The Bait of Satan
Matthew 16:23
Message #1
We are going to spend a few weeks loosely following a book by John Bevere called “The Bait of Satan.” I first read through this book in the early years of this church when I was doing everything I could to hold on and not let the enemy take me and my family out.
But, in almost twenty years since I first read this book. I have seen so many Christians take the bait of Satan that I think I’ve become a little bit numb to it, like a police officer on patrol for twenty years seeing the damage of a fallen world, day after day.
But recently, I’ve been living through this same battle again personally, and I’ve realized after twenty years, I’m still prone to take this bait of Satan.
Although I’ve been far from successful in this battle. This book, “The Bait of Satan” (John Bevere), along with a book by R.T. Kendall called “Total Forgiveness” have both been huge in my continuing recovery in this area. I pray the truths I’ve learned and that I am still learning from both of these books would be part of your continuing recovery in this area as well.
Trapping animals and fishing have a common approach.
In each, you must have TWO THINGS for success
1). The Trap (or Hook) must be HIDDEN
2). The Trap (or Hook) must be BAITED
And Satan, the enemy of your soul, uses both of these strategies so well. The traps that your spiritual enemy lays for you are both hidden and baited.
Your spiritual enemy is subtle and deceiving. He is cunning and crafty, and his number one tactic is to lure you into his trap with bait that appeals to your flesh. Your enemy works best with bait that appeals to your human nature.
Now, some of you think right now, this is going to be a message about the sexual-based bait that our culture bombards us with every day. But believe it or note, there is an even more productive bait of Satan. It’s a bait that actually lures way more Christians into his trap. In my thirty years in church leadership, by far the most productive bait I’ve seen the enemy use to entrap Christians is the bait of offense.
More specifically, it is getting you to take the bait of being offended. The trap is set with offense. Offense is the bait. But the offense itself – does not entrap us. It’s when we take that bait and become offended that we can quickly find ourselves entrapped by the enemy for years and years – or even for a lifetime.
And offended Christians produce some of the best fruit on behalf of our spiritual enemy. Anger, bitterness, resentment, hate, strife, envy, and hell’s favorite fruit – hatred. All these things are easily produced on behalf of hell by a Christian who is entrapped by offense, and when all that fruit of the flesh ripens. It turns into, insults, attacks, divisions, separation, broken relationships, betrayal, and backsliding. When that fruit ripens into action, we do hell an even greater service.
And what’s worse is when we do become offended, we rarely even realize that we may be in the trap of the enemy. We are usually oblivious or ignorant to our own condition because we are so focused on ourselves and on the wrong that was done to us.
All of this damage and all of this work on behalf of hell can all come just by us “taking up” and “holding onto” an offense. Do you know what I mean by “taking it up”? It becomes part of you. It affects your decisions, your direction, your thought patterns. It just controls you. Just taking up an offense puts us in the employment of hell.
Holding onto an offense and living in the works of the flesh has become so normal in the Christian Church that we think we have a right to feel this way, we think we have a right to act this way. When it comes to us being offended, this is just our natural response, right? It’s just our human way of seeing things, right?
That’s why I picked Matthew 16:23 as our key verse today.
Matthew 16:23 (NLT)
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Jesu calls Peter… Satan and says Peter is a “dangerous trap” just because Peter is “seeing things from a human point of view.” (Yikes!)
Don’t we defend our “human point of view” when we take up an offense and hold on to it? “I deserve to feel this way.” “I’m the victim here!”
But Jesus doesn’t give Peter the luxury of seeing things from “a human point of view.” Instead, Jesus says to Peter, “You and your human point of view are a dangerous trap to me.”
The NLT does a great job of translating this Greek word for “dangerous trap.” (Matthew 16:23) The Greek word is SKANDALON and it refers to the hook in a trap that the bait is placed on, and I think Jesus calling Peter – Satan – is Jesus getting across just how dangerous this trap is.
The ESV says here “you are a stumbling block to me.”
The NKJV says here “you are an offense to me.”
When we “take the bait” of becoming offended (especially by another Believer) we become a stumbling block and an offense to other Believers in our lives.
Hebrews 12:15 (NLT)
15 . . . Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
And guys, when we take up and hold onto an offense, we will always (to some extent) become imprisoned by that offense.
The most productive “bait of Satan” in the Church may well be the bait of offense.
It imprisons countless Christians.
It severs good Christian relationships.
It drives Christians away from the Lord.
And here is why I think this “bait of Satan” works so well on Believers. Because most of the time the person who has offended us – is another Believer – and often, not just another Believer but a Believer we were close to, one that we trusted, one that we served with, maybe one who taught us on Sunday mornings. In fact, Satan’s biggest wins seem to be when an offense comes from a Pastor/Leader we felt close to.
King David writes in Psalm 55,
Psalm 55:12–14 (NLT)
12 It is not an enemy who taunts me— I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me— I could have hidden from them.
13 Instead, it is you—my equal, my companion and close friend.
14 What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God.
The closer the relationship, the more severe the offense is taken, and the more damage the enemy can bring from it.
You, becoming offended in close Christian relationships, that is the bait that Satan loves to entrap us with because that may be the trap that does hell the most good.
So… we can divide all offended people into two major categories.
1). Those who have been treated unjustly
2). Those who believe they have been treated unjustly.
People in the second category believe with all their hearts that they have been wronged. But (in my experience) their conclusions are often drawn from incomplete or inaccurate information. Or their conclusions are distorted in their own minds. But either way, their understanding is clouded by the pain of “taking the bait” of offense.
And guys, the enemy’s biggest chain to keep us trapped in that offense is… our pride. Pride is the sin of all sins. Pride distorts our vision and pride darkens our understanding and pride keeps us from saying, “You know, it might actually be me that is wrong here.” Pride keeps us from accepting any possibility other than that. That person is bad and I’m the victim.
Paul gives young Timothy excellent pastoral advice about this.
2 Timothy 2:25–26 (NLT)
25 Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth (the true, truth).
26 Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.
Guys, we need to understand we can be imprisoned in the devil’s trap and we can be held captive by our spiritual enemy to do his will.
This has been one of the hardest things for me to convince myself of and for me to convince other Christians of, that we can actually be doing the work of the enemy in our own lives or in the lives of other Believers and all the time, thinking we are alright with God because we cannot see that the offense we are holding on to is our own sin.
In Revelation Chapter 3 Jesus addresses the Church of Laodicea.
Revelation 3:17 (NLT)
17 (First Jesus tells them – How they See Themselves) You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ (then he tells them their true condition) And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
Pride had hidden their true condition from themselves but not from God. And so, Jesus tells them (and us) in Revelation 3:18.
Revelation 3:18(a) (NLT)
18 So I advise you to buy gold from me - gold that has been purified by fire . . .
Purified (refined) gold is actually soft and pliable. It’s when gold is mixed with foreign impurities that it becomes hard and less pliable. The higher the percentage of foreign impurities the harder the gold becomes. Just like our hearts.
A pure heart is like pure gold. But, Hebrews 3:13 says, we must WARN each other, NOT to be deceived by sin and HARDENED toward God because if we do not deal with the sin of being offended, it will produce the fruit of sin in our heart, and that fruit of sin will harden our heart like foreign impurities harden gold. Our heart will be hardened to God’s voice. Our understanding will be darkened and we will live in the deception of being offended.
And so, when Jesus says in Revelation 3:18 that we need to buy gold from him that has been purified by fire. He’s saying that we need to come to him to purify our hearts like gold is purified by fire.
So… the first step in purifying gold is to grind it into powder and that is the first step in God purifying us. First, we must ask God to crush our pride and we must ask God to grind our prideful hearts into powder.
Then, in the purifying process, after the gold is crushed into powder, it is mixed with flux and put into a furnace of intense heat. Have you ever been in a fiery trial of offense? I know most of us certainly have been.
The question is, do you see the fiery trial offense as a chance for God to purify your heart like gold? Or have you just gotten angry at God and at the world, and jumped out of the fire shaking your fist at God and everyone else?
Isaiah 48:10 (NLT)
10 . . . I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.
1 Peter 1:7 (NLT)
7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold . . .
Do we see offense like that?
When we see the “bait of Satan” tempting us to become an offended Christian, do we think, “God is refining me in the fire of this offense.” Do we say, “Thank you Lord, for crushing my pride in this offense”? “Thank you for refining me in this fire of offense.”
I don’t hear us (me included) saying that very often in the midst of us being offended. But that is what God is trying to do. He is trying to deliver you from your pride, and he is refining you in the fire of offense.
And so, here’s what happens next in the purifying of gold. AS the fire gets hotter and hotter the foreign impurities that are mixed with the gold are attracted to the flux and rise to the surface, and as the fire brings the foreign impurities to the top, the goldsmith removes them in order to purify the gold. He removes them until he can see his own face in the gold. Changed from glory to glory into the image of Jesus Christ. That’s what God is trying to do… refine you until he can see his face in your heart.
Please hear this.
What the devil wants to use to destroy you, God wants to use to purify you. And you must choose WHO gets to use this trap of offense that you find yourself in.
If you are getting bitter and seeing the works of the flesh coming out of your heart, then you are choosing to allow the devil to destroy you with this offense.
If you are getting better and surrendering your pride to God and beginning to see God at work for good in your heart, then you are choosing to allow God to purify you – in this fire of offense.
You decide whether to choose the devil’s goal or God’s goal for you in this offense.
To close, let’s go back to Revelation Chapter 3. In verse 18, after Jesus calls us to buy gold purified by fire, from him, the second half of that verse says,
Revelation 3:18(b) (NLT)
18 . . . Also buy white garments from me (always a picture of the Righteousness of Christ) so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and (buy) ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.
Our pride blinds us. Our pain blinds us. Our sin nature blinds us. And we need our eyes anointed by God so that we can open our eyes and say, “You know what, Lord? Something else is happening here. This is not just about me being offended. You and the devil are both trying to get something out of this. I choose you, God.”
Lord, Jesus, may we make your true righteousness – our own practice, and may you anoint our eyes so that we can see the true condition of our heart whenever we face the bait of Satan to be offended.
But, in almost twenty years since I first read this book. I have seen so many Christians take the bait of Satan that I think I’ve become a little bit numb to it, like a police officer on patrol for twenty years seeing the damage of a fallen world, day after day.
But recently, I’ve been living through this same battle again personally, and I’ve realized after twenty years, I’m still prone to take this bait of Satan.
Although I’ve been far from successful in this battle. This book, “The Bait of Satan” (John Bevere), along with a book by R.T. Kendall called “Total Forgiveness” have both been huge in my continuing recovery in this area. I pray the truths I’ve learned and that I am still learning from both of these books would be part of your continuing recovery in this area as well.
Trapping animals and fishing have a common approach.
In each, you must have TWO THINGS for success
1). The Trap (or Hook) must be HIDDEN
2). The Trap (or Hook) must be BAITED
And Satan, the enemy of your soul, uses both of these strategies so well. The traps that your spiritual enemy lays for you are both hidden and baited.
Your spiritual enemy is subtle and deceiving. He is cunning and crafty, and his number one tactic is to lure you into his trap with bait that appeals to your flesh. Your enemy works best with bait that appeals to your human nature.
Now, some of you think right now, this is going to be a message about the sexual-based bait that our culture bombards us with every day. But believe it or note, there is an even more productive bait of Satan. It’s a bait that actually lures way more Christians into his trap. In my thirty years in church leadership, by far the most productive bait I’ve seen the enemy use to entrap Christians is the bait of offense.
More specifically, it is getting you to take the bait of being offended. The trap is set with offense. Offense is the bait. But the offense itself – does not entrap us. It’s when we take that bait and become offended that we can quickly find ourselves entrapped by the enemy for years and years – or even for a lifetime.
And offended Christians produce some of the best fruit on behalf of our spiritual enemy. Anger, bitterness, resentment, hate, strife, envy, and hell’s favorite fruit – hatred. All these things are easily produced on behalf of hell by a Christian who is entrapped by offense, and when all that fruit of the flesh ripens. It turns into, insults, attacks, divisions, separation, broken relationships, betrayal, and backsliding. When that fruit ripens into action, we do hell an even greater service.
And what’s worse is when we do become offended, we rarely even realize that we may be in the trap of the enemy. We are usually oblivious or ignorant to our own condition because we are so focused on ourselves and on the wrong that was done to us.
All of this damage and all of this work on behalf of hell can all come just by us “taking up” and “holding onto” an offense. Do you know what I mean by “taking it up”? It becomes part of you. It affects your decisions, your direction, your thought patterns. It just controls you. Just taking up an offense puts us in the employment of hell.
Holding onto an offense and living in the works of the flesh has become so normal in the Christian Church that we think we have a right to feel this way, we think we have a right to act this way. When it comes to us being offended, this is just our natural response, right? It’s just our human way of seeing things, right?
That’s why I picked Matthew 16:23 as our key verse today.
Matthew 16:23 (NLT)
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Jesu calls Peter… Satan and says Peter is a “dangerous trap” just because Peter is “seeing things from a human point of view.” (Yikes!)
Don’t we defend our “human point of view” when we take up an offense and hold on to it? “I deserve to feel this way.” “I’m the victim here!”
But Jesus doesn’t give Peter the luxury of seeing things from “a human point of view.” Instead, Jesus says to Peter, “You and your human point of view are a dangerous trap to me.”
The NLT does a great job of translating this Greek word for “dangerous trap.” (Matthew 16:23) The Greek word is SKANDALON and it refers to the hook in a trap that the bait is placed on, and I think Jesus calling Peter – Satan – is Jesus getting across just how dangerous this trap is.
The ESV says here “you are a stumbling block to me.”
The NKJV says here “you are an offense to me.”
When we “take the bait” of becoming offended (especially by another Believer) we become a stumbling block and an offense to other Believers in our lives.
Hebrews 12:15 (NLT)
15 . . . Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
And guys, when we take up and hold onto an offense, we will always (to some extent) become imprisoned by that offense.
The most productive “bait of Satan” in the Church may well be the bait of offense.
It imprisons countless Christians.
It severs good Christian relationships.
It drives Christians away from the Lord.
And here is why I think this “bait of Satan” works so well on Believers. Because most of the time the person who has offended us – is another Believer – and often, not just another Believer but a Believer we were close to, one that we trusted, one that we served with, maybe one who taught us on Sunday mornings. In fact, Satan’s biggest wins seem to be when an offense comes from a Pastor/Leader we felt close to.
King David writes in Psalm 55,
Psalm 55:12–14 (NLT)
12 It is not an enemy who taunts me— I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me— I could have hidden from them.
13 Instead, it is you—my equal, my companion and close friend.
14 What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God.
The closer the relationship, the more severe the offense is taken, and the more damage the enemy can bring from it.
You, becoming offended in close Christian relationships, that is the bait that Satan loves to entrap us with because that may be the trap that does hell the most good.
So… we can divide all offended people into two major categories.
1). Those who have been treated unjustly
2). Those who believe they have been treated unjustly.
People in the second category believe with all their hearts that they have been wronged. But (in my experience) their conclusions are often drawn from incomplete or inaccurate information. Or their conclusions are distorted in their own minds. But either way, their understanding is clouded by the pain of “taking the bait” of offense.
And guys, the enemy’s biggest chain to keep us trapped in that offense is… our pride. Pride is the sin of all sins. Pride distorts our vision and pride darkens our understanding and pride keeps us from saying, “You know, it might actually be me that is wrong here.” Pride keeps us from accepting any possibility other than that. That person is bad and I’m the victim.
Paul gives young Timothy excellent pastoral advice about this.
2 Timothy 2:25–26 (NLT)
25 Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth (the true, truth).
26 Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.
Guys, we need to understand we can be imprisoned in the devil’s trap and we can be held captive by our spiritual enemy to do his will.
This has been one of the hardest things for me to convince myself of and for me to convince other Christians of, that we can actually be doing the work of the enemy in our own lives or in the lives of other Believers and all the time, thinking we are alright with God because we cannot see that the offense we are holding on to is our own sin.
In Revelation Chapter 3 Jesus addresses the Church of Laodicea.
Revelation 3:17 (NLT)
17 (First Jesus tells them – How they See Themselves) You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ (then he tells them their true condition) And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
Pride had hidden their true condition from themselves but not from God. And so, Jesus tells them (and us) in Revelation 3:18.
Revelation 3:18(a) (NLT)
18 So I advise you to buy gold from me - gold that has been purified by fire . . .
Purified (refined) gold is actually soft and pliable. It’s when gold is mixed with foreign impurities that it becomes hard and less pliable. The higher the percentage of foreign impurities the harder the gold becomes. Just like our hearts.
A pure heart is like pure gold. But, Hebrews 3:13 says, we must WARN each other, NOT to be deceived by sin and HARDENED toward God because if we do not deal with the sin of being offended, it will produce the fruit of sin in our heart, and that fruit of sin will harden our heart like foreign impurities harden gold. Our heart will be hardened to God’s voice. Our understanding will be darkened and we will live in the deception of being offended.
And so, when Jesus says in Revelation 3:18 that we need to buy gold from him that has been purified by fire. He’s saying that we need to come to him to purify our hearts like gold is purified by fire.
So… the first step in purifying gold is to grind it into powder and that is the first step in God purifying us. First, we must ask God to crush our pride and we must ask God to grind our prideful hearts into powder.
Then, in the purifying process, after the gold is crushed into powder, it is mixed with flux and put into a furnace of intense heat. Have you ever been in a fiery trial of offense? I know most of us certainly have been.
The question is, do you see the fiery trial offense as a chance for God to purify your heart like gold? Or have you just gotten angry at God and at the world, and jumped out of the fire shaking your fist at God and everyone else?
Isaiah 48:10 (NLT)
10 . . . I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.
1 Peter 1:7 (NLT)
7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold . . .
Do we see offense like that?
When we see the “bait of Satan” tempting us to become an offended Christian, do we think, “God is refining me in the fire of this offense.” Do we say, “Thank you Lord, for crushing my pride in this offense”? “Thank you for refining me in this fire of offense.”
I don’t hear us (me included) saying that very often in the midst of us being offended. But that is what God is trying to do. He is trying to deliver you from your pride, and he is refining you in the fire of offense.
And so, here’s what happens next in the purifying of gold. AS the fire gets hotter and hotter the foreign impurities that are mixed with the gold are attracted to the flux and rise to the surface, and as the fire brings the foreign impurities to the top, the goldsmith removes them in order to purify the gold. He removes them until he can see his own face in the gold. Changed from glory to glory into the image of Jesus Christ. That’s what God is trying to do… refine you until he can see his face in your heart.
Please hear this.
What the devil wants to use to destroy you, God wants to use to purify you. And you must choose WHO gets to use this trap of offense that you find yourself in.
If you are getting bitter and seeing the works of the flesh coming out of your heart, then you are choosing to allow the devil to destroy you with this offense.
If you are getting better and surrendering your pride to God and beginning to see God at work for good in your heart, then you are choosing to allow God to purify you – in this fire of offense.
You decide whether to choose the devil’s goal or God’s goal for you in this offense.
To close, let’s go back to Revelation Chapter 3. In verse 18, after Jesus calls us to buy gold purified by fire, from him, the second half of that verse says,
Revelation 3:18(b) (NLT)
18 . . . Also buy white garments from me (always a picture of the Righteousness of Christ) so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and (buy) ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.
Our pride blinds us. Our pain blinds us. Our sin nature blinds us. And we need our eyes anointed by God so that we can open our eyes and say, “You know what, Lord? Something else is happening here. This is not just about me being offended. You and the devil are both trying to get something out of this. I choose you, God.”
Lord, Jesus, may we make your true righteousness – our own practice, and may you anoint our eyes so that we can see the true condition of our heart whenever we face the bait of Satan to be offended.