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The War Waged Against the Soul

Storming the Gates or Something Clandestine

Fleshly lusts war against the soul of believers (1 Peter 2:11) by invading each soul as a conquering army would .  The army storms the gates, enters in a more clandestine manner, or sieges its target of battle.  It depends on whatever the most successful art of war.

As an example, consider the “evil communications” (homiloi krakai) of 1 Corinthians 15:33.    These evil communications, Paul says, corrupt good manners.  The corruption related to the doctrine of bodily resurrection, starting with the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The evil communications invaded the souls of professing Corinthian believers.  Paul starts that sentence with the command, “be not deceived.”

The deceit that fooled on the truth about bodily resurrection seemed to enter in a clandestine manner through corrupting good manners.  The purveyors of evil Egyptian culture tried to deceive Moses with enjoyment of the pleasures of sin for a season (Hebrews 11:25).  Someone need not assert a statement of doctrine to corrupt someone’s doctrine.  Instead, he allures someone through the pleasures of sin.

Favoring Lasciviousness

The false doctrine of Corinth influenced through lasciviousness.  It could be humor, music, enthusiastic acceptance, entertainment, or drink. These accompanied a perverted view of the body.  Libertines denied bodily resurrection, which favored their licentious manner of conduct.

Also, to retain employment in Greek society, employers required Christian employees to ally with their Greek philosophies.  Rather than start with your doctrine, they start with acceptability of lifestyle and then the false doctrine follows by conforming to the behavior.

The accompanying false doctrine might sound like the following:  “You don’t have to believe in bodily resurrection.  You could just believe in a spiritual resurrection, couldn’t you?  Isn’t that just a divisive and unnecessary scruple?”  By hanging on to this exactness in doctrine, someone could lose his job or the pleasures of Greek society.

The War Against the Entrepreneur’s Soul

People want what they want.  This lust wars against the soul, but it doesn’t seem like it wars against success in a business.  Someone entrepreneurial sees through his eyegate the success of capitulating to lust.  People line up for something that makes them feel good.  Using the attraction or allure of the lust is just good business.  It must destroy people, because it wars against their souls, as God says, but it helps in the bottom line for business.  God wants us to succeed, doesn’t He?

Longstanding victory is not the short term victory of keeping a job in Corinth or succeeding in business.  The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:25:

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

Everyone must struggle against the corruptible.  This is Solomon saying in Ecclesiastes in essence, “Ditch the temporal for the eternal, because the former is vanity and vexation of spirit.”  Struggling against the lusts of the flesh is good.  Any person’s struggle does not justify lust.  It’s a struggle.  It’s a fight not to acquiesce to the lust of the flesh.

The crown or success for the short term is what Paul calls, “a corruptible crown.”  Someone can succeed and receive the corruptible crown, if that’s what he’s shooting for.  He can use fleshly lust to obtain it, which still wars against his soul and that of his adherents or audience.  It brings failure and destruction, posing as an award or reward.  It looks motivated and ambitious, but it promotes the worst ultimate failure.

The War Against Incorruptible Gain

Someone might call the spoils of fleshly lust a market.  Like James says in chapter four of his epistle, he goes, buys, sells, and gets gain.  He doesn’t say, “If the Lord wills, I will do this or that.”  Does how you get the gain matter?  Yes.  And it also considers, “Is this really gain?”  Is it gain if it is short-term gain that receives the corruptible short term gain?  In fact, it’s not gain at all, because, again, it wars against the soul.  When the soul takes a hit, everything is taking a hit.

Perhaps you’ve heard the terminology, “Gainfully employed.”  Is a casino operator, “gainfully employed”? He’s bringing money home from work, putting it in the bank, and taking care of his family.  The United States Mail in part because of the “success” of Amazon, sends drivers delivering packages all day Sunday.  That is also “gainful employment” for delivery drivers.  What crown would you receive, the temporal one or the eternal one?

It’s easy to confuse the distinctions between liberty and lust.  Someone does not have liberty to war against the soul just because a verse doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not own a casino.”  I’m just using that as an illustration.

College students and their coaches and staff travel all over the country on Sundays for basketball and their future bright shining moment.  The bright shining moment is when the confetti falls in a basketball arena, not at the Bema seat of Jesus Christ (this might represent one shining moment as good as anything).  One should consider the incongruity of these two crowns, just like Paul did, and judge whether the lust for short term earthly gain wars against the eternal value to the soul.

More to Come