"The devil's always coming up, going: "Boo! Ah! This time you've had it. Yes, your God may have saved you; yes, you may be born again; yes, you're epoxied your britches in a chair; yes this, and yes that, but have your looked at your circumstances lately? Look around! There's no water to drink. Look around at these walled cities! Look at your circumstances! Look at how your God has failed you."
"Trying to get you to look at the circumstances. Look at the strongholds..."
"In this room, we have people living in all varying degrees of the abundant life. You're born again, aren't you? Varying degrees... Various degrees of marital bliss; marital health. Varying degrees of your teenagers are happy. Varying degrees of your teenagers doing their very best to go to Hell on you. Various degrees of prosperity... Various degrees of, "If God doesn't come through, we're dying tomorrow." There's all various degrees we're all living. And I don't care if you are the "creme de la creme", you know yourself, God has more abundant life yet for you to possess. That's the point I'm trying to make.
"Picture with me. We're all standing on the banks on the Canaan side of Jordan. We have crossed over. We have come over to the other side. See because, the whole reason for the wilderness was to take you from a people who constantly says, "We be not able" to a people that says, "We be able.".
"Now they still haven't conquered any strongholds. You've got to understand. That's a transformation that God has to do on the inside of you to where you're not... You're just not willing to live like you are.
There's a whole bunch of promised land I ain't possessing yet.
In your own life, there's abundant joy yet to be possessed; there's peace to be possessed. There is even finances to be possessed for the Kingdom of God. Now, if that land, God says: "I have given you the land." So we're all standing there; we're on the Canaan side, we're on the abundant side... There's strongholds everywhere, and God says, "I want you enjoying all that land. It's yours." Great. We're looking at it. Only one problem. We're supposed to be enjoying that land right there, trouble is, there's a big ol' stronghold on it. These "squatters" are on my land, like Jericho...
Now here's the thing about strongholds. Can you picture a tall, walled city, like Jericho? If it's got big, high walls like that. One thing's for sure, you can't see what's on the inside. You're blind to it... That's like looking at Jericho and going, "I know whatever that stronghold is, it's keeping me from enjoying that land." But I don't even know what built the stronghold. I don't even know what it is. I don't know what's on the inside over there. I don't know how my life would be different if that stronghold was gone. You ever been there? Well you're sure there, especially when you don't know what your stronghold is.
I'm going to be real transparent tonight and tell you this, years ago...
You see, there's a transformation. What happens there, you're receiving revelation knowledge. And a lot of it is just the Word. I mean it is the Lord, just like Dave says, "If you'll spend time praying in other tongues." They come all different ways. Sometimes by vision; sometimes by revelation; sometimes by voice. One minute you didn't know something, the next minute you do. You don't know how you did. Well, you prayed it out. The Holy Ghost got it across to you. There's lots of things like that, but then every now and then, that revelation isn't so much about the Word, it's about you.
And the Holy Spirit showed it to me like this one time. This is real embarrassing for me. It's probably only me, it probably doesn't apply to you. But I had this little vision, and in this vision, I come up to Jericho. I was by my own self. It wasn't like millions of people going around and all as you read in the Bible. It was just me. And I'm praying. I'm just praying; walking around, and all I can see is this big, giant, walled city. I have no idea what's on the inside of it. I do know that it's occupying land that I'm supposed to have. So I'm walking around the thing, praying in tongues; praying in tongues; praying in tongues. Well in the vision, just suddenly, the walls just disappeared! They're just gone! And I'm looking. Suddenly I can see everything that's on the inside of that stronghold. And what's funny, I could see people. It was like a city. It looked like Medieval times, you know. There was this one guy in this vision, he was like cutting fish up to sell. You know he had a butcher block table, and he had a big ol' cleaver. And he's chopping up fish. There were guards posted, but they weren't at "battle ready" or anything. They had spears. They were just kind of talking to each other. They were just standing there. There were just people, going here, going there. Doing their daily thing. I remember one lady in particular, was just carrying her baby, just walking across the courtyard. There were places, like apartments built in there. Not like modern ones, but like you see in Israel. They were like places to live. And she just was walking across the courtyard, and just happens to look my way, and her eyes met my eyes. And she looked. She looked again. Then she screamed at the top of her voice. "He can see us!" Boy, when she said that, it was like this shock wave went through the whole city in there. I mean, the guy who was chopping fish, suddenly he's got his meat cleaver, like, "Where is the enemy?" That woman started running towards her building with her baby. She was going to get, you know. And the guards, they suddenly come to attention. They've got their spears. In other words, the whole place started preparing for war, because they knew if I could see them.
Y'all do know what the instruction was after the walls of Jericho came down? Every man take his sword and kill every living thing in it. That's what they were expecting in this vision. They were expecting me.. if I could see it, once I could see them, now I could put that to death. You see that? That's what they were expecting to happen.
In the vision, you know what I did? I'm enjoying too much just seeing what was in there. And I'm going, "Well, cool! I didn't know that this was in here, and that was in there!" I'm standing outside of the perimeter and they're all.. I'm mean, they're like this.. They're ready for war. They're expecting me to come... I don't what they're thinking. Apparently, I had the capacity by myself, slay that whole bunch. Because I'm the only one there in the vision. And they're worried. But what I did, I just stood where I was, and I went "Wow! Now look at that! I had no idea that all that was in here."
And then, after I had satisfied myself looking all around, I looked up on the hill, about a mile away, and there was another city called "Ai". And I thought, "Huh! Wonder what's in that stronghold?" And I just started walking over there. And the people are all going, "We're escaped!"
One time the Holy Ghost said to me, "Gary, your revelation has far exceeded your transformation."
...Can you picture all that now? Strongholds. What you've got to understand is this, the Holy Ghost by prayer, by assimilation, by all of the tools that He's given us. You stay at it, He's gonna start showing you, so you'll see the strongholds. When that happens, the walls come down. Honey that's not the end of the war. That's the beginning of the war. You finally found out, a little bit what's wrong with you.
Taken from Pulling Down Strongholds - Gary Carpenter 2 of 3
"Trying to get you to look at the circumstances. Look at the strongholds..."
"In this room, we have people living in all varying degrees of the abundant life. You're born again, aren't you? Varying degrees... Various degrees of marital bliss; marital health. Varying degrees of your teenagers are happy. Varying degrees of your teenagers doing their very best to go to Hell on you. Various degrees of prosperity... Various degrees of, "If God doesn't come through, we're dying tomorrow." There's all various degrees we're all living. And I don't care if you are the "creme de la creme", you know yourself, God has more abundant life yet for you to possess. That's the point I'm trying to make.
"Picture with me. We're all standing on the banks on the Canaan side of Jordan. We have crossed over. We have come over to the other side. See because, the whole reason for the wilderness was to take you from a people who constantly says, "We be not able" to a people that says, "We be able.".
"Now they still haven't conquered any strongholds. You've got to understand. That's a transformation that God has to do on the inside of you to where you're not... You're just not willing to live like you are.
There's a whole bunch of promised land I ain't possessing yet.
In your own life, there's abundant joy yet to be possessed; there's peace to be possessed. There is even finances to be possessed for the Kingdom of God. Now, if that land, God says: "I have given you the land." So we're all standing there; we're on the Canaan side, we're on the abundant side... There's strongholds everywhere, and God says, "I want you enjoying all that land. It's yours." Great. We're looking at it. Only one problem. We're supposed to be enjoying that land right there, trouble is, there's a big ol' stronghold on it. These "squatters" are on my land, like Jericho...
Now here's the thing about strongholds. Can you picture a tall, walled city, like Jericho? If it's got big, high walls like that. One thing's for sure, you can't see what's on the inside. You're blind to it... That's like looking at Jericho and going, "I know whatever that stronghold is, it's keeping me from enjoying that land." But I don't even know what built the stronghold. I don't even know what it is. I don't know what's on the inside over there. I don't know how my life would be different if that stronghold was gone. You ever been there? Well you're sure there, especially when you don't know what your stronghold is.
I'm going to be real transparent tonight and tell you this, years ago...
You see, there's a transformation. What happens there, you're receiving revelation knowledge. And a lot of it is just the Word. I mean it is the Lord, just like Dave says, "If you'll spend time praying in other tongues." They come all different ways. Sometimes by vision; sometimes by revelation; sometimes by voice. One minute you didn't know something, the next minute you do. You don't know how you did. Well, you prayed it out. The Holy Ghost got it across to you. There's lots of things like that, but then every now and then, that revelation isn't so much about the Word, it's about you.
And the Holy Spirit showed it to me like this one time. This is real embarrassing for me. It's probably only me, it probably doesn't apply to you. But I had this little vision, and in this vision, I come up to Jericho. I was by my own self. It wasn't like millions of people going around and all as you read in the Bible. It was just me. And I'm praying. I'm just praying; walking around, and all I can see is this big, giant, walled city. I have no idea what's on the inside of it. I do know that it's occupying land that I'm supposed to have. So I'm walking around the thing, praying in tongues; praying in tongues; praying in tongues. Well in the vision, just suddenly, the walls just disappeared! They're just gone! And I'm looking. Suddenly I can see everything that's on the inside of that stronghold. And what's funny, I could see people. It was like a city. It looked like Medieval times, you know. There was this one guy in this vision, he was like cutting fish up to sell. You know he had a butcher block table, and he had a big ol' cleaver. And he's chopping up fish. There were guards posted, but they weren't at "battle ready" or anything. They had spears. They were just kind of talking to each other. They were just standing there. There were just people, going here, going there. Doing their daily thing. I remember one lady in particular, was just carrying her baby, just walking across the courtyard. There were places, like apartments built in there. Not like modern ones, but like you see in Israel. They were like places to live. And she just was walking across the courtyard, and just happens to look my way, and her eyes met my eyes. And she looked. She looked again. Then she screamed at the top of her voice. "He can see us!" Boy, when she said that, it was like this shock wave went through the whole city in there. I mean, the guy who was chopping fish, suddenly he's got his meat cleaver, like, "Where is the enemy?" That woman started running towards her building with her baby. She was going to get, you know. And the guards, they suddenly come to attention. They've got their spears. In other words, the whole place started preparing for war, because they knew if I could see them.
Y'all do know what the instruction was after the walls of Jericho came down? Every man take his sword and kill every living thing in it. That's what they were expecting in this vision. They were expecting me.. if I could see it, once I could see them, now I could put that to death. You see that? That's what they were expecting to happen.
In the vision, you know what I did? I'm enjoying too much just seeing what was in there. And I'm going, "Well, cool! I didn't know that this was in here, and that was in there!" I'm standing outside of the perimeter and they're all.. I'm mean, they're like this.. They're ready for war. They're expecting me to come... I don't what they're thinking. Apparently, I had the capacity by myself, slay that whole bunch. Because I'm the only one there in the vision. And they're worried. But what I did, I just stood where I was, and I went "Wow! Now look at that! I had no idea that all that was in here."
And then, after I had satisfied myself looking all around, I looked up on the hill, about a mile away, and there was another city called "Ai". And I thought, "Huh! Wonder what's in that stronghold?" And I just started walking over there. And the people are all going, "We're escaped!"
One time the Holy Ghost said to me, "Gary, your revelation has far exceeded your transformation."
...Can you picture all that now? Strongholds. What you've got to understand is this, the Holy Ghost by prayer, by assimilation, by all of the tools that He's given us. You stay at it, He's gonna start showing you, so you'll see the strongholds. When that happens, the walls come down. Honey that's not the end of the war. That's the beginning of the war. You finally found out, a little bit what's wrong with you.
Taken from Pulling Down Strongholds - Gary Carpenter 2 of 3
