PROPHETIC PRAYER WALKS AND PRAYER ACTIONS
(OPERATION JERICHO FOR TERRITORIAL CONQUEST)
INTRODUCTION
Our communities have a redemptive purpose, a purpose for which God established them but most of them are not standing in this divine purpose but have been “hijacked” by Satan who has brought a covering of darkness over the land and has taken over many of our communities, territories, cities and nations. Idolatry, violence, sexual perversion, murders, assassination, ritual killings, poverty, strange deaths are a few of the manifestations of communities that have become satanic domains which need community deliverance. The devil claims ownership of kingdoms, nations, cities, and towns (Lk. 4:5-8).
It takes spiritual warfare to get our communities to begin to fulfill God's purpose (Matt. 12:29; Rev. 1:18). This is why the Bible describes the foundation of the earth as being out of course (Psa. 82:5) whereas the foundation of God are sure foundations (I Cor. 3:11; Isa. 2816; II Tim. 2:19).
There is a growing need to redeem our lands as Caleb proclaimed “Give me this mountain” (Joshua 14:12). We need to redeem our lands so that God may be glorified, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached and souls won into the kingdom. There is also a need for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of God and of His Christ (Rev. 11:15). The purpose of spiritual warfare over our cities is to subdue the forces of darkness, take the cities and secure them for God by taking responsibility over our communities/cities and declaring them a no go area for Satan.
(A) PRAYER WALKS AND PRAYER ACTIONS
Prayer walks are a form of corporate intercession that take the intercessors directly to the spiritual battlefield, usually a home, neighborhood, community and strategic locations. John Dawson speaks of battling for your neighborhood through prayer walks in his book Taking Our Cities for God. John moved into an ethnic neighborhood in Los Angeles full of gang violence and drugs. He says:
Several years ago my staff and I went on a prayer walk around our neighborhood. We stood in front of every house, rebuked Satan's work in Jesus' name and prayed for a revelation of Jesus in the life of each family. We are still praying. There is a long way to go; but social, economic, and spiritual transformation is evident. There were times when demonic oppression almost crushed my soul. I received a death threat. My tires were slashed. I was often depressed at the sight of boarded-up houses, unemployed youth, and disintegrating families, but I was determined not to run away.
Today there are at least nine Christian families in the block where I live, and there is a definite sense of the Lord's peace. The neighborhood is no longer disintegrating. People are renovating their houses, and a sense of community is being established around the Christian families.
Prayer walks are being implemented across many nations. Graham Kendricks has had up to 150,000 people involved in marches in England. Some churches such as the Dwelling Place in Hemet, California, have entered the Christmas parades in their cities to witness and pass out tracts. Joshua 1:3 says, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you”. In prayer walks you work to “take the land” for the Gospel or establish the spiritual safe borders of your city. As you prayer walk, you are taking back land from the enemy.
Prayer walks are not limited to walking the land physically; you can also walk the land in prayer by declaring that certain geographic regions are put under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This was done by a group of pastors and leaders from the San Nicolas/Rosario area in Argentina who had gathered at Harvest Evangelism's Training Center in Villa Constitution:
Spiritual warfare was the subject. The realization that close to 109 towns within 100 miles of the Training Center had no Christian witness prompted the gathering. Preliminary studies had singled out the town of Arroyo Seco as what appeared to be the “Seat of Satan” for that region. Years before, a well-known warlock (occult grand master) by the name of Mr. Meregildo operated out of that town. He was so famous and his cures so dramatic that people from overseas would trek to Arroyo Seco. Before dying he passed on his powers to twelve disciples. Three times a church was established in Arroyo Seco, and three times it closed down in the face of severe spiritual opposition.
After several days of Bible study and prayer the pastors and leaders came together in one accord and placed the entire area under Christ's spiritual authority. A few of them traveled to Arroyo Seco. Positioning themselves across the street from the headquarters of Mr. Meregildo's followers, they served an eviction notice on the forces of evil. They announced to them that they were defeated and that Jesus Christ would attract many to Himself now that the church was united and pledged to proclaim Him.
Less than three years later 82 of the towns had evangelical churches in them. An unverified report indicates that as of today all of them have a church or a Christian witness.
(B) OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES FOR PRAYER ACTIONS
1) Before you begin your prayer walk, it is important to dress yourself spiritually for the battle just as you would dress appropriately for other occasions. Stop and pray before you head out the door and clothe yourself with the armor of God. Pray for protection for yourself, your home and your family according to Psalm 91. Claim that you have the mind of the Lord as you walk. You need spiritual exercise each day just as your body needs physical exercise. These walks will actually do both: cause you to stretch yourself in the spirit and buffet your body in the natural.
This is meant as a jumping-off point and not a rigid pattern. Trust the Holy Spirit to guide you as you walk and pray. Start with a prayer like this:
Father, I thank You that my neighborhood has been claimed for Jesus Christ. Today I raise that banner of the Lord, His standard, over my neighborhood and claim it for the Kingdom of God. Like Joshua, every place that the sole of my foot treads upon is put under the authority of God's Kingdom. I now place the blood of the Lamb over this neighborhood even as the children of Israel placed the blood of the Passover lambs on the doorposts and lintels of their houses.
Lord Jesus, please forgive the sins of my neighborhood. You say in Your Word that “If (we) forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if (we) retain the sins of any they are retained” (John 20:23). So I now ask You to forgive the sins of my neighborhood. (At this time if there is any known sin such as strife, murder, greed, love of mammon, false religions, drugs, etc., ask God specifically to forgive them). Lord, would You heal the people in my neighborhood of the rejection, pain and hurts that these things produce? Forgive them, Lord, for not following You, for any selfishness, racial prejudice, etc. (After remitting the sins boldly proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your neighborhood).
2) If you know of specific areas of demonic activity, do not try to attack these alone but ask others to go with you to pray. Make sure there is no known sin in your life when you go to pray. Ask God to show you the specific sins that are giving the demons the right to establish strongholds. If it is a stronghold like witchcraft you may want to fast first, and the same goes for New Age. Sometimes these require soaking prayers and speaking the Word as Jesus did in the wilderness. If there is an establishment, such as a place that sells witchcraft articles, please do not forget to pray that the blindness will fall away from the eyes of those who own the shop and those who come into the shop. Bind the spirit of witchcraft from operating in and through them and claim them for the Kingdom of God. Remember that we are fighting against principalities and powers and not against the people who own these establishments.
3) Do not measure results by what you see or hear. Every prayer that you pray is effective and is like a seed planted in the ground. Continue to water it in prayer and it will surely produce fruit. Keep on claiming the promise that no weapon formed against your neighborhood will prosper. Establish borders around the houses and your house by the blood of the Lamb and declare to Satan that it is off-limits.
4) Be sure to ask God for His purpose or redemptive plan for your neighborhood. If there is a lot of wealth, speak boldly that the wealth of sinners has been laid up for the righteous and command Satan to stop blinding their eyes and, of course, to stop any hindrance from their being born again. Some neighborhoods are dying and a spirit of death seems to pervade. Plant Scriptures that will bring life, such as Psalm 1, over the neighborhood. Break the power of death and declare that the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is coming into your neighborhood.
5) Ask God for Bible verses to pray over the houses. Stretch yourself to believe Him for a different verse for each house. Ask the Lord which blocks you are responsible of in prayer. If elderly people live there, they are likely lonely. Pray that God will give them peace and bless them with His presence and love and try to visit them yourself. If your land is in rebellion, forbid the rebellion from operating in your neighborhood. Bind the enemy from operating through drugs or pornography or prostitution and pray that every hidden and secret thing will be revealed. If the people are isolated, ask God to give them love for one another. Most of all, pray for the salvation of the people in each and every household.
6) God may call you to participate in a prayer watch or a prayer walk.
Remember that He has planted you, like Adam, in your neighborhood and in your nation to tend it, water it and care for it. Under the word of God, they will prosper and bloom.
(C) PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PRAYER ACTIONS
1) PRAYING IN MOSCOW AT THE KGB HEADQUARTERS – Kjell Sjoberg
In October, we organized a prophetic prayer action in Moscow in connection with the 70-year celebrations of the Soviet Communist Constitution. Daniel knew that the time had come for him to intercede for the release of his people after he discovered the prophetic promise of release after 70 years of captivity in Babylon.
The Lord demonstrates His might by setting time limits on the evil powers. The Lord gave us faith to believe that the same time limit had been set for the communist oppression against persecuted Christians and Jewish refuseniks (Russian Jews refused permission to go back to Israel). We had discerned five prayer targets for that night in Moscow and one of them was the KGB (the dreaded Soviet secret police) headquarters.
For this prayer action, research material about the KGB was distributed to the 12 on the team. We listened to a two-hour lecture about the organization of the KGB. The KGB had 19,000 officers and 400,000 agents working in the Soviet Union. All around the world, they had half a million informers. The founder was Dzerzinsky and his statue was standing at the square in front of the Ljublanka prison. On the map of Moscow, we pinpointed place connected with KGB where they recruited their agents and Patrice Lumumba University where they recruited their agents from other nations.
One minute past midnight between October 17 and 18, 1987, we started our prayer action near the KGB headquarters. We had received two words of knowledge from an Israeli intercessor and from a sister in Scotland, both saying that they saw us praying in a tunnel. In front of the KGB headquarters is an underground train station with a walking tunnel under the statue of Dzerzinsky. The Lord had provided a place where we could pray in freedom without being disturbed by anyone.
We entered the tunnel and no one else walked through during the entire time we prayed. Here we proclaimed the “Mene”, “Mene”, “Tekel”, “Upharsin”, the handwriting on the wall that had announced the downfall of the Babylonian Empire (see Dan. 5:25). We prayed, “In the name of Jesus we bind you, power of Pharaoh, you controlling power of Assur and we lay you under the feet of Jesus. We proclaim that your grave has been prepared. We cut your influence from the root”.
Follow a sudden change of government in the Soviet Union, on August 22 1991, the statue of the founder of the KGB was removed. “The secret archives of the KGB were opened up. Prison doors were opened and no more Christians are in the prison. The Jewish refuseniks are returning to Israel. The Soviet Empire was finally broken into several pieces and the spirit of communism defeated and fallen to rise no more. Amen and Amen.
2) PRAYER ACTION IN BERGSLAGEN, SWEDEN – Kjell Sjoberg
We have an area in Sweden called Bergslagen, where church membership was decreasing and many were unemployed. A decision was made to shut down the iron mill that had about 6000 iron workers. One Sunday evening the whole town of Grangersberg protested by turning out all electric lights in homes, streets and shops. The TV news showed a town in darkness. It was a demonstration of hopelessness – people saw no future for the town. The price of property fell and it was almost impossible to sell a house.
At that time we decided to initiate six months of warfare prayer and finish our prayer campaign with a weekend of victory proclamations of hope for the future. My friend Lars Widerberg, the spy in our prayer team, did the spiritual mapping and discovered there were 15 New Age centers in the area. Every time through history when our nation's freedom had been threatened, the farmers from Bergslagen became the freedom fighters who saved the country. Bergslagen was the birthplace of industry in Sweden and now it was heading for oblivion.
The first factory in Sweden's history was now occupied by a community connected with the Findhorn Foundation from England, which confesses that Lucifer is their source of power. We went into the Lucifer center and had coffee. To outsiders we appeared as a group in pleasant conversation while we were looking into the eyes of one another and proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus over the community. Two months later four members of that community came to the Lord and were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord gave us the spoils from our prayer action.