The Three Enemies

In conventional warfare the enemy is always someone else—an army and a person. This type of adversary is obvious and direct. In unseen warfare the enemies are elusive and invisible. The enemies we encounter in the spiritual life are the world, the flesh and the devil. This is revealed to us in the Gospels when Christ goes into the desert and experiences temptation (Luke 4:1-13). As the account goes, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days, during which time the devil tried to tempt him. The devil told him to turn stone into bread (the flesh), and showed him kingdoms and offered him power over these kingdoms (the world), and told Jesus to worship him and “it will all be yours.” 

These three enemies were also identified by Saint Paul of Tarsus (Ephesians 2:2–3):

You once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.

These enemies are part corporeal (physical or bodily) and part incorporeal (invisible or bodiless). This makes fighting them particularly challenging. Adding to the challenge is the theater or arena in which we live. The spirit of the current age and culture is exceedingly counter-conducive for attaining victory. In recent times, the modern culture and worldview rapidly shifted from one that encouraged and upheld virtues, values and morals to an age that wallows in love of these three enemies of the soul. The world and all things worldly are held with utmost esteem, the flesh and all forms of comfort and pleasure are encouraged, praised and sought after at any cost, and the devil—he is the prince of it all. 

When we realize these are the three enemies we are struggling with, some of us can tend to emphasize one over the other. For some, everything is the world’s fault, for others, all our troubles are caused by the flesh. Lastly there are those who blame the devil for all their woes. A balanced approach is to acknowledge all three as contenders as Christ did in the desert.