Why Combine History and Prayer

 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:11.

When I started this blog I just…started. Just jumped in with only a general idea of the scope and sequence. I do believe I was Spirit-led, however. The blog quickly settled into looking into the history of each county in Oregon, with a few ad hoc posts on other topics (like this one) thrown in when appropriate.

This blog, Standing in the Gap for Oregon, will be three years old on April 10, 2020. To date, there are 120 posts and they have been viewed 9,687 times. Not a runaway success as such things are judged, but we weren’t going for that anyway. Our target audience is those with a heart and a calling to pray for the state of Oregon - a smaller group, at least at first. I do believe the interest and burden to pray for our state is growing, though.

The question arises, why pray over the history of an area? Is this a Biblical concept? What are we searching for, and what does it mean when we find it?

I had never put a name to what we were doing with our research-and-prayer combo, just went forward with what I knew from years of studying prayer and intercession. But there is a name: spiritual mapping, or (my preferred term) spiritual profiling. Those who spiritually profile an area research and discover events or situations that affect the spiritual climate over a town, city, region. They speak of spiritual strongholds, of “territorial spirits,” and seek to identify the methods and strategies employed by the spirits of darkness to influence and hinder people and churches in the area. One Biblical support is II Corinthians 4:3-4, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. We are seeking to discover the strategies of the god of this world, remove them, and allow the gospel of Christ to shine through.

The concept of spiritual strongholds is found in II Corinthians 10:3-4, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

And a hierarchy of evil spirits is found in many places in the Bible, including Ephesians 6:12, 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.

The idea of territorial spirits, or rulers over certain geographical areas, is found in Daniel 10 where the angel Gabriel appears in answer to Daniel’s prayers and tells him, in verse 13, But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.

The context here makes it clear these were not natural, human rulers over the region of Persia, but part of the ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Also in Mark 5:10 the demons Jesus cast out begged him to not send them “out of the area.”

Identificational repentance is the term used in the spiritual profiling literature to describe standing in the place of, and repenting for, the sins of our forefathers. The basis for that is found in the prayer of Daniel in Daniel 9. We wrote about this earlier.

Several other concepts come into play as well, including “binding and loosing,” (Matthew 18:18) and the concept of ‘spiritual warfare’ and putting on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-18)

In short, the purpose behind the study of the history of a region or city is to discover the enemy’s strategy and defeat it: pull down the stronghold and allow the light of the Gospel to come into an area. It sets about to determine the answer to the question: Why does spiritual darkness linger where it does?

For more information I would recommend Taking Our Cities for God by John Dawson.

Along these lines, my daughter has recently unearthed some very early history on the settlers and the indigenous tribes in Oregon. You can read her blog post here, which has a link to her YouTube video on The Battle of the Abiqua.

We seek, in spiritual profiling, to not only do the mental work of research, but to be led by the Holy Spirit, to stay sensitive to His direction. The third challenge is to understand the meaning or significance of what we find, and when a historical footnote is just that - a footnote. Prayers are appreciated as we seek to discern where the Lord is leading, what He is revealing in our history, and what, exactly, we are to do about it.

Blessings, and thanks to my readers for your faithfulness over the last three years.