THE MAN TRAP

At the beginning of the year a pastor from an island in the Pacific Ocean made a very credible and eloquent, educated application to us for a small amount of money to bless the poor of his remote village. He did tell us the truth, but because truth has three levels it turned out later not to be quite the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Somehow he forgot to mention that for the previous ten years he had been backslidden, a minor detail he may have thought and not one to worry us about. Unfortunately when the funds arrived a little more backsliding took place whereupon a long and sorry tale began to unfold with literally half a world between our different cultures, understandings and living standards.  This week there has been a happy ending which has released mercy for wrongdoing, justice for the givers and grace for the offender, and the funds have found a proper application. On the way it was not just our native pastor who learned a lesson or two, we did as well, and if you would like to know what these lessons were then please read on . . .

ESCAPING THE TRAP

We need to understand that anytime now, one of these days without any warning we will be offended by someone doing or saying something to us, because as Jesus said in Luke 17.1, “It is impossible that no offenses should come.” How we handle the offence is the issue.

1. We already knew not to take offence having read John Bevere’s excellent book, ‘The Bait Of Satan’ which is based on his own personal experience after he did take offence. In a nutshell the Greek word for offend in Luke 17:1 comes from the word ‘skandalon’ which refers to the part of a trap to which the bait is attached. An offence is like Satan’s hook with a worm and if you take it, it might be years before you get out of the hunter's keep net, in fact some people we know have spent half a lifetime in there. Read more about this.

2. We turned to Matthew 18, 15-35 which is a God-given Biblical grievance procedure, a text book solution to be applied with great sensitivity, prayer and patience. The goal is always to win your brother over, to be reconciled one to the other after trust has broken down, to find a satisfactory outcome and very importantly to limit the spread of the knowledge of the sin as gossip can damage one person for life and not leave the other unscathed.

1. First we talk to the other person, one to one, alone.
2. If that fails, we ask two others to come with us to seek a solution.
3. If that fails we involve local church leaders to help find a way forward.
4. If that fails then the Jesus says to treat an unresponsive offender as a pagan,
in this case law may have to take over where grace has failed.

3. We never had to get beyond step one but we would have gone further. In all of our dealings with the pastor who had misdirected funds intended for the very poor we looked for a solution with three combined ingredients: mercy, justice and grace.

First we looked for a way to show mercy through forgiveness which releases both the offender and the offended party. In the same chapter 18 of Matthew in verses 21 – 35 we have the story of the unmerciful servant who was forgiven a debt of millions of pounds yet later he refused to forgive a debt of just a few pounds that was owed to him. In the end it was the unmerciful servant not the offending debtor who suffered years of torment and prison and we did not want that for ourselves. Having been forgiven all of our incalculable debt and guilt by Christ we wanted to show mercy to one who owed us little.

We also found our way to 1 Chronicles 13 which tells the story of Uzzah who unexpectedly died when carrying the Ark of God back to Jerusalem because King David did not follow God's rules for touching the Ark, so we looked at the question to what degree might we have been responsible for what had happened? Upon reflection because this was a small amount of money and there was a measure of urgency we did not follow some of our own strict rules and procedures which might have revealed the character weakness in the pastor, so perhaps we shared in his fall. Later David brought the Ark back to Jerusalem in the correct way without incident and with much rejoicing.

Secondly we looked for justice for the givers and for the poor who had lost a blessing, through a equitable, righteous solution, acceptable to all.

Finally we looked for grace to be released, which is the undeserved loving kindness and perseverance of God, in this case to be seen in character development through hardship to make the pastor stronger for the future, after all at the heart of the universe is a smile, not a dictator’s tanks and bullets.

Our ultimate goal was the simple formula that (Repentance + Restitution = Restoration) whereas (No Repentance + No Restitution = Retribution). Retribution from the hands of man would be bad enough but to fall into the hands of an angry God like Ananias and Sapphira did in Acts 5,1-11 for not telling the whole truth is to run an unthinkable risk, and it can still happen.

Happily by a process of persevering in prayer, patience, communication, goodwill and firmness a solution was found and there has been a satisfactory ending. Mercy has been extended, justice has been seen to be done and grace has brought hope of changes to secure the pastor’s development, his future and that of his family and church. If all had failed then we would have followed John Maxwell’s wonderful 1 minute video on the blessings of Release, where you let the offence go into the hands of God knowing that there is a soon coming Judgement Day when all things will be put right and every tear dried.


Les Norman, 27th May, 2011
www.dci.org.uk