OFFENSE CREATES DEFENSE

Notice Mat. 24 v.12 where it says “the love of many will grow cold.” The word “love” in this verse is the Greek word ‘agape’ which is the God-kind of love. Only believers can have this kind of love, and Jesus is saying that many people who are saved and born again will have this God-given love turn cold within their hearts, and as a result will begin to betray and hate one another. Christians hating Christians!

What causes this love to grow cold?

? Lawlessness!

? Sin!

? Offense!

? The absence of holiness in the lives of wayward believers!

It is a shame to know that Christian divorces now outnumber the divorces of the community of non-believers. Churches everywhere are grasping the idea that homosexuality is an acceptable behavior and some are electing openly gay clergymen to the highest offices in the organization.

What must the Lord be thinking? Churches are split nearly every day and each night many believers go to bed bitter and angry at their fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord.

What caused these evil feelings to take root in these people? To answer that you must go back to the beginning of our scriptural context and see what Jesus said. Matt. 24:10 begins by saying, “And many will be offended...” Notice it doesn’t say a few will be offended, but many!

Believers being offended at one another are those who have failed the love test and is a sign that the end of the age is fast approaching. The Amplified? Bible gives an even clearer picture of the repulsive condition many members of the body of Christ are now in. It says they “will begin to distrust and desert Him (Whom they ought to trust and obey) and will stumble and fall away and betray one another and pursue one another with hatred.”

It is a sad commentary that sin in the church is even listed in this category of end-time events. For sure, the root of bitterness runs deep.

The word “offense” also means ‘to create resentment, injustice, insult, to hurt the feelings of.’ If not dealt with, hurt feelings will grow to bitterness and hatred. In Greek the word means ‘to bait a trap, to ensnare.’ It’s the part of the trap where the bait is laid.

It pleases the flesh to lash out at others when one’s appetite for self-centeredness is not filled to full capacity by those around them.

Getting offended is a bitter reaction to not getting one’s own way and only selfish and self-centered people get offended. Sadly, these same people often turn to uncontrolled anger that causes them to do harm to the one whom they are offended at.

The Bible is filled from cover to cover with stories of people who got caught in the deadly trap of offense.

? In Genesis 4, Cain got offended when God rejected his offering and as a result rose up and murdered his brother Abel.

? The sons of Jacob got offended when their younger brother Joseph told them about his God-given dream that foretold a day when they would all bow down before him.

? King Saul was jealous when more attention and praise was given to David and once offended tried on several occasions to murder the anointed heir to the throne.

? In the New Testament Martha got offended because her younger sister Mary sat at the feet of Jesus instead of helping with the serving of the guests.

? And let’s not forget what some offended people did to the Lord Jesus Christ after He spent all His life doing nothing but good to those around Him.

The number of stories in the Bible about people getting offended are vast, and informs the reader with certainty that offenses will come. Minute by minute they’ll come and every person on planet earth will be tempted with- and will be given the opportunity to get offended at somebody. Listen to the stark warning Jesus gives in Luke 17:1, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come.”

The Message? Bible says, “Hard trials and temptations are bound to come, but too bad for whoever brings them on!”

You will never be in a relationship with a person who doesn’t do something to irritate you. We all have faults and there are things about our personality that irritates other people as well.

Most people use pride to tell themselves they didn’t do anything to offend the other person, and it was them who did something wrong to you. Jesus dealt with this in Matt. 7:3 when He said, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own?” The Message? Bible says in vv. 1-5, “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults - unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.

Do not have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you’ when your own face is distorted by contempt! It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.”

The devil is a thief and he uses offenses to bait the children of God into a life of resentment, hatred, and ultimate destruction. The solution to this evil deception where one believes they have the right to be offended, is found in the Lord’s prayer where Jesus taught us to pray these words, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” Matt. 6:12.

Paul writes in Eph. 4:31, 32, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.”

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