Now you can understand why things have happened as they have. We've permitted them to happen! Not knowing our authority—not knowing what we could do—we have done nothing, and we actually have permitted the devil to keep on doing whatever he wanted to do.
We need to realize this. Let's wake up. We may have to change our way of praying and get after the devil. I did. It won't hurt you to change; it's good for you. We have authority to do this. We're sitting at the right hand of the Father, far above principalities and powers. If we're far above them, then we have authority over them.
Ephesians 1:22,23 goes on to say, "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church [The feet are members of the body. Feet aren't members of the head.], Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." As John A. MacMillan pointed out, how wonderful to know that the least members of the Body of Christ—those who are the very soles of the feet, the little toenail, or the little toe—are far above the mighty forces we have been considering.
Remember, Jesus said in Luke 10:19 to the other seventy disciples that He sent out, "Behold, I give unto you power [authority] to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." How much authority over the devil does the Church have? Any less than this? No, thank God, no.
Yet if you'd listen to the average Christian talk or hear some preachers preach, you'd get the impression that the devil is bigger than everybody and that he's running everything. Yes, he is the god of this world, so he's running the world system. But we're in this world, not of this world, the Bible says, so he's not running us. The devil has been walking on us too long.
These things are not joking matters. We're foolish to make light jokes about these things. A preacher once said to me at a convention, "Well, Brother Hagin, I've got the devil on the run. The trouble is, I'm running and he's after me!"
Making a statement like that just shows ignorance. In the first place, you haven't any business running from the devil. The Bible says he'll run from you. You need to put him on the run. Unfortunately, I think that is the picture of preachers and churches too much of the time; in fact, most of the time. We see it everywhere.
