Wisdom 48 Strongholds, the Devil's Conspiracy

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 48 Strongholds, the Devil’s Conspiracy 

But what about the thoughts, the pretensions, the behavior of others, that are shaped by their strongholds? We’ve mentioned it before but repetition here is a good thing. We have to take our stand in the Holy Spirit who keeps us conscious of the Lord’s presence. Paul again gives us a super list that the Spirit will put into our mind when the occasion calls for Him. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law (Gal.5:22-23).” So, we take anyone’s thoughts, responses and reactions, consider them in the light of the ‘fruit’ 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, look good or make others feel good, 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 as we grew and shaped the world of others apart from God. It all 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 and is to isolate man’s heart from God and make him dependent on self. 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, the devil controls us.

 One aside here. It’s about control. There is part of the fruit of the Spirit called self-control. This is not me free to do whatever I want. Self-control is really Spirit control. It is the realization that I am an image of God who has a Savior to bring me into His conscious direction. He is the Lord who saved me from the wrong kind of self-control, a self without God. True self-control is the Spirit leading me to focus on the Lord who energizes my presence with His presence.

 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. In the process, God gets the glory and we get the blessing. That should sound familiar.

 Next we look at the deeper strongholds.