Throwing Hatchets at the Moon
It was night, the sky was blue-black except for a huge luminous moon that filled the horizon. In the remote blackness, several figures were silhouetted against the moon. Each figure stood on a circular platform and preached to a small group of people. With great emotion, these leaders pointed and shouted at the moon, urging others to follow them. Gradually, each leader’s platform rose higher as the crowds grew larger. Some platforms rose above the crowds to precarious heights. Others lifted only slightly off the ground. Resembling gunslingers, the leaders stood on the platforms with holsters strapped to their hips. But instead of guns in the holsters, there were hatchets tucked inside. As the leaders began to preach, crowds of people gathered around them. Then, each leader grabbed a hatchet, waved it around, and hurled it at the moon. But the hatchet never hit the moon; it simply fell into the darkness that lay beyond. After some time, the leaders grew weary. Eventually, each lay down on his or her platform and fell asleep.
Then with undetected stealth, several dark figures dropped off the moon’s surface. They crawled up poles which held up the platforms, sneaked over, and began to attack the leaders with extreme viciousness. Since the platforms were large and lofty, no one had been alerted to the coming devastation. Soon, blood-curdling cries came forth from the leaders—cries for their families, their children, their churches, and their ministries. “Somebody help me, I’m dying,” someone pleaded. It was a terrifying sight and sound. Then, the dream faded to black.
In the stillness that followed, God spoke to me: To attack principalities and powers over a geographic area can be as useless as throwing hatchets at the moon. And it can leave you open to unforeseen and unperceived attacks. God’s words echoed in my mind. These leaders did not foresee principalities counterattacking them. They believed they were doing something great for God. They failed to comprehend the nature of the enemy’s authority to retaliate with fierceness.
(…)
Burying the Hatchet
By the time the sun had risen over the horizon, I had mapped out a plan. When I arrived at my office later that morning, I tracked down phone numbers and began calling various pastors and leaders. First, I spoke with the pastor who had three pregnant women in his church on the verge of losing their babies. “What is your church doing differently this year?” I asked curiously. “Nothing, except that we have increased our level of engaging in spiritual warfare,” he replied thoughtfully. Venturing further, I asked what kind of warfare. He explained that they were directly coming against and binding demonic principalities of pornography and abortion that hovered over their city. Sharing the warning dream God had given me the night before, I told him that in wrestling against principalities without sufficient instruction about how to do it and about Satan’s counterattacks, he had left himself and his church open to unforeseen and unperceived attack.
“If you stop and repent,” I prophesied, “the three women that are now pregnant will go full term in their pregnancies. Their children will live and not die.” The day their church repented was the day the three women stopped bleeding. Some months later, all three women gave birth to beautiful, healthy babies.
A similar story emerged from the pastor whose 16-year-old son had run away from home. Throughout the previous year, his church had engaged in spiritual warfare, attempting to bind territorial spirits over their city. As I explained the Scriptures in Job and Isaiah, I felt the presence of God envelop me.
“If God has not directly commanded you to do this kind of spiritual warfare, you are engaged in presumptive behavior. In essence, that is rebellion. Your son is manifesting that rebellion,” I prophesied to him. He and his church stopped, and within a week his son came home.
When I called the 42-year-old woman and her daughter who were both pregnant, I learned that recently they had been warring in the heavenly realms. While we discussed aspects of spiritual warfare, I shared with her what God had shown me in my dream and in the Scripture. I prophesied that if they would stop and repent for presumptive behavior in binding principalities over their city, that both babies would live. Both mother and daughter heeded the warning and repented. God healed them and they continued their pregnancies full term.
Finally, I talked with the pastor whose daughter had chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. “I’d like to go over a couple of questions with you,” I said. When he agreed, I asked if his daughter had been involved in spiritual warfare that bound high-ranking demonic spirits. Surprised by the question, he quickly said yes and then added by explanation, “In a vision, my daughter had seen a demonic principality sitting on the dome of the college administration building. She began coming against it.” His daughter developed extreme fatigue, depression, and became disoriented within three or four days after attempting to cast down the spirit. As I explained the remedy, I later learned that his daughter did not repent of binding the demonic principality over her school. Unfortunately, she remains debilitated by her disease to this day.
Source: Needless Casualties of War
(By John Paul Jackson)
