Don't Take The Bait

Don’t Take The Bait!

Scripture: Matthew 22:15-22; First Corinthians 10:13; James 1:13-16

In my message last week I told you that grace does not cover sin, that in fact what it does is empower us to walk away and reject sin. Grace empowers us to reject sin, not cover it up after we do it. In follow up to that message this morning I want to talk about the actual temptations. I want you to think about the definition of the word temptation. It means, “a desire or craving for something, especially something considered wrong.” A temptation is something that is targeted towards a specific person. Let me explain, I have no desire to own an expensive sports car. So a sports car salesman can blow my phone up with offers and deals to try and get me to purchase one, but if I don’t currently have the desire and I “never” cared about them in the first place, it will not be a temptation. A temptation only works if there is a desire for it. So temptations are tailor made for the individual and I want you to keep this in mind as I go through this message. The title of my message this morning is “Don’t Take the Bait!” For the purposes of this message, bait is the equivalent of a temptation.

First Timothy 4:1 says the following, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” Now let’s read this from the Amplified Bible. It says, “But the [Holy] Spirit explicitly and unmistakably declares that in later times some will turn away from the faith, paying attention instead to deceitful and seductive spirits and doctrines of demons.” (First Timothy 4:1, Amp) Paul wrote to Timothy that in these days which we are living in people will depart from the faith because they listened to deceiving and seducing spirits. They will be so confused and deceived that they will begin to believe a lie and turn away from the truth. In other words, they will be completed fooled.

Have you ever heard the term “hook, line and sinker” relating to someone falling for something? The term is used to emphasize that someone has been completely deceived or tricked. To “fall for something hook, line, and sinker” is to be fooled completely. This is a term that most people understand if they have ever fished. When a fisherman casts his line out into the water, the line has a weight attached to it to make it sink and it has a hook from which the bait is attached. Sometimes a fish will swallow the baited hook and the attached weight when it is going for the bait. When this happened the fish is thoroughly caught with little chance of escaping. I am not sure how many of you have ever fished, but to do it correctly, you must have something to attract the fish you’re attempting to catch, namely the bait. For fish, your bait could be worms, night crawlers, insects or a number of other lures. Bait, in general, is anything that can be used to attract prey. Remember what I said about temptations (bait) being tailor made for the individual? If you were not fishing and were trying to capture a lion, then you would need bait that was more substantial than a few worms. A lion would pay absolutely no attention to worms – they wouldn’t even represent an appetizer to a lion. My point is that the bait you choose will depend directly upon the prey that you are going after. The bait must be something that will get your prey’s attention and attract it to the trap you have set for it. So here is my point, temptations (bait) are tailor made to the individual so the bait that is used to tempt you is something that would specifically get your attention and your enemy knows what that bait is because he has been watching us.

Have you ever considered that there are people out in the world right now thinking of ways to “bait” us? Let me give you a few examples of some baits being used to tempt us. You go to the mailbox and low and behold there is a credit card offer in the mailbox with your name on it advertising a very low introductory interest rate, that’s bait. Whenever you get “free checks” in the mail from the company that you have a credit card through and all you need to do is sign and cash them, that’s bait. You see, in both cases they are trying to get you to go out and spend money you do not have so they can charge you more money in return as you pay them back. Whenever you get a bill with the option to pay the “minimum amount” that’s bait. The longer it takes you to pay off something the more money the credit card company makes off you in interest. When you see ads in the newspaper from a car dealership offering low percent financing and huge rebates, it’s bait. They are trying to get you on the lot so they can get your mouth watering so bad for a new car that you will be willing to pay more money at a higher interest rate with no rebate because the rebate and lower interest does not apply to the model you end up choosing. A 16 year old flirting with a 25 year-old - JAILBAIT! Enough said on that one. When you walk into an “All You Can Eat” buffet restaurant, it’s bait. Remember, you should never eat all you can eat as your body cannot utilize that many calories and what is not used is turned to fat. When you go to the fast food restaurant and see the “super-size fries”, that’s bait. New Light, we must recognize what the bait is for us individually and then we must learn not to take it – to leave it alone!