Auwal was the prayer secretary of a campus fellowship in Zaria, and nobody prayed with more fire. At the Friday night vigils he paced the front of the lecture theatre with a microphone in one hand and his Bible in the other, and when he said “I decree,” people believed something was happening. He decreed that the delayed results of the final-year students would be released. He commanded the spirit of strikes to leave the university. He bound the principality over the whole of Kaduna State, every week, by name.
Most of this was youthful zeal, and some of it was genuine faith. But in his third year Auwal crossed a line. There was a young woman in the fellowship called Laraba, a quiet microbiology student who sang in the choir. Auwal had admired her for months. One evening after a vigil he asked to speak with her, and in the empty corridor outside the theatre he told her that the Lord had shown him she was his wife.
Laraba thanked him politely and said she did not believe that was so. Auwal did not accept the answer. Over the next few weeks he sent her long messages explaining that he had “established it in the spirit.” He told her that he had commanded every contrary spirit to release her heart. Finally, in front of two of her friends, he said, “I have spoken it, and what I speak in the name of Jesus must come to pass. If you resist, you are resisting God.”
Laraba stopped coming to the fellowship. She told her friends she felt frightened every time her phone buzzed.
It was the staff adviser to the fellowship, a lecturer in the agriculture faculty named Dr Owoicho, who eventually called Auwal into his office. He did not shout. He opened his Bible to Jude and asked Auwal to read one verse aloud. Then he asked him a question. “If Michael the archangel would not say more than ‘The Lord rebuke thee’ to the devil himself, what gave you the right to command a sister’s heart?”
Real authority, really given
Before we speak about the limits of spiritual authority, we need to say plainly that it is real. Christ gives His people genuine authority in His name. When Jesus sent out the twelve, “he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease” (Matthew 10:1). Later He sent out seventy more, and they came back overjoyed: “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Luke 10:17).
Jesus did not tell them they were mistaken. He confirmed what they had seen. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). And He added a remarkable promise: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19).
I believe that promise, and I have seen it at work. The New Testament church cast out demons, healed the sick and preached the gospel with signs following. “In my name shall they cast out devils” (Mark 16:17). A believer who stands in Christ need not be afraid of the powers of darkness. Timidity is not humility, and nothing in this teaching is meant to make you less confident in the name of Jesus.
But look carefully at what the authority covers. It is authority “over all the power of the enemy.” It was given to people on mission, sent by Jesus to announce the kingdom. Serpents and scorpions were familiar pictures of the devil’s work. The scope of the authority is the enemy and his works, exercised in the service of the gospel. It is not authority over other people’s wills. It is not a licence to make events happen because we have spoken them. And it is not ours to use for our own purposes.
“Rather rejoice”
Then Jesus says something that should stop every enthusiastic believer in his tracks: “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
The seventy had just seen the most exciting thing in their lives. Demons had obeyed them. And Jesus gently moved their joy to a different place. Do not let your gladness rest on your power. Let it rest on your belonging.
Why would He say this? Because power is an unreliable foundation for identity. A believer who finds his worth in spiritual authority will always need to demonstrate it. He will need the next deliverance, the next decree, the next visible result. He will become anxious when results do not come, and proud when they do. And he will be tempted, as Auwal was, to stretch his authority into places it was never meant to go, because his sense of himself depends on it.
Jesus gave a sobering warning about this elsewhere. “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:22-23). It is possible to use the name of Jesus without knowing Him. What finally matters is whether He knows you, more than what you did with His name.
So the believer’s first joy is that his name is written in heaven. That is a gift of grace. Nobody earns it by spiritual achievement. And a person who rejoices in that gift is free to exercise authority without needing it to prove anything.
The sons of Sceva
Luke gives us one of the strangest stories in Acts to illustrate the danger of treating Jesus’ name as a technique. Paul had been in Ephesus for more than two years, and “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul” (Acts 19:11). The sick were healed and evil spirits went out.
Some travelling Jewish exorcists noticed. “Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth” (Acts 19:13). Among them were “seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests” (Acts 19:14).
Notice the phrase “by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.” These men did not know Jesus. They knew Paul’s results, and they thought they had discovered his formula. In the ancient world, exorcists often used lists of powerful names in their incantations. The sons of Sceva simply added a new name to their list.
The response was devastating. “And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” (Acts 19:15). And the man “leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:16).
The lesson is clear. The name of Jesus is not a password that works for whoever says it with enough force. It represents a Person, and its authority belongs to those who belong to Him and act under His direction. The demon knew Jesus. It knew Paul, a man who served Jesus. It did not recognise seven men who were using His name for their own reputation.
What came next is just as important. “And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified” (Acts 19:17). Believers who had been secretly practising magic came forward and confessed. They burned their books of spells publicly, books worth fifty thousand pieces of silver. The result of the episode was not a new technique for deliverance. It was repentance from every attempt to manipulate spiritual power, and a fresh honour for the name of Jesus.
What the archangel would not say
That brings us to the verse Dr Owoicho asked Auwal to read. Jude wrote his short letter to warn the church about false teachers who had “crept in unawares” (Jude 1:4), turning grace into an excuse for immorality. He describes them like this:
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
“These filthy dreamers” claimed visions and revelations to justify themselves. They “despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.” The word dignities means glorious ones, and in this context it most likely refers to angelic powers. These teachers spoke with contempt and swagger about spiritual beings they did not understand.
Against them Jude sets Michael, the archangel, one of the most exalted of God’s angels. Jude refers to a dispute between Michael and the devil over the body of Moses. Scripture tells us only that God buried Moses and that no man knew his grave. Jude draws on a tradition familiar to his readers, and he uses it for one purpose. Even Michael, in direct conflict with the devil, “durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.”
Michael did not lack power. He did not lack courage. But he knew whose authority he was exercising. He refused to step into the role of judge. He handed the matter to God.
The phrase Michael used comes from the prophet Zechariah, in a vision of the high priest:
And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD , and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
Satan stood ready to accuse Joshua, the high priest, who was clothed in filthy garments. And the answer to the accuser was not an argument or a display of spiritual force. It was an appeal to the Lord’s own authority, and to His choice of His people. “The LORD rebuke thee... is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” The power lay in God’s decision, not in the force of the speaker’s words.
Peter makes the same point in a parallel passage, and he uses the very word we are considering:
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they , selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
“Presumptuous are they, selfwilled.” Presumption is self-will dressed in spiritual language. It is the attitude that assumes it may say and do what God has not authorised. And Peter contrasts it with the angels, “which are greater in power and might,” and yet do not bring railing accusations before the Lord.
If Michael the archangel said no more to the devil than “The Lord rebuke thee,” humility is no sign of weak faith. It is the posture of those who know whose authority they carry.
This has direct application to much of what passes for spiritual warfare. Some believers mock the devil, insult demons and boast about the damage they will do to spiritual powers they cannot see. Some pray long prayers naming principalities over cities and regions with great confidence, though Scripture tells us very little about such things. Jude and Peter call us to a more sober posture. We resist the devil. We cast out demons in Jesus’ name when we meet them. But we do not swagger. We speak as servants of the Lord, and we leave judgement to Him.
Authority over spirits, never over people
PunchlineAuwal’s most serious mistake was not his weekly binding of principalities. It was his attempt to command a person.
Scripture gives believers no authority to override another human being’s will by spiritual decree. When James and John wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village that had refused to receive Jesus, they asked, “Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?” Jesus “turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:54-56). They had a biblical precedent, Elijah. They had a sense of righteous indignation. And Jesus told them they had misunderstood His spirit entirely.
Look at how Paul handled a difficult case in Philippi. As the missionaries went to prayer, “a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying” (Acts 16:16). She followed them through the city, crying out that they were servants of the most high God. Luke continues: “And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour” (Acts 16:18).
Three things stand out. First, Paul waited. “This did she many days.” He did not rush into a display of power. Second, when he acted, he addressed the spirit, not the girl. “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” The young woman was a victim, exploited by her masters for profit. Paul’s command was for her freedom, not against her. Third, Paul did not command the masters, the magistrates or the crowd. When the masters dragged him to the authorities and he was beaten and thrown into prison, he did not decree his release. He prayed and sang hymns at midnight, and God acted in His own way.
There is a clear line here. Believers may resist demonic powers in Jesus’ name. They may pray for people, plead with them, preach to them and love them. But they may not use spiritual language to control another person’s choices. Telling someone that God has shown you they must marry you, join your church, give you money or obey you in some matter, and then claiming that refusing you is resisting God, is spiritual manipulation. Peter warned elders not to act “as being lords over God’s heritage” (1 Peter 5:3). If a leader or anyone else is pressuring you in this way, you are free to say no, to step away and to seek help from mature believers. Where pressure turns into harassment or threats, involve the proper authorities.
Forceful words do not guarantee events
A second boundary concerns the future. Some teaching suggests that if a believer speaks with enough authority, events must follow. Decree it, and it will happen. If it does not, the believer did not speak with enough faith.
I believe strongly in faith-filled speech. Jesus said that whoever “shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23). God has given us His promises to believe and to speak. But Scripture also sets that speech within the will of God. The law of Moses gave Israel a test for prophetic words:
And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD , if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
A word spoken in the Lord’s name that does not come to pass is a word “spoken presumptuously.” The speaker’s confidence did not make it true. And notice the final instruction: “thou shalt not be afraid of him.” God’s people are not to be intimidated by forceful declarations that God has not authorised.
James addresses ordinary planning in the same spirit. Rebuking those who announce their business plans as certainties, he writes, “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:15). This is not weak faith. It is humble faith. John writes that we have confidence in prayer when “we ask any thing according to his will” (1 John 5:14).
The apostles themselves lived this way. Paul prayed three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, and God answered, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Near the end of his life he wrote, “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick” (2 Timothy 4:20). Paul had seen extraordinary healings. He did not pretend that his words could guarantee every outcome.
Authority that never harms the oppressed
NuggetThere is a third boundary, and it may be the most urgent. Presumption does its worst damage when it is turned on vulnerable people in the name of deliverance.
Look at how Jesus ministered to the oppressed. “He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick” (Matthew 8:16). With His word. He did not need ropes or hours of shouting. When a father brought his tormented son, and the boy was thrown down and left lying as though dead, “Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose” (Mark 9:27). When the man possessed by Legion was set free, the townspeople found him “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (Mark 5:15). The fruit of Christ’s authority was dignity restored. Matthew applies Isaiah’s words to Him: “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench” (Matthew 12:20).
Set that beside what sometimes happens in our own settings. People are held down for hours. Some are chained, beaten or denied food in order to “drive out” a spirit. Children are accused of witchcraft by relatives or prophets and then abused, abandoned or put out of their homes. Families are told that deliverance will cost a certain sum, or that the “spiritual work” requires livestock, oils or a seed offering. Men and women living with epilepsy, psychosis, depression or the effects of trauma are treated as though their illness were a demon to be shouted at.
None of this is authority in the name of Jesus. It is presumption at its most cruel. The minister has claimed a power to diagnose what he cannot see and to inflict what Jesus never inflicted, and the people who suffer are usually those least able to protect themselves. Jesus was “much displeased” (Mark 10:14) when His own disciples merely turned children away. We can only imagine what He thinks when children are tormented in His name.
So let the boundaries be plain. Genuine ministry to the oppressed is done with gentleness, in prayer and the word, with the person’s consent, in the presence of accountable leaders, and never in secret. It never involves physical harm, restraint, starvation or payment. It works alongside medical and mental-health care, because illness needs treatment and a doctor’s help is no denial of faith. And where a child or a vulnerable adult is being harmed, believers must act to protect them and involve the proper authorities. Jesus loosed a woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, and He called her “a daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16). That is the spirit of His authority. It restores people. It never crushes them.
Staying within what God has revealed
Behind all of this is a simple principle from the law: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Our authority operates within revelation. Where God has spoken, we can speak with boldness. Where He has not, we have no business inventing claims.
Even Moses had to learn this. In the wilderness of Zin, when the people had no water, God told him to take his rod, gather the congregation and speak to the rock. Moses took the rod, but anger and exasperation took over:
And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also . And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
Moses was God’s appointed leader. The rod in his hand was a genuine sign of divine authority. And the water still came out abundantly. Yet God said that Moses had not believed Him or honoured Him before the people. He had gone beyond his instructions, struck instead of speaking, and spoken as though the power were his own: “must we fetch you water out of this rock?” A visible result did not mean God approved of the way His authority had been used. That is a sobering word for anyone who measures ministry by what happens on the night. God may graciously meet His people’s need even when a minister acts presumptuously, but the minister will still answer for it.
Paul told the Corinthians he wanted them to learn “not to think of men above that which is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). That is a good rule for spiritual warfare too. Scripture tells us that Christ has disarmed the powers, that we are to resist the devil, that demons must leave at the name of Jesus, and that we are to pray for all people. It does not give us maps of the spirit world, the names and ranks of territorial spirits, or techniques for compelling events.
None of this should make you fearful or hesitant. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Notice the three together. Power, for real authority against the enemy. Love, which never uses that authority against people. A sound mind, which keeps us sober and within what God has said. Presumption has power without love or a sound mind. Fear has neither power nor peace. The believer is called to all three.
Auwal read Jude 1:9 aloud twice in Dr Owoicho’s office. Then he was silent for a long time.
Punchline“I thought authority meant I could say anything in the name of Jesus,” he said finally, “and God had to back it.”
Dr Owoicho shook his head. “Authority means you are under authority. You speak where He has spoken. You command what He commands. And you never use His name to get what you want from another person.”
They talked for over an hour. They read Luke 10, and Dr Owoicho pointed to the words “rather rejoice.” He asked Auwal whether his joy had been in his name being written in heaven, or in the feeling of power on Friday nights. Auwal admitted it had been the second.
The following week, with Dr Owoicho’s help and with Laraba’s agreement, Auwal met her in the presence of two of the fellowship’s senior members. He apologised. He told her that he had been wrong to claim the Lord’s authority for his own desire, wrong to pressure her, and wrong to suggest that she was resisting God. He promised not to contact her again unless she wished it. Laraba accepted the apology, and some weeks later she returned to the choir.
Auwal stepped down from the prayer secretary role for a season, at his own request. He still prays with fire. He still believes that demons must flee at the name of Jesus. But a friend told me that his prayers sound different now. There is less decreeing and more listening. And at the end of every vigil, he reads the same verse before the fellowship goes home: “rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What is the difference between the authority Jesus gave in Luke 10:19 and the kind of authority Auwal tried to claim over Laraba?
- Why do you think Jesus redirected the disciples’ joy from their power to their names being written in heaven?
- What do the sons of Sceva teach you about the difference between knowing Jesus and using His name?
- How does Michael’s response to the devil in Jude 1:9 challenge the way you speak about spiritual powers?
- Have you ever been pressured by someone who claimed God’s authority for their own desire? How might Deuteronomy 18:22, “thou shalt not be afraid of him,” speak to that experience?
This Week
This week, read Luke 10:17-20 each morning and begin your prayers by thanking God that your name is written in heaven, before you ask for anything else. When you pray against the work of the enemy, pray simply and confidently in the name of Jesus, and then add, as Michael did, “The Lord rebuke thee.” Take note of any area where you have tried to use spiritual language to control another person or to guarantee an outcome God has not promised, and bring it to the Lord in honest confession. If you have pressured someone in this way, go and apologise.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for the authority You have given Your people over the power of the enemy. Thank You even more that my name is written in heaven by Your grace. Forgive me for the times I have rejoiced in power more than in belonging, and for any time I have used Your name to serve my own will. Keep me from presumption. Teach me to speak where You have spoken, to command what You command, and never to use Your name to control another person. Give me the courage of Your power, the gentleness of Your love and the clarity of a sound mind. May Your name be magnified in all I do. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.