Job 10 Caught In A Stronghold

Caught In A Stronghold!

As we move into chapter 10, Job is still doing the talking when he should have long since closed his mouth and opened his heart and ears to the Lord to understand what God wanted to show him. But now he has moved from talking more to his friends to pointing his accusing fingers at God. He has gone from bad to worse. He is basically saying that God made him, yet Job thinks the Lord is pleased to hurt him! Can you see how far off the path he has gone? He has no clue yet why this entire trial happened to begin with. He still sees himself  as completely innocent, and the accuser has put a stronghold on his mind that has him thinking God is the bad guy here.

Job says he hates his life and wishes he had never been born. He is saying crazy things like asking God if He is like a man. Job is really saying that no matter what he were to do it would be futile as God would delight in bringing misery upon him at every turn. Friends, this is a stronghold in his mind – the enemy has wrapped himself into Job’s thinking so tightly that Job is talking like a madman to the great and awesome God he had loved for so long. He even tells God to leave him alone. We know this isn’t coming from rational thinking. We are talking about a man who the Lord Himself said was perfect and blameless in all the eastern world. If only Job knew who he was in God really. He is struggling with an identity issue here, isn’t he?

What if God were to leave him alone? What then? He would be prey to the enemy’s destruction and his life would come to nothing – meaningful that is. Today we are talking about strongholds. This once godly man has given place to the devil, his thinking has become futile…

Romans 1:18-22

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

The above scriptures shows us how the unrighteous people were given over to a debased mind. What does this mean? Well, I can give you an example from my own ‘storm of the century’ experience once again. Before I left my husband and children I had been raising my kids in a private church school. The school was attached to the church and we basically lived there from the time the girls were in 3 year old preschool until the oldest daughter finished 8^th grade. It was where I had started listening to the Christian radio station and started getting very excited about Jesus.

As you know from my previous testimony, I started becoming very sad as the girls started driving and becoming more independent. They were everything to me and the thought of not having them around as much was overtaking me. The more I thought about it, the worse I became. My thinking was going over to the schemes of the devil. He was placing all these thoughts of sadness and discontentment in my mind. And I fed on them.

Eventually one thing led to another and I was longing for a better life and a better husband – one who would love me the way I needed to be loved. Can you see how satan was setting the stage? This had been a set up in my path from years of devilish planning. Once the enemy got me thinking that way, I began to take my eyes off of the things of the Lord and began to really focus in on my circumstances and I was led by my feelings. The devil played into it every step of the way. I can look back now and see it so clearly. It was this thought and that, “Why don’t you just do this?” or “Why not just do that?” I could hear the voices telling me what to do and they were all wrong. It was like I was a sheep being led to the slaughter house.

I already told you how it finally led me to the attempt at committing suicide. What was happening here? Didn’t God love me anymore? Had He turned His back on me? Hardly! It was the other way around. Like we saw in the text above from the book of Romans, the Lord saw what I was thinking. He put people in my path to try to stop me from stepping off the cliff. I know He did. I can see it so clearly now. But back then I could not. When we looked at the book of Corinthians a few weeks ago, Paul was talking about handing the sinning brother over to satan for the destruction of the flesh. And that is exactly what God did for me. He simply let me have my way.

He has given us free will. He will never take that away from us. He will try to intervene. He knows how foolish we are in our own thinking. He knows that when we are falling prey to the enemy we are in for big trouble and we desperately need help. And He wants to send it. Like the guy whose house flooded. God sent the life raft, the boat and the helicopter and he declined all three looking for something bigger to happen. In the end he died. Was that God’s fault? Absolutely not!

When I walked into the mess I entered into back in 2003 that set off the firestorm of my life, the Lord knew I was not in any place to listen to anybody’s advice. I had spent my life trying to survive, not knowing how God could help me. So when I found myself a victim of my own thoughts and feelings, the Lord had no choice but to let me go. But He was never far away.

In the chapter today Job acts as if the Lord is smiling at his dilemma while putting His stamp of approval on what the evil doers were up to. Nothing could be further from the truth. Job’s mind, like mine had been, was caught in a serious stronghold. He went as far as to tell God to leave him alone – bad idea! Really bad idea! What had led up to this terrible state of mind for Job? Why was he trapped like a prisoner of his own thoughts? Because the devil had blinded his eyes. But how could the devil do that to a godly man like Job, or a Christian woman like me?  

Saints, it only takes a moment for us to take our eyes off the finished work of Jesus and place them on the circumstances laying before us to start down the path that can lead to a stronghold. As I look back in my own situation, I can see how very subtly it all started. My girls were in school and the husband was at work leaving me sitting home alone with nothing but housework to do, and watching Dr. Quinn reruns at 10:00 am; hardly what one would call being productive. The only thing missing was the bon-bons! LOL! Not really.

Instead of using that time to seek the Lord on a deeper level I began looking for a job. The enemy had placed that thought in my mind. Why not get a little $10 an hour job so you and the girls can have some extra shopping money? And it will give you something to do – nothing intense, just a few hours and a few extra dollars. We were not hurting for money at that time, but having some extra sounded like a good idea. Meanwhile, the Lord had placed a godly woman from church in my path who had invited me to join her Bible study.

But I felt uncomfortable with a couple of the people who were attending (where do you think that came from?) so I didn’t go anymore. Was the Lord there trying to help me and steer me in the right direction? You bet He was. But did I listen? No, because I didn’t know what I was really dealing with. The church I had spent years going to had never taught me about listening to the Holy Spirit and letting Him guide my thoughts and actions. So I was flailing like a novice swimmer in the midst of gale force winds.

I looked in the paper and called a temporary hiring agency. The next thing I knew I was back in corporate America, working in the Human Resources department for a good size information technology company. The pressure on the job was intense and it was no simple job. It was a major challenge after having been out of the work force for 12 years raising kids. And while I was changing diapers, windows and mice came along bringing new computer technology to the forefront that I knew nothing about. I would have to learn all of that from scratch, along with Microsoft Word and Excel, Access, and an HR integration system to be combined with the payroll department that would make anybody’s head swim. On top of that I couldn’t even type, while my boss, a woman 10 years younger than me could type 70 words a minute while looking at me and having a conversation!

Why is this relevant to our study today? Because it is meant to show you how the devil can bring long term plans to fruition in a person’s life over a period of years. He was planning my destruction for years. He knows my weaknesses and my past history. There are many demons out there and just like we have angels that are assigned to us, we also have demons that are assigned to territories, families and individuals. And the ones attached to me knew exactly how to set the stage, all because I wasn’t pressing in to God. The next thing you know I started making more money and getting more social. I had business outings after work where there was drinking. Even though I had quit drinking for a few years, now I was starting to consume alcohol again.

It would be the beginning of a long, slow decline. I continued to prosper in my work as God was using it to educate me for His future plans. In the midst of making a poor choice to go back to work rather than stay home and finish raising my two precious daughters, I went to work and tried to do it all. Eventually the pressure became too much. I started going out with my husband who still loved to party after all those years, and I began getting plastered with him on the weekends. I started to join him in occasional drug use. It was just going down and down. It was becoming a stronghold in my life.

The night I met the husband from hell I had been drinking. And because of that it was real easy to make the wrong decision and decide on a whim to leave my husband for this loser whom I knew nothing about. He was caught up in satan’s devices and now I would walk into the same trap. Job was caught up in misery. The devil had waited for the opportune time to begin to plant thoughts of doubt, fear, self-hatred, and confusion about God and who He is in Job’s mind.

And in his mind, as those thoughts began to take root, they formed a ‘stronghold’ that would play out in what we are seeing in this as well as the last chapter. Job went from praising the Lord to accusing Him, blaming Him and telling Him what to do as he asked God to leave him alone. Can you imagine saints?

But it happens every day across the globe. People are falling for this stuff and don’t even know what has hit them! From the time I went back to work in March of 1997, it only took until March of 2003 before I stepped off the cliff and everyone around me thought I had completely lost my mind! The fact is that over that 6 year period, the enemy kept working on me a little at a time, and the further from the things of God that I got, the easier of a target I became for the enemy. When that dreadful night came when my husband and I went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, drinking all the way to our snowmobiling destination for the weekend, I was primed and ready for the trap to close in on me.

We walked into a bar and the set up was already in place. This man would come up to us, having noticed me from across the crowded room and honing in on only me, he came and stood next to me, while my husband was at my left side at the bar. He started talking to my husband and it was my own husband who introduced me to this man. Later, after we were all well intoxicated and had been partying together and supposedly living it up, I asked my husband to dance with me. He told me to go dance with the other man. So I did. That was the beginning of the end. Satan had won the battle and I caved in to his temptations. Within a week I was walking out the door to go be with a stranger, leaving my husband of 22 years and my two precious daughters behind.

Friends, this is a painful story to share, but I believe God wants me to help you all see how the enemy can set up strongholds in our lives. It can start when we are young children and can build and build over years. And the closer we try to move to God, the more serious those demons get about their assignment to bring loss, devastation and destruction to our lives. We have to wake up and be sober. We have to watch and pray lest we fall into temptation…

Mark 14:38

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Our flesh is terribly weak when it comes to the barrage of attacks the evil one wants to hurl our way. We have to get bold about our fight to stay in the ring of this life until the final round. And we can. The Lord has given us authority over the enemy. Let’s look at what the Bible says about how we can bring down strongholds in our lives.

2 Corinthians 10:1-6

Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. 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, 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, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

We can no more fight the devil in the flesh than we could go against a thousand pound angry bear staring us in the face. Against him who does have some supernatural powers, we must be armed with the right weaponry to withstand his fiery blasts. We need to pray to the Lord far beyond our human understanding. We must also remember that the Lord is our Deliverer. We cannot depend on ourselves to get us free from bondage. It is God and only God. This is why it is of the utmost importance that we pray according to the word and will of God, both in our understanding, and in the spirit (praying in other tongues). The Spirit knows our weakness. And He knows the will of God and what to cry out of our spirit on our behalf…

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

The thing is this…if we feel ourselves slipping away from the Lord we need to go to prayer and quick. Call a friend who is strong in the faith. Ask them to agree with you in prayer for breakthrough. If you feel like you are sliding down a slippery slope, run, don’t walk to the Lord for help. He is there for us in our time of need. He loves us so much that He would rather see us come to Him and admit we are struggling and ask Him for help, then to see us step off the cliff. He never wants us to suffer harm that way. We will have suffering in this life for doing good. Jesus did and so will we. But the rest of that junk is nothing God wants us to be bothered with.

Job seemed to have lost all sense of reason in this chapter. I mean really! When you read this didn’t you just feel in your gut like shouting, “No, Job, don’t say that! Don’t go their pal – God loves you, He really does. Ask Him to help you Job, He is waiting for you to ask Him!” It doesn’t matter what type of stronghold you may be dealing with. It could be drugs, alcohol, pornography, shopping addiction, food addiction, and a host of other things. But nothing is impossible with God. If we will turn to Him and admit that we can’t win this fight on our own, He will gladly walk us through to victory. Look at what He showed me this morning, a verse I have become so very familiar with as many of you probably have…

Zechariah 4:6b-7

‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.
‘Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!
And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’” 

Look at how the ERV puts it…

He said, “This is the message from the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Your help will not come from your own strength and power. No, your help will come from my Spirit.’ This is what the Lord All-Powerful says. That tall mountain will be like a flat place for Zerubbabel. He will build the Temple, and when the most important stone is put in place, the people will shout, ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’”

Put your name in place of Zerubbabel. What mountain are you facing in your life? What has been a stronghold for you? Has something been hard for you to overcome? Have you battled with an addiction or bad habit of some kind for years and years of your life? Have you felt like it’s just no use, you might as well just ‘live with it’? If so my friend I have great news for you. Our mighty and good God is able to deliver you from all your fears and troubles – that is if you will call upon Him and trust Him and listen to Him.

I have watched Him bring me through so many trials and seen Him as He led me over one obstacle after another. Daily I have to depend on Him to help me with eating issues so I don’t get out of control. He is my strength and without Him I would be dead, dead, dead! Time after time I have gone to Him and said, “Lord, I just can’t do this on my own.” And He replied, “But I can.” The fact is that when we take hold of God’s word by faith and work it like it is alive and active in our lives regardless of how things look, we will begin to walk in victory.

Our self-talk is very important. We have to say what God says in His word over ourselves every day, no matter how high the mountains look and no matter how strong the stronghold seems. If we confess His word and walk it out in faith, His Spirit will do the rest. We overcome…

Revelation 12:11

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

Jesus paid for every stronghold, every sin and weakness. They were all nailed to the cross and there they were crucified. If we trust in Him and the finished work of the cross and we confess what God’s word says, then we will overcome – hallelujah!

1 John 5:4

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Yes, faith causes us to triumph. We can overcome with strong faith. And we know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The easiest way for me to communicate about strongholds is to use my former eating addiction as an example.

If I have a day where I don’t eat quite the way I should  I just have to admit to the Lord that I didn’t do so good. I apologize and the next day I get right back in the ring and keep on fighting the good fight of faith. I refuse to give up – give Him all the glory, hallelujah! I once weighed in at 215 pounds. For a skinny girl who weighed 120 pounds soaking wet most of her young life, this was a lot of weight to carry on my medium sized frame. I was miserable and I felt trapped in a body that was not my own. I did not even recognize myself when I looked in the mirror.

When I left my husband and children in search of love in the worst possible place I was as low as I could ever get. I never knew it was within me to stoop as low as I did. I was trapped in bondage in my own mind on many different levels. I couldn’t think clear and I could no longer make rational decisions. But God who is so faithful answered my cry for mercy! He has delivered me from so much and set me in a broad place because I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge and my stronghold…

Psalm 18:1-6

I will love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies. The pangs of death surrounded me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

I strongly recommend that you read all of Psalm 18 and see the goodness of God. When will Job turn his heart again to the Lord and stop giving place to the devil in his thoughts? Remember, we are reading this chapter as if we have never read it before. And the Lord is showing me things I have not seen before in it. He is so faithful. 

Questions:

What was Job accusing God of in this chapter?

What did he ask God to do to him?

What was the reason Job was so despondent at this point in his trial?

What is a ‘stronghold’?  

Have you been dealing with a stronghold in your life? Will you write it out here and ask the Lord for help?

Psalm 70:5

But I am poor and needy; Make haste to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay.

                        There are three main points to consider from today’s study…

When our thoughts start going down we need to look up to the Lord for help

We must watch and pray to avoid temptation

The Lord is our stronghold – a refuge in the day of trouble

Heavenly Father,

If it were not for You I would have perished long ago! Thank You for becoming my strong tower, my stronghold in the day of my trouble. Lord I ask You to help me to remember every day that You are near and that You love me completely. Help me to see when I am starting to give in to temptation and prompt me to turn to You in prayer. Thank You for being so faithful and delivering me from all my fears. I give You all the praise and glory and honor as You take my hand and walk me to victory through Your precious Son Jesus Christ. In Jesus name, amen! 

What stronghold have you been battling?  

And God Said… You fill in the blanks.

                                                                   Matthew 19:26

But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”