Pulling Down Strongholds

By: John Stallings

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds .

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;-2 Cor. 10:3-5

Another version says…

We live in the world, but we do not fight in the same way the world fights. We fight with weapons that are different from those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God that can destroy the enemy’s strongholds. We destroy people’s arguments and every proud thing that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ. -- New International Version

In the verses above, Paul provides the key to victory in the area where many Christians suffer constant defeat; the battle for the mind. He reminds us that our weapons aren’t carnal but spiritual. These weapons include the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), prayer (Ephesians 6:18) and the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8).

As we read this passage there are certain words that seem important, words like weapons, strongholds, warfare. Paul is literally transporting us into the battlefield. We can hear the guns firing, cannons roaring, tanks roaming. And the reason is we are in the midst of the real battle. And this battle seeks prisoners. This battle is in the mind, and the prisoner, the devil hopes, is you.

 Satan desires to control our thought life. He knows that if he can capture our minds, he can steer our hearts.

There’s a battle going on, a fierce battle, although the battlefield is relatively small. It’s only about six inches wide, that battleground. It’s the space between your ears. Yes, your mind, a Christian’s mind, is the place where the warfare is waging, and you are not exempt. There are various forces at work, seeking to take control of your mind. The devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh are conspiring to take your mind captive. Will you let them? Are you going to surrender those six inches of space to the enemy, or, instead, will you claim them for your rightful master, our Lord Jesus Christ? Make no mistake, every Christian is called to active duty in “The Battle for the Mind.”

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?

If Satan can control your mind, he has you. So many times Christians give up their mind to Satan’s control. When you give up your mind to Satan, you’ll live a defeated life.  

 We need to accurately identify our enemy. We aren’t fighting our mother-in-law or the folks at our church, or the church down the street. We’re fighting Satan.

 A group of archaeologist went to a tropical rain forest to search for artifacts.

In the process of searching one man found what appeared to be a doorway. Upon further investigation they discovered the remnants of an entire village that lived there centuries ago.

As they searched they found a wall-like fort, bowls, utensils, a mathematics system and a very intellectual people. The question became, why these people had vanished off the face of the earth.

Then the archaeologists discovered their weapons, which were spears, and daggers.

Then they discovered their enemies and noted they were more advanced in the area of weaponry. Their enemy’s dominate weapon was the bow and arrow.

 Because their enemy had more proficient weaponry, this highly intelligent, strong people ultimately became extinct.

Think about this; the weapons we are using are God’s and they have the power to  destroy the enemy’s strongholds.

Our enemy isn’t clothed in flesh but has ensconced himself in high places to war against us.

The battle for the mind is the most deadly of all the battles we’ll fight because it’s a war between God and Satan on the battleground of our mind.

Satan’s desire is to conquer our thought life and then make it a citadel from which to war against God.  A  Backslidden Christian is artillery in the hands of Satan aimed at the heart of God.

The devil wants to gain control of our mind to pull us away from God. Let’s face it; none of us is powerful enough within ourselves to be victorious over Satan. He laughs at our schemes and ridicules our organizations.

As we see in scripture, we’re not only responsible for our actions but also for our thoughts.

Listen to Acts 8:22

²² Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.

Education and legislation won’t win the battle. If we were placed in a perfect environment our problems still wouldn’t be over.

Remember Adam and Eve? They got in trouble in the most perfect place on earth because Satan messed with their minds and they were deceived. How are we going to pull down high things like arrogance, ignorance, despair, bitterness, pride and anger? Certainly not with carnal weapons.

At Calvary Jesus dropped a nuclear bomb on the devil and won the victory for us all but we still have to fight the battle for our mind by keeping our hearts and thoughts centered on Christ.

Paul admonishes us in Romans 12:2,

Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

Consider the following verses;

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Phil.4:7

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Romans 8:6

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Romans 8:7

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; Eph.4:23

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2 Tim. 1:7

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

1 Peter 1:13

STRONGHOLDS

What does Paul mean when he speaks of Strongholds? What would a stronghold be?

According to the dictionary, a stronghold is- to harden or to make hard. This is a military term that speaks of entrenchment, a fortress, a piece of land for a base of operations.

 A stronghold is anything that Satan can use to control your life. A stronghold is where you give ground to Satan in some area of your life, and that ground given him is going be detrimental to your spiritual life.

So many Christians allow Satan to erect strongholds of fear, doubt, unbelief, greed, lust, anger, addictions and the list goes on and on. Maybe someone hurt you and you just won’t release it, and you allow Satan to build a stronghold of bitterness in your life. 

ANOTHER WAY TO VIEW STRONGHOLDS

A stronghold is an area of repeated failure in your life.

Maybe in many areas we’ve been victorious but in the area of the stronghold, time and again we’ve been defeated. Many strongholds become so powerfully entrenched in our minds that they become like military forts which are impregnable.

If you examine your life and see something that keeps cropping up, an area where in spite of your best efforts you’ve failed, it’s almost certainly a stronghold, or becoming one.

Put another way, if you’ve tried to be victorious in an area and can’t, if you seem to have lost control of a behavior or tried unsuccessfully to shake a habit, you’re dealing with a  Stronghold.

HOW DOES AN INDIVIDUAL GET A STRONGHOLD?

Great question.

Strongholds do not appear in our lives overnight, they are built stone by stone as we reinforce bad thoughts and allow them space in our minds. In the same way they have to be dismantled, one by one.

A stronghold begins like any other temptation, as a THOUGHT. Next the thought is ENTERTAINED. Then the thought is RECEIVED, and finally ACTED on. At this point, this “thing” becomes HABITUAL. It becomes a stronghold.

There’s the…

THOUGHT,

THE THOUGHT IS ENTERTAINED,

THE THOUGHT IS RECEIVED,

THE THOUGHT IS ACTED ON, AND….

A HABIT IS ESTABLISHED.

IF NOT DEALT WITH, A STRONGHOLD DEVELOPS.

You received a thought, acted on it and got a stronghold.

So we can have these strongholds, habits, thought patterns and complexes that have been built in our minds over many years. They are built one thought at a time and become very powerful as they dominate the landscape of our thinking and feelings. The world and its systems continue to build forts in our lives through a constant stream of thoughts, ideas and arguments that infiltrate our minds through the gates of our senses. We will never win the battle against these strongholds until we stop the flow of misinformation to our minds.

 “NIP IT IN THE BUD!!”

You may remember the old Andy Griffith Show that ran decades ago. One of the characters who made the show, at least to me, was Barney Fife. Old Barn was always off on one tangent or another. You may remember, Barney was allowed to carry a gun but was only given one bullet- which he kept in his shirt pocket.

One of the funniest episodes on the show was when Barney got strung out about “nipping things in the bud.” He went all over town with this sage piece of wisdom telling people “You gotta nip it...You gotta nip it in the bud.”

When Barney got a thought in his noggin it would take a dynamite charge to change it.

However it turns out that this simple thought about nipping things in the bud, not allowing wrong thoughts to take root,

Is very good advice.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER

Imagine that you are standing on a landing strip with a couple of hundred planes circling above. In this hypothesis, the landing strip is your mind and the planes overhead, asking permission from you to land, are thoughts.

My grandmother used to say, “You can’t keep the birds from circling over your head but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.” How true!

We are the air traffic controller of our mind and no thought can land unless we give it permission. You and I can either say yes or no to the thought.

Again, we can’t stop the thoughts from coming but we have the power, through an act of our WILL to deny them permission to land.

Keep this simple truth in mind; we can’t keep disturbing or even unholy thoughts from asking permission to land- that will only happen when we get to heaven. BUT we can deny them permission to land.

Let’s continue drilling down into this subject. We have…

FIVE GOD-GIVEN SENSES

These senses are wonderful God- given windows to the world. They are…Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch.

There is good news and bad news here. If we use the five senses the way God wants us to use them, they bring blessing to our lives. If on the other hand we allow Satan & his world system to Hi-Jack these senses, calamity can’t be far behind.

WHY IS TEMPTATION SO STRONG? Here’s the answer. WE ALREADY HAVE DESIRES!

 Satan’s no fool so he rides on the natural desires already in place within us, placed there by God.

If we satisfy God-given desires God’s way there will be good results -but if we satisfy them the devil’s way, the trouble begins. Satan exploits our God given appetites.

A FEW EXAMPLES.

When I was a kid, I had an all consuming desire to be a “real masculine guy.” In modern lingo we might call it a desire to be a “macho man.” I believe God placed this desire in my heart. I didn’t have the desire to be a rough-neck or a rabble-rouser or tough guy, just a real manly guy, in walk, talk, attire and attitude.

Now in those days there was a picture I kept seeing just about everywhere I went. It was a man sitting on a beautiful horse with snowcapped mountains behind him, a great hat on his head and a “cool stash.” I’d see this guy on billboards, in magazines and well just about everywhere you could put a large picture up. I saw this guy’s picture for years in practically every state in the union.

Did I mention that this dude always had a cigarette between his fingers? Oh yeah, the ever present cigarette being puffed on by this “man’s man.” I’ll bet you know who I’m referring to don’t you? Yes, it was “The Marlboro Man.”

I’ve been told that the man who modeled for this picture actually was a smoker and died of lung cancer in his mid forties. The greater point here is that Satan knew exactly what kind of man to put on that horse. His scheme was to show that picture to millions of young men like me and suggest to them what a “real man” looks like and how his look was enhanced by the cigarette between his fingers.

Thankfully the picture never influenced me to start smoking but from what I’ve read it was a highly successful campaign causing millions of men to pick up the habit of smoking.

Satan took that God-given desire in the hearts multitudes of young men to look masculine and spun it into encouragement to smoke.

At about the same time another campaign was going, riding on the desire in the hearts of young ladies to be feminine. This picture featured a beautiful young woman with an hour-glass figure holding a “Virginia Slim” between her fingers. I’ve also read that this picture which appeared world wide for years caused millions of young women to start smoking.

See why it’s so easy for Satan? He takes appetites that are already placed in us by God and rides on them. He can take the desire for sexual intimacy within the bounds of marriage which can give a couple a family of beautiful children and pervert it into a lust for pornographic images.

As we’ve already said, if we try to satisfy our desires Satan’s way it leads to chaos. But if we do it God’s way our lives are enriched.

Listen to what Paul says…

¹⁰ Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

¹¹ Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

¹² For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

¹³ Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

¹⁴ Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

¹⁵ And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

¹⁶ Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

¹⁷ And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Eph. 6:10-17

CHRIST’S TEMPTATION

Before Internet pornography, rampant materialism, and on-line gambling there was temptation. Even Jesus faced it, and in studying His example, we can learn a lot about being victors. 

The temptation of the Lord Jesus is one of 
the most interesting and informative scenes in all of 
the life of the Christ. It is helpful for 
us to remember the setting of this temptation of 
Jesus. It came after His baptism. Very often after 
the Baptism there is the Battle with the devil. More 
than one young convert has learned that the baptismal 
waters do not drown the devil. Very soon after you 
come to Christ you’ll find yourself perhaps tempted 
as you have never been before by the devil. After the 
Dove comes the Devil. After the voice of the father 
from heaven comes the hiss of the serpent from hell.

It’s also helpful for us to understand the 
strategy that is involved here. Scripture
says that Jesus was "full of the spirit", and that He 
was led "by the Spirit into the wilderness." This 
lets us know that God had a particular strategy in 
mind in the temptation of the Lord.

One of the purposes of the temptation of Jesus is 
to display God's perfect man the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The Bible says that "Jesus was tempted in all points 
like as we are, yet without sin."

 Sometimes when they are building bridges or strengthening bridges, they will conduct stress tests. The purpose is not to cause the bridges to collapse, but to show that the bridges cannot be collapsed.

The purpose here is to demonstrate that Jesus 
 is the perfect Son of God and though He was hit 
with everything the devil had He didn’t yield. Jesus 
was God's perfect man. It is also intended to show 
you and me how we are to encounter the temptation of 
the devil and how we can have victory in our lives.

When you look at these temptations you will 
discover there is an appeal to the physical. He says, 
"Take these stones and turn them into bread." Jesus 
had not been eating for many days.

 The second temptation was the appeal to the spiritual. He said to Jesus, "Fall down and worship me." Think about this; Jesus was actually tempted to be a Satan worshipper. The third temptation was the appeal to the emotional. He said, "Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple." 

The strategy of the devil has never changed. John 2:16, John talks about -the lust of the flesh--the physical, the lust of the eye--the emotional, and the pride of life--the spiritual.

When you and I are tempted we are always tempted 
in one of these three avenues. The devil has these three big
 moves on his chessboard and you and I need to be aware of that. The Bible tells us that we need to not be ignorant of his devices.

  

Sin begins with the lure and enticement.  It starts from within, it starts in the mind.  The mind is powerful and can cause us to rise up against all odds and go into battle.  It can cause to dream of things that others thought were impossible and make them come true.  But it is also in the mind’s eye that sin begins.

So you and I must take every thought captive.  Demolish the strongholds.    But you have to take the fight deep within you, back to the root, the very desire that began this temptation and fight it there.  A person does not just sin, they think about it first.

Paul understood the struggle.  In Romans 7, he cries out that the struggle is within and so often he fails.  He asks, “O wretched man that I am, who can save me from this body of sin and death?”  His answer, “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  He calls upon the Christians in Rome to “be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”  He tells them to “keep in step with the Spirit.”  The battle for the mind is the battle for the soul.  For the one who falls to sin, falls to death.

Do you know your triggers that happen before you sin?  Do you know what it is that pushes you over the edge?  Is it your anger?  Is a something visual?  Is it a place that you ought not to be?  Then don’t go there even in your mind.  Stop it before it happens and surrender yourself to God.

David didn’t walk away from the temptation after seeing Bathsheba taking a bath.  It started in his mind and he could have stopped it, but he didn’t and the cost was huge.  Do you really want to pay that cost?  Is the sin you’re thinking about worth it?

FIGHT SATAN AS JESUS DID, WITH THE WORD!

The Bible contains the antidote to the lies of the world, the flesh and the Devil. That is the only way we will win this part of the battle of the mind – by knowing the Scriptures and being able to wield the Sword of the Spirit. Without spending time in the Bible and under the teaching of a good church, you will never win the battle of the mind. And you will never win the battle of wits against the Devil unless you know the Word and know it well.

If you are diligent in searching the scriptures and you fill your mind with the Word instead of what the Devil has to say, the Holy Spirit will teach you and bring to your remembrance exactly what you need in order to win. But the Spirit can only bring to your remembrance what you have learned. (John 14:26)

Jesus said: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

In other words, if we abide in His word that will prove that we are His followers then we shall know the Truth which will set us free. This promise does not belong or work for those who are not followers of Christ.

 The Truth is not going to be found in the platform of a political party or a history book or in our own emotions or thoughts. It’s only in the Word. Neither is it found in a superficial reading of the Word, but as we abide in the Word, we will discover the Truth which will make us free. This means spending time in the Word, meditating on it and being obedient to it.

Listening to a 30 minute sermon once a week is not going to set you free. Abiding means to 

remain constantly in and submerged in the Word! As we abide, remain, dwell, live and move in the Word, we will begin to really know the Truth and that will set us free.

So, in order to begin breaking down the strongholds, we need to immerse ourselves in the Word and be obedient to it. As the Word begins to contradict the arguments of the world, the flesh and the Devil and we believe and act on the Word, the strongholds will come tumbling down.

But remember, if we allow the world to rebuild and reinforce the strongholds faster than the Word can break them down we can’t be victors.

It would be wise to limit the access of the world into your mind and soak in the Word of God and you will begin to find victory in areas you never thought possible.

 I have seen folk in deep depression and watched how quoting the scriptures and the promises of God, sometimes for hours on end, have brought them out of the depths of despair.

 It works!

Blessings,

John