Last month I wrote about our nation’s blindness regarding gender dysphoria. We’ve jumped on the bandwagon of treating confused teens with puberty blockers and hormone treatments even though Finland, Sweden, and England have banned such practices. Money and raging ideologies are two blinding influences
.The third reason I gave for the blindness was the evil influence of invisible forces. Even Colin Wright, an unabashed atheist, is perplexed by what he has experienced.
Today I want to go a bit more down that road.
Most of you who subscribe are Christians. It is not hard to sell you on the reality of spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly realms and how they influence the cultural chaos crippling our kids. Daniel certainly had more than a glimpse of this reality. Paul wrote very specifically on this as well to the spiritually oppressed of Ephesus.
There’s a fascinating book making the rounds called The Return of the Gods by Jonathan Cahn. I would not call it a “must read,” but it is definitely interesting. Looking into the shadows behind our nation’s current events, he draws parallels between the cultural trends and events of the last fifty years, and the influence of the pagan gods Baal, Ashtoreth, and Molech in Old Testament (OT) times.
Calling them the Dark Trinity, he ties our nation’s deep dive into power and materialism with the work of Baal. The rising flood of sexual filth reflects the work of Ashtoreth in the OT, who was always just a step behind Baal. The third member of the trinity is Molech, the god who demanded child sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom and elsewhere, seen at work today in the millions of children destroyed in the abortion clinics.
These gods were found in other ancient civilizations, sometimes with similar names. In Babylon the goddess Ishtar represented sexually immoral practices. In her temples were not only male prostitutes, but feminized men.
Now before some of you groan, “OH PLEEEZE! Gimme a break!” hear me out. I write all of this as a call to action for proper prayer.
For some, proper prayer would mean shouting into the heavens something like, “I bind you, Baal and Ashtoreth, in the name of Jesus!” Such prayer has no precedent in scripture. We are never instructed to bind territorial spirits. While some believe such prayers have made a difference in their cities, others have found it to unleash demonic manifestations.
Leanne Payne, the great pioneer in the practice of inner healing prayer for the sexually broken, is a trustworthy guide in these matters. In two of her books, she has written extensively about warfare prayer for institutions which have become greatly deceived and highly demonized. (See chapters 11-15 of Restoring the Christian Soul and chapter 14 of The Healing Presence.) She spent significant time in prayer, simply asking God how to pray about such matters. He guided her to pray for the people involved, that their eyes would be opened to the evil influences behind the phenomena. She and her colleagues began to call this the “paint-the-dragon-red” prayer
.As I’ve counseled people caught up in sexual perversion or have read the stories of those brought out of the throes of sexual excess, there often comes a moment when the curtain is pulled back to reveal the demonic puppeteers pulling the strings. Once their eyes are opened, they quite naturally seek help to be set free.
And so rather than naming gods and goddesses and binding them with prayers, pray for the people. Intercede. Call upon God to open their eyes.
Certainly we can pray this on a national scale. Pray for legislators to have their eyes opened. Pray that the Dragon would be painted red for school administrators.
But especially focus prayer on the people that you know personally: family members, teens in your church, teachers in your school.
Yes, it is absolutely fascinating to speculate and imagine what is going on in the heavenly realms, and to conjure up images of how these powers might be influencing the movers and shakers of our country.
But let us pray for the movers and shakers themselves—for their eyes to be opened to the dark spiritual realities influencing their decisions.
I confess my own failure to pray in this way. Even while I write these blog articles, I’ve been vexed by all that is going on around us. But from this point onward, God enabling me, I will pray, pray, and pray for red paint to splash all over the forces that are destroying the people of our nation and world.