Dealing with Enemies and Adversaries Gods Way

In this sermon, the speaker discusses how to deal with adversaries or enemies. They emphasize the importance of forgiveness and loving your enemies. They explain that forgiving and loving your enemies does not make you weak, but rather empowers you and allows you to overcome evil with good. They also suggest preaching the gospel through your conduct and focusing on your assignment to weaken the enemy's attacks. Overall, the message encourages listeners to respond to adversaries with forgiveness, love, and a focus on their own mission. Hello and welcome to Start Right With Jesus. My name is Ovio Ayala and it's my pleasure to welcome you to Start Right With Jesus today. Today we will continue our studies of Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 12 and we will be focusing specifically on verse 6 to 12 today. I read Mark chapter 2, verses 6 to 12 He said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven you? Or to say, Arise, take up your bed, and walk? 10. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house. 11. Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this. We previously discussed who are the people that you can find in a situation and they could be friends, they could be distractors, they could be detractors and they could be enemies. We will not have time to go over them again but we talked about distractors as those who simply are just space fillers who can just be blocking the way like the multitude in the church. And we talked about the detractors as being those who see their mission as just being competitors with you or just people who are pulling you down. And the detractors are adversaries. Now today we just want to talk strictly on the adversaries. And Jesus Christ taught us in this verse how to deal with our adversaries. You know, we saw that the scribes, they were very negative, they were embittered. We don't know what is swelling, it could be anger, it could be envy, it could just be that they were just setting their ways. But Jesus taught us how to deal with our adversaries. Another name for adversaries is enemy. And we will just quickly look at different ways, strategies to deal with the enemy. The first one that Jesus Christ taught us, which we find in Luke 23 verse 34, is that he taught us to forgive them. You know, Jesus Christ himself, eventually after all these devices and these scribes, they did not just stop at criticizing him. Eventually they lied against him and they got him to be crucified. And all that Jesus Christ had to say in Luke 23 verse 34 was, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. They indeed did not know what they do. The Bible tells us that if the rulers had known that by crucifying the Son of Glory, that he was going to bring many more sons to God, they would not have done so. So, the enemy don't know that when they are attacking you, they are actually helping God to bring out the best in you. And that's why you need to forgive them quickly, so that they don't block your own answer to prayers. Grudges, bitterness, and resentment can lead you to sin yourself, to fall into temptation. But more importantly, they can even block you from getting the miracle that is due to you. And you will be validating them and altering yourself by abhorring grudge. A medical doctor once said that, concerning depression, he said that when you continue to think about what the enemy has done, what you are just doing is that you are just giving them rent-free access in your brain. You are just giving them rent-free access in your brain. In Matthew 6 verse 14 to 15, it says, If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive them their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And this is so important. When you look at the context before that Matthew 6 verse 14, you will discover that it was the Lord's prayer. It says, Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. It means that even the simplest prayer that you will pray depends on forgiveness. And you see the verse before, forgive us our debts, says, give us this day our daily bread. The verse after it says, do not lead us into temptation. It means not only will unforgiveness prevent you from getting your daily bread from God, it will eventually lead you to temptation and deliver us into the hand of the evil one. And that's why verse 13 says, do not lead us into temptation and deliver us from the evil one. So forgiveness is central. I think we can leave that alone for a full explanation. Somebody will say, how can I forgive somebody that has not even said sorry? Well, if you are waiting to receive sorry, you will wait for a long time. And many things could have gone wrong by then. The second thing that Jesus said that we should do is to love your enemies. I know somebody is saying, maybe you don't even know who I'm talking about. Not only has this person hurt me very badly, the person is actively working against my interest. But Jesus Christ said in the book of Matthew chapter 5 verse 43, He says, you have heard it 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, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Verse 46, 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 so? Verse 48, therefore you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect. We should learn from Jesus and we should take his word seriously. We need to love our enemies. Why should we love our enemy? One of the reasons we should love our enemy is that you need to recognize that the ultimate enemy is the devil. The Bible says that we do not war against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. Loving your enemy does not make you weak. It just means that you forgive them of their sins and also that you feed them. Sometimes God can put the blessing of your enemy in your hand such that you will be the one to feed them. Such that they will not be able to do anything without you. Also that your opinion will count in delivering their blessings in such opportunities. Do not let us be vindictive. Let us just do what we need to do. Romans 12.20 says that when you do this, it is like you are pouring coals on the ears of your enemy. Before you get excited about pouring coals, it is not an entirely negative thing. All you need to do is to love the enemy first. The Bible says in Romans 12.19-21 so that you can understand the meaning of pouring coal in context. It says that do not avenge yourself but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. When I was researching this, I am told that in ancient Egypt, one of the ways they deal with their enemy is by pouring coals of fire on their head. But in the context of what we are talking about here, it means that you are killing your enemy with guilt. They know that they are doing evil against you, yet you are still doing good. That is just like you are pouring coals of fire. That guilt itself has a place. Just love your enemy. The third thing that you can do, apart from forgiving your enemy, loving your enemy, is you may seek to preach the gospel to your enemy with your conduct. As you are loving your enemy, it becomes a summon to the enemy. If they have any conscience, they will know that you are really going above the call of duty to do something for them. In 2 Corinthians 3 verse 2, the Bible says, You are the epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the Living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh that is of the earth. When you conduct yourself in a way that even your enemies will not have a choice but to thank God for you to say, If not for so, so, so, so person, this would not have happened. You know at that point that you are being a reflection of Jesus. Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 says, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Number four, the whole essence of all the attacks of the adversary and the enemy is to weaken your hands, is to make sure that you do not achieve your destiny, is to make sure that they obstruct you. So what should you do? Not to be empowering the enemy by focusing on the enemy or focusing on resentment. The Bible says that you must focus on your assignment. You know, what Jesus did in Mark chapter 2 verse 6 to 12 was that, even though he had reason to begrudge the Pharisees, even though he had reason to focus on them. The Bible says, he said to them, so that you will know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins. And he said to the paralytic, pick up your badge and move. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Immediately he arose and took up his bed and went out of the presence of them all so that all were amazed and glorified God. You see, if Jesus had been abhorring hatred, he would not have been able to say, the Son of Man has power to forgive sins. He was not abhorring hatred. So, what he did was he focused on his ministry. Remember, in the book of Isaiah, he said that his mission was to heal the sick. His mission was to perform these miracles that he was performing in this place. And he focused on his assignment. By focusing on his assignment, this man was able to receive his healing. So, when the enemy comes haunting at you, when the enemy comes deriding you, when the enemy comes trying to frustrate you, just focus on your assignment. God wants to show you off to your enemies. He wants to glorify himself. He wants people to look at you and say, sign and wonder yourself. He wants goodness and mercy to follow you. But remember, you can only do this when you focus on your own assignment. So, please avoid any temptation of seeking vengeance, bitterness, anger, malice, backbiting. The Bible says that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Many of us do not know that the worst thing that you can do to your enemy is to hand them over to God. As long as you are convinced that you are not the real enemy, you are not the cause of your own trouble, if after doing all, you can just hand over your enemy to the hand of God, and God himself will surprise you in the way that he will answer in Jesus' name. In the next session, I want to explore this theme deeper by looking at the scripture that says, If a man's way pleases the Lord, he will make even his enemies to be at peace with him. In other words, the crucial question is, does your own way as a person please the Lord? If it does not please the Lord, you are wasting your time trying to fight the enemy. If your way pleases the Lord, God will make even your enemies to be at peace with you. In the next session, we will be dealing with this in elaborate detail. God has opened my eyes to 24 ways to go all this with your enemies. 21 ways in follow truly, and 3 ways if they cooperate with him. But remember, be sure that you are not the enemy that we are talking about. Until we meet again to discuss how God deals with your enemies, when we look at the scripture that says, If a man's way pleases the Lord, he will make even his enemies to be at peace with him. It's me, OVO Ayola saying, start trying with Jesus and you will always win, ultimately. God bless you. Bye.