SUNDAY MESSAGE: How To Deal With Our Enemies

Pastor Robb Goodman: Hey everybody, welcome this Sunday morning. My name is Pastor Rob Goodman. I am the senior pastor here at Zion Freedom Fellowship in Maryland. And I hope that you’re doing great.

Praise be to God. The Lord is good, is he not? He is always faithful. He’s always good. And he wants to bless you today. Amen. That’s right. He wants to bless you.

You know why he wants to bless you? Because he loves you. He loves you as his dear children. What parent doesn’t want to bless his child? As parents, we find great joy in blessing our children.

We give them gifts or we give them tickets to a amusement park or something of that. You know, it brings us joy and happiness. So, praise be to God. God wants to bless you today.

Are you ready to receive his blessings? Don’t let the enemy rob you of your blessings. That we, the scripture says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse three that we’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

And we stand before him faultless without blame. Faultless and without blame, we are blessed. Amen. Do you believe that today? Say amen with me. All right.

Well, the title of today’s message is, “How do we deal with our enemies?” How do we deal with our enemies? I truly believe in my heart that we’ve got many spiritual enemies right now.

But also, especially in our country, I know the day will come when we will have natural and physical enemies. Why? Because of persecution. So, what does the Bible, what does Jesus, what do the scriptures tell us how we are to respond when we’re hated?

What do we do? And of course, let’s pray over this message before we begin. And we’ll dive right into it. And you can turn to Matthew chapter 5. If you’ve got your Bibles open, please open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.

And I’ll give you the verses in just a moment. Okay. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you that you are our living, holy, righteous God. You are our father.

We’ve been adopted into the family of God through the work of Jesus Christ. What he did at Calvary on that cross, what he did, we have free access into your kingdom. Praise be to God.

Thank you, Lord, that we can stand boldly before the throne of grace. Amen. We can come boldly and open face before you without shame, without condemnation. Thank you, Lord, that you see us through the eyes of your son and what Jesus did.

You don’t hold anything against us. And Lord, we ask you for your forgiveness right now. We ask you to cleanse us from all sin that keeps us from experiencing your supernatural blessings.

Lord, I ask you to cleanse the people today, Lord, to cleanse them as they’re listening to me pray to pour out your spirit upon them and make them clean and holy and righteous before you.

Lord, you’ve given to us the free gift of righteousness. The free gift. We don’t have to do anything to earn it. We just receive it. So, Father, bless your people.

Bless your people with your peace, Lord. Let your tranquility be upon them. Let your righteousness rest upon them and give them a boldness, Lord, to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And Lord, I ask you that this message today would encourage them, build them up, and strengthen them. I pray these things in the mighty most precious and holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And amen.

Well, let’s go to Matthew chapter 5. And we are going to start off with verse 43. Matthew chapter 5. This is Jesus speaking during his sermon on the mount. And blessed be the name of the Lord.

Here is what Jesus said in verse 43. You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father in heaven.

For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do this? Well, of course, the world is greeting to one another, but they don’t know how to love their enemies.

You and I as Christians must learn how to love our enemies. And we’re going to look at some places in scripture today where we can look at like David before he was king. Look what David went through. He went through a terrible, terrible time.

Well, in Matthew chapter 5, the scriptures that we just read, Jesus commands his followers to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you.

This radical teaching from the sermon on the mount calls for active love. Active love. Active love. Reversing the common practice of hating. Wow. Jesus didn’t teach us to hate our enemies, did he?

No. He taught us to love them. Amen. Well, you might say, “Well, I could never forgive someone who killed my mom or who killed my dad or my son and my daughter.” But I’m going to say to you that you can by the grace of God.

You are able and you will be given the grace of God to be able to forgive. You know, oftentimes when we don’t forgive others, when we don’t forgive them, it hurts us. When we’re not willing to forgive others their trespasses against us, it comes back on us.

It comes back on us in stress, bad memories, sometimes can’t sleep at night. But the peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus because God loves you.

God doesn’t want you to feel like you’ve been forsaken and left on the side of the road because you’re a no good and nobody loves you. No. Jesus loves you so much. He died for you.

He laid down his life for you so that he could give you a gift of righteousness. Wow. What a powerful powerful word there. That is so powerful. Praise be to God. God is so so faithful. I’m telling you, he is faithful. All right.

This radical teaching from the sermon on the mount calls for active love, reversing the common practice of hating. Jesus was correcting the common interpretation to love your neighbor and to hate your enemies.

That’s what people thought back in those days. They still feel that way today. That is human nature. Well, I love someone that does something good for me. You know, I repay good.

You know, that person gave me a beautiful gift. I’ve got to go out and give them something just as much or better than that. No, that’s not the way the love of God works.

The love of God will work when you have an enemy. You know, I remember when I was a young guy, 14, 15 years old. I just started high school. And I had a neighbor that was high on PCP.

And he led me into a woods one night. I’m not going to get into this whole story. You guys have heard it before, but you know, we’re walking into a woods and he strangled me with a rope from behind and kept beating me up and kicking me in the face.

I had my skull was fractured in a couple places. My eye orbits were messed up and fractured. My nose was broken. My jaw was broken. My jaw had to be wired shut for like six weeks. It was a terrible, terrible thing.

But I remember when I first got saved, the Lord taught me to forgive him and his family. It was awful. We were friends as kids. And my dad was good friends with his dad. And yeah, it was just awful. It was terrible.

But God in his mercy, he forgave me of sins and things that I had done. Why could I not forgive this man that hurt me and tried to kill me? I mean, it was just absolutely horrendous and terrible.

And the medical bills and all that. It was just unbelievable. But thanks be to God, the Lord did not allow any evil to come upon this young man. He was messed up. Just messed up.

And I hope that one day he found the Lord. I don’t even know if he’s still around anymore, but God knows. Amen. God knows exactly what is going on. And he knows what’s going on with you, too.

He knows every situation in your life. He knows everyone who has wronged you. He knows family members who have hurt you desperately. But he also gives you the power and the unction of the Holy Spirit to forgive and to walk in peace with those who have hurt you.

Praise be to God. God is so faithful. He is so so very faithful and he is so good. The goal is to act like children of God who provides for both the righteous and the unrighteous.

It aims to break the cycle of retaliation. Powerful. You know, we don’t retaliate. Oh, you know, you screwed me over big time. I’m going to screw you over worse. No, it doesn’t work like that in the kingdom of God.

We love those who harm us and persecute us and we forgive them. Amen. For unforgiveness is worse on you or worse on me if I don’t forgive someone. It’s worse on me.

I have to forgive. And then I release it to the Lord and allow him to work in his time and in his way and his nature to resolve the situation. And he is faithful to do that.

Loving enemies is presented as a choice, not a feeling. Wow. Think about that. Loving enemies is presented as a choice, not a feeling. It includes praying for them, caring for them when they are hurting, and doing good to them.

Jesus himself modeled this, praying for those who crucified him. This command challenges natural instincts to retaliate and instead calls for overcoming evil with good.

So what did Jesus do on the cross? He told his father, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” I mean, can you just imagine? Here he is being whipped and tormented and mocked, half naked hanging on that cross.

I mean, it was terrible here. He was the son of God, the king of glory, and they treated him that way. You and I must pay attention, and we must respond the way that God wants us to respond or things will never be okay.

We must submit to the counsel of God on all of these things. And he will make a way for us. He will make a way for us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord.

This command challenges natural instincts to retaliate and instead calls for overcoming evil with good. Wow. Retaliation will never—it’ll give you a fake feeling for a few minutes. Oh, I got him back.

But when you forgive them and you commit that person that hurt you to the Lord, God will deal with them in a way that you have no idea how he did it. He will allow you to overcome and he will give you strength and comfort and encouragement.

God is good, isn’t he? All right. David, prior to becoming king, was constantly being hunted down by Saul. Let’s go to 1st Samuel chapter 23 and we’re going to start at verse 24.

Now, this is when David before he was king was being persecuted by Saul. Saul, he wanted to kill him. He literally wanted to wipe him out. And how David responded to him—I’ve been meditating on these chapters this past week and I’m just amazed at what the Lord enabled David to do.

I mean, when you think about it, it just blows my mind to be honest with you. So verse 24. So they arose and went to Ziph before Saul. But David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon in the plain of the south of Jeshimon.

When Saul and his men went to seek him, they told David. Therefore, he went down into the rock and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued David in the wilderness of Maon.

Now, Jeshimon and this area of Maon was a very desolate place in Israel and hard to survive there. But David and his 600 men were there and they were protecting David.

David raised up a small army and God honored David because he knew that he had anointed David to become the next king. Well, Saul wanted nothing to do with it and he hated David.

He hated David for that and he tried to run him down. Then Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. So David made haste to get away from Saul, for Saul and his men were encircling David and his men to take them.

 

But a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land.” Therefore, Saul returned from pursuing David and went against the Philistines. So, they called that place the rock of escape.

 

So, this is quite interesting because here David is being pursued by Saul, but the Lord allows Israel’s enemy to come and attack them, the Philistines. And Saul was drawn away.

God gave time for David to recoup with his men and to probably plan what they were going to do. And David being a wise man and a servant of the Lord, I’m sure that he prayed and asked God, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

That’s the kind of guy that David was. “What do you want me to do? Lord, you know everything. Give me wisdom. Give me understanding. Let me know what you want.” It’s amazing. Absolutely amazing that God protects his children and those he loves.

We don’t have to act in our own strength. We don’t have to plan things like how are we going to retaliate and take this thing down. No, we can trust the Lord. And God has better ways of doing things than you and I ever could.

Does he not? He certainly does. He has ideas that you and I would never think of. Our God is no dummy. He’s very wise and intelligent and smart and no man shall be able to stand before him all the days of his life.

I’m telling you guys that is powerful. Put your faith and your hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t allow Satan to rob you of the peace, the joy. Don’t let him take anything from you that God has given to you.

And you stand up and praise God in the midst of your circumstances and worship the Lord and begin to battle in the spirit. Pray in tongues, pray in the Holy Spirit and bind the enemy.

Jesus gave us that power, that same dunamis power, that righteous power he gave to us to overcome every enemy. Praise God. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Then David went up from there and dwelt in the strongholds of En Gedi. All right, we’re going to go to chapter 24. So, David before coming king was constantly being hunted down by Saul.

How does David respond to Saul’s wanting to kill David? Let’s find out together. Let’s turn to 1st Samuel chapter 24 and we’ll start with verse one. Now it happened when Saul had returned from following the Philistines that it was told him, saying, “Take note, David was in the wilderness of En Gedi.”

Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all Israel. Now remember, David only had 600 men, right? He only had 600. So the odds were against him in numbers of men it was.

But God is bigger than man, right? God is bigger than any circumstance that you’ll ever face, any legal battle you ever go through. God is with you and he will keep you.

Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all of Israel and went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats. So he came to the sheepfolds by the road where there was a cave and Saul went in to attend to his needs.

David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave. So evidently the way that I understand this, this was the same cave that Saul decided to rest and take care of his needs.

David was back further. David knew these caves and him and his men were back there and they probably had torch lamps and things like that and they had light to be able to do what they were able to do.

Then the men of David said to him, “This is the day of which the Lord said to you, behold, I will deliver your enemies into your hand, that you may do to him as it seems good to you.”

And David arose and secretly cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Now, think about this for a minute. David’s followers, his mighty men were telling him, “Hey, this is the day that the Lord spoke to you, maybe a year ago.”

“This is the day that the Lord spoke to you and said he’s going to deliver Saul into your hand.” Well, David could have acted unrighteously and killed Saul. It could have easily been done. But let’s read what happens.

And David arose and secretly cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Now, it happened afterward that David’s heart troubled him. Pay close attention to that. David’s heart troubled him because he had cut off Saul’s robe.

And he said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing that he is the anointed of the Lord.”

So, David recognized Saul’s anointing and where it came from. It came from the Lord. Amen. And David would have nothing to do with that to destroy that. He just said, “Forget it. I’m not going to do that.”

“I’m not going to bring my master harm.” So David restrained his servants with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave and went on his way.

David also arose afterwards and went out of the cave and called out to Saul, saying, “My lord the king.” And when Saul looked at him, David stooped down with his face to the earth and bowed down.

And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say indeed David seeks your harm? Look, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave.”

“And someone urged me to kill you, but my eye spared you. But I said, I will not stretch out my hand against the Lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed. Moreover, my father, see, yes, see the corner of your robe in my hand.”

“For in that I cut off the corner of your robe, and did not kill you.” That proved David’s heart intention right there. David would have no evil against King Saul. David respected the Lord’s will and he respected the Lord’s anointing.

And he said, “I did not kill you. Know and see that there is neither evil nor rebellion in my hand, and I have not sinned against you. But you hunt my life to take it.”

“Let the Lord judge between you and me, and let the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you. As the proverb of the ancient says, wickedness proceeds from the wicked, but my hand shall not be against you.”

 

“After whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea? Therefore let the Lord be judge and judge between you and me and see and plead my cause and deliver me out of your hand.”

 

So it was when David had finished speaking these words to Saul that Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. Then he said to David, “You are more righteous than I.”

 

“For you have rewarded me with good whereas I have rewarded you with evil. And you have shown this day how you would have dealt with me. For when the Lord delivered me into your hand, you did not kill me.”

 

“For if a man finds his enemy, he will let him get away safely. Therefore, may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. And now I know indeed that you shall surely be king.”

 

“And that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. Therefore, swear now to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me, and that you will not destroy my name from my father’s house.”

 

So David swore to Saul and Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold. Remember we taught on strongholds last week, how to break strongholds. Well, this is a verse here where David was kept in the Lord’s strongholds.

 

You and I, whenever we are persecuted, whenever we are told that we’re going to be killed or this or that or the other, we must remember to walk in love to our enemies. This is what’s going to change the heart of evil men is the love of God.

And I tell you, I pray for my government all the time. I pray that God would soften their hearts, that he would allow them to be changed and become righteous men and women of God who love the Lord.

Lord God, have your way with this nation. Lord, have your way. I ask you, Father, have your way in Jesus’ mighty name. Have your way. Let your spirit, let your love, let your angels minister to those that are in need of Jesus Christ.

Have your way, Lord. We cannot do this in our own strength, but you can do it. Amen. You are the one who enables us to be like you. Thank you, Father, in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank God.

So, David was convicted how he had cut off the corner of Saul’s robe. He had the right heart attitude about not bringing harm to the Lord’s anointed. He listened and he obeyed the Lord. Wow. Praise be to God.

Scripture advises us to be loving, blessing, and praying for our enemies rather than seeking vengeance with a focus on doing good to overcome evil. Actions include feeding our hungry enemies and helping them.

As this acts like burning coals, conviction and shame to foster or bring repentance, allowing God to bring forth justice. It’s amazing. You know, God is a just God.

He sees every circumstance and every situation and he will act on what’s best according to his will. And you and I have got to come into agreement with his will. If we’re not in agreement with his will, then we will stay lost.

Wow. Thank you, Lord. All right, let’s look at Proverbs 25. If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For so you will heap coals of fire on his head and the Lord will reward you.

Praise be to God. Romans 12:17 and then 21. Paul is quoting Proverbs verbatim here. Coals of fire on their head speaks of conviction on their conscience. We must not rejoice in the fall of our enemies or when the Lord brings judgment on them.

And of course Proverbs 24:17 says, “It is extremely difficult to love our enemies when they have deeply hurt us.” The key biblical example is how David responded to Saul when he was trying to kill him.

We can all learn a great deal from David’s example in this particular situation. Now, let’s look at a New Testament situation. Let’s go to Acts chapter 7. Let me get a drink of my hot tea here.

I love a good mint tea and I love a good red tea. Acts 7 verse 57. Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord. This is where Stephen was being stoned.

And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying—listen to his response.

“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep and went on to be with the Lord.

Isn’t that amazing? That is absolutely amazing. Would to God that we all find ourselves like Stephen in that moment that we would be willing to forgive because we’re going to go to be with the Lord.

Stephen was the first martyr and many followed after him. Blessed be the name of Jesus. All right, let’s look at first Peter chapter 3. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers.

 

Be tenderhearted. Be courteous. Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing. Knowing that you were called to this that you may inherit a blessing.

 

For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.

 

We must allow Holy Spirit to cause our hearts to be tender. This is of great value in the eyes of the Lord. Amen. And amen. Well, praise be to God. I pray that the Lord has spoken to your heart where this message is concerned.

And I’m sensing right now that there are those of you out there that are watching this message right now. I don’t know. But there’s someone out there right now that someone has harmed you very deeply. Someone has hurt you.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Father, have your way, Lord. Have your way, Jesus. The Lord loves you and he wants to give you the grace to forgive this person who has hurt you so very deeply.

You feel like you’ve been cut in the chest and your gut is hanging out. But God’s going to take away that pain right now. He’s going to take away that pain. Pray this with me. Say this prayer with me.

Father, I ask you to help me overcome all hatred in my heart. Lord, I ask you to give me grace to forgive whoever it might be I’m talking about here. You know who this person is. I’m speaking to you.

Give your heart to Jesus. Give your heart to him right now and let him heal you. Let him take away the stress and the hurt and the pain. You’re struggling even today, years after this has happened.

Just let him deal with you. Say, “Lord, I forgive this individual right now.” Just forgive them. Come on now. Just forgive them. Let Jesus have this hurt. Cast it off on him right now.

His shoulders are bigger than yours. Cast it off on him and let him heal your heart. It may be a husband that’s taken away your children or vice versa and you feel really hurt right now.

Somebody has caused great division in your family. Just allow God to work. Let’s say this with me. Say it out of your mouth. “Lord Jesus, I forgive this person.” Put their name out there.

Just say, “I forgive them. I release them. Jesus, I ask that you save this person. Jesus, I give them to you. I thank you right now for having your way. They belong to you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.”

Wow. Praise be to God. God is moving right now. Obey the Lord right now. Those of you that are listening to this message right now, I ask you to obey the Lord. Obey him. Obey the Lord.

If you’ve been watching this message today and you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ, I ask you to ask Jesus into your heart right now. I ask you to humble yourself before the Lord and confess to him that you’re a sinner.

Only Jesus can make your life right. Only Jesus can fix your broken heart. Only Jesus can restore. He can heal. He can restore. And he can renew. Jesus, have your way.

“Jesus, come into my heart. I need you. Please come into my heart and forgive me for all of my sin.” If you prayed that prayer with me, I want you to email me. You can email me at [email protected].

Again, that’s [email protected]. As soon as I get that email, as soon as I see it, I will respond to you. Thank you so much for watching today. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his everlasting, ever-enduring shalom, his perfect peace. Nothing broken, nothing fail.

He is the star shalom, Jesus Christ, the prince of peace in Jesus’ name. I look forward to seeing y’all next week, God willing. Have a wonderful weekend. Have a wonderful time with your family on this Sabbath day.

Let the Lord have his way with you in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen and amen. Love you all. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful wonderful day in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.