Strongholds - Demolition Day!
July 10, 2022      |     By: Jonathan Brickley      |      Category: Sermons      |      Location: El Dorado
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Slavery - Sonship - Obedience

Strongholds Being Torn Down - Demolition Day

“Focus on the Strongholds. Focus on the Strongholds.
Do not let up. Do not give in. Focus on the Strongholds.
They must come down in My church.”

2 Corinthians 10:3-6 (NIV)
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We 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.
6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

Disobedient thoughts reside in Fortresses / Castles / Strongholds
Held Captive there - Made Obedient to the Rule of the Castle

Released & Scattered When Stronghold Destroyed

Taken Captive as POWs and made obedient to Christ

Strongholds = Distortion of Truth
"A fortress of human reasoning reinforced with subtle arguments and the pretense of logic“

Defined as:  Arguments & Pretensions

Arguments: Reasonings, Imaginations, Computations
and
Pretensions: Lofty Opinions, Exalted Proud Things, Pretend Vain Things

Raised up AGAINST the True Knowledge of God

Numbers 14:12-23 > His glory fills the earth now
Habakkuk 2:14 > the Knowledge of His glory will fill the earth later

These Castles are Demolished by Weapons of Divine Power

The WORD OF GOD / The TRUTH destroys strongholds.

Worldly Philosophies:
- I’m a good person and God is a forgiving God
- Love is Love
- As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone it’s okay

Reasonings & Imaginations:
- Addictions & lust define me
- Inevitable failure
- Specific, tailor-made lies
- I am not needed/important

“Normal Thinking” = Kingdom Thinking

His heavenly Rule filling every Mind & Heart

“When the Lord is manifestly present in a church, and his gracious rule obediently owned, what a golden age has come, and what honourable privileges his people enjoy! May it be so among us.”
- Charles Spurgeon

Kingdom Coming in Minds = Kingdom Coming in Community

Psalms 114
Judah - Became God’s Sanctuary / Holy Place
Israel - Became God’s Dominion / Place of Rule

Psalm 114:1-8 (NIV)
1 When Israel came out of Egypt, Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
2 Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back;
4 the mountains leaped like rams, the hills like lambs.
5 Why was it, sea, that you fled? Why, Jordan, did you turn back?
6 Why, mountains, did you leap like rams, you hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.

Temples Of God
Individual
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NIV)
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

Corporate
1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV)
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

Why Trembling & Fear?

Because of God’s Presence IN His people