When the Roman General, Titus, laid siege to Jerusalem in 70 a.d., and brought Jewish nationalism to crushing defeat, one of the principle weapons he used against the city was a gigantic battering-ram named Nico. In a very real sense, the title Nico was prophetic and still speaks to the church today. It means "Conqueror". Ancient battering-rams such as this one were immense wooden platforms, overlaid with iron plates, supporting a huge log which hung horizontally by chains. Squadrons of men holding onto ropes below swung the huge log back and forth. As the ram slammed against the wall and bounced back, the men maintained a rhythm much like the pendulum of a clock.
While there are many other factors which worked together for Titus' ruinous defeat of Jerusalem, one of them very definitely was that his soldiers worked rhythmically with each other. There was no tolerance for disharmony in the ranks of Roman Legions. Identically so today, most of the failure in the current church is traceable directly to our fool-heartedly pulling on God's rope according to our denominational ambitions and not according to the rhythm of the Holy Spirit. A town with ten churches usually has ten competitors pulling in opposite directions from the others. As a result, nothing is accomplished in the real task of breaking through the devil's defenses and converting the town. I share these principles because I absolutely believe they are essential before the church can move effectively into spiritual warfare and deliverance ministry. Nico is the same word used in the Greek text of Revelation 2:15, where Jesus speaks to the church in Pergamos of His hatred for the "doctrine of the Nicolaitans". "Nicolaitan" is a combination of the words, nico, i.e., "conqueror", and laos, meaning "laity". The message of these combined words is obvious. In the only instance where Jesus is described as hating something, it is used here. He hates whatever enslaves the saints.
Today, we are in the confluence of end-time prophecies and are racing headlong toward all-out spiritual war. The streets of our nation, as well as other parts of the world, are crammed with demonized people and Satan is recruiting more by the hour. They are a virtual army within our borders and are waiting for the signal from their Commander, the prince of darkness, to explode in unprecedented violence. Few of these unfortunate souls have any realization of the evil potential within themselves. The Church, as the Body of Christ, is the only one who will have either the explanation or the power to deal with the crisis. Policemen, jails, psychiatric lock-up wards, will not be able to cope with it.
In the ministry of deliverance, using God's "battering-ram" of the Holy Spirit, I have worked in a one-on-one office setting to over one thousand hurting people. The overwhelming majority were set free. Many were pastors, priests, doctors, attorneys, and other professional people. Some were vexed by drug addiction, homosexuality, prostitution, alcoholism, suicide, pornography, perversion, night-mares, child-beating, blasphemy, witchcraft, cruelty, satanism, disease, pain, fear, and the whole catalogue of the devil's work. That thousand-plus figure does not include those in public church services where the Holy Spirit has felled hundreds at the time.
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