Overcoming Spiritual Resistance that Brings Transformation

Overcoming Spiritual Resistancethat Brings TransformationIncreasingly, World Vision personnel in various countries are asking for prayer supportbecause they are finding themselves wrestling with spiritual darkness in the communitiesthey serve. Community transformation is integrally linked to spiritual resistance thatmust be overcome.by John D. RobbThe global prayer effort called“Prayer Through the Window” isfocused entirely on the nations of the“10/40 Window.” In 1993, more than270 teams went out to pray on-site inthese countries. It was my privilege tolead one of these teams to the countryof Bhutan. Since that time, with thehelp of World Vision, I have workedwith national Christian leaders to setup similar prayer initiatives in severalother countries. These interdenominationalprayer efforts have focusedprayer on mission breakthrough inunreached peoples and/or sociopoliticaltransformation. Thus, I come atthis subject from two angles: a concernfor the removal of spiritual hindranceswhich keep unreached peoplegroups from responding to the gospel,(my AD2000 and Beyond Movementhat if you will), as well as a concernfor the overthrow of the evil whichbrings injustice, suffering and exploitationof the poor (my World Visionhat). Increasingly, World Vision personnelin various countries are askingfor prayer support because they arefinding themselves wrestling withspiritual darkness in the communitiesthey serve. For example, just a fewweeks ago in meetings with our staffin Indonesia, the major topic was howto deal effectively with the demonicforces we are encountering.Since the late 1960s as a studentinvolved in university evangelism andduring my field missionary experiencewhich followed, I became convincedthat prayer was our major resource indealing with spiritual resistance. Icontinue to believe this but also realizeacutely that I am still in the processof learning and hope you willtake my comments in that light.Perhaps the most solid conclusionI have reached is that we need to behumbly dependent upon God, admittingwe do not understand, so that astrusting, curious children He can leadus by the hand. King Jehoshaphat,when faced by overpowering resistancein the form of an invasionagainst his people by combined forcesof three hostile nations, prayed, “Wedo not know what to do, but our eyesare upon you” (2 Chr. 20:12). This, itseems to me, is the safest posture forus to take as well.Resistance to the Church and itsmissionary endeavor, of course,springs from both human anddemonic origins. Theologian WalterWink’s writings demonstrate that theBible tends to use the same languagefor human and spiritual authorities orpowers as in Ephesians 6. 1 But sincethe Apostle Paul says very explicitlythat we wrestle not against flesh andblood (Eph.6:12), I want to focus onthe spiritual resistance which animateshuman beings and their institutionsto oppose the kingdom of God.The Source of ResistanceAbove all, we must discern thereal source of resistance and use spiritualweapons to combat it Jesus said“The kingdom of heaven suffers violenceand the violent take it by force”(Matt. 11:12). A number of Biblicalscholars think the meaning of thistext is that the kingdom has beenunder attack from violent foes. 2Human beings and their institutionslike King Herod and his soldiers capturedand killed John the Baptist.Religious leaders in league with theRoman authorities opposed Jesus andhad him executed. But behind thesehuman forces, Jesus saw the onewhom he often called “the prince ofthis world.” And in Mark 3:27, speakingof Satan, he said that this “strongman”needs to be “bound” if hisgoods—presumably those humanbeings and their institutions held captive—areto be liberated from his control.How did this strongman becomestrong enough in our world to put upsuch great and violent resistance tothe kingdom of God? The Genesisstory teaches that the first peoplewere given dominion of the earth toInternational Journal of Frontier Missions Vol. 15:4, Oct.-Dec., 1998

198Overcoming Spiritual Resistancerule as God’s vice-regents over allcreation (Genesis 1:28). But throughdeception and disobedience, the serpentusurped our dominion, becomingthe veritable ruler of this world. In myopinion, prayer is the way we whohave been redeemed from satanicslavery apply the victory of Calvary totake back that dominion in the specificsituations and places for whichwe intercede. This, I believe, is thetheological reason why prayer can beused of God to overcome resistancefrom the evil one. It is not that we arepowerful in and of ourselves, but thatour prayer invites the almighty Lordinto the equation, and thus invited,he as Lord of hosts will put the enemyto flight.The Mightiest WeaponScripture attests over and overagain that prayer is the mightiestweapon we have been given for overcomingspiritual resistance. WhenMoses faced Pharaoh and the gods ofEgypt, it was a power encounter hewon through a relationship of prayerfuldependence on the Lord. Forty-sixtimes in chapters 3 to 14 of Exodus itsays that the Lord spoke to Moses.Only eleven times did Moses speakback to the Lord. In other words, helistened to God’s instructions andacted upon them. Later on he revealedhis understanding of what we mightnow call “spiritual warfare.” At thecrossing of the Red Sea he urged theIsraelites to “stand firm and you willsee the deliverance the Lord will bringyou today... the Lord will fight for you;you need only to be still” (Ex.14:13-14). Likewise, in the struggle againstthe Amalekites, Moses took the highground of intercession, standing onthe mountaintop with his arms raisedbefore the Lord. As he kept his armsoutstretched, the Israelites prevailedover the Amalekites in the valleybelow (Ex.17:8-13). At the end of hislife he summarized his learning con-cerning spiritual warfare. He assuredIsrael that God would be their“shield,” “helper” and “glorioussword,” and said “it is he who willdrive out your enemy before you”(Deut. 33:26-29).Moses passed down what he hadlearned to Joshua who time and againprayed for and received guidance fromGod as to the exact strategy for overcomingIsrael’s enemies during hisconquest of Canaan. It is also importantto note that the armies withwhich Israel fought went forth to warin dependence upon and under thecontrol of false gods. For example,Moloch of the Ammonites and Chemoshof the Moabites were worshipedthrough human sacrifice, and shoulddefinitely be called demons. 3 Thus,there was an element of spiritual warfareeven though these battles werefought on the physical plane.Daniel the prophet mourned andprayed for three weeks before theangel of the Lord broke through thecosmic resistance of the princes ofPersia and Greece (Dan.10:2,12-13).This story demonstrates both spiritualresistance and the power of prayer toprevail over it. The angel told Daniel“Since the first day that you set yourmind to gain understanding and tohumble yourself before your God,your words were heard, and I havecome in response to them” (10:12).Walter Wink, commenting on this passage,writes: “Recognizing the role ofthe Powers in blocking prayer can revolutionizethe way we pray. We will bemore energized and aggressive”. 4Jesus’ own ministry, characterizedby intense conflict with thedemonic, was always undergirded bymuch prayer. This was his modusoperandi whether he was enduringthe temptation in the wilderness, confrontingevil spirits in possessed people,or sweating blood at Gethsemanebefore his triumph over Satan on thecross. The apostles James and Peterboth urge us to “resist” the devil sothat he will flee from us. We are to dothis in a context of submitting ourselvesto God and humbling ourselvesbefore him which is the needed postureand attitude of prayer (Ja. 4:9; 1Pet. 5:9).Missions is WarfareThe apostle Paul repeatedly useswarfare terminology to describe hismission and that of God’s people.There was no more violent image inPaul’s day than an armor-clad Romansoldier. This is the image he uses inEphesians 6 to describe our battlewith the powers. He tells us that wedo not wage war as the world does ina fleshly or purely human manner.Rather, the weapons we fight withhave “divine power to demolishstrongholds.” Strongholds are pointsat which the “strongman” has a gripover a people group or human institution.They may be false political ideologies,such as communism, whichmislead people, or false religiousbeliefs like the Hindu concept of castewhich lock people into an oppressivelifestyle. Ethnic stereotyping is anawful stronghold. For example, beforethe Rwandan genocide Hutu extremistsconstantly referred to the Tutsias “cockroaches,” dehumanizing themto the point where it was all right toeliminate them.Paul says, “The god of this worldhas blinded the minds of the unbelieversto keep them from seeing the lightof the gospel of the glory of Christ whois the likeness of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).People everywhere are perishing,being destroyed through the deceptionof this false god. They are also beingturned against each other in senseless,national and ethnic conflicts inwhich thousands, even millions, dieand no one wins except Satan thedestroyer. But Paul reminds us thatthe weapons God has given us aremighty because Jesus has given usInternational Journal of Frontier Missions

200Overcoming Spiritual ResistanceHis conclusion is: “Christians inJapan and those elsewhere who prayfor Japan need to avoid wasting valuablespiritual ammunition on inconsequentialor phantom targets. There isa need for increased prayer againstthe spiritual forces of darkness ineach area.” He, therefore, calls forextending praise marches and prayerwalks throughout the country. 12SpiritualBreakthroughThe prayers of God’s people canovercome demonic resistance, bringingspiritual breakthrough among theunreached as well as social transformation.I have talked with Christianworkers all over the world who maintainthat the prayer of God’s peopleweakens the occult powers. AnAssembly of God pastor in northernGhana, attending one of myUnreached Peoples Seminars, relayedhow a witch doctor had been stubbornlyopposing the work of hischurch, inciting the people againstthe Christians. However, when thebelievers united in prayer for that village,the witch doctor lost all his powersand the villagers began to turn tothe Lord. 13A doctor and his wife, who havedevoted themselves to evangelism andchurch planting in the vast Indianstate of Madhya Pradesh, describewhat a difference prayer has made inovercoming resistance in Hindu villages.Before beginning the work ofevangelism they and their team membersfirst pause at the outskirts of thetarget village to exert the authority ofJesus in prayer, binding any forces ofthe enemy that would seek to hinderthe proclamation of the gospel. Theyoften find a new receptivity and willingnessto embrace the gospel, andhave seen increasing numbers of Hindusturn to Christ. 14In view of the fact that the prayersof believers make such a difference,how then should we pray?International Journal of Frontier MissionsPraying UnitedlyFirst of all it is important that wepray unitedly if resistance is to beovercome. Jesus promised us in Matthew18 that if two of us agreed astouching anything it would be done byour Father in heaven. The difficulty isin getting Christians to agree. It hasbeen said, where there are two Christiansthere are three opinions! In thebook of Acts major expansions of thechurch and spiritual breakthroughsfollowed the believers praying in “oneaccord.” According to the writings ofJ. Edwin Orr and David Bryant,united prayer has preceded everygreat revival in the history of thechurch. 15 During our internationalprayer initiatives, we have found thatreconciliation is a critical first step ifbelievers are to pray in unity. In Bosnia,one month before the war ended,local Christians from Serb, Croat andMuslim backgrounds first repented toone another, identifying with the sinsof their peoples. It was then that theywere able to pray effectively for peaceand the healing of their land.Unity in prayer is also essentialfor spiritual breakthrough in a resistantunreached people. Missionaryefforts for fifty years failed to makeany dent upon the Bateke people ofthe Congo. It was only when Christianworkers prayed unitedly and authoritativelyagainst the spirit of the riverwhich had enslaved this people withfear that sudden breakthrough came.Within weeks they saw dramaticresponse to the gospel with 3,000coming to the Lord, followed rapidlyby another 5,000! 16In the summer of 1992, a group ofoccultists aggressively opposed themass evangelism efforts some Russianfriends and I were carrying out in thecity of Saratov. They tore down theadvertising posters and sought tocreate a diversion by holding a competingmeeting on extrasensory perception.During our morning worshipservice 200 believers united theirprayers against the spirits of darknesswho were controlling these humanenemies. That evening, in spite of allthe earlier opposition, between 6,000and 7,000 people made public commitmentsto Jesus Christ, an impactthat was far beyond all we could haveasked or thought!Praying SpecificallySecondly, we need to gather informationand insights from documentarystudy, conferring with localChristian leaders, even interviewingmembers of the people group we areconcerned to reach. All of this helpsus know how to pray accurately. Whatis the nature of the grip the forces ofdarkness have on this people group orcity? This will involve a look at culture,history, religion, economics andpolitics.When we pray unitedly and withspecific information in our hands, wewreak spiritual violence on theenemy, a violence that will bring liberationto his captives because it bringsthe almighty God into the equation,enabling true holistic transformationto occur. We are just at the beginningof exploring the potential power ofunited prayer. Theologian WalterWink states, “History belongs to theintercessors, who believe the futureinto being”. German pastor IngolfSchmidt affirms, “All over the worldthe Church is called to cast outdemons. Not only out of individualsbut also of whole nations and peoples.God wants the Church to rule, to bindprincipalities and powers with authority,and to determine the politics ofnations.”Praying HolisticallyThird, every dimension of a people’sexistence is important and allthese dimensions political, economic,social, cultural, and spiritual are

John D. Robb201interconnected. In 1995, in the city ofCali, Colombia, the believers focusedtheir prayers on the entrenched structuralevil of their society. The infamousCali drug cartel had usedobscene amounts of money to buyover both government officials andpolice and had killed everyone whostood in their way, making Cali themost violent city in the world. A seriesof all night prayer vigils attended bytens of thousands of local believersdid what nothing else could do.Shortly thereafter all the cartelleaders were either dead orbehind bars and an anticorruptioninvestigation beganresulting in the dismissal ofhundreds of corrupt police officersand the imprisonment ofcartel-linked politicians. 17In India, when Pastor ArthurPaul and his wife moved into aHindu slum area of Bangalore,they were first greeted with a hail ofstones. They persisted in much prayerfor the community, then began toreach out to the people, caring for littlegirls who would have been soldinto prostitution and praying for theterminally ill. Deeds of love and mercyplus miracles of healing and deliverancedemonstrated the reality ofJesus. There and elsewhere in thestate of Karnataka they have so farbaptized over 5,000, the great majorityfrom a Hindu background. Accordingto Pastor Paul, more than anythingelse it was prayer that broughtthe breakthrough. 19 In the same waywe need to pray holistically for theneeds of individuals and their communitiesPraising God andProclaiming His WordIt was at the decisive momentwhen Judah’s singers of praise beganto sing “give thanks to the Lord for hislove endures forever” that the Lord setambushes against their enemies (2Chr. 20:21-23). The invading armieswere thrown into confusion and put toflight. The apostle Paul indicates thatit is through the Church that themanifold wisdom of God is proclaimedto the rulers and authorities in theheavenly realms (Eph. 3:10). Praiseand the proclamation of the Word ofGod are powerful tools to do this. Inour prayer initiatives we have foundthat worship and praise to God, aswell as proclaiming passages of hisOur prayers are thenecessary opening that allowsGod to act without violatingour freedom. Prayer is theultimate act of partnershipwith God.word, are an essential part of changingthe spiritual atmosphere wherethere is difficulty or resistance. Duringa prayer seminar in Bangkok inApril 1995, a member of our team ledin proclaiming Moses’ words to Pharaoh,“Let my people go.” We proclaimedthis word in the face of thedivision which was keeping God’s peoplein that city from coming togetherto pray in unity. Several months later,more than 500 Christians from acrossthe denominational spectrum, includingthose who had been at odds, gatheredto pray together for the first time.One of the prayer leaders attributed itto the April seminar in which the participantshad made this proclamation.Keeping theCentral FocusWe must hold to the central focusof the kingdom of God—bringing peopleto Christ. As Tom White puts it,“Power encounter like any otheraspect of ministry is not to become apreoccupation. There is a danger of aholy crusade to rid the world of evilstrongholds. If the vision of the heartof God aching for the lost is blurredby a commando operation to stormthe gates of hell, we miss the point ofthe Great Commission” .19 The wholepoint of this kind of praying is tobring liberation to those groups ofpeople whose minds are still blindedby the god of this world, who are hinderedfrom understanding andresponding to the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4).Therefore, like Jesus, we needto keep focused on individualand social redemption andtransformation.Mixed ResultsWe also need to face thefact that sometimes resistancewill not be overcome or that wewill have mixed results. Pharaohstill hardened his heartagainst the prayers and wordsof Moses. The Sanhedrin, for the mostpart, rejected Jesus and crucifiedhim. The apostle Paul was stoned,whipped and ultimately beheaded. Wecan sometimes be guilty of bringing asuccess mentality to prayer alongwith a materialistic, technological wayof thinking which assumes we canjust pull a lever and get a particularresult. In Colombia, even while marvelousbreakthroughs have been occurringin answer to united prayer, over200 pastors have lost their lives duringthe same two year period due toattacks by guerrillas and paramilitaryforces. 20 Backlash from an utterlyfierce and ruthless foe is to beexpected. In Matthew 24, Jesuswarned us about persecutions thathis people will experience, and fromwhich we sometimes may not be delivered.Although we may have moreunderstanding now, there is still aprofound air of mystery surroundingprayer and how God uses our prayingand spiritual warfare to transform ourVol 15:4 Oct.-Dec., 1998