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R. Gazowsky
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TERRORIZING THE TERRORIST
By: Richard Gazowsky
Terrorists attack the weak to destabilize the strong. This young pastor
has learned to terrorize the terrorist.
She tapped my shoulder as I headed in to teach the Bible Study and said,
"Pastor, Sister Jones' wayward daughter is pregnant at 16 years old!"
The old sister glared with daggers of contempt, and continued, "It's
only been two months since you were installed as pastor, and I think
It's time you showed who's guiding the ship." Her last words sliced
Like a papercut on my tongue, and I was definitely tasting blood. Having
been raised in a pastor's home, I was familiar with the old lines: "God
just changed my sermon as I was walking to the pulpit"; or, "I do all my
counseling from the pulpit."
I promised God I would only preach what He wanted me to say, and would
not allow people or "hearsay" to influence my pulpit ministry, but now
the pressure was on. I walked to the pulpit feeling the knowing glances
from the people who had "already heard", as they waited for the new
pastor's response to church trouble.
I am shocked at how some people think it takes nerve to call someone's
name from the pulpit. Does that prove you're a man if you embarrass some
little teenager who's so devastated she can't face herself, let-alone
the church family? Incidentally it was not a real surprise that this
happened to this girl as she had been very weak and leaned towards
unsaved relationships constantly, no matter what her praying parents
did.
So I purposed in my heart that I would only deal with this situation
after God gave me specific instructions. In spite of the stares, I
preached on the "goodness" of God. After church a well meaning saint
stopped me and I was informed that these recent teenage pregnancies
were really a part of a five-year long chain of one girl after another,
and they felt their relative was the next one in line. They asked me
what I was going to do. I wondered, did I miss it by not going to the
old mode of embarrassing the devil right out of somebody?
The next two days I spent much time in prayer. God led me to a book that
was written in 600 B.C. by Sun Tzu, a Chinese General and an ancient
expert on the art of war. This book has been fundamental in training
modern terrorists, and was a favorite of Mao Se Tung. I noticed some
familiar patterns that I had seen in the church are also used by
terrorists today. This quote especially stood out, "Avoid his strength
and strike his emptiness, and like water, none can oppose you." The
principle is simple and easy to explain. Instead of Omar Kadafy of Libya
striking one of our U.S. Military bases where he would be easily
defeated, he placed a bomb in an airport in Rome near a few American
women and children. The ensuing explosion ripped through the U.S.
newspapers as though it happened next door to the White House. Next, it
was a disco in Germany where American soldiers were partying. American
anger raged once again, thus fulfilling the desired results of the
terrorists, destabilization..
Here I am, a pastor, a law abiding citizen, walking to the airline gate,
and suddenly I am stopped, my bags are x-rayed, and to my chagrin, I
realize I have a pocket knife in my pocket. Sure enough, I set off the
metal detector, the guard asked accusingly, "What's that in your
pocket?" I sheepishly pulled out my "weapon" after which I am thereby
escorted to his superior and reprimanded for carrying something so
dangerous around the airport. Common citizens are now treated like
potential criminals.
Satan uses the same system in the church. He finds your most vulnerable
saint, and trips them into a sin that attracts much public disdain. A
pastor feels it is his duty as "watchman on the wall", to publicly
correct the saint, and accomplishes Satan’s destabilizing purpose. If you
correct that young girl who got pregnant, every teenager feels as if
they have to walk through a "metal detector," as the whole church
questions whether they're the next one to fall. In response many young
people simply rebel. This is the annihilation that the enemy is trying
to foster to make more sheep of the flock vulnerable to his terrorism.
I knew I could not deal with this young girl's sin publicly, but
rather privately, so that the healing would be as expedient as possible.
But the question still lingered, "How do I fight Satan’s terrorism
against the body of Christ?" The Lord brought to my mind the words of
Sun Tzu... "When you are stronger than the enemy, strike him at his
head." Didn't Jesus use similar words, "You can not take the house of a
strongman unless you first bind the strongman"?
President Reagan, from what I have heard, has also read Sun Tzu's book,
"The Art of War," and used it to develop his anti-terrorism policy. No
wonder he didn't send CIA agents all over the globe hunting for the
little terrorists peons. Instead, a squadron of American avenger war
planes flew from southern England to Tripoli, Libya. In the cover of
night, America dropped bombs in Katafy's capital city and even on his
own house! Suddenly, a welcomed silence prevaded the world of political
terrorists. The way to kill terrorism is to strike at its root. Cutting
branches will never kill the tree!
The root of sexual sin in San Francisco comes from a street called
"Broadway", where there are dozens of striptease joints and sex shops.
I decided this is where I would conduct spiritual warfare. I began at
4:00 A.M. (Jesus said, "Don't pray in public on the street corner to be
seen of men"), walking through this neighborhood while binding the
spirit of perversion. To my amazement, I suddenly began facing
temptation. I thought, "This is impossible. I'm a pastor. Now, I'm down
here being tempted." Important lesson of spiritual warfare, "Don't fight
alone!" So I continued my intercession back in the church prayer-room
every morning, and asked God to bring those to join me to fight this
battle. After six months of early morning solo prayer, some brothers saw
my car leaving as usual at 4:00 A.M., followed me, and asked if they
could join in prayer warfare. In a few weeks more than 25 men committed
themselves to intercession against the prince of San Francisco.
As we prayed it seemed like the situation got worse. San Francisco
Supervisors placed a bill on the ballot that would make a homosexual
marriage legal, and also financially beneficial. This only caused our
local church to step up its prayerful assault. On Monday, October 10,
1989, I called our 6:00 A.M. prayer assembly (a separate prayer meeting
held every morning) to meet downtown by the Bay Bridge, and there a 150
prayer warriors asked God to "shake our city unto righteousness." One
week later God shook San Francisco with the October 17th, earthquake.
The Bay Bridge collapsed, and the Embarcadero freeway that feeds traffic
to the Broadway district was damaged beyond repair. It cannot open until
1995, if at all! A few weeks later in the November 7th election, the gay
rights bill was soundly defeated. The striptease joints on Broadway soon
began going bankrupt, and of this writing only four establishments are
left open, with a total of 14 closures. To top things off, the private
secretary to the owner of those last four was just saved in our church!
I have discovered two main reasons why pastors don't depend upon
spiritual warfare to fend off Satan from their flock. The first is, the
cause and effect is hard to identify. If we could pinpoint the fact that
a certain amount of prayer got an equal and consistent amount of answer,
it would set better in our calculating western minds. Since prayer
enters into the realm of faith, our calculations are blurred by a lack
of passion. Secondly, prayer warfare does not contain the normal
customary ego massagers that most pastors are accustomed to receiving
after they "fight the devil." For example, "My, Pastor, that was a great
sermon, you really got the devil that time" (when in truth you probably
helped Satan by wounding one of your own sheep).
To test this concept of spiritual warfare, and it's ability to affect
results on its own, I took 55 prayer warriors to Guadalajara, Mexico,
during the month of July, 1990. We spent one week in warfare starting at
4:00 A.M., praying against the strongman of idol worship in this city.
We did not do the customary -months ahead crusade preparation
whoopeedoo," for we were not planning on holding a large meeting at all.
Hardly anyone knew we were even coming to the city.
Early Monday morning our warfare began as we stood in front of the
city's Central Cathedral and commanded for the strongman of false
religion to be bound. Unbeknownst to us, that day was the beginning of
the festival of the Virgin of Zapopa where they take their sacred idol
of Mary through the streets and poor souls crawl on their knees, some
for miles, to pay homage. In the middle of their procession, God opened
the heavens with thundering and lightening. It rained so hard that the
march and "mass" had to be called off. Tuesday, as the parade begin, in
the sight of thousands of onlookers, the virgin of Zapopa fell from off
her perch and crashed on the street below in an irreparable mess.
Thousands of devotees began to question the virgin's power over their
life, as she couldn't even keep herself on a cart. The strongman was
being broken.
Spirit-filled pastors around the city asked "what's happening?" They
soon found out there was a group of Americans downtown binding Satan’s
powers. By Saturday over 800 pastors and lay people gathered for prayer
warfare. Sunday, with our work completed, we flew back home, but left an
inspired church behind.
We have all said it is time for a new generation to arise that is not
just trying to establish a mailing list. Why not let it be us? Instead
of going to a city to try to pull off a megabuck event, do something for
local churches that's free. Pray!
I know one little teenage girl who's glad her pastor did.
(The original source and/or publisher of the above material is unknown.)
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