I am enclosing a rather lengthy document proposing what might turn out to be the most massive prayer journey associated with the 10/40 Window of the decade. Although the vision for doing this is only two months old, I have found incredible affirmation of the idea and strong interest in active participation wherever I have been able to share the ideas as they have been taking shape. I won't repeat what I have written in the document, but these next comments assume that you will have read it.

The spiritual mapping. Operation Queen's Palace should be the best informed prayer journey yet. Some will do the spiritual mapping of Turkey, laying out the different sites for prayer and the ways to target our prayers. Others will do the spiritual mapping of their cities, nations, and regions, concentrating especially on the activities of the Queen of Heaven through her many princesses wearing different disguises. This will be sent in to the spiritual mapping library of the World Prayer Center. Members and friends of the Spiritual Warfare Network should all play an active role in this crucial undertaking over the next two years.

Logistical coordination. The Christian Information Network, coordinator of all the Praying Through the Window events, will coordinate Operation Queen's Palace. They will keep track of which prayer teams are planning to go where when we all get to Turkey, and also they will collate as much of the information as they can on the local, national, and regional intercessory and prophetic acts so that everyone else will know what is happing in your city and in your country, unless there are reasons why what you do should be kept in confidence. If you plan to participate in Operation Queen's Palace, please let CIN know as soon as you can.

Travel plans. Travel to and from Turkey will not be coordinated from any central office, although we hope to have someone in Izmir (formerly Smyrna) keeping track of local accommodations, transportation to the various target sites, bilingual tour guides when necessary, and other arrangements. The use of travel agents will be on a free market basis. Our office will receive and distribute travel proposals from selected travel agents, but the choice will be up to the individuals or teams concerned.

Please send me as much feedback on this extremely important event as you possibly can. I know that God has much to reveal to us through the whole SWN, so let's begin an open flow of information. Meanwhile, I will keep you as well informed as I can.

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Drafted 10-15-97
Revised 11-1-97
International Spiritual Warfare Network
C. Peter Wagner, Coordinator
PO Box 63060
Colorado Springs CO 80962-3060 USA 

Place: Turkey
Date: September 20-30, 1999
Sponsor: International Spiritual Warfare Network
Purpose: To pray the blessing of God on the people of Turkey and other nations of the 10/40 Window and beyond through prophetic intercession at the home base of the Queen of Heaven

Background

As a part of Praying Through the Window III, Doris and I felt led to pray for the Turks. So we took a prayer journey to Turkey in August, timed to meet up with the intercessors on the Reconciliation Walk who are repenting for the sins of the Crusades 900 years ago. I helped commission the first team that left Cologne, Germany on Easter 1996. This was the mid-point in Istanbul, and we hope to be on site for the finale in Jerusalem, July 1999.

Our specific prayer actions for the Turks took place primarily at the temple of Diana of the Ephesians (Acts 19:35) and at the seat of Satan (Rev. 2:13) in Pergamum. While we were still in Istanbul, we had received a fax from our I-1 intercessor, Alice Smith, telling us what she was hearing from God as she had been praying for us. We followed Alice's suggestions, using her fax as a script for our prayers in both places.

Alice went on to quote Rev. 2:17: "To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it." She wrote, "Peter, could it be that the prayers you pray and the contracts of Satan that you break in Pergamum could grant you new revelation (hidden manna) for the next steps in the fulfilling of the great commission?" And also, "Could the Lord be saying that He wants you to trade the meaning of your name (Peter = rock, stone) for a new 'white stone?' Not just any white stone, but a victor's white stone coming from the throne of God engraved with a new name? And this new name (known only to you and God) will help authenticate the new revelation necessary for the church to overcome as well."

I now have the physical white stone from Pergamum in my study. I am not yet sure about the new name. But I do think that the step in fulfilling the great commission(the hidden manna) is Operation Queen's Palace.

Why Ephesus?

The greatest evangelistic harvest throughout the career of the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus. He spent two years there, and during that time the whole province of Asia Minor (Turkey) was evangelized.

Spiritual warfare on all levels was a key to Paul's great success. The ruling spirit over Ephesus and Asia Minor was Diana of the Ephesians, and her temple there was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Reportedly she was the most worshipped deity in the Roman Empire.

According to Acts 19, when Paul went to Ephesus he cast many demons out of individuals and he saw a people movement among magicians. This eroded Diana's authority so much that she began to lose her power and she could no longer keep her territory in darkness. The local idol makers were losing so much business that they started a riot in the huge outdoor theater.

After Paul left, the Apostle John went to Ephesus to finish his career. Among other things, he wrote Revelation at the nearby Island of Patmos where he was exiled for a time. While Paul did not enter Diana's temple for a prayer assault, John did. According to Yale University historian Ramsey MacMullen, John confronted her directly, prayed that she would be served a divine eviction notice, and when he did a portion of the temple collapsed. From then on it was downhill for Diana. Her power diminished and fifty years later very few in the Roman Empire were worshipping her. Meanwhile, Ephesus became the center of world Christianity for the next 200 years.

The Queen of Heaven

While we were in Turkey, Doris and I learned a great deal about the Queen of Heaven. This principality is so powerful and so malicious that, as far as I know, her worshippers are the only ones in the Bible for whom God prohibits prayer. Jeremiah 7:16 says: "Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you." Why? "The women knead their dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven" (Jer. 7:18).

Almost every major prayer initiative that we have held in connection with the Spiritual Warfare Network in different parts of the world has surfaced the Queen of Heaven in one form or another. She has succeeded much too much in spreading her power to keep people from the gospel, perhaps more than any other principality of darkness.

Among other things we learned that she is at the spiritual roots of Islam, in the form of the moon goddess. We heard that Muslim leaders will not allow archaeological digs in Mecca because the connection between the moon goddess and Islam would then be highlighted scientifically, while Islam desires to maintain its public image of monotheism. The symbol of the moon goddess is the crescent moon, which appears on every mosque as well as on the flags of many Muslim nations.

As we prayed for the Turks, we knew that the power of the Queen of Heaven had to be broken in order for the gospel to spread in Turkey. Doris sensed this very strongly when we prayed near the altar of Diana. The evil power is still there, and it is very strong. While there we realized something else for the first time. We had been very familiar with the multi-breasted idol of Diana. But closer examination showed that she wears the crescent, the symbol of the moon goddess, around her neck!

Disguised as the Virgin Mary

When the Apostle John went to Ephesus, he took Mary, the mother of Jesus, with him. While on the cross, Jesus had commended his mother to John (Jn. 19:26-27). In Ephesus, Mary, by then undoubtedly a grandmother, died. An ornate shrine in today's Ephesus marks where she reportedly lived. Daily people kneel in the shrine to worship her idol.

As the center of world Christianity shifted from Ephesus to Rome, Mary began to be exalted, worshipped, and prayed to as a mediator to God. It is not surprising, then, that the Roman Catholic Church would choose Ephesus as the place to convene an ecumenical council in 431 in order to declare officially that Mary is the "Mother of God." This began a steady increase of Mary worship through the centuries and lasting until today. According to the August 1997 Newsweek cover story, for example, over 4 million petitions have been received by the Vatican to declare Mary co-redemptrix with Jesus. If this becomes dogma, all Catholic prayers to Jesus will be expected to go first to Mary. Pope John Paul II is a declared worshipper of Mary and he bows before her and prays to her as a mediator. Her idols have proliferated more around the world than Diana's ever had.

Mary is a skillful adaptive deception of the Queen of Heaven. Since Diana became worthless after the spiritual warfare of Paul and John, the Queen of Heaven needed another disguise. When I suggested this to Hector Torres after returning from Turkey, he said, "Of course. Don't you realize how many pictures and idols of the Virgin Mary in Latin America have her connected to the crescent moon, the symbol of the moon goddess?" This was news to me, but as soon as I looked, there it was! In fact, one of the frequent titles given by Catholics to Mary is "Queen of Heaven."

Doris and I were horrified when, in 1996, we visited Rome for the first time and took a guided tour of the Vatican. We had not been inside the building for more than 10 minutes when we were startled to see a life-sized statue of Diana of the Ephesians on public display.

The Vision for Operation Queen's Palace

Cindy Jacobs was in our home on Labor Day when we debriefed about Turkey. As we were describing what we had learned, she said, "For several years we have been doing battle against the Queen of Heaven in many parts of the world. The time has come for a frontal assault. Why not call together the Spiritual Warfare Network intercessors from the nations of the world for a massive prayer initiative right where one of her centers of power lies?" It turned out to be one of those electric moments. Instantly Doris, Cindy and I knew that it was God's will, and Operation Queen's Palace was born. I immediately sensed that this was the revelation, the "hidden manna," that God had given me in Pergamum.

We agreed that before we shared this vision with others, we would need to consult with Bobbye Byerly and Chuck Pierce, our SWN prayer leaders, for their discernment. Both of them had an immediate witness from the Spirit that this should be done. In fact, they saw it as the outward form of something that they had been sensing in prayer for some time.

Why September 1999?

Presumably our highlighted prayer effort for Praying Through the Window IV will be October 1999. At this writing, the content and focus of this event has not been determined other than to continue our practice of targeting the lost people of the 10/40 Window, and possibly expanding our sphere of aggressive prayer to peoples in other parts of the world as we close the millenium.

We feel that Operation Queen's Palace, while taking place in only one of the 64 nations of the 10/40 Window (possibly spilling over to some adjacent areas also), will have a strong ripple effect on virtually all of the 10/40 Window. An obvious example would be Japan, a nation dedicated to the sun goddess, another deceptive adaptation of the Queen of Heaven. If this is the case, the way will be prepared for effective prayer mop-up initiatives throughout the Window in whatever form God chooses for us.

The last days of September, therefore, would be the best time for this massive prayer assault to occur, preparing the way in the invisible world for the worldwide prayer in one accord in Praying Through the Window IV (our last initiative of this particular AD2000 United Prayer Track series). This is parallel to Operation Ice Castle, the prayer journey to Mt. Everest led by Ana Mendez and Doris Wagner during the last week of September 1997, immediately preceding Praying Through the Window III.

A further reason for this date is that the Reconciliation Walk will be completed in July 1999, just two months previously. Let me explain:

The Reconciliation Walk

I mentioned the Reconciliation Walk in the introduction to this paper. Thousands of intercessors are doing this prayer expedition, walking all the known routes of the First Crusade, which left Cologne, Germany under Peter the Hermit, on Easter 1096. The one agenda item of this massive prayer initiative is repentance - apologizing to Muslims and Jews for the atrocities committed against them by our Christian ancestors. This is not the place to report the details, but it is turning out extremely well and living up to the highest expectations of Lynn Green, John and Yvonne Presdee, Steve Hawthorne, and other leaders.

The Reconciliation Walk is one of the highest profile acts of identificational repentance in our decade, following the principles laid out in John Dawson's Healing America's Wounds (Regal Books). What happens, theologically speaking, is that massive corporate repentance such as this, on the pattern of 2 Chronicles 7:14, is one of the most effective means of tearing down the strongholds of the enemy (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Satan has used the wounds inflicted in the Crusades as a primary stronghold to blind the minds of Muslims and Jews to the gospel for centuries. In my opinion, the Reconciliation Walk is the most promising action ever taken to open the Muslim world to the love of Christ and to the full blessing of God. Whatever it does accomplish in the invisible world will have been done by July 1999, preparing the way for Operation Queen's Palace.

Numerous Prayer Assignments

Over the next few months The Sentinel Group will coordinate the groundwork spiritual mapping for Operation Queen's Palace. I would anticipate that massive amounts of previously little-known information concerning the Queen of Heaven will surface and become known to us. God will raise up teams of intercessors from dozens of nations of the world who will participate in this event. Korea has already set the goal of sending 500. How many actual places for prayer will be pinpointed in Turkey is not known, but possibilities are the site of the Garden of Eden, Mount Aarat, Ur of the Chaldees, Antioch, Tarsus, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, the Island of Patmos, the seven churches of Revelation, Nicea, Istanbul, Troas, Miletus, Colosse, and many others.

The Christian Information Network will coordinate the entire prayer journey as it has Praying Through the Window I, II and III. By then we are believing that the World Prayer Center of Colorado Springs will be up and running. The offices of The Sentinel Group, Christian Information Network, and Global Harvest Ministries will all be housed in that new facility, so it will serve as the headquarters of Operation Queen's Palace.

"Great Is Jesus of Nazareth!"

Doris and I hired a Turkish guide for our prayer journey to Ephesus and Pergamum. In Ephesus we entered the huge amphitheater where the silversmiths who were selling Diana's idols had precipitated a riot at the time Paul was evangelizing Ephesus. It is beautifully restored and has a capacity for seating 25,000.

It was here that I called a temporary halt to our tour and formally presented the Turkish version of the Reconciliation Walk apology statement to our Muslim guide, adding our own words of personal remorse for the sins of our predecessors against the Turks. Our guide, who knew the story of the Crusades better than we, read it and was strongly touched. Doris and I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit.

At that moment, God gave me the vision of seeing those massive rows of marble seats filled with Christians in prayer and praise. Acts 19:34 says that for two hours the idol worshippers of Ephesus cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" I believe He showed us that Christians, in that very place, would one day cry out, "Great is Jesus of Nazareth!" for four hours. Ephesus was once the center of world Christianity. It is time to take that land back for the kingdom.

The Celebration

Operation Queen's Palace will be coordinated so that each team of intercessors will accomplish their prayer acts, wherever they might be, in time to arrive at Ephesus on the same day. We will approach the Turkish government for permission to occupy the amphitheater in Ephesus for a Christian prayer pilgrimage, praying God's blessing on Turkey, and calling it "Love Turkey." Turkey has a secular government, its constitution guarantees religious freedom, and Christians are expected to gather together from time to time to pray. We will be careful not to disobey any Turkish laws. Our meeting will have no political overtones. We will not be evangelizing. In fact there will be no speeches, no preaching, no teaching; just prayer, praise, worship, and scripture. There will be no overt warfare prayer because the prayer and prophetic intercession will have previously been accomplished all over the country. We will gather to celebrate.

For some time the worship leaders for our Global Harvest International Conferences on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare have been Ross Parsley of New Life Church and David Morris of Springs Harvest Fellowship, both of Colorado Springs. Ross and David have agreed to design and implement the four-hour program. Ted Haggard of New Life Church and the World Prayer Center has agreed to serve as conference pastor for the event.

While I was recently in Korea (October 1997), I spoke to my friend Pastor Kim Sundo of the Kwang Lim Methodist Church (at 80,000, the world's largest Methodist church). He had invited us to use his Kwang Lim Prayer Mountain for our International Spiritual Warfare Network Gideon's Army meeting in 1993 (providing, as a gift from the church, not only our lodging, but also food for 300 people). As a treat for the group, the Kwang Lim choir came one evening and ministered to us in song. So I asked Bishop Kim (He is not only the Methodist bishop for Korea, but he is also the president of all the world's Methodist bishops.) if he would consider bringing his choir to Ephesus to conclude our four-hour celebration with a rendering of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." His answer was, "Yes, of course. Can I bring 100?" We are in for another treat!

Prayer throughout the Court of the Queen

Virtually every group associated with the Spiritual Warfare Network around the world has come across local, regional, and national principalities which trace their spiritual power directly to the Queen of Heaven. The Virgin Aparecida in Brazil, the Goddess of Mercy in Malaysia, Ramona in Hemet, California, Ameratasu Omikami in Japan, and Pachamama in the Andes are obvious examples that could be multiplied possibly by hundreds. Let's refer to these as the "princesses" of the Queen's worldwide court.

I have a hypothesis (and only that at the moment) that the Queen of Heaven is the demonic principality to whom Satan has delegated the primary responsibility of implementing his purpose to blind the minds of unbelievers to the gospel (see 2 Cor. 4:3-4). If this hypothesis is correct, Operation Queen's Palace can be considered the culmination of the prayers of the AD2000 United Prayer Track and the Spiritual Warfare Network throughout the decade of the 1990s with the singular objective of "A church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000." If we are successful, this could be the most significant action ever taken to push back the forces of darkness so that the light of the gospel penetrates into the hearts of unbelievers previously blinded to the love of Jesus Christ.

If the central palace of the Queen is located in Turkey, as we suspect it is, our prayer initiative must not be limited to Turkey. It must simultaneously penetrate into every nook and cranny of the world where the princesses of the Queen have been invited to do their work through the ages. Therefore, in every nation and region and continent, multiple prophetic prayer initiatives will be held, specifically targeted against every known manifestation of the power of the Queen of Heaven. The spiritual warfare during the last week of September 1999 will be worldwide, it will be massive, it will be precisely targeted, it will be synchronized, and it will be unprecedented.

God has been training us for seven or eight years in this kind of spiritual warfare, and now is the time for a frontal attack. At all times we must keep in mind that the ultimate purpose of all of this is not to exalt ourselves or to boast of the divine authority that Jesus has given to us, but simply to remove as many of the remaining obstacles to the salvation of millions of unsaved souls as we can. Our greatest allies will be humility, servanthood, holiness, and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Our enemies will be pride, triumphalism, and carnality.

Addendum No. 1: The Role of Operation Ice Castle

Ana Mendez (her full name is Ana Mendez de Luca de Tena) is the person appointed by Harold Caballeros as the Coordinator of the Spiritual Warfare Network for Southern Mexico. She and her husband, Torcuato Luca de Tena, pastor the New Anointing Church of Mexico City. Ana is a proven, world-class leader in the field of prophetic intercession. I have come to admire her as a woman of God who has a remarkable gift of discernment, who hears accurately from God, and who has the courage to implement what she senses God is telling her to do, even at the literal risk of her physical life. Converted years ago as a high priestess of voodoo, Ana has known the powers of the invisible world in a deeply personal way. She ministers outside of her church under the spiritual covering of one of Latin America's best know prophetic figures, Rony Chavez of Costa Rica.

Ana Mendez established an AD2000 Prayer Tower in Mexico City some time ago in order to mobilize powerful prayer targeted on the 10/40 Window. While in prayer in her tower, the Holy Spirit clearly showed her that a principal stronghold over the 10/40 Window was located on Mt. Everest in Nepal, and that she was to lead a team of intercessors in a frontal attack on this power of darkness, who was none other than the Queen of Heaven. Before finally deciding to go, she sought the agreement of Rony Chavez, Harold Caballeros, Cindy Jacobs, George Otis, Jr., Fred Markert, Chuck Pierce, Doris Wagner, me, and others.

For three weeks at the end of September 1997, what we called "Operation Ice Castle" was underway. Ana, her husband, and Rony Chavez led a team of 11 who operated out of the base camp at the foot of Mt. Everest at 18,000 feet. Doris Wagner led a team of 8 English speakers operating out of the Everest View Hotel at 13,000 feet, and a third team of 5 Spanish speakers from Mexico and Colombia, led by Silvia Valenzuela, were there also. Doris provided the necessary bilingual bridge.

This is not the place to recount the details of what happened during that awesome prayer journey, which was the probably the highest level one undertaken in the decade, not only topographically, but spiritually. A few brief quotes from Ana's report, written in nid-October, will suffice:

"God spoke to us that He was going to release judgment upon the iniquity and over the false religious systems of the world. He said that he was going to bring down the foundations of 'Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots.' [This is the Queen of Heaven. The ancient name of Everest is Sagarmata, meaning "Mother of the Universe."]

"After five days of prayer, on September 22, 1997, an incredible climbing anointing came over the team, and God led us through the Ice Fall, the most difficult, dangerous, and technically exacting part of the Everest ascent, with no guide but Him and no help other than from His angels. After many hours of crossing crevasses and climbing ice walls, we were about to reach the point where we had located the seat of the Queen of Heaven. At that moment the fury of the devil was unleashed and a huge avalanche broke loose above us, sending megatons of ice and snow crashing our way. At the last moment a huge crevasse in front of us swallowed up the avalanche, saved our lives, and we only had to deal with the [life threatening] resulting cloud of ice for about ten minutes.

"We continued toward our goal, and when we arrived we took the throne that the Lord had showed us, prophesying against the powers of darkness and declaring the judgment of God on the whore of Babylon and the false religions of the world.

"That same evening God spoke a clear and strong order: "Go out from this mountain tomorrow before 11:00 AM because I am going to destroy everything. The next day we dismantled the camp in a great hurry, and left Base Camp at 10:30. When the last of our 36 beasts of burden [yaks] had come out, not one, but all three mountain slopes which surrounded Base Camp--Everest, Loh-La, and Nuptse--simultaneously collapsed in the greatest avalanche ever seen in Everest. Base Camp was totally buried under the snow and the enormous falling clouds of ice. The climbing season was closed, and the only flag waving on the top of the world was the one planted by the king of Kings and Lord of Lords." [CNN News carried the story, but obviously had no video footage to show. Ana, however, has a video of the avalanche. Several climbing teams were in Base Camp. We have received word that Koreans were killed, but have not yet heard of the Italians, French, Spanish and others.]

Ana points to some world events which occurred within two weeks after the prophetic act at the throne of the Queen of Heaven which she senses have some connection: (1) The nation of Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, caught on fire and began to burn on that very day; (2) An earthquake destroyed the Basilica of Assisi in Italy, the place where the Pope had called a meeting for the unity of all world religions; (3) Hurricane Paulina destroyed the infamous temple of "Baal-Christ" in Acapulco, Mexico; (4) Princess Diana of England died, representing the crown of England, to whom Mt. Everest was consecrated by Sir Edmund Hillary; and (5) Mother Theresa, one of the most visible advocates of exalting Mary as co-redemptrix and mediatrix, died in India.

Dissemination of Information

Operation Ice Castle was kept confidential, and known only by relatively few people. Only a small number of intercessors was needed for the journey, and there was a good bit of apprehension as to possible consequences if the plans became known both in the visible and the invisible world. Obviously, the number of lives lost on Everest through the years was an important consideration. Incidentally, bodies of foreigners killed on Everest are not removed, but left there as sacrifices to the spirits of the mountains.

Operation Queen's Palace is different. The Lord has shown us that large numbers of Christians will be needed to do the job, both those who go to Turkey and those who minister in their own cities, nations and regions. Therefore, widespread dissemination of this information is called for.

A significant prophecy came from one of the home-based intercessors praying for Operation Ice Castle. Before hearing any reports, she said that in prayer God had showed her that the teams in Nepal were up against a dragon [confirmed], that their prayer assault was sending arrows into the dragon which were causing mortal wounds, that the dragon knew exactly what was happening to it, but that the dragon did not have strength to do anything about it. I cannot help but wondering if the weakened state of the dragon (the Queen of Heaven? Satan himself?) might be due to the massive and aggressive praying for the 10/40 Window throughout this decade.