Battles: The Enemy

There is no question that a Christian faces battles as he attempts to live for God. It is a given that there cannot be a battle without an enemy. As a soldier fights, he must be aware of who the enemy is. Who or what is the enemy of the Christian soldier?

My mind goes to a phrase that I must have heard repeatedly as a child. I do not believe the phrase is from a verse of Scripture; perhaps it is not even based on a particular passage of Scripture. Nevertheless, I believe it is a valid biblical summary of the Christian's enemies. This phrase identified the dangers to the believer as "the flesh, the world, and the devil."

First, the Christian does battle the flesh. When he is saved, a Christian becomes "a new creature" (II Corinthians 5:17). He still lives, however, in a weak body of flesh. When reading Paul's testimony in Romans 7, I used to think he was exaggerating or dramatizing. After all, how could the apostle Paul literally mean, "The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want" (v. 19)? His words make it sound like he was constantly fighting against himself as he struggled to do the right thing.

The further I go in my Christian walk, the more I think I understand his words. As a believer grows closer and more sensitive to God, he notices things that he did not notice before. Perhaps there is greater success in doing the right thing in terms of outward actions that are expected (or not expected) from a believer. The battles become more subtle or refined, and the greatest battles are now in the mind and the will.

Instead of going to church or not going, for example, the battle becomes the attitude with which one goes, the sensitivity to respond to the message, the determination to truly worship God, the negative thoughts toward other church members, the struggle to properly show love, and so on. Beyond merely wanting to stay home and relax, the flesh wants to focus on itself rather than submitting to or serving someone else in these ways.

When a believer becomes more aware of these temptations, he can relate more fully to the apostle Paul's struggle. Like Paul, the Christian with a heart for God can "joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man," (v. 22); he can sincerely desire to do right. Like Paul, he also becomes aware of the flesh, which Paul said was "waging war against the law of [his] mind and making [him] a prisoner of the law of sin" (v. 23).

Second, the world is an enemy to believers. The world's philosophies and systems are driven by an attempt to escape the demands of God and to make oneself the authority and focus. The world's system is revealed through the culture, and most notably today through the entertainment industry. Sports figures, entertainers, musicians, celebrity magazines, television, and movies are constantly bombarding the Christian (either directly or as mirrored in society) with what the world perceives to be popular and accepted.

The philosophies and lifestyles promoted by these cultural icons are (with very few exceptions) in direct opposition to what God desires for His children. When a Christian "loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world" (I John 2:15-16). A fascination for the world will serve only to pull Christians away from God, and Paul shared an example: "Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me" (II Timothy 4:9).

Third, Christians face the devil as a powerful enemy. Satan is ruthless; he desires to destroy Christians and to eliminate their impact for God. This "adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (I Peter 5:8). In the Ephesians 6 passage about the armor of God, Paul states that the armor is necessary to protect against "the schemes of the devil" (v. 11) and "all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (v. 16). This battle is not as simple as a traditional earthly battle; the Christian's battle is "against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (v. 12).

These three enemies work together. Satan may not be a visible figure that Christians can observe, but he prolifically spreads his poison through the mouthpieces and philosophies of the world. He also knows the weakness of the flesh, and he targets those vulnerabilities, as he attempted to do when he tempted Jesus. The weakness of the flesh causes the philosophies of the world to look appealing as well as making them hard to resist even when one knows they are wrong. The believer fights sin - sin that his flesh longs for, sin that the world promotes as acceptable and desirable, and sin that the devil presents through his traps. The enemies of a Christian are real, and they are powerful. The believer must therefore be alert and stand firm.

"Be of sober spirit, be on the alert." I Peter 5:8a (NASB)