THREE TYPES OF ENEMY
Somebody has made a very funny but true to life statement in Nigerian English (pidgin). The man said that there are three categories of enemies. Permit me to use his own words:
- You no me you dey do me (a familiar enemy).
- You no no me you dey do me (an unfamiliar enemy).
- You dey do me and you de pity me (a familiar enemy who pities me).
Let me throw more light on this. You have three types of enemies. You have known enemies, unknown enemies and clever enemies who turn around to sympathise with you.
A lot of people go through life as if there are no enemies. They do not have any space in their prayer list for contending with wicked enemies. Some of these people wonder why we teach, encourage and train believers to get involved with spiritual warfare. Some of them are even bold to speak openly against our efforts to train every believer to become mature students in the school of spiritual warfare. I wonder if such people are actually reading their Bibles.
The Bible says: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, rulers in the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. “These are the powers which we are contending against. If there are no enemies in life, the Bible would not have asked us to wrestle against any power. But the fact that there were powers, principalities and wicked spirits, necessitates our taking spiritual warfare seriously. We must not compare ourselves with some soldiers who would not know their left hand from their right hand.
Neither should we decide to take after soldiers who are drivers, messengers, tradesmen, security guards, domestic staff, gatemen and so on in the army. Rather, we should seek to become star studded generals in the army. We should not allow what Christians from other churches are saying to remove us from our duty posts.
We must decide to remain on the battlefield for our Lord. Come what may, we must decide to remain at the vanguard of the army of the Lord. We must be part of the fighting army. We must remain in the camp of combatant soldiers.
I have an experience many years ago which made me to know that there are many classes of soldiers. There are some soldiers who are only soldiers by name but occupy no position of prominence in the army. That experience made me to know that there are some soldiers who are so fearful that a little threat from some powerful civilians will make them to shiver as if they have caught a cold.
A uniformed man threatened to lock up a lady who happened to be a civilian. He said, “I am going to lock you up with your ugly face.” The man was bent on carrying out his threat until my wife intervened and said: “Do you know the woman you are planning to lock up? Don’t you know that there is an invisible X-ray in her eye balls? She can see everything, (your intestine, your liver, your heart, your throat … everything). You better don’t touch her.” That was how the uniformed man said, “I am sorry, I won’t lock her up again. I didn’t know that she is that kind of woman.”
The man was an officer, while the lady was an ordinary civilian. She was so powerful that she could scare a man of authority. The man became afraid and he vowed never to touch a woman with such an invisible power.
There are enemies that appear innocent on the surface. When you see them you would think that they are completely harmless. You will only be able to discover their true identity when they show their true colour by attacking you.
The most dangerous enemies are parasitic in nature. They fight against people like parasites. They hang unto people and attack them like parasites. A parasite is an animal or plant living on or in another. A human being is called a parasite. It means that, that person is living on another and giving nothing useful in return. In other words, parasites cannot live on their own, they specialise in sucking the goodness of other people and rendering them useless. They stay so close to the person. feed on him and harass him sore.
I knew someone several years ago who carelessly played into the hands of the devil. This was someone whom I tried to influence positively but he chose to live a careless life. He came across a lady whom he tried to go along with for a long time. Incidentally, I had warned him against that relationship. He stuck to his gun. By the time he got tired of the girl he decided to dump her thinking that the girl was an ordinary person.
However, the girl became adamant. The girl said, “No I am not going anywhere. If you forsake me, I will deal with you. Let me tell you the truth, I am going to bury your glory. Just go ahead and take up a new girl. You will see.” The man decided to ignore what the lady was saying. But by the time he got to work the following day he was shocked beyond his wildest imagination. He was handed a letter of termination of appointment. His official car was withdrawn and he was given one week to pack out of his official quarters.
That was how he packed out of the house, kept his property with some of his friends and started trekking. When he approached one of his worldly friends, he was advised: “You better go back to that girl. If you don’t, you will never make it in life.
He quickly ran to the girl’s house and apologised profusely. The girl told him. “Did you think I was joking when I told you that I was going to bury your glory? You better go and thank your stars that you came back to beg me. Now that you have decided to trace your steps back to me I am going to exhume your glory from where I buried it. Come back to see me tomorrow.”
Strange enough, by the following day, the strange company which terminated his appointment came back looking for him with a letter of a renewal of appointment. He was reinstated, given back his car and his official quarters. That was how he regained everything which he lost.
It dawned on him that he had no other option than to marry the girl by force. The girl became a parasite who decided to stick to him and drain him of every goodness which he had. Little did he know when he came across the girl that he was getting involved with a parasite. At the end. the man got married to the parasite.
The world in which we live is peopled with unfriendly friends. Most of the people who are close to you today, who appear nice, understanding and helpful may be wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are unfriendly friends.
Most of the people who pretend to be your friends are hidden enemies. Most of us are only aware of open enemies. We don’t know how to avoid hidden enemies. Open enemies are generally transparent in their deeds. They want you to know that they are your enemies.
A prophet once came to a lady asking her to collect fifty naira currency note from him. He instructed her to pay the money into her account. The lady asked to know why it must be fifty-naira and not something that was much more tangible. The prophet asked her not to argue with him lest the sword of angel Gabriel come upon her to destroy her. That was how she quickly ran to the bank and paid the fifty naira note into her account.
Something happened to her one week after the prophet’s money was paid into her account. She experienced a great calamity which drained her entire savings. The prophet’s money became a parasite which destroyed all her savings. This is an example of a known enemy.
Serpentine enemies are not stupid. They are very clever, they operate in such a way as to confuse those whom they are attacking. Enemies don’t generally come openly to tell us that they are attacking us. They prefer to hide somewhere and give you some poisonous injection. Therefore, they try to use as many methods as possible to confuse their victims.
There are some friends who would stay with you as long as things are rough with you. They would become your enemies the moment things become alright. In other words, they are happy with you when you have divers problems, but they become unhappy with you whenever it appears that your problems are getting solved. They prefer to see you at the valley. They hate to see you on the mountain top. They are joyful when you are sad while they are sad when you are happy.
The most dangerous kind of enemy to deal with are serpentine enemies. They sometimes come in a subtle manner to attack you. This evil serpent often tries to bite those who want to help or assist you.
There was a brother who was hindered by serpentine enemies when he went for an interview. There was someone among the interview panel who could have helped the brother, but serpentine forces hindered him. The man who was supposed to help him sat down patiently when others were being interviewed. But the man suddenly developed serious stomach problems just when it came to the brother’s turn to be interviewed. The brother had banked on the man’s influence as a means of passing the interview.
The man decided to rush to the toilet and had to stay there for some twenty minutes because he felt a lot of discomfort. By the time the man managed to come back they had finished interviewing the brother. He was disappointed because the brother whom he wanted to help had been interviewed in his absence. That was how the brother failed the interview.
Do you know that somebody can get into trouble by helping someone? If you
give financial help to somebody who is already allocated to a serpent you will receive an attack. There is a story in II Chronicles 19:2:
And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.
This passage shows that it is dangerous to help somebody whom the Lord had cursed. Jehoshaphat was helping the enemy of God, therefore the serpent which normally pursues such people began to bite Jehoshaphat.
If a husband is being pursued by an enemy and the wife decides to help him, she would be bitten. If somebody is supposed to fail an examination because a serpent was pursuing him and another person helped the person to pass the examination, a serpent would bite the man’s helper.
If you are reading this and you happen to have helped somebody who was supposed to fail an examination as a result of being pursued by a serpent, if the person passes the examination you might end up experiencing the serpent’s bite. A serpent will attack you in anger. The serpent that was pursuing that person will turn and begin to pursue the person helping him.
