"Binding and Loosing"
In many areas the church is trying to use biblical teaching about binding and loosing as an instrument to deal with something it was not designed to deal with.
Download or email this sermon The One Who Restrains Evil
God ordained Human Government to hold back evil, and if it is not being influenced by our prayers it will certainly become an instrument for evil itself. The early Christians even prayed for the Roman Emperors, so that the Gospel could prosper under their rule.
When will the Antichrist be openly manifested? When the lordship of history is given into the hand of Satan for a fixed period of three and one half years.
And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose activity is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Th. 2:6-12).
The spirit of Antichrist is already here. But He who restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. The Holy Spirit will not always function in the way He does now. Grace will come to an end. We need to be careful about taking Dispensationalism too far, but the age of grace will come to an end. In the book of Revelation, God goes back to dealing with man the way he did in the Old Testament. Wrath. Judgment. Grace comes to an end. The power of the Holy Spirit to convict the unsaved and to empower the church to preach the gospel will come to an end.
This is Page 28 of 30
Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.