Let's Quit Dropping the "O" Bomb By Mel C. Montgomery  What is the "O" Bomb? In the Parable of the Sower, Christ said, ". . . when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended."--Mark 4:17. We interpret this to mean that if you are believing God for an answer to prayer and you allow the emotion of offense or resentment against another person to come into your heart for any reason, it entirely short-circuits the faith process. God won't hear your prayer, and whatever you are asking Him for, no matter how desperately needed, or how humbly it is requested, will not even be heard by the Lord, much less granted. Offense--what I call the "O" bomb, blows the whole deal. | Numerous sermons have been preached in which we are repeatedly exhorted not to allow offense into our hearts against another human being or our faith won't work. However, in this passage of scripture the Lord was not speaking about becoming offended at other men. |
Please look again at that scripture: ". . . when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended."--Mark 4:17. The Lord said that offense comes as the result of suffering "affliction or persecution." So let's take a look at someone who was suffering persecution and see how this applies. John the Baptist had rebuked Herod for immorality, telling him that his actions were not lawful. Herod had John imprisoned, thus placing John in the situation Christ had described of "affliction or persecution." John's faith in Christ began to ebb away. He did not see the Lord making any move to establish an earthly kingdom, to overcome wicked men like Herod, to overthrow the oppressive Roman occupation, or to free him from prison. John sent two of his disciples to Christ. Please read the account with me: "Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."--Mat. 11:2-6 King James Version. Let's examine other translations of this last verse: "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." NIV. " And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” New KJV. "and happy is he who may not be stumbled in me." Young's Literal. Christ did not instruct John not to take offense at Herod, or his jailors, or any other human being. He also did not say, "John! You have allowed the emotion of offense into your heart. It has short-circuited your faith. Your faith for God to release you from prison will never bear fruit until you get rid of the offense!" The Lord was saying, "don't take offense at Me when I don't move in the exact manner that you believe I should." In the Parable of the Sower, the Lord was instructing us that when affliction or persecution--difficult times or vicious untrue criticism--comes, not to lose our faith by becoming offended at Him when He does not move in the manner or timing that we think He should. He was not speaking about avoiding taking offense at men. Men are just human beings. But God is the object of our faith. We can not be offended at the object of our faith, and receive from Him at the same time. We can not turn to God and away from God simultaneously. It is an either/or situation. We either have faith in Him or we are offended at Him. We believe that when we pray in faith, in the name of Jesus, and ask something that is according to God's will, He hears and grants our request. After we have prayed, in accordance with Christ's command in Mark 11:24, we believe we have received the answer to our prayer, and that God will make His promise good by causing the answer to come to pass. And we keep believing the prayer has been answered, until the answer shows up, the breakthrough comes, the need is met, the healing manifests, etc. While we are believing we have already received the answer to our prayer, Satan will move against us to shake our faith and talk us into giving up. Two tools he uses, according to Christ's words in the Parable of the Sower, is affliction and persecution. Satan knows that if we fight him in the realm of the Word and the Spirit, we will defeat him every time. Because of Christ's victory over him at Calvary, Satan is spiritually powerless when we confront him with faith in the name of Jesus, and in the word of God. So he stirrs up negative circumstances--affliction, and may also motivate people to rage against us with vicious and untrue accusations--persecution. By doing so, he hopes to pull us out of walking in the Spirit, away from the promises of God, and back into the natural realm where we are no match for him. Many times this tactic is successful. A Believer will be trusting God in a matter, and the matter gets worse. Then the car breaks down, and the cost of the repairs drain his bank account. Then he is accused at work of being incompetent. Plus his wife gets sick. Just then the washing machine and the hot water tank both go out. It seems like trouble comes pouring in through every door and window. When this happens, many believers will begin to say, "What good does it do to believe God? I trusted Him, and things are worse than they ever were, and I still haven't seen the answer to my original prayer. Forget this 'believing God' stuff. God must not like me because He certainly isn't answering my prayer. Well fine! I don't like Him either! I'm going back to the world." Satan has succeeded. He has gotten the believer offended at the Lord. By preaching that the Parable of the Sower is requiring us to never be offended at men, rather than the true purpose of instructing us not to get offended at God, we thwart God's instruction. Christ Himself Was Sometimes Offended at Men On occasion, the Lord was offended, angry, and grieved at men: At Peter--"But he [Jesus] turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."--Matthew 16:23. At the Pharisees--"And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts..."--Mark 3:5. At Unbelieving People--"He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?"--Mark 9:19. At Unrepentant Cities, even cursing them-- "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! . . . And thou, Capernaum . . . it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."--Matthew 11:20-24. At The Scribes, Pharisees and Hypocrites-- "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men . . . Woe unto you . . . for ye devour widows' houses . . . Woe unto you . . . ye make [a convert] twofold more the child of hell than yourselves . . . Woe unto you, ye blind guides . . . Woe unto you . . . [you] have omitted . . . judgment, mercy, and faith Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel . . . Woe unto you . . . [you] are full of extortion and excess . . . Woe unto you. . . ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity . . . Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"--Matthew 23:13-33. If that last example from the Gospel of Matthew isn't a clear case of the Lord being grieved, angry, and offended at men, I don't know what is. Consider this: Would the Lord be offended at men sometimes, and yet then refuse to hear our prayers when we too are offended at men? Surely not.
Offense, like grief, is normal. When a loved one dies, we grieve. Even if he was a Christian, we will have to learn to adjust to life without him. We will miss that certain smile he had, or a specific way his personality brought us comfort. We can't just instantly get over grief. It takes time. Sometimes it takes a long time. When someone is badly mistreated, cheated, lied to, persecuted, insulted, abused, humiliated, or whatever, it takes time to move beyond that. If the emotional wound is deep, a person may be so badly shaken that it takes months or years to fully get over it. Are we really to believe that as a person is working through a deep wound, none of their prayers will be answered until they have fully gotten over the offense? If God can't help us in the time when we need Him most, then He isn't "an ever-present help in times of trouble," is He? There is a natural process that has to be worked through concerning grief, and also concerning being offended. And God is with us in that process. Too many times we short-circuit that slow healing and recovery process by pouncing on an offended person and expecting them to almost instantly "get over it" simply because we say so, and because God won't hear their prayers until they do. Is it any wonder so many fall away from Church saying that the people there had no compassion or understanding of something they were going through? A distant acquaintence of mine divorced his first wife. A few years later he married his second wife, who had a teenage daughter. As the daughter got older, the man began having an affair with her. All three were Christians. When the woman discovered that her husband was having an affair with her daughter, she was devastated. The whole family sought counselling from their pastor, and then eventually from other pastors. These Christian "counsellors" gave only a passing nod to the fact that this man had broken his marriage vows, betrayed his wife, and had committed a vile and horriffic sexual sin. Instead, they pounced on the wife and demanded, "You need to forgive. YOU need to forgive. YOU NEED TO FORGIVE! Yes, what your husband did was wrong, but God won't hear your prayers unless YOU forgive your husband. Now! Do it right now! Forgive your husband!" This poor woman was vicitimized three times. Once by the husband who had sex with her daughter. He turned the situation around on his wife and said, "Well, I never was tempted to have sex with my own daughter, so this must have happened because of you." Victimized again by the daughter who wanted to "remain close" to her stepfather. And victimized the third time by Christians who laid nearly all of the problem at her feet claiming, "The only thing that is needed in this situation now is, you need to forgive." She sought me out for counselling. She told me, "Am I losing my mind? I'm being told that I caused my husband to have an affair with my daughter, and now that God has turned away from me because I am struggling with all of the hurt and betrayal and haven't been able to put it all fully behind me yet." I told her, "No you are not out of your mind. Those counsellors are. Your husband and daughter both betrayed you. No, absolutely none of this is your fault. And be comforted by the fact that as you turn to the Lord and seek His help, He is with you. You will not get over this immediately. It will take time. But if you'll keep coming back to the Lord in prayer and worship, He will help you forgive your husband and heal this wound." Most of this counselling took place over the phone because she lived quite some distance from me. Through several more phone counselling sessions and one personal visit, I was able to help this woman see that her husband was playing a mind game with her, and was refusing to admit the devastation he and he alone had caused. The husband never talked to me. The husband went ahead and divorced her, claiming that it was alright to do so because she had not fully forgiven him. He said this was all her fault in the first place and he told her, "God has given me a real peace about this divorce." The daughter rarely speaks to her mother. She blames her mother for not "understanding" how close she and her stepfather were and remain. This woman was suffering a f0rm of the "affliction" Christ warned us would come. Her husband, daughter, and Christian counsellors ganged up on her. They dropped the "O" bomb on her, blaming her and demanding that she immediately "get over" this offense or God would turn away from her. This time of affliction had brought her to the brink of becoming offended at the Lord and turning away from Him--as Christ told us could happen. Eventually, the woman slowly recovered. Emotional healing came. She was able to forgive the husband who had betrayed her, blamed her, and then divorced her. She has a healthy relationship with the Lord, and is actively involved in a Spirit-filled church. This is no thanks though to those who dropped the "O" bomb on her. My friends, people need time to psychologically adjust to something that has offended them and caused them to stumble. Sometimes, they need to talk about it, as this woman did. And in her time of trouble, she could find no Christian willing to fully listen to her and help her recover. She just found more blame. I am not arguing in favor of carrying offenses against others. I don't condone someone going from person to person repeating the story of some bad thing that happened. But as sociable human beings one of the ways we adjust to a traumatic event is to talk about it to an understanding person. Rather than being understanding and helping a wounded person walk through and slowly overcome the offense, too often we just drop the "O" bomb on them: "You're offended! Now your prayers won't be answered!" We Ignore What Christ Actually Said About Offenses Christ pronounced a curse on people who cause offenses: "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"--Matthew 18:7. Woe means sorrow, sadness, great suffering. So Christ was saying "...Sorrow! Sadness! Great suffering be unto that man that offends others!" The Lord cursed the one who causes the offense, not the victim. I've never heard that preached, have you? I've never heard a preacher say, "I don't care how saved you are! I'm warning you: If you wound another person or if you cause another person to stumble in life or stumble in their faith, you will bring upon yourself a woe. You will bring upon yourself Sorrow! Sadness! Great suffering! The Lord Himself warned us not to offend or wound our brother or we would reap sorrow, sadness, and great suffering." Instead, we preach that almost completely backwards. We usually have little or nothing to say to the offenders, and instead we come down like a ton of bricks on the victims and warn them not to let themselves be offended at another person or their prayers won't be answered. Is It Ok To Take Offense at Men? Short term, it is perfectly normal. God doesn't expect us to be like the fictional Mr. Spock--the utterly non-emotional Vulcan of the Star Trek movies. However, to hold an offense against someone long-term is a sin. Christ spoke a parable from which the key statement of the Lord to men is: "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?"--Mat. 18:33. We need to see offenses in perspective. God has forgiven us far more than any man can ever do to us. If figuratively speaking, God has forgiven us $5 Billion, shouldn't we be willing to forgive someone else $5.00? Of course. When an offense comes, we need to work to get that offense out of our mind and heart as quickly as we can and God will be with us all through the process. We must also develop some thick skin, not allowing ourselves to be easily offended, and making sure we are not touchy and overly sensitive to the usual bumps and bruises of life. Christ told us offenses would come, so we need to be a little on guard in our dealings with other men.
How Do We Recover From an Offense? First of all, bring the matter to the Lord. He knows you and the other person involved. Ask His help in overcoming the offense. I read an account some years ago that has helped me in dealing with offenses. And believe me, they come fairly regularly in ministry! I've lost count of how many committments have been made to me and broken in the course of ministry, and how many people who promised to sow into my ministry over the years and didn't follow through. Give some thought to the following account that helped me. I read a man's description of a vision God gave him. He was caught up to Heaven and saw a line of saints stretching from the outskirts of Heaven all the way to the Throne. The people were lined up based on how closely they had walked with the Lord and how pure their hearts had been on the earth. The ones who had hardly walked with the Lord at all, were far from the Throne. Those who were martyrs, or had walked in great faith and humility were close to the Throne. Those at a distance were light, but the closer you got to the Throne, the lighter and brighter the individuals gradually became. As the visitor walked past individuals, he was stunned to see a minister he had greatly revered in life standing far from the Throne. He couldn't believe it. He thought there must have been a mistake. The minister told him there was no mistake. He acknowledged that in his earthly life he had brought the Gospel to many people. However, his true motive had been darkened by a big ego and a desire for the attention and flattery of men. Therefore, he was indeed in the correct position--far from the Throne of God. There are going to be some surprises in Heaven. In his visitation to Heaven, this man also saw ministers come before the Lord, thinking they had done much for him and expecting a great reward. But many of them received far less of a reward than they expected and some received almost nothing because their true motives and actions had been wrong. Many were grieved to see how little they had done had truly been for the Lord. This account has helped me deal with offenses. When someone wounds me, especially if he is a Christian, I think of the day in which he will appear before the Lord. I imagine him expecting a great reward from the Lord and receiving instead a very small reward because of the offenses he has committed against me and others. I imagine his disappointment. I imagine how disappointed I would be in his shoes, and the compassion of the Lord seems to come up within me, and I find it in my heart to pray for the one who offended me. In prayer, I remind the Lord that one day that person will stand before Him and be judged, and that I don't want that Day to be one of grief for him. I don't want anything subtracted from his reward on my account. I remind the Lord that the man who offended me is on the wrong road in life, and I ask the Lord to get him back on the right road. I also remind myself of how much the Lord has forgiven me. I ask the Lord to forgive him, and I do my best to forgive him. I keep pushing the offense out of my thoughts, I put some distance between the offender and myself until the sharpness of the wound begins to heal. Then I go on. When the Devil brings it up in my thinking, I say, "No Satan! I've forgiven that man. I've released that debt. He owes me nothing, and I refuse to think on it. I want his reward to be great on that Day." When the wound or offense is new, it is quite a battle to push it away. But as time passes, it becomes easier. Then honestly, after a few months or years, I try to think back on the offense, and most of the time I can't even recall what it was about or why it hurt so much. God is our Helper in this process. Additionally, depending on the situation and the nature of the people involved, there are generally two options to pursue further in overcoming an offense: "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother."--Mat. 18:15. In other words, if someone has mistreated you, insulted you, or caused you pain, and that person is reasonable at all, one viable option is to go to him and explain his offense. It may be that this was a simple misunderstanding. You may have heard him incorrectly. Or he may have misunderstood your actions. Or he may have been entirely in the wrong and may have a repentant heart when you remind him of his offense. On the other hand, if the person is beyond reasoning with, Paul gives us another option: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them."--Rom. 16:17. Put some distance between you and that person. Manage to be elsewhere, when he is here. Arrange to be here, when he is elsewhere. After the wound heals, be on guard with that person in the future. There is so much to understand and apply concerning offenses and overcoming them. But to a certain extent, we have turned the subject of offenses into a cheap parlor game. Offense is the Word of Faith Trump Card For those of you who are unfamiliar with card games, the trump card is the highest or most valuable card. Once you have played the trump card, the game is over, and you have won. I was having an exchange of e-mails with a minister recently who was absolutely infuriated at something I had written. Out of all of the responses I received to the article, his was the only negative one. No one else had the slightest negative comment. Many people complimented me on the article telling me I was "right on target." This man however, fired off an angry e-mail to me filled with various insults and misquotes of what I had written. Sometimes, I just let those things go. But I wanted to explore this man's arguments a bit. So I calmly and reasonably responded to a few of the accusations and misquotes. He fired back more accusations and misquotes. I calmly responded to them too. Point by point, I logically and methodically refuted his various charges against me, and supported my original article with additonal facts. With his arguments in tatters and having nothing else to come back at me with, he finally played the "O" card. He implied that I had a wrong motivation in writing the article stating, "Well, I know you wrote this article because you were offended." By playing the "O" card he trumped all my logical arguments and facts. Once someone plays the "O" card on you, there's no way to recover. It is like playing the gender card--you are finished. "Prove you are not a sexist!" "Well, some of my best friends are women." "Yeah, sure! All sexists say that!" Once this minister played the "O" card, how could I respond? "No brother, I'm not offended.
"Yes you are! That's why you wrote this article!" "No it isn't." "Yes it is!" "I have no axe to grind against anyone. I'm writing of excesses that are common in our branch of Christianity, and that need to be corrected--regardless of who is committing them. I don't write because I'm offended. I write because some things are long overdue to be said." "Well Brother, I KNOW you are offended!" He continued by implying that I was in denial, that I needed to repent, and that my faith wouldn't work until I changed. He saw no need for anyone else to repent or address their own excessive behavior and teachings. Please! Who was the person "in denial" here? He won the discussion because the "O" card trumps everything. Truth be told, the reason he was firing off one angry e-mail after another at me was because he was offended. There is an old saying, "When you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who yelps is the one who got hit." This man evidently felt that my article reflected on him, or hit one of his sacred cows, so he yelped via e-mail. I knew about the power of the "O" card but did not play it in response to his first obviously offended e-mail because I wanted to give the man a chance to present his concerns to me. That's one limitation with the use of the "O" card--you have to play it before the other guy does, or you're sunk. | Playing the "O" card is like a show-down in the old West. Picture Sheriff Matt Dillion and Marshall Wyatt Earp facing each in the middle of the street at high noon, each armed not with guns, but simply with "O" cards. Whoever draws the "O" card the fastest blows the other guy away. |
Can you see how childish this all has become? In Conclusion: The concept of offense has become twisted in WOF circles. The Lord's two warnings about offense: not to be offended at Him, and not to offend other people, has been almost entirely lost to us. It has degenerated into the "O" bomb that we detonate in a person's thinking blowing up all hope he has of receiving God's help in a time of offense. And offense has also become the trump card we play when we can't think of any other way to win an argument. Let's put the concept of offense back into perspective and quit beating each other up with the "O" bomb and the "O" card. Let's also have some compassion towards the victims of offense and help them to slowly work through the pain. Remember, Christ never cursed the victim of offense. He cursed the offender. Copyright 2007 Mel C. Montgomery. All rights reserved. Material may be copied and shared with others as long as it is done so in entirety, without charge, and attribution is given.
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