The Israelites had to go to quite a bit of trouble—and probably made a big mess—to get the blood of the lambs on their doorposts. They had to kill the lambs, skin them, remove the blood, and put it into containers, then get some hyssop (a plant that was used in purification ceremonies), dip it in the blood, and put the blood on their doorposts. That could not have been a neat endeavor! It had to seem unusual to them, but they did it—and they did it by faith because God told them to do so. The Israelites had to apply the blood of the lamb physically, but we can do it by faith. Jesus is the Lamb of God, and, as believers, we can apply the power of His shed blood to our lives by simply believing in it.
Many of us know that the Old Testament describes an innermost chamber in the temple called the “Holy of Holies.” This was the place where God’s presence dwelt, and the only way the priests could approach it was to sprinkle blood on certain items and in certain places. Basically, the blood had to go before them to cleanse everything before they could enter into the presence of God.
Similarly, we have no right to come into the presence of a holy God and pray to Him—except that the blood of Jesus allows us to approach Him! Many times as I begin to pray, I say, “God, I thank You for the blood and I ask You to cleanse me afresh with the blood of Jesus. As I come into Your presence, God, I thank You that I’m justified by the blood and that makes it possible for me to draw near to You.” Like the Old Testament priests, we also apply the blood as we enter the presence of God, but we do it by faith.
We need to hide songs and Scriptures about the power of the blood in our hearts so that when the enemy comes against us, the truth about the power of the blood will rise up within us and make us strong and courageous. Several years ago, I felt led of the Lord to produce a music CD that only included songs about the blood. One day, a woman called the ministry and shared with us an amazing testimony. She basically said, “I was led to buy your CD on the blood, and I had it in my house, but had not yet played it. One night, I was sitting in a chair reading and all of a sudden I got the urge to play that CD. Unbeknownst to me, there was a crook outside my window, and when I got up to play the CD, he fired a shot through the window, right at the place where I had been sitting. The shot hit something in the chair, but it did not hit me! Had it not been for the fact that I had that blood CD in my house, I might be dead now.”
The blood of Jesus is one of His gifts to us as believers and we do not have to wait until we experience fear or difficulty to apply it to a situation. Whenever we want or need to, we can pray a simple prayer that says: “God, I release my faith in the blood of Jesus. There is power in that blood. The devil cannot stand against the blood; and by faith, I apply the power of the blood of Jesus to my family, myself, and my life. Thank You, God, that I’m cleansed and protected by the blood of Jesus.” Every time we mention the blood of Jesus, the devil trembles.
PRAYER AND WARFARE
We should consider our prayers to be highly successful if they cause Satan to lose and God to be glorified. What we should look for in prayer is the enemy’s loss. What a pity that so many believers are still unaware that Satan can be immobilized through fervent, effectual prayer. Surely, if we knew the true power of prayer, we would pray more. We would see that prayer is always a privilege and never an obligation.
Satan does not just show up somewhere and put himself on display; he works through people and things. His hope is that God’s people will lay blame everywhere except on him. Satan weakens believers’ bodies, causing sickness and pain. He works in the physical world, bringing disaster and hardship. He creates misunderstanding among Christians and seeks to separate family members and the dearest of friends. He cuts off material supply and creates lack. He makes people feel depressed, sad, restless, and useless. He tries to render us unable to make decisions. He injects irrational fear into believers’ hearts. He pushes us and drives us to work so much that we become overtired. He seeks to wear us out. Satan attacks people’s minds and emotions, weakens their resistance, and tries to deceive and lead them astray. Satan’s ways to attack people are endless and must be resisted. Satan must be aggressively resisted! James 4:7 says to submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee.
Watchman Nee writes, “Before there is the possibility of our overcoming, we must maintain in our heart a hostile attitude towards the devil, no longer willing to subject ourselves to his oppression.”8 The Bible says in Matthew 12:29 that we cannot plunder the strong man’s house unless we first bind the strong man. We can bind Satan through Spirit-led prayer. If we allow the enemy to attack and do not resist or attack in return, then we shall surely be depressed and sink very low. Satan is an enemy and must be treated as such.
My advice is to stay active against the enemy. A spiritual life must be one of usefulness. We ought to be enthusiastic and zealous for God, relentlessly attacking the devil and never allowing ourselves to sink into passivity or inactivity. Be aggressive in love, prayer, giving, serving, reading, praying, and everything else you do. When Satan attacks in any form or fashion, immediately go to war against Him in prayer! (See 1 Peter 5:9.)
We ought to be enthusiastic and zealous for God, relentlessly attacking the devil and never allowing ourselves to sink into passivity or inactivity.
SUMMARY
As long as we live, we will be engaged in a spiritual war and one of the primary ways we fight spiritual battles is through prayer. As we pray, it is crucial that we understand the power that is available to us in the Word of God, the name of Jesus, and the blood of Jesus. I encourage you to reread this chapter or some other book or booklet on the Word, the name, and the blood at least once per year because we need to keep the power of these weapons and basic doctrines in the forefront of our hearts and minds. We also need to continue to ask God to give us revelation about these three spiritual tools because they will help us defeat the enemy more effectively than anything else.
The more we develop a deep, rich, vibrant relationship with the Lord through prayer, the more we understand the power of the weapons He has given us. As we stay in a relationship of obedience to Him, all the power of the Word, the name, and the blood are at our disposal, and our victory is sure.
Satan is our enemy and our attitude toward him must be hostile and aggressive. We absolutely must resist him at all times. Stay active and useful and give the devil no opportunity.
Prayer Points
• Our enemy, the devil, is a spiritual being and the war he wages against us takes place in the spiritual realm. Therefore, we fight him with spiritual weapons that include the Word of God, the name of Jesus, and the blood of Jesus. All three can be incorporated into our prayer lives and will empower our prayers as nothing else will.
• The Word of God is “sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV) and it is able to utterly defeat the enemy. The Holy Spirit helps us use the sword of the Word effectively, even bringing to our remembrance or speaking to us the specific Bible verses or passages we need in certain situations.
• Jesus Himself used the Word to overcome the enemy, as we read in Luke 4.
• As long as we are doing what God has asked us to do for Him on earth, the enemy will oppose us. The Word is an effective weapon against him at all times.
• The name of Jesus is above every name on earth. It is higher than the name of anything that comes against us; it is mightier than any force that would seek to harm or destroy us; and it is louder than any voice that would seek to accuse us.
• We need to be in a committed relationship with God in order to enjoy the privileges of Jesus’ name. When we pray in the name of Jesus, God sees everything Jesus is; He doesn’t see everything we are not.
• Today, Jesus is our Passover Lamb. We apply His blood by faith to our lives; it protects us and seals the doorways of our lives so that the enemy cannot gain access to us.
• The blood of Jesus is the only means by which we can enter the presence of God—and there is mighty, overcoming power in His
presence.
• We must aggressively resist Satan at all times, never allowing ourselves to become passive.
14
Staying Strong through Prayer
In this chapter, I want to expose one of the devil’s favorite strategies—one of his most effective tactics—which is to wear us out. Satan seeks to wear us out, wear us down, weaken us, make us weary, and get us so tired that we quit and give up. Daniel 7:25 speaks of the devil when it says: “And he shall speak words against the Most High [God] and shall wear out the saints of the Most High.” What does that mean to us today? It means that Satan will speak against God. He will tell you lies about God—lies such as, God doesn’t love you, or God is not going to come through for you, or God can’t forgive that, or God’s Word works for everybody but you! Satan intentionally schemes to wear us out, but God wants us to stay strong, and one of the ways we do that is through prayer and fellowshiping with God.
I had one of those wearing-out experiences one afternoon after I left a conference session I was teaching. First, the team and I went to a nice restaurant and everything was great. But the meal was excruciatingly slow. Now “slow” does not work for me in the middle of a conference because I need to get back to my hotel and study. I also like to get a little nap! Because of several other commitments that afternoon, we were on an especially tight schedule and everything about our lunch experience seemed to take forever—which tends to happen when people are in a hurry!
After we finally had lunch, Dave and I went back to our hotel room. I had exactly two hours before I had to leave for the evening session, so I planned to spend one hour studying and one hour resting. However, our keys to our room would not work. Nobody’s keys would work! The keys had worked the night before; they worked that morning, but for some reason, they did not work at that moment—when we really needed them. Then, of course, someone had to go all the way back to the front desk to get keys that would actually open the door. After we got into the room, I needed some very hot water for something, so I turned on the water to let it run in the sink for a few minutes and get hot enough. A little bit later, I heard what sounded like water spilling. I ran in there to find that the sink was clogged, so the water was running all over the sink, under all my makeup, under my combs, under my belongings, and onto the floor. Then I had to mop the floor and dry off my things.
After that fiasco, I was able to finish studying for the evening message and had forty-five minutes to rest. I stretched out on the bed and closed my eyes just in time for the hotel’s fire alarm to go off. Not only did the fire alarm go off, it also played a loud message that said something like: “There is a possible emergency in the hotel. Please do not use the elevators or get into the stairwells. We are investigating this situation. Stand by for further information. We repeat: Please do not go into the hall or get into the stairwell.” The deafening blast of the fire alarm and that annoying message continued for thirty minutes!
When I shared that story at the conference that night, my daughter, who was staying in a different hotel, said that the very same thing happened where she was! Do you know what? Things like that are not accidental. I wanted a nap so badly! This is so characteristic of Satan and the wearing-out tactics he uses. So many similar situations take place in all of our lives.
Anytime we begin to make progress against the kingdom of darkness and do something that advances the kingdom of God, the devil does everything he can to resist us, frustrate us, and try to stop us.
Why do these things happen to those of us who are trying so hard to serve God? Because anytime we begin to make progress against the kingdom of darkness and do something that advances the kingdom of God, the devil does everything he can to resist us, frustrate us, and try to stop us. When we pray Spirit-led, Spirit-empowered prayers, the enemy knows we are waging a powerful war against his camp. People who want to finish what they start for God, had better be ready to stand their ground through the attacks that will come. The enemy will oppose God’s work whether it is taking place in the natural realm or in the spiritual realm through prayer. A person does not have to be serving as a missionary in the Third World or preaching the gospel on television to be a formidable threat to the kingdom of darkness.
The setbacks we experienced in the restaurant and hotel were obvious attempts of the enemy to harass us and wear us out. But other attacks he initiates are much subtler and harder to identify. He knows we will recognize and resist him if he shows up at our dinner table in a red suit with horns on his head and a pitchfork in his hand, but if he comes slyly, stealthily, disguised as something that is attractive or acceptable to us, we are more likely to be lured into the traps he sets for us. We must remember that God’s Word says that Satan will come as an angel of light. Not everything that looks good or feels good is good.
THE SLOW, SUBTLE ENEMY
One of the tactics Satan uses to wear us out is called “gradualism,” which is the means by which he very slowly, almost inconspicuously, gradually attacks us. Part of his plan is to operate so imperceptibly that we will be worn down and worn out before we realize what is happening to us. Remember that Daniel 7:25 says the devil will try to wear out the saints. The term “to wear out” means “to reduce little by little.” It happens a little this minute and a little the next minute, a little today and a little more the next day. He picks at us a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, a little bit there. He will tell us one little lie, then another little lie, then another and another and another until we find ourselves tangled up in a situation or a thought pattern that is totally false and deceptive. He works so carefully, so subtly, so slowly, and so intricately that we don’t even realize what is happening. Before we know it, we have a massive, tangled-up problem and don’t even know how we got it—and that’s exactly what the devil wants.
This wearing-out tactic of the enemy is barely perceivable, but the end result is that we have nothing left—no health, no finances, no relationships, no joy, no peace, no strength, no vision, and often no desire to pray. That’s what Satan is busily but subtly trying to accomplish in the lives of believers. He will whittle away at us until we are empty, worn-out, and ready to quit—and we won’t even know how we got into such a mess!
Since Satan is the one who wears us out and leaves us in a mess, once he ensnares us, he then goes to work on our minds and causes us to think, What’s wrong with me? Or he causes us to blame the problem on someone else. We may think of someone and say to ourselves, If he weren’t doing this to me, then I wouldn’t feel this way! Or, Perhaps, if my boss would lighten up, my attitude would be better! Or this: If those children would just behave, I could get this house clean!
How do we pray in such a way that we can gain victory over the enemy and his schemes? What do we do about this strategy to gradually deplete us and get us too tired to care about what the devil is doing? The first thing we need to do is pray that we will not be deceived by his tricks. We must ask God to open our eyes so that we quickly recognize the wearing-out tactics of Satan.
First Peter 5:8 exhorts us: “Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour.” This verse tells us that the devil cannot just devour anybody he wants. He is actively and stealthily seeking someone who will let him get by with it. Many times we put up with the devil longer than we should. Sometimes we open a door for Satan through a lack of balance in our lives. (For example, we do not balance work with rest, so we become either “workaholics,” on one extreme, or lazy, on the other.) There are several major ways Satan tries to devour us and keep us from experiencing the victory of Christ. I will highlight four here:
1. Satan will try to wear us out physically. One of the best favors we can do for ourselves is make sure we get good rest. We also need a healthy diet, enough exercise, and regular checkups. We need to do whatever we can to make sure we stay strong ph
ysically so that the enemy will not be able to physically wear us out. We also need to pray that God will give us wisdom and sensitivity to His Spirit so that we can hear His voice when He says things like, “You need to rest this weekend,” or “You need to exercise three times a week,” or “You really need to stop eating so many candy bars and start eating more fruit.”
2. Satan will try to wear down our zeal and enthusiasm. I see too many people who are trying to serve God with no passion. They were passionate at one time; they were zealous at one time; they were enthusiastic at one time; they were excited at one time. But do you know what happens? The old saying is true: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Sometimes when we become familiar with something, it loses its meaning to us and we lose our passion for it. We get used to it and it’s no longer exciting. That’s the devil! He steals enthusiasm a little bit at a time. We need to pray that God will help us keep our passion stirred and keep our enthusiasm up to the level where He wants it to be. He wants us to be passionate for Him, and there are several Scriptures we can apply to help us stay that way:
We need to pray that God will help us keep our passion stirred and keep our enthusiasm up to the level where He wants it to be.