The Three-pronged Attack of the Enemy

# 172 - Today's Du-votional comes from: 1Sa 13:15-18, “Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people present with him, about six hundred men. 16 Saul, Jonathan his son, and the people present with them remained in Gibeah of Benjamin. But the Philistines encamped in Michmash. 17 Then raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned to the road to Ophrah, to the land of Shual, 18 another company turned to the road to Beth Horon, and another company turned to the road of the border that overlooks the Valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness. (1 Sam 13:15-18) An interesting feature of this portion of Scripture is the three-pronged attack of the Philistines. It is a parallel to the three pronged attack that we face every single day. It is the battle with the world, our flesh, and the devil. The Scriptures speak of all three enemies: In Ga 5:16, we are reminded to, “ Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh., and in Jas 4:4 we are told that whoever “wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” and in 1Pe 5:8, we are reminded that “the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” In the Litany from the The Common Book of Prayer of the Church of England one of the petitions is to ask the Lord to deliver us “from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil” Jesus endured these same kind of deceitful attacks from the mastermind of them all, the devil, when He was tempted in the wilderness as the devil appealed to Jesus' flesh in tempting Him to feed His flesh by turning stones into bread. He appealed to the world as He tempted Jesus to make headlines by leaping off the top of the temple and miraculously save Himself, and finally he sought to have Jesus bow down and worship him. Jesus defeated the three -pronged attack of the flesh, the world, and the devil, with one simple strategy. He replied to each temptation with , “It is written.” Ask Him to help you do the same as you face the deceitful attacks of the enemy today.