• "The World, The Flesh, The Devil: Enemies of the Soul"
• Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
• October 19, 2003
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

Today's collect-in which we pray for grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil-hearkens back to baptism. Candidates for baptism, or their godparents, are asked, "Dost thou... renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that thou will not follow nor be led by them?" (Book of Common Prayer, 276-77).

In theological books, the world, the flesh and the devil are referred to as "the enemies of the soul." They are the three sources of temptation in the Christian life.

The world, as an enemy of the soul, is not the world that God made in Genesis and declared to be good. Rather, the world is fallen mankind in corporate rebellion against God. Temptations that come from the world are rewards offered to us-power, status, wealth, social acceptance-in exchange for comprising our faith.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil showed him "all the kingdoms of the world and their glory". And he said, 'All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me'" (Matthew 4:8). This is a temptation of the world. Jesus is given a promise of benefit in the world in exchange for a violation of God's commandment against idolatry.

We fall into this temptation when our pursuit of money, power or status leads us to disobey the commandments or neglect the demands of discipleship. We fall into this temptation when we are timid about our faith or afraid to stand up for what is right because we are afraid of the social consequences.

The person who compromises faith to succeed in the world discovers that the thing he compromised to get wasn't as great as advertised. Also, the devil is a liar (John 8:44). He promises all the kingdoms of the world, but he may not deliver them. Thus, the person who falls into worldly temptation ends up with neither fulfillment nor a sense of integrity-a misery beloved by the devil.

The flesh is not the body, per se. The flesh is the desires of our fallen nature. Sin, the fallen condition of mankind, perverts our desires from their God-given ends. We fall into temptations of the flesh when we are tempted to fulfill our desires in ways that are contrary to the moral commandments and the teachings of the New Testament. Also, laziness that leads to neglect of duty and overindulgence, the excessive use of legitimate pleasures, are also sins of the flesh.

In talking about the flesh, we must avoid the puritanical notion that what feels good must necessarily be bad. God created the body and the means by which bodily desires are rightly fulfilled. Fleshly temptations are counterfeit means of fulfillment.

What the flesh desires provides a momentary fulfillment that leads to greater emptiness in the long run. Resisting temptations of the flesh involves resisting the immediate lure of a counterfeit in order that we might experience genuine fulfillment from God in the long run.

And then there is the devil, along with his fallen angels. Ephesians refers to these as the "principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world" (6:12). The devil and his angels are absent from most of the angel talk that has been prevalent for the last decade or so-which means that people who rely on popular angel talk miss the main point of angelic activity.

No doubt there is angelic intervention in many temporal things. However, in the spiritual battle that takes place between the angels of God, the heavenly hosts, and the devil and his fallen angels, what is at stake is not merely being saved, or not being saved, from causes of temporal harm. The devil does not merely want to hurt us in time. He wants to possess our soul for eternity.

We are reading Job in the daily offices. The devil afflicted Job with a loss of temporal things. However, the devil didn't just want Job's goods, family and health. These were but means to the end of getting Job's soul. The devil wanted to afflict Job so that Job would curse God and renounce his faith. Consequently, the temptation was a failure from the devil's perspective (cf. James 5:11).

The devil wants us to turn our backs on God. He will use poverty or wealth, sickness or health to achieve his end. One person gives up faith because misfortune or illness causes him to think that God has abandoned him and faith is worthless. Another gives up faith because he becomes so comfortably self-sufficient that he comes to think he has no need of salvation from sin and death. It is all the same to the devil, whose end is neither that we be temporally miserable or happy, but that we be eternally damned with him.

In the light of the attacks that come at us from the enemies of the soul, the great need in the spiritual life is for what we call watchfulness. To be watchful is to be on the lookout in our prayers to see from whence our temptations are coming and, so, how to combat them.

We may recognize a besetting worldly temptation and see the need for a change in our priorities, motives and ambitions, or for a renewed practice of generosity in the place of service to mammon, or for boldness of faith in the face of opposition in the world. We may recognize a temptation of the flesh and come to see the need to practice new disciplines of self-control, moderation or diligence. We may recognize a demonic attack on our faith and come to see the need to persevere in faith and prayer through the dryness of our Job-like trials; or to engage more diligently in prayers of thanksgiving so that we will remember that all we have, including life itself, is a gift from God.

The world lures us from without. The flesh prompts us from within. The devil aids and abets both. But in Christ we are given grace to conquer. As 1 Corinthians says, "God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it" (10:13).

As we do battle with the enemies of the soul, we discover the true and proper focus of the prayers against our enemies that we find in the Psalms. We pray to God, in the words of Psalm 143, "Of thy goodness slay mine enemies, and destroy all them that vex my soul" (143:12).