WARFARE PRAYERS
Dr. D. K. Olukoya
Beloved, our message this week focuses on one thing that seems very difficult for a lot of Christians to do and yet is the only solution to their numerous problems and that is Warfare Prayer. In this message, we will examine how to fight and win warfare through prayers. Revelation 12:7-8 says, "And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels. And prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven." Verse 12 says, "Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." The devil therefore wants to spend that short time very well. Psalms 2:1-5 says, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh and the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure."
Psalms 2: 9 says, "Thou shall break them with a rod of iron and thou shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel." The above statements are so tough that they do not sound like that of gentlemen. 1 Samuel 2-10 says, "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, out of heaven shall he thunder upon them, the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king and exalt the horn of his anointed."
There is a raging battle going on day and night between two opposing forces. You may not believe it. But whether you believe it or not, you are involved in that battle anyway. This battle is going on between negative and positive powers, evil and good, the real thing and the counterfeit, light and darkness, right and wrong. Even if you are a perfect gentleman and you do not like to talk about wars and bloodshed or violence, you have no option when it comes to spiritual wars because you are already involved. Some people got involved from their mothers’ wombs and are still fighting. Some started as soon as they were born. It is a serious battle where no one can be neutral. We have been born into it and we have got no choice but to fight it out. We cannot run away from it. The world is not like a commercial bus where you can stop your journey at any moment. No, you are in it and therefore, you are part of it. It is a fiercely contested conflict. Satan is an intelligent strategist and an obstinate fighter. He refuses to acknowledge defeat until he is completely defeated. Therefore, all the lost grounds must be recovered from him. Because he sometimes renews his attack, any ground that you have recovered from him must be properly defended. It is not enough to find yourself in the promised land, you must also defend it. Satan never gives up, he keeps trying. If he fails on Monday, he will come back on Tuesday. You have to consistently defend your ground.
Prayer is not preparation for the battle, it is the battle. This is why the enemy will first take away the prayer life of any christian he wants to finish up. Once that prayer life is finished, all other things are easy. If you notice that your prayer life is going down, know that the Holy Spirit is blowing an alarm indicating that there is a renewed battle against you. You must stand up and start fighting. Let it be clear to you that the flesh does not want to pray. It is not interested in it so, you have to force it.
You and I find ourselves in a geographical location where demons were already ruling before we were born. It is an environment where practically all our land has been donated to demons, a land where market places are places of spiritual transactions. We find ourselves in an environment where the average person believes hundred per cent in herbalists, and anything they say goes. In this kind of environment, you have to know what you are doing. I have an American preacher friend who preaches American messages to Nigerian demons. He is the kind of person who puts his two hands in his pocket and will be talking about "Gad." One day, he was invited to a certain church to preach and he preached as he normally did, jumping all over the place and sweating. That day he got to a level where he was able to settle a bit and the Holy Spirit said, "Son, make an announcement that anybody here with charms in his pocket should bring them out now and throw them in front of you. He said, "Holy Spirit, which kind of announcement is that in the church, it is not possible." He attempted to bind the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit said, "You cannot bind me, say what I am telling you." Then he made the announcement thinking that he was going to face a serious embarrassment and would likely be banned from coming there again. But to his amazement, he saw hands coming up and things began to fly and were dropping by his side.
The priest almost ran away. That singular incident changed his message. The environment in which we are, is not particularly friendly. It is high time a believer replied with about seven blows when he is pinched. So they will learn not to pinch you again. This is the situation, beloved, and this is where warfare prayer comes in. There are different kinds of prayers, e.g. prayer of faith, prayer of thanksgiving, prayer of praise, prayer of petition, prayer of commitment, prayer of consecration and prayer of agreement. But then, there is warfare prayer. That is why the Bible says in Ephesians 6 :11, "Put on the whole amour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Why do we have to put on the whole amour of God if there were no enemies? The Bible says the whole world lies in the hand of the evil one. It also says that the prince of the power of the air is the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. No matter how nice a person is, if he is not born again, the spirit controlling him is the spirit of the prince of the power of the air. The reason we have trouble sometimes is because our greatest enemy is left untouched. Satan keeps harassing us because we encourage him. Satan’s success depends on two things: darkness and ignorance. Therefore, when you turn on the light to expose him, you scuttle his operations.
Although spiritual warfare is not a popular subject, and some people are afraid of preaching it, they say that those who do warfare prayer are glorifying the devil. But the truth is that it is something from which no man can escape. We need warfare prayers to successfully fight the battle that is facing us. It is only warfare prayers that can arrest the spiritual jailers holding people captive. And there are so many of them. A lot of educated people do not understand this. This is why the devil messes them up very easily. Many preachers, too, do not understand this and the devil messes them up easily.
One medical doctor, one day, got home from work and discovered that his wife had gone to a christian meeting. When she came home, she said, "Darling, today, I heard something that I have never heard before in my life. The husband asked, "What did you hear?" She said that there was one lady in that meeting who confessed that she and members of her secret society used to hold meetings inside the water and that there were beautiful laboratories inside the water, that it was from these laboratories inside the water that they manufactured materials used in trapping people. She also confessed that they sent girls out of the sea every night to go and capture foolish men." When she finished narrating her experience to him he dismissed it as fables, saying that the preachers were only looking for money.
A few weeks later, a woman who was seven months pregnant came to his clinic and said, "Doctor, I want to abort this pregnancy." He said, "Why do you want to do that?" She said, "If you don’t want to do it for me, I will help myself." And suddenly, her stomach became flat. The doctor then started pushing her out of his clinic and she said, "Don’t touch me." Immediately she left, the doctor’s right hand could not function properly again while the left one got paralysed completely. His family began to carry him from place to place until he got to a Pentecostal church somewhere and the brethren there held his hands and legs and prayed the kind of prayer he had never heard before. The prayer point was: You water spirit, holding his hands and legs, release them now, in the name of Jesus. Suddenly, he felt something rushing out of his hands and legs. It was after the prayer that he could use his hands and legs well again. Even if you tell him now that there is a mansion inside the moon, he will believe you.
What is warfare prayer?
Warfare prayer is the kind of prayer that brings the victory of Jesus over the host of evil. The Bible calls believers christian soldiers. You don’t join the armed forces with the promise that you will not shoot anybody and nobody would shoot you, or that you will not see blood at all. The spirit world is the same. There is a battle going on. We are to hold up the victory of Jesus over the host of evil. You know the kind of victory Jesus has won. The victory can be summed up in the following words. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto me and at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow." When you hold that up against evil, you are praying warfare prayer. Warfare prayer is a prayer to hinder evil operation in a place, a person’s life or a thing. Just as Moses’s hands were held up until victory was won, so the prayer warrior holds up the victory of Christ over evil until victory is won. At this juncture, pray like this: "Every Goliath and Pharaoh inside the garden of my life, fall down and die, in the name of Jesus.
Warfare prayers are directed at the host of hell. So Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries do not pray against any physical person. We pray against the host of hell. If anybody now decides to go and form covenant with the host of hell, and decide to issue an evil vow against the child of God, whatever happens to the host of hell can happen to the person. Nobody can blame the believer for that. If the believer says the spirit of witchcraft should fall down and die and somebody somewhere says, "No, instead of me to lose the spirit of witchcraft, I want to die with it," so be it.
Christians have been praying all kinds of prayers since the beginning of Christianity. Certain prayers do not bother the devil at all, but there are some prayers that really worry him. An example is warfare prayer. A woman was about to give birth to a baby but powers of darkness surrounded her. The doctor and the nurses were confused. Then somebody said, "When things begin to happen like this, we usually call on one crazy sister who is always calling fire, go and call her." She was eating yam when they came to call her. She did not even bother to wash her hands before she rushed to the clinic. Immediately she got there, the woman was delivered of her baby even without the sister opening her mouth to pray. Later, the lady who gave birth said that immediately that sister came into the labour room, some voices started saying, "They have gone to call that trouble maker who calls fire, let us go. And the next thing she knew was that she was delivered of her baby. They did not even wait for her to start her prayers before taking their exit. You may ask, "Why is it that before the woman started praying they disappeared, but we sometimes pray for one hour before they can leave?" The answer is simple. The level of obedience to you by demons will depend on the level of your own obedience to the Almighty God.
If you are 10 per cent obedient to God, by the time the fellow who is 90 per cent obedient has finished, you will still be struggling. If your obedience is zero, you cannot hinder demons. This is where the trouble lies. It is the secret behind quick answers to prayers or no answers at all. Somebody can come and say, "Receive your healing," and people are healed instantly, and another one comes and prays for three hours before somebody can be healed. So, make up your mind to be 100 per cent obedient to the Almighty if you want to be a successful soldier in the army of the Lord. I have seen many people who have talked to demons and the demons asked them, "Why are you harassing us? Our senior uncle is inside your body, and you are asking us to go. We shall not go." There are some people who are "satanic broadcasting stations." All they do is gossip. Instead of saying, "Thank God, brother so and so has travelled abroad," a gossip will say, "Do you know that, so and so has travelled abroad. He borrowed money to buy the tickets." If you listen to gossips, you are one of them. God will give the same judgement to gossips and those who listen to them.
There are so many people like that in the house of God. If you are like that, you will notice that demons will not respect you, because they know that you are one of them. When you say, "leave," they will say, "how can we leave?" Instead of saying, "When you were annoyed and wanted to walk out of the house, your husband pulled you back, you would say, he smashed your head against the wall. But that was not what happened. You are a broadcasting station of evil. The Bible says, "And having in readiness to avenge all disobedience..." When your obedience is not complete no matter what you do in the name of Jesus, demons will not depart. How about your eyebrows that you have removed with blade, how about the colours on your finger nails. Anyone that comes to you and claims that certain things were said by a person, you should ask him if he would be able to repeat the same in the presence of the person. If he says no, then tell him to get away from you. Hundred per cent obedience is what God is looking for. Then you can command demons to depart and without winking, they will run away.
Since Lucifer and his supporters were cast out of heaven, they have been opposing the human race. That is why Lucifer was renamed satan, which means adversary. He is the one who sows tares amongst the wheat. He plants strange children among good ones and bad thoughts among good thoughts, and fights to make the good bad and the bad worse. Like all personalties, evil spirits can think, listen, communicate, experience things, act, react, speak to our minds and hear what we say. They watch our reactions and make their plans and strategies. Because of these character in them, we need to speak to them when we do warfare prayer. That is why Jesus said, "If any of you shall speak unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be so." We need to rebuke them and verbally deny them access into our lives. In the Bible, Jesus addressed the devil and demons directly and He told us that greater things than these should we do. Every miracle that Jesus performed in the Bible can be found in the Old Testament. The only thing that Jesus did that was never done before by any prophets was the way he dealt with evil spirits and those evil spirts recognised Him. At this time when the devil has come against us in greater anger. Any believer with no knowledge of warfare prayer is still joking. Try and understand this: a spirit of wicthcraft can never repent, it can never be pacified. All evil spirits are defying God. They are never going to make peace with God. When the Bible says, pray for your enemies, it does not say, pray for demons.
In fact, it is a sin to pray for demons. Jesus did not pray for peace with the devil. He dealt with them with the most ungentlemanly language we can think of. I am sure you will consider it extremely unreasonable and ungentlemanly if I jump inside the congregation and look at somebody and say shut up and get out. That was how Jesus dealt with evil spirits. These spirits know that they are going to hell fire, they are not ready to reconcile with God and they will never agree to submit to God.
A sister came to me crying that a man she did not know just landed on her while she was sleeping on the bed. She could not push the fellow away, all she could do was to cry. She knew that she had been violated and did not know what to do. She ran to her pastor. After she had explained everything, the pastor asked, "When last did you see your doctor." She said she was not sick. He asked her to bring her husband. The husband came with her and the pastor told her husband to take her to a psychiatric hospital. Since they were sure that she did not have any mental problem she did not go to hospital or take any further action. The devil who knew that she was ignorant and had no protection continued to harass her. Many people are under silent bondage like this. They cannot talk to anybody about what they are going through. If such people do not understand warfare prayer, they may die prematurely. And a lot of people have died just like that. Some people would say, if God does not kill, nobody can kill. It is a big lie. People can die before their time. But when you pray warfare prayers, things begin to happen.
A sister bought one of our books, "How to Obtain Personal Deliverance." She had never visited M. F.M. before. She read the book and then started the prayers. Suddenly, from her own seat, she somersaulted. Members of her family did not know what to do. They were just saying, "Blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus." They did not understand. Warfare prayer will locate the enemy that has been hiding. A lot of people notice that when they start praying, they start having strange dreams. It is because, for the first time, they are praying the kind of prayers that touched the root of their problems. When the problems are exposed, it is now your duty to deal with them one by one.
What do you pray about during warfare prayer?
1. Declaration of your faith. You start by making some scriptural confessions. Then you go on to praise and worship. It is not good to abandon any of the above things and just start praying. They have their functions. Bold declaration of your faith is warfare praying. Somebody who stands up and says, "Through the blood of Jesus, I am justified, through the blood of Jesus I have peace, is making a declaration.
2. Resisting the devil: When you say, resist, it means that you do not want to give that thing any chance. There is a Bible passage that says, "Be angry, but sin not, let not the sun set on your anger." Another verse says, "Give the enemy no place," meaning that your anger can create a place for the enemy. So if you want to resist the devil, when he says, "Okay begin to boil," you will say, "No, I refuse to boil, in Jesus’ name." If he says, "Talk now, look at how they are abusing you," you will say, "I refuse to talk, in Jesus’ name."
3. Confession of sins: Confess your sins to the Lord. Tell Him that you are sorry for your sins. This is very serious because it is that sin that will give the devil a foothold. Once you confess it to the Lord, the devil will have no where to hide in your life.
4. Forgiveness of sins: If anybody has offended you, forgive him and also ask the Lord to forgive you your own sins. Not forgiving anyone who has offended you is a very bad business because you lose more, for you will be released unto the hands of what the Bible calls tormentors and they will torment you day and night.
5. Breaking soul-ties: A lot of people have tied their souls to evil people, e.g. old boyfriends, old girlfriends, satanic priests and fake prophets. Warfare prayer is needed to break these ties. A man got married on a Saturday and by the following Sunday he rushed back with a complaint that he was not settled as he could not keep his mind off his former girlfriend who had equally married. Many of our spinsters and bachelors need to break soul ties so that they can be released.
6. Release from evil domination and control: When a person says, "I refuse evil to dominate me," or "I refuse evil to control me," he is praying a great warfare prayer. Release from evil domination is necessary for spiritual growth.
7. Release from acquired and inherited bondage: When a person has acquired or inherited a bondage, the kind of prayer that will set him free is warfare prayer.
8. Breaking of curses, spells, charms, jinxes and bewitchment: When you break a curse or a spell, you command a charm to become powerless, or you decree that a jinx should not continue to operate or release something from bewitchment, you are doing warfare prayer.
9. Renunciation of the occult: When somebody has been a member of a secret society or in the wrong church where they practice unscriptural things and you pull out of the place renouncing your involvement, it is warfare praying.
10. Destruction of evil communication: You can pray like this: "I don’t want anything evil to communicate with me" and then you break that communication system.
11. Taking authority over the strongman wherever he may be.
12. Commanding Satan to release all he has stolen: For every thing the enemy has stolen from you, you can say "Yes, I want it back now, seven folds, in the name of Jesus."
13. Arresting and binding territorial spirit: In the territory wherever you live, there must be some spirits around controlling the place. You will arrest them and bind their powers. There is no where in the world that is free. Anywhere you find yourself, do warfare praying. If a believer happens to travel out and has to lodge in a hotel, he must arrest and bind the spirits there because you never can tell the person who slept on that bed before you.
14. Claiming back lost ground: A ground that is lost is claimed back through warfare praying.
15. Praises: Praise the Lord always.
The enemies of our soul can attack many areas of our lives. They can attack the physical body through diseases, food and physical objects. These things require warfare praying. When an object is made for occult purposes it carries some powers. If a person then touches the thing or hangs it on his or her neck, the demon attached to it enters the body of the person. The only way to get them out is through warfare praying.
It will be 100 per cent foolishness for a man to assume that since he grew up in a christian home and his parents are christians, he does not need deliverance, and therefore does not need to learn aggressive praying. Some men of God in England spent two days praying for a girl of 17 who had never visited Nigeria to deliver her from evil spirits. She was born in England and has been there all her life, she has never travelled to Nigeria. But to their shock, demons from Nigeria began to cry out of her body.
Beloved, the truth is that millions and millions of apparently normal and respectable people need serious deliverance. Many have gone to several places for protection. But if you then say, we do praise worship and there is no problem, you should know that praise worship that is done from unclean lips does not go anywhere. Everything we do in the house of God, the devil can do a lot of it better. The only thing he cannot do is prayer. It is not a joke that the largest church in the world is the church where prayer takes 90 per cent of the time and every other thing takes 10 per cent.
What the church of God needs now is a surgeon and not cosmetologists. We must go back to traditional Pentecostal hard praying, then we will throw fear into the camp of the enemies again. They will know without being told that no matter how far they have travelled, there is a power that can catch up with them in just one second and disgrace them. Bow down your head and begin to confess every sin that will make the devil to rejoice in your life to the Lord. Ask the Lord to forgive you, so that you will have victory. Ask the Holy Spirit to expose any secret sin to you.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Every gathering of the ungodly against me physically or spiritually, be scattered, in the name of Jesus.
2. Every evil report brought against me in the kingdom of darkness, I cancel you, in the name of Jesus.
3. Every operation of darkness commissioned against me, be aborted, in the name of Jesus.
4. (Lay your right hand on your head and the second one on your stomach) Every evil presence in my body, loose your hold, in the name of Jesus.
5. Every arrow of darkness militating against me, go back to your sender, in the name of Jesus.
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