BOOK SUMMARY: THE ENEMY WITHIN - CHAPTER 11 - SLIP-SLIDING AWAY

 

JUST HOW TOUGH IS THE FLESH, ANYWAY? - The flesh is tested against the strongest possible opponents—God’s people under the new covenant, people with real spiritual life, real love for Christ, and real experience of grace. The question is whether the flesh can make even these people forsake their first love. The material argues that the flesh is far more powerful and persistent than believers often assume.

LOVE ON FIRE - Song 8:6–7; Jer. 2:2–3; 1 Tim. 5:12; Heb. 3:14; John 8. 

    First love for Christ is described as fierce, unquenchable, and deeply rooted in humility. It is marked by a sense of being forgiven much, which produces love that burns hot. This love is strong enough to endure trials, cling to Christ, and remain loyal even under pressure.

FIRST LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL IN HUMILITY - Using the scene in Luke 7, first love is shown through the woman who wept at Jesus’s feet. Her devotion flows from a profound awareness of forgiveness. Humility fuels affection; the more she sees her sin and Christ’s mercy, the more her love intensifies.

FIRST LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL IN HUNGER - True first love hungers for Christ and loses appetite for the world. New believers taste heavenly manna and find worldly pleasures thin and unsatisfying. The love of God and the love of the world cannot coexist.

SEVEN COLD SPLASHES ON FIRST-LOVE FIRE - The flesh uses seven strategies to cool devotion to Christ:

• The Flesh Knows How to Eat an Elephant - It works slowly, not by destroying love in one blow but by gradual erosion—small compromises, tiny distractions, incremental cooling.
• The Flesh Dresses Us Up in Tuxedos and Evening Gown - It tries to turn worship into formalism—outward, polished, respectable, but powerless. Reverence becomes performance instead of fire.
• The Flesh Sends Us Down Rabbit Trails - It diverts devotion away from Christ toward causes—political, moral, religious—that become substitutes for passion for Jesus. Activism replaces adoration.
• The Flesh Turns Sin into a Cuddly Pet - Some sins are domesticated and cherished. They are treated as harmless or too personal to surrender. These “pet sins” blind the soul, crush joy, and kill love.
• The Flesh Pumps Up Our Heads and Shrivels Our Hearts - Knowledge grows without transformation. Truth is admired but not obeyed. The mind expands while the heart contracts, producing cold orthodoxy.
• The Flesh Gets Us to Do Our Own Thing - Self‑trust replaces God‑trust. Independence becomes the guiding principle. The soul begins to live by its own wisdom rather than God’s.
• The Flesh Is a Cat That Gets Our Tongue - Private communion with God fades. Prayer becomes neglected. Silence replaces fellowship. The relationship cools because lovers who never speak are not lovers.

FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN - A warning is mercy if it is heeded. Jesus calls His people back to their first love with both threat and promise. Returning to first love leads to eating from the tree of life—Christ Himself. The call is to treasure Him above all, to cut off the flesh’s attempts to drown devotion, and to put sin to death by the Spirit. Renewed love is possible, beautiful, and commanded. 

BOOK SUMMARY - THE ENEMY WITHIN - CHAPTER 10 - MACULATE CONCEPTION

EXCUSE ME? - People often try to avoid responsibility for sin by appealing to ignorance, coercion, or deception. The underlying assumption is that guilt requires willing consent. Anything done without the will’s agreement is treated as excusable.

Sin forms when the mind is persuaded, the affections are stirred, and the will agrees. Once these three align, sin is “conceived,” even if circumstances prevent the outward act. God may stop a sinful intention from becoming action, but the inward consent still makes the person guilty. This explains why inward lust is treated as real adultery—because the inner faculties have already done all they can do.

TWO KINDS OF CONSENT 

• Sins of the High Hand - This is full, deliberate, enthusiastic consent to sin—like a ship sailing forward with favorable winds. It represents total surrender to sinful desire.
• Sins of the Willy‑Nilly - Believers experience conflicted consent. Even when they fall, there is reluctance, resistance, and inward grief. The Spirit opposes the flesh, preventing complete surrender. Peter’s denial illustrates this: his actions were sinful, yet his love and faith were still alive beneath the failure.

PERSUASION - The will chooses only what the mind believes is good or beneficial. The flesh works to convince the mind that a sinful act is somehow desirable, awakening the affections and drawing the will toward consent.

• Twisting Scripture - One tactic is to emphasize forgiveness while ignoring holiness. If the gospel is seen only as pardon and not also as power for transformation, sin appears less dangerous and more appealing.
• Posing a Double Standard - The flesh rarely argues that a sin is universally right; instead, it tries to justify a specific instance—claiming that “this situation” is an exception.
• Keeping Us In The Dark - Ignorance of God’s will becomes a breeding ground for sin. When the soul does not know what pleases God, it cannot discern danger or resist temptation effectively.
• Telling Us Not to Worry - The flesh minimizes consequences, exaggerates grace, and quiets the conscience. It persuades the soul that sin is manageable, harmless, or already covered.

NO MORE EXCUSES - The Spirit opposes every work of the flesh, but believers may fail to sense this conflict when they neglect the means God provides. Laying aside Scripture, prayer, watchfulness, and obedience becomes passive consent, which is still real consent. The call is to actively “put to death the deeds of the body” by the Spirit.