Emergent Monday: Heresy du Jur - Binding Satan

I know that the charismatic church is not the emergent church, but both being ear ticklers and both emerging as the leading form of goat herding, I lump them together otherwise I'd get nothing done around here. And besides, it's getting kind of boring reporting on Rob Bell and his never ending Apostasypalooza.

The Heresy du Jur is something I just stumbled upon and didn't realize mankind could be so arrogant or so stupid to fall for this one of Satan's most heinous pranks: Binding Satan. Binding Satan is one of the more insidious heresies that come out of the charismatic movement. An escapee from the charismatic movement wrote a letter to my "bible study partner" Dr. John MacArthur and described her situation: 

You know we lived all our life in this movement and one thing dominates that movement, and it is that Satan is sovereign.If you get sick, it was the devil.If your child gets sick, it was the devil.The devil made your child sick.And even if your child dies Satan somehow got the victory.If your spouse, your husband or your wife gets cancer, that’s the devil that did that.If you had an accident, the devil did that. If you lost your job, the devil did that.If things didn’t go the way you wanted them to go in your company or your family and you wound up with a loss of job or a divorce — the devil did all of that. The devil has to be bound and so you have got to learn these formulas, because you have got to bind the devil or he is really going to control everything in your life.

Think of it: going through life knowing that Satan is in charge of everything. This is what the charismatics like Benny Hinn and Ronald Howard-Brown teach. There is so much wrong with this, but the primary thing is that God, not Satan, is in charge of everything. Romans 8:28, Isaiah 45:6-7, Joshua 1:9 and many other verses tell us that God, not Satan, is in control. 

What the charismatics do is tell you that you must bind Satan, and they wrongfully teach that believers have the authority to bind him. Their reference for such authority is Revelation 20:1-2

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. ² And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;

 What's wrong with this picture? First of all this is a post trib indecent, the battles have been fought, Satan has lost, God (not Rick Warren) is going to bring heaven to earth soon. But before that happens Satan must be dealt with. Second of all, this is an angel properly equipped and directly sent by God to complete this task, not a puny human whose only qualification is to occasionally roll around on the ground laughing.

The Charismatic doctrine that teaches believers can bind Satan is based on a misunderstanding (or is that an intentional clouding?) of Matthew 16:18-19, and Matthew 18:18.  

¹⁸ I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” ( Matthew 16:18-19)

 Here the Greek for Peter is "petros" which is masculine gender and means "little stone")  then He says "and upon this rock I will build My church..." here the Greek for rock is "petra" which is feminine. Is Jesus calling Peter a girl? If He was, Peter would have been rightly insulted, but He's not even talking about Peter. He's actually talking about Peter's confession in verse 16

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

This confession, not Peter, is what Jesus is going to build his church on. The fact that Jesus is the Son of the living God is the foundation of the church, not a fisherman. How much mischief has been caused over the years by a particular church that's taken their claim to power from the clouding of this verse? But it gets better. The binding talking about in verse 19 is not about binding Satan, but about Church discipline as found in Matthew 18:15-17. Matthew 18:18 too refers to Church discipline, because that was the gist of that entire conversation. Here is the danger that I mention previously of taking a verse out of context.