SPIRITUAL-WARFARE-ENEMIES-WORLD

 

 

 

We are not going to simply wake up one morning and discover that we suddenly hate what we used to love. The things of this world will never appear as “dung” when viewed in and of themselves. They will smell good and taste good and feel good and bring satisfaction and we will treasure and value them and fight for them and work for them and find every excuse imaginable to get them at any and all cost; they will retain their magnetic appeal and allure and power until they are set against the surpassing value and beauty of Christ Jesus.

 

Sam Storms

Copied from: Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Knowing God by Sam Storms, © 2000, p. 116. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.org. All rights reserved.

 

 

If the world is not rooted out from our hearts, it will devour them. There must be weeding, if the good seed of grace is to grow. But what weed-killer can we use against the spirit of the world? Here is a potent, three-fold formula from the Bible:

1.    Recognize that love of the world is the enemy of the love of the Father (1 John 2:15). You cannot have both. You must choose one only. Make the right choice.

2.    Remember that it was the world that crucified Christ and that it took the sacrifice of the Cross to deliver you from it (Gal. 6:14). How can you negotiate with the spirit which plotted the assassination of your Savior?

3.    Reflect on the fact that the world, in this sense, is transient and ephemeral (1 John 2:17); it is not a solid investment. Devote yourself instead to having “treasure in heaven” (Matt. 6:19-21).

 

Sinclair B. Ferguson

Healthy Christian Growth, by Permission of the Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. 1991, p. 19-20.

 

 

With such adversaries, growing in the fear of the Lord will not be a smooth process. Instead, it will be the path of warfare. We must hate the evil and ungodly assumptions of the world, we must hate our own sinful nature, and we must hate Satan. To accomplish these tasks demands the most powerful resources we have: The Word, the Spirit, and the body of Christ.

 

Edward T. Welch

When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 101. Used by Permission.

 

 

The Believer’s Warfare: Internal, with the flesh – Gal. 5:17; Not after the flesh – 2 Cor. 10:3; with the armor of light – Rom. 13:12; external, with the world – John 16:33; not by resistance but submission – James 4:7; with the armor of righteousness – 2 Cor. 6:7; infernal, with the devil – Eph.6:12; with the whole armor of God – Eph. 6:13

 

Author Unknown

The Book of 750 Bible and Gospel Studies, 1909, George W. Noble, Chicago.

 

 

From behind the shadow of the still small voice – more awful than tempest or earthquake – more sure and persistent than day and night – is always sounding full of hope and strength to the weariest of us all, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

 

Thomas Hughes

 

 

Our Western worldview gets involved here once again. We have a strong tendency to want to analyze everything and place the parts in neat, mutually exclusive categories. So we ask questions like, How do I know whether it is the world, the flesh, or the devil? My response is that most situations will involve some of each element to some extent… (They) are treated as working together so closely that you cannot talk about one without talking about the other. The flesh is the earthly qualities about which enable us to respond to the temptation. The world is the milieu in which we live and which is under the control of "the ruler of the kingdom of the air." Satan and his demons know what fleshly parts of us are especially vulnerable, and they use the stimuli of the world around us to arouse sinful thought in us. The Devil would be a fool not to try to take advantage of the world and the flesh in his aim to destroy us.

 

Timothy M. Warner

Spiritual Warfare, Crossway, 1991, p. 59-60.

 

 

Unless there is within us, that which is above us, we will soon yield to what is around us.

 

Alfred Gibbs

 

 

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved to be steady… (It) is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point (of attack).

 

Martin Luther

Quoted by Francis A. Schaeffer in The Great Evangelical Disaster, Crossway, 1984, p. 50-51.