THE LORD’S SUPPER: A WEAPON OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE

By James Wilson, Coordinator

PrayNorthstate

Nearly twenty years ago the woman entered my office to say that she needed serious inner healing. She claimed that Jesus told her, “There is healing in the Eucharist,” and that my church offered Holy Communion every Sunday. The woman remained to worship with us for several Sundays, seeking healing prayer during the week. When the Lord had completely healed her heart He also healed her knee – which had been scheduled for arthroscopic surgery – and she returned to the church from which she had come.

More recently a friend called to say that satanic ritualists were performing their revolting rites less than one hundred yards from her home – on a weekly basis. She and her husband own property in common with other families in their neighborhood and this stuff was taking place on the commonly owned land. In addition to the crawly feeling of knowing what was happening just beyond their windows was the knowledge that traffic accidents just outside of their neighborhood had increased exponentially as the spiritual atmosphere darkened over the roadway. We agreed to meet on-site with a small group of intercessors and wage spiritual warfare as Paul commends in 2 Corinthians 10.

On the agreed-upon afternoon we went to war. We walked the land, praying for those who lived on it and for those who were defiling it. We repented – of any sin that might give legalistic legitimacy for the enemy’s activities – and we exercised the authority of the Body of Christ to forgive. We completed our time by celebrating the supper of the Lord on the very stone slab that the satanists had used for their altar; we poured out onto the land the remaining bread and wine after we had eaten and drunk the sacred meal. The fruit was as pragmatic as it was spiritual. In three months the satanists have not returned to the land and the traffic accidents have disappeared from the road that passes the community.

The weapons of our warfare are not named in 2 Corinthians – they are simply accorded the unlimited authority and power of argumentation for the destruction of demonic strongholds – but Jesus gives three weapons of such potency. Blessing is the first – Romans 12:14 commands us to bless and curse not while Matthew 5 calls us to bless those who persecute us: blessing is the perennial remedy to persecution. In Luke 10:1-9 Jesus calls on the apostles to bless the people in the towns they visit as the first order of a business that ends in witnessing to the faith that is in them. The authority and commission to bless is without limitation.

The second of our weapons is forgiveness and this too is simply and clearly found as unlimited authority and binding commission in John 21 and Matthew 16 and 18. In John Jesus simply says that those sins the apostles forgive stand forgiven and those they retain are likewise set into stone – around the necks of the apostles. In Matthew He declares that what we set free in His Name on earth is likewise loosed in Heaven and that forgiveness is a way of life for the Christian. Recognizing these first two weapons is not a stretch – although it may come as a surprise. But Holy Communion is more difficult to recognize as a weapon, even though Scripture is shot through with illustrations of this reality.

In the Old Testament the Israelites are commanded by God to eat the Passover before going out to invest Jericho. Gideon worships outside the camp of his enemies before he goes to report the Lord’s promise to the waiting army. The famous verses of Psalm 23 declare that God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Elijah prepares a burnt offering in the very heart of his critical confrontation with the forces of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Are these worship-through-holy-feasting activities preliminary to the real business of war or are they among the most potent weapons in the arsenal of the people of God? We know that God does nothing as a mere decorative item.

We also know that the principal effect of spiritual warfare is to modify the atmosphere over the place of battle in such a way that God has readier access to it – this is clearly the impact of Daniel’s twenty-one day prayer effort prior to the arrival of Archangel Michael. Moving to the New Testament, we recognize that Communion comes as fulfillment of the Passover meal and sacrifice – an activity initiated to coordinate the militant travel plans of the people with the militant liberation plans of the angel of the Lord. But God presents it in a specifically militant frame of reference more than once.

In the triumvirate of events recounted in Matthew 16 and Luke 9 we find the feeding of the five thousand – long considered by scholars to be a type of the Lord’s Supper – directly preceding the journey to Caesarea Philippi. At Caesarea Jesus takes the Twelve to a wall that is the very heart of paganism in Palestine and there asks the famous question, “Who do men say that I am…(and) who do you say that I am?” Peter’s famous confession – the most militant words ever spoken up to that moment – is set up by the sacred meal as the confession itself paves the road for the Transfiguration that immediately follows it.

Jesus prepares the atmosphere around His people for the greatest battle ever fought on earth – His own crucifixion and subsequent resurrection – with the sharing of His Body and Blood in Matthew 26:17-35, Mark 14:12-31, and Luke 22: 7-22. But the most explicit expression of the communion as an act of spiritual warfare comes in 1 Corinthians 10 when Paul asks, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body for we all partake of the one loaf.”

It is a Christian truism that we gain victory over sin and death through the blood of the Lamb and the strength of our testimony. In the Supper of the Lord His blood and our testimony are mingled as we declare His death, resurrection, and return in glory as we confront a defeated demonic enemy of life. And by the fruit of reduced traffic accidents and satanic absence we come to know what our Lord is about in our midst as we “do this in remembrance” of Him. The power to demolish strongholds that is unleashed in this simple act is unimaginable; yet the apostles understood it well enough to exercise this event every chance they got.

It would be a horrific perversion of all that we know and believe in Christ Jesus to imagine that the communion event is a nothing more than a means to an end – something of God that we utilize for reasons and purposes that seem good to us. Every act of worship is an end in itself. All that we dedicate to the glory of God is for that purpose alone. Yet we recognize that worship is itself warfare – that is why Jericho fell to the sound of the trumpet and kings sent the choir out ahead of their armies when Jerusalem was threatened. If God is enthroned on our praises then the enemy is unseated when we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving as Jesus commanded us to do.

It would be just as wrong to imagine that one denomination or stream had some sort of monopoly on the offering of communion to the Body. Scripture offers no prescription for the correct way of observing this feast of feasts, and no analysis of how He becomes present so long as we commit to His recognition (1 Corinthian 11:29) in it. I do believe that whatever we do must be more on the side of fine dining than that of fast food, but the Lord clearly gives great latitude in how we set the table. I know that He gets glory each time we eat and drink in His Name – and the demons tremble – as the people of God march to a war that is already won.

Some weeks back we were asked to come and pray with a man who had suffered a stroke. The Lord had promised to heal him over time and his caregivers believed that the next healing stage involved the adjustment of his blood circulation – which was so poor that he required constant heat in his bedroom. He was also afflicted with epileptic seizures that seemed to be triggered by the invocation of the Blood of Jesus in words. We laid hands on the man and prayed – binding the spirit of infirmity as we declared the Blood over him ourselves and asked God to heal him completely. Then we celebrated communion with the man and his caregivers. Since that day there have been no seizures and the man’s blood circulation is so good that he now requires a fan going all of the time to cool him.

Do we worship the communion – or any other rite or ceremony or procedure? Certainly not! We worship the Lord our God and Him alone. But that means we strive to obey Him – especially when He says, “Do this for the remembrance of me.”

PrayNorthstate can be reached at 530-941-3470, or at praynorthstate@charter.net