This week, we are considering a message entitled, “Unusual weapons against stubborn enemies.” Let us take our first Bible passage from the book of Exodus 15 verse 3, which says, “The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name.”
If there were no war to fight, the Lord would not be described as a man of war, and if the Lord is a man of war, His children ought to be men and women of war as well. In Psalm 23: 7-8, it is written, “Lift up your heads O ye gates and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in, who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” Here we are told that the Lord is a man of war, therefore we are supposed to be soldiers in God’s army involved in serious warfare. The seriousness of this kind of warfare can be seen in Psalm 17 verse 8-10, which says, “Keep me as the apple of thy eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings. From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about. They are enclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.” And verses 12-14 of the same Psalm 17 say, “Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. Arise O Lord, disappoint him, cast him down, deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword; from men which are thy hands. O Lord, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure, they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.”
This implies that witches can transfer their case files to their children. No wonder the Psalmist asked God to arise in anger, and whenever God arises in anger, divine weapons are sent to deal with stubborn enemies.
Nahum 1:6 says, “Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him.” Verse 2 Nahum chapter 1 reveals that the Lord reserves His anger for future use on His stubborn enemies. “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, and is furious, the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for his enemies.”
In a good training school for soldiers, they are taught how to recognize and use weapons. All serious Christians in the school of spiritual warfare need this training. Two examples of warfare weapons that many of us know little about are ‘proclamation’ and ‘blessing.’
1. PROCLAMATION: Let us look at the weapon of proclamation in Exodus 33 verse 19: “And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” Also Isaiah 61 verse 1 says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”
To proclaim means to announce publicly and officially. The origin is from the Latin word translated, “to shout aloud.” Proclamation is an official announcement made publicly. What then should be the content of our proclamation as a prayer weapon? Our proclamation should be the word of God, that is, the gospel and testimony of the mighty things that God has done, is doing and will do. Satan hates the prayer of proclamation and he is frightened each time you announce the truth boldly. For example, when you proclaim that God is a wonderful Counsellor, and King of kings, you frighten the enemy. Also when you say, “In Jesus’ name, every throne and authority established against my life shall be cast down from its rotten foundation,” it frightens the enemy.
2. BLESSING: This is another weapon that is not used much by Christians. Isaac, Esau and Jacob knew much about blessings than we do these days. If you read the book of Genesis very well, you will find that Isaac realized that he had been tricked into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. In Genesis 27: 33, it is written, “And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed.”
The tongue has the power of life and death and it is unfortunate that this present generation is fond of questioning, challenging and criticizing things. People of this generation are experts in faultfinding and at tearing down than building up. Romans 12 verse 14 says, “Bless them, which persecute you, bless and curse not.” The Bible gives this instruction because of the power of the tongue. For many people to be able to use this weapon of blessing, they need to be reprogrammed. The Holy Spirit will have to purge our tongues and brains in order that we might stop cursing and start blessing. A Christian should, never utter a statement such as; “I don’t know what I ever saw in you before I chose to marry you.” At this juncture, I would like you to take the following prayer points:
- I refuse to allow bitter fountains in my heart, in the name of Jesus.
- O Lord, help me to bless so that I may receive blessing, in Jesus’ name.
Dealing with stubborn enemies does not entail fighting a physical person but the evil power operating in a person. But in a situation, where a covenant of destruction is made with some evil spirits against a child of God, anything can happen in the process of launching an attack against the evil forces behind the covenant, if the person harbouring such powers refuses to change. The most serious battle you can fight in life is the spiritual one. One of the men in the Bible days who had a deep understanding of spiritual warfare was David. In Psalm 18: 34, he said, “He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms.” And again in Psalm 144: 1, he said, “Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.”
WEAPONS OF WARFARE
There are many strategies with which to fight and defeat the enemy and as such we must be open to the direction of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Lord allows many believers to pass through the school of experience in order to enable them possess weapons what can make them effective in spiritual warfare. This is a great truth that many do not know. As sources and causes of problems differ, so do solutions or ways to deal with them differ also. The Lord has also given us varieties of weapons necessary for fighting. For example, Jesus used to deliver people from the spirit of infirmity in several ways. The Psalmist was a man who is noted for praying radical prayers. He was the first man to pray that the ways of his enemies should be slippery; that the angel of God should pursue them, that God should smite them on their cheekbones etc. All the natural enemies of Israel who we read about in the Bible represent shadows of our own spiritual enemies today. But as you begin to use these weapons against them, things will begin to happen.
THE UNUSUAL WEAPONS
For instance, the Psalmist talks about releasing darkness into the camp of the enemies. When you release darkness upon an evil gathering, they will become blind and as a result will not be able to identify you as it happened to Elisha. His enemies were looking at him but their sense of recognition was darkened. And as a result, they asked Elisha for the way and he led them astray. I would like you to pray like this: “Oh Lord, loose darkness upon every evil gathering militating against my life, in Jesus’ name.
The Psalmist also teaches us that we can release trouble upon the enemy. This testimony will serve to explain this: Three demonic agents were sent to go and pour evil liquid on some innocent people. As they were going in the night, they stumbled on some believers who were holding night vigil and discovered that they were unable to move ahead. They tried all they could to get away from there, but were unable to, and the evil liquid they were carrying had a time limit. It should not remain in their hands beyond 1.a.m. They got trapped by 12.30 a.m. and by 1 am; they ended up pouring the evil liquid on themselves. As a result, they were never normal human beings again. This is telling us that once a believer prays that the Lord should trouble every troubler of his Israel, things must happen. The Psalmist also teaches us that we can release fear upon the enemy. After the day of Pentecost, and the apostles had turned Jerusalem upside down, the Bible says that three things came upon them; great power, great grace and great fear. It then means that when fear is released on your enemy, he will run away at the mention of your name. He also teaches us to use the net as a weapon against the enemy. He prayed that whoever sets a net against him should be caught in his own net. We can also command destruction on any evil gathering against us and such evil gathering will never hold again. Whoever tries to reconvene it will end up being destroyed. Also, our enemies can be driven into the wilderness where they will be completely useless and can never affect our lives again in any way.
Another weapon the Bible teaches us to use is confusion. When the enemies get confused, they will not remember your name, instead they will be mentioning their own names. I remember a brother who used to do morning cry. He did not know that his name had been taken to an evil meeting. There, he was accused of disturbing the evil beings every morning with shouts of the name of Jesus. That night, the wicked people came together to summarily deal with him. They had a demonic drum where his face was supposed to appear once they mentioned it; and immediately his face appeared, they would strike it with a wood and he would be killed. As they began to call his name, it did not appear until the third time, and as they struck it, the Lord exchanged the face of the brother with theirs. As a result the wood struck their faces and three out of the five of them died instantly. That is the weapon of confusion for you. Another thing we can release is an angel of the living God. When an angel starts to fight on your behalf, it is a serious matter. Remember that it was an angel that released Peter from prison and led him out of the prison yard. The Bible says that as they were going, the doors were opening of their own accord. They did not need to touch them. You too can do that. The Bible also tells us that you can release shame upon your enemy. You can as well cause division among them, and when this happens, they will begin to fight one another while you go scot-free. It is also possible to release coals of fire on the enemy. By so doing, they will know that the living God is your God. Your enemies can also be released into deep, bottomless pit from where they cannot come out. Lightening, whirlwind and thunder can be sent to the camp of the enemies. What meeting can hold when lightening strikes? No satanic altar can remain in the face of God’s whirlwind, and when His thunder strikes, who can withstand it?
Let us understand that anything can happen as we begin to use all these unusual weapons. You can issue a command that they should destroy one another. This has happened before in Judges 7: 21-22: “And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran, and cried, and fled. And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.”
You can release the chain of the Almighty upon the enemy, meaning that stubborn enemies can be chained. There is nothing wrong if you pray that your enemy should be chained, in Jesus’ name. However, for all these weapons to work for you, you must have the following keys:
1. REPENTANCE: There is no point calling thunder when you have not repented of your sins. Genuine repentance requires that you are very sincere to yourself. Without being honest, you cannot use these weapons effectively. No one can really paralyze satanic powers until he or she has taken a solid decision to repent completely. A little bit of the works of the flesh can put you in trouble.
2. PERSISTENCE: Persistence is necessary because it is very difficult to demolish within a short time a demonic structure that has taken many years to build. Realize that they too would like to fight back.
3. AGGRESSIVE AND STRATEGIC PRAYING: These prayers must be done fervently and with all your might if you truly want to dislodge the stubborn enemies. The sword of the spirit, which is prayer and the word of God must be applied like one who means business.
4. VIOLENT FAITH: It is written that without faith it is impossible to please God. With violent faith, evil seeds or trees will be uprooted.
5. HOLINESS: We have noted before that without holiness a Christian would either be dead or asleep. Holiness is paramount in this issue.
6. PRIDE: This is another terrible sin that God hates greatly. People with the spirit of pride derive evil satisfaction in themselves and their accomplishments. Such people attribute their performance to their skills. It is the pride in them that makes it impossible for them to humble themselves and be in a place where God can bless them.
7. PATIENCE: It is unbelievable to know that very few people possess the virtue of patience at this present time. Impatience is a vice freely noticed in the attitude of many people, particularly those who call themselves Christians. To be impatient with God is to sin against Him, after all the bible makes it clear that faith and Godly patience are the divine tools with which one can possess or inherit God’s numberless promises.
8. ADULTERY: This terrible sin makes God to regard most people as rebellious souls. Adultery is not found in sexual immorality alone but also in the evil and wicked act of replacing God with something else.
9. DISCOURAGEMENT: When some people are discouraged, they do not know that they attract the wrath of God. Discouragement is a sin in all its ramifications.
Beloved, the only choice you have now is to begin to pray very aggressively and put all these unusual weapons to use so as to recover all that the enemy has stolen from you. Please, understand the fact that Christ has already given us an everlasting victory on the cross of Calvary. It is left for us to give the lasting victory a place in our lives. The Bible makes it explicitly clear that Jesus Christ descended into the bottom of hell and took the keys of the gate of hell from Satan. It was with the key that He opened the satanic prison and released its captives and their blessings.
PRAYER POINTS
1. I refuse to retain any satanic plantation, in the name of Jesus.
2. I refuse to accept anything from Satan, in the name of Jesus.
3. I rebuke every family bewitchment, in Jesus’ name.
4. Every witchcraft operation working against me, fall down and die, in the name of Jesus.
5. Thunder, lightening and anger of God, disgrace all my stubborn enemies, in Jesus’ name.
6. Every power sitting on my breakthrough, fall down and die, in Jesus’ name.
