 😈 in your own life,

  • Or the oppression that comes with demonic opposition,

  • Or maybe just opposition from the enemy in your life, and ways to deal with that 💡.

We’ve talked about:

  • When you’re dealing with somebody in your ministry, neighborhood, or family 🏠,

  • And you become aware that maybe this is spiritual warfare time ⚔️.

  • We’ve discussed how to approach and handle that.

🔎 Today we turn to a whole new level of warfare:
🎯 On the offense: Strategic Level Warfare.

Now, what do I mean by that? 🤔
How in the world would we define strategic level warfare?

Well, first of all, let’s go back to this:

  • The levels of the battle I showed you some sessions ago:

    • There’s the personal level 🧍‍♂️, when you feel the oppression of the enemy, or opposition in your life.

    • Maybe even a greater control of the enemy on your actions and choices.

We’ve talked about those.
But we also know from Scripture 📖 that there are other levels:

  • Daniel 10 (I’ll read it again in a moment) 📜,

  • The level of princes and then the level of leaders 👑.

🌐 In this session, we’re going to talk briefly about:

  • How to do battle at those higher levels.

So let’s get to it 🏃‍♂️.

Here’s a definition I pulled from the internet 🌐:

⚔️ Strategic level spiritual warfare (SLSW) is the highest level of spiritual warfare,
Which involves confronting the principalities and rulers of darkness that influence:

  • Territories 🗺️,

  • Regions 🏙️,

  • Or nations 🌍.

The concept of strategic level spiritual warfare involves:

  • Collective or corporate strategies of doing spiritual warfare,

  • Not merely on the level of demonic deliverance of individuals 👥 on earth,

  • But dealing with the principalities and powers in the heavenlies ☁️.

You remember from Ephesians chapter 6 📖:

  • “Our battle is not against flesh and blood” 👥❌,

  • And then Paul lists that intense hierarchy:

    • Rulers,

    • Authorities,

    • Powers of this dark world,

    • Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms 🕷️.

🎯 Strategic level warfare is designed to battle at that level.

In other words, there’s a region that’s controlled,
Or a nation that’s under spiritual attack 🌍💢.
And we can be involved in making a difference there 🌟.

Let’s begin to explore that challenging, challenging idea 🤔.

We’ve looked at this passage from Daniel, chapter 10 📖.

You remember at the beginning of chapter 10:

  • Daniel gets this vision of what’s going to be 🔮,

  • But he doesn’t understand it.

  • He knows there’s going to be a great battle in the future ⚔️,

  • But he just can’t grasp it, and he knows it’s important.

So, he begins to fast for 21 days 🕰️.

Now, his fast was a partial fast 🥦:

  • He didn’t go totally without food for 24 or 48 hours.

  • But he said, “no meat past my lips” 🍖🚫.

  • That was one of his fasts.

  • “I’m going to choose to set that aside.”

  • He chose no luxuries for 21 days 🎗️.

  • He didn’t use lotions 🧴.

And imagine, in that kind of arid society, how he must have smelled after 21 days 😅.
(We don’t know exactly what he did about that.)

But for 21 days, he kept pleading in that fast time for understanding 🙏.

Now, an angel appears to him 👼.

  • We’ve discussed whether it might have been Jesus—a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus—or maybe Gabriel, the great messenger angel.

  • It could have just been an angel God sent.

The angel was shocking 😳.

  • Daniel was with some friends,

  • But they didn’t see the vision—only Daniel did.

  • They got scared and left 😨.

  • So, it was only Daniel and this vision of the angel.

And the angel says to him:

“Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God—remember, that’s the point of fasting—your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”

“But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes—(remember, we’ll learn more about Michael later: he’s the only Archangel mentioned in Scripture)—came to help me, because I was detained there with the Prince of Persia.”

“Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

“Do you know why I’ve come to you? Soon I’ll return to fight against the Prince of Persia, and when I go, the Prince of Greece will come. But first, I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince.”

🔎 Now, I want to pause briefly here—a caveat of sorts—to give you some of my perception of spiritual warfare on these levels:

One person I really respect and read 📚, and who helped me as I prepared this class, made a big point of the Armor of God 🛡️:

  • That it’s only for defense 🛑.

  • That the tools we are given—the weapons we’re given—are only for defense.

In other words, when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground 📖⚔️.

So, his big point was:

  • God doesn’t command us to go on the offensive in these areas.

  • He implied that we should just leave those things alone 🚫.

I want to talk about that just a moment 🗣️.

It is my firm opinion 💡 that God has called us to do strategic level spiritual warfare 🛡️ for some people, somewhere.

And I’ll share with you why I believe that’s true 🔍.

This passage just strikes me 📖.

When Jesus calls Peter, his name is Simon.

  • Of course, he changes his name.

  • Changes of name in Scripture are always indicative of a new mission, a new direction 🔄.

For example, in the Old Testament:

  • Abraham’s name was Abram, which means exalted father, even though he had no children.

  • Then God changes his name to Abraham, the father of nations 🌍.

This is one of those situations where God calls Peter Simon and says,

“You know what you are, Peter,”

The name means rock 🪨.

“And on this rock, I will build my church.”

Now, there are various discussions 🤔 about how to interpret that.

  • In our Protestant tradition, we tend to say it means:

    • On the rock of the confession that Peter has made (You are the Christ),

    • On that rock, I will build my church.

  • That’s been how we’ve interpreted it.

But in Catholic or Anglican traditions:

  • They say, No, it’s on Peter himself.

  • He’s going to be the leader among the disciples.

Honestly, I don’t know which of these is true 🤷‍♂️.

  • I suspect both of them are probably true 🤝.

But here’s the result:

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.” 🔥🚫

Now, in my growing up, I maybe heard one sermon on this 🗣️.

I don’t know if I heard any, but the idea I had coming to this, before becoming aware of spiritual warfare, was that:

  • The gates of hell are breaking out and attacking the church.

  • But you know, we’ve got the rock of the confession of Jesus Christ.

Now I look at it differently 🔍.

Because gates are not offensive.

  • Hell is not on the offensive so much as protective 🛡️.

  • The gates in a city back then were designed to keep the enemy out.

And so, who’s the enemy of hell?

  • It’s Jesus ✝️ and it’s His church 🏰.

We have power.

  • Jesus is saying here, we have the power to attack the areas where hell is ruling.

  • Where the enemy is so engaged, the one who came to kill, steal, and destroy is so entrenched,

  • That gates have been built up 🚪.

Well, the gates of hell can’t stand against you.

  • Because greater in you, greater in me, is the One who is in the world 💪.

And I think we’re called to attack the gates of hell in Jesus’ name 🛡️⚔️.

Or this statement by Paul:

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” 🏹

Now, a couple of words about that:

  • The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world 🌍.

One of my observations:

  • In the United States right now, where I live, we’re deeply divided politically 🗳️.

  • There are those Christians who are trying to use, in my opinion, the weapons of the world—

  • Trying to take over politically,

  • Instead of fighting with the weapons we are given:

    • Prayer 🙏,

    • Fasting 🍽️,

    • The Rhema of God 📖,

    • And so on.

We have weapons.

  • We’ve described them: weapons of defense, weapons to go on the offensive 🗡️.

  • They have divine power to demolish strongholds 🏰💥.

Now that needs some explanation.

  • A stronghold back then was an area that was particularly built for defense 🛡️.

You know, after David became king, Scripture says he took the Stronghold of Zion.

  • That’s now part of Jerusalem, but Zion was a separate part.

  • It was built to be a stronghold—extra defenses around it 🏯.

If you remember the story of Scripture:

  • David gets there kind of surreptitiously, finding a waterway into the city,

  • And that’s how they take it 💧.

There’s that stronghold 🏰.

In fact, earlier, you read that David is in the stronghold down in the wilderness by En Gedi 🌄.

  • Those strongholds were made in the wadis, places where water cut channels,

  • With caves up higher 🏞️.

  • Very difficult to attack—a battle one-on-one, one-on-two.

  • Not army vs. army, but a stronghold.

There are places in the world today where I believe there are strongholds 💡🌍.

You know, I’ve shared a couple of times the perspective of Scripture that we should be watchmen and watchwomen on the walls 👀⛪—looking for where Satan is involved.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of going somewhere 🛫 where I’ve been praying for a few years now.

  • It’s in southern Spain, a city called Roquetas—an area called Roquetas 🗺️.

Now, Roquetas is known for one primary thing: it is full of greenhouses 🏡🌱.

In fact, a missionary we’ve supported for a long time—we were visiting her, staying with her—said:

“We’re going to take a drive today.”

And we drove two hours into Roquetas from Málaga, where she lives 🚗.

Along the way, about a half-hour after we left Málaga, we started running into these greenhouses.

  • There are hundreds of thousands of them 🌿💭.

She said:

“You’ve got to see a picture of this from space 🛰️.”

Well, there it is. It looks like there’s been a massive snowstorm 🌨️ covering the area.

But in this area, the enemy has a stronghold 🕸️.

There are thousands—in fact, about 267,000 people from Senegal—who have been trafficked to this area to work in the greenhouses.

Here’s what happens:

  • They’re trying to escape poverty and starvation in Africa 🌍.

  • They make their way to the coast, and they find someone who says:

“I’ll pay your way into Europe, to get to Spain. I’ll pay your way, and then you can work to pay me back. Once you’ve paid me back, you’ll be free.”

So these people get on boats 🛶.

  • They’re shipped to the coast of Spain, entering the country illegally.

  • They’re put to work in the greenhouses.

For the men, the work is back-breaking 💪, but for the women, they’re forced into prostitution 💔.

And interestingly, even though they’re paid a little, it’s never enough to pay back the debt 💸.

So, thousands upon thousands of African people are trapped in slavery ⛓️.

The Spanish government—we were told—turns a blind eye to this 👀🚫, because this area produces most of the vegetables for all of Europe 🥦🥕.

Even though Spain keeps a close tab on ships along the coast 🛥️, they ignore what’s going on inland.

All over Europe, people are buying vegetables grown by these modern slaves 🍅🥬.

While we were there, we got to go up on a mountain overlooking the entire area 🌄.

And we prayed—in the name of Jesus—to:

  • Bind the spirit of greed 💰 that keeps these owners, these slave operators, in business.

  • Destroy the hold.

  • Cast out the demon at that level that’s enslaving a whole area 🚫👹.

Now, that’s just one place 🌍.

Now, in my time in the morning, when I pray 🙏, I have an area of my prayer time that I call watching 👀.

  • It just means looking around the world 🌍.

And right now, Israel and Hamas are doing battle ⚔️, and so many innocent people are dying, and lives are being changed 💔.

  • I pray for that area 🙏.

There are places like Somalia, where people are starving because there’s been drought for so many years 🚱.
Places like Sudan, which right now is engaged in civil war 🕊️⚔️, and at least a million people have been forced out of the major cities and into camps where they’re starving 😔.

And on and on and on…

  • I can spend time watching and just coming up with one after another, after another.

And so, this is a place 🌍.

  • This is one of those places where I think we need to do strategic level warfare ⚔️🕊️.

Now, you may find this in your area 🌎.

  • And so, we’re going to continue this in the next session 📚 about how you go about doing spiritual warfare on that level of princes, or above that, the leaders who are deploying the forces of Satan 😈.

So stay tuned! This is something you’re going to want to know 📝.

Let me close this session with prayer 🙏:

Lord, we’re in an area that, for most of us, is unfamiliar 😟, and we’re just figuring this out.
And God, we pray for vision 👀.

  • We pray for you to show us how to go about battling some of these strongholds in the world 🌍 where the enemy has settled in and is creating doubt and creating, yeah, the horrors of a place like we’ve just talked about 💔.

So help us, we pray in the name of Jesus 🙏.

Amen 🙌.

We’ll see you next time 👋.


最后修改: 2025年05月29日 星期四 13:06