Warfare with the Flesh

A Definition of The Flesh. “The flesh is a built-in law of failure, making it impossible for natural man to please or serve God. It is a compulsive inner force inherited from man’s fall, which expresses itself in general and specific rebellion against God and His righteousness. The flesh can never be reformed or improved. The only hope for escape from the law of the flesh is its total execution and replacement by a new life in the Lord Jesus Christ… The flesh cannot be tamed, reformed, or improved. It is so totally bad that it has to die. This terrible force is within us, and even after we have by faith counted [it] dead, it will attempt to spring to life again and control us. Man’s flesh, his fallen nature, has definite ways in which it tempts and wars against the spiritual man. The flesh is a deadly enemy that is capable of completely defeating a believer and keeping him from pleasing God with a holy life. One of the reasons the flesh is such a difficult enemy to handle is because of its close inner relationship to the believer’s personality. The flesh is intimately intertwined with our mind, our will, and our emotions, and prior to his conversion, it pretty much controls a man’s inner life.”

The Works of the Flesh from Galatians 5:19-21. “Galatians 5:21 points out that those who are doing these sins in continual practice are not those who will inherit God’s kingdom. These are the sins of the natural man who has never been born again. Believers have been delivered from these fleshly sins through Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection. Now we are responsible to claim our position of victory over them.”

1. Adultery. “This refers to thoughts or acts of immorality after marriage. Adultery springs from the selfish, fleshly desire for physical gratification without spiritual responsibility. Adultery expresses rebellion of the flesh against God’s law of purity and strikes at the sacredness of marriage (Hebrews 13:4).
2. Fornication. “This fleshly sin is the violation of God’s moral law of sexual purity before marriage. Fornication springs from the fleshly desire to gratify sensual appetites without marriage responsibility and the necessity of God’s approval. There is no place or excuse for fornication in God’s plan (1 Corinthians 6:13,18).
3. Uncleanness. “This fleshly sin includes a wide range of moral sins. Evil or impure thoughts, so-called dirty stories and erotic books, lustful desires, desires to view pornography or to see morally unclean pictures or movies would certainly be included. Uncleanness springs from the fleshly desire to gratify sensual appetite through thoughts and words in conflicts with God’s holy nature and divine plan.”
4. Lasciviousness. “This sin represents the practice of stirring up lustful desires which cannot be satisfied within the limits of God’s approval. One may be lascivious about his dress, his speech, his laughter, his smile, his eyes, his physical gestures, his modesty, and so forth. This sin springs from the fleshly desire to attract attention to one’s self in a manner that flaunts God’s standards of moral purity.”
5. Idolatry. “This sin is the flesh rebelling against worshipping only the true and living God. Idolatry takes place when we physically or mentally put anything before God. Pleasure, money, things, our work, even our families may become gods. This fleshly sin springs from our desire to choose the god that pleases our flesh rather than bowing before the true and living God.”
6. Witchcraft. “This sin of the flesh springs from our desire to contact and relate to the mysterious spiritual world. In rebellious curiosity, we desire to learn the mysteries of the unseen world in a manner other than that revealed by God in His Word. This fleshly sin of witchcraft includes the whole occult realm. Quija boards, tarot cards, séances, spiritism, levitation, astrology, the pendulum, all are tools of this sin. It is interesting that the Greek word translated ‘witchcraft’ or ‘sorcery’ in our English texts is the word pharmakia, from which we get our English word pharmacy, referring to drugs. The use of drugs for sensational, mind-expanding experience is a form of sorcery. Drug experimentation and addiction is a fleshly sin that can lead to a deeper bondage to Satan’s kingdom.”
7. Hatred. “This fleshly sin expresses itself in dark, ugly feelings of bitterness, contempt, and loathing of another person. Hatred springs from the fleshly desire to establish one’s worth apart from God’s plan of salvation. This sin strikes out at God’s demand that we forgive one another and leave all vengeance to God.”
8. Variance or Quarreling. “This fleshly sin expresses itself as we become a part of strife and discord. This sin springs from the fleshly desire for attention and the compulsion to prove that we are right.”
9. Emulation or Jealousy. “This fleshly sin expresses itself in inner feelings of resentment that someone else is or has what we want, as we seek to excel above others, to achieve superiority. It springs from the fleshly desire for self-attention above interest in others. It also manifests a lack of self-acceptance and thankfulness to God that He made us just as He wants us.”
10. Wrath. “This means a bad temper, violent anger, or raging resentment. Anger or wrath springs from a desire of the flesh to strike out at anything that threatens self-interests. Anger is the attempt of the flesh to step in and take vengeance out of God’s hands.”
11. Strife. “Strife is self-seeking rivalry. This fleshly sin springs from a selfish desire to pull down others who in any way threaten us. It may begin with verbal arguments and tense conflict, and progress to ongoing tensions or even physical confrontations.”
12. Seditions. “This word literally means to divide, to split in two parts. This fleshly sin springs from a selfish desire to identify with a group who will support my selfish interests. This fleshly indulgence is what causes church splits and factions of quarreling among believers… The spirit of sedition strikes at the essential unity of the body of Christ and divides that which by the work of Christ and the grace of God is made one.”
13. Heresies. “Much like seditions, this fleshly sin is a spirit of unbiblical teaching that divides believers over nonessentials. This sin springs from a fleshly desire to support conduct with doctrinal argument.”
14. Envyings. “This sin describes an inner discontent as we look upon another’s success or superiority with a desire for his place. Envy springs from a lack of inner security and trust that God will enable us to have and achieve just what He wants us to have and achieve. Envy is a refusal to be satisfied with God’s gift of His grace to us.”
15. Murders. “Satan is a murderer, but the human heart full of hatred and wrath is capable of murder, too. The sin of murder expresses the rebellious desire of the flesh to remove even a life that stands in the way of some self-gratifying goal.”
16. Drunkenness. “This fleshly sin would include reliance upon all intoxicants, such as alcohol and drugs, to produce an artificial means of escape from facing our responsibilities—even our sins. This fleshly behavior springs from a desire to create a sense of well-being. It strikes at the work of the Holy Spirit who convicts men and women of their sins and creates guilt and conviction designed to bring us to faith and repentance. Drunkenness offers a temporary and artificial sense of well-being, which in truth can only be produced by the fullness of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).”
17. Revellings, and such like. “This fleshliness expresses itself in orgies, carousing, and general sensual escapism. This sin brings others into the sins of the flesh with us and often leads into group sensual involvement. Revelings lead people into a type of conduct where their sensual appetites dictate their behavior. This sin springs from man’s desire to gratify his body and soulish appetites without moral responsibility. Such fleshliness strikes at God’s moral law and man’s very creation as a spirit being which is planned fo God to rule his soul and body.”

Yielding to the Flesh & Giving Ground to the Devil.

• On Ephesians 4:22-27. “Ephesians 4 deals with the sins of the flesh in the context of the old man (v. 22) and the new man (v. 24). In this context, suddenly the apostle Paul warns, ‘Neither give place to the devil’ (v. 27 KJV). This warning indicates that when a believer exercises his or her will to commit these fleshly sins, they ‘give place’—literally claim practical ground—to Satan’s activity in his life. Giving way willfully to practice sins of the flesh gives occasion for Satan to have his way in a believer’s life. Although all legal claim of Satan against us was canceled at the cross, a believer’s willful indulgence in fleshly sins gives the enemy a place or a claim against us which he will be quick to exploit.”
• On 2 Timothy 2:22-26. “To Timothy, the apostle Paul wrote of the need to instruct those who are in fleshly sins of strife gently trusting that God may grant them repentance. He warned that those who practice such fleshly sins come into the snare of the devil and are ‘taken captive by him at his will’ (2 Timothy 2:26)… [The] apostle meant it to be a sober warning to all men that careless, fleshly living means we are entering Satan’s territory. Believers living in the flesh certainly can come into a state of bondage to Satan, where they are living in accord with Satan’s will rather than the will of God. That is a fairly obvious reality, in harmony with the whole tenor of Scripture and its emphasis upon man’s responsibility… [Willful] indulgence in fleshly sins without claiming our ground of victory in the Lord Jesus Christ can produce a bondage to Satan. There comes a time where the practice of a particular fleshly sin may move into a sin controlled and dictated by satanic, demonic activity. This means that the compulsive inner desire of the old nature is joined by a strong spirit of demonic power that begins to dictate in a given area the behavior of that believer. Once spiritual wickedness has gained a foothold in a life, it seeks to go on to develop a whole hierarchy of powers of darkness against that person’s life.”

Three Steps to Victory over the Flesh

1. A Walk of Honesty. “Be honest with yourself, recognizing some sins may be more tempting than others. The Holy Spirit wants us to be honest, to see and admit our old depraved fleshly nature. Each believer will see himself someplace in the listing of fleshly sins of Galatians 5:17-21. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you your fleshly sins in all of their lurid ugliness. Then admit those fleshly sins that are your peculiar temptation and defeat.”
2. A Walk of Death. “When a person believes on the Lord Jesus, he or she is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the death of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-6). As followers of Jesus, we are united with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, and we should consider ourselves ‘dead to sin but alive to God’ (see Romans 6:11). Because of Christ’s death and our death with Him, ‘we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin’ (Romans 6:6-7). Victory over the flesh is always an active, aggressive, moment-by-moment appropriation of the absolute truth that ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2:20).
3. A Walk by the Spirit. “This resurrection life of Christ is brought into our experience as the Person of the Holy Spirit is granted fullness of control. It remains the believer’s responsibility to be ‘filled with the Spirit’ (Ephesians 5:18). When a believer is filled with the Spirit, his or her body, soul, and spirit are controlled and directed by the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit.”