As we continue this discussion of spiritual authority we’re understanding not only the context of the war between God and Satan and the fact that this war involves us, but we’re also looking at how, exactly, we are enmeshed in this war and what is the plan of God to rescue us from it.  And all of this goes to, and sets up, the way by which we understand spiritual authority.  Let’s now turn our attention to how the enemy is waging war against us.  How is he waging war against us?  The enemy discovered that the human being has a soul, which soul is very susceptible to being drawn away by three lusts, three preoccupations.  Now before we delve into this let’s set up where the enemy discovered this and how he exploited it and how it continues to be the vulnerability of the human being.

In the Garden of Eden the enemy came into the garden and said to man that if he ate of the tree that was in the midst of the garden that his eyes would be opened; he would know good and evil and he would live forever.  The enemy tempted man with that.  Now we know that the natural eyes were open—the eyes of the flesh, of the body—were open.   And the eyes of the spirit were open because it is the norm for humans to communicate with God, spirit to Spirit.  Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirits that we are the Sons of God. (Inserted – actual verse – “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”)  So, the communication between God and man is spirit to Spirit.

The eyes of the spirit were open because God talked to man every day and man talked to God.  The eyes of the flesh were open because man could see that the tree was pleasing to the eye. Therefore it is this, that when the Bible says that God said to man that if you eat of the tree that your eyes will be open, and when the enemy comes and he tests man and says that if you eat of the tree your eyes will be open and when man ate of the tree, Genesis 3 says, “… and his eyes were opened.” (Actual verses – “ ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Genesis 3:5-7)

 Well what eyes would be opened if his spirit already communicated with God day by day, morning by morning as God would come in the cool of the day?  And his natural eyes could see that the tree was pleasing to the eye.  What eyes, then, were opened?  Naturally, the eyes of his soul… the eyes of his soul were then opened.  When the eyes of the soul were opened, the human being began to see reality very differently… very differently.  Here is how he saw reality:  before his eyes were opened, what thought did he have for what he would eat or drink or wherewithal he would be clothed?  What thought did he have for that?  I quoted a scripture in this reference; it is Matthew 6, in which Jesus said, “Take no thought concerning what you should eat or drink or wherewithal shall you be clothed.” (Inserted – actual verse- “Therefore I tell you; do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” – Matthew 6:25) 

The moment that the eyes of the human being were opened-the eyes of the soul-one of his principle preoccupations was with, “What will I wear?” because he was naked and he saw that he was naked.  Now prior to the fall, he was naked but not ashamed.  After the fall he was naked and ashamed.  Why?  Because he saw that it was his responsibility to clothe himself.  The next thing that he did when his eyes were opened was that he hid.  Before, the indications are that he eagerly came to see God when God came into the garden.  In the early morning, in the cool of the day, when God would appear in the Garden man would gladly come to see God but after the enemy’s work had been done what changed?  God, Himself, was now seen as the enemy of man, so when God would come into the Garden man wanted to run and hide.

 First, two things that the human being did when the eyes of his soul were opened were:  he saw the need to provide for himself and he saw the need to protect himself.  The entire matter of the human being governed by the soul centers around this thought, that the human has a compulsion to provide for himself and to protect himself.  These compulsions are so great, so dominant, that they might be appropriately called “his lusts”.  We normally think of lusts as being sexual desire but lust is anything that is the compulsion to which we are drawn and there are three of these lusts:  the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  Now, the lust of the flesh has to do with your ability to figure out what needs to be done.  The lust of the eyes has to do with the limitation of your vision concerning “how can it be done?”  What needs to be done?  How can it be done?  And the pride of life has to do with, “I can do it.”

 What has to be done, how can it be done and I can do it.  Because it’s not enough to know what needs to be done and it’s not enough to have a vision for it (how can I do it?).  Even if you know what needs to be done and you have a vision for how it can be done, if you can’t do it, then you are stuck.  Human beings are addicted to their own provision and their own protection and they are always thinking about, “How do I provide for myself” and “How do I protect myself”-that is, what needs to be done?  I need to be protected, I need to be provided for; “How can I protect myself”, “How can I provide for myself” and “I can do it.”  I—whether by myself individually or in conjunction with others—I can do it; because if your conclusion is that you can’t do it, then you are in trouble.  Then you cannot protect yourself; it means that you will become a slave to somebody else.  If you can’t provide for yourself it means that you have to be subject to somebody else.

  Now, the enemy knows that these three lusts:  the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life (what needs to be done, what can I do about it and that I’m able to do it-having analyzed your problem and deciding you can do it); he realized that this is the way that the human being thinks when he operates by his soul.  This is the way he normally thinks.  So, this is what he does:  he forms an entrapment that is based upon these three lusts and this entrapment he calls “the world”… “the world”.  And the world is a perfect magnet for the weakness of the human soul, designed specifically to entrap the human soul.  When he does, his intention is to make you unable to respond to the Spirit of God and by that he proves that humans are an inferior creation, incapable of having a relationship with God… incapable of loving God, always loving themselves, always being concerned about themselves first and foremost…“me first before anybody else… forget about God.”

 I’ll show it to you.  Here is what it says in the book of I John.  This reading will be from I John, chapter 2; at verse 15… it’ll surprise you… “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” (Inserted – I John 2:15-17)  We’re told not to love the world and I said that the world is a creation of Satan.  Keep in mind that a long time back as we began this discussion we started to talk about how the enemy operates by schemes.  Now a scheme is a deliberate intent to take advantage of your weakness; to trick you by coming in and taking advantage of where you are weak.

  About the holiday season time of year various public service announcements will try to warn the elderly about scams that are going on and these scams, or schemes, are always so repulsive to us because we see the scammers, the thieves, basically, taking advantage not only of the weak, the elderly, but taking advantage of them where they are most vulnerable.  For example, one of the vulnerabilities of the elderly is their vulnerability in regard to fear that they do not have enough health insurance or fear that they do not have enough financial resources to take care of them during their declining years.  And one of these principle schemes is to get the elderly to invest in fraudulent proposals designed to attract them into the belief that by participating in these fraudulent proposals that their financial picture will improve.  Well, that’s exactly what a scheme is about; it’s to take advantage of your blindness.  It’s not a scheme if it doesn’t take advantage of your blindness.

  When we are blind we simply don’t see it coming and we are blind because there are these conditions in us that draw us to them instinctively.  So, a scheme of the enemy then, is an intent to take advantage of that to which we are drawn instinctively.  In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve… when their eyes were opened and they sinned, how did they sin?  What were their concerns, immediately?  After they ate from the tree what became their obsession, what was their blindness?  Well, suddenly… suddenly they were preoccupied with their need for provision and their need for protection because before that there was no need for either thing.  Before that, God was their provision and God was their protection.  They didn’t need to be protected from God because God was their friend, God loved them, God came to see them; they looked forward to seeing God when He came, and they were naked and not ashamed.  But after their sin they were occupied with their vulnerability and they immediately set aside to protect themselves in these areas of their vulnerability, and that’s what tells the enemy where we are, it tells him how to locate us.

 The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, these are the essential ways by which the soul operates.  Therefore, the scheme of the enemy is this:  he has created an entire alternative to trusting God by which the human is induced into not only the belief, but the reliance on this as truth—it’s not true, but it’s presented as if it’s true—that you have to take care of yourself; you better figure out how to take care of yourself and you better do it.  Ask anybody.  Isn’t this what it’s about?  If you don’t take care of you, who will take care of you?  Isn’t that the question?  So, if that’s the question, what are the relevant issues that relate to that?  Number one is:  what needs to be done?  Number two is:  how can it be done?  And number three is:  can I do it?  Isn’t this the norm?  That’s what the lust of the flesh is, the lust of the eye is and that’s what the pride of life is…  what needs to be done, how can it be done and can I do it?

 Well the enemy has assured you that you can, because the world—the thing he creates called the world (in the Greek it’s called the Kosmos- K o s m o s -, and he’s the god of this world, the Kosmokrator – K o s m o k r a t o r)- the god of this world blinds the minds of people into thinking, “You shall be as gods knowing good and evil.”  (Inserted – actual verse – “ ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” – Genesis 3:5)  You can do it, whatever needs to be done, you don’t need God.  You don’t need God for your provision, you don’t need God for your protection, trust in your own understanding.  Listen to what’s in the world, you’ve already read it.  Here, again, just to refresh your memory, “Do not love the world.” (Inserted – actual verse – “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” – I John 2:15)

 This world is not the creation that God has made nor is it a reference to humanity; this concept of the world is a creation of Satan, meant to entrap the human being.  Let me just spend a little more time on this before we show you how perfectly this creation of the enemy, called the world, is a match for what draws the soul because this is the weakness of the human being from which God must rescue him, requiring spiritual authority to function in that respect.  Let us say that, if I use this example, let’s say that I say, “I’ve been traveling in the world.”  Now you’ll understand that I’ve been going from place to place, from location to location and that I’m limited in the use of that word “world” to the physical world in which it’s possible for people to walk around.

 But let’s say that I use this other expression, “Some young people live in their own world.”  Sometimes in my trips through airports, or in different countries, the one staple of all of these countries is the way some young people assert their individuality by the color of their clothes, the color of their hair, the permanent art that they wear on their bodies, and so on and so forth.  Now, if I were observing that, if I were to say, “Some young people live in their own world,” I’m using the word, “world,” but now I’m using it in a very different way.  The first example was, “I’ve been traveling in the world.”  Well, you understand that means that I either walk or get in vehicles of one kind or another and I move from where I live to other places on the planet and everybody understands that’s an appropriate meaning of the word, “world.”  But if I were to say, “Some young people live in their own world…” that’s a different concept of “world”.  It’s an invisible thing, it’s not a physical or geographical thing; it’s a concept.  But is it real?  Of course it’s real… the Mohawk going straight down the head or the body piercings or the body art or the different kinds of clothes.  All of those speak to an internal, invisible value that they are trying to give expression to.

  Now, whether you agree with them or you don’t is not the issue and, frankly, often they don’t care whether you agree or you don’t.  I’m simply using it to show that there is an invisible concept called “the world” in which people live and in which they participate and their physical and external behavior and conduct or appearance reflect the reality of this invisible world.  In the same way then, it is possible, and the Bible does, in fact, use the term, “world” to describe Satan’s entrapment of the human being, and it’s different from when the Scriptures say, “For God so loved the world…” (Inserted – John 3:16a).  So the same author, John, in John 3:16 could say, “For God so loved the world…” – a reference to humanity, and in I John 2:15 could say, “Do not love the world…” And in the Greek it’s the same word, Kosmos.  But just as you are able to distinguish between my usages of the word, “world,” in reference to travel and in reference to an invisible but very real concept in which some young people may live, it’s not any different.  So, God loves people, God owns the geography but there is an arrangement of systems that promise us provision and protection and our control of those means of our provision and our protection that Satan has, in fact, produced. And that… that concept is a valid use of the term “world.”

 I will show you this, now.  There it says, “For everything in the world…” –I’m reading from I John 2:15 where it says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.”  It goes on to say, “If anyone loves the world, (so first, you see, there is the world and there are things in the world) “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world (here are the things in the world) the cravings of the sinful man, (if you like, what has to be done, what do I have to have) the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” (Inserted – I John 2:15-17)

 Quite literally, in this passage, the world is described as a creation of Satan to answer these three questions relating to your need for provision and protection:  what has to be done, how can it be done and can I do it.  What has to be done, relating to the cravings of the sinful man, his cravings are:  I have got to be protected, I’ve got to be provided for and I don’t care how that’s done.  That’s his craving.  And then, the vision, the lust of his eyes; how is it to be done?  You’ve identified what needs to be done now how can it be done?  And the third is, “I can do it,” the boasting about what he has and does, right here, that’s what it says.  So the enemy has set a trap for man and it’s a trap that encourages the soul of man to live in a state that is independent from submitting to God.  Because the outcome of that entrapment, the outcome of that scheme, when it works, is that it absolutely prevents the love of God from ever being formed in you.  Is that not what it says?  It says, “If you love the world, or the things in the world, the love of the Father is not in you.” (Inserted I John 2:15,16)  Wow.

  What is the natural response of a child to a father?  What is the natural response that God is looking for from his children to Himself?  Love!  If you love the world you cannot love the Father.  The world is a creation of Satan meant to effectively stop you from being a child of God, manifesting that truth, that you’re a child of God, by loving God.  After all, what is that relationship between a father and a son except that of the father loving the son and the son loving the father?  What, then, is an effective bar to the children loving the Father?  When the children’s souls are entrapped in the condition of “what I can do for myself, apart from God” then you cannot at the same time love God.  It’s impossible to love God and be governed by the lusts of your flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life.  You will not trust God and you will not love God as long as the soul is addicted to the provisions of Satan’s world.  Wow… that’s a pretty powerful scheme wouldn’t you say, that the enemy takes such complete advantage of the human being that he has formed an entrapment that is the perfect match for the human soul.

 The vulnerability of the human is in the matter of the soul.  Now if the enemy is able to get you to operate exclusively in your soul then he wins—at least in respect to your place in the order of things—he wins.  You never overcome that particular obstacle and so you are just inferior creation.  The character of God cannot be formed in you because you will not let go of what you can do to provide for yourself and protect yourself.  Now we want to see how God pries our fingers loose from that obsession to take care of ourselves, and so the next message will be a continuation of this discussion of spiritual authority… how God acts on our behalf, not only to defeat the enemy but how He acts on our behalf to cause us to change the very foundation of our natures to where we become the children of God.  I’m Sam Soleyn and God bless you. 

Scripture References: 

Romans 8:16
Genesis 3:5-7
Matthew 6:25
I John 2:15-17
John 3:16a