Satan’s Favorite Weapon 9_22_19

Satan’s Favorite Weapon

9/22/19

Matt 18:7 “Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!”

ILLUS: snakes

I want to talk to you today about Satan’s coral snake—it is OFFENSES.

I’m not doing this because our church is having a bunch of offense issues.

When you get a flu shot in the fall, it’s designed to keep you from getting the flu.

I have learned to teach on offenses at least once a year to inoculate our church from Satan’s attacks in this area!

____________

Nothing is more lethal for individual Christians, marriages, or churches than the coral snake of offense.

Offenses are the number one reason for divorce, broken friendships, and split churches.

In our text, Jesus speaks a woe over offenses—both over those who cause them, and those afflicted by them.

The Greek word we translate into offense is skándalon, which refers to the trigger of a trap that ensnares an unsuspecting victim.

ILLUS: We put cheese on the trigger of a mouse trap and when the mouse bites into it, the trap is triggered.

An offense is the trigger that brings the trap of anger, hurt, unforgiveness, vengeance—all the various negative emotions we experience when offended down upon us.

Now, there are several ways we can offend:

We can offend someone by enticing them to sin.

This is the primary meaning of our text where Jesus is saying, “Woe to those who offend others by causing them to stumble into sin.”

____________

And we can also offend others by hurting them in a way that triggers the flood of negative emotions that are so hard to get over.

The offense becomes a stumbling block that prevents the offended person from moving forward in their walk with God.

____________

We’ve all experienced it.

Someone says or does something that hurts or angers us....we can’t believe they did it or said it.

We are immediately flooded with emotions of anger and hurt.

The painful event is put on a continual replay loop in our mind.

We nurse it, rehearse it, and eventually we disperse it by bringing others into our offense.

And if we don’t practice forgiveness, the offense can put down roots to become a root of bitterness.

An offense has the power to literally derail a person from their walk with God...

If it’s not settled, the victim of the offense can literally be under its control for life!

Unresolved offenses cause spiritual joy to evaporate, desire for the things of God to dissipate, and spiritual growth to stagnate.

____________

Now, we Christians are very aware of the big, bad sins like adultery, stealing, murder, and so forth.

But we’re somehow blind to the coral snake of offense—how it can poison us if we don’t practice forgiveness like Jesus taught.

Jesus knew better than anyone the danger of unresolved offense, and taught us to stop it in its tracks thru forgiveness.

He taught us to be immediately proactive by going to the source of the offense first:

“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back” (Matt. 18:15 NLT).

Don’t nurse it, don’t rehearse, don’t disperse it—but kill the coral snake of offense by going to the offender to explain how you were offended.

_____________

Jesus also taught us to be prolific forgivers: “Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” 22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” (Matt. 18:21-22 NLT)

His point is that we should forgive as often as we’re genuinely asked.

Forgiveness does NOT mean we must be reconciled to the offender, it means we have released them (and ourselves) by forgiveness, just like God has forgiven us!

Either way, Jesus taught us to quickly handle an offense before it has time to poison us.

_____________

Now, I want to read you a story about how an offense affected two people and, by extension, an entire church.

It’s a bit lengthy but very powerful:

In 1981, Roger Faulkner had been a member of a Church in a Chicago suburb for nearly two years. He had served as a Sunday School teacher for more than a year when the position of superintendent became available.

Roger was excited about Sunday School and felt that he would be an ideal successor to the position. He went to the pastor and shared his vision and desire to serve, but to his disappointment the pastor and church board later chose someone else to serve in that post.

Roger was very offended that he wasn’t considered for the job, but didn’t say anything to the pastor about it. As the weeks wore on, Roger became increasingly negative and critical toward the church and the people. He began to find fault with the new superintendent and the Sunday School program. He began attending services less and less.

Jeff Billings, another Sunday School teacher, began to notice something wrong with Roger. After church one Sunday, Jeff invited Roger out to lunch.

“Is everything Ok?” Jeff asked. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been absent a lot lately and I get the feeling that something is wrong.“

“Yeah, you might say that,” Roger said sarcastically. “I’m fed up with that stupid church and its immature leadership! The Sunday School program stinks and the pastor couldn’t preach his way out of a paper bag! Most of the people here are unspiritual and unloving. I’m just not getting fed here anymore, and I’m thinking about leaving!”

Jeff was shocked. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Just a few weeks ago you were so excited about the church. You used to brag to everyone that this was the greatest church in town. Just two months ago you told me that this was the most loving congregation you’d ever seen. What’s happened to change you?”

“It’s not me. It’s the church that’s changed,” fumed Roger. “Besides the incompetence of the Sunday School program, let me tell you a few other things I’m upset about...”

For an hour, Jeff was amazed to hear Roger’s complaints. For many weeks afterward, he met with Roger several more times, hoping to encourage him, but to no avail. Instead, he began to empathize with Roger’s criticisms. It wasn’t long until Jeff too began developing negative attitudes and eventually even resigned from Sunday School.

Bill Stedlund, a friend of Jeff’s, took notice that both he and Roger were not as active in the church as they used to be. He observed that when they were in attendance, they usually sat together and would often whisper to each other during the services. He realized that something was wrong.

One evening, Bill saw the two at a local restaurant talking with others from the church. He decided to join them. “How’s it going, guys?” Bill said. “Wasn’t Sunday’s service great! Fifteen souls came to the Lord. And what a sermon! Praise the Lord!”

Everyone at the table just looked at each other. “Sorry, we didn’t notice,” said Jeff smugly. “I guess we were too preoccupied with the serious problems in the church.”

“Problems? What problems?” Bill chirped. “Are you guys goofy or what? The church is going terrific. Lives are being changed every Sunday, the church is growing, and the congregation is ecstatic. What’s your problem?”

“Apparently you’re blinded to the reality of what’s really going on,” said Roger. “The church is ruled by politics and unspiritual morons who don’t care whose feelings they hurt. Besides, the people of this church have more faults than an earthquake zone! And furthermore...”

Bill interrupted, “Whoa, wait just a second! I’ve been wondering what’s wrong with you guys, and now I guess I know. You’re the ones who are blinded! You’ve developed a critical, fault-finding spirit and the Devil has blinded you from being able to see the beauty of what the Lord is doing.”

“Roger, I heard you got your feelings hurt when the pastor chose someone else over you for Sunday School Superintendent. But instead of talking with him about it and forgiving him, you developed a bitter, unforgiving spirit! Now the Devil has deceived you into looking for fault in everything.”

“And to make matters worse, you’ve taken your discontent and spread it to other brethren. This is a serious violation of God’s Word. You ought to know that the Bible says God hates those who spread discord among the brethren. The word ‘hate’ is pretty harsh language coming from God, and the Bible warns of calamity that will come upon those who spread discord!

“Spreading discontent is disobedience to God and will not help solve problems, Roger. Gossip and bad-mouthing only makes a situation worse. Just a few weeks ago, Jeff thought everything was going great until you ‘illuminated’ him. And how many others have you corrupted with your bad attitude?”

Bill continued, “How did Jesus teach that we should resolve our differences with our brethren? You are to go to the persons who have offended you and talk to them privately and resolve your dispute (Matthew 18:15).”

“Did you keep the matter private and go to the pastor? Did you go to others who offended you? No, you didn’t. You selfishly chose to spread your complaints and opinions to others to gather their attention and sympathy to your own hurt feelings.”

“Roger and Jeff, where in the Bible does Jesus tell His followers to judge, criticize, or condemn our brethren? You can’t tell me, because it doesn’t say it! However, Jesus did tell you to love and forgive your brethren, to submit, to prefer, to encourage, to dwell together in love and peace, not to bad-mouth one another, and on and on!”

Roger and Jeff were offended by Bill’s lecture and thereafter avoided his fellowship. But months later Roger became convicted about his sinful attitude and realized that this was why the Lord had not been answering his prayers.”If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear” (Psa. 66:18).

He repented of his sin and asked the Lord to forgive him. A few days later he went to the pastor and the other Christians that he had bad-mouthed, and asked forgiveness. Roger recovered from his troubles and continues to serve the Lord to this day.

Sadly, the person whom Roger had influenced most, Jeff, became more critical and bitter. The discord had taken root and had severely damaged Jeff’s faith. Unfortunately, discord is like a bad apple that will spoil the whole barrel — an infection that the Devil uses to spread his evil disease.

Jeff continued to spread the seeds of discord. Dozens left the church and the discontent spread, severely damaging the ministry. Souls ceased coming to the altar for salvation, and the loss of tithers caused the church to struggle for several years. Jeff also had many heartaches and no longer serves God.

Christians must never forget that their words can promote life or death, unity or division, love or hate. Although Roger was forgiven for his evil words sown, his mouth was an instrument of murder to his friend, Jeff, and others. Satan used his mouth to nearly destroy a whole church.

How many souls have been murdered with the mouths of discontent believers? “The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor...” (Prov. 11:9).

The Bible clearly warns us to mark those who cause division and strife and to avoid them. They are used by the Devil to cause trouble to the church and to the work of the Gospel (Romans 16:17).

God promises that the sower of discord will face calamity. “A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth; he winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points with his fingers; perversity is in his heart, he devises evil continually, he sows discord. Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy” (Prov. 6:12-15).

This story is the reason Jesus taught us to deal with the coral snake of offense before its poisonous bite brings ruin!

_______________

Our church is praying for revival, for fresh wind and fresh fire, a moving of the Holy Spirit!

For this to happen we must declare war on offenses and the discord they bring.

I pray that if there are unresolved offenses amongst us—in our homes, marriages, businesses, or here at church—we will deal with them before they deal with us!

Let’s pray