Demolishing Strongholds

Opening Illustrations

Possibly the story of the fall of Jericho?

Text

2 Corinthians 10 NIV

By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. You are judging by appearances. If anyone is confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as they do. So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters. For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present. We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a sphere that also includes you. We are not going too far in our boasting, as would be the case if we had not come to you, for we did get as far as you with the gospel of Christ. Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others. Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in someone else’s territory. But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

1. What is a Stronghold?

When you think about a stronghold, think about a castle, fortress or a militray fortification. It is a place or area that is heavily defended and extremely hard to capture and destroy.

In Paul’s day, the citizens of the Roman empire would’ve known of an possibly witnessed the Romans capturing and attacking military strongholds of nations or teritories that they wanted to capture.

An example of this is when the Cilician pirates had a base of operations and stronghold fortifications on the confines of Cilicia and Pisidia. This was the area in which Paul grew up. Tarsus is basically modern day south-east Turkey.

The Romans had captured this stronghold and inflicted a crushing defeat against the Cilician pirates.

For the first century Roman Citizen, these are the kinds of things they would have thought about when they heard the word that Paul used here. But why does Paul use it here?

2. What did Paul mean when He used this word?

What Paul meant here by using this word was thoughts and perceptions which contradict the true knowledge and nature of who God is and who we are in Him. These thoughts and perceptions (lets call them belief patterns) are heavily defended in our minds and hard to pull down or destroy. The crux of it as that these strongholds go against what God says is true (they are lies) and they can often be so hard to identify. We may not even know that they are there!

Pornograpy addictions, insecurity, anxiety, anger and a fear of rejection are all caused by strongholds, because there is an underlying lie beneath it all! Think of it like the foundation that the stronghold rests on. The Devil uses these lies and wounds that we have to make us believe something that is totally opposite to God’s word which causes us to doubt God’s goodness and power!

3. Types of Strongholds

Strongholds can be found both in an individual or even in a whole community. I’ve mentioned the effects of strongholds in individuals e.g. fear, anxiety insecurity and various kinds of fears,

An example of a stronghold among a community of people is found in the first Centure Jews when Jesus came onto the earth.

Due to the cultural patterns of hat age, the Jewish peole believed that their Messiah would come and destroy the Roman Empire. But when Jesus came, and died on a cross at the hands of the Romans, they could not embrace the truth that He was the Messiah due to their default way of thinking. They had a powerful, default, thought pattern that was based on a lie. Because of this they could not accept that Jesus was the Messiah. Strongholds have a hold on you and they are rooted in the lies of the enemy.

4. The Strongholds that paul was facing

In the Corinthian church, the main strongholds Paul faced was unbelief and disobedience. This was because some members of the congregation accused Paul of not being a true apostle and of not actually being concerned with the well being of the Corinthian church.

As a result, many were starting to question the message of the Gospel that Paul preached because of his character being attacked, and they started following the “false’ apostles that had risen up in the church.

Paul needed to pull down these strongholds and address these issues before the Corinthian church rebelled against him or left the faith.

5. The effect of strongholds on our mind.

The foundation of all behaviour patterns is a belief system and the foundation of all sin is a belief issue. We sin when we have a wrong view or lie in our mind about God, ourselves or the world around us

Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

When strongholds take root in our lives it leads to pride, jealousy, envy, insecurity, anxiety, depression, and ultimately sin. Our mind is a battleground and when strongholds are formed and fortified, they are very hard to bring down.”

Some people have been deeply hurt by the words and actions of people. I can’t begin to imagine the hurt that each of you has gone through. When we are mistreated and hurt by others, and often its the ones we love who hurt us the most, we feel abandoned, forsaken and lost. We feel as though no one loves us and we aren’t good for anything or anyone. But instead of working through these issues, we try and bypass the sorrow and pain which only makes things worse. And as the years go by, as the strongholds fortify, and this way of thinking becomes the norm, we feel comfortable and safe in our strongholds even though it’s hurting us and pushing us further away of God

6. How do pull down strongholds?

In demolishing strongholds we need to find the difference between what is true and what we think is true.

Paul describes the dealing with strongholds as the following: 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

2 Corinthians 10:4–5 ESV

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Our weapons are not physical or material but spiritual and divine, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God.

1. Identify the Stronghold

2. Replace the lie with the truth of God’s word

Our divine weapons

3. Repent from sin that may have resulted from the stronghold, knowing Jesus paid for it in full

4. Take every thought captive