ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN

On Earth as In Heaven
By Eddie Smith
 
The building was filled with excited Christians from five or six local churches. They had named this event “Bringing Balance to Spiritual Warfare.” The worship band was amazing, though at one point the praise was so loud it could have peeled the paint off the walls!
 
The host pastor introduced me with “a Pentecostal flair.” I trotted up the steps of the stage, dropped my Bible on the pulpit, and yelled, “HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE THE POWER TO BIND SATAN TONIGHT, IN THE NAME OF JESUS?”
 
It seemed the entire place jumped to its feet; people were throwing both hands in the air, and many were dancing in place as they cheered and screamed, “I can! I can!” The guitar did a riff, the drums did a roll, and the sax played a run. It was holy bedlam for a moment or so.
 
“Please be seated,” I urged them quietly. Eventually they settled down.
 
Then I leaned across the pulpit and calmly asked, “Would one of you please do that? Would one of you please bind the devil right now and put an end to child abuse, abortion, murder, war, sickness, disease, and crime? Anyone? I know all of you can do it. Now I’m asking you to do it.”
 
I waited. No one moved an inch. Hardly anyone breathed.
 
I continued, “If you can bind Satan, but won’t do it, then you become his accomplice. Will someone please bind him?”
 
After an uncomfortable few seconds I said, “We have a slogan in Texas for folks like you. We’d say, ‘It’s time you either to put up, or…’” And of course they all finished the sentence for me.
 
All of our bravado is useless unless it’s backed up with a basis in fact. And the fact is, you and I cannot bind the devil unless God instructs, equips, and anoints us to do so. We see this actually happen in Revelation 20.
 
I saw an Angel descending out of Heaven. He carried the key to the Abyss and a chain—a huge chain. He grabbed the Dragon, that old Snake—the very Devil, Satan himself!—chained him up for a thousand years, dumped him into the Abyss, slammed it shut and sealed it tight. No more
trouble out of him, deceiving the nations—until the thousand years are up. After that he has to be let loose briefly. (vv. 1–3).
 
On Earth as in Heaven
 
Dr. C. Peter Wagner points out that God is synchronizing earth with heaven. We’re all familiar with the phrase from the model prayer Jesus taught His disciples, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In this one sentence we learn an important key. Our assignment as heaven’s ambassadors is about seeing the earth transformed as the kingdom of God displaces the kingdom of darkness. As Christ showed, one way this transaction occurs is through prayer. We are to ask God, perhaps daily, that His kingdom displace Satan’s rule on the earth.
 
Another way this synchronization occurs is through what spiritual warriors refer to as “binding and loosing.” Wagner writes in his book, Confronting the Powers, page 155:
 
“Our New King James translation [of Matthew 18:18], “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,” fails to convey an extremely significant nuance of the original Greek. The more literal translation would be: ‘Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose will have been loosed in heaven.” This means that an essential synchronization exists between the activities on earth and activities in heaven. And it establishes the crucial sequence of: heaven first, then earth.”
 
In my travels across America and around the world, I spend a great deal of time with God’s praying people. Many intercessors feel that spiritual warfare prayer is their primary calling. However, while they understand the necessity and the practice of binding and loosing, some haven’t known about this process of synchronization. Although the intercessors’ intentions have been good, their results often have been less than satisfactory. Unfortunately, they’ve assumed that if they bind things on earth, God will then bind them in heaven.
 
If that were the case, we’d be giving God orders and instructing Him. As Wagner points out, the crucial sequence is heaven first, then earth. We can only bind here what has already been bound in heaven.
 
Christ has already defeated Satan. We simply enforce what He has accomplished. In fact, all of our prayers are based on His finished work at Calvary.
How can we know what’s been bound in heaven? As they say, "it's in the book."