Is there any hope for victory over your thought life? Listen to Adrian Rogers.
Now there’s a war, and this message is a warning, and it is a call to arms. But I pray God it will be an encouragement, because when you were born again, you were born to win. God did not save you for a defeated life.
God’s plan for you, precious friend, is victory, and He has a plan for you for victory in your thought life.
Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the timeless teaching, pastor and author Adrian Rogers. Whether we realize it or not, there’s a battle raging in our minds at every moment. Spiritual warfare between light and darkness, good and evil, Jesus Christ and Satan.
We cannot afford to be ignorant, and we cannot possibly be neutral. We must join the fight we were born to win. If you have your Bible, turn now to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, as Adrian Rogers shares encouragement for The Battle for Your Mind.
Would you take God’s precious word and be finding, please, 2 Corinthians chapter 10? We’re going to be talking about your mind, the battle for your mind. Some of our battles are maybe just a little silly.
I heard of a man who was on a diet, trying to lose weight, but on his way to work, he passed a donut shop, and he got to thinking just how good a donut and a cup of coffee would be. And he said to himself, I will only stop if there is a parking place right in the front. And sure enough, after 7 times around the block, there was a parking place right there in the front.
All of us fight the Battle of the Bulge and those kind of battles, and they’re with us always. But there is a battle more deadly, more sinister. It is a battle for the mind, a deadly war that is between God and Satan.
And the battleground is, believe it or not, your mind and your soul. And those of us who are Christians are caught up in this battle. 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. So right away we know we’re talking about a war. We’re talking about a battle.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing in to captivity every thought, underscore that, bringing in to captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Now there’s a war, and this message is a warning, and it is a call to arms. But I pray, God, it will be an encouragement, because when you were born again, you were born to win.
God did not save you for a defeated life. But the Bible says, thanks be unto God, who causes us always, always, always, to triumph in Christ Jesus. I hope you believe that.
God’s plan for you, precious friend, is victory, and He has a plan for you for victory in your thought life. Three things I want to lay on your heart. The very first thing is the warfare of our foe.
Look, if you will, in verse 4. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. There is a war.
And who are the participants in this war? Who has declared war against your thought life, against the citadel of your soul? Well, I want to say that your enemy is not clothed in flesh.
Put in your margin. Ephesians 6, verse 12. There the apostle Paul told the Ephesian Christians, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers.
Listen to this phrase of the darkness of this world. Against spiritual wickedness in high places. That is, the devil has ensconced himself in high places to war against you.
You are at war and there is a war against you. There is a deadly array, a deadly array, according to this verse, of demonic hosts. They are invisible and they are dedicated to the destruction of your thought life, and they are under the authority of the prince of darkness, the god of wickedness, the devil.
Now what is the prize in this warfare? What is the battleground? Look if you will in verse 5.
Casting down imaginations. Underscore the word imaginations. And every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God.
Underscore the word knowledge. And bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. There do you have it.
Imaginations, knowledge, thought. It’s obvious that there is a war. Satan is behind it.
And your mind is the battleground. Satan’s desire is to conquer and to control your thought life. And then to make your thought life a citadel from which he can war against God.
Because look if you will here. It says here, every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. Satan wants your mind.
Now, there is a difference between your mind and your brain. Now, the behavioral psychologist doesn’t recognize that difference, but the Bible makes that difference very clear and very plain. Your mind does the thinking.
Your brain is what you think with. The relationship of the mind and the brain is very much like the relationship of a piano and a pianist. The pianist uses the piano to express that music.
So there’s a difference between your mind and your gray matter. There’s a difference between the two. Your brain and your mind are separate.
Now, I will admit that some people have a better piano than others. Some of us have a spinet and some have a grand piano. But you see, still, there is a decided difference between your mind and your brain.
Now, when you get saved, you have the mind of Christ. That doesn’t mean you have a higher IQ. But you have the mind of Christ.
You have a different capacity for thinking to use that brain that you have. Now, again, the devil wants your mind, and the fact that you do have the mind of Christ, the fact that you have been saved, does not mean, listen to me, it does not mean, therefore, because you have been born again, that the war is over for you. Paul is writing here to the Christians.
He’s writing to the Corinthian Christians. You’re in chapter 10. Go over and look in chapter 11 and verse 3.
It will make it even plainer. Look, if you will, in chapter 11 and verse 3. Paul says here, For I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, that is, he’s a snake in the grass, he’s a wily old devil, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Now, when he says the simplicity that is in Christ, he doesn’t mean that it is just, you’re saying ABC spiritually. No, no, the word simplicity actually means purity, sincerity. Now, what he’s saying is here, it means single-minded devotion.
So, I fear, he says, as though the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind, your mind should be corrupted from the pure single-minded devotion that is in Christ. Now, the devil, therefore, is working against your mind. He wants to somehow corrupt your mind.
Paul here is talking to the Corinthian Christians as though they were his children, and he says that he has espoused them to Christ. He’s like a father looking over his daughter and trying to keep her pure. Notice he says in chapter 11 and verse 2, For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy.
For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Now, what does he mean by godly jealousy? Now, jealousy can be bad or it can be good.
There’s an insane jealousy that’s not good, but there’s a godly jealousy that wants to protect those that we love. Parents have a right to be jealous over their children that they might be protected. A loving father wants to present his daughter, bring his daughter to the marriage altar, a virgin.
And the problem today is that we have so many dropout dads who don’t understand that their job is to raise up a godly girl and present her at marriage, a virgin girl, to a virgin boy. That’s the purpose of a godly father. Now, Paul is using that analogy to say that those people at Corinth were his spiritual children.
They are the bride of Christ, and he is saying, I don’t want you to be corrupted. I don’t want you to be sullied. When I present you to Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb, I want you to be a pure, chaste virgin for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, we don’t have enough purity in the church today. The bride has forgotten how to blush, I believe. What we need today is a pure church.
Sometimes teenagers sell out so cheaply. Years ago, in London, there was a man named Mr. Betz, B-E-T-T-S, who had a music store. And a shabbily dressed man came in there carrying a dusty old violin, and he said, I need food, would you buy my violin?
Mr. Betz said, I have plenty of violins. The man said, I’m in desperate need, please buy my violin. Mr. Betz bought the old man’s violin for the equivalency of $5.
Well, we wouldn’t call it $5 in London, but the equivalency of $5. And the old man went out, crammed the money in his pocket, his shabby old clothes, and went out. Betz, being a musician, tucked the violin under his chin and began to play.
And he heard rich, resonant tones coming from that violin. He got a candle and held it up and looked inside that violin, and he saw those immortal words, Antonio Stradivarius. He realized he had a treasure.
The old man had sold him a Stradivarius violin for $5. Betz was an honest man, a good man. He went out to try to find the old man, to say, hey, you’ve made a mistake.
But he was gone. He never found him again. Mr. Betz sold the violin for $5,000 many, many years ago.
Today, it’s worth a king’s ransom. Think of the old man selling a violin like that for $5. I’ll tell you, some of you young people are selling out more cheaply than that when you make your bodies a dirty plaything of somebody, rather than saving yourself for the one that you’re going to marry.
Now, what Paul is saying is this, as a father wants to protect his daughter and present her a pure virgin to Jesus Christ, Paul said, I want to protect the church. I want you to have that pure, simple minded, sincere, love, single mindedness for Jesus Christ. And he said, there’s a battle for your mind.
The devil wants to get your mind because the devil knows that he can get your mind, he can corrupt you, he can pull you away from the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a world, friend, that has gone wild concerning the thought life. I remind you, if you read Genesis chapter 6, that God destroyed an entire civilization because of the thought life.
God saw that the wickedness, the imagination of men’s heart was only evil continually. And God destroyed them, the Bible says, because of the things they imagine in their minds. I have an article of US News and World Report, an alarming story.
On the front of US News and World Report is a picture of a teenager. He’s in his jeans, he has his pullover shirt on, he has earphones, he has a tape player in his hand, and the caption says this, do you know what your children are listening to? It’s a picture of the average teenager, you’d see him anywhere.
And then the article inside, deeply disturbing. Let me just quote a little from it. Day and night, America’s youth are enticed by electronic visions of a world so violent, sensual and narcotic that childhood itself appears to be under siege.
The pleasures produced to the young today through records, television, video, and films are so provocative that parents are in an uproar. Psychologists are warning of dire consequences. Entertainment producers are fearful of threats to free speech.
And politicians are pondering solutions that question First Amendment rights. The article goes on to say that I’m skipping violence, the occult, rebellion, drug abuse, promiscuity, and homosexuality are constant themes. Romans 8 verse 6, the Bible says to be carnal minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. That means that we need to guard our minds. And incidentally, let me say to some of you who are into transcendental meditation, that’s dangerous.
That’s dangerous. Do you know what transcendental meditation does? It opens you up to demonic spirits.
And people say, well, put yourself into some sort of a meditative mood. You may make contact. Yes, you may.
That’d be like going to bed at night and unlocking all the doors, pulling open all the windows, and then going to sleep at night to see what might come in. You know, just go to sleep and you say, well, tonight I might make contact. Yes, you might.
You might. Oh, no. Your mind is to be fastened upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. Now, folks, I’m telling you that there is a battle here for your mind. The devil wants your mind.
The devil wants to corrupt your mind from the simplicity the single-minded devotion that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only does the devil want your mind, God wants your mind because it is through your mind that God reaches you. Now, I’m going to give you some scriptures.
And I want you to jot these scriptures down and use them later on. First of all, I want to remind you that when God communicates to you, God communicates through your mind. Ephesians 4, 17 and 18.
This I say therefore, and testifying the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk. Now, he’s talking to Christians. He says, stop living like pagans.
That means the emptiness, the vapidity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened. Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
And the word heart here also refers to the mind. Now God, when he communicates, he communicates to you through the mind. We have people today who want to go to services that put the emphasis upon emotionalism.
God does not communicate to you through your emotions. Your emotions are the shallowest part of your nature. Salvation is the deepest work of God.
People get in services in the rhythmic music and everything, and they get goose bumps and liver shivers and all that. They think they’ve had an experience with God. All they’ve had is an emotional hiccup.
I’m telling you it’s true. God communicates through your mind. Now, when I say your mind, I’m not talking about rationalism and intellectualism either.
I’m talking about God revealing himself to your mind. God communicates through your mind, and God changes us by changing your mind. Ephesians 4 verse 23.
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. How does God renew you? In the spirit of your mind.
You can change the way you live by changing the way you think. I hope that comes in. You can change the way you live by changing the way that you think.
What do you think Romans 12 verse 2 says? Listen to it. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Transformed by the renewing of your mind. God communicates to you through the mind. God changes you through the mind.
God controls you through the mind. Remember the scripture that I gave you before, Romans 8, verse 6, to be carnal minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life and peace.
I clipped this. This is something that Chuck Swindoll wrote. It’s one of the finest things he wrote in my estimation.
He says this, the longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education.
Now he’s not saying that attitude is more important than truth. He’s not talking about truth as we know it. He’s talking about facts.
Two and two is four. He says, attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, more than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes. Well, who’s in charge of you? I hope the Holy Spirit is, because God communicates through the mind.
God changes by changing the mind. God changes us by changing the mind. God controls us by controlling the mind.
God wants your mind. The devil wants your mind. And so there is a battle for your mind.
Now, that’s the first point here. What we have talked about is this, the warfare of our foe. Now, here’s the second point, the weakness of our flesh.
You must understand this. If you think I’m just telling you to buck up and think better thoughts, no, that would be futile. Notice that in your own flesh, you are weak.
Now, go back to our text, 2 Corinthians 10. Look, if you will, in verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.
Your flesh, your natural state, does not have what it takes to have the right thought process. Now, we live in the flesh, folks. We might as well admit it.
All of us have problems. All of us have disappointments. All of us have sicknesses.
All of us have perplexities. All of us have the mundane things of life. Don’t get the idea that when you get saved, you move into another planet somewhere.
We all live in the flesh. I mean, that’s a part of life. That’s just where we are.
And there’s no place that you can take your flesh and get it somewhere and just get out of this rat race that we’re in. You just can’t do that. The warfare is not after the flesh.
Sometimes people go to a monastery, thinking if they can get off in a monastery, somehow that then they can be holy. I heard about a man went to a monastery and this monastery had the regimen, the discipline of silence. They could only say two words a year.
And finally he came to his superior after a whole year there in the monastery and he said, all right, you have two words. What do you want to say? He said, bed hard.
Thank you, go back. He came back the second year. He said, well, you’ve got two more words.
What do you want to say? He said, food bad. So go back.
Came back the third year. He said, you’ve got two words. What do you want to say?
He said, I quit. And he said, well, you might as well quit. All you’ve done is complain for three years.
And there’s no way that the flesh can overcome this. Though we live in the flesh, we don’t war in the flesh. He’s talking here about our weakness of our flesh.
Listen, we do not fight with flesh and blood because we don’t fight against flesh and blood. You have to understand that.
And coming up on Monday, we’ll hear part two of this vital message from Adrian Rogers. But maybe as you’ve listened today and studied with us, a prayer request has surfaced in your life at Love Worth Finding. One of our great honors is to come alongside you and pray with you and for you.
If you go to our website and scroll down to the prayer wall, you’ll find the option to submit a prayer request or pray for others. This is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Go to lwf.org/radio and scroll down to our prayer wall today. Now, if you’d like a copy of today’s message in its entirety, call us at 1-877-LOVE-GOD. Mention the title, The Battle for the Mind.
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