Take Authority Over the Spiritual Warfare in Your Life | Tony Evans Sermon

you see many of us the problem of us getting along with other people is our inability to get along with ourselves everything visible and physical is preceded by something invisible and spirit the consequences we are dealing with in our lives in our homes in our culture we are dealing with them because there is a gap between where God is and where we are he wants to know that you want him and not just wanted stuff see a lot of folk go to church to get God stuff but who don't want the God who gives it so if you're in distress don't let that drive you away draw you near when you get close and want to live for him want to please him want to honor him want to exalt him want to draw near to him then heaven opens up and he lets you find [Music] kingdom authority may be defined as the divinely delegated right and responsibility for believers to act on God's behalf in spiritually ruling over his creation under the lordship of Jesus Christ's Kingdom Authority is the divinely delegated right and responsibility that has been bequeathed to believers to act on God's behalf to rule over his creation under the lordship of Jesus Christ with God's kingdom comes authority one of the ways that that authority is grasped connected with and utilized is in Kingdom Prayer Kingdom prayer is divinely authorized access for heaven to invade earth for heavenly intervention into historical circumstances and one of the expressions that talks about Authority is binding and loosing now if you've grown up in church you've heard people talk about binding this and binding that and what they're talking about is exercising Authority and that is precisely what the phrase means but I want to take you deeper into the meaning of the phrase the utilization and understanding of how to apply the phrase so that you and I get the benefit of the phrase and start binding and loosing like we supposed to the word binding and loosing is not a magic formula for you to get God to do what you want yet it is a powerful formula because of what stated because verse 18 says whatever you bind and it goes on to say and whatever you lose first of all whatever this scope of this statement is staggering in other words he doesn't give an exception he says whatever you bind whatever you loose it says heaven is gonna back it up or to put it in contemporary words God says I got you I got you please notice something in the phrase you are the one doing the binding not God you are the one doing the loosing not God whatever you bind and whatever you lose will have been done in heaven so God will back up legitimate binding and legitimate loosing to bind means to restrict to by means to lock to by means to restrain Tobiah means to tie down to bind means to hold something so that it cannot do what it wants to do you are limiting its ability to function because you've tied it up you bound it you've wrapped it up you put a knot on it you've held it back conversely loosing is to unlock or to release it is to permit it is to free something up the first thing that leads up to his statement in chapter 16 about binding and loosing is the statement is specifically given to and given about the church I will build my church he comes with binding and loosing after that statement why because binding and loosing is a specific authority given to the church it's very important binding and loosing the exercise of authority is specifically given to the church I will build my church now the reason why that's important is you need to remember something about the church that we often lose sight of and some don't even know why you come to church for preaching and for singing and for fellowship and all of those are very important things there is another purpose of the church that's absolutely critical and that is legislating from the spiritual realm the job of the church is to legislate from up there to down here to bring heaven in this tree that is the job of the chair it is to spiritually legislate not just saying not just preach but to bring the authority from eternity in this tree so it is the church represents another realm although it's located on earth it represents heaven but it's located in history and it has been given homeland authority to operate in history from eternity now the reason I'm pointing this out as many Christians don't understand this if you are disconnected from the church you are disconnected from its legal authority in the spiritual realm he says and the gates of Hell shall not overpower it he says so powerful is the church I'm building that hell can't stop it he didn't say sure not overpower me session not overpower it because he's referring to the church that is legislating from heaven so when you see hell defeating the church it's because we not build in jesus's church we build in our church using jesus's name he says the church that i am building that legislates from history greek word ecclesia church was a legal term for legislation legislating in the spiritual to bring it into history he says the gates of hell gates is a legal term in the Old Testament it says the elders met at the gate that's like saying City Council meeting City Hall Congress Parliament it was the place where legislation was made at the gates so it's a legal term because hell does not defeat you with power hell defeat you with legality hell operates on a legislature okay it operates legally and if you do not understand that it's not just power operating its power operating from an illegal position but yet from a legal posture so he says the gates of Hell shall not over power it he's talked about the church then he goes further then we come to come to verse 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom well Kingdom is God's rule and I'm gonna give you keys he says I'm going to give you access to me to legislate from there back down the way you live and I'm going to give you these keys now the reason why they're multiple keys is cuz they're multiple gates well now we come to the end of verse 19 whatsoever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will have been already loosed in heaven I got you so what exactly are we binding loosing well let me tell you based on this passage you're binding and loosing what's coming out of hell gates of Hell you're binding and loosing so what's the difference between binding and loosing dying when you when you've been binding something you're tying it up you're keeping it from mobility you're keeping it from moving to bind means something is coming after you that you want held back from you you want it to be tired up you don't want it to get through you don't want it to be able to penetrate you it's holding the evil Satan hell off of you Lucy is cuz he already got you he's already all up in your grill he's already controlling something you're already addicted you're already living in defeat you're already relationally in discord you're already miserable and you can't get out of it and you need to be loosed from the hostage-taking he's already taking you binding is keeping him off you or anything that is influenced by him because the hell influences everything it influences death it influences bad relationships it influences addictions it influences he'll help you influence any area of your life to bind it means to keep it from having a illegitimate dominant influence to loose means it's already having an illegitimate dominant influence I'm already in debt over my head you can't get out I'm already in a bad situation relationship I'm already addicted to something or the other and I'm already held hostage and nothing is working but I need to be loosed I studied the Bible in college for four years and studied the Bible before you is better than my master's degree another four years we're getting about their degree and then I've been preaching all of these years and I'm still learning new things from this awesome inexhaustibility world of games that's why I'm so excited about the twenty heaven Study Bible and its accompanying works the Tony Evans Bible commentary it will take all of this training and this teaching and make it available to you to understand utilize and apply God's most powerful I need to be set free from it he says to be too buying to keep it off you because it's coming at you or too loose because it's already got you and you want to get rid of it he says you must do it whatever you bind I got you whatever you loose I got you heaven will back you up well if the problem is the gates of Hell he says you must use the keys of heaven and you must do it in concert with the church because that's the entity that owns the keys so you don't have a private key ring you don't have your own keys the church has the keys you have to use those keys for your situation so now that we have that framework let's go back to chapter 18 he starts off again and in verse 18 and he begins this process by talking about binding and loosing but now he goes further and he's going to explain how to get this thing working for you so I'm assuming somebody in here needs to bind something or lose something again I say to you verse 19 if two of you agree on earth about anything that they ask it shall be done for them by my father who is in heaven oh now we get down to two or three interesting two or three witnesses is not a novel concept it's all through the Bible American civil government to a large degree borrowed from the Bible and one of the things they borrowed was the principle of witnesses in Deuteronomy 19 verse 15 it says you cannot accuse somebody by the witness of one person there must be two or three witnesses deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 6 you cannot bring an accusation or judgment by one person there must be two or three witnesses so two or three witnesses was used of confirming something legally because it's used up trying civil cases Jesus takes the principle of legality two and three witnesses and applies it now to binding and loosing why because we are seeking to do in the spiritual realm what the political realm was seeking to do in civil judgments to do that he says you need two or three witnesses now this is not just two or three people out of nowhere because in verse 17 he says tell it to the church if he refuses to listen to the church let it be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector so he hasn't left the church he's still talking about the church because that is the authorized legal entity from heaven to history so let me explain something when you connect with people even if they're Christians who are not connected to the embassy they can't help you with binding and loosing cause binding and loosing has only been delegated to the church not just to you out here just bind and stuff and I bind the devil in your right here oh no no if you are disconnected from the embassy that's why people don't listen heed to go to church for preaching people don't need to go to church just for singing he says two or three gathered okay the word gathered is used of the church in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25 don't forsake the gathering it's talking about the church he says when they are connected and two or three now we got legal validity because that's how the word 2 or 3of used in Scripture we've got legal authorization so let's see how you can begin to bind and loose keep keep the devil off of you in whatever category he's on you or get him off of you if he's already locked you down and loose him and get get him off of your back no longer is he controlling whatever area of your life that he happens to be controlling right now he says if you come together two or three that's illegal gathering because it's connected to the church anything somebody say anything that's like whatever okay verse eight he says whatever verse 19 says anything anything that they may ask we just introduced prayer ask so now you are asking you're asking heaven to intervene on your behalf in history for the binding and loosing as defined in chapter 16 which is the gates of Hell he says ask anything that they may ask please notice something the two must agree forget spiritual authority where there is disunity so he says it must be by agreement that is you've got to be in the same for your different people but you've got to be on the same spiritual page okay so he says that and maybe makes a staggering promise it shall be done for them by my father who is in heaven so you must bind you must bring God's perspective the keys you must talk to God the prayer you must be an agreement with God and then you must be linked to the legal entity the local church and he says and you've done it in my name in Monday said the father is gonna do it but you got to do it in my name now Matthew 28:18 says Jesus says all authority is given to me and heaven on earth translation I'm in charge now I'm in charge up there in heaven and I'm in charge down here on earth and I'm the link between the two so in order to get it from heaven down here to earth Jesus is saying you got to come through me there's one mediator between God and man and the Bible says that is the man Christ Jesus he will only give his authority when you're operating on his authority based on his keys connected with his institution done by agreement and he says that you must do it in my name but he says something else and there am I in the midst see a lot of us pray in Jesus name while he is on the periphery he cannot be on the periphery he must be in the me he must be the centerpiece of the decision you will know God philosophy of history in seasons 1 10 because it features 110 says God has speculated all of history around the centrality of Jesus Christ so by the in loosing getting the devil from tying you up or releasing you if you've been tied up it's tied to authority Authority is tied to Christ Christ is tied to his church binding and loosing it's tied to that connectivity by agreement and then there is the provision of divine authority where the father responds when we do it in his name see a lot of us use Jesus is named and we'll even quote Jesus's word but without authorization because we're not subjected to Jesus's will or subjected to Jesus's Authority or subjected that Jesus is okay and so it becomes an unauthorized use and when it is an unauthorized use you can bind and loose which means you can't have authority okay but you must do the binding loosing God's not do it for you he gonna say I got you when you're operating as he said so the question now is why the two or three in this context let me it's a biblical illustration that to try to make sense of this in Exodus chapter 17 begin around verse 8 Israel is in a battle they're in a war they're fighting it's a life-and-death struggle they're battling Moses goes up to the top of the hill and Moses takes the rod the staff that God gave him they turned it into the rod of God and Moses held it up the rod was Moses this symbol of authority he opened the Red Sea with the rod it was the symbol of heaven coming down to change something on earth when he held up the rod as long as Moses held up the rod it says Israel prevailed but the moment Moses dropped the rod it says the enemy prevailed women then Israel down in the valley doing the best they can fighting as hard as they can trying as hard as they can but whether they were winning or losing wasn't determined by how hard they were trying it was determined by what Moses was doing up holding up the symbol of authority a lot of us are trying hard to fix our mess get out of debt get out of addiction solve this problem here Liz it's not we trying we trying down here in this battle but the problem is something's got to be solved up there to give you victory down here the problem occurred however then it says his arms got heavy in other words he got tired let me put another he got sick and tired he got tired his arms got heavy and his arm started to droop and when his arm started to droop it says the enemy began to prevail because the symbol of authority had been lost so Moses got two other men to come and to hold up his arms because he was tired and he was gonna droop and quit and give up but the two men held up his ax they became two witnesses and when they held up his arms it says and Israel prevailed over their enemies let me put it another way what was happening on the ground would not ultimately be determined by what they were doing on the ground now they still had to fight on the ground but the power and the authority for the victory of the fight was not on the ground where they were fighting the authority and victory and power would come from what was happening in the invisible realm that would determine whether they won or lost in the visible realm if you're fighting for your marriage if you're fighting for successful singlehood if you're fighting for the debt if you're fighting for the addiction or whatever the situation happens to be yes you have a responsibility to do what you ought to do but that's not where the authority lies whatever you buy whatever you lose it says I will have already done it in heaven so the answer is up there so to put it another way if you ignore the spiritual if you ignore the keys if you ignore the connection with the church if you ignore the agreement if you ignore those things you will not get help from heaven while you're battling the warfare on earth you will only get victory on earth because you have engaged the authority of heaven God's Way and when you and I do that now we'll see some binding [Music] binding and loosing has to do with authority it is the exercise of God's authority through us in history when God talks about binding and loosing he's talking about acting on his behalf to bring things about in time and space that is according to his will and with this authority like in a football game when the ref throws out the yellow flag or blows the whistle it can override satanic power people power problem power economic power whatever the powerful forces are that are coming at you Kingdom authority binding and loosing can't override it I'm sure you like like I have things and our lives that we need to override God gives us the right the privilege and the expectation to bind it loose [Music] [Applause] you you

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Id: 8kh0_GTFiCU

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 27 2019