Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Ephesians 6:11 NIVUK
Imagine two sporting teams about to compete against each other. One is a tightly disciplined unit. Each member knows their role and fulfils it well. They stick to their tactics. They pass the ball unselfishly between each other. When one of them scores a point or a goal or a basket, the others all celebrate their achievement.
Now imagine their opponents. Their opponents are all focused on personal glory and gain. They do not compete against the other team. No, they compete against their own team members. They battle each other for position and glory and fame and blame each other when they lose.
If these two teams compete against each other, which one will win?
The answer, I would hope, is obvious.
But often in so-called Christian churches, we forget who the enemy is. We form factions, forgetting that this is a work of the flesh we should set aside if we want to see the Kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21). We set out to beat and destroy our fellow brothers and sisters, forgetting that in the process, we too could be beaten and destroyed (Galatians 5:15).
Equally as bad, we mis-identify the enemy. We saw our enemies are political or theological opponents, people traffickers, the media, abortionists, communists, atheists, people from other religious groups, the LGBT lobby... you name it and you can be assured that some so-called Christian Church from somewhere has named them as their enemy.
That is an incredible folly.
The Early Church had a considerable number of attackers: the Jewish authorities, the Romans, pagan worshippers, legalists, liberals and even fanatics within its own number.
But Paul lists none of these as the enemy. Not one. Regardless of the harm they caused the church or him personally.
No. There was – and is – one enemy.
The devil.
Paul is not advising the Ephesian Church to prepare to battle against any of the many people seeking to destroy them. He tells them to fight against one being: the devil. No-one else.
And this is critically important.
I can recall that during the first Balkan War, the Americans decided to target Serbian military installations to prevent them from attacking the rest of the former Yugoslavia and carrying out genocide. They aimed a missile at what they believed to be a military installation in the capital city, Belgrade. It turned out that they were wrong. They’d accidentally attacked the Chinese Embassy. The maps the CIA were using were years out of date.
I also remember that during wars in the Middle East, various sides have not been slow to hide among civilians. The result being that in the Gulf Wars in particular, not to mention other wars in the area, hundreds of thousands of completely innocent people have been killed.
It is absolutely essential to know who our enemy is.
In a situation where the Ephesians were facing a very hostile atmosphere in their home city (see Acts 19:23-41), hatred from the Jews and persecution from the Romans, not to mention divisive tendencies in the Christian community, they had to know who their enemy was. They could not damage the Body of Christ by indiscriminately targeting those who disagreed with them. They had to deal with the source of the problem.
And that source is ultimately the devil.
What's interesting here is how Paul refers to the devil and his tactics. Paul refers to him as an accuser, a slanderer, but also an attacker. He says that we stand against the devil’s ‘schemes’. The word used here literally means ‘travels behind’ and is used to refer to a robber who lies in wait to attack an unsuspecting passer-by. So Paul is not just calling out who the enemy is, but also what he does.
Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven – if there was anything to forgive – I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
2 Corinthians 2:10-11 NIVUK
As an interesting aside here, it’s worth noting with great interest that Paul is connecting satan’s schemes with unforgiveness for a man who sinned greatly (c.f. 1 Corinthians 5:1-13). In other words, one of the main weaknesses in the Christian Church – one of the main chinks in our armour – is in the way we relate to each other – both in attitude and action. And in particular, this weak link occurs when our actions against another believer are, at least on the surface, wholly justified.
This brings us back to our main point: we must correctly identify our enemy.
We cannot and should not – ever – misidentify the enemy as being someone from within our church or within the Body of Christ who has a different theology to us.
That is not acceptable. Not at all.
In fact, I would go further. Dividing the Body over petty and inconsequential arguments is a bar on taking the Lord’s Supper:
For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
1 Corinthians 11:29 NIVUK
‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:23-24 NIVUK
We also should not ever identify those of a different philosophical or religious or sexual orientation to us as the enemy.
When we do this, we absolutely damage the cause of the Gospel – irreparably, in the eyes of some.
Think on this for a moment. Paul teaches that satan attacks people from the rear and catches them unawares. Thousands of millions of people could be in his grip and doing his bidding and be completely unaware.
I remember when I was a boy there was a series of adverts encouraging people to get help to stop taking drugs or drinking excessively or smoking. They featured a man who was doing all these things while connected to strings like a puppet before breaking free.
This an excellent picture of what Paul is talking about. We cannot blame people who have been taken captive or conned by satan into becoming his puppets. They are absolutely not the enemy. No, the enemy is the captor, the conman and the puppeteer. The enemy is satan.
We often find ourselves, like Paul and the Ephesian church, in combustible situations where people are determined to be our enemy. But we cannot make an enemy of them. That would ruin the witness of the Gospel and bring the Lord's Name into disrepute. We cannot afford to injure others in so-called ‘friendly fire’. Instead, we must focus our ire and our spiritual firepower against the one who hoodwinked them in the first place.
Instead of blaming them for their predicament, we should seek to set them free.
And we do that firstly by correctly identifying our enemy.
Questions
1. Has anyone tried to make you their enemy? How did you react?
2. What do you think about the idea that we should concentrate on battling satan instead of fighting lesser foes?
3. How can you ensure that you don’t get caught up in lesser, damaging battles and take on satan instead?
The word of God is abundantly clear that the enemy is satan and where possible we ought to strive together to live in peace.