The Secret Weapon Your Enemy Never Sees Coming

Hello, and welcome. I am so glad that we can spend these next few minutes together digging into a subject that touches every single one of us, whether we like to admit it or not. If you will stay with me through our time today, I believe God’s Word will offer you a key to a freedom you may have thought was impossible, a deep and abiding peace that can calm the most turbulent storms in your relationships. We are going to talk about enemies, and more importantly, we are going to discover God’s powerful and surprising strategy for victory that will change not them, but you.

The Lord Jesus, in His most famous sermon, delivered a command that feels like it weighs a thousand pounds and lands squarely on our shoulders with an impossible thud. He looked out at the crowd, and through them, He looks at you and me today, and He says in the gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 44, “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.” Right away, our human nature screams in protest, because everything within us wants to do the exact opposite when we are wounded. So what are we to do with such a command that seems to defy all logic and instinct?

Let’s be honest for a moment; the very word “enemy” brings a certain face to mind, doesn’t it? It conjures up a painful memory, a sharp word, a profound betrayal that left a scar on your heart. Perhaps it’s a coworker who took credit for your work, a family member who shattered your trust, or a former friend whose words now echo with malice. The natural response is to build a wall, to load the cannons of resentment, and to stand guard, ready for the next assault, because the hurt is real and the anger feels justified.

But what if our entire strategy has been misdirected, what if we’ve been aiming our defenses at the wrong target all along? This brings us to our first crucial realization in handling our enemies God’s way: we must correctly identify the true enemy. The person who wounded you, the one whose face comes to mind, is not your ultimate adversary. The Apostle Paul pulls back the curtain on spiritual reality in his letter to the Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12, stating, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

I remember hearing about a church that nearly split apart over the color of the new carpet for the sanctuary. It started as a simple difference of opinion, one group preferring blue and another preferring a neutral tan. But slowly, whispers turned to gossip, preferences turned to ultimatums, and soon, dear friends of twenty years were no longer speaking to one another over a roll of fabric. The real issue, of course, was never the carpet; it was pride, a lust for control, and a spirit of division that our true enemy, Satan, masterfully exploited to bring ruin and discord. He loves nothing more than to use wounded people to wound other people, creating a chain reaction of pain while he remains hidden in the shadows.

When we understand this, it begins to change our perspective entirely. The person who hurt you is not the enemy combatant; they are more often than not a prisoner of war, captured by their own brokenness, sin, or deception. The true enemy is the spiritual force that delights in relational carnage, the one who whispers lies to both the offender and the offended. By shifting our focus off the person and onto the spiritual power behind the conflict, we disarm our personal bitterness and prepare to fight the battle on the correct battlefield.

This perspective does not excuse the sin or erase the pain, let me be very clear about that. Accountability is biblical and necessary, and what they did was wrong. But it releases you from the burden of a personal vendetta, allowing you to see the person as God might see them: captive and in need of rescue, just like we are. It allows God to be the judge of the person, while you become a warrior against the principality.

Now, if our enemy is spiritual, how in the world do we fight him? This is where the wisdom of God turns the wisdom of the world completely on its head. This leads us to our second point: we must embrace the unconventional weapon God provides. That weapon is not retaliation, not slander, not revenge, but a radical, shocking, and disarming act of proactive love. The Apostle Paul echoes the words of Christ in his letter to the Romans chapter 12 verses 19 through 21, writing, “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, 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.”

Think about that phrase, “overcome evil with good.” It’s an active, offensive strategy, not a passive retreat. I once knew a man who was viciously and unfairly criticized in a public forum by a professional rival. His reputation was on the line, and every one of his friends told him to hire a lawyer and fight back, to expose the other man’s own failings. Instead, after much prayer, this man learned that his rival’s wife was seriously ill. Quietly, without any fanfare, he arranged for a service to deliver meals to their home for two solid weeks, with a simple card that said, “Praying for you and your family during this difficult time.”

The rival was stunned into silence, completely disarmed. The attack stopped. You see, a good offense is the best defense, and in the kingdom of God, the offense is goodness, kindness, and blessing. Heaping “coals of fire” is not some secret way of getting revenge; it’s the burning conviction and shame that selfless love can produce in the heart of another, a fire that can melt a hardened heart or, at the very least, extinguish the flames of their aggression. When you return evil for evil, you just pour gasoline on the fire, but when you overcome evil with good, you douse it with the living water of Jesus Christ.

Now, you may be thinking that you simply do not have it in you to do something like that, that the feelings of love are just not there. And you would be absolutely right. This kind of supernatural love is not a feeling we conjure up; it is a decisive act of the will empowered by the Holy Spirit living within us. God never asks us to feel our way into obedience; He asks us to obey our way into new feelings.

You do not have to feel benevolent to pray for a blessing upon someone who has cursed you. You just have to bend your knee and speak the words, trusting that God will honor your obedience. The remarkable thing is that as you choose to act in love, as you choose to bless, God begins a miraculous work, not only in the situation but, more importantly, in your own heart. He provides the strength for the initial step, and His grace carries you the rest of the way, often transforming your bitterness into something that looks surprisingly like compassion.

This leads us to the final, and perhaps most personal, reason for obeying this difficult command, and it has everything to do with you. Our third point is this: you must fight for and secure your own freedom. The primary beneficiary of forgiveness and love toward an enemy is not the enemy himself; it is you. Jesus draws a direct and sobering line in the sand in the gospel of Matthew chapter 6 verses 14 and 15, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Unforgiveness is a spiritual poison that we drink ourselves, hoping the other person will die. It is a heavy chain that we wrap around our own ankles, foolishly believing we are binding our offender. Bitterness, the writer of Hebrews warns, is a root that grows down deep, and once it takes hold, it “springs up, causing trouble, and by this many become defiled.” It defiles our relationship with God, blocks our prayers, sours our other relationships, and casts a dark shadow over our own soul.

Imagine carrying a heavy sack of rocks on your back every single day. Each rock has a name on it: the name of the person who betrayed you, the memory of the insult, the injustice of the situation. You carry it everywhere—to work, to church, to bed. It slows you down, exhausts your spirit, and grinds you down physically and emotionally. Forgiveness is the conscious, deliberate act of stopping, opening that sack, and choosing to leave those rocks at the foot of the cross, one by one. It does not mean what happened was not heavy or wrong, but it means you are choosing to no longer be crushed by its weight.

Please hear me on this: forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. The scar may remain as a reminder of the wound, but forgiveness stops the wound from festering and infecting your entire life. Forgiveness is also not necessarily reconciliation. Reconciliation requires repentance and the rebuilding of trust, a process that takes two willing parties, but forgiveness is a transaction between you and God, and it can happen today, right now, regardless of what the other person ever does or says.

You forgive by officially surrendering your right to get even. You take your demand for justice out of your own hands and place it into the supremely capable and righteous hands of God. You are releasing the person from the debt they owe you, not because they deserve it, but because Jesus Christ has paid your infinite debt, and He asks you to extend a fraction of that same grace to others. It is the key that unlocks the prison cell you have been living in.

So, let’s bring this all together. We’ve seen that our strategy must change. First, we must identify our true enemy, which is not flesh and blood, but the spiritual forces of darkness. Second, we must deploy God’s unconventional weapon of overcoming evil with good, blessing those who curse us. And third, we must secure our own freedom by releasing the poison of unforgiveness and entrusting justice to God.

Right now, God’s Spirit may be bringing a specific face or a specific situation to your mind. You have a choice before you. You can continue with the world’s strategy of bitterness, retaliation, and resentment, a path that only leads to a deeper prison of your own making. Or, you can choose the King’s strategy, the path of freedom, the way of the cross, and begin the process of loving, blessing, and forgiving.

I want to invite you now to just be still for a moment. Take a deep breath. In the quietness of your own heart, picture the person who has been your enemy. See the pain, feel the injustice of it all, and acknowledge that it was real and it was wrong. But then, ask the Holy Spirit to let you see them, just for a second, through His eyes—as someone He loves, someone for whom Christ also died, someone who may be desperately lost and captive to the same enemy you are fighting.

What is one step you can take this week? It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. Perhaps your first step is simply to pray one sentence for them each day: “Father, bless them.” Perhaps it is writing down the offense on a piece of paper and then burning it or shredding it as a symbol of your release. The first step is always the hardest, but it is the one that leads out of the darkness and into His marvelous light.

Let’s pray together.

Father in heaven, we come before you now as people who have been hurt and people who have hurt others. We confess that our hearts are filled with a desire for our own justice and that the command to love our enemies feels impossible. We have harbored bitterness and rehearsed our grievances, and we admit that it has only brought bondage to our own souls. Lord, we ask for your forgiveness.

We ask you to give us Your eyes to see the real battle we are in. Grant us the supernatural courage to obey Your command to bless, to do good, and to pray for those who have positioned themselves against us. Right now, by an act of our will, we choose to release them into Your hands, we surrender our right to get even, and we receive the freedom that Christ purchased for us on the cross. Heal our hearts, Lord, and make us instruments of Your peace. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace, the peace that comes from walking in His ways and trusting in His power. Go in the freedom of His forgiveness.