Pulling Down Strongholds
This is our introductory message on pulling down strongholds and we will be talking about a strategy that will make us more effective in that area. Especially when dealing with people who can't/won't endure sound doctrine.
In general I think about negative strongholds in 4 major areas:
Personal stronghold in an unbeliever
Personal stronghold in a believer
Corporate/societal - when a business or school system embraces ungodly world views.
Regional/national - Powers of darkness ruling over an area. This is more focused on the demonic than on people. It is about spiritual rulers in high places.
Tonight we will talk about strongholds in unbelievers that work to keep them in sin and darkness..
PPT 2-3 scripture
2Ti 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
I want you to notice the word endure. This is how the NIV version translates verse 3:
PPT 4
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Endure = put up with. When we say we won't put up with something it usually means we will openly and with vigor resist it. We won't accept it, we won't allow it, we will fight it with everything we have. This text teaches that people will push away from sound doctrine with hostility. And will go shopping for doctrines and teachings that appeal to them, they will go looking for what they want.
It is as if they have bug zappers and mosquito nets that prevent truth from getting anywhere near them. Satan has open and immediate access and control over what they hear. Mark 4. Says that when the word is sown immediately the word is stolen by the birds, which Jesus later explains is the devil. When a person immediately brushes off spiritual truth, and fights against it, that is evidence of demonic activity and a spiritual stronghold.
PPT 5 Notes from John Gill commentary on 2 Tim 4:3
Gill - "they cannot receive it, nor bear to hear it, turn their backs on it, express their indignation at it, and treat it not only with neglect, but with ridicule and contempt:"
They are openly hostile to truth. Here is an example of not being able to endure sound doctrine from the book of Acts:
PPT 6- 8 scripture text
Ac 7:54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
Ac 7:55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
Ac 7:56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Ac 7:57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
Ac 7:58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man' feet, whose name was Saul.
Ac 7:59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Ac 7:60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Here is how those who could not endure sound doctrine responded:
They gnashed on him with their teeth. Their anger boiled over. When you gnash at someone with your teeth you are snarling at them, you are ready to explode, you can't stand to hear another word of what they are saying.
They shouted over him. Think of a political rally where one group tries to shout so loud the other group can't be heard. That is what the Jews were doing to Steven (They cried out with a loud voice)
They stopped their ears. (They refused to listen, putting their fingers in their ears so the sound couldn't even get through to them.)
They ran toward him and threw him out of their city. They said people who believe like you do we don't want living in our city.
They stoned him. They went further, not only do we not you living in our city, we don't want anyone to ever hear what you have to say. They killed him to stop the voice they couldn't endure.
This kind of treatment has already started to happen to Christians in America.
PPT 9 Acts 7:55
Ac 7:55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
V. 55 where was Stephen focused when he met those who would not endure or put up with sound doctrine? Looking stedfastly into heaven! That is where we will need our focus to be not on them but on Jesus, and we need to be steadfast about it!
Looking steadfastly = Atenidzo to fasten ones eyes on.
When we see society and people have become like this we have several options. We can hope for an escape ladder or fight the good fight of faith.
PPT 10 Quote from Christian author and teacher Ed Silvoso
Ed Silvoso: Dealing with people who embrace the rapture as a form of escapism says:
I am not minimizing persecution, martyrdom, tribulations and a world system that is anti-God, but we cannot be like a football team that makes it to the final game, but they are unsure of winning. And they begin to hope and pray for a typhoon so that the game will be canceled. No!
Jesus said I will build my Ekklesia and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
In other words Christian shouldn't be seeking the rapture to get us out of here, we should be busy for the Lord and until our last moments be doing our best to pull down strongholds and winning people to Christ. Jesus doesn't want us running to the lifeboat and escape this life, He wants us bringing others to the lifeboat of salvation in Jesus.
PPT 11 pulling down strongholds text
2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
2Co 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
Let's mine some gold from this text.
What do you think it means when it says we do not war after the flesh?
We don't hit people. We don't call them names. We don't insult them.
Pulling down strongholds. Think about that phrase, and try to understand the full depth of its meaning. If you are going to pull something down, what does that imply?
Pull = grasp, grab by the horns, lay hold of, yank on it. Wrestle it to the ground. You have to go after it and somehow touch it and start dismantling it. You can't wish strongholds away, nor can you simply work on it for a few minutes, you have to work on it till it is gone.
In some sense pulling down of strongholds is part of the prophetic mission of the church.
PPT 14
Jer 1:10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
If we are going to tear down a building we would be systematic in our approach. We would see what tools and methods we will need to use. We would pick a starting point or entry point, a strategic place to begin, and we wouldn't stop until the building was completely torn down.
Paul never bothered to list what those weapons are. What do you think they are?
There are many weapons we find in the bible, but I will quickly mention 3, and the 3rd for the purpose of this message is the one I feel the Holy Spirit is keying in on for us.
3 scriptural weapons/tools to pull down strongholds.
Word Of God. This is perhaps the most important and the most powerful. God's word is full of living power, it will not return to Him void. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. He sent His word and healed them. In Ephesians 6 the only weapon listed is the sword of the Spirit which Paul explains to be the word of God. The word of God is sharper than any other sword (Heb 4:11) and is able to cut men/women to the very core of their being.
Next weapon we want to talk about is prayer. But not simply prayer - but persistent prayer. Prayer that is systematically weaponized and directed at destroying the strongholds of the enemy. Here is an example from the book of Acts:
PPT 15 Prayer. That got Peter out of jail. (Stronghold of the enemy)
Ac 12:5 Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
Reading that story you will find he was chained to four guards and an angel of the Lord simply took Peter out of jail without their notice. Prayer sends angels on assignments. Prayer blinds the eyes of the enemy to what God is doing. Prayer destroys the enemies hold on people. But it is important that you catch this from Acts 12:5 the prayer was made "without ceasing." It is not enough to say a prayer and attack a stronghold. You must keep praying till it comes completely down. That leads us and connects us to the third weapon we will talk about for this message:
Being steadfast. Most of you don't think of being steadfast as a weapon, and it some senses it isn't. Yet, the continual application of our weapons is much more effective than a one shot war. Who ever won a war with one shot. If you were to go to war with an enemy and only shot once at him, he would think you weren't serious about what you want to do, and that you really aren't putting up a fight. The enemy can almost always outlast a one shot war, or a two shot war, but a continual barrage of attack will send even the most entrenched enemies fleeing for their lives.
Rev. 12 gives us 3 weapons by which believers overcome. Can you name them? The blood, the word, they loved not their lives unto death.
The last one listed means not quitting or giving up. Keeping at your assignment until the work is completed. In other passages in the book of revelation the same thought is said with different words - He that endures to the end will be saved.
Now let me tell you why many Christians fail to pull down strongholds. It is simply this, they start out great but neglect to see it all they way through. In other words they were all fired up to pray for a day or two and then their mind or attention wanders to other things and they stop pulling on the stronghold. Some strongholds will be broken with a prayer or two but many require conscious, continual, and steadfast effort. Let me illustrate what I mean from the world of medicine:
When you get an infection and go to see the doctor what do they most usually do? They prescribe antibiotics. They will also give you some very important counsel when they prescribe antibiotics - you must take them all, you must be faithful and follow the directions and take your medicine until it is all gone.
The reason for that is that if we only fight an infection for a day or two, the weak bacteria will die, but the strong ones will not. In fact because of their two day battle with the antibiotic they may learn how to fight and resist the medicine better. In many parts of the world they are finding that some diseases are becoming antibiotic resistant because people have failed to take all their medicine and the bacteria have grown stronger and can fight it better. Another example is that there are many rats in New York City that are immune to almost all poisons. The reason is that generation after generation of rats have been poisoned but there were some who were able to survive the poison and they have reproduced new generations or rats that are poison resistant.
The spiritual parallel is that if we only fight a stronghold for a short while, we may in fact be making it stronger! Think of a body builder, it is because of exercise they become stronger and get bigger muscles. In a similar way demons who get attacked a little learn what punches we throw and that if they keep their heads down for a few days we will quit. Thus they get stronger, and learn tactics to outlast and defeat us..
If you are going to take down a stronghold you need to be prepared to pray for a prolonged season, if that is what is required.
Here are a couple of verses where Jesus taught from which we can get much insight when we apply them to pulling down strongholds:
Lu 14:28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?
Lu 14:29 "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
Lu 14:30 saying, 'his man began to build and was not able to finish.'
Lu 14:31 "Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
In this passage Jesus is saying if you are going to do something count the cost and see it through to completion. Then he adds before you go to war think about and figure out what you need to win. When we don't see a battle through to completion we surrender territory to the enemy.
Here is another very important passage dealing with pulling down strongholds:
Mr 3:27 No man can enter into a strong man' house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
That passage clearly teaches that with some people we have to deal with the demons before we can rescue the person. In particular I am thinking about people who won't endure sound doctrine. We have to pull of the demonic mosquito netting that is keeping the word from biting them and getting into their bloodstream. I want to close this message with a practical help for being steadfast in pulling down strongholds.
(Note to pastors, I handed out a small paper that on one side had 40 days printed on it and on the other side 5 prayers, examples of prayer, that the church can pray over those with strongholds that need to be pulled down.)
40 is a significant number in the bible.
God cleansed the earth from sinful man with 40 days of rain.
Moses spent 40 years on the backside of the wilderness in preparation to deliver the Jewish children of the stronghold of Egypt.
For 40 days Jonah warned Nineveh and the rebellion was broken and the people turned to God.
Jesus defeated the devil for 40 days of fasting to begin His ministry.
You get the idea. What I am suggesting for you at the close of this message is that if you or someone you know needs a stronghold pulled down that you commit to pray steadfastly about it for the next 40 days and let us see what the Lord will do. Here are 5 short prayers you may want to use as part of your spiritual arsenal:
5 prayers to use as spiritual antibiotics
1. Father, in the name of Jesus, pull down all the devils mosquito netting that keeps the word from getting in. I pray you bind the strongman that is hindering the word from getting through. I draw a spiritual blood line around them that will keep the enemy at a distance and unable to hinder them any longer. Devil in the name of Jesus, I command you to remove your fingers from their ears!
2. Father, in the name of Jesus destroy their spiritual appetite for fleshly pleasure. Let everything they do that is sinful become irritating to them, dry up their pleasure in sin. You said there is only pleasure in sin for a season, I pray you bring that season to an end - now! Help them get free by making them hate things they do that are sinful.
3. Father every lie that has been implanted into them by the enemy that has become a stronghold and firmly attached to their spirit I pray you break it off of them in the name of Jesus. Every thought that fights the knowledge of Jesus I command to fall to the ground.
4. Father cause your word to break into them. Cause it to bear fruit, cause it to bypass all strongholds. You said your word cannot be bound (2 Tim 2:9) Release your word in them and cause them to have hearing ears.
5. Father, you sent Jesus to destroy the works of the evil one. Destroy every siege force and power that has been sent against them. Make the enemy fall into the pit he has dug, led the angels of the Lord chase them. Even as fire came from heaven and destroyed Sodom send your fire against every stronghold of the enemy and completely destroy it, In Jesus name!
Close: Prayer for those battling strongholds. Have people commit to be steadfast in praying down strongholds.
