The Bait Of Satan Chapter 6

2 Tim 3:1-9 KJ

2 Timothy 3:1–9 AV

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.

First Point

ACQUIRING AN

OFFENSE KEEPS YOU

FROM SEEING YOUR OWN

CHARACTER FLAWS BECAUSE

BLAME IS DEFERRED

TO ANOTHER.

As a couple, we held a lot of unforgiveness and hurts for many years. We got to the stage where we had very few friends, and I was feeling isolated and unloved even though I was faithfully attending an excellent church. Then I read your book The Bait of Satan, and everything

6 HIDING FROM REALITY

[They are] always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. —2 TIMOTHY 3:7

I’m often asked, “When should I leave a church or ministry team? How bad does it have to get?” I respond, “Who sent you to the church you presently attend?”

The majority of the time they answer, “God did.” “If God sent you,” I reply, “do not leave until God releases you. If the Lord is silent, He is often saying, ‘Don’t change a thing. Do not leave. Stay where I have placed you!’” When God does instruct you to leave, you will go out with peace, no matter what the condition of the ministry.

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. —ISAIAH 55:12,KJV

Therefore, your departure will not be based on the actions or behavior of others but rather on the Spirit’s leading. So leaving a ministry is not based on how bad things are.

To leave with an offended or critical spirit is not the plan of God. It is reacting rather than acting on His guidance.

Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Notice it does not say, “For as many as react to difficult situations, these are sons of God.” Almost every time the word son is used in the New

Testament, it comes from the two Greek words: teknon and huios.

A good definition for the word teknon is “one who is a son by mere fact of birth.”

1 When my first son, Addison, was born, he was John Bevere’s son by mere fact that he came from my wife and me. When he was in the nursery in the midst of all the other newborns, you could not recognize him as my son by personality.

When friends and family came to visit, they could not pick him out except by the name tag above his crib.

He did not possess anything that set him apart. Addison would be considered a teknon of John and Lisa Bevere.

We find teknon used in

Romans 8:15-16. It says that because we have received the spirit of adoption, “the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children [teknon] of God.” When a person receives Jesus Christ as Lord, he is a child of God by fact of the new birth experience. (See John 1:12.)

The other Greek word translated sons in the New Testament is huios.

Many times it is used in the New Testament to describe “one who can be identified as a son because he displays the character or characteristics of his parents.

”2 As my son Addison grew he started looking and acting like his father. When Addison was six, Lisa and I took a trip and left him with my parents. My mother told my wife that Addison was almost a carbon copy of his daddy. His personality was like mine when I was his age. As he has grown, he has become more like his dad. He now can be recognized as John Bevere’s son, not only by the fact of his birth but also by the characteristics and a personality that resemble his father’s.

So, to put it simply, the Greek word teknon means “babies or immature sons,”

and the Greek word huios is most often used to describe “mature sons.”

3 Looking at Romans 8:14 again it reads: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons [huios] of God.”

We can see clearly that it is the mature sons who are led by the Spirit of God. Immature Christians are less likely to follow the leading of the Spirit of God. Most often they react or respond emotionally or intellectually to circumstances they face.

They have not yet learned to act only on the Spirit of God’s leading. As Addison grows, he will progress in character development. The more mature he becomes, the more responsibility I will entrust to him.

It is wrong for him to stay immature. It is not God’s will that we remain babies. One way the character of my son Addison has grown is by facing difficult situations.

When he started school he met up with some “bullies.” I heard some of the things these rough kids were doing and saying to my son, and I wanted to go and deal with it. But I knew that would be wrong. For me to intervene would hinder Addison’s growth.

So my wife and I continued to counsel him at home, preparing him to face the persecutions at school. He grew in character through obeying our counsel in the midst of his suffering.

This is similar to what God does with us. The Bible says,

“Though He [Jesus] was a Son [Huios], yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8, emphasis added).

Physical growth is a function of time. No two-year-old child has ever been six feet tall. Intellectual growth is a function of learning.

Spiritual growth is neither a function of time or learning, but it is a function of obedience.

Now look at what Peter says: Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. —1 PETER 4:1, EMPHASIS ADDED A person who has ceased from sin is a perfectly obedient child of God.

He is mature. He chooses God’s ways, not his own. Just as Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered, we learn obedience by the difficult circumstances we face. When we obey the Word of God that is spoken by the Holy Spirit,

we will grow and mature in the times of conflict and suffering. Our knowledge of Scripture is not the key. Obedience is.

Now we understand one reason why we have people in the church who have been Christians for twenty years, who can quote verses and chapters of the Bible, have heard a thousand sermons, and read many books, but still wear spiritual diapers.

Every time they meet with difficult situations, rather than responding by the Spirit of God, they seek to protect themselves in their own way.

They are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7).

They never come to the knowledge of the truth because they do not apply it.

Truth must be allowed to have its way in our lives if we are going to grow and mature. It is not enough to give mental assent to it without obeying it. Even though we continue to learn, we never mature because of disobedience.

SELF-PRESERVATION

A common excuse for self-preservation through disobedience is offense.

There is a false sense of self-protection in harboring an offense. It keeps you from seeing your own character flaws because the blame is deferred to another.

You never have to face your role, your immaturity, or your sin because you see only the faults of the offender.

Therefore, God’s attempt to develop character in you by this opposition is now abandoned.

The offended person will avoid the source of the offense and eventually flee, becoming a spiritual vagabond.

When God releases you in peace, you will not have pressure to justify your departure to others.

You will not be under pressure to judge or critically expose the problems your previous church had.

Back in the days when the settlers were moving to the West, a wise man stood on a hill outside a new Western town. As the settlers came from the East, the wise man was the first person they met before coming to the settlement. They asked eagerly what the people of the town were like.

Some said, “The town we came from was wicked. The people were rude gossips who took advantage of innocent people. It was filled with thieves and liars.”

The wise man answered, “This town is the same as the one you left.” They thanked the man for saving them from the trouble they had just come out of. They then moved on further west.

Then another group of settlers arrived and asked the same question: “What is this town like?”

The wise man asked again, “What was the town like where you came from?”

These responded, “It was wonderful! We had dear friends. Everyone looked out for the others’ interest. There was never any lack because all cared for one another.

If someone had a big project, the entire community gathered to help. It was a hard decision to leave, but we felt compelled to make way for future generations by going west as pioneers.” The wise old man said to them exactly what he had said to the other group: “This town is the same as the one you left.”

These people responded with joy, “Let’s settle here!” How they viewed their past relations was their scope for their future ones.

The way you leave a church or a relationship is the way you will enter into your next church or relationship.

Jesus said in John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

We preserve the sins of other people when we pick up an offense and harbor resentment.

If we leave a church or a relationship resentful and embittered, we will enter into the next church or relationship with that same attitude.

It will then be easier to leave our next relationship when problems arise.

We are dealing not only with the hurts that took place in the new relationship, but also with the hurts from our former relationship.

Statistics say 60 to 65 percent of divorced people end up getting divorced again after remarrying.

4 The manner in which a person leaves their first marriage determines the path into their second marriage.

The unforgiveness they hold against their first mate hinders their future for their second one. In blaming the other they are blind to their own role or faulty characteristics.

To make matters worse, now they have the added fear of being hurt. This principle is not limited to marriage and divorce.

It can apply to all relationships. A man who had previously worked for another minister came to work for our ministry team.

He had been hurt by this former leader, but time had passed, and I felt the Lord was leading me to ask him to come work with us. I believed he was in the process of overcoming this hurt.

I called his former employer and shared my plans to bring him on staff. He encouraged me and thought it was a good move because he knew I cared for both of them. He believed the healing could be completed while he worked with us.

I told both men that my prayer was for restoration and healing in their relationship. When the man joined our ministry team, there were problems almost immediately.

I’d address the issue only to see temporary relief. It seemed he couldn’t get beyond his former relationship. It kept coming back to haunt him.

He even accused me of doing the same things his previous leader had. I was troubled because the well-being of this man was more important to me than what he could do for me as an employee.

I made exceptions for him that I would not make for any other employee because I desired to see him healed.

After only two months he resigned. He felt trapped in the same situation as before.

He left saying, “John, I will never work for another ministry again.” I blessed him and watched him go.

We love him and his wife. The sad fact is that there is a strong call on his life for the very thing he has left, though that does not mean he won’t have success in other areas.

I was troubled after he left so I sought the Lord. “Why did he leave so quickly when both of us felt so right about it?” A few weeks later the Lord used a wise pastor friend of mine to answer this question.

He said, “Many times God will allow people to run from situations He desires them to face if they are set on running from them in their hearts.”

He then relayed the story of Elijah, who ran from Jezebel. (See 1 Kings 18-19.)

Elijah had just executed the evil prophets of Baal and Asherah. They were the men who had led the nation into idolatry and had eaten at Jezebel’s table. When Jezebel heard this, she threatened to kill Elijah within twenty-four hours.

God wanted Elijah to confront her, but instead he ran. He was so discouraged that he prayed to die. He was in no condition to fulfill the assignment.

God sent an angel to feed him with two cakes and allowed him to run for forty days and nights to Mount Horeb. When he arrived, the first thing God asked him was, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

This seemed like a strange question. The Lord gave him the food for the journey, allowing him to go, only to ask him when he arrived, “What are you doing here?”

God knew Elijah was set on escaping the difficult situation.

So He allowed it, though it is obvious from His question that it wasn’t His original plan. He then said to Elijah,

“Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint...Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place” (1 Kings 19:15-16).

Under Elisha’s and Jehu’s ministries this wicked queen and her evil system were destroyed (2 Kings 9-10). This assignment was not completed by Elijah but by the successors God told him to anoint in his place.

The pastor said to me, “If we are so set in our hearts not to face difficult situations, God will actually release us even though it is not His perfect will.”

I later remembered an incident in Numbers 22 that illustrates this same point.

Balaam wanted to curse Israel because there were great rewards in it for him personally. He asked the Lord the first time if he could go, and God showed him that His will for Balaam was not to go. When the princes of Moab returned with more money and honor, Balaam went to God again. It is ridiculous to think God’s mind would now change because more money and honor were in it for Balaam.

But this time God said to go with them. Now why did God change His mind?

The answer is that God did not change His mind. Balaam was so set on going that God let him go.

That is why His anger was aroused against Balaam when he did go. We can pester the Lord regarding something for which He has already shown us His will. He will then allow us to do what we want even when it is against His original plan—even when it is not in our best interest.

Often God’s plan causes us to face hurts and attitudes we don’t want to face. Yet we run from the very thing that will bring strength to our lives. Refusing to deal with an offense will not free us from the problem. It will only give us temporary relief. The root of the problem remains untouched.

My experience with the young man that I hired also taught me a lesson about offenses and relationships.

It is impossible to establish a healthy relationship with a person who has left another relationship bitter and offended.

Healing must take place. Even though he kept saying he had forgiven his former leader, it was not forgotten. Love forgets wrongs so that there is hope for the future.

If we have truly overcome an offense, we earnestly seek to make peace. The time may not be right immediately, but in our hearts we will watch for an opportunity for restoration.

Jesus desires to heal our wounds. But we often do not let Him heal them because it is not the easiest road to take.

It is the path of humility and self-denial that leads to healing and spiritual maturity. It is the decision to make another’s well-being more important than your own, even when that person has brought you great sorrow.

Pride cannot travel this path, but only those who desire peace at the risk of rejection. It is a trail that leads to humiliation and abasement. It is the road that leads to life.