 title of today's message is the battlefield of the mind. We're going to talk about some meaty stuff here today. You know, there's two types of sermons. We've got milky sermons, and then we've got meaty sermons, okay? Milky sermons are the ones that pushes you out of your seat, okay? You're like, oh my God! This is a good sermon. Jesus is Lord! Yes! Praise God! And it's good. We need that sometimes, but sometimes we have a little bit of meaty sermons that you need to actually work together with me, okay? I'm going to serve you something, and you're going to have to put some effort into digesting it, but I'll try to cut it up into as small pieces as possible, okay? The body of Christ needs that too. So we're going to talk about the battlefield of the mind. So first of all, if you know me, if you know anything about me, my favorite topic to talk about is deliverance. We're not talking about deliverance today, but we're talking about something that happens many times after deliverance, something that can happen during deliverance, and many ministries today don't believe in deliverance. It's getting more and more mainstream, thank God, but we normally talk about the journey of deliverance here at Hungry Gen. And what does the journey of deliverance look like? Well, I've got a slide here. I really hope that they will see it online, and they will see it in the gym campus too, camera crew or a pro presenter, whoever is doing that. And it consists of three main phases, okay? We've got the deliverance, where is the removal of the evil spirits, and then we've got inner healing, where we are healing our soul, healing our emotions from trauma and past hurt. And then we have the part of breaking down strongholds, which happens in our minds. And many ministries, they believe in one of these or two of these. Not too many ministries practice all three, and those that do practice all of this, they seem to believe that this is the journey of deliverance. You go through deliverance first, and then you need to go through some inner healing afterwards to recover from the deliverance that you received. It's a joke, you can laugh if you want to, but don't have to. And then finally, you go through renewing of the mind as well. These three steps. And most people believe that it's a three-step journey, and it's just a binary journey. You just take one step after another. Oh, I'm through with the phase of deliverance. Let me go into the phase of inner healing. Oh, I'm through with that. Let me go through the phase of breaking down strongholds. Unfortunately, in reality, that's not quite how it is. Let me show you the order of the journey of deliverance right here on the slide. That's more how it looks like to experience deliverance, inner healing, and breaking down strongholds. You can see that it's not just a one-trick pony. You can't just take one step. Oh, I've received my deliverance now. Okay, what's the next? Okay, I need inner healing. No. Oh, suddenly this came up. I need to break strongholds to be able to, oh, and then this, and many of us were like, wow, there's so much work. Yeah, it is. But the reward is very, very fulfilling. So many ministries today, they believe in some parts of these three steps, but not all of them. So let me explain to you. Some ministries have, they believe in deliverance, and they believe in inner healing, but they don't believe in breaking down strongholds. You know, it's just deliverance and inner healing, and that's all that is needed. Other believe in inner healing and breaking down strongholds, but they don't believe in deliverance. I think that's the most common type of ministry and so on. So I believe that in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 7, Apostle Paul actually gave Timothy the guideline for how to minister to a broken and lost people. If we can have the last slide here showing, I like to color code stuff. It makes it so easy for me to remember. So I'm gonna do that with you today as well. The last one that shows the Bible verse in different colors. Okay, they did it themselves. Okay, look here. So Timothy is asking Paul how to minister to people. Paul is saying, do not be scared when ministering, but minister in power, in love, and in a sound mind. Now look at this. These three things here are actually addressing the whole journey. Power addresses deliverance. Love addresses inner healing, and sound mind addresses the renewing of the mind and the breaking down of the strongholds. Now some ministers, they operate in power and in love, but they lack sound mind. I'm gonna be honest with you here today. And those people, you know, they're learning, but I believe if you operate only in power and in love, and you lack sound mind, your ministry becomes a circus. Weird things start happening. There's all kind of weird things happening. Like, whoa, what's going on? I don't even know if this is in the Bible anymore. Like, well, okay. All right, let's go with it. And then we have other ministries that operate in the power and in the sound mind, but they lack love. And that ministry becomes a revolving door where people get hurt and offended and they come in and they think it's cool, but they leave just as fast as they came because there's no love. There's no taking care of the people who are coming in. And the third group of people are the ones who minister with love and with sound mind, but they lack the power. And that becomes a demon daycare where there is no power to cast out any demons. You're just taking care of them. It's babysitting demons on Sundays. But Jesus called us and Paul gave the instruction to Timothy to operate both in power and in love and in sound mind in order to take people from a state of being broken, lost, confused and in darkness and be able to restore them and redeem them to the identity in which Jesus meant for them to walk in. These are the three steps. There's part of that deliverance journey. This is just a rough layout here. I just wanted to clarify. Today we're talking about the stronghold part of it, breaking down strongholds and the battlefield of the mind. So Oxford definition of a stronghold. It says that it is a place that has been fortified so as to protect it against attack. Second definition is a place where a particular cause or belief is strongly defended or upheld. Now as Christians, when we hear the word stronghold, we're like, oh man, gotta work on those strongholds, you know, gotta break those strongholds. But let me ask you an honest question. Is a stronghold a bad thing? A stronghold based and built on the foundation of lies is a bad thing. It's an ungodly stronghold. But there's nothing here in the definition that says that this is a bad thing. It's a place fortified to protect against attack. That means if you build strongholds, if you develop strongholds in your mind that are based on the truth of the word of God, you're gonna develop a mental resilience when you are going through weakness and temptation. Strongholds are not bad. Ungodly strongholds built on lies that have been sewn into our minds by demonic forces many times. Those are bad and they need to be broken down. But how many of us have godly strongholds in our minds? Where if you walk out of the house without saying your prayers, you're like, I'm feeling naked right now. No, no, I gotta go. I need to pray. I can't leave my house. I need to pray. I can't go a day without reading the Bible because I feel weird. If I don't say good morning, Holy Spirit, if I don't welcome the Holy Spirit into my life, the first thing in the morning, I feel weird. These are good strongholds that have been developed by the Holy Spirit using the truth in the word of God in your mind. Now I'm not saying that we should go and get religious to where like you develop some kind of a, oh, I can't walk outside of the house and you fall on the other side of the road, okay. But generally speaking, developing godly righteous Bible following strongholds in your mind is going to help you to renew your mind. So the question is what kind of strongholds do we have? Do we have ungodly or do we have godly ones? Ungodly strongholds are very easy to identify. One of the most common ones that I've heard so much in the last couple of months is, oh man, the demons are just too strong. I just can't get delivered. And I used to wonder, I'm like, what are you even saying? How many places have you gone to for deliverance? Oh, I've been to five, six, seven, eight places for deliverance. They just didn't have enough anointing to cast it out. Those demons are so stubborn. Listen to this. The truth of that situation says that demons knows the name of God and they tremble at the mention of his name. Jesus doesn't struggle to cast out demons. Do you know who doesn't tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus? People. People don't tremble when they hear the name of God because we haven't seen the full power of God. We don't understand the full grasp of his omnipotence, his power, and therefore we don't tremble. So when someone comes and says, my demons are so strong, they never come out. I say, you have some strongholds that need to be broken down and then we can look and see if there are even any demons there at all. Maybe they have come out long ago and you're just entertaining an abandoned villa in your mind. Praise God. So I'm going to give you some secrets today on how to effectively and practically break down ungodly strongholds and develop godly strongholds in your mind, which is called, this process is called, the renewing of the mind, breaking down old strongholds, fortifying new strongholds. Now I want to show you medically what a stronghold is. There it goes. Medically what a stronghold is. We have a picture on the screen right here. Now doctors have found how habits are developed in our brain. What you're seeing right here is called a neural pathway in your mind. It means our mind has, our brain has millions and millions of neurons in here. Neurons send electric impulses to each other with messages, do this, do that, and those things are called thoughts. So when a thought that you haven't thought before is being thought in your mind for the very first time, you can see that there is a tiny little gap between these two neurons here. That means it takes a leap of faith for those electric signals to jump from one neuron to another. That's why it's very hard to learn new things, especially the first few times you do it. But what happens is the more you think that thought, the more you do the things that you think to do, the easier that jump for the for the electric impulses become. And after you have done it for X amount of days, it becomes a smooth neural highway. And this right here is how habits are formed and how strongholds are developed in our mind. I'm taking it down to the biological level. We're going to take it back to the spiritual level here in just a minute. So there's actually evidence of how strongholds are built in our mind. The more you think it, the easier it's going to be to think it. The less you think it, the harder it is to think it. So some of us have been indoctrinated with things that are based on lies. And we keep thinking those things every day. And we are basically putting ourselves in invisible chains. Pastor Vlad and many of our pastoral teams have used examples of deliverance, different kind of parables. And my wife used it in her sermon as well, where you're in a boxing ring during deliverance. You're in a boxing ring. And before your deliverance, your hands have been cuffed behind your back. So the devil is just jabbing at you. And you're just standing there. I can't do nothing. Deliverance is breaking those handcuffs off your hands. What happens next time the devil comes and tells you something, you tell him, devil, come here. I'm going to show you the right hand of God is power right now. Come here devil. And I'll show you who I stand for. Strongholds is when the demons begin to lie from the outside, telling you you're still in chains, invisible ones. You choose to imprison yourself. And it's like, Oh no, I'm still in chains. There are no chains. Open your eyes and take your hand and poke him in the eye. Praise God. So that is ungodly strongholds versus godly strongholds and the medical term of a stronghold, the neuro pathway. So how are strongholds formed over time as the medical science have proven they are developed over time, which means to break down strongholds also happens over time. It doesn't happen on prayer line. It doesn't happen one time someone prays for you in life group. That's good. You might get some relief. You might get some breakthrough, but you need to break down the stronghold over time. Now I'm going to tell you the tools that you and I have been given to break down strongholds. First of all, it says in second Corinthians chapter 10, verse three, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty in God for pulling down what for pulling down strongholds. Paul is literally talking about breaking down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. He's addressing the battlefield of the mind. There's a battle going on bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Colossians chapter three, verse two says, set your mind on things above. Let your mind rise above your current circumstances and begin to focus on things of heavenly nature, things of godly nature. Philippians four eight says, whatever things are noble, whatever things are pure, whatever things are of good report, meditate on these things. Joshua one eight says, do not let this word depart from your lips. Meditate on it day and night. And my favorite, which I've mentioned once before is Jeremiah 23 verse 29 that says, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord. And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Now I know one thing. I know that I never did masonry. I did carpentry and some of us have done masonry. Those of us who have worked with stone, you know, if you need to break a stone, it doesn't always happen with one hit. If you got a hammer and you're gonna break this rock and you think one hit is gonna do it and you say out, you didn't even break out in Jesus name. The rock is still there. No, but how do you break the rock with a hammer by over and over and over and over again until that rock breaks? That is the word of God. Ephesians chapter six talks about the word of God being the sword of the spirit. Every part of the armor of God has defensive uses. You can't use a sword defensively. It's meant to strike. It's meant to go against. It's meant to hit down. It's meant to mm, mm, mm. Hebrews 412 talks about the word of God being living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. So I'm coming to a point that I'm gonna share with you here, how you use the word of God to renew your mind, break down strongholds, and build up new strongholds. The four step thing is very simple, but before we go there, I want to share with you how Jesus did it. Now Matthew 4 talks about Jesus being tempted in the desert. Okay, let me share something with you guys. How many have read Jesus being tempted in the desert? Let me just tickle your ears for a second. When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, was the devil there physically, or was Jesus only hearing the voice of the devil? The story doesn't tell. It says the devil came to him. It says the devil took him up to the mountain. It doesn't say that he was there physically. Jesus being the Son of God might have been able to see him in the spiritual world, but what I'm trying to say is when Jesus was tempted by the devil, he was hearing his voice. How many here have been tempted hearing a voice? Oh, I've got demons. I'm hearing voices. That's good. Like if you haven't gone for deliverance, after your deliverance, you might still hear a voice of the tempter, tempting you to fall back into sin, tempting you to step outside of the grace that God has for you. Jesus did. He heard the voice of the enemy. Now Jesus was tempted in three areas. The first temptation that Jesus faced was the physical temptation, doing what feels good. Turn these stones into bread. What did Jesus reply with? A Bible verse. Simple. Simple. Some of these secrets that we're sharing, they're so simple that people are like, I don't even need to take notes. I learned this in Sunday school. The most powerful secrets are the ones hidden in plain sight. Some of the most powerful principles of the spiritual world is right there in front of you. You know it. We just don't practice it. Jesus responded that voice with a Bible verse. And then the second temptation was the emotional temptation to question God's love. Or if God loves you, throw yourself down the cliff, surely He will pick you. Jesus did what? He responded with a Bible verse. And the third temptation that Jesus faced was the control temptation to take over the throne or pride where the devil says, worship me just once and you'll have it all. Jesus responded once more with a Bible verse. Now listen to this. Jesus must have memorized those Bible verses to be able to reply in the moment of temptation. We can pray for the Holy Spirit to remind us, but the Holy Spirit cannot remind you of something that never was in your mind in the first place. Put it in your mind so the Holy Spirit can remind you. We go out and we like, oh Holy Spirit remind me of Bible verses that I've never even read. You're, you're just being a very impossible child at that point. He's like, man, come on, do something, read, memorize it so that I can remind you. Yes, He can do it. He can bring Bible verses that you have never read or something like that, but it's way easier for you to receive a Bible verse that you know, that you once memorized and that the Holy Spirit now reminds you of. Jesus memorized Scripture. There's no way that He didn't. So He defeated the voice of the enemy by speaking Scriptures. Now this is very, very simple and very basic, but there's such a big secret here. How many memorized Scripture regularly? How many memorized Scripture regularly? If each Scripture that you can memorize or that you have memorized would grant you one breath, how long would you stay alive? Ten minutes. That's 600 Bible verses already. One minute, 60, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, or you're just going to fall down instantly here. Eat the Bible as if your life depends on it, because you know what? It actually does. Your life literally relies on the Word of God. Without the Word of God, we cannot manage and navigate our spiritual life. It's impossible. So think about that. Let that be a challenge to you today. Pastor Vlad is really good. He has a community where he encourages people to join and memorize Scripture. Do it. Do it so that when temptation comes, when the voice of the enemy is beginning to whisper, oh, I hear voices. That doesn't mean immediately that you've got demons. Take it easy and begin to respond that voice instead of thinking immediately, oh, I'm such a victim. I heard a voice telling me that I should drive off the road. So what? Tell him that's not my portion. Now get behind me, Satan. Stop listening to the voices. Those voices spoke to Jesus, but he didn't do what it said. He didn't jump off the cliff. He said, shut up. Get out of here. The Bible says this. So the four steps to doing this, to successfully doing this is, and I'm going to share an experience that I myself had. I've used this strategy many times on how to effectively use the Word of God to break down strongholds and to establish godly, righteous, scripture-based strongholds in my mind. Number one, and I'll give you a little bit of backstory. I think I've shared this story once before. I used to have a problem with running my mouth. Who would have ever guessed that? Most pastors, they kind of like the sound of their own voice. It's one of the weaknesses that many of us are dealing with, like, oh, let me not, let me not, you know, let me not enjoy my voice too much, you know, because it's, it's, some people, they just, they like the sound of their own voice. I liked it a lot, too much. And I couldn't, I had no self-control in that area. I couldn't shut up. I couldn't stop talking. If an argument arose, I was definitely, I would die on every hill. Every time there was a hill, I was going to die on it. No way that you're walking out of here feeling better than me, okay? That was me. It was a great weakness, and it started damaging my relationships with people. So I searched scripture, and I said, God, this is going to bring me down. This is going to ruin my life. At that point, I wasn't married yet, and I did it for my future wife. I'm like, I need to be able to control my tongue, because I love her already before I met her. I'm not going to be running all the time, you know, and like, oh, you said, you never do, just nonstop nagging, talking. So I started looking into scripture, and I searched scripture for a long time before I found the Bible verse. Now listen to this. I didn't Google Bible verses to help me shut up. I opened my physical Bible, and I searched for it being led by the Holy Spirit. You know what Google does to us? When you Google every Bible verse you need, you're living a microwave lifestyle. And when you live only on microwave food, your health will start deteriorating. Tastes good, instant gratification. Two minutes, the ramen is ready, the hot pockets are ready, the this, the that, the this, and one thing after another. But that food is processed. It's not giving you all the nutrition that you would. If you gather the ingredients from the beginning, I'm going to cook a meal from scratch. I'm going to cook a whole meal from scratch, the ecological way, the healthiest way, where all the nutrition is kept in the food. Now this, this is cooking from scratch, guys. So I encourage you, when you're doing this exact practice, don't just Google Bible verses to fight against sexual thoughts, Bible verses to come against intrusive depression, Bible verse, no, go in, it might take you weeks. Just gather those ingredients one by one. Gather them, because those ingredients, they've got fire. They've got fire. So when I started looking, I was looking and I'm like, oh man, God, where is it? So I went to the Book of Psalms, because it was part of my identity. And anytime that I, I feel weak in my identity, I go to the Book of Psalms. I feel like the Book of Psalms could have been called the Book of Identity, because there are several people in there who had major identity crises, but they came out on top. So we can relate with them and say, okay, let me see here. So one day I came to Psalm 141 verse 3, and the Scripture just slapped me in the face when it came out. It was the Holy Spirit like, finally, take this. It says, set a guard, oh Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. So when I got it, I'm like, whoa. Yes. I knew it immediately. This is my weapon. Now listen to this. I want to clarify something. As Bible-believing Christians, we believe that Scripture is God-breathed, all of it. This is complete and whole in itself. We don't believe that some of the secrets were lost in translation. We believe that all the secrets have been maintained if you read it with the Holy Spirit. So don't allow, oh, well, I'm looking for something and I can't find it. You know, our culture is not relevant anymore. I'm telling you, there's a Bible verse for every situation under the sun. Oh, well, the Bible doesn't talk about non-binary. The Bible doesn't talk about church hurt. The Bible says, yes, it does. You haven't searched long enough. Go deeper. God will begin to bring it out to you. And when you find it, it will punch you in the face, not physically, but in a good way, like a wake-up call where it will wake you up. You're like, whoa, that's it. I've been looking for it. My son has turned away. I didn't know a Bible verse. I found the Bible verse. My wife wants to divorce me. I didn't find a Bible verse. I found the Bible verse. I have this situation that no one has been in before. Car accident. The Bible doesn't talk about car accidents. There is something. There is a Bible verse for you. How would a God who loves us so much that he sent his son leave us with an incomplete manual? Everything you need is right here. Oh, well, my situation, nobody has ever preached on it. Well, Jesus probably did in some way. Look for it. You will find it. So that's the number one step in how to renew your mind with the word of God. Search and find Bible verses that addresses your situation, your issue. I found it. And what I did when I found that Bible verse, I started memorizing it. Step number two, memorize the Bible verses in your mind. Listen, memorization of Bible verse. Oh, we're not religious here. We just live by the spirit. Okay. Okay. You know that the spirit of God is the fulfillment of the word of God. He doesn't do anything outside of the word. The word and the spirit goes hand in hand. You can't just live only on the spirit, spirit, spirit. You're going to blow up and you live only on the word, word, word. You're going to dry up, but when you live on the word and the spirit, you're going to grow up. Not mine. I've read it somewhere. Praise God. So, so you, you find it and you begin to memorize. So what does it mean to memorize? It means without opening your mouth, you go over it in your mind over and over and over and over. So what I did, even though I wasn't saying it under my breath, I was doing it only in my mind, but I was speaking it in my mind as if I'm speaking, not just like, oh yeah, I'll think about it and think what is the deeper meaning. No, literally memorize those words. The word of God is living and active. It's powerful. When you do that, you will see the God will begin to answer your prayer. Why? The book of James says that God doesn't answer our prayers because we pray wrong. We don't pray according to his will. We pray according to our will. I challenge you to pray scripture. It's the fastest prayers that God answers, especially God. Humble me. Oh man. Before you walk out, you'll be having an answer to your prayer. God, humble me. God, give me more patience. God, give me more safe self-control. Don't, don't pray for too many virtues at once. Okay. It's going to overwhelm you. All those prayers are so scriptural. God is like, here we go. He's not going to drop patience in your mailbox, by the way. He's going to drop something that will grow the patience in you. So be careful when you're praying. Just start, God, humble me. And then if once you feel that you have been humbled enough, God, give me more patience. Give me more safe control. God, help me. Stretch my faith. That's another one. Whoo. God, stretch my faith. Oh man. I may have prayed that before. God, stretch my faith. A couple of you. How many times did you pray that once? And I'm like, God, God, God, stretch my faith, but less. Stretch my faith, but less. Hallelujah. So the second one is memorize the Bible verses. So that's what I did. I was just reading it in my mind. It's at the God over my mouth. I'll keep watching me draw my lips at the God all over my mouth. Keep watching me draw my lips and just did it over and over and over again. And at some point, the memorization in your mind turns into meditation in your heart. It moves from here to here. For me, it took a couple of weeks. For you, it might take a couple of hours or a couple of months. I don't know. But until it lands here, let me explain to you the difference when it's here and when it's here. Here, you're going through it actively. And you will forget it. You're like, Oh man, I forgot to even memorize Scripture today. I didn't even memorize at all. I didn't even let the word of God run through my mind as the day was going on. You'll forget sometimes for days. But then you'll remember the Holy Spirit will remind you, Hey, you were onto something here. Come back. Come back. Keep memorizing. You start memorizing. This is disciplining your mind. So it's to avoid idle thoughts. So you begin to discipline your mind and then suddenly it moves here. Instead of you actively thinking it or speaking it in your mind, it becomes kind of like a machinery in your heart, in your spirit, where you are aware and you are conscious of that Scripture at all times. You no longer run it through your mind actively, but it has moved into your heart. And suddenly, instead of memorizing Scripture, you are having communion with the Holy Spirit in your spirit. It goes from here to here. And you just feel it, even though I'm not actively going through it in my mind, I know that word of God is in my heart and it comes up anytime. I can just feel it running like a machinery, keeping my spirit alive, keeping my spirit going on the inside of my spirit. And I'm developing communion with the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you, people who have developed communion with the Holy Spirit, you can tell when they walk into the room. That's when the atmosphere shifts. You're like, Whoa, a man of God just arrived. Whoa, the atmosphere shifted is because they are having active communion with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is no longer just following them along like, Hey, don't walk there. Hey, don't look at that. They are actively having a constant relationship and communion right here in their spirit. They are praying in the spirit. So that's what happens when you turn it from memorization. It turns into meditation. And then the final one, the final step. So that's number three, let the memorization in your mind become meditation in your heart. Number four, turn the Bible verse into a prayer point. As you do these things, God will break strongholds in your mind. Everything in scripture suggests it. You have the sword of the spirit. It's a hammer that breaks the rock over time. That rock will break. It's living and active. He has told us exactly what to do. So when we begin to apply this, and as I did that, I got into a situation where I knew the devil was going to tempt me. He was going to try to bring back those old habits. He was going to try to restore that old neural pathway in my mind. So I will go back into the same attitude that I always had of just speaking and being mean and saying all kinds of rubbish. And the prayer got answered. Two words, the Holy Spirit spoke in my heart. You know those two words? When I approached that situation and that circumstance and someone is like, hey, you didn't, you know, I was a disciple in Lagos. Hey, you didn't pick up your plate or something. I'm like, you know, I was thinking like, I picked it up. You are just after me and I'm going to, you know, whatever. I was planning to say something mean. And two words, shut up. And it hit me on the inside. I'm like, it was almost as if the air came out of me. Thank you, Lord. That's the answer. God put a guard over my mouth. He put watch over the door of my lips. And I walked away and a new habit started forming. A new, more godly stronghold started developing. And I started breaking that down every time. I kept memorizing and praying, set a guard a lot of my mouth using the word of God, just like Jesus did when Jesus was tempted with pride. Maybe you're tempted with immorality. Maybe you're tempted with anxiety, depression. Maybe you're struggling with church hurt or one thing or another. Use the word of God against that voice. Stop feeling like a victim just because the devil is tempting you. Stand up and punch him with the right hand of God. The right hand of God is power. I'm going to show you right now. So I'm going to quickly here in the last few minutes, I'm going to go through the four most common strongholds in my experience from church, from churches. And there's a chance that most of us have gone through or have experienced at least one or many of these four strongholds that church people are struggling with. The number one is believing the devil is stronger than he is. It's so common. The devil is a worm. He belongs under your feet. But yet some people, they end up googling their symptoms. How many have googled their physical symptoms before? Like, oh, I have a splitting headache. What does Google say every time you're going to die tomorrow, right? Every time. Oh, it could be nothing. Also, you could be dead in 24 hours. It's like, wow, thank you for that. Such a good, you know, good way to train your mind, right? And we begin to google our spiritual symptoms. Or I had a prideful thought. I'm googling, 10 signs of Leviathan, prideful thoughts. Oh, no. Oh, I had an immoral dream. I had an immoral dream. 10 signs that you've got Jezebel, immoral dreams. Oh, no, I've got Leviathan. I've got Jezebel. What else do I need deliverance from here? And then you begin to play Pokemon with your demons. Gotta catch them all. Stop playing with your demons. Stop thinking that every time something crosses your mind, it's like, oh, no. Another one. That's another one. That was Bale. Oh, no. I googled that one. And if you've ever done this, like, it's fine. I'm not like, we mean this deliverance here all the time. But stop trying to catch them all. Stop trying to catch them. If you're worried, come for deliverance once, get your freedom, and then break those strongholds. Jesus doesn't struggle to cast demons out. Demons tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus. Do you know who doesn't? People don't tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus. Because we haven't seen his full power. We haven't seen him in the fullness of his glory. We haven't grasped his full omnipotence. So we don't tremble at the mention of the name of Jesus. Demons do, though. So if someone comes and like, hey, I've gone for deliverance seven, eight times, nobody could set me free. Really? Jesus doesn't struggle to cast demons out. Maybe you've got a stronghold where you think because you believed the lie of the enemy that told you that they're way stronger than they are. People are like, how do you deal with stubborn demons? There's only one way to deal with them. Be more stubborn. Be more stubborn. Because I know that the God who stands behind me is all powerful. How would I give up? Be more stubborn. Those demons, they aren't as stubborn as you think. They give the impression of being stubborn. Develops a stronghold in your mind. Oh, nobody can have. I need, even if Jesus himself came down from heaven, you would probably not believe that you were free. I know I'm speaking. This is tough, tough love right now. We love you. Let's get on off of the victim mindset and on the victor's mindset. The victor's mindset is based on the Word of God, not your emotions. Oh, I feel like something's still there. It's telling me to drive off the road. The devil told Jesus to jump off the mountain. He didn't do that. He told him, shut up. Get behind me. The Word of God says this. That's number one. Number two, offense and church hurt. So many people have developed a stronghold of church hurt. It doesn't matter if the Holy Spirit himself is your pastor, you will still find a way to be offended. Like, oh no, he didn't say hi the way he used to, or he didn't, you know, smile. When he looked at me, he looked rather angry. And this one has said this and this and that, but you have to remember people that go to the gym are not all buff. Not everyone that goes to a gym is a bodybuilder. Do you know who the gym is for? The unfit. You go to the gym to get fit. Oh, everyone at the gym has such hypocrites. Look at them. They're fat and they're still going here to the gym. While they're trying to, they're trying to change. Why are you here? Church is like a spiritual gym where we have different kinds of people. Nobody's perfect. Only Jesus is. So lower your standards and your expectations of your pastor sometimes. Like, oh, he didn't say this. He didn't say that. Relax. We're all in the gym. Some have gone a little bit further. It doesn't mean that you're a bodybuilder. Oh, now you have those people that have been going to the gym for 20 years and there's no progress. That's a different kind of people. Okay. Those people need a coach. They need a personal trainer. Like, hey, you've got to actually use your muscles. Use your faith. Okay. Begin to testify to people. Share your testimony in your workplace. Okay. There we go. Okay. Begin to develop a prayer life. There we go. You're building muscle now. Good job. We're getting there. But we have this idea that church, you know, God forbid that someone is here and they're not perfect. How could I come to church and someone wasn't like that? So, so disarm that expectation and put your expectation on Jesus. Jesus will never disappoint you. I probably will one day. I'm sorry, not on purpose, but Jesus never will. Third one. I've got two more and I'm going to say this fast. Third one is lust and immorality. A very big strongholds. Oh, I'm struggling with sexual thoughts. Do I have a demon? Have you been set free? Yeah. Are you still struggling? Yeah. It's a stronghold. It's a stronghold now. The demon is gone. Now you need to bring down that abandoned villa in your mind. How do we do that? By finding scripture once again, but to remember when fighting against lust and immorality, when fighting against the memories of the past. We cannot listen. We cannot hinder a bird from flying over our tree, but we hinder it from building nests in it. Ungodly thoughts can come, perverse thoughts may cross your mind and persist in staying, but you refuse to give them space and time and so they die unborn. So when you're struggling against strongholds of those of such nature, you're in it for the long game. You're in it for the long game. Those memories are not just going to disappear today and tomorrow you'll forget about your whole teenage years. It's a process. Keep using the word of God. Find that Bible verse. Keep hitting it every time that light pops into your mind. No, my eyes are for the glory of God. Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, Lord. Revive me in your world, Lord. Revive me in your world, Lord. Turn away my eyes. Let the words on my mouth, meditation on my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord, and begin to use those Bible verses to fight against the enemy. The final one is shame and condemnation. Many people come and they are struggling with shame. Guilt is a good thing. Guilt is healthy. It's when you feel bad for doing something bad. Shame, on the other hand, is when you're feeling bad for who you are. There is no shame in Jesus. We are not human doings. We're human beings. Stop being defined by the mistakes of your past. We are not where we are coming from. We are who we are right now. God does not consult your past to determine your future. He looks at you today and he says, I see a child of God in front of me. And that is who you are. Oh, well, I didn't always used to be. I don't know that. Don't remind me. You're a child of God. Stop living based on your past. Stop thinking that the mistakes that we have committed that I can't get out of it. It's just who I am. I messed up so much. It's just who I am. Stop saying that. It's not who you are. It's what you've done. Hey, thanks for watching to this sermon. If this was a blessing to you, would you let me know in the comments below what stood out to you from this message? 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