In his second epistle to the
Corinthians in chapter 10 Paul writes concerning the spiritual
power and strength which he has as that which is of God not in
the flesh as that which is entirely of God for in the flesh the believer
is weak and Paul himself in the flesh was despised by some. They saw him and his weakness
and they heard his speech and might despise him. But they'd
read his letters and his epistles and say that they are weighty
and powerful. But Paul would have them know that his strength
was not in his physical strength in his oratory or even in his
writing. But his strength and his power
was in the gospel alone. He says in verse 1, Now I pull
myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ who
in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward
you. But I beseech you that I may
not be bold when I am present with that confidence wherewith
I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walked
according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having in a readiness
to revenge all disobedience. when your obedience is fulfilled. Do ye look on things after the
outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that
he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that as he
is Christ's, even so we are Christ's. Though we walk in the flesh,
he says, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. In these words, Paul alludes
to the fact that gospel preaching and the believers' walk and ministry
as they journey through this dark and evil world is in many
ways a battle. It's a warfare. The gospel preacher
and the believer walks through a world in which they are surrounded
by many enemies, many foes, much opposition. There are strongholds
before which they stand. There are legions of opposition
which comes against them. There are enemies without the
believer, outside of the believer. And there are enemies within.
There are those enemies in the world and in the spiritual realm. There is Satan and his spirits. There is Satan and his armies. of evil spirits and devils whom
he brings to bear upon God's people. There are multitudes
in the world who would rage against the believer and against the
gospel and against Christ himself. and there are multitudes of enemies
and strongholds within the believer himself. The flesh warrith against
the spirit. The sin that remains in the believer's
heart wars against the new man of grace and the work of God
in the soul. How much there is that rages
against the truth and rages against the work of God and rages against
the gospel. How great are our enemies, how
many are our foes. And Paul speaks of these things
in relation to a warfare, to go into war, to go into battle. Elsewhere in his epistles, in
Ephesians, he talks of taking on the whole armour of God and
having to have a breastplate and a shield and a sword and
a helmet. Going out to battle. And here
he speaks of the weapons of our warfare. If we are left to ourselves to
stand for God, to stand for Christ and his grace and his gospel,
by our own strength in this world, we'd be destroyed in a moment. Our enemies are too great and
too many. Not only the enemies without,
but the enemies within. We would destroy ourselves. Regardless of any enemy without
us, any enemy outside of us, we would destroy ourselves from
within. Such is our natural state, such
is the fall of man and the natural state of our flesh, that our
unbelief, that our natural wickedness, that our natural rebellion against
God and His Gospel, And the work of God in our own soul is such
that left to ourselves we destroy ourselves. We cannot stand. We never sought God in the first
place. We would never seek Him naturally. We would never seek to flee from
the condemnation which we're under. We're so lost and sunk
in sin. We're so foolish by nature. And so deceived by the world
and its allures. its attractions, all that it
promises, even though those promises are vain and empty. We're so
distracted by them, we're so taken in by them, by nature,
that we go astray in a moment. This is why elsewhere in the
scriptures, God often speaks of the child of God being a sheep. We all, like sheep, have gone
astray. We went astray from God from
the moment we were born, the moment we were conceived. We
went astray and we're lost and none of us have sought God. But in the Gospel, God has come
into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. Christ came into this world to
seek and to save the lost sheep of Israel. He came to find us. He came to seek his own. He came
to find these lost sheep that had gone astray. He came to pursue
them and bring them into his flock and do that for them that
they would never do for themselves. They were fleeing afar off. They, like the prodigal son,
had gone off into a far country to waste their inheritance. And
there they are, lost. And they've used up all their
money and they're then feeding the swine. Looking after the
swine and eating the food that the swine did eat. Such is their
pitiful state. But there they are. And it takes
God to bring them to their senses and to bring the Gospel into
their mind and understanding and to lead them back to the
Father. It takes Christ to find them
and to bring them to His Father. It takes He in His Gospel to
deliver these captives from their captivity, from their lost condition,
from their foolishness, from the darkness and death of this
world and sin. It takes God to come in the Gospel.
And having found his sheep, and having brought them into the
flock, having brought them into the sheep fold, they're still
by nature sheep. They're still prone to turn into
the left hand and the right. They now have a shepherd. and
they have faith in the heart to look to the shepherd and to
hear his voice and to follow him because they know his voice
and another they will not follow but they're still sheep and they
still have the flesh and they're still foolish by nature that
God has wrought a divine and a spiritual work in their souls
and given them new hearts and put life in them. They still
have that flesh that wars against the work of the spirit within
and would still lead them to the left hand and the right hand.
They'd still wander off if left to themselves. And how we know
this and how we see this on a daily basis, how foolish we are. how worried we become, how easily
we doubt, how greatly we fear, and how swiftly we turn to sinful
ways. Accept God in His Gospel, continue
to set Christ before us, continue to speak unto our soul, and continue
to lead us by the right way. Yes, there's a warfare, and many
of our enemies are within us. just left to ourselves we'd fall. But God who is mighty is the
one who came and saved his people, is the one who came in the person
of his Son into the darkness of this world. to come and offer
up a sacrifice for sin. God who is mighty came into this
world in Christ, and though the world rejected Him, and though
the world despised Him, and though the world took Him and crucified
Him, God through the death of Christ took the sins of His people. and judge those sins and bore
them away and shed the blood of His own Son, the Lamb of God,
that He should wash that people clean, that He should deliver
them from sin, deliver them from death, deliver them from condemnation,
deliver them from the world and the grip of Satan and bring them
up out of the grave. caused them to rise again with
Christ from the grave, delivered from all captivity and all that
opposed them. He redeemed them, He set them
free, He ransomed them from the grave and He led them forth into
the courts of glory with His Son victorious. He came into
this world to save them. And in saving them, the great
victor The great conqueror Jesus Christ came into a battlefield,
came into that place of warfare and delivered his people by stretching
forth his mighty right arm. And the mighty God pulled down
strongholds and set his people free. This is why Paul writes,
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds. As Christ did at the beginning,
so he continues to do for the believer every step of their
journey through this world. God came in Christ when we were
yet sinners, when we were afar off, when we were dead in trespasses
and sinners. He came in Christ when none sought
Him and none sought salvation and He delivered a great multitude
from their sins. The conquering hero came riding
a mighty steed, riding a mighty horse into battle and he won
the battle and he delivered his people and he led them forth
to victory. He pulled down every stronghold
which was set against them. But what brought the victory
was not of the flesh. What brought the victory at Calvary
was no carnal weapon. What wrought the victory on that
day outside Jerusalem, when they nailed Christ to a cross, was
not the strength of man in the flesh. The people looked on and
saw Christ as he meekly, quietly allowed them to nail him to the
tree. And they despised him and mocked
him and laughed at him because in human eyes, in the eyes of
the flesh, in the eyes of man, here was one to be pitied. Here was one to be despised and
ridiculed. Here's this man that said he
is the son of God, and when they took him, he did nothing to withstand. He did nothing to resist. They
could take him and nail him to that tree and lift him up to
die, and he did nothing to escape. They mocked him and said, why
don't you call a legion of angels down to deliver you? You're supposed
to be the son of God, why don't you just cry out now to be delivered? And he wouldn't do what they
taunted him to. In the eyes of man, he was weak,
he was defeated. But the weapons of his warfare
were not carnal. He did not resort to carnal means. He did not bring down a legion
of angels to fight for him. He did not try to resist his
enemies in the way that they would imagine he should. But
he knew that the victory would come by laying down his life
and placing himself under the judgment of God, under the fires
of God, under the torments of God which must come down upon
the sins of his people, if that people are to be delivered from
those sins, from the judgment, from condemnation, from death,
from hell. from the accusations of Satan
himself. If that people were to be saved,
then Christ must die. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Oh, what a gospel this is. to
the human mind, to the wisdom of men. Everything about it is
to be despised and ridiculed. Everything about it is contrary,
is the very opposite of what man thinks should be done. And
everything that man thinks is necessary to arise and to attain
unto heaven is the very opposite of what is true in the gospel.
When Christ died, those that saw him die thought he should
do this and thought he should do that, and if he had done any
of those things, salvation would not have been wrought. And to
every religious man that has ever lived before then, at that
time or ever since, everything he thinks he must do to attain
unto heaven, to attain unto salvation, to better himself before God,
to overcome the enemies and the strongholds which resist against
him, is the very opposite of that which will truly save him.
Paul says, Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after
the flesh, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ. All the imaginations
of men. All those who exalt themselves
against the knowledge of God, and all their thinking, which
is not brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, all
their thinking, all their reasoning, which is contrary to God's reasoning
and God's wisdom, is that which would lead man to destruction. What we imagine should happen,
what we imagine we should do in order to save ourselves would
damn us. But what God has done in order
to save his people from their sins is the very opposite of
what man thinks he must do and what man strives to do to save
himself. Man thinks that salvation lies
in something he does. or something that he tries to
do, or something he thinks he should do. Man thinks that if
he lives a certain way, that before God, he will improve his
position. That if he lives righteously,
if he turns from these things and those things, if he tries
to walk a certain way, that God will be pleased with him and
bless him. But the weapons of his warfare are carnal. And when
he tries to walk this way by his own carnal strength and by
his own human wisdom, it's a way that is stained by sin. He thinks
he's attaining unto God when all he's doing is full of sin. Even his best deeds are as filthy
rags before Almighty God, before a holy God. They're not good
enough. the very best things he does,
the kindest things he does to his neighbour, the most zeal
he places in his worship of Almighty God, they're all stained by sin
and they're all motivated. By self-gain and by pride. Man thinks that if he lives a
certain way, God will be pleased with him. Then he's proud in
what he does. And he's pleased with what he
does. And he thinks God should be pleased with him too. He's
bringing glory to himself and thinks that God should glorify
him. The very opposite of that which
will truly save him. Paul says at the end of this
chapter, as he says in other places, He that gloryeth, let
him glory in the Lord. Salvation is not by the works
of man, but by the grace of God. Your works cannot save you. Your
deeds cannot improve you. Your zeal in religion will not
get you closer to heaven. It will bring you greater condemnation. It will put you under greater
guilt. And it will take you closer to
the gate of hell. All the things that you think
by nature should be to your credit before God are in fact strongholds,
imaginations, knowledge and wisdom of man which must be brought
down. And it is that which the gospel
that Paul preached did. The gospel he preached, which
was mighty through God, pulled down strongholds. And the strongholds
that this Gospel pulled down and pulls down today are not
simply the strongholds of the enemies of man in the world or
Satan and his legions. But they are also strongholds
in man himself. Though we walk in the flesh,
We do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. What are the weapons of our warfare? Chiefly, the gospel of Christ
and the preaching of the gospel of Christ. and faith in the gospel
of Christ. Faith in Christ through his gospel. The power of God under salvation
is the gospel of Christ. That which delivers the believer
from condemnation is the gospel of Christ. That which delivers
him from every enemy is the gospel. That which pulls down strongholds
is the Gospel. There are no weapons of warfare
as powerful as this Gospel. Which is why Paul in the end
of this chapter is desirous that under the grace of God he will
preach the Gospel in the regions beyond Corinth. Gloria not in himself but in
the Lord who wrote this gospel and who preaches this gospel.
What a power there is in it and what strongholds it can pull
down and how powerful it needs to be because no one in this
world will ever be saved except Those strongholds are pulled
down. We by nature are captive. We're lost and sold under sin. We cannot serve God. We cannot follow God. We will not serve God. We will
not follow God. We will not believe God. We will not trust God. We will not follow God. We do
not love God. We cannot and we do not. We're blind. We cannot see the
truth when it's set before us. We cannot hear the truth when
it's declared unto us. We cannot see That which is true
from that which is a lie. We cannot see the light, so great
is the darkness in which we dwell. So dead are we, that even if
Christ himself comes and stands before us and preaches the gospel,
we will not live. unless God is pleased to open
our ears and cause us to hear that gospel. We're entirely in
God's hands. Great and mighty are the strongholds
which hold us down. And the first thing that we will
learn when God begins to speak unto our souls through this Gospel
is just how bad our state is before God by nature. Just how
great our enemies are. The foolishness of religious
man is that he thinks he can turn unto God by his own will. That he can make some decision.
That seeking God is easy. That salvation is just there
to be taken. The foolishness of men in religion
is that they speak of a salvation and a saviour who is just there
to be taken if you but will. Here's their Jesus, who loves
everybody, who died for everybody, and you just need to accept Him
into your heart and you will be saved. They make salvation
so easy, and yet in reality, they hold out a Saviour who does
not exist, and a salvation which is not there to be taken. It's
all a mirage and all a lie and all a deceit. They come with
their gospel, so-called, and they speak a lie unto a multitude. They say that God loves all man. But it's patently clear from
the Scriptures that God's wrath is kindled against the wicked.
and except we're found in Christ, except we're one of that number
chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world,
then we are lost. God loves his people, a chosen
people, a people set aside unto salvation, a people chosen and
elected by God before the foundation of the earth. We will be saved. if we're amongst that people,
we will be saved if God makes known unto us that we are amongst
that people. Secondly, regardless of the extent
of God's people and the extent of whom God loves and desires
to be saved, simply telling us that there is salvation to be
taken implies that we would take it if we could. But the reality
is, is that no man desires God, no man seeks God, no man does
and no man can. If I say unto you that here's
salvation, Jesus has died, simply come to him and be saved, you
will not. You choose not to and you cannot. Such is the darkness of your
sin. Such is the desperation of your
soul. Such is the depth of iniquity
within. Such is the height from which
you have fallen. You've fallen into sin. You're
lost. You cannot call upon God. People speak of free will. Well
exercise your will, but by nature everything you choose is away
from God and against God. No man ever chose to follow God
when he exercised his free will. His will needs to be changed. Which is why in Psalm 110, God
says, my people shall be willing in the day of my power. They're
not willing, except they are in the day of his power. And
the day of his power is the gospel day, when the gospel comes in
power unto their souls. Until that gospel comes unto
you or unto I, we are not willing. then see where your free will
gets you. It will get you to God. And that in itself is a stronghold. to be pulled down. You see, these
ideas of men in religion, this idea that God loves everyone,
that God desires everyone to be saved, that God gave his son
for everyone without exception, that the blood of Christ was
shed for all men, women and children throughout all time without exception,
and that salvation is determined by their decision to turn unto
God or not, is a lie, it's a stronghold to be pulled down. As long as
that imagination of man is something that you hope and trust in, you
will remain lost. But Paul says, that the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God. The Gospel casts down these foolish
ideas that God simply stands there. wishing you would be saved,
wishing you would call upon Him. And God, powerless to do anything
to change your heart or change your decision, simply waits on
man to make a decision that man never makes. And if you turn around and say,
well that's not true, I made the decision. Then I ask you,
why did you decide when someone else didn't? Well you say, well I heard the
gospel and I wanted to serve Jesus. Then I say unto you that
one of two things is true. Either you heard a message and
you made a decision to follow a Jesus, and the decision came
from you, and the desire came from you, in which case you are
better than somebody else because you made the right decision.
when somebody else didn't. Or, the difference between you
and someone else is that God sent the Gospel to your ears. And God used that Gospel to turn
your heart and lead you unto Christ. Either He comes in His
Gospel and seeks you with that Gospel and preaches that Gospel
unto your soul and makes you willing in the day of His power
or you are lost, using your free will to choose your own way and
your own destiny. And that destiny and that way
is never unto God. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof is destruction. What are your imaginations? What are the thoughts that you
imagine will get you unto God? The first strongholds that need
to be cast down are the lies of the imaginations of man in
religion. That salvation lies in man's
grasp. That he can work or live a certain
way to appease God. That he can make a decision for
God. that he can turn unto God by
his own free will. All these are strongholds of
religion that God brings down with his gospel when he shows
us that they are lies, that they are not true and that you have
no strength or ability in yourself to turn unto God. Oh what strongholds
there are in us. What strongholds there are in
man. How these strongholds need to be torn down one by one. The stronghold of the will of
man. and the illusion that man has
a free will to choose God when he doesn't. The reality is the
will of man is always set against God. And if man is to be saved
that will must be turned. We must be weighed willing in
the day of his power. What a stronghold to tear down.
And you're sat here today listening to this message and your will
is set one way or the other. It either loves the truth and
loves the gospel and loves what it's hearing or it's set another
way saying I don't know about that. It's one way or the other. It's a stronghold and it takes
the power of the gospel which is mighty through God to pull
it down. Yes, the will of man is a stronghold.
The works of man are a stronghold. Oh, how you build up your towers
under heaven! How you come and build your towers
of Babel! How you climb up to heaven by
your own strength! Oh, how zealous you are in the
church! Oh, how religious you are! Oh,
how you pray! Oh, how you live! Oh, how...
Oh, how you've turned from worldly things and worldly ways. Oh,
you don't seek the riches of this world. You don't seek the
pleasures of this world. Oh no, you're seeking God, aren't
you? By your own strength. By your
own will. By your own religious works. And they'll get you nowhere.
You'll stand before God on that day with your, Lord, Lord, I've
done this in thy name and that in thy name. And will He say
unto you, Depart from me, ye worker of iniquity, I never knew
you. That which you thought was righteousness,
He calls iniquity, because you did it in your own pride and
your own strength for your own glory. Lord, honour me, save
me, because I've been like this. I've not been like these other
sinners. Oh, what a Pharisee you are.
Yes, the works of man. are a stronghold and it takes
the gospel to break it down. The wisdom of man is a stronghold. Oh, the imagination! Oh, the
knowledge and wisdom of man! Oh, how high he exalts himself! Oh, we know better! Particularly
if you're religious. Oh, how you know better! Better
than this preacher, better than that man. Oh, they come with
their message. Oh, you could answer every point,
can't you? You could deal with every doctrine. You could argue them away and
show them with your clever doctrine and your much reading and learning
where they've gone wrong. Oh, you'd give them the right
exegetical understanding of the scriptures. You'd show us where
we've gone wrong with our gospel. Oh, you would correct us, wouldn't
you? You can do that to your grave and still come before God
on that day saying, Lord, Lord, I taught this and I preached
this and I reasoned this. And he'll say, depart from me,
ye worker of iniquity. I never knew you. What you thought
was the truth, the doctrine, the gospel, was not of me. I never showed it to you. You
learnt it from books, you learnt it from man, and you walked in
the wisdom of man. and not in the wisdom of God
which comes from on high by the Spirit of God from the lips of
Jesus Christ by those whom He sent with His Gospel. The wisdom
of man is a stronghold and it takes the Gospel to break it
down. The heart of man is a stronghold. We have hearts which are desperately
wicked and deceitful above all things. They're lost and sold
in sin. They seek man's own glory, our
own glory. They set ourselves up in the
place of God. And they're a stronghold to be
cast down. The pride of man is a stronghold. So much that is done in the name
of Jesus Christ is done out of pride. to be seen as something,
to be seen as doing the right thing, to have others see us
and think well of us. Oh, how conscious we are of what
others think of us. How pride rules so much of what
we do and say. Even as believers, we're so conscious
of how others view us. But God views the inside of us
every day and there's nothing we can hide from his gaze. How
foolish we are. We can put on such a show and
an appearance before other men and women and yet God every day
sees the reality. What a charade we live. What
a stronghold the pride of man is. what a stronghold the sin of
man's heart is Oh how far man fell when he refused
the command of God and turned to his own way when he put his
own wisdom in the place of God's wisdom when he put his own will
in the place of God's will when he put his own works in the place
of God's works when he put his own decision in the place of
God's decision when he went his own way, when he effectively
put himself upon God's throne, and for all his talk of worshipping
God, he has a God that worships him. Oh the deceptiveness of sin,
which fills us all. and what a state it has placed
us in. The state of man is a stronghold
to be broken down. We're lost under sin. We have
sins that we have committed and that we commit every day, of
which we are guilty. And we are under sin. The state
of sin within, the natural state, we are sin. We're more than just
the sins that we've committed, we are sin. Our heart is a wicked
evil sewer out of which proceeds evil thoughts and imaginations
and actions and deeds. They all flow out of our heart. The sins flow forth from sin
itself. And what a state we find ourselves
in because the wrath of God is kindled. against us, kindled
against all this iniquity, all this wickedness of man, all the
unrighteousness of man. And by nature we're so foolish
we don't consider it. So dark is our state by nature
we live our lives as though we're not sinners. as though there's
no such thing as sin, as though there's no such thing as judgment
and wrath to come. We live our lives as though God
isn't there. We live our lives as though we
will live forever. How foolish we are, we're in
this world, we're born one moment, the next moment we're old, the
next moment we're in the grave, and all of us live as though
we think we're going to live forever. The evidence is all
around us every day. Every day people fall into the
grave. Every day people die. Every day
we feel ourselves getting older and weaker. Every day there are
illnesses and ailments that afflict us. Every day there's trouble
and trial that comes our way. Every day the evidence of God
and His grace and His gospel is there and the creation around
us to be seen. Every day the message of the
gospel is there to be heard, or the truth to be read in the
scriptures, and we go through life with our eyes shut, and
our ears closed, and our understanding shut fast to the truth, as though
none of these things are true. what a state we're in and every
day and every moment in that state and condition the wrath
of God burns from heaven above against us and we don't do anything
about it and we can't do anything about it what fools we are and
what a stronghold this is what strongholds there are inside
of man inside of you, inside of me and it takes the Gospel
and the Gospel alone to break them down. Have you ever heard
the Gospel? Are you still stumbling along
in the darkness, apathetic, cold, disinterested? Waiting until
you're old. I'll consider these things when
I'm older. But today I'm young and I must
eat, drink and be merry. There's so much to be explored
and discovered in this world. So much I want to do. So much
I want to do with my life. People say. You say, as though
your life is some vast, long, stretching span of time ahead
of you, so much to be grasped and embraced when it's so brief. An old age and death will be
staring you in the face in a moment, in a blink. What foolishness
to go off after this world, seeking all that you can gain from it,
when in a moment you'll be stood before God and all that really
matters is where you stand before Him. Oh, that He would come in
the Gospel. with the power of his gospel
and pull down every stronghold which keeps you from him. Oh,
that he would cast down your foolish imaginations and the
foolish wisdom of man that keeps you from a knowledge of the truth.
Oh, that he would bring you into captivity to the obedience of
Christ. Oh, that he would cause you to
hear the truth. and hear the voice of Christ
and His gospel, and discover the love of Christ in the gospel. Because God came in Christ unto
a people like you and I, so foolish and lost, so caught with so many
strongholds to be broken down, so far off, and He came unto
those like you and I who hated Him, and He set His love upon
us when we hated Him. He set His love upon His people
when we hated Him, when we despised Him, when we were running away
from Him. That's when He came unto us,
that's where He found us. Has He come unto you? Has He
found you? In order to deliver you from
this He must deliver you from all these strongholds within
you. and He must deliver you from
the strongholds without. from Satan's grip, the master
of lies, the great deceiver, that serpent at the beginning
that said to Eve and Adam at the beginning, half God said
and who whispers in your ear every moment of your life and
right now at this moment and says of this message and of this
truth, half God said. He says unto you, is it true? and he'd lead you another way.
It takes the Gospel to deliver you
from the stronghold of Satan and his grip. The lies of the
serpent, the deceptions of the serpent. It takes the Gospel
to deliver you from the world and its ways, the world and its
allures, the world and its hatred of the truth all around you. The world and those in the world
will tell you something else. They'll say, lo, here is Christ,
lo, there is Christ, here's the way to be saved, or here's the
way to live, or here's the way to be rich, or here's the way
to be happy and successful. The world will point you this
way and that way. And everything in it is set against
God and against Christ and against His Gospel and against your salvation. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. today you stand as it were on
a battlefield arrayed around you are a multitude of enemies
and there's a multitude of enemies within you pulling you down and
before you stands either deliverance from all those enemies or destruction
by everyone that's where you are That's where I am, that's
where you are by nature. That's the state in which you
find yourself. And the only thing that will
deliver you or I from such enemies, from such strongholds, and from
eternal wrath and judgment if left under them, is the mighty
hand of God seen in His Gospel. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Jesus Christ came into this world
to deliver his people from their enemies. To deliver his people
from their sins. thou shalt call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins he came into
this world for his people the church he loved the church and
gave himself for it As Paul says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but the life I live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. and the life I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. When Paul was there lost and
trapped with all these strongholds keeping him down and pulling
him down into hell even though he was a religious man. even
though he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees even though he thought
he served God when he was lost and dead in sin and blind to
the truth Christ came and Christ took his sins and Christ took
his iniquity and Christ bore them away upon the cross and
Paul died with him who loved him and gave himself for him
O sinner, did Christ come for you? Did he love you? Did he give himself for you? Did he accomplish the warfare
and deliver you from every enemy, every foe, every stronghold that
stands between you and Christ the Father and glory to come. Has He brought you in by washing
you in His blood? Or are you so captive that you
will walk out this day with a wandering mind, trampling underfoot, the
blood of Jesus Christ. Will your will be set against
God's? Will your heart despise the prince
and saviour of sinners? Do you walk according to your
own wisdom, your own will, your own imagination? or has God been
pleased in time to send the gospel of grace unto you in particular,
saying unto you that he gave his son for sinners, saying unto
you like Paul, he loved you and he gave himself for you. Did
Christ lay down his life for you? Was his blood shed for you? Have you been washed? in the
blood of the Lamb of God. And have you risen up with He
who came from God with a gospel which is mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds. Amen.