“The night is far spent, the day is at hand:
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
and let us put on the armour of light. 
Let us walk honestly, as in the day;
not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envying.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the flesh,
to fulfill its lusts.”

~Romans 13:12-14

In the 4th century AD, there was a gifted young man whose mother was a devout Christian. His father was a pagan. The boy followed in the footsteps of his father and became a notorious libertine. A time would come when he would write his Confessions and share the exceeding sinfulness of his life prior to his conversion to Christ.

The story of his salvation is united to Paul’s letter to the Romans, and to Romas 13:12-14 in particular.

As the story goes, Augustine was visiting in the home of a friend. While waiting in a open courtyard, he overhead some children playing school. The words tolle lege, tolle lege, meaning “pick up and read, pick up and read,” came to his ears. He smiled, and looked around. Spotting an opened manuscript on a table nearby, he picked the manuscript and read these words.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts

In the providence of God, the Holy Spirit convicted Augustine of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. In the flash of a moment, the Parodical Son saw the essence of his soul as being vile, wretched, and in need of cleansing and salvation. Each word of the text became was a gospel arrowed aimed at his heart.

Augustine was living a life of carousing.

Augustine was drinking to excess.

Augustine was controlled by inordinate lust.

Augustine was contentious, especially with his mother who followed him, literally, wherever he went, calling him from a life of wasted years.

Augustine was envious of the success of other gifted teachers.

Augustine knew how to make provisions for the flesh in order to calm the stormy passions that ruled his life during the day, and especially at night.

Then came the Holy Spirt who opened Augustine’s heart to the gospel. Augustine wanted to “put on Jesus,” meaning, he wanted to live a life of righteousness. For far too long he lived a life of wasted years.

“Have you lived without love, a life of tears?
Have you searched for life’s hidden meaning,
Or is your life filled with long and wasted years?

Wasted years, wasted years, oh how foolish,
As you walk on in darkness and in fears;
Turn around, turn around, God is calling,
He’s calling you from a life of wasted years.

There is someone who knows and always hears;
Give it up! Give it up! The load you’re bearing!
You can’t go on in a life of wasted years.”

~Wally Fowler

With Aurelius Augustine’s decision, energized by the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5) to put on Christ, the hopes and prayers of his mother Monica were answered. There was a new name written day in heaven.  The Prodigal Son was coming home.

“I’ve wandered far away from God,
Now I’m coming home;
The paths of sin too long I’ve trod,
Lord, I’m coming home.

Coming home, coming home,
Nevermore to roam;
Open wide Thine arms of love,
Lord, I’m coming home.”

~William J. Kirkpatrick

There was a new name written down in glory.  Little did Augustine realize how God would use him in a marvelous way. He would become the Bishop of Hippo in N Africa, and one of the greatest theologians in the Church.

The conversion of Augustus in 386 AD, brings attention to the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit.

There is a spiritual conflict which is very real.

It is a violent conflict because the flesh does not die without a struggle.

It is a constant conflict. Sometimes the battle for the soul will rage for decades before there is any hope of conquest for the flesh is a Hydra, a muti-headed serpent.  When one head is cut off, two more grow back in its place, making it a formidable opponent.

Despite the strength of the flesh, there is One who has omnipotent strength to defeat the monster that has found a home in the heart out of which, Jesus said, “proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19).

The challenge is for the one who hears the gospel to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

The command is twofold.

First, Jesus Christ is to be “put on.”

Second, no provision is to be made for the flesh, to fulfill its lust. Anyone who is honest about their sin, can confess that careful provision is often made for the flesh, to fulfill its lust.

Paul understood perfectly how individuals plan to do wrong. The more restrictions placed on a behavior the cleverer a person will become to achieve their illicit objective. Individuals become sophisticate in sin when the mind becomes compartmentalize. This allows a facade way of living which disarms people so they do not suspect something is wrong. The true remains that before an overt sinful act is taken, provision is made for the flesh.  

The greedy gambler plans a trip to a casino in order to enjoy the thrill of winning large sums of money, if possible. And even if no money is won, there are the show girls to enjoy, the raucous laughter, the drinks that flow, and fine dining.

The lustful person with an insatiable desire for sexual activities, fantasizes about new adventures and plans how an inappropriate relationship can be arranged and maintained, when an explicit movie can be watched, a pornographic book can be read, or a chat room can be visited to enjoy an erotic conversation. In every generation there are men and women, young and old, who love darkness rather than light because their deeds are consciously evil.

The violent person seethes with anger and inner rage. Plans are made to say or do something to hurt someone.

In his Confessions, Book II, Augustine (b. Nov. 13, 354 AD) remembered an incident when he was a teenager that crystalized for him the essence of sin and just how despicable the flesh is.

Augustine remembered how he and his friends went into a private orchard and stole the fruit off a pear tree. Augustine was 16 years old, c. 370 AD.

Why did Augustine steal the pears?

“Augustine confesses that his motive wasn’t hunger or necessity, as he had better pears at home, but rather the thrill of the forbidden act itself. He writes that he “loved the evil in me,” drawn by the excitement of sinning alongside his companions, whose company amplified his desire. This wasn’t about the fruit’s value—he discarded most of it—but about the perverse joy of rebellion” (“The Pear Treer Incident in St. Augustine’s Life,” CATHOLIC FREQUENCY).

In a world filled with sadistic murderers, the horrible incidents associated with warfare, prostitution, and drug addiction, Augustine’s concentration on stealing pairs seems not just forgivable, but silly to be remembered and written about at length.

However, Augustine explained why he was so remorseful over this childhood behavior, a behavior that lead to much more serious sins. Augustine came to understand that his first motion of conscious sinning was not arrested.

That is still what make the battle against the flesh so difficult. When the flesh begins to stir, there is a conscious decision to find a way to fulfill or satisfy that first inclination of the heart, even though God forbids it, the Spirit is grieved, the soul is not satisfied, and someone else is hurt by every selfish behavior.  There is no sin which affects only oneself.

When Augustine reviewed his life, he concluded there was behavior he engaged in that, while inexcusable, was at least understandable. His strong biological desire to be loved and to love led him to the arms of a paramour with whom he had a son. The union was not sanctioned by law or by God; it was understandable, but inexcusable. People who live together intimately and indiscreetly without any authentic commitment, are not to be emulated or honored.

Augustine said he could understand a starving man stealing a loaf of bread. He did not excuse it, but the act was understandable.

When the midwives of Egypt hid the male Hebrew babies from those who had standing order to commit infanticide, they lied to the authorities. If it was wrong to lie, it was also understandable. The situation of Rahab lying about hiding the spies is again, understandable, even if was morally wrong to lie.

However, Augustine placed his own sin of stealing pears in a category by itself when there is no justification for the act except an exciting emotion that gave him joy, he was rebelling against the laws of man and the Law of God, and he knew it.

When a person does wrong, they are exercising the Fallen Nature the Bible calls, the Flesh.

The Bible says those who are in the flesh cannot please God for they that are after the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh (Romans 8:8, 5). The mind of the flesh is characterized by total self-centeredness driven by the will to power (Isaiah 14:14), and the principle of pleasure (Heb. 11:25). At that moment a person wants to be God because God is omnipotent and does what so ever He wants, and He does it for His own good pleasure.

“Thou art worthy, O Lord,
to receive glory and honour and power:
for thou hast created all things,
and for thy pleasure they are and
were created.”

~Revelation 4:11

The difference between quest for self-pleasure and to be like God is that it is based on a lie. When Satan came to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he promised they could be like God. But the devil lied. There is no one other than God. Man can never be a god, nor like God in the purity of His essence. When man tries to be like God there is war, murder, rape, incest, lying, hatred, infanticide, pedophilia, and the holocaust.

The minds the righteous shudder and ask, “How can people this, one to another?” “How can a whole nation be persuaded to allow abortion on demand, or support the genocidal slaughter of a group of people, such as the Jews?”

The answer is found in the mindset of the flesh which is so twisted in some that unimaginable horror is justified in the name compassion, exterminating the lunatics, and racial purity. Herein is, what Joseph Conrad called, “the heart of darkness.” The Bible calls the heart of darkness, the flesh.

When a person gazes with spiritual eyes into the heart of darkness, as Augustine di, there is a terrifying realization of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Even the most innocuous sin, such as taking pears without permission, and for no good reason, is horrifying and will justly sink a soul into the abyss of eternal darkness.

When Paul speaks about the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit, he is not referring about the struggle between the body and the Spirit, though the body is an instrument the flesh uses to accomplish its will.

Beyond the physical body is the spirit of man, and the spirit of man, which energizes the body, is in conflict with the Spirit of God. The influence of the spirit of Fallen Humanity is at war with God the Holy Spirit.

The result is spiritual warfare. There is a war going on between the flesh the new man. The flesh has two other allies forming an Axis of Evil. Those two allies are the world, and the Devil.

When the World, the Flesh, and the Evil converge and are never challenged a spiritual callous grows on the soul the point the mind is darkened, heart is hardened, the truth is rejected.

At that point God sears the soul, making it insensitive to any divine touch, doomed to hell. There are people to whom Jesus points and say, “You will not come to me.” When God in His sovereign grace regenerates a soul by His Spirit, there is a new sensitive in the soul (Titus 3:5). There is a desire to obey the gospel; and have victory over evil. The pathway to victory over the flesh is twofold.

First, put on Christ. By putting on Christ, much like one puts on a garment, the power of the Flesh, which has not been annihilated at salvation, can be put to death, or, rendered inoperative.

The Bible commands the Christ to “reckon” or consider oneself to be dead to sin as a ruling principled, and alive to God. This is not a matter of feeling, but a faith principle.

When this commandment is obeyed, the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk, not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Only when this is done can God be pleased. Pleasing God is the objective of the Christian life.

Being holy pleases God.

Being sensitive to sin, as Augustine was, pleases God.

Putting on Christ like a garment and living in the sphere of spiritual consciousness, always wanting to do the will of the Father, pleases God.

Considering oneself to be dead to sin, pleases God.

Walking in the Spirit, pleases God. A lifestyle characterized by the Flesh does not please God.

God is most pleased, or satisfied with us, when we are most satisfied, or pleased, in Him. It is possible to live in a way that is pleasing to God. This way is by putting on Christ.

To be spiritual is not by living a life of ascetism, and denying the body certain items. No, to be spiritual is to put on Christ.

Rigorous forms of self-denial, self-flagellation, promises to God, self-loathing, and detailed confession of sin before others, forgets that God has looked at the physical world and declared it to be “very good.” So, care has to be taken. The battle is for the mind, the heart, the essence of the soul. The Flesh that resides in the soul due to the Fall is what must be fought to the finish. The battle is between the inner Flesh and the Holy Spirit.

No one should hate the body and desire to be release from it in order to please God, as the Greeks were taught by Plato.

Christianity does not believe in a resurrection from the body, but the resurrection of the body, minus the Flesh. Matter is not evil. What is evil is the work of the Flesh are self-evident in 

“Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21).

Many of these sins are in the spirit, they are in the Flesh. They must be put off so that Christ can be put on.

True, the Christian may do carnal things, terrible things, but if God is in them, they will be grieved by the Spirit they grieve, and they will be disciplined by the Father who chastises His children for egregious behavior. On the other side of divine discipline, cursing is turned to blessing, fellowship is restored, and the walk in the Spirit continues. Though a good man stumbles, they shall rise again.

Second, no provision is to be made for the lusts of the flesh.  The only way this can happen is for there to be a consciousness that He who resides in the soul of the New Man, is greater than he that is in the world, and, the Old Man which lingers in the soul of the convert to Christ.

These two main actions have to be taken because after salvation, though the New Man, the inner man is renewed, the Old Man remains to be destroyed. That is the conflict with the Flesh. The Old Man must die so that the New Man can live in peace with God.