The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.
—2 Corinthians 10:4 NKJV
NIGHT, Combined Arms Live Fire Range, Grafenwoehr Training Area, Grafenwöhr, Germany, early 1990s. It is cold as I sit in one of the open hatches of an M1A1 Abrams tank—72 tons of steel with a devastating 120mm smoothbore cannon, bristling with machine guns and a 1,500–horsepower turbine engine. This thing is a beast.
I am witnessing for the first time how much firepower a tank company can bring to a fight. Wow. As the tanks let go with the tremendous roar of 120mm rounds, two Apache helicopters hover close-by, one on my right and the other on my left, lighting up the sky with folding-fin 2.75–inch aerial rockets.
The combined firepower I am witnessing up close and personal will never leave me. I would not want to be on the receiving end of this barrage.
The U.S. Army has boatloads of weapons, armor, ammunition and ordnance. All those weapons will not win a war, however, without those who operate the equipment. Because the basic weapon in the Army is the soldier. And the soldier’s primary offensive weapon is the rifle, currently the M4 carbine.
Almost every infantry soldier carries one or more weapons into battle. And with that weapon comes the basic load of ammunition—about three hundred rounds. Without his or her primary weapon and basic load, a soldier cannot perform the critical tasks of tactical offense. No warrior ever won a battle without a weapon, even if that weapon is himself or herself.
End-Times Weapons
One of the signs that we are in the end times is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. There are so many new and devastating weapons that we can hardly touch on the subject in this chapter.
The book of Revelation, along with Ezekiel 38–39, tells us that literally billions of people will die before the return of the Lord. Along with many Bible scholars, I believe the following verses depict scenes from the battle of Armageddon:
“In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”
Ezekiel 38:19–23
Look at Revelation 8:7–13 for a parallel version of this event:
The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!”
These verses depict mass destruction on a global scale never seen before, and this is just the beginning of the judgments of God on the earth during the Great Tribulation and before the return of Jesus Christ.
Some weapons that have already been used on our planet, as well as unimaginably destructive ones that have not yet been used, are implicated in the above verses. Such weapons include chemical weapons, biological warfare weapons, hydrogen bombs, fission (atomic) bombs, neutron bombs, toxicological weapons, radiological weapons, pure fusion bombs, boosted fission weapons and many others. Add the artificial intelligence weapons coming online, such as mass drone swarms, and you have a horrifying glimpse of what is coming to planet earth.
“As a practical matter, there are nations in the world that have the ability to decimate,” says my friend retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ken Dahl. “They have the ability to end the existence of millions of people in America’s cities and other countries. Russia could do that. China could do that. Both have a vast number of ‘proven capability’ [weapons of mass destruction] that we would not be able to defend ourselves against.”1
Weapons of Our Warfare
Despite the threat, many Christians today are powerless and weaponless. It seems there is a dearth of powerful warriors of God.
You can attend Christian concerts, seminars, workshops and worship services with the latest worship music, and it will not transform you into the kind of warrior God intends you to be. Second Corinthians 10:4 (NKJV) says: “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” Notice that it says weapons, meaning there is more than one.
Often when we think of spiritual weapons, we recall that God’s Word, the Bible, is our sword, but Scripture tells of many weapons—spiritual weapons that are mighty through God’s strength, not our own. As we learn to tap into the power of the Holy Spirit and use these weapons, we will see examples of supernatural victory in our lives.
Evangelist John Ramirez, a former satanic high priest, says:
God taught me that the weapons of His warfare are indestructible in the spirit realm, and how to use them—how to fight in the devil’s camp, how to uproot, how to cast down, how to break the patterns and cycles of the enemy Take my word for it. The devil’s got nothing on you. You can get back what he has stolen from you and then some, but it’s time to confront. It’s time to be the Church.2
The Full Armor
Back in chapter 6, we identified seven pieces of armor:
Stand therefore, having your waist girded with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace, and above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the fiery arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit always with all kinds of prayer and supplication. To that end be alert with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
Ephesians 6:14–18 MEV
Here are the spiritual weapons in this passage:
Worship
In chapter 9 we discussed another weapon at our disposal. When Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, faced a vast enemy army, he sent worshipers ahead of his own army, who sang and praised God—and the enemy was defeated without a fight. Read the astonishing story in 2 Chronicles 20. True worship, a condition of heart that elevates God above everything else, is a powerful weapon to fight the enemy.
The Name of Jesus
Here is the weapon of the name of Jesus:
God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9–11
The name of Jesus has incredible power. Demons are defenseless before the name of Jesus (see Luke 10:17). Healing occurs in Jesus’ name (see Acts 3:6–8, 16; 4:10). Everything we do and say should be done in Jesus’ name (see Colossians 3:17). Jesus invited and commanded us to pray in His name, and He promised incredible results: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:13).
Your testimony is another highly effective spiritual weapon. Christians during the Tribulation will overcome the forces of darkness “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). When the enemy gets you focused on negative things, remember your testimony—all the miracles God has performed in your life and all the times He has provided for and helped you when it seemed as if you would not make it.
Prayer
An Old Testament story illustrates another powerful weapon of warfare. Joshua, the leader of the Israelite army, was facing the joint forces of five Canaanite kings, when the Lord threw the enemy armies into confusion and they fled from Israel. Even then Joshua was not afraid to employ the weapon of prayer in the battlefield:
Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a human being. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!
Joshua 10:12–14
If you aspire to be an effective end-times weapon of God, make it a practice to pray constantly, because prayer is one of our most powerful spiritual weapons. Often people will turn to everything else except prayer, thinking they don’t want to “bother” God. So we use prayer as a last resort, a 911 emergency call for help, instead of the first thing we do.
This is a form of satanic deception. It is impossible to bother God! That is a lie of Satan, because God is omnipotent and omniscient—infinite in power and possessing unlimited knowledge. Our primary weapon should be speaking to God about everything we do, all the time, not just as a nuclear option in a crisis.
Prayer should not be the last button we push, but the first, and we must use it all the time. The apostle Paul told us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Spiritual warriors know how to acquire and use this power to assault the forces of evil. Prayer is a powerful weapon that should be the first weapon in our inventory, and one we practice constantly. We should always be online with God in prayer.
Spiritual Firepower
On my first Blackhawk helicopter mission out of Fort Ord, California, I was in the back of the bird on a headset with the pilots in the cockpit. They decided to fly to Monterey Bay, where we saw anchored below us the USS Missouri, one of the Navy’s last and largest battleships. It was there to celebrate the Navy’s Fleet Week.
I was mesmerized by the size and weaponry of this ship. Suddenly I noticed that some of its gun turrets were tracking us. Those gun turrets were MK 15 Phalanx CIWS, a close-in weapon system for defense against airborne threats such as anti-ship missiles and helicopters (yes, Blackhawks included). That system can spew out a wall of steel from a radar-guided 20-millimeter Vulcan cannon mounted on a swiveling base at a rate of 4,500 rounds a minute.3
I was shocked and spoke quickly to the pilots. “Guys, I think those guns are locked on and following us.”
They had noticed, too, and we were out of there in seconds.
A while later we found out by talking to the ship’s captain that, although the radar was indeed tracking us, no rounds had been loaded into that system while in port. Thank the Lord!
The point is, that ship was always on and ready for war, even at home port. It was tracking all movements around it—on the sea and in the air.
We should be, too!
I have said repeatedly that soldiers need to train as if they are fighting in real combat. The military goes to great lengths to put them into realistic combat scenarios to set the conditions for success in war. It is of no use to possess lethal firepower if you don’t use it.
What does this have to do with you? Everything! In the end times, it does not matter how often you study the Bible, read your daily devotional or even go to church, if you are not putting into practice what you are learning. “Put into practice what you learned from me,” wrote the apostle Paul, “what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies” (Philippians 4:9 MSG).
The first-century Church carried spiritual firepower with them and used it all the time. We must do the same, and even more so during these increasingly perilous times.
As Pastor John Wimber, founder of Vineyard USA, famously asked, “When do we get to do all the stuff?” Wimber had been saved recently and asked a lay leader at a church, “When do we get to do the stuff? You know, the stuff here in the Bible, the stuff Jesus did, like healing the sick, raising the dead, healing the blind—stuff like that.”
He was told that they did not do that anymore.
John replied, “You mean I gave up drugs for that?”4
As end-times events accelerate, we need to do what Jesus did and what Joshua did. Joshua asked the Lord to stop the sun and moon, acted on what God told him to do, and then saw the supernatural unfold before his eyes.
Later the first-century Church practiced the power of God working through them in miraculous ways to change the world. We need to be doing the same things today that our brothers and sisters did thousands of years ago.
MILITARY FIREPOWER PRINCIPLES
BELIEVER’S FIREPOWER PRINCIPLES
STRATEGIC SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
Here are some practical takeaways to help you use God’s firepower in your life: