The power of prophetic word 2
by Ivan Ho 21 Aug 2022
When the Moabites and Ammonites attacked Judah, king Jehoshaphat declared a national fast to seek the Lord, crying out to Him:
If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for thy name is in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help.
And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit.
O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
2 Chronicles 20:9-13 KJV
2. Identity our enemies
When our enemies come to attack the people of God, one of the most tragic responses is just to sit back and do nothing, letting our enemies free reign in our lands.
Some even go as far as to pray for and bless our enemies who come to attack us in response to Jesus’s teaching to “Love your enemies“. I believe it is due to some taking our Lord’s teachings out of context.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Matthew 5:38-47 KJV
When Jesus says: “Love your enemies”, He is referring to our neighbours whom we deal with on a personal level, whether they are our brothers or not, who come to take advantage of us, persecute us, even betray us. Jesus teaches us that, instead of hating and taking revenge on them, we should pray for them with the view to win them over for Christ.
The enemies that Jehoshaphat was facing, however, were of entirely a different nature. They came to attack the nation of Israel with the aim to take over their lands and to drive them out of the possessions that God gave them as inheritance. If the plans of such enemies succeeded, the nation of Israel would have been annihilated, but more importantly, God’s plan culminating in the salvation plan in Christ, would have been unfulfilled.
We need to seek God and ask Him to help us identify who the enemies we face are, whether they are of a personal level or much more than that?
I believe these are some of the characteristics of our adversaries that we are supposed to seek God’s help to fight and defeat instead of loving and blessing them:
- They come to attack us as a corporate body or nation.
- They come to take over our God given territories and possessions.
- They come to replace God’s kingdom culture and lifestyle with their ungodly, humanistic cultures and lifestyles.
- They come to forbid personal or corporate worship of Christ and to promote worship of their gods.
- They come to dominate and control individual freedom of worship and personal freewill to choose.
- Our God given destiny as well as the futures of our children will be at stake if our enemies succeed.
- They come to try to frustrate and to stop God’s plans on both personal and corporate levels from fulfillment.
- They are subservient to the kingdom of Satan to bring about their demonic agenda.
Note that Satan’s kingdom is highly structured under the authoritarian dominant rulership of Satan. If we understand how the kingdom of darkness works, we would understand how to interpret a lot of things that occur in our world today which are not natural phenomenon but demonic in nature.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:12 KJV
We need to identify who is behind our enemies coming to attack us and which kingdom agenda they are actually advancing. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and we are commanded to do the same.
It would be disastrous to pray for our enemies when their success means our God given destinies would become unfulfilled.