Chapter 1 You may be down, but Satan is down, too. The one who gets up first will win your city. If you are a city reacher, you are likely no stranger to discouragement. Many in this area of ministry have experienced its force at high tide. You probably have felt, if only for a fleeting moment, the stinging doubts that mercilessly shout at you that you have chased an impossible dream, an unrealistic vision. You have been down, and you may be afraid that you are down for the full count. If this is your situation, then I have good news: There is hope. I have been involved in city-reaching efforts since 1990, when our ministry, Harvest Evangelism, facilitated the first such thrust in the city of Resistencia, Argentina. Our efforts were successful and, in 1994, Regal Books published That None Should Perish, in which I described the biblical principles behind Plan Resistencia. In that book, I also introduced prayer evangelism as a potent vehicle for reaching cities. Soon we found ourselves involved in more than a hundred cities on five continents, facilitating city-reaching thrusts á la Resistencia. Things could not have gone better. People were being saved, lives were being changed, and entire cities were undergoing transformation. Nevertheless, by March 1999 we had become overwhelmed by tremendous challenges, almost to the point of despair. Our team had pioneered new concepts, conquered new territory and facilitated unprecedented breakthroughs in cities around the world; but the intensity of those efforts had taken their toll and had exposed us to spiritual attacks, and I was feeling the pain. In a moment of unhealthy self-pity I began to tell the Lord how badly wounded I was, how much our family and our team had suffered, how brutal the blows had been and how little return we had seen on our investment. The Lord’s reply shocked me: Ed, you should see the other guy! He is the one who looks really bad. You’re on the winning team! If you think you look pathetic, just imagine how awful the loser must look. (Taken from Prayer Evangelism by Ed Silvoso) Just then, a scene from the movie Rocky II came to my mind. It happens toward the end of the climactic title fight. Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed have slugged it out to the point of total exhaustion. Both of them are down, lying on the canvas, and the referee has begun the count. Rocky’s manager, crusty old Mickey, is frantically shouting in Rocky’s dull ears, “Get up, you bum. Get uuuup!” He keeps on screaming until Rocky, in obvious pain and with great difficulty, begins to pull himself up while the count continues. Under Mickey’s unrelenting verbal shoving, Rocky keeps riding waves of exhaustion on a raging sea of suffering. And when the referee cries, “. . . 9 . . . 10. You’re out!” Rocky is the one standing over the downed Apollo. Our hero stands for only a few moments, but he is on his feet long enough to be declared the winner and new champion. As I reflected on this dramatic scene, I sensed the Lord saying to me, Get up and claim the prize! You are down but so is the devil. He does not want you to know it, but he is totally spent This experience enabled me to understand a powerful dynamic concerning trials: Trials require two fiercely opposing parties for its painful pressure to develop. Pressure, like a pincer, needs two anchor points to operate. We are one of the points; the devil is the other one. However, in the midst of these frays, we tend to focus exclusively on the damage done to us or to our loved ones. We seldom, if ever, realize what the trial has done to the opposition. Consider the way most Christians process Job’s tribulation. We concentrate almost exclusively on what Job lost and how much he suffered, and we fail to see the main point in this epic drama: The devil lost big to a mere human being. Satan ended up discredited and humiliated before his own demons. What the devil values the most, his pride, lay shattered at Job’s feet. Take heart that even though we suffer, we always end up stronger than the devil. This is also true with regard to where we find ourselves today in the city-reaching movement after a decade of intense struggle. We have made tremendous strides, and unprecedented breakthroughs have in fact taken place. True, progress has come at a cost. And Satan wants us to focus on our cost so that we will not see what his cost has been! He knows that if we are discouraged and preoccupied with our wounds, we will fail to understand just how close we are to seeing the greatest outpouring ever of God’s Spirit on the cities of this world. The devil’s scheme is to keep us focused on our pain rather than his.
What the Devil Doesn’t Want You to Know
after such a fight. He has no more strength, and this is why he is so bent on keeping you focused on your own wounds. Both of you are down; but the one who gets up and claims the prize wins. Get up, you blessed one!