God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus (Eph 1:3). The Cross has bought freedom, blessing, healing and grace. Yet we see so little of it in our families, our schools, our churches and our lives. Spiritual blindness prevails in our society and our schools. Many Christians suffer under demonic oppression and addiction to sin and negative emotions. Families and lives are progressively destroyed. Dissatisfied with our current state of existence, we long to enter into the 'fullness' of God and experience revival. I have begun to realise that the main obstacles that prevents the rain of blessings and grace from reaching our lives are satanic strongholds and bondages. For the blessing and grace of God to reach our lives, these strongholds and bondages must be broken. There is no other way. To understand and deal with satanic strongholds and bondages, it is important to first understand how Satan works.
There are three primary sources of satanic strongholds and bondages. These are (1) Unrepentant Sin, (2) Generational Curses, and (3) Lack of Knowledge of the Truth.
Unrepentant sin forms the single most prevalent causes of satanic bondage. An unrepentant sin is a cherished sin that we know is wrong but persist stubbornly to hold on to it. We refuse to repent and renounce the sin because we enjoy the pleasure it brings. But what we are not aware of is that very soon, that sin becomes a bondage, trapping and enslaving us. We loose control over this area of our lives, unable to resist temptation when it comes, descending into addiction and bondage. Sometimes, unrepentant sin is fueled by false justifications. We convince ourselves of the lack of seriousness of the sin, justifying our actions behind some perverted rationalising until we are able to sin without feeling any guilt. At other times, we fall into a helpless cycle sin, confess, sin, confess yet never feeling that God has really forgiven us. Each time, we grow more convinced that if we do it one more time, we will cross the line into eternal damnation and apostasy. Soon the Accuser hits us with his wrecking ball of condemnation, destroying our hope that God will ever forgive us again. Our faith is then shipwrecked on the rocks of condemnation.
The second cause of satanic strongholds is generational curses. Exodus 20:4 tells us that idolatry of the father brings a curse to the third and fourth generations. When our ancestors engage in idol worship, ancestor worship or engage in temple medium activities, or any manner of false religion, this causes the generations that follow to be brought under a curse. These curses may manifest themselves in hereditary disease, illness or deformity, in crushing and continuing poverty, in early and sudden deaths among family members, or acute spiritual blindness and non-receptivity to the gospel.
The third cause of satanic strongholds is the lack of knowledge of the truth. God pronounces in Hosea 4:6 that "my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." The cross brings a message of salvation, blessing and freedom. But our entire society and system is engineered by the devil to hide this truth from man. For if man were to know the truth, the truth will set him free (John 8:32). Our generation is one that is pervaded by sensationalism and sensualism. The mass media of television, movies, advertisement, computer and video games bombards us with sensations and sound and pictures and information, yet cleverly drowning out truth in the process. Our academia has cast out God from intellectual thought, replacing Him with the empty foolishness of rationalism and existentialism. "God is dead... we have killed him" (The Parable of the Madman, Nietzsche, 1882). We must open our eyes to see that there is a satanic 'mind' behind the systems of this world, that we live in a world controlled by the 'prince of this world'. There is nothing is neutral about contemporary society. Contemporary society is engineered to the hiding of the truth about God, to the closing of the minds of our youths and to the ultimate destruction of our souls.
The path to the destruction of satanic bondages and strongholds is threefold. (1) Warfare prayer, (2) Repentance, and (3) Truth Affirmation.
In warfare prayer, we take the authority of the Name of Jesus and pray against strongholds and bondages. For unto us has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven that whatever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever we let loose on earth shall be let loose in heaven (Matt 16:19). Unto us has been committed the authority to trample on scorpions and serpents and to overcome all the power of the enemy and they will by no means harm us (Luke 10:19). In warfare prayer, we put on the full armour of God so that in the day of battle, we will be able to stand (Eph 6:13-17). In warfare prayer, we do not speak to God, but to the demonic and satanic principalities of this world, casting them down in the Name of Jesus.
The next path to the destruction of satanic strongholds is repentance. As unrepentent sin and idolatry form the main roots of the strongholds, repentance cancels of the power and curse of sin and uproots the stronghold. To repent, there is need to first identify the root sin underlying the stronghold. I believe that the root sin behind our Nation is the sin of insignificance. We are a small island trying to survive in a large world, and the spirit of anxiety and fear of loss pervades ever level of our society, enslaving us in crushing strife. To those in my church, I believe the root sin that is preventing revival from coming to our church is the sin of judgementalism. We judge and criticize and ostracize. We form cliques and exclude others, emasculating agape love with our middle and upper class pride. There is a need for us to repent as a church, to repent as a nation for these enslaving sins. There is a need for true Christians to stand in the gap on behalf of our nation, our schools, our churches and our families and repent before the throne of God for the sins of our nation, our schools, our churches and our families. Let us fall to our knees and pray to the Holy Spirit to reveal the sins of our generation. He who has ears to hear, let him then hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
Lastly, we must affirm the truth to set us free. The battle for our generation is for the minds of our youths. We must therefore preach the word in season and out of season. We cast down every argument and high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:4,5) We must be ever ready to give a reason for our faith, to defend our faith in our schools, our colleges, our universities and in our workplaces. We must train our minds and saturate our churches with the power of the Word, transforming our minds to the minds of Christ. For only then will we know the truth and the truth will set us free.
There is a spiritual war that is taking place in the spiritual realm for dominion over heaven and earth and over the souls of man. We have to duty to reclaim our lives, our families, our schools, our workplace, our churches and our society back to God. For Christ has already won the victory.