OUR STAND AGAINST THE DARKNESS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on July 25, 2021 under 2021 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; July 25, 2021 from 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Theme: We battle against the kingdom of darkness to rescue people unto faith in the cross of Christ.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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In my pocket, I carry a small cross. I dip my hand in and feel it there often throughout the day. When I empty my pockets at night, there it is. It has no purpose to me—no sentimental or superstitious value—other than as a reminder. But it is a very significant and important reminder.
As you probably all know, I’m not a very big sports fan. But I’ve always been impressed by a story about Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers. The story was that the 1960 season for the team went horribly. And as he began training camp at the 1961 season, Coach Lombardi took nothing for granted. He assumed that every player needed to begin once again at the basics. And so, he famously held up a ball in his right hand and told his players, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”
Well; when I reach my hand into my pocket, I’m reminded of something absolutely basic—the most basic thing there is—and that’s the cross of Jesus Christ. It reminds me that the message of the cross is the most powerful and life-transforming message anyone on earth could ever hear. It reminds me of how it has transformed my own life. It also reminds me that there are people all around me who are still lost and under the condemnation of God’s judgment for sin; and that whoever of them places their faith in Jesus Christ, and in the sacrifice that He made on the cross for us, is washed clean of their sin and is completely saved. They become born again. They are new creations. Old things have passed away for them; and all things become new. They receive eternal life. But whoever rejects the message of the cross, and refuses to believe on Jesus, remains under the condemnation of sin and abides under the wrath of God.
That cross in my pocket reminds me that this message has been entrusted to me as a follower of Jesus. It has also been entrusted to you. And yet, we live in this world under the threat of a powerful enemy that desperately hates that message. Every human being who places their faith in Jesus ceases to be the devil’s prisoner. The devil’s destiny is to be cast forever into the lake of fire; and every man and woman redeemed by the blood of Jesus will be his judge. He is utterly committed to doing battle against the message of the cross; and will stop at nothing to keep it from being spread. This cross reminds me that you and I are in a battle—a rescue operation for the souls of people. And we cannot do battle against such a powerful enemy in our own power. We don’t look like much; and that’s because—when it comes to our enemy—we aren’t much. And we can only do battle against him by the resources that God has provided.
With that in mind, I ask you to turn with me to the passage we looked at last week. In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, the apostle Paul wrote;
Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled (2 Corinthians 1:1-6).
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Now; we looked at this passage last week. In it, Paul spoke of our ‘warfare’. But before we go into more of the details of this passage, dear brothers and sisters, it’s very important for you and me to remember certain things about the nature of that warfare.
First of all, we need to remember that our battle is not against people. People—even aggressively unbelieving people who declare themselves to be the enemies of the Christian faith—are to be loved by us and are to be the object of our rescue operation. They are not our ultimate enemy. Behind them is our real enemy who has made them prisoners—that is, the devil and the spiritual forces that are aligned with him. The apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the Ephesians:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).
If we get caught up and entangled in fighting against people, then we’ve completely lost our focus—and the devil has already gained a victory over us. We must always remember that we don’t fight people. We seek to rescue them from the clutches of our real enemy—the devil.
Second, we need to remember that the arena of our battle—the place in which we focus our rescue operations—is primarily in the area of the thoughts and minds and beliefs of people. We never seek to gain outward, external control over people; but rather only to persuade their minds and their thinking with the truth. You can see this hinted at repeatedly in this morning’s passage. Paul wrote about casting down ‘arguments’, and lofty things put up against the ‘knowledge’ of God; bringing every ‘thought’ captive.
And that’s because it’s primarily in the area of their thoughts and minds that the devil seeks to keep people prisoner. The apostle Paul wrote about this in his Ephesians letter and said;
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles [that is, unbelievers] walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness (Ephesians 4:17-19).
We never try to force people to Jesus by external means. It’s true that we often minister to their external life; but we primarily seek to persuade their inner being through a clear presentation of the truth of the gospel through the word of God. That’s where our battle is usually fought.
And thirdly, we need to always keep the goal of this battle in view. The goal is obedience to the faith. We battle in this war in order for people to obey the command of God: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved …” (Acts 16:31). That was the apostle Paul’s expressed goal in proclaiming the gospel that God gave him to preach. He said that this gospel was
made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith (Romans 16:26).
It’s very important, then, that we keep those three things in mind about this battle we’re in. First, we battle against spiritual forces—not against people. Second, the arena of our battle is not external but internal—in the area of people’s minds and beliefs. And finally, the goal is to win people to ‘the obedience of the faith’.
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Now; as we saw from our look at this passage last week, the apostle Paul wrote these words for a very specific reason. After he had ministered to the believers in the church in ancient Corinth, and had departed from them, false teachers made their way in and began to trouble them. These false teachers were seeking to persuade the Corinthian believers that the cross of Jesus was not enough for them. They presented themselves as if they were apostles; and they tried to persuade the Corinthians that they needed to earn righteousness in the sight of God through the religious rituals and good deeds that they could provide for them. They did this by seeking to turn the believers away from Paul and to themselves instead.
Now; in doing this, they were trying to attack Paul. But he didn’t look at it in a personal way. He looked at it as an attack on the gospel that God had given him to preach. He saw it—ultimately—as an attack from the devil against the life-changing, soul-liberating message of the cross. And so, Paul fought hard in the battle—but not with human weapons. He fought with the weapons God gave to him—not with fleshly weapons but with spiritual weapons—with weapons that were mighty in God.
In our last time together, we considered what those weapons were. And now, we need to go back to this passage again and consider what those weapons are meant to do. In verses 4-5, we find that they are meant for three things: (1) for “pulling down strongholds”, (2) for “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God”, and (3) for “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ …”
It’s in these three ways, then, that we also are to use the spiritual weapons God has given us, and battle to rescue people from the kingdom of darkness and unto faith in the cross of Christ.
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First, we are to use the spiritual weapons God has given us for …
1. OVERTHROWING THE DEVIL’S FORTRESSES THAT KEEP PEOPLE IMPRISONED.
In verse 4, Paul wrote, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.”
What are ‘strongholds’? With respect to warfare against an enemy, a ‘stronghold’ would be that enemy’s ‘bulwark’ or ‘fortress’ or ‘wall of defense’—something erected to prevent the opposing army from making any advance. And the apostle Paul is telling us that in our warfare against the devil, we have been given weapons that are mighty in God for the pulling down of every hindrance—every bulwark or fortress or wall of defense—that is erected by the devil to prevent the advance of the gospel.
I believe that two great weapons that God has given us that pull down the devil’s strongholds are prayer, and the faithful proclamation of the gospel. Those two things together are powerful. And with them comes the promise of our Lord Jesus. He said, “on this rock”—that is, the proclamation of the gospel—“I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:17).
The devil sets up all kinds of hindrances and strongholds against the proclamation of the gospel. He has often done it through hostile secular governments. He has often done so through contemporary cultural tastes. He has often done it through threats. He has often sought to do so through persecution. ‘The fear of man’ has been a very useful stronghold of the devil. And so long as we rely on the flesh, those strongholds will work. But the thing that enemy of our souls fears the most is that we will not allow ourselves to be intimidated by such things—but will, instead, faithfully and confidently pray, and boldly proclaim the message in spite of the hindrances—trusting in the weapons God has given us to plow right through his strongholds.
But there’s something else. As I studied the word ‘stronghold’ earlier this week, I made an interesting discovery. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament that is referred to as the Septuagint, this same word translated ‘stronghold’ is also found in Genesis 39:20; and there, it’s translated “prison”. It was the name given to the prison that Joseph was being held in—where he was made ‘the keeper of the prison’—just before he was released by Pharaoh. And this adds a whole other dimension of this idea of the devil’s ‘strongholds’; doesn’t it? It’s not only what he uses to hinder the spread of the gospel; but also what he uses to keep people prisoner so that they won’t hear the gospel, and believe, and be delivered from him.
What might those prisons be like? Perhaps in many cases—in many places around the world—they are literal prisons. But they can also be spiritual. Think of the horrible prison the devil keeps some people in through destructive addictions. Think of the horrible prison of false religion, or oppressive human traditions and rituals and ceremonies. One of the prisons that the devil keeps people in is the fear of death. In Hebrews 2:14-15, the writer of Hebrews tells us this about Jesus:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15).
But dear brothers and sisters in Christ; it doesn’t matter what kind of prison it may be, or what kind of stronghold the devil may set up. When we faithfully use the spiritual weapons God has given us for advancing the good news of Jesus—weapons made mighty in God—then the strongholds come down.
May we—by God’s grace—be faithful and courageous; and not let the devil hinder the message that God says must be proclaimed.
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Now; it seems to me that there’s no great value in knocking down the devil’s strongholds as a thing in and of itself. After all, he’s destined for the lake of fire anyway. The reason we must pull those strongholds down is so that we can get to the people that he keeps prisoner and set them free by the gospel message.
And that leads us to another thing that these weapons are mighty in God to do; and that’s for …
2. CASTING DOWN THE PHILOSOPHIES THAT KEEP PEOPLE IN DARKNESS.
In some ways, a hard human heart is more difficult to penetrate than the strongholds of the devil. People’s hearts can be made hard in many ways—through having been wounded and hurt in some way by a church or by someone who said they were a Christian; or through ignorance and misunderstanding of the Christian faith; or through intellectual pride; or even through years and years of sin and rebellion—and even through a love for sin and rebellion. The devil certainly can have a hand in it. But people can do much of it on their own too.
Just how hard the human heart can become is told to us in Romans 1. The apostle Paul wrote;
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen (Romans 1:18-25).
In just those few words, you have much of the history of fleshly human philosophy—and the terrible darkness and hardheartedness that has kept people in bondage. But the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God even for penetrating through the hardness of people’s hearts in order to reach them with the liberating truth of the gospel. Paul said in verse 5 that those weapons are powerful for “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” Through earnest prayer and faithful proclamation—trusting in the weapons that God has given us for our warfare—the phony philosophies and false religions of humanity are cast down; and along with them the lofty arguments that are set up by people to insulate themselves against God.
It’s amazing to think of how many faithful believers have overcome the arguments and lofty contradictions by simply and faithfully declaring what God says in His word. As the Bible itself says;
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
We shouldn’t be afraid that we might not be smart enough to answer the philosophic challenges to the faith. We should learn to face them; and trust in the far-mightier resources that God gives us. May God help us to love people so much that we boldly cast down the arguments and excuses of human philosophy, and lovingly share with them the good news that is able to transform their hearts.
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As we work our way through these two verses, we see that things work their way down from the devil’s mighty strongholds, down further to the lofty philosophies of fallen humanity, finally down to the individual woman or man. At the end of verse 5, we find that the weapons God has given us are mighty in Him for …
3. LEADING EVERY THOUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST.
And that’s our objective in this great warfare. As Paul says in verse 5, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”. We’re not at war against people. Rather, we are seeking to get past the devil’s fortresses, and break down his prison walls, and set people free to hear the gospel and be persuaded by it. We are seeking to bring them to the place where they can clearly hear and understand the gospel; and then invite them to obey the call, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved”.
That may seem like an overwhelming task. It may seem intimidating at times. And indeed—humanly speaking—it’s a task that’s far greater than we can do. But we need to remember that the weapons of our warfare are not fleshy. They are mighty in God for pulling down any stronghold that the devil may set up, and for casting down arguments and lofty philosophies that people raise up against the knowledge of God, and for bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. The apostle Paul spoke about the message of Christ in this way in Colossians 1:28-29;
Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily (Colossians 1:28-29).
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So; I will keep this small cross in my pocket as a reminder. Maybe you’d like to keep some similar reminder nearby too. It isn’t just a sentimental thing. Rather, it’s a reminder that we are in a battle for souls; and that we fight to rescue people from the kingdom of darkness and unto faith in the cross of Christ.
Our message is the most important and most basic one there is: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And if we will trust in the weapons of our warfare as we should—weapons that are made mighty through God—then God will use us to bring that saving message to the people around us.
EA
