A Patient Enemy: Tenacious & Brutally Efficient

Our life on this earth is spiritual siege warfare. As such we need to guard against temptation. The Devil and evil never sleep. There are none that are not affected by temptation. Even Jesus faced the same as us...all the temptations known to mankind. Temptations make us humble. They act as a catharsis to purge us of any lofty notions or high-mindedness. If you don't learn to get a grip on them and ask God to help you master them to some extent...they will master you. And you know what Jesus said. Man cannot serve two masters. Temptations may cause us nothing but pain but just as burning our hands on a stove hurts us, it also teaches us things that we can learn from.

If we merely ignore or try to evade a temptation without learning how to defend against it at the front gate we will make little or no progress in our sanctification and ability in the future to build tolerance or formulate strategy for fighting or avoiding temptation. If powers and principalities sense that they have made headway or inroads with little resistance, not only will they continue to pound away at the breach in the wall. They will send waves of assault to the breach in the wall with a frightening and staggering frequency until the victim is overwhelmed. It will be like one man trying to keep an entire barbarian horde from the gates of a city. As long as the one man keeps the breaches from occurring he will be relatively safe. If the powers arrayed against are attacking at multiple points, sooner or later one of this siege points will succeed and overrun you. Then what?

Temptations expose the true person beneath the facade. We can lie to others and even lie to ourselves but the temptations that we succumb to tell us immediately where the weaknesses are in our defense systems. We all have weaknesses and no single person can stand against the siege of a barbarian horde.

The enemy succeeds because of two things: tenaciousness and concerted orderly attack. The enemy uses a focused and process driven attack that is relentless in its single-minded focus. The process is deviously simple and brutally efficient

(1) The First Thought: The thought tries to / or succeeds in entering your head like a single enemy over the wall or through the gate like a Trojan Horse. The first wave of attack is to breach the wall or draw diversion while other assaults continue.

(2) The First Thought Starts to Dictate the Attitude: Resources behind the wall are diverted from the wall to fight and destroy the infiltrator that cleared the wall. This begins a weakening of the defenses at the wall itself allowing more of the unclean spirits with their sinful incendiaries over the wall.

(3) The Enemy Starts To Inflict Casualties: We begin to allow the enemy to control our actions. In the case of temptation we begin to entertain the temptation, fantasies, etc. In the analogy of our siege, so many enemy are clearing the wall and streaming in through the breach that we have need to cordon off areas as lost. We realize our defenses are being compromised left and right. We are in danger of being overrun and conquered. We must also remember that the enemy has no value of the things it destroys. To our enemy resources are expendable. The enemy will throw their entire force in a suicide frontal attack to conquer you just like Picketts Charge. As far as the enemy is concerned, their forces are inexhaustible and expendable. The incendiaries brought in earlier have ignited other fires on the inside. Temptations sprout up within the believer that they didn't even know they were capable of entertaining.

(4) The Entire Enemy Force Infiltrates: We commit the act. Our thought has turned into and attitude that has determined an action(s). The wall has been totally breached and the gate has been knocked open by the repeated blows of the battering ram. The fortress is nearly lost. Little by little our defenses were weakened and diverted from where they were needed...at the breach...until the wall could no longer be defend and the enemy within can not be surmounted with remaining forces and strength...all hope seems lost because we allowed one man/thought in through the breach.

But there is hope. Even when the scenario appears bleakest and all hope is nothing but a faint dismal spark on the horizon we still have another option. We turn and seek God fervently as our lives depend on it. We can no longer resist and fight the enemy with our own resources. We must understand the battle is still not over. But in this case it can be our victory of we call on the Lord as he is able in his omnipotence and sovereignty to conquer any enemy no matter how powerful.

How do we avoid the breach in the future? First, we must realize the enemy is doing their evil with a deadly earnest. We need to fortify the defense and assure a secondary line of defense against the first to try and breach the wall or scale the wall. That first scout or wave of assault must be stopped. We should pray first and call on God. We must not rely on our own devices and means to try to stop the the single enemy. Often times we will not even recognize or even see the first enemy as the enemy. He may enter incognito or disguised. If we cannot overcome the simple smaller attack we will never be able to stop the larger one(s).

If our actions will produce no righteous outcome we would be better off conserving our energy until we are sure our actions will produce a Godly or positive outcome. Have a plan or strategy for different types of attacks. Make sure the first line of defense is dropping to your knees in supplication to the Lord. Then send the defenses out to cordon off, quarantine and kill the enemy. Understand that your own defenses are flawed and subject to outside influence. Your willpower can be bribed by the flesh to switch sides. You cannot control all aspects of a battle, but God can.

Realize that continued attacks and vexation from an unseen (or seen) enemy helps us understand our need to depend on God and His power and might. Please realize that how we handle and deal with the temptation determines whether we win of lose the siege. If we let it in our probability of overcoming it is greatly diminished. Once the enemy is internalized it becomes an enemy hard to root out. It begins to blend in with other things partially camouflaging itself. If it wasn't for initial defenses we probably would even recognize the enemy once they are inside our walls.

We must strive to succeed. We must choose to do the right thing by fighting the temptation off. We must realize that we are not totally equipped to defeat the enemy without God so we need to always turn to Him first. We must seek Him. To build up our defenses we should desire to stay within His will and build our defense force (faith).

In the end, the day will be the Lord's and as we are in Him the victory can be ours also. If we do not turn to God we will be soundly defeated... little by little we will be worn down by sin.

[This post is loosely based on Gerhard Groote's diary (1340-1384) edited by Thomas a Kempis' (1380-1471) and Augustinian Monk]