One of the greatest sections of Scripture concerning this great war for the thought life of the Christian is in 2 Corinthians:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds); 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. (10:3–5, KJV)
We all have strongholds in our thinking that must be demolished. We cannot destroy them by the weapons and strategies of the flesh. No psychological counseling, self-help book, or life class can completely annihilate these strongholds without Christ. It is like shooting a BB gun at a Navy battleship. The weapons of the flesh lack the spiritual power to blow these strongholds out of our minds and hearts. These fortresses can only be obliterated by spiritual weapons rooted in Jesus Christ. Only God’s mighty weapons have any chance of tearing down every brick of the strongholds that captivate our hearts.
The Greek word translated “stronghold” means fortress, castle, or prison. It was used in Greek literature to describe a strong military installation and a fortified place. This is the only time this Greek word is found in the New Testament, but the word is found thirty-two times in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. These usages shed some additional light on its meaning.
The first use of this word in the Bible concerns the prison that Joseph was cast into.
Joseph’s boss took him and put him in prison, the place where the men who did wrong against the king were put in chains. So there he was in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him kindness. He gave him favor in the eyes of the man who watched over the prison. (Genesis 39:20–21, NLV)
Remember me when it is well with you, and show me kindness. Say a good word about me to Pharaoh. Get me out of this prison. For I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews. And here also I have done nothing for which they should put me in prison. (Genesis 40:14–15, NLV)
Joseph was an amazing man of faith whose heart was a wonderful example of trust in God even in life’s most difficult circumstances. He was taken away captive from his homeland and unjustly thrust into prison, and his great heart cry has become the cry of every child of God: “Get me out of this prison! Deliver me from this dungeon! Take me away from this stronghold!”
We were all stolen from the Garden of Eden, our true homeland, when Adam and Even sinned. We were thrust into the dungeon of our sin nature, and our hearts became captive to the power and weight of sin.
Joseph was not delivered from the dungeon by his own strength, power, or ability. He was only set free and given a place in authority next to the king because God was with him, and the mercy and favor of God rested upon him.
God sets the pattern in this first use of the word stronghold in the Bible. The only way to be delivered from the dungeons that hold us in captivity is through the mighty power of God. Only God can answer the cry “Free me from this prison and tear down this stronghold!” Only God is strong enough to demolish every stronghold.
What are these strongholds? How are they built? How do they capture our hearts?
A stronghold is an entrenched or fortified way of thinking that has become so engrained into the mind that it produces habits of character and ways of life. These strong fortresses have been built by the brick and mortar of our thoughts. Brick by brick we construct these fortresses by our thinking.
In the Old Testament, the word stronghold was used to describe the fortifications of a city when its builders formed a formidable wall around it for protection. It was constructed to resist all attacks, allowing it to be more easily defended.
In Bible times, a stronghold around a city consisted of stone walls that were often fifteen feet thick and twenty-five feet high. It was extremely difficult for an army to successfully defeat an enemy protected by such a stronghold.
A stronghold represents a place in our minds and hearts where the Enemy has become entrenched and where we have become in bondage to Satan. It becomes a secured sanctuary where the Devil can exercise influence and authority over our lives. It is where the Devil can run his covert operations and wreak havoc in our hearts. It is his military base, where he launches his fiery darts into our hearts in an attempt to steal, kill, and destroy the knowledge of God and the image of Christ from producing fruit in our lives. A stronghold is a point of operation where Satan can keep a person captivated, incapacitated, and under control. It is an emotional, mental, or experiential mind-set that thrusts the heart into bondage and keeps it from growing spiritually in the Lord. It is a mental fortress of wrong thinking.
One of the Hebrew words for “sin” means to slowly twist a fence around a person. Strongholds are like fortresses with huge barbed-wire fences around them, built by the power of sin, with a sign hanging at its entrance that says, “Keep out! This is the property of Satan. No trespassing allowed. This is the realm of darkness, and no light is allowed here. God is not wanted here!”
These strongholds feed off of sin, and the fences grow higher, thicker, and more twisted the more sin dominates our thinking. The heart was never designed to have these barbed wires like fences keep us in mental and spiritual prisons. God wants the heart free from every fortress of bondage.
Strongholds are designed by Satan to enslave us. Their purpose is to keep the life and glory of God from being manifested in our hearts and setting us free to love Him. Strongholds rearrange the boundaries that God has set for our hearts and fence us in, so we live, breathe, and move in captivity. Strongholds are the tool of the Devil to hinder the purposes of God in our lives and destroy our God-given calling. Strongholds are one of the great enemies of the heart. The strategy of the Devil for every man, woman, and child on earth is to build these wicked strongholds in the heart. He marshals all the spiritual forces of his entire kingdom to this end, as each stronghold is cleverly designed to turn the heart away from God.
A stronghold is always rooted in a faulty thinking pattern based on lies and deception that exalts itself above the knowledge of God contained in His Word. Deception is the glue that holds every stronghold together. Every stronghold cleaves to a lie that our thinking patterns have been twisted to believe.
Beth Moore, in Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds, says:
Basically, a stronghold is any argument or pretension that “sets itself up against the knowledge of God.” A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, “pretending” to be bigger and more powerful than God. It steals much of our focus and causes us to feel overpowered. Controlled. Mastered. Whether the stronghold is an addiction, unforgiveness toward a person who has hurt us, or despair over a loss, it is something that consumes so much of our emotional and mental energy that abundant life is strangled—our callings remain largely unfulfilled and our believing lives are virtually ineffective. Needless to say, these are the enemy’s precise goals … Based on my understanding of Scripture, anything that steals, kills or destroys the abundant, fruitful life of a believer can be considered a stronghold of the enemy. [i]
Strongholds can literally rewire our brains if we continue to reinforce toxic and ungodly thoughts. A stronghold can actually be visually viewed in images of the brain. It looks like a huge tree with branches that have spread its root system into the physical structure of the brain. A stronghold is woven into our genetic makeup and even restructures our cells to create emotions that are harmful to our spiritual well-being. These strongholds will imprison us and hold us hostage until they are torn down.
God designed the brain so that we can demolish strongholds and effectively rewire the brain. He also designed the brain so that we have every opportunity to eradicate these toxic thoughts before they become strongholds. If we take control of our thought life, become aware of what we are thinking, and take vigilant watch over our thoughts, these strongholds will wither and fade away. Otherwise, the stronghold can spread its roots deep into the physical brain and become strongly embedded in the heart.
A stronghold can be any area of sin that has risen to dominate our thinking to the point it becomes entrenched in our way of life. What are some of the strongholds that Satan loves to build as fortresses in our hearts?
Fear is a huge stronghold and is the foundation of many other strongholds.
Unbelief is a common stronghold. Every stronghold has at its core a disbelief in the promises and faithfulness of God. Rejecting the truth of Scripture allows false reasoning and erroneous logic to control the thinking process.
Unforgiveness is another colossal stronghold, and many other strongholds grow out of an unwillingness to forgive. If left untreated, unforgiveness becomes a spiritual cancer, poisoning the heart with its root of bitterness. Satan takes immediate advantage of any unforgiveness in our lives and uses it to build powerfully effective strongholds that can crush our heart.
Pride, guilt, lust, greed, depression, covetousness, and addictions are some of the other strongholds that can torment our minds and destroy our hearts. A stronghold is tangible evidence of the pursuit of the unholy in our thought life.
Do these strongholds only afflict the unbeliever who has not accepted Christ? Are they only the problem of the unbelieving world and not the concern of the Christian? Absolutely not! Strongholds and dungeons of captivity are running rampant in the minds of Christians and greatly hindering our walk with God and our Christian growth.
Beth Tirabassi, in Sacred Obsession: What You Chase After You Become, expounds on this enormous problem:
You cannot imagine how many people I meet who say they know God but are broken and confused, hiding their true selves, addicted to a substance, involved in emotional affairs, extremely overweight and battling with food every day, defiantly bitter about something, angry and easily able to wound with their words, abused, trapped, and desperate, obsessed with the illicit, habitual liars, too self-centered to love those who need them, and consumed with chasing after the unholy. They believed the lie that the sacred is not enough. Instead of being obsessed with the sacred … instead of loving God and others with intimacy and intention, instead of being free to dance on the inside or outside, instead of being able to laugh with pure joy and lift their hands with extreme freedom, instead of caring for the needs of others with selfless abandon, instead of being aware of God’s presence, when His blanket of comfort or power comes over them … they are numb … I don’t totally understand the dynamics of every addiction, but I do intimately understand the relentless pursuit which gets a hold of you—almost to the point of complete destruction. And I am guessing that you understand addictive compulsive obsessions too. You’ve felt their impact on someone you love. And you know if you don’t do whatever it takes to get the addiction out of your life; it will consume everything you love. Everything you are.[ii]
In 2 Corinthians 10:4 God commands that these fortresses must be pulled down and eradicated from our hearts. The Greek word for “pulling down” is kathairesis, which means to take down, to destroy, and to bring to extinction.
The first usage of this word in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, is enlightening as to the deeper meaning of this word.
You must not worship the gods of these nations or serve them in any way or imitate their evil practices. Instead, you must utterly destroy (kathareisis) them and smash their sacred pillars. You must serve only the Lord your God. (Exodus 23:24-25, NLT)
The root of every stronghold is idolatry—the worship and service of rival gods that have established a fortified dwelling place in our hearts.
We cannot serve the Lord our God if these dungeons of idolatry are dominating our hearts. These strongholds are like tumors that have fastened to our hearts and attempt to utterly consume it. When you are diagnosed with a tumor, you go to the doctor to get it surgically removed so it will be eliminated from your body. Likewise, God does not want one fortified stronghold to remain in our thinking or our hearts.
Do not give the devil a foothold. (Ephesians 4:27, NIV)
Leave no such room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him]. (AMP)
In the Greek, this is a present imperative and could literally be translated “Stop giving the devil a foothold in your heart and life!”
The Greek word for “foothold” means territory and a defined area like a district, town or dwelling place. We cannot give the enemy an inch of territory in our thoughts. We cannot give him a dwelling place in our minds. If we give him a foothold, the Devil will aggressively take territory and build fortresses. If we give him a deed of land in our minds, he will stake out more boundaries to control as much real estate as he can. He is a spiritual squatter who attempts to gain legal title to property by a hostile, continuous possession, to the exclusion of its true owner. The owner, through neglect, has failed to protect the land against the actions of its adverse possessor who has treated the land as his own for a significant period of time. Eventually he is recognized by the law as its new owner.
The Devil has no legal right, by the authority of the finished work of Jesus Christ, to occupy one blade of grass in the real estate of our minds. Don’t give him any land on which to build a fortress. Don’t let him establish a military base. Don’t allow him to become the owner of one square inch of your thinking through neglect or inattention.
The Lesson of Jericho
There is a beautiful illustration of this truth in the book of Joshua. When Joshua was about to lead the nation of Israel into the Promised Land, he faced thirty-one hostile nations that were not about to surrender their territories to the people of God. These hostile empires were thirty-one strongholds, most having heavily fortified cities, and were described as giants in the land of Canaan (Numbers 11:31-33). The Devil placed these nations right in the heart of the Promised Land. If Israel was to inherit the land God had promised them, they would have to defeat these nations and tear down their strongholds.
God told Joshua that not one nation, stronghold, or person could stand against him. Joshua was to courageously advance into enemy territory and conquer every stronghold in the name of God Almighty. God encouraged Joshua to not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God was with Him. God was going to show in spectacular fashion in the presence of His people that no stronghold can stand against His mighty power.
The first kingdom-city that stood in the way of Joshua and all of Israel was Jericho a formidable, heavily fortified city. This stronghold had to be demolished, but human logic and reason would label this task as impossible. Jericho was one of the greatest cities of its day, and was surrounded by a great embankment with a stone retaining wall twelve to fifteen feet high. On top of the retaining wall was a mud-brick wall six feet thick and six to eight feet high. At the crest of the embankment was another mud-brick wall that was forty-six feet above the ground level outside the retaining wall. If you were standing in front of this city, the walls would be close to seven stories high.
This stronghold’s massive fortifications dared any soul, army, or nation to attack it. Joshua could have easily thought, “Are you kidding me? This is impossible! This stronghold is impregnable!” But is anything too hard for God? What people say is impossible, God says is possible with Him! (Luke 18:37).
On the eve of this battle, God Almighty sent Joshua a heavenly visitor to put things in spiritual perspective and to confirm that this stronghold was going to be demolished by God. The Lord of Hosts would fight on the frontlines of battle as a great warrior to tear down every fortress that stood in the way of God’s people entering into the Promised Land.
When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13–15, NIV)
God sent the commander of His army, the captain of the Lord’s mighty host, to show Joshua that this battle to tear down the stronghold of Jericho was God’s battle. These walls would only come down through the mighty weapons of God Almighty.
God does not engage in battle to lose. He is always victorious and He never fails on the battlefield, no matter how formidable the enemy. Our God is a warrior against every evil stronghold and He always brings overwhelming victory to His children who trust and obey Him and absolute defeat to all those who oppose Him.
God’s plan to demolish this stronghold did not include battering rams, or a massive frontal attack of troops, or some otherworldly tactic of war. His weapons made it one of the most unconventional battles in the history of the world. Only God could get the glory and praise for this type of battle plan. Only He could win this war.
Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priest shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.” But Joshua commanded the people, “You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.” But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction. (Joshua 3:5; 4:23–24; 5:8–10; 6:2–7, 18a, ESV)
It was by faith that the walls of Jericho collapsed, for the people had obeyed God’s command to encircle them for seven days. (Hebrews 11:30, PHILLIPS)
The Battle of Jericho: 8 Keys to Demolish Strongholds
In the battle of Jericho God sets forth the pattern of how we should approach the tearing down of every stronghold in our minds and hearts.
Come out of the Wilderness
First, if we want God to deal with our strongholds, we must come out of the wilderness of sin and the world. We cannot have wilderness thinking and lifestyles and expect our strongholds to come tumbling down. Actually, the opposite happens. The strongholds built by sin strengthen their fortifications in our hearts as long as we play with the golden calf in the wilderness. We wander about in spiritual blindness and stumble in the darkness, not knowing where we are going, as long as our hearts treasure the wilderness more than they treasure God. We must follow Jesus and let Him lead us out of the wilderness and into the promised land of a new life in Him.
We must never turn our gaze back to longing for the wilderness. We must fix our eyes on our Lord. We should seek His face, hunger for His presence, passionately pursue Him as our first love, and walk out of a past dead in trespasses and sins into the transforming power of our awesome God.
Consecrate Yourselves
The second thing we must do to tear down any stronghold is to consecrate ourselves. The Hebrew word translated “consecrate” is qadash, which means to be set apart, sanctified, holy and pure, and is used to describe what is set aside for God’s purposes. Qadash is to be completely dedicated to God for His glorification. It is a holy separation, where we pursue the sacred and consecrate all to Him. Our actions, words, and thoughts become instruments for His glory. Everything in our lives is set-aside for Him.
We must not conform to the world’s way of thinking or mold our lives after the fleeting mind-set of this age. We must boldly come out from among the world in our thought life, and separate our thinking from the evil spiritual atmosphere that has been orchestrated by the Prince of the Power of the Air in every area of society.
Becky Tirabassi says in Sacred Obsession:
We have allowed culture to consume us and make us like it. The average Western Christian is much more like his culture than his God … We have become incredibly ineffective as children of the King—no longer considered by ourselves or others as a holy, set–apart people of the living, loving God.[iii]
Do not allow the culture to consume your thought life and make it a wasted opportunity for the King of Glory. Our thinking must live under the banner of holy separation from the evil of this world. When we consecrate our thoughts to Him, God can tear down the strongholds caused by destructive thinking. The presence of God should penetrate our thoughts like beautiful rays of sunshine breaking forth in celebration of a new day. We must renew our minds by bringing our thinking to a new quality that is branded by God as pure, selfless, and compassionate.
What label would characterize your thinking? Would it be the brand of Christ or the brand of the flesh? Would it characterize the beauty of God or the ugliness of sin? It is time we examine our thought life to see what label it carries. Our earnest desire and driving passion should be that God is glorified by our thinking. We should be passionate to consecrate our thought life to the glory of God, for no stronghold can withstand the power of a consecrated thought life dedicated to the honor, praise, and majesty of our God.
Our Spiritual Circumcision in Christ
Thirdly, for God to tear down the strongholds in our minds, we must boldly stand in our spiritual circumcision in Christ under the new covenant, allowing God to circumcise the old ways of the flesh from our hearts. In that circumcision, the flesh will be pulled away from its grip on the heart and the power of sin broken in Christ and rendered inoperative. We do not need to have a slave’s habitual obedience to the flesh anymore. This circumcision is the enablement to break free from all sin, and to live in the freedom of our new life in Christ.
At the foundation of every stronghold is the carnal thinking of our flesh, fed by our sin nature. We can claim the benefits of the new covenant, which freed us from the power of sin controlling our lives and its relentless building of strongholds in our hearts. We can now walk by the Spirit of God and allow its holy work within us of burning the chaff, tearing down strongholds, and purifying our hearts.
Communion: The Power in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ
Fourthly, for the stronghold to be demolished, we need to know and believe the amazing power in the body and blood of Jesus Christ memorialized in the communion ceremony. Just like the Israelites who observed Passover before the walls of Jericho came crashing down, we can walk in the magnificent power of our redemption, accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power of Satan to maintain strongholds in our hearts was permanently broken, crushed, and defeated at the cross, and His authority to rule our lives was overthrown and destroyed by our Lord Jesus.
Every captivity that has held the heart a prisoner in its strongholds has been blown to smithereens by Jesus Christ. No stronghold can stand against the blood of Jesus Christ. No stronghold can stand against the body of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is so complete that it can tear down the walls of any physical, mental, or spiritual stronghold, no matter how long it has been rooted and engrained in our hearts. When He cried out on the cross, “It is finished,” He was declaring the death sentence for every stronghold that has ever held us captive and oppressed our hearts. When the angel declared, “He is risen!” it was a heavenly declaration of a new age for all those who choose to believe.
Salvation is now available through Jesus Christ. In this salvation there is no room for the old strongholds to continue to plague and control our lives. Praise God there is a new freedom in Christ from every stronghold. The power of the Holy Spirit can reduce these fortresses to ashes in the unquenchable fire of God’s holy presence.
We must elevate our thinking to our heavenly position in Christ. Our thoughts must be filled with the truth of our redemption in the body and blood of our Lord Jesus if these strongholds are to come tumbling down.
The Battle is Not Yours but God’s
The fifth truth illustrated in the battle of Jericho is to realize that the battle is not ours, but the Lord’s. Joshua saw the commander of the host of heaven’s armies, and he had no doubt that the mighty God of Israel was going to fight for His people and bear His mighty arm against Jericho.
Only by the powerful weapons He has given us, like prayer and the sword of the Spirit, can we engage in this battle. Trust God to bring these strongholds to nothing. Believe God is our warrior and cry out in victory, “If God be for me, if God be on my side, what stronghold can stand against me?” Even if the wall is seven stories high and seems impossible to overcome, our God created the heavens and earth and can demolish any stronghold.
No stronghold can stand against the Almighty God! He will simply breathe on any stronghold and its walls will crumble. Believe in your awesome God. Trust in your Almighty God with unwavering devotion. Know that He is faithful to demolish every stronghold.
We can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is with us and in us, and we have nothing to fear. Never let unbelief in God and His Word raise its ugly head and take root in your heart. Unbelief is the fuel of every stronghold. It is the great enemy that will try to overtake your thinking patterns.
The altar of unbelief is established in the heart through our thought life. We cannot succumb to thoughts that God does not care, that He doesn’t deliver, and that He is not trustworthy. Unbelief doubts the character of our God and allows the Devil to build strongholds of unbelief in our hearts.
Unbelief doubts the integrity and accuracy of the God-breathed Word of God.
When unbelief toward God and His Word is demolished in our thinking, the miraculous God can rise up and do His mighty work of destroying these fortresses so they no longer control our lives. We must lay every single battle to demolish these strongholds at the feet of our God and let Him arise in our hearts and take out these bastions of the Enemy.
The Ark of the Covenant: The Power of God’s Word and Presence
The sixth truth is, just as the Ark of the Covenant was marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, we can take the Word of God and march it around every stronghold, confessing its truth and claiming its power. The Word of God is the mighty weapon in our thinking that will tear down the bricks of unbelief, fear, and doubt that have built their strongholds in our minds. We must know the Word, meditate on the Word, confess the Word, and believe the Word if these strongholds are ever to come down.
God declares in Jeremiah 23:29 (HCSB): “Is not My word like fire … and like a hammer that pulverizes rock?” The holy fire of God’s Word will melt any stronghold. The mighty power of God’s Word will pulverize the walls of any mental fortress. The hammer of God’s Word is the great weapon to demolish all these strongholds. This is why the Word of God must live and abide in our thought life.
The great philosophies and religions of the world are like a plastic toy hammer against these strongholds. They are powerless to bring the walls down. Only God’s holy Word, which He has magnified above all His name (Psalm 138:2), can crush these fortresses that have established residency in our hearts.
The ark also represented the presence of God, where God lived and met His people. When God is present, strongholds dissolve and crumble. No stronghold can remain in the light of His presence. We must hunger after God’s presence to be a living reality in our hearts. We must practice the presence of God in our thought life if these strongholds are to dissolve. God is calling us to carry His presence into battle and let our hearts be a living ark that radiates the glory of God Almighty.
Do you hunger after God’s presence like a newborn bird craves food from its mother? Do you pant for God’s presence like a thirsty deer pants for water? Do you know that God is with you and in you every moment of the day? It is time we set the glory of God’s presence before the walls of every stronghold that captivates our minds and holds us in bondage.
Tell the stronghold that you want to introduce it to the Almighty God whose power and majesty is beyond measure. These dungeons of bondage melt when they touch the glory of our God. God cries out to us like He did in Isaiah 45:2, “I will go before you and level the mountains. Bronze doors I will shatter, and iron bars I will snap!” Our mighty God will level every fortress and shatter every stronghold that stands in defiance of His truth if we only let Him. Let the weapon of God’s holy presence be carried into battle for the destruction of these strongholds and stand still and see the salvation of our Lord. When God is vitally present in our thinking, then the victory is assured over every stronghold that has ever tormented our lives and held sway over our hearts. The trumpets of God must once again sound in our hearts announcing to the world that the presence of God has arrived and the judgment of destruction on every stronghold has been pronounced from the throne of God.
Have Unshakeable Faith in God and His Word
The seventh truth is to have faith in God and His Word. Only by the exercise of faith can God move into action and accomplish the impossible. Our faith rests on the truth that with God all things are possible and nothing is too hard for Him. Strongholds are so prevalent in the hearts of Christians because there is a vast shortage of believers who have childlike faith that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. We have more faith in the power of the enemy to defeat us than in the power of God to deliver us. Faith is an unwavering trust and confidence in our God that he will never fail us. It is to be fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able to perform. No stronghold is demolished without faith. Strongholds arise when there is unbelief dominant in our thinking.
Faith always begins at the thought level. The strongholds of Satan will sift our hearts like wheat if we don’t have strong faith and confidence in our God. Take the shield of faith into battle against these strongholds to quench all the fiery javelins of the wicked one.
Faith not only tears down strongholds in our hearts, but also prevents new strongholds from finding a dwelling place in our minds. Faith comes by hearing the mighty promises of the Word of God and believing what God has spoken. God does not lie. His promises are always true. His promises cannot fail. As Jesus proclaimed again and again: “O ye of little faith! Why do you doubt?”
Our entire culture is designed to build fear and unbelief in the promises of God and God’s true character. We have made God too small; our vision is too mundane and we do not understand the greatness of our God. Strongholds abound as our faith is miniscule and shipwrecked on the island of doubt, worry, and fear. Truth faith has absolute confidence that God is able and willing to bring about the miraculous and the extraordinary in our lives. True faith has absolute confidence no matter how high the walls, that it can demolish any stronghold that grips our thinking with fear. True faith not only moves mountains, but it smashes strongholds into pieces. Faith is the key ingredient to keep our hearts healthy and free from these fortresses of bondage.
Wait on the Lord
The last truth in the Battle of Jericho is that we must wait on the Lord. God did not move to demolish the walls of Jericho until the seventh day. The Israelites were commanded to wait patiently for their God and not even utter a word until God’s appointed time. They were not to analyze God’s battle plans or have discussion groups about the best way for God to handle the situation. They were not to hand God an agenda and a timetable to try to get His approval. They were to be still in their thoughts, hearts and mouths and see the mighty salvation of the Lord.
God does not need an advisor. God does not need a counselor. God does not need a time scheduler. God needs people who will simply trust, obey, and wait for Him to act. Isaiah 64:4 boldly promises that God acts on behalf of those who trust in Him.
One of the most beautiful acts of faith in our Lord is to wait on Him for we know He is never late. God’s timing is always perfect. Many strongholds fail to crumble because we get inpatient with God as our flesh takes over and we take matters in our own hands. We attempt to tear down the stronghold in our own strength and worldly wisdom. It never works. It is like trying to destroy a military installation with a bb gun. It is a recipe for failure and never effective in demolishing strongholds in our hearts. Strongholds can never come down until we learn to wait upon the Lord and move when He moves and act when He acts, and faithfully follow His triumphant battle plan.
It is absolutely essential if strongholds are to be demolished and our heart set free, that we cultivate thinking patterns of waiting on the Lord. We cannot let anxiety and fear control our thinking where we develop an “I want it now” mindset and fail to wait on our God. We have become such an inpatient generation and we hate to wait on anything. But as in any battle, any movement of troops made in haste against the commands of its general, leads to disaster and often a crushing defeat. The soldier must trust the general’s heart and His commands and not allow his thinking to commit rebellion against his commander-in-chief.
The nature of our flesh does not want to wait on anyone. The flesh is incredibly impatient, demanding, and arrogant as to its ways. The flesh never understands the great truth of God’s faithfulness. The flesh deceives us into thinking we do not have to wait upon the Lord. Don’t make this disastrous decision to the health of your heart by following the flesh’s advice.
Waiting on the Lord is to trust in His faithfulness. Waiting on the Lord is to trust in His promises. Waiting on the Lord is to place our hope only in Him. God will absolutely never fail to perform what He has promised. He cannot lie. He did not stutter when He promised to demolish every stronghold if we trust Him and do what He has told us to do.
We should be like David who cried out in the Psalms 62:5: “My soul only waits on God for my expectation is from Him.” and in Psalm 25:5: “Lead me in thy truth and teach me for you are the God of my salvation and on you I wait all the day long.” David was a man after God’s own heart because his soul waited on the Lord day and night and his hope rested in the Lord.
David set forth the keys on waiting on the Lord in Psalm 37 which is to first trust in the Lord, then delight in the Lord, then commit our way to the Lord and then rest in the Lord. The actions of trusting, delighting, committing and resting, prepares our heart to wait patiently for the Lord. No matter how long it may take, we wait on the Lord for He will bring deliverance and salvation from every stronghold that captivates our hearts. He is our expectation. He is our hope. He is our confidence. Never get discouraged. Never lose heart. Never give up.
The Hebrew word for “wait” is qavah and it means to wait with breathless anticipation and to earnestly look towards something with great expectation. Qavah also means to be gathered together in unity. It comes from the root meaning to twist and bind together like a rope, which becomes strong as many strands are intertwined together. When we wait on God our heart becomes knit together in strength with God and like a mighty rope our heart becomes intertwined with the very heart of God and everything He is. We become one in purpose and in action. We are bound together in a loving union of trust and confidence. We wait in eager expectation for we are excited to stand still and see how the magnificent God of wonders will act. There is no “maybe” or “perhaps” in waiting for the Lord for we have absolute confidence in God. When we wait upon the Lord a wonderful transformation of our heart takes place where the shackles of doubt are replaced with an unwavering confidence in God.
As Christians we have had too many walls of Jericho in our hearts for far too long. Fortresses stand in the way of the glory of God being manifested in our hearts. We have betrayed our hearts by allowing these strongholds to remain deeply rooted, distorting the image of Christ. As Saul lost his kingdom because he failed to eliminate the Amalekites, we have lost the true king from reigning on the throne of our hearts because we have failed to tear down the fortresses of our flesh. God is crying out to us daily: “Remove these strongholds from my dwelling place!” They have no right to be there. They must be demolished if God is to rule in our hearts.
[i] Beth Moore, Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds (Nashville: B& H Publishing Group, 2009), 3, 14, 15.
[ii] Beth Tirabassi, Sacred Obsession: What You Chase After You Become, (Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 6, 7, 11.
[iii] Ibid., 123.
