The “Enemy”

Introduction:

Recently I was invited to share the message in regular Saturday worship at Hetauda Christian Church. In Birganj Christian Church the Saturday before I had talked about the joy that was set before Jesus for which He had gladly endured the cross (Heb 12:3). And the faith that the patriarchs had for the future that was promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted they were aliens and strangers on earth. (Heb 11: 13) After the service some of the leaders said they were blessed by the message, and I thought may be I’ll share the same message at Hetauda as this was very fresh in my mind and would encourage the church there. But as the days passed I got the impression that I need to wait on the Lord and seek for a new and fresh message, appropriate for the church there.

In recent past there have been so many murders, robberies and attempts of robberies in the city. People have been shot dead in market place, shops, and offices and so on. Passengers in trains have been robbed off all their earnings by being made unconscious by fellow passengers. It is a time when it is not easy to differentiate between a friend and an enemy. But do we as Christians need to think about an enemy? Yes, it is not ‘an’ enemy but ‘the’ enemy. It is very sad to note that very seldom a message about the enemy is preached who is so subtle and is on the go to seek and destroy the church. The Church is being warned to “be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for some one to devour.” And we are commanded to resist him. (1Pet 5: 8, 9). Realizing this as an important topic for the church I thought I would seek the Lord for insight and share a message to warn the saints to be able to discern the workings of the enemy and be able to protect ourselves from the enemy’s deadly attacks.

The Unseen Realm

Although the Bible is not a text book, it contains everything that we need to know for “making you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ….is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:15, 16) and even for knowing the schemes of the enemy and defeating it!!

The world we live in and everything we see, is part of the “seen” realm, like the trees, the buildings, the animals, the birds, the greeneries, the mountains etc. These are the things that we can see with our physical eyes. There is another realm, the unseen realm and the things there we cannot see with our physical eyes. God, the Holy Spirit, the angels, Satan and the evil spirits belong to the unseen realm. 2 Cor. 4:18 says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Temporary is something which has an age, a limited time of survival, a set time to die or to be destroyed. All the things that are seen are temporal. Eternal is something without an age, destined to live for ever, no end. All the unseen, which we cannot see with our physical eyes are eternal, without age or limitation of existence. Our enemy and his host are unseen. It is very important for us to realize that the enemy that is working against our wellbeing, whether physical or spiritual is the one we cannot see with our eyes and engage in face to face confrontation. This makes our position very vulnerable and dangerous. We then, need to be all the more aware and discover ways, means and weapons to be able to make all the enemy’s attacks of no affect and actually win the battle.

The “Enemy”

How do we recognize and define our “enemy”? In creation, at the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:1-7) the serpent was described as “more crafty than any other wild animals the Lord had made”. As the story goes, the serpent succeeded in deceiving Eve first and then Adam through her. As a result death came into effect and the whole creation became subject to death and decay. Then at the end, in the book of Revelation, at the climax of the warfare we find “the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil or Satan”, being bound and put into the Abyss by the angel for thousand years. This description makes it very clear that the serpent and Satan are both the same entity.

The word Satan stands for opponent, hater, accuser, adversary, enemy, and one who resists, obstructs and hinders Whatever is good. He is a hateful enemy, opposed to God who is love. Satan’s enmity primarily is with God. He hates Whatever good God intends to do and always tries to destroy Whatever belongs to God. Satan’s enmity with God’s people, His household, His family or the Church is the continuity of his enmity with God. Satan stands in opposition of God and works against everything that belongs to God and God intends to do. The enmity between man and serpent was pronounced by God only after fall as a curse.

Like Godhead (Trinity: Father, Son and the Holy Spirit) it is very interesting to learn that Satan also has a “Bad head”: the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. (Rev 20:2, 10; 19:20) The three in the “bad head” or anti trinity stand and function parallel (but against) to the God head. (Rev 19:17-20) The dragon plans, the beast executes using power of the false prophet. (Like in the Godhead, the Father plans, the Son creates using the power of the Holy Spirit).

Satan also has a very well established hierarchy which makes it more effective to function and carry out their works of deception and destruction with craftiness. In Ephesians 6 verses 10 – 20, the Apostle Paul warning the Ephesians Church of the struggle (warfare) and encouraging them to put on the full armor of God, says, … our struggle is not against flesh and blood (mankind), but against

Rulers

Authorities

Powers of this dark world

Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms

The above hierarchical pyramid is very much like any modern day organizational structure. The Rulers at the top are the “bad head” entities parallel to Godhead; the authorities are the ‘princes’ (evil spirits) assigned to different cities, the ones like prince of the Persian kingdom resisting the Archangel Gabriel for 21 days from coming to Daniel, as result another archangel Michel was sent to his help (Daniel 10: 12-14); powers of this dark world are the hosts responsible to the princes of this world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms are the evil spirits carrying out the day to day assignments in deceiving the world.

This structure enables Satan and his hosts to work and operate in a very organized, disciplined and effective manner. This gives them an added advantage to their craftiness, and makes their operations/ warfare against God and God’s family very effective. Since they operate from unseen realm, at one hand it brings them success and on the other hand it requires diligence from us (for the time being as they do not know the fact that everything works together for good…!)

The Enemy: Satan’s limitations

Although Satan has access to God’s presence and can bring harm to God’s people, he cannot do any thing without permission being granted by God. The story of Job gives us some insight into Satan’s workings and how helpless, restricted and limited he is (Job 1:6-12). Also we find him accusing Joshua the high priest, but God rebuked him sternly (Zechariah 3:1, 2). Satan cannot carry out any of his attacks against God’s people without being permitted by the Father. He may seem to be the roaring lion but is tied with chain in the neck. The following references explain their limitations and restrictions:

1. They are restricted to a limited territory to carry out their operations, like the prince of the Persian Kingdom (Dan. 10:13)
2. They cannot fly like the angels but are bound to walk (Dan. 9:21 Gabriel came to Daniel in swift flight, but an evil spirit goes through arid places…Matt. 12: 43)
3. They do not have a tangible, physical body (of flesh and bones) of their own (Luke 24:39)
4. They would prefer to live in a body, even in pigs (Mark 5:12)
5. They like to posses a body, preferably to live there indefinitely (Matt. 12: 42-45, Mark 1:23-25)
6. They are subject to the command in Jesus’ name to leave a person and obey, but very reluctantly (Mark 1:23-25)

Satan and the Sinful nature

After the fall during the Lord God’s first visit to the Garden of Eden and having a conversation with the man and the woman, He had to punish them for their disobedience. Punishing the serpent first for its deception the Lord God said to the serpent “….Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:14, 15) Earlier the serpent was said to be more crafty than any of the wild animals. After this pronouncement we see the serpents in a cursed state, crawling on their belly and their language not possible to understand. But before the fall and pronouncement of the curse, they must have been in a different state physically where they could easily walk and communicate with other animals as well as with Adam and Eve. The curse made the serpents crawl on their belly. The curse made them eat dust, but we know that the serpents like rats and other smaller animals and birds very much. They do not eat dust any way! So is there any problem with the curse or there is some mystery that we need to unfold/ understand.

In the formation of man it is written “..the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7) ‘The man is formed from the dust of the ground’ – this is our physical body, ‘and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ – we received our spirit and ‘the man became a living being’ – we received the life, the soul. This helps us understand the complexity of human beings. We have a body, a soul and a spirit. We need to further understand ourselves.

Body: Body is where man lives in – the outer person. This is something everyone is given to put on- similar to our clothing. Each and every body is made of flesh and blood. The life of the body is in its blood. (Lev 17:10 – 14), means the body cannot survive without blood. The human body also has limitations in its working; it is given the five senses: Taste, Touch, Sight, Hearing and Smell. With these five senses only the body can acquire knowledge or function.

Soul: The soul is I, the inner person or personality living in the body. A person dies as the result of soul’s departure from the body. This may happen by reason of age, by accident when body is destroyed to such an extent that it is no more functional to be lived in, by drowning when the brain stops working due to lack of oxygen and cannot be revived again, after draining out of blood from the body when the heart stops working. We need to understand the fact that our soul can inhabit the body as long as it is suitable for the purpose. By our life style, thoughts and behavior also we may sometimes compel the soul to leave and depart from the body.

Soul operates in three areas: Mind, Will and Emotions. We think and imagine with our mind, we are able to make decisions with our will and we express our feelings through different emotions.

Spirit: All the creatures have body and soul, but man is made very special; we have got body, soul and spirit. We are made different from all other creatures. We are made in God’s own image and are destined to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. (Gen. 1: 27, 28) With the spirit we are enlightened and other creatures are not. They have instincts only by which they can ‘know’ something in a very limited meaning of the word.

Although the spirit in us is not the Holy Spirit, it has an identical nature. As some one repents of sins, puts his faith in Jesus and receives Him as Savior, he is born again. In the process of new birth man’s spirit gets freed from the bondage of sins. (Please refer to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3: 1- 8) After salvation our spirit becomes active and starts operating. Man’s spirit operates in the areas of revelation, conscience and intuition. The Holy Spirit can communicate deep things of God only with a born again person’s spirit. (1Cor. 2:10, 11) The fundamental truth is that at the time of our salvation our spirit gets saved, is freed from the bondage of sin and becomes operative or active. Our soul is being saved during our Christian life on this earth, depending on our obedience and submission to the Lord’s will and leading of the Holy Spirit. Our soul’s salvation is progressive; growing in proportion of our obedient Christian life.(1Peter 1:9) Then our body gets saved at the time of Jesus’ second coming when it is transformed into heavenly body. So in a way our salvation is now partial and it is progressive, culminating at Jesus’ second coming.

Although body, soul and spirit are three different elements in our personality, all three together make our being possible as to what we are, how we look and in what manner we act and react. The three are also very much interdependent. One is useless and meaningless without the other; soul and spirit cannot make a human being, neither can body and soul or body and spirit. All three together make our being. We cannot do without any of the three. The three are inevitable to our personality. To express our emotions, like joy, sorrow, grief etc. we need our body to laugh, cry or mourn! To walk we need our feet, to work- our hands, to enjoy the tasty meals – our tongue, to listen to the music we need the ear and to see the beauty we need the eyes. Body is needed to express the soul and soul is needed to perceive the spiritual matters. The Holy Spirit reveals the deeper things of God to our spirit, our spirit communicates to our mind and we perceive the matter.

Actually after we receive the forgiveness of sins and are born again; after our spirit is freed from the sins bondage and is able to perceive things of God, our mind becomes a battlefield. After the fall man is born with sinful nature with all its cravings. “The sinful nature desires what is contrary to Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” (Gal. 5: 17). The Holy Spirit starts communicating and revealing the deep things of God to our spirit according to His ministry. At the same time the cravings of the flesh try to rule and lead us into temptation and sin. Our soul (with the will) makes the decision either to please the Holy Spirit (The Lord) or the flesh. The choices we make all the time result in making our habits and formation of our character, whether Christ like or otherwise. And Satan with his hosts is always there to influence our will to make choices to indulge and please the sinful nature. We are commanded, “Therefore brothers we have an obligation- but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of body, you will live. (Rom 8: 12, 13)

The Enemy: Workings of Satan

God has an express purpose in creation: making man in His own image. With this purpose man (Adam) was formed from dust and Eve from his rib to be his companion. All human history, starting from the fall in the Garden all through the age of conscience to the age of Law, first coming of Jesus, His crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection, and then start of the age of grace – every incident in the history has been working to fulfill this purpose. God’s purpose for human beings has never changed in the past and will never change in the future. People will continue being born again by repenting from their sins and putting their faith in Jesus. Everybody in Jesus has become a new creation and this phenomenon will continue and so will the church growth. (John 3:16, 2Cor. 5:17). At the same time Satan is also all set to destroy God’s purpose as per his nature. As God’s purpose focuses on mankind, so does Satan’s. God needs people to work with, to extend His kingdom, so does Satan, to work for him and destroy God’s work and destroy the Kingdom. There is a clear line of division between the “Kingdom” and the “World”. God rules in the Kingdom, “Prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30) rules in the world. Satan is not worried about the people in the world, the unsaved community; it is under his rule of destruction anyway. But it is the church, the Kingdom which he intends to destroy. Therefore it is very important for the church to understand the strategies Satan uses against the church at large and against individual believers in particular.

Satan and his hosts do not have a physical body. They are spiritual beings; we cannot see or touch them. They do not come and attack like they are shown in films or as per our imagination. They do not appear before us like a person having long dark face, long red tongue hanging out side the mouth, long pointed nose, big ears, a pair of horns, long curved tail in the back and dressed in all black. Rather they work with schemes and may use different people, thoughts, means, incidents, organizations and entities as their weapons.

Their strategic weapons with unseen hosts and our unawareness of the danger coupled with our sinful nature make the enemy very effective. It is time we must be serious and understand the workings of the enemy. Deception is the enemy’s most effective weapon. They use falsehood and make it appear as real or true but in reality it is actually far from truth. Majority fall prey to deception, thinking and believing they are following something very true. The following are some of the things used by Satan as weapons to deceive the people.

1. New Age Movement: Satan’s main purpose is to keep people away from the living God as much as possible. In the recent past there have come up so many religious movements who have been successful in appealing human intellect as well as lust. They have been centers where ‘everything and anything goes’. Many and most of them have become international in their operations and have been able to attract so many western followers as well. The Bible clearly says “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12). Satan has been able to blind their eyes and has confused their minds, making them unable to see and believe the truth. To such people the Bible says, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Col. 2:23)

1. Money: Money is not bad in itself. We all need money for sustenance and to meet the day to day practical needs of life and family. But money has a very deep subtlety attached to it. People can easily be deceived by its glitter. It is good as long as we have control and use it to meet our daily practical needs. The moment we lose control, it starts to rule our lives and becomes a weapon in Satan’s hand. At the moment money (as handled by the world) has become the world power. Westart serving money instead of money serving our purposes. Jesus has warned us to know and discern the dangers associated with money. In Mathew 6:24 He says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Money is dangerous if its value for real use is ignored and left unchecked. It can easily deceive the owner and take God’s place in his life. We see many precious saints deceived and destroyed, simply by not being serious about dangers associated with money and wealth. Satan can use it as a very effective weapon for himself, against the kingdom. Man is made with covetousness and love of money is a root of all kinds of evil!! (1Tim6:9, 10). “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge m en into ruin and destruction.”

1. Lust: Lust is natural appetite out of control. Man is made with appetite which expresses itself as hunger and thirst, desire to eat and drink and have sex; actually sexual appetite also cries for satisfaction as to eat and drink. Appetite is not bad; we need to eat and drink for our physical wellbeing and existence. We need marriage and sex for procreation. The problem begins when the natural appetite goes out of control; when the appetite starts controlling the man and not the man controlling the appetite. Appetites are God given and need to be kept under control by each and every person. Satan is looking for people with appetites out of control, to use them as their instruments in satisfying their lust. There is lust of the flesh or the cravings of sinful man, lust of the eyes and boasting of life, all three are of the world and very well in line with Satan’s nature. (1John 2: 16) They are completely opposite of the Father’s will and are destined to pass away along with the world. (1John 2: 15-17) Lust is a very effective weapon used by the devil because our fleshly desires are very similar to theirs’. This is how it works: as human beings weare born with sin. This sin in us makes us people with sinful nature or the flesh. Our sinful nature coupled with the cravings compels us to commit sin. And sin is pleasurable. If man’s sinful nature is left unrestricted, free to do anything and everything it likes to do, such actions will result: “..sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like.” (Galatians 5: 19-21a). We must also understand the fact that man is not a sinner because of his sins but man sins because he is a sinner. The Bible says “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:8,9) The sin (noun) is within us which compels us to commit sin (verb); the sin in us makes us commit many sins. Our lives are not hidden from the Lord and His Spirit. In the same way it is all bare before the powers of darkness. They are all around us looking for our weaknesses and everything that we think and do. They are on full alert and ready to make use of every chance they get. Our dirty thought life, our fleshly desires, our indulgence; every action made to please the sinful nature may be an invitation for an evil spirit. They are always on the look for such opportunities and given a chance, they are ready to take over that person. Every lustful action starts with a small beginning, but in course of time it makes the person a slave, very difficult to overcome the habit. There are so many stories of the smokers, drunkards, adulterers, and many people with money problem. They all realize somebody else controlling their disposition and so are compelled to continue in the situation. They do not have control on themselves; they are bound to obey the ‘master’ living in them. With the bad habits, they are become slaves to the evil spirits living in them. Actually the evil spirits make the person act/ do and it is they who enjoy, not that person. This is what it means to eat dust.

Whether it is New Age Movement, Money, Sex or something else, Lust is the most important element of all. Satan and his hosts continue looking for people with weaknesses, indulgence and lust. They take hold of them, possess them and use to fulfill their desires through man’s lust and indulgence.

The Enemy: Warfare

Paul writing to the Ephesians’ Church warned them about the warfare the church is engaged in. This warfare is not against ‘flesh and blood’ – not against human beings, but “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Any warfare ends either in victory or in defeat. This warfare we are put in is spiritual in nature, so the weapons also need to be of the same nature. In 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-6 it is written, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience once your obedience is complete.” The weapons we use have divine power to fight against the enemy effectively. Our warfare is not casual and it is not physical. So how do we fight and win the war.

The Weapons of warfare

As the enemy is of unseen realm, spiritual but out to destroy, the warfare is spiritual in nature and in order to win against the enemy we need to understand and put on or be fully equipped with the weapons. Although the warfare is spiritual in nature, we must understand that the forces engaged against us are of spiritual realm, but the harm they can bring in our lives is both physical and spiritual. In the case of Job, everything he had was destroyed; even his personal relationship with God was in danger. Personally I have suffered with an unknown physical illness coupled with spiritual torment for more than two years, when all the medical reports said nothing was wrong physically. At the end the Lord revealed me the cause and as I confessed my sin I was healed and won the war.

Paul encouraged the Ephesians to “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” (Eph 6: 11) and goes on to explain the severity of the war and the weapons. As we go through the list of weapons, most of them are needed for our protection. In Christian life our own spiritual maturity and discernment are also necessary; first to understand our own human nature and then the importance of our protection (from all defilement and enemy’s attacks). The list of weapons as given in Ephesians 6: 14-17 are as follows: Belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation and the last one is sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. In all the weapons given, almost all are provided for the believers’ own protection, only one weapon is given to use against the enemy which is the sword of the Spirit, word of God. Actually we cannot even think of a Christian life without having truth in day to day life. This gives moral strength as a belt provides to the waist. In the same way unrighteousness in Christian’s life is an open invitation to the powers of darkness, whereas righteousness and holiness protects the person from the enemy’s attacks, acting as a real breastplate. As believers we must be ready to preach the gospel of salvation which brings peace between God and man and between man and man. Our faith in Jesus is active as well as creative, working literally as shield in the hands of a soldier to avert the enemy’s arrows of attack. As the helmet is a very important weapon in the battlefield to protect the most important part of the body; the head, so is an individual’s salvation. Without having experienced salvation, there is no Christian life. The enemy can defeat a Christian (or so called Christian without born again experience) in an instant. The last weapon, the sword of the Spirit, word of God is the only weapon one can use against the enemy. Jesus had defeated the enemy in the desert using this weapon and so should every believer. Without knowledge of God’s word and ability to use it effectively against the enemy any Christian can easily experience an easy defeat.

This article is meant to understand the enemy, its working strategies and complexity of human beings with sinful nature. For each and every reader my prayer is that fresh anointing and insight may be granted by the Lord Jesus Christ to be able to recognize the nature of enemy, the warfare, the weapons and our own vulnerability and that we may be able understand, mature and continue winning the battle by defeating the enemy. Amen.