Gaining Confidence In Prayer II, Tearing Down Strongholds

Could we see that we've completed your mission? This is from last week. I'm sorry for forgetting that. Gene, I want you to come on up a second. We finished a retreat this last weekend. I had 120-plus ladies that came together. And I wanted Gene to give us just a little synopsis of a highlight or two. You can think about it for a minute. And you don't need to come up here and think if you want to. Everyone's comfortable, all right? Now, if you feel good, not too hot, not too cold. We just turned. Everything's just right. I'm cold. You're OK. You'll be fine. It's all the temperatures. It's going to be just right. And as Gene's thinking about this now, one or two things you'd like to share is just sort of put boundaries around that. The leadership retreat, which is something we have not done for a long time, is going to be Friday night and Saturday. And if you're here tonight and you've had a conversation with someone earlier, I guess it was last week, late last week, who didn't know that they would even be welcome to go, this is a retreat for folks who have some responsibility in ministry leadership. Or if you're new to North Way and you're wondering if you do, see a pastor, and they'll be happy to help you make that decision. It's not too late. If you're in a small group ministry, particularly, this would be helpful. But if not, even if you're in a ministry setting and you want to learn some of the things about where we're going, I think you would really enjoy this time, let alone the fellowship of it. I mean, we're going to have a lot of fun. This is a great place. It's a beautiful time to go in the mountains for a little bit. And you're going to have probably, gosh, three or four minutes of free time anyhow not to wander out. OK. That's enough time. If you don't know by now, you have to sit down. One of the other gals will have to come up. Well, I'll see you later. I know. But go ahead. Well, I just want to thank the Lord. And I'm at a loss for words, you know, it's something. It is something. But God, the Lord was just there. I never saw so many lives changed. I don't mean just superficially, but dramatically. One woman in particular came in and had contemplated suicide. In fact, there were three of them. And the Holy Spirit gave a word of knowledge. And then the Lord ministered to these women, and especially the one. She just looked like she had death all over her. She never smiled. She sat there the whole time like this. And then Saturday night, when the Holy Spirit brought her forth and began to minister to her, the next morning when she came down for breakfast, it was like you actually saw a new creation. Her skin was aglow. She was shining. She was dancing. She was smiling. She was just. And then I can't go too much, because I don't want to tell too much of her testimony in case she has an opportunity. But women came and slept on the floor and slept in the basement on hard mattresses. That's how hungry they were to receive from God. And that was the only complaint that we had, was we were too crowded. And we were. There just was not enough room. But the Lord met every woman there. They learned how to worship. They learned how to be still before God. They learned how to come away with a passion, a passion for soul, a passion for prayer. And I tell you, these women are changed. And they're going to set the house on fire, where they're living. And I'm trusting that they're going to do it here, too. What they received there, I'm praying that they'll bring back to wherever they're going to minister, because it was phenomenal. That's all I have to say. I've heard similar kinds of things. And I would pray that part of what these 120 would do to light fires would be in their homes and would be here. And if you know some of those gals, how many of you were at the retreat? OK. Well, you're about 110 short of getting them all out here. So let's believe. We'll work on that. Let's believe. Because my vision, so you know, is that Wednesday nights, as much as we can, are going to be a time of prayer. Because we believe, don't we, that that's what's really going to bring God's transforming power anywhere. I just, I'll throw this in, Jean, to confirm kind of where the Lord took you. I spent a day with a fellow named George Barna on Monday as part of a little local conference. And if you read it all in Christian materials, you know George Barna is the foremost Christian pollster. You know, he's the George Gallup of the Christian world, basically. And he said something very interesting. He said, in all my work I do, and he surveys people all over the nation, denominational, non-denominational. He understands what kind of church we are. He said, I find it very difficult to find a correlation between anything. He said, sometimes people are so crazy, they just, you know, something works here but doesn't work there, and we don't know why, blah, blah, blah. But the one thing that we see consistently, that there is always, always, always a correlation between prayer and results. And he was saying that as just a strict objective, write down the results. And so, friends, we need to pray. And God isn't impressed by the numbers of folks. And I value very much those of you that are here. But I also have a conviction that one way that we demonstrate the depths of our conviction is that we come in mass and do that. One of the things that I taught this week was on power of prayer. And not that there's, in other words, power of prayer. What does it mean to have power of prayer? And the Lord said in the Gospel of John, where two or three are gathered together in my name, because you are mine and because I love you, if you ask me anything, I'll do it. And that's what we demonstrated this week. We had them break up into small groups and go into power praying, knowing that in that group was the possibility of prophetic prayer, of meeting the needs of discernment. Whatever the need was, the Holy Spirit was right there. Power praying. And I tell you, it's gotten into my spirit. This is what I want to teach everywhere I go. Power praying. Now, in three weeks from tonight, you'll be teaching, right? Yes. Okay, so three weeks from tonight, you can do it. I'll do it. All right, perfect. Thanks, Jean. Let's give Jean a hand. Thank you for sharing. All right, let's look together. I just want to make really one fairly brief point tonight, and then we're going to do some praying. For those of you who weren't here last week, Nancy's going to help me just remind you what we talked about, gaining authority in prayer. We talked about, or gaining confidence as we pray with authority, rather. We talked about initiative, the fact that we must ask, seek, and knock. We must recognize the need. And then we talked the key of insight. In other words, understanding how things really are. And that's what I'm going to be hammering home tonight, I trust. And also, we talked about the key of invocation. That is not just, sometimes it's appropriate to be quiet and still before the Lord. And sometimes you just declare what the will of the Lord is in prayer. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Sometimes there's a force of authority as you pray. It's got to come out of your lips. We're not real good at that here. Maybe it's the Presbyterianism or some such thing in us all. I have a sense, if you got around the great saints of old, there'd be times when they'd be quiet and still, and times when you would just simply be rocked back by the force of what you've heard. I want to look today at just one thing, and this is one of those messages, if you get this, a light bulb could go on and radically change the situation that you're in. I'm not professing that you've never heard this before. I will say this. I'm going to share a couple things that I've never heard before that have helped me zero in a bit more on how I want to pray about some situations. I'm going to talk about strongholds. You all have your outline? You need two things. You need that little outline that the ushers gave you and this little card. You've got to have those two things and a pen. All right, here comes Mike. If you didn't pick one up, it's not too late. He's going to take care of us here. Let me just begin quickly by asking a question. Is it possible to be deceived today? All right, a bit rhetorical, I guess, isn't it? Do you know someone who is deceived today? Are they possibly sitting in the same row as you? Nah, not a chance, right? Turn, if you have your Bible, once again, one thing I like to do on Wednesday nights is use your Bible so you get kind of used to seeing things. We have some newer believers who make a point of coming on Wednesday night and this is good. We used to call these sword drills back in the old days. Revelation chapter 3. Turn there very quickly. It's an easy one. Go to maps and back up one chapter. Revelation chapter 3. Now, I'm not reading this because I believe this is north way, but I want to make a point that's very germane to establishing a principle here. Verse 14. To the angel of the church in Laodicea write, These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. We're familiar with that language. But here's what I want you to see now. Look at the next verse. Verse 17. You say, I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize. One translation says, But you don't see that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. That describes a church that was what? Hello? Deceived. They saw themselves one way when in fact they were another. That's the basic definition of deception. And friends, it's very, very possible tonight that you know someone who is deceived about their condition and I may step on a toe right now but I'd like to say tonight that it's very possible that you are deceived about a particular situation in your life. And I say that because I have come to believe in some situations I have been deceived. And it shouldn't surprise us because our enemy is called the what? Deceiver. That's his nature. And so maybe, just maybe, if you'd humble yourself enough tonight and I would invite you to to consider that maybe there's something going on that's been deceptive about a situation because the enemy has known that if you ever found out the truth remember last week we talked about being kingdom what? Oh man, Lord help me. Just one person. We said you could walk in and take back what the enemy had stolen and you would be a kingdom thank you, bless God repossessor. Put it up, Nancy. Let me see it up. A kingdom repossessor. You could go in and take back like the repo man what Satan had robbed. But if you don't know this if you don't know that he's been doing it then you're not going to act on it. Now, how does evil want to attack us? Well, on your outline there's three ways you know the first two very well. The first one is simply sin. He attacks us through sin. The temptation to sin started all the way back in the garden. Even Jesus was tempted. Friends, it's not a sin to be tempted but it's a sin when we fall to temptation. And Romans 6.23 says that the wages of sin is death. The second way Satan attacks us the second weapon in his arsenal is accusation. Accusation is more of a passive weapon. Accusation is when we continue to hear things in our mind about what we are not. And the Bible says that Satan accuses us day and night. And we have times, don't we, when we we doubt whether or not how many of you don't put your hand up please but you doubt even tonight whether or not you're saved. That if you die tonight you would belong to Christ. I was with a person not long ago who was a professional in our community and he was providing me with some information and I shared a bit of a struggle I was having about something in a circumstance in my life and he said, well, you may have some doubts about that situation in your life but I have some doubts whether or not I'm going to heaven. And he was and this happened to be a person that I thought was real clear on that and I was very surprised when he said that. And as we talked I discovered he was being accused. There were some things in his life that were causing him to feel accused. The devil was whispering saying, you couldn't really be a Christian if you thought that or if you did that. Well, that's an accusation and that's one of the great weapons. How many of you have ever struggled with that? You can put your hand up. Well, one of the great weapons of the enemy. The third one is the one we're going to talk about tonight and that is the weapon of strongholds. Now friends, I don't know what the facts are about this but I'm going to tell you what I think I have read. I have not seen written statistics on this but I'm going to go out on a limb and say less than 5% of all Christians know what a stronghold is. And it's pretty hard to defend yourself against a weapon that you don't even know. What was one of the major killers and maimers in the Vietnam War? Not just people shooting rifles but what? Mines. People walking along innocently on a trail didn't see the trip wire and boom and they lost a limb and some cases tragically were killed. Some of the more difficult circumstances I ever encountered were people who were suffering from stepping on a land mine and losing bodily functions and parts of their bodies and so. And you see the difficult thing was you never saw it. You didn't know where to look and even people who had been alerted to it still didn't know and the enemy became very adept at putting them where you couldn't see them or at least expected them. You know you'd open the door and wham. Well that's what a stronghold is like. If you don't know where it is it can come up and wreak havoc in your life and tonight my goal is in just another 15 minutes of teaching is that you might have a little clear idea of what a stronghold is and how you can destroy or demolish it according to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Before we go on turn to someone this can be a friend in case you don't know if you're near enough to someone some of you are like 14 seats apart it might be difficult but if you're near someone tell them right now give your definition what you think a stronghold is. Let's see how close we are. If you don't know just say I don't have a clue that's why I'm here. That's fine. If you think you know tell a person I think a spiritual stronghold is. Just tell someone. You define it right now. Alright. I think a spiritual stronghold is. Alright. Just curious how many Jean don't put your hand up because you wrote a whole paper on this I know you know in fact I looked for that paper when I was preparing yesterday I know but I didn't do it. How many pretty clear idea what a stronghold is? Okay let's talk about praise and worship. That's good. A couple of ideas. Stand up and just give us a shot here. What do you think it is? What are some elements of a stronghold? Let's participate. This is a small group we're family. No real wrong answer here. I saw your hand go up. I'll call you Nancy. Something that controls you. Okay. Mary didn't your hand go up there? Being spiritually paralyzed. You collaborated on that and you decided something you control. That sounds pretty much the same. Any other insights? A stronghold is being spiritually paralyzed. Very good. Two good answers. Here's a definition. Not the definition. There is an a definition. Nobody slammed this. There's not a lot said about this. It's clear this is a powerful truth. The definition of a stronghold. We don't know. I have so many overheads down there. Take just a moment. I hope you have that one or I'm in serious trouble. I didn't write it down. A spiritual stronghold is a mindset impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable situations that we know are contrary to the will of God. I'll leave it up there for a couple minutes so everyone can write it down. It's a mindset that's impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable situations that we know are contrary to the will of God. Some very key words there that I did underline. Hopelessness. Hopelessness characterizes strongholds. And when you think about it, paralysis brings about a sense of hopelessness. Being out of control, Nancy, brings about hopelessness. To accept as unchangeable. One of the characteristics of a stronghold is, friends, it has been there for a while and doesn't seem to change. And you come to the place of thinking that it never will change. That's very important. A stronghold is something that has been resistant to your best efforts at seeing it change. It has not succumbed to your prayer power. It has not moved in every effort of your will to change it. And so you have come to a place of hopelessness pretty much accepting it as unchangeable even though in your mind you also know that the will of God would be that thing would be different. Let me give you an illustration. Somebody offends you over and over again. They hurt you with their words. And you know the Bible says that you are to forgive those who offend you. That you are to love your enemies. But in your heart every time you see that person there is this ch-ch-ch. And you know that you can't love them. When you see them you want to walk the other way. You shut down. And that goes on not for just a few days or a few weeks or a few months but it can go on for years. And you can even be in the same church and that person might be in the same row that you are in tonight. But there is a stronghold. Another illustration. You are married to a person and you know that the will of God is that marriage was given for your blessing and that marriage was to be a gift from God. Proverbs 18 22 says that a man who finds a wife has found a good thing. But your marriage is characterized by nothing but conflict and trouble and disagreement and it's gone on and on and on and on. And you've tried your best to change and you've tried your best to change him or her and it hasn't worked and you are literally at this point hopeless that that will ever change. Friends, that's a stronghold. It's a mindset of hopelessness that causes you to accept as unchangeable something that you know is contrary to the will of God. And you are wondering, if this marriage, if this spouse is God's gift to me, I wonder if the devil has something, you know, might be a better alternative. Or how about those of us who maybe are in a situation where we know the will of God is that we are sufficiently supplied, that we are not to be buried underneath a mountain of debt as I talked about on Sunday. And yet for months and months and months and maybe now years and years all you ever seem to be doing is looking up from the bottom wondering how am I ever going to pay my bills, how am I ever going to get up on top, how am I ever going to get free. We're talking about financially being free on Sundays. He whom the sun sets free is free indeed. Now, if that hasn't changed for months or years, you may, and here's why it becomes a stronghold, because now one side of you says the will of God says, my God shall supply all of my needs according to his glorious resources in Christ Jesus, Philippians 4.19, but the other side of you says, but I've tried to believe that and I've tried to see that happen and for months and months and years and years I still am underneath a mountain of death. Do you see what happens now? A stronghold is a place where you are of a double mind. And a double-minded man, the Bible says what? Can't receive anything from the Lord. He's an unstable man in all of his ways. And do you see, you may be doing very well in a lot of other ways in your Christian walk. This is not a general blanket description. You may be knocking out home runs in your attitude toward the lost, or you may be having a wonderful time teaching a Bible class, but in an area there's a stronghold. These strongholds are limited in scope. But in that one area, you're unstable in your way. And though you believe in your mind that God's word says this, reality says this. And you say, I'm a fool to keep believing this because I've tried it so many this is really what the situation is. How many of you can think don't put your hand up yet of a stronghold that might be in your life? Turn to 2 Corinthians. Let's take a look at the scripture that Paul uses to teach us about strongholds. And I don't know, I think we might have put that up on the, do we have that overhead as well? Yeah. Here it is. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. For though we live in the world, we do not wage wars the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish, and you see, here's why this has to do with the mind, 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. Do you see some words in there that have to do with your mind? Arguments, knowledge, and thoughts. You see, friends, here's what God's word says. Now, we need to take captive the arguments, the knowledge, and the thoughts that are not obedient to Christ and His word. And if we don't, that remains a stronghold in our lives. And what we find ourselves doing is accommodating them. Let me just give you quickly five characteristics of strongholds. The first one is it's located in your mind. And we've already made that point. It's in your mind. The stronghold is not some kind of thing that, you know, it's not a spiritual being like a demon. Got that? It's in your mind. It's the way you're thinking. This is why Paul says, be renewed in your mind. Transform, he said, by the renewing of your mind. In Romans chapter 12, number two, strongholds are often made up of good thoughts. What? Good thoughts? Listen to me. Strongholds are often made up of good thoughts. Satan can sometimes cause his strongholds to go undetected by making them pretty good things. Remember the story in Matthew chapter 16 where Jesus announces that he is going to die. And the disciples are all there and they hear this announcement. This prediction is the first time that the disciples hear the fact that this one that they've given their life to is going to die. And they say, no way, you're going to become the king. You can't die. Verse 22, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. I mean, I know what that's like, by the way. I've been taken aside and rebuked from time to time. Maybe you know what that's like, too. Well-intended people, but never with Christ. And he says, look at this, he says, never, Lord, this shall never happen to you. friends, that was not an evil thought, was it? No, it wasn't. I think Peter was acting out of compassion, wasn't he? He said, Jesus, I don't want this to happen to you. This can't happen to you. Not you, not you, the doer of good things, the sinless Son of God who works miracles. You're not going to die. You're not going to be put on a cross. This shall never happen to you, Peter said. And then Jesus turned and said to Peter, look at verse 23, if you have your Bible open, get thee, it says in the King James, behind me Satan. The harshest rebuke that Jesus gave in the entire Bible. Poor Peter. Now, I had never seen this quite that way before, but look why he said that. You are a stumbling block to me, Jesus said. In other words, Jesus began to embrace the good, the compassion, but not the best, the will of God, you see. You are a stumbling block to me, you do not have in, where? Hello? In mind the things of God, but the things of men, you see. The stronghold in Peter's mind was not the will of God, it was what he thought was the best thing. It was the good, not the best. It was the acceptable, not the perfect. And Jesus felt so strongly that he rebuked him as Satan. That was the stronghold. Now, I looked at that and I said, wow, that's pretty obscure, I would never have associated that. But you know, I've had, as I started to think back in my life, I've had lots of incidences where people offered me good counsel that wasn't God. And that put me in a quandary, and that quandary went on for a long time. And you know what that quandary became? A stronghold. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, this is the will of God, this is what I know the will of God is. But this seems so right. One of the things that happened some years ago, we were stuck in our little restaurant building that some of you remember very well, some of you never been in. And this property came along and was available and some people said, just wait, just wait, don't be in a hurry, just wait, just wait. And these were some people who had some pretty strong ideas and pretty good understanding of marketing and so on. And I got into a quandary about it. Because we didn't know what to do and it was just the grace of God that that stronghold didn't last very long. But I almost got to the place where I was hopelessly confused, that things would never change where we were. And it came from what was intended to be good counsel. How many have ever heard of people who have been counseled to get a divorce? Because the situation gets to be so terribly difficult. And in some ways it seems like the compassionate thing to do is just get out. But the will of God, God hates divorce, the will of God is the higher thing. Now, again, this is not to say that sometimes divorce happens. And it's not the unpardonable sin and God has a wonderful way of helping get a divorce. He divorce. He has a wonderful helping way of helping He has a wonderful way of helping get a divorce. He has a way of helping way of helping get a divorce. He has a very way of helping He has a way of has a way of helping by a painful trauma. This is simply to say that there are times that something happens in our lives when it clicks back into a situation and we get paralyzed, really is a good word, Mary. Peter, for example, a little later on in the book of John, when Jesus appeared to Peter after the resurrection, remember that story, and and Jesus was cooking the fish and he looked at Peter and he said, Peter, do you love me? And remember Peter's answer? You know I do. And three times he kind of, very haltingly, said, well you know I do, you know I do, and I think I do. It wasn't the same Peter who a few weeks or months before would have stood up and brashly said, of course I do, and you know laid it on the line. Why? Because I think the trauma of his denying of Christ had triggered this double-mindedness in his mind. Number five, strongholds, as we have said, create double-mindedness. They create a sense in us that we're not really sure, should I or shouldn't I? What should I do? We get into this thing, we go round and round and round, and friends, how many of you know people who have been stuck in a situation and they just go round and round and round, and maybe you have. How do I break out of a stronghold? Well before I share these things in conclusion with you, here's what I want you to do. Take the little card that you have right now, and very personally, this is not, I'm not going to ask you to share this because it's too personal. I'm going to ask you right now, based on what I've just described, just between you and the Holy Spirit, can you think of an area that's a stronghold and your life right now, where the will of God is clear to you, but a situation has been so unchanging that you have come to accept it as that, to the point where you're almost hopeless that you'll ever change, or it will ever change. I'm not going to ask you to share it, this is going to become something that you're going to take as a point of application, so just cover your papers, and if it's something about your spouse, just put it, something about the church, don't flash it up so I can see it, very carefully, all right? And if you didn't write or bring anything to write with, then maybe just make a mental note and write it down later. Now this teaching becomes very practical, because how many believe God wants you to destroy that stronghold? Hallelujah. Father, I pray right now, as we just conclude these next couple of points, Lord, that every person hearing my voice tonight would have an explosion of revelation, Lord, that what they're in, oh God, indeed it may be a test, it may be a momentary or fleeting thing, Lord, but for some it's been a stronghold, and they have come to accept this hopeless and unchangeable, a circumstance that they know is contrary to the will of God. Lord, I pray right now that you turn faith loose in their lives, in Jesus' name. First thing you need to do to destroy that stronghold that you wrote on your card, write it down, is to submit to God through His Word. And friends, can we all agree on one thing? This is truth. Thy Word, Jesus said, Thy Word, this is truth. If this says it, this is truth. What you may be experiencing is an interruption in the process of truth coming to pass. But if God says it in this book, it is not going to pass away, and it is truth. And if you're like me, there are circumstances on my card that are contrary to what I believe the will of God is, but the first thing you've got to do to break a stronghold is to say, but this is the truth, not this. This will pass. This will not pass away. Thy Word is truth. And I'm not going to be double-minded about it anymore. I'm not going to accept it as unchangeable because this is the truth. And you begin, see, when you submit to God, you begin to invite Jesus to come in and change the way you think once again. And even if you failed at this before, tonight I'm going to ask you in just a moment to open yourself once again to believing the truth instead of believing the circumstance. Number two, resist the devil. As it says in James 4, and by the way, all these are out of James 4, resist the devil and he will flee from you. You see, so many times the enemy will use symptoms and circumstances to make you disavow what you know the truth is. This happens in healing many, many times. I know because I've been through a lot of battles with healing. When I believe God has done a work of healing or something in my life and a symptom will come up, the first thing that follows the symptom is the voice. You ever hear the voice? The voice of an ideal. Who are you kidding? And boy, I tell you, that voice can just plague you in the middle of the night when you're hurting, can it? We need to learn to resist the devil by the word of God. And this is where I didn't bring it down with me in my rush to get in here, but I have made a point. And if you, around my home in my office, you'll see cards like this with scriptures on them. And I have found the only way to resist the devil when he starts lying to me is, I quote scripture to him. Or I sing scripture to him. That's one of my other favorite things to do. I've written some great songs in my head that you'll never hear. Singing scripture to the enemy. So he knows what I'm believing and declaring. Put on the whole armor of God. I won't take you there, but Ephesians 6, the whole armor of God. Friends, the only way to resist the devil, you can't do it in your own will. It's got to be the helmet of salvation, all those different parts that we've talked about numerous times. And if you're not sure what those are, we have them in our tape library. We have a teaching on the armor of God. And maybe Jean will touch on that when she teaches in a couple of weeks. And the third thing I have found is a very effective weapon to resist the devil is our praise. And you know, I so appreciate your hunger and being here tonight. And let me say to you, if there's one thing I could, I have found works for me in breaking the cycle of the enemy's attack is when I start to put praise to work. And sometimes I just need to put the praise of somebody else. And so best investment men who travel a lot or ladies, if you're in your car a lot, stack up your CDs with praise and worship CDs or cassettes. Don't listen to Rush. Don't listen to Mike Pintak or whoever your favorite DJ may put in praise and worship tapes. And just let that begin to fill your mind. I can't tell you how many times today, I bet a half a dozen times today when I hung up the phone or finished a piece of work, I went and turned