Today has I was reading the Word of the living God in the Book of Revelations, I noticed a couple of interesting passages. It is funny sometimes how a person can read the Bible over and over again, the Word can mean something different every time, and or, you will see passages that you may of never seen before. Has is the case with the scripture I will be discussing in depth.

Revelations

13:15

Has I was doing my Bible study last night and rereading it this morning. It seemed interesting to me because I had never noticed it before. The interesting parts would be the image breathing, speaking, and it passing judgment.

I started meditating upon the Word of God, the Holy Spirit placed upon me the Ten Commandments and the Images/ idols we build in our own lives.

In Exodus 31 God Himself carved out stones and wrote on them with His own finger the Commandments that the children of Israel were to carry with them has a testimony in the Ark of the Covenant. Yet while Moses was in the presence of God, the Israelites chose to have Aaron the brother of Moses make them a molten image of a calf made with gold. The very gold they had acquired from their enemies in Egypt which God had given them favor for. It is important to note that the people could see the glory of the Lord from where they were camped. Daily they could see the fire of His Holiness and hear the rumble of His might voice. Yet they chose to make a molten image, sacrifice to it and dance before it.

Further reading in the 34 chapter of Exodus tells us God made Moses carve stone tablets and carry them upon the mountain to be offered to God once again and written upon again. For when Moses came down in 31 he broke the tablets because of the sins of the people. Moses had caught the children worshiping a image of gold.

The first 3 commandments given by God deal with God Himself and how we are to respect Him; no other gods before Him, making molten or carved images and taking His name in vain. Yet in the thirteenth chapter of Revelations we see a violation of the first 3 commandments. It is also important to note; thirteen also is a number of rebellion with regards to God.

Has I was thinking about the passage; it came to my mind the importance of this in our daily living. How often do we ourselves make images in our imaginations and or strive for the lust of this world, thus placing them a head of God. We give them life, breath, and allow them to control our every move. Even allowing them from time to time kill those that will not bow down to them per say. In other words, how many of us out there allow these images to destroy our relationship with God and Jesus, friends, family, jobs, etc.

The Hebrew words for image is Pecel, further study of the word leads to Pacal.

The word Pacal means: to cut, hew, hew into shape

The word Pecel is associated with Idol or image

Where or how do we get idols from our imaginations? The dictionary gives several ideas for the word.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Often enough we take our imaginations to the next level; allowing materialism and other worldly lust to be exalted above the Living God? These are gods enter in and we never even know it. They may not seem like idols at first but how often to we taste their wine and become drunk by the intoxication they have to offer. We strive for worldly pride, alcohol, drugs, pornography, cigarettes, gambling, bingo, cars, homes, televisions give us programming we have to watch weekly or even daily. These are just a few of the things we often tell ourselves that it will not hurt us. Yet they soon tell you what to do, when to do it, how to do it and why you should do it. Weren’t the children of Israel addicted to the very gods they made of wood, stone and precious material, gods they were introduced to from Egypt, Philistines, Edom, Moab and Canaan? Which is the very reason God told them to have nothing to do with the inhabitants of the region and or destroy them completely.

Solomon loved women more than he loved his God, He built high places for them to worship and make offerings to their foreign gods. He soon found himself in idol worship.

It may seem like a reach, but think about it, at first he just built temples for his foreign wives, but looking deep into it, Solomon loved women. It was estimated that he had over 400 wives. The love of these women caused a gradual slip into idol worship.

Judas the one that betrayed Jesus, he was a thief in his heart, he worshiped money and he was in the presence of the Savior daily. Judas evangelized, healed the sick, made the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, he even cast out demons. His love of money caused him to stealing from the purse, having him to plot selling Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He got upset because of some perfume, the very oil Mary use to anoint Jesus for his burial, saying it could be sold and given to the poor. When he no more cared about the poor, he just wanted to pilfer it from the treasury that he kept.

Over the summer I attended a revival at a church in Summerville, SC. The evangelist that preached the word of God, brought this every subject up. During the coarse of the sermon, he brought up television, instantly the Holy Ghost brought to my mind programs that I had been watching, instead of spending time in the word of God. During that service I went down to get prayed for and to repent of the things that I allowed into my life, which I placed in front of God. Sense that day of healing, I have yet to of watched any of those programs.

The point I would like to make, someone out there God has been dealing with this very subject or even family and friends. We all allow things to come into our lives, being unaware of it, they take complete control over us. We give them life and breath of their own, they speak to us and even judge us when we do not do what they want us to do. Before we know it, they have control of us and we are worshiping them when they tell us to.

Allow me to further demonstrate the grace and mercy and love of the Living God. When I quit smoking in 2006 it was a commandment from God to do so. I remember standing in front of the Savvies Center in St. Louis during the Promise Keepers Gathering looking for a place to smoke a cigarette. The Lord told me it was time to quit smoking. A couple of days later Aug 4, 2006 at 945 pm I had my last smoke. One week to the day, I remember sitting in church, wanting a smoke. It was consuming me. What the pastor preached on I could not tell you, all I remember was looking at my watch and screaming inside for a smoke and for this man to hurry with his jabbering. When we got home, I begged my wife for the pack she had hidden somewhere in the house. She refused.

I had to go to work that night, when I got in my car, I looked for a butt in the ashtray. Attempting to light the thing, I came to myself, saying, I do not need this thing and I threw it out the window. At that very moment, I felt a brake in my spirit, God healed me instantaneously and miraculously from smoking.

After the divine intervention, Jesus showed me how Smoking became a idol to me and how I worshiped it rather than the creator. See I had place the cigarettes on the thrown of grace and left Jesus upon the Cross of Calvary. Instead of nailing the cigarettes on the cross and allowing Jesus to heal me, I went to them first and Jesus second.

The last thing I would like talk about is our own conversations and or opinions. God showed this to me a few months ago. Have you ever been around a person that loves to chat? People are draw to the stories they tell or what they talk about. Conversations by those around us and even ourselves have the opportunity to become idol chat and we never even know it. How often do you talk to those around you rather than talking to God through prayer. When we chose to listen to people about our problems, situations and circumstances and not to God. We are making the opinions of others more valuable than that of God and His might word.
I am preaching to my self on this one, often times enough in the past, I would go to those that I knew instead of talking to God. The people I confided in, they could not give me what I needed, but they could give me a whole lot of what I didn’t need. Not only that, God showed me how, their opinions became more important and complicating the problem that much more.

Has I close this let to whom ever will read it and whom ever it was meant for, I would like to ask you a question: when you are doing the thing that you love to do, how often do you feel the need to pray or read your Bible, but you chose the things that is more entertaining?

I believe the Lord had me to send this message through the electronic highways and bi ways, because the things of this world have been exulted in our lives for to long. God is calling His church once and for all. Christ is near and drawing closer daily to His second coming. On the day of judgment what are you going to tell Him, when He asked you about the images that you carved out in your own mind and the possessions you strived for and worshiped.

Ask Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to show you the things that have come in between you and the relationship He wants to have with you. I promise He will show you and even some things you may not be ready to see.

He has me….

Sanctify yourself for you are holy because I am Holy says the Lord.

Today, has I was mediating upon a few things for the new year, the Holy Spirit placed upon my heart the word “Strongholds.” Stronghold, is a fortified place or walled city by definition. Looking at it in the spiritual sense, strongholds are often things that hold us in sin. They are areas in our lives that we seem to have trouble in; braking habits, emotions, addictions, and any other thing that we cant figure out why we do them.

This very subject is rarely discussed and at the least very few pastors know anything about and/or refuse to talk about because of their personal agendas.

2 Corinthians 10

4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

Paul talks about the pulling down of strongholds with the discussion talking about the mind. For one to understand you have to truly understand that the mind is a battlefield. It is the center of our imaginations, thoughts, ideas, starting place of passion, creativity, and evilness. The nature of a stronghold is wrong or false thinking, which is why strongholds start in the mind, and can consume us and even become the nature of who we are. If Satan can come against us with a false idea, situation, or even create a circumstance that gets us to the point of self condemnation. Then he has something in us. See the idea of something in us comes from Jesus being tempted in the desert. Satan could not tempt Jesus, because he had nothing in him, meaning Jesus had not committed any sins. Not only that but Jesus was the Word of God (John 1), so every time Satan tempted Jesus (Matt 4), Jesus being the word knew how to combat Satan.

Satan has an opportunity to have something in us because we don’t know the Word. A crack is created in our mental processing, slowly over time, strongholds are developed with in us. During this process we can fall under self condemnation. The point of one judging one’s self. Satan is the master of getting us to fall under condemnation. He bombards us with destructive thoughts If we can give a nod of self condemnation or a wink at sin in general, then he has us in his cross hairs.

All it takes is one not so innocent thought, idea, repeated reflection of past situation and/or circumstance or a willful defiance of something; and when one continues to entertain these thought repeatedly, we soon give into the impulses of what they are.

There is a process, as children it may be a innocent glance at a nude seen in a movie, it could be a erotic touch by someone or by someone of the same sex, the introduction to a sip of alcohol, peer pressure to drugs or a dare. These things have to be appealing, they have to be packaged just right. However, often times enough though we are introduced to these strongholds, through our parents. These types of strongholds are called sins of our fathers, or generational curses. Examples would be, if a parent smokes, the child will smoke, if the parent drinks, the child will drink. The child imitates that which it sees. However, some stronghold are created through circumstances or something we may have been exposed at other times during our or teen years or early adulthood; with time and loneliness Satan can incubate these things in us and before you know it, we have become exactly what time has created. But, these things do not really become true strongholds until we act upon them. Until then we become depressed and even anxious at times, this battle is weighting inside of us we seek doctors with medications, our friends and families enablers that subscribe subscriptions that feed into the battle in our inter most being. Then we give into the impulse which may be difficult at first, yet with time and repeated behavior it becomes easier and easier. At this point it is critical to note that if not corrected it can consume us and even control us. This is where supposed lifestyles are argued and addictions are manifested.

Strongholds sometimes takes a whole life time to develop to full maturity. They can be in a wide verity of areas: anger, fear, anxiety, depression, sexual identity, lusts of every kind, smoking, drinking, pornography, abusiveness personalities and attitudes to include abusive language, and compulsive disorders. Often times enough people are not aware they have a problem until it cost them something or completely consumes them.

Satan got to Eve through the fruit of the tree, though she knew she was not suppose to eat it, he enticed her through visual and mental appeal or with the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life. He also got her to question everything she knew to be true or the morality she had been taught from her husband and God Himself, with half truths, twisted with temptation. These so called half truths is the greatest schemes of the adversary, our minds question itself with such ideas as; sex out side of marriage isn’t really that bad, everyone is doing it; drinking isn’t so bad after all even Jesus drank wine, I must be made this way because after all if God is so perfect and he does not make mistakes then I am not a mistake; the Bible was written by men, its just a collective array of stories, or if I can‘t see it and feel it, then it must not be real. The greatest of all lies are the coexistence religions, which inform us of many ways to heaven, you just chose your own path and you will get into the pearly gates; but these are all paths of bondage and strongholds.

The master of lies is not short on supply of schemes to keep us out of the presences of God and from true freedom all together.

The prince of this world which subscribes to: Lucifer, Satan, the devil, Beelzebub, sometimes is liken to an angle of light but is a imposter, he blinds us with the battle over sin and salvation aka., religion. He has made hundreds of thousands of people to believe that salvation is bondage and sin is freedom. He has also blinded us with highlighting the faults of the church, which creates hypocritical attitude about those that follow Christ. Often times enough, he will use one of a wide verity of mind games to get us to question what we know to be right, verse what we know to be wrong. If he can get us to rethink everything we know with such ideas as post modern thinking. We question and even challenge morality with subversive thinking that battles our own character causing our mental processing to darkened to good and evil becomes our light. Our minds ability to understand what has taken place is darkened. we then become bound by the things we know to be wrong and the things we know to be right, become the things we hate the most. Strongholds have now taken control, we are spiritually lost. Hence the fall of man…

This is where faith in Jesus and the Word of the Living God can heal us of every stronghold, of every binding addiction, and every crippling mental disorder, but we must first admit that we are sinners and are bound. Being a sinner is hard to admit because we have to realize we are imperfect, we are not a god and we have to come to ourselves like the prodigal son (Luke 15 11:32) we have to admit that we are nothing without God and have fallen short of the glory of God.

The Bible has a whole shows a loving God, that knows what is right for us and what happens when me make the wrong choices in life. It points to a path of Gods righteousness, justice, and commandments verses mans disobedience which cause dead and destruction and strongholds.