For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they (our weapons) have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your (our or my) obedience is complete. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
What does this passage of scripture speak to? It may take a close inspection to fully understand the meanings within.
Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of several related things: strongholds of opposition, false pretenses, false arguments, and our call to batter down those acts of disobedience. In many ways, they refer to the same thing since they all have to do with actions or thoughts contrary to God. Verse 4 reports that the weapons of our warfare are powerful, through God, for the destruction of these things.
The Greek word translated here as “strongholds” means fortresses or fortified places. The weapons of our warfare are mighty to the pulling down of fortresses. A fortress, of course, is a strong defense built to keep something out. What are these modern-day, anti-Christ leaders trying to do? They are trying to brainwash us to control our thoughts and actions to commit sin. Every member of a school board that allows even the notion that people have multiple genders is a sin. God created man and women, anyone speaking against that truth is opposing the word of God.
So in the context of this study, a stronghold is a system or pattern of thinking that is contrary to the truth of God’s word. Generally, a spiritual stronghold refers to being for or against God. Do you read anything in the next block of text that you feel is against God's Word?
Choose Your Own Gender. All Whites Are Racist. Sixteen Year-Old's Should Vote. School-Age Children Can Use Any Shower Room They Want. Abortion Is A Right. Cellphones Are A Right. The Wealthy Don't Pay Their Fair Share. Defund The Police. Whites Have Privilege By Birth. Paying Reparations To Blacks For Slavery Is Needed. Global Warming Is America's Fault. Illegal Immigrants Should Vote. Burn The Flag–It's A Rag! Ban Oil & Gas. Shut Down The Pipeline. Sex Education To Toddlers Is Good. Tear Down The Border Walls. Racism Is Systemic. Ban Guns. Legalize All Drugs. Make Washington DC, A-State. Pack The Supreme Court Give. All Illegal Aliens Deserve Citizenship. Intolerance. Can't Refuse Gay Rights. Burn Down Government Buildings. Looting Is Justified. Topple Historical Statues. Fund The Green New Deal. Shut Down The Pipelines. Don't Stand For Our National Anthem. Kill The Pigs. There Are More Than Two Genders. Shut Down The Coal Mines. Abortion After Birth Is A Women's Choice. Sixteen-Year-Old Girls Can Get Abortions Without Parent's Permission or Knowledge. Give China, Russia, and Radical Muslims Billions Of Tax Dollars.
John 8:31-32 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Jesus said, “If you stay in my word.” The word “if” is of paramount importance here. We must abide in God's Word so that we can receive His truth. It is the truth that makes us free. We must always pursue truth and speak up when radicals, misguided, or corrupt persons spew falsehoods or hate. The revelation of God's truth makes us free. The more Americans and the free world receive the truth, the freer we all become.
Many of the things believers hear are based on fallacious rationalizations from the dishonest media, instead of the truth. Television “news stories” are 90 percent pro-leftist. Some say the other 10 percent are downright lies. We desperately need to know the difference between fake news, false facts, and the real truth.
But let's get back into the Bible. The Bible says Jesus took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. In 1 Peter 2:24 it says that by His stripes you were healed. Notice that both scriptures are in the past tense. It must have been God’s will for us to be healthy and whole. And Jesus did that for us at the cross. These scriptures are making reference to the work of Christ at Calvary.
But then someone gets sick and fails to get healed and we begin to create false explanations. We forget that it’s God’s will to heal sometimes and sometimes not. We don't understand His plans.
Some feel they have a right to have their unborn baby ripped from their womb. Some women feel they have a right to murder their babies, don't they? They depart from Bible truth about the finished work of Christ and embrace selfish rationalizations. Like I can't care for this baby or the baby needs two parents or I just can't handle the responsibility.
The truth then becomes ineffective in their life, because they now believe in things not in line with God's Word.
2 Corinthians 10:5 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.
Look up at the blocked text again. Who is exalting themselves? Who is pressuring you to do their own things?
We are to cast down every “high thing” that exalts itself above and against the knowledge of God. The Greek word Hupsoma means “high thing” as in elevated structures such as barriers, ramparts, or bulwarks. Bulwarks are embankments or barricades. So the phrase “high thing” means a wall or barrier set up to block revelation of God’s word from entering into your mind. This keeps you in their control, under their thumbs. Their propaganda exalts itself or pressures you against the ways of our Lord God. We might as well call it what it really is; brainwashing. Most likely is worse in the school system than we imagine. Critical Race Theory is a perfect example as it provides a false basis to divide all people.
It is not often you would hear me quote Vladimir Lenin who was the head of the Russian communist revolutionary Bolshevik Party. He rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917. But you need to consider the terrible effects of what these two quotes reveal and consider how close those ideas are to what's being taught in schools nowadays.
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seeds I sow will never be uprooted.”
“Destroy the family, you destroy the country. The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
Paul goes on to use the phrase “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” So it becomes even clearer at this point that he is referring to the thoughts of our mind and heart in this discussion. This phrase carries the idea of capturing thoughts and taking them prisoners to be forced to obey Christ, the Living Word of God.
Many of the thoughts we are fed by the “News” are contrary, if not the exact opposite of the truth. Those thoughts must be sorted out and be brought in line with the truth.
The war that Paul talked about, is the same warfare that we’re involved in as Christians today. There is a war going on over our thoughts, feelings, and votes. If there is a war going on then there must be an enemy. Folks, believe it or not, our enemy is not the far-left Democrats, nor the lazy Republicans nor radical black, white, red, or yellow activists. Our enemy is that damned Satan.
Ephesians 6:11-12 Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Who is this enemy? Satan, and he has empowered the principalities, powers, rulers of the dark world, and spiritual wickedness in the highest of places. Why is this enemy arrayed against believers in Christ? Because the enemy wants to control us just like he controls the lost souls of the unsaved world. It is the revelation of truth that frees us from the bondage of these enemies. So Satan works against us to cloud our judgment, to prevent us from receiving the truth and acting on those truths to free us.
1 John 5:19 We know that we are children of God. We know that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
John reports that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. How does he keep them under control? He does it through deception, corruption, and temptation.
2 Corinthians 4:4-5 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them...
Since God in his mercy gave us this ministry, we should not lose heart or become discouraged. But we have ·turned away and rejected secret, shameful ways. We do not use trickery nor talk in deception. We do not distort the meaning of plain words nor the true Word of God. We teach truthfully and openly disclose the real truths. This shows everyone who we are so that they can know in their hearts what kind of people we are in God’s sight. If the Good News Gospel we preach is hidden or veiled, it is concealed only to those who are lost and will perish unless they come to know Christ. The god (small “g”) who rules this world, the devil of this age, has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. Therefore they can not discern the lies of the lies told to them.
The enemy will do anything to win you over or cause you to mislead others! Through lies and deception, the enemy blindfolds people from the truth. Christians are not immune to the wiles and craftiness of Lucifer or his wicked spirits? But the Gospel outlines our path to salvation or Paul would not have told us to “Put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
But with Church people, the devil changes strategy. We are not quite as vulnerable to deception as unsaved people are. Thank God! Born-again people escaped his grasp through the new birth, which causes those who believe in Jesus to be delivered sinless from the authority of darkness. Satan's power has been broken, but he strives to muddle our lives.
Even after our new birth, there are great things and great work that God has for us through His extraordinary, precious promises. Our promises from God are realized through faith, patient stout-hearted faith. His planned good for us doesn't happen automatically or on our terms.
Satan tries to delay or stop us from making Christian progress. He strives to contaminate our beliefs. Faith is the singular thing that allows us to obtain God’s promises in our life and the heavenly afterlife. The devil must cause us to falsely believe in things that look like faith and sound like faith, but are truly contrary to the word of God. He must place in our minds false thoughts and beliefs that sound religious but are distortions of facts.
He used this approach with Jesus in the wilderness. Satan was very adept with false twists of scripture when he confronted Jesus. So Jesus corrected him with proper scriptures.
God had told Adam not to eat of the tree in the midst of the garden or he would die. But the serpent said to Eve, “You shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Satan twisted what God had said and shed doubt on the Word of God. And when she and her husband acted on that ill-fated advice it devastated their lives.
The enemy's approach toward Christians is to distort the Word of God in such a way as to make our lives ineffective or weak.
How much of what we believe is truth and how much is rationalization or imagination? Do strongholds placed in our minds by the enemy stop us or hinder our forward progress in the things of God? The only way we can know is to take the things we believe and diligently compare them with scripture. Test what does the Word of God really says about the subject? Does what we see and hear agree with what we believe the Bible says is true? Can we find scriptural evidence to support our belief?
Until we adopt a relentless pursuit of truth, our mortal souls will be easy targets for the enemy’s deceptive tactics. We must deliberate deeply in the Gospels and develop our ability to distinguish between truth and deception.
A scripture that illustrates this idea is in the book of Hebrews.
Hebrews 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
The strong meat, the deeper truth of God, belongs to those who are grown up, who by reason of much use have their perceptions exercised to the point that they are able to recognize and discern what is truth and what is deception.
Myself, that growth did not begin until I was past thirty.
Let’s begin that pursuit of truth today, not to just know the “latest news,” suspicious religious doctrine, or to blindly believe all the things that surround us in the name of politically correct knowledge. Instead, look into the Word of our Living God and allow the Spirit of Truth within us to guide and lead us to know all truths. As we do that we will be able to use the weapons of our warfare to pull down strongholds of wrong thinking and non-scriptural beliefs.
The End
