Becoming Your Own Worst Enemy

1 Samuel 27:5-7 “Then David said to Achish, “If I have now found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” So Achish gave him Ziklag that day. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. Now the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months.”

You are your own worst enemy. Not the devil, not your mother in law or your neighbor down the street. The only individual who can control things like anger, lust, hatred, greed, sloth, envy, gluttony and pride is you. Only you can make decisions that either benefit you spiritually or lead to your downfall. The devil can try and try all he wants, temptation after temptation, but you can deny it all. 

You can blame people and circumstances for influencing your decisions, but you have the power to say yes and no to anything that can compromise you spiritually. It is the lack of exercising that power that causes your own spiritual demise. It is when you give in to these and other pitfalls, that you become your own worst enemy. 

James 4:7 “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

1 Peter 5:9, 10 “Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.”

David became his own worst enemy because of three factors in his life. These experiences caused things to unravel all around him.

David said to Achish, “If I have now found favor in your eyes.” When did David care about finding favor in the eyes of a Philistine ruler? What a change in David! David then said, “Let them give me a place that I may dwell there”.  In David’s mind, this isn’t just a visit to the Philistines. He may say to himself that he will someday return to Israel, but he isn’t planning on a short stay among the ungodly. He wants to dwell there, and he did for one full year and four months. David also said, “Why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” Why did David want his own city? Because he needed freedom to operate his own independent policy without being observed too closely. The Bible says, “So Achish gave him Ziklag that day.” Now David, his 600 men and their families lived in a completely new situation. They lived in a fortified city, a formal place of defense. No more finding refuge in the wilderness, but apart from God, they aren’t safer in the city.

 

Verses 8, 9 tell us “And David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. For those nations were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as you go to Shur, even as far as the land of Egypt. Whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achish.”

 

David and his men went up and raided: The Hebrew word raided comes from the verb to strip, with especially the idea of stripping the dead for loot. David would attack these villages or encampments, kill some of the men, strip their bodies for treasure or armor, and rob the people of the village or encampment. Is this a way of life for a man after God’s own heart? David hasn’t totally turned against God and His people. For now, he only attacks the enemies of Israel. This probably gave David some comfort, but it is a small consolation to know that you aren’t as bad as you possibly could be. Even though he is attacking the enemies of Israel, David is nothing more than an armed robber and a murderer. He kills all the people of the village or encampment he attacks, takes all the spoil, and does all of this without the approval or guidance of God. He now fights wars for profit instead of God’s honor.

 

How do you stop yourself before you become your own worst enemy? 

Make sure somebody’s at home!

Matthew 12:43-45 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

Don’t listen to what everybody says is right-know what is right!

Ephesians 5:6 “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

-Let what would Jesus do be your life’s philosophy!

Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”