Exhortation
With the coming manifestation of divine order it is so necessary that we understand spiritual authority, our role in submission, and the way we are to submit ourselves one to another. The restoration church will not only be something for Satan to deal with; it will, in fact, be the key of his downfall. Consequently, the great deceptive work of Satan has been prophesied for the end time as he tries to create false Christs and false prophets, seeking, if possible, to deceive the very elect. By deception, false accusations, and misjudging, he will attempt to get people to use the authority they have unwisely.
Satan has no authority, but as the deceiver of the whole world, he comes to deceive. If Satan can deceive us concerning the way we are to pray and what we are to do and cause us to exercise our authority toward a wrong judgment, he can create enough static to bring a lot of confusion. We must set our course against it. We definitely need more discerning of spirits and more of an accurate witness as to how we should pray and for what we should pray. It would be better for us to take a little time to find the will of the Lord, than to merely express our opinions about a specific situation. For instance, we could be a tremendous force against political intrigue and against many dangerous inroads being made by various forces into our government. We need to take the time to seek the Lord, learn His will concerning it, and have it confirmed with facts, then ask everyone to pray together the same way, exercising their authority as believers. If we fail to do that, enough crosscurrents will be created to cancel out the authority, to say the least.
In the past years I have felt that the majority of the people were being deceived, not concerning the Walk in general, for that was a revelation to them, but concerning the way they should exercise their authority in prayer, what they should bind and loose. In some cases people were completely wrong, usually because sympathy entered in. The devil tries to get people to be sympathetic with a situation which is wrong, when they should rather have true compassion and faith to see it corrected. Satan deceives people into being tolerant of situations that warrant no tolerance at all.
Rather than raising up a false prophet, Satan prefers to get hold of a true prophet and lead him astray. Balaam goes down in history as a false prophet, but one of our songs is based on his words, God is not a man, that he should lie… Numbers 23:19, spoken when he was a true prophet, before he fell victim to his own covetousness. A false prophet must start with authority because Satan has none. Satan may have power, and he may mystify, but only as he can usurp authority wrongly is he able to do anything. Any one of countless men could have betrayed Jesus Christ; therefore, it is highly significant that it was an apostle, a man with authority, who did so. Even though it was the will of the Father that Jesus should be betrayed and crucified, yet Satan had to use as his instrument, an agent from whom he could usurp authority. Jesus told His disciples, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? John 6:70b. He knew that Judas would betray Him, and yet He chose him to walk in the apostleship from which he later fell. When Matthias was chosen to take Judas’ place, the Scripture was quoted from Psalms, “He went to his own place, and his bishoprick let another take” (Acts 1:20, 25).
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is given to us to lead us into all the truth, and we must learn to discern Satan’s great deception and continually be alert against it. We should not have walls up to one another, but neither should we constantly frustrate what God wants to work out within the Body by being open to sympathy and deception. Anyone of us who are in a position of authority, elder, prophet, or apostle, should be aware how wisely we must exercise our authority in prayer. I am more and more careful about what should be bound and what should be loosed. We must be sure we have the word of the Lord. One thing I am sure of: if I bind it, it will be bound. Therefore it is essential that I be led by the Spirit and am not deceived to bind wrongly. Deception will be one of the greatest problems facing the restoration. As we move in God, Satan will make every effort to bring us into deception, along with the whole world.