Pulling Down Strongholds
(2 Corinthians 10:3-6)
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 is talking about a battlefield on which Believers
wage war. He talks about 3 fronts on which the battle is fought, and he never gets out
from between my ears in describing the place! The battle is won or lost in my mind!
The first battle he mentions is casting down imaginations, or arguments. The
word is literally just talking about thinking something through, or reasoning it out.
Taking what God has said to us and trying to decide if it seems good or bad is a
practice that comes from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you
are arguing with God or with the people whom He sends to speak to you, you are at
spiritual war with your enemy whether you know it or not. If you do not stop arguing with
Him and start agreeing with Him, you have already lost against the one who is really to
be argued with and fought against. How can you receive His instruction for battle if you
will not listen? If you are not willing to see the argument, the stronghold, as sin, you will
not be set free from it. If you agree with Him, you will win. If your stronghold is being
used by a demon to torment you, you will never pull it down without agreeing with God
and allowing His Holy Spirit to war with your adversary and set you free.
The second battle is regarding the knowledge of God. You cannot have the
freeing knowledge of the Truth (God) if you have lies in your mind that you are
believing, because there is no room for both in your mind at the same time. If you are
believing a lie, you cannot be believing the Truth at the same time. When a pretense of
truth (something that is pretending to be true) is in your mind, it sets itself up against
the knowledge of God. Just identifying the lie is not the end of the battle, however. “The
name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Proverbs
18:10). Until we have built up a new stronghold, one where the Spirit of the LORD is
free to dwell and do warfare, we are still subject to falling back into believing the same
old lies when we are tempted to or when we are under pressure to make a decision
quickly.
The third battle is to take every thought captive to make it obey Jesus. If
thoughts are in your mind that you are not absolutely in charge of, you need to take
them captive and make thoughts that are in line with the will of God for you replace
them. If you are easily tempted by a certain sin, you must be well in control of your
thoughts when you get into a situation where you could commit the sin, or you will give
in to the temptation. Reminiscing about the “old days” when you used to enjoy a certain
sin will release that set of thoughts to take you captive if you don’t take them captive
first!
In order to pull down a stronghold, a process of identifying it and demolishing it
must take place. There is no magic formula, and as Paul said, our weapons are only
mighty because they have God’s power, not because we have anything about our flesh
that will help. There are some things that must take place, however, whatever strategy
is used, whether conscious or unconscious. The following sequence of actions can
help, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
FIRST - Identify the sin that is related to the stronghold.
This is part of the agreement with God that there is a problem. Our spirits have
been made perfect if we have been born again, but sin still dwells in our flesh (Romans
7:18-25). Even though we have intentions of never sinning again, our flesh has sin
dwelling in it, and that sin will affect our lives if we do not allow the Holy Spirit to war
against it and give us self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). The confession of the fact that
we have sinned is the first step toward freedom because it gets the sin under the blood
of Jesus so that we can be cleansed and may proceed to pull down the stronghold with
God’s mighty power. Before we can confess the sin, though, we must identify it. This is
our declaration of war!
SECOND - Identify the lies that we are believing
that are allowing us to justify the sin on
the occasions that we give in to the temptation.
If we have been convicted of a certain sin, and we confess to God that we
committed it and we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we should never do
that same sin again. We have been shown our error, and we have agreed that it was
wrong. Yet, we commit the same sins over and over again! The reason that we do is
because we are believing lies. When we are walking down a path and suddenly are
taken in by temptation, it is because we at some point along the way believed that
something was true that was not. It was pretending to be true, and it set itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we were deceived into sin. An example would be: it
is never acceptable to God for me to steal, let’s say. The Holy Spirit convicts me of sin
regarding stealing, and I repent, deciding that I will never steal anything again. One
day, I am hungry, and I think, “I do not have any money, and I am
hungry. I will have to steal something so that I do not have to go hungry.” I steal
something, and the Holy Spirit again manages to convict me of sin, and also of His
desire for me to have faith that He will provide for me in a righteous way, not making
me depend on stealing to have bread. The lie was that I needed to provide for myself in
a thieving way, because I could not trust God to provide for me. When I believed the
lie, it caused me to also believe that sin was justified, or acceptable. If I identify that lie
as a lie, I will mark it as something that is a tool of my enemy, and I will not fall for that
trick anymore!
THIRD - Find the TRUTH in God’s Word that
is the appropriate replacement for the lie.
As Jesus was teaching one day, He told about a person out of whom a demon
was cast. He said that the demon would wander around, and if he came back to the
person, he would find that the person would be like a house swept clean and put in
order. So, the spirit would take with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and
would invade the house again, making the end of the man worse than the beginning. If
the demon came back and found the house furnished, however, and the Lord of Hosts
resting there, he would flee in terror! When we cast down sin, we send away our
tempter. If we do not build up in its place the strong tower of the Name of Jesus, we
have not protected ourselves from a return of the sin. When we build up the Word of
God in our minds, we have put there the knowledge of God, to set itself up against the
lies! We want strongholds in our minds, but not the sort that our enemy can occupy and
use our minds against us. We want holy strongholds built there, where the Commander
of the Lord’s Army can come and wage war against our enemy, giving us vengeance
against our adversary (Proverbs 18:10; Luke 18: 1-8)! We must find the Scripture that
directly combats the lie that we have been prone to believe if we are to be freed from
it’s strong hold on our minds.
FOURTH - We must learn the combating Scripture.
When we commit the Word to memory will we find the power to be safe from the
tempter every time he attacks us, as the Holy Spirit gives the power to us.
FIFTH - We must use His mighty power to take every rebellious
thought captive and make our minds obey the Mind of Christ.
When we have our minds filled with His truth, lies will not have room to fit in!
When we are seeking His power to overcome every day, and when we are walking in
His Spirit instead of our flesh, we are preparing the battlefield for our enemy to be
slaughtered!
SIXTH - If it is possible, we should become
accountable to someone who is a mature Believer.
It is a normal, Biblical situation to make ourselves accountable to another
Believer when we have a weakness which we are trying to overcome. “Iron sharpens
iron,” (Proverbs 27:17). When we confess our sin and desire to overcome it to a mature
Believer, asking them to pray with us and for us, and to challenge us regarding our
progress, we are giving the Holy Spirit another opportunity to help transform us into the
likeness of Jesus. He wants to minister to us in power through our Spiritual Family (the
Body of Christ - the Church). When we submit to those whom He puts around us in the
Body as unto Him (if they are mature and godly), we are actually submitting to Him! If
we do not know someone like this, we simply must pray that He would send one of His
leaders our way.
Again, this is not a magic formula that guarantees results without death to your
carnal mind or your money back. Still, the steps that I have found to be a good “means
of grace” or “discipline” are:
1 Identify the sin
2 Identify the lies
3 Identify the Truth in the Scriptures
4 Memorize the Scripture
5 Walk in the Spirit
6 Seek accountability
Make a worksheet for each stronghold or several worksheets if one stronghold
leads to more than one sin. Use the worksheet to identify the related sins and
strongholds, and to find the path to their destruction. Use the sheet to memorize the
path to failure to be such, and to memorize the Truths of the Scriptures as the path to
freedom.
The sin
The lie
The Truth
The Scripture
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 is talking about a battlefield on which Believers
wage war. He talks about 3 fronts on which the battle is fought, and he never gets out
from between my ears in describing the place! The battle is won or lost in my mind!
The first battle he mentions is casting down imaginations, or arguments. The
word is literally just talking about thinking something through, or reasoning it out.
Taking what God has said to us and trying to decide if it seems good or bad is a
practice that comes from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you
are arguing with God or with the people whom He sends to speak to you, you are at
spiritual war with your enemy whether you know it or not. If you do not stop arguing with
Him and start agreeing with Him, you have already lost against the one who is really to
be argued with and fought against. How can you receive His instruction for battle if you
will not listen? If you are not willing to see the argument, the stronghold, as sin, you will
not be set free from it. If you agree with Him, you will win. If your stronghold is being
used by a demon to torment you, you will never pull it down without agreeing with God
and allowing His Holy Spirit to war with your adversary and set you free.
The second battle is regarding the knowledge of God. You cannot have the
freeing knowledge of the Truth (God) if you have lies in your mind that you are
believing, because there is no room for both in your mind at the same time. If you are
believing a lie, you cannot be believing the Truth at the same time. When a pretense of
truth (something that is pretending to be true) is in your mind, it sets itself up against
the knowledge of God. Just identifying the lie is not the end of the battle, however. “The
name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Proverbs
18:10). Until we have built up a new stronghold, one where the Spirit of the LORD is
free to dwell and do warfare, we are still subject to falling back into believing the same
old lies when we are tempted to or when we are under pressure to make a decision
quickly.
The third battle is to take every thought captive to make it obey Jesus. If
thoughts are in your mind that you are not absolutely in charge of, you need to take
them captive and make thoughts that are in line with the will of God for you replace
them. If you are easily tempted by a certain sin, you must be well in control of your
thoughts when you get into a situation where you could commit the sin, or you will give
in to the temptation. Reminiscing about the “old days” when you used to enjoy a certain
sin will release that set of thoughts to take you captive if you don’t take them captive
first!
In order to pull down a stronghold, a process of identifying it and demolishing it
must take place. There is no magic formula, and as Paul said, our weapons are only
mighty because they have God’s power, not because we have anything about our flesh
that will help. There are some things that must take place, however, whatever strategy
is used, whether conscious or unconscious. The following sequence of actions can
help, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
FIRST - Identify the sin that is related to the stronghold.
This is part of the agreement with God that there is a problem. Our spirits have
been made perfect if we have been born again, but sin still dwells in our flesh (Romans
7:18-25). Even though we have intentions of never sinning again, our flesh has sin
dwelling in it, and that sin will affect our lives if we do not allow the Holy Spirit to war
against it and give us self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). The confession of the fact that
we have sinned is the first step toward freedom because it gets the sin under the blood
of Jesus so that we can be cleansed and may proceed to pull down the stronghold with
God’s mighty power. Before we can confess the sin, though, we must identify it. This is
our declaration of war!
SECOND - Identify the lies that we are believing
that are allowing us to justify the sin on
the occasions that we give in to the temptation.
If we have been convicted of a certain sin, and we confess to God that we
committed it and we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we should never do
that same sin again. We have been shown our error, and we have agreed that it was
wrong. Yet, we commit the same sins over and over again! The reason that we do is
because we are believing lies. When we are walking down a path and suddenly are
taken in by temptation, it is because we at some point along the way believed that
something was true that was not. It was pretending to be true, and it set itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we were deceived into sin. An example would be: it
is never acceptable to God for me to steal, let’s say. The Holy Spirit convicts me of sin
regarding stealing, and I repent, deciding that I will never steal anything again. One
day, I am hungry, and I think, “I do not have any money, and I am
hungry. I will have to steal something so that I do not have to go hungry.” I steal
something, and the Holy Spirit again manages to convict me of sin, and also of His
desire for me to have faith that He will provide for me in a righteous way, not making
me depend on stealing to have bread. The lie was that I needed to provide for myself in
a thieving way, because I could not trust God to provide for me. When I believed the
lie, it caused me to also believe that sin was justified, or acceptable. If I identify that lie
as a lie, I will mark it as something that is a tool of my enemy, and I will not fall for that
trick anymore!
THIRD - Find the TRUTH in God’s Word that
is the appropriate replacement for the lie.
As Jesus was teaching one day, He told about a person out of whom a demon
was cast. He said that the demon would wander around, and if he came back to the
person, he would find that the person would be like a house swept clean and put in
order. So, the spirit would take with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and
would invade the house again, making the end of the man worse than the beginning. If
the demon came back and found the house furnished, however, and the Lord of Hosts
resting there, he would flee in terror! When we cast down sin, we send away our
tempter. If we do not build up in its place the strong tower of the Name of Jesus, we
have not protected ourselves from a return of the sin. When we build up the Word of
God in our minds, we have put there the knowledge of God, to set itself up against the
lies! We want strongholds in our minds, but not the sort that our enemy can occupy and
use our minds against us. We want holy strongholds built there, where the Commander
of the Lord’s Army can come and wage war against our enemy, giving us vengeance
against our adversary (Proverbs 18:10; Luke 18: 1-8)! We must find the Scripture that
directly combats the lie that we have been prone to believe if we are to be freed from
it’s strong hold on our minds.
FOURTH - We must learn the combating Scripture.
When we commit the Word to memory will we find the power to be safe from the
tempter every time he attacks us, as the Holy Spirit gives the power to us.
FIFTH - We must use His mighty power to take every rebellious
thought captive and make our minds obey the Mind of Christ.
When we have our minds filled with His truth, lies will not have room to fit in!
When we are seeking His power to overcome every day, and when we are walking in
His Spirit instead of our flesh, we are preparing the battlefield for our enemy to be
slaughtered!
SIXTH - If it is possible, we should become
accountable to someone who is a mature Believer.
It is a normal, Biblical situation to make ourselves accountable to another
Believer when we have a weakness which we are trying to overcome. “Iron sharpens
iron,” (Proverbs 27:17). When we confess our sin and desire to overcome it to a mature
Believer, asking them to pray with us and for us, and to challenge us regarding our
progress, we are giving the Holy Spirit another opportunity to help transform us into the
likeness of Jesus. He wants to minister to us in power through our Spiritual Family (the
Body of Christ - the Church). When we submit to those whom He puts around us in the
Body as unto Him (if they are mature and godly), we are actually submitting to Him! If
we do not know someone like this, we simply must pray that He would send one of His
leaders our way.
Again, this is not a magic formula that guarantees results without death to your
carnal mind or your money back. Still, the steps that I have found to be a good “means
of grace” or “discipline” are:
1 Identify the sin
2 Identify the lies
3 Identify the Truth in the Scriptures
4 Memorize the Scripture
5 Walk in the Spirit
6 Seek accountability
Make a worksheet for each stronghold or several worksheets if one stronghold
leads to more than one sin. Use the worksheet to identify the related sins and
strongholds, and to find the path to their destruction. Use the sheet to memorize the
path to failure to be such, and to memorize the Truths of the Scriptures as the path to
freedom.
The sin
The lie
The Truth
The Scripture
Excellent teaching. Thank you
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