John Bevere - Trapped in Offense
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Welcome to the Bait of Satan, Session Two. I have put a title on this one: «How Could This Happen to Me?» (exclamation mark and question mark). In Chapter Three of the book, we’re discussing the two different categories of Christians who are offended. If you can categorize them, here they are: Number one, those who have been genuinely mistreated. Category number two, those who think they have been mistreated.
Now, I’m not dealing with category two. The people in category two have accurate information but have discerned inaccurately, or they have inaccurate information and should not be offended because they were not mistreated. However, I want to talk about what it means if you’ve been genuinely mistreated. The first person in the Bible we should consider is Joseph; would you agree with that? So, let’s review Joseph’s life. He is the eleventh son of Jacob, who is the grandson of Abraham, and he has ten older brothers. When Joseph shows up on the scene, he is a bit of a tattletale; he tells on his brothers. He is also a bit of a bragger; he has some character issues causing his brothers to dislike him.
To make matters worse, his father favors him—something fathers should not do. Now, his brothers hate him even more. One night, he goes to sleep and has a dream that his brothers will serve him. He eagerly shares this dream with them, but they do not share his enthusiasm; they hate him even more. Then he has another dream and tells them again, and now they are really mad; they hate him. Jacob sends the ten older sons to watch the flocks, and they have to travel a great distance. One day, Jacob looks at Joseph and says, «Hey, go see how your brothers are doing.» Joseph searches everywhere for his brothers and finally finds them. They see him approaching from a distance in his robe of many colors, which stands out everywhere. They say, «Okay, let’s kill him and see what becomes of his dream. Let’s see if he will ever rule over us if we kill him.»
They grab him, tear off his robe, and throw him into a deep pit. For those of you who don’t know, «pit» stands for «preachers in training.» They put blood on the robe and plan to tell their father that he is dead; they leave him in there to die. But then they see a caravan of Ishmaelites coming down to engage in slave trading in Egypt, and Judah, the fourth-born, says to his brothers, «Guys, if we leave him there to die, great; we’re rid of him, but let’s make money off him. We’ll sell him as a slave! He’ll be as good as dead, and we’ll profit off him. He’s gone forever—a good deal!» All the brothers agree; they sell him for twenty pieces of silver.
Now, Joseph is taken down to Egypt. We Americans may not fully grasp what these brothers did to their brother. It is one thing to be born a slave; when you’re born a slave, that is the only life you know. It’s another thing to be born as an heir to a very wealthy man who has a covenant with God and have your name and inheritance stripped from you by your own brothers' greed. Being sold as a slave means you’ll be a slave for the rest of your life; your wife will be a slave, and your children will be slaves. I have been to mission fields and nations where, after a week, I thought I couldn’t live here; they have never experienced what we have in the Western world. They don’t know what we have—that’s life to them. It’d be like being born in a really nice place and then being sent to a nation where you have nothing. They essentially did the worst thing to Joseph that could have been done aside from killing him.
Joseph is brought down to Egypt and sold as a slave to Potiphar, who is an officer of Pharaoh. Joseph serves him for ten years, and he’s probably hoping that his brothers will fess up and his father will rescue him. Year after year goes by with no rescue, and he thinks, «My dad thinks I’m dead, and my brothers are enjoying the money they made off me and getting all my inheritance.» So it is a tough ten years.
Think about it: ten years. I want you to go back ten years from now; that’s a long time. For ten years, he’s serving as a slave in Potiphar’s house. He is doing really well because God is blessing him, and he gains favor with Potiphar, who finally puts him in charge of all the affairs of his house. But something much worse is starting to brew—Potiphar’s wife has developed a strong attraction for Joseph. She sets her eyes upon him and tries to seduce him, not just occasionally, but every day. She comes to him saying, «Hey, lie with me; my husband will never know.» What does Joseph do? Out of love and the fear of God, he says no. He refuses, stating, «I am not sinning against God or your husband.» One day, when they are alone in the house, she grabs him by the robe and insists, «Lie with me. My husband is gone.» He responds, «No way; I will not sin against God or your husband.» He flees, and in doing so, his robe tears, and he runs out of the house naked. She is now a scorned woman and screams, «Rape!» When Potiphar comes home, she tells him that Joseph tried to rape her, and Potiphar throws Joseph into Pharaoh’s dungeon.
Now, you have to understand something: I have preached in prisons in the United States and even in South Africa. Our prisons are country clubs compared to Pharaoh’s dungeon. Middle Eastern dungeons were usually hollowed-out cisterns deep in the ground with no fresh air; they were damp, cold, and dark. The ceilings are low, and the Bible says they laid his feet in irons and hurt him in fetters. This is not a country club experience like our prisons, where you have TVs and basketball courts. He is in a terrible place.
Can you imagine his thoughts? First, his thoughts about Potiphar: «I can’t believe I was more faithful to that man than his own wife, and this is how he repays me? What about his thoughts on God? 'God, I’ve done nothing wrong! I simply shared the dream you gave me, and it led to slavery. Now I’m obeying you and being faithful to my Egyptian master for ten years, and this is what I receive in return? A dungeon? It seems the more I obey You, God, the worse my life gets.'» How could his life get any worse? He is a foreigner in that dungeon; being a foreigner means you’re doubly disadvantaged. If you’re an Egyptian, you might have a chance of getting out, but if you’re a foreigner and are accused of raping the officer’s wife, they leave you there to rot. They would only give you enough bread to live—you didn’t get three square meals a day or even two; you got just enough bread and water to stay alive because they didn’t want you to die too easily.
So, he’s left there with all this time to think. «Oh, faithful, covenant-keeping God, I obeyed you, and this is my reward? This is what I receive for following Your path?» He’s lost all his freedom, yet he has not lost his agency in how he thinks and processes. He has a great chance to have strongholds built because this is a significant offense. He is as low as a person can go, and it all comes down to his brothers. He could rightly think, «If my brothers hadn’t done what they did, I would have enjoyed ten years in my father’s wealthy estate.»
How many times do people fall into this mindset? «If it wasn’t for my wife, I would be a much better man today, but she criticizes me constantly.» «If it wasn’t for my pastor, I’d be in ministry today.» «If it wasn’t for that person who gossiped about me, I wouldn’t have lost my job.» We must understand this crucial truth: absolutely no man, woman, child, or devil can ever get you out of the will of God. No one but God holds your destiny. If you grasp that truth, you are a free person.
Joseph’s brothers literally said, «Come, let us kill him and cast him into some pit; we shall see what becomes of his dreams.» They intended to destroy any chance of him ever becoming a leader. Joseph could have sat there and thought, «It’s all because of my brothers that I am in this situation,» and he might have plotted revenge. «If I get out of here, I will kill them.» But you know, so many people today in the church do this. If he had plotted revenge, God would have had to leave him in the dungeon to rot because he would have killed ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, including Judah, through whom Jesus and King David came.
Stop and think with me for a moment: do you believe when his brothers did this that God the Father looked at Jesus and the Holy Spirit and said, «Whoa, what are we going to do? Oh my gosh, we gave him this dream of leadership, and his brothers did this! Jesus, do you have an alternate plan?» That is absurd. Yet, how often do we act as though God is surprised by the wrong done to us? We think God is out of control, and we feel our steps are out of order. Do you see how ridiculous this reasoning becomes?
So he’s in that dungeon, and we don’t know how long—maybe a month, maybe a couple of weeks—until God brings his greatest test to Joseph. Two prisoners are put in the dungeon: a butler and a baker, Pharaoh’s chief butler and chief baker. They come to Joseph and say, «Oh, we each had a dream last night.»
Now, what is the greatest test for Joseph? The greatest test is, can he proclaim the faithfulness of God to these butler and baker when he hasn’t seen one shred of God’s faithfulness in his life for the last ten years? God gave him a dream that he’d be a great leader, and now he has gone from pit to slavery to dungeon, left to rot. The more he obeys God, the worse it appears to get. Can he still proclaim God’s faithfulness to the butler and baker?
If Joseph were like many Christians today, he might have said, «You had a dream? Fine. Leave me alone! I had a dream once—don’t talk about dreams!» If he had done that, he would have died in that dungeon—a bitter man. Instead, Joseph looks at the butler and baker with an incredible fear of God and says, «God is faithful!» He proclaims the interpretation of the dreams that the Holy Spirit gives him. The baker gets his head cut off, just as he said would happen three days later, and the butler is restored. Joseph tells the butler, «When you get restored, please remember me.» But the butler forgets him, and Joseph remains in the dungeon for two more years.
Can it get any worse? He doesn’t have the Book of Genesis to read; he has no narrative. Two years later, Pharaoh has a dream. The butler remembers Joseph and says, «I have sinned; there was a man who interpreted my dream accurately.» Pharaoh brings Joseph forth, and he interprets Pharaoh’s dream, not just restored, but made second in command of all of Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world. He tells Pharaoh, «There will be seven years of plenty; save up! Then there will be seven years of famine.»
So, we are talking about nine more years after the two years in the dungeon—21 years since he had his dream! Two years into the famine, here come his brothers. What does he do? «You guys—you’re going to pay for this?» No, he blesses them! He returns their money without them even knowing it! He looks at his brothers and says, «Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.» Wow! Keep reading: «To preserve a posterity for you in the earth.» He is speaking for their benefit: «I went through all this suffering for your benefit and to save your lives by a great deliverance.»
He says, «So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.» You might think, «Joseph, are you now delusional?» But look at the psalmist’s statement: «Moreover, God called for a famine in the land; he destroyed all the provisions of bread. God sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.» It was not his brothers who sent him there; it was God.
Remember what I said: absolutely no man, woman, child, or devil can ever get you out of the will of God. The only one who can remove you from the will of God is yourself if you become offended. This is why it’s such a trap. David said, «You saw me before I was born; every day of my life was recorded in your book.» Do you know there was a book written about you before you were born? God wrote it! Every moment was laid out before a single day passed.
Psalm 37 reads, «The Lord directs the steps of the godly; he delights in every detail of their lives.» God knows we live in an evil world where people make mistakes and even sin. As Joseph’s brothers sinned against him, God doesn’t cause those people to treat us poorly, but He knows what they will do before they do it. So, He uses those wrong actions to bring forth His plan.
I imagine it never crossed Joseph’s mind until it was all over that it was God’s process to prepare him to rule. Before he went through all of this, he was a tattletale—when we first hear about him, he tells his brothers about their wrongdoings. He was a bragger, sharing his dream of leadership without much wisdom. After going through a refining process, he does not reveal himself right away to his brothers. Can you imagine if he were like he was before? «Guys, it’s me! See, my dream came to pass! Who was right?» Instead, he holds back, wanting to bless them. He didn’t remind them that he was in charge; he pointed out that God did this for their families.
Offended people often think, «It’s all about me; how badly I’ve been treated.» I look at my beautiful mom here; she’s 89 years old, and she’s one of the most positive people I know. She never complains. Yesterday she said to me, «I’m scared of how blessed I am.» She’s not; her focus has always been to give, give, give. She hasn’t allowed offense to enter her heart.
Refining processes are important because they prepare us and develop our character. Often, the way we’re refined is through offense. Look what Peter says: «In this, you greatly rejoice!» But now, for a little while, if need be. Let me prove that: a day with the Lord is a thousand years. That means one hour is about 43.2 years; 15 minutes is approximately seven or eight years in that perspective. If necessary, you have been grieved—it’s not pleasant to go through an offense, distressed by various trials. The genuineness of your faith, much more precious than gold that perishes, is tested by fire and may be found to the praise, honor, and glory of Jesus Christ.
I remember going through a series of trials I did not cause; it was tough. I would sometimes close my office door and lean my head against the wall and cry, «God, why do I hurt so much? I wake up in pain, come to the office in pain, and go home in pain. I’m living in pain!» The Lord said to me, «Because you’re dying. There is always pain in death. Do you want to know how you’ll know when you’re dead?» I asked how, and He replied, «When you stop hurting. Dead people don’t hurt.»
I said, «God, please kill me quickly.» Afterward, I was angry—angry at everyone, even at my beautiful wife and little son. One day, as I was heading to the fairgrounds, I thought, «Where is this anger coming from? I’ve never been this angry!» The Lord said to me, «Look at your gold ring.» It looked like pure gold, but it was only 14-carat gold; that means it contains impurities. He explained that if you put it in a furnace and heat it to 7000 degrees, it becomes liquefied and the impurities rise to the surface. He said, «Those impurities have always been there but weren’t visible before. Where is all this anger coming from? It’s inside you, and through this furnace of affliction, it’s surfacing.»
You can blame your wife, your son, or your coworkers, and the impurities will go back down, requiring the process to start all over again. Or you can say, «God, it’s all because of me; take it out.» Then He will bring His big ladle to scoop out those impurities so that your heart can become purer.
As I turned 50, I prayed, «God, if anything impure is in me, burn it out, shake it out, cut it out—whatever you need to do!» The summer I turned 50 was the hardest of my life. I told a pastor friend about my prayer, and he said, «That’s a prayer for 24-year-olds. Why are you praying that at your age?» Now that I’m 57, I’m grateful I prayed those prayers because I needed to mature more.
Returning to Joseph, his brothers' wicked behavior led to his ultimate destiny. Often, the thing that looks like an abortion of God’s plan ends up being the road to its fulfillment—if we stay in obedience and free from offense. The next time you think you’re going through something, consider Joseph.
See you next session! Today I challenge you to ask God to reveal the redemptive threads in your pain and disappointment. Ask for eyes to see your journey the way He sees it, and then begin to journal and write down what He reveals to you. I also want to remind you to complete steps six through ten in your course guide before moving on to the next lesson.