Stop Negotiating With Lies

Go ahead, turn in your Bible, turn in your sword, to 2 Corinthians 10. On the psalm, we rest on thee, who are the five men to whom that was the last psalm they sang. I believe it was the last psalm they sang before they got martyred.

Jim Elliot, there's five. Steve Saint, Roger Udarian, and who else? See, the other guys aren't as well known. Yeah, what a song.

To sing, we rest on thee, and you get martyred, and you do go through the gates of splendor. 2 Corinthians 10. I want to think with all of us about this war that we're in, and taking thoughts captive to obey Christ.

We are in the midst, brethren, of a battle every day in our lives as Christians to renew our minds. There's a fight that happens in the head, in the thoughts. We're all in this.

Everyone who's not a Christian is in this. The God of this world has blinded what? The minds of the unbelievers. With what goal? To keep them from receiving the knowledge of the truth.

And so I've greatly appreciated Paul's words here over the years, and I hope to make it fresh for all of us right now. So let's just read the first six verses, and then we'll consider 2 Corinthians 10. Paul here defending his ministry, and describing the way that he and Titus and others ministered to those at Corinth who were getting led astray by false teachers in different ways.

He writes the following, I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ. Isn't that what he says in 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy? Winning your opponents with gentleness. This is very important.

We're not going to hone in on that, but take note of that. The meekness and the gentleness of Christ. I whom humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I am away.

That's something that they were saying about him. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing. So he's hoping he doesn't have to be as strong as he might have to be.

He's not determined how he's going to approach this completely, which is a place we want to find ourselves as well when we encounter different situations. I count on showing this against some who suspect us. That's Paul, that's Titus, the missionary team.

They suspect us of walking according to the flesh. And then he goes on and he says, well, though we do walk in the flesh, we are in the bodies. He's not talking about walking in the flesh like in Romans in a negative way.

He's talking about walking in the flesh, not walking in the spirit. We're in a physical world. But he says, though we walk in the flesh, we, Paul and Titus, the team, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

This accusation they're making against him is saying that's not how we wage war. But meaning Paul and those guys, they were waging war. And then he describes why this is not how we are waging war.

The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. And then he describes the weapons. These weapons have divine power to destroy strongholds.

And then he goes on. We destroy arguments. We destroy every lofty opinion.

And what are these arguments and opinions seeking to do? They're being raised against the knowledge of God. And then he says, and we take every thought captive. And we're taking that thought captive and doing what with it? We're getting it to obey Christ.

And then he says, we're ready to punish every disobedience, meaning he's ready to discipline these individuals out of this church and deal with them in a firm way. But he's waiting for something. When your obedience is complete.

He's wanting this church, who he's trying to win their hearts back, to be convinced and not just go in there and do something severe. He's wanting them to recognize this so that the majority are on board with getting these false teachers out and really confronting their errors. So I believe that's what verse 6 is referring to.

So these are the six verses I want to consider. Let's pray. Father, thank You so much for giving us Your Word, which is the knowledge of God.

Lord, we get to know You through words on a book that You have preserved, that men wrote, led and guided by the Holy Spirit. We thank You for Your Scriptures. How does a young man keep his way pure? He guards it according to the Word.

Lord, we want the Scriptures to dwell richly in us, that we could admonish one another. Lord, this Word is profitable. It's profitable for these dear brethren.

It's profitable for my own soul right here, right now on this day. Lord, I pray You'd make this fresh, alive. Lord, I pray You'd take Your Word and You would use it as You see fit for these precious loved ones for whom You, Father, You sent Your Son and You shed His blood for us.

And so, Lord, we trust that You will feed Your sheep, that You will help Your sheep, that You will help Your church, that You'll give brethren fresh manna today and exactly what they need. And Lord, we recognize even in this sermon, there's a war happening in the minds of my own listeners. Lord, we recognize from the parables that the enemy is coming, trying to pluck out the Word that is planted.

And Lord, we want to be a people who take heed to how we hear. And so, Lord, I just pray You'd strengthen our minds. You'd give clarity right now.

Lord, we just commit this time to You in Christ's name. Amen. So are you a Christian? If you're a Christian, another way to look at a Christian is you are a good soldier, right? Paul talks that way.

But you are waging war with weapons. And you're destroying strongholds. That's a part of your life.

If you're a Christian, your life involves destroying strongholds and using weapons that have divine power. Do you think of yourself like that? You should. You should recognize that's true of you, Christian.

And what this makes us realize is Christ is in the business of doing what the Lord Jesus is in the business of conquering every thought in your mind and wanting those thoughts to obey Him. If we're doing this, this is the mission of Christ. He wants every unbiblical, proud thought and lie to be under His glad rule in your life.

He wants to arrest and take captive every lie that misrepresents Him in your mind. And He wants to rip that out of your mind and it to be destroyed. He wants our thoughts and our minds to align with His knowledge.

Isn't that what Paul says in Romans 12? Renewing your mind every day. Right? This is part of our lives as Christians. This is part of our lives in this world.

So I have six things I want to consider. But first, I just want to think for a moment about the context. And maybe you've heard me mention this before and I hope maybe you can help answer this question.

But when we read this passage right here, is Paul talking about how you and I personally take every one of our own thoughts captive? Is this about how you and I take our thoughts captive? Or what is Paul describing right here in this text? Just take notice of this because this matters with how we interpret the passage. So if you look at the text, verse 1, I myself entreat you. Who's the you? The Corinthians.

You go on. Verse 3, For though we. Who's the we? I mentioned it as I read it.

I didn't intend to do that. But it's who? Paul, Titus, the missionary team. Verse 3 has we two times.

Verse 5 starts with what? We. He's not talking to the Corinthians. He's defending his ministry.

He's describing how he and his team operate. You understand? We've got to get that. That's what he's doing here.

Is there a personal responsibility for you and I to take our own thoughts captive? Yes, Colossians talks that way. That's a true statement. But Paul here is actually describing how he would go about counseling and seeking to deal with other individuals.

Right? This is his approach to a conversation with a church. He's using through a letter. He's describing what it looked like as he's interacting with these people at Corinth.

And so we want to recognize that. And he goes on in chapter, if you flip over to chapter 11, you see right here verse 3. I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts, that's the Corinthians, will be led astray from a sincere and a pure devotion to Christ. And so what we have here in chapter 10 is Paul describing the way he would counsel, the way he would be involved in dealing with a church and other, with believers.

That's what's happening right here in the context. Yes, you can apply it personally in your own life, but we need to think about it in this immediate context right here, right now. So that was the first point.

Paul talks through this letter. He says in 2 Corinthians 13, in dealing with you, this is about how he would deal with these believers. And so you and I need to see, and Paul dealing with them, this actually gives you and I a look into how, these are basically instructions on how you and I can operate when we sit down and have a conversation with someone.

Right? This text could be lived out at the Starbucks this week when you're meeting with some brother. This text is to be lived out right here, right now while I'm in this pulpit. I have a plan in this sermon to destroy strongholds in your life.

For that to take place in these next minutes. To tear down something that's not true and destroy it and replace it with truth that you'd leave here obedient to Christ in your mind in that specific area. Right? That's what Paul's doing to the church at Corinth.

That's what I should be doing right now. So let's picture this. Think of this.

A brother sits at a table with a brother. And let's say, to give this example, it kind of goes with Jeff's message about struggling with assurance. Let's say this brother is struggling with assurance.

He's got no assurance that he's a true Christian. He had assurance. His assurance is gone.

He's struggling with this. Them sitting at that table, this is no table talk. He's actually sitting at a forward operating post on contested ground.

And the setting, it might feel ordinary. All we got is two chairs and an open Bible. But that location is actually enemy territory.

Enemy territory. And in that moment, there might be lies that have been dug there and buried there for a long time that are coming out. And there is a warfare that is taking place.

And let's imagine the struggling brother, he starts talking. And what comes out? It's not merely his feelings. It's the enemy's messaging that has taken root in his life.

And you hear that brother mention something, and you know it's not true. You know it's a lie. And he mentions it.

Maybe he says something like, well, God's tired of me. I've sinned too much. I can't be a true Christian.

Maybe he says, I'm different. These promises, they're not for me. They apply to other people in the church, but they don't apply for me.

Are those harmless thoughts? No, those are serious thoughts. Absolutely serious thoughts from an enemy who wants this person to not endure to the end, who wants this person to abandon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a fortified position.

It's a trench. It's a bunker. It's a protected conclusion.

It's some conclusion they made. At some point in their mind, they had the thought come into their mind that this promise can't apply to me. It only applies to other people in the church because there's something unique about my situation.

At some point they started to believe that that is actually true. And maybe they didn't even initially talk to anyone about it. And so it started to grip their mind more and more that that's true of me.

What does the devil do? Through repetition and shame, he reinforces lies in the mind of the Christian. So what do you do? You're sitting there at the coffee shop, and all of a sudden you realize, I'm in the middle of a battle. I didn't expect to go to war today.

I didn't think I was going to get drafted into the military, and all of a sudden you're there. What do you do? You don't want to fire blanks. You don't want to treat it lightly.

You open up Scripture. You bring the real weapons that matter. Truth, and Paul says here, he says divine power.

God's Word. There's real divine power there to penetrate the heart. Not carnal reasoning, but God's Word.

And you know what you say to the priest? You say, this is what God says. You're thinking this. This is what God says.

You're thinking this about Christ. This is what Christ has done. Or this is what the Gospel means.

Or this is why your feelings should not overrule that thought. That thought right there, your feelings cannot undo that thought, and say that it's a lie. So you start making statements like that.

A war is happening. It's almost like you took a trebuchet out, and you're hurling this truth at this fortified tower that stands right there. I mean, that's what's happening as you sit there.

It's a war. We wrestle not against physical things, but principalities and powers. And let's say at some point there's now silence.

You're sitting there. There's silence. And the brother doing the counseling, what's he doing when there's silence? He's listening for movement.

He's in a war. Is the enemy now trying to take another approach? Maybe the enemy's going to come from this angle. You almost feel like there's a counterattack forming from the enemy.

New thoughts are rising up in the person's mind. Fresh accusations. Maybe there was some old doubt that they had, and it didn't come to their mind until that moment in that meeting in that coffee shop, and it came in their mind dressed in new clothing, so to speak, and it presented in a different way.

And the enemy is persistent. Luke 4.13, what's that say? He tempted Christ. Satan did.

And he left Him until what? An opportune time. If the devil is looking for opportune times to test the very Son of God, you better believe he's looking for opportune times to test you and me, Christian. He prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to whom he may devour.

And so the brother, he's watching basically the tree lines, looking, are there going to be reinforcements from the devil? They're going to come into this conversation. Is there going to be a new lie that's being introduced? I just sought to destroy these lies in this conversation. Is there now going to be another lie that's going to come in? And another lie does appear.

Maybe he says that statement, the verse is true for others, it's not for me. My situation is unique. And again, you bring another text, another promise, another truth.

And you don't treat it like it's just differing viewpoints. You treat it like I'm in the middle of an invasion and these thoughts must die. Tearing down strongholds.

Tearing them down to the ground. Making them no longer exist. The goal isn't to survive the meeting.

The goal is to take ground and to tear down the stronghold and for rubble to cover the ground. That's what our desire is. Over time, the lie that once felt immovable, it begins to crack.

The struggling brother starts to say different sentences. They begin to confess truth instead of rehearsing accusations. And a few hours in, the stronghold might lose its power.

Maybe you cut off some supply lines of the enemy that had been there for years, that were transporting these lies into the person's mind. Do you have stuff like this happen in your life? Are you involved in the war in this way? Have you ever had... I remember when I was single, I ran the men's grace house. We had a member in the church who was struggling with falling into getting drunk.

And they were trying to run away. I remember they ran out the back door. Someone was there to pick them up, a co-worker.

And I ran out the front door. I got in front of him. I pleaded with him not to get in the car.

He didn't get in the car with the person. He hopped in my minivan. He was very drunk at the time.

We just drove up 281 for hours. Eventually got to a park. Just got out.

Slept on the ground. In the morning, all the alcohol was out of the system. And I sat there and I talked to him for hours, trying to take every thought captive and bring it in obedience to Christ.

Did that feel like a war? You better believe it felt like a war. It was a war for a man's never dying eternal soul. And are we willing to engage in that type of combat that takes a lot out of you as well? So Paul says, this is what gospel ministry is.

It's not shots fired in anger. You're deploying truth and love. And despite all of that effort, that person fell away.

But it doesn't mean you don't make the effort. Like Jeff said in the first hour, it doesn't mean you don't keep praying for your lost loved ones to be converted. But we're in a war that will be won one truth at a time in the knowledge of God taking rule.

And so Paul's saying something like that's happening at Corinth. A church he was close with, he labored for, is being led astray by false teachers. And you saw his fear in chapter 11.

He was afraid their thoughts would be led astray from a simple and a pure devotion to Jesus Christ. They were tolerating people who were teaching another Jesus, right? We know that from 2 Corinthians 11 as well. And we know there were angels of light.

There were demons who disguised themselves as angels of light. That's what we're up against. We're up against the devil.

We're up against satanic imitations and lies. So what does Paul do? He draws the sword out that has divine power. He takes the truth of the knowledge of God.

He isolates the lie. He takes the thing that is not true that he finds in their minds and he attacks it. And he seeks to take their thoughts captive in obedience to Christ.

And so a war campaign has started. He's writing in military imagery here that's taking place into the battle. So here, that's kind of my overview.

But here are six thoughts from this text that I want all of us to consider. Number one, first, what kind of war are we in? Do you realize what kind of war we are in? Paul admits right there, he says we walk in the flesh, meaning we are ordinary men. We're not a special class, but he says something very encouraging.

We don't wage war according to the flesh. And he mentions we have weapons that have divine power to demolish strongholds. And we see that reality in Ephesians 6. It's not just we have weapons.

We've got armor, we've got a shield. We want to put on the full armor of God that we might be able to withstand the wiles of the devil in that evil day. Remember 2 Peter 1.3, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him.

There's divine power. We should believe there's victory. Victory is possible.

There's divine power from the Lord. God gives weapons that actually work, right? And when you don't have victory, you're usually not using the right weapons. How often do we fight spiritual problems in the power of our own strength? And then we're shocked nothing changes.

Well, it's no mystery why nothing changed. We weren't using the truth and the power of the Spirit of God. Do you believe God's Word has divine power? Do you believe the Spirit of God can apply the Word in such a way that some lie you've been believing for 20 years can disintegrate and that stronghold can be destroyed? Second thing, what strongholds actually are? What are they? What's he say? He says terms like arguments, you know, reasonings, explanations.

It's kind of something where you say it makes sense. Right? You hear it and it's kind of like Peter getting deceived in Galatians. So it kind of makes sense what these Judaizers are saying.

Lies are often very reasonable, but they're very wrong. Very reasonable, but very wrong. And then he next describes every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

And so the idea is there's thoughts that climb higher than Scripture and they say, I'm going to judge God. He's in the wrong. This thought is right.

Right? It's something that feels like it's higher than the Lord. That it replaces the authority of the Word of God and the truth of God in your life. And that's what the devil did right in the garden in the beginning.

He got Eve to doubt God's command as being good and just and right, and he convinced her to disobey that. The enemy's still doing that today. And what is a stronghold? I used the term a protected conclusion earlier.

What do I mean? It's a thought that you don't just have. But you have a thought and a conclusion, and you're so certain it's right and it's true, you protect it, but you end up serving that thought and it actually was a lie. And it controls your actions.

It's a guarded belief. And we should have guarded beliefs. Right? If it's true.

We should absolutely be people who firmly stand on the Word of God in all manner of doctrines. We should be very dogmatic about these realities and these truths. But is the guarded belief actually something right? Because if it's not, I'm going to submit to what I believe.

I'm going to live in light of the things that I believe are true. Well, if I'm believing a lie, I'm going to actually go in the wrong direction. And so Paul's describing there's fortified patterns of thinking, ideas that just get dug in, protected, and defended.

Right? I imagine every one of us has had some sort of lie like that that God's had to root out of our life. We don't get saved and come into the Christian life and have a perfectly renewed mind. I mean, God might be trying to root something out of your life right now.

Trying to change how you think about Him, about His character. There's fortified patterns of thinking that must be destroyed. And it says in the text, these ideas are raised against the knowledge of God.

So they're trying to redefine truth, but often it happens subtly. That's what Paul says in chapter 11, right? Your thoughts led astray from the simple and pure devotion to Christ. And so what sentences or ideas do you keep repeating that Jesus did not author? Is there something you keep stating, you keep thinking, that you're misrepresenting the Lord Jesus Christ? It's not how He thinks.

It's not how He wants you to think. What standard of proof rules you? God's Word? Or what was getting the Corinthians? Well, Paul doesn't speak like these other guys. Paul's suffering and he's weak, right? The Corinthians actually look at these other guys as very impressive in a physical way.

They're looking at the outward. Alright, a third thought to think about here. The text says we tear down these strongholds.

Again, this is siege language. Paul is not describing a polite discussion. It's okay to be in an intense conversation, fighting lies, and you actually start sweating in the meeting or something.

You know, you're being gentle and meek, but your whole soul's in this thing because it's actually a war. He's describing demolition. Truth bringing down lies that have been built up over time.

You think that's going to be easy? You think it's a walk in the park? He's not tearing down the people. He's tearing down what enslaves the people. He says in 2 Corinthians 10, the authority is given for what? In verse 8, it's for building you guys up.

Not for doing what? Destroying you. See that in verse 8? That's sometimes what people might feel like. You're destroying them.

That's not it. Verse 4, divine power to destroy strongholds. And Paul affirms this is about building you up.

It's ultimately about helping the individual. He says earlier in the letter, basically even when I come with hard words and much affliction, he says, I came with an anguish of heart. I came with many tears to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

The strongholds are not going to fall because we found a clever argument. What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 1? I didn't come to you in cleverness of speech. Lest what happens? You use clever speech, what happens? It empties the cross of its power.

You don't have any power. You don't have divine power because you have clever speech. It's worthless.

Human wisdom. Worthless. These lies fall when we bring them into the light of the knowledge of God's word and we refuse to let these lies keep raining.

So don't treat these like harmless opinions. There are areas in the Christian life that are Romans 14 and there's different people that need to be convinced in certain things. But there's areas you're going to find in people's lives, it's a total lie.

And you've got to go to war against this lie with the truth. And so yeah, where's the Holy Spirit trying to tear down some stronghold? Are you allowing that stronghold to get rebuilt? It can be anything. Remember one of the first lies I had as a new Christian was thinking, well, you know, because you're still being tempted in sin, it's inevitable you're going to go back to certain sins.

That's a lie. No temptation is overtaking. It's not common to man.

God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with temptation will also provide the way of escape that you might be able to endure it.

The truth says there's always a way of escape. That you don't have to give in to anything. And that builds your faith up in the Lord.

Alright, a fourth thing. What is Christ aiming at? Verses 5 and 6. He moves from demolition to capture. He says to take every thought captive to obey Christ.

This is about thoughts being changed and it leading to obedience to Christ. Meaning those thoughts when they're wrong, you're not obeying Christ. So you go from being besieged by the enemy to being on the attack against the enemy's territory as you obey the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what can change that in your life? It can be one thought, one lie, that's been a stronghold in your life being destroyed. That's all it takes sometimes. You can go on for years with some thought that's unbiblical, it's not right, it creates insecurity about God's love for you as a Christian.

It takes away your confidence to go and to serve the Lord and the enemy has you exactly where he wants you to be. So that's what he's aiming at. Obedience to Christ.

Obedience. Take every thought captive to obey Christ. A fifth thing.

Five out of six. Number five. I kind of tried to already picture this, but how do you take thoughts captive? Well, remember, number one, the knowledge of God is what the thoughts are going against.

So you need to know the Word of God. Because that's what you're going to use. It's going to be the sword of the Spirit that the Spirit uses.

And so you're in this conversation with this person, and you could ask, what are you telling yourself right now? Put it in one sentence. What are you believing right now? Just tell it to me in one sentence. And then you expose, well, what God says about what they just said.

Well, what you said, what does it show you're assuming about God's character? You're assuming God's character is not trustworthy? Maybe that's what it reveals? And then you call that what it is. What is that? That's unbelief. That's pride to doubt the Lord.

Then you answer with a specific truth. You don't give some vague positive statement. That won't do anything to knock down a tower.

Or, you give a clear Scripture reality, and then you're calling the person to obey. Here a concrete step is in your life. You take this step and you obey Christ.

You don't want to be the person who looks in the mirror at his natural face, and he sees what he saw, and what does it say in James 1? He goes away and what happens? At once he forgets what he saw. Because the enemy plucked out that truth. That's what we're up against.

And that leads me into a sixth saying here. We've got to keep pressing until the stronghold is truly down. Strongholds are rarely demolished in a single blow.

Paul's interaction with the church at Corinth shows that reality. There's been multiple interaction in these two letters that we have recorded. There's an ongoing campaign.

There's an ongoing movement. There's an ongoing battle. And so you and I have to keep bringing truth to bear until the structure that once felt solid, it just can't stand.

You might leave that one meeting, and let's say you meet up with the brother again in two weeks. And you're back at the coffee shop. And you know what you find all of a sudden? You tore down like this much of the stronghold, and guess what happened? It got rebuilt in two weeks.

And it might even be rebuilt with tougher material than was previously there. It might even be higher than it was before. You didn't expect that.

Remember, this isn't a one and done. Truth has to keep being reapplied. Yesterday's victory over sin doesn't say you don't be diligent today.

We've got to continue with diligence. Often the same lie. It returns.

It's reworded. It's better timed from the enemy at a more opportune time in your life. And what was exposed yesterday, it tries to quietly reestablish itself.

Maybe it's under a different name. But it's the same old lie getting you to doubt the character and the trustworthiness of God. And so truth has to get reapplied and reapplied.

It's like an infection. You've got to keep treating it and treating it. And then the wound gets reopened.

And you don't give up on it. You keep treating it. You keep giving truth until it's healed.

Until there's just the scar that is left. And another thing that happens is you're reapplying all this truth that's as individual. And then you know what happens? The lies, they don't work anymore.

The brother or the sister is no longer believing the lies. They have right thoughts. But now what the enemy does is he just starts accusing them about all these other random things.

That's often what follows. If you were really a Christian, you wouldn't struggle like this. But Scripture tells you, Christian in Christ, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Scripture tells us that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He's actively seeking to accuse you and slander God's character to you. Another thing here, we've got to keep pressing until the straw is truly down.

The enemy often wants us distracted and delaying. The enemy is often satisfied not with you and I rebelling, but just postponing. You know what? Later.

I'm going to deal with this later. Or soon. Or when things settle down.

You know what the Word of God says in Hebrews? Today, if you hear His voice, don't do what? Do not harden your hearts. What does it say two verses earlier? Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called the day, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Exhort one another every day.

That's the type of battle that we're in, brethren. And so, you know, someone said delayed obedience is disobedience wearing a polite face. It kind of looks, it must be innocent delaying obedience in this area.

Another thing here on this continual battle, we have to be aware of, is isolation cuts off support. In a war, a city falls and its supply lines are cut. I mean, that's what we're trying to do to the enemy, right? Knock out his supply lines.

Well, the enemy is trying to do that for you too, Christian. Proverbs 18, 1, Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only expressing his own opinion.

We're told in Hebrews 10, Do not neglect meeting together in the habit of some, but to draw near all the more as you see the day approaching. Isolation will weaken your judgment, and it will make the lies harder to spot. Because it's going to be far easier for you to meet with someone who's not under the same demonic oppression, who's not under the same weight you are, and for them to hear you out, and they're going to be able to spot some lies that you're struggling to see.

In most cases, they're going to be able to see it. And they're going to be able to put words and flesh it out to you in a way that you were not able to see clearly. When we stay alone with our own thoughts, truth becomes easier to resist and harder to live out.

And I'm sure you've experienced this. Isolation makes it easier to talk yourself out of obedience. It's just easier to reason, I don't really, you know, just kind of reason yourself out of it.

When we're away from other believers, our thinking goes unchallenged. Truth loses its grip on us. What's the bottom line here? Strongholds most often fall not by intensity at one time, but by faithfulness over time.

Truth applied again and again, and dependence on Christ until obedience becomes settled, and the old lie no longer rules. Are you willing? This isn't just for Paul and Titus. It's not just for a shepherd.

This is the type of energy you should be putting in your relationships in this body. When you see lies crop up in people's thinking, it is absolutely right to be diligent, to meet with that individual, and engage in a warfare to destroy that stronghold. We should not stand by if we see some stronghold from the enemy that's in someone's mind, and there's thoughts that need to be taken captive.

We don't just wait for someone else to go and to do it. We've got a responsibility before God to exhort one another every day. So we should feel the weight of that.

Another way to illustrate this whole picture here, not in the war way, but let's use something modern. When a computer gets infected with malware, what's a symptom of malware? What tends to be a symptom you can see? It always goes deeper than this, but what starts happening on your computer? You get pop-ups. It's like, where did that pop-up come? I never clicked on something to open that up.

The malware's generating that. Under the surface, though, the code has buried itself. It's changed settings.

It's opened back doors, and it's started to spread through the system. And it doesn't announce itself. There's banks that have lost millions and millions of dollars that are being hacked.

The enemy didn't go announce themselves to the bank and say, you're hacked. They wanted to keep that malware hidden as long as they could to get as much as they could from that bank. The enemy is just like that for you, Christian.

He doesn't want you to recognize there's malware in the mind. He doesn't want you to deal with it. He doesn't announce itself.

He digs in. He resists removal. Well, good tech support doesn't just sit down and reason with it.

It seeks to wipe it all out completely. It quarantines it. It hunts it down.

It strips it out specifically. It rebuilds the corrupted system from a clean source. Right? If you're a techie, you might have to reformat the whole system from a clean source, from the Word of God.

Because you don't want this computer, you don't want this person's mind to be used in a way that the intruder has enslaved their mind to think in a way that is not biblical. And you know what? None of us like to have a computer running slow, clogged with viruses. It might not explode.

It just drags. Everything lags. Good work becomes hard.

You can't have a lot of tabs open. Simple tasks take forever. This is exactly what spiritual strongholds do.

They might not make you deny Christ outright. They infect you. The mind gets cluttered with lies.

Faith is sluggish. Your joy is getting strangled. Prayer feels heavy.

And your usefulness is hindered. That's another way to look at this war that we're in. Well, a few thoughts in closing here.

You and I need to surrender protected wrong conclusions that we have. You've got to surrender it to the Lord and own it for what it is. The most dangerous strongholds are the ones you're protecting in your life right now.

The thoughts you don't even want to question or the conclusions you won't bring to Jesus. Men do not come to the light. What does John 3 say? Why don't they come to the light? And what happens when they come to the light? Their deeds get exposed.

Deeds getting exposed is a good thing. Light is really good. It's a blessing.

It can be hard. It can be humbling. It can be humiliating.

But it's a good thing. So let me ask you plainly, what thought in you is not taking orders from Christ in your life right now? You know, Jesus comes along and He says, do not be anxious about anything. Points to flowers.

Points to birds. No reason to be anxious. No reason to be fearful.

And He connects it to unbelief. Do you have anxiety in your life? Do you believe it's actually possible to have victory over anxiety? I mean, the Bible sure talks in that way. And the Bible is what? The knowledge of God.

His Word. His truth. It's who He is.

There's power there to actually have victory. If you live your whole life just expecting you're just going to fall into anxiety, that's unbelief. You should actually expect there's victory over this through the Lord.

It's just faith. Trusting the Lord. What conclusion have you protected from repentance? What lofty thing have you quietly been allowing to sit above God? Allowing to evaluate God? To criticize the Lord and His character without correcting that thought? And again, since this is not only a personal thing, I'm not just telling you, you need to take every thought captive you've got.

I'm telling you, you need to be like Paul, and you go like Titus, and you take other people's thoughts captive and bring them in obedience to Christ. And I ask you this question, what thoughts do you see in others right now that must be gently and firmly confronted with the knowledge of God? I say that to you husbands. In your talks with your wife, as you seek to go to bed every night having everything resolved with your wife, you do that, right? You don't go to bed with anger unresolved.

Is that right, husbands? You guys are all doing that too, right? To not let the sun go down in anger? To not fail and I go live with my wife in an understanding way and I never get reconciled and then I'm just living a life with prayers being hindered? You're not allowing that to happen, right? What happens in those discussions when you see your wife has a lie that's from Satan? Do you take the time with gentleness and meekness to seek to dismantle that? And then you take the time to do that again when two days later that lie is back. And sometimes it got rebuilt with different material and it's harder to take down. You've got to go to different verses.

So yeah, what thoughts do you see in others that must be gently and firmly confronted with the knowledge of God? That's an application question for you all. Are you engaged in this warfare? One way Paul is engaged in it is writing a letter. You can write a letter to someone to engage in this warfare.

Do you know truth well enough to wield it with humility and love? At the same time, don't think you need to wait to know truth more to do something. That's not right either. Christ is not coming to negotiate with lies.

He wants you, Christian, to be free. He wants to free you. He wants to tear down whatever that lie is that's enslaving your thought process.

He wants to free you. But the devil is like a roaring lion. He deceives and accuses like a dragon.

Imagine, what would it be like to wrestle with a lion on the ground? Can you imagine that? You, Christian, you do fight against the lion. What would it be like to destroy it? Certain movies that have big stronghold towers get destroyed. Initially, they have this big panoramic view of the castle and you're thinking, there's no way that castle is going to fall.

Right? But they bring in the siege weapons and they've got their numbers. And some of these sieges in the old days would take half a year just to break down the walls. I would love it if it was always Jericho.

You know, we're just marching around and it all just crumbles down. And God can do that. Or it might take six months.

As a Christian, you could say the lion roared at me last night. Meaning lies pressed hard, but by God's grace, you stood. You answered with Scripture and you kept bringing your mind under Christ's obedience.

And I'd just say this as a closing thought as well. Are you in a siege right now? Don't pull out till the tower falls. Don't do it.

Because you know what's going to happen? If you pull out and the tower doesn't fall, guess what's going to happen? Not only is the enemy going to have a greater stronghold there, but God will come back and revisit you. He will bring someone. He will do something out of love for you where those lies, they've got to be crushed.

And it could be lies like we heard in the first hour about reasons not to pray or how to process answered prayer. It could be lies dealing with your assurance of salvation. So, those are some thoughts I just wanted to share with you all.

They've been meaningful to me over the years. And try to think this way. As you all engage in fellowship with brethren, as you engage in meetings with brethren, as you engage in conversations with your spouse, as you engage in conversations even after we close right here, it could even happen right here today, you're interacting with someone and you find there's some lie they've got in their mind and it comes out right in the middle of the conversation.

Don't be afraid to draw your sword and take truth and seek to tear that stronghold down. That could be the most loving thing you could do for that brother or sister. So, God, give us grace to love each other in this way.

Let's pray. Father, we do just pray, Lord, would You help us to engage in this warfare. Lord, we don't want to use fleshly weapons.

Lord, we don't have a bunch of clever sayings that give victory. But, Lord, we read in Hebrews 4.12 that there is a sword, a double-edged sword that is sharp and that it cuts. It cuts deep.

And, Lord, that sword is Your Word. Lord, I pray You would, Lord, give victory over various lies that brethren have in their minds through the Word of God. Lord, even maybe some areas where there's been a long siege in someone's mind, Lord, what can we do? Lord, we look to You to tear down lies and bring forth truth.

And so, Lord, we love You. Lord, would You help us? And, Lord, I think of that man that I met with multiple times over the years and I tried to bring his thoughts, captive obedience to Christ. Lord, I don't know what happened to David Perez, but, Lord, I pray You'd yet still save his soul and You'd bring truth to his mind.

Lord, if he is yet still alive, Lord, I pray You'd save his soul. Truly, Father, that he would be able to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Lord, Father, would You help us to be faithful servants of one another? And, Lord, I don't know all the battles that various precious brethren in this church are having in their minds, but, Lord, I just pray You'd help us shepherds and You'd help all of us to help one another in this way.

Lord, that we would renew our minds every day and that there wouldn't be any sin that hardens our hearts. Lord, that we would have a warmth toward You. Lord, it's scary to think of the ways that Satan wants us to doubt Your character.

Oh, God, help us. Please, Father, just give us grace. We thank You.

In Jesus' name, amen.