We Cast Down Imaginations, Bringing Them into Captivity

We were talking here last Sunday a week about laying aside the weights and the sin that doth so easily beset us. We were talking about our doing something, cooperating with God by laying aside those things that would hinder us in the race. We found the responsibility of laying aside was upon us. Not that we have it all to do, but that God expects us to cooperate with Him by showing our willingness to put aside everything that would entangle us and keep us from going on with Him. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He started the work in us, and He is well able to finish it, performing in us that which is upon His heart.

It is a race, but praise God we have the author and finisher of our faith with us. He can finish the work, and He wants us to finish well. He does not want us to start well and then stop, but He wants us to finish well. God’s Word tells us the race is not to the swift or to those who are strong, but to the ones who endure to the end. God wants us to be those who will endure. He does not want us to start in the flesh and end up in it. But He wants us to start in Him and endure through Him. He wants us to put the flesh in subjection to Him.

As I thought of this, “Let us lay aside the weight, etc.,” I thought of another “Let us.” I thought of the place which we now know to be Babel, or the place of confusion. I thought how those people got in unity, and they said, “Let us build us a city and a tower whose top will reach heaven.” There is such a difference in the subjects, but those two “Let us” struck me so forcibly.

The one is Paul or the writer to the Hebrews, remonstrating with those people that they should lay aside all those things that would hinder or trip them in doing in the will of God. But here in Genesis 11:4, these people are wanting to make a name for themselves. They wanted a city that would reach to heaven. They wanted to do something themselves. What a difference!

These people wanted something that was built on a wrong foundation. And while we talk about unity and desire to see the saints in one accord, in unity with the way God wants us—and Jesus prays that it be done—yet we must recognize that the evil forces of this world are also in unity. They combine and move as though they were told beforehand without any special message from Satan to bring forth his plan and purpose. His forces are so combined that he brings his terrible works, and people yield to them, and they come to pass.

How little we see of God’s works coming to pass because the prince of this world has so much charge over it. It makes it easier for his children to be in unity because they have no opposition as far as this world goes. But yet we have a God who is able to do all things, though it be hard. We are so rigged up with this flesh, we are made of the flesh, we desire the things of the flesh, we desire the motives of the flesh, the ideas, imaginations. Our whole outlook is fleshly, and it takes a terrific moving of God in our hearts to get us in the place where we will even have an idea of what God wants to do for us. Praise God, He can do it. He has done it before and He will do it now.

We find these people getting into unity, afraid they would be scattered throughout the earth. They decide to build the city, the tower whose top will reach heaven. They plan to stay close by and so they get in unity. But there is God saying, “Let us” to the rest of the Godhead, as He looks down and sees these people preparing to raise themselves and make a name for themselves. We think of them as primitive ones, ones who did not know the things we know today, but I do not believe that is true at all. I believe they had far more things than we today, because they were coming from a place of perfection. Just a little way back were the ones God had created and had taught how to do things perfectly. I do not believe they were so far back in their methods as we would think.

As the Lord looked down, He said, “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” In other words, He said, “They are getting somewhere with this city. They are getting that tower very high. They are making brick, burning them thoroughly. They have brick for stone, and slime for mortar.” These were not primitive methods at all. They were getting somewhere with their unity, and it was being called to God’s attention. As He looked down He saw something was being done.

We may be sure that it was the devil who put it in their hearts. He tried to exalt himself to God and tried to reach His throne, and now he desired to work through God’s creatures to do the same thing as he had done only on another angle. He would have exalted himself to God in using God’s creation to bring to pass that which he failed in.

Thank God for that “Let us.” God could say to the rest of the Godhead then, “Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” He sent confusion. He changed their language, and just what they feared came upon them: they were scattered abroad on the face of the earth, and they could not finish what they had started.

However, as the enemies’ forces get in unity, they can bring forth. Unity brings forth might, and might goes on to the thing that is intended to be done. We can see how people scheme and plot together to do something against God. They go against God’s plan and will, and they go on the side against God. They bring forth something because there are enough of them together to make it go.

We see people born into places where the doctrine is not right, the principles are not right. We see souls coming in and hearing them say, “We have so many people.” But those who have been born there will mean just that many more to fight against the plan of God.

You can get any kind of Jesus you want, as Brother Lowe preached one night. If you do not want the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of Nazareth, the blood-bought way, the submissive way, you can go to any place you want. And after a while, as water finds its level, you will find your place. You will find many who will rise up against you when you want the right thing, but you will find many when you drift away say, “That is the sensible thing. You are on the right track at last.” As you drift from one thing to another, you finally drift to the church that gives you the kind of a gospel that meets with your ideas, fits in with what you think.

You can get that kind of a Jesus, but it is not the Jesus of Calvary. It is One that people have set up as an ideal, but it will never meet the need of the day. As Brother Lowe prayed the other day, we see the wicked as they seem to prosper. We see those who have the wrong doctrine and principles far surpass those who have the right thing, but in it all is that germ of defeat. One day it will germinate and go to its own place.

When we sing “I’m Going Through”, if we have the right doctrine and principles, we will go through. As we sing, we would be like Jacob, having a pillow of stone, God grant it to be so that I would rather walk alone that way than go the way they say is right but come to the end in defeat.

This Bible has principles written down, and that which is anything else will one day come to confusion. When God has had enough, He will confound it—bring it into confusion. He seemed to let this go on awhile in that day. They thought they were almost to the place but when it came to God’s attention, He said it was enough, and He came down, and confounded it in His time. We cannot hurry God, and say, “Look what they are doing.” But in due time, He will confound it.

There is that Scripture that tells us about the needle’s eye. They say there is a gate called the “Needle’s Eye”—I do not know if it is true—and that there was a place where the camels had to get down, men had to get off the camel, take the burden off of them, and then each go through alone, for the gate was so small. It is like that in God.

The highway of holiness, Jesus said, is a straight and narrow way. It does not allow for any bulges, or anything of ourselves. It does not take in our ideas. It does not let you think you can go further and take in another crook that you have, but it is a straight and narrow way. If we want to go through, we have to come down, bow to the Father in subjection. We have to get off those high things. We have to cast down imaginations and everything that would rise against the knowledge of God, because God is true to His Word.

God has made this way. He is not going to have pets, nor will He let those go through who are certain people. But it is a way that is laid and set. If we want to go through, we will have to fit in with Him. People have made their own way, but in it all is a germ of defeat.

There is a straight and narrow way laid before us, and if we want to walk the way with Jesus, we must let those things go, for we cannot walk any other way. He has made the same way for all men, whether they be rich or poor, black or white, learned or ignorant, all must come through the blood of Jesus. If we want to go through this race we must go God’s way. We must unload, we must get those things down and say, “Lord, your way is straight, and I must conform to it, for You will not conform to my way.”

We know how the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. It was not because the way was so hard. They were right to the entrance of the promised land many times. They were ready to go in, but God would not allow certain things to go into that land.

It was a land where there must be submission, yieldedness, certain rules that He laid down. They wandered and made it hard for themselves. They made it forty years long, but they could have gone in sooner, if they had been right inside. Instead of obeying, they chided Moses. They complained, grumbled, fought God, fussed and fumed, until at last God said, “I have listened to them long enough. I have listened for forty years, and now I am going to wipe them out.” As I said once before, we do not know where God’s love stops, and His wrath begins; where His mercy ends, and His wrath is taken up, for I know He is longsuffering, patient, loving, merciful, etc.

I can see it with the Israelites. But because He was that way, it made no difference to them. It did not help them, it was only that He bore with them longer. He was not glorified through them. It did not change them. They decided they were going to be rebellious, go against God, so He finally wiped them out. Yet, He did not wipe them out entirely. For He took the younger generation in, but that was His mercy again. They, at least, were not hardened, nor rejected Him. He would deal with them in new ways, and those old ones who were responsible, who knew the light, were wiped out.

It would be the same with us. We have known the light and truth so long. If we refuse to yield, submit, or go on, someone will go on. And after a while, God will withdraw because He will not deal with us forever. He will withdraw. He is patient, He deals, He moves, but after a while, hearts become hardened. We can sit around the gospel for years, refusing to go on, until at last the thing is over, and He starts with someone else.

God has a way for us to come. If we will not come that way, someone else will. He deals and tells us what is His way. We have this text tonight of Paul writing to the Corinthians, and he is telling them that people might think he is of this world and humble when he is with them, but when he writes he is very bold. They charge him and say he is one thing at one time, but not so good at other times. He tells them that if he comes, he will come with the same boldness, because when he comes, he will knock down every high thing, every imagination that comes across his path.

Everything that is against the Lord Jesus Christ will come down and will endeavor to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ. He said, “Though you say I am worldly, thank God, the weapons of my warfare are not carnal, but they are might in God. They will tear down the strongholds, the high places.”

Haven’t we those high places in our minds? How many can say that their thoughts are in captivity to the Lord Jesus Christ? He said we can overthrow reasonings. Weymouth says, “For we overthrow reasonings.”

That is where I live, Paul says. If you begin to imagine some high things against God, that is where we live, in that realm. But we can come down, and we can upset that thing. You can imagine all these thoughts, and all of a sudden they are raised up, but we can pull them down too. There will be no other victory save through the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else will be overthrown. Paul said, “Though you think I am worldly, the weapons are not worldly, but they are mighty in God, and they do the work.”

Thank God for this man who realized, first in himself that there should be no reaching out for himself. He was not like the people of Babel who were going to make a name for themselves. But Paul was one who had put everything down before Jesus Christ. He became a bond-slave for Him. There were no high things in him, nothing that would exalt him. Nothing could be said of Paul, only—after we read through his epistles—that his desire was that God be glorified in his body.

Everything had been brought into captivity, into absolute obedience to Christ. And when he came along, he knew when thoughts were raised against God, when ideas would come against Jesus Christ. And he said, “In that realm, you should use the weapons that are mighty. And whether we write it to you or come to you, it is the same, but I beg that you do not force me to come down there. But if you do, we stand ready to put everything in order.” He was ready to raise everything that needed to be raised. His foundation was right, it was real. He had the key to the whole thing.

I believe there are keys of faith, etc.. But I do also know that faith will not work in unyieldedness, in imaginations raised aloft, in germs of defeat, in germs of building for ourselves a name. There might be some sort of a moving, but we will find underneath of it an imaginary, theoretical, blown-up affair—something that seems true, but it will be something mixed with the devil.

Faith will only work in real things. Before we talk about reaching out for things for Christ, we had better see that we have a base of submission—no high things that will well up that when the glory of God comes, we will not dare take any of it. He will not allow His glory to be given to another. How we try to do it! How we dare to do it! We dare to say “how we did it.”

As I see it more plainly (not as clearly as I would like to), but we need to stick close to the pure foundation. We need to be submissive and yielded. We need to “cast down our imaginations, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ.” We need those ideas, those thoughts, those things that would be raised aloft brought down, because God will never work with anybody while those things will be raised up. He cannot do it. It is against Him. He has His plan set. It is straight and narrow. And if we do not measure up, we cannot hope to move on with God either in faith or any of His attributes.

We must first learn submission and yieldedness. As a man said, “I have heard so much about yieldedness—I worked on something until 2 o’clock in the morning, but I did not get any credit for it.” Ah, but God gives the reward. Who was he working for, for his reward?

My friends, we need real, true submission. We need true yieldedness, and when we get these, I believe we will not have to holler about our faithfulness, but you will be moving in it, walking in it. You will not know anything about it, but it will work you, and you will not work it. You will not be wondering what miracle you are going to work, but God will be working on you. True, pure faith works. It will seem natural because it is almost becoming like it is natural, but it will be a supernatural something from the Father. Believing the Father is walking by faith. But it must be based on submission and yieldedness.

If we keep on hearing yieldedness, submission, it must be that we have not come to the place where we submit. And if we were, we would have that faith working in us that Christ might be magnified. I am thinking that if we were in that place, God would be working through us more in faith. Stand fast by the true, pure foundation, because God will not move on anything else.

Some other assemblies may have something worked up, but it will have the seed of defeat in it. It will come to confusion, but may God grant that we will not waste our time. God grant that we do not come here and waste our time. We can sit and hear the message and let it go in one ear and out the other. But if we do, we will be defeated in the end. Those people who know how to do good will be beaten many times.

We who know about submission, God grant that we get on the true, pure foundation. Nothing shall be able to move us then. On the true foundation we will have nothing to worry about. Why should we worry about the sands when we are on the rock, on the foundation?

Jesus told about one man who dug down deep until he found a rock, and he built on that foundation. But another man just built on the sand, for anything would do. It was a surface business. He saw no need of digging deep, but the man who dug deep saw the need. One day when the winds came, the man who build on the sand was destroyed, but the man who built on the rock, stood firm and steady.

If you are not on the rock bottom yet, dig down. It will pay to watch the foundation. It will pay us to dig deeper to find out where we are standing. If we are true with our foundations on the rock, have you made your decision that you are going to stand by the Word of God no matter who it cuts you from, no matter where you have to go? That you are going to have this one thing fixed that you are going to dig deep, to get on a solid foundation? Let Jesus do the rest. He will add to us what we need.

Many have not come to that conclusion. You will, if you will do the will of God. You will have to come to this place if you want to take His way, that you will go through if you have to go alone, no matter where you have to go, only that you have His will. Nothing else will do.

Can’t we be that honest and real with God? Though we have weaknesses and failures, can’t we want the rock bottom? If you do God’s will, He will honor you and help you to get to rock bottom. Imaginations, every high thing, must be brought down, and every thought must be brought into obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. God wants our thoughts brought into captivity.

Let us look at ourselves, at our lives. What is raised aloft against God? What is it tries to build up something against Him? It is calling God’s attention, and He is saying and will say, “Let us go down and confound that thing.”

Our part says, “Let us stay where we are, holding what we have, our opinions, ideas, unyieldedness, unsubmissiveness, prejudices, etc.”

Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit says, “Let us go down and confound it.”

You say, “I have had that opinion for years, etc.” Ah, but God will change it. Let us lay aside the opinions, prejudices, casting down imaginations, upsetting those lofty things, and bring them down to where Jesus tells us, to the place where we can kneel humbly, yield them, and He will take us through to the place where we cannot get ourselves.

Those people could not get in the promised land. They could not measure up to God’s standard. They never entered. We may wander years and years, forty years. Forty years, and the best part of our lives are gone. We cannot meander along from one thing to another, always with a testimony of failure. Jesus cannot do it that way. The way is rough and hard, but all the time, it is yours. He will raise up another company entirely and take those through who have not been bound but who have been yielded.

God wants everything knocked down, opinions, prejudices, etc., and wants us to get in the place of yieldedness. I see people do things against the children of God, with such zest and zeal, such force of energy to see it done. And I see how we lag along, one here, another there, and how when we try to move we will swell on this line or that, whichever opinion we feel is ours, and is right. That keeps us from being in unity. There are weapons to be used. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. If we use them, thank God, the imaginations will come down. We can see them being brought into captivity, into obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Are we building on the rock or on the sand? The germ of defeat is in everything you are doing for your own fleshly interests, no matter what it is. It will come to confusion in the end. If you are building on the rock, with absolute hopes that God be glorified, then you will end in victory. You will be victorious in the end. Paul said, “Let a man be careful what he builds on his foundation.”

You say, “I have found Jesus, and He is my Savior.” All right, but what are you putting on top of it? Hoping for something for yourself? Hoping for something to please your flesh or for someone you love? Then, you will not be able to have a good foundation. God will allow you to do anything on your foundation. After a while, the things we think should be laid on it will turn out to be hay, wood and stubble.

We who know Jesus, what are we putting on that foundation? Something of our own desire? Our imaginations? What I think? What somebody else thinks? What are our opinions because we or somebody handles the word of God deceitfully? It will lose out in the end. It is shifting sand.

We can build on that rock, not for things of the flesh, but for a spiritual kingdom, providing it actually brings our lives on the altar and have high things brought into submission and subjection to the obedience of Christ. He must be obeyed. If we cooperate, we shall obey Him. If we win out in the end, we must go on in submission. Tonight, if there are things there that you are not obeying after Christ has spoken to you, God wants to bring those things into subjection to His obedience.

I have spent time with people who have talked about going on, but I have come to the conclusion they do not have the first principles. It is like putting a graduate nurse’s uniform on someone who hardly knows how to be around a sick person. How many people have the uniforms on, but they do not know the first thing about the menial tasks that need to be done?

It is better to start low and go high, than to start high and come down low. It is not how much you recommend yourself, but how much God recommends you. That is the test. If God does not commend us, and we put the cap on, then let us take it off and get down and say, “My God, help me to have submission, humility, keep myself in subjection to you and to one another.”

If it is yielding to small things, maybe to someone, if you do it, God will work it out. If it means that is the thing to do, as you yield, you put into subjection those thoughts to the obedience to Jesus Christ. They are brought low, and His word is obeyed in the strictest letter, in order that by the grace and power He gives, He will move upon that foundation.

And we will not have to command God to send down the blessing upon this one or that, but we say, “Don’t bless me, but the principles of Your word. I am standing upon them, honor the principles, the obedience to the principles, the submission to the principles.” But He will honor those who stand by the principles. The germs of life are in that. The germs of victory, faith, power to the ones who yield. The germs are in that one for a victorious life.

To those who will not yield, though they flourish for a season, after a while, confusion will come. No matter how low, how weary, how small the way looks, better to have it right, with the right principles, standing by them, than with men who are not right and be shoved along for forty years, going here and there, and God saying, “Let us confound them.”

God help us to stand by the Word. Faith does not move in a great hustle and bustle, “I am going to do something great—make a great rebuke, etc.” No, it does not move in anything like that, but God honors those who submit to the word and principles.

When we can say, “Bless me as far the principles have worked out. As much as I have submitted to your rules.” We can stand by that, though hell rages. We can sing then, “Why should I fear when the storm rages?”

His Word stands sure. We will have nothing to worry about. We can say, “There is the word, I am yielding and submitting to it though the devil comes and puts up a bluff, the seed is there.” Confusion will come to those who will not yield. But to those who will, victory will come in the end. Amen!