The Battle That Rages for Your Mind

I want to talk to you about the battle that rages for your mind. You are in a mental battle, maybe the likes of which you've never experienced in your lifetime. I'm going to share with you the reasons why and how it's important that you and I win that battle now.

We no doubt feel like a fish swimming upstream, while all the other fish are swimming downstream. That's why it's so important to win the battle of the mind, because we are all that is left to stay the hand of God's judgment on this nation. Let's join Carter as he explains what this imperative conflict is all about. Genesis chapter six, if you go there please with me.

The battle that rages for your mind. Beginning at verse five. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I've created from the face of the earth, both man and beast creeping thing and birds of the air.

For I'm sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and scriptures describing a time in humanity when people had become incapable of hearing the words of God or following any thoughts except their own. You have to be aware that Satan is coming against this generation in an unprecedented measure. He is attacking this generation to take the thoughts of God out of the minds of an entire society. He's doing it through the school system. He's doing it in our colleges.

He's doing it in the marketplace. He's doing it in the halls of government and he's even doing it in the house of God, trying to eradicate everything that comes from the mind of God to blind an entire generation to take captive as many as he can for the scripture says he knows that his time is short. And we have precedence in history to know that this can happen. These people in the book of Genesis were not that far from the testimony of the creation of God. They would have the stories they they would have the knowledge they they had the lineage just like so many have throughout history, but they allowed something to take over the fallen nature of humankind that fallen nature that was sewn into humankind in the Garden of Eden, that which is resident within you and me. All of society, every man, every woman ever created has this capacity of sin inside that manifests itself through the thought that I can be as God and I can determine in myself what is good and what is evil. I don't need God to tell me what the parameters of acceptable behavior are.

I can determine that on my own. That's exactly the warfare. Just as Satan came in and tempted Adam and Eve with this thought and they bought into this thought and they stepped outside of the parameters of the protection of God. And look at the heartache that came into humanity because of it.

Look at the heartache that visited their own home when one of their sons became a murderer and murdered his brother. Oh no, the devil never paints the whole picture. He only paints a little piece of the canvas and it's always the little piece that's got sunshine in it. He never paints the side that has death, the side that has decay and despair and depression and addiction and hopelessness and broken families and tears and sorrow. He never paints that side of the canvas.

He only paints the sunny side first. The Bible tells us in the book of Romans chapter one what a society looks like that falls into spiritual decline. When people can no longer and will no longer hear the words of God, when a rebellion gets a hold of a people, whether it's through ignorance or whether it's deliberate or just simply through neglect. Listen to what Paul writes and describes as the spiritual and moral decline of any society that chooses to follow in the same footsteps that those in the days of Noah decided to walk in. Verse 18 of Romans one says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth or hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

Because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. Folks, listen to me. I came here in 1994 at the invitation of Pastor David Wilkerson. And I remember coming here thinking what an incredible nation this is. The freedom here. I remember people out on the streets dressed in some kind of costume literally cursing people up and down as they walked by. And I thought where in America would you be allowed to do this?

Where I had come from you'd be arrested and thrown in a loony bin for what these guys and girls were doing. But I have witnessed the moral decline of this nation. I've witnessed something that terrifies my heart. I've watched a whole generation taken captive by ungodly thought and moved away from the very fabric of what makes a nation strong and what makes a people truly virtuous. Verse 19 says what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. There is no reason for the spiritual ignorance that is being displayed in this nation today.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even as eternal power and Godhead so that they're without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. Verse 21. Nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, birds and four footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions for even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one for another. Men with men committing that which is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do things that are not fitting.

You see here's the point. They didn't want to retain God in their knowledge. They wanted the name of God eradicated from their society. They wanted the name of Jesus only to be a curse word in G-rated movies. This is what they wanted of God. They wanted everything that would remind them of the one who had blessed them taken out of their coasts. We look in the testimony of scripture and remember the man in the gathering cemetery that was set free by Jesus Christ from a thousand devils.

A man that nobody could tame and yet when he went into the society and made a testimony of what God had done, the scripture says the whole town came out and they encouraged Jesus to leave their borders and do his work somewhere else. Oh how history repeats itself. God comes, sets the people free, gives blessing and power, gives knowledge and understanding and we do the same thing in ignorance that many before have done saying thank you for what you did but would you mind leaving our borders?

We'll take it from here now. Would you mind letting us alone? We don't want you interrupting our good lifestyle. We don't want you interrupting our commerce, our pursuit of life, our ideas of liberty and happiness. We choose to embrace these things as we envision them to be, not as your word says that they are. Verse 29 says, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, deceit, strife, evil-mindedness, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, sounds like the news, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. Without wanting God in our thoughts, it will always lead to the same place.

You know, the definition of a fool is somebody who does the same thing over and over again and every time expecting different results. Pattern is there. The history is there.

It's not hidden. Like Paul said in Romans 1, we know it. We have history books. At least something of history might be left.

We've seen what's happened to other societies who've done exactly what this society is now attempting to do. You know, in the days of Noah, God looked down and it repented him. He was sorry in his heart for what he had created. And the Scripture tells us in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus talks about the days of Noah. It says, but as the days of Noah were, so will also the coming of the Son of Man be. He's now talking about the return of Jesus Christ and he likens it to the days of Noah.

Now I want you to listen carefully to this. As in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

They had no idea how short their time was. Everyday passing by this visible testimony of God that was set before them, there was a place of mercy. Peter in the New Testament calls Noah a preacher of righteousness. I'm sure he most likely stood there inviting people into this place of safety prepared by God. But the society around him, their thoughts were so encapsulated in rebellion against God that even though they could recognize that this was something supernatural, this was something sovereign, they couldn't embrace it. And they had no idea in their minds they were marrying, they're giving in marriage. In their minds they were righteous, they were committed, they were committing one to another.

What possible issue could God have with this? They were feasting as if there was a million tomorrows. Folks, do you know how close we are to the coming of Jesus Christ? The Bible tells us we don't know the very day or the hour, but we're not children of darkness, that that day should overtake us as a thief.

Can you see it? Do you understand that we're on the threshold of the return of Christ now? He's right at the door, I can hear his footsteps coming. There's something in my heart that's saying get your lamp out, trim your lamp, get ready. Behold the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him. That's got to be the cry of the church now.

The bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him. Get oil in your lamp, get ready, the son of God is coming. The world as we know it is coming to an end. It's all coming to an end, this insanity in the Middle East and nation now rising against nation. Calamity is coming upon the earth just as Jesus said they would. All leading to this definitive moment. Folks, the ungodly know that Christ is coming.

There's something in the hearts of every man, woman and child that knows the hour we're living in. We're living in the season of Christ's return. I fully expect this event scripture calls the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ.

I expect it to happen any day now. Even in the church of Jesus Christ there's a dullness in much, not all, thank God. I'm not standing here to indict the body of Christ, it's not my job. But I'm telling you there's many places where the people in God's house are just as blind as the people outside of God's house. The last king of Babylon was called Belteshazzar and he had a history, he knew God. God had dealt with one of his forefathers severely to show that man that the kingdoms belong to God. And he sets on the throne whom he chooses and he takes off whom he chooses. And that knowledge was not hidden from him.

But yet he chose to take the holy things of God that had been taken out of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. And he threw a feast for all of his friends and all of his family. And they put wine in these vessels and they began to party. And they praised the gods of gold and silver and stone and wood.

And then suddenly the writing of a hand appears on a wall, it's sovereign. And they know that God's trying to speak but nobody in the room can understand what it says. And that's what happens when you begin to party with the holy things of God.

When you take lightly the cross of Jesus Christ. When that kind of a spirit gets a hold of God's people they open the book but they can't understand it. The hand of God wrote this book through the apostle Paul and through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It was a human hand but it was the hand of God superimposed over them that wrote the words of this book. And when people take lightly this salvation, when Christ is only just an add on to an already set in motion life plan. When Jesus is no more than a song on Sunday and fire insurance for the rest of the week.

When there's no living relationship, men and women don't read their Bible because they can't understand it. And that's what happens with the party crowd. The Jesus party crowd, that's what happens to them. So it's happening in this generation. Oh how unaware they're going to be. How caught off guard many are going to be. When all hell begins to break out and they'd stand in their congregation and say, Hey preacher you told me that if I would come to Jesus it would be nothing but wealth and health and happiness and prosperity and a bigger slice of the pie.

You lied to me. And so they called for the men of God. They knew there was a man of God still left in the kingdom.

And Daniel stood before Belteshazzar and all of his entourage. And he said, here's what God's word says. You've been weighed in the balance and you've been found wanting. And God has numbered the days of your kingdom and finished it. And even though you stand in a place of power and authority, your kingdom is over. He's given it to somebody else.

Another nation is going to take your place. Now the interesting thing is the servant of God stood there and the words of God were clear. There was no ambiguity.

There was no misunderstanding. But this King Belteshazzar and possibly many who were with him, they could recognize truth but strangely couldn't hear it. They could recognize it.

You could be sitting here this morning and you could recognize it. See that man speaking from God. The words that he speaks I know they're true. But you can't be moved to change your behavior through it. You can't be moved to bend your knee. You can't be moved to say my ways are not God's ways. It's a strange affliction of those who have played games with the holy things of God.

The ability to recognize truth but a lack of ability to embrace what they recognize. Daniel stands before Belteshazzar and says your kingdom is over. Your season of ruling is finished.

Your military might is not going to save you now. And he stands before Belteshazzar and tells him your kingdom is done. It's been given to somebody else. And what does Belteshazzar do? He commands his servants around him. He says promote Daniel to the third highest ruler in the kingdom. Put a gold chain on his neck and put new robes on his back. So here he is. Daniel's just standing there. It must have been so incredulous. This foolish king was decorating him while the enemies were right at the gate.

Recognizing and decorating and honoring the man who spoke the truth but yet unwilling to bend his knee to what he was hearing. Psalm 10 verse 4 says the wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts.

If you are able to be under conviction, thank God for it. If you are living in sin and you are bothered by it, thank God that you are bothered. That means God is still in your thoughts. God is still with you. God is still fighting for you.

The danger is that when God is no longer in your thoughts, when you've sinned away the day of grace as they used to preach years ago in the house of God, when you've so resisted God, then finally he's just withdrawn. Say okay, have it your way. Live your way.

Create your own system of right and wrong. Don't bend your knee to God. And he walks away and a man who lives in evil starts thinking he's doing good. He even begins to think that heaven might be his home when it's all over. God is no longer in any of his thoughts. As in the days of Noah, his thoughts are continuously evil.

He doesn't think they're evil. But when you have expelled God from the borders of your mind, there's nothing left but that which is created out of the human spirit, which in contrast to the holiness of God, of course, is evil. Psalm 15 verses 1 and 2 tells us the person who speaks the truth in his heart will be given the power to stand no matter the difficulty of the time. That's why Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 three times says, Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. If you can still hear God, don't harden your heart. If God is in your thoughts, if God is fighting against that which wants to occupy your mind, if you feel like there's a war going on inside of your head, thank God there is a war. That means two opposing sides are still there. When there's no longer a war, you've either given into one side or the other.

But thank God there's a war. Thank God that those of us who know him, we can't do wrong without being convicted of the Holy Spirit immediately. That what we're doing is dishonoring to God. We can't speak something we shouldn't speak without.

If I say something I shouldn't say, I can't get from here to the end of the platform without him suddenly talking, Hey, wait a minute, get back here. We got to talk about something. Thank God.

Thank God. We all struggle with our thoughts. We all battle. Despair knocks on every door. Depression tries to find, lust comes to every mind. The tendency to want to exaggerate, embellish or outright lie comes to every person. We want to be angry.

We want to hate those that persecute us and speak evil of us. We fight in our minds. But the difference is that the true believer, God is in our thoughts. God is with us in our thoughts. He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He's not aloof. He's not angry.

He's not critical. He doesn't stand as judge. He stands as the one who says come to me in your time of struggle. Come quickly to the throne of grace that I may help you in your time of need. God is with us in our thoughts.

I thank the Lord for that with all my heart. He promises us victory and power to withstand the downward pull of this fallen generation. And there is a huge downward pull to conform now in this generation. We are living in a time very much like Daniel's time when statues are being raised up of what man says this is what the image of society should look like.

And when you hear the music, you better bow or you're going to suffer for it. God is the only one who can give us the power to stand. God is the one because the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 4 and 5, 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 and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The weapons of our warfare are mighty. The weapons of our warfare God gives us through faith in the finished victory of Christ on the cross. He gives us the power to pull down these thoughts that would try to rise up and exalt themselves above the knowledge of God, whether they're coming in from the outside or they're coming in from the inside. As Paul said, I've got fightings without and fears within.

It doesn't matter where they come from. God promises me the power to pull them down. I can walk in the light of scripture. I can walk in the truth of God. I can stand in an evil day. I can be given authority to make a difference even though everything around me looks like it's going the other way.

And I might seem, you might seem like the only fish in the stream going upstream and everybody else is going the opposite direction. But God says, I've given you weaponry and power to pull down these strongholds and to cast down these arguments and all these high things that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of God and to bring these thoughts into captivity. That's why it's so important to win the battle of the mind. That is the battleground that we've got to fight on now and that's where the battle must be won. Because we are all that is left to stay the hand of God's judgment on this nation.

Hear me on this. We're all that's left. There's no political party. There's no new preacher.

There's nothing going to happen. This nation is on a collision course with Almighty God himself. And there's nothing left to stop it from where it's going but you and me coming in boldly as Hebrews tells us to do to the throne room of grace and saying, God, I'm not here just for myself. Thank you, God, for winning this victory. I'm here for my city. I'm here for my family. I'm here for my friends. I'm here for my enemies. I'm here, God, for those that don't even know who you are. I'm here to cast down in the name of Jesus Christ the thoughts that are holding them captive and keeping them from the salvation that's freely offered them in Christ Jesus. That's why, folks, we've got to pray like we've never prayed before. My prayer is, oh, God, turn our park benches in Central Park into prayer meetings.

Turn businesses and schools into pyramids. Just come sovereignly, come powerfully, come in a way that nobody could touch the glory. Nobody could say, I did this because of something I did. Nobody could touch the glory. Let it just be the mercy of Almighty God that touches the city in these last moments of time. You see, that's why there's such a battle in your mind right now. The devil fears you going into the prayer closet with faith. The devil fears a surrendered life because his kingdom has been destroyed and demolished by people throughout history. He knows that. He's been alive a lot longer than you and I. And he knows what happens when somebody's abandoned to the purposes of God.

God helped me to win the battle in my mind. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.