Today we are going to talk about the negative strongholds that are in our lives. For some of you this might be an uncomfortable topic and for others you may be ready to hear this message, and hopefully you are all ready to tear down strongholds in your life that have been hindering you from growing closer to God.
There are two definitions of a stronghold.
1. (Military / Fortifications) a defensible place; fortress
2. a major center or area of predominance.
It is the second one that we are addressing today
There are two types of strongholds in our lives. There are the strongholds of God, the Biblical and moral strongholds that we hold on to and believe and allow to guide us in our daily walks and then there are the strongholds of sin that bind us and become areas of predominance in our lives.
The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned…” He goes on to tell is in Romans 6:23 that “The wages of sin is death.”
We all sin. You sin. I sin. And that sin holds us and drags us to the grave.
We never planned on sinning. When we were younger we never planned on being a gossip. Nobody plans to be a drug addict or a murderer or addicted to pornography. And yet, those things happen in many of our lives.
Sin is sin and we all sin.
We sin, we fall short of the glory of God; we make mistakes. And we are not alone; there are many examples in the Word of God of people falling into the temptation to sin.
David, a man after God’s own heart was guilty of murder and adultery. The Apostle Peter cursed and denied the Lord. Abraham lied. Moses disobeyed. And the man we are going to look at today, Samson, he was overpowered many times by his addiction to sex and power.
These strongholds are not the fleeting temptations that happen from time to time, today we are going to tackle the obsessions that we just can’t seem to escape but you want to and you need to.
Much of the time, strongholds such as we are discussing today did not just happen. Many times they are passed on from generation to generation. I call them generational curses.
Other times they are created by the individual after months and years of giving into sin, a lack of making good decisions and a lack of spiritual discipline in our lives.
Someone once said, “Our life is ultimately the product of thousands of small decisions.”
These strongholds are things like drug addiction, anger, gambling, gossiping, back biting, pride, pornography, drunkenness, thoughts of hurting others or hurting yourself, selfishness, not correctly handling your finances, and anything else that attaches itself to you and seems to hold you in its grip and keep you from living a life of victory.
By the end of this message today, my prayer is that we will be able to stand and say enough is enough and that we can break these strongholds through the power of God and put in its place a stronghold of peace and power through God’s Holy Spirit.
Pray
Father, Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice.
Open my mind so I can understand Your Word.
And open my heart so I may receive all that You want me to receive. AMEN
Samson’s life story is quite interesting. He was an Israelite from the tribe of Dan. He was born to a woman who originally had not been able to have children. Scripture says she was sterile and childless.
There have been some really important people in the Bible who were born to women who were not able to have children.
Sarah, the wife of Abraham.
Hannah who gave birth to the Prophet Samuel.
Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
And then there was Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was not sterile, but she was a virgin and was childless.
Something else that all of these women share in common is that they had births that were foretold by angels.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. 3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
Judges 13:2-5 NIV
You can see that there were some special conditions that Samson’s parents had to follow. Samson was set apart by God to be a Nazirite. The angel instructed the mom to follow a special diet. She was not supposed to eat anything that was unclean, meaning things that all Israelites were forbidden to eat and she was not supposed to eat or drink anything that came from a grape vine.
Then after the child was born, the parents were instructed to never cut his hair.
A Nazirite was one who was separated from certain things so they may be distinguished as consecrated, set apart unto God. It was a vow in which the person dedicated their life to God for a fixed period of time.
Samson’s fixed period of time was for life.
God knew Samson before he was born and God set him apart to be the Lord’s deliverance from the oppression of the Philistines. Isn’t that amazing?
Can you name 2 other people in the Bible who were Nazirite? John the Baptist and Samuel.
By taking the Nazirite vow, a person renounced the worldly pleasures because the things of this world often times hinder us from being closer to God.
The word sanctification is often used to describe this process. It is the state of separating yourself unto God wholly for His purposes.
This sanctification is the very thing that happens to people when they give their hearts to Jesus Christ. It is this sanctification that causes us to be obedient to the Word of God. It is sanctification that drives our desire to be holy even and God is holy.
Does this mean that as Christians today we are supposed to take the vow of a Nazirite?
When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are called to walk a different walk than those who are not saved.
Paul told us 17Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJ
Jesus taught us in John 17 that we are not of this world.
And the Apostle Peter confirmed this when he said, 9But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
1 Peter 2:9 KJ
If we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, a peculiar people then we need to be living lives of greater separation from the things of this world than those who do not know Christ.
Every aspect of our lives is turned over to God.
Being a Nazirite meant that you were surrendering yourself to God and that you were going to overcome all the things that might hinder you from being close to God.
So there are enough similarities between the Nazirite vow and the Christian vow to warrant the comparison.
You’re going to get something out of this today!
In Samson’s case, God blessed him with some incredible physical strength. The Spirit of God rested upon Him in a powerful way so that Samson could use his strength to help rescue God’s people from the Philistines.
He was so strong that he was able to tear a lion apart with his own hands, kill 30 men all by himself and kill 1000 men with nothing but a jawbone of a donkey.
This guy had strength and he had power and he led the Israelites for 20 years. This man was able to tear down the strongholds of the Philistines but when it came to confronting the strongholds in his own life, he struggled.
Samson had two obvious weaknesses that eventually led to his destruction; Samson was power hungry and Samson was a slave to lust for women.
Samson liked the fact that he was stronger than anyone else and he used that strength to gain as much power over others as he could.
Samson also liked to chase after women. The problem was he chased after women that he was not supposed to chase after. Samson was an Israelite and God had forbidden the Israelites from having close relationships with other women.
Recorded in the book of Judges are three relationships that Samson had with women. All three were Philistine women one of which was a prostitute.
Samson made a decision to indulge in activities that did not please God. Three times we see in Judges 13 through 16 that Samson did something he was not supposed to do.
And yet we also see something else; we see God’s great mercy. The first two times Samson allowed the strongholds of his life to overcome him, God had mercy on him and continued to provide Samson with this supernatural physical strength so he could protect and rule the Jewish people.
But then there was Delilah. She was a hottie and she caught Samson’s eye. Let’s read this account in Judges 16.
4 Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
Judges 16:4-5 NKJV
She was a good looking woman but she was also faithful to her Philistine heritage and therefore she was devious in her relationship with Samson.
She was going to find out the source of Samson’s strength regardless of the cost. She was going to help her countrymen overcome this Jew.
So three times she tried to get the secret without any success until finally after the fourth try; the Scripture says, “15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” 16With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.” Judges 16:15-16 NIV
Samson could not hold out any longer and he spelled it out for her, the source of his strength was in the fact that he had never had a haircut. The stronghold in Samson’s life became a death hold.
She lulled him to sleep and then she cut his hair off and then she called to the Philistine men to come and take care of Samson, the man who had ruled Israel for 20 years.
And when they had come upon Samson, he found that his strength was gone and he was in trouble.
The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and threw him into prison forcing him to hard labor at a grinding wheel. While at the grinding wheel I am sure Samson had time to reflect upon his past and how he allowed the strongholds in his life to overcome him.
During his time in prison, Samson’s hair grew back and with it I believe Samson’s resolve to overcome the strongholds and a resolve to glorify God.
As his hair grew back the strength of God began to revive the life of this once great leader and God once again poured out His mercy upon Samson. Thank God for His mercy and grace!
Sometime later the Philistines had a celebration and during that party they brought Samson out to make fun of him. They wanted to show off their enemy. But what the Philistine people did not know was God had mercy on Samson.
28 Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “Sovereign LORD, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. Judges 16:28-30 NIV
Can you relate to Samson today? I can.
Most of us want to serve God with all our hearts and mind and soul. We want to set ourselves apart from the rest of the world. We don’t want to be a part of sin; we want to be holy as He is holy.
We really don’t want to gossip or lie or cheat or steal.
We don’t want to be jealous.
We don’t want to let pride rule our lives.
We really don’t want to lust.
We really don’t want to look at pornography. We don’t want to be unfaithful to our vows.
We really don’t want to harm ourselves or others.
We really don’t want to sin.
And yet, to quote the Apostle Paul, “the sin we don’t want to do we sometimes find ourselves doing!”
When we give our hearts to Jesus we do so with the greatest and deepest desire to serve Him and be the greatest child of God we can be.
Just like Samson who wanted to be the greatest leader Israel had ever known.
And yet there are times when these strongholds of evil over take us. Those obsessions that we just can’t seem to escape overwhelm us.
Samson wasted his life because he was controlled by these strongholds of the enemy instead of being controlled by the power of God that comes from His Holy Spirit.
Samson wasted that which God had given him on his own pleasures and it wasn’t until Samson’s death did he really help the Israelites.
The Apostle Paul said, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NIV
Let’s bring this home.
Yes, God used Samson even though he struggled with the evil strongholds in his life. Eventually it cost Samson just that, his life.
God loves us. God wants us to love Him. And as we co-exist in this love relationship with God His grace and compassion will flow in our lives.
Does this mean that we won’t struggle?
Does this mean that we won’t have to fight against evil strongholds?
As long as we are on this earth there is going to be a battle between good and evil. But understand that this does not give us a license to allow those strongholds to rule our lives.
There is a greater stronghold than any stronghold that the enemy has placed in our lives.
David wrote this in Psalm 31 “1 In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed; In Your righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline Your ear to me, rescue me quickly; Be to me a rock of strength, A stronghold to save me. 3 For You are my rock and my fortress; For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. 4 You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength. 5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O LORD, God of truth. Psalm 31:1-5 NASB
Jesus told the 72 disciples when they had come back to him after being sent out, 18And He said to them, I saw Satan falling like a lightning [flash] from heaven. 19Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you. Luke 10:18-19 AMP
And a couple other good verses… So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17
You do not have to fall to the strongholds of the enemy any longer. You have a greater stronghold; His name is El Sali, God of my strength, God my Rock.
And He has given us Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sins.
And He has given us the Holy Spirit to endue us with greater power.
Today I do not know what strongholds are controlling your life but I do know this, you can be free of them today and you can allow God to be your rock!
Please stand if you want to be free from these strongholds!
PRAYER
I denounce these strongholds and declare today that we are free by the blood of Jesus Christ!
