20. Satan's Buddy (The Enemy Within)
Chapter 20 Satan’s Buddy (The Enemy Within) God Warned Israel About Becoming Friends With The Enemy
Think back to the time of Moses and Joshua and the Judges of Israel. God used Moses to help the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, and then he led them up to Canaan. God intended to give that land to the Israelites but he planned to judge the Canaanites first and remove them from the land, because they were very evil and rebellious against him. The Canaanites worshiped idols and committed sexual immorality in the temples of these false gods. They did many other detestable things, even sacrificing their babies on the altars to their false gods. So Moses warned Israel to avoid becoming friends with their enemies or following their ways.
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 says: “The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you,be careful not to be ensnaredby inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.” (also Leviticus 18:21)
These verses confirm that the Canaanites were very wicked people, so God wanted to destroy them and give their land to the Israelites.
God appointed Joshua as Israel’s new leader to take them into Canaan and God helped them defeat the Canaanites. After God gave them the land they began to settle in it.
Unfortunately, the Israelites later began to forget God’s warnings and they started to befriend and intermarry with the Canaanites that were still left in the land. They also took on many of their customs and heathen ways (2 Kings 17:16-17; Psalms 106:35-39; Ezekiel 16:20-21). So God did not remove all of their enemies. Instead, he left some of them remaining in the land to test and to teach the Israelites to fight. Yes, that’s right. God was teaching them to fight.
Judges 3:1-7 says: “Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to test Israel…(that is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan;only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly). These nations are: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites…Sidonians…Hivites … They were for testing Israel, to find out if they would obey the commandments of the LORD…The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites…and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.” (NASB) Today, Who Is An Ally With The Enemy Instead Of Fighting?
God wants to use this story to teach us something also. But what? Does he want us to go out and fight with godless people like the Canaanites, and take their land like God told Israel to do? Absolutely not! God has not promised us the land of Canaan. That promise is only for Israel! But today we ourselves have another kind of battle—a battle in the spiritual realm with our enemy Satan and his demons (Ephesians 6:12). God can use this story to teach us how to fight also—so we Christians can learn to defeat our spiritual enemies in God’s power. In the story that we just read, we saw that instead of learning to fight their enemies, the Israelites eventually befriended their enemies—they became their allies even after God had warned them not to. But applying that to our day and age, who today would be so foolish and become allies with Satan the enemy? Actually we do! We are a lot like Israel in that way! We would never like to admit being friendly with Satan, but actually it is our very own sin nature that loves to listen to Satan and willingly follow him. So we could say that in some ways, instead of fighting Satan, our own sin nature is like a natural ally—a good buddy to Satan—the enemy within!
What Is Our Sin Nature? Our sin nature is our rebellious nature which has the natural tendency towards sinning against God. It’s like an inner rebellious voice or urge to do what is sinful. Ever since Adam sinned, we were all born with this nature, so even babies have it. The sin nature quickly shows itself as babies grow older. They don’t have to be taught how to be selfish or disobedient—they just are naturally.
Psalms 51:5 says: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The term “sin nature” used in some English translations comes from the Greek word “sarx” which is also often translated “the flesh” in many cases. The word “flesh” in the New Testament usually refers to the part of our human nature that is in opposition to the Spirit of God. It is almost like saying the “anti-spiritual” part of man. The same Greek word is sometimes used to refer to the human body or animals or meat. The writers of the New Testament chose this particular word to focus our attention on how closely connected our sin nature was to the physical body. The “flesh” or sin nature is something we all receive from birth, like our bodies. The body is not sinful in itself, but it has needs, desires, and weaknesses which can lead to sin if we are not guided by the Spirit of God. Like a ship or airplane, it needs a pilot. The body was meant to be guided by the Spirit of God. But without the Spirit, our “flesh” reacts much in the same way as an animal would—out of survival instinct, with no spiritual guidance (2 Peter 2:10 a, 12a). But God created humans to be different than animals, by making us in his image—as spiritual beings—that live inside a body, having the ability to be guided by his Spirit. Humans without that Spirit’s guidance often act almost like animals—bodies driven by natural instincts alone, without Spiritual influence. Perhaps that is partly why the sin nature is called “flesh.” The sin nature or flesh is naturally selfish and self-centered and always opposed to the leading of the Spirit of God.
Christians Have The Flesh Also
Galatians 5:17 says: “For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other…” (NET) This verse reminds us that we Christians have a sin nature too. Our sin nature (or flesh) is what makes us want to sin even if we know we should do good. The flesh never wants to follow God and it never will. It’s good to remind ourselves that every one of us has a sinful nature and we do battle with it all the time. Even the apostle Paul talked about the battle he always had with the flesh inside him. In Romans 7:18 he says: “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.”(NET) Satan’s Rebellious Buddy: Our Sin Nature (The Flesh)
God’s word here shows us that the flesh is not some outside force against me. It’s in me, so it is very much a part of me. It also says that there is nothing good in the flesh (sin nature), and the sinful nature will never be capable of producing anything pure and good. Satan knows that very well and he is always trying to tempt us by using our flesh to pursue evil. The flesh is always willing to find ways to rebel against God. So we could use a word picture here to describe this relationship: Satan and our sin nature are like good buddies—like two troublemakers who always like to hang out together, always helping each other get into trouble. Satan loves the sin nature of mankind because it is always hostile toward God.
Romans 8:7-9 says: “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you…”
God Provided The Holy Spirit For Us To Battle The Flesh And Satan
Jesus provided the only way to become God’s children by paying for our sin on the cross. All of us who have believed in Christ’s work for us on the cross, have been brought into a relationship with God and we no longer belong to Satan. God now calls us righteous (Romans 3) and forgiven. We are no longer children of Satan—but as long as we remain in these bodies we still have our sin nature dwelling within us. It can never be reformed or improved or changed. It will always be rebellious until we go to heaven. While we’re still on this earth, our sin nature always wants to befriend the enemy and follow Satan, but God sent us help to conquer it. When we believed in Christ, he put his Spirit inside us as our new Boss—our Pilot—so now we can listen to and follow him. He is called our Helper because he is always able to help us in our battle against the flesh. So there’s a war going on inside us—our sin nature and the Holy Spirit are always fighting inside us.
Galatians 5:17 says: “... the flesh... and the Spirit... are in conflict with each other”
God has given us the Holy Spirit to live inside us to direct our minds and give us the strength to fight against the sin nature. Yes, our sin nature will always resist the Spirit and wants us to follow our enemy, Satan. But we should not be like Israel who befriended their enemies and became like them. God had warned them to be careful of their enemies and fight them, not join them in their sinful ways. In the same way today, God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us resist the ways of our sin nature and to help us fight against Satan. We should never listen to our sin nature when Satan tempts us to become his friend.
Satan Is Not Our Worst Enemy So what if God imprisoned Satan right now? Would that be the end of sin on earth? Unfortunately, no. Because our sin nature is the main thing that tempts us to sin. Romans Ch. 6-8 and Galatians 5:16-26 and many other verses tell us a lot more about the sin nature. And so we know that even if God were to imprison Satan right now, sin would not end. In fact, during the end times, God will lock up Satan for 1000 years (Revelation 20:1-10), but sin will still exist on the earth. During that time, some people will still rebel against God. That is because the sin nature is always rebellious and wants to sin. Satan knows that, so he is constantly “befriending” and tempting our sin nature to follow him in order to ruin us.
So, who is our worst enemy? It is not Satan. No. He’s the second. Our worst enemy is living right here inside us—our very own sin nature is always drawing us away from God, just like Israelites became their own worst enemy by allowing themselves to be lured into sin by their enemies, and as a result, they defeated themselves. Our own sin nature is our worst enemy. So when we sin, we can’t really blame God or Satan or anyone else (James 1:13-14). It’s our own sin nature that has opened the door for Satan and allowed him to come and do his work in us. We are the ones who allow him to influence us. It’s our own fault. We open the door for Satan by listening to our flesh.
Ephesians 6:27 says: “...do not give the devil a foothold.”
We Can’t Join The Enemy. We Need To Be On Guard And Resist
Nowadays, God commands us to love our enemies and to be kind to them. But long ago, God knew what the Canaanites were like and he warned the Israelites what would happen if they became friendly with them, because he knew that the Israelites were spiritually weak. God’s warnings came true. After the Israelites got settled and comfortable in Canaan, they let down their guard and they gradually quit fighting their enemies and began to make friends with the Canaanites instead. They let their enemies deceive them into becoming their close friends. They started talking to them more and more and eventually the Canaanite women tempted the Israelite men into marrying them. And once they intermarried, it wasn’t long before the Israelites were worshiping their false gods and following their heathen ways too. God had warned them that this would happen.
So, as we saw earlier, God decided not to get rid of all of their enemies. He left some of them remain in the land to teach the Israelites a lesson and teach them how to resist and fight (Judges 3:1-2). The Israelites thought it was okay to befriend their enemies and become like them, but God wanted them to realize that the Canaanites were only deceiving them and would not help them in any way. They would only ruin them. God wanted the Israelites to learn to resist and fight, not give in to their enemies.
Why Did God Not Get Rid Of Satan And The Flesh?
We are often very much like Israel. Instead of fighting against our enemies—Satan and our sinful nature—we allow ourselves to become friendly with them. We allow them to tempt us. So God did something unusual. Instead of getting rid of Satan and our flesh quickly, God allowed them to remain with us for now, so that we learn to resist and fight them. God wants us to learn how to fight and conquer our spiritual enemies—Satan and the flesh. Here again, we learn of God’s amazing sovereignty. He is able to use our enemies as his servants to teach us to fight and overcome.
God Rewards Those Who Overcome And Conquer Revelation 21:7 says: “He whoovercomeswill inherit these things…” (NASB)
Many times in the book of Revelation, God gives his approval and rewards to “him who overcomes”(conquers). This shows us that God highly values “overcomers”—those who learn to fight against our spiritual enemies—especially our own sinful nature. So we can’t allow Satan to use our flesh, the sin nature, to tempt us. We need to resist and learn to fight and overcome—just like Israel needed to learn to fight and overcome their enemies.
Overcoming The Flesh And Satan Only Through The Spirit
Joshua and the Israelites learned that the Canaanites would only be overcome or conquered through faith in God. We also will only conquer our spiritual enemies as we rely on the Holy Spirit that lives in us. We don’t have the power to conquer Satan and the flesh on our own. But by trusting the Holy Spirit to direct our lives, we will be overcoming them, and this brings great honor to God. We will learn more about walking in the Spirit’s power in chapter 22. But first we need to talk about overcoming another enemy that Satan uses against us—the world system.
“For whatever is born of Godovercomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.”
1 John 5:4 (NASB)