How To Defeat The Enemy

Opening: A small Church lost its air conditioning one morning, and the people began to murmur and complain. “How can we worship in this heat? We give good money to the Church – why can’t we sit in comfort?” The murmuring grew and grew, effecting the song service itself. When it came time for the Pastor to preach, he stood in the pulpit and looked out over the congregation – most of whom were sour and muttering to themselves. The Pastor said, “I know you’re uncomfortable this morning, so this will be the shortest sermon I’ve ever preached. Then we can dismiss, and you can go home. It’s only seven words. Are you ready?

“If you think its hot now – wait!”

The Christian way of life is a surrendered way of life. When we come to Jesus by faith, we cease to be our own. What does the Scripture say? When we are saved, your very body becomes indwelt by the Spirit of God:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NKJV) … do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

There is no salvation without surrender. We must “DENY OURSELVES, take up His Cross DAILY, and FOLLOW CHRIST” (Luke 9:23). The true Christian wants to get closer to Jesus. We want more of Jesus, not less.

I believe you want more of Jesus, because you are here on a Sunday night. This is a Memorial Day Weekend. You could have been in other places – but you are here. I told you that tonight’s sermon would be “How To Defeat The Enemy”. Turn with me in your Bibles to:

James 4:1-10 (KJV) From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Who Was James?

After the little virgin named Mary had the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), she went on to love her husband Joseph and have other children through natural, God given means.

Jesus had brothers and sisters – step family – born of Joseph and Mary (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55)

Jesus’ oldest stepbrother is James. These other children of Mary lived with Jesus for 30 years, grew up with Him, and spent every day in intimate contact with Jesus. And yet the Bible says:

John 7:5 (AP) For even Jesus’ BROTHERS DID NOT BELIEVE in Him

You might find that incredible that Christ’s brothers James, Joses, Jude, and Simon did not believe in Jesus, did not believe He was the Messiah, but its true. Though James and Jude would go on to write Scripture, when Jesus walked the earth they did not believe He was Messiah. In fact, when Jesus came to Nazareth as Messiah the Bible says “when His family HEARD IT, they WENT OUT TO SEIZE HIM, for they were saying ‘He is OUT OF HIS MIND’” (Mark 3:20). Though James and Jude would later come to believe on Jesus, at this point they did not believe Him. He was out of His mind.

Before he was saved, James thought Jesus was ‘out of His mind’. After he was saved, James realized it was he who was ‘out of his mind’.

There are three enemies that try and keep us ‘out of our minds’. There is SATAN or the DEVIL, THE LOST WORLD around us, and we have the FLESH, our brokenness within. How do we defeat these enemies of faith? First, let’s

See The Enemy Clearly

James 4:1-3 (KJV) From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

The Christian way of life is meant to be a life filled with GRACE and GRACIOUSNESS. It is meant to be a life of “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). We are to “let the PEACE OF GOD RULE IN YOUR HEARTS … as we are called IN ONE BODY” (Colossians 3:15). And yet many Churches are embattled, fighting and warring among themselves. Why do these things happen?

Within each of us, there is an enemy. This enemy is called “the flesh” or “the old sin nature”.

Uncontrolled, this enemy creates “lusts that war in your members”. This enemy within follows selfishness, self centered desires, and creates factions of power and cliches within the Body of Christ, hurting our ability to be light and salt to a dark and needy world. It was this internal enemy that kept James and Jude from seeing Jesus as the Christ while He walked the earth. The Apostle Peter talks about this internal enemy:

1 Peter 2:11 (KJV) Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts (sarkikos epithymia), which war against the soul

Though the Holy Spirit resides within the Christian (John 14:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20) the old sin nature battles against the Spirit. We are told by the Apostle Paul:

Galatians 5:16-17 (NKJV) Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

The enemy within is the flesh, the resident old sin nature. There are also two external enemies we must battle. We read:

James 4:4 (KJV) Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

There is the lost world and its practices. We have an internal old sin nature, and outside of the Church a world that bids we endorse sin and make peace with evil. Yet we cannot do this. Why? Because God the Holy Spirit indwells the Christian. This is very important.

A person is brought from spiritual death to spiritual light by the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus told Nicodemus:

John 3:3 (KJV) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

New Birth is not something you earn or deserve. It is a state that is brought on a believer in Christ by the Spirit of God. Jesus said:

John 3:7, 9 … Ye must be born again. … so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

New Birth comes when the Abiding Word, the Scripture is preached, and the Living Word, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to its truth. Peter wrote:

1 Peter 1:23 {we are} born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Paul said in Titus 3:5-6 (KJV) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, {New Birth} and renewing of the Holy Spirit; Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior

The Old Sin Nature, the resident “flesh” of our human birth, whispers to us. It is the enemy within. The enemy without is the lost world itself, who bids we be “tolerant”, that we “go with the flow”. We are bombarded daily through television and internet. On top of this the devil, Satan, that fallen angel once called “Lucifer” speaks lies to draw us away from God (John 8:44). The Bible says that the devil masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and that Satan raises up false apostles, deceitful workers who pretend to be apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13).

We cattle the world and Satan by …

Remembering That God Indwells Us

James 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

Word Study: Though the King James does not do so, the word rendered “spirit” should be capitalized to “Spirit”. The text is speaking of the Holy Spirit of God Who indwells every believer. The Bible is clear about this:

Romans 8:9 (NKJV) … you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

The Holy Spirit Who caused you to be born again, literally “DWELLS IN YOU”. The Bible says that “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His”. You are NOT SAVED if the Holy Spirit does not indwell you. The Bible tells us that:

1 John 4:4 (NKJV) You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

The Holy Spirit is greater than the world, greater than the lost, greater than Satan himself. Absolutely! When James says:

James 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

Word Study: James is quoting Old Testament Scripture. Not just one Scripture, but the general teaching of the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit Who indwells you is God. And the Holy Spirit “lusteth to envy”. This is the Greek epipotheō pros phthonos, which means “earnestly desires or pursues with love JEALOUSLY”. Throughout the Old Testament Scripture (which is what James is quoting) God repeatedly tells His people saved by Grace:

Exodus 20:4-5 (NKJV) You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God ..

Exodus 34:14 (NKJV) (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)

Deuteronomy 4:24 (NKJV) For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 5:9 (NKJV) you shall not bow down to them nor serve {idols}. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God

Deuteronomy 6:15 (NKJV) (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.

James says, in effect “Do you think that God was JOKING when He said ‘I am a JEALOUS GOD?’”. Was God just teasing us in the Scripture? No! And especially now. Israel was saved by God’s Grace. He brought them out of Egypt, gave them the Promised Land, wrote Scripture through their prophets. And yet, though God blessed Israel, He never INDWELT HIS PEOPLE PERMANENTLY. Jesus promised that “the Spirit of truth SHALL BE IN YOU” (John 14:17). This was not possible until our Lord went to the Cross, making payment for our sins.

Under the Old Covenant the Holy Spirit visited God’s people (Genesis 21:1; Exodus 4:31; Ruth 1:6; 1 Samuel 2:21; Psalm 17:3; Isaiah 29:6) – but did not INDWELL them.

Now God INDWELLS us. He is in us where ever we go. And God purchased us at a great price, and is JEALOUS over us. Only an idiot would cheat on his wife while she was in the room. God is ALWAYS in the room. We defeat the enemy by realizing this.

We Humble Ourselves Before God

James 4:8-7 (KJV) But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

God is in us. “But He giveth MORE GRACE”. It is GRACE by which we are saved, born again of the Spirit. It is GRACE that allows God to indwell us, GRACE made available because of the sacrifice of Christ.

Illustrate: In the Old Testament there is a perfect picture of God’s Grace to us. The Book of Ruth tells us the story of a great famine in the land. A man named Elimelech, a man of Bethlehem, went from his home to Moab. Don’t miss this! “Elimelech” literally means “God is King”. Elimelech carries his wife Naomi (her name means “my delight”) to Moab. Naomi had two sons while they were in Moab, and the sons grew up and married two Moabite women. The Moabites were descendants of Lot, born of Lot through incest with his daughter. The Moabites worshiped the god Chemosh. Because the Moabites were godless, the Lord cursed Moab (Deuteronomy 23:3-6), saying:

“The Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord … you shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity ALL YOUR DAYS FOREVER..”

The sons of “The Beloved” married Moabite women, contrary to the command of God. But God had a purpose in this. In time Naomi’s husband died, as did her two sons. Naomi was left with two daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth. Though Orpah went back to live with the Moabites, Ruth stayed with her mother-in-law “Beloved”. Ruth told Naomi:

Ruth 1:16 (KJV) Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God

Ruth surrendered her life to Naomi, and to our God. She became a believer in Christ. Though a child of curse, a worthless Moabite, our God “Giveth more Grace”.

Naomi and Ruth return to the Promised Land, and relying on the Grace of God and His people gathered food that was left over from harvested fields. Here she catches the eye of Boaz, a wealthy farmer. Boaz told Ruth to “stay in my fields, and under my protection” (the gist of Ruth 2:7-9). I was listening to a sermon:

Adrian Rogers said that what happens next is a picture of what God wants us as believers to do to draw closer to God.

Naomi tells Ruth to draw near to Boaz, a picture of God in His Grace. She tells Boaz:

Ruth 3:3 (KJV) Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor…

How do we defeat the enemy, and draw near to God (Boaz)? “Wash thyself” or as Adrian said, “Be freshly CLEANSED”. You cannot draw near to God with filthy hands. You cannot be blessed of God with open sin in your life. James tells us:

James 4:8 (KJV) Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners…

James is not addressing the lost world, but the believer in Christ. Ruth was a believer in Christ. God is jealous over us. We cannot draw near to God with active sin in our lives. The Christian life begins with repentance, and continues with repentance DAILY. We cannot come to God with a double mind. We worship Him and only Him – nothing else. The Apostle Paul said:

Philippians 3:13 … this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 7:1 (KJV) Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

How do we cleanse ourselves? By taking our failures to the Cross. By casting our sins upon Christ. When our prayer life is dead, and it seems as God will not hear us, examine your life. God tells His people:

Isaiah 1:15-16 (KJV) … when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil…

Our God is a Jealous God! He loves us so much that He gave His life for us. He wants us to be near – but not with open sin in our lives. We repent, coming to the Cross. One of my favorite Scriptures is in:

1 John 1:6-9 (KJV) If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: [7] But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. [8] If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We wash ourselves by turning from the world, and toward the God Who loves us. The Blood of Jesus Christ CLEANSES us – God CLEANSES us. We agree with God about our sin.

We Not Only Wash Ourselves, But We ‘Purify Our Hearts’ By The Word Of God

James 4:8 (KJV) … purify your hearts, ye double minded.

How do we “PURIFY OUR HEARTS”. We focus on what God has said in His Word. The Psalmist wrote:

Psalm 119:50 (KJV) … Thy Word hath quickened me.

Psalm 119:11 (KJV) Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

It is so sad that the average American spends 6 hours and 38 minutes per day online and watching television. If you live to 80 years old you will spend 17 years of your life feeding the fleshly mind.

You cannot draw near to God if you clothe yourselves with worldliness. You cannot defeat the enemy if you allow your hearts to be filled with Satan’s propaganda, but enjoy little of God’s Word.

We must turn from the word of man, and turn toward the Word of God.

The Apostle wrote in Romans 13:11-12 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Feed your soul the Word of God. Read the Book. Pray the Book. Take God’s Word at face value. We prove we believe God’s Word by how we act on it. Whether the world agrees or not, we who are Christ’s submit to God, not to the world or the devil.

James 4:7, 10 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

When you submit and humble yourself to God and His Word, the devil cannot stay. The Bible says “Greater is HE Who is in you, than HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD” (1 John 4:4). The enemy can be defeated, and must be defeated.

A little girl was in Church, drawing as the Pastor preached. Her mother leaned over and whispered, “What are you drawing?”. The little girl said, “A picture of God”. Her mama whispered, “Honey, nobody knows what God looks like!” The child stopped drawing, looked up and whispered, “They will when I finish drawing His picture”.

Draw near to God. Draw near to His Word. Reject sin, reject Satan. Repent, and God will destroy the enemy in your lives. Amen.