I want to talk about a subject that’s very important, especially considering what’s going on in our country and in our society.
Whether or not many Christians want to acknowledge it—and some simply refuse to—we are in the midst of a very intense spiritual war. The enemy is hard at work at disrupting the lives of believers and causing as much chaos in our culture as he possibly can. I want to talk about what that means, how it applies to us and how each of us needs to be equipped to fight the devil.
On the Strang Report podcast, I interview kingdom leaders who have important things to say about our culture and about how we, as the church, must respond. In fact, I recently interviewed Pastor Mark Burns, and I was stirred by some of his comments about how the problems in this country, including critical race theory, religious persecution and some of the other crazy things that are happening, can simply be labeled as spiritual warfare. Burns spoke about how Christians need to plead the blood of Jesus and how we need to take our God-given authority over the enemy a lot more seriously.
I agree with him 100%. Ephesians 6:12 says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. I’ve talked about this Scripture many times. We have published magazine articles and books about it. John Eckhart and Kim Daniels are two of our leading authors in this area. But it’s something the body of Christ desperately needs to hear right now.
The truth of the matter is, however, there are entire segments of the body of Christ, the church, who ignore the devil. They don’t talk about him, and they try to leave the devil alone and hope he leaves them alone.
Well, that doesn’t work.
And some don’t really believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, or they don’t understand the concepts of binding and loosing. But for the believer, I want to emphasize how crucial waging spiritual warfare against the enemy is. I’m assuming that you have a quiet time every day with the Lord. If not, you need to. We have to refuel. We have to get our marching orders for the day from the Lord.
But in that quiet time, when we’re dealing with the Holy Spirit, when we’re asking the Lord to give us power, we need to pray diligently for our country. Satan has blinded so many people.
I’ll use just one example—critical race theory. I will admit I haven’t really studied it, but I have followed it in the news. Critical race theory teaches that in 1619, when the first slaves reportedly showed up in Virginia, America was founded for slavery. The British Empire had slavery; not just in these colonies, but all through the Caribbean and other parts of the world. The British actually ended the slave trade in the 1830s, about 30 years before America experienced a bloody civil war.
Slavery is a terrible scourge, perhaps America’s greatest sin. But society must realize that America wasn’t the only country or region to enslave people. Many countries in the Caribbean and in Europe, as well as Brazil, practiced this abomination. My point about critical race theory is that America was founded on Christian principles and not on principles like taking slaves for cheap labor. It is the church that must spearhead a return to those Christian principles to once again become the nation that God intended it to be.
But that’s going to take believers, especially spirit-filled, Pentecostal, charismatic believers, getting involved in spiritual warfare. People like my good friend, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., have been involved in spiritual warfare and battling the enemy for many years. She believes in the power of the Holy Spirit and that we can conquer Satan’s attacks.
In Pentecostal and charismatic circles, which is my tribe, we believe in spiritual warfare, rebuking the enemy and taking authority. I believe we will have deliverance. Principalities and powers are causing division in our country, and we need to pray against them in the name of Jesus.
You can order a copy of the book in two ways. One is on my website, stevestrangbooks.com. There, you can get any of the books I’ve ever written. You can also go to amazon.com and pre-order the book now. They will send it to you on the release day, Sept. 7, the day after Labor Day. I hope you will be encouraged to order one and discover how we, as believers, must band together to fight the enemy in this most chaotic time in our country.
Click here to listen to this entire podcast. Please spread the word about it to your followers on social media. Be sure to subscribe to the Strang Report on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform for more podcasts to inspire you to experience the power of the Holy Spirit. {eoa}
Read articles like this one and other Spirit-led content in our new platform, CHARISMA PLUS.