day no. 16,250: know your enemy

"This is the way men deal with their enemies. They search out their plans, ponder their goals, and consider how and by what means they have prevailed in the past. Then they can be defeated. This is a most important strategy. If you do not utilize this great strategy, your warfare is very primitive." -- John Owen

We must know our enemies. We must know why they oppose us and how they plan to do so. We must know why we oppose them and how we intend to do so. We must consider how they've attempted to overcome us before, what they want, and how they have tried before to obtain it. 

James 4:1–2

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

All quarrels and fights are caused by someone wanting something that they do not have. You must know what that thing is, how they intend to get it, and what you can do, when in warfare, to prevent them from doing so.

2 Corinthians 2:11

Satan should not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

There is no reason to be caught flat-footed. There is no excuse for not seeing this coming. God has placed the antithesis into our story (Gen. 3:15). The enemy seldom, if ever, forgets that they are fighting us. Sin doesn't get distracted. It stays on point, in our way, and on its mission. Sin is subtle, but that said, it only has so much to work with. It cannot create ex nihilo and must work with pre-existing materials. It can only corrupt what's in front of it. That is why we must study how it often works and where it often attacks.

"Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps towards his journey’s end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it." -- John Owen

To be at peace with sin is to be caught in it. There is no excuse for not fighting it. We know what it wants and how it often tries to get it. We must fight back and we must seek not merely to wound, but to kill it. We begin with the sin that lies closest by confessing it and crucifying it with Christ and only then do we seek to confront it in our homes, churches, cities, and nations.