Claiming Our Rights by E.W. Kenyon

Satan cannot stand before that Name now, any more than he could before the Man who gave you the right to use it, when He walked in Galilee. Disease is as impotent before it now as it was when its owner, as the Son of Man, walked on earth. Demons fear it today in the lips of a person who walks with God, as when they bowed before it in Jesus’ Day.
All Hell knows the power of that Name; they know our Legal Rights and Authority. So they are fighting to keep us in ignorance of our Legal Rights; or if we know them, to keep us under condemnation so we will not dare use them.
Matthew 18:18-20, “Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Here the heart stands hushed at its power and God-delegated Authority.
“Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” This is unexplored territory to most men today. We can bind Demons, bind disease, and habits, and bind men so they can not go on in the will of Satan; or use fearsome power to deliver souls over to Satan for the destruction of the body. “For I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already as though I were present judged him that hath so wrought this thing, in the name of our Lord Jesus, we being gathered together, and my spirit, with power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the Flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of Lord Jesus” (I Corinthians 5:3-5.
We may bind the power of Satan over a community, making it easy for men to accept Christ. “Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Whatever in Jesus’ name we set free, God in Heaven will make good.
What power we have! Let’s use it! Will we arise to our mighty, heaven-given privileges? Look at the bound men and women everywhere, and the Word challenges us to go out and set the prisoner free.
What does this mean? All that it says, thank God. You can set diseased men free. We are doing it daily in our work! You can set demon-bound men free; you can break the chains that bind men, in that mighty Name. Most Christians are bound in some manner, either in testimony or in prayer, by fear and devilish doubt; they can be set free by a word if we use that name and then take their privileges.
What bondage to the world, and the binding, devilish spirit of the age we endure, that unseen bondage of the god of this age. How he holds men in leash! Yet every spirit may be free, yes, as free as Jesus.
What bondage to the fear of man; yet one authoritative word and the bond shall be broken.
What bondage to fear of want that makes men give pennies instead of dollars; yet there is freedom, glorious freedom for every bondaged soul. Reader! the Spirit is challenging you to arise and live this Truth.
What prayer meetings we would have if the Christians were free in prayer and testimony! God’s hands are tied until He can use ours. Angels are our servants. They cannot do our work. God is limited to our Faith, our obedience. God is as small in the world as we make Him. God is big only where some man makes Him big, by using this divinely given authority. We are the body of Christ; the Head is powerless without our hands and feet.
Oh, men, can’t you see how helpless God is until we let Him live omnipotently in our acts? A sin in the heart binds the arms of God that would embrace a multitude. Our fear to be used binds God’s omnipotence.
Men of God, be God’s men and use the authority delegated to you.
How The Early Church Used Their Authority

The Book of Acts is largely our Text Book; it is a series of stories of the triumphs of the Name of Jesus.
The first recorded use of their new heaven conferred authority is given in the third chapter, the healing of the impotent man at the Beautiful Gate. How quietly and assuredly the apostles say, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk.” How God responds, and the man is healed. How the city is again moved, how Judaism is shaken! The apostles are arrested, forbidden to use the Name or preach in it. That Name has power in it. Jesus did no greater miracles when on earth than are recorded in the Book of Acts as done through His Name.
We see Peter striking a man and woman dead for lying. Awful power this is; power to heal and power to slay. They were walking in the omnipotence of the authority given them by Jesus. They were taking the words of Jesus seriously. They were acting as though the Word of God was true.
We have not space to tell of the men who walked in the freshness of this grace of God. We see Paul cause blindness to come upon the opposers. We see him cast out demons from Mediums. We see him stung by a viper and no harm come. We see the sick healed, the dead raised. Whole heathen cities turn toward the unknown God of the Jews.
In thirty-three short years this gospel, backed by the power of the Name, in the hands of common men was carried into every part of the Roman World. We see aprons, handkerchiefs, touched by Paul, sent out and laid on the sick, do the same mighty acts that Paul did in person.
These men lived in bodies like ours, with passions like ours, made mistakes as we do; yet they wrought miracles by this God-inspired authority over demons and disease. They were just men of like passions with us. What ails us, why do we not walk in power instead of weakness?
Paul could deliver a man over unto Satan for destruction of his body, or as he did Hymeneus and Alexander, that they might be taught not to blaspheme (I Timothy 1:20) — “Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander whom I delivered unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.”
Preachers were dangerous in those days. Christians had power to prove their claims. They preached; they practiced. They made good. “They delivered the goods,” as men say today.
Their Faith stood not in word only, but in demonstration and power. Miracles were the common order of the day. Christianity was a miracle in their day.