Who is My Enemy?
- Strength For Life
- 18 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Is it right or wrong for a Christian to have enemies? This may be a clumsy way to ask the question, but it gets us thinking. No, we might say; Christians are not allowed to go out and create enemies out of strangers, or to do things we know will create resentment in another person. Our job is to live peaceably with all men (Rom. 12:18). If someone is really upset with us, we are to respond to their evil with good (Rom. 12:21). But we can ask it another way: are Christians supposed to have a category for “enemy”? That’s a different question. Perceptive preachers have pointed out that when Jesus commanded his disciples, and by extension us, to love their enemies, he assumed they could easily identify their enemies. In other words, when Jesus said to love our enemies, we can bring to mind a name, an organization, an interaction, a news story.
We live in a remarkably safe country. Most of the people you meet in the course of a day are strangers, and you take for granted that being around so many unfamiliar people is not a dangerous thing to do. However, there is a spiritual war that is constantly rumbling under the surface. Everyone you pass on the road or stand behind in the checkout line participates in that war, whether they know it or not. We know because of passages like Ephesians 6:10-20. Do-or-die wrestling, spiritual wickedness, fiery darts, the Sword of the Spirit and all that. Most of the time that war stays underground.
One of the times that war emerges is our holidays. In the Old Testament, remember, the feasts were designed to bring truth into sharp focus. Passover was designed for busy Israelite families to stop and remember that day, many years ago, when the Lord brought death into every Egyptian house, but passed over His people. He delivered them from their slavery with great power, and the feast helped them remember. Holidays work the same for us today. The truth we are supposed to remember on Columbus Day and Independence Day is easy to see. The truth that motivates Thanksgiving and Christmas is likewise clear. All these are appropriate for American Christians to celebrate.
Like it or not, Halloween is also a holiday. It’s too popular to be anything else. Not all aspects of Halloween are bad or dangerous on their face. For example, trick or treating is one of the few times that interacting with the neighbors, something we have greatly neglected, is expected and accepted. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the costumes, either. And while the debate over the origins of Halloween will not go away anytime soon, what matters far more is what the day has become.
Despite the harmless aspects of the day, America has obviously turned Halloween into a celebration of death, fear, and the demonic. That element overshadows everything. This year I especially noticed how popular the 10 feet tall skeletons have become. You’re supposed to be intimidated to walk past them. If such a creature were alive, it would be a Goliath. And presumably it would want to kill you. The theme of Halloween décor is the death of anyone who gets too close.
Why would Christians embrace a holiday that celebrates death and supernatural creatures that put fear into the hearts of humans? The fact that our culture, and our people, generally allow it demonstrates a fundamental problem with American Christianity: we do not know how to identify our enemies. More than that, we refuse to have any enemies. We do not have a category for people, or groups of people, that want to undermine or destroy our way of life. When we passed a yard decorated for Halloween, it should remind us that there are spiritual beings in the world that want humans dead.
Before we go farther, we should remember that the New Testament has a category for enemies. Paul described the Jews who antagonized him—and even attempted to kill him—as those “who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” While Paul wanted them to be saved, he also recognized them as his enemies. In Philippians 3:18, he describes another category of people as “enemies of the cross of Christ,” that is, those “whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly.” In Revelation 11 (see the sermon linked below), the two witnesses have enemies, whom they kill and who rejoice when they are killed.
This doesn’t mean Christians should have a persecution complex. It does not mean we should look for enemies, or think of ourselves as victims in mortal danger. Almost no Christian in America is in danger for their life because of what they believe. However, Christians should recognize that the people in their communities as are given over to lies are working against our good. Those who twist the gospel and promote unrighteousness can do great damage to the community and advance the kingdom of darkness. The spiritual forces working behind the ungodly are very much like the ugly Halloween décor. Those “principalities and powers” really do want people to go to hell and lives to be destroyed, and the ungodly are working to that end, whether they understand it or not.
The Christian ability to discern and recognize our enemies is bigger than October 31. It’s also in children’s show propaganda, and secular college programs, and hospitals that perform “gender reassignment surgery,” the sexualized social media algorithm, therapy that affirms feelings but doesn’t point to Christ, and drug companies that profit off of people dependent on their products, and in political leaders that turn a blind eye to wickedness, and in many other places. Christian, don’t go through your life unaware of these things. Remember, you have enemies. Guard yourself, guard your family, don’t celebrate holidays that hate you, and don’t give place to the devil.
The above article was written by Jonathan Kyser. He is a pastoral assistant at NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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