Know your enemy; know his ways. Find his strengths and what makes them weak. Understand his purpose and know his will. What are the means at his disposal to carry out his mission? What is the history behind his motives: motives, the fuel that drives him onward, obsesses him, skews his reason and warps his logic?
Know your enemy better than he knows himself – know yourself even better. But if in his bed you seek this understanding you will forget your purpose, you will not remember who you are and through fond intimacy become his ally. Ignorantly and blissfully you will do his bidding and inevitably fall, his victim.
Todd Beal
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You need not intimately acquaint yourself with what you fight against, to affectively fight against it.
Truth Behind Reality 
I heard this a long time ago, I know not for certain where, but I believe it to be true. A treasury agent was asked how he identifies counterfeit notes. He responded that he knows the real thing intimately. If a note he examines does not match what he knows to be genuine, it must be counterfeit. It seems to me this wisdom falls more in line with your second quote than your first.
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| If a note he examines does not match what he knows to be genuine, it must be counterfeit. It seems to me this wisdom falls more in line with your second quote than your first. |
Yes it does. There are two components to protecting ourselves: the first is an intimate knowledge of who is and who is not our enemy; the second is a thorough knowledge of our enemy’s thoughts, means, and tactics. I may recognize my enemy yet he will deceive me if I am ignorant of his destructive actions. I may have thorough knowledge of my enemy’s actions, but if I don’t recognize him as my enemy he will still take me by surprise and deceive me.
Simply comparing enemy with non-enemy is never enough. Only by understanding our enemy can we affectively defend against him.
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You are right, of course. I was thinking in terms of truth, not in terms of an active thinking adversary. The funny thing is, both truth and false are active. The truth is of an unchanging nature, but it accomplishes much because it is alive. Satan, our enemy and accuser who is the father of deception, is also alive and active. These are meta-realities that found our present realities, however it is our present realities in which we find our flesh living out its daily life. In this latter context, where we are not purely either meta, we war against one meta or the other through the flesh. Because our enemies of flesh have limits, strengths and weaknesses, we can learn and exploit them. In the meta sense, though, we must be as nearly symbiotic as possible with truth in order to detect the meta false and thus to recognize our enemy. We must recognize a problem before we can solve it and we must recognize the lie before we can combat it. The rest is technique. And so, while what you said is true, I return to the counterfeit analogy because it must begin and end there.
Thoughts?
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Yes, I agree. Without truth (the authentic note) we cannot recognize, let alone combat, untruth (the counterfeit note). Without truth as our teacher and guide, untruth will deceive us every time. Our two comments are actually the compliment of each other. Your statement, “I return to the counterfeit analogy because it must begin and end there”, is the bookends between which spiritual warfare takes place, the essence of this post.
The point I am making in this post is, in your quest to understand your enemy, don’t become enamored with him or you will adopt his ways and become just like him. Yes, it is important to thoroughly understand our enemy, but ironically, intimacy with our enemy gives us a self-destructive knowledge gained only by being like him. The very moment we make that choice, we become blind to the truth and our enemy destroys us.
There is a very important lesson here. We can understand truth only when we become intimate with truth, through which truth teaches us about himself. Conversely, we cannot understand the enemy of truth by becoming intimate with him; it blinds us to who he is and makes us become just like him. Only through intimacy with truth can we thoroughly understand truth and our enemy, the enemy of truth, our destroyer.
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This begs the question: Who is my enemy? Someone who wants what I want? That is a competitor if resources are limited, and a potential friend if they aren’t. Someone who wants what I have? That’s a potential thief and someone guilty of covetousness, but not necessarily an enemy. The only enemy I can think of is someone who wants my demise, who laughs at my failure. I can’t name any people possessed of this spirit in my life right now, but I know they are out there, and I’m bound to meet one someday. That spirit is real–it was cast out of heaven before the world began and is abroad on the earth today. It’s goal is our destruction, to block us from salvation by leading us into unknown paths and dark ways. My best defense from this enemy is to run from him at a full sprint. Do I need to know his ways? Only enough to know his tactics, avoid them, and teach my children to do the same.
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Awesome indeed, well said. James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
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Hi Todd.
This can be taken several ways – as usual with your posts.
I might have many “enemies” and though I know of none at the moment I know that human nature is such that they can pop up at the least expected moment.
However, I have ONE constant enemy – well, two if I count myself, but the latter only comes into effect when the former is allowed access.
I believe it is essential to know THAT enemy (I speak of the devil of course) and to know and understand the way he works. It is also necessary to know that while his power is great and that he cannot be beaten in our own strength, he IS a DEFEATED foe when met with the power within us – the power of the living, all-conquering Christ. When I submit to Christ and resist the devil, he will FLEE in defeat.
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Awesome, truly awesome! What a great extension to this post. Angela, your comment (wording and content) sets up a solid foundation for spiritual warfare, the essence of this post.
I am writing a book entitled, “Truth Behind Reality”. My purpose for this blog is two-fold: Share online what I have discovered thus far, and gain a fresh perspective on my content through reader comments. These comments help me to know what currently works and what needs improvement. This blog is my research tool for presenting the book content as meaningfully as possible. Now that I have yours and the other comments as a reference, I will change the book version of this post’s elaboration to incorporate the essence of what you, Michael Knudsen, and Lance Ponder have said. I really appreciate the honest input from all three of you.
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