Video coming soon. The video teaching for Day 30 is still in production. Read the full lesson below, it will be added here as soon as it is ready.
For over a thousand years, one wall in the world was considered unbreakable.
The Theodosian Walls of Constantinople had turned back every army that ever came against them: Persians, Arabs, entire Crusader armies. Triple-layered, built in the fifth century, defended by moats and towers. Nobody had ever taken that city by force from the land side. Not once, in a thousand years.
In the spring of 1453, a twenty-one-year-old sultan named Mehmed the Second brought an army of tens of thousands to those walls, along with something they'd never faced before: massive cannons, one so large it took a crew of oxen just to drag it into place. And here's what's worth noticing: those walls didn't fall in one attack, or one week. Mehmed's forces bombarded that wall every single day for fifty-three straight days before it finally gave way. Fifty-three days of sustained, relentless pressure against something that had stood for a millennium.
That's what we're up against today.
What a stronghold actually is
In military terms, a stronghold is a fortified position: a place where an enemy has dug in, built walls, set up defenses, and prepared to hold ground. You can't walk up to a stronghold and ask it nicely to leave. You have to dismantle it. Sometimes, like Constantinople, it takes sustained pressure over real time before it comes down.
A spiritual stronghold is what forms when wounds, lies, and vows go unaddressed long enough. The enemy takes the foothold he was given (through the wound, reinforced by the lie, secured by the vow) and he builds. Over months. Over years. Over decades. He's had time to lay every course of stone.
This is why "just try harder" doesn't work for some men. This is why accountability partners help but don't solve it. This is why the filter is necessary but not sufficient. You're not fighting a bad habit. You're fighting something entrenched.
Entrenched patterns need more than willpower.
Join men walking the same six levels, in the same season, inside the community built for exactly this.
Demolished, not managed
"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God."
Divine power to demolish strongholds. Not manage them. Not negotiate with them. Demolish.
Here's what a stronghold sounds like when it's talking:
- This is just who I am: I've always been this way.
- I've tried everything: nothing works for me.
- It's been too long: I can't imagine my life without this struggle.
- Even if I stop, the desire will always be there.
Does any of that sound familiar? That's not reality. That's a stronghold talking.
Jericho
There's a city in the book of Joshua called Jericho: a stronghold, walls so thick people lived inside them, completely fortified. From the outside, taking it looked impossible. But God told Joshua: walk around it. Blow the trumpets. Don't touch the walls. Just obey. And the walls came down. Not because Israel was powerful, because God was faithful, and they didn't quit.
Strongholds aren't demolished in a moment. Constantinople's walls took fifty-three days of unrelenting pressure. Jericho's took seven. Yours might take longer than you want it to.
Three things that bring a stronghold down
- Faith that it can fall. You'll never march on a stronghold you believe is unconquerable.
- Sustained bombardment of truth. You do the work of the WLVS process (you name the wound, you renounce the lie, you break the vow) and the walls lose their foundation, one day at a time, until they can't stand anymore.
- Spiritual habits that transform your mind. That's what we'll talk about over the next two days: the actual weapons we use to demolish these strongholds.
What to do today
Give your mentor or accountability circle a heads-up: tomorrow's teaching is about listening prayer, and you'll want extra time this week (probably an hour) to work through the WLVS prayer together. This may be the most significant session you'll have.
Ask yourself: where in this struggle do things feel entrenched? What area feels like a stronghold, something you've addressed over and over that keeps coming back? Write it down. We're bringing it directly to Jesus tomorrow.
This is Day 30 of Victory Over Pornography. Continue to Day 31 →