The Interrelation of the Four Enemies

These four enemies do not operate in isolation. They collaborate, reinforce one another, and exploit one another’s work. Our own sinful hearts make us vulnerable to satanic temptation. Satan uses the state to cast innocent Christians into prison (Revelation 2:10). The state employs false religion to legitimize its authority and pacify dissent. False religion exploits the suffering caused by the state to promote its own counterfeit gospel. The whole system operates as a coherent, albeit diabolical, mechanism designed to discourage, destroy, and devour the saints.

Understanding this framework is essential for any Christian who wishes to endure his suffering with wisdom and faith. If you attribute all your suffering to the state, you may neglect the work of examining your own heart. If you attribute it all to your own sin, you may fail to recognize the satanic and political dimensions of your persecution. If you see only spiritual warfare, you may neglect the concrete, institutional mechanisms through which that warfare is conducted. And if you focus exclusively on false religion, you may underestimate the power of the state to destroy your life with or without religious sanction.

The Christian’s response to these four enemies is fourfold as well. Against our own sinful hearts, we wield repentance, self-examination, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Against Satan and his demons, we employ the spiritual armor of Ephesians 6:10-18 and the resistance commanded in James 4:7. Against the state, we exercise prudence, legal advocacy where possible, self-defense where necessary, and patient endurance where unavoidable—all while maintaining our testimony and refusing to compromise our convictions. Against false religion, we preach sound doctrine, expose error, and build churches that are grounded in the whole counsel of God rather than the shifting sands of cultural accommodation and easy believism.

The Consolation of the Saints

Let me close this chapter with a word of consolation that is neither sentimental nor superficial but rooted in the bedrock of divine sovereignty. If God is sovereign—and He is, as the 1689 Confession affirms without qualification (in chapters 3 and 5)—then your suffering at the hands of these four enemies is not outside His plan. It is His plan. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). The same God who holds the hearts of kings holds the hearts of prosecutors, judges, wardens, and Pentecostal false prophets or blasphemous popes. He who “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11) has not lost control of your situation.

Indeed, He went to the extraordinary extent—speaking as if He were a man—of loving and choosing you before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-5), of sending His only begotten Son to die in your place (1 John 2:2; Romans 11:27), of calling you to faith and salvation (Romans 8:30; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:9), of comforting you (Acts 9:31; Romans 15:5; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4), and of constantly caring for your every need (Matthew 6:32-33; Philippians 4:19). Do you really think He will forsake you now during your period of suffering wrongfully?

I ask again: After ten million years in heaven or the “new earth” with great rewards, will you still dwell on your five, ten, or twenty years of unjust suffering? Remember that God already sees you as glorified, given the completed (aorist) tense of the Greek verbs in Romans 8:30: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Right now, if I may speak reverently, He is looking for an opportunity to boast about you, as He boasted about Job before the accuser. He is growing with even hotter anger (Psalm 7:11) against your enemies. He plans to judge them even more harshly—unless He chooses to magnify His grace and save some of them, as He did Saul on the road to Damascus.

The Christian who understands his four mortal enemies—who has stared unflinchingly into the abyss of his own sinful heart, who has recognized the reality of satanic opposition, who has shed his naïve trust in the benevolence of the state, and who has learned to distinguish true religion from its many counterfeits—that Christian is prepared for whatever lies ahead. He is not surprised by suffering. He is not embittered by injustice. He is not deceived by false promises. He stands on the rock of God’s sovereign purpose, clothed in the armor of God, armed with the sword of the Spirit and, when necessary, the instruments of legitimate self-defense, ready to endure whatever the unholy trinity throws at him—because he knows that the God who ordained his suffering has also ordained its end, and that the eternal weight of glory that awaits him is beyond all comparison with the afflictions of this present time (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Action Steps

Conduct an honest self-examination. Before attributing your suffering entirely to external enemies, search the Scriptures and prayerfully ask God to reveal “any wicked way” in you (Psalm 139:23-24). This is not an exercise in self-flagellation. It is an exercise in honesty before God.

Put on the full armor of God daily. Read Ephesians 6:10-18 and consciously apply each piece of armor to your spiritual life. The man who neglects his spiritual defenses is as foolish as the soldier who goes into battle without his shield.

Study the biblical doctrine of the state. Read Romans 13:1-7, Titus 3:1, 1 Peter 2:13-17, Matthew 2:16-18, Isaiah 30:33, Luke 4:5-7, Acts 12:2-5, 21-23, Revelation 2:10, 13:1-8, and Psalm 2:1-4 and 94:20 together. Understand that the state is simultaneously ordained by God and wielded by Satan—and that obedience to the state has clear biblical limits.

Arm yourself for self-defense. If you live in a jurisdiction where this is legal or not, obey Christ’s command in Luke 22:36 and acquire the means to defend yourself and your family. If you live where it is illegal, consider carefully whether that law is one you can obey in good conscience before God.

Learn to identify false religion. Study the marks of true and false churches. Teach your family and fellow believers to recognize prosperity theology, syncretism, and theological liberalism for what they are: instruments of the fourth enemy.

Discussion Questions

Why does Scripture instruct us to examine our own hearts before looking for external causes of our suffering? How does this principle apply to incarcerated Christians?

How does the concept of the “unholy trinity” (Satan, the state, false religion) help us understand the systematic nature of Christian persecution throughout history?

Read Luke 22:35-38. What does Jesus’ command to buy a sword teach us about the Christian’s responsibility for self-defense? How does this passage relate to the commonly cited “turn the other cheek” teaching in Matthew 5:39? First read 1 Kings 22:24 and Acts 23:2.

How should a Christian respond when false religion flourishes in the prison environment? What distinguishes genuine prison ministry from the counterfeit versions that exploit vulnerable men?