During the writing of this book, missionary Wyman Nelson from Burkina Faso gazed at me through the steel webbing of shelves in our warehouse. At first, I didn't recognize him, but after he reminded me who he was, I quickly invited him and his wife to my office.

In the process of time, I mentioned that I was writing a book about binding and loosing. Wyman's face lit up, and it was soon evident that I had yet another dramatic incident.

About 1992 an evangelistic trip was planned to the town of Ye, among the Dafing tribe of Burkina Faso. For years, perhaps as many as forty years, attempts had been made to establish a church among these people. But it had never happened. This evangelistic campaign would be different. It was reinforced by five pastors, plus American visitors from the Pineview Church near York, Pennsylvania. The first day, the fairly large group spent the time in prayer.

That night the gospel was preached with little effect and much inattentiveness. The next day, more prayer.

Concurrently with the prayer focus, a man from the community began to banter with one of the pastors to whom he was related. Apparently, the conversation went something like this:

"I am stronger than you. The spirit we have is stronger than the spirit you have."

The missionaries and pastors in the team were mostly unaware of this side bar activity, that is, until the missionary leader, Rev. Steve Clouser prayed powerfully. His prayer concluded, "We now bind Satan in this tribe and in this town. In the name of Jesus Christ."

At that instant, the man who had been harassing the team and who had been sitting quietly and passively within hearing of the prayer meetings was suddenly struck from behind. Mrs. Nelson likened it to being hit with a baseball bat on the back of the neck. The man was flung out of his chair and spread-eagled onto the ground. He had taken a massive impact from the back. Groggily, he finally got to his feet and wandered away.

Only later did the pastor who was related to the man fill in the details. "Do you know who this man is who was harassing me? He's the most powerful witch doctor in this area, in this town. He's the man to whom everyone goes when sacrifices are to be offered."

That night and in the days that followed, the Dafing began to believe in Jesus Christ. There is a church there in that town today. And one godly leader now has sensed the change. He is now saying, "The light has come to the Dafing."

Indeed, it has. Through the public binding of the strong man - in a missiological context.

MORE OF STEVE CLOUSER'S INCIDENTS

One day three pastors with whom we had been working on the mission field (Burkina Faso) came to our home to talk to us. They proceeded to lambast us with all kinds of accusations. We were quite taken aback, not only because of the nature of the accusations (they were all untrue) but also by the spirit in which they were made. We could not imagine what had provoked such an attack.

My wife left the room for a moment to check on something on the stove. While there, she called upon the Lord and then, recognizing the spiritual dimension of this otherwise unwarranted attack, she bound Satan. The moment she walked back into the living room and sat down, the pastor who was speaking (rather vehemently) abruptly stopped talking, as if he had been "unplugged." It was shocking and unexpected, much like the experience of being in a roomful of people chitchatting and suddenly, by coincidence, everyone stops talking at once. After a moment of silence, one of the other pastors said, "Let's pray and go home."

To me what is so striking about this incident is, first of all, the immediate and dramatic effect of the binding and secondly, the unfortunate fact that the spirit or spirits that had to be bound were operating through Christian workers.

Steve Clouser, Ouagadougou, Mali, January 15,1997.

BILL TRINIDAD'S INCIDENTS

For eleven years the CMA church in Mangnambougou quartier (neighborhood) in Bamako was trying to get land and put up a church building. They encountered many difficulties, and twice the government lost important papers that the church had submitted. Things were moving slowly, if at all. We realized that we were not up against merely human opposition, but we were fighting against principalities and powers. When we started to take the spiritual battle seriously, God led us to take five prayer walks in the areas surrounding the building site in the spring of 1993. We proclaimed the Lordship of Christ to the spirit world, we took authority over any powers who might have been hindering the obtaining of the papers, we bound the "strongman of Magnambougou" from working. Within a few months of doing those things, the new church buildings was up and in use for worship. So far as we were concerned, using our authority to bind demonic opposition in conjunction with the prayer walks was the key to the breakthrough in this church.

"IL Y A UNE FORCE CONTRE NOUS MAINTENANT"

In the summer of 1992 God spoke to two of us in Bamako (Chuck Davis and Bill Trinidad) on two separate occasions about the need to start a prayer meeting with the specific intent of "binding the strong man." We met weekly for two hours: The first hour was in worship, the second in praying against the "strong men" operating in Bamako.

About six weeks after we started, an Islamic witch doctor tried to conjure up a spirit and send it on an errand. It was something he did regularly, and it had always worked before. But this time the demon did not manifest itself. The marabou kept calling the spirit, and it finally manifested.

In an angry tone of voice the witch doctor demanded, "What took you so long?!"

It answered him, "Il y a une force contre nous maintenant. C'est les cretiennes." "There's a force against us now; it's the Christians."

Our prayers of binding the strong man were having an effect in the spirit world. Apparently, the witchdoctor's ability to conjure and send the powers had been hindered by our praying.

Bill Trinidad, Bamako, Mali, 1997

Academic Articles Home Page