Strongholds, the Heart's Hidden Menace

[HKHaugan]

When we consider the immediate responses of people to circumstances in which they find themselves it is vital we grasp the fact that what motivates those responses comes from deep inner heart reflexes. The heart is the subject. What happens there determines response. What we need to evaluate is the reason for, the purpose of and the meaning behind those responses. And, because we are disciples of Jesus, we need to do it His way, which is to go to the Word to understand the subject.

Paul puts it very simply. In Ch.10 of 2 Corinthians he likens the condition of the heart to a battleground. There is a war taking place between what the world expects and what God offers. Verse 3 tells us, “Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” There is a war going on and it is a war in the individual heart that can flow over into the world around us. Paul goes on to say that this war is not fought with worldly weapons but is a much deeper and more personal war. It is a spiritual war waged within the heart and that a believer’s weapons originate with Christ. He identifies the internal struggle as “…demolishing strongholds (vs.4)” which, by their very nature, are spiritual but not of God.

Let’s look at Paul’s view of the internal struggle we all face. “4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We 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. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete (2Cor.10:4-6 NIV).”

What then is a stronghold? It’s apart-from-God thinking. From vs.5’s arguments, pretensions and thoughts’ we can define it simply as any thought, idea, concept or conclusion about human experience arrived at apart from God and His Word. Apart from God man tries to set his own pace and destiny without considering what God thinks. Apart-from-God thinking starts right there in Genesis 3 when the devil tempts Eve to think that wisdom, knowing the difference between good and evil, can be had without God. And she buys it! Apart-from-God thinking leads to the heart being beguiled, corrupting not only the mind by self-justification and rationalization but becoming vulnerable to the devil’s arsenal of spirits that isolate and destroy God’s images. The devil is the original apart-from-God thinker. Strongholds and their construction are his specialty.

One more very important thing, strongholds are spiritual. They are built on the premise that self apart from God is the solution to any and all problems. That, my friends, is what sin is all about. And sin further complicates our experience by not only isolating us from God but isolating us from others and confusing our self-identity. Sin separates and makes us alone. Three things prove this premise. First, self-centeredness, our initial reaction is always what’s best for me. Second, fear, our reactions are influenced by what might happen based on past experience of emotional and physical survival. Third, idolatry, we try whatever it takes to be and look right to fit the moment.

Strongholds then, are rooted in sin and lived out through self-centeredness, fear and idolatry. Strongholds are the defenses, based on pretenses acting in sequences we build apart from God to protect our lonely hearts. Strongholds are hidden obsessions shaped over periods of time from to cover fears. Strongholds are prejudices and biases used to make and secure safe interpersonal encounters. They are the ‘safehouses’ hastily constructed to take shelter when being alone among others is our greatest threat.

Since strongholds are spiritual they are empowered by spirits that reinforce them. To name a few we have pride, fear, stubbornness, lust, greed, anger, passivity, bitterness, resentment, despair, depression and ‘…Legion, for we are many (Mk.5:9)” and many more.

The parables of Jesus all deal with strongholds. They confront the invisible dynamics in the heart that have been set up apart from God. Looking at three briefly we have first the Prodigal Son in which the younger brother builds one based on his idea that he can live life in his own way apart from his father. The older brother builds his on his triple self-arrived conclusions that he is morally superior to his brother, as elder brother he deserves special treatment and the belief his father is unfair.

Second, we have the Good Samaritan in which the priest and the Levite justify their avoiding the half dead man as maintaining religious purity.

Third, in the Parable of the Talents the one who hid his talent had wrongly concluded the investor was a harsh and demanding lender thus justifying his burying the talent.

So, how do we deal with strongholds?

First, there is one stronghold that replaces man’s strongholds, “The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid (Ps.27:1)? And, since we are talking about spiritual war consider this, ”Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me (Ps.144:2).”

Second, for Jesus His stronghold was His Father; His will, His Word, His Presence. Jesus was very explicit when He said to His Father, in sum total of His mission and ministry on the Cross, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will (Mt.26:39).” That goes for us in spades. There is only one stronghold for all of us.

Third, we follow Paul’s advice, “…we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (2Cor.10:5).” There are three implications in this verse. First, we have the ability, power and authority in Christ to take a thought captive. Second, we take the captive thought, analyze it, identify it and rebuke it. Third, we repent and turn them around to the Lord who cancels them by the power of the Spirit and conform our mind to Christ’s thoughts (Col.3:1-2).

But what about the thoughts that others present that are shaped by their strongholds? We take those thoughts, consider them in the light of Scripture and trust the Spirit to offer what we believe would honor the Lord in reply, that is in the attitude of love not argument. The spiritual war is one where God’s love is our ultimate weapon and challenging ideas can be returned in His love so that they can be accepted for consideration and acceptance. If we try and be forceful the spirits of pride and arrogance will enter and neutralize the presentation of truth. We are not out to win an argument but allow the Spirit to capture the mind and heart of the person who brings an apart-from-God conclusion, a stronghold, before us. As Paul says in context when we present our weapons they have the power to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And that is our goal, that everyone will be able to say either then or at some future point, they have heard from God.

So the war we wage is a spiritual war which begins with destroying those things in our heart that keep us from seeing God, seeing the world as it really is and seeing the reality of our own hearts from God’s perspective. Those things are what Paul calls strongholds. They are what have shaped our hearts from birth, shaped our responses to the world, shaped the world apart from God and originated in the devil’s rebellion against God launched upon us through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God.

John helps us see the original spiritual issue when he writes his first epistle, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (3:8).” But where does that evaluation come from? Remember, the condition of the human heart is described in Genesis 6:5 “…every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” ‘Every, only, all’ is pretty conclusive. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things…”

In other words the devil’s work was to isolate man’s heart from God and make him dependent on self, which is the devil’s work. If he can isolate the individual heart from God then he is in control. The subtlety of it is that when an individual is separated from God he thinks he is in control. That is the devil’s objective; to get us to think we are in control, which is the deceitful nature of the heart to which Jeremiah speaks. When that happens it is the devil that controls us. There is no neutral ground. It is either God’s control or the devil’s. The old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions is thus explained. When I think I am doing something good apart from God I am deceiving myself and contributing to the same deceit in others. So we start spiritually and end spiritually thanking God for the opportunity to take not only our own thoughts captive for Christ but also to allow the attitudes and opinions of others to be spiritually processed in His love so that Jesus is lifted up, others see Him and want to know Him more and in the process God gets the glory.