The Enemy

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Rom 7:21).

God wants us to live holy lives, and we hopefully want to live holy lives, but we are opposed in that by the threefold enemy of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

“The world” isn’t the people around us. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, 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” (Eph 6:12). DeYoung says, “The world stands for everything that opposes the will of God. In its simplest form, this means ‘the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions’ (1 John 2:16 mg.).” The world is the force that “makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange.”¹

The scriptures repeatedly warn us against loving the world (eg, Matt 13:1-12, 1John 2:15). The world is very good at getting its hooks into us and, at best, rendering us useless to the work of the Kingdom. We must beware the “deceitfulness of wealth” (Matt 13:22) because, as the demons know, “prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him.”² The best defense against loving money is to give away as much of it as you can. Then give away a little more. As Lewis put it, “the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”³

We also must be on guard against all the other ways it can influence our thinking. By “renewing your mind” (Rom 12:2), by filling it with scripture, we can “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and ... take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2Cor 10:5). We have to choose carefully what we set before our eyes: “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness” (Luke 11:34-35).

The flesh is that evil we carry around with us, the fallen nature that is still a part of us. “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom 7:18-19). Even though we’re saved, we’re still plagued by lust, jealousy, anger, and everything else that we were tempted to before. As Wormwood put it, “All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.”²

We have to make the daily (maybe hourly) decision to not follow those temptations: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24). We put off our old self by, through the power of the Spirit, choosing to follow him instead of the flesh (Rom 8:1-13).

Also, how we deal with the world can affect our flesh. A common metaphor is that there are two dogs fighting within us, one on the side of sin and one righteousness. The one that wins is the one you feed. Flesh that is regularly fed by the world will have a stronger hold us. If we starve the flesh and feed the righteousness that wants to grow within us, the fight will go better for us.

Our third enemy is the devil. Some will scoff, “How can you believe in a literal devil in the 21st Century?!” I believe in the devil because Jesus does (eg, Luke 10:18). So did his apostles who warn us, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1Pet 5:8). We don’t believe he is really the guy in the red suit with the pitch fork. No, Satan “masquerades as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14).

I doubt most of us have to deal with devils on a regular basis. The world and the flesh cause us enough trouble that demons aren’t required. But those who are serious about holiness and especially serious about doing the Lord’s work will probably find themselves under demonic attack. If you do, your first, second, and third steps should be prayer. The same Spirit who cast out demons in the 1st Century can certainly drive them away today; call on him. And “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Eph 6:13-18).

Dealing with the world, the flesh, and the devil is hard. It requires that you make up your mind in advance that you will resist them. But that is not possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. “In this threefold conflict, there is nothing but defeat and failure in the path of the Christian should he not pursue the way of faith or dependence upon the Spirit of God. The child of God must ‘fight the good fight of the faith.’ His responsibility is not to war with his enemies in his own strength, but rather to maintain the ever triumphant attitude of faith.”⁴


For more on how the world, the flesh, and the devil attack us, I recommend CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

1 Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in our Holiness
2 CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, emphasis in original
3 CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
5 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology