I received an email this week from a pastor friend and thought I would share part of it with you. Pastor Andy Anquoe, from FBC Sperry wrote...

                "I don’t know if you’ve heard but this Sunday, September 21 at 9 PM in the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall, there will be a satanic black mass held. Some satanic followers from New York have legally rented the venue & will perform this ritual to a sold out audience. Thus far, nothing has been able to stop this event legally because it is in essence a free speech issue. But during this black mass, it will mock a traditional catholic mass, desecrate the Lord’s Supper, and the devil will be summoned. Messing with the spiritual realm is a very scary thing.

                A new church plant, OKC Community Church, will meet in the same building, as it does every Sunday morning, before the mass happens that night. OKC Community Church has prayerfully decided to respond in love in order to try to be salt and light to the Satanists instead of responding in anger and fear. Catholic churches in the area are holding prayer vigils during the event also.

                Mark my words, more incidents like this will happen as our culture moves farther away from God. This is the world that we live in now. It will get worse. Yet somehow, someway, we must learn to effectively minister & engage people in the midst of it for the sake of the gospel.

                What can we do to counteract such things when they happen? Prayer is first and best place to start. As we pray we must:

·         Rely on God’s Power – We have no means within ourselves to win this battle for it is a spiritual battle. That’s why we must turn to God. Let us remember that we’re not fighting against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12) and the battle is the Lord’s (2 Chron. 20:15).

·         Rebuke in Jesus’ name – If Heaven’s mightiest angel, Gabriel, rebuked the devil in the Lord’s name (Jude 9), we must do the very same thing.

·         Recite God’s Word in prayer – Every attack that the devil brought against Jesus in His temptation was thwarted by Jesus’ use of Scripture. God’s Word is powerful! That’s why we must use it as a double edged sword (Heb. 4:12). It’s our major offensive weapon.

·         Retrieve our Spiritual armor – God has given us all the armor we need to engage in Spiritual battles (Eph. 6:10-18). We just need to put it and keep it on every day.

·         Remember the devil’s fate – No matter what the devil may do, he will be defeated and cast down into the fiery pit one day (Rev. 20:10).

                A similar event was abruptly cancelled at Harvard earlier this year as local area churches got together and prayed. Maybe the very same thing will happen here. If there was ever a time our great state needed us to pray, it is now."