Part 1: True Spiritual Warfare

Church, you may be seated. All right, okay, good morning.

Real quick, by the way, I turned off the two heaters. They turned back on at 10 a .m., and it's like, is it warm in here?

It's warm in here, so fix that. Praise God we have a baptism this morning. Praise the

Lord. It's gonna be great. Well, church, as we begin the new year,

I thought before we hop right back into our expository series in the first letter to the

Corinthians, it would be a good time to discuss what I think is a very important matter, okay?

And that's gonna come from 2 Corinthians 10. So if you wanna open up 2

Corinthians 10 now or go to your printout, have that ready. That's what we'll be expositing today.

2 Corinthians 10. As I mentioned in my prayer, today we're gonna be talking about spiritual warfare.

And it really is a very important topic. It's something that we need to consider even going into the new year.

But it's also a very popular topic among evangelical Christians these days, especially those in America.

There's no end to the amount of videos and articles and podcasts, books, conferences, sermons, and ministries on the subject of spiritual warfare.

And who are we supposed to believe on that? Who has the truth? Is it the ex -Satanist guy who has a big

YouTube following? Is it men like Neil T. Anderson who has authored many books on exorcisms, generational curses, and how

Christians, Christians need to have their demons removed or exorcised from them.

Is that even biblical? And I would, little heads up, I don't think that's biblical. I don't think it's possible for a

Christian to have a demon inside of him. Will we believe the deliverance ministries that are out there?

These leaders who are often of the prosperity gospel and they have dollar signs in their eyes and they recognize that essentially a bunch of people in the unbelieving world who might be demon -possessed don't want to go to a deliverance ministry and have their demon removed.

Why? Because they're unsaved, they're unbelieving, they don't care, they're in their sin. But what these people found out in these deliverance ministries is that essentially a way to make money is to tell

Christians that the root of all your problems is all the demons oppressing you or possessing you.

And everyone has different demons and they're attached to you or they're inside of you. And with that information, with that false theology,

I would say, they go to these people and they set up these events and they have even ministries in different states and you go and Christians pay money or give a gift, as they would probably say, and you have your demon removed.

Instead of what? Instead of learning the word and being part of a local church and being sanctified and being matured in Christ and having accountability and having all those things.

What's easier? What do you do? Well, maybe the problem that I have is I have a demon, they would say.

Okay? So who's right about all this stuff? And even the most loving people, people that I love, people who you love, well -meaning people have come to you in your life and in my life and they've given us sometimes wrong information on spiritual warfare.

And so as I was preparing this, I couldn't help to think back to my time when

I first learned about this after Christ had saved me and then I went to Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

I was earning my master's in theology and finally it came to the point in my schooling where I took a class called

Spiritual Formation. Spiritual Formation. And in that class, we talked about spiritual disciplines, reading the

Bible, prayer, we talked about spiritual warfare, we talked about the spiritual realm, the spirit realm.

And at some point in the semester, we were given a project to explore the spiritual discipline of solitude.

And so that is a legitimate spiritual discipline. You see Jesus do that. He goes off by himself.

Some of the prophets went off by themselves and they went in solitude and they sought God. And so I said, okay, all right, let's do that.

And we were given a list of recommended places to go practice our solitude.

And I saw one and I was given this location to go to and it was called the

Franciscan Renewal Center. And I had to be there alone for like eight hours or something like that.

I don't fully remember. And arriving there, I immediately saw statues out front.

It was a 25 acre property. It was a huge property in Arizona against a small mountain in between Arcadia and Scottsdale, Arizona, the

Franciscan Renewal Center. And so I went there and I realized it was a

Roman Catholic property. And their website says that it's a place for renewing lives through spiritual growth, healing, transformation and service to others.

And I was kind of taken aback. I said, why would my professor, part of a

Southern Baptist denomination oriented seminary, why would they send me here?

Why would this be on the list? But I figured he knew best. So I checked in at the front desk.

I stepped out onto the property. By the way, there's different packages. You could spend the night at the Franciscan Renewal Center if you just wanted to know.

You could spend a couple of hundred to stay a few nights. And so again, renewal with God is gonna cost you.

There's different money packages. You could spend the day there for 75 bucks, things like that. I got in for free because they saw

I was a student doing this for a class. So anyways, I stepped onto the property.

And I'm not kidding. I was inundated with strange thoughts, just even forms of panic that I'd never had before as soon as I got onto the property.

And so I started walking. It's a 25 acre property. And I was walking towards the back.

I said, let me get away from this stuff. And I walked to the back in this wilderness type area.

And there was what was called a spiralized labyrinth. There was a spiral labyrinth in the earth.

And there was a sign that said, if you want spiritual wholeness, you should pray and walk the labyrinth.

Walk the labyrinth and pray to God and you will experience spiritual wholeness.

And so I didn't enter into it. I immediately started to pray.

I said, Lord, what is this? Spiralized labyrinth? What is this thing, okay?

And so as I was praying, I became more unsettled and I walked away and started heading in the other direction.

And I found a small ornate building, great architecture.

It was a beautiful small building. It was almost like a hut. And so I walked over to it.

I was trying to look for a place more private to pray. And it was called the prayer grotto.

The prayer grotto. And I opened the door and I'm not even kidding. I almost jumped back because there was a life -size idol of Mary.

And it was like, oh my gosh, eyes were right on me. There were statues of other saints and idols in there.

And it's like when I opened the door, it was so freaky. It's like they were looking right at me saying, hey, this is our turf.

What are you doing here? And I was like, I closed the door. I said, oh Lord, what is this? I was so unsettled.

So I walked away again after I slammed the door and I saw now a building that said this is where they hold mass every week.

And I said, I'm not going over there. Finally, in the center of this huge compound,

I found a courtyard with some trees. And I sat down on a bench and I'm just telling you, the most insane things were assaulting my thoughts.

And everything in me wanted to just jump up and sprint out of there.

I just wanted to get out of that place. But I sat there and I opened up my

Bible finally and when I sat down, I just decided to open it up.

I don't think that's something like where, God, what do I need to know today? Open it up. That's testing the

Lord our God. But I do think that in that providential moment, I opened the scriptures and I landed on Psalm 37.

Our deacon Eric read verses one through 20 today and I started to read it and it was such a moment of strength for me.

It kept saying, do not fret because of evil. Do not fret. Do not fret. Evil and evildoers will be cut off.

And the psalmist kept saying, wait for the Lord. Rest in the Lord. And it even said that the

Lord laughs at those who plot against Him. And so one of the most comforting things, finally

I came to verse 24 in Psalm 37 and it said this, because I felt like I was falling.

I felt like I got there and I had just been falling. And it said this, though a righteous man may fall, he will not be hurled headlong because the

Lord is the one who holds his hand. And I said it out loud. I said, Lord, you're holding my hand.

You've got my hand. You're holding my hand. The Lord is with me. I don't need to fret even if I'm surrounded by a wave of evil or a multitude of demons.

I don't need to be afraid. No, not with God on my side. And this peace washed over me.

And so I was determined to spend the rest of my remaining hours there and get my assignment done.

And so what I did is I wanted to get away from all these idols and this spiral labyrinth and all these things.

And in the corner of this, I mean, 25 acres is huge. I went over to this corner and there was a garden with pink and orange roses, white roses.

There was a water fountain and there were trees. And I said, Lord, that's where I'm gonna read my

Bible. I'm gonna read my Bible right there in what you created. I'm gonna worship the Creator and I'm gonna sit in your creation and ponder you.

And as I read my Bible, I had it open and I was reading because it was like as if I was a soldier who needs to have his sword unsheathed.

I needed to be ready at any time. And so I was just reading my Bible. And finally I drove home and I thought to myself, why was

I sent here? Why was this even on the list? My professor wanted us to have some sort of spiritual connection with God as we sought solitude.

And I definitely had a spiritual encounter, but it wasn't the one that I think he expected.

Different spirits were found. It was only when God fought for me that I found rest, when

I read his word, when I found his word. One more story. One more example of wrong spiritual warfare.

In that same class, at the end of semester we had a final project. And I was to go to a private place with a mentor of my choosing, someone that I trusted.

And I chose my campus president. I had got to know him. I had a good relationship with him. But again,

I was confused and skeptical. What are we doing? What is this project? Because there in this room,

I was sitting with this man that I knew, but I barely knew. And he was supposed to lead me as I started to out loud denounce generational curses and sins that I did with the occult.

I started to say all these things, Lord, forgive me for using a Ouija board. I had never used a Ouija board, but I had to say these things.

I had to say all these things. Lord, forgive me for this. Lord, I denounce this. I go against this

God. And I had to say all these things, things that I had never even done in my life. I had to.

And we had to pray all these certain formulaic prayers that had to go this way and that way. We had to say it perfectly like this.

And it would be finally, at the conclusion of this meeting, I would have complete freedom in Christ finally.

That's where I would get freedom in Christ. But that was so very wrong. I had already confessed my sins to Christ when

He converted me. I had already asked for forgiveness. I had thought back then, even then

I thought, Lord, You already cleansed me with clean water. You've already given me a new heart.

You've removed the heart of stone. Ezekiel says, you've given me a heart of flesh. You have regenerated me.

I thought the Holy Spirit is in me. Doesn't that count for something? God Himself dwells in me.

And that's not enough. I'm not free. You're telling me I'm in bondage? I'm not free.

Jesus says in John 8, verse 36, so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

He sets us free. Romans 8, verses 1 -2, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the

Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

I'm already free. I was already free. You're already free. You're free. You've been set free, church.

But this professor, this author, this book, this project said

I wasn't free. I was in bondage. I was still in complete sin.

And only after I buy these books and do these things will I finally be set free.

Never again. I want to save you from the confusion and heartache that these wrong ideas of spiritual warfare often give us.

The Bible is called the sword of the Spirit. The Bible is the truth. It is the

Word of God. He will tell us how to fight our sin. God's Word will tell us how to fight the world and the devil.

There may be wonderful men and women who teach on this or give great testimony, but we need to see what the

Scriptures say about this subject, because there is no end to those who teach this falsely.

So yet at last, Scripture is the only unfailing, inerrant, divine authority and standard for the

Christian man or woman. We put stuff on YouTube. We do testimonies.

But in the end, our videos and the videos of other men and women online aren't the standard.

It's the Word of God. You see, many in pursuit of going after this subject have adopted occultic and mystical worldviews in order to bolster the plain spiritual warfare of the

Bible. You have mantras, bindings, incantations, formulaic prayers, hedges of thorns, seeking knowledge from demons, communicating with spirits, false healings, false exorcisms, and a lot more.

And there are those among these people who can perform true signs and wonders, but they're like Simon the

Magician in the book of Acts. Even Jesus warned that there would be false prophets and false messiahs who would arise and they would be capable of doing signs and wonders.

People would marvel at what they can do. But God warns us through Christ that that would happen.

God warns us even through Moses in Deuteronomy that if a prophet arises among you, if a man rises among you and says,

I'm from God, and he can do many signs, even things that are miraculous, the signs alone don't authenticate him as being from God.

The Lord says in Deuteronomy, if he is devoid of the truth or if he leads you after other gods, even if he does signs and wonders and they're real, don't believe him.

Don't follow him. You see, the miracles that Jesus performed were always accompanied with the

Gospel. His whole Gospel ministry, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The Son of Man has come to forgive sinners of their sin.

And then He would remove demons and He would heal people and He would do these things. The same is true for the apostles in Acts.

Truth was always joined to signs and wonders. Okay? And now some will even say that spiritual warfare is a battle of territories.

That there's all these territories everywhere that are claimed for Satan and demons and they have these territories where there's hordes of them.

And we have to go in and remove all these demons and we have to, you know, go in circles and do mantras and pray for them to go away and things like that.

That we have to do this. But I tell you, brothers and sisters, in Psalm 2, the father asks the son, says to the son, ask my son and I will give the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.

We see that take place in Daniel 7. There's one like a son of man who came up to the ancient of days and to him was given a kingdom and a dominion everlasting that will never fade away.

It's all yours. It's all yours. And Jesus says in Matthew 28 of the

Great Commission, all authority has been given unto me. This is all mine, Christ says.

And He says, just in case that we would think otherwise, Jesus says in heaven and earth, in heaven and earth.

That means the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Everything is the territory of Christ.

There's nothing not one to Jesus Christ. We just need to go.

That's what He says. You just need to go to all places. Go and proclaim the truth by the order of the

King. This is not a battle of territory. Spiritual warfare has always been a battle of truth and lies.

Fact and falsehood. And so to see this, we go to one of the most important passages on spiritual warfare in the

Bible. Look at 2 Corinthians 10 .3 -5.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

We are destroying speculations in every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That is the

Word of the Lord. Let's pray actually. Dear God, we thank

You that Your Word has been given so powerfully and been preserved for us,

Lord, that we may look to it as an inspired manual. Divine instructions,

Lord, that we could see Your very character and Your very nature through it, but that also means that we can see how

You define the spiritual realm and how You define how we fight in the Spirit. And even how we fight physically,

Lord. And so God, help me to get out of the way. Lord, I pray now, because even

I have come to this subject, God, with so many presuppositions. God, I pray that whatever we learned as children, whatever we saw and experienced,

Lord, in the past at different churches, Lord, that we would conform all these things to Your Word.

Help us to see Your Word for what it is. Dear God, please be with us. Keep our every focus on You.

Let not the enemy snatch away our attention now. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

I know that was a long introduction. The rest of it's not going to be very long.

So let's get into it. To borrow from one commentator, Paul has detailed in these verses how we are to fight, what we fight, what we fight with, and why we fight.

How we are to fight, what we fight, what we fight with, and why we fight. And to figure those answers out, we have to first understand the context.

If you've learned anything from me, I hope that you've learned when I preach any subject, we look at the context.

Context, that means with the text. What's before it? What's after it? Let's see what this is all about.

And thus far, we have not been in the second letter to the Corinthians, we've been in the first letter to the

Corinthians. So what is happening here that the Apostle Paul needed to write a second letter to this church?

Well, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians to reaffirm his commitment to the church in Corinth.

He sought to reconcile with those who had previously wronged him before.

He continues to address the issue of division within the congregation. We saw that in our study.

And he continues now to defend his apostolic authority against men who were called super apostles.

They were seeking to undermine him and his teaching. And Paul defends himself against them.

You see, some of them said Paul did what he did simply for money. Oh, this guy just goes around for money.

Or they said he was a hypocrite. Paul is a man who says to do one thing, but he does another.

They were seeking to undermine him, to remove his authority. He helped start that church in Corinth and they wanted to remove

Paul. And these false apostles even attacked Titus, saying both

Paul and Titus didn't have apostolic authority. They have no authority here, no authority from God.

They even mocked Paul's physical appearances and his countenance and his teaching.

And so Paul then responds in chapter 11, verses 13 through 15. All these are in your printout, by the way.

He says this, for such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness whose end will be according to their deeds.

In this letter, he even quotes some of these people who oppose him sometimes. He says in chapter 10, verses eight through 10, for even if I boast somewhat further about our authority which the

Lord gave me for building you up and not destroying you, he says, I will not be put to shame.

For I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters, for they say, here it is, for they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible.

They criticize Paul and say, the man can sure write a harsh letter, but have you seen him in person?

Were you here last time when he came? He's a weak and mediocre looking man. He has a limp.

He looks like someone who's been beaten with stripes far too much, and that's hit him in the head a little bit.

He's not harsh in person though. He can't even speak well. Pathetic actually. That's what they were saying.

Contemptible, pathetic. And so Paul intends to visit the Corinthians again after this letter.

That's how our chapter starts. We're in chapter 10, verses three through five, but look at verses one and two, okay?

Look at verses one and two. Now I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

And then he quotes them again. Look, I who am meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent.

I ask that when I am present, I need not to be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh.

You see his sarcasm here. I who am humble when face to face, but bold when

I am away writing letters. That's what they say. But he tells them that he will do what he needs to do.

He can be very bold when necessary. In fact, he was one of the most courageous and bold men of the early church, the

Apostle Paul. But he doesn't want to have to be bold in front of them when he sees them. He doesn't want to have to bring down the hammer when he sees them.

This is what Paul wants. This is what he hopes the letter accomplishes. He wants the true believers in Corinth who are already there to be courageous themselves.

Have courage. Be bold, true believers of Corinth. Correct, rebuke, or even remove, if need be, these super apostles.

You're better than this. I gave you the truth of the Gospel. I gave you the Word. But you're over here listening to men who are trying to discredit what we're saying, but we have seen the risen

Lord. We have given you the truth. Remove the false brethren who have said that we walk according to the flesh.

I'll tell you what we walk by, and that's where our verse starts. In fact, even in verse six, the verse right after ours, he says he's ready to punish all disobedience if necessary.

I'm ready to come and punish. And so, sandwiched in between verses one and two and verse six, where he's saying,

I'm coming, I'm warning you, deal with sin, deal with these super apostles who are accusing us, and then sandwiched in between there are verses three through five, and then he says, and if you don't,

I'm coming to punish. And so what he says in verses three through five are, we're apostles of Christ.

We're true apostles. These super apostles are false. They really belong to Satan.

They're disguised as workers of light. And they actually walk according to the flesh. They accuse us of walking according to the flesh.

We walk according to the Spirit. We walk the spiritual way.

They do their ministry one way, another way, a false way, a fleshly way, but that's not how we walk.

That's what they accused him of. So here's his response. This will answer the question of how we fight.

How do we fight in spiritual warfare? Verses three and four. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Now you hear the word flesh. This is the word sarx in the Greek. And it is often used by Paul for that opposing fallen nature that you and I possess as believers.

It's all connected to our humanity and we long for it to be gone. But here,

Paul uses the word flesh in its basic definition. Our physical nature.

Our physical bodies. And so he's saying, for though we walk in our physical bodies, we do not war with our physical bodies.

And the Apostle was someone who possibly had bad eyesight. I mentioned that to you before in a sermon.

He said, some of you have said you wish you could give your eyes to me. And that could maybe be an indicator that Paul was starting to lose his eyesight.

We know that he walked with a limp. He was possibly a lot shorter than other people.

He had all these body limitations, but whatever they were, they did not limit what he had access to in the

Spirit. Whatever his physical limitations were, they did not limit what he has access to in the

Spirit. And the same goes for you and me. You could be the weakest person physically.

You could have terrible diseases. There have been amazing, incredible saints who have had the worst cancers and diseases, but they've been the most powerful spiritually.

Most wisdom, most maturity. You see that. They're not always directly correlated.

Therefore, though we walk physically, we wage war spiritually. We wage war.

Some of you have noticed that Paul likes the soldier analogy. He says in Ephesians 6, put on the full armor of God.

He says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, fight the good fight. He says earlier in this letter to take up the arms, the weapons of righteousness and truth.

And he uses the soldier analogy, the fighting analogy a lot, but this is no analogy.

This is not an analogy this time. This is real. There was a real battle occurring during Paul's time.

There's a real battle occurring now in our time. And it's spiritual in nature.

It's spiritual. And so our weapons won't be physical either.

You don't battle a spiritual war with weapons and tools crafted by men.

You don't. You need weapons from Heaven. If we're going to make any advances in the spiritual war, we have to employ

God's weaponry and strategy. But I'm telling you, there is such a temptation to use tools and weapons made by men.

All these new ministry ideas pop up all the time. And because I'm a pastor, the times that I go on Facebook, and now it's just full of ads by the way.

I can't stand it. I want to see what my family is doing. Friends from the old church. But now if I scroll, because my social media says

I'm a pastor, I get sent all these advertisements for all these new products.

Hey, if you're a pastor and sermon work has been pretty hard, we have this new AI app that will help you write your sermon.

No kidding. We'll help you write it. We'll do it. Hey, we have these videos come up of these guys that are like, hey, we understand.

You're in a church plant. You're in a hard place. You need to know the magic sauce on how to build that congregation up.

We could give you the tools to bring so many people in there and your giving will be through the roof.

I see these things all the time. These gimmicks come up. And that's what people have used to fight the spiritual war.

They've used these ideas, these programs, these apps, ministries and clubs and practical conferences, carnal ideas for the church, and then of course all the things that I said about removing demons from people, all these things, but in the end, you can't use the things of this world's kingdom to grow the kingdom of God.

And we don't like that. In some ways we don't like that we have to deal with the spiritual.

Dealing with the physical seems easier, does it not? I mean, if you gotta either deal with your sin or go out and clean the garage, you'd rather clean the garage than clean yourself, right?

It's just easier. That's our propensity. But it's like thinking, when you think that there's a physical weapon that you could use to deal with a spiritual war, it's like thinking when

God says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It's like taking a piece out of your

Bible, taking a piece of paper, a page out and eating it. Well, man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Let me eat some of the Bible. And some of you have eaten paper and you're crazy. I'm telling you that now.

But that's the wrong idea. Now, an example of this is just like our series in Paul's first letter.

Do you remember they began to cherish human philosophy? They began to cherish so -called wisdom of the worldly wise.

And Paul says, don't you realize you have the mind of God? You have access to the mind of God. And on the day of judgment for believers, he said, don't you want the praise that comes from God later in heaven than the praise of man now in the church or the marketplaces?

Because if you remember, the Corinthians started to love the things of this world.

The wisdom of this world. The philosophies of man. They didn't know that they had access to God.

And so he reminds them, he says, I'd rather be a fool for Christ. Preaching the foolish message of the cross and Jesus Christ crucified.

And it confounds the world. It goes against nature. It's not physical. It's spiritual.

And therefore the way we fight follows the same pattern. How we fight, how we do spiritual warfare is not with fleshly or worldly gimmicks despite what the charlatans may tell you.

You know, I once knew a man, I once knew a man who carried a bag of salt that was blessed by a priest in his pocket.

And he had this bag of salt and he held it to his chest and that's where he put his hope in.

He said, I've had this bag of salt, this priest blessed it, and now none of these creatures, none of these demons can come after me.

I have this salt. And that's what he had. I remember, I've seen people,

I don't mind a cross around your neck. I think it's fine to have a necklace with a cross, but there have been people who take that cross and when something happens where they escape some sort of thing, they escape something that was bad and they're actually fine, they take the cross and they kiss it and they go, it's because of this.

They don't turn their heads to God. They turn their head to the crucifix around their neck and go, this is it.

One time I bought a car and I bought a car and it was this

Subaru, this old Subaru, and all on the dashboard were images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary, and there was even

Buddha and some Hindu gods on it and all these things, they were taped onto the dashboard.

And when I bought the car, I inspected the whole thing and look, I'm sure some of you would go, bad juju,

I'm not buying that. Whatever, I'm not afraid. But I checked it out, mechanically it worked well, the mileage was fine, and I said, whatever,

I'm just gonna rip those off and clean the interior anyways. And I remember when they were signing the title over to me, the lady said, you're gonna wanna keep those on.

We've never been in an accident because of those images. And I knew. I mean,

I just pulled them right off, I'm like, whatever. That's what they put their hope in.

Those are physical things. Those are fleshly things.

They're not spiritual weapons. That's not how we wage war, church. And so, if we now know how we fight, which is spiritually, what do we fight?

And what do we fight with? What is this weapon that is divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses?

Literally, it says, Theodunata, God power.

What is this God power? Not man power. God gives us the power to fight.

And what do we fight? What is our enemy? We destroy fortresses.

Fortresses. What are fortresses? In the Greek, these are military fortifications or strongholds, yet we know that they are spiritual if the war and the weapons are spiritual.

So these are spiritual fortresses, okay? Some have argued that these fortresses are demonic structures in the spiritual realm.

But there's no evidence of that. There is no evidence that demons dwell in the same place together, okay?

In fact, the evidence of the Bible demonstrates to them being spiritual wanderers.

Okay, Jesus says in Matthew 12, verse 43, Now when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and it does not find it.

God says in Ezekiel 28, 16, after the devil and his angels were found to be filled with violence and sin, he cast them from him and from where he dwells.

Demons and unclean spirits are homeless. They are vagabonds. They're wanderers.

They wander the spiritual realm just like the murderer Cain wandered the earth who thought his punishment was too great for him to bear.

Some say the fortresses are generational curses, but that's way too narrow of a view.

Some say that these fortresses are demonic hierarchies. Demonic hierarchies.

But hear me out, no matter what you've heard about this, no matter what visions, and I've heard them too,

I've heard of people recounting these things, these dreams, these visions that people have had, and they've had these things where they've seen demons, where this specific demon is a demon of gluttony, and this demon is a demon of lust, and then there's demons who are higher than others and things like that.

Look, it's possible that could be true, but it just is silent in the

Bible, okay? Even if that were true, it just does not fit contextually in the letter to the

Corinthians as the fortresses, okay? The letter that talked about the foolish message of the gospel, the wisdom of God, and so we look further to see what the destruction of fortresses really is, okay?

Look here, here's the fortresses, verse five. Paul is continuing to expound on what we are fighting in spiritual warfare.

It's not hand -to -hand combat with demons. It's not even verbal fistfights. Here are the fortresses.

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Paul uses words like speculations, lofty things, knowledge, and thoughts.

Church, you see it yourself. Paul spoke of warfare, and he did not say it was physical, and he did not say it was a bunch of demons with armor or men with red pails and pitchforks.

This is what he says. These are all the pertinent details of spiritual warfare that we need.

These fortresses are spiritual and mental citadels, fortresses.

Christians are to fight against all forms of spiritual and mental thoughts, reasonings that are anti -Christ, anti -God, anti -truth.

Speculations in the Greek are logismos. They are fallacious and deceptive reasonings based on evil intentions.

Speculations come with wrong intent. They come with lies. Lofty thing is hupsoma.

Its root word is height or high place. It was often the tower that was the main military component where the leadership of the military would be in the high place, the hupsoma, and they would be able to see what was going on in the battle array, and they would make changes and send out charges, and that's what he says.

These high places are spiritual. These lofty things.

Here, it's used figuratively. A lofty thing is an exaggerated evaluation or an exaggerated idea, and it is right here raised up against the knowledge of God.

It is something false that seeks to rise higher than the knowledge of God.

That's what it's trying to be. It's trying to raise above it. What did Satan proclaim in his fall in Isaiah 14?

Lucifer said this, I will ascend to heaven and raise my throne above all others,

Yahweh's, and I will make myself like the most high. That's what

Satan says. Except this time, it is a satanic idea trying to be higher than the truth of God, okay?

One author puts it this way, the war we wage is against the proud, lofty,

God -defying speculations of the human heart that come from the flesh or demonic influence that are raised up in opposition to the true knowledge of God.

Think about it. Think about the mental fortresses that a man has to make to be able to witness all of this knowledge of God, to witness all these things in creation, to witness all this truth in the

Bible. Think about the mental fortress they need to make to see all this and to get away from it so that they can, as Romans 1 says, suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

Men even have the knowledge of God written on their hearts, in their consciences, testifying to the fact that man knows

God's law either when he breaks it or instinctively does it according to Romans 2. John agrees when he says in John 3 .19,

this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

Men are exposed to the light. Men and women are exposed to the truth. Humanity is exposed to the truth of the

Creator, but instead, people make fortresses. They make strongholds against the knowledge of the

Lord. And they put themselves in it. They become prisoners of their own making, held hostage by their own unbelief.

I mean, think about it. If you don't want to be exposed to something, you come to a new land, you're exposed to the elements, you're exposed to predators, what do you do?

You build a structure. And you build the framing. But then you realize that the framing is not enough.

There's still gaps. You're still exposed. You're exposed to things. And so what do you do when you build this fortress? Now, you add siding.

And you add a roof. But somehow you can still hear things. And you can still feel things coming through, right?

Things like cold or heat. You can hear things out there. And so as you build this fortress, you now add insulation.

And you add drywall. And not only that, but people who make these mental and spiritual fortresses, they take spackle and they cover up the cracks and they paint it and they furnish the fortress they're in, and pretty soon they are blocked out from the truth of God.

They don't even realize they made their own mental and spiritual prison. But it looks good.

I built it up and I feel good. I don't hear the truth anymore. I don't see the truth anymore. And these are the fortresses.

The Bible calls these fortresses, these are all from the Bible. Hear this. Empty deceptions, traditions of men, elementary principles of the world, decrees of men, captive philosophies, self -made religion, wisdom in appearance, fleshly wisdom, human wisdom, persuasive words, superiority of speech, falsely what is called knowledge,

Paul tells Timothy, a deluding influence, false words, false wonders of the spirit of the

Antichrist. We see people use the word science, which means knowledge, or they use evolution in the same way as these things.

I love true science. Science only makes sense in the biblical worldview. And you see people take these things and arm them against God.

All these things that are mentioned in Scripture or not take militant stands, trying to raise themselves above and over the knowledge and truth of God.

They want to crush the knowledge of God and remove it from sight. And we see those types of fortresses rise up in concepts like atheism, moral relativism, so -called tolerance, liberalism, rationalism, naturalism, humanism, mysticism, new ageism, paganism, and false ideologies of sex, biology, and nature.

Man willingly believes these things over what is clear around him or in the word of God, and Satan and his demons love it.

They love these fortresses. In fact, Satan and his demons will provide the building materials.

Go ahead, make more. They love new ideas that are trying to be raised up against the knowledge of God.

What's the next one? What will they make now? They'll provide the funding.

But we are commanded to destroy speculations and lofty things.

They have to be destroyed. They have to be killed. We cannot believe them. They will never change.

We need the truth to replace the lie. So spiritual warfare,

I said it before, is a war on truth. It is truth. As one commentator says,

Satan, the great liar and murderer from the beginning, deceives men with his crafty lies.

He and his host of demon helpers are constantly promoting, teaching, and advancing their lies.

These lies manifest in the proud speculations of the human mind and heart.

You see, Christians are seeking to advance the truth. Right? Jesus is what?

He is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus gives the truth.

The Gospel is called the truth. We fight this war with this weapon of truth.

That's how we defeat the darkness. The first assault by the devil in the garden was when the serpent said, what?

Did God say that? A lie. That was the first assault. The first moment of spiritual warfare.

Did God say that? A lie, a falsehood, a deception. God's Word is the truth.

Do you see? It's not incantations. It's not formulaic prayers. It's not communicating with demons or rebuking evil spirits at every turn or finding the devil under every rock.

How did Jesus defeat the demon named Satan in Matthew chapter four?

Come on. What did he do? He quoted the Word of the living God. Right?

He didn't do formulaic prayers. He didn't do incantations. He didn't walk in a spiral labyrinth.

Jesus quoted the Word of God. He gave the Word of God, and it was over. He gave the truth, and it was done.

Satan ran away. But then we read some books, and we watch some videos.

And then somehow we want some sort of power, right? We want power. Paul said we do have access to power.

We have divine power that can destroy these things for good. The Gospel is called the power of God unto salvation.

The truth is the power of God. Therefore, we must take every thought captive in our minds and others.

Okay? All of them have to be captured. Eik malo tizo.

It means to hold captive. It's to have complete control over something.

You gain complete control over something even by force. Paul says you've got to take it captive.

Take these things captive. Previously, the other two enemies, the speculations, the lofty things, they're always evil.

But thoughts of the mind for the believer can be true. They can be false.

They can be good. They can be bad. The key is to control the thoughts as they generate in the head, okay?

We are to have a radar, so to speak, a spiritual radar where if a thought comes out, whether it be from an unbeliever or from ourselves, the thought comes and we are to grab it.

We are to lay hold of it. We are to subdue it.

And we are to make sure, okay, this thought, this idea, this concept, is it obedient to Christ?

No. No, so I'm gonna give this thing the truth, either to myself or in this world.

When we're doing evangelism on the street, you hear these traditions of men, you hear these false ideologies made by the devils, by the demons, you fight with the truth.

You say, that's false. Here's what the truth is. You have a personal thing in your mind.

You have thoughts as a believer, and you get a wrong thought, you fight it with the truth.

You go to the truth, you go to the Word of God. You make that thought, you wrangle it, you take it, and you tell that thought to be obedient to Christ.

Which, what is Christ called? He's called the what? The logos, the Word. You go to the Word. And once you store the truth inside of you, it can become second nature.

Doesn't mean the battle's over, but it can become second nature. You see, our thoughts are not to be obedient to emotions.

Emotions can be very good. But they can be also very bad. Therefore, emotions are not reliable in the spiritual warfare that we wage.

Truth always is. Our thoughts are not to be obedient to the world. The world system is in opposition to God, and therefore not only unreliable, but downright dangerous.

We don't take our thoughts and make them obedient to the world. The world wants our allegiance to it, and not to God.

And finally, our thoughts are not to be obedient to the devil. The devil is a fallen angel who wanted to usurp

God's rule and glory, and he's wanted it for thousands of years. He was a cherubim angel, covered in rubies and gems, beautiful creature, but he wanted more.

It wasn't good enough. He's used every means at his disposal to do just that, trying to usurp

God, but he has never succeeded, nor will he ever succeed, and yet still

Satan is treacherous. He doesn't just want us to rebel against God, but Satan wants us to make him

God. The devil wants us to call him God, and so we fight. We proclaim the truth to ourselves and to others.

That's it. That's it. That lie you're telling yourself, that assumption that you have about someone else without any proof, that idea about God or yourself that you have that's wrong, that jealousy, that perversion, that hate toward another person, the wrong thought, the wrong idea, these things that your relatives tell you to believe, whatever it is, that thing coming out of your mind or coming out of someone else's mouth, you need to take it captive and make it obedient to Jesus Christ.

That's how we wage war. That's how we fight. We use the truth.

And if you're telling me, Pastor Wade, that's so basic. Once again, the answer is the

Word of God, and if you feel that way, then I tell you now, church, you have a low view of the

Word of the living God. You have a low view of the power of God. Because man wants the power in himself.

I want the ability to wage war. I want to say and do things and defeat demons. No, he defeats demons.

He defeats the darkness. It's not plain.

The answer to spiritual warfare is incredible. And that's really the why we fight.

I've told you how we fight spiritually, what we fight, speculations, lofty things, thoughts raised up against the knowledge of God.

We defeat mental and spiritual fortresses, wrong ideas, wrong reasonings. And I told you what we fight with, the truth.

Now why? Why do we fight? So everything will be brought to the point of obedience to Christ.

That's why. Every thought, every person, every idea, every spirit, even every demon, everything needs to be obedient to Christ.

And so the Gospel comes in like the cavalry. It runs through the enemy lines.

It breaks down the vain castles and fortresses of lies that people hide and create.

The Good News brings down every barricade. He came to set the people of the dark land free.

And then they will become obedient to Christ by His grace, for His glory.

So what did Jesus tell Paul on the road to Damascus? I'm finishing up here. What does the

Apostle remember so well? What was his objective and ours now?

Acts 26, 18. He recounts when Jesus spoke to him on the road.

This is what Jesus said. To be sent to all the peoples with the truth to quote, open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me, says

Jesus. You see, saints, I was told to sit there and shout, Satan, I bind you with chains unbreakable.

With power, Satan, I command you to flee. Satan, you have to let me go.

Satan, set me free from your grip. I command you in the name of Jesus. And I'm telling you, nothing happened because Satan can't undo what

God had already done for me. The devil probably laughs at such gimmicks.

We don't need to even speak to the devil since Jesus had already even done that for me.

Jesus had already even rebuked and defeated the devil for me. Did Jesus do those mantras?

What did he actually do? He countered every lie with the truth. And so,

I want you to know, church, that you're already armed. You have an arsenal, and that's what it is.

It's confusion. We've been told that we need to go around doing all these things, but all we need to do is say the truth in that situation.

We need to say what's true and what's real. You could say it out loud. You could say it in your spirit, but you could say the truth to yourself.

You could say the truth in that situation. You could say the truth to that person giving the lofty thing, the speculation.

You give the truth. You need to know you're armed. We've been told to use water guns, but we have pistols.

Use the truth to fight the world out there. Use the Word to battle the fallen flesh still attached to you, the wrong thoughts you have, and the evil reasonings of unsaved men.

And you use the truth to fight the devil and his angels. So pick up what you already have possession of, and you are to continue to fight the good fight.

Do you know that? It's amazing that what fights this war is also what gains more people to Jesus.

The truth. You keep going out there, church, and you give the truth, and you keep giving yourself the truth.

And every day, you go to the truth. Every day, you need to take those thoughts captive and bring them into obedience to Christ.

You miss some days in the Word. You miss some days away from the truth, and you're liable to believe lies.

Go back to the truth. Go to the truth. When you're confused, go to the truth. When you're angry, go to the

Word. When you're thinking wrong things about people, go to the Word. When you're wondering how to speak to this person about this false idea they have, you go to the

Word. You go to the truth. And remember that God is the one with all power.

So what do you do? You petition Him at all times. He never loses. Prayer works.

And lastly, fight knowing that the victory is already won. It's over.

It's over. The victory is won. I have victory in Christ.

You have victory in Christ. And that will keep you going on days that you feel like falling over when a volley of spiritual arrows comes your way.

Because this year in 2025, the arrows are coming. The arrows are coming.

What's new, what's coming. But now you know how to fight it.

Now you know that you're armed. Now you know that there's always been a gun at your hip.

And you can attack it. You can tear down and destroy every speculation, every lofty thing, every thought that is raised up against the knowledge of God in church.

That is true spiritual warfare. Let's pray. Lord, we thank

You for Your perfect Word. We thank

You, God, that it's sharper than any two -edged sword. It splits spirit and soul and body.

It is like splitting bone and marrow, Lord. You call the

Word the sword of the Spirit. You have equipped us. But we have been told that we've been neutered.

We've been told that we don't have weapons. And we've been told to pick up weapons that don't actually vanquish our foes.

We've been told to do things that don't actually defeat these demonic ideas.

And so, Lord, now I pray that we would see that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but our battle is against these ideas in the high places, the principalities who continue to birth these things in our world.

But we know, Jesus, You have all victory. You are the King of kings and the

Lord of lords. You've made an open spectacle of these beings.

And I recall, Lord, in the Gospels, when the demons said, why have you come,

Messiah, most high God, to torment us before the time? And Lord, when I see that,

I recognize that there is a time coming. And that time is coming, and for us, we will be raised, we will be given glorified bodies.

We will dwell with You forever, but a time is coming when all the schemes of the devil, when all the workings of His angels will be completely over at the inauguration of Your kingdom,

Lord Jesus. And as You say, Lord Jesus, in Matthew 25, all the devil and his demons will be cast into the lake of fire that burns forever.

And so, Lord, we know that the time is coming. And until then,

God, we ask that You would equip us, that You would help us to recall these things and to keep fighting.

Go before us, guard our front and our rear, dear

God. You are the captain of the Lord of hosts. We praise You in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, we have a baptism today, so let's get into it, and we'll take communion, and we'll finish with a couple songs.

I know that was a little bit long, and thanks for holding on. I hope that that was a blessing to you.