SPIRITUAL MAPPING FOR STRATEGIC PRAYER WARFARE
INTRODUCTION
Texts: Acts 17:16, 22-24; Acts 19:23-41; Numb. 13:1-20, 25
The devil knows that his time of operation on the earth is short. He is therefore on a mission of accelerated destruction of the human race. To this end, he is carefully and systematically establishing his evil strongholds in homes, offices, industries, communities, market-places, government offices, cities and nations. Therefore, the Church being the only body authorized and empowered to carry out warfare against Satan cannot afford to be uninformed or ignorant. This underscores the imperative of strategic warfare in missions, evangelism, community and national transformation.
A. DEFINITIONS OF SPIRITUAL MAPPING
1. “In my opinion, it is the researching of a city to discover any inroads Satan had made, which prevent the spread of the gospel and the evangelization of a city for Christ.” – Cindy Jacobs.
2. “Spiritual mapping is a term coined to cover the research we do preceding what I like to call a ‘prayer action’. Obviously, when we pray we can pray more effectively if we are better informed.” – Kjell Sjoberg.
3. “If I were to define spiritual mapping, I would say; it is God’s revelation about the spiritual situation of the world in which we live. It is a vision that goes beyond our natural senses and, by the Holy Spirit, reveals the spiritual hosts of darkness to us”. – Harold Caballeros.
4. “Spiritual mapping gives us an image or spiritual photograph of the situation in the heavenly places above us. What an X-ray is to a physician, spiritual mapping is to intercessors. It is a supernatural vision that shows us the enemy’s lines, location, numbers, weapons, and above all, how the enemy can be defeated”. Harold Caballeros.
5. “Spiritual mapping plays the same important role that intelligence and espionage play during war. It reveals he conditions behind enemy lines. It is a spiritual, strategic and sophisticated tool, which is powerful in God to assist in pulling down the strongholds of the enemy”. Harold Caballeros.
6. Spiritual mapping for territorial deliverance is like the questions we ask or questionnaires we request candidates for personal deliverance to fill. These help us to understand the family history, level of spiritual contamination, degree of oppression of the victim and what we are to do to help him/her. Spiritual mapping provides us with relevant spiritual information for territorial deliverance. - Moses Aransiola.
B. SPIRITUAL MAPPING PRINCIPLES
The Psalmist said Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: (Psalm 144:1). The emphasis of this scripture is largely on preparation and precision. Victory in warfare is not all about power. Modern jet fighter pilots will tell you the same thing. Divorced from accurate targeting coordinates, supersonic fighter aircrafts and laser-guided missiles are nothing but beautiful engineering pieces. It is the quality of intelligence, and not fire power, which ultimately determines a military mission’s impact. God has equally not left the church to fight blindfolded. He expects us to wage war on satanic sites (strongholds) with insight.
Meaningful spiritual intelligence on our communities is readily obtainable through what we call spiritual mapping.
Spiritual mapping is the deliberate spiritual, historical, and physical research on a geographical location. The exercise is intended to help the researcher understand the location as it is, instead of as it appears to be. Through spiritual mapping, the satanic inroads into a community are identified.
Without strategic information as provided through spiritual mapping, effective spiritual warfare is almost impossible. We would be like men who fight but are beating the air “...Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air” (I Cor. 9:26). Also, the Bible says “Every purpose is established by counsel; by wise counsel wage war” (Pro. 20:18) and that “…through knowledge the righteous shall be delivered”. (Pro. 11:9b). These three scriptures amongst many others emphasize the importance of information and knowledge in waging successful warfare.
Spiritual mapping sensitizes us so that we don’t get carried away by the outward appearance of things or places. That’s why the Bible asks “…do you look at things according to the outward appearance?” (2 Cor. 10:7). The same Bible answers the question saying “…We do not look at the things which are seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor.4:18). The spiritual (unseen with physical eyes) is of greater importance and of eternal consequences than the things we see physically. We need to see our families, neighbourhoods, communities, cities and nations as they really are and not as they appear to be.
Spiritual mapping is the intelligence aspect of spiritual warfare. In spiritual mapping, we don’t only find out the activities of Satan, we also investigate the reasons for certain manifestations and the impact of the gospel in a location.
C. INFORMATION NEEDED IN THE MAPPING OF A COMMUNITY
OR CITY
1. History of the place including the meaning of the name of the place.
2. The nature of original founders and their religious belief.
3. The foundation of bloodshed or ritual killings.
4. What are the peculiar attitudes of the inhabitants?
5. Are there events or visible trends observed in the place like early deaths, unexplainable and mysterious deaths, accidents, tragedies etc?
6. What are the social and economic problems of the place i.e. drug addiction, pornography, alcoholism, business failures, poverty, etc?
7. Names of the idols worshiped and the priests ministering at their altars.
8. Have the inhabitants been hostile to gospel missionaries to the point of killing them?
9. The number of churches and their locations.
10. The number of mosques and their locations.
11. The number of occult centres and their locations.
12. The names and locations of satanic altars and shrines.
13. The list of ancient and modern gates and what happens at the gates.
14. The number and location of white-garment churches, traditional healing homes, etc.
15. Whether human beings are killed and sold for rituals.
16. Have there been events that could have attracted curses - blood guiltiness, slavery, rebellion, incest, betrayal, etc?
17. Are there evil forests, lands, scared trees, etc?
18. Territorial strongmen and satanic intermediaries.
19. Hospitals, market places & places of administration.
20. Criminal’s hide-outs, brothels, and abortion centers.
21. Existence of marine altars in rivers and streams, mountains, forest and market altars. Are they active or defunct?
22. Existence of astral altars-worship of the sun, moon and stars.
23. Existence of oppressive thrones.
24. Festivals, feast and ceremonies.
25. Cultures: customs and traditions at marriage ceremonies, chieftaincy ceremonies, funeral ceremonies, child naming ceremonies and initiation into adulthood ceremonies. Also cultures and traditions established to foster and service idol worship.
26. Masquerades: their names and locations of their shrines.
27. Covenants made by ancestral fathers concerning the land and concerning their offsprings.
28. Monuments and statues. Who they glorify?
29. Names of streets, rivers, compounds, areas. Do they glorify God or Satan?
30. What the elders do at the beginning of farming seasons, before the harvest, when adolescents come of age and when the dead are being buried? It is familiar spirits and ancestral spirits that inspire these ungodly elders to observe these customs and traditions and break God’s laws.
31. The taboos of the land.
32. How did the taboos come into being, who established them and what are the punishments for disobeying the taboos?
33. The Obas, Obis, Emirs and Chiefs of the city, do they belong to certain particular cults? Do they have an oath they swear to before becoming a king or chief?
34. What is the process of initiation?
35. What anti-Christ religions are discernible?
36. What are the predominant sporting or entertainment activities?
37. Size and nature of churches
38. What is the Christian population?
39. Are the churches united?
40. How strong is the Roman Catholic Church in the area?
By the time a thorough job is done on these 40 questions, the mapper and the intercessors would have been able to identify the names of the ruling princes of the community or city and deal with them by name. Until we deal with the satanic princes of the land and the spirits holding the people in bondage and ruling over them, we cannot get the people totally delivered from their grips, and no visible spiritual and socio-economic progress will take place in such areas.
You cannot enter into a strong man’s house and plunder his goods without first binding the strong man. (Matt. 12:29).
The arrest of the princes and principalities holding the people captive will release the people to accept the Lord Jesus Christ and to remain and abide in the faith.
D. WHO SHOULD BE INVOLVED IN SPIRITUAL MAPPING?
§ Church leaders, prayer/intercession leaders.
§ Christians who believe in the word of God.
§ Christians without tribal, gender or denominational prejudice.
§ Christians who are growing in faith, boldness and commitment to God’s Kingdom purposes.
§ Christians who are hardworking and able to take initiative.
§ Christians who want the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ.
§ Believers who are holy and Holy Spirit empowered.
E. SOURCES OF SPIRITUAL MAPPING INFORMATION
1. Observation of our human environment and behaviours. It is incredible how much spiritual information one can obtain in just being observant and sensitive to one’s natural environment after the person has been introduced to spiritual warfare mapping. Understanding and proficiency in spiritual mapping makes one to begin to understand the spiritual implications of things that were hitherto assumed to be insignificant i.e. names of streets, statues, monuments, masquerades, festivals etc.
2. Conducting interviews with people that have information.
3. Examining the print media materials - magazines, newspapers, books, etc.
4. Listening to God in prayer and fasting. Ps. 25:14; Pro. 25:2.
5. Documents from community archives or library.
6. Information from elders and historians.
7. The Holy Spirit.
F. BENEFITS OF SPIRITUAL MAPPING
1. It enables us to locate precisely the enemy’s position and pray with more precision.
2. It enables effective planning of available personnel. Num. 13:12, 2.
3. It enables intercessory burden because what you see and the information you have will increase your burden.
4. Helps intercessors to size up the enemy’s strength for effective attack so that they will not fight as one beating the air. I Cor. 9:26.
5. Prophetic action can be taken using spiritual mapping data. Ezek. 4:1-13.
6. When you are armed with spiritual mapping information, there is less likelihood of causalities.
7. It enables proper zoning for warfare strategizing.
8. It can lead to revival as the information helps us identify nature and origin of obstacles to revival.
G. BIBLICAL EXAMPLES OF SPIRITUAL MAPPING
(1) Moses - Numbers 13:1, 2, 17, 18.
(2) Joshua - Josh. 2:1, 23-24.
(3) Ezekiel - Ezek. 4:1-7.
(4) Nehemiah - Neh. 2:11-16.
(5) Elisha - 2 Kings 2:19, 21.
(6) Paul - Acts 19:8-20.
Finally, a local church needs to be informed in order to be relevant to the happenings and events in a city; otherwise the church will be spiritually locked out of the city whilst occultist and Satanists take control of the city. God wants our cities and communities to glorify Him, but lack of discernment has limited the effectiveness and impact of the Church in many cities, communities and nations.
H. PRESENT DAY EXAMPLES OF SPIRITUAL MAPPING & RESULTS
1. PRAYING IN MOSCOW AT THE KGB HEADQUARTERS -
Reported by Kjell Sjoberg
In October, 1987, 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 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 (Jews who are refused permission to emigrate from Russia to Israel). We had discerned five prayer targets for that night in Moscow and one of them was the KGB (the ruthless 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 a 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”, “Upharisn”, the handwriting on the wall that had announced the downfall of the Babylonian Empire (see Daniel 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”.
On August 22, 1991, (barely four years later) the statue of the founder of the KGB was removed. The secret archives of the KGB have been revealed. No more Christians are in prison in Russia. The Jewish ‘refuseniks’ are returning to Israel. The Soviet Empire has broken into several pieces and the spirit of communism has fallen world-wide to rise no more. Amen and Amen.