Bill Johnson - Don't Give the Devil a Foothold
You can look at any culture; you can go to any city in our nation or any nation, and through a short amount of time, you’d be able to study that city and find out what people trust in other than God. For some, it’s the abuse of alcohol or drugs; those are the things they rely on when they’re in trouble. When they begin to panic or feel fearful, they reach for whatever it may be, and that takes the place of God in their lives. They may believe in the existence of God, but their lifestyles testify that they do not depend on Him. It’s a trust issue. You can study that city; it may be sports, recreational activities, or any number of things—wonderful blessings and additions to our lives. But when that’s what I turn to and that’s what I trust, then it takes the place of my dependency on the Lord. The Lord now targets this issue of strongholds.
What is a stronghold? If you go back to medieval times and the wall cities or castles, think of the large stones carved and placed on top of each other. A stronghold is a hiding place, in this case for the demonic. It’s created in a person’s life through their thoughts. In 2 Corinthians 10, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; they are mighty for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and thoughts raised up against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity. Here’s the deal: thinking incorrectly empowers the enemy and gives him a safe place to hide in our thought patterns. Incorrect patterns of thought are dwelling places for the demonic. A bad thought is not a hiding place, but a lifestyle of bad thoughts creates a hiding place. A stronghold is where those thoughts go unrecognized. Imagine a royal family hiding in a castle; you can’t see them behind the castle wall. They are hiding, safe, and can come out whenever they want. The demonic hides in thought patterns and processes of people’s lives when they are anchored in thoughts that reflect a trust in something other than God.
The weapons of our warfare are not human in origin; they are not skills or talents. They are literally the weaponry of God Himself to deal with the hiding places of the enemy in a person’s thought processes. What is it about those thoughts that gives the enemy a place to hide? These are things that raise challenges against the knowledge of God, not the existence of God. The enemy knows he cannot get me to deny the existence of God; I’m too far in. I couldn’t fall for that. The devil wearing a red suit with a pitchfork is easy to spot. But what works at times is when I find myself thinking about a problem without the hope of a redemptive solution. What idea am I entertaining? It is something that wars against the knowledge of God. There’s not a problem I face that He doesn’t have the answer for; He is prepared to release the solution. Fear will always attract whatever information is needed to legitimize its existence. Here’s a crazy thing: so do jealousy and resentment. Jealousy and resentment also attract whatever information is necessary to validate their existence, but they come with the ability or capacity to mislead us spiritually.
When we give dysfunction a virtuous name, we not only give it permission to remain, but we also allow it to take root until it begins to shape our personality. This is where extreme tenderness to the Lord is vital. The farther you go with God, the more you are capable of giving a virtuous name to a problem because you know more. Knowledge puffs up; the Bible doesn’t say carnal knowledge, just knowledge puffs up. The answer isn’t to ignore learning, understanding, or wisdom. The requirement of the Lord for us is that what we learn brings us closer to Him. Encountering the person of the Lord Jesus Christ means we don’t walk away strutting about all the great things we’re going to do with our lives.
Returning to the subject at hand, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. What are the strongholds? They are the places of trust in us or in others. Casting down arguments—I’m glad there’s none of that going on right now. Listen to me: once you get the victory of pulling down strongholds here, you’re positioned to pull it down in the culture, but you have to do it here first. What you win here positions you to influence there because there is a demonic power behind so much—if I could say all the lies—that war against the knowledge of God. There is demonic power; they are the fiery darts.
When a person has dealt well with their own thought life and has won the battle in an area, they become positioned to recognize it in others—not to point it out. It’s not about yelling at people or accusing them; it’s about prayer. «God, there seems to be in my neighborhood…» For example, I remember moving into a house in Weaverville. Soon after, a lady across the street came over and said, «Just to let you know, everybody on your side of the street gets a divorce when they move in here.» Good to be in your neighborhood, right? It wasn’t everyone, but it was this house, that house, that house—they move into this neighborhood, and they get divorced. I said, «Well, it stops here.» Whatever power has been behind that doesn’t have here.
When you have personal victory in an area, it positions you—not to point fingers or accuse people—but to pray. «God, we ask right now that a spirit of revelation be released to counter this lie that our community or my neighborhood has believed: that there is a solution by leaving our spouse.» Why do you think praise is a weapon of warfare? Praise is a weapon of war. I know for me, if there’s a struggle in health, I’m going to exalt Him for being the Healer. What’s happening? The battle starts here. Once I engage in praise by declaring who He is—the knowledge of God—casting down thoughts and ideas raised against the knowledge of God, I deal with it here first. Then I become positioned to bring about transformation in my location.
I declare His greatness. There’s a presence and power exercised against the lies that have been raised against the knowledge of God. The battle we win here positions us to win the same battle out there. When He says you come before the Lord in this way: «Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,» He is saying two things are important for you every day of your life. Number one is repentance, and number two is forgiveness.
Repentance means, «God, I don’t come to you as though you owe me anything. I come to you as a son, needing your forgiveness.» This kind of tenderness isn’t about shame or guilt because that doesn’t advance us anywhere. But in the surrender, the yieldedness of acknowledgment of the grace of God in my life, I say, «God, I come to you needing forgiveness,» and I have already purposed to forgive everyone who has ever offended me. Sometimes it’s the little things; sometimes we’re not bitter at a person—it may be an institution. «Oh, the government did this, or the IRS did that!» This is no more legal than if you hate your neighbor—because it’s the poison in here that affects us.
In verse 10, it says, «He disciplines us for our profit that we may be partakers of His holiness.» Go down to verse 14: «Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God—lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this, many become defiled.» Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. You know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
I’m sorry to be so direct this morning, but I need to point something out here. I remember talking to a guy some years ago—a person of pretty significant influence. He said, «Well, I just want to do this, and when I’m through, I’ll just ask God to forgive me.» That’s the spirit of foolishness right there! Repentance is a gift; you can only repent if it’s given to you as a gift. It’s not something I control; it’s a gift. Esau looked for a place of repentance and couldn’t find it. That’s not to freak people out; maybe He will forgive you, but eventually, you’re going to find out you’re not in charge. We come by invitation.
Let’s look back at verses 14 and 15, and we’ll wrap it up. «Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, looking carefully lest anyone falls short of the grace of God—lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this, many become defiled.» The root of bitterness springing up defiles many. This is of deep concern to me because I watch it happen. One of the places I went recently was where an individual became offended. It’s crazy because they had experienced a miraculous, medically proven miracle, yet they became offended, went to social media, and caused over a thousand people to leave a particular ministry.
Here’s one of our problems: we tend to prove our loyalty to an individual by picking up their offenses. That’s not biblical loyalty. Another thing I’ve noticed is that there are a number of people who feel powerless in a situation, and they fight to regain their sense of power through criticism and complaining. They feel powerful if they can complain. It’s an illegitimate authority; it’s an illegitimate power if it points fingers and accuses. When the Bible talks about coming to Him with pure, clean hands and a pure heart, clean hands are hands that don’t have pointing fingers or accusations. This is a bigger issue than we may have thought because when you stand to pray, «Forgive,» when you come to the Lord, make sure that what got you there is your forgiveness and your forgiveness of others. That’s what qualifies you to stand as a son.
The very fact that you receive discipline means you are being dealt with by the Lord, which is evidence of your sonship. If you don’t have that, the wheat and tares—did I talk to you about wheat and tares? Wheat and tares look the same while they’re growing; you can’t tell them apart. But when they mature, wheat, because of its fruitfulness, bows; it bends before the Lord, while the tares stand upright. Jews call tares illegitimate wheat. This picture of wheat and tares gives us an illustration of sons and daughters who are refined by the Lord and those who aren’t. In a time of fruitfulness, there’s a humility to one, and not to the other.
I’ve observed for years that one of the scary parts of having favor is that if I become bitter, I can persuade you—due to the measure of my favor with you—to join in my bitterness. But we never call it bitterness; we call it discernment. «Oh, I’m discerning something here; we need to pray about it.» Then I can plant seeds of suspicion in you that create distance from the person I don’t want you to associate with. We never name it because we know too much. It’s much easier for me to say, «Well, I’ve forgiven,» and still carry resentment and call it something else. When you stand to pray, forgive. At the forefront of your relationship with God is the privilege of standing clean, forgiven. Therefore, I will give to others what I did not deserve.
The scary thing about resentment and bitterness is that they are infectious; they touch people around us. I can have nice, happy words on the outside, but if I carry that kind of thing inside, my internal world will have influence. It doesn’t mean you have to yield to it; it just means you’ll be subjected to a pressure you wouldn’t have experienced if I hadn’t entertained bitterness. About a month ago, I took two Sunday mornings to talk about perils, or challenges, or difficulties that we face as believers. The first one was bitterness and resentment; bitterness and resentment are contaminating influences in people’s lives. The scripture warns that bitterness in one person will defile many; it’s contagious.
If you watch the news, be careful, because much of what you hear flows through the spirit of bitterness. You’ll find that the influence of bitterness will enable you to become offended easily. When you see that stirring up, make sure you rise to protect your heart from the contamination of someone else’s bitterness. Both bitterness and jealousy hide under the guise of discernment; they hide under the notion that you see into the heart of another’s motive. The scripture is clear that nobody can know the heart—neither your heart nor the heart of another person. When we try to figure out the motives of another person, we venture into taboo territory.
Bitterness is an attachment to the past; jealousy is also an attachment to the past. Jealousy reads into situations and works hand in hand with entitlement; it assumes I am owed certain things in life. When someone else gets blessed instead of me, whether it’s favor or opportunity, I can feel diminished and insecure because of their breakthrough. Jealousy is a contaminant as well. So, I took a couple of weeks to talk about those two perils, and today I want to address the third. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This is a happy day; we are happy people. I’ll try to remind you throughout the message that this is happy.
But the third area, I think, is the most devastating and damaging of all three, and it’s called disappointment. Disappointment robs people of the courage for the future. Think about it: disappointment is anchored to yesterday. Bitterness is anchored to yesterday. You were born for tomorrow; you were designed to make a difference in this present moment that impacts the course of history—that’s who you are! The Apostle Paul dealt with this subject uniquely on two different occasions. One time, he was telling the church in Romans 8 that nothing can separate you from the love of God, and he mentions angels, and then things present and things to come. Notice he doesn’t mention the past.
Yesterday cannot remove you from the love of God, but it can shut down your awareness of the love of God. Both bitterness and disappointment are tied to yesterday, and the enemy uses these things to redefine who we are and what our purpose is. I played a lot of sports in school and had some interesting injuries through the years—broken bones, etc. But the one that affects me occasionally is my left knee, which sometimes dislocates. I remember a few years ago, in Weaverville, it dislocated while Chris was there. I told him what to do to get it back into place; it’s not something you can do on your own. We heard this big pop as the joint slipped back into place. It was glorious! I wish I had a video of that experience.
Here’s the crazy thing about a dislocated joint: it’s alive; it’s yours; it’s not severed, but it doesn’t function. Life is still there, but I can’t walk, and I can’t do anything with it until it’s back in place. Disappointment dislocates a person from their purpose; it dislocates a person from their destiny. The enemy works hard to keep us focused on what didn’t work so we are of no use for what can work. Disappointment is the mother of depression; it is depression in diapers. Not dealing with it in early stages deeply affects our emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
There’s a great verse in Proverbs that I often quote; it’s in chapter 12 or 13. Just read both; they’re good, and keep reading when you’re done with those two. In chapter 12 or 13—forget which one—it says, «Hope deferred makes the heart sick; desire realized is a tree of life.» Hope deferred makes the heart sick. What is it saying? Disappointment makes us vulnerable to spiritual disease. It’s like our immune system shuts down. If we don’t know how to strengthen ourselves in those moments, we’ll be affected by circumstances that didn’t turn out the way we wanted, the way we prayed, or what we believed for.
Everybody in this room has had all kinds of things happen that were not planned; disappointments, losses, betrayals, criticisms—all the junk we’ve experienced. We’re not supposed to like them, but we don’t. How we navigate those adverse situations—the adverse winds—is crucial. The sailboat can position its sail to advance against the incoming wind. In those moments of adversity, with the right attitude of heart and under biblical guidance, we can actually make personal advancements. In fact, what you were born for is often on the other side of adverse winds.
What you were designed for requires adjusting your heart: trusting God, learning to trust Him when things are beyond your control or explanation. Trust Him in those moments, because it will help you—even if it feels like you’re going back. It can actually cause you to advance in the most difficult times, and that’s where strength is formed. Disappointment is a thief. It robs us of vision and purpose. In fact, disappointment can become a place where people hide while secretly accusing God of not being faithful. Many would never want to think of it consciously, but what it does is protect that offense towards God in a wrong way, because things didn’t turn out as they should.
I don’t think it’s possible to get where God has designed us to go—as individuals, family units, or as a church family—without navigating this issue of disappointment. You have that disappointment, like when that person has a horrible disease, and you prayed for them but they didn’t get healed; they died. What do you do? You don’t brush it off; you get alone with God. Why? Because He has given a promise about demonstrating His life, love, and power through His children.
You get alone with God until you get breakthrough; it’s not complicated, but it is challenging. How do you get breakthrough? You take a risk. What do you do if you don’t get breakthrough? Get alone with God. Then, what do you do? Take more risks. Go into His presence, cry out, go to where there are hurting people and serve, and keep that back and forth until you and I learn to do what God has called us to do. You and I may struggle with the assignment, but it doesn’t give us the right to change it.
You are living and breathing because He has hope; you will believe for the impossible. When life’s impossibilities yield to a son or daughter, the Father is revealed, and He is glorified. People look at what you and I may do and say, «Well, they’re not that good; that must be God.» There’s a psalm that says, «Certainly, the nations will say 'God is among them.'» In other words, they’re not that sharp, but God must be there because look at what’s happening through them. That’s what you want; you want to display the nature, the kindness, and the heart of God in such a way that people around you are impacted by who He is.
Promises invite us to dream, and I’d like to suggest that those who have lost the capacity to dream have lost sight of the promises of God. Our capacity to dream is fueled and inspired by our connection to the promises of God that we have not yet seen fulfilled. The overwhelming theme of this chapter, especially as Nehemiah mentions it four different times in this one chapter, is the attempt to frighten him—discourage him with fear and stop the work. He mentions the issue of fear four times in about 18 to 20 verses because, as you know, the number one command in scripture is, «Do not fear.» It’s repeated the most often because it’s the most needed instruction.
Everything we do in life stems from love or fear. Fear drives my mind into forbidden territory. The devil doesn’t wear a red suit with horns and a pitchfork; he comes as an angel of light—meaning he approaches us with inspired thoughts and insights about another person that can then morph into gossip, slander, rumor, or criticism. So it’s vital to be grounded, daily, in the Word of God, to be filled with the Spirit. This combination allows us to navigate the challenges we face.
I pray that together we walk in repentance, not embracing fear or entertaining things that undermine our confidence or our simplicity of devotion to Christ. God, help us to be a church family that protects that at all costs. The enemy cannot cool our affection for the Lord; he cannot dampen our desire for greater breakthrough; he cannot rob us of our zeal for Jesus. But he can try to introduce a fly into the ointment and defile the entire container of anointing.
Gossip reveals strongholds. I talked to you about strongholds in thought that are created by patterns of thought. Gossip actually does that; it creates patterns of thought that provide a place of residence for demonic influence. Gossip in essence is agreeing with what the enemy says and thinks. Gossip exists where there’s a need to protect self-interest. Those with the strongest need to be right are the most easily persuaded toward gossip, slander, and offense—it’s called self-preservation or fighting for personal interests.
John Paul Jackson said the Lord spoke to him: «You don’t have a right to be right; you have a right to be broken.» Gossip reveals strongholds. Individuals have dysfunctional behavior veiled under virtuous titles, allowing it to remain in their lives, shaping their personalities. Gossipers often have to believe their evil reports to justify their suspicion or hatred. If you harbor animosity toward someone, you will attract misinformation about them—a reality that breeds greater bitterness. It’s the reason we should not let the sun go down on our anger.
Gossip gives a false sense of responsibility, hiding under the guise of necessary information. It’s often the reason leaders fall prey to gossip—they feel responsible to pass on information. Gossip mirrors the value system of an inferior kingdom, trying to bring death to its target and ultimately to the gossipers. It’s a two-for-one deal for the enemy. It’s one of the primary tools he uses to weaken the strength of a believer.
Gossip is a seed that will be harvested. The one who gossips reaps the fruit of it but always blames others for the injustices they experience. Season after season, some suffer, aware they are reaping what they’ve sown, yet they don’t realize they’ve brought it on themselves through slander and criticism. There’s enough trouble in the world without adding to it.