Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I happen to be recording today in Orlando, Florida. Beautiful day here as we’re finishing up at Tabernacle Baptist Church and their Christian school.

We’ve had a week of ministry and we thank the Lord for this morning. The invitation. Several young people came forward saying that they had made a decision this week, and they wanted the Lord’s strength to be able to keep the decision.

I thank the Lord. When we had the prayer meeting this morning, several young people, as they talked to the Lord about how much they needed him. Their voices broke.

In some cases, they began to cry. In other cases, perhaps, their voice was steady, but you could tell deep down they knew they needed the Lord. It is always wonderful to hear cries of dependence and prayers of God, I need you.

It was certainly a great morning. We thank the Lord for it. Tonight will be our final rally.

We certainly look forward to seeing the Lord work in many lives as well tonight. Well, last time I had the privilege of having the podcast, I talked about strongholds. And I want to go back to that second Corinthians chapter, number ten passage.

Uh, Lord, put me on a journey with that passage. And I have been encouraged how the truth has helped several people. And I hope it’ll help you here this afternoon or whenever you are listening, you may be listening at a different time, but the Word of God tells us here in second Corinthians chapter number ten, uh, in verse number three, it says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

That’s actually verse number four, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. And we were talking about strongholds last time, and we talked about the fact that in order for there to be a stronghold, there has to be real estate on which it has to be built. If you would think about it, if a foreign military power ever built a military installation on American soil, there’d have to be four things.

Number one, there would have to be an enemy. Number two, there’d have to be real estate number three, building materials and number four, deception. There’s no way Americans will let it happen without deception taking place.

So it is in the heart of a believer. If the enemy, our enemy, Satan, wants to build a stronghold in our hearts and lives, he has to use deception. He has to have real estate and he has to have building materials.

Now stronghold is a military installation. I would think of a castle or something of that nature in a medieval sense today it would look something different. But the idea it’s a place from which a fortress from which the enemy attacks us and defeats us.

And of course, that enemy is Satan. And the ground given, obviously, is some kind of lie that we have bought into. I believe Ephesians chapter number four tells us neither give place to the devil.

And he gives us a whole bunch of verses that I believe give real estate to the devil, the main one being, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. That’s what we dealt with last time. But once you allow there to be, uh, some bitterness in your heart or anger or resentment, somebody wrongs you, something happens, something is said that’s hurtful, and you get angry about it.

Uh, and you hold on to that for a while. That grudge, maybe you call it a grudge and actually turns into bitterness or maybe blame that person ruined my life. Why did they say that?

Do that? It really messed things up. That gives Satan ground.

Now what does Satan want to do? Well, the next verse, verse number five, tells us what a stronghold is. There’s two avenues of a stronghold casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Now, this podcast, I want to deal with imaginations. The next podcast, I want to deal with high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. For these are the two things that Satan wants to build.

Build. Once we give him that, that real estate, that ground, that place Ephesians four is talking about. And although there’s many ways to give Satan ground, and you can look at Ephesians four if you want to see them.

I think the main one is when we hold on to anger and we let the sun go down upon our wrath, and then what happens is friends, imaginations. Now imaginations is simply it’s the word logic in the Greek. You can probably recognize the sound of it because it sounds like the word logical.

But, um, the idea it’s, it’s reasonings, but it’s faulty reasoning. It’s wrong thinking processes. And Satan is great at selling us on wrong thinking and many times that wrong thinking sets us up.

It gives Satan building materials to build on that. For instance, God doesn’t love me or God doesn’t like me, or I’ll never have victory or something’s wrong with me. I’ve got character weaknesses, I can’t.

I’m always going to fail, whatever it might be. That wrong thinking is not biblical. You can always tell faulty reasoning because in the faulty reasoning, it’s not biblical.

It’s not what God would say about the situation. And many young people allow that to come in, which when you begin to think that way, you begin to think, I’m worthless or I’ll never have victory or I can’t measure up. Now, this can come from other factors.

For instance, a kid who’s bullied sometimes begins to feel something’s wrong with me when it’s not at all. That’s the case, and they begin to think that God views them the same way their bullies do. Or a young person that perhaps is ignored by a parent or both parents and feels like my parents don’t love me, then sometimes they can feel the same way about God, which is always not true because God does love us.

And God does have a plan for our life, and he values us. He made us for a purpose. And these wrong thinking processes, God says, need to be cast down now.

Young person, have you ever felt worthless? Have you ever felt like a failure? Have you ever felt like maybe you know other people can be used of God?

Other people can have victory, but not me. Have you ever thought maybe God doesn’t love you? Have you ever thought, well, that promise will work for somebody else, but it won’t work for me?

Or maybe you’ve got into sin as a result of wrong thinking. And every time you get into that sinful behavior, you feel bad about it and you feel like, I’m worthless, man. I’m, I’m, I’m not any good.

I can’t live this Christian life thing. And as a result, it fuels what we might call your shame. You’re ashamed of what you’ve done.

And you begin to to think that something’s wrong with me. And what I mean by that friend is you think that you’re defective. Now, in a certain sense, we’re all sinners.

We get that. But we we don’t believe that God has a purpose for us, that God can overcome our failings and our weaknesses and our sin. He can cleanse us and he can use us, and it puts us into despair.

You always know you’re into the wrong cycle. When you’re thinking, pattern puts you in despair because it never comes from God. God never puts thoughts in our mind that bring us to despair.

He’s always about hope. He’s always about cleansing. And guilt is often that which reminds us I’ve done wrong.

But God uses guilt to bring us to the realize God wants to cleanse us. He wants to restore us, forgive us, give us victory where we’ve been defeated. But you get into a cycle of despair.

Now let me encourage you if you have a wrong thinking pattern. Do you ever think that God doesn’t love me or I can’t have victory or I’m worthless? Or those are all wrong thinking patterns and I don’t know what the root is, but probably the root came by.

Something was said or done to you, and you got angry toward the person who hurt you, and you held on to that, and you gave Satan ground. Or maybe you you felt ignored by someone. Maybe your parents didn’t feel like they’re spending enough time with you and you got you got feeling like I’m worthless.

I’m not I and it hurt you and you, you got bitter about it. And and you got into that wrong thinking pattern. Now the Bible says to cast it down.

Now we’re going to talk more about this. But you always cast down lies with truth, and you always find truth in the Word of God. And God’s Word is loaded with that which counteracts what God does.

He says in the book of Jeremiah, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Did you know, young person, God loves you as much when you’re sinning as when you’re not? Oh, don’t get me wrong.

He’s grieved when we sin. The Bible says whom he loves, he chastens. He often deals with us because he loves us.

He doesn’t want us to to be hurt by our sinful choices. He doesn’t want us to to dishonor his name with our sinful choices, but he still loves us. His love is unconditional.

And, uh, you got to believe that if you if you’re thinking, oh, God doesn’t love me or I can’t do this. No, the Bible says you can do all things through Christ, which strengthens you. Uh, the Bible tells us that without him, we can’t do anything.

Certainly without him, we’re we’re failures, failures. But with him, we can do everything he wants us to do. And no matter who you are, what your background is, what the difficulties are you face in your life, then God has a plan, has a plan, a plan for your life.

And when he gives a plan for your life, he wants to strengthen you to do it. And every time God gives a plan, it’s always supernatural. It’s miraculous, but it’s what God wants to do.

So cast down those wrong thinking processes, cast down those faulty reasonings, and put your sight on the Lord. Next time together, we’ll talk a little bit more about this passage in the high things that need to go down. But in the meantime, young person, do you think incorrectly?

Do you have faulty reasoning? Satan has built on that ground you gave the enemy? Well, I’m telling you, take back that ground by renouncing the lie that you bought into, renouncing the anger and the bitterness, and asking God to deliver you from it.

We’ll talk about that more as well. But cast down the wrong thinking using Bible truth. It’s like this if you build bricks with wrong thoughts, take those bricks every time they come back.

God doesn’t love me. Say no. He does.

Throw the brick down and replace it with Bible thinking brick by brick, and you’ll replace that stronghold of the enemy with a stronghold of God Himself. Well, young person, remember that the key to the Christian life is total surrender to the will of God and a total dependence on his grace to live it. May God bless you as you serve him.