By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON, PASTOR
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Again, read Matthew 18:15-35; and Leviticus 19:18
This has been a rather interesting thing, because if one realizes what God is saying here, a person can be and will most likely be offended by others at one time or another. It can and does happen to any and all of us. The best thing to understand is that it is not all right to stay that way once it happens to us. Offense is coming, but a person can always get to use the best option to deal with it in the right way.
Now turn to the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, Chapter 19, verse 18. Here is what God has said, “Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against any of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I Am the Lord. He says, “You’re not to hold a grudge or try to avenge yourself.” He means, one doesn’t even have to take up for oneself.
Has somebody done you wrong? Just bless the Lord! And, you also keep on loving that particular person, because when you do this, you are actually obligating God to take care of you! He has said, “I Am the Lord. I Am Jehovah.” In other words, what He’s saying here is, “If you will do this My way, I’ll take care of the situation. Amen. He is telling you; I’m going to take care of it.
Go back to Matthew 18 for just a minute. If we have dealt with offense right, then we’re able to bind things on the earth and that Heaven will bind them, and we’re able to loose things on the earth toward heaven, and Heaven will loose, let’s say healing. Sometimes we’re just there. I need to preach the power of binding and loosing, because I may just need to bind up an enemy. Sometimes I may need to bind up the Prosperity of the Lord to myself.
Do you mean, that you can do good or bad with this (binding and loosing)?
Sometimes I need to bind the Prosperity of the Lord to myself. You can do good or bad, but you have to know the Law. One has to know how it operates. He said those laws are lost to the Church that is offended. In verse 19, He goes on one more time. He says, “and again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on Earth, and is touching anything that they shall ask it, it shall be done for them of My Father, which is in Heaven.
We’ve always used that verse independently of offense. How many times have you heard somebody say that if two or three agree? Well, that’s true, but Jesus says, these are the laws that are activated when there’s no offense in the house.
Open your eyes because seeing it, as offense that isn’t dealt with is sinful. Well, you just don’t know what they did to me.
Listen, they nailed Jesus to a cross. They beat the flesh off of His back. Josephus said, His entrails were hanging out of His back while He carried a cross on Mount Calvary. He did all that for you wearing thorns on His head and here’s what He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Until you’ve been struck up, beat half to death, have had your flesh ripped off of you and left on a cross to die, let the offenses go! Jesus’ example was letting it go. Let the offense go! Because the same laws that work for you work for Him. Jesus didn’t do anything outside of the Law of God. That’s why He said these words, and these are some of my favorites. He said, “I’m going to My Father in Heaven. When I do greater things, shall you? He was talking about it being necessary in quality. He did amazing things, but He was talking about equality. He understood that offense would take away the ability to move in the same realms He moved in.
While they beat Him, He said, “what they do, Amen.” (Let it be so.) (Do we begin to see how offense can cripple a Church?) Let’s be honest, every person in here has been offended at one time or another, including me, but how one deals with it will determine how God deals with us. Verse 20, “for where two or three are gathered together in My Name…there I am in the midst of them, who’d refused to be offended.
