← Rick Renner Podcast (Audio)
Rick Renner Podcast (Audio)
Thursday - How Do You Pull Down Lies?
00:28:30
Strongholds form when lies take root. Rick reveals how to dismantle destructive thinking piece by piece. Start tearing them down—watch now!
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This program is made possible by the giving of the God called partners of Renner Ministries. Get ready for a teaching that feeds your spirit and your mind, where the word is the anchor in uncertain times. And doctrine doesn't bend to culture. We keep it simple, but dive deep, revealing a truth that strengthens us, a love that emboldens, and a mission that touches the world. Let's join Rick Renner. Welcome to today's program, my friend. I've been waiting for you and I want to say thank you for letting me come right to where you are. I know you've got a lot to do in your schedule and you could be doing something else right now. So the very fact that you would set aside time to be with me means everything to me. And my prayer is, it's gonna make a difference for you. I prayed for you the first thing when I woke up this morning, before I ever lifted my head from my pillow and put my feet on the ground, I was already praying for you. And by the way, if you have any special prayer need, let us know how to pray because we really are praying for you. You can just send us an email or call the number that is on the screen. We're waiting for the phone to ring or for your email to show up so we can pray very concretely about whatever it is that you're dealing with in your life. And we truly believe that Jesus has an answer with your name on it waiting for you. So we want to pray with you for that answer to be activated in your life. But right now I'm teaching my series which is called Getting a Grip on youn Thought Life. Wow. It's a five part series, comes with a wonderful study guide. Everything in this series is in the study guide. And I want to also mention to you my book, which is called Dress to Kill. It is fully illustrated and many people consider it to be a classic on the subject of spiritual warfare and spiritual weaponry. And my friends, that book is all over the planet. There's hardly a pastor's office that I ever go into where I do not see that book. People have read it and read it and read it. And if you don't have a copy of Dress to Kill, you need to get a copy. That book will just open the scriptures to you about spiritual warfare and it deals a lot with with how to pull down strongholds out of your mind. But if you're interested in these resources, just go online. Our website address is on the screen or you can give us a call. We're waiting to hear from you right now. But today we're gonna talk about how to pull down strongholds. And I want to begin by saying the mind is the central control center for one's life. Now, sometimes Christians get offended by that statement. And they say, no, no, I function from my spirit. Well, God' to function from your spirit. God's will is for you to walk in the spirit, to function out of your spirit. But laying between your spirit and your flesh is the mind. And it is the mind that chooses which part of you is going to dominate. If you make the right choice with your mind, you will function out of your spirit. If you make the wrong choice with your mind, you will function out of your flesh. And for this reason, the devil wants to control your mind. He wants to control your mind and take you captive so that you function in the flesh realm. And for the very same reason, God wants your mind. Did you know that God wants your mind. He wants his word to rule your mind. He wants his spirit to rule your mind. He wants your mind to choose to function out of the spirit realm. And when your spirit and your mind get into alignment, wow, power takes place. So you need to understand, everybody's after your head. The devil's after your head. God's after your head. Hollywood is after your head. Education's after your head. Everybody wants your mind. Because it is a fact that whoever controls the mind controls a person's entire head. This is foundational to everything. Now, today, I want you to reach for your Bible. We always use the Bible in this program. And as I always tell you, we're believing for a revival of the Bible in the church. But we're going to go back to our theme verse, which is 2nd Corinthians 2:11, which says, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we're not ignorant of his devices. We've covered this every day. It is foundational to what I'm teaching. So let's go back to this word Satan. In Greek, it is the word satanas. It means an accuser. So you could translate it, lest the accuser should get an advantage of us. It could also be translated as a conspirator. So you could translate lest the conspirator would get an advantage of us. And here we find the devil's all the time trying to come up with conspiracies to take us down. But it can also be translated as dark deceiver or manipulator or schemer or slanderer. And all of these words primarily describe how the devil schemes against our minds to take us down. And in fact it goes on to say, lest Satan the accuser, conspirator, deceiver, manipulative, schemer and slanderer should get an advantage of us. And the word advantage is from a very unique Greek word which means to take advantage of, to defraud, to outmaneuver, or to outwit. And here we find the devil wants to take advantage of us. The devil wants to defraud us of what belongs to us. The devil wants to outmaneuver us. He wants to outwit us. And Paul says for this reason we are not ignorant of his devices. When you're ignorant about how the devil operates, my friends, you become a prey to his attack. But when you're informed, when you understand about his devices, then you are in a position to recognize when he is working and you can put on the brakes and you can stop his activity. Now, the word devices is a very important word. It is derived from the Greek word nous, which is the Greek word for the mind. The mind. However, in this verse it is the form noemata. And when the word nous becomes the word noemata, it's no longer just a mind, but now it's the schemings of the mind. Or it describes a mind that is so confused it can no longer think straight. It's been listening to wrong information for so long that now the mind becomes faulty, it begins to think wrong, and in fact, it can even describe mind games. And here we find the objective of the devil is to seize the mind. He wants to fill the mind with so many wrong thoughts until the person thinking becomes confused and begins to believe those wrong thoughts are the truth. I'll give you an example. Let's say there's a talented, talented person. But the devil's constantly saying to that person, you have nothing to offer, you have no gifts, you have no talents, you shine in no special way. And that person is so lame blasted by those thoughts that he begins to believe them. And what you believe becomes your reality. Jesus says all things are possible to him that believes. And you need to understand that when you believe correctly, you can empower what you're believing to become your reality. But when you believe incorrectly, your faith will also empower that lie to become a reality. So in this particular case, that very talented, gifted person who really shines begins to believe they have nothing to offer and therefore they sink into oblivion. Even though they're loaded and they're shining, they're seized with a thought that takes them down or how about a skinny person who believes they are fat? Every time they look in the mirror, all they can see is rolls, when in fact, really they don't have any. But a voice is speaking to them all the time. You weigh too much. You weigh too much. You weigh too much. They begin to become anorexic. They begin to lose weight and lose weight. They get physically sick. People are concerned about their weight, and they just keep losing weight because they believe they're overweight. My friends, that's what the Bible calls the stronghold. Sometimes people write to me and they say, brother Rick, can the devil read our thoughts? I'm not worried about the devil reading my thoughts. I'm more concerned about the devil injecting his lies into my thoughts. That's what you need to be concerned about. And now we come to 2nd Corinthians 10:4 about how to pull down wrong thoughts. And in 2 Corinthians 10:4, Paul writes, and he says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Now, we're going to look at this verse from several directions. This verse is very important, but I want us to begin with the words pulling down. This word pulling down in the original Greek text means, are you ready for this? To take down, to disassemble if needed, bit by bit, to demolish, to destroy, to dismantle, to throw down, to knock down, break up, pull apart, and take to pieces until nothing is left standing. And here it is used to picture the pulling down of strongholds. And every time I see this phrase, pulling down, I think back to when I was a young boy and my dad decided that he was going to build a garage and he needed bricks. Well, we couldn't afford new bricks because we were not a wealthy family. So Daddy went downtown Tulsa, where they were demolishing homes, and he purchased the rights to take apart an old brick house downtown Tulsa. And every day when Daddy got home from work, he'd load me up in the truck, and he and I would head downtown Tulsa with our hammers, and Daddy would say, son, we're going to take this house to pieces. We're going to take all these bricks, take them home to build our garage. I remember looking at that house thinking, you've got to be kidding. We're going to dismantle this entire brick house. And not only were we to dismantle it, but we had to break all the old mortar off of every brick until every brick was clean. Well, how do you dismantle an entire brick house with a hammer, one brick at a time. And minute by minute, hour by hour, Daddy and I were whacking away at those brick walls, breaking the old mortar off of those bricks and cleaning them and putting those cleaned bricks in a stack over here. And finally, we completely dismantled that house. It was brick, brick, piece by piece. And now we find that if you've been believing wrong thoughts in your mind for a long time, and now you've got a stronghold, you've got a lie in your head, my friends, you're probably going to have to take that lie apart piece by piece. And this word, pulling down again, means to take down, to disassemble if needed, bit by bit, to demolish, to destroy, to dismantle, to throw down, knock down, break up, pull apart, and take to pieces until nothing is left standing. Which means you've got to be very determined that I'm not going to stop dismantling these wrong thoughts in my mind until they are gone. You can't start and stop. You've got to continue until you've completely disassembled and dismantled those wrong thoughts that have been ruling your life. And in this verse, those wrong thoughts are called strongholds. Strongholds. Well, what does the word stronghold mean? Well, in Greek, it is a form of the Greek word euchorama, and it actually has two meanings, and both of them are correct in this verse. First, it describes a castle or a fortress. It pictures a stronghold, a citadel with walls that are fortified to keep outsiders on the outside. But this same word, okorama, was used to describe also a prison, a prison that was constructed deep inside a fortress that was intended to prevent a hostage or prisoner from escaping. So this word ukaroma, here translated as a stronghold, describes a place of arrest, a place of captivity, confinement, a place of detention, imprisonment or incarceration. And here's what we find. When the devil's been injecting wrong thoughts into your mind, and you've just been letting those thoughts control you, eventually you begin to believe the lie. A device has been pulled on your mind. Your mind is confused. Your brains have been scrambled. Now you're believing a falsehood to be the truth. Your faith is empowering it. Now it's becoming a stronghold, a mental stronghold in your mind. And now you live like a person who's living behind the walls of a fortress. In fact, those that are outside, your friends and your family who try to tell you the truth about you, they can't seem to break through to you because you're living behind the Walls, for example, they may say, oh, you're so gifted, but they can't penetrate you because you really believe you're not gifted. But on the other hand, you're like a prisoner living behind bars, when in fact there are no bars. It is all mental, it is all imaginary. But yet you live behind imaginary bars just as though they are real and you are held captive by a lie. You look at other people and think, oh, I wish I could be like them, or. Or, oh, I wish I was gifted as them, when in fact you're probably more gifted than them, but you're living behind imaginary bars that hold you captive. Do you see how powerful this is? Now there's something else you need to understand. In Acts 10:38, it says how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. That word oppressed is a compound of two words, the word kata and the word dynastase. The word katakar is the eye of domination, and the word dynastase depicts a domineering tyrant. But when you compound those two words together, it becomes the word oppressed in Acts 10:38. But it actually pictures a wicked tyrant, a wicked king who rules over his subjects. It depicts one that bullies with cruelty. It depicts despotism, dictatorship, one that is oppressive or tyranny. And here we find that just like tyrants live in castles, once the devil has built a stronghold in your head, he's filled your thoughts with wrong thoughts, and you've built believe them, and your faith has empowered them to become a stronghold. It's nearly like the devil moves into your mind and into your emotions. And like a king or a wicked tyrant, he begins to tell you what to think, what not to think, what your future is, what your future will never be. Like a wicked tyrant, he oppresses you, he dominates you, and he begins to manipulate you like a puppet in his hands. Now, my friends, this is very powerful revelation for you. But going back to 2 Corinthians 10:4, the first of the verse says, God has given us weapons to deal with this. The word weapons is the word haplos. The same word is used in Ephesians 6, 14, 18, where Paul describes all the weapons of warfare that have been given to us. And Paul says these mighty weapons, warfare are not carnal. And the word warfare is even important. It is the form of the Greek word stratea, which depicts a well planned attack, which means God hasn't just given us weapons but if we will listen to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will give us a strategy of attack. It's derived from the Greek word strategy, which depicts strategic warfare or methods to be used in an attack, and the root chosen to carry out a debilitating attack, which means if you will listen to the Holy Spirit, he will enable you, he'll give you a strategy to pull down those thoughts brick by brick, piece by piece, if necessary. And in fact, the verse goes on to say, the weapons that God has given us are mighty. They are mighty. And the word mighty is the Greek word dunata. And listen to what it means. It's from the word dunamis, which depicts power or explosive, superhuman power that comes with enormous energy and produces phenomenal, extraordinary, unparalleled results. And it is also from the same root that was used to describe the full might of the advancing Roman army. And, my friends, it means that when you use these weapons which God has given you, they are mighty. They empower you to be like a force that ascends and descends on that stronghold in your mind to pull it down. Wow. And the verse goes on to say, they're mighty through God. This is important. Through God in Greek, describes the instrumentality of these weapons. It's not what we do, but it's what we do through, through God, through these weapons that he has given us to the pulling down of strongholds. Then you come to verse five, and verse five says, casting down imaginations. And guess what? The word casting down is the same Greek word translated in verse four as pulling down. So now we find this word used twice in two verses, and again it means casting down, means to take down, to dismantle if needed, bit by bit, to demolish, destroy, dismantle, throw down, knock down, break up, pull apart, and take to pieces until nothing is left standing. We are to cast down, completely dismantle. This verse says imaginations. It describes where these strongholds exist. They exist in your mind, in your thoughts. That's why you need to get a grip on your thoughts in your imagination. The word imagination is the Greek word logismos. The word logismos is where we get the word for logic, as in logical thinking. And it depicts the thoughts or the reasonings of the mind. And again, the devil's after your head because he knows if he can control your head, he will control your life. And that's why it's so essential you get a grip on your thoughts. But wait, verse five goes on to say, we're to cast down imaginations and every high thing the word every in Greek is the word pan. It is all encompassing, nothing, excluded all. Every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And here we find any thought that is contrary to what God has already declared about you is to be cast down. For example, God says you are righteous, but if you have a thought that you're unrighteous, that thought is against what God has already declared about you. You're to grab hold of it and you're to cast it down. Now, the truth is, voices are coming at you all the time. The voice of the devil is speaking to you, the voice of the word of God is speaking to you. And the voice you listen to is the one that's going to dominate you. So if the devil is speaking to you and trying to inject wrong thoughts into your mind, you. You've got to close your ear to the wrong thoughts, open your ear to the truth and hear the truth, and hear the truth, and hear the truth, and hear the truth, until finally your mind is renewed to the truth. And when your mind becomes renewed to the truth and you believe the truth, your faith will empower the truth to become your reality. This is how important it is. Get a grip on your thoughts. I'll be back in just a moment and I want to pray for you. This is Rick Renner, and somebody has asked a great question. Here it is. I'm struggling with depression. How do I deal with it and how do I overcome it? Well, there are practical things you can do, and you should do everything practically you can to overcome depression. But you have to also understand that depression is a spiritual force. It comes to suppress you. And God has given you spiritual weapons. We read about this in Second Corinthians, chapter 10. And the Bible tells us that with the spiritual weapons, we're able to pull down every mental stronghold that comes against, which means you do not have to be a victim to your thoughts or a victim to your emotions. You can take authority over your mind. You can rebuke that spirit that has come against you and do the practical things that you can do. And if you'll do all of it, you will literally put depression and oppression on the run. You can be free from depression.
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Sometimes your thoughts just run away with you and it really creates a mess in your life. The devil knows if he can inject wrong thoughts into your mind, he can outmaneuver you. But you can stop him by taking your thoughts captive. In Rick Renner's series, what Jesus said about getting a grip on your thought life, you will learn how you can master your thoughts rather than letting them master you. In these five programs you'll find teachings about how the enemy injects thoughts to outwit you, how to shut the door to the enemy for good, and more. It all begins in the mind. Available in digital or physical formats Starting at just $11, this series will help you find victory in your thought life. In addition to this teaching series, we are offering you the book Dress to Kill. Considered by many to be a classic on the subject of spiritual warfare, Dress to Kill will show you how to pull down mental strongholds and get a grip on your thought life. This powerful book can be yours for just $25. Don't miss this special offer. The series what Jesus Said About Getting a Grip on your and the book Dressed to Kill. Call the number on your screen or scan the QR code to order, call or go online today.
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This is Rick Renner and I want to say thank you to you partner for everything you do to help us take the teaching of the Bible to the ends of the earth. Proverbs 10:21 says the lips of the righteous feed many and that's our task. We are to feed many the wonderful world Word of God. And I want to tell you that we have given away hundreds and thousands of my books and other resources. When people call us or they go online responding to an offer that we have made to them, my friends, that's a lot of material and I'm going to tell you it takes a lot of money to give away that many resources. But we're able to do it because partners, because of what you give, we are able to take the life transforming truths of God's Word to people that are looking for answers. And what a privilege that people would come sit around our table and we would be able to feed them the wonderful truths of God's Word. And you are a big part of that. So I wanted to say thank you. Thank you partner. And if you're listening today and you're not a part of, we need you and we ask you to become a part of the partner family so we can take the teaching of God's Word to people all over the world. And we receive you and we welcome you into our giving team. I am so sorry we're out of time today because I feel like I'm really helping you. But when we come back tomorrow we're gonna pick up right here. Please do not miss tomorrow's episode. If you've been helped today, you're gonna be even more helped in the program tomorrow, but I'm teaching from my series which is called Getting a grip on your thought life. My friends, whoever controls your head controls you. So it's important that you don't just let your thoughts run away with you or let the devil inject all kinds of wrong thinking into your mind. You need to let Jesus be the Lord of your thinking process. That's what this series is about. By the way, it comes with a great study guide and I also want to mention to you my book called Dressed to Kill. It is fully illustrated. It is a Christian classic and in the book Dressed to Kill I deal a lot with how to pull down strongholds and liberate your mind from lies. And I want you to have it. You can find out about these resources by going online or by giving us a call. And please, when you reach out to us, let us know how to pray for you. We're waiting for the phone to ring or for your email to show up so we can begin praying right now. But put your hand on your heart. Father, I thank youk in the name of Jesus, the Greater One. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us and we can choose to close our ears to the lie and open our ears to the truth. We can get a grip on our thoughts. I thank youk for it. In Jesus name say Amen. Amen. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, but until then, remember Ecclesiastes 8:4 says, where the word of a King is, there is power. If you've never received Jesus as your Savior and Lord, now is the time for you to experience a new life. Jesus has to give you. Pray this prayer with me right now. Lord, I repent of my sin and receive you as my Savior and Lord, wash away my sin and make me completely new. I thank you that my sin is removed and Satan no longer has any right to lay claim on me. I faithfully promise that I will serve you as my Lord for the rest of my life. Amen. Thank you for joining Rick Renner today. For more information about Brenner Ministries and product resources, visit renner.org.