I’m something of a war buff. Ever since the invention of the airplane, air power has made the difference between victory and defeat in war.
Case in point: Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The first shots fired came from swarms of our warplanes concentrating on signal jamming enemy communications and blasting Iraq’s command and control systems to smithereens. Iraq was on its knees in no time.
One warfare expert wrote: “Historically, the most effective method of gaining air superiority is the destruction of enemy aircraft on the ground and the destruction of the means and infrastructure by which an opponent may mount air operations. An example is Operation Focus in which the outnumbered Israeli Air Force dealt a crippling blow to the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian air forces and airfields at the start of the Six-Day War, achieving Israeli air supremacy.”
In the field of modern military conflict, electronic counter measures (ECM) are routinely employed to jam enemy communications, rendering them effectively useless.
Suppose there were similar techniques being employed against you and me in the spiritual realm, right under our noses? Enter Christianity’s most powerful, decisive and, sadly, most neglected weapon.
The Apostle Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6:
“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way — never have and never will. The tools of our trade … are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.”
If you are a born-again Christian, you have a target on your back — you are at war and the bullets are real.
“Your struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places,” according to Ephesians 6:12.
And the commander in chief of these dark forces is a malevolent personality that Ephesians 2:1-3 describes as “the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” His most effective technique is to squeeze good knowledge out of man’s mind by consuming its “bandwidth” with so many distractions that nothing else can get in.
Those distractions don’t need to be particularly bad (or good for that matter), just compelling enough to hold the subject’s attention. This is Satan’s form of spiritual signal jamming.
The single most effective countermeasure is effectual prayer.
Prayerless Life Is a Powerless Life
There is a furious, ongoing satanic assault aimed at the target-rich spiritual lives of distracted and preoccupied modern men and women for control of their minds. The weapons employed are ideas, values and principles that wreak as much devastation inwardly as bombs and bullets do outwardly.
One of our most powerful weapons to “extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” is precision targeted prayer propelled by steadfast faith.
In Revelation 5:7-9, we get a glimpse into the “War Room” of Heaven to see what really “carries the day” in God’s realm:
“And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.’”
And in Revelation 8:3-5:
“Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”
How About You?
Do you still think prayer is optional in your life?
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.