“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
We have to understand that we really do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Many times it so happens that we fight those individuals that are around us, but we have to realize that our battles are in the spiritual realm. One of the things mentioned in the verse quoted above is “against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” The word that Paul used in this particular place for “rulers” is the Greek word “cosmocratoros.” “Cosmos” means the “world” and “crateo” means to “use strength.” That is why he said “against the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
I don’t know if you have ever met any of the rulers of the darkness. I have met some of them. This particular man I want to tell you about was a man that would speak a word and turn the car over. He was very powerful. When people had their problems with other people, they would go to him and pay him to kill them or do to them whatever was to be done. This man was very boastful in his abilities. You would come to him and he would say, “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t tell me who you are.” And he would proceed to say, “You are so and so. You are from such and such a place. Your house in such and such a city is situated on such and such a street and at such and such a number,” and he would go on to describe every detail about your house. Then he would add, “And I know that So-and-So did so-and-so to you. Do you want me to kill him?”
In this one case I am thinking of, there was a little church up the hill and the man who lived in the church had his pimiento dried and ready for the market. Pimento is a very strong spice. It has little grains like black pepper and is very valuable. A sack of pimento values quite a lot of money because it is a rare spice. So, the man had his pimento ready to sell and it suddenly disappeared. He ran down to this ruler of the darkness and wanted to tell him. When he got to him, the man said, “Don’t tell me anything.” He wanted to open his mouth, but was commanded, “Be quiet. Your name is So-and-So. You are here, because you lost your bag of pimento and you want to know who took it. I will tell you who he was. It was your son. Do you want me to hurt him?” He said, “No, don’t hurt him, just let me get it back.” He replied, “Well, he has already used up part of it, but you can get what is left. It is about 2/3.” He agreed and pushed his hand in his pocket, “How much do I owe you?” He replied, “No, no, don’t pay me now. You don’t have enough money in your pocket to pay me. Go home, look at the back of your house on the wall and you will see your bag of pimento. Take it to the shop right above your home and sell it. When you sell it, you will get this amount of money for it. I want you to put £8 (it was the days of British pounds in Jamaica) on your table for me and I will come for it.”
Some of you would say, “Oh boy! That is a mighty man of God! He prophesied right down to the details.” No! The man had demons working with him! They would tell him everything before you even got to him. They would tell him they were leading you there and so he would know everything about you. We are talking about powers!
The next thing that happened was that the man came up to the church where he lived and found his bag of pimento on the wall. Can any of you think of how that bag got onto the wall? His son stole it, yet it was on the wall. Let me tell you – it was the spirit work. The sorcerer sent his spirits and either commanded the son to “put it on the wall or you’re dead,” or the spirits themselves took it and put it there. I am now telling you of things that you don’t understand are going on around you! These powers are exercising their powers around you. After he took the pimento and sold it, he told us, as we were there, what happened. He put the money on his table and went to bed. When he got up, the money was gone. If he had not put that money there, he would have been a goner. These are the spirits that are working in our midst!
The spirits this particular sorcerer worked with had never been conquered, they had never been stopped. He did anything he wanted. He was so boastful that he would come and say, “You know, I killed So-and-So.” He would then go to the man’s funeral and say, “Well, I killed him, but I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was such a good man.”
However, there came a time when this sorcerer challenged God. How did he do it? He touched a Christian. One night we were having our meeting in a house by the roadside and the door was wide open. I was there preaching. Suddenly, a car drove up outside. Two men came out with something like a sack in their hands. When they entered in, they deposited the sack right before me while I was preaching. It was a sister in the Lord tied up with rope from her head down to her feet. I said to them, “Loose her!” The men took one look at me and ran off through the door. (It had taken several men to tie the woman up and bring her to me.) I, therefore, bent down and started to pull the rope from her feet coming up on to her shoulders, took it off, threw it to the ground, and said, “In the Name of Jesus, you are healed.” The sister, as if she woke up, looked around the congregation and said, “Thank you, Brother duCille.” She picked up her rope and went home.
There were many things like this happening. I saw five other mad people the same thing happened to. Each of them had a different set of circumstances, but suffered the same thing. So, one day, the Lord said to me, “Go down to the stable.” I left my office and told others I was taking a break. I walked down to the stable and saw this sorcerer. He looked at me and said, “Ha! I see! I see!” and started walking backwards. Anytime you see a person walking backwards, be assured he is of the devil. Also, if you have a dream in which you see somebody walking backwards, he is a servant of the devil. They walk and run backwards. I don’t know why they do it, but they do. This man started walking backwards and confessing, “I see, I see. Everything that I put, you pull.” I realized that in my working for God I was pulling demons and driving them back to him, yet I didn’t know it. I was just rebuking the spirits that bound the people and setting them free.
This great sorcerer, among others, had touched Christians. You may wonder, if the weapons of our warfare are so mighty (2 Corinthians 10:4), how could this man be mightier than a whole church of Christians? We have to understand that God has given us different weapons of warfare and different men handle different weapons. If tanks are coming against you, you don’t grab your rifle and shoot the tanks. You had better get out of the way and get somebody who handles a heavier thing, for example a bazooka, to hit those tanks. This is the reason why God is telling us the secrets of how to get our guns to be bigger and how to fight the warfare He is preparing for us.
Therefore, brethren, let us be aware that there are a lot of things happening in the spiritual realm even though we cannot see them. Let us stop fighting in the natural, but let us start using our spiritual weapons and set the captives free.
Sonlight Devotional 