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Sermons on Spiritual Warfare

The Root of Bondage or Freedom

We have already learned that all of us are subject to spiritual warfare; that Satan and his demons have built strongholds in our mind, that is, have make us believe certain doctrines that are contrary to the Word of God. And we all have learned from the Apostle Paul’s admonition that such strongholds, such doctrines that contradict the Word of God, must be pulled down, demolished, pulverized.
Last week we examined the reality of God’s sovereignty and that not even Satan can go beyond the boundary God has set for him. Now we have to look at what our responsibility is in all of this. The Bible is very clear regarding our responsibilities in the spiritual battle. While God Almighty has equipped us more than adequately to face our enemy, Satan and his demons, he also demands that we use the weapons supplied to us and stand strong in the battle.
THE MAJORITY OF OUR SPIRITUAL BATTLES SPIRITUAL ARE FOUGHT IN OUR MIND.THE MIND IS THE MOST STRATEGIC POINT WHICH WE HAVE TO DEFEND against the attacks of our enemy.
Satan will use people that look like followers of Christ, spiritual leaders who claim to represent Christ, but in actuality they represent Satan, attacking your mind with false doctrines, that is, doctrines of demons. If you choose to accept those teachings, Satan will then have successfully neutralized your mind to engage him in any spiritual battles.
In other words, Satan will attack your mind with the purpose to entangle us with a yoke of bondage. Do you recognize now that the root of bondage or freedom is found in the mind, the way we THINK?
In this parable in Matthew 15 Jesus give his disciples insight HOW GOD WORKS TO CHANGE THEIR HEART. By understanding spiritual truth, Biblical truth. The question of eating food with unwashed hands was used by Jesus to reveal the truth that everything has its root in the heart and mind of the person. The heart will be changed by the mind. And the mouth, the language you use, reveals what’s in your heart. Your language reveals a huge amount of spiritual information: Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
Because the Mind is the gateway to the transformation of the heart.
Without UNDERSTANDING GOD’S TRUTH, NO TRANSFORMATION TAKES PLACE. And understanding will only come through LIFE APPLICATION. Reading God’s word with no intention to apply it to our daily life is one of Satan’s most powerful tool to keep us in bondage. God’s intention is to bring us to freedom, freedom we can experience in every day life. Freedom that comes through transformation of the heart. That is God’s objective all along.
The root of bondage or freedom is found in our mind. The way we think. The way we UNDERSTAND GOD’S TRUTH.

Refuge In God’s SOVEREIGNTY

We have already learned that all of us are subject to spiritual warfare; that Satan and his demons have built strongholds in our mind, that is, make us believe certain doctrines that are contrary to the Word of God. And we all have learned from the Apostle Paul’s admonition that such strongholds, such doctrines that contradict the Word of God, must be pulled down, demolished, pulverized.
When we read these verses, we can easily come to the conclusion that the battle is entirely in our hands and in our power. However, as we will find out today, these weapons of warfare are MIGHTY IN GOD. And the battle of our mind, bringing our very thoughts into captivity, cannot be done apart of OBEYING THE WORD OF GOD.
Who is really in Control? You, Satan or God Almighty?
THE ANSWER MUST ALWAYS COME FROM THE BIBLE, which happen to be our standard for living.
God’s sovereignty does not mean that you have no responsibility in spiritual warfare. Although the ultimate outcome is not in question, what happens in your life will be affected by how you respond. Listen, Satan is not deciding what is going on in your life. It is God Almighty who has His own purposes for allowing the enemy access to your life, and God’s purposes are always only for your good.
Because Jesus found refuge in God’s sovereignty, the attitude was one of absolute obedience, the obedience unto death, having confidence in His Heavenly Father as Jesus Himself focused on the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
Satan did warfare against Jacob and his sons. Satan’s intent was to destroy them all, so God could not fulfill His promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After Joseph was sold into slavery, and the brothers struggled to survive in Canaan during a great famine, God finally revealed His ultimate purposes to those involved. Satan wanted to derail God’s purpose by using evil means, but God meant it for good. He will always turn into good what Satan means for evil. All our spiritual battles are in our mind. The way we think. Strongholds, Paul calls them. Do we think according to the Word of God or according to the things we feel or hear?
No exception.

WRESTLING with God

The life of Jacob covers HALF OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS. His birth is recorded in chapter 25 and his death is recorded in chapter 49. What we find between those two chapters are quite amazing stories about this man and the struggles he faced, because they are all pointing towards the struggles our forefathers faced and reveal the struggles or strongholds which we face today. Certainly, studying this man’s life will give us plenty of insight how NOT TO DO CERTAIN THINGS, and HOW TO DO CERTAIN THINGS IN LIFE.
God reveals Himself to Jacob and reaffirms the covenant He made with Abraham, Jacobs grandfather, promising Jacob that his offspring will be many and that the Promised Land will one day belong to his descendants. In this dream, Jacob sees something like a ladder or a stairway leading up to heaven. The Hebrew word translated “ladder” is SULLAM which simply means a connection between God and man.
What an encouragement to all of us who have been justified through faith in the work of God Himself through His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who has become our ladder to heaven. Even after we became children of God, running from trouble, trying to ignore our strongholds, God comes along with a great encouragement, reminding us of the promises made long ago to our forefathers, reminding us that His promises and His covenant with us cannot be negated.
Jacob found out how the universal law of sowing and reaping is working its way through his life. He did not know that he had a stronghold of lying and deceiving, until he had to be on the receiving end of it. You see, our very own strongholds are not admitted as such until we are on the receiving end of it. Until someone else does the same thing to us and all of a sudden we can feel the pain, the hurt, the disappointment.
Jacob was still dealing and wheeling. Anxious for his life, he came up with the idea to bribe his brother with gifts of a caravan of goodies. He hoped he can pacify his brother. Once everything he could do was done, finally Jacob was physically exhausted and alone in the wilderness. He feared for his life. He was convinced that he would face death after the messengers he sent out came back to Jacob saying: We came to your brother Esau, and he also is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him. At this moment Jacob realized that he is powerless to control his fate. With his father-in-law behind him and Esau before him, he was now too spent to struggle any longer. In the process, Jacob the deceiver received a new name, ISRAEL. But that is not all. The most important part of this struggle comes at the end. It was when God wrestled with Jacob that Jacob’s stronghold was taken down and demolished. And it was after his stronghold was demolished that GOD BLESSED HIM.
“… Jacob’s divine encounter at the Jabbok River was a magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.” Frederick Buechner

GIANTS In The Land

As we will learn this morning, this story is all about strongholds; Strongholds that hinder us to enter into God’s promises. Salvation is a gift given by God, yet many who have received the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, struggle in their Christian walk, because they fail to take down strongholds in their lives. While we claim to have liberty in Jesus Christ, we have become slaves to those strongholds.
One day, a student asked Ravi Zacharias, a Christian Apologist, the question: “Sir, can you define freedom for me?” Ravi’s answer is something we all should never forget, because it is packed with spiritual truth. “It’s not the liberty to do whatever we want, rather the strength to do what we should.”
Christians today do not know or do not want to know about their responsibility as parents. They simply believe that they have the freedom, the liberty to do whatever they want to do.
When Jesus says that He came to give us LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY, he makes a promise. Life, spiritual life is a gift from God to those who come to Him. Life more abundantly speaks of a rest, a peace, a fruitful life, belonging to those who are taking God’s Word for face value, implement God’s Word in their lives, living according to the Word of God, and believing that we are soldiers, engaged in a spiritual battle where Satan and his helpers setting up strongholds in our lives from which he will launch his attacks so we cannot find the promised rest.
Assess your situation: Be honest with yourself. What is it in your life that exalts itself against the knowledge of God? What is your stronghold, or strongholds from where Satan can keep you as a child of God incapacitated?
They made up their minds that the problem they saw was bigger than the promises God made. What was their solution? Get rid of their leader. Let’s go back to where we have been delivered from. They never recognized that Moses was bringing them the message which he received from God. Moses never promised them the land, it was God Himself.
Sometimes we are so in the grip of a stronghold, a habitual behavior that seems to keep us in bondage for the rest of our life. Instead of taking the Promise of God’s word to heart and to believe the messenger, we fear the enemy and believe the lie that we have to live with that destructive life style for the rest of our lives. That’s contrary to God’s word. Whatever your stronghold or strongholds may be, don’t fear them. TRUST GOD AND HIS WORD. Yes, we do have spiritual enemies, we do have spiritual giants opposing us to inherit God’s promises, but don’t let that fact fill you with fear.
Lesson: We cannot take on strongholds in our lives when the Lord is not in it. Our reliance has to be on the Lord, His power and His might. We have to be strong in the Lord, not strong in our own judgments. Well, that’s the way I see it. It does not matter. How does God see it? How many times have you tried to take down one of your strongholds only to find out that it did not work? The Giants, the strongholds are still there, occupying territory in your life. There is no rest, no victory without doing it God’s way, according to God’s word.

Prepared To Fight Godly

For the next five weeks we will take a very close look at the battle every Christian is involved in on a daily basis. We will look at what the Word of God says about these battles, and how God intents us to fight according to His will and His word.
In other words, it is possible for born again Christians, for genuine followers of Jesus Christ, to be victims of Satan, who ensnared us, who has taken us captive for one purpose, which is TO DO SATAN’S WILL. We all know that we as the children of the living God ought to DO GOD’S WILL and not Satan’s will. However, God’s word is warning us that Satan can take one of us captive at his will. In other words it is possible for a believer to come under the influence of a “tormenting spirit”.
James is saying that wisdom and understanding comes only from the Lord and from His word. If we claim to have that wisdom, then show it by good conduct. And if your conduct is not godly, not according to the Word of God, then someone has set a trap for you by making you believe a lie and you act on it. And by acting according to the lie, you by default will do SATAN’S WILL.
What is a stronghold? A stronghold is a person’s inherent qualities of mind and character.
Listen, all of us grew up in a home, some homes are better than others. As children we have heard and observed a million different actions and reactions from our parents, from our siblings, from our teachers, from our friends. All such observations have somehow shaped our mind and character. Especially our families and what they have done, how they lived, will influence our mind and character. Such influences have formed strongholds, patterns of thinking, which we will eventually act out.
Whatever your stronghold or strongholds may be, there is a solution to your problem.
These strongholds can be demolished, by taking your thoughts captive, prisoner. Before you act on what you think, ask yourself the question: WHAT DOES GOD’S WORD SAY ABOUT THAT BEHAVIOR? Do not enter into an argument with God. Paul commands to CAST DOWN THOSE ARGUMENTS AND EVERY HIGH THING THAT EXALTS ITSELF AGAINST THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.
You must be prepared to fight godly, that is GOD’S WAY. You must come to God with a willing heart and to ask Him to destroy those strongholds in your life. The Lord wants you to break those strongholds by learning to think God’s way. Accept the Word of God as your only sure guide in all your decisions. Remember, the Word of God is sharper than any two edged sword and is a discerner of your very thoughts. When the Word exposes your pattern of thinking as opposite to God’s revelation, take those thoughts immediately captive and before long, your strongholds will be demolished. GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN YOU THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD.