Yes...Jesus. Of course.
You see, if we fail to make mention of Him, we come precariously close to letting the devil step right in and turn our philosophy into his stronghold. If we fail to recognize Christ as the King and as the Warrior and as the Victor in this battle, we have fallen into that trap. I don't think any of us would dare do that, but my purpose in this the last part of Conquering Strongholds is simply to be a reminder of this fact.
"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and He is supreme over all creation,
For through Him God created everything in the heavenly places and on the earth.
He made things we can see and the things we can't see--
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through Him and for Him.
He existed before anything else, and He holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the Church, which is His body."
Colossians 1:15-18a
Christ is the head over the Body. This is foundational--we all know this. But I'm going to explore a few implications of it that relate to our topic of conquering strongholds.
This you may consider the central point of Conquering Strongholds: There is a spiritual war fought by the Church through the power of Christ.
We've broken it up thus:
- There is a spiritual war (Part I)
- fought by the Church (Part II)
- through the power of Christ (Part III)
I may, here, touch slightly again on the second point a little once more.
"Now He [Christ] is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else--not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself."
Ephesians 1:21-23
"God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places."
Ephesians 3:10
Unity is only found in Christ--in the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:3-6).
Power is only found in Christ (as we see in the Scriptures above).
Acknowledging the dire importance of Faith, Hope and Love, we also need to realize that to defend against the devil and conquer his strongholds we need Unity and Power. As we just said, both are found only in Christ.
I am not aware of how many people read my notes, but my guess is that if any do, they are my generation. We're certainly not much in a position to do much about this on a Church-wide scale, you say. Well, no, not particularly (though all things are possible through Christ). But we are the next generation of Church leaders and members. We are beginning or developing the spiritual gifts God has given us. We are the youth being raised in the power of Christ to do His purposes now and in the days to come. We need to have a good understanding of what's going on while we're still young! We will soon be thrown into the midst of it, and we need to be prepared.
I'm not going to go into a long list of the enemy's strongholds. We have listed several, namely materialism, self-sufficiency, et cetera. Others would be, in the U.S. scenario, abortion, gay marriage. Those are blatant. Some are more subtle, such as blindness to people's spiritual condition, or blindness to people's needs, et cetera. Or these: a spirit of oppression, a spirit of depression, a spirit of gluttony, a spirit of apathy. Again, you I'm sure can think of a great many. It's the Church's job, under the leadership of Christ, in the unity found in Christ, and the power given in Christ, to fight against these enemy strongholds that we may bring Light to the dark places, and that we may set the captives free! For we are bonded together in the Spirit of God, and we must go where He leads, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!
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