Anb57 Every Thought Captive

ANB 57, every thought captive Hello everyone. God has given me such an awesome message for today. I have meditated this for some time and am delighted to share it with you today. The truth is that any battle you have with temptation or sin in your life begins in the mind. The devil’s most powerful weapon is suggestion. As you go through your days you are likely tempted to think ungodly thoughts many times. Perhaps you are tempted to get angry, lust, covet or even curse God for any negative situation in your life. These thoughts come into your mind and can lead you to do something ungodly. So we have thoughts that can lead us to short quick sins. Another way thoughts establish themselves in our lives is by building strongholds. When you allow an ungodly thought to remain in your mind for a period of time it will build up a stronghold within you. Like let’s say you convince yourself that God has no problem with a certain form of drug use, or that God doesn’t mind if you hate a spouse who left you, if you allow these thoughts to remain they will build up strongholds within your mind. They will affect other areas of your thinking. They will separate your mind from God’s. They will eventually lead to many problems. So we have to understand how we are to deal with ungodly thoughts, both the subtle suggestions that come moment by moment and also the great strongholds that we have to destroy. 1) Let us first begin with looking at how Jesus dealt with temptation in Matthew 4. In Matthew 4 (please read it yourself), the devil comes to tempt Jesus. Now Jesus knew by a Word of God that He was God’s son (Matthew 3:17). The devil came, and I believe in the first two instances, tempted Jesus to go after physically manifested evidence of the truth of God’s Word. He said, if you be God’s son, do this thing in the natural world and let’s see if it’s true. So satan was tempting Jesus to not trust in God’s Word alone. Then he tempted Jesus with all of the earth, but this was not the way God’s Word told Jesus that He would become ruler of the earth, so satan was again going against God’s Word. So what does Jesus do? You’ll see three times, in each temptation, He fights temptation by bringing up the Word of God. Three times He says, “it is written . . .” He focused on and spoke God’s Word and this defeated satan’s attempts. So you can put this into practice immediately. The next time you are tempted to covet, for example, answer with “It is written thou shalt not covet.” This will help you immensely. Now, and I heard Fred Price say this, the devil did not approach Jesus looking like the devil. If he had then this would have been no temptation. If satan came to you and tempted you with something (looking like himself) you would tell him to get lost, at least any good Christian would. This time he was here to tempt the Author and Finisher of our Faith. How much more would he disguise himself to tempt Jesus? We even know that the devil appears as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). So I don’t think satan appeared as his true self to Jesus. I believe he appeared to Jesus in his most subtle form, an ungodly thought (at least for the first two). As for the third temptation perhaps he appeared in his light form. But we can probably agree he didn’t appear in a little red devil costume, Jesus would have smacked him in the face and said ‘be gone’ before allowing him to even speak a word.

2) “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 Let us first establish that one way to bring every thought into captivity is to make it subject to God’s Word. Christ is the living and breathing Word of God. So every time you think about Christ you can think of Him as representing the entire Word of God. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14). Now I would like us to parallel this passage with the story of David and Goliath. I believe you will see a perfect comparison. First let’s look at 1 Samuel 17:46 and 47. David says, ‘[God will give Goliath into his hand] that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and all this assembly shall know that the Lord saves not with the sword and the spear. . .” So first David says that something here is going to be demonstrated. The entire earth will see that God rules over this heathen nation. But more importantly, David is going to demonstrate to his fellow Israelites (this assembly) just how God does things. So let us look at how David puts into practice 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. He demonstrates this for us all to learn from so we can emulate it. First off we must realize that David was also dealing with Goliath, a ‘high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.’ Goliath was almost ten feet tall (17:4). He said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day.” Goliath cursed David by the names of his heathen gods. Now the words of Goliath made the children of Israel ‘dismayed and greatly afraid.’ They had seen God deliver them time and again, but Goliath was exalting himself against their knowledge of their God who saves and protects them. The people were tempted to doubt in God’s protection over the people. They were tempted to focus more on the natural situation or temptation and less on God’s Word. Goliath was exalting himself against their knowledge of God. So what does David say, ‘that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel . . .[and] the battle is the Lord’s.’ David is going against the faithless words of Goliath. David says God is here and this is His battle and He will give you to my hand. Now Paul told us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. David reiterates this by saying, ‘the Lord saves not with the sword and the spear, for the battle is the Lord’s. Now the battle was the Lord’s for sure, but David still had to sling that rock. So was David saying, ‘the Lord uses rocks, not swords and spears.’ Well in a sense He was, but let me show you what the rock represents. “And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but My Father which is in Heaven. And I say unto you, that you art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church.’” (Matthew 16:16-18). Now what was the rock? Was the rock Peter?

“And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:4). The rock was not Peter. Peter was by no means a rock, he faltered several times. Jesus Christ was the rock. Peter’s revelation (not sense) knowledge of this factor could also make him into a rock. And what did Jesus tell Peter, ‘My Father which is in Heaven revealed this to you.’ So God told Peter something. God gave Peter a Word. This Word that Jesus was the Christ was that rock. This Word from God, Jesus embodied, was the rock. Jesus was the Rock. Jesus is God’s Word manifested. God’s Word is also that Rock. Peter’s knowledge of God’s Word (the rock) also made him into the rock he needed to be to fulfill his destiny (Glory to God). So back to David, David threw a rock yes. But what was that rock loaded with? “And David said unto Saul, ‘Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he defies the armies of the Living God.’ David said moreover, ‘The Lord delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of the philistine.” (1 Samuel 17:34-37). It appears to me that David had revelation knowledge of God’s saving power and protection over his life. He had experience this first hand by killing the lion and the bear. He had this faith within Him, and Goliath could have been twenty feet tall, but nothing would shake David’s faith. So what David put into that rock was his knowledge of God and His faith in God. This is just like Peter had revelation knowledge of Jesus, who then called Peter a rock. David’s faith in God was entirely in this rock, this rock which now represented God’s Word. The rock hit goliath right in the middle of his head and killed him. Then David went and cut off his head. I believe this head represents knowledge that defies God. When you use your knowledge of God and strike directly at any ungodly knowledge of whatever tempts you, you will win every time. I don’t care what Goliath you are facing in your life, if you will put God’s Word on the subject it will defeat that situation entirely for God’s glory. The battle is the Lord’s, but we have to play our part. So God’s Word will help in small temptations. God’s Word will help in major battles. God’s Word can also help crush strongholds. If you will just throw God’s Word at an ungodly thought or situation you will see that situation fall before your feet. God’s Word incapacitates the situation and gives you the open door to decapitate it, totally defeat it. Praise God. We must run to the fight. One last thing about David is we see that in 1 Samuel 17:48 David ran towards Goliath. We must always be running towards the enemy with God’s Word. The second you see the enemy you should be flinging God’s Word at it. Declare your victory, put God’s Word into action. Don’t let these ungodly thoughts hang around. If David had sat there looking at how big Goliath was he may have gotten discouraged. No, he got committed and ran to the battle. We should always be running to the battle at the first hint of anything ungodly in our lives. We must not allow any ungodly thoughts to remain. We must take care of them all, for then we that remains will build the negative stronghold within you.

Also, bringing in God’s Word immediately puts the right thoughts in our mind to replace those negative thoughts. If you only clean out the bad thoughts but don’t put in new thoughts the bad will remain. We must fill our minds with God’s Word and Godly thoughts to ensure the bad thoughts have no place to return to. Praise God.