Have I Become Your Enemy?

Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

— Galatians 4:16 (NKJV)

Truth, when spoken, is so powerful that it will make those who are in deception become your enemies.

Paul knew he was confronting the Galatians with truth. He was not going to allow them to fall back into the very same law of captivity they had lived under before Christ. He was telling them that the same truth that had set them free was now being rejected by them, as they were not standing to defend it but instead going back to bondage.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

— Galatians 5:1 (NKJV)

Many who were friends of Paul were willing before to give their own eyes for him as they will look at him as an angel, but when he confronted them with truth, then they saw him as an enemy. He was an enemy to their ways of living, an enemy to their lifestyle and ways of thinking. They were offended by the truthful words they heard from the lips of the apostle.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

— Galatians 3:1 (NKJV)

Disobedience to truth causes a wise man to act as a foolish man, to fall under the control of others who have no discernment and knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. The fruits of the flesh were evident in the Galatians who had turned back from living in obedience to Christ to total disobedience and rebellion under the law. In the words of the apostle Paul, anyone who rejects truth is an enemy of the cross of Jesus Christ.

For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.

— Philippians 3:18 (NKJV)

If you are to preach truth, teach truth, and live in truth then you must understand that the calling must be higher than any cost. Many enemies will rise up against you but remember that it is better to please God than to please men. To be a servant of Christ, you cannot look to what pleases man but instead look to what pleases God.

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

— Galatians 1:10 (NKJV)

It is imperative for every person of faith to understand that persecution will come to those that hold truth sacred in their hearts. The world has become a place where relationships are built upon the deception of tolerance for anything regardless if it is false or true, real or unreal, original or duplicated. Those who speak or teach against all that is false, unreal, and misleading are considered to be vessels of hate and anger.

Josh McDowell writes, 'True compassionate love that seeks to provide and protect another person’s health, happiness, and spiritual growth could not comply with the cultural call: ‘If you love me, you’ll endorse my behavior.’ Because real love, true love, grieves over the inevitable results of wrong behavior.'

Defend what is truthful and you will be attacked with defamation of your character. As Janet Folger warns us, “Character assassination unfolds when they don’t like what you say–you can just expect it.”

Follow the truth and you will be confronted with retaliation from those that reject the same truth you are following. John told the truth about Herod’s sin and he was imprisoned, then beheaded.

But when Herod heard, he said, ‘This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!’ For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife; for he had married her. Because John had said to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’

— Mark 6:16-18 (NKJV)

Truth uncovers the secrets kept hidden by those caught in the web of their own deception. Herod was living with his brother’s wife and John exposed his unlawful action. Darkness is the blanket that covers all that is not truth, but light from the lamp of truth will remove that blanket of bad works.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.

— John 3:21(NKJV)

Who, then, will become your enemies:

The following will become your enemies not because you hate them or reject them as human beings but because they will hate you and reject you.

1. Live with truth as the foundation of your moral values and your enemies will be those that practice immoral acts of perversion and abomination (See Romans 1:29).
2. Build your faith upon truth and your enemies will be those whose faith is nothing more than a belief in the exaltation of man and his human nature of sin (See Galatians 6:3).
3. Speak truth as is and your enemies will be those that want to redefine the reality of truth into the imaginations of the human mind (See Jeremiah 16:12).
4. Walk in truth and your enemies will be those that walk in blindness with no guidance or direction to where they are going (See Isaiah 59:10
5. Support all that is truth and your enemies will be those that support the opposition to all truth.

This is why if you support:

1. • The truth of the right to be born, then abortion supporters will be your enemies.
   • The truth of marriage between a man and a wife, then supporters of the abomination before God of same sex marriage will be your enemies.
   • The truth of creation by design of God himself, then supporters of evolution will be your enemies.
   • The truth of Israel and the right to exist and occupy its land, then supporters of dividing or taking the land away from them will be your enemies.

Jesus repeatedly warned of a time when anyone who followed truth will be persecuted by the enemies of truth.

We, as the Church, are in that time once again… and it is time to draw a line in the sand and stand for Truth, no matter the cost. Of course, we will pray for our enemies, as Jesus instructs, but we will not back down or run away from courageously speaking Jesus who not only spoke the truth but is the Truth.