Assume air in any way So we thank you we declare dependency upon you for a part from Christ. We can do nothing Pray that you'd open up your word to us that we would see The reality of the world and they understand the nature of our lives from your perspective and we're going to ask for that now in Jesus name Amen We're looking at the battle for the mind and have you ever ever come to terms with the struggle experientially that we have in dealing with the old man is dead and the new man is here. Old things have passed away, all things have become new. When you read a passage like that, it's fascinating because you assume that, well, everything should have changed. But for some reason, old habits still kind of persist, the way I used to think still persists. And you say, why is that? Well, let me give an illustration if I can. When I was in the Navy, I was assigned over before the Vietnamese War to a destroyer that was out in the Tonkin Bay where the whole thing was kicked off right before the Vietnamese War. And the skipper I had at the time, my first skipper in my tour of duty on board the ship was a lousy skipper. We used to refer to him, they still do I suppose, as the old man. Now, the first old man that I had in my tour of duty was really a crumbum. I don't know how better to say it. He was a maverick. That's a term I don't think that's even used anymore. He came up through the ranks, had a battlefield commission, I suppose, maybe in the Korean War or something. He belittled the officers and drank with the chiefs and he just really was a lousy old man. But if I was going to survive on board that ship under his command, with him being my old man, I had to learn how to cope. And if I was going to succeed, defend myself, I learned under that authority, under his command. Well, one day he got transferred off. Gone. Never saw him again. Had no relationship with him. No longer was under his authority. And we got a new old man. But this was a good old man. But how do you think I continued to live aboard that ship? The way I was trained under the old old man. Until I got to know the new old man. Then I began to realize I didn't have to defend myself anymore. I didn't have to cope that way. And I could change. Now see what happens is the old man is dead. The new man is here. But what is remained is the flesh. Those old pre-programmed habit patterns of thought. Those memory traces burned in over time. You see when you and I come into this world we're born dead in our trespasses and sins. You had neither the presence of God in your life nor the knowledge of God's ways. So you and I, everybody, learned to live a life independent of God. Everybody did. Yeah, you too. Everybody did. You had no choice. Now everybody learned differently, by the way. You are not purely a product of your environment. You had to respond somehow to that environment. When I became a Christian, I was born again. I was transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. But nobody pushed the clear button up here today. Everything that I was learned and trained before still was retained in that memory bank. That's why the Bible says no longer be conformed to this world. You were conformed to this world. You had no choice. But be transformed now by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove that the will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect. Now that's a process. It's a critical process. And it's going to take time to do that. But we want to look at that essential issue and basically how strongholds are raised up against the knowledge of God. Now what I want to do is show you a cartoon. Do you get Kathy back here in this area? Whoever writes that, folks, got a lot of insight in human character, don't they? But here's Kathy's mother. I'm going to go off the mic here a little bit and read this to you because it's so classic. She says, you were always the prettiest one in our Ann class. She went back to her 50th high school anniversary. You thought I was pretty? You snubbed me. We didn't snub you. We were just too intimidated to speak to you. I spent 50 years trying to recover from low self-esteem because I thought you were snubbing me. Isn't that silly? My entire personality has been formed around the wrong information. So is yours. Everybody's had, hasn't it? Think about it. You didn't have the knowledge of God when you were born. You didn't have Christ in your life. And so everybody's personality, by and large, is formed out of the wrong information until you get the right information. Now what we're going to do, and there's a page in your syllabus that looks at this. If you've got your Bibles, let me read 2 Corinthians 10, 3-5. 2 Corinthians 10, 3-5, it says, For though we walk in the flesh, in other words, although we live according to the natural world and suffer all of its natural limitations, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now that is a present and continuous activity that is taking place. Now what has happened here is that thoughts have been raised up against the knowledge of God. Nobody here enters this world with a perfect understanding of God. All they have basically is a picture of mom and dad and maybe what they did or didn't tell you. Now every study that I have ever read in terms of attitude formation that primarily where they come from is they're stimulated from the environment in two ways. Attitudes that are formed in your mind. One is by prevailing experiences that you've had, the home you were raised in, the schools you went to, the church you did or didn't go to, the community, the neighborhoods, the friends that you kept, burned in over time. And then there's also the problems of intensity. Deep experiences, traumatic experiences that happen very briefly. It could have been a divorce in the home. Possibly you were a satanic ritual survivor, for instance. Maybe somebody died, separated, whatever. It happened. Automobile accident, a death. But those are deeply vetted into your memory bank. Not over time now, but by intensity. Now, whenever we're confronted with the world, say the world system is still here. No longer now be conformed to that. You were before, but you don't have to be anymore, but it will still be there. You are still responding to the environment around you. Everybody will be. The moment that you respond to that environment, you're going to be tempted. Now, it is no sin to be tempted. Everybody's tempted. But the question is, when that first hits you, what I call a threshold thought. I mean, bam, there it is in your mind. Because you look out and you say, that looks good. I want that. That smells good. Whatever your senses pick up, immediately it's going to hit that old brain in the form of a thought. And you're going to have to make a choice whether or not I'm going to choose that. Now, here's Kathy. Kathy had a little experience. She says, I will drive by the grocery store, but I won't go in. I'll drive by the grocery store, but not go in. She said, I will go in the grocery store, but I will not walk down the aisle where the Halloween candy is on sale. I will look, but not pick up. I will pick up, but not buy. I'll buy, but not open. Open, but not smell. Smell, but not touch. Touch, but not taste. Taste, but not eat. Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. And she got an eating frenzy. He said, come on, God, that's not fair. You promised to provide a way of escape. He did. Which frame? I will drive by the grocery store. Too late, folks. She's already lost the battle. God did provide a way of escape. But I'll tell you what, the battle has already been lost at the beginning of that cartoon strip. She's already headed for the store. Plan B is already formed in her mind. She's already salivating. And it is so foolish on our part that somehow I think I can go down that rabbit trail and turn around and go back anytime. Folks, Billy Graham can't even make it to there. Now, Jim was telling me he stops right here all the time. His wife was telling me the only problem he has, of course, he lies a lot. But somehow or another, you got to stop that thought right here. Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now, here's the way we sometimes think. You're struggling with what? I'm going to go down to the convenience store and buy some milk. But Lord, I know there's pornography there, but if you don't want me to see it, then have a pastor be there buying milk, of course. Or maybe a wreck in the intersection. Well, there was no wreck and the pastor wasn't there so it must be God's will. It's incredible how the mind can rationalize at the end of that struggle. Assuming that somehow or another you're going to turn around your car halfway there. You know good and well. You could have gone to another store or bought it at another time. But we just go down those trails. And without realizing, I've got to stop that right at the beginning. I've got to take that thought captive right now to the obedience of Christ. Now I want to illustrate that in a little different way. Physiologically, what's taking place here? Well, don't let me get this too profound. It's not. But there's a diagram of you and I. We've got an outer man and an inner man. And you look at the correlation, it's not really in your syllabus there, but the brain-mind. Now there's something fundamentally different between your brain and your mind, right? What's your brain? It's meat. When you die, what'll happen? It'll decay. Are you mindless then? No. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, you will still be a rational being. Now, you're going to need that outer body to operate through. Paul says we long to be closed. So it's not that I'm trying to somehow divide you up that way. But you might think of your brain something like a computer, where your mind then may be the programmer. Doesn't perfectly fit, but the idea is a little bit there. Well, the point of it is, is that off of your brain, which constitutes that and the spinal cord, your central nervous system, it splits off into a peripheral nervous system. You have the autonomic and the somatic. Now the somatic is obvious. It regulates that which you have total muscular control for. Speeds, hand gestures, movements, that type of thing. The autonomic is what you would think it would be. It's automatic. You have no control over it. It regulates your whole glandular system. Now, there's really nothing new and profound here. My point is simply this. Wouldn't it make sense that your outer man would correlate to your inner man being fearfully made in God's eyes here? Well, of course it would. You can just see how the somatic would relate to your will, how the brain would relate to your mind. But we also need to see how the emotions really relate in a sense to the autonomic nervous system. You have no control over that. You don't say to your heart, beep, beep, beep, beep, or to your adrenal glands, adrena, adrena, adrena, adrena, or your thyroid, thigh, thigh, thigh. It just does that. Now what's fascinating about that is this. Would you care to guess which of those two legs your sex organs operate out of? Seattle Rollmaker. So I knew I didn't have any control over that area of my life. No, that's not true Your body will rhythm through a cycle about every 90 minutes a man can Awaken a night with an erection for instance very natural very normal that may have nothing to do unless it's just an it's a biological response That'll continue on through most of your life. A woman will have the same type of a cycle. It's a God-given thing the problem with that is is that that is a very controllable part of my life in the sense of the somatic and Choices that I have but when you load up that brain with pornography, what do you think you're going to do to that autonomic nervous system? You're gonna drive it into the stops. This is what's going to happen. Yeah, the same problem is stress your adrenal glands Are your anti-stress glands they they secrete cortisol like hormones into your system? They respond to the fight-flight type of a mentality So pressure comes your system responds to it too much system or too much pressure too long and and and you become a Distress and in your system starts to break down But what's interesting about that is you take something like stress and you say well, I've got a normal biological response to the pressures of life Why is it then that some people can handle stress far better than others because one has the pre superior adrenal glands No, I don't believe that Now I think the difference is going on right here. Some people can see a problem in life and respond to it almost as an opportunity and rise to the challenge and do great and feel virtually no stress to it at all. Others will fall apart under it. But the difference is not in the physiological system of your body. The difference is how you perceive that event in your mind. Now what I'm getting at is that it's a dual process. You show me somebody who's got glandular problems and by and large I'll show you somebody who has emotional problems. You look at somebody whose pancreas is not secreting the right kind of insulin in your system, and you're going to have somebody struggling with their emotional life, especially thyroid problems, etc. Well, the point of it is that you really have no volitional control over your emotions. Oh, yeah, I do. Well, try once. Yeah, I've never liked that person, but now I'm going to choose to like them. You can't will it, people. You can't tell your feelings. Now, what you can do is what the Bible says. You can choose what you're going to think upon. That's what you have choice over. And then I submit to you, that's where the force is given in scripture. Finally, brother, whatever is true, think on those things. Because your emotions are by and large a product of your thought life. Now, I say by and large. Let me look at that. all kinds of external and internal evidence, I'm talking about Christianity here, points to the realization that you are not really emotionally responding to the environment, but how you mentally responded to that environment. That your tendency is to think, you made me feel that way. No, it's how you process that event mentally that made you feel that way. That's how some people can basically Respond totally different emotionally some can look at something and so I really like that person and another not and it isn't the object near so much as how you mentally process that And what you have control over with is that middle stage? So to back that up people like Albert Ellis who's an atheist who has developed a whole Syria theory of counseling based on cognitive therapy and frankly, I think it's the most secular biblical approach that I've ever seen to counseling and Really do and realizing that that is there David Stoop has taken his work William Bacchus telling yourself the truth is basically Developed a whole Christian counseling concept based on on that idea It's Christian cognitive therapy if you would have it in a way And I would basically feel quite strongly about that that as a man thinketh in his heart so is he and so what's critical is what they think of then in their heart and Our problem is we see this so easy and we try to change it. And then we have to be nothing but Christian behavioralists. And I think we're at the wrong end of the stick. Get back in and find out what's going on inside. And monitor what that is. I mean it's like kids, oftentimes we never ask them. What are you thinking? What's going on in your mind? And they'll tell you. Adults may not, children will. Just like a gal came to my conference one time, and she said, I'm deeply disturbed about my daughter. She taught at a Christian school. Her daughter went to it. She was about 11 or 12. And she said, she started to write love letters to girls. And you know, something's radically wrong here. So after our conference, she went home and said, honey, do you have thoughts like maybe in your head talking to you? Yeah, Mom, four. Now she had, the mother had no idea up until that point. But all of the emotional bizarre stuff that was coming out of those thought processes, Now let me illustrate what I'm talking about. Let's suppose you're here and you're a 65 year old lady. Three months ago you lost your husband. You had a great Christian marriage. It's a deep loss. For 40 years you went to church together, lived your life together, and you're going through all the normal grief process that that would solicit. That's normal, it's natural, and should be not only allowed but encouraged in a sense for people to deal with their grief in an appropriate way. Now let's say you go home from church, it's after church, and some friends say, why don't you come out for lunch with us? You know, tables are set for 2, 4, 6, and 8, not 3, 5, and 7. You just feel like a fifth wheel. So you decline. And you go home, alone. And you look over in the chair, and that's where you used to watch those football games. And it used to kind of tick you off. It's 1 o'clock, and that's when the game started. Now you look at that chair, and it's empty. And you begin to think, what am I going to do? I can't believe this is happening to me. Now, you think that way emotionally, what's going to happen? Just like that. You're going to go down. You're going to be overcome with grief. Now, you don't look over the chair and say, this is all a bad dream. I'm going to wake up tomorrow. This can't be happening to me. That's denial. Some people attempt to deal with their emotions that way. And somehow just can't face reality. Now, that extreme is no good. Well, what are you suggesting? I suggest you look over at the chair and say, I miss him. Because you do. That's real. But thank you Lord for the 40 years we had together what a joy to know that he's with you I have to get on with my life and she goes washes her dishes and makes a walk Now she hasn't controlled her emotions. What does she control? Her thoughts how she processed that event and that's what's going to determine by large how she feels now the other issue is this If what we believe does not reflect truth then what we feel does not reflect reality Now this is a critical phase here because to understand why emotionally we get tied in and have all those horrible emotional responses sometimes even years later is how I process certain events way back when. Now, let me illustrate this. If what I believe isn't true, then what I may feel may not reflect reality. Don't ever come up to somebody. Can I encourage you to drop a little phrase out of your vocabulary? You shouldn't feel this way. Well, what am I supposed to do about that? That's the way I feel. And I can't do anything about that by and large. What you really are asking, I'm not sure you understood that event, or processed that right, or interpreted, or evaluated, or whatever else that life situation. I'm not sure you understand that person, the way you feel about them. But let's suppose you're here today, you're 30 years old, you've been married for 5 years, And you have just really worked and sweated to save up enough money for down payment for a house. Now you got enough down payment. Question is, are you making enough to qualify? So you find the dream home you prayed about, you searched for months, maybe years. You got mom and dad praying for you, son in school class praying for you. And truth of the matter is, truth now, you qualify. The house is yours. Now, it's yours. Okay? The realtor calls to tell you that you qualify. And you weren't there, so the answering machine took it, but the message got garbled. And what you heard was, didn't qualify. And when you heard that news, alright, where would you go emotionally on a scale of 0 to 10, almost just like that? I mean, boom, down you go. Why? That's the house, I thought for sure God wanted it to me. And then your realtor calls you and says, hi, congratulations. Congratulations, what are you, a sicko? She said, well, how come you're feeling that way? How come he's feeling that way? Because what he believed wasn't true. And she couldn't understand how in the world you could feel that way. Well, you qualified. I did? Well, I got a message that I didn't. Well, I must have got garbled. You qualified. Now you're sure. Yes, congratulations, you own a house. Now on a scale of 0 to 10, we'll only be here. 10 again. But now you see what he feels really conforms to reality because what he believes is true. Now as I point that out, I want you to know something people. You got people sitting in your church that don't feel like God loves me. Believe me, you do. You want me to guess? The vast majority, not the minority. I don't feel like heaven is a real place. And their feelings are all screwed up because somewhere along the line they bought a lie. Or what they believe isn't true. Or what life has given them is not really reflecting the true nature of God. Somehow or another God ends up looking like that abusive parent for instance. And they just bought that. Now they didn't know any better. So how in the world do I come along and teach them the truth of who God really is? I mean, I could show you charts, people, where people could answer theologically, tell the school of theology all the right attributes about God. How do you feel about it? Well, he likes me. And yet God is love. Now, where is that coming from? And I want to say it's multifaceted, it's not singular. So let's go on. Now, you have that little thought, you consider it. Alright? It's kind of like there's two plans that form in your mind here. Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is God's way. It's by faith. Plan B is man's way, by reason. Now, it's not that faith isn't reasonable. It's very reasonable. It's just that man has a tremendous propensity to rationalize. You know, I don't see it God's way, so I'll do it my way. Now, let me illustrate. Here's God's plan. He has no Plan B. There is no backup plan in the mind of God. He's just got one way. You look at marriage, for instance. Now, somebody gets married. What's God's plan for marriage lifetime monogamous relationship for better for worse for richer for poorer till death us depart? You know looking back. I'm thankful for the community that I was raised in a little old burg in Minnesota And if you got divorced in that community best you move out of town. I mean there was a tremendous amount of social stigma and we we almost laughed and did like those little communities, you know because they were so fish bullish and But I sure prefer it to where I live in California, because they can get a divorce, move one block away, change churches, and everything's OK. We've lost that sense of social pressure. And I don't think that's healthy, by and large. But my point is that I don't entertain thoughts for plan B. Now, I'm tempted to. I mean, let's face it. When you're 50 years old, the temptation to turn your 50-year-old wife into for 225s, you know, it's there now. And it comes to mind. But I said, but I'm not I'm not going to do that. We're all tempted, okay? But I don't consider it. What would life be without Joanne? What if I had somebody else? Boy, that young thing sure is interested in me. You start thinking that way, people, and your commitment level is going to start going down. The more time that you spend thinking about Plan B is going to be a corresponding necessary decreasement in commitment to Plan A. There can't help but be. Put it in a non-moral sense, The Lord said, you nicely set aside the commandments of God to honor and observe your traditions. So, any commitment that you make to man's way is going to have a decrease in commitment to God's way. Now, let me tell you what anxiety is, if you don't know. It's double-mindedness. Anxiety, mirmineo in the Greek word, comes from the word nuos, or divide, and nuos, mind. It's a divided mind. That's why you'll see in Matthew 5, you cannot serve God in ammon. You'll either love one or the other. Therefore, don't be anxious. Don't be double-minded. You know, to keep a single focus. You know some people, I believe that the natural man can potentially be less free of anxiety than a Christian. I mean, all they got is Plan B. But it can be consistent in and of its own framework. But you're sitting here trying to have the best of both worlds, and I think carnality is really a miserable state to be in. And you're just flopping back and forth, rather than if your eye is single, your whole body is clear. And the idea of singleness, single-mindedness, and the double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Be anxious for nothing but by prayer and supplication, we are told. I remember we got a letter one time at Talbot. from a pastor's wife who graduated, the pastor graduated from Talbot. She said, I knew I was in trouble when I saw in his book, on a desk, the book Creative Divorce. He was considering Plan B. Did he need it? Folks, let me be honest with you. You got a Plan B, you'll need it. You'll need it. You'll go down that path. You don't even consider it. Don't even entertain the thought. Faithfulness is a commitment. Unfortunately today, our young people are getting married, their commitment level is about 80%. And when the chips come down, the reasoning almost, hey, if it doesn't work, I can always get a divorce. What's the chances of that marriage standing the test of time? I'd say just about zero. I really would say that. They're going to make it. They're going to go down. Well, the point of it is, is that plan B makes us a little proposal there. You choose it. You act upon it. In six weeks, you've got to have it. It persists. You have a stronghold. Now it's a stronghold. It's mental habit patterns of thought. It's memory traces built in over time. They exhibit themselves in something less than a Christ-like temperament. So what if I'm a manipulative person? That's just the way I am, as though I have no control over that at all. Great definition Jim gave this morning, by the way. Believing somehow or another that I have no control over that. That's not true. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But just saying that's just the way I am and as though I have no means by which to say that I can grow and mature in the Lord. It is a fallacy to begin with. Inferiority is a stronghold. It's a major stronghold. It is probably one of the biggest ones in our churches. I'm no good. I'm stupid. I'm dumb. I'm ugly You're raised on that performance basis somehow comparing yourself with the star athlete and the cheerleader and whatever else I said is there any hope for happiness for somebody who's got a potato body and stringy hair and back complexion poor grades You know, I believe that person has potentially as much Opportunity as anybody else not in our world system, by the way But how about the kingdom of God? Yeah, I see. I believe that You know, I have come across this year more significantly visible Christian leaders who have probably pulled me aside and told me they have struggled with that all of their life. They still feel incompetent, incapable, and yet they go out and perform admirably. I just find that amazing. I'm talking to people, if I mention three names right now, you know them. And I just go, good grief. You? I mean, you know, that's what other people think. You? If you, then who? Kind of an idea. could ever have that. And I'll tell you what, frankly my experience is those who are not necessarily gifted or beautiful can quickly, more quickly enter into God provision for them. That my self-image really established in Christ as my identity as a child of God and developed in my character. You show somebody today who deeply loves the Lord Jesus Christ, knows that they're a child of God, and is filled with God's Spirit, and walking by faith, and the fruit of the spirit is evident in their life, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Will they feel good about themselves? Sure they will. Who can have that? Every child of God can have that. Every child of God can. I remember a guy that came to Tel Aviv one time. He was here because He was somehow or another trying to earn God's approval. The guy had graduated from Annapolis, went to flight school. I mean, that's the elite, folks. Who gets invited to Annapolis? And here he is, 35 years old. He's still trying to live up to his father's expectations, thinks God's the same way. He attended a conference I did on spiritual identity some time ago. Yeah, six years ago or so. And anyway, he came to my office. He said, I've never understood that before. I've always been trying to somehow or another live up to somebody's expectations. And I realized that's a false trap. He said, I'm changing my major. The only reason I came here was I thought, what's the most sacrificial thing I could do for God? Got to be missions. So I said, I'm changing my major to practical theology. It's my department. I said, well, I don't know about changing your major, but I'm sure glad you found that out. Well, anyway, he went on the mission field the next summer, came back, made another appointment with me. He said, I'm changing my major again. I said, the missions, right? He said, right. He said, but now I'm going because I want to, not because I have to. Hmm. He'd have gone in the first day, it'd have been a disastrous thing. He'd have lost. The field would have eaten him alive. You better go out as a child of God, folks, and know that because frankly, that's true of any ministry for that matter. Can I say this? I honestly believe this. The greatest determinant of our personal success in ministry is your own personal identity and security in Christ. If you're secure in that, you can take a lot of buffeting, you can stand alone if you have to, but you can be the person God wants you to be. And I'll be a man pleaser. Paul says, you call me a man pleaser? If I'm a man pleaser, I'm not a bond servant of Christ. Homosexuality is a stronghold. It's a major, major stronghold. It's one of the more difficult that you'll come against. But I don't believe they were born that way. I believe homosexuality itself is a lie. God created us male and female. There's homosexual behavior for sure. But somehow if they believe that he is a she and believe that, somewhere along, even secular people will say identity is a critical thing. How greater an opportunity we have to help these people get out of that. But I remember a 62 year old pastor who came by to see me. Struggled with this all of his life. He swapped churches twice because of, under the guise of marital problems, really he'd had an affair both times. He begged God to take it away. He had gone to healing services and prayer groups Whatever. He's articulated. He's 62 years old. And as long as he can remember, he's had those feelings. His daughters don't even know it. His wife does. And he's hung in there somehow with the Lord. And he read Bondage Breaker, and he'd come by one time and talk to me about it. Could that be it? Well, anyway, I said, what's your earliest childhood memory? The guy's 62 now. His earliest childhood memory was when he was 2. 60 years later. I mean, he didn't hesitate for a second. His father had run off. and left his mother when he when he was in her womb and Then she had this boyfriend to come over occasionally spend the night Now nothing wrong happened. She was a good Christian woman. They two slept together His earliest childhood memory was that man turning his back to him going to bed Now to him what he wanted more than anything else was acceptance or nothing sexual there and But from that day on, to have that bonding relationship with a man, to have that approval, to have that acceptance, when we walk through forgiveness, forgiving his father for deserting him when he was a thing, forgiving that man for turning his back on him at that time, and really dealing with some of the spiritual strongholders there, I'm telling you, tears just came out of this man. I mean, he could just sense the freedom starting to come from this thing. There's also a whole memory bank of experiences and portal probably in his mind It's going to take some time to filter out, but I don't have time to get in the sexual thing release from bondage has our whole process So helping people find that path out of that. But anyway, let's look at the big one today. You're an adult child of an alcoholic Okay in your family. There were three of you. I As the alcoholism began to develop, let's say in the father in this case, the older one was big enough to stand up against him. You lay one hand on me, so help me. The middle one accommodates. Hi dad, how you doing? The youngest one runs and hides under the bed, closet, whatever. 25 years later, the man, the father's dead. Those three boys are now adults. They're confronted with a hostile situation. How do you think they'll respond? The older one will fight, the middle one will accommodate, and the little one will run and hide. Now that's a stronghold. That's been raised up in the mind. Trained that way. Burned in over time in that case. Now what do we do about that? Well, a lot of recognition in that today. We got adult children of alcoholics, you know, recovery groups and all kinds of things like that. With various degrees of success, I may mention to you. It's kind of like the whole problem with small groups. Are you for or against? I said, which one? There's some bad ones and there's some good ones. You know what I mean? Well, the point is, is that what do we do about that? Well, the answer to me primarily is this. If you've been trained one way, can you be retrained? If you've been programmed a way, can you be reprogrammed? And the answer to me is absolutely. Of course you can be. Will it take time? Sure, it'll take time. But if you learn to do it wrong, you can learn to do it right. If you've learned to be a codependent, you can learn not to be a codependent in the right way. I'm tired of that term, by the way. Everybody's codependent. I'll tell you what, if you found a really loving Christian, he'd be codependent in most people's eyes. Are you aware of that? When you start meeting the needs of people around you, we're all a little bit subject to the needs of people around us, aren't we? Now I realize there's a sick extreme to that, and of course there is, but that's the old flop-a-roo problem in our society. The goal of the people who are anti-codependency is to be an independent person. That's not God's goal for life, folks. to be dependent upon Him, interdependent amongst each other. Well, anyway. So, I'm committed to that process of renewing my mind. It comes with good Bible teaching, discipleship groups, good Christian counseling, whatever. But is that all that's going on? No. That's not all that's going on. And that's the reason I think we're not very successful in full recovery here. We're not just up against the world out there. That system that you and I have to relate to in our environment. We're not just up against the flesh. Those pre-programmed habit patterns of thought. That learned independence. By the way, that's what makes the flesh hostile to the spirit of God. The spirit of God is fully dependent upon God the Father. The flesh is a learned independence. It's an independent spirit. And that's why it's hostile to the spirit. Well, we're up against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, folks, you take that out and don't deal with that as a part of reality, you're not going to have the kind of resolution that I believe the church is fully capable of helping people find and really be free. Now, mind you, and please don't walk out of here and say, he thinks everything is demonic. I'm not saying that. Frankly, I think the majority issue is just what I've been going over here. But I'm going to suggest to you that that's not all that's going on. Now, let's take another look at something here. And that whole nature of that spiritual battle that's taking place. We're also spiritual beings, not just psychological ones. But you can look at three passages here that I've picked up. One is the Old Testament, where Satan had put into the heart of David to number the troops. Now that's a curious passage to me for this reason. What's wrong with that? I mean, you know, you're the commander-in-chief. Don't you want to know how many troops you've got out there? Well, the captain of his guard knew it was wrong and told him not to do it. Well, this is a subtle issue, people. This is David who had a whole heart for God. This is David who would say in Psalm 33 that a horse is a false hope for victory. This is David who would look at Goliath and say, how dare you taunt the armies of the living God? See, this is David whose confidence was in who? God, not his forces, not his troops. It's a subtle little erosion where all of a sudden, you know, church growth becomes more a study of communities and strategies than it does revival and repentance, you know. And that has happened in our churches, I realize. Nothing wrong with the strategies, but strategies don't save anybody. People come to Christ because somebody shared with them, somebody witnessed somewhere along the line. That stuff will happen naturally if you get them free and alive in Christ. They can keep their mouth shut if they wanted to. But still the problem persists. How did Satan do this? Did he sit down face to face and say, listen, this is what I want you to do. No, no, no. This was David's thought. Or at least he thought it was. You see what I'm getting at is the most subtle part of spiritual conflict to me. We're up against major deception. I'm not worried about you sitting down with some guy with a red pitchfork and whatever and telling you do this. You ain't gonna do that. You're not about to walk out of here and get involved in Satanism. But you and I are very susceptible to a subtle little erosion of our faith, destroying our confidence in God, in whatever. And that's exactly what happened to David here. The point is, is that Satan is capable of putting that thought into your mind, first person singular. That's the deception. Now if it wasn't that, you're no longer deceived. That's why I often times say, I said, in missing this concept in our church, that people We are warned, the Holy Spirit clearly says, 1 Timothy 4.1, that in latter days, people will fall away from the faith. How? Paying attention to deceiving spirits, and literally teaching to demons. Now, if it's deception, you don't know it. If you knew it, you wouldn't be deceived. That's the subtleness of this whole issue. Is that that thought may come, first person singular, I'm stupid, I'm dumb, I'm ugly, I can't, I'm no good, God doesn't love me, whatever else. And we have no idea that that is a spiritual battle. We just think that's us. Let me just show you how subtle and pervasive this is. One of our faculty at our school, I'm talking a beautiful Christian, pious couple. I'll tell you how pious they are. If we suspected that maybe the rapture occurred and I got left behind, we look in his office first. He's still there. It's all right. But anyway, his wife about a year and a half ago got pneumonia. And I mean really bad. And finally, conventional means weren't resolving anything, so they went and took a liter and a half of fluid out of her lung. So, then she went into chemotherapy because they found a mass about the size of her fist right alongside that was cancerous. And she's not that old. She's a beautiful human being. And she went through a summer of just horrible chemotherapy treatment, lost all her hair, whatever. I got back from my conference tour and they called me. And they said, he said, my wife is just phobic, fearful. Can you come by? So I came by the house and she asked to see me alone. And she, husband left for a little bit. She said, see that Bible over there? I said, yeah. She said, that paper hanging out of it, that's a list of who I am in Christ. She said, that's kept me afloat now for about two years. I heard you speak on that some time ago. Then she looked at me, this beautiful human being, looked at me and she said, Neil, I'm not sure I'm a Christian. I said, sweetheart, if you're not a Christian, I'm in deep trouble. I said, why would you think that? Oh, I go to church and I have this blasphemous thought or these false thoughts. I said, that's not you. Now, if you thought that was you, what would you conclude about your character and maybe your salvation? And so here she is facing the prospect of death on not certain of her salvation. Wow, with her maturity in half an hour the voices were gone and she's gone through now a year and a half of about the most horrible physical endurance test you've ever seen. Taken away by ambulances for bone marrow transplants and everything else. Her attitude? No problem, attitude. Mind is there. Not afraid to die. Just upbeat all this time. Now, that can happen amongst our seminary faculty. And it is. And it's happening all over the country. All over the world, for that matter. But they don't know it. They've never been understood what the nature of that battle is. So they labor alone. Frightened to death that somebody may really find out what's going on inside. It's like that movie, God Must Be Crazy. Did you see that? They got a great scene in there, folks. They sit down in this little cafeteria and this one woman says, does the noise in my head bother you? Now you got Judas. And the Bible says that Satan put it into his heart to betray Christ. Oh, that was Judas's idea. Not what the Bible says. The Bible said it was Satan who put that there. How do I know that? Well, I think the best way to know that is that when he became aware of what he had done, what did he do? Went and hung himself. Lindy, it's fascinating when the sorrow of this world produces death, the end result is like that, that came from the pit, you take another man who also betrayed Christ and he repents and became the spokesperson for the church. The sorrow that comes from God produces life. And the devil and the accuser will just put you down, but God will build you up. You will face the mistakes you made in your life. Sin, call it what you want to. Now, the question is, where is it in this passage? Well, you got the same issue, don't you? Ananias and Sapphira. Why? Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Well, did they think that was Satan? No. I'm sure they didn't. But see, that's the deception. God knows that if He can go into your home, family, church, undetected, and get you to believe a lie, could He control your life? He can, and he is, people, in the most profound ways. Now you say, how is that under strongholds here? Well, we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, right? What does thought mean? The Greek word is noema. Now, nothing has meaning without context. Let's take a look at how Paul used that in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 10. It says, But whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his noema. Thoughts, schemes, your Bible may say. Well, I've got to be honest with you people. I have counseled hundreds of people here in Voices. To this day, other than certain fragments that may come from MPD, it's all demonic. Every case that I've had. Takes me 2-3 hours as an average to get them through that process, get them free in their mind. Get rid of that stuff. But, uh, I have to be honest with you and tell you that I deeply believe this. In my experience, Satan's greatest access to the church today is on forgiveness. That's the greatest access he has to the church today, on forgiveness. Every person that I have counseled to freedom, everyone, I have no exceptions to this day at all. Forgiveness has been a critical part of our steps to freedom. Critical part. We look at seven major areas. Three or four typically may hardly even apply. But one that always does is here. There may be a lot of occultic stuff they got involved in and other stuff too. But I'm saying, consistently, this is the most important issue to process. It's always the hardest to help a person process too. I think the greatest skill of a counselor is to bring about a sense of forgiveness. I wish I had more time to talk about that one because it's so crucial. So very, very critical. We've got bitter pastors. We've got bitter pastor wives. We've got bitter board members. And they just say, well, I'm just going to go on. I said, how are you going to go on with the Lord when He's turning you over to the torturer? Is that right, people? They said, unless you forgive me of your heart, I'm going to turn you over to the tormentor. Take your word, look it up in your Greek, and you'll find out that it's used for spiritual torment consistently in the New Testament. It's the same word the demons use. Lord, why are you tormenting us? Well, I just submit to you that if God reduced me today to one message, maybe that's forgiveness. I just really believe it's that critical. And I believe it is the greatest means by which you really are freed from your past. Because if you're not, you're just chained to the past. You're chained to that person. You say, well, why can't I let them off my hook? I say, that's precisely it, isn't it? You're hooked to them. If you're only hooked to that event, that's why moving away won't solve it, will it? I said, you let them off your hook, I'll let them off God's hook. No. No, then this is mine. I will take care of it. Let it go. I don't have time to get into it, but it's just critical. And forgiveness is a big issue. All right? 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 3 and 4. It says, Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are Pharisees, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the lama. The thoughts, the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God. Now people, how are we going to win folks to Christ, the same as the mind of the unbelieving? Now truth of the matter is, the reason that the blinding is there is because they're unbelieving. By the way, that's not necessarily limited to non-Christians. You know, the Lord said a number of times, it needs to be done to you according to your belief or your faith. And it's still happening to us. Everybody's walking by faith. Question is what do you believe? Everybody walks by faith. Get it out of the mystical. There's not a person alive that doesn't walk by faith. It's the operating principle of life. But the real question is, is what do you believe? Or whom do you believe in? I wish I had enough time to tell you stories in this area. It's like a girl that was brought to me. One of my students bust her out in the church. What a, what a wreck of humanity this gal was. She's making a living on the streets tonight. continues to master psychology, trying to find some answer for her life, and entered into a doctor's program, and she was just a basket case. Just an absolute basket case. As one of the most hurting human beings I've ever seen in my life. She was desperate. She had seen her puppy dog sacrificed, her father, his sex abuser, her brother, her brother's friends, and just unbelievable junk. I don't know about you, but when I help somebody get through that stuff, man, I just look at them and I just want to say, I'm so sorry that had to happen to you. I mean, why should that have happened to anybody? But anyway, Sharon Price was there. I said, would you like to make that decision? She said, well, I think I would, but I really can't. Now, with that background, you can almost guess, can't you, what's going on in here? Well, I said, listen, I know that you're having thoughts right now that are either accusing you or threatening you or saying something discouraging about myself. Is that right? I said, well that's a lie. It's just trying to keep you from coming to Christ. I said, just ignore that. And she did, five minutes later, she gave her heart to Christ. And for her, she said, when I walked out of your office, it was like life went from black and white to texan color. And just the realization that she had stepped out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Steve Russo, the evangelist who wrote in my book, The Connection of Our Children with Me, He was over in the Ukraine area doing evangelistic work about nine months ago. And a Russian reporter stopped him and pulled him aside, a woman, female reporter, and to an interpreter asked, could an intellectual like me make a decision for Christ? And so the interpreter, well of course, he shared the gospel with her, and all of a sudden he noticed that she was kind of, you know, being distracted. So to the interpreter, asked, are you having thoughts right now? suggesting a warning or threatening you in any way. Of course, the interpreter looked at her and went, you know. She had to interpret all this. And the girl, as soon as she heard that, the woman goes, how'd you know that? Well, five minutes later, she gave him a hug and said, hey. You know, it's really fascinating. Steve has never gotten involved in social warfare per se. And he helped me write the book because he knew the youth culture. But boy, he's gotten on board recently. You know what's fascinating about it is that he talks to thousands of kids. And he has tried this a few times. He said, some of you right now are sitting out there having thoughts, telling you, don't believe me, whatever else. And he said, I can't believe the reaction of the students. They start looking about, how do you know that? It's really fascinating. He said, why don't we know this? Well, I can't read your mind. You can't read my mind. And in our culture, believe me, you're not going to share that information very readily. And people would conclude what? You're going crazy. You have a neurological or psychological problem. You're out of touch with reality. You'll be on anti-psychotic medication just like that. I know, because that's the ones I see all the time. They're so drugged they can't hardly think. And as soon as they do a 10 and 20, and they've got to win that battle for their mind, how are they going to do that, people? That is the most frustrating thing in the world to me. And I'll tell you what, don't get mad at Tim, by the way. Here's my frustration. Don't get mad at the secular world for not resolving the Spirit's conflicts for me. Whose job is that? That's the church. That's the church. I'd like to get the church to the point where it's saying, let's check it out. See, I'm not trying to push anything here. You've got a message that works, bless your heart. But let me tell you something. What I like about what I call the truth encounter is this. You've got a safe means to check it out. If there was nothing demonic there, nothing. The worst thing that's going to happen When you're done, is it going to really be ready for communion next time it comes out? No, I'm not going to apologize to anybody about that. And I don't think it's any different, by the way, than you going in and seeing the medical doctor because you don't feel well. He says, well, let me give a blood test. Let me check out your urine. Comes back negative. You get mad at him? Well, for crying out loud, you know. Why'd you have me check that out? Was there nothing wrong with me? I mean, you'd be relieved, really, wouldn't you? Now, why don't you get mad at him because he's not holistic? You know, it's fascinating how people come to the pastor and say, you're not holistic. You know, you should check the physical out. Well, folks, I'm a pastor. What do you expect me to check out? That's the church's job. That's our primary ministry. Find out where the spiritual growth and life is. If we don't do it, who's going to do it? And frankly, as I read my Bible, check that out first. I wish I had enough time to share with you. I had a dear lady come in. Halfway through the conference, she said, you described me to a team. Well, we were doing a Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night at a church. And this was about halfway through. And she said, Tuesday, I'm going to go into this treatment center for $20,000. And frankly, what frightened me, it's supposed to be a Christian unit. But I knew that she was going to go in and be put on drugs. I knew that. Well, she told me that. Because that's why they wanted her in the hospital, so they could monitor that. Five years of nightmares and struggles and whatever else. Five years of counseling. I got with her Monday night. I said, just come over. It was awkward, people. I hardly knew this lady. We went to the church. It was locked. And so we went to my house. And I said to my dad, I walked her through the steps with you. And she just didn't believe it at the end. Oh, it's in a mindless class. Next day, she went in to that treatment center. I said, well, rightly, I will never personally go against another counselor's or physician's decision. That's your choice to make. Well, she thought, well, may as well. You know, $20,000. So anyway, you know what I got paid? Well, anyway, you know. I don't charge. I don't charge. But anyway, she went in, and she wrote me a letter. She said, I can't believe it. I woke up the next morning. I didn't have a nightmare last night. And the first thought that hit my heart was even the stones when I cried out, Abba, Abba, Abba. And you know, the Holy Spirit is alive in me. And she went in for about a week and started to check herself out. And she's doing great for this day. Now, see, my point is this. You've got nothing to lose, everything to gain. Check it out. And in burden for the church and also our counseling community, I said, you know, you've got to have a safe means. Because I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I said, how do you check this out? You know, here's the scenario I always fear. All right, I'm on to you. You're going to have the person say, what are you talking to? 40 seconds. You know, I said, oh, I don't want to look like a fool, you know. I said, here's a holistic way to deal with the whole person not losing control where they assume the responsibility and walk them through it. We have nothing to lose. You couldn't possibly hurt a person with this process. Unless you beat them up alongside a hit or something along the way too. But anyway. You know, I honestly think that a whole concept of salvation needs to be rethought in light of this thing. I think prayer is the key to evangelism, to be honest with you. And so the Christian community stand against that blinding and tear down those strongholds in Christ and be true intercessors. Tell me, what am I supposed to be done here? What? 545? How are you guys doing? Good. Go on. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Look at another usage of this verse. Chapter 11 verse 3. But I am afraid, lest as a serpent deceived thee by his craftiness, you are noima, but Your mind should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus, that's the Greek word Eloch. It means another Jesus like this one. They're talking about the same historical Jesus, but they're preaching them a different way. Now you've just defined what a cult is, haven't you? I mean, that's the basis for what a cult is. If you got Jesus wrong, everything else is going to be wrong after that. But it says if you do that, who may not preach or receive a difference. That's heteros. That's altogether a different spirit which you've not received or a different, that's heteros, altogether a different gospel. It will not be the Holy Spirit and it won't be a gospel of grace. I was at Rolling Hills Covenant Church. I think it's the largest covenant church in the country. Good church out in our area, doing our conference. And this lady come up after the first service and said, I go to the eight o'clock service here and then I go to my own church to teach Bible study. I said, what church is that? What do they think? I said, she said, what do you think of that? And I said, well, you coming tonight? She said, I think I am. Well, that night we talked about our dead and inclined. And that night she gave her life to Christ. I didn't know that at the time. We asked her to turn off our Saturday conference. I had to go back a month later and repeat it. But we resolved the spiritual conflict part of it. So anyway, the second Saturday, she shows up with two ladies beside her. They said, hi, do you remember me? I said, sure, how you doing? They said, great. I said, well, weren't you here last month? She said, I was. Well, what happened? Oh, it was incredible, she said. I sat here through that whole thing on Saturday, and this voice inside kept saying, get out of here. He's the one I warned you about. I said, well, obviously, you didn't go. She said, no, I had a friend, and he tried, and he wouldn't let me go. I said, what happened to the voice? She said, it's gone. And that's why I'm here, because my two sisters are going to go through this today. I had another gal bring in a A moment ago, we were just plagued with suicide thoughts. Walked us through the steps of freedom, going great, we got a pretty decent life, okay? Got to the last step, we announced to the sisters, you hear sisters? And all of a sudden, oh, I could hear it. Tell me what you're hearing now, what's going on in your mind? You mean you don't see him there? I said, who? My dad, standing right there. Now don't bother to look, folks, you won't see a thing. I mean, I don't even turn around. I remember one time, You know, years ago, when I didn't know what I was doing, some missionary, a pastor, called me in and said, this gal is saying to be a witch. And we were about eight hours into this mess, going absolutely nowhere, and all of a sudden, she goes, there they are! And we're all, whoa! Didn't see a thing. You know, it startled us, but I said, don't bother to look. I said, tell me about your father. I'm responsible for my father. Is that true? No. We have a responsibility to each other. But see, part of their religion is you've got to baptize for the dead, marry the dead, and whatever else. I said, you've got a responsibility for that person. That's not true. She renounced it. We went out and Grandma showed up. This little telly about Grandma, you know, and well, you know, I'm leaving the family straight. Well, it turned out she was. It was her grandmother who got them all into Mormonism. And she renounced that whole thing. A year later, I got a letter from her saying, would you please come to my wedding? I say, I have been so free this past year. But there's no way I could have gotten married or whatever. Now don't just blame that on the cult, by the way. We've got the same problems in our church. You need to realize that. But it's that belief system. It's that structure. I'm concerned that your mind be led astray from the simplistic impurity of devotion to Christ. I'm concerned, aren't you? I really am. I mean, we have gotten off focus on so many issues, but it would affix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Don't be experience-centered. Don't be spirit-centered. Be Christ-centered. The Lord even the demons are subject to us. Don't rejoice in that. Rejoice in the fact that your name is written on the book of life. There's nothing more of value to know our Lord and who we are in relationship to Him. It's the most important belief that we possess, I feel. Know who God is. See, I come into this world, it took me 35 years in my life to figure out who God was. It took me another 10 years to figure out who I was. Then a new age comes along, takes a little kid, and the little kid believes in God. Then he grows up a little more, and he doesn't believe in God. Then he grows up a little more and begins to believe he is God. Isn't that project? Got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and he shall be as God. Just like me when I was a child, I believed in Santa Claus, and I grew up and did believe it. Now that I'm a parent, I am Santa Claus. So what do we do about this? What do we do about this? I mean, I hope I've established for you, biblically, that there is a battle going on for our minds. But to see that in a balanced way. Not to see it. See, I'll tell you what. One terminology I absolutely hate. I don't want to defend anybody here. I don't want to defend anybody here either. Anyway. I hate the terminology, a spirit of this, a spirit of that. Like the spirit of lust. Let me tell you why I hate that. If I cast that spirit of lust out, your problems would be over. Do you believe that? Boy, you better not believe that. I'll guarantee you they won't be over. You know why? Because of all the experiences and mind programming and everything else that has taken place there. You better deal holistically with it. My experience is, if you just try to discipline your mind without breaking the spiritual bond, you'll never make it either. It's a difficult balance to work through. But you've got to break that spiritual bonding that took place there. Once that is broken, the ability now to control and manage your mind will be there even though it's going to be a struggle. Once you've programmed into that memory bank, you ever wonder why, people, that you can look at one pornographic picture and it'll be there for 10 years? You can study Greek all night, take the exam in the morning, and the register will clear right afterwards. I took six semesters of higher math. All I can remember is algebra. I don't even remember what calculus was for. I must not remember it. Gone! You know, but it's incredible. The experiences that I had in the sexual realm when I was a kid still seem to be there. It's a myth. But, you know, I hope, in a balanced way, that we can deal with these issues and realizing we've got to work holistically with our people. My experience has been, I think James would confirm this, just getting rid of the demons without finding what the real issues and the cost of being there is almost counterproductive. You may end up with a worse problem than you had before. And so I'm very cautious of saying I want you to work through the issues and help you assume the responsibility. of what it is that's been critical between you and your Lord, and having the right relationship. It's a simple concept, just submit to God. All that it takes to submit to God, then do what? Then resist the devil. But you better do both. But what will help you do is submit to God. And get that right. I love what a girl said in her book, Relief from Bombings. She came in for counseling, she thought. And I love what she said. She said, that wasn't a counseling session, that was an encounter with God. Praise the Lord. Get the wonderful counselor back in the ministry, folks. He's the only one who can set these people free. It may be a little bit of a pride to say, I cast the demon out of that girl. That may be what it'd be. But I'm saying, I love it when the Lord grants repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, having escaped the snare of the devil, having been held captive to do His will. And when that person begins to assume their responsibility, know the nature of the battle, resolve it themselves, the chances of them staying free are very, very good. I mean, our fallback rate is really, really low. I'd have to put it in two or three percentage points. You know, it's kind of like saying, why do I want to go back and go through that again? Because it's revealing. Another thing I can't explain to you, and Jim, would you comment on this if you can think about it for a moment? I have, you know, I'm a conventional counselor and I have, you know, you work sometimes for six months and years to try to hear the whole story. I will hear in two hours time more than I used to hear in a year. I don't know what there is about the process, but man, they just tell all types of stuff to me. Have you noticed that? It's incredible. I've had counselors bring in people who've been counseling for sometimes a long period of time and sit there and observe the process and they're kind of, I never knew that stuff about that person. So one of the reasons I think is this. First of all, I'm not going to cure you of this. I may tell you details. I've been raped, abused, and whatever else. But chances are I won't tell you what's spiritually going on in my mind, the balance of my mind, if I don't believe you will accept that. Because I'll just tell you about that. So you never know what's going on in one sense. The other reason is I'm not so sure I would care to share every piece of dirt if I didn't see any profit in sharing it. But if you're sharing it for the purpose of resolution, I'll share it. I know I'm going to share it because in the process of sharing it, I'm resolving my conflict. But if I'm sharing it just to share it. See, I think we lack a theology of resolution. I believe we just haven't thought through what the resolution of this thing, what is the answer? And when that person knows that that's what I have to do to get at the answer, to get resolution, they'll do it. They'll do it. Some don't even want to forgive necessarily. I understand that, I said, but you got to realize you're forgiven for your sake. Well, it hurt me so bad just to hurting you. How do you stop the pain? Let it go. And man, I was starting to see heartbeats open up at that time. The other issue is when they ask the Lord to reveal their mind, who does they need to forgive? That's too much for me now. Well, I can't think of anybody. I said, just share with me names that are coming to mind. 25 names will come up. They'll spend the next hour and a half, two hours trying to go through forgiveness. You know, God is faithful. He really was. They prayed and asked the Lord to reveal to their mind who they need to forgive. Guess what happened? I said, who? I said, just your name. Well, okay. And all kinds of names will come up. And it's just fascinating. Then the other thing is they said, we'll explain forgiveness to them. We'll talk about it, what it is. The choice that you're going to have to make, the choice to allow God to hit that emotional core, however, you bypass that, you don't forgive from your heart. It won't be much resolution. But I said, Lord, I forget, what for? I said, close your eyes. And I said, God will serve something. True, man, I'm telling you. And God will. Why? Because God wants me to pray. He doesn't want me tied into the past like that. He requires me to do it. Will He enable me to do what He requires me to do? Well, if He did, what kind of a God would He be? I'm confident that if you put God into that process, This is a rather remarkable resolution. And things will surface during that time, they're almost surprised at. Well, how do you destroy strongholds? Well, that's the making of the New Nevermind. And let me reinforce that, because the primary means To me it comes in good discipleship, good preaching, good teaching, the normal functions of the church. And I believe in that. Deeply believe in it. So I teach in higher education. And so the other issue is, is gird up your mind for action. 1 Peter 1 13. Now, this is a hard line to draw here, and I'll be honest with you, I kind of do it with a paintbrush. But that whole area of is there a place for visualization, for imagination, you know, is so popular today. Well, yes and no. From where I stand right now, I believe that there is a legitimate place for sanctified imagination. That you imagine yourself, for instance, preaching the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, maybe witnessing and doing a good job, or even athletically preparing yourself mentally, you know, to get your swing right or whatever, that's all right, by and large, provided what? You do it. You gird up your mind for what? Action. Where you start going in a la-la land is that you start imagining something that isn't true, number one, or imagining yourself as a means of coping and living in a non-real world, and grandiose ideas of yourself, or making plans, and living in that fantasy world. I said, now you're darting apart from reality. And that's unhealthy. That's unhealthy. So if you can base what it is that you are imagining that biblically it's right and it's true for the purpose of preparing yourself to live a victorious Christian life, I think it's a healthy thing. But when it's not doing that, then you're starting to use your imagination as a means for coping, but it's not based in reality. And it's not carried out in your life. And now I think you can get into some real dangerous trouble. Make every thought captive. What do you do? I have a lot of people say, well, that's, you know, how do you do that? Well, frankly, I don't care whether there's a thought in your mind right now, it's coming from the TV set over there, the magazine you just read, your pre-programmed memory bank, or the pen. Disexamine it in light of the word of God, if it's not true, forget it. Should I rebuke it? If you rebuked every thought that came into your mind, what would you do the rest of your life? That's all you would do. You'd be like the guy stuck out in the middle of the ocean with 12 corks around you and a ball-peen hammer, and your entire life's purpose is to tread water to keep those corks submerged. And I think debilitating what you're supposed to do is ignore the stupid corks and swim to shore. That's all you would do, wouldn't you? Everybody has that. How do you stand against the fiery dust? You put up a shield of faith. What is that? What do you believe? Better be truth, by the way. And if you're a healthy person, it just pings right off. Everybody here has got sensitive thoughts. Everybody here has experienced the voice of the accused of the brothers. Everybody has. If you're healthy and you're free, shoot, it pings right off. You don't feel guilty about it. You don't seem to be tempted. But below I'll tell you what, hear me on this. You can do that if you're free. But if you're not, telling somebody to get them mentally disciplined themselves is a real trick, folks. Get them free first and maybe they can. But I've seen some people that had just refused, almost, to assume the responsibility to sing, to take every thought captive. And I don't know, everybody's fought all their life for it. The hardest people to get out of spiritual conflict, for me, are incredibly subjective people, who are just lazy mentally, and just will not assume that battle. Just won't do it. And it's really frustrating, because I've seen people who have feel the freedom, and all of a sudden, a little falsely aware, oh no! They didn't get it. Folks, it did work. You just bought a lie. I've seen it happen pretty fast sometimes with certain people. I always warn them. What will happen tonight if you have a little thought? I'm bad. What would you say? No, you're not. But that can happen. We're all subject to that. But I'm telling you, if you fall right back into that subjectivity again, you're going to have a hard time standing firm. You're going to have a hard time standing firm. Well, what do you do? You turn to God. Be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passeth all the table. God your heart and your name. Same word. Stop. Is that the end of it? You turn to God. Oh, God will protect me. Well, he'll do his part. What's the next verse? Only brethren, whatever is true. Think on those things. My responsibility is to do that. Nobody can do that for you. Whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, anything worthy of praise, think on those things. Now let me show you kind of a graphic testimony of that issue in the mind. This is a girl's missionary for 13 years. The time I was calling to see her, she was seeing her pastor, her psychologist, and her psychiatrist once a week, just to hold her life together. They're one Friday afternoon together. Two and a half months later, I got this letter. I've been wanting to write to you for a while now, but I've waited this long to confirm myself that this is truly for real. As my four and a half year old daughter says. I'd like to share an entry from my journal. I wrote this two days after I met you. So this is out of her journal. Sunday night, two days later. This Friday afternoon, I felt like a different person. The fits of rage and anger are gone. My spirit is so calm and full of joy. I wake up singing praise to God in my heart. That edge of tension and irritation is gone. I feel so free. The Bible has been really exciting and stimulating and more understandable than ever before. There was nothing dramatic that happened during the session on Friday with Neil, yet I know in the deepest part of my being that something has changed. I'm no longer bound by accusations, doubts, thoughts of suicide or murder or other harm that come straight from hell into my head. There is a serenity in my mind and spirit, a clarity of consciousness that is profound. I've been set free. I'm excited and expectant about my future now. I know that I'll be growing spiritually again and will be developing in other ways as well. I look forward happily to the discovery of the person God has created and redeemed as well as the transformation of my marriage. It's so wonderful to have joy after so long of darkness. That was a journal entry. Now, there's two and a half months since I wrote that. I'm currently convinced of the significant benefits of finding freedom in Christ. I've been in therapy since June. While I believe I was making progress, there was no comparison with the steps I'm able to make now. My ability to process things has increased many folds. Not only is my spirit more serene, my head is actually clearer. It's easier to make connections and integrate things now. Seems like everything is easier to understand now. My relationship with God has changed significantly. For a number of years, eight, I felt he was distant from me. Shortly before I met you, I desperately cried out to him to set me free, to release me from the bondage I was in. I wanted so badly to meet with him again, to know his presence with me again. I needed to know him as a friend, as a companion, not as a distant authority figure he had become in my mind and experience. Since that day in November, I've seen my trust in Him grow. I've seen my ability to be honest with Him increase greatly. I really have been experiencing the spiritual growth I had anticipated in my drill entry." Great. Now, what's so fascinating about this story is that that girl, within about a month, was helping her pastor do this with other people. They have a ministry called SWAT. spiritual warfare against trauma. And they've gone through a whole video series, and he personally, as the pastor has, now he promises a lot to people in this church. How effective is it? The Rabbi Loma Linda University, their psychiatric department over there, regularly refers people to this church. Because they've seen a number of their clients find that freedom in Christ. That's the role of the church, people. You and I are the pillars and support of truth. according to 1 Timothy 3. And we've got to be that sight, pulse, and light into this world. Well, let's pray together as we close. Father, we love you. We thank you for your word. It's a lamp unto our feet. And God, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would again guide us. Thank you, Father, that you have come into this world. And all the time the world may not have perceived you, but we are here because we're your children. And we just pray, Father, that we'll be faithful to the task before us. to minister to people in a complete way and not be superficial in dealing with people who are in deep trouble. But Lord we know you care for them and you love them and so thank you for the ministry that you provided for us and we trust that we will be faithful even on to the end. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.