And I believe it's a crowd that does, amen. Let's run over to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And I see the Lord has for us this morning. And you do pray for me also, because at 2 o'clock, I'll be over at Black Oak Baptist Church, just right around the corner from here. And I'll be singing and preaching over there for them, for their God and country day. So you pray for me, because I'll be doing that at 2 o'clock. And you'll be back here at 6, amen. So hallelujah, amen. Come I hear my Lord, come I hear. Come I hear my Lord, come I hear. Come by here, my Lord. Come by here. Oh, Lord, come by here. Somebody needs a Lord. Come by here. Somebody needs your Lord, please come by here. Somebody needs your Lord, come by here. Oh Lord, come by here. Somebody's praying Lord, come by here. Somebody's praying Lord, Please come by here. Somebody's praying, Lord, come by here. Oh, Lord, come by here. Oh, Lord, come by here. Oh, Lord, come by here. That's all Sam as you read from 2nd Corinthians chapter number of Chapter number 10, and we'll see what the Lord has for us this morning amen And this is a good passage of scripture, and I believe will help us today There's a few thoughts, and then we'll go and get some reals from somewhere amen But look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 10, and we'll read verse 3 and 4 then we'll pray the Bible says for though we walk in in the flesh, hallelujah. We do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our, that's interesting, our, meaning this thing alone, warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. I want to talk very briefly this morning, this little thought, freedom from strongholds. Freedom from strongholds. Father, I need your help. There's no way that I'll be able to preach this message without your presence and your power. So I ask God to clean my vessel thoroughly. I pray God to scrub my mind completely. And I pray God to guide my tongue and my speech and my actions. I pray God to help me to preach your word with fresh power, fresh anointing, a fresh touch from you. And with that, Father, I personally shout hallelujah. I pray God also for each one that's gathered here this morning. They could have been anywhere else, Father, in this country, but they chose to be here this morning to worship you, but also that they hear from your precious word. I pray God that you would continue to help us. As a matter of fact, you've already been doing it. Through the songs that have been sung and through the worship already. I pray God that you continue. And I also pray God to challenge us. in that particular area of our life that we, we, we need to be challenged but also need to be helped and for that God will shout hallelujah and of course I pray for those who are watching live streaming those who are watching later I pray God should bless them and draw them a little closer God to you and of course if there's anyone here or watching that doesn't know Jesus as Savior, King, Lord, Master, Messiah I pray God that this will be that day they embrace the one who died upon the cross to give them the ultimate freedom the ultimate liberty and that of course is from the piety of sin and yes, sir The power of sin and one day the presence of sin and with that God will thank you That's about it for now master. I've left anything out. Please meet that need as well. Of course in your son's name We pray my weak Jesus, but mighty Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Maybe see it Freedom from strongholds. Our country was founded on freedom. Amen? We had a stronghold over us from another country, the British. Amen? But we decided we were going to declare independence. from those who are oppressing us, primarily with taxes and a whole list of other things, but we declared our independence. And our mind has just gone to a place here, where that preacher, you and I, need to declare our independence. Our independence from this old nature, amen, our independence from Satan who's trying to continue to bind us and hold us and bruise us and beat us and to demolish us and destroy us with every ounce that he has. The question is this, will we declare our independence? Would you remind that preacher? Anybody can say I'm independent. Anybody can say I'm free. But what's going to happen is this, that's going to be placed or put to the test. When our country said, we declare our independence, it wasn't like England said, OK. That's not what happened. No, my dear friends, they sent reinforcements into this country to try to break what they call the rebellion, to break those who are trying to revolt against them. And by the same nature, the same way, in other words, The emulant is the same thing. When you are on the side, you know what? I will turn my life around. I'm giving my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm giving my life over to the Master. I'm declaring my independence from the enemy that has bound me for so long. He doesn't say okay. He sends reinforcements. And you've heard, as our brother Mike Kelly preached last Tuesday, my soul, we'll come to the altars and we'll pray and we'll make commitments, we'll make vows. And before we get to the parking lot, we've already broke them, amen. Why? Because the enemy, my friends, is real. And the enemy will do his best to hinder you and I from being independent, my friends, of his clutches, his hands, or his grasp. But I'm glad to report this morning that the Bible teaches us that we can have freedom from the strongholds that the enemy uses to try to hinder us. That word freedom means the state of being free or at liberty, rather than in confinement or under physical restraint. Let me read that again. The state of being free. or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint. In other words, that which is trying to hold you, that which is trying to stop you from going forward, whatever that might be. In other words, it may be wrapped around you, it may be holding you, but what happens is this. When you are free from those restraints, that means You no longer have them. That means they're no longer there. But some of us have declared our freedom. Some of us have declared our liberty, but we're still walking around in restraints. And when you've got restraints, my friends, it's hard to worship. It's hard to serve. It's hard, my dear friends, to do whatever God would have us to do because of those restraints, because of those strongholds that the enemy has placed upon us. But hallelujah, the Bible teaches us that you and I can have freedom. You and I can have independence. Matter of fact, the synonyms for the word freedom are independence, abandonment. Ooh, I like this, elbow room. Liberty, opportunity, unrestricted. That word elbow room just stick out to my mind. You have been out to eat, and you ain't got no elbow room. I mean, it's like they're pressing in on you. It's like, man, I can't, I can't, I can't get no, I mean, it's just like, come for a minute, Stevie. Come up for a minute, brother Kirby. It's like this, you're sitting there and you got your nice big old slab of ribs there and it's time to eat and you can't even cut. You're like, man, I need some room. I can't cut my, I can't grab a hold of my stuff. Y'all crowding me. Well, that's what the enemy does. The enemy is crowding us. We're trying to move forward for God. We're trying to go. It's like, man, they just got me. They got me a bar stand. I need to be. I need me some elbow room. And when God give us elbow room, then guess what? Now you're free to eat as much as you want on your plate. Amen? Calories. Amen. Now watch this. The antonym for independence, the opposite It's captivity, confinement, imprisonment, incarceration, slavery. I wonder what has us a slave this morning. I wonder what has our life and slavery. I ain't no slave. I'm free. Are you really? If I was to name a particular person's name, would you find yourself back in bondage? If I was to name a particular situation, You find yourself back in bondage. So once you've been freed, my friends, been naked, you don't matter what that name is or what that situation is, you're free from that. But if we can bring that incident up, and you find yourself walking now, you know, for example, you'll be around a bunch of folks laughing, and then they say, John. Then there you go. The whole demeanor has changed. The whole temperance has changed. What that means, my dear friends, is we're still in slavery. Now, in this case, it might be in the area of unforgiveness. It still has us in bondage. Because the forgiveness is, look up the word. Part of the definition is to let loose. When you let something loose, my friends, that means it is what? It's free. But a lot of us have let some things loose. But perhaps this might be that morning when these things, this afternoon, when these things get loose. I was doing some reading and one person put it like this. We have an enemy that wants to not only to distract us, but also to disarm us, also to disable us, and then to destroy us. I said, man, that's good. Is that not true? The enemy, my dear friends, wants to distract us. And once you're distracted, if y'all remember when we did the Army of the Lord, and Stevie was one of the recruits that we had, and they had their weapon, and we had two young ladies that come up, and they were talking about how handsome they were, and all this kind of stuff, you know, and they got distracted. And the next thing you know, that distraction went to what? Disarmament. They disarmed them, took their weapons. And then when they took their weapons, my dear friends, they were now disabled. They couldn't use his weapons to fight against them. And then what happened was this. They began to shoot them with their own weapons. To do what? To destroy them. That's the same tactics the enemy is using against us every day. But I want to give you four things and we're done. The first thing is this. The war for freedom. If you want freedom, it's going to be a war. Though the Bible says in verse number three, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. So right away, my friends, you see there is a war for freedom. If you want freedom, there's going to be a fight. Whoever has a hold of your mind, if you want victory over it, you got to fight. If you think it's just going to go away and disappear, that's not going to happen. That person ain't going to disappear. Unless you get murdered or something. Don't do that. Amen. Hallelujah. But nonetheless, they're not going to just go away like that. There's going to be a war. There's going to be a battle. But know what he says, my dear friends, for though we walk in the flesh, that word flesh there means bodily. To walk means to live, to turn around. We turn around in this body. But know what he says. We do not war. We do not contend after the flesh. And that word contend here also means this. The word war here also means to contend. It also means a military campaign. Now, you have a military campaign. That means it's not a one day's battle. It's a campaign. In other words, it's going to be a lengthy battle. I can't tell you how long, but it's going to be a lengthy battle. And the Bible says, though, that we are not warring, we're not contending with flesh. We're not using our flesh to try to win this victory. Yes, we're in the flesh. And some of us are proud of it. You know, what do you mean by that, preacher? Boy, it's my flesh. You know, I had one person tell me one time, said, if it wasn't for my flesh, Or no, they use this word, if it wasn't for that sin, that sin. It was almost like the sin was over here and they was over here, but that sin keeps bothering them. If it wasn't for that sin, wait a minute, that sin ain't over here, that sin is in here. It's called a sin nature. And all of us have a sin nature. If you think you don't have a sin nature, you just deceived yourself. The Bible says, we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth, Is that in us? The Bible goes on to say, it would say that we have not sinned, that we have called him a what? A liar. But we have a sin nature. But that's why we can't use our sin nature. Think about this. You're going to use your nature to fight your nature. That's crazy stuff there. That's like somebody that's got a whole bunch of stuff going on in their brain, a lot of different people up in there. And you're trying to fight yourself? Yourself gonna fight yourself. Here you go. Some people, and that's my fact, that's what some people used to do when they would try to do penance and all that kind of stuff and climb the stairs on their knees and they would whip themselves. What were they trying to do? They were trying to beat that flesh. With the flesh. It don't work that way. But one thing is for sure, my dear friends, if you and I want freedom, there's going to be a war. Secondly, we see the weapons of freedom. The Bible says in verse number four, For the weapons, or the armor, the tool, the utensil of our warfare, our military service, are not carnal, but mighty through God's, the pulling down of strongholds. So we see, my dear friends, we have to war for freedom, but the weapons of our freedom, as I said earlier, are spiritual weapons. They are not fleshly weapons. And the word weapons, like I said, means armor, tool, or utensil. Whatever you're fighting with is spiritual. That's why we did the pledge for the Bible. The Bible is the sword of the Spirit. That's how we fight the enemy. And then the Bible says that we take the shield of faith. And when you take the shield of faith, you got your shield. But you know what you fight with? You don't fight with this sword. This is a physical sword. You don't fight with this kind of sword. The sword you fight with is this sword right here. See the Bible says the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. So you take your shield of faith, and we'll pretend like this is the shield of faith. And that, of course, is also an invisible shield, because you're trusting someone. He's giving you that faith, that confidence to trust him. You take that shield of faith, and when the enemy comes from in the, uh, uh, uh, what's your name again? Stevie. Come up here, Stevie. You grab you one of them, uh, grab you one of those swords over there. Just take one. Grab you one of the swords. OK. No, no, get you two, get you two. That's what the enemy gonna do. He gonna heal. See, you ever think he come with one sword, he come with two swords. Amen. And one of the kids bent my sword. Straightened my thing. Messing my toys up. Amen. All right. I got to have wars and stuff. Amen. Y'all come down some Saturday and play. But when that enemy comes at you, and we're pretending like those are actually spiritual swords, and we have one, say this is a sword of anger, this one here is griping. That's a good one. Amen. He comes at you, and he comes at you with anger. You block him with faith. Now if you don't block him with faith, when he hits you, then he's going to cut you. But when you block him with faith, that anger comes, you block him with the Word of God. You block him with the shield of faith, and then you come back with the Word of God. What does the Word of God say about anger? I was just gonna say, if anybody had a verse, say that. Be angry or sin not. OK, that one says get angry but don't sin. Give me another verse. Somebody give me another verse on anger. Huh? Vengeance is mine. Vengeance is mine. OK, I'll tell you my message this morning. Somebody give me another verse. A soft answer. A soft answer turns away wrath in what? Grievous words stir up anger. A soft answer, husbands and wives. Moms and dads toward their children, what you want? Now, you know what you're trying your child to do? The same as somebody else, what you want? Whenever I walk by the house, what you want? What you want? A soft answer turns away wrath, amen? If you didn't care, one day you'd be sleeping, they'd be standing over you with a sword. But you take that shield of faith and you block it, and you come back with that scripture, the Word of God. That's why it's so important to know the Word of God. And the enemy will do his best to fight you on that Word, amen? Hallelujah. Okay, you be seated, buddy. Alright. Y'all hear me? I feel like I'm getting hoarse here. I don't know if I need more volume or not. That valuable volume, amen. Lewis says here, So, we see the weapons of our freedom. The Bible says for the weapons of our warfare, our military service are not carnal. But, I like this part, mighty through God. That word mighty right there my friends, it means this, it means possible, it means capable, it means powerful. So in other words, he says this. He says, my dear friends, he says, four, the weapons of our warfare are not counter, but mighty. They are possible through God. It is possible to have freedom. Well, I'm going to always be this way. I'm going to always be just irritated at everything, because this is in my DNA. I'm going to always be just aggravated by stuff. I'm just going to always just, it's just the way my daddy, my grandmama, they all was just like this. According to the Bible, it's possible. It's capable. The power is there. But it's not my own power. The Bible says it's through who? What does it say there? Through God. In other words, my dear friends, He gives me the power, He gives me the capability to be able, my dear friends, to have that freedom from whatever it is. that has a hold of me. Louis says again, he says this, he says, but mighty through God. And the last one I want to show you is this, not only the war for freedom, the weapons of freedom, the possibility of freedom, but then we see the presence of freedom. The Bible says this, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. That's the presence of victory. That means those strongholds can be pulled down. Now watch what he says. This word here, pulled down, means demolition. It means extinction. It means also destruction. Now, all those sounds to me, gone, baby, gone. Look at it again. He says this. He says, wait a minute, but mighty through God, the pulling down, the demolition, the extinction, the destruction of strongholds. And that word strongholds also means like a castle, or a holding, or a fortress. When we had our nights for Christ, and we stormed the castle. The enemy was behind there, but we were able to storm the castle to get in and rescue the person. She came out, she came out with an attitude, but we rescued her. She wasn't at work, took so long. But we rescued her, amen. What that says is this, this is a very simple message. What that says is this, whatever strongholds in my life, whatever castle, whatever fortress, whatever it is that has a hold of me, it can be demolished, it can be extinct, it can be destroyed, but only through God. That means I got to do it His way. The other day, Friday, I just wasn't feeling good Friday. I mean, I was, I had stuff shooting everywhere. I just wasn't feeling good. And so basically Friday was just a, it was a, it was a, for me, it was a non-productive day. But at the close of that day, I said, man, I can't stay here. I can't, I can't, I can't stay in this place. So you know what I did? I believe the Lord put that in my mind. I grabbed my, I grabbed my phone and I had some sermons downloaded on there. I got my ear plugs, put my ear, put my phone, and I listened to a message by Dr. Larry Brown. The message was what, somebody? Ain't nobody what? Ain't nobody like him. And I listened to that thing from around 9, maybe earlier than that, but 9, 10, somewhere around there, p.m. up until about 8 a.m. That song was going over and over and over and over again. What was I doing? I was trying to clear my head out of what was attacking my head. Because the enemy will attack your mind. He will attack your head. And I'm like, wait a minute. I know what I'm being attacked. I said, well, I got to fill my mind up with some word. I know the reading of the Bible was fine. At that moment, I was singing, having good songs. That was fine. But what I needed at that moment was to saturate my mind, to overdose my mind. with some preaching from God's Word. And then my dear friends, when I got up, and I took that off, and then I got another sermon, and it was called The Sacrifice of Praise. That was the sermon that I heard about Dr. Craig Edwards when I first went down there to Victor Baptist Church on that Monday night, and when he preached on Monday, my voice is about like what it is right now, and it was all gone from shouting, from crying, from weeping, and it was Monday! And I'm like, my soul! We got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to go! But the Lord took that message and helped me. You know what I did? And it was just like I was going through that. I saw that sermon and I downloaded it onto my phone and I put that on my ears and let that hit my mind. And then I filled my mind with that. And then on top of that, I went ahead and went to the gym. And while I was at the gym, I listened to that sermon being preached. And a couple of times I'd yell and scream. That probably would have scared me out of there. But nonetheless, what was I doing? I was saturating my mind. with that preaching of God's word. And I found another sermon. Just so happens, God knows what he's doing. Just so happens, it was the same sermon that was preached on that Tuesday night by Craig Edwards. I started listening to that, and I could, warning y'all since I heard it, but you hear me shouting in the background. Both of those sermons, and that meeting in itself, God used to help me. As a matter of fact, Josh, do me a favor, buddy, and go to my office and look on the top shelf and you'll see a Bible, Thompson's Chain Reference Bible, left side, right there, right in front of you. You see that Thompson's Chain Reference Bible? There's a bunch of Bibles, real big Bibles sitting right there. You see it, buddy? It says Thompson's Chain Reference, the biggest Bible on that shelf. It's toward me, toward the door. You see it? No, that ain't it. That's a good Bible, though. Right here. All right. No problem. Amen. You're still a good worker. Amen. In this Bible, I've got certain things written, certain things marked, that events that God has used to help me in different areas of my life. And one of those I've got written down in here, it says May 8th through the 12th, 2006. Victory Baptist, Dr. Larry Brown. And in parentheses, it has one word. And that one word is freedom. Freedom. That week, God gave me freedom. That week, God gave me liberty that I had not experienced in such a long... I said freedom, my dear friends. I'm talking about freedom from the brethren. I'm talking about freedom from myself. I'm talking about freedom to worship God, to exalt God, to hear from God, to be helped by God. And there's nothing like freedom! Nothing like freedom. But when your mind is enslaved, when your heart is enslaved, it's hard to do anything for God. But man, when you get that freedom, oh man, when you have that liberty to be able to worship God, to exalt God, to uplift His holy name, my dear friends, there's nothing like it in this entire world. There's no drug that can compare to it. There's nothing in this life that can compare to it. And some of us used to have that freedom. Some of us used to have that liberty. And some of us have never even experienced it. And I'm not talking about when you got saved, when you were. But that's a part of it. But I'm talking about going beyond that. When you're not so concerned about, well, what this was, and who that was, and all this. Everybody ain't going to like you. If you think everybody's going to like you, you've lost your mind. Because they're not. I mean, I've got dear friends, but do you think we all agree on everything? No, but we're still friends. Everybody's not going to like everything that you do. But I'm going to tell you, when I got that freedom to worship God, and it's almost like God was just taking me back down that memory lane. Because I mean, I just needed my mind to be clean, my mind to be free. And there's nothing like it, because then you can breathe. And all of a sudden, when you preach, you get liberty, freedom. When you sing, you get liberty, freedom. When you serve, you get liberty and freedom. It's not about a bunch of rules. See, there's a difference between rules and worship. See, when you have rules, you're like, well, I got to, you know, is it right? I mean, I don't know. But when you're just worshiping him, Then, my dear friends, it's like you're fighting to be a certain way. You just like that. It's just OK. It's all right. And then it might not match up with what somebody else likes. Because guess what? We all came from different backgrounds. There's nobody here that's from the same exact background. But what we do, my dear friends, is we try to take our preferences. And like the Bible says, teach them. They're God's doctors, but they're not God's doctors. They're ours. So brother, you mean just run wild? No. When the Holy Spirit of God is guiding you. Oh, I like what, I don't know, somebody preached last night. It was a good preaching last night. Oh, it was when I heard preaching. Oh, yeah, I can't wait till he gets here. But he preached. And he was saying, when you worship God, you hold your hands up and worship. Look up these words, man. Praise. When you're worshiping God, it's just like you open up your hands and you're surrendering. He says it like this, it's like when the bad guy gets caught by the good guys and they said, hold your hands up! And they put their hands up as a surrender. That means they've given in. When you come to worship God, you say, Lord, I'm giving up and I'm giving in to you. In other words, what I'm doing is I'm giving my control over to you. So I'm not in control any longer. God, you're in control. So what he said was this, when God's in control, That means you're out of control. Y'all will catch that in a minute. When God's in control, you're out of control. And when you're out of control, there's somebody that will lead your life. You can have that peace, that liberty, and that freedom. Sometimes you hear a preacher pray something, you hear me pray this, Lord as I preach, give me liberty and freedom when I preach. Why is that? Because sometimes you can be preaching or serving God or singing, whatever it might be, and that end will jump on your back and you'll be trying to do this for God. You feel that restraint. You feel that hindrance. When you don't feel that hindrance, man, next thing you know, man, you'll be jumping on the pulpit and you'll be praising God. Praise God! Praise God! Folks like, he's gone crazy. Now, if I tried to do that in my own strength, man, I'd be like, oh, I'd still be up there, amen. What do you say, preacher? I just want us to be free. free from that hostility, free from jealousy, free from pride, free from unforgiveness, free from whatever it might be, free. And then you come in the house of the Lord, you can't, listen, all they got to do is just hit one note and you'll be like, I'm afraid of God. You won't be like, they know they can't play. They sang it all off key. So you ain't got no freedom or liberty, you become a critic. See, a critic criticizes everything. You see how Pastor mispronounced that word? I feel like he used a double negative. He did a double conjunction. He did a double, he did a whatever the words are. I mean, I don't even know them. Checking my adverbs and my adjectives and my pronouns and nouns. What are you saying? All of a sudden, you don't. Now, Sharon, bless her heart. She'd be saying her little heart out, but she's a little flat on that one word. But when you come to worship, you ain't care about all this? Because, man, you just hearing them songs, they just feed you. They just feed you. And you know what? When you're free, with liberty, you can't wait to stay. Let me say that again. You can't wait to stay. Sometimes, though, we can't wait to get out. We're like, we're here. Preacher, I thought you were going to be done early, but, dog, he's been on the trip for an hour. I thought we were winding up. I was. I got started up. Amen. I got a preacher now and a half. Amen. What are you saying, Preacher? Simply this. We can have freedom from strongholds. It is possible. It's capable. Two questions of thought. First question is this. What stronghold has you this morning? What stronghold has you this morning? Secondly, how are you fighting this battle? How are you fighting this stronghold? If you're trying to use your flesh to fight it, it ain't gonna work. Then lastly, here's a thought. Victory can be received. Victory can be received. That is if you want it. Now, do you want it? Let's come again. Father, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you, Lord, for your beloved son, Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for dying upon the cross for our sins, but also being buried and, yes, sir, resurrected from the grave. And I pray God this morning as we come to worship, Lord I pray that now as we come to pray, I pray God that you continue to help us. There'll be some folks that's going to hit those altars, some will be able to stand around those altars, but I pray God that as they bring their petitions before your holy throne, I pray God they not only feel your presence, but also Father I pray this, they will hear your voice as you speak to their hearts. and speak peace into that situation that has them bogged down and overwhelmed. Let them know that victory will be experienced. All they got to do is trust you. And Lord, there's one among us here this morning that's not sure of their salvation. They're not sure if they die today, if they go to heaven. I pray God they'll step out there and say, come up here and let me know. And Father, we'll make those steps necessary to show them how they can know for sure that heaven is their next stop when they leave this earth. And that God will praise you. Help somebody. Cause somebody needs your help. Of course in your son's name we pray, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Let's all stand.