Defeating the Enemies: Overcoming Spiritual Strongholds

With this post, we launch a new series exploring the spiritual battles Christians must wage and drawing lessons from ancient Israel’s encounters with enemies. These lessons can provide valuable insights into overcoming and struggling against sin. 

Israel was no stranger to war. Sometimes they were miraculously delivered. Other times they had to desperately fight for their survival. And still other times, they were defeated by their enemies.

Like the people of ancient Israel, Christians are also in a war—a spiritual war with numerous battles. They fight to overcome the pulls of sin and this world and to enter the ultimate Promised Land—the Kingdom of God.  

The stronghold of Jericho

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jericho’s walls were built using massive stones that stood around 13 feet (4 meters) high. To the Israelites, those walls must have appeared daunting and impossible to penetrate. This may be why Joshua sent out spies—to scout how to take the city by stealth (Joshua 2:1). At this point he didn’t know that God had a different plan in mind.

God commanded the Israelites to march around the city once a day for six days and then seven times on the seventh day (Joshua 6:3-4). On the seventh day, the walls of Jericho would come crashing down on their own (verses 5, 20). 

The Israelites could beat the enemy in their stronghold only through faith and divine intervention.   No military strategist would have recommended this as a battle plan to take the city. In fact, experts would have objected to it and laughed it to scorn.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary makes this insightful comment about how humans would think about God’s commanded strategy: “What was there to prevent the men of Jericho from sallying out at each of the gates, breaking up the line of Israel into sections, separating them from each other, and inflicting dreadful slaughter on each? Such a march around the city seems to be the very way to invite a murderous attack. But it is the Divine command.”

But, as the book of Hebrews notes, the seven days of walking around the city was an act of faith (Hebrews 11:30). The Israelites could beat the enemy in their stronghold only through faith and divine intervention.  

Similarly, we need faith and divine intervention to defeat our enemy of sin, which also hides behind strongholds.

The stronghold of our mind

The apostle Paul wrote about strongholds. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). According to Thayer’s, the Greek word translated stronghold means fortress.

What strongholds do Christians fight against? 

As the inhabitants of Jericho hid behind the high walls of their city, so sin hides in our lives. Paul answers that in verse 5. Our strongholds are “arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” 

This war is not against flesh and blood (people); instead, it is a spiritual war. But even though the strongholds we face can’t be seen with the human eye, they are as real and strong as the stone walls of Jericho.

Strongholds of sin exist in our minds, thoughts, human reasoning and emotions. As the inhabitants of Jericho hid behind the high walls of their city, so sin hides in our lives. And as the walls came down with God’s help, so too, we can overcome sin with God’s help. 

Bring down the stronghold of sin

Immediately after entering the Promised Land, the Israelites kept the Passover (Joshua 5:10). So, the seven days they walked around Jericho were likely the seven days of Unleavened Bread, which might mean the walls of Jericho came down on the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. 

Considering the Exodus, we note that the major events of Israel’s departure from Egypt aligned with God’s festivals. On Passover, the 14th day of the first month, the Israelites killed a lamb and put its blood on the door of their houses (Exodus 12:6-11, compare Leviticus 23:4-5). They left the next night, on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Although not specified in the Bible, the day they crossed the Red Sea may have been the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. Paul likened the Red Sea crossing to baptism (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). 

Like the Israelites facing the walls of Jericho, we cannot bring down the strongholds of sin by our own strength. We need divine intervention and help.  

When Christians receive God’s Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands (Acts 19:5-6), they receive God’s power to change from the inside out—the power to align their minds with the mind of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5). 

The critical lesson is this: We can only demolish the strongholds of sin by committing ourselves to God through repentance, baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit.

The irony of the Christian war is that to win our battles against sin, we must completely surrender, and the self must die (Matthew 16:24; Romans 6:2-7). What a strategy—surrender and die to win!

Only God could devise a military strategy like this. 

To learn more, read “What Is Repentance?” and “What Do the Symbols of Baptism Mean?” 

Be very courageous

In the opening chapter of Joshua, God told Joshua to be “strong and of good courage” (verse 6) and “strong and very courageous” (verse 7).

Likewise, Christians today need strength and courage in their spiritual battle against sin. It requires much more courage to fight that spiritual battle than to fight a physical war.

Resisting the world and its direction requires courage and strength. But the greatest battle is against the self, the strongholds in our minds. It takes courage to look deep into ourselves, to be honest about any darkness in our hearts (1 Kings 8:38) and to bring it before God (1 John 1:9). 

To learn more, read “Be Strong and of Good Courage.” 

To him who overcomes

Sin is an insidious enemy that hides in the strongholds of our minds. We need to conquer and overcome it. Christians should strive, with God’s help, to remove and destroy the strongholds of sin (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17). 

We are at war, a spiritual war, for our lives. 

We are at war against the strongholds of sin in our thoughts. Sin often hides behind high walls, like those of Jericho. So we walk with courage and faith that God will help us bring them down.

Date Posted: June 20, 2024