Our Enemies Strategy in Spiritual Warfare

Introduction - Pests in the garden

It’s summer and if you have a garden the chances are two things are happening. One, your plants are growing. If you planted early, you are already enjoying fresh vegetables. The second thing that is happening is you have some problems with your garden. It may be animals, rabbits, squirrels, deer or others that are preventing your vegetables from growing. It also could be insects or disease are attacking your plants. If you don’t have a problem with one, you’ve probably got it with the other. If you don’t do anything, those pests are going to prevent you from enjoying the fruit of your efforts. There are different types

Transition

There is a parallel to this in our Christians lives.

What is our intent?

We want to walk with God, love Him, know Him and His power in our lives.

We read our Bibles, pray, come to church and work on growing in our faith. And we all live happily ever after, right? Nope.

What is the obstacle?

This is because Christians face opposition that attempts to interfere with our walk with God. The book of James describes this.

James 1:2–4 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James starts his book by talking about a positive, something that helps us in our Christian lives, trials. A trial is any hardship or adversity we face in life that causes us difficulty. Some trials are minor, like leaving your mask in the car and having to go back and get it before you can go into a store. Some trials are major, like getting covid-19.

Just in case you aren’t sure how to handle the trial, James tells us in verses James 1:5-11 to ask God for wisdom and He’ll give it to us.

We want wisdom because when we persevere through a trial the right way two things happen. We mature as Christians and we earn a reward.

James 1:12 ESV

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

So the next time you experience a trial, persevere, push through because when you do, you will get a reward!

Then James shifts the discussion from something good to something bad. Instead of talking about trials he discusses temptation to sin. Temptation is a like a trial with one big difference, it isn’t a good.

James 1:13 ESV

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Unlike trials, temptation to sin is a threat to walking with God. Lest there be any confusion, James states emphatically that temptation to sin doesn’t come from God.

This raises question “Where does temptation to sin come from?” James gives us part of the answer.

James 1:14–15 ESV

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

These two verses shed amazing insight into how how our enemies attack us to stop us from walking with God. Let’s unpack these verses to see the steps to sin. James gives us five steps. The first step is our enemies at

1. Our enemies attack us with an evil desire.

Illustration step one desire

Our problems start with desire. We all have good desires and bad desires. Since it leads to death, we know it’s a bad desire. James doesn’t tell us what desire because there are many attacking desires.

It is possible to end the attack right here and not get tempted. If we are attacked with an evil desire and we reject it or resist it, the attack is over. What if we don’t reject or resist it?

2. We make the evil desire our own.

Illustration step two desire

Unfortunately this is an easy step to take, and we often make it quickly. Someone does something that displeases you and you have a desire to get angry. You didn’t do something you were supposed to do and when asked about it, you have desire to lie. You see a friend with a brand new car and you have a desire to envy your friend.

What do you do with those evil desires, with any evil desires? Sometimes it’s hard to resist or reject them because at this point we are in a spiritual battle.

If you don’t reject or resist them you make them your own. Once they are your own, it leads to the next step.

3. We are tempted by our own evil desires.

Illustration step three desire

An evil desire is general. If the evil desire is to get angry, there are many things we may be tempted to do. We might be tempted to yell at someone, swear at them, physically attack them or something more subtle try to harm them by lying about them or gossiping about them.

Every evil desire leads to an enticement to do something sinful. That is what James says temptation is, an enticement to do an evil deed. When we give into the temptation

4. We act on the temptation and sin.

When this happens our fellowship with God, our walk with God, is interrupted. If we don’t deal with the sin, if we don’t get right with God and instead continue to sin and sin and sin, there is a final consequence.

5. We will die if we continue to willfully sin without repentance.

What kind of death is James talking about? It is physical death for a child of God who continually sin. A person who trusts in Jesus as Lord and Savior has been delivered from the penalty of spiritual death so this can’t be talking about that. The Bible describes in several places Christians who die physically because of sin. We see this described in 1 John 5:16-17 and that is what happened to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11.

Here are the strategy our enemies follow when attacking us.

Our enemies attack us with evil desires.

We make the evil desires our own.

Our evil desires become temptations to do evil.

We give into the temptation and sin.

When we willfully continue in sin without repentance, we die.

It’s interesting to not that there are two things James doesn’t tell us in this passage. He doesn’t say who produces the evil desire or what they are!

There are several places where we can turn to see who produces evil desires. Here are three.

Galatians 5:16–17 NIV

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

The flesh attacks us with evil desires. Galatians 5:16-17

1 John 2:15–17 NIV

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

The world attacks us with evil desires. 1 John 2:15-17

John 8:44 NIV

44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Satan attacks us with evil desires. John 8:44

The flesh, the world and Satan each attack us with evil desires.

The second question is what are the evil desires they use to attack us? We are going to save that for future messages. There is some similarity and overlap in their attacks, but there are also unique aspects of each enemies attacks that will enable us to identify the.

Summary: The common strategy of our enemies is to attack us with evil desires to interrupt our walk with God.

There are other things they do, but this is the heart of their strategy.

What is the plan?

We are going to learn more about each of our three spiritual enemies and how they attack us to learn how to recognize those attacks and defeat them. This is what spiritual warfare is all about.

Spiritual warfare is the Christian's battle with the flesh, the world and Satan to defeat their attempts to prevent us from walking with God.

What is the result? Close with a climactic scene, what things will look like IF we follow the plan

Hopefully you are ready to learn all about our enemies and how they attack. For today we are going to conclude with this. To win the battles of spiritual warfare, we have to pay attention to our thoughts and desires. We have worthy enemies. They are all deceitful. It is easy to accept an attacking thought as your own, even though it is. Think about what you are thinking. Not if but when you have your next evil desire, ask yourself, “Where did this thought come from?” If it’s an evil desire it won’t be God. Have a conversation with God, as long as it takes to reject or resist the evil desire.