2nd Cor. 10:3-5
What is a stronghold?
- Any argument or lofty opinion “raised against the knowledge of God”
- Anything that exalts itself in our minds, ‘pretending’ to be bigger or more powerful than our God
- It steals much of our focus and causes us to feel overpowered, overwhelmed, controlled
- It may be an addiction, unforgiveness, despair over a loss, fear
- It is something that consumes much of our emotional and mental energy
- It steals much of our focus and causes us to feel overpowered, overwhelmed, controlled
- And as a result, our abundant life is strangled, our believing lives are virtually ineffective
Where is the battle ground?
- The primary battle ground is the mind
- The goal of our warfare is to reclaim our thought life and take it captive to Christ instead
- The enemy’s target is the mind because it is the most effective way to influence behavior and thinking
- We must remember that nothing is more powerful than God
- Thus, satan lies to us –and does a remarkable job at getting us to believe his lies
- But God is greater, more powerful than the strongest addiction or overwhelming feeling of anger or fear
- What we must do is to bring satan’s lies, his arguments and lofty opinions, down and command them to bow to the truth and authority of Jesus Christ
2nd Corinthians 10:3-5 helps us identify the weapons of our warfare
- They are not weapons of the world
- They have divine power
- They are connected with the “knowledge of God”
- Their purpose is to take our thoughts captive
In Ephesians 6:10-18 Paul lists the whole armor of God
- All are defensive, except one – the Sword of the Spirit, identified as the Word of God, is the only offensive weapon listed in the armor
- But 2nd Corinthians 10:3 uses the plural form of weapon, implying more than one weapon
- I believe we see another spiritual weapon in Ephesians 6:18: “praying at all times in the Spirit”
- The two major weapons with divine power in our spiritual warfare are the Word of God and Spirit-empowered prayer
Divine power – Greek word dunamai – literally “to be able”
- The English word dynamite come from this Greek word
- Nothing is more formidable in the believer’s life than a stronghold
- The very word tell us why – it has a “strong hold” on us
- Strongholds cannot be removed by getting mad at them, nor by ignoring them
- Strongholds must be demolished – destroyed
- The very word tell us why – it has a “strong hold” on us
The combination of prayer and the word of God will destroy strongholds
- But understand that it is rarely immediate; The term warfare, actually means ‘a campaign’ – which is an ongoing effort of one army to overcome its enemy
- How does prayer help?
- Prayer keeps us in constant communion with God (the goal of our redeemed lives)
- Prayerless lives are powerless lives / Prayerul lives are powerful lives
- Prayer keeps us in constant communion with God (the goal of our redeemed lives)
- The ultimate goal God has for us is not power, but personal intimacy with Him
- Yes God wants to bring healing, but more than that for us to know the Healer
- God wants us to experience the resurrected life, but more so to know the Resurrection and the Life
- It is not God’s will that warfare becomes our focus
- We lose balance when we rebuke satan more than relate to God
- We will never win spiritual battles without prayer
- The blessing is that when the battle temporarily subsides, we have the result of far greater intimacy with God
- How does the Word help?
- The objective of our warfare is to bring down anything that exalts itself in our thought life and to take it captive to Christ
- We take thoughts captive when we choose to think Christ’s thoughts about a situation or stronghold instead of satan’s lies or our own thoughts
- The objective of our warfare is to bring down anything that exalts itself in our thought life and to take it captive to Christ
- What are Christ’s thoughts – they are revealed in the Word of God
- The way pull down those exalted thoughts, taking them captive to the obedience to Christ is to choose to think Christ’s thoughts rather than lies
The application is relatively simple – study God’s Word and pray
- To demolish strongholds – find what God’s Word says about the stronghold and pray using those truths, continually returning to them to the point the stronghold begins to become weaker and weaker.
- It takes prayer and the Word, not one or the other, both