Tear Down the Strongholds!

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (KJV) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

A stronghold is a negative, destructive pattern of thinking that Satan has built in our minds, either through repetition or traumatic experiences or other circumstances. As the old adage says, when you sow a thought, you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Once the stronghold is built, it gives the enemy a place from which to launch further attacks against your mind and a fortification from which to repel your attempts to dislodge him. If you're getting the idea that we aren't going to get very far in the battle for our minds until we deal with satanic strongholds, you're right on target. One reason strongholds are so powerful is that they are so entrenched. These are patterns of thinking, not just fleeting thoughts.

Let me give you some examples. For a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, the satanic stronghold is not the physical addiction or the act of using the substance. Those are just the products of the stronghold. The stronghold itself is having a wrong mind-set toward drugs or alcohol. Satan is able to build a stronghold when he convinces a person that their situation is hopeless, that he or she is a drug addict or an alcoholic by nature and will never be anything else. Once a person starts believing that, it's pretty much all over, because we will always act in accord with who we believe we are.

Hopelessness is a key element of a stronghold. As long as you believe there is hope for you to overcome a wrong way of thinking, you'll keep fighting. But once you believe the battle is hopeless, you'll want to surrender. Satan wants to force his thinking upon us until we actually come to believe that his lies are true. You can tell when people are being ruled by a satanic stronghold. They say things like, "I can't help myself," "It's not my fault," "I was born this way," or "I'm just a victim." When we view something as unchangeable that God says is changeable, the enemy has built a stronghold in our minds.

It doesn't have to be anything as dramatic as drug addiction or alcoholism. Many of us have strongholds of anger or jealousy or lust. "I know I get mad and blow my stack, but that's just the way I am." "I can't help lusting. After all, God gave me these sexual desires." People who have satanic strongholds come to believe the way they are is the only way they can be. That's why they have such a sense of hopelessness, and that's why they are in bondage.

When we allow strongholds to be built in our minds, guess who's manning the walls and the guard towers? The enemy himself. A stronghold gives him a strong base of operation from which to launch continued attacks against us. Strongholds are a major issue in the battle for our minds. Strongholds not only take over individuals, they can take over families and churches. .

Satan gets the material to build his strongholds by the wrong thoughts he plants and cultivates in our minds. The enemy's strategy is suggested in the first half of 2 Corinthians 10:5: "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God." You can see the conflict here as Satan raises up his lies in the face of what God says about us and what we know to be true from His Word. What is the "lofty thing" Satan raises up against the knowledge of God? The term means a "partition," or a wall. A partition is designed to keep two entities divided and separated.

Satan begins creating a stronghold by erecting a partition in your mind. He wants to keep out the knowledge of God or to keep it so compartmentalized that the Word never reaches to every corner of your life and runs the show. Satan is deathly afraid of the truth. He knows that once the knowledge of your new identity in Christ becomes the defining principle of your life, he's finished. You see, the only power Satan has over us is his lies. He can't force us to do or to believe anything. He works by deception, using smoke and mirrors.

Satan doesn't even have to get us to deny the truth. He knows most Christians are not going to come out and say the Bible is not God's Word and Jesus is not God's Son. All Satan has to do is distract us from the truth so that it never gets down deep inside us.

The Bible has a word "double-minded" (James 1:8). If the enemy can divide your mind by putting up a partition, he has the first wall of his stronghold in place. The process isn't hard to understand. When a Christian starts saying of a harmful practice, "One time won't hurt me," or "I can handle this," the devil has a piece of ground in the mind on which he can erect a partition. From there it can deteriorate to this: "I'm hooked on this stuff. I'm an addict, and I always will be. There's no hope for me. I might as well give up trying to change."

It doesn't take long for Satan to mess with our minds. How quickly can Satan start dividing our thinking? In Peter's case, it only took a few minutes. Jesus was with His disciples one day when He asked, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" (Matthew 16:13). They gave various answers, then Jesus asked the key question: "But who do you say that I am?" (v. 15). Peter spoke up. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (v. 16). Jesus affirmed Peter and told him that he had received that truth as a direct revelation from God the Father. But then Jesus told the disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and be crucified, and an alarm went off in Peter's mind. This didn't make sense to him, so he pulled Jesus aside and rebuked Him. "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You" (v. 22). 

Being the Son of God and being crucified didn't compute to Peter. He began thinking that Jesus was obviously mistaken. Besides, if Jesus got into trouble with the authorities in Jerusalem, His disciples would be in trouble too. So Peter tried to talk Jesus out of going to the cross—and in that instant, Peter bought into Satan's thinking. That's why Jesus stunned Peter back to reality. "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's" (v. 23).

Jesus hit the issue on the head. Peter was setting his mind on the flesh (remember Romans 8:6), and he was on very dangerous ground. Satan had partitioned Peter's mind so completely that he was thinking in two totally opposite directions at the same time. It doesn't take long for Satan to mess with our minds. Satan wants to block the flow of truth by dividing our minds so he can get us to believe his lies and allow him to build his strongholds.

What needs to be done with Satan's strongholds? You can't go around them, and you can't ignore them, because the Enemy will use them to launch more attacks and build more strongholds. The only solution is to tear those lofty strongholds down by "taking every thought captive to the obedience to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Why must we take every thought captive to Christ? Because not every thought that comes into our minds is of God. Strongholds in the mind are built out of the Enemy's thoughts. We are either thinking with the mind of Christ or with a mind set on the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is no such thing as neutral thoughts. That's why Eastern meditation and thought processes are so dangerous. They teach you to empty your mind and open it up to new ways of thinking. But that is giving the devil a foothold to bring in his thoughts.

We have to capture our thoughts, because if we don't recognize and capture the enemy's thoughts, he will gain an advantage. When a thought that's against the knowledge of God comes into your mind, you have two choices. You can capture and destroy it because you know it's not yours, or you can adopt it and act on it until you believe it's really your idea after all.

Keys of Truth: Book of Revelation (Chapter 10)

Chapter summary:
Again John looks away from what is happening on earth. He sees a "mighty angel" approaching from heaven. The angel stands, straddling earth and sea and holds a "little scroll" (10:1-2). The announcement made at his appearance is sealed—kept secret (vv. 3-4). Yet it is no secret that "there will be no more delay": the day of judgment foretold by the Old Testament prophets has come (vv. 5-7). John is then told to take the scroll the angel holds and "eat" it. As a result of being prepared by appropriating God's Word, John is told to speak out again, describing events that will affect "many peoples, nations, languages, and kings" (vv. 8-11).


The believer’s personal application: Take advantage of every opportunity given to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

                                                          TEXTUAL INSIGHT

Some see this as an interlude, intended to prepare John for the final, bitter revelations to come. Others agree this is an interlude, but take it as a promise that God will not abandon His own as they await the judgment that will come at time's end.

“The angel” (10:1):
The angel is not named, but his portrayal suggests he is very significant. Some have identified him with Christ, but in Revelation, Christ and angels are always distinct and carefully identified.

"Seal up" (10:3-4):
The phrase means to keep secret. Some have speculated that the words of the thunders concerned additional judgments. However, this is pure speculation and remains a mystery. God does not reveal everything He intends to do, even in symbolic or concealed terms.

“Raising the right hand” (10:6):
When the Jewish people swore an oath they typically raised their right hand (Deuteronomy 32:40; Daniel 12:7). The angel conveys God's promise that there will be no more waiting: the "mystery of God" will be accomplished.

"The mystery of God" (10:7):
Here "mystery" does not indicate a revelation of something that has been hidden, but the fulfillment of prophetic visions that have been delayed. Again John specifically links the revelations in this book with the visions of the future reported by Old Testament prophets. It is difficult to see how Revelation could be interpreted accurately except within the framework of Old Testament prophecy concerning history's end.

Keys of Truth: Book of Revelation (Chapters 8 & 9)

Chapter summary:
When the seventh seal on the scroll introduced in chapter 5 is opened, a new series of "trumpet" judgments is begun (8:1-6). The trumpet judgments devastate a third of earth's vegetation (v. 7), seas (vv. 8-9), and fresh water (vv. 10-11), as well as a third of the heavenly bodies (vv. 12-13). Yet these judgments that shake the foundations of the material universe seem insignificant compared to what is to follow. Now the boundary between the supernatural and natural universe is breached; locust-like, demonic beings are unleashed to torture humankind (9:1-12). The sixth trumpet unleashes four angels with unspeakably evil powers, and a army of 200 million demons, that kill a third of humankind (vv. 13-19). However, despite these terrors, the rest of humanity does not repent, but rededicates themselves to idolatry and immorality (vv. 20-21).

The believer’s personal application: Even the horrors of the end times won’t bring repentance. No horror story ever written will compare to the horrors of the last days.

                                                            TEXTUAL INSIGHT

Some people take the terrible scenes drawn in these chapters as descriptions of the initial judgments of the Great Tribulation period. The demonic enemies of chapter 9 introduce a supernatural yet literal aspect to these judgments. Humanity's refusal to repent, even though what is happening is clearly supernatural in character, is a further indication of how distorted the sinful human nature really is. Our God as Judge uses natural disasters to foreshadow final judgment.

“The prayers of all the saints” (8:4):
The incense represents the prayers of the believers of all time for vindication, to be won when God judges the inhabitants of the earth and avenges the blood of the saints (6:10). The scattering of hot coals and fire from the altar of incense represents God's answer: the time of judgment is now.

"Trumpets" (8:6):
The ram's horn trumpets were used in Old Testament times to alert the population to imminent danger and to invasion.

Three series of judgments:
These series feature seven seals (chapter 6), seven trumpets (chapters 8-9), and seven bowls (chapters 15-16). While there are similarities between these judgments, each sequence increases in intensity, and the bowl judgments are called the "last plagues" that complete God's expression of wrath. How literally are images in these chapters to be understood? This question is raised by John's description of "hail and fire mixed with blood" and of "something like a huge mountain, all ablaze" falling into the sea.

Part of the difficulty in interpreting any prophecy rests on the normal limitations of terms and images available to the writer. For instance, how would a 1st-century person ever be able to describe the crowded expressways, the busy airports, the TV, and space shuttles of the 20th century?
The very fact that he or she would have to use the terms, and concepts of his or her century would mean, that even though describing something quite literal, their explanation simply could not convey a clear image of what they saw to their contemporaries.
Even if we assume that John is describing actual events that he witnessed, the language limitations alone would make it difficult for us to develop a clear, accurate impression of what he saw.

"The Abyss" (9:1):
Is a term used for the underworld; the place of the dead. The New Testament pictures the Abyss as a prison, smoldering with subterranean fires, where demons are held captive (Luke 8:31; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). John witnesses the opening of the Abyss and the release of a multitude of demons to torment the lost. Those whom God has sealed, however, are safe from them (7:3).