The Secrets About Strongholds - Josh Herring

tonight jesus we want to give you all the praise and the glory lord for everything that you've done for us we worship you lord thank you for cleaning us up lord god even though we're not worthy thank you jesus we praise you lord [Music] i am washed [Music] cause jesus where are we resurrection [Music] [Applause] [Music] because i learned [Music] oh [Music] i am holding [Music] i am right with my god forever because jesus [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] i am [Music] time i am [Applause] [Music] r glory we give you all [Music] love [Music] r we give you we give you [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign my savior jesus my savior jesus [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] true freedom is in this house tonight and uh the lord is pleased that you're here and aren't you thankful to be in his house don't you love your pastor tonight if you do get loud i think you ought to honor him every service [Applause] get the fireworks tonight oh yeah we have the real fireworks it's gonna explode somewhere i definitely uh love your pastor he's one of the best listeners in the entire world and it's an incredible gift that he has and it feels like no matter what you go to talk to him about he ends up listening and i end up talking too much and you have an incredible shepherd and i hope you're thankful for what you have and someone that loves you and guides you what i'm about to preach to you in a moment here i've never preached before in fact i don't even have notes the lord gave it to me this week and then pastor hires whispered part of her mention part of my text in that message this morning after i was done preaching and i knew the lord had sent that to me to bring to you tonight before i do i want to give on to my beautiful wife janae and our four kids that are here with us tonight we made it she's she's uh i told her this morning cause i had she had the baby that had the fever and then i had the other three and i said i i know what you feel like when you feel people watching you in church like i could feel the moms just looking at me like i hope he's going to do it right and uh so i i'm so glad that she comes with me and travels we go about 99.9 across america together and usually by car it's lovely she hasn't divorced me yet job chapter 4 second corinthians chapter 10 thank you for standing job chapter 4 verses 12-15 second corinthians 10 verses 4 through 6. now a thing was secretly brought to me somebody say secretly brought to me and my ear received a little thereof in thought somebody saying thoughts from the visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake then a spirit passed before my face the hair of my flesh stood up lovely evening second corinthians chapter 10 verses 4 through 6. for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds somebody say strongholds casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of god and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of christ and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when you're obedience is fulfilled i want to give you this revelation the lord gave me this week and i'm just going to title it the secrets about strongholds the secrets about strongholds some of the guys that i mentor were i was i said i don't even know what to title it and one of them said you need to title the secrets about stronghold so that's what we're going to do i have a message for you though lord jesus have your way tonight speak to every situation that we know of that we do not know of i pray that you would take over in areas that we can't even fathom you taking over in i pray tonight you would go deep god in our spirit and uproot the things that are not of you and i pray that you would cause a reversal of the plans of hell and you would cause great things to erupt in our soul in our life in our families in our church i thank you jesus for the opportunity to give your word to your people have your way tonight in jesus name can you clap your hands to the lord one more time don't you love jesus tonight [Applause] [Music] praise the name of the lord [Applause] you may be seated this began to work on me this week after i had a conversation with my pastor brother kinsey and he made a statement to me that was just so profound he said strongholds in people's lives they they are there because of a breach in the person's life from something years ago i said what do you mean he said well there cannot be a stronghold that the enemy has in your life unless there's been a breach in your life where somehow something happened and therefore the enemy has used that pathway as the channel to attack you since that point it's not that the same situation keeps happening it's that something happened to cause dysfunction to cause stress to cause anxiety to cause depression to cause fear to cause worry to cause panic and because of that breach the enemy has used that breach and developed a stronghold and i began to dwell on that and pray on that and then i began to study that and this is what the lord said first of all before i tell you where the strongholds are i want to tell you what a stronghold is in the greek in the bible the stronghold is a castle or a fortress and so the bible says that our weapons are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of fortresses or the pulling down of castles or things that the enemy is building and it's not just that he's trying to build this this palace or this castle in your life it's where he's trying to build it because as soon as god mentions that we need to pull down these castles he begins to tell us where the castles are casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of god and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of christ the castle that the devil is building is in your brain and the bible begins to reveal this it's the power of the enemy to trick the child of god to try to have revival outwardly while hell is building the kingdom inwardly through the thought life of the individual i have come after your thoughts tonight that's why you can't dare think i'm preaching to your neighbor or to your spouse i have come to where the enemy has set his greatest roots and his greatest foundation and that is in your mind and he begins to build this castle through thoughts it's the pathway the breach the the the pain the the source of the dysfunction because everyone deals with some type of dysfunction no matter how holy you look there's something crazy about you i'll wait till all of you perfect people move because it's crazy not to worship in church so that just messed some of you up right there so the the pathway is the pain but the process is the castle that the enemy builds while working through that pain and he uses the thought life to build the castle now i want you to go with me the bible said to you have to pull these things down signifying that they get above you they get big it's amazing how uh things can become massive to us once we begin to think on them and the fact the word said that we need to um after we cast down imaginations that we need to deal with the high things that exalt itself against the knowledge of god what's a high thing in your life i'll tell you what a high thing is a high thing is a thought that came to your spirit that you did not rebuke now in fact the high word high thing means to elevate and instead of rebuking it you dwell on it and when you dwell on a thought the thought elevates and the thoughts influence elevates in your spirit and in your mind to where you begin to believe it dwell on it desire it crave it whatever be afraid of it and then that thought becomes a high thing and it begins to war against the things god has told you about yourself i'll wait thoughts become high things when you don't rebuke them in fact let me just say it this way spirits bring thoughts to you and if the thought gets in you it's not of you it just gets in you and before long the spirit through all the pain of the breach year after year situation after situation anxiety attack after anxiety attack breakdown after breakdown the enemy convinces you that these thoughts are not from the enemy oh i'm preaching better than you're responding that the thought is from you it's not from you it's from the enemy but if you don't rebuke it you release it to develop a castle or a kingdom in your spirit you're outwardly saying we're going to have revival and inwardly you're going i'm about to break down because the devil doesn't care how great you get it outwardly if he's destroying you from within the bible talks about a brother that gets offended that he's harder to win than a strong city and his contentions are like the bars of a castle his his his frustrations the things he's mad about are things he's dwelt on people that get bitter people that get angry people that leave church and skip out and backslide and say i'm gonna go over here it's not that anything's wrong here it's something that they start thinking about and when they think about it they assume that what they're thinking about is either god showing them this or they're just getting wisdom and they're realizing everybody hates me no one likes me in the church everybody talks about me stop thinking you're so special bro no one's talking about you 24 hours and i'm sorry if that's a that someone just got offended about that no one's talking about me we can't win with you if we talk about you you think it's bad if we don't talk about you it's bad it's your thought life that needs to get arrested where you say wait a second that thought is not of god that thought is not from my savior that did not come from the word [Applause] the word of god is quick and powerful sharpening to a distorted discerner of the faults and the intents it's it the word goes straight for your thought line that's why you have to read your bible because the bible aims for your brain i want to get the bible when you read it god is aiming for your thoughts he wants the fact the word said i will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me if you want peace why are you putting your bible down and not reading it but scrolling through facebook eight hours a day you're not going to have peace if you want peace you've got to give your mind to the peace speaker it's peace that he brings and his thoughts are peaceful and his thoughts are righteous but the word knows your thoughts and my thoughts and the word goes to work that's why it's hard to stay discouraged if you stay in your bible because sooner or later he'll start talking to you about what you're discouraged about because the word knows what you're thinking that's why you can't compare with any book on leadership or any uh self-help book in the world because those books are written by a man but this book was written by a god who sees you in the dark who sees the demons circle your bed and tell you to commit suicide who sees the spirit in your car saying you're a failure and you're never going to get out of it god knows all the things that are whispering to you that's why he had this book written so that when you were in the depth of despair you could open up your bible and you could realize there's a god that cares about me right where i am [Applause] his thoughts you have to bring it down you have to cast down the imaginary the imagination is the visual image it's something that you dwell on and you don't just hear a word now you give it a picture and you give it an image and now you have to cast it down the stronghold you have to pull it down but the imagination you have to throw it down there's a difference in pulling something down and throwing something down you've got to fight to pull your mind back but you can have power over something that just comes to you with a visual aid you can speak to it and rebuke it i don't want to offend you but i do want to get on your turf right now sometimes when hell gets something in our spirit it's because we've let thoughts just drift and drift and drift and drift and before long we believe him driving down the road and just deep thought that can be bad i'm just in deep thought you're thinking about 17 ways to kill someone with a spoon that's probably not productive thinking [Music] so you you cast it down you bring every high thing down to the knowledge what does god think about me and and then after you do that you you you take it captive you make it your captive which means you lead it away now here's what god showed me he said when the castle is being built inside of you it's because of unrebuked thoughts it's because you've let thoughts come and you just you didn't believe it but you didn't rebuke it i want you to get this you have to rebuke it well i might look crazy you're going to really be crazy if you don't rebuke it we're all going to know you cray curry because you're not rebuking this stuff i'd rather you think what did he just say in the car he just rebuked something there's nothing even here than to sit there and get so crazy angry and turn and snap and bite your head off why do people snap a panic attack is simply a thought that became a high thing an outburst of anger is a thought that became a high thing oh you can blame your dad and your grandpa and they always rank they've never dealt with their thought life god wants to give you victory in the most important place you can have victory that's on the inside of you you can't save the world when you're under arrest and so these thoughts we don't believe them but we don't rebuke them and because we don't rebuke him guess what they live in our spirit see rebuking it says you're not welcome here get out but silence says i don't believe you but you can find a space oh this is awesome when you are silent with the enemy they assume you agree with him that's why david was silent with saul and silent with his brothers but when goliath talked trash he talked back because you never get silent when hell starts to speak of your demise because if you get silent you are in a silent agreement with them they already are taking over david said i don't know who you think you're gonna fool but i know a god that's gonna protect me right now i was humbled to my leaders but if the devil's calling me out you're not getting my mind i speak back to you in the name of the lord of hosts [Applause] it's a whole other message there but david saw so when you when when your mind is under attack it says that these high things you have to bring into the obedience of christ so you have to make it obey what you already know to be true so if it comes to you you have to speak back to that's not true that's not gonna happen that church does love me i will not die i'm not gonna lose my mind god does have a plan for my life my kid will pray through with those you have to speak back because believe it or not you think you're just thinking but the enemy is speaking those thoughts because he wants the turf or the battlefield to be your brain and not the air because if it's the air it's his house he's the prince of the air but if it's your mind it's your house so even if you win the battle and don't do what the thought says you still lose territory because something is attacking you and so you've you've got to open up your mouth and say we're not fighting this right here we're fired you want to bring that we're fighting it in your turf the lord is with me whom shall i fear god can do exceeding abundantly above all i ask or even think that these thoughts come and if they're not rebuked they are released to begin to build some that's why jesus said the bible said jesus knew their thoughts and then he said every kingdom can't uh can't uh can't be destroyed if it's not divided but if it's divided you can't build this and he knew their thought he knew everything that was going on in their minds he knew that what was building now how do you remove the castle because some of you are looking at me like i've had a castle going for like 46 years like disney's castle does nothing to you you're like that's not impressive you should see what's in here no we don't want to see trust me we don't i like that that's cool so it's like oh my goodness how do i bring down something that's been built for years because now i'm i'm not i know this we're all talking but this message is challenging some serious things that have been in your spirit for a long time and so i found the answer my pastor mentioned he said you have to repent of thoughts and i said okay so you have to rebuke them and if you don't rebuke them you have to repent of them so look dick into the word and i found something jeremiah 4 verse i think it's 14 is that what i told you jeremiah 4 14 oh jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee he said i i want to help you but you need to repent of some stuff because you got some some thoughts that are building and lodging in you they just live there here's what the lord said to me he said if you don't rebuke it you release it but to remove it you must repent of it so explain he said rebuking it is that when it's at the front door of your mind and you have a thought pass you by and you say in the name of jesus i rebuke that that's not of god but he said that's rebuking you if you don't do that it just gets in and you may think nothing of it you don't you didn't act upon it you didn't do anything you didn't you didn't cuss somebody out you didn't go crazy just a little thought came and you deal with it and now it's there and then a couple weeks later there it is again and a couple weeks later there is again and then next week there is again before long it's every day and you didn't you don't it's just building and so now rebuking it won't work because you can't cast out what you flirt with you can't cast the devil out that you invited in i'm gonna kick the devil out how are you gonna kick him out you open the door ready you can only keep him out if you don't let him in but if you let him in you need another source to get him out so rebuking it won't work but repenting it repenting of it gets god involved in the castle and when you repent of your sin and you repent of your thoughts god comes into your mind and the castle builder does not want to stay in your body because there's something that the king brings in it's a thought from another world and that thought rids the thoughts of evil wickedness oh can you put up uh jeremiah 29 11 i think that's one for i know the thoughts that i think towards you saith the lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected and to watch this to give you an expected end or in the greek the end that you in the hebrew the end that you hope for kind of like in the bible when hebrews said faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen so ready for this when you have faith for something okay you hope for something that you think that's your faith that's not your faith at all it's a thought from god when you start to have faith for something that's the will of god that faith did not originate in your spirit it's a thought that he had towards you that was going to give you an expected end or the end that you hope for some of you are staring at me like you're lost well i'm just believing god you might want to praise him for what you're believing because that little thing you're believing for didn't come from you it came from his mind he's put it in your spirit i just i just believe we're gonna have a new building we're gonna have a new new building see right there some of you have no faith for that but god already has a thought for this city and a bigger building for a bigger harvest you don't have to shout with me i don't care i'm just telling you the truth it's a thought from god when it manifests you can't say your faith did it it was his thought that manifested in your faith [Applause] if you don't respond to that you've got something else building in you well i don't think it's gonna oh why do you not think it's gonna happen i'll tell you why because you've got a castle builder called doubt put up romans 12 verse two is it okay tonight i want this to go beyond the altar call i want this to get in the devil's wheelhouse this week be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good acceptable and perfect will of god we always focus on the last part i want to focus on that middle part be transformed by the renewing or in the greek the renovation renovation is what renewing is renovating of your when a house is renovated they care the first step of renovation is demolition tearing down walls that are in the way of the vision when god renews your mind he's got to take out the castle first he's got to bring down the fortress he's got to bring down the distraction that you're sitting there focusing on [Music] demolition feels uncomfortable it's like i was wrong about that demolition is like go forgive that person i see yeah they need they need forgiveness or how's this go apologize to the person that should apologize to you [Music] i didn't even get a burp much less an amen on that it's like somebody growled like a mad lion you don't know what they said i don't but i can tell you've built a high thing out of it well but it wasn't a thought they really said yeah they they they said something and the devil brought their words to you to think about it on a silver platter can you believe he said that and all of a sudden it's like i can't believe it he really thinks that about me i can't believe he thinks i wonder who he's told that too he's just there's a lion oh oh god didn't even call me okay yeah okay that's how it's gonna be okay like you're losing your ever loving mind bro over a thought i'm preaching to you right now we are all crazy without god so shout and dance all you want if there's a castle being built on the inside hell's not worried i'll tell you what hell is worried about if you spot the fortress oh that wasn't god oh that was the enemy oh what's go i've been dwelling on that i've been angry about that i've been frustrated about that that is what hell's afraid of because if you ever start taking the microscope off of everyone else's life and put it right here you'll see whoa what's going on in here and the greatest victory you could have tonight is not to see someone else get a miracle and you prayed it on them and god used you mightily the greatest miracle you can get is if you can start tearing down things that hell is built on the inside of you so the king of glory can come in lift up your head oh ye gates and be he lifted up the everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is the king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord mighty in battle you've got to lift up your head and you've got to let the king in the atmosphere [Applause] oh david said search me oh god drive me try my ways know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me he said god if hell's building a castle in me can you routinely search me created me a clean heart oh god he got to shandaya and renew renew a right spirit within me renovate me god don't let me drift to where i'm reading my bible five minutes a day but i'm glued to my phone all day long because thoughts are coming words are coming and they're building something people don't crash overnight they crash because they've had something building a castle within it's the secrets of strongholds the hell has used pain and used that dysfunction made you a victim to yourself made you feel like you have a right to be mad you've got a right to be a rebel you've got a right to have a bad attitude you've got a right to disobey authority you've got a right to contradict anything that comes from the pool but you got a right to criticize you've got a right to gossip you've got a right to complain you have a right to blast pastor at your dinner table it's almost amazing how hell can take little things and before long you justify the dysfunction and let it build until the holy ghost let it build until god said uh you need me to help you you can't get rid of this now on your own you can't get that devil out you're going to have to wash in the word and say lord not my will but time be done and god forgive me for letting things in and you have to name the thought when you're don't just be general because the thought wasn't general when you're thinking of 17 ways to kill this person with a spoon that was not a general thought that's pretty specific some of you have talked about during and preaching you i could do this i could put it in their ear that's a specific you were you were angry or whatever it was it was it was very sp don't get real like okay god for well forgive me i repented those thoughts i had about killing someone with a spoon no get specific i re i repent for how i dwelt on that i repent for thinking this and thinking that and thinking this because the more you name the the weaker the castle gets it's leading away the thought into captivity it's it's literally arresting the demon it's arresting the whisperer that comes in and saying sorry that thought's not allowed in me and hell has to regroup and say i don't know what to do because because we brought these thoughts to her but yet she keeps removing them by repenting of them so i hope this is coming to a close i hope you get this everybody needs victory in their mind and if you get victory inside it doesn't matter what's going on out here you have peace in fact he said what sort of things are true what sort of things are lovely what sort of things are pure and he names all these things good rapport he names all these stuff he said whatever is going to be good think on these things keep your mind on things that are good keep speaking to yourself how blessed you are to have pastor hires and sister hires as you're covering keep thanking god for a church that you can come to every week that hasn't compromised stands for what's right and believes for revival thank god for [Applause] i know we're not shouting but i'm trying to get beyond the the layer the outer layer of the facade past the mask if you will and get to the deep root of things that are going on where hell has had things building and building and i'm calling out the castle builders right now i'm calling out the rip the rebellious spirit i'm calling out the demon that's telling you to switch churches i'm calling out the devil that's telling you to commit suicide i'm calling out the devil that circles your bed at night as soon as you lay down it just starts speaking and whispering terrible things to your future that spirit that keeps coming around the secret that comes at night it came to me secretly in thoughts in the visions of the night he said fear came upon that's the spirit i'm after right now that spirit of fear that comes to you when no one's around and you become a different person you feel like you're spiritually bipolar because something happens in your mind to where all of a sudden you're a different person because of a thought that came to you and now you've dwelt i've come to aim at the demons that whisper the words to you that they don't want anyone to hear in the name of the lord jesus let there be a revival starting this week on your fast that gets into the minds of the people i come against every spirit of entertainment every spirit of distraction every spirit on social media every spirit in the sports world every spirit through music every spirit through movies every spirit through shows every spirit through video games every spirit through any kind of network that would get to your ears or your eyes or your spirit i come against those things in the name of jesus and i speak to your heart and i speak to your mind your mind belongs to god prayer meetings open right now altar calls open right now you can do whatever you want to that there's something going on give god your thoughts repent of the castle builders rebuke the thoughts that are not of god you're gonna see strongholds come down come on stop living like a captive and start arresting those demons stop living like a prisoner and start arresting those thoughts that keep coming to you stop looking at yourself as a failure and say no i will not listen to that i will not believe that i will not give in to that i rebuke that in the name of jesus if you get victory in your thoughts you'll get victory in your words if you get victory in your thoughts you'll have victory in your relationships if you get victory in your thoughts you'll have victory in your mind and everything you want to dwell on will be what god wants if you get victory over what's trying to happen you'll get victory in your actions victory in your ministry victory in your finances victory in your disciplines victory comes from within let this go beyond the altar call on a sunday night let real freedom take place tear down a stronghold renew your mind rebuke it repent of it remove it when you repent it gets removed cast into the sea forgetfulness it's literally a thoughtless sea that god has it's a sea for thoughts it's a sea where thoughts go to die it's an ocean where wars in the mine go to die [Music] wow having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled meaning i'm going to take back what was removed from me by obeying the word of god i'm going to become a conqueror not a captive i'm going to conquer the castle in my spirit i'm going to get victory where i've been defeated [Music] i'm ready to revenge i'm ready for revenge stop looking for revenge with people get revenge in your own spirit give me my mind back give me my thoughts back give me my trust in people back give me my forgiveness back let me be a peacemaker like i used to be let me heal with my words rather than hinder with my words i'm going to give this to pastor hires with this prayer but i want you to lay your hands on your own head if you can right now or on the heads of your children maybe but lay your hands on your head this is where you need the greatest victory you can't get victory in your mouth if you don't have victory in your mind you can't get power for your uncontrollable tongue if you can't get victory over your thoughts the key to winning the war outwardly is to bring down the castles inwardly by the authority of the word of god and by the power in the name of jesus i speak against every hidden secretive demonic spirit every evil thought of hell that wants to rise up and cause dysfunction fear panic anxiety anger and destruction in the name of jesus christ i speak healing over that i speak that thought to be removed i rebuke it in the name of jesus i release healing in this room let there be thoughts of peace and thoughts of love and thoughts of thanksgiving thoughts of thankfulness thoughts of mercy thoughts of grace thoughts of truth [Music] someone lift up your voice and pray for yourself right now

Channel: Pentecostals of DeLand

Views: 20,685

Rating: 4.9316688 out of 5

Keywords: apostolic, pentecostal, sermon, preaching, strongholds, thoughts, thinking, upc, josh, herring

Id: E5maACYm5qs

Length: 49min 15sec (2955 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 04 2021