2 Corinthians 10:3-6 (NKJV) 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 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, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
The Lord spoke to me in 2019 that 2020 would be a significant year that would bring changes setting the tone for the decade to come. I had no idea what that meant at the time. Now we live in a world that has been dominated by an invisible organism that has brought most of the civilized world to its knees. It will be interesting to see what label is put on the 2020’s by history. I believe without a shadow of doubt that this has been a play of the devil to control man and man’s future. He has tried it before and thank God it has never worked. It will not work this time either. The invisible God will have his way.
Let me briefly review. 1 Peter 1:8 says we have an adversary which is the devil. He goes about seeking whom he may devour. James 4:7 tells us that if we resist him, he will flee from us. That is why a major focus of the devil’s activity is to keep us unaware of his presence and activity in the earth. We will not resist what we do not believe is a problem. 1 Timothy 6:12 says we must fight the good fight of faith. This makes it very clear that this is not a physical fight but a faith fight. Ephesians 6:12 says we do not fight against flesh and blood but lists a hierarchy of evil spiritual powers that are our enemy. All these powers operate at the will of our adversary, the devil.
We have looked at some of how we fight the fight of faith, but today I want to do a little reconnaissance of our adversary’s methods. Ephesians 6:11 says we must put on the armor of God so we will be able to stand against the “wiles” of the devil. 2 Corinthians 2:11 contains a similar thought.
2 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV) 11 lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.
The words “wiles” and “devices” contain similar ideas in the Greek. Devices implies the things that come from the mind or thoughts. Wiles comes from the Greek word from which we derive the word “method.” However, this word also implies those methods of the devil involve trickery, traps and deceit. Vines puts both ideas together in his definition of the word translated wiles. He says that the devil uses cunning or crafty methods. That is our enemy.
The most powerful weapon left to the devil when Jesus defeated him was deception. If he can make us believe what he wants us to believe, we will react as he wants us to react. That is why God gave us the Bible. As long as we “rightly divide the Word of God, we will not fall for his deceptive devices (2 Timothy 2:15.) A few posts back I listed five scriptures that tell us the truth about any sickness or disease, yet we are bombarded with the words of the media telling us that coronavirus is this terrible thing that is lurking to kill all of us. It is not. I choose to believe the Word of God and use wisdom to evaluate what is truth and what is error in the “word of the media.”
How does our adversary fight against us? What must we come against if we are going to defeat him? This applies to our current battle as well as any other we may fight. Paul told the Corinthians what they needed to do. In his instruction we see what we are fighting against by understanding the way we defeat them.
Paul reminds the Corinthian church that they are not impotent where their fight is concerned. He tells them that the weapons with which they would fight were not carnal but mighty through God. Our weapons are not carnal. I have said many times that we should do what we must to defeat this threat. Some of that does, indeed, involve natural things. Nevertheless, our most powerful weapons are not, repeat not carnal. Social distancing, staying home and things like facemasks are carnal weapons. Whether they work or not is a matter of opinion. However, what is not a matter of opinion is that our most important weapons are the ones which are not carnal or centered in the natural. They are spiritual.
He then points out that they are powerful. As I was meditating on this scripture I thought about science fiction stories. Particularly those that involve aliens that come to earth. They always have weapons that our technology cannot resist. They are otherworldly weapons. I was preaching along these lines and realized, that’s us! We have weapons that nothing which comes from the darkness that came to dominate this world can resist. They do not get their power from this world. They have a power source that this world does not have access to. We do have access to it because we are not of this world (John 17:14-16.) This power will pull down any stronghold our adversary has built up releasing us from captivity.
Where does Paul say we must apply these mighty weapons. This will tell us how the enemy plans to devour us. Paul says we use these mighty weapons to cast down “arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” If Paul is telling the church about powerful weapons capable of pulling down strongholds, he must also be talking about the most powerful things our adversary can bring against us. What are these things?
Our mighty weapons are used to cast down arguments and every proud thing that exalts itself against the knowledge that comes from God. The most powerful thing we have to fight are the deceptive thoughts and ideas that tell us there is a truth that is higher than what the Word of God reveals to us. If we can defeat those thoughts and arguments, we will never be devoured by our adversary. Never!
The battle ground of faith is the mind. What will we believe? Will we believe the arguments that proceed from the world or will we believe the Word of God? Will we be convinced by the arguments that come from our adversary or will we be like Jesus on the mount of transfiguration and say to him, “It is written!” Will we believe the arguments that our own minds bring against us about our past, our weaknesses and our failures or will we believe the Word of God that says we are “new creations in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17-21?) How can we win the argument of the mind?
Paul tells the Corinthians that they must bring every thought into captivity to the obedience in Christ. We must rule our thoughts, or our thoughts will rule us. We must bring them into obedience. Here is says to the obedience in Christ. That is we must make them obey our relationship to Jesus. John 1:14 tells us the Jesus is the Word made flesh. Therefore, we can conclude that to bring our thoughts into the obedience to Christ is to bring them into obedience to the Word of God.
We must begin to use the Word to capture the thoughts that do not reflect the knowledge of God. We cannot let them run free in our minds. I see it like catching a mouse that is in our house. They are fast. They scurry around and we use traps or poison to catch them. The traps and poison to the ungodly thoughts that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God are found in the Words of God in the Bible. The more I fill my mind with His Word, the less room there is for other thoughts to gain a foothold.
We must fight the enemy, both the devil and this virus, in the same way. We must not allow the words of doctors or politicians and especially the media exalt themselves above the knowledge of God in our minds. If we do we will be devoured by this thing. (To be continued.)
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