Know Your Enemy

Today's Scripture: Matthew 26:41
"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation."
Read it online at the Bible Gateway: (NIV) (NASB) (KJV) (The Message)

If we're going to watch against temptation, we need to be aware of its sources and behavior. To again use an analogy from warfare—and we are indeed engaged in spiritual warfare—we need some intelligence information about the enemy. The Bible speaks of three different sources of temptation waging war against the children of God: the world, the flesh, and the devil. We need to know how they operate and how they tempt us.

The world, or the sinful society in which we live, is characterized by the subtle and relentless pressure it brings to bear upon us to conform to its values and practices. It creeps up on us little by little. What was once unthinkable becomes thinkable, then doable, and finally acceptable to society at large. The devil, or Satan, is the god of this world and the ultimate mastermind and strategist behind all the temptations that come to us from society. Beyond that, however, he often tempts us directly. He "prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8, NIV).

As dangerous as the world and the devil are, neither is our greatest problem. Our greatest source of temptation dwells within us. It's what the apostle Paul called the flesh. It's the principle of sin that still remains within us, though it no longer exercises dominion. Paul called indwelling sin a law, or as we would say, a principle, that's at work within us constantly seeking to draw us into sin (Romans 7:21-25). Indwelling sin now wages guerrilla warfare against us, and as any military person will attest, that's the most difficult warfare to defend against.