Pulling Down Strongholds

Well, thank you, Mrs. Kester, for the beautiful special music. I did forget one thing on the—well, two things on the announcements, one of which, if you wanted to send a card to Bob, Ramona's son, his mailing address is PO Box 8426, PO Box 8426—that's Bob Cuomo—C-U-O-M-O, C-U-O-M-O, PO Box 8426, Salem, Oregon 97303, Salem, Oregon 97303. I apologize, I was going to mention that before. I didn't write it down in my notes. Well, brethren, 71 years ago last week, a major event occurred that would shape Middle Eastern geopolitics forever. On the 6th of the Hebrew month of Iyar in 1948, the State of Israel officially began at midnight. The vote to declare independence, interestingly, occurred a couple of days prior when the Minhaleit Ha'am, the provisional government of Israel at the time, voted 6-4 in support of declaring independence.

It's a pretty close vote, if you think about it, in a group of 10 people, 6-4. You know, one person in the four group ends up swaying the other way, and you've got a hung jury, so to speak. But they voted 6-4 in support of declaring independence, but the State didn't begin officially until the expiration of the British mandate at midnight on the 6th of Iyar. And like that, prophecy was fulfilled and the fledgling State began. Now, on the Gregorian calendar, the date was May 14th, when everything became official, and combined Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian forces entered the new Israeli territory on May 15th. It didn't take long.

Independence was declared, Israel officially became a State, and the next day, Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian forces entered the new Israeli territory, seizing control of all of the previously Arab areas, and began to mount attacks against Israeli forces and Jewish settlements. Now, it's important to note, this particular conflict had been simmering for some time.

This had not been a situation where it just turned on all of a sudden. In fact, there were a series of bombings on civilian targets beginning about November of 1947, and frankly, it had moved into the point of kind of an insurgency-slash-civil war from about November of 1947 through May of 1948.

Once Israel declared their own individual independence, and once the United States and Britain and Russia backed that up, that civil war now became open war. And some of the heaviest fighting in that war took place in Jerusalem, took place along the road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Those of you that have been to Israel are familiar with some of these locations and can probably picture them in your head.

One of the areas where resistance was the strongest and the fighting was the strongest was near the town of Amos at a place called the Latrun Fortress. Now, the Latrun Fortress has a history, very long history, in fact.

It's located in the island valley, and it first started as a military camp. Joshua and his forces camped there when he and Israel fought against the Amalekites in Judges 10. So this place goes back quite a ways, this particular locale. Later, Judah Maccabee and his forces also stayed in the same area, and so it has kind of a history of a military camp as Judah Maccabee and his forces were prepping for their battle against the Seleucids.

In the 1130s, if you fast forward a little bit, there was a castle built on the site by a Castilian nobleman, and ultimately that castle was handed over to the Knights Templar, which you may recognize from a standpoint of the Crusades and what was going on in the Holy Land at that time. Now, it went back and forth before they finally lost their grip on the Holy Land, and the castle changed hands.

Fast forward a little further to the Ottoman era. There was a monastery that was built at the site in the late 1800s, and eventually 1914 to 1918, during the First World War, the Turks expelled the new community of monks and locals and pillaged the buildings. So, following the war in 1926, the monastery was rebuilt, and in the late 1930s, again during the British Mandate, that particular location became a British police fort.

So, it became a fortified location where the British police stationed their troops there in Israel. And it was this fort that was occupied at the very beginning of the war in 1948, originally held by Israeli forces. So, in 1948, originally, it was Israeli forces. However, when the Egyptians started coming, that forced Israel to reposition their troops.

So, they abandoned the fortress, which was then seized by the Arab League and created all manner of issues for the Israelis going forward from that point. Starting on May 24th and lasting through the 18th of July, IDF soldiers tried to take the fortress back in a series of assaults that were unsuccessful. In fact, the body count and the casualty listing was pretty high.

And ultimately, Israel had to abandon their attempt to retake the fortress and had a kind of a creative solution. Honestly, they decided, well, let's just build a road around it. See, what had happened was this fortress provided the Arab League that held it an ability to target convoys, the fly convoys, on the road below the area with artillery and sniper fire. They effectively blockaded, for the better part of a month, the entire city of Jerusalem. Nothing got in, nothing got out. And so they had to do something. You know, they had to relieve the siege.

They had to provide supplies. They had to find a way around it. And so the Israelis decided to build a road called the Burma Road. And the Burma Road goes all the way around this particular fortress and allows them to take supplies into Jerusalem. It took about a month for them to re-establish those supply lines and reinforce the city and provide relief to those who lived there.

Interestingly enough, the Israeli army would not challenge the fortress again until the Six-Day War. For those that know your Israeli history, that's a 20-year period between 1947 and 1967 that that fortress was held and that blockade was enforced by the Arab League that was in that particular fortress. Le Trun was a stronghold, you might say. It was a stronghold. One that provided protection to Israel's adversaries because safe behind those high stone walls, safe behind those walls that were difficult to get past, they were able to do essentially whatever they wanted. They were able to kind of harry the supply convoys below them, and there was really little fear of defeat because they had trust in the high stone walls that surrounded this particular stronghold.

Now through the years, you know, if you go through the history of warfare, strongholds provided a very unique challenge to invading armies. Inside of the stone walls of that stronghold, the soldiers were safe. As long as they didn't venture outside, as long as they kept the gates closed, as long as they stayed behind the parapets, do what you will.

Shoot arrows at us, shoot whatever at us. We're fine. We're safe. And we're able to now, if those that are the occupying army, are able to kind of wage whatever form of combat they so wish from those walls. As long as the walls aren't breached, they're safe. Now during the medieval period, as castles grew and incised and became more strategically located, methods of getting into strongholds were needed.

You can't just, you know, run up there and decide you're going to declare war and then just go, ah, well the walls are really high. Retreat, retreat, you know, turn around and go the other way.

It doesn't quite work that way. You had to find a way in. And so there were some interesting ways that they attempted to get in to these strongholded walls. And as for us as Christians, these are important considerations. One of which was deception. They would send spies into the castle. They would infiltrate it in some way, shape, or form. They would open the gates or sabotage the interior defense in some way. One very famous tactic of this was the Trojan Horse that snuck its way into Troy and then ultimately led to Troy's downfall. Another method was treachery. They would have betrayal by somebody on the inside, typically for money, you know, or something. They would betray somebody on the inside. They'd either give false information so they'd position the troops wrong, or they'd take a calculated strike on a strategic person. You know, when the leader of the keep falls, suddenly everybody decides, okay, we're done. We might give up. You know, we'll end up surrendering. Starvation, they'd cut the supply lines off entirely so nothing comes in or out. Most places had a significant amount of stores on hand, but when those stores run out, people start getting desperate. Typically, they'll open the gates and they'll allow that person or that invading army inside just to kind of save their own skin, so to speak. One method I saw, and I'll try not to get too grisly on this, was biological warfare. There have been examples in history of armies using biological warfare to their advantage, one of which was the siege of Caffa in 1346, when they flung the corpses of individuals who were infected with the Black Death via catapult into the city to infect the populace so they could take it over. That was one method. Asperming the walls was another method. They'd hit at every point around the stronghold in the hopes that one of those locations would fall, that they didn't have enough people to watch them all so they could hit one area and get in. And the last method that they would use is the undermining. They'd actually go in and dig out tunnels below the walls, not with the intent of going through those tunnels to get in, but to tear out the foundation of that wall so that a section of it collapses and the army can rush in. As technology improved, some of these methods became a little more technical. Siege engines were built, battering rams, tatapults, trebuchets, things like that. And eventually, with the advent of explosives and artillery, suddenly the stronghold was no longer a military advantage. When you can just blow the walls up or just stand back on a hillside and target artillery into the keep, at that point your advantage is gone. For a time in military history, the stronghold was king. The higher and the thicker the walls, the safer you were. Now, when Israel came into the Promised Land, one of the first miracles that God provided his people was the conquest of Jericho. It's the conquest of Jericho. People of Jericho came to trust in their walls. They came to trust in their stronghold. It had high and thick walls. And as far as they were concerned, Israel would crash upon those walls, just like every other army that had ever come against them, and would be defeated by their walls.

Now, we know God was with Israel, and frankly those in Jericho knew it as well. In fact, they were scared to death. You hear it as they're talking to Rahab. The Israeli spies are talking to Rahab. She says, look, they're scared. They've heard what you've done. They're scared. We see that God delivers his people. We see in Joshua 5, you can jot it down. We won't turn there. We were just there for spring holy days. But we see the method that God chooses to deliver Israel. Once a day, around the city in silence with the Ark of the Covenant. Once you get back, seventh day, seven times around, nice big shout right at the end, and the walls fall outward. Suddenly, that keep and that stronghold is no longer protected. In doing this, God sent a very powerful message to his people. God told his people, there is not a stronghold that can stand up to me.

I don't care how high the walls are. I don't care how thick the walls are. There is not a stronghold, God told his people, that can stand up to me. And in delivering his people in this way, he sent the message that it didn't matter how thick the walls are, how high they are, how many troops are behind those walls. It didn't matter. God does miracles. God provides incredible miracles and delivers his people. And they conquered the city of Jericho in that way.

And that, brethren, is something that God has promised to each and every one of us as well. The title of the message today is Pulling Down Strongholds. Pulling Down Strongholds. If you turn over to 2 Corinthians 10, we'll see this particular statement that the Apostle Paul uses, where he kind of uses this terminology to describe this concept. 2 Corinthians 10, and we'll begin in verse 3. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3. Again, we'll see this terminology. We'll see this used in context the way that the Apostle Paul utilized it. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3 reads, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. The Apostle Paul makes the point here that our warfare is different. Our warfare is different. It's not physical. We don't pick up a literal sword and literal armor and go out there and hack and splash down our enemies. It's not a physical war that we are fighting. It is a spiritual war. We are protected in that war. We're armored by faith. We're armored by salvation and truth and righteousness. And again, we are armed. We wield the word of God as the weapon to defeat our adversary. But brethren, we war not according to the flesh. We war according to the Spirit. And the weapons of our warfare, therefore, are not carnal. They're not fleshly. They're spiritual. And they're mighty in God. And they're mighty in God for what? They're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, pulling down and casting down strongholds, for tearing down, for destroying, for raving to the ground the walls that surround these strongholds in our lives and conquering them. Brethren, God grants us this. He grants us these mighty weapons to cast down arguments or imaginations and to cast down these things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. Again, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And so even though we walk in the flesh, even though we live this physical life, we are granted mighty weapons to pull down spiritual strongholds, to destroy them, to tear them down brick by brick. The word stronghold in this particular passage in Greek simply means stronghold or fortress. In Greek it literally just means stronghold or fortress. But it's interesting, there are references in the Old Testament and Hebrew to the same word, to the word stronghold. You can probably think of a couple places where, especially in the life of David, where the word stronghold was used. In fact, let's turn to one of those. Let's go to 1 Samuel 23. Because there's a slight difference in the usage of the word in Hebrew versus the usage of the word in Greek. 1 Samuel 23.

1 Samuel 23. And we'll pick it up in verse 14. During the time that David is fleeing from Saul, okay? Keep in mind David had to run for his life at times. Saul, you know, would chase after him and tried to kill him a number of times. And during this particular time that this was occurring, the Bible records that David stayed in strongholds in the wilderness. That he stayed in strongholds in the wilderness. 1 Samuel 23 in verse 14 reads and follows, And David stayed in strongholds in the wilderness and remained in the mountains in the wilderness of Ziphth. Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand. This particular or this particular word, I should say, it's not a plural, sorry.

This word in Hebrew is the word Masuda. It's the word Masuda. And the word Masuda, or a similar derivation from that root, doesn't just simply mean fortress.

It also has an implied meaning of a high-up place, a high-up, secure, fortified type location.

Well, we might say a place that's built up on like a natural mat, kind of built on a on a hill, so to speak, or up high enough. And so, David, we see stayed in places in the wilderness that were high up, that were largely inaccessible, that could be fortified as a result of the natural makeup of the cliffs and the hills where he was. Okay, it might be an area that was a cave, you know, up in a high-up area that would be hard to get to with only one entrance, so it could be fortified and kept in that way. But we see also, too, that, you know, it's not every time that word is used that it's referencing a natural formation. In fact, if you turn to 2 Samuel 5, just to get again context for the use of this particular word as we build our background here, 2 Samuel 5 and verse 6, we see this word used again. We see the word stronghold, Masuda, used again. And in 2 Samuel 5 and verse 6, it is very specifically referring to a man-made thing. Whereas in David's case, it's talking about an inaccessible or easy-to-fortify or high-up location in the wilderness areas and the mountains of Ziph. In this, it's referring specifically to a city, a walled stronghold, a place where soldiers and troops are fortified behind it. Verse 6 of 2 Samuel 5, it says, And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who spoke to David, saying, You shall not come in here.

But the blind and the lame will repel you. Sound like trust in a wall? Yep. You're not getting in here. In fact, we could put the lame and the blind on the walls. You're still not going to get in here.

There's no way it's not going to happen. Nevertheless, verse 7, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David. Now David said, On that day, whoever climbs up by way of the watershaft and defeats the Jebusites, the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Therefore they say, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. And we know this story. We know Joab goes in through the tunnel and ultimately does exactly that. The Jebusites, you know, the city is conquered and David ultimately takes the city.

Now we also know the city of Jerusalem is built on a hill. You've heard the term, the go up to Jerusalem. It's literally up. Out of the valley, as you move into Jerusalem, it's an ascent. It's an ascent. In fact, we have the songs of ascent from the Psalms. A lot of scholars believe those were songs that were sung as you ascended to Jerusalem during the pilgrimage feast days. So by definition, the place where David conquered, the Jebusites, was a mountain fortress, quote unquote. It was a massouda. It was an upper area that was fortified. It was a hillside that had been fortified that they dug into and built up brick by brick by brick to protect those that were inside. And because it was fortified on that hillside, it had extra protection. It was harder for invading armies to get to it. Not only do you have to figure out the walls, you also have to figure out how to get up the hill while they're raining down arrows and boiling tar and who knows what else at that point in time on your head.

There's a famous walled fortress in Israel, some of you are probably familiar with, that shares a name with the word massouda, at least the derivation of it. It's massouda. Okay, many of you are familiar with that particular area, and it is a mountain stronghold. It is named from this route. In fact, if you look at pictures of massouda online, it is this huge hillside in the middle of this massive valley. You could see for miles in any direction from the top of this. You could see an army coming from five, ten miles away. You know, you could see them coming to where you may have been located. Massouda is an ancient fortification in Israel located on top of this big rock plateau. It's almost on the Jordanian border. It's way, way over to the east of Israel. But Herod the Great built two palaces at Massouda for himself and then fortified the hilltop in the 30s B.C. Okay, so by the 30s B.C., it was fortified. There was a fortress in place on the top of this hillside, and that was all done by Herod. By the 60s, thirty years later, by the 60s, I'm sorry, ninety years later, 60s A.D., this was 30 B.C., 60s A.D., ninety years later, a group of Israeli rebels had overtaken the Roman garrison that was stationed there. They'd overtaken it, and they'd captured it, and they'd occupied the hilltop. Now, the Romans turned back around and laid siege to Massouda in 73 A.D., so another thirteen years later, they built this huge earthen ramp up the hillside and just basically poured troops towards it until eventually those inside surrendered. Now, the way they surrendered those in Massouda ended their own lives rather than be captured by the Romans at that time, rather than fight. But Massouda was an incredible stronghold, incredible stronghold. Again, you look at the pictures, it's an impressive fortress and stronghold.

It was a place of safety, it was a place of refuge, where an army could feel safe behind those walls in that hillside. It was a place where they could feel safe, where they could feel protected, and they could defend themselves more readily. But brethren, Massouda as a stronghold was not invincible. In fact, it was conquered twice, not once, but twice. The Israelites took it from the Romans, and 13 years later the Romans took it back from the Israelites. It wasn't invulnerable.

It could be conquered. It could be destroyed.

Strongholds can be pulled down. They can be pulled down. Brethren, what are the strongholds in your life? The places where our adversary has taken hold. Places where he's gotten a foothold, he's gotten a place, and then he's fortified behind stone, behind rocks, dug himself in to where it's hard to get him out. Where is our enemy entrenched in our lives? Where has he gotten in? You know, we've recently come out of the Days of Unleavened Bread. We've come out of a time that pictures the removal of sin in our lives and the changing of our lives, kind of putting out the old and putting on the new, right, from Days of Unleavened Bread. We're on our way to Pentecost. Every year during this time, every year during these days, you know, the spring Holy Day season, during these days between Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, we consider and we examine our lives. We think about places in our lives that we're not in line with God's standard. Places where we fall short, where we fall down, where we're not doing what needs to be done, per se. Now, we do that with a full recognition that we have been redeemed. We've been bought back. We have. In fact, if you think about the symbolism of the Days, you know, Days of Unleavened Bread, that sin is swept up and put out before those days even begin. It's thrown out of our lives before that day even begins. And then to fill the holes that is left from this sin being removed from our lives, through those days, we take in the unleavened. We take in appropriate attitudes. We take in godly attitudes, godly habits, godly things. And during these days coming out of the Days of Unleavened Bread into Pentecost, we redouble our efforts to live in the way that God would have us do. And we realize this isn't just a seven-day process during the Days of Unleavened Bread or a 50-day process between now and Pentecost. This is a lifetime, this way of life that we have been called to as a lifetime, of course, corrects. It's a lifetime of veering off the paths slightly, or sometimes not so slightly, and realizing, wait a minute, paths over there, I gotta get back on the thing. In fact, instead of it A to B, our paths sometimes in our Christian life looks like we overshoot the road sometimes, even, and then have to recorrect back onto that path. It's a lifetime, of course, corrects, in order to find that path and to be able to go forward. So how do we get here? How do we get to this point? How do we end up with strongholds of issues in our life? Let's turn to Ephesians 4.

Let's turn over to Ephesians 4, and we'll start in verse 20.

Ephesians 4 and verse 20.

You know, this concept of strongholds in our life starts small. It's not a stronghold immediately.

Sometimes it takes years to build a stronghold brick by brick by brick. It doesn't just suddenly pop right up and, oh, there's a stronghold in our life. It starts as a little keep, maybe, or a little fortress or something along those lines, like a little area that then some of those stones are built up and then it grows larger and it gets more fortified and it becomes stronger. But it's not something that starts out fully, fully formed. It starts small. It starts, honestly, sometimes even nondescript. Sometimes these things start as things we don't even recognize that it's a problem. We don't even realize it's an issue. Ephesians 4 and verse 20 reads as follows, It says, But you have not so learned Christ, for indeed if you have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, verse 22, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and in holiness. Verse 25 says, Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Verse 26, Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Or verse 27, Nor give place to the devil. Nor give place to the devil. That final phrase, you might say, the word that's used there, place, is not provide him space, not provide him opportunity to work in your life. Some translations, depending on what's sitting in your lap, says not to give him a foothold, not to provide him with a foothold. Many of you have climbed before. You've climbed trees, you've climbed walls, perhaps you might have even climbed mountains. It's a long way to go if you don't ever use your feet. It's a lot of work. You know, most people aren't upper body strong enough to be able to go up the whole wall without the use of their feet. Our legs are much stronger than our arms. The importance of a good foothold when you're climbing something cannot be overstated. Brethren, we cannot afford to give Satan a foothold in our life, to give him a place where he can scale our walls, where he can get into that fortress, when he can get through and get to our internal defenses. Because from that space, he begins to work and he begins to lay bricks of lies, bricks of deceit, half-truths, takes that small foothold, that small space that we've allowed him, and he expands his reach.

He entrenches himself in our lives more fully.

Satan deceives and blinds us to his existence in our lives. In fact, there's a movie—I won't recommend it, but one of the lines from it—it says that one of the greatest tricks the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And how true is that? You talk to most Christians today, and they say, oh, it's allegory, it's metaphorical. It's a discussion of our base or human nature. Brethren, our adversary is real. There is a spirit world out there who wants you gone. We are at war. We are at war. Ephesians 2, verse 1, if you want to begin to turn over there just a couple of pages away. If you consider demonic warfare, if you consider the way that Satan operates and what demons and the fallen angels do in the lives of people, societally, I think thanks to horror movies and things like that, we have this image in our head of what somebody who is possessed by the devil looks like, what somebody who is possessed looks like. You know, they're ranting and raving and they're throwing things and ripping stuff apart and have this otherworldly voice that's throwing things around the room. And yes, that is absolutely a reality in certain circumstances. It is absolutely a reality in certain circumstances. Brethren, Satan and his demons are far more covert than that. Far more covert than that.

Ephesians 2, verse 1, gives us an idea of how Satan and his demons operate.

Verse 1 of Ephesians 2 says, And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, or the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, giving in to those base desires that we have that are contrary to God's law, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others. You know, we see the world's idea of what Satan operating looks like, and we consider something like this passage.

It's far more effective to get settled into somebody's life right under their nose, in a place they think is normal, in a place that somebody concludes, well, that's just who I am. I'm just this kind of person. This is just my character. That's who I am.

It's easier to influence their attitudes and their interactions when you're right under their nose.

And when you're right under their nose, they don't even know you're there.

And so as time goes on, you can build that stronghold brick by brick by brick by brick, and fortify the position. Get into a situation where by the time that person discovers the presence in their life, it takes a significant effort to root it out. It takes a lot of work to now tear down the stronghold that's been built. And these strongholds can come by a habitual sin, they can come by attitudes, they can come by thoughts. For example, I'll give you an example here to give you an idea of what I'm getting at here. Perhaps there was a person in our lives at one point in time that we trusted implicitly. So perhaps there was somebody in our lives that we trusted implicitly, and we were betrayed by that person. I mean betrayed by that person.

That wound festered with time. Obviously we resented in this situation, right? It's not often that we enjoy being betrayed. So we, you know, allowed that wound to fester perhaps. And then bricks of lies begin to be built upon that wound. We start to think, well, there's no one that I can trust. I'm on my own. There's literally no one that I can trust. And frankly, I don't need anybody else. I don't need anybody else. We become fiercely independent, and then we begin to experience trust issues with our family and our friends.

That's just one example of how this can happen. And then by that point in time, now we have a problem, because those trust issues impact negatively our relationship with everyone, and we just push people away. I don't want anybody around me. I'm on my own. I am just me.

And when all is said and done, we look around and there's no one left.

Rather than that's a problem. That's a stronghold that has to be torn down.

It's a stronghold that has to be torn down. That negative impact is there. It's impacting our relationship with others, with God. It has to be torn down. That imagination, those lies, those falsehoods, have to be cast out. They have to be taken captive. So what is pulling down strongholds look like, and what is defeating our adversary look like in our lives? I'd like to give you three points today as we close to take a look at three aspects of this process. So as we go through the remainder of the time here, I'd like to look at these three aspects of pulling down strongholds. The first of those aspects is identifying them. First step in everything is identifying where these strongholds are in our lives, where the adversary has gotten a foothold and has built a stronghold in our life. Secondly, we have to assault that stronghold. Brethren, we have to lay siege to that thing. Pull it down brick by brick. And lastly, and this is probably the most important of them all, once the stronghold's been torn down, you've got to route the enemy.

Okay, it's not enough to tear the walls down. You've got to go in there and get the enemy out. You've got to route them. You've got to get them out of there. So first off, it starts with identifying these strongholds in our lives, which, frankly, brethren, in our spiritual lives can be a challenge because some of these strongholds may have been present for decades. They may have been in our lives for decades. Sometimes they take forms of negative patterns of thought. You know, I don't know how many of you all freely admit I'm one of those that tends to beat myself up in my brain. You know, I do something that I'm like, man, that was stupid. Why'd you do that? That's a little voice in the back of my head. You know, it's that negative thought. You've got to capture that, right? That's got to be taken captive. They can be negative patterns of thought. They can be repetitive patterns of sin or habits, and they can be deeply entrenched in our lives, deeply entrenched in our lives. Sometimes, honestly, so entrenched that we don't even recognize that they are a problem. Sometimes they are so entrenched we don't even see it as an issue. We're so myopic to it. We just think it's a part of who we are. It's our character. Rather, our character is to be that of our elder brother, Jesus Christ. We don't sit back and look at our human frailties and say, oh, that's just who I am. We fix it. We take care of it. We do everything that we can to tear those things down. We don't even realize it's a problem, yet it's poisoning us. It's literally poisoning us.

So identifying the stronghold is essential. There are a couple of questions you could ask yourself to be able to identify places in your life which may need to be pulled down. Number one, what are the things that I'm constantly battling or struggling with? What are those things that year after year after year after year they just keep coming up? I repented of that last days of 11 bread, and here I am again. What are these things in our lives? Secondly, what unhealthy habit or unhealthy pattern of thought or action has a hold on us? What unhealthy thoughts or patterns of action have a hold on us? There's a gentleman named James Clear. He's written extensively on the concept of habits and goals and things like that, but he talks a lot about how these things form in our lives. He has a book called Atomic Habits, and he talks about what habits are, how they form, and what you can ultimately do about it. And habit, he's using the term, is defined as a settled or regular tendency or practice. So a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. I think we would agree that that would be a definition of a habit. And we know that habits can be positive, they can be negative, but by the point we consider them to be a habit, often at that point they occur without us even thinking about it. They're automated by that point in time. By the time we consider them to be a habit, you know, your phone goes, ding, what do you do? You reach over and you pick it up. And if that is to the point where it's impacting regular life, well, you have a problem, right? You have something that needs to be addressed. Habits can be detrimental to our physical, to our emotional and spiritual health. So when we're talking about tearing down strongholds, when we're talking about bringing these negative patterns of thought or inappropriate attitudes or habitual sin to the ground, we're dealing in a place where we first have to understand how these things come about in order to know how to deconstruct and tear them apart. So I'd like to read you just briefly a little bit here from James Clear's Atopic Habits.

And I think he makes a very good point. He says, your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are, it's a result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are, largely a result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are, largely a result of your habits. What you repeatedly do, in other words, what you spend time thinking about and doing each day, ultimately forms the person you are, the things that you believe and the personality that you portray. But what if you want to improve? What if you want to form new habits? How would you go about doing that? He says, it turns out there's a helpful framework that can make it easier to stick to new habits so that you can improve your health, your work, and your life in general. He says, the process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps. A cue, like C-U-E, like a cue, C-U-E, a craving, a response, and a reward. He said, breaking it down into these fundamental parts can help us understand what a habit is, how it works, and ultimately how to improve it. All habits proceed through four stages in the same order. C-U-E, craving, response, reward. And it loops. It loops in your life. You're always going through this loop of habit. C-U-E, craving, response, reward. And the four-step pattern is the backbone of every habit, and our brain runs through these steps in the same order each time. First, there's the cue. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It's a little bit of information that predicts the reward.

Today we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power, status, praise, approval, love, friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction. Your mind is continually analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards may be located. Because the cue is the first indication that we're close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving. Cravings are the second step of the habit loop, and they are the motivational force behind every habit. If you think about it, without some level of motivation or desire, without craving a change, we have no reason to act. Without craving some change in state, we have no reason to act.

What you crave is not the habit itself, but the change in state that it delivers. For example, if you are addicted to smoking, you're not craving smoking a cigarette, you're craving the feeling of relief that smoking that cigarette provides, if that makes sense. It's not the act itself, it's the state change at the end that you're craving. You're not motivated by brushing your teeth, right? You're motivated by that feeling of a clean mouth. It's a nice feeling. You're not craving the television itself or turning the act of actually pushing on the television, you're craving being entertained. Television is simply the vehicle that you've chosen to go through and receive that reward. Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state. Cravings differ from person to person. In theory, any piece of information could trigger a craving, but in practice people are not all motivated by the same cues. For a gambler, the sound of a slot machine can be a potent trigger that sparks an intense wave of desire. For someone who rarely gambles the jingles and chimes of a casino, argue the background noise. But for somebody who craves that, for somebody who is addicted to that, it can cause a very intense desire. Cues are meaningless unless they're interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transforms a cue into a craving. Thirdly, there's response. The response is the actual habit that you can perform, which takes the form of a thought or an action. Now, whether the response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you're willing to expend, then you won't do it.

Humans, we are path of least resistance as much as possible. If it's easy and we like it, we're there. But if it's difficult and we don't like it, it's an uphill battle. We seek rewards because they do two things. They satisfy us and they teach us. Reduce the craving, so talking about kind of how you close this feedback loop. If a behavior is insufficiency in any of these four stages, it will not form a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start.

Reduce the craving and you won't experience enough motivation to act.

Make the behavior difficult and you won't be able to do it.

If the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you'll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated. And so we have to have a recognition of these things in our lives. What are the cues?

What are the cravings that we experience? What are the rewards that occur as a result of this? Because when it comes down to getting rid of these things in our lives, whether they're negative thought or whether they're habitual— Can someone check on the door here real quick? We've got somebody there. See if they're looking for us, if they're looking for something else. Thank you.

Identifying these things in our lives is the first process in removing them. In 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 12, we won't turn there. But the Apostle Paul said, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. He said, it will not be enslaved by anything. You know, we become convicted of the need to change, either by the word of God in our lives or the spirit of God. When we come to a place where we experience godly sorrow—and that brings us to the point of repentance—in order for us to truly change, we must orchestrate a plan to lay siege to that stronghold. It's not enough to want to change. It's not enough to say, I recognize this as a problem in my life. That's the beginning. But if we don't have a plan going forward, it is not going to happen.

You know, James Clear also has often said, Everyone wants to be a gold medalist, but nobody wants to work like an Olympian. Nobody wants to train like that. Everybody wants the reward, but nobody wants what it takes to make it happen. So when we reach a point where we have change in our lives and we identify the need for change in our lives, we better have a battle plan in order to then lay siege to that stronghold. Simply identifying, for example, that you have an anger problem, or that you drink too much, or that you don't forgive people. It's not enough. It's the first step. It's a start, but you still have more work to do. Without a very carefully laid battle plan, just identifying the problem, we'll do absolutely nothing. You'll be right back at it in no time. Once we've identified that stronghold, brethren, we have to lay siege to it. Once we've identified it, once we desire repentance, that stronghold needs to be pulled down brick by brick, deconstructed what has been built over the decades, potentially, that has you guys checked the door again. You guys missed them when they came through. Just kind of figure out what's going on. Thank you. But I want you to keep in mind, as you start to deconstruct this stronghold, as you start to take it down brick by brick, keep in mind this stronghold has been built lie upon lie, half-truth upon half-truth, assumption upon assumption. So as this thing starts to come down, we need to confront and work through these things to get to the core of the issue, to get to the core of what was there in the first place, that initial foothold, and find it. Or, if we don't get rid of the foothold, it'll just start over again. So working through it and going through it is essential. That's important, again, to note our original Scripture here, 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Brethren, the weapons of our warfare are mighty. They are mighty. They are godly. We have not been given a spirit of fear.

We've been given a spirit of power and of a sound mind. We have been given a spirit that no stronghold can stand against. God gives us the strength to pull these things down in our lives. When we rely on Him, when we identify those things and we rely on Him and on that sacrifice on our behalf, God provides us the ability to tear these things down brick by brick. And sometimes, often, honestly, these things occur through behavior modification. So, for example, if I identify that I have an anger problem, I need to begin by deconstructing that stronghold brick by brick. I need to start looking at the things that will get me to the core of that particular issue. And as I tear down that stronghold, as I rip this thing down, I need to start recognizing maybe there are certain things that make me angry.

Maybe there are certain things that make me angry. My natural question then needs to be, why? Why does that certain thing make me upset? Why is that? What is it about that situation that causes me to become angry? What is at its core? What was the original foothold? Getting past the bricks, getting past the stones, getting to its core. Maybe I grew up in a family where expressing my feelings was strongly discouraged. Maybe I'm using anger as a mask to cover embarrassment, to cover hurt, to cover shame, to cover insecurity. Maybe I'm using these feelings and these actions to mask something else. Maybe I never learned to process things as a child. I never learned to appropriately deal with my feelings. And you know what? It's going to take behavioral modification going forward to understand how to appropriately express my frustration. Maybe I have underlying health issues. Maybe I have depression, unresolved trauma, chronic stress. Maybe that's leading to some of the issues. But once we identify that there's sin or these negative habits in place, once I recognize there's things that trigger that anger or there's things that bring on those things, I can learn to manage those triggers. I can learn to adjust those triggers, to change the cue in order to replace those things with positive, godly things, to help begin to deconstruct those strongholds. I'd like to read you just another section here from what James Clear wrote. He says, where do we go from here? He says, we can transform these four steps into a practical framework that we can use to design good habits and eliminate bad ones. He says, I refer to this framework as the Four Laws of Behavioral Change, and it provides a simple set of rules for creating good habits and breaking bad ones. So you can think of each law as a layer that lever or lever, sorry, that influences human behavior. When the levers are in the right position, creating good habits is effortless. When they're in the wrong position, it's nearly impossible.

He says, for the very first thing, the first law is the cue. How to create a good habit. Step one, make the cue obvious. Make it obvious. Make it something that's right in front of you. If you decide, I need to drink more water during the day, carry a water bottle. It's obvious. It's right in front of you. There it is. Make it obvious, right? The second law, make it attractive. Get a pretty water bottle. No, I make it attractive. Make it something that is desirable. The third law, make it easy. If it's not easy, you're not going to do it.

And the fourth law, you have to make it satisfying. You have to make it rewarding to you and enriching to you. And brethren, we can invert these laws to then break a bad habit. So we can invert these things when we want to break a bad habit. When we want to stop doing something that we're doing, or we want to stop these strongholds, we can break them by inverting them. So the inversion of the first law is make it invisible. That's the principle behind if you have a drinking problem, throwing out all the alcohol in your home, you don't open the cupboard and see it.

You know, flushing all your cigarettes down the toilet. Guess what? You don't see them anymore, right? It's invisible now. That cue is gone. Now, is the craving still there? Absolutely it is. Yeah, absolutely it is. So you've got to manage those triggers. But getting rid of the cue, putting it away, getting it out of sight, out of mind, makes it invisible. Now, make it law number two, inversion of the second law, craving. Make it unattractive. Make it something that you don't desire. Make it unattractive. The inversion of the third law, make it difficult. Make it hard.

You know, make it hard. So Dave Ramsey often says, if you have a spending issue from a credit card standpoint, you know, he advocates cutting them up. But the less, slightly less, maybe extreme method of that is, I've heard stories of people who have taken them and frozen them in the in the freezer and made it so that it's locked in a brick of ice that has to saw before they can use it. You have to use, like, you probably have to find some way to keep, because if it's clear ice, you can just see the number and still use it. But most places, most stores you take it to, they're not going to let you swipe a block of ice. So make it difficult. Make it something that's hard to get to, and the chances are good. They're not going to go through with it. Because again, we like easy, man. We're people. We like easy. Right? The inversion of the fourth law is the inversion of the concept of reward. Make it unsatisfying. Don't make it enjoyable. Make it unsatisfying. Make it something that, you know, when you want to change your behavior, make it something that doesn't reward you anymore. He says, whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself, how can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying? He says, if you've ever wondered, why don't I say what I'm going to do? Why don't I lose the weight or stop smoking or save for retirement or start that side business? Why do I say something's important, but then I never seem to make good time for it? The answers to those questions can be found somewhere in these four laws. The key to creating good habits and breaking bad ones is to understand these fundamental laws and how to alter them to your specifications. Now, he finishes with, every goal is doomed to fail if it goes against the grain of human nature. Now, there is where James and I differ in our belief. Brethren, positive, godly goals fly in the face of human nature. Us changing our lives to become more like Jesus Christ flies in the face of human nature. Does that mean it's impossible? Absolutely not.

God has given us His Holy Spirit. He's provided us with a spirit of power and of a sound mind to be able to conquer these things, to be able to lay siege to these strongholds. God's spirit dwelling in us enables us to go against the grain of human nature. Not perfectly, not perfectly every time. We make mistakes, but as time goes on, God expects us to be growing towards Him as we yield ourselves to His Spirit and we work to defeat the enemy. Now, the very last step of this process, now that the walls are down, now that we've identified it, now that we've laid siege through the walls and the walls are down, the keep can be stormed. The final step is to route the enemy. When God commanded Israel to take the promised land, He ordered the Israelites to completely destroy their enemies. Now, it's hard for us to read. It is hard for us to read those things. God told them, do not allow them to remain in the land. Route them entirely. Route them entirely. And we see in this, we examine scripture. Israel followed this command with varying degrees of fidelity. Why did God command this? Why specifically did God say, get them all out of there when you go and you take the land? Well, because if any of the enemy remains, they just re-establish themselves and launch a counter-attack. Or they bide their time and wait until several generations down through history, when it's unexpected and you're least expecting it, and then they launch a counter-attack. God recognized this. He told them to route them all. But instead, what did Israel do? Well, they intermarried with them. They made deals with them. You know, they didn't follow through on what God asked them to do.

Brethren, when it comes to pulling down strongholds in our life, it's important for us to consider this principle. If I've identified, for example, that I have a drinking problem, if I've identified that that stronghold in my life is an issue, and I take the steps to remove it from my life, I go through some sort of a program, I go through AA, whatever it might be, in order to get a grasp on my cravings and the withdrawal symptoms so that I can progress forward appropriately, is it wise for me, after I've completed that, to go and sit in bars?

Of course not! Of course it isn't! Because you're not managing the cues. Here you are in a place of something that you've dealt with for years, and your cues are all around you. Everybody's having a great time, and you can smell it. And you're in this place where it would be so easy just to go, ah, it's fine, I can handle this. Is it wise for me to go out drinking with friends? No! Of course not! Kind of a weird one, but is it wise for me to have an app on my phone that shows me all the cool drinks I could make? Probably not! We want to walk away from everything.

We want to get rid of everything related to that stronghold. We want to route the enemy down to the last man. We recognize, using an example like this, like alcoholism, one that's familiar to us from a standpoint of how that is beaten through years of what AA has taught and other things, that a person that is breaking that stronghold could go back to it in a moment's notice if triggered. Even though they've gone through the steps, even though they've gone through the process, it's right back alive again like that. And so it's important to control the triggers, it's important to control the emotions and the behaviors. Going in so they can remain sober.

To become sober requires changing everything. Just like defeating the strongholds in our life require changing the way we are as people, as human nature, yielding ourselves to God.

2 Timothy 2, verse 22, again we'll reference it, just very simply in three words gives us a good strategy. This is flea youthful lusts. These things that we have in our lives, avoid them, run from them, get out of it, get away. You think of fleeing, literally dropping everything and taking off and going the other direction. Flea youthful lusts. The book of Proverbs contains a story, I think, is a good reminder of the attitude and approach that we need to have. If you turn over to Proverbs 7. Proverbs 7, and this is using a very specific example, but a stronghold that people deal with and a stronghold that is tough to overcome. Proverbs 7, we'll go ahead and pick the story up in verse 6. I think it's a good reminder of the type of attitude and the thought process that we need to have when we're approaching conquering strongholds that are in our lives. When we start thinking about not all of our strongholds are our addiction. Our strongholds can also be attitudes and thoughts and negativity and different issues related to that. So Proverbs 7, picking up in verse 6, says, For at the window of my house I looked through my lattice, and saw among the simple, I perceived among the youth the young man devoid of understanding, passing along the street near her corner, and he took the path to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And there a woman met him with the tire of a harlot and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious, her feet would not stay at home.

At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner. She's everywhere, right? So she caught him and kissed him with an impudent face, and said to him, I have peace offerings with me today, I have paid my vows. So I came out to meet you, diligently to seek your face, and I have found you. I have spread my bed with tapestry, colored coverings of an Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until morning. Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband is not at home. He's gone on a long journey, and he's taken a bag of money with him, and will come home on the appointed day. We see with her enticing speech, she caused him to yield with her flattering lips, she seduced him. Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. Till an arrow struck his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life. Verse 24, Now therefore listen to me, my children, pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths, for she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death. So we see this particular issue, in this case referencing adultery, the advice that we see is to avoid entirely the path to her house, to manage the issues. So you're not found anywhere near the path. You know the path to her house is to cross town, you do your shopping on the other end of town. You don't even go near it. You don't go close to it. Because you're not going to have the willpower to say, No, if you get to that point.

Don't look up suddenly and go, Oh, how did I get here? Oh, this is fortuitous. I might as well go down here and visit with this person and see how she's doing. How could this young man have avoided the situation? Walking down the other side of the street, not going near the corner, not going near the path, not setting foot onto the path. Managing the situation entirely, taking care to avoid the triggers, managing emotions and behavior to ensure that we don't find ourselves again in a place where we fumble down the path and then at the end say, Oh, well, I guess I'm already here. Here we are. But, brethren, avoiding, managing, and resisting these things is not enough. It's not enough in our life to simply remove the negative. We have to put in the positive if it's going to be successful going forward. That's the whole theme of the Days of Unleavened Bread, this idea of removing sin and putting on Christ, getting the sin out of our lives and taking in the unleavened, filling in those holes that we've created by removing sin in our lives with the power and the love of God. James 4, verse 7 through 9. James 4, verses 7 through 9.

We see some instruction along this line. James 4 and verse 7 says, therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, fight the devil, resist him. That's a very physical word. The word used there, resist. It's like grapple with, essentially, the devil, and he will flee from you. But is that enough? No! It goes on in verse 8. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Yes, we must resist the devil. Yes, we must push away and fight these spiritual wars that we must fight.

But it's also equally important, I would say more important in some ways, to draw near to God and to fill those holes in what we've removed in our lives with him. It says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. Resisting the devil is only half the equation. It's only half the equation. Tearing down the stronghold, routing the enemy, requires us replacing the troops in that area with our own. It requires us garrisoning a troop of godly soldiers in its place, ensuring that we rebuild and we re-occupy that stronghold with our own garrison and a godly garrison. Let's go to Psalm 144. Psalm 144, in fact, we're saying a similar concept to this in the opening hymn today. Psalm 144, and we'll pick it up in verse 1.

Psalm 144 and verse 1, who is our stronghold? Who is our refuge? Who is our strength? Psalm 144 and verse 1. Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle, my loving kindness and my fortress, my massouda, my high-up, protected, reinforced fortress, my high tower, my deliverer, my shield, and the one in whom I take refuge, whose subdues my people under me. God is our refuge and He is our fortress. He has granted us power to pull down these strongholds, to conquer these sins, to put away these negative thoughts and these habits in our lives so that we can work to defeat our adversary. The blood of Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of this world, has granted us forgiveness. The only reason we are not dead in our sins is because of the blood of Jesus Christ that has been shed on our behalf, that's been shed for the world. And when we turn to God in repentance and we take the adequate step to bring these strongholds down, God is faithful and God delivers. Just like He delivered with His people on the way into Jericho, those walls came crashing down, and Israel was successful. Brethren, we must identify these strongholds in our lives. We must lay siege to them. We must rout the enemy in their entirety, and we must regerison a stronghold with God and His armies to protect it. And then, after that's been done, not allow Satan to have a foothold, not to give him place or opportunity to work. There are 21 days between now and the Sabbath that begins Pentecost. 21 days. Most experts say it only takes 21 days to create a positive habit.

Brethren, what positive changes would you make in your life? What strongholds in your life need to be conquered? 21 days is plenty of time to begin that process.