Stronghold's Sources

[HKHaugan]

“The problem with sin is that it does its best in us to deny its existence. When we use the word sin note the reaction it causes, defensiveness, like “Ok, so I make mistakes but I’m not as bad as other people, especially those you read about in the newspaper and see on TV. I’m really a good person at heart.” Self-deception is sin’s major accomplishment (Strongholds and Idols 6/11/12).”

When discussing strongholds there is no question that defensiveness is a major symptom---but--- it’s not the only one. By the way, when I made that statement about defensiveness did you happen to react and say, “Well, I’m not defensive!” Whoops. Gothcha!

Anyway there are other symptoms and that’s why we need to go back to where they came from and that’s described in Genesis. Genesis is aptly named since it means beginning. Its description of the Fall of man from God carries an immediate picture of the beginning of sin and its planting of strongholds in human nature. In Gen.3:7 when it says the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, that opening was an internal recognition that something different was going on within. Something was missing and they realized they were naked. Suddenly they see their awareness of their outward nakedness came from their nakedness within (spiritual nakedness, which is why we have to be born again). Awareness of nakedness means they were also aware of their difference as man and woman, that their former condition of being right, being open, being at one with each other was lost and now their differences were what needed to be covered. Thinking that all they have to do is cover their outward nakedness they grab fig leaves to cover themselves (There we have the first stronghold, that by external means we can overcome internal needs).

But there is more. It goes back to God’s declaration in 2:18 that it was not good for the man to be alone. Nakedness means that Adam and Eve were not only separated from each other but each of them was alone, that inner sense of being relationally separated. But God was not ready to just let them drift separately in the Garden trapped in their aloneness. He had a plan for them. He wanted them to understand their condition. He knows they’re confused and need to understand what has just happened to them as the result of their decision to do what they were told not to do.

So He asks Adam where he is. The important thing about this question, for Adam and for us, is that it causes an internal response because that’s where the confusion is. It causes Adam to assess where he is internally not externally. Note Adam’s answer and how self-centered it is with its four “I’s”. “I (not we) heard you (Adam is self-consciously alone) in the Garden (God is outside of him) and I was afraid (aloneness brings fear for the first time) because I was naked (relationally separated from God and Eve): so I hid (mankind has been hiding ever since).”

God doesn’t stop there. His next very penetrating move will uncover Adam’s nakedness even more. God wants Adam to see his internal issues so He asks two questions, “Who told you that you were naked?” and “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Where did Adam get the information about his condition and did he disobey God? Did he think and act apart from God? Adam had to discover his discomfort when asked to admit what he had done. He was unable to say yes. Was it a new found condition of pride? He found himself with a new response, blame. “The woman you put here (God is to blame) with me (she is no longer Eve but ‘a woman’, a non-person) she gave me some fruit from the tree (Eve is to blame) and I ate it.”

Eve doesn’t fare any better. She is just as self-conscious as Adam and as convicted as well. She blames the serpent for being deceived. She has never experienced deceit nor blame yet now she is very aware of both and the need to escape them yet uses them anyway. Paranoia begins here.

So what does all this say about strongholds? Adam who before had no needs, was relationally fulfilled both with God and Eve, is filled with internal anxiety. He’s alone, he’s afraid, he’s guilty and he senses the internal pain of separation. He has to find some explanation to justify why he feels the way he does. The internal heat is too much. He needs an escape hatch.

Adam quickly devises strongholds. His first was a cover-up, covering his nakedness. His second was hiding, exposure is too daunting. His third was blame, it’s not my fault, it’s someone else’s. His fourth, though not mentioned is implied, defensiveness. In each of the four fear is the motivator, fear of being alone, fear of pain, fear of God, fear of personal exposure. Strongholds emerge as the way an individual can duck for cover, hide from others, blame someone or something to escape responsibility and work up a solid defense to avoid exposure. Strongholds are the invention of the mind and heart separated from God trying to survive in a stronghold driven world.

But the Lord God can’t let Adam and Eve stay in the Garden. It’s too much of a threat to their inner condition. They are fallen, alone, frightened and getting worse. If they eat of the tree of life they could live forever in their separated and lonely state. While the word ‘sin’ has not yet appeared in Scripture, it is sin that has made them so self-conscious that they are unable to relate to God and to one another. So in His mercy God sends them out of the Garden. But they still need covering. So before He orders them out He makes garments of skins to replace their fumbling attempts to use fig leaves as covers. They wither and disintegrate quickly as do all the ‘fig leaves’ we use to cover our aloneness like trophies, degrees, position, status, ethnic and class distinctions and all the gadgets we buy and places we live to impress others.

But God in His love always comes up with ministries, relationships and projects to reclaim His image within us. He provides in Jesus the means for the mind, the heart and the spirit to find their true destiny in Him. He clothes us with His righteousness for our hearts, His Word for our minds and His Spirit to counsel and comfort our spirits. Hold on for a later discussion on these as replacements for our strongholds.

What we have done so far is to look at the source of strongholds. So one more thing we need to address is the one behind the stronghold formation, the serpent. The serpent is the devil whose cunning craftiness finds its outlet in temptation. He is the expert at tempting, not externally in the open but internally in our aloneness, where no one can see what really goes on within. If you doubt he really exists just open your inner awareness and see if temptation is not part of the external pressure you sense every day. His early identification and activity in Genesis says it all.

The devil’s greatest achievement is his ability to hide and exploit sin in such a way that his existence is denied. Thus he is cast to the ground to be the unseeable force of evil striking from low down and behind whose head will be crushed by ‘an offspring of the woman (the future Messiah, Jesus the Son of God).’ He is the master and architect of strongholds built apart from God. In fact the Old Testament is full of his work especially early on in Gen.6:5 where “every inclination in man’s mind is only evil all the time.” Every, only, all, sums it up even to this day.

Gen.4 continues the stronghold picture in Cain when he kills his brother Abel. The first murder is a stronghold that says eliminate any difference and a stronghold that is built on winning as opposed to losing. A third stronghold emerges here in the form of pride. Pride tells us we don’t need to be taught the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, better and best. But in Gen.4:13 Cain constructs some further strongholds. His punishment to be a restless wanderer is not seen as a means to say he is sorry. Rather he has concluded he is rejected, hidden from God’s presence and subject to death by anyone who takes a mind to do so. Note how he like Adam says ‘I’ many times. He is conscious of being hopeless, afraid, alone and in pain. And here is the rub. He is half right which the devil uses to deceive us as he did with both Adam and Eve.

The devil can be half right but it’s the other half that requires God’s right. Cain was half right in that he worked and brought an offering to the Lord. The other half was the recognition that God had proved all the means for production so that the best of his offering, not just some, would be his due. He chose rather to see his choice as equal to Abel’s. Cain was guilty but forgivable, alone but relatable, restless but still able to have peace, subject to punishment but redeemable.

What sin did in Cain was to corrupt the image of God in him so that the creative abilities he had as an image of a creative God were used to create internal strongholds apart from God that would satisfy the need to deal with his aloneness, pain, fear and defensiveness. This is the start of self-deification, making one’s self a deity, a final authority for thinking and acting as well as inventing religions with visible idols to control the unknown that mankind would follow and worship.

The devil sees his job is to keep us all in the clutches of Cain’s mindset, trapped in the strongholds that isolate and alienate us from God and one another. That’s what temptation is all about and why he spends all his energy tempting those who believe in a personal relationship with God through Jesus His Son. People who don’t believe? Well, the devil isn’t worried about them. He’s got them right where he wants them, denying a personal God, denying their spiritual nature as an image of God, deceiving themselves with personal schemes of status seeking and material possessions and all the rest of the self-justifying projects that exalt the ego.