# Nothing Shall Offend Them FEATURED ARTICLE Language: en Author: Lee Rufener Athens, Wisconsin Original issue: The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Winter 2023 Source pages: 15–18 Read article: Original PDF: Winter\-2023\-Remnant\_for\-web\(2\)\.pdf [The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Winter 2023]() I doubt that there is a soul alive that has not been offended at one time or another\. The persistent weeds of evil influence seem to sprout at every corner, testing the best of blooming relationships\. The more communication tools we possess, the more miscommunication we seem to encounter, and people are offended\. Ministers of the Gospel today are expected to be soft and effeminate lest they offend their listeners\. While we certainly must meet people where they are and seek not to offend them, the bane of the modern church is not the bold and offensive minister\. I wish to give no license to hardhearted preachers who are void of tenderness and tears\. Woe be unto the dry\-eyed prophets who wield the sword of the Lord without an ounce of consideration that there are real people between the ears that they are chopping off in the process\. Yet, it seems that there is an epidemic of our day that has surpassed the bubonic plague, outstripped the damage of polio, and makes our modern cancer appear like a minor inconvenience\. I speak to the outbreak of the millions of offended hearts that are arising from the rubbish of the innumerable hordes of broken and strained relationships about us on every hand\. Jesus mentioned that one of the signs of the end times is that “then shall many be offended \. \. \. and shall hate one another” \(Matthew 24:10\)\. Divorce\-riddled homes have risen to an all\-time high, producing a generation of immense mistrust and pain\. Couples will deem themselves as incompatible and separate at the slightest offense\. Christians will spend years outside a church setting because they have been offended by fellow believers\. Many will automatically side with the offended party, assuming them to be a victim\. Many times they are\. “Woe unto the world because of offences\!” \(Matthew 18:7\) But the equation changes when we consider that the sinless Christ offended many\. He told His disciples that they must eat His flesh and many left Him\. He informed the inner 12 that had stuck with Him, “All ye shall be offended because of me this night” \(Mark 14:27\)\. The Pharisees were offended when Christ exposed their vain worship, and Jesus offended His own countrymen simply by doing good\. The Greek word is skandalízō meaning “to scandalize”\.1 In Hebrew, it means “a stumbling block”\. The problem is that many today will stumble over the slightest obstruction in their path and the molehill becomes a mountain\. “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” \(Psalm 119:165\)\. What shall we say then to this passage? Here are people who have learned how to walk upon the rocky path of life without going down every time a discomfiting obstacle arises before them\. We wish to heap no condemnation upon the sensitive soul, but the word sensitive is not in the Bible\. The closest word we can find there is sensual, which is very similar in its roots and means natural\. Christ described these plants as having “not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended” \(Matthew 13:20\-21\)\. It is so easy and very natural to feel sorry for the offended\. They carry a tremendous sob story, and they usually share it in tears\. “In many things, we offend all” \(James 3:2\)\. No one is as sinless in their offending as Christ, so there is usually an element of truth poured out against the offender\. It seems to me that we all would be much further down the road if we would withhold some of our sympathy for the offended and spend our energies teaching them how to walk upright on the path of life despite the jagged and copious stumbling stones that greet us daily upon our journey\. We will learn to live life unoffended when we learn to \. \. \. ![A wooden gate in a stone archway beside a wooden railing]() ## Walk Worthy “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” \(Ephesians 4:1\-2\)\. To walk worthy, as Paul describes it here, is to walk in humility\. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” \(Proverbs 16:18\)\. The more pride\-laden our vessel, the more apt we are to be offended\. The more honestly we appraise our worth, the less offended we shall be when derided\. More humble equals less stumble\. When we are accused of a wrong, it always hurts\. Jesus says that we should be happy when people say all manner of evil against us falsely\. While such a demeaning wound may fester under our skin, there is a condition that is far worse\. That is when people say all evil against us truly\. Many accusations against us carry a certain percentage of truth in them\. It is this portion that the Lord would have us to reckon with, rather than decrying the overstatement\. While these falsities levied against us may raise our ire, they are not the reason we stumble and walk around with consequential bruises\. Offense arises when the opinion of another doesn't measure up to the extent we tout ourselves\. “Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people\. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” \(Isaiah 57:14\-15\)\. Here, Isaiah instructs us to remove the stumbling block but makes no mention of the offender\. The antidote is to be of a contrite and humble spirit\. We will never be able to exterminate every avenue of offense\. But if reckoned correctly, there is no offense that shall ever be able to divert us from the promise, “they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” \(Isaiah 40:31\)\. It is predominantly our pride which stands in the way of our successful journey, rather than ill\-treatment\. ## Walk In Love “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour\. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting \. \. \.” \(Ephesians 5:2\-4\)\. It takes no scholar to observe the stumblings of a selfish fool\. This selfish ambition to obtain friends, wealth, and affluence is guaranteed to bring a man flat on his nose at some time or another\. The trail of sins mentioned here are all following in tow to the gratifying of self\. King Ahasuerus counseled of Haman on how to honor a worthy man\. Haman’s narcissistic mind immediately brooded, “To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?” \(Esther 6:6\)\. God had other plans thus the man who was so offended by Mordecai was hung upon the gallows of his own creation\. Selfish souls can point to a thousand and one reasons why they are not attaining their aspirations\. Somebody wronged them\. An unfortunate turn of events derailed them\. But it was not Mordecai, Esther, nor even Ahasuerus that brought Haman stumbling to his bitter end\. It was his own refusal to walk in love and to sacrifice himself for others that wrought the malignant demise in his soul\. ## Walk as Children of Light “Walk as children of light \. \. \. proving what is acceptable unto the Lord\. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” \(Ephesians 5:8\-11\)\. Our innate passions contain the third rock of offense\. There may be things that we believe are acceptable to our Lord, which are not\. There are those who have “itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” \(2 Timothy 4:3\-4\)\. This may affect those with the most noble intentions and firm beliefs\. Christ forewarned His disciples that they would be put out of the synagogues so that when it happened, they “should not be offended” \(John 16:1\-4\)\. John the Baptist was a burning and a shining light and no prophet born of women had risen greater\. He walked worthy of his calling, baptized the Lord, and rebuked the Pharisees\. He walked in love, and multitudes “were willing for a season to rejoice in his light” \(John 5:35\)\. Yet the day came when he sent his disciples to ask Jesus: Art thou he that should come? Or look we for another? To which Jesus replied, “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached \.\.\. and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me” \(Luke 7:20\-23\)\. Christ's response would indicate that this apparently did not fully fit the aspirations of what John had in mind, and he was struggling to accept it\. Like his Old Testament counterpart, Elijah, these like passions provided the fodder for the flames of discouragement\. It seemed to John that evil had enveloped the nation and God wasn't doing His part\. We may mean well, but our own passionate feelings are not a good gauge of proving what is acceptable unto the Lord\. Phaltiel was a dear soul who fell into such deceit\. He had been given Michal by King Saul himself\. The princess was no doubt a delicate and pleasing prize\. David had evidently valued her so, for he risked his life and doubled the dowry with two hundred Philistine foreskins to secure her hand in marriage\. But Phaltiel thought nothing of that, relishing his own good fortune and so enjoyed her company for years\. Though this arrangement may have been socially acceptable at the time, no man has the right to receive what another has no right to give\. The day came when “they sent, and took her from her husband, even from Phaltiel the son of Laish\. And her husband went with her along weeping behind her” \(2 Samuel 3:15\-16\)\. We know very little of Phaltiel, but if we dismiss ourselves from his emotional avalanche, we must declare him faulty\. We dare not let our compassionate heart turn toward him or toward anyone who is offended when asked to separate from works of darkness\. When these passionate feelings are allowed to rule, offense is the inevitable result\. “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God” \(1 Peter 2:20\) \. \. \. ## Walk Circumspectly “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” \(Ephesians 5:15\)\. “Be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” \(1 Corinthians 14:20\)\. Herein we must honestly acknowledge that ignorance is not bliss\. To enter the narrow gate may require a broad mind\. Not so broad to allow sin, but broad enough to allow God\. Circumspect is a compound word formed from the Latin words circum \(around\) and spectare \(to behold\)\. The one\-dimensional soul will spend his days being offended, for he cannot see from the viewpoint of any but his own\. There are over a dozen solid scriptures warning us against doing what is right in our own eyes\. We must learn to honestly consider the counsel and wisdom of others lest we fall into condemnation\. In her early years, Michal loved David with deep and fervent loyalty but later fell prey to rash judgment\. “As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart” \(2 Samuel 6:16\)\. As Michal viewed the scene from her upper vantage, there were two things evident\. First, David was exuberantly thankful, and his joy knew no bounds\. This is first love, “for whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God” \(2 Corinthians 5:13\)\. Second, during David's ecstatic dancing in his loin cloth, his discretion elapsed, and his flesh became a bit public\. This would require great circumspection to view from another portal, and Michal will have none of it\. Upon his entrance to bless his house, David was met with a blast of pent\-up bigotry from his offended and sarcastic wife\. While the accusation carried a dimension of truth, to cling to it as supreme was shameful prejudice\. God had no sympathy for it and “therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death” \(2 Samuel 6:23\)\. Many a good woman has judged her man from her singular corner and parched the soil of the home with the same arid judgment\. This narrow\-mindedness will never be fruitful no matter how blatant the accusation\. There is a correct way to express concern, but the outpouring of biased judgment will turn a celestial oasis into a barren wasteland in a prompt fashion\. “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle” \(Proverbs 18:19\)\. So it is with a sister, husband, wife, friend, etc\. While causes for offense abound on every side, does Christ desire us to be offended? Will He salute our sour and shriveled soul? Perhaps He gave us this test so that we may have root within ourselves, “that no man should be moved by these afflictions” \(1 Thessalonians 3:3\)\. While we may not be able to control our feelings during times of inward pain, we each can choose a redemptive path and walk in the Spirit\. It is a choice to broadcast grievances, nurse hurts, withdraw from the offender, and decline to believe all things\. Like the brother offended, these contentions serve to lock the soul like the bars of a castle\. But who holds the power for release? 1. Strongs Concordance ## Magazine citation - [A wooden gate in a stone archway beside a wooden railing](): Misty Photography