Pulling Down Strongholds
By Phil Scovell
2 Corinthians 10:4-6
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strong holds;
5 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;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your
obedience is fulfilled.
He was in his mid fifties and had been using illegal drugs, of
one type or another, for the majority of his adult life. Now his
desire was to walk clean before the Lord. Raised in church from
childhood, he should have started with a solid foundation but due to
physical and emotional trauma, resulting in anger and hate and guilt,
his ability to walk with the Lord was spiritually frustrated. Hence,
the drugs he used killed the pain. The problem, of course, with
drugs, or sexual immorality, and any other form of habitual behavior,
is the artificial generated mechanism that becomes the synthesized
substitute for a complete catharsis of human behavior and thus is
easily expressed by profligacy. This is especially amplified into the
acute range of woundedness when physical abuse is part of the trauma.
We opened with a basic prayer and asked the Holy Spirit to direct
us. Then I prayed about the feelings he had at the moment he decided
to go get high and the specific emotions he had at that very moment of
stress.
"I'm in a cave. I see some light," he reported, "but I can't get
out because there is a large black thing, dressed in heavy battle
armor, blocking the exit to the cave. It won't let me out."
"Ok," I said. "Lord Jesus, does this lying spirit have a right
to be here and blocking his exit?"
"It says it is his job," Keith reported.
"Lord Jesus? What is the source of this lying spirits job, as he
calls it, which gives him license, as he thinks, to stop Keith from
experiencing total freedom and is thwarting your healing process in
his life?"
Keith then said, "Well, I'm back to where we have been before.
You know, when I was being physically beaten by my father with a belt.
No. Wait. Now I passed beyond that memory and I'm in the woods with
that girl I told you about before. Remember?"
I did remember that prayer session. Keith had noticed boys and
girls were different, as so many of us did, long before becoming a
teenager. He and a little girl in the neighborhood began sexual
experimentation as childhood preadolescence. This was, without a
doubt, what the lying spirit was attempting to guard in order to keep
this adult man from now walking free, thus, a stronghold had been
created by a pubescent act of preadolescent behavior.
"Lord Jesus?" I asked, "did you know about this experience Keith
had with this little girl?"
"He is there," Keith said, "and appearing over and above us. He
saw everything. He is fully aware of what I did."
"Ok," I replied, "good."
At this exact moment, I felt an unholy covenant, an evil soul
tie, had been established between Keith and the little girl.
Otherwise, how could a battle harden and armored lying spirit be able
to keep him trapped? I asked Keith to pray these words after me and
he did.
"Heavenly Father, in the name of the true Lord Jesus Christ, I
break this evil soul tie that keeps me attached to this girl. I
confess it was sin and ask you to forgive me. Create in me, the
attitude toward her, that you want me to have. I take back all the
ground I have given the Enemy, and I give it back to you for your
honor and glory. I pray this in the name of the true Lord Jesus
Christ."
I then prayed something like this: "Lord Jesus, I call to
attention, the lying spirit keeping Keith trapped. I dismiss him, and
all those working under his authority that we may not see right now,
from their assignments against him. I bind them all together as one.
I strip them of their armor and weapons. I bind all their words and
utterances, and everything they have spoken against Keith I bind back
to them. I remind them that the blood of Jesus Christ, and the
finished cross of Jesus Christ, stands between them and Keith. I now
command then to go to the place that the true Lord Jesus Christ wants
them to go.
"Lord Jesus? Is there anything you want Keith to know or see or
feel right now about what we are praying about?"
Note. I did not wait to see if the lying spirits had obeyed
because I knew they had to according to Scripture.
"I'm free," he suddenly announced. "I feel His presence and
peace. I feel it deep down in side of me. This can't hurt me any
more."
"What about the armored lying spirit back at the cave where you
were trapped inside?" I asked.
"He's gone," Keith reported with confidence, "and I see even more
light than before. I'm not fully out of the cave yet but I see much
more light than before and nothing is blocking my exit."
There is a great deal more that occurred during this prayer
session than time would permit to explain but these are the main
components.
STRONGHOLDS
I wanted you to see how we can be tormented by lies guarded by
lying spirits. These particular types of lies are strongholds, in my
opinion, and they are guarded often, by lying spirits who attempt to
hide themselves to make it more difficult to locate the very lies they
are guarding. The mind will attempt, in severe situations, to
suppress, or repress, the pain and thus even the true nature of the
memory can be morphed into something other than the original memory
event. It makes little difference because Jesus knows exactly where
they, the lying spirits, and the lies are hiding, and He is more than
willing to expose the lies for what they are.
Strongholds, relative to the severity of the trauma, can be
block, suppressed, from the conscious mind, or repressed, hidden
excluded, and even altered. Although the damaged emotions can
surface, the actual event can become metamorphic; only looking
something like the original in vague terms. This makes the horrible
memory emotionally and intellectually manageable.
EXAMPLE OF METAMORPHIC MEMORY EVENTS
For example, I was praying with a woman one time who had been
sexually molested multiple times during childhood. During one prayer
session, one in which we had been to before, something changed in the
context of the memory event itself. She, at the age of six, was left
home alone with a house guest living with the family. She had always
said he molested her, as others had, but this time, due to her
Dissociative Identity Disorder, or multiple personalities, one of her
alternate personalities spoke up during the heinous encounter, and
offered to assist us in becoming aware of what was really going on.
In the midst of the worst of the memory, she now admitted she truly
had been raped by the man and described the complete details of how
she was treated by him before and afterwards. This included his
promise to take her to the store to by a chocolate candy bar if she
kept their little secret. In a very literal sense, from that day
forward, she became addicted to chocolate. In fact, she admitted that
it made her feel better and more pleasant and calm whenever she ate
chocolate but she was under the impression that her love for chocolate
was tied to her father who awarded her often by buying her chocolate.
The lie was finally exposed, the truth was made known by the Lord, and
now she can eat chocolate as she wishes and doesn't feel the emotional
and psychological addictiveness to the candy. I personally consider
this another classic example of a stronghold; so well hidden by the
Enemy, that the psychological trauma, which created the pain and
woundedness, is emotionally and intellectually manageable. You can
see how the event was changed just enough so that she could
psychologically manage the trauma, not to mention the tremendous
physical pain and bleeding that occurred, which she experienced as a
six year old little girl. Since her "helpers," alternate
personalities had been created as a very young child due to other
events, she had learned to cope with prior acts of sexual molestation.
Since she was already multiple personality, one of her helpers, who
was assigned to assist in keeping the secret in order that the
authentic child could live with the pain that the trauma created,
assisted her in hiding the real truth that she had been brutally
raped. Thus, the literal memory event was changed to something she
had learned she could tolerate emotionally and mentally at that young
age.
RENEWED MIND
Now, once the lies are exposed and removed and the truth of God
is spoken by the Holy Spirit, they do not return and that specific
area of woundedness is eternally healed. That's right; the healing,
renewing of the mind, is final. No, the memory is not modified, or
changed in any way, other than the application of the truth of the
Lord Jesus Christ when unveiled. Thus, when the memory does come to
mind, as commonly as any other memory we may recall, there will be no
pain, fear, guilt, or suffering associated with the memory. There
can, of course, be sadness, as is the case with grief. My father died
forty-five years ago when I was eleven and I still miss him and feel
emotional sadness to this day as a result of that void in my life.
Such sadness is natural and not destructive nor has the sadness
distorted the memories of my dad.
FOOTHOLDS
Footholds, as I see it, are lies easier to locate and are
generally on the surface, that is, they can be seen because they are
not suppressed or repressed. Lying spirits may attempt to block the
healing power and authority of the true Lord Jesus Christ but it makes
little difference because they are no match against the Master Healer;
Jesus The Christ. Besides, the True Lord Jesus Christ is master of
all spirits; good and evil. Lying spirits, of course, don't like the
fact that the True Lord Jesus Christ is their Lord and Master, too,
but they will obey His Word; like it or not.
HANDHOLDS
Finally, what I call handholds, are nothing more than lying
spirits attempting to invade our thoughts and feelings to implant
lies. The use circumstances, mostly, to attempt to invade our
thoughts. Learn to pray, and becoming God aware, easily exposes these
attempts and impede their intrusion, thus, taking every thought
captive.
Most of us suppress, or manage, our woundedness by activity. In
psychological terms, we modify our behavior and activities to control
the pain we feel when it attempts to surface. We become overly busy,
for example, or involve ourselves with hobbies to the extreme, body
building and exercise becomes paramount, we focus excessively on what
we eat, or don't eat, we may decide to volunteer for everything,
church meetings and specialized Bible conferences and cruises become
an outward expression of spirituality, Scripture memorization becomes
addictive, and even our financial giving to ministries can be used to
keep that guilt buried deep. Long hours of prayer also can become a
substitute for peace. I used to read the Bible through, from cover-
to-cover, once a month until I passed the 100 mark. Some even use
fasting as a God-arm-twisting exercise to get His attention. No,
there is nothing wrong with any of these things unless they have
become behavioral substitutes for the authentic peace of God.
Of course, there is always the old fallback, legalism, which we
have fine tuned theologically to perform better than a well trained
circus animal. You know the Christian drill: Not going to movies, not
renting, God forbid, recorded movies, only watching Christian
programming, giving your computer away, fasting, (there's a good one),
and even winning more people to Christ than anybody in your church.
If you don't think any, if not all, of these things can indeed become
a spiritual mechanism to bury woundedness even in the life of a
Christian, then you already are living with deceitfulness. No, silly.
It doesn't mean you aren't saved; it means you are deceived and likely
don't know it. No, I didn't say you are less of a Christian as a
result; you just want to walk free, don't you? Me, too. So let's
work together. Let's become God Aware and know His voice better than
any other so we can walk perpetually free and spiritually conscious of
His presence in our lives.
Safe Place Fellowship
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado
Mountain Time Zone
Phone: 303-507-5175
WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM
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