Dealing With Our Foes Pt 3 Series

My Foes

Identification:

The final opponent that is mentioned in the 27th Psalms is my foes. The word foe means hateful, hostile, and an adversary. To truly understand what a foe represents, we need to look at the story of David and Goliath. David’s final individual battle as a shepherd was with Goliath the giant. He has had previous battles with a lion, a bear, and finally a giant. Our foes have the same agenda as Goliath, and that is to stop our progress, prosperity and praise. They simply stand in the way. Notice that the lion, and the bear came and took something from David, but the giant just stood in the way. He never took anything, but prevented Israel from going any further. He was an obstacle. Here’s why foes are so dangerous. God was positioning David the shepherd to become David the warrior, on his way to becoming David the king.

This was a transitioning moment for David. God is trying to position and transition you to move to the next level in Him, but you have an obstacle in the way, namely your foes. Our foes hinder our blessings. These are the people that do not want you to go higher in the Lord. They are fine with you as long as you don’t get ahead of them. They get jealous and upset when blessing come your way. As long as you are struggling, they are with you, but the moment God blesses you with a new house, new car, new spouse, better job, or anything better, then there is a problem. Their attitude changes almost overnight. Rather than be happy for you, they begin to despise you, and that’s all the devil needs. As long as you are broke down, and things are going bad, then they are your so-called friends, but the moment things turn around for you they become your foes.

Characteristics:

The characteristics of our foes mirror the characteristics of Goliath the giant, and the Philistines. I Samuel 17:1 state that the Philistines gather together to do battle with the men of Israel at a place called Shochoh. The only problem was that Shochoh belonged to Judah. Here is the first character trait of your foes. They try to stop you from possesses what belongs to you. God has already given you the victory, but your foes try and hinder you from taking possession of what belongs to you. Jesus said in Matthew 6th chapter “thy will be done in Earth, as it is in heaven.” God has already willed it for you in heaven, and your foes are trying to stop it from happening on Earth.

Our next character trait is found in verse 4 through 7 of I Samuel 17th chapter.

“4And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. 6And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. 7And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.”

Notice that Goliath was something to behold. The records vary, but most agree that Goliath was somewhere between 10 to 13 feet in height. His shield was so heavy that someone carried it for him. He appeared larger than life. To look at him in the natural eye, he would appear to be an undefeatable opponent and very impressive. Our foes appear the same to us. Many times are foes and our problems look bigger than they really are. They seem like they are larger than life, very impressive and undefeatable, but that’s only in the natural. They seem to be giants. Here is an acronym for GIANT.

Great

Image

Appearing awesome

Nevertheless

Tiny

They seem so overwhelming at first, but the God we serve is greater than our foes. The third character trait of our foes is found in verse 11, which says, “When Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.” Your foes will use intimidation to try and instill fear in you. Goliath stood and cried out one verbal assault after another until he had instilled fear into all of them. They saw his size, they heard his threats, and they were convinced they could not beat him. Everyone bought into the intimidation except one, David. Your foes will try and use the same methods of intimidation, but don’t buy into the lie. Anyone who constantly puts you down; finds fault in everything you do, and always criticizes you is a foe. So how do we battle our foes?