Divine Weapons Bind Him

1986

Jesus said he must be bound. He must be tied up. And there’s no other way that we can go into his house and carry off his possessions unless he is bound—unless he is tied up. He’s a strong man. He must first be bound.

Now what are satan’s possessions? Since we have already started to move into that realm—satan’s possessions are people. Satan’s possessions are thoughts, and arguments, and pretensions, and vain imaginations. Satan’s possessions are people’s souls. Nothing else that he might possess is a piece of wood here. Big deal. Why would the word of God address that? His possessions that we want to carry off are the souls of men. Hopefully our own for starters and then the souls of other men. Satan’s possessions are people—those who are disobedient, those that are being carried away by satan’s devices. Now Jesus taught us that we can’t do anything at all in this world about the reign of satan until we’ve bound up the strong man. Until we’ve tied him up, there’s nothing that we can do.

Now how do we do that? How do we bind up the strong man? Certainly Jesus began that work by His work on the cross—and He made a public spectacle, an open show. He humiliated satan in that work. But there’s more than that. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10 we all realize that satan was humiliated on the cross, but what’s that got to do with you, right? Is it not true that satan is still the power and the ruler of this dark age, of this world? It is true. He still manipulates people. So what happened on the cross? There must be a participation in that in order to overcome satan.

Now how this works in 2 Corinthians 10:3, “For though we live in this world, we do not wage war as the world does.” Now how do they wage war? Well, by words, by arguments, by knives, by swords, by guns, by knowledge, and so on. “For the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.” Whatever you can think of that’s a weapon of this world—that’s not it! The war that we wage is not with weapons of this world. “On the contrary, our weapons have divine power, supernatural power, to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Now several weeks ago this particular passage took hold of me. Within a matter of a few days I had about ten other scriptures written in the margin. The more I read and the more I studied, the more this came alive to me: that as disciples of Christ we have supernatural weapons—not the weapons of this world, not simple little arguments and philosophies and so on, but supernatural weapons and powers to demolish satan’s strongholds, to bind up the strong man. Does that sound good? Sounded pretty good to me.

Now again, what are satan’s strongholds? We can demolish satan’s strongholds. What are those? Again, they’re in people. Those are satan’s strongholds and none of the others matter. Now in the context here, Paul is undergoing a lot of tribulation. They are accusing him of things. They are calling him names. They are questioning his relationship with God and his relationship with them and his motives and all those things. Paul said, “I don’t have to argue with the weapons of this world.” He said, “I have divine weapons that will demolish these arguments, that will demolish pretensions, that will demolish the imagination, that will demolish opposition to the counsel of God, that will demolish fussing and fuming and complaining.” He said, “I don’t have to play with this. I have divine weaponry.” And we have divine weapons to demolish satan’s strongholds. We have supernatural weapons to bind the strong man and to demolish his strongholds. And that’s a pretty powerful idea.

Ephesians chapter 6 he goes on to talk about the armor of God and the way that we do battle. Verse 13: “Therefore put on the full armor of God”—it’s God’s armor—“so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” When the day of evil comes, when satan attacks, “stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist, with a breastplate of righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.”

So we see here that the word of God teaches us that we are not helpless against satan. That when the day of evil comes, if we’re equipped with supernatural weapons, when the day of evil comes we can stand, and when we’ve done everything, to stand. When you’re encountering temptation, you have divine weapons that can demolish satan’s strongholds. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Okay, now God doesn’t do that for you. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” You take out your spiritual weaponry of holiness and faith and the word of God and prayer. You can see these things. The readiness, you’re ready to do the work of God and therefore that’s armor that will protect you from satan. When you’re encountering opposition to your work in the gospel, we have supernatural weapons that demolish satan’s strongholds and every argument or pretension that sets itself up against that. If your marriage is in big trouble right now, or your relationships are all pathetic, we have divine weaponry that demolishes satan’s strongholds, that can bind up the strong man that’s interfering with our walk with God and with each other. When you have a friend or a relative, that you desperately want to come to Christ you see there’s more than just a pathetic, “Well, I wish it would happen, but, everybody has their own free will.” Certainly they do have their free will, but you and I are not helpless! You see, satan has a stronghold in their life—the strong man has taken them captive. He’s a possession of theirs, and we can bind up the strong man! We can use supernatural weapons to bind up the strong man and to destroy his strongholds. That’s a pretty exciting thought; and maybe that’s something more about prayer than you’ve thought about for a while. It’s not just a wish list. There’s something very important going on here.

Now from a practical standpoint, I learned not too long ago, that I really can’t do anything to help anybody. I know when I study with a non-Christian, I might present the utter futility of a life filled with sin and selfishness, and then present the good news of Jesus Christ and how that can eradicate that lack and empower a new life and can provide an opportunity for a new creation. I can present all that flawlessly, and they don’t understand a word of it—not a word sinks in. Anybody ever encounter something like that? Now, what if they DO understand, and you see the lightbulb go on. They say “Hey, that sounds really good. That’s just exactly right,” and then they forget. It’s just like almost immediately you see them forgetting those things that had really seemingly impressed them for a time. Now why does that happen? Is it just because they’re dumb or forgetful? Is that what it is? Jesus told us what the reason was. In Mark chapter 4:15 He says, “Satan comes and snatches away the seed that was sown, the word of God in their life.” Satan comes and snatches it away. You see, our battle is not with forgetfulness. Our battle is not with accurate presentation in its simplest form and understanding or not understanding, but our battle is with principalities and powers. Satan comes and snatches away the word that was planted. So, therefore, our job is to present it as clearly as we can, as accurately as we can, and then get on our knees and use divine weapons to bind up the strong man. The strong man that would come and snatch it away so that he can keep that possession in his life.

I’ve also discovered that apart from prayer I can’t help Christians. There’s nothing I can really do to help Christians. There aren’t any wise words of counsel. Jesus said we can’t steal the strong man’s possessions without first binding up, or tying up, the strong man. Now, I’ve at times felt like I planted the seed of truth very accurately and honestly and as tenderly as I could. Perhaps the seed was actually from God, but my experience has been, and maybe yours has been too, that the person might go away feeling better for just a time. It might be a light, and they might understand. Then within a matter of time, they just fall down and they’re back right where they started from. Now, has anybody ever noticed something like that in your own life or as you’ve spent time with other people?

Now, you know what that is? That’s a prayer failure. See the strong man hasn’t been bound up. Satan has come and snatched away the truth of the good news and continued on his own course. Now, if you’re a prayer warrior, you can say even the wrong words, and through prayer you can ask God to re-arrange the words in their mind so they make a little more sense to them. Or, you can pray and say “Father, I don’t understand all that I’ve just said exactly. If there’s something I said that was wrong, please blank their minds of that thing.” You know, supernatural weapons. You can also pray that God will take this truth and cement it into their life. And it will grip them firmly and convict them and drive them to their knees until it becomes part of them. And it takes prayer to do that. It takes supernatural weapons to demolish satan’s strongholds. It doesn’t take just a few words, but it takes supernatural weapons.

I’ve spent time with people in other places, as well as here, where I’ve just poured my life into it—and all I got was a “durrrrr.” You know what I mean? It wasn’t it. Nothing happened. It was like functioning on in another world and there’s nothing I could say. But you know what that is? It’s a prayer failure on my part. It’s a prayer failure. See I’m using words rather than supernatural weaponry to demolish satan’s strongholds in your life and in other people’s lives and in my own life.