Spiritual
Warfare, The High Ground
This is not a simple topic to discuss. The starting place is a basic understanding of the spiritual realm. We are created souls with a
spirit that provides life through a connection to Father, wrapped in a physical
body. We live in a universe that's foundations are spiritual, wrapped in
physical form connected to Father, except the angelic/demonic realm which has
normally no physical form. The fallen angels and demons do, however lust for
physical form. Thus we have demon oppression of humans and demons entering
animals (pigs as an example). They are driven by pride and thus want to be
noticed, right on up to their master, Lucifer. They manipulate the spiritual
world which in turn moves the physical realm. Both realms are ruled by Yahweh's
Laws for each realm, the spiritual laws and the physical laws. Lucifer and his
minions are experts at using these laws to manipulate and capture men and animals,
to accomplish Lucifer's purposes, the ultimate destruction of mankind. There is
a law that connects the two realms. It is the law that Yeshua eluded to in the
Lord's prayer. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is the
nature of the law of realms. The law says that what happens in the spiritual
realm comes to the physical realm. The implication is that if you can
manipulate the spiritual realm then you can shape the physical. This is of
course how Yahweh created the physical realm in the Beginning. The physical
realm is built upon the foundation of the spiritual.
Just as Yahweh has given us angels to protect us,
Lucifer has assigned fallen angels and demons to deceive, capture and destroy
us. He is not allowed to do that directly, Yahweh is in charge, except for one
very important part of humanity, our will. Both Yahweh and Lucifer stand
helpless before man's will. Neither one can directly control man's will. This
is the way Yahweh created man as a sovereign individual with free will. They both
must convince us to accept something as true and then act on it. Yahweh offers
us the truth in the person of Yeshua and Lucifer offers us Lies in any form at
will work. Thus we have One Way to salvation and many ways to destruction, the
narrow path and the broad way.
Lucifer begins to train us in his lies from the
moment we are born. Our fallen nature is easily trained in error because we are
already sinners, being prone to walk away from Truth, Yeshua. Everything in the
world around us is a monument to Lucifer and his Lies. Nothing is what it
appears to be. Everything is based upon perception. This is the reason that we
humans spend billions of dollars on clothes and makeup, to put forth the
perception of beauty and attractiveness. We cover up the truth with facades. We
even do it in the church, by putting on our Sunday best!
Lucifer's goal is to train us to be self-reliant,
that is we do not need the Savior, Yeshua. We are born with the awareness of
self. This awareness is the direct result of the Fall. We are taught to feed
ourselves, protect ourselves, take care of ourselves, trust in ourselves at the
expense of others. We are taught that being an adult is being independent and
self reliant, not dependent upon any others, Pride. Pride was Lucifer's
invention and we are taught to become just like him, prideful.
Yeshua's way is the denial of self leading to the
death of self so that we can become DEPENDENT UPON HIM. HE IS TO BE OUR ALL IN
ALL! He is our life, our provider, our protector, our savior, our lover, our
healer, our deliverer, our leader, our Lord, our future, our care giver, our
motivator...our everything, in whatever way He wants, whenever He wants. Love
and submission to Him is the foundation of our life in His Kingdom. He is
perfect and He responds to us with the perfect response at the perfect time.
Lucifer will of course tell us otherwise and try to lead us to believe that He
does not have our best interest at heart.
The war we wage is a war in our minds. It is a battle
of beliefs, our beliefs. Lucifer will do everything to challenge and undermine
any belief we have in Yeshua and replace it with a lie. We have to find the
Truth, accept Him and walk in Him. He will then lead us to bring the Truth to
others. We start out with a life of lies, maybe not 100% lies but close, 99.9%.
In our fallen state we do not possess the Truth nor does He possess us, Lucifer
and his lies do. Once we have been introduced to the Truth, He begins the
process of invading our lives and exposing the lies so that we can choose
Truth. This is repeated in every area of our lives as long as we live, the
revelation of the Son of God. Lucifer has power over us to the degree that we
have lies, or believe lies. This is the law of faith. We get what we believe,
or perhaps who we believe.
Lucifer imposes his will and lies upon us. It like
the school yard bully. We walk by minding our own business and he comes up and
entices us and it that does not work he threatens us and ultimately throws us
in the mug puddle. He will impose his will upon us unless we strongly resist
his lies and deceptions and run from his temptations. If we do not know the
Truth we are already caught in Lucifer's lies and he leads us deeper and deeper
into those lies to our destruction and death. Our will is in the way of
Lucifer, an inconvenience to his plans for our destruction. He will run
roughshod over it when ever he can. However, Yeshua will not violate our will.
He calls to us instead, in every way He can to get our attention. He is the
perfect gentleman/ savior, whereas Lucifer is the perfect seducer/ destroyer.
Yeshua attracts us by His love, hope, kindness, gentleness, patience, and
meekness. While Lucifer waits in hiding to pounce upon us with his filth
calling it good and exciting, as he attaches another chain to our soul and
drags us to where we do not really want to go.
That was all foundational to taking the high ground.
Since our war is not physical in nature but spiritual we must learn to fight in
the spiritual world and it helps if we understand how the spiritual world
works. This is our calling! Obviously the first step to working in the
spiritual realm is being able to touch, taste, smell, hear and see in the
spirit. It will be a very short battle if your spiritual senses are not working.
These senses are activated when you are born again. You are spiritually
empowered when you have been Baptized in the Holy Spirit. Of course Lucifer
will attempt to convince you that the senses do not exist or that they are
evil, thus keeping himself hidden. He also tries to convince christians that
the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not for today. If he succeeds in these
deceptions then you are left as a blind powerless, target for more of his lies.
Yeshua will train you in the use of the senses use as you become His disciple.
He will also improve their accuracy as He makes you holy. Learning to use the
spiritual senses is a trial and error process. Lucifer has access to them too.
Your human spirit will also influence the spiritual senses, certainly your
interpretation of them. This is why it is good to work in pairs or small groups
in this area.
The first battle is our knowledge of (not about)
Yahweh and Yeshua and their Kingdom. We receive knowledge by revelation, not by
study, discussion or instruction. However, Yeshua can send revelation through
those channels. He prefers to speak to us directly; by words, impressions,
visions and dreams. Demonstration by more mature believers is far more
effective that instruction and that is far more effective than Bible teaching.
You can have all the right Bible doctrine and not KNOW Yeshua, only know about
Him. Lucifer knows all about Him, better than any human, but he does not KNOW
Him.
Since the battle is in our minds, we must take every
though captive and compare it to our knowledge of Him. Did that thought come
from Yeshua, Lucifer or men including ourselves. Only those thoughts that come
from Yeshua have life. Allow me to illustrate. Suppose that you wake up in the
morning and your first thought is I'm hungry. Your second thought is I'll fix
myself something to eat. The next, what do I want to eat? So on goes the
thoughts. Now where did that first thought come from...your mind responding to
your body's appetite. The next thought is your self responding to the first
thought. Now taking the first thought captive and asking the Lord what His
desire is may change the entire outcome. Let's suppose that you had just had a
dream but already it had began to fade away. Let's also suppose that the Lord
was trying to say something through the dream. So when you asked Him what His
desire was, He would respond with a brief memory of the dream. Now you have a
decision to make. Do you review the dream and ask for clarity and understanding
or do you go eat. Lucifer will of course tell you that you need to eat, the
dream can wait. (You need to take care of yourself first.) About that time your
roommate walks in and says lets get breakfast, I hungry. The Holy Spirit will
remind you that "my food and drink are to do the will of My Father".
This two sided battle can go one for some time until you conform your will to
one of the two, Yeshua or Lucifer. If you choose Yeshua then you have stepped
forward in faith, if Lucifer then you have slid back in sin. There is no middle
ground, what is not of faith is sin. Now this little battle plays out hundreds
of times a day for each person on earth. Although many, many of them will not
even ask the question; what is your desire Yeshua? That is called living in
sin. Every time that you choose Yeshua you take another step in overcoming sin
and self. This is not taking the high ground...just being obedient.
We each have been giving a sphere of influence. Our
own being; body, soul and spirit is our starting place. We have the
responsibility to follow the Lord which will make our being into the likeness
of Yeshua in heart and deed. Once we are born again the battle begins in
earnest in our being (body, soul and spirit) to take the ground away from sin,
self and Satan and present to Yeshua for His use. The next sphere of influence
is our mate (if we are married) and our children (if we have any). Then comes
our stuff, jobs, family and friends. We have direct responsibility for some of
those (i.e. our being), for others, we just influence them. A husband has a
duty to Love his wife giving himself up for her, as Yeshua Loves the Church and
gave Himself up for it, as an example of direct responsibility. Each of these
areas has to be captured, cleaned and presented to the Lord for His use. Some
of these areas are visible and some are only visible spiritually. Obviously our
body is physically visible and an indication of the condition of our soul and
spirit (a spiritual law). It is easy to see those beings that have not yet
conquered their beings; they are over or under weight, over made up, drunken,
drugged, pierced, tattooed, over dressed, etc. The same applies to the
emotions; anger, hatred, bitter, disrespectful, arrogant, flattery,
contentious, competitiveness, rebellious, murmuring, name calling, swearing,
fearful, lustful etc. are signs of emotions that have yet to be conquered,
cleaned and presented. The good news is that we do not have to have everything
conquered, cleaned and presented (CCP) to be used by Yeshua to help others CCP
areas of themselves. However, we cannot help someone else if we have not CCP
that area in our own lives. We do not have a testimony of victory, yet. We can
fight together with them in that area, which is helpful.
Now we cannot do this work ourselves, we do not have
the wisdom or power. We must be lead by the Holy Spirit to identify what area
He is ready to work in, when He wants to capture it and how He wants to clean
it. Then we can present ourselves to Yeshua as a living a sacrifice for His
use. This in not taking the high ground this is just securing the perimeter.
Taking the high ground requires a change of
perspective. We fight from the ground when we first start. We must take our own
ground, the one we live on, which has our fingerprints all over it. We simply
cannot take the high ground if self is still on the throne. We will always see
things from our perspective. The fight is always us against Lucifer or sin as
the case may be. Our desires are right in the middle of it all. We may have
noble intentions; doing Fathers will, cleaning ourselves up for His use, etc.
but we are actually fighting for our own cause. If our desires are met we win.
If we win we take the credit and lose our heavenly reward...just more pride,
that Father resists. It's not a victory for us or the Kingdom at all. It just
gives self more power and more credit.
Taking the high ground involves laying down our
desires, our goals, our comfort, our perspective and taking up His. It puts us up
in the heavens where we are above the fight, seeing it from Yahweh's vantage
point. It is easier to take the high ground when we are fighting for someone
else (usually someone we do not know) than for ourselves. We have vested
interest. We do not want to fail or at least do what we perceive to be failure.
However, Yahweh does not see as we see. He sees the Whole picture and knows
perfectly well what the best outcome is for the situation, and He does not
always tell us what it is. We would become independent and self reliant if we
knew too much.
Years ago a story came out from Bob Mumford, a
teacher/ elder during the charismatic renewal. One of the people that attended
his church gave him a new Cadillac. He was really proud of that car. As he was
driving one day shortly after he received it the Lord told his to pray in the
spirit. So he wondered why but did for a while. Suddenly a car came out of no
where and smacked his new Cadillac. Of course Bob considered this an attack and
a loss. However, when Bob complained to the Lord, the Lord responded with what
do you think that you were praying for when you were praying in the spirit? You
were saying that you were full of pride and this car brought it out and you
need to have the pride knocked down. Of course after that Bob was very careful
about praying in the spirit. Yahweh's purposes are high above ours. If we want
victory we must side with Him.
So we fight by His side at His command with His power
for His purpose, in His timing at our expense. This is the high ground. It's
very expensive but very, very powerful. You (self) cannot be defeated because
self is not in the fight and Yahweh never losses! You (self) were left back on
earth and your strength is worthless on the high ground. What is valuable on
the high ground is: humility, brokenness, weakness, selflessness, patience,
hope, and Faith in Him and above all LOVE (sacrificing your best for the
Master's use).
It goes without saying that you must have the full
armor on; the helmet of salvation (to protect your mind), breastplate of
righteousness (to protect your emotions), the belt of truth (to protect your
ability to reproduce faith, hope and love) and the shoes of the eagerness to
spread the Gospel (to protect your walk in the world with Yeshua). Humility is
the key to protection. The sword swings both ways. When you attack the powers
of darkness there will be a backlash and you'd better be on your face or you
will catch it coming back. The Lord gives Grace to the humble but resists the
proud.
It is said that to the victor go the spoils. So what
are the spoils of spiritual warfare? It is not stuff, position, power, nor
influence. It is souls set free so they can make a choice for Yeshua. It is not
so that someone will love and appreciate us but so that another soul will love
and appreciate their Creator and come into an eternal relationship with Him.
When they arrive in His presence after death they will find out who went to war
for their sake.
The Lord brought this home to us many years ago when
we had spend 3 to 4 nights a week for 18 months fighting hand to hand for a
converted white witch's freedom. We learned a lot about deliverance ministry
during that time. We would attack and get counter attacked. They would use our
own fears and strengths against us. We would throw out one demon only to see
two more surface. After a year and a half we had seen many miracles and much
freedom gained, the young lady had three days of complete freedom. Nothing
harassing her, she was clear headed and very perceptive. She could chose to
follow the Lord without resistance. The third day the Lord came to her and said
that she would have to give up her relationship with her sister (who was a
black witch) if she wanted to follow Him. She refused to give up her sister. We
were devastated when she told us and then she walked away to enjoy her new
found freedom. This turn of events left us reeling. We had spent sooo much time
and effort to get her free and she just walked away. It was a crushing defeat
in our eyes. A few weeks later illustrating it through a TV show the Lord asked
us if we would go to war again for others He would send our way even if they
did not follow Him when it was over. We had to think that over for a while, but
concluded that we could do nothing else. So what we though was a defeat was in
actuality a victory, she was able to make an unhindered choice for Him and we
learned His true motive for setting the captives free, Love.
Some of the tools that we have at our disposal are;
discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, binding and loosening, forgiving of
sins, anointing with oil, the Sword of the Spirit, confession of sins,
repentance, and breaking curses. Personally i have never found "pleading
the blood" to be of any value in battle.
Practical Warfare:
Rule 1: Know who the enemy is!
The majority of our wars are actually with the Lord
who is working on putting our flesh to death. Our flesh attracts demonic
activity because it is a way to mislead us and capture us. This is why the Holy
Spirit is busy exposing and removing the old nature in us, so that we will not
be compromised. The old nature is a lot like rotting meat...it attracts flies.
Now you can spend a lot of time swatting flies or you can simple put the old
flesh on the alter and burn it as a sacrifice to the Lord. Using your faith to
rebuke demons while not offering the flesh as a sacrifice is an exercise in
futility.
Rule 2: Do not attack everything you see.
As your spiritual senses improve you are able to
detect more and more demonic activity. We should not fall into the trap of
attacking everything we see. You are just stirring up a hornets nets. If you
are able to detect on demon there are probably a hundred you have not seen yet.
They are very well organized and communicate freely. If you smack one they will
respond with force and numbers. A friend of ours, who is a school teacher, used
to drive past a adult bookstore on her way to work. She heard a teaching on the
spiritual power behind pornography and started attacking that bookstore every
time she went by. We went to visit her and her husband during that time and she
complained of recurring head aches. The Lord set my warning flags a waving. So
i asked her when they started. She though back to a time several months before.
i then asked her if she had done anything different at that time. She then told
us about the adult bookstore. I asked her if she had asked the Lord or her
husband if she should be doing that and she said no. She repented of it and the
headaches went away. She was attacking something that she was not supposed to.
Rule 3: Find out if you have been anointed to attack.
There is a true saying; God does not appreciate what
He did not initiate. In other words if the Father wants you to attack
something, He will anoint you for that purpose. You have to determine if you
have the anointing for the attack.
Rule 4: Determine the target accurately and the limit
of the attack.
King David would ask Yahweh if he had given the enemy
into his hands. We need to know that we can overcome the enemy that we are
about to attack. There is no point in attacking a particular demon or fallen
angel if it is not the target that the Lord wants to bring down. As with any
battle there is a particular goal and purpose for the attack. It is not a constant
ongoing attack, it is a specific battle. So we need to determine from the Lord
what the purpose is and when to stop the attack. If we are working as a group
different people in the group may have different targets or different aspects
of the attack. We each need to know our part of the attack.
Rule 5: Consider fasting.
Fasting helps break the appetites of the body and
move the focus from the physical to the spiritual. Yeshua told the disciples that
some demons only come out with fasting. Daniel fasted while Michael was
fighting the Prince over
Rule 6: Keep the cloak on humility on.
We are no match for these highly intelligent and
experienced beings. Only the power of Yahweh upon and through us is what brings
the freedom (Isa 61:1). When we start to believe that Father needs our strength
or experience to set the captives free, is the moment that we are setting
ourselves up for a fall.
Rule 7: Loose what the Lord desires to replace what
was removed.
Nature abhors a vacuum applies to the spiritual realm
as well. If we remove a demon or fallen angel from the structure, then find out
what the Lord wants to replace it with and pray to that end.
Rule 8: After the battle keep your head down.
If we've won a battle we have a tendency to declare
the victory to anyone who will listen. Don't do it. If you tell on earth it
will be forgotten in Heaven. In addition you are setting yourself up for an
attack. Lucifer knows it wasn't your power that won the battle and he is
looking for vengeance. You just make yourself a target. Lift up the true Head,
Yeshua.
This is pretty elementary but at least its a start.
There are at least three areas of spiritual warfare; personal warfare,
deliverance,
and bringing down principalities, powers, thrones and
dominions. These will be saved for another day.
References:
Jesse Pen Lewis; War on the Saints
Pigs in the Parlor
http://www.henrymakow.com/illuminati_use_magick_against.html