When Jan and I lived in Billings, Montana, our home bordered an irrigation ditch. I would hike along the ditch several times a week. One day, I felt impressed to veer off the path to look around. As I walked through the sagebrush, I came upon something unusual. I saw the remains of what appeared to be a cultic ceremony. Stones were placed in a circle. At the center of the rocks was a dead cat whose entrails were spread around inside the circle. 

Someone from our nice middle-class neighborhood had performed an evil ceremony. It reminded me once again that no matter how proper something might appear, evil still walks among us. The presence of such evil is dismissed by those who have no place for the supernatural in their theology. In their modern interpretation of spiritual reality entertaining such a possibility is considered superstition or religious ignorance. 

Standing beside the sacrifice, I took authority over what had been committed during their ceremony.  I broke vows and curses made as the cat was being sacrificed. I was standing in the middle of a real-time spiritual battle.

I did what John wrote about, “The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8). I was not limited by the disbelief that exists in some parts of the Church that look at such prayers as religious fanaticism. 

My prayers were the kind of spiritual warfare that Paul addressed that has the power to destroy a plan of evil, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

The Lord will take some of us to places where He will show us evidence of the enemy’s plans revealing the presence of unexpected evil among us. As I did the day of my hike when I was led off a well-traveled path into the sagebrush, the Lord will take us off our religious path to see things not seen when we continue to walk along a familiar and comfortable path. When we make discoveries of evil, our task is to fight “against mighty powers in this dark world” and to destroy its connection with “evil spirits in the heavenly places.” 

My prayers of disconnection between those two realms had an impact against the works of hell planned for Billings, Montana– something all believers should be willing to consider.