Here's Anne Graham Lotz. Very often strongholds are just sin with roots to them, you know, like tentacles, and it's just deeply embedded in your life. What's the enemy stronghold in your life that's keeping you from going forward? It's Anne's question today on Living in the Light, and the answer comes in today's message from Joshua chapter 5. Get tough with the strongholds in your life.
Here's Anne. The story is told of Rome when she was just being established as a city. She hadn't become a military threat. She hadn't become a Roman Empire. But she was just a city being established in the southern part of Italy.
And there were some people to the north named the Etruscans who became threatened by her just because they saw her potential. And they decided to attack Rome before she grew up into a military power and could threaten them.
So the Etruscans went south and they laid siege to the city of Rome, which meant they effectively cut it off from all outside contact. And the only option that Rome had was to either surrender or starve to death.
So the city of Rome was besieged, and there were 300 young men inside the city of Rome that came up with a plan to save their city. And one of the men was named Mucius, and he was the one that was elected to go first. And Mucius left the city of Rome, and he slipped out through the city gate, and he slipped through the enemy lines, and he walked boldly into the heart of the enemy camp. and he saw two men sitting on what looked like thrones. They were both dressed in royal robes and one of them had a big box of gold coins at his feet and he was handing out the gold coins to the soldiers while he was giving orders to everyone.
And so Mucius walked boldly up to this man and he pulled the sword out from underneath his cloak where he had hidden it and he ran the man through. He killed the man. And there's this dead silence for a moment and then a voice screamed, someone has just killed the king's secretary. and Mucius drops his sword. He's humiliated.
He realizes he's killed the wrong man. He's seized and he's dragged before the real king and the king demands, what is your name and where have you come from? And Mucius says, I'm not going to tell you what my name is and I will not tell you where I come from. And the king says, if you don't, if you don't tell me your name and why you have come, where you've come from, I'm going to burn you, burn you alive in the fire. And there's a little fire burning beside the king.
And so Musius took his left hand and he stuck it in the fire. And as his own flesh began to burn and sizzle, he looked at the king and he said, I will not tell you my name and I will not tell you why I've come. And the king was so impressed with his courage that he ordered that Musius would be let free. And in response to his freedom, Musius turned to the king and he said, since you have set me free, I will tell you who I am and why I've come. He said, my name is Musius.
I'm one of 300 young men living in Rome, and we have dedicated our lives to killing you. And he said, if one of us comes and fails, then another one's going to come. And if that one fails, then another one will come. And I don't know when, and you won't know what hour or how, but be assured, O king, you will die. And the king was so afraid that he broke the siege.
He made peace with Rome and he went back up north. And Musius and his friends had saved the city because they decided to get tough with the enemy.
Now, I'm not advocating anybody to go burn yourself in the fire. But what I am advocating that instead of coddling our sin and giving excuses for our sin and rationalizing it and changing the labels that we give it to make it seem less like sin, instead of tolerating it, instead of sweeping it under the rug, we need to get tough not only with the sin in our lives, but with the strongholds of sin in our lives.
So would you open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 5. And if we want to experience everything God has for us, we have to get tough with the strongholds in our lives. And chapter 6 verse 1 tells us that Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one came out and no one came in. And really it's a picture of a city under siege like Rome had been.
Except the Israelites hadn't laid siege to Jericho. Jericho had just shut up because they knew the Israelites were camped around them and they were afraid. And Jericho was an enemy fortress that was built on a hill. It was surrounded by two walls. One wall was six feet thick, one wall was 12 feet thick.
The walls were joined at the top with planks and houses were built on top of those walls. And because it was built on top of a hill that was bare, The hill fell away from the walls, and no one could approach Jericho without being seen. There was no cover for anyone who would approach the city. And they had almost a 365-degree view of the entire valley. And so Jericho was really impregnable.
It was absolutely a stronghold, and it blocked the advance of the Israelites. They couldn't go into Canaan. They couldn't go farther into everything God wanted to give them until they did something about Jericho. It was blocking their progress. What is your Jericho?
What is the enemy's stronghold that sits right in your path and is keeping you from experiencing everything that God has for you? It's keeping you from advancing in the Christian life. It's keeping you from going forward in the Christian life. A stronghold can be something like an unbelieving spouse. And you believe that because your husband or your wife is not saved, that you're unable to serve the Lord as freely and as fully as you feel He's calling you to serve Him.
And that's just sitting right in your path. Maybe it's a boss who's very hostile to the gospel, and you feel you could really have wonderful interaction with your co-workers, you could share the gospel with them, except for the hostility of your boss. And that's like a stronghold right in your midst. Maybe it's something within your own life, like a deep-rooted bitterness towards some past injustice or an unforgiving spirit towards someone who has wronged your children or your mate or yourself maybe it a habit of sin sometimes strongholds are very often strongholds are just sin with roots to them you know like tentacles and it just deeply embedded in your life One of the strongholds in my life has been prayerlessness just being so busy that I don't make the time for that daily time with the Lord, and I'll establish that habit, and then I'll go off on a trip, or I'll get sick, and the habit will get broken, and I'll come back, and it's just so hard to re-establish the habit until that prayerlessness at one point has become a stronghold in my life. Maybe for you it's lack of Bible reading, lack of Bible study.
You've been so accustomed to being fed the Scriptures, going to church, listening to what somebody else says about it, that you have so totally neglected Bible reading and Bible study, it's become a stronghold and you're almost afraid to read the Bible for yourself. Maybe it's fear, fear of serving the Lord, that sense of inadequacy that has paralyzed you and caused you to be so afraid that you're disobedient and you're not stepping out in service to the Lord. Unbelief can be a stronghold. You just don't believe God will be to you who the Bible says He is. Maybe it's pride.
All different kinds of strongholds. I'm just guessing, hoping that I'll bring something to your mind and God will pinpoint in your heart, on your mind right now, the stronghold that the enemy has in your life. because that stronghold will block you from going any farther. It's interesting. You would have felt the stronghold would have been on the other side of the Jordan.
But the stronghold is on the West Bank. It's on the promised land side. And if you want to continue advancing and growing and experiencing everything God has for you, you can't accommodate the stronghold. You can't get around it. You've got to deal with it.
It's got to come down.
So Joshua goes out to survey the stronghold, and he's walking around Jericho, and he sees these great big thick walls and he sees the hill where there's no cover and he walks all the way around it and he sees all the guard towers at the top and the houses and he must have been just overwhelmed. It's one thing to come through the Jordan when God rolls the waters back. It's another thing to bring down an enemy stronghold that's full of soldiers and military machines and people ready for war and as he walked around he must have been thinking this is impossible. I don't have battering rams. I don't even have a trained army.
These are men who have just come out of wilderness living, going in circles for 40 years. What do they know about taking a stronghold like Jericho? And as he walked around that he must have felt helpless, and maybe he was crying out in his heart, God, help us. What are we going to do? We can lay siege to Jericho, but that will take months and months, maybe years, and we don't have that kind of time.
As he walks around Jericho, suddenly he sees a man standing in front of him. The man is dressed in full battle gear. His sword is drawn. And Joshua boldly goes right up to him and he says, Are you for them or for us? Are you an enemy come out of Jericho to, you know, check out the Israelite camp?
Or are you some mercenary who wants to get hired on? You're going to help us take Jericho? And look at what the man says. Verse 13. When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up.
He saw the man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went up to him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies? Neither, he replied. but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. Listen, get this.
Joshua went out and he's all focused on Jericho and he bumps into Jesus. The captain of the Lord's host is the pre-incarnate son of God. And he's standing there and Joshua finds the first thing he has to do in order to get tough with the stronghold. He has to acknowledge the authority of the Lord. because our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord God Almighty.
He is mightier than anything you and I will ever face. There's not a stronghold in your life, not a stronghold in the visible world, the invisible world, inside of you, outside of you, that is mightier than Jesus. He has authority over all the strongholds. And so Joshua has to refocus his perspective He had been all focused on Jericho. Instead, he needs to put his focus on the Lord, who has the power over Jericho, who has the power over the stronghold.
Where is your focus? When you go to tackle that stronghold, whether it's an unbelieving spouse or pride in your own life or some habit of sin that's deeply embedded in your life, is your focus on the habit, on the sin, on the spouse, on the person? Would you put it on Jesus? Would you acknowledge his authority over that stronghold in your life? Joshua has to refocus his perspective, and then he has to readjust his position.
The Lord had replied, neither. As commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence. And he asked him, what message does my Lord have for his servants? And we find Joshua falling down before the Lord.
somebody has said that Joshua had to fall down before Jesus before Jericho would fall down before Joshua. And Joshua just prostrated himself before the Lord. And the Lord said, take off your sandals, because the ground on which you are standing is holy ground. That must have brought back to Joshua's mind. What I expect it's bringing back to your mind is that scene where Moses confronted God at the burning bush.
Do you remember? and God, he said, who should I say is sending me down to tell Pharaoh to let my people go? And God said, I am that I am. I am is with you. You tell Pharaoh, I am has sent you.
And it was a name for the eternal God. And when Joshua is told to take off his sandals, the ground on which he is standing is holy, he surely must have been reminded of that scene that I'm sure Moses shared with him. and he has the confidence, the encouragement that the great eternal I am is with him. But the question is not whether or not the great eternal I am is on Joshua side The question is whether Joshua is on his side Joshua the battle is the Lord Are you with me or are you with them Don't, you know, the question is not, can we use God for our own agenda? Can we use him for our own purposes?
But are we in line with what he's doing? And so Joshua took off his sandals and then it goes right into chapter 6 when the Lord begins to tell Joshua how to take the stronghold. But you know, Joshua's still flat on his face, still has his sandals off, still on holy ground. And I thought, you know, when it comes to laying plans to get tough with our stronghold and we decide to really get serious about it, we're not going to tolerate it anymore and we're going to work with the Lord to bring the stronghold down, that's holy ground. That's a worship experience because that stronghold is keeping you from everything God wants to give you and it's keeping God from giving you everything He wants you to receive.
And so God wants to bring the stronghold down. And it's holy ground. It's a worship experience because He's going to reveal to you something of what you can do in order to bring it down that you might receive everything that He has for you. And Joshua has to readjust his position. He's on his face in worship before the Lord.
It's holy ground. When you get tough with the strongholds in your life, that's holy ground. You're about God's business. And then he had to reassess his plan. Verse 2, the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men.
Notice the tense. He's already done it. Joshua, I've delivered them into your hands. You just have to go out and claim the victory. And then he tells them how to do it.
And I don't know what Joshua's plan was. but I can assure you it wasn't what God told him. He was supposed to march around the city with everybody once a day for six days. On the seventh day, march around it seven times. At the end of the seventh time, he was to blow the trumpet, shout, and the walls would come down.
Now I'm telling you, that's ludicrous, except that it was the Lord's plan. You see why it's so important to pray and seek God's counsel? because so often the wisdom he gives us goes right against conventional wisdom, doesn't it? It goes against practical common sense, but God knows it works. Joshua had to totally reassess his plan.
What plan have you been making in order to bring down your stronghold? If it's an unbelieving spouse, and if that spouse is a husband, I know women well enough to know all the little plans we come up with. You know, and how we're going to bring this Christian friend into his life and get somebody to invite him to this thing, and we're going to do all these little things, you know, all these plans we have. Maybe it's some other stronghold, something with your boss or a habit or a sin in your own life and we read books about how to tackle it and we go to counselors how to tackle it and we just need to fall on our face before the Lord's and ask Him for His counsel and His wisdom. And sometimes you have to totally reassess your strategy, reassess your plan.
It can be very different than the one that you would come up with on your own.
So if you want to get tough with strongholds, would you acknowledge the authority of the Lord over them? Which means you have to refocus your perspective and readjust your position, reassess your plan. But secondly, when you get tough with strongholds, would you just claim the victory? God's already given it to you. He already gave the victory to Joshua.
Joshua just had to claim it, and he claimed it by doing four things. The first thing was obedience. I mean, this is the hallmark of Joshua's life, isn't it? Whatever God tells him to do, he does. And once again, God said, Joshua, I want you to go out.
And he told him what the plan was immediately in verse 6.
So Joshua, son of Nun, called the priests together and said to them, and he gave them the plan. He said, I want you to march around the city. We're going to start out, as God said, with all of the soldiers first. then seven priests who are blowing the ram's horns, then the Ark of the Covenant, revealing that God's presence is in their midst and going with them, and then the Ark will be followed by everybody, men, women, and children, all of the Israelites. Everybody is going to be involved, and we're going to march around the city.
In fact, I don't think he said tomorrow, but today we're going to march around the city. It was a two-mile hike. It would take about an hour, hot, blistering sun, and they were going to go out there and walk around it, and they did. what has God told you to do? And you think, you know, it's crazy.
It would never work. Maybe it's to fix somebody dinner. Maybe it's to write a letter. Maybe it's, you know, to do something for your boss that's just unexpected. Go ahead and do the extra work.
Or maybe it's something in your own life, that sin, that stronghold in your own life. and God would just give you wisdom about how to tackle it and it just goes against your comments that you would never have thought of it except you had been praying and God brought it to your mind. Would you do it? Claim the victory through your obedience. Whatever it is, would you do it?
And when you go home, if God tells you to get up earlier in the morning to spend time reading His Word and doing those three questions, would you do it? And if God tells you to turn off the TV and spend more time with Him, would you do it? And if God tells you to walk across the street and share the gospel with your neighbor, would you do it? Whatever God says, would you just do? Be obedient.
And then Joshua claimed the victory through dependence. In verse 10, this is really interesting. Joshua commanded the people, Do not give a war cry. Do not raise your voices. do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout.
So now get the picture. All of these people are marching around the city once a day for six days seven times on the seventh day in total silence And the mothers couldn correct the kids and the fathers couldn get their families together and they couldn be discussing or gossiping the day or you know just total silence Maybe it was to keep them from sort of grumbling and complaining like this is the craziest thing I ever heard of, you know. And that sort of stuff spreads, doesn't it? One person begins to doubt and they complain and they sow their doubt and they sow their complaints and pretty soon everybody's confused and then everybody's in an uproar And maybe that was one reason. God just said, be quiet.
You know, and you're not to say a word. And I wonder what they thought as they marched around that city, in total 13 times, once a day for six days, and then seven times on the seventh day, and walked around that city. You know, if it's an hour each time, that might be 13 hours more on the last day when it was so long. And looking at those walls and looking at the city, I think God had them march around that city until all hope died. and all self-reliance died and all self-confidence died and they looked at those walls and how tall they were, how strong they were, the enemy who was so secure on the inside.
I mean, this would never come down unless God did it. And sometimes God has to bring us to the point as we work on a stronghold till we realize, you know, it's never going to come down. Have you reached that point? And perhaps you thought it was a point of total defeat. But maybe you're just at the point when you begin to just totally rely on the Lord and that's when the walls come down.
God brings us to that point of total hopelessness in ourselves. And we just die to the feeling that we can do anything. And that's when He begins to work. But I think this represents something else. As they're walking round and round and round in silence, I think it symbolizes prayer.
And I think when it comes to a stronghold, we acknowledge our dependence upon God as we wrap it and wrap it and wrap it and wrap it and wrap it in prayer. And you notice Joshua didn't do this by himself. He couldn't have walked around this city and taken it by himself. It involved everybody. And it may be you're going to have to get your whole family together to pray.
Maybe ask the whole prayer group at church to pray. Maybe ask your friends to pray. Just maybe one other person. But sometimes this requires more than just your prayers for yourself, but other prayers for you. The prayers of other people are more powerful sometimes than our prayers for ourselves because the prayers of other people for us are unselfish in motivation.
And so sometimes when it comes to a stronghold, you need to ask somebody else to march around with you and pray with you about that stronghold. When have you prayed about the strongholds? And prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and just wrapped it in prayer. Joshua claimed victory over Jericho through his obedience and through his dependence and through his perseverance. And in verse 14, it says, On the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp, and they did this for six days.
And nowhere in this passage, and I've read it carefully, Nowhere in this passage does it ever say that Joshua told the people how long they were going to march. It was like the first day. He said, all right, we're going to go out and we're going to march around the city once. And we're going to have the soldiers go first and the seven priests with the ram's horns and the Ark of the Covenant and everybody else. Don't say a word.
And they all march around and they go home.
Next day he says, oh boy, let's do it again.
So they go out and they walk around. Same thing. Go back to their tents. Third day, come on, let's do it again. And they go, you know, by the fifth day when Joshua's saying, come on, we're going to do it again.
Wouldn't you think somebody would say, Joshua, this really isn't working. We haven't seen a crack. We haven't seen a stone come loose. You know, nothing has changed. But they just persevered, didn't they?
Every day doing exactly as they were told. And perseverance is just obedience until the walls come down. And they just kept on keeping on. And sometimes that's a real struggle in prayer, isn't it? We pray and pray and pray and pray, and we don't see any impact of our prayers at all.
And the temptation is just to quit, to write that person off, you know? If God still puts them on your heart, you keep praying. Or whatever the stronghold is in your life, you just keep praying. You persevere.
Now here's Anne with this final word.
Sometimes I get stuck in prayer. I pray and pray. I claim scripture, holding God to His word. I re-examine the request to make sure it's in line with God's will. And still, nothing.
It's as though something is blocking the answers, resisting it. That's when I have to make the conscious decision to persevere in prayer until either God shows me a different way to pray or until the walls finally come down. The critically important thing is to keep praying. Don't quit. In Daniel chapter 9, Daniel was wrapping his people in prayer, desperately pleading with God to set them free from 67 years of captivity in Babylon.
And Daniel testifies that while I was speaking and praying, while I was still in prayer, Gabriel instructed me and said to me, Daniel, I've now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I've come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. God answered Daniel's prayer, and three years later, all the captives in Babylon were set free. Don't quit. Pray.
Keep on praying. God highly esteems those who persevere in prayer. He will answer. This has been Living in the Light. Please take advantage of all the free resources at AnneGrahamLotz.org to help and encourage you in your walk with God and in your study of His Word.
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