A gracEmail subscriber asks: “What is your view of ministers who claim to bind Satan or chase out his demons?”
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It depends on the person and what he or she is actually doing. The Bible does not talk about Christians “binding” Satan although it does say we are to “resist” him and that we “struggle” against him. Perhaps that is what these ministers are actually doing even though they call it something else.
There are two dangers as I see it. One is to fail to take the enemy seriously, to under-rate Satan’s craftiness, and to fail to resist him as one ought. The other danger is to over-rate Satan’s power, to see a devil behind every bush and to become more focused on the demonic than on Jesus.
Jesus Christ has already defeated the devil by his faithful obedience to God, his atoning death and his victorious resurrection. That victory will become apparent at the End. Until then, we may by faith live in the victory Jesus has wrought, by the power of the Holy Spirit which is the indwelling and Risen Lord. “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”
