YOUR ENEMY WITHIN.(Discover Your Enemy)

By Prince Wilson. The Enemy Within.. A lot has already been said about the tragicstory of Samson in Judges 13-16. However, I would like to draw your   attention to an aspect of his life: his failure to conquer the enemy within. Samson was special. He was blessed with amazing physical strength which gave him great advantage over his enemies. But he had a problem. His strength couldn’t help him deal with the enemy within his own soul. He could fight and defeat the enemy without but was quite clueless when it came to fighting the enemy within. Fighting external battles was important but fighting and winning the battle within was
crucial to his long term survival as a leader in Israel. The invisible battle within his soul

was more important than the physical battles he fought and won daily. Samson never lost a single battle he
fought against the enemies of Israel, but he lost many battles within his own soul. When Samson fell, he wasn’t captured by his enemies during a battle, he was captured by the enemy which lived within
his soul. Samson lived with that enemy daily. He nurtured it, bred it and fed it until that enemy became a monster that controlled and eventually destroyed him. He failed to master the enemy when it was
little, but in his arrogance he watched it grow until it became a monster in his life. It is easier to pray against the enemy we can see and totally overlook the destroyer that lurks in our hearts. What we see is
easier to deal with than things we don’t see. From the story of Samson we discover that little things, little weaknesses, never remain little for very long. They grow. They become big and begin to dominate and
take control of our lives in unbelievable ways. Delilah didn’t destroy Samson. She couldn’t have. She didn’t have the ability to. What destroyed Samson was the sin within The real enemies were in his soul.
Pride.
Lust.
Foolishness.
Recklessness.
These were the instruments of his
destruction, not Delilah.
It makes a good story to blame Delilah for
Samson’s fall, but she didn’t make it
happen. Although she was complicit in
Samson’s downfall, she wasn’t responsible
for it. Samson’s enemy wasn’t Delilah or
any of her kind. His real enemy was the sin
within: the enemy who lived, dined and
reigned in the inner sanctuaries of his
soul.
Pride. Lust. Foolishness. Recklessness.
These were his enemies not Delilah or any
other woman.
From the day he broke his Nazarene vow
and chose to live recklessly and without
moral restraint, Samson began to die
gradually. Eventually he became a walking
corpse. If you looked at him on the
outside, he looked strong and invincible,
he fought battles and won. But if you
looked within his soul, you would have
seen a very dismal and sad picture. Inside
his soul, the real Samson was an awful
sight.
His magnificent mane had been shaved
clean. He was bald.
His eyes were gouged and had become
hollow receptacles of darkness.
His hands and feet were bound in fetters
of iron.
He was naked.
He was incarcerated and held a prisoner by
the sin in his soul.
It was just a matter of time before the
condition of his soul became a living fact
in his life.
Delilah didn’t have the power or ability to
hurt Samson. He hurt himself. He
destroyed himself.
Samson didn’t fall when he met Delilah.
No. He was fallen and defeated long
before he met her. When he chose to
desecrate his Nazarene vow, he chose a
path of defeat, failure and death. If he
hadn’t fallen in his soul, his feet would
never have found the crooked path that le
to the darkness of Delilah’s lair.
When believers or ministers of the gospel
fall into sin, it isn’t because they were
seduced by their accomplices to commit
that sin.The truth is that they were already
fallen in their hearts before they met
whoever they fell into sin with. That sin
was already a reality in their soul before it
manifested itself in their lives. Instead of
blaming someone else for your sin, you
should take responsibility for it and ask
The Lord for forgiveness. Ask Him to
deliver you from the sin lurking within your
soul.
The Bible says in James 1:14-15 that we
are ensnared by unrestrained desires
within which gives birth to sin and when
sin is fully mature, it brings forth death. It
is the lusts that war in our soul that keeps
us bound, not the temptations without.
Have you ever heard a man say, ‘she
seduced me and I couldn’t resist her’? He
is lying through his teeth. He wanted to do
it more than he didn’t want to, that was
why he did it. Dear woman, please don’t
flatter yourself; you cannot tempt or
seduce a man to fall into sin with you
unless that sin is already in his soul. And
you cannot be seduced to fall into sin with
a man unless that sin is already in your
soul.
If the desire is not in your soul, you will
never be drawn to commit that sin.
It is the covetousness in your soul that
makes you want to keep accumulating
more and more even when you already
have a lot.
If you don’t deal with pride in your soul,
you will always want to prove something to
people around you no matter how
successful you become.
If there is no lust within your soul you
won’t be tempted by it.
If there is no desire to steal, you won’t be
tempted to steal.
In Revelations 3:1, The Lord speaking to
the Church in Sardis said, “I know your
works, that you have a name that you are
alive,but you are dead.” Speaking to the
Church of the Laodiceans in Revelations
3:17-18, he said, “because you say, ‘I am
rich, have become wealthy, and have need
of nothing’- and do not know that you are
wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and
naked. I counsel you to buy from Me gold
refined in the fire that you may be rich;
and white garments that you may be
clothed, that the shame of your of your
nakedness may not be revealed and anoint
your eye with eye salve that you may see.”
The Lord Jesus looked into their soul, but
they looked at themselves on the outside
and couldn’t see their deplorable state.
They were rebuked for what was a reality in
their soul, not what they looked like on the
outside.
What matters is the state of your soul.
When we deal with the sin in our soul, it
will never find expression in our lives.
Hebrews 12:1, says we should lay aside
every besetting sin.
The real battle is within your soul.
When we win within, it is sure that we will
win without.
Blessings.