April 29 – Strongholds
Jeremiah 51:53: “Though Babylon should ascend to the heavens, And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, From Me destroyers will come to her,” declares the Lord.
Babylon here is also representative of the spiritual places of darkness. This does not refer to the real geographical Babylon. Babylon in the Bible was the first city in the world, with creation of crafts, art, music, etc., highly complex, beautiful and wonderful. Babylon today is actually Iraq. Yet Babylon also crafted the dark arts, black magic and the occult. Thus, the bold, beautiful and bad was birthed in Babylon. Wherever there is black magic, spiritual blindness rules.
Places over the world are said to be ruled by the spirit of Babylon in terms of spiritual blindness. These are called the 10/40 window is a term coined by strategist and Partners International CEO Luis Bush in 1990. This refers to those regions of the eastern hemisphere, plus the European and African part of the western hemisphere, located between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, a general area that was purported to have the highest level of socioeconomic challenge.
God has raised prayer warriors for the 10/40 window area and over the years, people have seen a mighty breakthrough of God’s light in these areas, deep concentrated prayer has broken down the stronghold mightily. Due to prayer, revival came to China, South Korea, parts of India, Africa, and different parts of Asia. As the Bible says, “The people living in darkness have seen a great light.”
There is a stronghold of rape demons in certain parts of India. This would seem very strange to say, but it is true. If people gathered to pray down the stronghold of rape, it would break and be destroyed. However, we are not praying down this stronghold – it is spiritual and can be broken. We also pray for breakthrough, deliverance and healing at the same time we pray down strongholds. This is due to the territorial spirits ruling that city or village in concentration, due to the doors opened by the people, allowing them free reign to rule and very little, if no prayer in that area. Isaiah 10:27: And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing We need to take spiritual warfare more seriously even though it is not an easy pretty topic.
I will share something I read from Peter Wagner’s book. There was a tribal village in West Africa where there was a tree belonging to the local witch doctor, known as the “devil’s tree.” The witch doctor’s god was supposed to be living in that tree. No one ever dared to touch that tree. One day, a missionary newly arrived there and full of missionary zeal, when he heard about the tree immediately ordered that the tree be cut down. He knew nothing about the weapons of warfare, the blood of Jesus, binding evil powers, using the authority of the Name of Jesus or the other weapons. Boldly, he called out grandly for the tree to be cut down. The moment the tree fell to the ground, the pastor, a perfectly healthy man dropped dead! Perhaps the pastor did not understand spiritual warfare, did not know about the blood covering of protection, of binding and rebuking or was not in a relationship with the Lord and not walking with Him thus did not have the Fire of God’s Presence at that moment to protect him.
We cannot exactly know why, but we do know that dealing with territorial spirits is not easy turf and we have to understand our weapons, walk in Christ and fight. When we walk in the Fire of God’s Presence, we have great spiritual authority to caste down powers in Jesus name and demons hear us and flee! This is not because of us, but because of the Presence of the Lord in our lives.
Rita
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