James:4:7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
If it seems like the devil is attacking you on every side. It is not that you have opened a door and are releasing more of the devil. It is because you are not releasing enough of God in your life. You are not praying enough. You will need to go to a new level of prayer to accomplish what you want done in your life.
Luke 11:1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
If Jesus felt a need to pray while he was on earth it is more important for us to pray. Here the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus then taught them how to pray. We are going to study this prayer over the next weeks. Today we are going over the purpose or reason to pray.
Luke 11:2 And he said unto them, When you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be your name. your kingdom come. your will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Jesus did not say if you pray, but when you pray.
Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be your name.
In this manner….means with this pattern. Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer here in what we usually call the Lord’s prayer. He did not tell us to necessarily pray this prayer daily, but pray after this manner.
1. Be Persistent in Prayer
Prayer is to be taken seriously. The reason we need to take it seriously is that we are in a battle. And the one that you are in a war with wants to kill you.
John:10:10: The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
He is trying to steal from you, to kill you, and to destroy your family. The devil is who we are in a battle with, not our relatives.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
The term “we” is the believer, not just pastors, apostles, etc. We wrestle against principalities.
Daniel 10:11-13, 20-21 11And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto you, and stand upright: for unto you am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that you did set your heart to understand, and to chasten yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I am come for your words.13But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty one days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. 20 Then said he, Know wherefore I come unto you? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come. 21But I will show you that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holds with me in these things, but Michael your prince.
Daniel is praying for 21 days, and the angel started coming to him immediately, but was kept back by the principalities. The angel is saying that he would not have even been able to come without an archangel to help him. Daniel did not quit praying, and because he did not quit, his answer got through.
He spoke about a prince of Persia and of Greece. These were the principalities that the angel was fighting against. He also told Daniel that he had a personal angel. Each of us has a personal angel but we also have the Prince of Peace on our side. Many people do not understand about territorial spirits or principalities and this is why they are being defeated in prayer.
The King’s Cathedral in Hawaii has their main location in Maui, but they planted a church in Molokai. Over the years that church was only 40 members. The pastor went to the Lord and asked him why the church was not growing. The Lord told them to walk the island and pray over it. At first he questioned the Lord because the island is 35 miles long. But he got some of the church staff together and they walked the island and prayed. There was one area of woods on the island that is called the poison woods. Birds that enter that woods die. There is no natural reason for their death. When the pastor looked into it he found they sacrificed children there.
Lev 18:21 And you shalt not let any of your seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
The fire of Molech is making your children walk alive into the fire as a sacrifice to Molech.
The valley of Hinnom was where the Israelites were doing this sacrifice. King Ahaz of Judah who sacrificed his sons there according to 2 Chron. 28:3. The same is recorded of Ahaz’ grandson Manasseh in 33:6. The Greek word for the valley of Hinnom is Gehenna. Jesus used this term in the gospels, saying if you want an example of Hell, look to Gehenna…or Hinnom where they sacrificed their children to Molech by forcing them to walk alive into the fire as a sacrifice. The children, as they walked into the fire, would weep and gnash their teeth together.
When you expand your church into other cities you will have different principalities to deal with. A principality is a prince over a region.
The pastor of King’s Cathedral took authority over the principality of child sacrifice on Molokai. He continued to pray across the whole island. Within months after they prayed, the church in Molokai grew from 40 members to over 400 members.
Ephesians 6:16: Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
If you are getting attacked, it is because you don’t have your shield of faith up..because it tells us in Ephesians that if we have the shield of faith up it will quench every dart.
The enemy will try to come against us as we prayer for our church or call our nation back to God, but we do not need to be afraid of him. We just need to go up one level in prayer. We need to be persistent in prayer.
Jesus encountered principalities of the area of the Gadarenes in his ministry.
Mark 5:1-20 1 And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. 6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him, 7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the most high God? I adjure you by God, that you torment me not. 8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.
9 And he asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. 10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. 14And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 16 And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. 17And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. 18And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. 19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you. 20 And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.
Jesus is speaking to the demoniac in the country of the Gadarenes The demons begged him that he would not send them out of the country in verse 10. These demonic spirits had strongholds in that area, and did not want to leave. There are different strongholds in different cities. Jesus did not take the man with him but told him to go home and tell his friends. He went to Decapolis which was a group of ten cities in the Gadarenes. Through the ministry of Jesus the spirits were broken in the area of Decapolis, allowing the man to preach freely to the people there.
When I was at Rhema, I lived with two Debbies. One of the Debbies started to date an Arabian man. We noticed that things started happening in the home every time the man came to see her. Up to this time we had peace in the house. But the peace had been broken. The other Debbie had two small girls, and she started having trouble with them. Also the Debbie dating the man got very ill. So the one Debbie who had the girls, myself, and the two small girls decided to do something about it. All four of us took authority over the demons that followed the Arabian man. We said the man could come, but the demons could not come in. We went to the front door and proclaimed that the demons could no longer enter our home. We placed a blood line around our home. The Arabian man, the next couple of times he came for his girl friend, would stand about 8 feet from the door, and call for her. He would not even come to knock on the door. Then about a month later that Debbie moved out. We did not tell her that we had prayed. We did not tell her that she or her boyfriend were not welcome. But the demons could no longer be in our house. We had peace in the home again.
In order to tear down a stronghold, you pray and walk in the opposite of that spirit. So if the town your church is in is known for greed, you will have pray and then become a generous church.
Titus 1:5,10-13 5: For this cause left I you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed you: 10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: 11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
Cretians were known to be liars, evil beasts, and gluttons. Paul is quoting one of their own prophets, Epimenides . He was a Cretian prophet that lived 600 years before Paul. The “lie” of the Cretians is that Zeus was mortal; Epimenides considered Zeus immortal so he called “Cretians, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.”
There was a territorial spirit operating to make them liars, etc. It was not just because they were Cretians that they were that way. It was not part of their ethnicity. They are familiar spirits.
If there is a particular sin or tendency that is prevalent in your family, that is a stronghold, a familiar spirit, or a territorial spirit. You need to pray and come against that spirit.
2. Defeat Worry in Prayer.
Don’t get so burdened and stressed out about your prayer. Sometimes you stop praying about things, because you are so burdened about them that you get stressed out when you pray. So you stop praying to get the problem out of your mind.
God did not create prayer to put stress on you, but he created prayer to take stress off of you. You don’t need to be anxious about these things, but give them to God in prayer.
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
That phrase “Be careful for nothing” is unclear to us in the 21th century. A modern translation reads, “Do not have any anxiety about anything.” Another translation says, “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Don’t be anxious, but pray about everything. Anxiety is the opposite of prayer. If you have anxiety, worry or stress in your life, it is because you are not praying enough, because prayer takes care of anxiety.
1 Peter 5:6-9 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7 Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you. 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
“Casting” means to put the responsibility of something into another hands. Prayer is transferring the burden. If you went to prayer, and came out of prayer with the same burden, then you did not actually pray, but you griped. Prayer is when you give the burden to Jesus.
“Casting the whole of your care—all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all—on Him; for He cares for you affectionately, and cares about you watchfully,” The Amplified Bible renders that Scripture
We used to sing a song that went, “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.” The trouble with most people is that they come to the altar, or wherever they pray, take their burdens to the Lord all right, tell Him about them—and then when they get up from that place of prayer, they pick their burdens up again. This is not really prayer, but griping.
Psalm 55:22 Cast your burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain you: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
The Lord will sustain you and not permit you to be moved by your circumstances only if you give him the burden.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We wrestle against principalities and powers.
Col 2:9-10 9 For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 10 And you are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
Jesus is the head of principalities and powers. The reason we do not have to get stressed about prayer is that Jesus is Lord. He is the one in charge. Let him control the answer to your prayer. Don’t try to bring the answer yourself, let him do the work. Seek him first, and the answer to prayer will come.
MATTHEW 6:25-34 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. 33 But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
When you turn your care over to Him, you don’t have it anymore. He’s got it. Then you can say, “I’m carefree,” even when it’s still there from the natural standpoint. Because you’re not carrying that load; He is.
In conclusion:
We must be persistent in prayer, taking our place of authority against the principalities. We also must not let anxiety into our prayer life. Continued prayer places us in a position of authority and takes us out of anxiety.
Goode Christian: learning how to be a good Christian in today's world. 