In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of keeping our focus on Christ amidst the distractions and attacks of the enemy. He uses the analogy of running a race, where we are to gaze at Christ but also glance at the obstacles along the way. The purpose of the enemy's attacks is to steal, kill, and destroy, but as children of God, we are protected. The speaker encourages listeners to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and to lay aside any weights or sins that hinder our race, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

I want you to go to Hebrews. I hope you have it. Someone asked me if I had PowerPoint, and I learned as a young man to point powerfully, so I'll do some of that for you. But I want you, you can jot these scriptures down if you'd like, because we're going to look at a few scriptures, not like what I normally do, but I want to give you a word from the Word of God. You know, because I feel that a lot of times you can hear opinions, and I love... when I went to the first Gotthard seminar, he team-taught it with Larry Coy. And Larry Coy said, opinions are like noses, everybody has at least one. So I really don't want to share my opinions with you, I'd like to share the Word of God with you. My son did not have the privilege of being homeschooled, because, as you see, I'm a mature adult, sort of way mature, on the other end of adulthood. And so he went to public school, and in junior high, Richard came to me and he said, Dad, I'd like to go into sports. Well, at that time, I had already taught in two Bible colleges, and I saw the guys in sports, this is my opinion, didn't show me much. You know, there were maybe big men on campus, but not big men with God. And I thought, I'm concerned about my son, I don't want him to be this big whatever, and not big with God. So I said, Richard, would you go into a non-glory sport? He said, what do you mean? I mean, a glory sport, non-glory. He said, okay. So what he did, he went into cross-country running. It's wonderful, nobody goes. You know, a few parents. And so my son's a runner, and that's what I'm supposed to talk to you about. Remember, if you've read in the thing, Bill said I'm supposed to talk to you about running. So Hebrews 12 talks about running. The Lord often used sports terms to get across his point. You know, he took, he went from what? The natural into the spiritual. Remember, they saw a sheep, and he said, I'm the shepherd. They went to the vineyards, I'm the vine. Isn't that good pedagogy? Taking where they are, what you can see, and leading them from the physical into the deeply spiritual. So he's saying, seeing, verse 12, 1 and 2, seeing we're all so encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that's set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So God's saying, as we run this race, there's two things that we have to deal with. Now, my son was one of those demon-possessed, committed runners. Now, I live in Sioux City, Iowa, and we get snow. And my son's out trudging through the snow every day. This is after he even got out of Bible college. He's trudging through the snow. It's pouring rain. Guess who's out trudging in the rain? You ever see these people? You want to do a deliverance. Like, oh man. Talk about dedicated. But he wanted to win. It's amazing when you want to win what you don't do. Not because you're a legalist. Just because, hey, this is not going to help me to achieve what? My running goals. And he did run one marathon one time. But the two issues are weight issues and sin issues. Now, the sin issues are black and white in Scripture. If God says, thou shall not, guess what he meant? Thou shall not. Simple. But weight issues are issues that are not thou shall not issues, but it's where the Spirit of God can say to you, if you want to run well, if you want to be successful, then the Spirit of God says, you should stop this. You know, don't do this. It's not a sin issue, but it's an issue that can hinder me from being the person that God wants me to be. You know, I remember when we got rid of our TV set, when my son was a preschooler. And that's back when Lucy and those programs were on. And we just felt it wasn't conducive to build character into kids. And we just got rid of it. Of course, the people that I pastored couldn't understand why we didn't have one, and everybody wanted to get us one. And we said, no, we really think that maybe we could do a better job with our kids without one of these. And we removed it. See, I looked in the Bible and I didn't see TV. You ever look for TV in there? But see, I just realized it would be a hindrance to what we wanted to accomplish. So it was no big deal. I don't feel I'm a legalist or whatever. I just go, hey, I'm going to try to raise decent kids in an indecent culture, and I don't need this. I need all the help I need, not all the hindrances I can get. So we found that there was just a lot of things that God told us others may, but you may not. And sometimes you can't explain to people and don't try. Do you understand what I'm saying? Sometimes the hardest people to explain to are your in-laws. How come you don't do this? How come you don't do that? How come, whatever. And we just say we're strange. That answers it. Because they'd like to get you in an argument. My mom said that we discipline too much. But she loved the way our kids behaved. Somehow they didn't make the connection. It's amazing. But I'm just saying, beloved, be sensitive to the Spirit of God. More than anything, be sensitive. He knows your family. He gave you those kids. And you need to be sensitive But if God says, this family doesn't need to do this anymore, then you don't need to do it. Because of the goal you want, where you want to go with these kids. I want you to go to, oh, one other thing. What is the focus of the run? He says that as we run, we're to focus on Christ. Every single attack that you as an individual have or your family will have by the enemy is to get your eyes off of God onto something else. Do you understand that? Remember Peter? He did really good walking on water until he what? Got his eyes off the Lord. That's the word of focus. And got his eyes on circumstances. And right now, there's a lot of circumstances out there, isn't there? A lot of uncertainty, a lot of everything out there that can be distractors to get my eyes off the Lord. We need to focus on Christ. Bill and Annabelle Gillum, I had them come when I was vice president of CEF. I had them come and to share our day of prayer there. And they had a wonderful chart, it was called The Gaze and the Glance. We're to gaze at Christ, but we need to glance at where we're running, right? The sidewalk may be uneven, there may be a bottle, there may be a rock or something. I have to glance, but my focus has to be on Him. And every attack of the enemy is that I'll give a few glances to God, but focus on here, on the here and now. Just realize that. So how I'm attacked is not as important as the purpose of it, getting my eyes off the Lord and onto something else. I would like you to go, and you know this, this is a good ATI verse, John 10.10. What is the purpose of the attacks? John 10.10 says, Jesus told us, and He said, The thief cometh not but to steal, to kill, and destroy. I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. So if the enemy is going after your children, after your teens, after your marriage, or whatever, there's just a three-fold thing. There's just three things the enemy wants to do. He gets your eyes off of Christ, but how does he want to do it? The first thing is to steal. Now, if someone were to break into your room or wherever you're staying here, and they're going to rob you, and they're going to steal something from you, what are they looking for? Yes, they're looking for something of value. What do you have of value? I've thought about this a lot. What do you have of value? Because all of our counselees go through this when I'm going with you. So what do you have of value? That your life would have eternal significance. Satan wants you so wrapped up in stuff that you never touch anybody for eternity. You know people like that. They're so wrapped up in themselves, the family, the messes, and all that. At the end of life, whoever benefited from their walking on planet Earth, next year is going to be a special year for me. Next January 1st, I will have served the Lord full-time, 50 years. It's been a wonderful 50 years. You know, I'm just thrilled to serve the Lord. But we look back on our life and see people that we've touched for eternity. Have any of you ever read Child's Heart of Evil or something like that? The child, the stubborn heart child. You know when I'm talking about that book that they sell about kids that are rebellious, little kids, anger, Heart of Anger. You haven't read that? Well, if you have, the fellow who wrote that, I discipled. Lou Priolo. So I look back at this fellow I spent time with and discipled him and look what he did. That thrills me. You know, pretty soon I'm going to kick the bucket. Or whatever you call it. You know, I'll go to sleep and not wake up or something. But it's going to happen. But is there anybody going on out there that I touched them ever, anyway, significantly? Or was I so wrapped up in myself and my family and making a living and everything, no one has benefitted from my pilgrimage on this earth. Think about it. Is Satan robbing you of touching others significantly? The second thing is to kill. The enemy cannot kill me. Do you understand that? You're a child of God. He can't do it. But how does he do it? I mean, Jesus says he does. What's he saying here? Since the enemy can't do it, he wants you to do it. And how does the enemy do that? How the enemy sets people up for suicide. And we get kids in there. You know, ATI kids that have struggled with thoughts of suicide. And that is, first of all, he convinces me my situation is hopeless. And when it's hopeless, what's the point of going on? So it sets me up for that. The thought of, the family would be better off without you. All of the kinds of things that come. So, hopelessness comes first. And we have a lot of hopeless people. I had an ATI dad call me on the telephone. He said, Logan, I have a gun to my head and I'm thinking about pulling the trigger. And I'm not hard-hearted. I hope you know me well enough that maybe my greatest point is I'm not hard-hearted enough. And I said, you gotta make me a promise. If you pull the trigger, please hang up. I don't need to hear it. I mean, he's in another state. What can I do? You know, I can't do anything. But I knew I had to give him what? Hope. Because he thought his situation was what? Hopeless, and why go on? But we have a God of what? The Bible says we have a God of hope. So I'm never in a hopeless situation because I have a God who is a God of hope. Do you hear that? Don't let the enemy tell you your situation is hopeless. It's not. I have the One who created, was involved in the creation of the world and the angelic forces and all that. He lives inside of me. Greater is He that lives in here than he that is in the world. Okay. The third is to destroy. And I believe, as I've been counseling all these years, I think Bill said 33 years or whatever, I have seen more Christian families divorce. I've seen more families falling apart today than ever before. Because Satan is what? A destroyer. What does he destroy? Relationships. Can you see that? I've got to know how the enemy works. I'm running a race. I am to focus on Christ. The enemy is trying to break my focus, get it anywhere but off of the Lord. He wants to steal, rob me of having eternal significance. He wants me to think my situation is hopeless and maybe I'd be better off if I wasn't around. And the third one, he wants to destroy relationships. Destroy husbands and wives. Destroy churches. Destroy missions. Destroy families. Destroy brothers and sisters. All this stuff. And let me tell you, he's doing a good job today in destroying families. We need to pray for our families. Not only our families, but pray for the families you know. What did Job do? Job prayed the hedge of protection. I like what Warren Risbee said. You go to Job chapter 1. Satan complained. God said, Have you considered my servant Job? And Job said, but it didn't get in the Scripture. Thanks a lot, God. You know, pointing me out to the devil. I don't need that. I've had enough trouble without you telling the devil you know where I live. Well, anyway, Satan said, I can't touch him because you put your hedge around him. And unless you allow me to get over that hedge, I can't touch him. Risbee said, When God allows the flaming missiles of Satan to penetrate God's hedge of protection, they're no longer the destructive missiles in the hand of Satan. They become the refining fire of God. Isn't that beautiful? See, God can even use the enemy to perfect that which concerns me. Because he's going to be perfecting it in doing that. All right. Now I want to go to the three areas that we're going to have to deal with and your teens are going to have to deal with. And if your teens don't deal with these three areas, they are going to go down. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. I know there's been different messages on this, so I'm glad I didn't hear them, so I can just say mine and it'll be different than what they said, which is good. Because you hear things said two or three times, then it's established, even though we said it differently, we're still saying the same thing. So 2 Corinthians 10 chapter 3 says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. Paul said the same thing in Ephesians 6. We have to realize this is not a physical battle. People are not the enemy. People are not the enemy. 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3. People are not the enemy. But the enemy can use people. I've been hurt more by people in my 50 years of ministry than I ever have by a spirit. That I know of. But I'll tell you, sometimes people can be motivated by the enemy to stab you. Maybe you've had that happen. You know, good people, you didn't expect that to happen or they would say that or do that and it really hurt. So he said, but realize they're not the enemy. That's not the enemy. Verse 4. And now we're getting into some real heavy duty stuff here. For the weapons of our spiritual battle, our warfare, are not carnal. They're not worldly. At all. But mighty. The Greek word mighty means divinely empowered. God has given me divinely empowered weapons for the spiritual battle. And what am I to do with those divinely empowered weapons of God to the pulling down of strongholds? What in the world is a stronghold? What is this thing that God says that I have to pull down? Obviously, this is written to believers, right? The people at Corinth were believers. God is writing this book to believers. And he said, do you realize you have strongholds? And you've got to pull those strongholds down. Okay, so I asked my counselees, what's a stronghold? They go, I don't know. I said, well, they had them in Bible days. So when you said stronghold, everybody had a thought immediately, you know, they got a picture that we don't get. And they get it right eventually. Strongholds were walled cities. I was at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, you know, where the guys do this. It was interesting. I was at the Bible college. The second one I was teaching in, the president called me in and said, like he was going to ball me out at Christmas time. And he said, someone gave an anonymous gift to send my wife and I to Israel. And my first question, is there enough money to get back? You know, maybe it was the students. So anyway, you know, as we're there and we're seeing that wall, the largest stone in that wall, one stone weighs 18 tons. One stone. And it's, you know, it's piled with stones. So when the children of Israel went into the promised land, before they went, Joshua sent me and Paul, he's the guy that works with me, to spy out the land. So we went and we spied out Jericho and we thought, this is a snap. All the farms are vacant. All the houses outside are vacant. Everybody's gone into the city. The gates are shut. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Jericho had two walls. It was a double wall city. I just found that out from biblical archaeological review. Because I always wonder, how did Rahab live in the wall when that would not provide very much protection? You know what I mean? It could be easy to get in if you had all these apartments in the wall. But there was a wall in the wall and that must have been the one she lived in. I didn't know there were two sets of walls. But anyway, so we go back to Joshua and we said, no sweat, it's real easy. Everybody's in there, in the stronghold. They've shut the gates. All the farms are vacant. There's animals, there's crops, there's everything. Why don't we just leave a group to live here and we'll go on to Ai? Well, it sounds good, doesn't it? You know, no battle, no sweat, no anything. It'd be easy. The only problem is, if we try to live in peace around a stronghold, what's going to happen? They're going to shoot arrows over the wall or they're going to sneak out at night and I am going to be attacked. So strongholds become a point of attack of the enemy in my life. And so strongholds have to what? Come down. Okay, let me give you some definitions of strongholds and I'll go really slow. First of all, stronghold is anything that's not right that has a hold on my life. Anything that I know isn't right and it's got a grip on my life. It's got what? A stronghold on me and I know it's not right. And I can't just shake it. You know, it's got a hold. It's much more than that. But that's the first simple definition. Now I'm going to go a lot longer now on definitions and I'll give you part of the sentence. Strongholds are often the result of deep wounding. How in the world did I get them? If we all have them, how did I get them? I don't want strongholds. I didn't ask for them, but I have them. They're often the result of deep wounding and that wounding usually took place in my childhood. Strongholds are often the result of deep wounding and that wounding usually took place in my childhood. So I hope no one walks out on that because there's much more than that and I don't want you to walk out on just that little bit. Okay? It looks like you've all got that down because it's important. I want you to walk out here with a few things that you can use when people come to you. Okay. The problem today is not that I was wounded. You know, is anybody here that wasn't wounded as a child some way or another? I mean, I think probably all of us were. I mean, I was. I think probably all of us had some setbacks or disappointments or something when we were children. So the problem is not that we were wounded. The problem is the lies we believe because we were wounded. That's the big issue here. It's not the wounding, but because of this, these are things I believe about myself because these things happened to me. All of a sudden, all of this is going to make sense then. These strongholds are going to make a lot of sense. So the foundation of every stronghold in my life is a false belief system. But I don't know what's false. See, when does a lie become true for me? When I believe it. See, when does something false have some kind of effect on me? When I don't know it's false. See, I just believe that it's true. Okay. Let me give you some more areas from where you can get strongholds. One is my parents. Train up a child in the way he shouldn't go. When he's old, he won't depart. I grew up in a home, I can't call it an ungodly home because I don't know what your concept of ungodly is, but I grew up in a home where Christ was not in there, no religion there, no church. You know what I'm saying? Sort of a half-decent home until my dad became an alcoholic, but it was just a non-Christian home at all. Nothing Christian in that home. And my dad was a gardener in Beverly Hills, California, and he would talk about the Jewish people having lots of money and the Jewish people controlling Hollywood. Now, he didn't sit down with me as a child and say, I'm going to tell you all the bad things about Jewish people. Little did he know that I was going to embrace a Jew and give him my life and walk with him the rest of my life. But anyway, he was just saying these things, but I heard them. When I was in high school, we added a new fellow to the guys we ran around with, and his name was Joe Salz. Figure that one out, it wasn't Irish. And so I'm going, well, he must be okay. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, that can't all be true. You know, this is probably good and bad to anybody. Then when I wanted to train, I didn't know I was a good doctor, got out of high school, was still lost. I trained at Cedars-Sinai Hospital to be a rinconologist, which is the Jewish hospital, the movie star, big Jewish movie star hospital. I went in there and they said, are you anti-Semitic? I said, I don't know what that means. They said, good, we'll let you train here. So, you know, I got to train. But, you see, you hear these things as a kid. And some things will stick with me that didn't stick with my sister, you know, as we were growing up in this home. Another way that we get strongholds is from our friends, our peers growing up. Did everything the kids in the neighborhood tell me, were they true? Well, you know, they weren't. I went to public school, that's another one, education. Did everything they teach me in kindergarten, was it true? Did I have a rejection factor? Well, I don't think that's true. I got to tell you a cute one. When we pastored our first church out in nowhere, California, way up in the mountains in California, it was all cowboys and loggers. They had just one central school and the kids would go from all these little dinky towns to that school. So our second daughter, who's very strong, I mean, she was self-willed. But don't give up on self-willed. She ended up a missionary. You know what I'm saying? It was just misused when she was little. You know, and we'd go like, oh, I think she's adopted. You know, the first girl was so compliant and here's this little girl just, nope, you know, and this kind of thing. So she's in kindergarten and the teacher says, all right, I want you to take hold of hands and we're going to dance. And she said, I won't hold hands. I said, why? My dad's a pastor. He won't want me to dance. She said, oh, we're just going in a circle. So the teacher from kindergarten called up, that was so good. Your little girl stood alone in kindergarten, you know. She wasn't going to dance. And I don't know if I ever told her she shouldn't dance, you know, at five years old. I don't think so. But anyway, the thing is, all these things. And then another one, not only education, what is really bad today is the media. What about the ads? What about billboards? What about radio stations? Remember, this stuff is going into a kid's, what, mind. Some of it's going to go in and out. But some of it may, what, stop. Then that is going to become a foundation for a stronghold in their life. And another one could be church. Some people have gone to some really strange churches. One was, I pastored. Why they came, I don't know, but we did have a good time. But, I mean, you can get some really strange teaching when you're little, and it stays with you. So what we're saying is, here I'm adult now, and I'm having struggles, and it doesn't make sense. I'll give you an easy one, a real simple one. And it's mine. Okay, my wife turned 79 in January, and I turned 78 in April. And don't tell me I don't look it. I look in the mirror, and I think I'm 100. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with having a few gray hairs. In fact, there's nothing wrong with having any hair. So, you know, I thought, you know, honey, none of our kids live around us. And if we die, which we are going to, they're going to have to make all the funeral arrangements. Maybe we should make funeral arrangements now. Now, do I want a satin coffin, you know, satin with gold handles, or do I want cotton with silver handles? You know what I'm saying. And I don't want our kids stuck with all of this kind of stuff to have to do this. But then you need to also put the coffin someplace. And so I started looking at the cemeteries around Sioux City. And there's one cemetery that won hands down over all the other cemeteries. It is called the Logan Cemetery. I thought, well, that has a ring to it, you know. So I just drove in there to look at it, and the Logan Cemetery has hills. Now, let me show you my stronghold. When I was 16 years old, my grandmother died, who I was very close to, and we buried her in Forest Lawn. Now, I had forgotten about this. You know, 16 from 78 is a few years. Forgot all about this. We were on the hill. My dad said, isn't it wonderful that we have a hillside plot because there'll be no water in the coffin. And there's no trees around with tree roots. And when I looked at that hill, I laughed. Because guess what came to my mind? No water in the coffin. Now, do you guys understand? See, I never had to make that decision before, but it was in there. That thing that wasn't true was in there. So I want you to know that strongholds are seasonal. Do you understand that they're seasonal? And as I go through the seasons of life, I draw from what I believe. And beloved, if you could walk out of here knowing that maybe some of the stuff you believe isn't true. And if you're making a decision on something that isn't true, then your decision can't be blessed of God. I hope I'm getting through to you. You know, when I dated, my wife, being a brand new Christian, saved through the Navigators, and I went to church two or three times, and I got drafted in the army, and started going to church in upper Michigan with my wife. What I believed about dating was going to happen on my dates. Do you understand that? What your boys think about dating, what they really believe, is what's going to happen when they court, or courtship. I don't care what you call it. Do you understand what I'm saying? What kids believe about marriage, and what a marriage is to be like, is going to come from up here already. They're going to draw from what they know, and we have to realize that maybe some of the information is what? Not accurate. It's not right, and I will not make a right decision when the information I'm drawing from isn't right. And it could be something so simple as standing on a hillside when I was 16, and then years later, not even knowing it was up there, popped up when I stood on a hillside thinking about my own funeral. I could care less if I'm underwater or on top of water. It doesn't make any difference to me. I'm not there anyway. But you understand what I'm saying? I hope you can understand this. I want to give you one, and I really pray for this. I prayed very hard how to say this. This just happened a few weeks ago. We had a lady come for counseling to our office with her husband. And there was a number of issues that she had, and he had, but one of her issues didn't make sense to her. And that is her connection with chocolate. She had to have chocolate in the house. And if there wasn't any chocolate, they had to go out and buy chocolate and put it in the house. And she realized that this was not... She said, they are in Christian ministry, in a wonderful ministry. She said, this is not normal. You know, they like to eat a piece of candy or something. We're not talking about that. We're talking about getting into fear, real fear, there's no chocolate. And she said, do you understand why? I said, I have no idea why. But I know who does. He knows. So why don't we pray and ask God to reveal to you, why do you have this inordinate connection with chocolate that isn't right? And we prayed. And said, Lord, if it's important, please show her. You know why she has this connection with chocolate and goes into fear if there's none in the house. And the Lord showed her. It was a stronghold. When she was a very little girl, when she was abused, they rewarded her with chocolate. And she knew she had been abused as a child. That was not... But she forgot that they gave her chocolate when they were through with her. And so when she would have any bad experience, like disagreement with her husband or something, she'd have to what? Go get chocolate and put chocolate in her mouth. Reward herself for that bad thing. Once she saw that, and she thanked God for revealing it to her, and she'd already forgiven the abuser. She's gone through a lot of stuff. That was broken. And we've heard from her. She doesn't have that chocolate in the house. She doesn't have that fear. She's not connected to chocolate in a wrong way. But that was what? A stronghold in her life that didn't make sense to her. But she had it. So I don't know. And if you have a stronghold, something that's holding on to you that doesn't make sense, why don't you pray with your wife or with your husband and say, Lord, reveal to me. There's something here I know isn't right. I mean, there's just a connection. There's something not right. To me, it doesn't even make sense. But Lord, I'd like to break that stronghold. How do strongholds come down? What are strongholds based on? On truth. Remember? They're based on a false belief system. And what takes them down? The truth. What did Jesus say? The truth will what? I can't hear you. The truth will set you free. So lies will what? Bind me, but truth will what? Free me. And so the more that you read the Word of God, the more truth you have and the more freedom you'll begin to experience in your life as you can apply biblical truth to what is a lie when that lie is revealed. Thank God we don't reveal all lies. I mean, the children of Israel only had to do with Jericho. But afterwards, there was another battle, wasn't there? Then after that, another battle. And it's going to be that in my life. But if you're overwhelmed, that's not the Lord. That's the enemy. Oh, I'm such a mess. I've got so much to deal with. No. You only take back one place at a time. And God will reveal that one place, and He'll show you what you need to do. But let me tell you this. If you believed lies for many, many, many years, which I did, I believed I was dumb. I believed I was stupid. My dad told me I was dumb. I'd never amount to anything. I didn't know I had learning disabilities. And they didn't get them in those days. And I was put down all the time. And I believed it. And then I began to have the fear of man. I began to have all kinds of things in my life were coming because I began to believe those negative things that were said about me. My mom tried to cover it. Oh, you're really smart. You're everything. I'm not smart. She didn't help. She was telling me I could do anything I wanted to and all that. And I thought, lady, you really don't know your son. I am struggling. Okay. So, realize that lies I believed for a long time are ingrained in my life emotionally. And truth is totally objective. No feelings. Well, I receive objective truth from the word of God against subjective lies. If I will, I will come to freedom over that stronghold. Because often the truth doesn't fit. People tell me this. Logan, you know what? I don't feel that God loves me. I said, so who cares? How can you say that? You're a counselor, a biblical counselor. You're a friend of Bill Gothard. He wouldn't say that. I know, but I would. Who cares? God says he loves you. So, does feeling it make it true? Do I have to feel every single truth that God said to make it real? Let me tell you, beloved, it's real whether you feel it or not. God loves you. Receive it. One that was wonderful for me that I'm accepted in the beloved. I didn't have to be accepted by you guys. You know, I have the ultimate acceptance. And that was hard for me because I was never accepted. Do you know what I'm saying? And I had to believe that. I wanted to feel it first. No, I had to believe it first. And now I know that I'm accepted. And I have eternal acceptance in Christ. Okay? What is the second area? We're going to have to run here. They're flashing things at me. I don't know what all that means. Maybe the trap door is going to open. If I disappear, go in the basement and we'll finish it. Okay? Verse 5. Casting down imaginations and every high thing exalts against the knowledge of God. Let me tell you, the reason I didn't have a prayer life is I didn't know who God was. And not knowing who God was... And I've gone through Bible colleges and I'm talking... I'm teaching in Bible colleges. I still don't know who God is. And that's why I had a lousy prayer life. I've never had a counselee ever that had a strong prayer life. Never. You want to keep out of my office? I'll scare you to death. Develop a prayer life. I'll never see you. You start walking with God. You start listening to God. You start sharing your heart with God. You do not need a physical counselor. You've got the counselor. So, not knowing who God is is not an accident. This is part of what? The spiritual battle of the enemy. The enemy does not want you to know who God is. The name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous run into it safe. If I don't know his name, I can't run in there. And the name of God reveals the character of God. And if you want to really understand who God is, there's two books I'd like to recommend. One is Lord, I Want to Know You by K. Arthur. We have it in our office where you actually take the name of God and you work it out. What happened in Scripture? Why did God give that name? Every time God did something special for Israel, he revealed a new name. The names have tremendous significance. You know, Satan said, I want to be like the Most High. Are you aware that every time Satan or demons refer to God, the only name they will use is Most High in Scripture? Because it's the one thing they can't be. It's the one thing they want to be. It's the only name they will use, which is the sovereign one who reigns sovereignly in heaven and on the earth, Elion. That's the name that they use. There's so much interesting things about the names of God. The other is My Father's Names by Elmer Townes. And that's another wonderful book on the names of God because it has a practical part to it. It's not just the theological names. But what do those names really mean? And what do they mean to me? So if your prayer life is not good, I had to start with going back and learning who God is because that's the one I'm talking to. Do I really know the one that I'm talking to as he's been revealed in the Word of God? The third thing, and that is bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The word captivity means spear point. Literally in the Greek, spear point. And I thought, why did God say that? You know, I don't ever question the Word of God. Do you understand that? I don't question, is this the Word of God? I question, why did God use that word? There's got to be a key there. So here we are in a battle, and we're fighting the Arabs. You know, there's 10,000 Arabs running towards me and I've got one spear. You know, how many Arabs can I get on a spear before they get me? Probably one, you know. And go after another one. Do you get the picture? When I have thoughts running all over my head, I'm in trouble. I am to take my thoughts at what? Spear point. One thought, one spear. Your thoughts can take you down. And I have some papers, and one is, do you hear what you're thinking? Have you ever stopped to hear what you're thinking? Are you taking wrong thoughts captive? When the devil talked to Jesus, he used what? Scripture. Do you know that Jesus did not quote Scripture word perfectly? Just go back and look. Go from Luke or Matthew 4, Luke 4, Matthew 4. Go back to Deuteronomy, and you'll find, even in the King James Bible, he did not quote Scripture word perfectly. So my question is, why not? Could he not? It says in John, he was what? The Word, and the Word became flesh, and the Word dwelt among us. Certainly the Word of God could have quoted those three verses word perfectly, but he did not. He did not logos the Word. He, what? Rhema'd the Word. Ephesians 6 says, The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is not logos there, it's rhema. What is rhema? It's the truth of Scripture. So, if we have to quote Scripture word perfectly, for the devil to go, which translation? You say, well, King James. But which King James? The first edition, second edition, or the third edition that you're holding. Because they don't read exactly the same, because I do have the first edition. You know, do you understand? See, the truth will what? Set you free. The truth, use truth in resisting the enemy. If you can quote the verse, wonderful. But you're going, I can't think of the verse, but I know my body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to do that. You're out of here. See, that's still truth, isn't it? I'm not going to defile a temple. Father, I just thank you for this time with these dear people. Lord, I pray that maybe some of the things we talked about as far as strongholds will make some sense. Lord, that if there's things in my life that just don't make sense, and why do I do them, and why is this important to me, and yet here I'm a believer, and it's not sin, but it just doesn't seem right. Lord, I pray that your spirit would enlighten and show people why sometimes we make the wrong decision because of strongholds that have not been taken down with the truth of God. So thank you, Father, for this time in the word and this time in fellowship with one another. And I just commit this dear crowd to you, and Father, I pray that your will would be done in their lives as is being carried out in the heavenlies. Amen.