Sadly, it is a tactic that is very effective. And over the years he has used it to eventually stop the various moves of God that are recorded in our history.

Until recently, I haven’t heard much preaching or teaching about it, but ignorance about this tactic leaves the church vulnerable to being damaged by an attack.

Do you want to know what it is that Satan uses so effectively? It is the tactic of getting someone to be OFFENDED at someone else.

All he has to do is convince a Christian to put God in a box of their own making. And then anytime another Christian experiences God outside of their manufactured box, they can object and get upset that they aren’t operating inside their box too.

Now this happened here in the early church. They had just had an exceptionally powerful and sovereign move of God where a number of gentiles (non-Jews) had been saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit.

That this had been a move of God and not somebody moving in their own agenda was evident and irrefutable because those who were baptized in the Holy Spirit were speaking with other tongues and glorifying God.

In fact, the Jews who were eyewitnesses of what happened were “astonished” at what they saw happen (v.10:45). This word, “astonished,” can actually be translated “to throw out of position; or be displaced.”

Why did they feel this way? Because until this happened, Christianity was primarily a Jewish thing. They were not looking to bring non-Jews into the church. It wasn’t the type of members that they wanted.

But God brought them in anyway. And the Jews who saw it realized that they no longer had exclusive club membership to this movement.

But of course, some people got offended about this. After all, this was a move of God that was outside the box that they had put God into.

And so they “contended” with Peter. The word means that in their hearts, they withdrew from Peter and deserted him. They passed judgment and had already decided that Peter was wrong before they had even tried to find out the facts.

Their opinion was based on their box. It was NOT based on the Word of God that clearly prophesied that Gentiles would be brought into the kingdom.

The action of contending is simply another way of saying that somebody got offended because the boundaries of their box were violated.

Reading on through this account, we find that the church made it through this particular incident without splitting apart. But they would continue to struggle with this issue of being offended by who was coming in and becoming members.

Bottom line: If you are offended and considering making a church change (or leaving church altogether), it is a certainty that Satan was effective in using his primary tactic against you.

When you put God in a box of your own making, His love and forgiveness will not be able to fit into your box. And it will only be a matter of time before someone offends you about something.

And what happens when you walk out that door for the last time on your way out forever? The devil laughs.

If only someone had warned you about the dangers of being offended. (If you read this, someone did.)