Strongholds

Well, the title is, Stronghold. As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk about our unwanted strongholds. Do you possess an unwanted stronghold? Can you define your unwanted stronghold, or is there sometimes called fortresses? I want to look at a couple of examples in Scripture of fortresses or strongholds that we can all relate to, as hopefully you'll understand where this sermon is going. If you look back in the book of Joshua, we all know, as I was taught a very young age, there's some song about the city of Jericho and how the walls came tumbling down. Perhaps you did, too? Yes? Well, the city of Jericho was a fortress, a stronghold.

We know from the work of archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s that she believed she uncovered where the city of Jericho was. And so she brought out that the walls of Jericho, of this stronghold, were 12 to 17 feet high, which is twice the size of this ceiling height. So you can imagine looking at that wall as the city has this fortress built around it.

She said that the actual walls of the city were five feet thick. And it was surrounded by a ditch, or almost like a moat, that was 27 foot out this way, which is about a little wider than this, just barely wider than this room here, and nine foot deep as this fortress, this supposed stronghold, was to protect them, shelter them.

But we know that the walls ran into something stronger than themselves. A few weeks ago, I referenced the ancient city of Babylon, and we saw how the walls were described in the Bible slash history dot com website. As the walls of that city were 300 feet tall, 56 miles long were these walls. It was a fortress with walls 25 foot thick, with another wall built 75 foot behind the front wall. Quite a stronghold, quite a fortress, and over this 56 miles that covered this, that encompassed this city, there were 250 lookout towers, 450 feet off the ground.

I don't know if I'd want to spend my day being that high up back then. Plus, it had a moat surrounding the city. A real stronghold, a fortress for the people of Babylon. In southern Israel today, you can visit an existing fortress or stronghold from yesteryear. Since southern Israel, it's a famous fortification called Masada. Masada had the great built a couple palaces there, but it he built this palaces on this huge plateau.

It was this very isolated massive plateau, and this plateau happened to be 1,300 feet on one side off of the ground, and on the lowest side, it was around 300 feet. We know that from the book of Josephus as he described the siege that the Roman Empire, the Roman army had against the last zealots, rebellious zealots from Jerusalem as they fled Jerusalem after the fall of the city and continued their fight all the way up to Masada. And that happened somewhere around 73 AD when that siege ended. It happened to be a movie they made about it not long ago, probably five, six years ago, about Masada, exactly what took place.

As the Romans built this huge siege ramps, being they had to get up there, they had to build a ramp out of stones, wood, and anything else they could put together and build this thing 300 feet up. So when the soldiers started building the zealots, the Judah zealots on top started just tossing rocks down from the top and stopped the building of the siege ramp because it was so dangerous even throwing a little rock 300 feet down on people.

So the Romans decided at that time they would then take Jewish prisoners and have them build the siege ramp, at which time the other Jews would not throw the rocks down from this huge fortress. So we're talking about strongholds or fortresses. I'd like you to turn to, if you will, 1 Samuel 23. 1 Samuel 23. David knew something about strongholds. He knew something about caves, as so many times they would use caves or crevices and rocks to have a fortress. 1 Samuel 23 verse 14 says, Then David stayed in strongholds in the wilderness, and remained in the mountains of the wilderness as if Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand.

verse 19, Then the Zippites came up to Saul at Gibeah and said, Is David not hiding with us in strongholds in the woods? So they knew what the stronghold meant. They knew it was a place that you were very protected in. They knew it was a very isolated place. We find that in verse 29 of the same chapter. Then David went up from there and dwelt in strongholds at Engedi.

So with us said, the word stronghold is used quite a few times. Same word in the Old Testament, in Hebrew. But the word stronghold is used only once in the New Testament, only one time. And it's referred to in the Greek from the word stronghold of fortresses. And the word is in Greek, O-C-H-U-R-O-M-A. O-C-H-U-R-O-M-A. Ocaruma. How it's pronounced in the Greek. Ocaruma. And it means a fortified or military stronghold. That word is used in 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 4. And I'd like to make this statement twice, because we'll eventually go to that scripture. But I want you to see if you can wrap your mind around the statement. The word stronghold is used figuratively there. Figuratively of a false argument in which a person seeks shelter to escape reality. Let me say that again. The word is used figuratively of a false argument in which a person seeks shelter to escape reality. Now that's a mouthful. But we're dealing with something that I wanted to cover today that I think is very important for every single person. Dear friend of mine, gave me a book to read a few years ago. And I read through it, but it really didn't connect with me. You know, you sometimes read a book and you'll just read through it without really studying it. But for some reason, a few weeks ago or a month ago, I went back and I picked the book up. And it is actually called The Three Battlegrounds. The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Francipé. Francis Francipé. Okay? And the three battlefields explain three areas, three battlefields, that we have to be concerned with because of Satan's attack. Satan tends to attack us, one, through our mind, two, through the church, and three, through the world. That's how he attacks us. And this book and the author of this time that I read it through, except this time I studied it and marked it all up because of what I enjoyed reading, it helped me to realize that I have allowed Satan some strongholds in my mind. And because I came to this realization, I also realized that I was probably not alone. Strong holds that exist and will exist, till I allow Christ to tear down those strongholds. Some strongholds I cannot tear down myself because the wall is too tall, too thick, and the moat is too large. We too many times think we, you know, ourselves. You know, ourselves can overcome the sins, the issues, and the problems that really, truly plague us. Not confront us, plague us. I think too many of us remember the memory scripture from Philippians 4 and verse 3, and we sometimes in our own minds, because that's where this battle takes place, we sometimes remember that scripture and say, I can do all things, and then we kind of stop there.

But the scripture says, I can do all things through him, Jesus Christ, who strengthens me. Brethren, we need Christ in us to tear down those strongholds.

I need Christ in me more, more of the time, more of his spirit guiding me to tear down those strongholds that have been there for a very long time, many from childhood. I'd like you to turn, if you will, to Luke. I'm going to be reading. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation, since I like the way that's done. Luke 11. As Christ is addressing this, as they were talking about casting out demons in chapter 11, but we come down to Luke 11 and verse 21. Like I say, I read this from the New Living Translation. Christ says, for when a strong man like Satan is fully armed and guards his palace, his possessions are safe until someone even stronger attacks, overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his possessions. Brethren, we need somebody stronger than us to tear down Satan's strongholds in our minds. We need Christ living in us.

I think you can read in Acts 19 where the sons of Sceva thought they could just throw out the name of Christ and cast out demons. And that's with Satan, Satan's world. And the sons of Sceva found out very quickly as the demons said, what? Christ, we know. Paul, we know. But who are you? At which time they beat them to a pulp and stripped them naked.

They used his name, but they did not know Christ. They did not have Christ living in them. They did not have Christ fighting that battle for them. And sometimes we do not call on him to fight, to take control of the strongholds in our lives. Satan not only has footholds in our lives, he has some very good strongholds. Have you ever wondered why you just cannot seem to overcome some things in your life?

We have all been guilty of putting Christ on like my jacket. We put him on, but we don't have him in. We don't use him and put him in us to tear down those strongholds that Satan has in our mind. I want to read just a couple of passages from the book that I think put it very well. Because I think this is very important to each and every one of us. If we want to endure to the end, we'd better know what we're up against. And it's not that you've forgotten, but sometimes we just get a little lax in living everyday life. In chapter 30 of the three battlegrounds, Mr. Frangipane says, Any area of our heart that is not surrendered to Jesus Christ is an area vulnerable to Satan's attack. And it is here uniquely in the uncrucified thought life of the believer's mind that the pulling down of strongholds is of vital importance. For this reason, we must attain what the scripture calls humility of the mind. Before real deliverance is possible. When we discover rebellion towards God within us, we must not defend or excuse ourselves. Rather, we must humble our hearts and repent, exercising our faith in God to change us. He says, You see, Satan feeds upon sin. Wherever there is a habit of sin in a believer's life, expect to find demonic activity in that area. The sin habit often becomes the dwelling place of a spirit that is robbing a believer of power and joy, and that habitation or habit is a stronghold. You may not agree with the idea that evil spirits can frequent and occupy attitudes in believers' minds, but you must certainly agree that each of us has a carnal mind, which is a source of vain imaginations and thoughts that exalt themselves above God. We deal with the devil by dealing with carnal thought systems, the strongholds that protect the enemy. And I'll read from page 36. It says, It is important to recognize that when we speak of strongholds, we're not talking about random thoughts or occasional sins. No? Okay. Anybody call for something? Police come? No? Can they turn the air down? Some people will blame the air with you. I don't know. Is the air okay now? Are you okay? We're okay.

Go back. It is important to recognize that when we speak of strongholds, we are not talking about random thoughts or occasional sins. Rather, the strongholds that affect us most are those which are so hidden in our thinking patterns that we do not recognize them or identify them as evil.

While we may find comfort in being Christians, being a Christian has not made us perfect. There are still some strongholds within us. Therefore, let us identify some of the spiritual fortresses or strongholds. Rare is a Christian who is not limited to at least one of the following strongholds. Unbelief, cold love, fear, pride, unforgiveness, lust, greed, our combination of these, as well as the possibility of many others. Because we excuse ourselves so readily, it is difficult to discern the areas of oppression in our lives.

Our minds drift, don't they? Is there anyone in here whose mind does not drift occasionally? Our minds drift and not always to godly areas. Our attitudes can get stirred up in a split second. Driving, working, living life. Our attitude can go from joy to anger in a split second. And we sometimes... Why did it come from? What made me do that?

The carnal mind too many times takes hold of the steering wheel. And it drives us down this road where Christ cannot go. The carnal mind is Satan's stronghold. Scriptures call Satan what? A liar? And the father of lies. And he gets us too many times to lie to ourselves. Right?

I got this. I got this.

I'm in control. I'm not that bad. Oh, that's not really me. I just had a moment. And we lie to ourselves.

There's a TV commercial. Seen many times. Seems to be on every... Anytime I watch TV, if that little Geico gecko isn't around, then it's progressive insurance. And in this commercial, TV commercial, this woman comes in and confronts Flo. Famous Flo. It's the only Flo I don't know. Flo about why her husband's acting so cocky, so headstrong, so in charge and large. And so she tells him why. And then it flashes in this commercial to this guy, standing there like a circus act, and he's juggling chainsaws. I wouldn't want to juggle chainsaws when they weren't running, but they're running and he juggles chainsaws. And this guy, her husband walks up and says, hey, hey, give it up. Give it up. Come on. Come on. Come on.

He said, I got this.

How many times we've done the same thing spiritually? I'm good.

Just as no problem, God. Won't do that again tomorrow. I'm fine. But, brethren, we must all be honest with God. He knows everything. He knows all. He's waiting for us to lay it out, to be willing to tear down some of these strongholds. It's so important to be humble, brethren. So important. We must stay humble. Live humble. Put on humility. Because Satan hates humility. Despises it. Despises it.

When we are humble, we are like Christ.

We're like Christ. We have Christ in our hearts and in our minds. The humble mind of a Christian is a heart that is surrendered to Christ. It starts with humility. Satan fears very little, but Satan fears Christ. Do we understand that? He is terrified by the power of Christ.

But, brethren, Satan does not fear us.

Doesn't fear us one single bit. But he fears Christ in us. And there are areas, fortresses, strongholds in us that only Christ can conquer.

Satan's strongholds are safe till we bring Jesus Christ into every aspect of our lives. Not 90%, not 95%, not 99%, but 100%. He wants it all. Christ wants all of us. God needs all of us. There's a song by John Legend, number one song for many weeks here this year. Called, All of Me. Right? I can hear Cecile singing it. It gets in your head. Right? And he talks about the love of his life. Wants all of me, and I want all of her. I want all of you. Give your all to me, and I'll give my all to you. Beautiful song, because that's what went through my mind. Not only about my wife, but also about God, because he wants all of us.

In the book, Francis Franz-Japhe says, any area of our heart or mind that is not surrendered to Christ is an area of vulnerability to Satan's attack. Why don't you say that? Because we must realize it. Go to 1 John. 1 John.

1 John 2 and verse 16. We've covered this before, but I'd like you to look at it in the aspect of strong hopes. 1 John 2 and verse 16.

It says, 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. And whose world? Satan's world, because they're following. Think about it. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life covers almost all of the strong hopes. Just analyze it with that. Which one of those covers your strong hold? That Satan has a strong hold on you.

You know, we're called to focus on Christ. Satan's job is help us to take our eyes off of Christ.

May I ask you an honest question? Are you as defensive of your sins and flaws as I am?

My wife, a few weeks ago, told me, you're so moody. You know what I said? No, I'm not.

But I am. It's a strong hold. And it made me realize it here. I think I'm fine because I'm chump. And that's how I've always been.

And I'm thinking in my mind, she lives with me. She knows. But I've got this strong hold that now I just, I'm just thinking about something. I'm just seeing, you know, I'm good. I'm the pride of life. I'm right in my own eyes.

A strong hold.

And I had to start thinking about things. Yeah, I worry too much. I worry about this church. I worry about this one in Caribbean. I worry about this. I worry about that. I worry about people here. And what did Christ tell us in the sermon on the mountain? Don't worry! What makes me moody? When I worry. Because in my mind, instead of being joyful and happy and having a smile on my face or saying, let's go out to eat or let's do this, I'm thinking about work.

And I let the world affect me. It's a strong hold that Satan's had in there for a long time. Then I had to flash back. Remember my parents telling me, boy, why are you so moody? One minute you're just up and you're just all over. The next night you're just sitting there like...

Strong hold that I've had to admit the last week or so that... Christ, I haven't done any good at tearing this strong hold down. I need you. I need to remove the strong hold of doubt, the strong hold of worry. What did I just give a series of sermons here about the sovereignty of God? He's in charge! He's over everything! What am I doing? Telling him? Are you? So we have to lay it down. As Christ said, I had the power to take it up. I had the power to lay it down.

I want to talk as we wrap this up now about some strong holds. And how they tie into different parts of our lives that we probably need to have Christ tear those walls down, just like he did Yerica. Anger. Is anger? See, anger is all about pride. Somebody upsets you because everything you think is right. And if they don't do something, then it's their fault. You're fine. That's why I say, anybody that drives faster than you is a maniac, and anybody that drives slower than you is an idiot. Right? It all comes back to pride, where humility says, hey, I mean, we're missing a symbol off of this church. Somebody stole our symbol. Church. I don't know what they're going to eat, or maybe there's another United Church of God service going on somewhere today. I don't know. But God does. I'm never going to get angry about that. Somebody needed something.

God takes care of everything.

We have to make sure that anger is not a stronghold.

How about alcohol? Anger is not a stronghold.

How about alcohol? Lust of the flesh, right? Feels good. I like to relax a little bit. Is it a stronghold?

How about low self-esteem?

Low self-esteem. God made you.

As I'm saying here, God don't make no junk.

You want to work on self-esteem? Go to a mental hospital. See if you don't come out. Go visit those people.

See if you don't feel pretty good about yourself and what God has blessed you with. But Satan will work in those strong holds. That's why we have depression. We have people having to take all kinds of medicine and stuff like that. All types of pharmaceuticals. Strong holds that Satan allows. He's got in there and we need to fight it. How about a poem? Addiction to Poem. It's one of the bigger areas I work in now. Unless you're young people. It's the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh.

And if we're anything even close to the world, we've got serious porn addiction in this room right now.

Don't think I don't know it.

It's a strong hold. You can't handle it. You need Christ to tear down that Satan stronghold. Even take music. I love music. My wife loves music. You love... Most people in here love music. We were in Jamaica. Went to the resort where we're having the feast. And they had some guy out there that was leading some type of exercise or dance thing. And he had 30, 40, 40, 40. What was it? Jamaican dance classes. Whatever. And so they're out on the beach and this guy, they were playing this music. And he was telling him, do this, punch a sky, do this. And it was like this. And... Don't worry. And, you know, we were just watching us. But what had... Where did it lead to? You guys know, especially Jamaica. You know where it leads to, don't you? Next thing, they went through these exercise. They got everybody here. And next thing you know, they had to start thrusting their hips. The pelvic thrust just became obscene and vulgar. And they had all these people following. Little kids seeing this stuff that should be reserved for the bedroom by husband and wife.

Shame. And see, too many times, this music leads you down that path.

It goes on and on. We need to realize those strongholds. Satan has. Like you turn as we... It's up now in 2 Corinthians where this one time, stronghold is mentioned. And I'll read from the New King James, 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3. It says, 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 mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exhausts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

I'll read from the New Living Translation the same verse.

New Living Translation says, We are human, but we don't wage war as humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We reason ourselves out of a lot of problems, don't we?

We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That is what we have to do to tear down these strongholds. We have to at first admit what? We've got a problem that we can't handle. But that's so foreign to so many people. And we don't want to admit these strongholds, these problems, these sins, these issues, these flaws in our lives. We don't want to admit them to ourselves. We don't want to admit them to God. And we must admit those things to God. And say, I need help. We need to raise our hand. And say, God, I need help.

You know, at least when you watch this fake wrestling, which I don't, but I've watched in years, when they have a tag team match, at least the ones getting, or acts like he's getting his brains beat out, is smart enough to raise his hand, tag out. And yet we, we're not fake. This is real. And we sometimes are not smart enough to tag out.

And we need to be.

To bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. I had to think on that so much this week. I'm tearing, tearing down these strongholds.

But it's not me. It's Christ in me.

See, we must read the instruction manual. To have Christ in us, we must know Christ. Live Christ, read Christ, eat Christ, eat my flesh, and drink my blood. So he's in us to say Christ now. Tear down the stronghold.

Last scripture. Like you turn back, man knew something about strongholds. Second Samuel 22. Second Samuel 22. Read from the New King James.

David had just almost lost his life weeks or months before he wrote this, or times, because a giant had almost killed him, because he was 50 years old, and he just wasn't as strong as he thought he could be, as he was. And so somebody had to step in and save him from being killed, as we know God's hand was in it. But he realized, I'm not as strong as I used to be. I realized that I'm 55 years old. I realized that four or five years ago when I got out playing basketball with my nephews. It ain't there anymore. Yeah, the warranty's over. My mind was there, but my body just couldn't do what my mind wanted to do.

To the obedience of Christ, our mind is where it starts. 2 Samuel 22, verse 2. And David wrote, The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer, the God of my strength in him I will trust, my shield and the strength of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my Savior, you saved me from violence. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so that I shall be saved from my enemies. We do not wrestle against flesh and bread, but against principalities of the air. Satan walks about as a roaring lion. True. But let's get him out of our heads. Let's get to a position in our lives where we call on Christ to tear down Satan's strongholds. Let's tear down those strongholds, but with Christ leading the way. Because God, brethren, beside you, he wants all of me. Like the song, God wants all of me. He wants all of you.