‘High places’ keep the ‘Strongman’ happy

Devotional – Faith series

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10v4-5 (NKJV)

“you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from you, and destroy all their idolatrous sculptures, destroy all their cast metal images, and eliminate all their high places;” Exodus 33v52 (NASB)

“Or, how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first ties up the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.” Matthew 12v29

Here are a few summary points from Sundays sermon:

1. High places were part of the downfall of Israel under many of the “kings”. God abhorred them because they were places of IDOLATRY. Israel’s heart became divided and their beliefs and practises became abhorrent to Yahweh whenever the ‘high places’ remained, often being ‘protected’ by leaders who were commanded by God to destroy them.
2. The apostle Paul noted that many of the strongholds that he faced in his ministry, as seen in the above passage based in Corinth, were spiritually dark in origin and he related to them as ‘high places’. The clear inference here is to the high places that Israel (and now the church) needed to break alignment with (and often didn’t!). Strongholds become our ceiling when we live in ‘agreement‘ with them.
3. Jesus was the ultimate victor over the devil and his demonic realm! However, this passage in Matthew 12 shows us that by us allowing the idols of our culture to rule and dominate we are failing to ‘tie up the strongman’. When we fail to ‘tie up the Strongman’ we are allowing those beliefs and practises to become the limiting factor that means that we cannot PLUNDER the enemy’s camp. The spiritual forces of evil are defeated by Jesus at the cross, but we must enforce this victory by this process that our Lord himself called ‘tying up the Strongman’. Strange as this sounds, it is a powerful and important teaching of Jesus.

‘High places’ that keep the ‘Strongman happy’ in our culture:

1. Unhelpful kinds of tradition – the kind of traditions that nullify the working of God’s Word and Spirit by shutting down their operations. In many ways this is where an ‘anti-anointing’ spirit is given a spiritual green-card to operate. This needs to be recognised and repented of. Note: this writer knows that not every tradition is bad! So this needs God’s wisdom and discernment.
2. Mammon – Jesus said that we cannot serve both God and money. We can only have one master. These were his words not mine! So, we need to look at whether we are bound or captivated by ‘mammon’ and controlled by the love of money which is the ‘root of all evil’ according to the Bible. God has graciously given us the opportunity to steward and give of our finances. This will help to keep us free when we do this in a Biblical way as a Kingdom hearted people. We cannot hide behind fear or worry either as excuses for this. We can grow in faith and in faithfulness but we have to have revelation of this first…
3. Division and disunity – N Ireland is well known for division. Yet this plays out in so many contexts including families, workplaces and sadly in churches too. There is so much more that could be said about this but that would need more time.

Summary – The ‘Strongman’ must not be allowed to become our ceiling or locked door. This is about enacting Jesus’ victory and living in Kingdom hearted alignment to Him, rather than to allow the ‘idols/high places’ of our culture to rule us.

What we tolerate will dominate.

Reflect: Can you see the allusion of the ‘high places’ (idolatry) of the Old Testament in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians? What does this show you for spiritual warfare to be effective? What areas of alignment might you and I need to be careful about or repent of? Have a think about this important topic and pray into it….