I heard an excellent illustration recently, of the relationship between warriors and intercessors that a friend Bruce Turnbull shared with me. He was a firefighter in the navy and they had a drill where a room was filled with JP5 fuel and set on flames. The firefighters worked in two different teams consisting of 4 men each. They stood in two rows as close together as possible. They were staggered kind of like a honeycomb or bricks in a wall. The hose and applicator are held only by the front man in each team.
The job of the #1 hose team was, as soon as they opened the door to sweep back and forth from one side to the other, pushing the flames back from off of the fuel. A person from #2 team stood right behind the #1 team front person and had an applicator that sprayed a mist of water, that basically created a "wall" of water to keep them cool and protected. If the front person wasn't diligent and didn't go all the way to one of the sides, the fire would get through the space and set the fuel behind them on flames again and engulf them both.
If the person from team #2 didn't keep the front person protected with spray, then the insurmountable heat from the fire would be too much for him to stand. Because of the great heat he would lose control of his mind and cause him to be unable to do his job correctly. The reason there are 4 men in a team is because they require more than one man on a hose because the power of the hose is too much for one man to handle. If the front man tires then the second man takes over and #1 goes to the back.
In this illustration, the front team are the front line soldiers and the team in the back are the intercessors and together they form a combined warfare team. The clearest scriptural example of this is in the Old Testament, where Moses, Aaron and Hur are the intercessors on the mountain and Joshua and his men are the front line soldiers down in the valley. Together they formed a combined warfare team and both were vitally important. We discover from this passage that when Moses lowered His arms the warriors would begin to lose and when he raised his arms they began to win. So the key to the victory was in the intercession, but on the other hand, if there are no soldiers down in the valley, there is no battle.
How does this apply to the church today? The intercession part of this equation is already happening in many churches. How many churches do you know, that don't already have an intercession group? On the other hand, how many churches do you know that has a front line soldier's warfare team? Many have equated intercession to be like a destroyer bombing the shore before the marines go in and hit the beach. In most churches then, we have the shore being bombed over and over, but no one is going in to take the beach. The church, therefore, is in a desperate need for front line soldiers to be raised up.
As in the example of Moses and Joshua, the teams can be both men or both women or a mixture. We see that both men and women are involved in the intercession teams that are already in place, however in many cases there is a much greater number of women. Perhaps, the "front-line soldiers" team is the ministry for many of the men who presently haven't found a place to plug into in the church.
Bruce also shared with me a revelation that God had given him, that men were created to be warriors and when they don't have a foe outside to fight, then they begin to fight their own families and their aggressiveness is focused inward. This seems to be confirmed in the scriptures, for instance Numbers 1:2,3 - "Take a census of all the congregation ? every male, head by head from twenty years old and upward, whoever {is able to} go out to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies". This indicates that all men who were 20 years old and over, were expected to be soldiers and were numbered by their armies.
Doesn't there need to be "call to arms", to mobilize men into front line spiritual warfare? Think about it, wouldn't this be the logical progression as the next step after the Promise Keepers movement. This movement helped men to get things straightened away at home, to be the kind of fathers and husbands that God had called them to be. Now that things at home are in better shape, shouldn't the focus be for them to rise up as warriors and to battle the enemies of their family and church and community.
May I suggest the formation of frontline warfare teams in each church, with the purpose of seeking the Lord as to His strategy for their church and region.
Frontline Warfare Strategy The goal and desire of this team would be to see people get free from the enemy and enter into the kingdom of God. To accomplish this though, Jesus tells us that we must first bind up the strong man over the house, before you can plunder his goods. (Mark 3:27)
To illustrate the activities of a frontline warfare team I am going share with you, how God led us, as we reached out to the Alternative Sub-culture. Hopefully you will be able to see the key principles that are involved and be able to apply it to the cultural group you are called to.
The Lord showed us that if we were going to see a flood of people saved out of the Alternative Sub-culture and not just the trickle we were presently seeing, and then we would have to first bind up the strong man over them.
This is called strategic level warfare, so if you are not familiar with this concept, here is a short biblical study that will give you a good scriptural basis.
Strategic Level Warfare - Do Spirits have actual areas that they rule over? Dan 10:13 "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. Then he said, "Do you understand why I came to you? But I shall now return to fight against the prince of Persia; so I am going forth, and behold, the prince of Greece is about to come. 21) "However, I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth. Yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael your prince.
When Daniel prayed and fasted for 21 days in Persia, it is no wonder that the spirit, who withstood the angel with the message for him, was the prince of Persia. The angel who then came and helped the first angel, was Michael, who is called, "one of the chief princes" and "your (Israel) prince" and in Dan 12:1 it says he is "Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people".
And finally, the angel says that He is going back to fight the prince of Persia and that the prince of Greece was about to come. Historically, Greece would soon conquer Persia.
So basically, we have three territorial spirits spoken of in this passage, one angel (Michael over Israel) and two demonic (princes over Persia and Greece)
In Rev.2:13 ? I know where you live-- where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city-- where Satan lives.
In this verse we come across a city that has a territorial Satan spirit. (we are not sure if this is the Satan or one of the Satan spirits serving him)
Who should be involved in Strategic Level Warfare? Some would say that only angels should be involved in strategic level warfare. So an important question is "Are we to be involved in this spiritual battle?"
Eph 6:12 - For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly (spiritual) realms.
2 Cor 10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
We see from these 2 verses that we are very clearly to be involved in this type of warfare.
What has to happen if we want to see a breakthrough?
Matt 12:28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 "Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house (territory) and carry off his property (lost souls), unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. (Save souls in that territory)
Jesus obviously plundered the enemy's house, so then, when did He bind up the strong man?
Luke 4:1 - Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, 13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
In verse 1, when Jesus is led to go out into to the desert and it says He was, full of the Holy Spirit, but when He comes back He it is in the power of the Spirit. So it was during His time in the desert that Jesus bond up the strong man, so that when He came back He was able to go from city to town plundering the enemy's goods.
So then how did He bind up the enemy when He was out in the desert? Basically by not giving into the enemies temptations and we do it the same way. If the spirit over and area is greed we bind it up by not giving into that temptation.
Warfare in the Clubs We discerned that one of the key areas in the lives of the Alternative Sub-culture was the area of music. So we decided that a good place to start, was to take a couple of these young guys (the beginning of our front line warfare team) and start going out to the Heavy metal concerts that came to town, not to protest, but to witness and pray.
I had heard from a friend who worked on the streets, that whenever one of these really bad Satanic bands came into town, suicide and Satanism would increase after they left, like a wave of evil being released each time they played.
Therefore, along with the evangelism, we decided to also take seriously the need to bind up the spirits that came with these musicians, in order to stop these releases and the spirits from doing their work. God honored this and we saw Him significantly shut down the spirits that were at work behind a number of these bands.
The next area we worked on began when one of the alternative guys in our group was concerned that I didn't understand the Alternative Sub-culture well enough and offered to take me and another one of our frontline warfare team on a tour of the alternative dance clubs in Vancouver.
Well I was in for a surprise; first of all, this dancing was much different than I was use to. They go out alone, not as pairs, and do a kind of interpretive dance. As we stood and watched we began to see unclean spirits manifesting themselves through these people. I was able to see Witchcraft, Jezebel, Leviathan, and others. The second surprise was how much I enjoyed the vitality and creativity that was present.
When we went a second time I was thinking about what this friend had told me, that the week before, he had felt a lot of evil on the dance floor and that he started dancing as warfare against it, and that it seemed to work.
This sounded kind of strange to me, but then I thought, "Well, I can do warfare with singing in worship, so why couldn't we do the same thing with dance?
So I decided I would give it a try and I went out onto the dance floor. As I started, something amazing happened. In the midst of heavy, bass pounding music and flashing lights and apparent chaos, I came right into the presence of God and it was so peaceful that I could have been in a meadow. Then, with my eyes closed, I began to see a vision of angels and demons involved in a major battle. It seemed like the right thing to do was to pick up a sword and become a part of this battle and before you knew it my dancing was an actually prophetic action. I wasn't dancing; I was jabbing and cutting at demons with swords and lasers etc.
Now when I say "vision", it was what most would call a very active imagination, which I also thought at first, but when I would come home and pray with my wife, she would prophetically describe everything I had seen, so I began to realize that I was actually seeing into the spiritual realm.
A further confirmation of this came when Richard, a deliverance minister from Boise (the fellow who trained us in the new form of deliverance) came along with Mike (a friend from Chicago) and to the Twilight Zone club.
Richard came along at my request and tested the spirits because he thought the dance warfare sounded kind of flaky. Mike came to dance. So with Richard upstairs, looking down on the dance floor, Mike and I went out and started dancing. After about an hour and a half, we got together and compared notes.
Mike began and as he shared what he saw, I was totally amazed because it was the same thing that I saw. We both saw the same battle taking place. We both saw a group of angels from Chicago come in at the same time and we both saw the same key events.
At the end of the hour and a half, the angels had won the battle and on the last two songs we both saw and experienced a huge celebration. Richard shared that although he didn't know how to describe it, he could definitely see that we were dancing in the Holy Spirit and that something must have happened on the last two songs because the power of God came into the club so powerfully that it was all he could do not to raise his arms to God in praise.
So, here we have three different people who entered the spiritual realm from three different doors, but saw and experienced the same single spiritual reality of what was taking place.
As I talked with Richard about the experience afterwards, I shared with him something that I found quite puzzling. Some of the best times of worship I have ever experienced have been down on the dance floor. His response surprised me, because he said, "Well it is scriptural" I said "Where"? he said, "In Psalm 23 - Though doest prepare a table for me in the MIDST of my enemies". The Lord also told us that there was another reason He wanted us to go out and dance in the Holy Spirit. He wanted to give the people in the clubs a taste of something they had never experienced before. Most alternative people are much more open to the spiritual realm than many Christians; they are just familiar with the wrong spirits.
I believe that when they finally encounter the true Holy Spirit in His power, they will know that Jesus is what they have been looking for all this time, and thousands and thousands will get saved.
Commando Team At the present time we have a regular group of four who go out once a month to do spiritual warfare this way.
Our normal practice is to get together before hand and pray and seek his face. We ask what His assignment is for us as a group and whether the battle is individual or corporate. Having a peace about this, we then pray asking the Lord what assignment He has for each person. It has been amazing how many times it has been right on. Then after praying for protection and His leading, we go in and do what the Lord tells us.
Usually, about half way through the evening we take a break and go outside to be able to talk and see what is happening, We find that hearing what the others are going through, often helps us each to get more focused, especially if we've been getting attacked.
We then go back in, usually with renewed vision, and we go until we sense the assignment is done (and usually there is quite a clear "all done" word from the Lord) and then we get out of there as soon as possible. The times we have hung around, we came under a lot of attack, so it?s just not worth staying around.
The most I think we've had, was 7 people on the dance floor at one time, all of them doing some degree of spiritual warfare.
The Bible talks about us having divinely powerful weapons to tear down strongholds. These I see in the spiritual realm as actually weapons and vehicles.
When we started, I would always hop into a high powered and heavily armored jeep. After a while, it became a shuttle sized air ship that could fly and then this last little while it has doubled in size and has some pretty fearsome weapons loaded on board.
This leads me to think that there is a "if you are faithful with little I will give you more" principle at work in the build up of the power and effectiveness of the weapons. So don?t be surprised if you see similar images over and over and then they begin to change into new weapons and equipment.
How do you apply this to your situation? Discover the power points of the group you are reaching out to. Where do the gather and what do they do? Then ask God to give you a strategy so that you can bind up the strong, that you might plunder his goods.
Trevor MacPherson
