THE ENEMY
We have learned that it
is important to keep an open line of communication with God. Battles
are fought between our flesh and the Spirit for pre-eminence in our
life. This is but the one part of a much larger picture. The very
moment that we accept Christ as our Savior, we enter a war. Paul instructs
his son in the faith, Timothy, with, “This charge I commit unto
thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on
thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare.” I Tim.
1:18. Paul indicates that Timothy is at war and encourages him to
wage a good warfare, to be a good soldier. If Timothy and all Christians
are indeed at war, who is the enemy? Paul in writing to the Ephesians
provides a briefing for us with, “Put on the whole armor of
God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
Eph. 6:11. The devil, Satan, or Lucifer is our primary enemy. He is
the head, the chief, or the five star general of his army. Let’s
look briefly at this enemy.
Jesus describes the efforts of the devil in two parables. In the parable
of the tares Jesus says, “He that soweth the good seed is the
Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children
of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of
the world; and the reapers are the angels.” Matt. 13:37-39.
Here the devil is pictured as sowing tares among the “children
of the kingdom,” or the church. The devil’s primary purpose
is to weaken the church, choking the children of the kingdom (Christians)
with worldly and fleshly influences, and limiting the productivity
of the body of Christ.
In the parable of the soils, Luke 8:11-12, Jesus explains, “Now
the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way
side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the
word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.”
The devil here is fighting the propagation of the Gospel to the unsaved.
The devil wants to do all he can to stop the church from reaching
the lost for Christ. Satan interferes with the sowing of the Word
of God to the lost and, as we saw in the previous parable, does all
he can to destroy the efforts of the church to serve God. It is clear
that the devil is a very real enemy of all Christians. In warfare
it is essential to know the enemy, to know both the enemy’s
strategy and tactics.The devil’s strategy has always been the
same and has not changed since he first tempted Eve. In Genesis 3:1-6
the devil, known also as the serpent, makes his strategy plain for
us which reads, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast
of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman,
‘Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of
the garden?’’ And the woman said unto the serpent, ‘We
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ‘Ye
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’’
And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die:
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” Notice the order
of events here. First the devil tries to cast doubt on what God has
said by asking, “Yea, hath God said?” Before the devil
can get Eve to consider the temptation he needs to weaken the story
in the mind of Eve creating a bit of confusion. Now Eve is uncertain
of exactly what God has said and adds to the Word of God by including
touching the fruit as wrong. The door is now open.
