How To Put Restraint On The Devil

Matthew 18:18

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Notice, this verse informs us that we here on earth are required to bind the devil—not God in heaven. He will back us up, of course, but we on earth are to initiate this binding and loosing. The reason is because Jesus delegated authority over the devil to the church.

What you bind can’t move. The enemy may still have it in his mind to do a thing, but he can’t carry it out because he has been restrained. Our binding doesn’t remove Satan from the earth; it simply restrains his activity in OUR lives.

There are two sides to this restraint we can put on the enemy, and we, as believers, must understand both sides to fully operate in the power of binding and loosing. We can see both sides in the following two verses.

James 4:7

Submit yourselves therefore to God. RESIST the devil, and he will flee from you.

Ephesians 4:27

NEITHER GIVE PLACE to the devil.

Resist? Or Give No Place?

To not "give place to the devil" is different than, “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” In Ephesians 4:27, Satan’s activity is not due to a failure to rebuke him with words of authority. Here, Satan is active in a person’s life because they have opened the door of opportunity to him.

You can’t resist Satan and open the door to him at the same time. I mean, you can’t resist him (with your rebuke) and give place to him with your disobedience to the Word at the same time. “Well which one should I emphasize?” Both of them. In fact, you can’t do one without the other.

For example, remember the story Brother Hagin told about a lady he ministered to whose daughter was having seizures? Prior to the daughter’s healing of seizures, this lady had not been walking in love with her mother-in-law. Brother Hagin taught her that she was just acting out of the feelings of her flesh, rather than the love of God that had been shed abroad in her heart in the new birth.

Once she got her love walk right, this lady called Brother Hagin to come minister to her daughter who was having a seizure. On the way over to her house, the Spirit of God spoke to him about how to minister to this lady’s daughter. He directed Brother Hagin to instruct the mother to tell Satan, “Satan, I’m walking in love. You take your hand off my daughter.”

When Brother Hagin told the mother what God said to do, she wheeled around, pointed to her daughter who was in the midst of having a seizure, repeated what the Spirit instructed her to say, and the seizure stopped immediately--never to return.

Notice, that mother didn’t just rebuke the devil with words of authority; she closed the door that the devil had gotten through to begin with.

Exercising Authority by Doing the Word

Being a doer of the Word in and of itself is a man walking in the authority of the believer. In other words, it puts a restraint on Satan in your life. That doesn’t mean you will never have to speak commands of faith to the enemy if you are a doer of the Word.

Satan is an outlaw in your life, a criminal. But, as a criminal, he will try to do things illegally--even without a door being opened to him. But, by doing the Word, you’re standing on good ground to stop him.

Conditional Promises

Have you ever noticed that many of God’s promises are conditional? They have an “if” in them. And, the “if” is not on God’s side, but ours. Many times we preach the promises but tend to gloss over the “if” or the condition.

A good minister will preach not only God’s promise, but man’s responsibility. God will do His part; He’s just waiting on men to do their part. God will make it worth your while to meet the conditions of His Word.

Someone said, “That believing in the promises business... isn’t that kinda iffy?” The answer is both yes and no. No, the promises are certain because they are backed by God’s own integrity. With Him, there is no variableness or shadow of turning. But, His promises ARE conditional. So yes, they are “iffy,” but the “iffy—ness” is on our side. “If you”...that’s iffy!

Many men want to put the “if” on God, but He has put the “if” on us (Mark 9:22-23).

II Corinthians 1:20

For all the promises of God in him are yea (yes), and in him Amen (so be it), unto the glory of God by us.

God’s answer to His Word is always yes, but we can put a no on the promises by failing to meet the conditions. For example:

Isaiah 1:19

IF ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

They tell us the word if is attached to promises in the Bible over 1,400 times. The word if reveals conditions we must meet to receive His promises. In the English dictionary the word if is defined as “on the condition that…” So, we could read Isaiah 1:19, “(On the condition that) you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

Why did God put conditions on His Word? To make it hard to receive from Him? No, He did it so that when we meet the conditions, He can legally go ahead and bless us, and the devil can’t do a single thing about it. The reason He can legally bless us with the promised outcome is because us fulfilling our part is us taking our authority in that situation. God always moves on authority. I mean, He moves where He is authorized to do so.

Us meeting the conditions is us operating in the authority of the Word to receive God’s promised outcome. The Word has authority over the devil.

You could say our authority to be free in any area of our lives is in us being a doer of His Word. As we fulfill the conditions of the Word, we begin dominating in the arena of life Satan had previously been able to dominate us.

God saying something in His Word is Him making what He said available to us. But, it being available doesn’t equal the fulfillment of what He said in OUR lives. When we fulfill our part, we are taking authority over the fulfillment and taking dominion over the outcome.

When a man fails to do the Word, he is choosing to relinquish his authority over the devil in that area of his life. He is permitting Satan to operate.

What We Permit, God Permits

Numbers 21:6

And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

The context of this verse is the children of Israel complaining about the manna God had been providing for them, which, by the way, was keeping them from starving to death.

The Hebrew language has no permissive verb, so it’s translated that God SENT these fiery serpents. But, it should have been translated that He PERMITTED them to come into the camp. Why?

Well, we already read in Matthew 18:18 that He will allow what we allow. This is an example of that truth. Israel permitted those serpents in by the sin of complaining. Their complaining had removed the hedge of protection against those serpents that had been in place.

Deuteronomy 8:15

WHO LED THEE THROUGH THAT GREAT AND TERRIBLE WILDERNESS, WHERIN WERE FIERY SERPENTS, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

You can easily see from this verse in Deuteronomy that the restraining power of God was holding those same fiery serpents back the whole time they were wandering in the wilderness for forty years. It was Israel’s murmuring that opened the door to them coming in--not God sending them.

Something Better!

Let me tell you, doers of the Word are kept people. There’s something better available to God’s people than just being delivered from the enemy’s activity. It’s called being kept from Satan even touching us to begin with!

I Peter 1:5

Who are KEPT by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

To be kept means we are guarded, protected, kept safe, preserved. That means the devil can’t touch us spiritually, physically or in any way! Now, that’s shouting ground!

But, you and I have a part in this.

I John 5:18

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God KEEPETH HIMSELF, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

Notice, we are told to keep ourselves. How do we do that? By being a doer of the Word that we know, because that in and of itself puts a restraining order on the devil, so that he can’t touch us.

You see, you can disregard the conditions of God’s Word and forfeit the bright future God has planned for you. He has preplanned a good life for you and I, but we must take the paths He has chosen to get us there.

Although God has a plan for our lives for good, He has also made us free moral agents. You and I must make the right choices that meet the conditions in the Word for these good things to come into our lives. Then, all our tomorrows will be as God intended they be.

If God gets to write the script of our lives through us meeting the conditions in His Word for these blessings, He guarantees what the future will look like for us. And, He tells us even before we get there.

A Call from Tomorrow

It’s possible through air travel today to cross the International Date Line and go into tomorrow. If you take a trip and cross the International Date Line, when you get settled into tomorrow, you can call your friends back in today and tell them you’re calling from tomorrow to assure them everything is going to be alright.

I know we’re being humorous, but you see there is a spiritual truth here. God transcends space and time and has already been in our future and laid up many blessings for us. When He gives us His Word, it is a revelation about how to make tomorrow turn out as He intended. When you read the Bible and see how His promises guarantee your outcome, God is calling you from tomorrow with a message about your future.

What is the message? If you meet the conditions in my Word today, I guarantee you tomorrow will work out just right!

The future is rushing towards all of us. If God has His way, it will be bright and beautiful. How does He get His way? By us making sure we meet the conditions of His promises.

He is saying to all of us, “Do things my way, and I guarantee everything will turn out right because by doing so, Satan will be restrained from making your life turn out any other way.”