SPIRITUAL STRONGHOLDS Power Struggle Series - Part 4 Ben Rudolph Good morning Life Fellowship. It is good to see you here this morning. Turn in your Bibles to II Corinthians Chapter 10 where we are going to be this morning. I hope that you have been enjoying this series. For the last two weeks Pastor Dan has just done an amazing job. He talked about the power over sin two weeks ago and then last week the power over schemes as we have been looking in this series on spiritual warfare. We need to realize that as we live our lives we don’t just live in the material world, we don’t just live our lives freely walking with God, but we need to understand that there is an enemy that attacks us every moment of every day. One of the reasons why we were doing this series is so that we will be aware of how the enemy works. But even more so is the reason that we can have faith in what God is doing in spite of the enemy’s attacks. Part of this series is not so that we look upon the darkness of spiritual forces, and that we get scared and we retreat; the point of this is to understand what the enemy wants to do, how he is working and how he is active, and then understand how God is working in greater ways over the enemy of darkness. Amen? (Amen.) So that is why we are studying this. One of the fears of studying spiritual warfare is that we can get so caught up in looking at what the enemy is doing we fail to look at what God is doing. And every sermon in this series is ‘power over.’ So we have looked at power over sin, power over schemes and strategies of the enemy, and today we are looking at power over strongholds. And we will be in II Corinthians Chapter 10 which is a really important message. It is an important message for me because I don’t think I know of anyone that does not have some issue in their life that feels bigger than they are. Maybe it is addiction, or a struggle, or a sin issue, but there is something inside of us that feels like we are constantly battling. Maybe we battled against it when we were young, and we are still battling against it today. It doesn’t matter when we came to know Christ, there is an issue, there is something internally that feels so much bigger than we are, and it doesn’t matter how much we pray and how much we try, there may be times when we feel overwhelmed by this sin and by this struggle. The Bible calls this a stronghold. And in this passage that we are going to look at in II Corinthians Paul is addressing this issue of strongholds, because what he wants us to understand is that the strongholds in our lives that are there, God has given us the power to overcome them. I think one of the biggest things that God wants all of us in this room to understand, as well as those of you who are watching online, is the belief that God has the power to overcome the things in us that have plagued us sometimes for decades. And we have to begin to believe that God wants us, and expects us, to live a life of victory and not defeat. Sometimes that seems very hard, because maybe walking in here this morning you have felt that defeat. You have felt that struggle. You have felt that overcoming that stronghold that reared its head in your life this week was not Page 1 of 11 pages 8/23/2020 SPIRITUAL STRONGHOLDS Power Struggle Series - Part 4 Ben Rudolph possible. And for most of us how we deal with it is to ignore it, or we try to bury it, or we try to justify it, or we just give up and think it is a part of our life. So Paul is addressing this in II Corinthians Chapter 10. Now Paul is talking to this church in Corinth and he has a very real relationship with this church because he helped plant this church. Paul spent more time with this church than any other church he helped plant in the New Testament. Of all the churches Paul planted he spent more time with this church than any of the other churches. And this church was the one that had the most problems. If Paul’s church plants were kids, Corinth would have been the prodigal son. It was the church that always caused him heartache, pain and discouragement. So Paul has this relationship with this church where he is always addressing the issues. Within this church they were starting to doubt and question Paul’s authority, Paul’s effectiveness, and Paul’s ways of leading them. So Paul writes in verse 1: “I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” Not that is important. We know there is a letter between I Corinthians and II Corinthians that is called ‘the harsh letter.’ It was a letter that Paul wrote probably out of anger and in the flesh and not in the spirit, because it was not saved for us. But this church has caused him so much heartache, heartbreak and pain that he is writing in II Corinthians the second version of ‘the harsh letter,’ addressing the problems, but in a kinder and gentler way. He says: “I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!” So again he is saying that he has heard this said of him, that he was bold when he was away from them but when he was with them he was very humble. Verse 2: “I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.” Here is what he is saying. The problems that he is writing about, the sin issues that are in the church, he is praying that they will resolve those issues so that when he comes they will not be bound by them anymore. Now look at verse 3: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” Paul is saying that all the problems that are in this church, all the sin issues that are there, such as getting drunk at communion, the sexual immorality that was going on, all of the problems that he has written about, he wants them to know that he is dealing with those things not in the way that a man would deal with them, but he is addressing them as issues as strongholds. Paul is saying that these things were spiritual strongholds that were in this church, they must be addressed, and that he is not dealing with them in a human way. And what we need to understand is that the problems and strongholds in our lives should not be dealt with in human ways, because then we will only get human results. Page 2 of 11 pages 8/23/2020 SPIRITUAL STRONGHOLDS Power Struggle Series - Part 4 Ben Rudolph Instead we need to realize that the strategies and schemes of the enemy must be overcome by divine power. We have weapons that are not of the flesh but divine power can destroy strongholds. Verse 5: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” So we are going to talk this morning about how to overcome the power of strongholds. And in this passage we see two things that are very, very clear. The theme of this passage number one is that Paul uses a lot of military terms in this text. There are a number of military terms like, waging war, weapons of our warfare, strongholds, destroy, and taking thoughts captive. Those are just some of the words that are military terms that were used in that day. And we also see another theme in here and that is the theme of the mind, that there is a battle of strongholds that takes place in our mind. So when we talk about defeating these strongholds we have to address this issue that it is not just behavior we have to confront; it is the beliefs that are ingrained. It is what happens here first that plays itself out in our actions. There is a show that my family and I have gotten really into during this season and it is the show, ‘Alone.’ I am not sure how many of you have ever seen that show, but it is a reality show where they take about ten contestants, they put them in some artic wilderness, and they strive to be the last person that survives in these harsh conditions. It is an intense show. I have watched this with awe just mesmerized because I know I would only last a couple of hours. But some of these people really know what they are doing. They have ten contestants and every single one of them on the show during the first episode think they have the skills, the ability, the mindset to do this and they think they can win this.