C. Peter Wagner - Breaking Spiritual Strongholds in Your City

DESTINY IMAGE BOOKS BY C. PETER WAGNER

Lets Laugh

Warfare Prayer

Praying with Power

Spiritual Warfare Strategy

Territorial Spirits

Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare

Reformers Pledge (contributor)

Prayer Changes Things (contributor)

Copyright 2015C. Peter Wagner

All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some publishers styles.

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LOVINGLY DEDICATED
TO BECKY WAGNER

I t is said that in the Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein would fire Scud missiles and then turn on CNN to find out where they hit. In turn, the allies came back with smart bombs, which pinpointed exactly the smokestacks or windows they were supposed to strike. I believe it is time Christian people begin smart-bomb praying.

This book uncovers the wiles of the devil and exposes the prayer targets that will force the enemy to release millions of unsaved souls now held captive. I am excited that God has given us a marvelous new tool for effective spiritual warfare!

C. PETER WAGNER

T his 2015 edition of Breaking Spiritual Strongholds in Your City is a very important component of a new season. The first edition was released in 1993, 22 years ago, and a great deal has happened over those 22 years. If you have picked this book up, you are undoubtedly interested in what the authors are saying about spiritual mapping, but you owe it to yourself first to be sure that you understand the historical context of each edition. Simply put, you will get more out of the rest of the book if you read this introduction first.

Arguably, the decade of the 1990s was the high point of spiritual warfare in terms of intensity, of focus, of intentionality, of involvement across various segments of the body of Christ, and of worldwide scope than any other decade in history. The measureable results were amazing. This is not the place for a detailed account, but it would be good to mention that the number of known unreached peoples in 1990 was 1,739, but by 2000 it had been reduced to less than five hundred. China was growing, but the growth accelerated exponentially, and China can boast of the greatest national harvest of souls in one generation than anything else in recent history. Northern India, known as the graveyard of missionaries, has opened up so much that it is currently one of the hottest areas in the world for planting of new churches.

For a number of reasons the general interest in spiritual warfare has declined over the past 15 years or so. However, it is now picking up once again, and this is part of the new season that I have mentioned.

The Holy Spirit has gently been preparing the body of Christ for what is shaping up to be the most glorious time for the advance of the Kingdom of God in all of history, including, by the way, the first century! Many of the things that the Spirit is saying to the churches (see Rev. 2:7) are new to those of us in this generation, and they are things that require some serious paradigm shifts. I do not want to extend this introduction by attempting to list them all, but I do feel that it is important for readers of this book to be aware of two of them in particular, namely 1) the dominion mandate and 2) apostolic government.

When this book was first released in 1993, it was part of the A.D. 2000 Movementmore specifically, part of its United Prayer Track. The slogan was, A church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000. Look closely at the slogan. You will see that it is focused on individuals and on churches. The idea is that the gospel will be preached so that as many individuals in as many people groups (preferably unreached people groups) as possible will be saved and gathered into churches. Is this biblical? Of course it is. Marks last quote from Jesus Himself is, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:15-16).

This form of the Great Commission was front and center in the minds of all the authors who wrote chapters in Breaking Strongholds in Your City. At that time we advocated that spiritual mapping was a valuable tool to help target our intercession, particularly our warfare intercession, so that Gods glory could be freely loosed and that more souls would be saved.

Now, in 2015, the Holy Spirit has brought those of us in our stream of Christianity one step beyond what I have just described. We are more aware of the Kingdom of God than we used to be. The church is vitally important, but the kingdom of God is not confined to the four walls of the churchit is much bigger. When we think of it, Jesus never sent out His disciples to preach the gospel of the church. In fact, He never sent them out to preach the gospel of salvation. He always sent them out to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. I know that this sounds odd at first, until you realize that the Kingdom includes the church and it includes salvation. We need to keep preaching salvation and gathering saved souls into churches, but there is even more that we have been learning.

Try comparing Mark with Matthew. By this I mean Marks choice of Jesus Great Commission and Matthews choice of Jesus Great Commission. I already quoted Mark who tells us to preach the gospel to every creature. It is