Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I happen today to be broadcasting from land O lakes, Florida, where our team is taking a few days off, just getting a lot of things done and looking forward to what the Lord has us here in just a few short weeks. Just a couple of weeks from now, we’ll be having the victory conference at.

That will be at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, the first full week of March. And we certainly would love to invite you to come. Even though it is largely targeted for pastors and for adults, many young people come and college students and are deeply touched and helped by the truths.

And we’ll be talking about manifest presence. And that simply is dealing with the subject of really fellowshipping with the Lord, knowing the reality of his presence in your life. And, you know, young people, the real key to the Christian life is real simple.

It’s the Lord Jesus Christ having a real, vital relationship with him every day, where you meet with him in prayer. And as you open His Word, he speaks to your heart through the power of the Word of God. And I trust you’ll join us for that conference if you’re able to, we’d love to have you.

Well, I want to just challenge you about something that’s been on my heart for a long time, and that is out of the book of second Corinthians, chapter number ten. The Bible tells us there that talks about strongholds casting down strongholds for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Now what is the stronghold?

Well, stronghold is simply that which an enemy has built for military operations, from which they will go out from that stronghold to try to defeat the enemy. I think all of us would be alarmed if you knew that near your house, China or some other hostile military power was building a stronghold, a military fortress, a fortification in which they planned to launch attacks on our country, on our very own soil.

Back about the time I was born, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. And although Cuba was certainly not American soil, it was so close close to the US that there was a great alarm when the Soviet power began to move missiles there that could reach the U.S., but the idea would be actually having ground right in your own soil that’s meant to try to destroy you.

Well, that’s what Satan wants to do in the soil of our own hearts, young person. I’m going to probably have several sessions dealing with strongholds, but I want to start, uh, dealing with that here this evening, because I do believe that for some of you out here, that perhaps Satan is defeating you on a regular basis because you have a stronghold in your life, uh, something that Satan uses in the soil of your own heart to defeat you.

He goes out and he defeats you. So, uh, you say, well, what? What is a stronghold?

Well, if you continue that verse after it uses the word stronghold, the next verse, verse five of chapter ten of second Corinthians says, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. So God gives us the two aspects of a stronghold. You have imaginations and high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.

And, uh, in order for those imaginations and high things to be built, there has to be real estate. Could we say that there has to be ground that you have given the enemy? Now, the Bible does tell us in the book of Ephesians, chapter number four.

Neither give place to the devil. And that word place in the Greek language is the word topos. We actually get the word topography from it talking about ground.

Now, how do you give topography to the devil? Now, I don’t believe that passage is talking about demon possession or that kind of thing, but we give ground to Satan when he affects the way we think. And there are certain ways that happens.

We give him real estate. We give him an opportunity to control our thinking or to influence our thinking in a way that is, is he is able to affect our thinking in such a way that he is able to defeat us on a regular basis. That very passage says this let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

Now that’s what I want to focus on here for the remaining time. Uh, we’re going to talk about the strongholds later on, the imaginations, the high things, and another podcast. But right now, how do you give ground to the devil?

Well, the Bible tells us, uh, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. You ever gotten angry at someone? You ever gotten bitter?

You ever had resentment because somebody wronged you? You ever had some things said to you that was hurtful? Maybe even in your own home?

Brother or sister. Sometime even there can be difficult things. Uh, said, uh, from a parent.

And there can be hard things that happen, young people in life. And as a result of those things, sometimes we get angry. And here’s the problem.

If we don’t deal with it and we don’t resolve the anger, the Bible says, don’t let the sun go down upon your wrath, because if you do, you are going to give Satan opportunity to influence your thinking. You’re going to give ground to the devil, and he’ll be glad to build a stronghold in your life that will affect you and defeat you, and cause you to not be able to grow like God wants you to grow.

Now I want to ask you, have you ever been angry over in twenty four hours you ever held on to a grudge? You ever thought about revenge? I’m going to get back at that person.

Have you ever thought, you know that person owes me? Man, they need to do this. They need to do that.

They need to do this. What they did to me, they need to make it up to me. You know, all of those are indications that you have, um, you have resentment.

You have an unforgiving spirit. You have not let go of something and you’ve still got anger in your heart, sometimes even hatred in your heart and that very, very thing. Satan loves to grab.

Hold on and he will build a stronghold in your heart and life. Uh, many times when we’re wronged, we get hurt. Somebody says something that really hurts us or does something.

Maybe somebody betrays a confidence or somebody talks about us, or maybe, again, something in a heated argument, something is said that’s hurtful. Like you can’t do anything right? And those are stinging words.

And as a result of those things, many times we get hurt. And the reaction to hurt is often anger. Somebody has said hurting people, hurt people.

And sometimes the reason people are so angry is because they’ve been hurt. Someone has. Anger has affected them, and they let the sun go down on their wrath and they maybe began to plot revenge.

Maybe they clammed up. It was apparent they just clammed up and wouldn’t put a wall up between them and their parents. Or same with a sibling and hung on to resentment in their heart because of what was said or done.

Again, I want to tell you, have you ever done that? You have given Satan an opportunity in your life? And although right now we’re not dealing with what those strongholds are, I would say in probably every case, if you have let your anger, uh, gone over twenty four hours and never resolved it, uh, you have a problem.

You may not even realize it, but you got a problem. And Satan is, is defeating you from that ground that you have given him that piece of real estate in your own heart, that resentment, that anger, that bitterness that you hold towards someone who wronged you. Now, one of the ways we know it, as is I’ve kind of alluded to it.

Just see three little tests here. Number one, the test of hurt. Now, it’s not wrong to be hurt.

People hurt us, no doubt about it. It’s it’s not wrong to be hurt, but hurt that is not healed indicates that we have not let. We have not had a forgiving spirit and let the.

Poured the grace of God into the deal. You know, if you ever got deeply wounded, maybe a knife wound, an accident or something like that, and you cut yourself like an inch or two in and had to go get stitches, maybe an arm, a leg or whatever, and a pretty deep wound. That’s going to hurt for a while.

But if it hurts three or four months later, you got an infection, you got a problem. And that’s the idea. Grace heals, hurt, forgiveness heals hurt.

And that’s, uh, that indicates if you’ve had a long point in time where you the hurt continues. Many times people pull off the scab because the hurt gives them a justification for their anger toward that person. Then there’s the test of revenge, trying to get back at somebody.

Some of you give your parents silent treatment. You clam up, put up walls that indicates you’ve given round to Satan. You have an unforgiving spirit.

Then I’ve alluded to this. The test of expectation. That person, man, they wronged me.

They need to do such and such. My dad, man, he needs to do this. He needs to do that.

It’s a test of expectation. It indicates you have not biblically forgiven, poured grace into the wound and allowed God to heal it. Now, friend, have you given place to the devil?

Because if you have, he’ll build. He’ll build something on that you don’t want built there. And as we deal with strongholds later on, we’re going to come off this issue of, um, uh, the very first step, a root many times a root is, is pain that we’ve responded wrong to.

We’ve gotten angry. Instead of allowing God to heal the pain and the hurt that came because of something was said or done. So tonight, I just want to encourage you, friend, or maybe daytime while you’re listening to it.

But I just want to encourage you, uh, you got, you held on to something longer than twenty four hours. You need to be really aware That you got a problem. We’ve diagnosed the problem.

The answer obviously, is, is, is dealing with that bitterness, dealing with that anger and forgiving. And I don’t have time to go into that tonight except to say there is a way out. God can pour grace into the situation.

And gang, I believe that’s necessary in order for you to live a life of victory over the enemy. So be encouraged and remember that, uh, the whole key is total surrender to the will of God and a total dependence on his grace to live it.