WHEN GOD USES YOUR ENEMIES FOR A MIRACLE

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

Raise your hand if you need God to do something miraculous in your life right about now. Now, keep your hand raised if you’re willing for God to use your enemies to help perform that miracle. Maybe your hand just lowered all the way down to your side pockets, but contrary to what many may believe, God can use those who are against us the most to get us to some super special blessings. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some scripture passages to see if your hand will be willing to raise high in the sky again.

From Pray to Prey to Praise

(Read Daniel 6 for more info)

The story about Daniel being thrown into a lions’ den is quite a familiar narrative about how God turned a dead-end situation to a full out rescue like none other. Whether it’s because you just read the passage or you already knew it, you know that Daniel had enemies that wanted to get rid of him—permanently. Daniel was a person that had been captured, along with his people, and brought over to another land to live under different rules and a different way of life than his upbringing.

Despite living in a foreign land, Daniel was able to bloom where he had been planted because God was with him. Because of this, he gained quite a few enemies quickly. So, like any other group of lovely antagonists, Daniel’s archenemies set a trap that was devised to do him in without any possible exit. Or so they thought.

From the scripture passage you know that Daniel’s holy living became a direct violation of this brand-new law that his foes created. The punishment for the violation was most severe. I don’t even care for a housecat let alone a lion, so the idea of being tossed in a lions’ den probably would’ve set me back a bit…okay, a whole lot! Anyway, Daniel was determined that he would continue to live a holy life no matter the consequences.

Needless to say, his fate of being the main course to some hungry lions was sealed. As if the idea of being dropped down in this feline feeding frenzy wasn’t enough, his enemies went a step further. Verse 17 states that a stone was brought over to seal the den closed. So…. umm…you put someone in a lair full of hungry lions, and you need to cover it too? (scratching my head) What did they think Daniel was going to do? Perform a circus trick where the lions would stack on top of each other so that he could climb on their backs to escape? But they didn’t ask me, so like Daniel’s presumed fate the den was sealed without any seemingly way of getting out.

If you read on, God delivered Daniel in a way that no one could have imagined. Since God is the Creator and Ruler of all things, He decided to shut the lions’ mouths!! Daniel’s enemies sealed the mouth of the den, so God sealed the mouths of His servant’s appointed, furry destroyers. I don’t know if God used something like a special Gorilla Glue to do this (Yes, I just went there….LOL!!), or if He just sent the lions to bed without any supper. But these huge cats had to cancel their dinner reservation because the main entrée was now off limits. It’s apparent that God didn’t remove their hunger as verse 24 makes this very clear. But what God did do was use the tactics of Daniel’s number one gang of rivals to design one of the most well-known miracles in the Word of God.

Daniel’s enemies made it impossible for him to get out of the den, however they didn’t realize that they were really dealing with the God Most High who specializes in working things out in impossible situations. Not only was Daniel saved from this awful trap and able to prosper even more after this, but God was regarded and proclaimed as the Living God by the king of the land (see verses 25-27). Side note: I wonder if Daniel was the one that came up with the idea of people not feeding the lions at the zoo? I know. Only I would think of something like that :-D

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Fire and Desire—to please God

(Read Daniel 3 for more info)

Let’s scooch back a few chapters in the same book of the bible that we just left a moment ago. This storyline includes the infamous three Hebrew boys—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were acquaintances of Daniel, and they were captives just like him. On this occasion, the king—a different one than the one in Daniel’s story—designed an idol that he wanted everyone to bow down to and worship. This idea was totally against the Hebrew boys’ religion since they were ultimately living for the One True God. Therefore, they did not bow.

They stood out like a sore thumb as everyone else around them bowed to this man-made statue. Side note: I don’t believe Daniel was even here while this was going on. I have heard someone speculate that maybe he was home praying during one of his special prayer times as noted in Daniel 6. Nevertheless, the boys were obviously not trying to be part of the Most Popular People club. They were more fixated on pleasing the Lord.

Just in case they didn’t understand the command to bow completely, the king gave these faithful Hebrews another chance to join in with the bending of their knees. Oh, they heard the command very clearly. They just weren’t going to follow orders. To match the heat that was now rising within the king, the king ordered that these nonconformists to be hurled into a fiery furnace—but not before turning up the heat seven times hotter than it already was!

The king’s mighty men followed orders with no question. Some of them died from the heat of the flames as they were bringing the three Hebrew boys to this massive oven. I guess they weren’t familiar with the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the…” Okay, I digress. But it’s verse 21 that gets me. Heat up the furnace…check. Turn up the heat seven times hotter…check. And then tie up the non-bowers?? Okay. If you insist…check, check, check. I mean, if people are being knocked to their death just by the flames outside the furnace, how exactly did they expect these guys to make it to their next breath inside the furnace? The extra step of making sure that these boys were bound may have seemed like a necessary precaution to ensure that all potential attempts of dodging these larger-than-life dancing flames were prohibited, but I don’t get it. But once again, who asked me?

From God’s point of view, the ones who were ordered to bring this Hebrew trio to their demise were only being used by Him to lay out the groundwork for a bonified miracle. As this passage reads, the boys were walking around in the flames with the Lord Himself! And when they were commanded by the king to come out, they had no signs of even being close to a fire—no smoke smells or burnt marks anywhere!! The Hebrew boys didn’t even ask for a glass (or goblet) of water to quench a serious case of thirst after being in such high temperatures.

The flames had no effect on them whatsoever, but this miracle caused the king to acknowledge that the One who controls all things—even a fire set ablaze—was (and still is) the true Deliverer indeed. Soldiers died following orders of an earthly king, but the boys lived following the orders of the One True King. They were the visual evidence of the second part of Isaiah 43:2: “…When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you.” And their steadfastness paid off as they were promoted to higher positions after this miracle. Hey…when you’re hot, you’re hot! Yep, the pun was intended :-)

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From Spiritual Passion to a Chain Reaction

(Read Acts 16:16-34 for more info)

Let’s move full steam ahead to the New Testament. This passage in Acts covers the arrest of Paul and Silas after they sabotaged the money-making schemes of the owners of the slave girl mentioned in this text. As we know, messing with people’s money can turn into a serious problem real quick, and Paul and Silas created enemies in the midst of doing God’s work because they ended a fortune-telling business by casting out a demon. So, this pair of ministers were accused, beaten, and became prisoners in no time flat.

If you are thinking that Paul and Silas were comfortably situated in a jail cell that resembled that of the one in Mayberry, you would be sadly mistaken. Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to give you a full description of what this prison was like, but verse 24 in some translations state that the co-executives of P&S Ministries (Yes, I just made that up!) were brought into a dungeon-like part of the prison and had their feet changed to the stocks. For maximum security, the prison guard was informed that if they escaped, he would be put to death!

By now, you should know where I’m headed. So…. you have someone beaten, throw them in prison—in what sounds like the worse part of the prison, by the way—bound their feet so they can’t escape, and then threaten the jailer with death if they escape??? I mean, come on people! Where’s the logic in all of this? Even if it’s not me, this is what happens when you don’t ask somebody. But anyway....

As we move along, especially since there was a fear that these chained jailbirds were going to magically gain strength like Superman and break the chains that had them bound, the Lord made a move in this disheartening scenario. While Paul and Silas were singing and praying to God (yes, while in prison), God sent an earthquake just where the prison was located. The shaking, rattling, and rolling was so forceful that it broke the chains of Paul and Silas and opened the prison doors!!

Call it a coincidence if you wish, but this my Lemonaders was a miracle at its finest! If Tasha Cobbs's song “Break Every Chain” was popular at that time, it might be considered ungodly to not have this P&S duo in the background of a music video. Just saying. Anyway, these ministerial prisoners were set free, but that posed a dilemma. The prisoners had every right to leave at this point since it was God that provided them a way of escape, but the guard of the prison would be executed if they left. It’s my guess that the way that the prison guard would be killed had to be horrific because he was just about to take his sword and kill himself right when Paul told him that they were still there.

In this case, the original enemies that were recognized in the beginning did not confirm God as the Lord God Almighty when it was all said and done, but the jailer could see that something extraordinary happened in his presence. He wanted to know what he had to do to become saved, and he even brought Paul and Silas to his home where he cleaned their wounds and fed them. In the end, everyone in the jailer’s family became saved as well! Had Paul and Silas not been thrown into prison, this grand opportunity to present Jesus and salvation to this warden and his household would have been missed. Paul and Silas may have been chained, but their chains ultimately brought spiritual freedom to someone else. Side note: I’m thinking that this was possibility how the idea of prison ministry began. Just throwing that out there to see if it will stick :-)

Now that we’ve walked through these passages on how God can use someone’s enemies to be co-producers in creating miracles, let’s revisit our hand-raising activity from the beginning. Raise your hand if you need God to do something miraculous in your life right about now. Now, keep your hand raised if you’re willing for God to use your enemies to help perform that miracle. You still may be a bit hesitant in keeping your hand raised, and I do understand. We want our enemies gone and out of our lives forever, but that’s not reality. Since the idea of enemies are pretty much here to stay on this side of earth, God uses the good and the bad for His glory and to bring us to a wonderful testimony.