Put Away Your Sword

We have to get a handle on offenses and the reason why is because they are the bait of satan. Satan uses what offends to entangle us in sins that engage our mind, body, and soul. And sin is the element that keeps distance between us and God.

Today is the prelude message to a series as we take the time to break down how offenses affect us in our physical surroundings, how offenses affect us mentally and emotionally, and finally how offenses affect us spiritually. Before we enter into the prelude of this series let us pray.

If you turn your bible with me to Luke 22: start right at about the 47th verse, we jump right into the story where Jesus is speaking and refers to Judas as one of the twelve, one of His disciples and Judas leans in to kiss Jesus.  But Jesus let Judas know he is no fool by asking  him this question: “Judas are you betraying the son of man with a kiss?’  
See, a kiss can be a sign of affection, a greeting, or in this case used as an act with which Judas identified Jesus to the chief priests and elders of the people to arrest him.  Don’t be alarmed, yes it was the priest and the elders that came to arrest Jesus, it wasn’t Satan who arrested, whipped, and crucified Jesus, it was church folk, those who said they love God.   In a moment my reason for pointing this out is going to make sense.

Judas’ kiss was the kiss of death.  If any of you have ever watched the Godfather or any mafia movie you like seen this acted out on screen. A kiss was given by a mafia signifying that a member of the crime family has been marked for death, and just in the bible this act is usually a result of some perceived betrayal.

Peter loved Jesus so much that he was offended by the actions of Judas and the dignitaries that Peter rose up against one of them and drew his sword and cut his ear off. Now most of us would give Peter a high five for his action, for defending Jesus. But Jesus’ response to Peter's actions was not congratulatory.  He simply uttered, “permit even this” and then He did what our flesh would have never allowed us to do, Jesus touched the man’s ear and healed him.

What was so phenomenal about Jesus healing the man’s ear is this is the only instance in all of scripture where Christ healed a flesh wound.  His gesture of healing was so amazing. Think about it, Jesus healed the wound of the enemy, unasked, and without any evidence, the recipient had any form of faith in God.

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