© 2000
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Spiritual Warfare and Mission
Edwin StubeI once went on a retreat led by a Jesuit. He said that, unless a work is begun in contemplation and carried out in the spirit of contemplation, it will not count for the kingdom of God. His idea was that we need to get into the presence of the Lord and stay there.
We need to pray without ceasing. This means, first of all, setting aside times in our daily lives especially for prayer, preferably in the early morning. I am not naturally an early morning person myself, but I notice that Jesus had a tendency to get up before daybreak and find a quiet place somewhere to meet with His heavenly Father. Discipline is necessary in prayer. We need a daily routine of prayer including: praying alone, corporate prayer, sacramental worship, and intercession for specific needs.
The Lord sent me to Indonesia where people by the hundreds gather each day at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning to pray. I am convinced that was a major reason the attempted communist coup failed in 1965. It was miraculous. So was what happened afterwards. The government decided that anyone who did not believe in God was obviously a communist and must be killed. People had a choice, but they had to have a religion. A lot of animists did not want to follow the Muslim religion, which is the prevalent religion, because of the restrictions against eating pork; so hundreds of thousands of them became Christians. Most of them have improved their reasons for being Christians since that time. There has continued to be tremendous growth. The Lord is moving and it is a movement supported by prayer.
In addition to designated prayer times, we need to pray throughout the day in all our activities. This prayer needs to fit the situation and be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul said to “pray continually in the Spirit.” Prayer is not a set of gimmicks or systems, nor is it limited to endless repetitions. Attempting to pray in our own words will cause the prayers to be too general and too monotonous. We need to have the kind of yieldedness to the Lord that goes on continually. and allows us to pray according to His will.
Let me share some of our experience on the mission field. My family and I knew that we were supposed to go into the mission field at some point. Near the end of 1964, knowing that the time was near, we started a prayer vigil in front of the altar in our church. We kept it going twenty-four hours a day for three months. My wife and I, her parents, my older kids, and some of our parishioners took turns praying for the Lord's guidance as to where we were to go, and what we were to do there. At our family prayers one day in December of 1964, the Lord spoke through my wife and said, “You are to go to Indonesia as soon as possible. You are to leave your two oldest children in the States and take the other five with you.” The oldest was in college, and was no great problem. We just had to arrange a place for him to spend vacations. Number two son was about to enter high school and we burdened the grandparents with him for the duration. We quickly sold most of our possessions, gave away what we couldn't sell, and within a month were on our way.
At that time, the Indonesians were having nothing to do with English speaking people. The communists were in the ascendancy; the missionaries were leaving in droves, and we naively thought, that, since the Lord was calling us, we could go. Initially, we could not get a visa, but on the way, in Hong Kong, we were able to get a one month tourist visa. We went, still trusting the Lord.
If you have heard from God, you will be tested on whether you trust Him or not. I discovered that faith does not depend on feelings, because I was scared! I had a wife and five kids, no earthly goods, going halfway around the world with no idea of what was going to happen. Our tourist visa was extended a couple of times. Eventually the Lord allowed an error to pass in the immigration office in Jakarta, and we got a semi-permanent visa. It was illegal, but it happened. The Jakarta office had made a mistake and the local office did not know what to do about it. They debated all one morning while we sat outside and prayed like crazy. At noontime, they said, “All right, we will give you a semi-permanent visa.” We had this visa for the duration.
The first part of prayer for guidance is hearing from God and knowing what He is saying. For that to happen, you have to be moving in the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit must be in operation so that we can know what God is saying. The second part of the prayer is to trust Him. The Lord has many ways of testing to see if we are really trusting Him. It does not get easier; the tests get harder. When we were in kindergarten, they gave us simple tests. By the time we got to graduate school, the exams got harder. Ultimately, we have to pass the final exam.
Getting started in mission service
In order to begin, there must be clear direction from the Lord which will come through prayer. When I began, the great advantage I had was a total lack of knowledge about the mission field. With no sense of what I was to do, I was totally dependent on hearing from God. I think that is a good principle. Seminary courses and missionary training can be good preparation. A knowledge of demographics and an understanding of the culture can be helpful. But ultimately, answers to the questions must come from immersion into the lives of the people and a day by day revelation of God's will. In our case, it was evident that God wanted “on the job” training for us. Jesus gave this kind of training to His first disciples. We need to see things as God sees them, and do and say what He gives us.
I discovered a couple of years ago that I may be an authority on Muslim evangelism. When I was asked to participate in consultations on the subject, I realized that many of the people we had led to the Lord were in fact Muslims. At the time, I thought of them as people who needed Jesus. It never occurred to me that we were dealing with “people groups.” Being as naive as we were allowed God to orient us and learn the culture. Because we were in an attitude of prayer, God was able to guard our bodies and mouths and show us what He wanted. He graciously provided a young man who was very persnickety about telling me what I should and should not do, how to sit, how to move, what not to say. This young man, and several others I worked with taught me a great deal about the culture and saved me from many disasters. I hated every minute of it at the time, but it was an act of love.
Understanding the Situation
God often has radical ways of getting things done. If we begin with prayer and ask Him, He will provide understanding and direction. He will show us that He wants, when He wants it to happen, and what His ultimate purpose is in that place. If we are in tune with His purposes, amazing things will happen.
I knew about some evangelism theories. I knew that Episcopalians hold services in a church building and hope that somebody will drift in off the street. I had also participated in large open field evangelistic gatherings and had seen some spectacular results. But I wondered about what happens the next morning when the coffee is cold and the person is having a hard day. What will the results be in a week? I thought that the Lord must have something better in mind.
To find out what the Lord had, we started praying as a family. At the same time, we were learning the language and adjusting to the culture. Every morning I attended the prayer meeting at the church and slowly began to understand what was occurring. The Lord pointed out several young men who were to work with me. I did not approach any of them, but, one by one, they began to join our family for evening prayer. Since language understanding was still developing, we just praised the Lord, sang songs, and read some Scripture.
As time went on, we received invitations to homes where people were sick or demon-possessed or in some kind of trouble, and the Lord began to perform miracles. This brought more invitations, and wondrous things began to happen. In one home, a young man was unconscious from a spell put on him by his girlfriend. Unfortunately, it had not worked the way she hoped, and he had been unconscious for three days. The local witch doctor had also been invited. When we arrived, we said, “If the witch doctor is going to do his thing, we will not touch this. If you want us to pray, get rid of the witch doctor.” He went away muttering threats. Despite the fears of the young men with me, we prayed and took authority over the situation through the power of God. The young man became conscious after we prayed, entered into the presence of God, and began to prophesy. His family were backslidden Christians. One by one, he had a word for them. They were convicted by the word and were converted. Naturally, word got around and the house began to fill with people. For three days and three nights, there were thirty or forty people there, and the young man had a word for each of them. Many people came to the Lord.
You will not find this in your books on evangelism. It is not a method. If we tried it again, it probably would not work. This was, however, God's method for that particular situation. When we are in God's Spirit through prayer, He provides the direction and the empowering. If God says something, do it. The results can be amazing!
Training Disciples
I was sent to Indonesia with the idea of establishing a training program that would set people on fire for the Lord. As I examined various models, I made some observations: the programs that were effective had begun with a vision from the Lord and lots of prayer. They had gone through hard times and struggles. At one point, it had been suggested to me that I should read my Bible a lot, so in a six-month period, I had read it through five times. It is pretty hard to fool me and tell something is in there when it isn't. I noticed as I read that Jesus had never (1) scheduled a class, (2) given a lecture, (3) developed a curriculum, or (4) built any buildings. He gathered a little group of people and asked them to follow Him. They started to walk and watched as He (1) performed miracles, (2) clobbered the Pharisees, (3) dealt with various kinds of people, and (4) raised the dead. I thought that maybe training was supposed to happen that way.
So that is our model. Since I did not yet speak much Indonesian, I just let the young people come along and see what Jesus was doing in the place where He was doing it. We were invited to churches and we would involve their young people in what Jesus was doing. When we left, they formed teams among themselves. Naturally, we encountered resistance, particularly from folks in established churches who felt that “young people should not be laying hands on people” or “miracles stopped in New Testament days.” We got lots of “good teaching” from churches and had to counteract it with a lot of Bible study.
In Makassar, after getting kicked out of several churches, we were received at a church which had about twenty members. We were allowed to sleep on the floor of the church and hold services in the evenings. At first, things were really stiff and formal, but after several days, we had an all night prayer meeting. A group of teenagers showed up, using this as an excuse to stay out all night. About 10 o'clock, I asked, “Who here would like to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit?” Those were the last words I spoke because the Holy Spirit took over. These young people fell on the floor, weeping and repenting before the Lord; they began to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, they sang new songs in the Spirit. One young lady began singing songs in tongues and translating them into Indonesian! Another who, they said, had received all of her theological education at the movies, began to quote Scripture. She would quote a verse, and tell us what verse it was, and then give a wonderful teaching on the subject, without opening a Bible. All her friends knew she had never read a Bible. No one got sleepy that night!
As the word of this event spread, the same type of thing happened over and over again. We would go to a house meeting and the place would be crammed, with hundreds more outside. Street kids would come, initially making fun of what was happening. The next night they would be at the back of the room. When the prophecy started, they would repent and get filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they would prophesy. At the end of three months there, we baptized large groups of people. They formed teams who went to the interior of the island and other places. Everywhere they went, tremendous miracles happened, large numbers were converted and nominal Christians were soundly converted and filled with the Spirit.
All of this took place through much prayer and obedience and by the power of God.
Confronting territorial spirits
There is a lot of talk these days about spiritual warfare and territorial spirits. We were involved in this long before we had heard anything about it. As early as 1967, we encountered spiritual warfare on the mountain where we were living in East Java. Our village had one church and an orphanage. Before we moved there, miracles had taken place. A sick woman had been brought from another village for prayer. The young people at the orphanage had prayed for her. The woman died, but the children continued to pray. Towards morning, the children were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and the woman came back to life. At last report she was working at the orphanage and was doing fine. You can imagine that this was a powerful testimony for the young people, and they went off into the villages, evangelizing and doing miracles.
Up on the mountain was one Christian family in a tribe of about 300,000 all of whom were animists. They worshiped trees and rocks; everything had a spirit in it; they had to watch where they walked to avoid stepping on somebody's spirit. For twenty years, the one Christian family had been unable to defeat the spirits or make any new converts. Some folks who had become believers had fallen off a cliff and were killed. Praying for sick people only made them sicker. The Lord led us to go up to the top of the mountain where there was a large crater, the site of a previous volcano. In the middle of this large crater, was a cone which had blown, and smoke came from it continually. The people used to sacrifice their children in the volcano to the gods of the mountain to appease the spirits. The Lord told us that this was the spirit that held the mountain area in bondage. We spent ten days at the top in this cold, miserable place, praying and taking authority over the gods of the mountain. Then we began to move down the mountain into the villages.
In the first village, we made fourteen converts. In another village, a young boy had fallen into a charcoal pit and was burned over most of his body. He was on the verge of death; but, when we prayed, the Lord healed him instantly and completely. Another Christian family! In another hut, an old hag sat in front of the fire, rocking back and forth. She had not washed in fifteen years and her hair was a matted mess. A couple of the ladies from our village prayed for her, released the demons, took her to the river and baptized her. Now she was unafraid of water and could bathe. A few days later a nice looking young lady came to our village and threw her arms around the ladies. At first, they did not recognize her as the woman from the hut. She was delivered. Thirty new converts in that village!
Scenes like this happened numerous times as the Gospel was taught and the people were discipled. Every area that opened to the Gospel started with some warfare. Just as Jesus began His ministry with intense prayer, we did everything with prayer. Whenever He went to a new place, Jesus found a quiet place to pray. He taught and performed miracles. Then He moved to a new place and did the same thing.
Praying for specific events
When you observe what has been happening at this conference, you realize that people have been praying for months. It is important that every new ministry happen as a result of prayer!
At one time in Indonesia, we were able to have large outdoor campaigns (they are illegal now). The first one we had was held right in front of our house and was the result of months of fasting and prayer by our young people. They had a vision of the field filled with people. The entire setting was laid before them a platform, tent, sick people being healed, cripples walking, and even who was to speak from the platform. I was away when this began to happen and when I returned I found that they had been praying and fasting for a month and a half. They formed teams and took turns, one team praying for a day and then another team the next day. Sometimes a team would pray and fast for several days.
The campaign was not advertised in anyway; but, each day, people started to come early in the morning. By afternoon, five thousand people were standing in the field. We gave out cards that were returned if the person was healed. We know that nearly 900 people were healed, we knew who they were and were able to follow up with these people in their villages. By going to the villages and gathering people together, we were able to form new congregations. The young people from our Training Center spent part of each week in the villages teaching them the basics of the faith. We trained the local Christians to receive and disciple new Christians.
Our training program involved gathering them together and involving them in prayer and Bible study. New Christians in Muslim villages are bound to experience severe persecution. We equipped them with the Scriptures dealing with this problem. We helped them learn to search the Bible to find answers for what they were experiencing. Once they grasped this type of insight, they were into the Bible, finding answers for themselves. Bible knowledge for them was a matter of life and death.
The life of a Christian comes equipped with unpredictable and insurmountable problems and opportunities. God, however, has an inexhaustible source of unimaginable ways of dealing with all these. It is important to hear accurately and follow His procedures.
Can this happen in the United States?
Certainly, all I have been saying is difficult to apply in the United States. People have so many pressures; they are so oriented to programs and working things out for themselves. The pattern I am suggesting requires a whole new orientation. Saint Paul says that we “should be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” This means that we have to exchange our stupid little natural minds for the mind of Christ.
The mission with which I have been associated is basically a prayer group that incorporated. We believe that in order to save our cities in the States, we have to use an approach similar to the one we used in Indonesia. That is, we need to get ourselves prayed up and out into the streets doing some miracles. That will gather a crowd. We need to be visible and you cannot be much more visible that in the streets.
Signs and Wonders
Miracles are an integral part of our ministry. The Lord seems to do things more spectacularly when we are invading the camp of the enemy. He does not seem to do this as noticeably in churches. Miracles are signs, but they are also manifestations of God's power. They are signs of the resurrection power of God. The resurrection cannot be effectively preached without “demonstration of the Spirit and power,” as Paul said. Powerful ministry cannot be exercised without much prayer.
Fasting and Prayer
Fasting is a form of intense prayer. Scripture tells us that Jesus fasted and prayed for forty days and afterwards He was hungry. This seems to imply that He was so intense in His prayer that He did not really care about food. Fasting should be done for a specific reason and not just for the sake of fasting. The burden to pray will come from God and it will be intense. We can also know when it is over, because that burden of prayer will be lifted.
Praying for missionaries
Prayer for missionaries is a life and death matter. Any missionary can tell you whether or not people have been praying. They don't need a letter to tell them. As you pray for missionaries, pray in the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you what the needs are. You do not have to guess. If we pray and trust the Lord, our prayers will be specific to the needs of the ones for whom we are praying. If we ask anything according to His will, He will do it.
It is difficult to understand why God does certain things and why He does not do others. My wife was an invalid and spent full time in intercession. On occasions, she prayed for people to be healed during our campaigns. The cripples would get up and walk off, and we would wheel her back in her wheelchair. I think that God may just want us to know that He is God and we do not give Him any instructions. Still, when we are operating in accordance with the will of God, we can expect great miracles.
© 2000
...This page looks best when viewed through Netscape. It was last modified
on December 15, 2000.