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Series: Strategies of the Kingdom

Dispossessing the Enemy

"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back... For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities" Isaiah 54:2-3.
The Macquarie Dictionary defines "dispossess" as "to put (a person) out of possession, especially of real property; to oust". Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our fight is "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world" (KJV). These "principalities and powers" exercise authority over communities - suburbs, cities, regions and nations.

Principalities and Powers

The Greek words for "principalities and powers" used in Ephesians 6:12 and elsewhere are:

Arche......."Principalities" - "The rule of a prince, the realm of a prince's rule, a princedom"

Exousia....."Powers" - "Authority, mastery, delegated influence"

Principalities are realms of authority - natural or spiritual - and not intrinsically evil (see Titus 3:1; Col. 1:16). Principalities are demographically defined - that is, defined by the boundaries of human communities and their cultures (note Acts 17:26-27; Deut. 32:8; 2 Kings 17:29-33; 1 Cor. 10:20).

God's Strategy

Colossians 2:10 and 15 describes the double effect of the Cross upon the world's principalities.

They have been spoiled

"[God] disarmed the principalities and powers ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross]" Col. 2:15 (Amp).
That word "disarmed" literally means "to divest wholly, to put off, to spoil". Again, the word "divest" means "to strip or deprive of anything, to take away or alienate". The Cross stripped each principality of its realm.

They are being dispossessed

Colossians 2:10 tells us that Christ is now "head of all principality and power" (KJV). Every realm that belonged to demonic principalities now rightfully belongs to Christ. The Church now takes this "sentence against them" and dispossesses those principalities (see also 1 Corinthians 15:24-25).

Seats and Strongholds

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.

Strongholds

Spiritual warfare targets spiritual strongholds. A stronghold is a place of military refuge and a base for attack. The enemy builds strongholds in the community and in individual lives. 2 Cor. 10:5-6 indicates that these strongholds are made up of "lies" (John 8:44) and patterns of behavioural "disobedience" (1 John 3:8). Spiritual strongholds are mindsets, constructed out of five elements:
  1. Outlooks and philosophies (Col. 2:8; Rom. 12:2) - "arguments, theories and reasonings" (Amp)
  2. Pretensions - "proud and lofty things" (Amp)
  3. Misconceptions/preconceptions - "thoughts"
  4. Purposes counter to God's will - "purpose" (Amp)
  5. Patterns of disobedience (verse 6)

Seats

The seat of a principality is its critical element of authority and control. The ultimate purpose of spiritual warfare is the overthrow of the Satanic principality (Matthew 12:29), replacing it with the Lordship of Christ, who is now Head over every principality and power.

The Task of the Saints
"May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kinds with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints" Psalm 149:6-9 (see also Isaiah 54:2-3; 24:21).
The victory against evil principalities and powers was won on the Cross. It is now the Church's charge to participate in the "mopping up". We "carry out" the sentence written against them: by the work of the Cross.

Deseating the Enemy

 Read Daniel 9-10. Through prayer, Daniel became a participant in warfare between Michael ("one of the chief princes") and the "prince of Persia". Notice, however, that Daniel doesn't go against the Prince of Persia - the principality - in direct confrontation, but through prayer takes away his grounds for authority (see also Jude 8-9).

The Authority Base
"...in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient" Ephesians 2:2.
People are the authority base of a Satanic principality. The community unknowingly gives the authority to the prince power by setting up the spiritual strongholds for him (see Proverbs 25:28).

Like Daniel, however, the people of God can change the authority base of a principality.

Through Prayer

In Daniel 9, we see the essential elements of Daniel's prayer:
  1. The authority of God's Word (verse 1-2)
  2. The whole heart (verse 3)
  3. Identification with the community (verse 4)
  4. The highest motive (verses 17-19)
Prayer is simply becoming one in heart with the purposes of God, speaking our desire that "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). Through prayer we "reconquer" the land for the Lord.

Through our lives

 But prayer is not enough to change the Enemy's authority base in our community. It is people's lives that provide Satan with the authority base, and it is our lives that take it away from him.

The tragedy is that the Enemy establishes the same strongholds in the Church as he has in the world. We will only be effective in our spiritual warfare as we eliminate those strongholds from Church life. Note that the Apostle Paul was speaking about the Corinthian Church when he talked about demolishing spiritual strongholds.

We are called, as agents of God's warfare, to live in the opposite spirit to that of the world. If a community stronghold is pride, then we must emphasis humility. If it is greed, then generosity. If competition, then self-sacrifice.

Again we see in Daniel's life (together with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego), not just in their prayers, the victories they won over the ruling principalities.

Israel's DisobedienceDaniel's Obedience
(2 Kings 17)(Daniel 1-9)
Followed idols"...the Lord my God" (9:4)
Imitated the nationsRefused the king's food (1:7-8)
Fiery furnace (ch. 3)
Forsook the commands of the LordObeyed the Lord (ch. 6).

Visitation

When a Satanic principality is overthrown, the result is visitation - the moving of God's Spirit in power, bringing multitudes into the Kingdom of God and establishing God's Stronghold in the community (Proverbs 18:10).

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