I'm not planning to preach on the obvious front half of this text. I want to draw your attention this morning to its back half. The back half speaks a different word. It tells us that our real enemy is sin.
Well, duh. Of course we know our real enemy is sin. But do we? "You call this a government?" "We are so screwed up in this culture." The way we talk around here you'd think our real enemy is our state and society. The writer, though, directs our eyes to our most fundamental enemy: Sin. The world is not just "the world"; the world expresses its enmity by trying to get us to sin. The flesh is not just the flesh; it expresses its enmity by trying to get us to sin. The Devil, of course, is known to be a tempter whose whole goal is to get us sinning. And so that's what I want to focus on this morning. Your enemies are not trying to hurt you, to kill you, to impoverish you. Those are secondary to their purposes because none of those things can permanently damage you. Your enemies are trying to get you to sin, because that will take you out of action for the Kingdom in this life and damn you to Hell eternally in the next. Taking your money is easy; taking your integrity is hard. Sin, then, is the goal all your enemies have in common. Jesus defeated them by refusing to sin and that's how you and I must defeat them too.
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Caleb Nelson grew up in Ft. Collins, CO. Born into a Christian home, where he eventually became the eldest of 11 children, he has been a lifelong Presbyterian. He professed faith at the age of six, and was homeschooled through high school. He then attended Patrick Henry College...
