House of Prayer - Spiritual Warfare (Richard Porter)

In that great passage, it says we can pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer. So, yes, when we are in the battle, we do need to petition God. We need to intercede for others who are in the thick of it. We do need to thank God for his protection and his power and confess our failures when we kind of fail during these tests. But we do have this other type of prayer which we can use to go on the attack with and take back the ground the evil one has stolen, and that is authoritative prayer. [00:22:05] (32 seconds)  #AuthoritativePrayer

But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, had the full authority of the father to speak to Satan directly and decisively. With the power invested in him, even though he was a man, truly a man as well, a hungry, tired man at this stage, he goes on the offensive. And note the words that he uses. He says, no. He says, you must not get out of here, Satan. Distinctive words of authority that can be used to combat Satan and his works. [00:19:09] (33 seconds)  #ConfrontSatan

He was so concerned that people might step away from the sovereignty of God and attempt things in their own strength. He says the following, most of all, I was afraid people would fall off the deep end, afraid that I would fall off the deep end. But quickly, I saw that the danger of superficiality is clearly as perilous as the danger of excess and perhaps more so. In my concern over falling off the deep end, I realized that I might fall off the shallow end. My desire to maintain religious respectability could easily result in a domesticated faith. [00:02:52] (37 seconds)  #ChooseDeepFaith

And in that prayer we can pray directly for healing for restoration, for breakthrough. We can pray against political and subversive powers. We can pray into anything where we see the devil's hand bringing chaos and destruction. You will notice in that story I told about Paul and the slave girl girl that he does use his own authority that's given to him by Jesus to speak directly to the demon that possessed the slave girl. But crucially, he did it in the name of Jesus Christ. [00:24:17] (34 seconds)  #PrayInJesusName

It says, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. You see, you and I, because we are in Christ, are seated with him and we have been given the authority to act and pray just the way that Jesus did when he was here on earth. [00:22:45] (28 seconds)  #SeatedWithChrist

In Ephesians six and twelve, it says that our war or struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Does it involve us? Well, C. S. Lewis says, there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed and counterclaimed by Satan. [00:11:19] (30 seconds)  #NoNeutralGround

By the authority of almighty God, I tear down Satan's strongholds in my life, in the lives of those I love, and in the society of which I live. I take into myself the weapons of truth, righteousness, peace, salvation, the word of God, and prayer. I command every evil influence to leave. You have no right here, and I allow you no point of entry. [00:32:38] (22 seconds)  #TearDownStrongholds

What Jesus was effectively saying, in essence, was stop praying to me and start exercising the authority that I have given you. God was saying to Moses to take control of the situation with the authority and tools that you already have. And that is what we do when we use authoritative prayer. [00:21:33] (23 seconds)  #ExerciseYourAuthority