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Witness Begins With Prayer Mark Erickson       We all know someone we have prayed for or witnessed to for a long time, maybe even years, with no, or little, success.    Well, maybe we have approached it all wrong.  Dutch Sheets in his book Intercessory Prayer gives some excellent guidance in witnessing  to the hard cases.  Pastor Robertson also referred to this in his sermon “Breaking Out On Our Enemies.” (Tape is available)      Dutch Sheets begins by pointing out  that this is warfare and the weapons of this warfare are not  human, Any persuasion on a human level is just not going to work.  In fact, it may only increase resistance to the gospel.  This is spiritual warfare and we have to use the weapons God has made available to us if we expect to win.  After all, we are attempting to “demolish strongholds” literally.  There are three major components of the “strongholds” we need to come against.      First, we need to “demolish arguments” or as the King James says, “Cast down imaginations.”  This comes from the Greek word logismos from which we get the word logic.  It is the source of our thoughts, belief system, logic wisdom, and philosophies which we have formed in our brains which we do not even know exist.  It is our subconscious.  Before we even  have a chance to evaluate something our brain has already begun to judge.  It is a veil to the truth.  First, we must pray that the Holy Spirit reveal to us what logismos is subverting the message.  We must pray that God would remove this veil and  breakdown this stronghold.      Second, once we have broken through the subconscious, we can begin to attack the conscious  “pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.”  The King James says “every high thing that exalts itself.”  The Greek word for “pretension’ and “high thing” is hupsoma, which literally means “elevated place,” but it can also be defined as “all pride that rises up.”  This is the conscious.  These are thoughts we are aware of, but are still ingrained .  This is where we trust in our own thinking and reasoning.  This stronghold can also be formidable.  Second, we must pray to breakdown this stronghold of the conscious barriers of pride to the Word.      And third,  “take captive every thought .“   The Greek for “thought” is noema which also means plans, schemes, devices, or plots.  This is how Satan continues to keep the world in darkness.  This is where Satan comes in to steal the victory.  This is where spontaneous thoughts and temptations are injected to draw the individual away from the Truth.  This is where Satan puts that little twist on the truth to completely change the meaning.  Third, we need to pray for the breakdown of  the stronghold of the deceitful, cunning trickery of Satan, and pray for protection.     Remember, the unbeliever cannot war for himself.  It is up to us to call on the spiritual weapons of God on his behalf.  Then there can be VICTORY!!