Do not gloat when your enemy falls;  when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them.  Proverbs 24:17-18

Well all week long we have been talking about dealing with our enemies.  We know that satan uses people to come against us.  I am sure you all know someone that seems to plot evil against good people. You may watch these people and think why is it that they cause all this suffering for good people and they just go on living the good life? Outwardly they may appear to be living this wonderful life, but if you look at these people closely you will find that they suffer.  They suffer because they never experience the peace that God intended for us to have.  They never experience that peace that passes all understanding.  They step over other people trying to bring joy into their lives but they are never satisfied.  Now they may be good at letting you think that their life is a bed of roses, but I have had the opportunity to be around people like that and let me tell you my friend, they suffer.

Now the other side of the coin is the person that plots evil against one of God’s children and everyone sees their fall.  Proverbs also tells us that pride goes before the fall.  Pride leads to destruction.  I’m willing to bet that if you have had someone come against you it has been an issue of pride.  They want things their way.  They are unwilling to compromise so if you don’t give in to what they want, they plot evil against you.

Now yesterday we talked about being prepared for a fight by putting on the full armor of God so that we can stand against the spiritual forces of evil.  If you do this and someone comes against you it’s not good for them.  If you speak truthfully and maintain righteousness and ask God to remove bitterness and anger from you, God honors that behavior.  He will not honor evil, malicious behavior.  He will not honor bitterness and unforgiveness.  Now what I have had the opportunity to witness on more than one occasion is that when someone plots evil against a child of God and refuses to repent and make amends, that person falls and they fall hard.  You see I have learned to pray for those who persecute me because when I do that one of two things happen.  First of all that person may repent and be willing to talk the problem out and perhaps we can reach a compromise and come to some sort of agreement and restore our relationship.  If they do not do this, however, I have found that God deals with them much more harshly than I would have.  You see, we serve a vengeful God.  We serve a God that doesn’t like to see people allow  the devil to use them to mess with His children.  We serve a God of justice.  So I pity the person that lets the devil use them to plot evil against a child of God.  They are going to get theirs and it’s not going to be pretty.

Now once this happens, we again are asked to do something that goes against our human nature.  When our enemy comes under attack and justice is being served, we want to rejoice.  We want to jump up and down and say “you see I told you so, God don’t like ugly!”  That is our human nature.  But once again, the Bible calls us to do the opposite.  This scripture passage clearly tells us not to gloat when our enemy falls.  The Bible tells us that we should not let our heart rejoice.  So when your heart starts to rejoice, you must stop it.

What?  When this person finally pays for all the evil they have done to us or perhaps our friends and/or family, we can’t be happy?  Well this just doesn’t even sound fair does it?  We should be able to celebrate.

Well think about it this way, if you love your enemy as you are instructed to do, would you really be happy when they suffer?  If you have been praying for them to soften their heart and turn to God and they did the opposite and God brought chaos and destruction into their lives, would you rejoice?  The answer is no, you would not.  You see I have had this very experience.  Let me tell you, it broke my heart to see the terrible fall that they experienced.  I would never have wished this on them or anyone else.  I had been praying for God to remove all bitterness against this person.  I had been praying for salvation for this person.  I had been praying for God to soften their hearts and give them wisdom to see that they were being led in the wrong direction.  After over a year, they fell and it was awful.  God brought complete destruction.  It still breaks my heart to think about it.

This scripture passage goes on to say that if you gloat or rejoice at your enemies misfortune that God will turn His wrath away from them.  I try my best to stay away from God’s job.  I sometimes stick my nose in His work and have to beg His forgiveness.  The Bible tells us that vengeance is God’s job.  Far be it from me to try to get involved in that.  So if God is bringing His wrath against this person, the best thing I can do is stay out of it.

When the Bible tells us to pray for our enemies, we are to pray for their well being, not for their destruction.  And as much as I hate to see the great suffering heaped on my enemy, I leave that to God.  I know that calamity and disaster often draw us closer to God so I pray for my enemy that this will bring them closer to God so that God can help them get their life back in order.  Keep in mind that your enemy may finally see your life going well amidst the turmoil they tried to cause for you.  This could cause them to turn to you for help and this may provide you with an opportunity to lead them to Christ.  Your heart needs to be in shape to do this.  You can’t very well lead someone to Christ if you are rejoicing when they fall.

The Bible tells us that if we stand firm in truth and righteousness that the wicked can’t prevail.  We are called to fight the good fight and leave everything else to God.

I pray that you have enjoyed this group of scripture passages this week and that it has helped you in dealing with your enemies.  Remember the Bible contains explicit instructions for everything we face in our life.  By following these instructions, we can have a life filled with peace and joy even though our enemies may be attacking from all sides.

I hope that whatever your circumstances that you stay in God’s word and have a great weekend!