Spiritual Espionage

Ephesians 6:10-13
The Armour of God
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (New International Version)
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We do not wage war as the world does.

The world uses weapons of mass destruction while we use weapons of mass construction.

The world curses and we bless.

The world speaks hate filled propaganda and we speak the truth in love.

So we are at war but we do not wage war as the world does.

This is fortunate because the world does not always have a strategy while we should have a divine strategy.

We can go in guns blazing with no clearly planned strategy and lose the war (The Vietnam way) or we can have a clear strategy on how to take territory but not have any strategy for what to do after victory so that they all hate us (The Iraq way)

We can scream “We bind you Devil” and see no victory (The Vietnam) or we can take over a political agenda and have the world hate us (The Iraq) Both techniques are more religious than anything else.

In The Old Testament, Israel often went to war with a clear strategy.

In 2 Chronicles 20 the Moabites and Ammonites with some of the Meunites came to make war on Jehoshaphat. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, "A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Sea. It is already in Hazazon Tamar" (that is, En Gedi). 3 Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. 4 The people of Judah came together to seek help from the LORD; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.

Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD which was a good idea Joshua was deceived by the Gibeonite because he didn’t enquire of The Lord. By enquiring of The Lord a strategy to win the battle was to be given.

Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the LORD in the front of the new courtyard and said: "O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, 'If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.'

Of Course The Lord said “Yes!”

"But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."
All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the LORD.
Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly.
He said: "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.' "

A clear strategy was given and followed and the battle was won.

Joshua had a clear strategy for taking Jericho and for taking Ai and by clear strategy the cities were taken.

Ephesians 6:14-18
14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Praying in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests is a way of getting strategy. Another way of having a good strategy is by reconnaissance.

Intelligence gathering is good. Reconnaissance was a strategy in the old Testament.

Deuteronomy 1:22-2322 Then all of you came to me and said, "Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to." 23 The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.

Joshua 2:1
Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

Joshua 7:2
Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, "Go up and spy out the region." So the men went up and spied out Ai.

Judges 1:22-2522 Now the house of Joseph attacked Bethel, and the LORD was with them. 23 When they sent men to spy out Bethel (formerly called Luz)

Judges 18:2
So the Danites sent five warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it. These men represented all their clans. They told them, "Go, explore the land." The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

This spiritual espionage goes on against us too apparently

Galatians 2:4
This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

We have five references to Gods people gathering intelligence on the enemy.--
When I first felt lead of The Lord to gather intelligence I was shocked to find that I first had to gather intelligence on The Church. I didn’t have a clue what most of The Church in my home town was doing. I didn’t know who was leading churches even and I had to find out. I felt lead to pray for those in authority and I didn’t know who was in authority. I found out who all the town councillors were easily but to find out who all the pastors etc. were was a lot harder. The religious control of denominationalism is the cause of this.

I know I was not the only one doing this and through prayer all churches know what each other are doing and so there is only one Church here that is one body many parts. Denominationalsm is being defeated.

As time has gone on it has become easier for me to know what is going on. I first started praying for councillors and then The Lord had me get to know many of them in person afterwards.

There are many things of use to us for prayer like crime statistic for instance. Or where road accidents most often occur.