Baiting the Trap
Series: Escaping the Trap of Unforgiveness
July 9, 2006
What I’m going to be talking to you about the next 4 weeks, is possibly the most important confrontation with truth that you’ll ever have! Not because I’m preaching it, but because of the subject we’re going to deal with. With that in mind, I want you just to pause with me for a moment and pray a special prayer. Asking God to open your heart and mind to His truth. “Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that you would expose any hidden areas of my heart that have hindered me from knowing Your and serving You more effectively. I welcome the conviction of Your Spirit and ask for Your grace to carry out what you desire of Me. Amen.”
The issue of “offense”, is probably the most difficult obstacle that you and I will ever face and overcome. Jesus’ disciples witnessed incredible great and powerful miracles. They watched in amazement as they saw Jesus make blind eyes see, paralyzed legs walk, raging seas calmed, and thousands fed with only a few loaves and fish. On more than one occasion, they even saw Jesus raise people from the dead! But, even though they witnessed all of these remarkable miracles, they were pushed them to the brink of doubt like when Jesus told them in Luke 17:3-5 that (READ) When they heard that, their immediate response was... “Lord, increase our faith!”
They didn’t cry out for greater faith to do miracles... but when the simple command was given to forgive... they knew they were out of their league! Do we have anybody here today who has ever tried to catch a mouse in a mouse trap? (may I see your hands? Hmm... very few women. I wonder why?). Do we have any bear trappers here? Well, if you’ve ever tried to trap an animal... you know that there are 2 things you need to have if you’re going to be successful.... ( I hear!) The first thing you need is a bear to trap… and then you need to make sure that the trap is hidden from view.
It has to be camouflaged in the hope that some unsuspecting animal will stumble onto it. The 2nd thing you need is bait. The bait is used to lure the animal into the traps deadly jaws. Now, Satan (the enemy of our souls) is a good trapper and he uses both of these strategies as he lays out his most deceptive and deadly traps. They’re hidden... and they’re baited! And one of Satan’s most deceptive and insidious kinds of “traps”... is something that every person here has encountered... OFFENSE. The “trap of offense”... When you’ve been caught in the “trap of offense” you become offended at something someone has said or done to you... When that happens, it severs relationships, causes divisions, splits churches, and imprisons countless Christians in it’s jaws.
Jesus warned us about this trap in Luke 17:1... (READ) Jesus doesn’t say you ‘might’ get offended… He says you WILL be offended. It’s impossible for you not to be offended at some point in your life. (turn to your neighbor, say, “You will be offended”. ) It’s not a matter of “will” you be offended... it’s just a matter of WHEN!
Read my lips... everyone of you here this morning will be offended at something someone says or does to you at one pt. or another in your life. And if it hasn’t happened to you yet... check your pulse...because there’s a doubt in my mind that you’re really alive!
It may come from a parent. Perhaps a family member, a brother or a sister... It may come from a co-worker, from a fellow church member... from your pastor... but Jesus is warning us... IT WILL COME! I want you to be real brave right now…how many of you either have been offended in the past by someone, or you’re offended at someone right now ? (Would you be honest enough to raise your hand?) Now look around you folks! Wow! What a loving place to be! No... Seriously... do offenses occur in churches? You better believe it! If you don’t... hang around awhile! Even in as loving and warm a congregation as we have here... it happens! That’s because, as Jesus says... it’s impossible for it NOT to happen!
So the real question becomes ... what are you going to do when it happens? Because listen to me very closely... How you respond to an offense will determine your future and a the future of a lot of people around you, including your kids! I know of a number of people, good people, God fearing, church attending people… who after they got offended never darkened the door of a church for the rest of their lives... and I might add, will regret it eternally in their next life! This is serious stuff folks! It has the potential of leading you away from God!
Actually an ‘offense’ in itself isn’t deadly... IF ... it stays in the trap! But so many times we’ll pick up the bait and eat it... feeding on it in our hearts and living it out in our lives. Offended people produce a lot of fruit in their lives... things like hurt, anger, outrage, jealousy, resentment, strife, bitterness, envy and even hatred. Some of the consequences of picking up an offense are insults, attacks, division, broken relationships, betrayal and backsliding. Most of the time, people who are offended don’t even realize they’re trapped. The trap is hidden to them, because they’re so focused on the wrong that was done to them.
And listen, the enemies most effective way to blind us, is to get us to focus on ourselves. (How many of you know that’s true?) We forget about focusing on Christ, and it becomes all about us and our hurt. Jesus made it very clear that it’s impossible to live in this world and not be offended. So why are we so shocked when it happens to us? Because it comes from people we don’t expect it to come from! It comes from our closest friends, our trusted family members... people we grow up with, confide in, sleep next to... attend church with. This makes the offense feel like a betrayal. Mark it down, an offense always leads to betrayal, and betrayal leads to hatred.
This is exactly what David is writing about in Ps.55:12-14. (READ)
Why is it that you find the greatest hatred among the people who were the closest at one time? Any lawyer will tell you that the most vicious cases they deal with are found in the divorce courts.
History shows that the bloodiest wars are civil wars. Brother against brother. Son against father. Father against son. Why is that? I’ll tell you why... because only a friend can get close enough to hurt you. Just ask Jesus...he experienced this with a trusted friend… his name was Judas Iscariot. Mark this down... the closer the relationship... the more severe the offense! I call it the “Judas Principle”. Unfortunately, many times it’s our closest friends that betray us the worst.
A lot of Christians aren’t’ able to fulfill God’s plan for their lives because of the wounds that offenses have caused them.
A fellow believer has hurt them. And now they’re forced to attend church with them, sing with them... In fact, this morning you may even be sitting close to them. Look in your notes next to the words... “THE TRAP”, because the word Jesus uses in Lk. 17:1 for “offend” in the greek is “skandalon” . It’s the word that originally referred to the part of the trap where the bait is attached.
(SHOW RAT TRAP) Now this morning, I’ve brought a rat trap to show you exactly what I’m talking about. It’s this part of the trap right here... (pt. to part and spring trap). OUCH! In the N.T. a “skandalon” was used to describe a trap that had been set by an enemy. And in a very real way, “offense” is a tool that the devil uses to bring people into captivity. Paul instructed us in II Tim. 2:24-26... (READ) He’s saying that those who get into quarrels or opposition fall into a trap and are actually used by Satan to accomplish ‘his’ will as long as they remain offended. People who once served God, are now serving His enemy! And what’s scary is… we don’t even realize that we’re in captivity!
No matter what the scenario, you can basically divide all offended people into two major categories”... (look in your notes.)
1. Those who’ve LEGITIMATLY been treated unjustly, and...
2. Those who BELIEVE they’ve been treated unjustly.
Joseph in the bible would represent a person who had truly been treated unjustly. Loved by his father but despised by his older brothers, he was thrown into a pit, left to die and then something worse than dying happened... he was sold by his brothers as a slave. Amazingly, Joseph was able to remain free of offense towards his brothers even though what they did was amazingly evil and cruel. Joseph was genuinely mistreated. Now, the people in the 1st category really were abused…people in the 2nd category believe with all their hearts that they’ve been abused and wronged, …but often their conclusions are drawn from inaccurate or incomplete information. Or... maybe even their information is accurate... but their conclusions are distorted. If the truth were known, they’re actually judging the very people they accuse of judging and hurting them, in the exact same way… by assumption, appearances and hearsay.
· they ASSUME that so and so feels that way towards them.
· It APPEARS to them that they’re being snubbed or judged.
· They’ve HEARD that that person feels a certain way towards them…
Only in their minds… it’s FACT!
They don’t really know for sure, because they never actually heard them or saw them do what they accuse them of doing. But regardless… either way, the hurt is just as real and the resulting offense is just as damaging and destructive as if it were true. You say, “Pastor, how do you know about all this?” Because about 6 years ago… I was involved in a church split…and I can tell you from 1st hand experience how assumptions and judgments went wild…destroying new believers faith, slicing and dicing long-term believers and leaving people bleeding and hurt all over the place!
When it was over, it looked like a tornado had hit the church. It was horrible!
And there are people out of that situation that are STILL hurting and offended. During that time, I came across a book entitled, “The Bait of Satan”. As I read it, it was like the author (John Bevere) was sitting in the back pew writing down what he saw! I want to share with you some of the principles he writes about in the next 3 weeks. To make sure you avoid being caught off guard and captivated by Satan’s hidden trap of offense, let me share with you “4 Characteristics of Satan’s Bait”...so you can know what to look for in your life.
1st of all, we’re susceptible to “the bait” when we are involved in the...
1. PROMOTION OF A PERSON
When we consciously (or unconsciously) promote a person, or set them up in our minds to an almost superhuman level, we are setting ourselves up for an offense. Jesus was the only perfect man who ever lived, but if you study His life you discover that even He managed to offend people! He offended the religious leaders of His day. He offended His own hometown neighbors to the point that they tried to throw him off a cliff in. He offended his own family members in Mk. 3. He offended his disciples to the pt. in John 6:60, many of them left him. He even managed to offend some of His closest friends when he failed to reach Lazarus before he died. Jesus offended people so much that they became incensed and ended up crucifying Him!!
Of course the difference between Jesus and us many times is that Jesus offended people because he told them the truth. He revealed their true motives and they didn’t appreciate it! Jesus never compromised truth in order to keep people from being offended. Now, if even a perfect person could offend people... what do you think our chances are? Be careful, because the people you hold in highest esteem will eventually disappoint you. They’ll let you down. They’ll fall short of your expectations.
But when they do... don’t let the enemy use it for your own fall! Generally, the rule is… the greater the expectations, the greater the fall. The more we promote a person in our minds... the greater the potential offense. That’s one of the reasons Pastors are prime targets of offenses… we hold them up in such a high esteem that when they mess up… (either by accident or on purpose)… the people who follow them end up crashing and burning. And Satan loves it when that happens!
The 2nd characteristic of the bait , Satan uses to lure us into the “offense trap” is found in the...
2. PRODUCTION OF PRIDE
I know of a pastor who was severely hurt by a couple of fellow pastors. People would come up to him and ask, “I can’t believe that they did this to you. Aren’t you hurt?” To which he would quickly respond...”No, I’m fine... I’m not hurt in the least!” He knew it was wrong for a Christian to be offended, so he denied and repressed it. He said, he even succeeded in convincing himself that he wasn’t offended... when in reality he was hurt very deeply. However, later he admitted. “Pride masked the true condition of my heart”.
Pride will keep us from admitting our true condition... Have you ever done that?
· Pride keeps us from dealing with truth...
· Pride hardens our hearts and distorts our vision...
· Pride causes us to view ourselves as the victim...
Before long, we take on the attitude of the offended, “I was mistreated and misjudged, and therefore I am justified in my behavior”. The ‘offended’ believe that whatever they say about that person, or do to that person, is okay… because of what they did to them! Because we believe that we’re totally innocent and falsely accused... we hold back forgiveness.
But listen, just because you were mistreated, (or believe you were mistreated)... doesn’t give you permission to hold onto an offense! Two wrongs don’t make a right!
The 3rd characteristic of Satan’s bait is found in the...
3. PROTECTION OF SELF
Prov. 18:19 says... (READ) He’s saying that an offended brother or sister is harder to win over than a fortified city. I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine have bared that out! Cities in those days had huge walls built around them. These walls were the cities assurance of protection. They kept enemies and invaders at a distance. The screened out unwelcome visitors. People who owed taxes weren’t allowed in, until they paid them.
We do that to others when we’re offended or hurt. We construct walls to keep our hearts safe, guaranteeing that we’ll never be hurt again. We become selective, denying entry to anyone we fear will hurt us. We withhold access until these people have paid their debts to us in full.
The only people we open our gates to, are those we believe are on our side. Only one problem, they’re usually offended themselves... (or will be when we get done with them!) and so instead of helping bring the walls down, they actually assist us stack more bricks up on our wall. Eventually, the walls of protection we construct to keep people out...keep us in. Walls of protection become the walls of our own personal prison. The N.T. describes these walls as “strongholds” in II Cor.10:4-5... (READ)
The “strongholds” Paul is talking about here, are created in our minds, they’re set patterns of reasoning and thinking. They’re attitudes and ideas about people set in concrete. “Well, that’s just the way they are!” Be careful of how you judge people though… because these set patterns of thinking (strongholds of the mind) act like filters, keeping us from thinking new thoughts.
In fact, every time someone says or does something, we run them through our filters of past hurts, rejections and experiences. The result? A warped and twisted picture of reality. Walls that we originally erected for protection, now become a source of torment and distortion because they war against truth of Gods Word.
John Bevere writes in his book, “The Bait of Satan”… “Offended people even find Scripture passages to back their position, but because of their hurt, they can’t interpret it correctly”.
How many of you know that God’s Word without love can be a very destructive weapon? According to I Cor. 8:1-3, it puffs us up with pride and legalism. READ. So instead of repenting of our unforgiveness... we end up justifying ourselves. One of the ways you can know that you’re deceiving yourself is when in your mind, you’re always the ‘innocent victim’ and everybody else are the evil persecutors. Protecting yourself at all costs is a dangerous and deceiving characteristic of Satan’s bait. Yet how many of us have been tempted to do just that when we’ve been offended by someone. It’s very easy to do! Beware!
Now the last characteristic of Satan’s bait is the...
4. PROJECTION OF BLAME
If you’re projecting blame onto others for your hurts, you’ve already fallen into this trap. Many times when we’re offended we see ourselves as victims and blame those who we believe have caused us pain.
· If it wasn’t for my parents I’d have a normal life! It’s their fault I’m where I am today!”
· If it wasn’t for my X... I wouldn’t be in this trouble today!”
· If it wasn’t for my unfair boss, I wouldn’t have lost that job.
The list is endless! That’s because it’s easy to blame everyone else for our problems and imagine how much better off we’d be if it hadn’t been for ‘that’ person.
Sometimes we even resent people who remind us of others who’ve hurt us in the past. As a result, our focus becomes outward... not inward. We begin to justify our bitterness, unforgiveness and anger as “their” fault. But I want to emphasize this point... Absolutely no man or woman... (not even the devil) can force you out of the will of God. No one but God Himself holds your destiny! The only power your past hurts have over you is the power you give it! Whatever was done to you, (whether by choice or by accident) can’t continue to hurt you …unless you let it!
When we blame others and defend our own position... we’re blind. We struggle to remove the speck out of our brother’s eye... but like Jesus said, “There’s a log in our eye!” Jesus tells us that the cure for the inability to see our true condition according to... Rev. 3:18 is to…“Anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.” So we can see what? Our true condition! We’ll never be freed from the offense trap until we stop blaming other people for the choices we’ve made as a result of the hurt they caused.
Now we’re going to spend 3 more weeks talking about this, but I don’t want you to leave this morning without giving you a way of escape...The cure for seeing the true condition of our hearts is found in Rev. 3:18 and Isa.48:10. In Rev. 3:18 Jesus told people in the church that to be freed from self-deception they needed to ... BUY GOD’S GOLD!...“buy from Me gold refined in fire” Gold in it’s pure, refined state is soft and pliable. It’s only after it’s been mixed with other metals like copper, iron and nickel it becomes hard, rigid and more corrosive. The higher the percentage of foreign metals... the harder the gold. The less the alloy... the softer and more flexible it is. In the same way, a pure heart is like pure gold... soft, tender, pliable. Heb. 3:13 tells us that hearts are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (READ)
So when we don’t deal with an offense...the added alloys of bitterness, anger and resentment hardens our hearts! We lose sensitivity to God. We even lose our ability to hear God clearly.
So, the 1st step in refining gold is to grind it into a powder and mix it with a chemical called “flux”. Then the whole mixture is put in a furnace and melted. The alloys and impurities are drawn to the surface by the flux. Once the impurities are removed, it yields a purer metal. Now look at what God says in Isa.48:10 (READ)
God’s method of refining our hearts is to use (not cause, but use) afflictions, trials and tribulations. It’s the heat of the situation that separates out the impurities of unforgiveness, strife, bitterness and anger. It’s when they liquefy the gold with fire that the impurities show up. Otherwise they’d just hide in our hearts forever. We can’t even see the impurities... it’s not until God reveals them to us through the fire of our trials, that they rise to the surface! Even though they’re hidden to us... God see’s the impurities of our hearts. God sees the hurts, the hates, the bitterness, the unforgiveness.
In the church split situation I spoke to you earlier about, I had an opportunity to practice what I’m preaching to you this morning. I had every right to be bitter (at least in my mind). For 8 months I’d endured accusations, defaming letters, name-calling, attacks on me and my family… so I could have been a very hurt and bitter man before you this morning. I could have given up on the church washed my hands of it all, and gone into selling insurance or real-estate (like a lot of former pastors do). But instead, God helped me to see that he was using even this (as painful and unfair as I felt it was) to purify and strengthen my character. To make me more like Him. And that’s my ultimate goal! And so I began the tough work of forgiving my enemies. I had to bring each name to God and verbally, vocally say to the Lord, “I forgive them for… and then I’d list my grievances. And everytime the enemy would say to me…”Remember that comment? Remember that action?” I’d respond… “Yea, I remember… but I’ve forgiven them… God get this accuser off my back!” And He would! Was it easy? NO. It took months to finally FEEL forgiveness. But the reward is great! I don’t walk around with the awful weight of bitterness and anger towards anyone. Where and when I could, I spoke to individuals and to my knowledge the couple who led the charge to get rid of me and I have no animosity towards each other. In fact, God even gave me an opportunity to bless them where it helps the most… with their grandkids. I was a camp counselor and had an opportunity to show love to their grandkids for a week. Afterwards, they came up and hugged me for not taking it out on them! HA! Even if they haven’t forgiven me… that’s okay… I’m right with them in my heart. The miracle of forgiveness is really an amazing thing. And only God can pull it off in your heart.
Everyone of us hear this morning has a choice to make that will determine our future... We can remain angry, blaming our spouse, our friends, our pastor, the people we work with...our church… holding onto our hurts. Or… we can forgive. We can see the ‘dross’, the impurities of sin in our own life for what it is... repent of it, receive forgiveness for it, and then…with God’s strength forgive others. It’s your choice? What are you going to do? Next week... I want to talk to you about being “Caught in the Trap” and we’ll talk about what are some actual signs that you have been caught in his trap…
Let’s Pray...
