Wartime Prophets & Satan’s Strategy: 4 Ways the Devil is Attacking You
For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.
—Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54, “table talk,” 165
As we grasp the sober and serious understanding of what is happening in the nations, we turn to Scripture to understand how and who God is raising up to lead in His name, at this hour.
How does a wartime church need to think? What are the biblical expectations for the people of God in a time of war?
Jeremiah emphasizes the continual succession of prophets who diligently became the voice of God, in order that His thinking, solutions, and even His emotional status can unfailingly, undeniably, be known in a nation:
Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them (Jeremiah 7:25 NKJV).
So when a nation is in crisis God always sends them a prophetic voice. When clarity and timings are needed, God raises those up with a passion for revelation, those who will push into seeing, hearing, and understanding in the Spirit. He gives the people prophets who are Spirit-filled but also demonstrate Spirit-led lives; those who have married wisdom and revelation.
The Lord’s ultimate desire for His people is that they are a prepared bride, spotless, and made ready. Revelation chapter 11 steps into this and delivers understanding on the core instinct of God’s end-time church, and it is that they prophesy. The whole chapter outlines a church that is marked, moved, and stewarding—to great effect—the word of God.
The prophecy is safeguarded by those who are purified (more on this later). This remnant, end-time church is competent with heavenly rev- elation and has a disposition toward bravery and an urge to say exactly what God wants said. God is pulling on your life and leading you into this Revelation 11 place. You did not go through what you went through to stop now! He needs your purified voice.
I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers” (Revelation 11:1 NIV).
The chapter begins with an instruction about measuring the temple. This metaphor is seen several times in the Old and New Testaments1 and indicates that God is taking care of something to preserve it from destruction, to get it ready. God is preserving a people to prophesy!
…They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth (Revelation 11:2-3 NIV).
John continues to write down what he is being told, now giving a time frame numbering 1,260 days2 (which is 42 months), indicating a divinely allotted, and protected, time period when God’s people will have to speak revelation. These verses announce to us that God has preserved and equipped a people so they are fully ready to enter a time where they will prophesy and speak out the word of God. You are part of this. You have been preserved to bring uncontaminated revelation! In the days of the cataclysmic clash of the kingdoms, God raises an end-times prophetic church.
The Enemy’s Battle Plan—How Satan Leads
Revelation chapter 11 and Daniel chapter 7 appear to note similar periods of time. While Revelation 11 talks of the role of end-times church to prophesy, Daniel 7 gives insight into what will come against this church. Verse 25 is packed with prophetic insight into how our adversary will specifically target us to lead us astray and into his kingdom, rather than toward the Kingdom of God:
He [our enemy, the antichrist or satan] shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time (Daniel 7:25 ESV).
First: Words of Accusation
First, accusation will be the major battle of the days ahead: “He shall speak words against the Most High…” (Daniel 7:25 ESV). Satan plans to speak against the saints of the Most High—stirring up pain, reputational damage, misunderstanding, defensiveness, and infighting—all because he will accuse falsely. Beware—when prophetic people have undealt-with emotions because they’ve been on the receiving end of maligning, it pollutes their revelation!
The most outlandish and yet successful approach in the face of accusation is to quote Isaiah to your inner world, saying, “like a sheep before its shearers is silent,” “I have no need to defend my reputation.” When this truth has deeply medicated your inner world and you understand that your defensiveness achieves nothing (and neither does fighting for your own reputation) you are able to turn and produce the purified word of the Lord.
Prayer
Savior Jesus, help me be more like You. I strengthen myself in the knowledge that Your love and acceptance of me is sufficient, and that I do not need to fight back against accusation and slander. Lord, I trust You to bring justice, as and when you feel it is right, in your infinite wisdom. I let go of every sense and emotion of injustice that I have grasped tightly to myself and I choose to release it into Your hands. Following the example of You, Jesus, I choose now to forgive all those who have accused me, misunderstood me, slandered me, gossiped about me, or spoken ill of me, whether to my face or behind my back. Lord, I am sorry for partnering with offense and for desiring to defend myself. Holy Spirit, help me to be patient, self-controlling, and peaceful in this, even though it is painful. My God, I trust You. You are my defender, and You are the One who restores me. Thank You for Your mercy and grace. Amen.
Second: He Will Exhaust You
Second, satan will try to exhaust you and wear you out: “…and shall wear out the saints of the Most High…” (Daniel 7:25 ESV). To stand in, and with, the word of the Lord requires strength, and an ability to bear its weight. Considering that the exhaustion will come from the demonic spirit realm, it is battled against by Spirit-led decrees that banish any atmosphere of weariness from around you.
Decree
In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, I forbid any demonic atmosphere of exhaustion and weariness to hang over me anymore. I eject them from my world; and in their place, I receive the zeal of the Lord to accomplish what He has given to me!
Third: He Will Change Your Timings
Third, satan will try to change the timings. “…and shall think to change the times…” (Daniel 7:25 ESV). (Other Bibles translate these as the “set times” or “sacred seasons”), thus pushing you out of being able to bring revelation that is on time and effective. A consistent awareness of this is now required in your life so you can bless your thinking, speaking, geography, and relationships to be in the timing of God.
If you can’t keep in time, you will not lead or speak the words of the Lord in season. Rather, you will find yourself bringing out-of-date revelation, frustrating yourself and being inadequate to those who need detailed specifics in the coming days of shaking and war.
Prayer
Ask God if there are any hindrances to your keeping pace and being in sync with Him. Is there any disobedience or wrong connections that pull you out of time? Allow the Spirit of God to hover over you, bringing you back into the rhythm of the Lord at this time. If the enemy has really lied to you and your decision making is not in step with God, ask Him to “magnetize” you by the renewing of your mind back to truth and into good decision making.
Fourth: Setting Unrighteous Laws
Finally, satan will try to set unrighteous laws. “He… shall think to change…the law…” (Daniel 7:25 ESV). These laws are not just national governmental edicts, but the demonic laws of control, territorial thinking, religious behavior boundaries, and false hierarchical structures in the church that allow for spiritual abuse.
This calls for you to love the Kingdom of God and understand how it operates so you can discern between a godly Kingdom value and a kingdom- of-this-world value. A Kingdom principle versus a demonic principle. The dominant state of most of the church is that we walk as “natural” rather than spiritual people. Our spirits and flesh are not dominated and in submission to the Spirit of God; therefore things of the Spirit jar against us, or do not sit well with us.
This is why those who prophesy often get much kickback to their revelation, because many listeners think with only their natural mind and so do not have the capability to receive the words of the Spirit. Instead, sadly, they become offended and walk away, disregarding or rejecting revelation.
Our lives have been crafted by natural means and fleshly values—for example by the films we watch, our education systems, and our news media—which often block us to the ways of the Spirit of God, like wearing sunglasses in an already dark room. In Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, He says that unless we are born again, we cannot see the Kingdom of God. This is not just a future statement of what is available to you in eternity! Rather, once you are saved you have the ability to spiritually see—to perceive with inward spiritual perception, to experience the culture and values of the Kingdom of God.
We have ebbed and flowed and not stayed in connection with the Spirit, or stayed in encounter with the Spirit, and so we are not really in the realm of being those who live by the Spirit. How therefore would we know how to discern between what the Holy Spirit is doing versus what the demonic spirits of the age are doing?
Paul is quite brutal in how he writes to the Corinthian church in his first letter to them. He says to an entire gathered Christian community, “I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly” (1 Corinthians 3:1 NIV). Paul could not talk to them about spiritual matters because they had fallen short of understanding the ways of the Spirit.
