Strongholds and Warfare
Strongholds & Warfare • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Renew the Mind – Transform the Life
Church, all through the Bible scripture tells us we are in a spiritual battle and the battles are fought in our minds. The success or failure of our walk with Jesus takes place in our minds.
Every action we take and word we speak starts in the mind. The devil cannot make you sin. The devil did not put the apple in Eve’s mouth. He didn’t make her walk over to the tree. He didn’t pick it from the tree. What did Satan do? He tempted Eve with words and persuasion, with lies and half-truths!
CHURCH, A HALF-TRUTH IS A WHOLE LIE!
The point is that Satan does not work by force. He works by the infiltration of the mind. He speaks lies. He brings up a past sin that you have been forgiven of to persuade you, to guilt you, to shame you, to depress you, to anxiety you into a false reality. It is false because the narrative he is feeding you is false, because if you are a blood-bought son or daughter of the Most High God, then you are Forgiven, Redeemed, Born Again and when you understand that, and believe that, then you can begin to be renewed in your mind which leads to being transformed in your life, from a life of sin, a life of sorrow, a life of pain, a life of anxiety and depression to a life of victory in Jesus…A Life Of An Overcomer.
Church, it’s not just a sermon or a song, it’s a matter of fact. If you can understand that we Christians are in a spiritual war, and the battle is won and lost in our minds, and you set out to renew your mind and use the mind of Christ He gave us, then you will begin to overcome and you will begin to live a victorious life with Jesus, because yes, we are in a spiritual war and you must fight, but the Word of God tells us and ensures us that the end all, be all, is won by God…meaning that we can live a victorious life in Christ if we win our personal battles, and we win those by renewing our minds!
Let’s look at some scripture about this spiritual battle we are fighting.
For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh,
since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments
and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
So let’s break this down. Verse 3 kind of says what I was saying a minute ago…that once we get saved we enter a war and we live in the world of flesh, but we battle in the spiritual.
The weapons that verse 4 is referring to can be found in Ephesians 6 where Paul talks about the armor of God. Ephesians 6:17
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.
That’s a clue, church, that Renewing Our Mind and the Word of God go together!
You can’t Renew Your Mind without the Word of God. See the Helmet Of Salvation is something we have to wear during the battle. There’s also a hope that comes, along with the Helmet Of Salvation that is mentioned earlier, but we can find it in 1Thessalonians 5:8
But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation.
it says and for a helmet the hope of salvation. It protects us from discouragement; against the desire to give up and so many other things and it gives us hope not only in knowing that we are saved, but that we will be saved. It is this assurance that God will triumph. Like I said earlier, we know the outcome of this war already, so the Helmet is hope/protection and then it says the Sword Of The Spirit, which is the Word of God. So if you look at this, it is saying that the Spirit is actually providing you a sword and that sword is the Word of God.
So, if the Spirit of God gives us a single official weapon -- the true Word of God – that is a double-edge sword, and we must understand the significance of it and we must cherish it and use it effectively.
We must also understand that the Spirit gave it to us, but just like He does in our lives, He helps us use the sword equipping us and guiding us on how to wield the sword, how to thrust the sword, and when to do so. See, when we talk about being in tune with the Holy Spirit, it is not just so you get a nudge here - or feel led to do something there - there is so much more.
The Holy Spirit is our drill sergeant, guiding us through a spiritual battle. Think of a soldier practicing sword thrust and different moves and positions. We must be ready so when the battle begins, we’ re ready and we have practiced the moves we need, so that any angle we have to fight at, we have done a thousand times…just like Jesus in the wilderness.
He was ready with whatever the devil tried. He tried to appeal to Jesus’ need at the moment which was hunger, but Jesus blocked Satan’s sword with scripture… then Satan tried to appeal to the human need for power, offering him all the kingdoms of the world, but Jesus blocked that swipe again with scripture. Then lastly Satan went after Jesus as God telling him to throw Himself down and see if the angels will save him, but yet again Jesus blocked Satan with scripture.
Jesus is our example of what is happening in the spiritual realm that we can’t see.
We have to understand that our mind is so important that it is a battlefield and God has equipped us with everything we need to win each battle.
Since the weapons of our Warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds …
Notice that Paul continues to use military terms because we are truly in a spiritual war. The word DEMOLISH means to knock down or overwhelmingly defeat. The word STRONGHOLD means fortification, or in this case a firewall.
A stronghold in this context is destructive patterns of thought that hunker down in a fortified firewall in our minds.
A firewall is a wall or fortification that keeps the fire from spreading to other parts of a building, but in this case the enemy has built these bad ways of thinking that lead us astray, and the only thing that can overcome or demolish these bad thought patterns is the Word of God, guided by the Spirit of God, which is accompanied by the Fire of God from moving to the other parts of our body, which is accomplished by the knowledge of God.
So now understanding the stronghold, let's add the rest of verse 4 and 5 which says…So the arguments and every proud thing… is referring to the bad thought patterns and things you've learned that do not line up with the Word or knowledge of God.
So you're born into a sinful, fallen nature and way of thinking. The enemy has access to building these strongholds or firewalls until the day you give your life to Jesus. Then you have a battlefield with years of backward thinking and fortification/firewalls trying to deny access to the knowledge of God, trying to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit from spreading. But the enemy knows that the knowledge of God is what breaks the strongholds, compromising the firewall, enabling the fire of God to spread a little further, going a little deeper.
As long as we are consistently taking in the Knowledge of God, from the Word of God, guided by the Spirit of God, which is accompanied by the Fire of God, you will have the Weapons of God and the Power of God to demolish strongholds.
You will have the ability to take every thought captive to obey Christ. See our whole problem is a Thinkin Problem and the Word of God, which is the knowledge of God, is what renews our mind, because it is that and that alone that demolishes strongholds.
Remember Jesus saying the truth will set you free? The truth sets us free from bad ways of thinking, which renews our mind, which transforms our life.
You see how deep it goes! Can you see why reading the Bible is so important? When your relationship to The Living Word connects to the Written Word then you are truly free.