Sermon Transcript — April 17, 2003
I certainly hope that all of you had a wonderful Night to Be Much Observed. We certainly did. We were at the Eddington's and had a wonderful meal together. We were there until about 11:30 to 12:00, somewhere in that range. I think finally they went to bed. No, that is not true. It is amazing what can happen when you sit around and you have good food, and good company and just the fellowship. And I have heard many who were out past midnight, or one or two, and it certainly is a blessing. I think over the years we have become a little balanced in how we keep this first Holy Day. You might remember we used to have two services. So, you had to be up 10:00-10:30 to be at church. So it is nice to be able to fellowship and enjoy that, and then be able to come to services in the afternoon.
Well I think as all of you know, this is the first day of the days of Unleavened Bread. By this time, the Israelites were on their journey out of Egypt, if you reflect back to the original story. We all understand that the Passover pictures the beginning of the plan of God, the plan of salvation and our deliverance. The slaying lamb was a type of Jesus Christ, our Savior who died for us. He made it possible for us to be forgiven; our sins to be forgiven and to make a start toward the kingdom of God. To come out of this world and to head for His kingdom.
When Israel came out, the Bible says they came out with a high hand. They had been slave people. For the first time in centuries they were a free people. And now they were headed to the promised land. The days of Unleavened Bread picture our coming out of this world, and putting Egypt behind us. I think we are all aware of that. And right now we are also all unleavened, I certainly hope we are unleavened, because this illustrates that we are to be putting sin out of our lives and live a life without malice, without hatred, without animosity.
But I think we all realize there are sins, there are habits, there are ways of thinking, there are influences that we all have difficulties rooting out of our lives. And many of these come from the past years that we have lived in the world. The way our character, the way our minds have been taught and framed, we have difficulty getting rid of some of these things.
There are some things that seem to have a death grip on us, that we try to overcome but we find that it is exceedingly hard to overcome them. Well, today I want to show us what God has made possible for us to overcome sin in our lives. We want to take a look at the progression of sin, what the Bible says, how it progresses. And we want to take a look at the lessons that God has given to us. And we especially want to look at the mother of all bonds that God has given us to be able to blast sin out of our lives and become conquers and overcomers.
So, with all of that in mind let's turn back to 1 John 2:15. I want you to notice what John says here.
1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Now, basically he begins to describe the three categories that send sins and difficulties that we fall into. Almost everything you have difficulty with can come under one of these three categories. Let's notice.
1 John 2:16, 17 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Now let's take a look at these three categories; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. What is lust, to start with? Well, lust is a craving, it is a desire. It is a longing for what is forbidden, or something that you shouldn't have or can't have. The lust of the flesh is a lack of controlling our appetite. Those would be sexual drives, eating, drinking, whatever goes along with the flesh. Now, lack of control of those appetites; the lust of the eyes, or longing for things that we see but we can't have or should not have. So you long for something. You desire it. You crave it. But you can't have it. Or, even if you could have it, you should not have it.
And the pride of life deals with how we think. What our basic motivations are like. Trusting in ourselves, our own ability and way of thinking. Most of us do not think of the pride of life from this perspective, but it is basically trusting in ourselves. We take a pride in this life and what we have done, what we have accomplished.
The Enhanced Strong's Lexicon says, "It is that which trusts in its own power and its own resources." So it is our depending on our own power, our own resources. "An empty presumption which trust in the stability of earthly things."
A pride of life is the approach that we can solve our own problems. That we know how to deal with sin. And so this is the problem that all of us face.
As God calls us into His church, He calls us out of the world just like He called Israel out of Egypt. And we begin to head towards the kingdom of God. We find that we are confronted with these, and we have to struggle with them, we have to deal with them, we have to overcome them. And God says that He will help us to be overcomers.
Well, let's back up to the book of James, chapter one. And I want you to notice the steps that sin goes through. And we will come back to what we have read here in 1 John. But look at the steps, when I say steps, the progression of sin, in a person's life.
James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; So, very clearly the Bible states that God does not tempt us as human beings. If we are tempted, it comes from Satan or from our own desires. It says, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
Now the word temptation, or tempt, is a very interesting word in the Greek. And if you study it, it can be a puzzling word. The word is peirazo in the Greek. Let me read to you from Westword Study of the Bible, the write up they have on the word, peirazo. It says, "This word meant originally to make an experience of, to pierce, or search into."
So it meant originally to search into to see what something was made of. It came next to mean; "to try intentionally with a purpose of discovering what good or evil, power or weakness, was within a person."
In other words, you put them to the test to see what they are made out of. It meant therefore in its basic usage to put to the test to see what good or evil there is in a person. Then, since men so often break down under such a test, and display the evil there is in them, the word came to mean to tempt in the sense of soliciting a person to do evil.
Now it is interesting this word is translated both to try and to temp. In the Bible it is applied to Satan the devil when it say that he is the tempter, or that he tempts us. It applies to God when it says that God puts us to the test. But God does not do the same that Satan does. Let me explain the difference. Even though the same word is translated try and temptation, they have a completely different approach.
Satan tempts. God tests. Basic difference. Satan tries to solicit us to sin or to do evil. That is what the word eventually came to mean. He wants to tear us down and to destroy us. So his whole motivation where he is coming from is to tempt us or destroy us. God will test our metal to see what we are made out of. God will see what we are made of. God wants to help us to grow to change to become like Him. So God will test us, and He will say, okay, this person lacks faith. I have got to work with him so that he can have more faith. Or, this person lacks patience. I need to help them to have more patience. Or, this person is lacking, and you can go on and on and on. There might be a list a hundred miles long that God looks at us and says, okay this person needs help here. They have gone through a test. I see they lack. I am going to help them.
Whereas, Satan comes along and says, how can I get his person to sin? What can I do to get them to disobey God? And so therefore he temps.
So even though the same word, the same word, peirazo, is translated tempt or tried, you find in the Bible, as the Bible clearly says God does not tempt us. But God will put us to the test to see our character.
You see, what God must know before we make it into the kingdom, is that you and I want to go His way with our whole heart and our whole being. And that we do not want to go Satan's way.
Now, let's state an obvious: a temptation is not a sin. Jesus Christ, the Bible says, was tempted in all ways as we are and yet He never sinned. So the temptation itself is not a sin on our part. We are tempted by Satan and by our own lusts, or our own desires. That is how we are tempted.
Now notice what happens. It says 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. I am reading the New King James version.
The King James version says, his lusts. And it is the word for lusts. In other words, our own lusts, our own desires. So he is drawn away and enticed. The word drawn, or drawn away, means to lure. It is the same thing when you are hunting and fishing.
Game is lured out so that they can take the bait, or you can shoot them, or you can catch them. If you have a big bass that is stuck up in a hole somewhere. You throw your lure out there and you start pulling it by. And you jerk it and you try to entice him, you try to get him to go after the bait. And this is exactly what we are talking about. This is exactly what temptation is. Satan's throws the bait in front of us. We are drawn, we are lured, by it.
As Webster's dictionary says the word lure means the power of attraction. So when Satan tries to draw us away, or to lure us, what he is trying to do is to attract us to something that is wrong or that is evil, or is going to be detrimental to us, it is going to be harmful to us, or harmful to the Church or our families, or to those around us.
Now the word, entice, it says we are lured and then we are enticed. The word enticed means bait, or catch by bait. So what you find, Satan has thrown the bait out there. And then let's notice what happens.
James 1:15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; Okay, lusts conceives. This is the Greek word for a woman conceiving, or getting pregnant. The analogy is one of getting pregnant. Conceive means to become pregnant, to cause to begin life, to form or develop in the mind. So what happens when a temptation is out there, the bait is there, you are being allured, you are being attracted to it, and then you give in to it? Well it begins to conceive. Something takes place in our mind, in our heart and in our approach. And we begin to conceive. We give birth. You know what we give birth to? You have a baby. The baby's name is sin. And it is called sin. It could be the sin the son of greed. It could be called sin, the son of lust. Or it could be called sin or the daughter of the vanity of pride, because this is where it comes from.
And so, what does Satan work on when he works on us? When he tries to bait us? He works on the lust of the flesh. He knows if you are weak somewhere. The lust of the eyes, and our pride. And so he will bait us in these areas, he will entice us. And then finally what happens as it says here, and sin, when it is full-grown, when it is conceived, it begins to develop and finally it is born, it is full grown. The word means to perfect, or bring to an end, or to accomplish. What is the end result of the baby being born? Well, it kills. It turns around and kills you. The wages of sin is death. And so we find sin then, ends up as our enemy and it will destroy us. brings forth death.
So what we find is if we allow certain sins or habits to mature, they will eventually come to control us. They will begin to rule over us.
Now with that in mind, let's back up to Eph. 4:26.
Ephes. 4:26-27 "Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath, [27] nor give place to the devil.
We are told not to give place to the devil. The NIV, New International Version of the Bible translates this, do not give the devil a foothold. Don't give him a foothold, or a beachhead, if you want to translate it that way. Don't allow him to take up occupancy. Don't give him room or place. The word actually in the Greek means, a room. Don't give him room. It is like hanging a vacant sign out saying, room for rent. You don't want to give Satan the devil room in your life. in your mind, in your heart, in your approach in any way. When we sin and don't get rid of it, what we do is we give Satan a foothold in our life. We give him a toehold.
I think one of the best examples I could use physically that we would all understand, was the Normandy invasion in World War II. It is a perfect example of what I am talking about here. The allies had to establish a beachhead. And if any of you saw the movie, Saving Private Ryan, you would see the horrors of wars and would understand the horrible cost of life that it took to just establish a beachhead on Normandy. When our troops stormed ashore, they were sitting ducks for heavy machine guns, for the troops who were encased, and up here on the cliff just firing down at them. But we sent wave after wave, after wave, and finally, thousands being killed, but a few hundred got through. A few hundred made it to the cliff. Out of those, a few found a way over, and then they started bombing the millhouses and they started clearing a path. And eventually they gained the high ground and drove the enemy out. And from there it was just a matter of time until the Nazi's were defeated.
Well, brethren this is the way Satan is. This is the way he fights. He will send wave after wave after wave at us. He does not give up. He does not quit. If there is anyone that he wants to destroy, it is true Christians, because he knows our potential. He knows one day we will judge angels. He knows we will be in the family of God. And so, he will continue to send the onslaught on to try to get a toehold, a foothold. And if he can get a foothold, a beachhead in our lives, then he will come after us.
Well, what you and I want to do, we do not want to give Satan or sin a beach, or a head, or a foothold, or any type of let's say, toehold in our life. Once we do, it becomes more and more difficult to get rid of it.
Now let's go over to 2 Cor. 10: 3, 4.
2 Cor. 10:3-4 For though we walk in the flesh, you and I are still in the flesh. We are not spirit beings yet. We still walk in the flesh. we do not war according to the flesh. We don't have jets and tanks and Bradley's and bazookas and rifles and M1's all these types of things. This is not how we war because it goes on to say,[4] For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal The weapons that God has given us, they are not carnal weapons. but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
So God has given us mighty weapons that will pull down all the strongholds, all the beachheads. Anything that is in your life that has really taken hold and that you are fighting against, you are struggling against, and I dare say there is not a person here who doesn't find something that they truly are struggling against. I do. I think we are all human. We have to struggle.
The word stronghold means, a castle, a stronghold, a fortress. So it is talking like anciently where they had castles, they had high walls. Some of those castles could have been 30, 40, 50 feet through, 75 to a 100 feet tall. Run chariots across the top of them. And in order to penetrate through there , sometimes it took years of seizing to knock down one of those fortresses. God says He has the mother of all bombs that He can drop on one of those fortresses that will destroy it, that can eradicate it.
Going on in the Greek, the meaning of the word stronghold is, anything on which one relies. And I might add, other than God. Anything on which one relies, it also implies the argument and reasoning by which a disputant endeavors to fortify his opinion and defend it against opponents.
So it is talking about the fortresses we have in our minds, in our hearts, the thinking, the ideas that people come up to resist God's way.
Theological Dictionary of the Bible by Kittle has this to say about stronghold. This is a military term for a fortified place.
Philo then implored the term, "for the bastion of vaunted human reasoning." Where humans reason.
This is close to Paul's use of the term in 2 Cor 10:4, about philosophical reasonings and ideas. So, basically, brethren, what we find, the Bible says there are strongholds that we all struggle against.
How do we destroy those? How do we get rid of it, and especially once sin becomes entrenched? Or an idea or a wrong philosophy or an approach or habit becomes entrenched in our lives and we have to work on it?
As I have said, there is a progression that sin goes through, if I could just summarize it for you from what we have read so far. There is a temptation, there is a lure, an attraction, an enticement. Sin conceives. It starts small, just like a conception starts with an egg and a sperm. So you find sin conceived starts small. In other words it gains a foothold in our mind, in our lives. If it is allowed to grow or mature, it will become a stronghold in our lives. That is when it becomes difficult to get rid of. It can then become this huge stronghold that we wrestle with. Then it is much more difficult to get rid of.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. What about something like smoking? The first cigarette the person smokes, if you say, boy, most people when they first start smoking will cough, hack, and if they say that is a nasty habit, I don't like this and throw it away, have no trouble getting rid of it. But what happens once you smoke and it becomes a habit and you have nicotine in your body? Then it is much more difficult to get rid of it isn't it? Isn't it much easier to cut if off to begin with then to allow it to come in and to grow?
What about taking drugs? A very close friend of mine that I have known over the years, took cocaine as a young man. And to this day he still struggles with cocaine. He hates it. He loathes it. He will go six months, he will go nine months, sometimes he will go a year, and then boom. The urge becomes so strong, some kind of a chemical problem there that he finds he hits the wall and he goes back. And he repents and he goes on, and he can go on for several months again. But he finds that he struggles with it. What is his admonition to anyone who wants to pick up an illicit drug like that? Never do it. Never do it because it will grab you and you will find that it is something that you can't let go of.
Back in Proverbs 6 we have Solomon, beginning in verse 23, giving us an example of what we are talking about here. And this is a case of adultery. I am just illustrating for you some examples of things that if we allow them to get a foothold in our lives, can get a grip on us that becomes so tight that it is hard to blast them away.
Proverbs 6:23 For the commandment is a lamp, And the law a light; Reproofs of instruction are the way of life,
Now just as a side point I want you to notice that the book of Proverbs says that reproofs are a way of life. It is a way of life of us to be reproved, to be corrected, to be instructed, to be shown where we are wrong. It goes on to show that God's law is like a lamp. It points us in the right direction. Why? Proverbs 6:24-25 To keep you from the evil woman, From the flattering tongue of a seductress. [25] Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, Nor let her allure you with her eyelids.
This goes back to what we are talking about, temptation, there is an allurement.
Proverbs 6:26-29
For by means of a harlot
A man is reduced to a crust of bread;
And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.
[27] Can a man take fire to his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?
[28] Can one walk on hot coals,
And his feet not be seared?
[29] So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife;
Whoever touches her shall not be innocent.
So you find that is what we have today in our society. We find the movie industry
is set up this way, advertising is set up this way, the sitcoms are set up this
way, you find programs where people dress, act, in such a way that they try
to seduce. They allure. The Bible says, the New Testament plainly says, flee
fornication.
What was Joseph's example that we find in Egypt when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife? He fled. You see, once a person gives in to a sin like this, then the next time it becomes easier. So the strength that a person has is not to give into it. Pornography is the same way. It is best to avoid it altogether. Those who get hooked on pornography claim that it becomes an addiction and it becomes exceedingly hard to overcome. That is why one should never let his guard down.
Brethren, do any of the following strongholds that I will describe for you exist in you, or exist in me? These are strongholds that I have found over the years that we all struggle with, or sometimes people struggle with. Let me enumerate them.
Things like bitterness, rebellion, worry, what I mean worry is over worry, greed, uncontrolled speech, lying, addictions, sexual immorality, pride, fear, despair, worldliness, wrong self images, intellectual vanity, pride, lethargy, apathy, all of these are things that can get a toehold in a person's life.
I think one of the greatest difficulties that we have today in the age that we live in, and that the Bible said would be a dominate attitude is the attitude of spiritual lethargy, spiritual apathy. We find that this is something that we all have to be aware of.
What we find, brethren, if we are not careful is that we compromise our relationship with God. We compromise with God. To have a proper relationship with anyone you have to stay close to them. If I am going to have a proper relationship with my wife and I only see her once a year, we are not going to be too close to one another.
If people get married and one lives on the left coast and one lives on the right coast, people live on the opposite sides of the country and occasionally they fly and meet each other, that is not the way that you build and you strengthen a marriage. And so it is with our relationship with God. To stay close to God you have got to do what it takes. We live in such a fast pace age that something has to give. And generally what gives is heartfelt prayer and diligent Bible study. These are the ways that we stay close to God. And I think what we find is that Satan has created an environment, you know this is his society, the world, it is not God's world. Satan is the god of this world. He is the one who influences society around us. And he has structured it, especially at this end time, that we become so involved in making a living, taking care of our family, doing a variety of things, that we find that we don't have the time, don't say we don't have the time, we don't TAKE the time to really pray and study in the manner that we should to stay close to God.
And so one area that Satan can get a toehold in our life is when we begin to compromise our relationship with God and let down in those areas. Then he can begin to make inroads.
Hebrews 3:12-13 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. So we are told not to depart from God, not to go in that direction. [13] But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
One of the areas where Satan is able to get a foothold is through the influence of the society around us. Could it be that we are not as sensitive to sin, to what is wrong, as we had been in the past? That we are able to tolerate, or we do tolerate things that we would have never tolerated? Notice what it says, sin can harden us. It is a deceiver. As it says here, do not be hardened through sin, the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is so deceitful that we don't realize how it begins to harden us. And we can begin to have hardening of the arteries so to speak. The first thing you know you have had a spiritual heart attack. You weren't even aware that it was going to take place.
2 Cor. 10:4,5. Let's go back and focus on the strongholds.
2 Cor. 10:4-5 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God Our weapon are mighty. The weapons that God gives to us, if we use them properly, can blast away any stronghold, any foothold, that Satan has got or that our human nature or sin has in our lives. But notice it says, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; So the weapons that God gives us can pull down the strongholds.
There are two things behind strongholds in human's lives. Number one is human pride. That is pride as independent from God. Self-sufficiency. Humanity. And second is that pride which expresses itself through clever arguments and reasonings that says that our actions are okay. It is amazing how we can be motivated by pride and make it seem logical and right in the thing to do. But as verse five say, notice, here are the strong hold that God says we wrestle with and we need to cast down. 5 casting down arguments, arguments or any thoughts or reasonings that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. There are so many things that exalts us against the knowledge of God, or can. So we cast down all those arguments. and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, High things are systems of thoughts that keep us from the knowledge of God. This could be fleshly wisdom, human ability, physical presence and power, anything that we rely upon.
Let me give you some examples today in society. Not all of us, hopefully none of us, adhere to these things. But there are so many arguments, so many high ideas in society today that go against the knowledge of God. What about evolution, the theory of evolution? You find most of those who have bought into evolution today, especially those who teach it, they think that people who believe in God are mentally weak, uninformed, the unthinking, and the unscientific. Our young people run into this at school especially when they go to college. And you will find that this is a philosophy that raises itself against the knowledge of God.
What about the humanistic approach? The humanistic approach, what we call humanism, is labeled in the Bible, the pride of life. In other words, the pride of life is, we can solve our own problems. We can work it out. Or as one of our, I think one of our nieces or nephews used to say, me can do it. And that is what human beings say, me can do it. I can do it. I don't need God. I can work it out.
The whole political system. Economic system. Man's government, man's way of life, is based on this humanistic approach. All we need is more money, more research, and we can solve the problem. Another think-tank. Get everybody together, and man can solve it.
The way to solve man's problems is to acknowledge we don't have the answers and only God does. That is the only way man is going to solve his problems. Man has not yet come to the point to where he is willing to acknowledge that.
What we have to realize is our battles are against demonic sources that have, let's say, put out there a world view, a mind set, arguments, intellectual approaches, emotional walls of defense, that keep people from the knowledge of God and the truth.
And so what you find, all of us struggle against these things. And without realizing it they creep into our lives and we have to recognize them and remove them.
What are some of the thoughts or reasons that we as Christians wrestle with? Are there certain thoughts that you and I wrestle with that we know that are wrong and yet we still have a problem with them, we still have to contend with them? Sometimes they get a grip on us?
Well let me show you what some of these are. It shows up in our hearts and minds sometime is unresolved guilt. We just came through the Passover. And what did the Passover picture? That Jesus Christ died as our Savior so our sins could be forgiven. But sometimes you find there are those who say that no matter how many times they confess their sins to God, there is no relief. They still, or we still, feel guilty. Why? Because we feel that we are so bad that God can't possibly forgive us. How could God forgive me? I keep doing the same thing over and over again. Maybe God forgave me the last time, or the time before, but how is He going to forgive me this time? And so we wrestle with that.
But what does the Bible say? It says if you truly repent and are sorry then God will forgive. Sometimes we think, how could God love me? I am unlovable. Nobody would love me. If people really knew me, how bad I am, then they wouldn't love me. We human beings reason that way. I am not sure I am good enough for God to accept me. I am just not good enough. But you know what this is called in the Bible? It is called God's grace. God's mercy. No one is good enough on his own. Which one of us can come to God and say, I am good enough, forgive me? None of us are good enough. It is not a matter of being good enough. When we repent, God forgives.
Other attitudes are, I have not done enough to please God. And there is so much more that I need to do. And this goes back a lot of times, I think, to childhood where children try to please their parents and they grow up and they transfer that to God. And I can never please God. And that is not true. What we have to realize is that we are God's children. He loves us. And He was willing to forgive us.
And then, another one, if you really knew who I am you wouldn't love me. And since God knows who I am, knows the inside of my heart, how can He love me? You see these are things that we wrestle with. And this is what Satan the devil works on. He will try to get a toehold in our life. And he will want to discourage us through this.
So brethren, how do we go about pulling down strongholds? Casting down arguments and human reasons? How do we get rid of these things? How do we blast them away and destroy them so that we can make progress, we can grow, we can overcome?
Well, we have an example in the Bible of Israel having to pull down a stronghold before they could enter the promised land. Remember they came out of Egypt. During the days of Unleavened Bread they headed toward the promised land. Now it took them 40 years to get there. The old generation died. And the new generation moved in. Forty in the Bible is a sign of trial and testing. And it is symbolic of the period of time when God calls us until we get in His kingdom. The old man, the old way of life has to die just like the older generation died. It is only the new man who is going to enter in to the promised land.
And so you find that as they were entering into Palestine, they were faced with a very formidable stronghold. The city of Jericho was a strong fortress that stood in their way. Without taking Jericho, the enemy would always have a position of strength of which to attack them. It would always be there as a thorn in their side. The fall of Jericho I think gives us a surprising answer as to how we pull down strongholds.
The battle of Jericho was a physical demonstration of the spiritual reality for us, when you look at it. Jericho did not fall by typical military approach. Typical military approach would have been, organize the army, assault the walls, use battling rams against the walls, put ladders up against the walls and try to go over the top, shoot arrows up there, charge.
That is not how it was done, was it? See, that would have been the standard. Make some type of big machine where you could come up, protect your troops, and maybe they could hop over and get into the city.
Instead God said, march around the city seven days. And you will go around once each day and on the seventh day, march around seven times. Blow the trumpets. And low and behold the walls will fall down. Now, that took a little faith didn't it? That took a little belief that God would do what He says.
What is the principle that you and I should learn from that? It is that God is the one who pulls the strongholds down. It is God who is able to do it. It is through His power, His strength. Not always in the way we think or we envision or we might plan. God doesn't always do it the way that we might think.
Again, when you come back here to verse four, it says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. It is interesting the word warfare in the Greek means campaign. It is not just one battle. It is talking about a whole campaign. We just had the Mid East campaign. Iraq campaign. It wasn't just one battle. We took this city. We took that city. Our objective was to eventually get to Baghdad. We divided the country up and we conquered it.
The attacks of Satan against us individual, and against the Church collectively, is a part of a broader campaign. He doesn't just fight one battle and say, opps, they won. I am getting out of here. He has a campaign; been going at it for 6,000 years and he has never given up. His campaign is to destroy mankind. To keep us out of the kingdom.
Let me read you verse four out of the New American Standard Bible. 2 Cor. 10:4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
So it is divinely powerful. So what you find is, our battle is in our minds. Our battle is in our minds, in our hearts, where we fight. So what are the spiritual weapons that God has given us to fight against these strongholds? Well, let's take a look here very quickly.
Romans 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
Now the word here for armor can be translated either armor or weapons of light. Phares Lexicon has this to say, "the word here means arms used in warfare, weapons or instruments."
So when it is talking about the armor of light, it could just as easily be translated as the weapons of light.
Brethren, what you find is God gives us weapons of light. The Bible talks about darkness of Satan's way, deception. And light is a symbol, or symbolic of the truth or the right way. Have you ever stopped to think about the truth of God, the light of God, if you want to put it that way, is a weapon that God gives to us to fight with? It is an absolute weapon.
Romans 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
So Christ in us, this is where we get our strength. This is where our might comes from. It is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is more powerful than any hydrogen bomb that any human being could ever think of, device, create, because it is the very essence of God that God shares with us. It is His very power that He gives to us. And as Gal. 2:20 says, we are crucified with Christ. Nevertheless we live. Yet not us. Christ lives in us. The life that we live we live by the faith of the Son of man.
So you find here that our strength comes from God. Christ lives in us, as Romans 5:10 says. So brethren, what you find is that God gives us His truth as a tremendous weapon. Let's go back to Heb 4:12. Notice how it is expressed here.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living So the Bible is a living book, even though you have words printed on a paper, these are living principles. These are principles, another way of saying it, is to live by. the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
See, the Bible, the truth of God, the word of God, is given us as an offensive weapon to help us to fight with. And how do we fight with it? Well, it discerns. It gives us reality. If I could describe it this way, humanity walks around in darkness. If you lived in total darkness all of your life, I mean no light whatsoever. Go down to the middle of a cave and there is no light, no flashlight, no torch, nothing. And you are told to live there. And so you feel around, you stumble around, you try to live. And you are in total darkness. You are not going to be able to do very much. That is exactly the way the world is. It is in total darkness.
God comes along and He opens our minds. He gives us light. He illuminates our understanding, and we have the light of His word. Do you know what it does? For the first time it reveals to us reality. Before we were living insane. Our approaches, our attitudes, everything that we thought were right, as the Bible says there is a way that seems right to a man but the way thereof is a way of death, leads to death.
Mankind for 6,000 years has been going in a way that he thought was right. Was going to produce right results, but it produces death. It produces suffering. It produces misery. It produces all of the problems and heartaches and difficulties that human beings have. And they don't see it and they don't understand.
Finally God reveals His truth to us and all at once we have a reality check and we say, you know, I have been wrong. And we repent. And we continue to study the Bible every day because it discerns, as we read here, it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the hearts. And it reveals to us those high things that exalt themselves against God. It reveals to us the things that need to be cast down, thrown down. And it reveals the right way to think. It reveals attitudes, motives, approaches. The wrong ways and the right ways.
And so you find, you and I are to use it. I think an example would be Romans 1. What do you find in Romans 1? Well, it reveals why man rejects God. Why man, when they knew God, did not honor Him as God, but turned their backs on Him. Because, simply stated, man doesn't want God telling them how to live.
You know the difference in us? We want God to tell us how to live because we realize any other way is insanity. Any other way doesn't work. Any other way is wrong. Any other way is going to death. Only God's way will work.
Man wants to follow his own lusts, his own desires. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and not have God tell him what is wrong. And so God has allowed man to follow his lusts.
Romans 1 also shows the pride of life. In other words, that man wants to do and live the way he wants to. You know what overcomes the pride of life which is another weapon that God has given to us? And too often we don't think of it as a weapon, but it is. And that is humility. Humility is the weapon that God has given to us to fight the pride of life. Because humility is an acknowledgement on our part that we don't know the right way. We cannot solve our own problems. We don't believe in the humanistic approach. We believe in the God approach, and that is God has to show us the way. Christ said I am the way. I am the truth. I am the light. So, He shows us the way to go. That is the only way that we can go. And then He leads us in that way.
Truth is a perfection against wrong ideas, wrong philosophy, human reasoning. Are we unforgivable? No. God will forgive us. Will God forsake us? What does the Bible say? I will never forsake you. So, in other words, it helps us to focus in the right direction.
How should we treat one another? How should we treat our mates? How should we treat our children? How do you treat your neighbors? How do you live with one another? How do nations get along? The Bible shows us. Man thinks he knows but he has been fighting one another for 6,000 years. Finally, when Christ comes back, He will bring peace.
Now let's notice in 2 Cor 6:7. We are talking about the weapons, the armor that God gives to us to fight with that are mighty, that help us pull these strongholds down to squash them.
2 Cor. 6:7 by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
So it talks about the armor of righteousness. Again, the word armor here can be translated weapons. The RSV translates this verse, the weapons of righteousness.
Now, the light of truth, as I had mentioned, gives us a reality check; shows us how to think. Righteousness is having a right relationship with God and doing what is right in the proper behavior. And so, righteousness, doing what is right, is also a weapon.
Let me show you how this works. James 5:16. I mentioned earlier that one of the difficulties that we see that we struggle against today is apathy and lethargy. And the fact that if we are not careful we begin to compromise our relationship with God. And notice what James 5:16 shows.
James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
If you want to know how to have clout with God, pray. When we begin to let down in prayer, let off in prayer, we don't pray, we begin to compromise. And we find that we become just that much weaker. Prayer is a weapon that God has given to us to help us to stay close to God.
Goodspeed translates the last part of verse 16 this way: An upright man can do a great deal when he tries.
Williams says; An upright man's prayer when it keeps at work is very powerful.
If we want power to be unleashed on our behalf, if we want power to be unleashed on the behalf of others, it we want God to heal, if we want God to intervene, if we want God to bless, part of that comes with prayer. When we pray we are asking God to unleash His power, His Spirit, on our behalf. So brethren, we can only do right through the Spirit of God and by the power of God. And it takes that power and that Spirit to guide and direct us. It is only the power of God that can defeat Satan and change our nature. There is no other power that you and I can tap into that can do it.
Ephes. 6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
When our air force dropped what they call the MOAB bomb, I have referred to that on several occasions, that is a short for the mother of all bombs. Well, the power of God is that bomb so to speak, that just shatters the strongholds. And that power is made available on our behalf when we pray, when we seek God.
Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Faith is also a weapon that God gives to us. I will just summarize some of these things for us. Faith is a weapon. To have faith in God, to trust God, just like the Israelites. Why is it a weapon? Because human doubt, human reasoning will say, would have said, to the Israelites marching around Jericho seven times and doing it seven times on the last day, how is that going to cause the walls to fall down?
Sometimes God tells us to do things that human reasoning says, that doesn't make sense. But it makes perfect sense because God says it. It doesn't make sense because of human reasoning. And so what we have to realize is that faith, as Hebrews 11:6 says, without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith provides the motivation to please God. So it is a weapon. It is described as a shield. When Satan throws those wrong ideas, those wrong thoughts at us, as Ephesians 6 says, it describes faith as a shield. We can block them off. We can keep them from getting through to us.
There is another weapon that God gives us. It is described back here in 1John 4:6.
1 John 4:6-8 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
[7] Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. [8] He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
You can read the rest of this chapter and you will find that love is a powerful motivation. Why did God institute, put into place the plan of salvation? What was His motivation?
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…
Love is what God is that motivates Him. From that love, His grace and mercy flow. His being willing to forgive us. It is difficult for Satan to influence people in an environment of love. It is difficult for carnal attitudes to flourish in an atmosphere of love. So brethren, love is a weapon that God gives to us, that He expects us to use because it motivates us. It gives us the right approach to others. Because if we love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, all of our soul, all of our might, and we love our neighbor as ourselves, how is Satan going to get in there to disrupt that? Because he is not going to be able to come between us and God because God is number one. And if we love our neighbor as our self how is he going to get us to hate our neighbor, despise our neighbor when we love him just like we love ourselves and we are willing to die for him? So you see love becomes a powerful weapon that God gives to us.
Now we could take each one of these that I have mentioned to you; you could elaborate on them. We could talk and give whole sermons on each one.
So how do we overcome sin? Well, it is easier to fight or resist sin before it becomes a problem, or a habit, or sin grows and gets a foothold. So when a temptation comes, the Bible says, flee. Flee it. Don't dabble with it. Don't play around with it. Because the moment you do, you are playing with fire. Don't go near it. When tempted, flee, and pray.
And then use the weapons that God has given to us. I have enumerated and touched on some of the spiritual weapons. One, is truth, or the word of God, the scriptures. That is a weapon. Another is, doing what is right. And under that I would classify humility and prayer. We have a proper attitude of humility which helps us to fight the pride of life. And then we have prayer. And then we exercise faith and love. And I guarantee you, if you go out to battle against your nature with these as weapons, you will be more than victorious because this is how God operates.
If Christ lives in us, how is His life going to be manifested? It is going to be manifested through love, through faith, through conviction, humility, through study of His word, through prayer. And all of these will help to unleash the power and might of God in our lives. And by so doing, we will be able to pull down strongholds because they cannot stand before God.
Human reason may say, well we don't have to do these things, but you and I will be able to cast down all of those reasonings and high things that raise themselves up. And you notice what it says, and to bring every thought into captivity. It is impossible for us to do that without the help of God. God wants us to eventually come to the place where we bring every thought.
How is this made possible? Well, we will read one last scripture. Philip 2:13 explains how all of this is accomplished and brought about.
Philip. 2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; [13] for it is God who works in you that is through His Spirit, through Christ living in us, who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
God helps us. And if you find that you don't have the will to do something, to grow, to overcome, you feel like giving up and discouraged, pray. God gives the will. He gives the desire, the will, and then He gives the strength to do. To do, is where the power and the strength of God comes from The will, God also provides.
So brethren, God will help us if we do what is right. So, there are strongholds that we have to fight against, but we have the absolute promise from God that the weapons of our warfare are mighty in casting down everything that needs to.