Am I a Stumbling Block

Church of Christ Home

September 7, 2009

AM I A STUMBLING BLOCK

Text: Romans 14:13 and Luke 17:1-2

Proposition: Where can we be a stumbling block?

Introduction

A trapper uses stumbling blocks to trap coyotes, opossum, raccoons, and other animals. He will put a branch or a stone to cause the animals foot to go into the trap. Snares, traps and stumbling blocks go together, Romans 11:9.

If we cause others to turn away from Christ by the way we live and the way we speak, we are a stumbling block. We are a TOOL OF THE DEVIL! We say it is their own fault and they are responsible for their self. True, but God says we are not to be a stumbling block.

I. In our home.

II. At work

III. At church

IV. In our own lives

I. In our home. (How can we be a stumbling block in our home?)

A. By being a hypocrite in our home. Parents and children can be hypocrites in their home.

1. Matthew 18:1-2, 6, and 7

2. Parents may be able to fool everyone at church, but you won’t be able to fool your children. Don’t be a stumbling block for your children. If your children know smoking is wrong and you try to smoke somewhere, where they won’t see you they will know you are a hypocrite.

3. If you watch evil things on television and try to say you are a Christian. You are a hypocrite. A television is a stumbling block.

The STRANGER

A few months before I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted, and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger? He was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always had the answers. He knew about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind. Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to her room and read her books. (I wonder, now, if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.) Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them.

Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home. Not from our friends, any visitors or us. Our long time visitor however got away with four letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in the home, not even for cooking. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked, and NEVER asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you were to walk into my parents' den today you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk, and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We just call him TV.

4. Ephesians 5:3 – 12, Don’t participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness.

5. Don’t read books that are trash. Romance books give false ideas of love and romance.

6. Listening to rotten things on the radio.

a. Don’t listen to talk shows that are ungodly and have dirty jokes

b. Don’t listen to music that talks about drinking, people committing adultery, and fornication.

B. Loosing our temper

1. Galatians 5:19-20

2. Control your anger. Don’t blow up and tell everybody off.

3. Children may need to know you are angry, but control it. Children may laugh at you if you are mad. Children like to make adults mad. We had a teacher in elementary school who would get mad at us. She would walk out of the room crying and slam the door behind her. We thought it was funny to see her get mad and loose control. We didn’t feel sorry for her we laughed at her.

a. Don’t slap their face, pull their hair, punch them, or kick them. Give them discipline and instruction.

b. Ephesians 6:1-2 & 4, discipline is not child abuse.

4. Don’t lose your temper with your mate.

a. I Peter 3:1-9

b. Wives need to be submissive and husbands must be understanding. If a husband doesn’t treat his wife well his prayers will be hindered.

C. By not forgiving

1. Luke 17:3 & 4

a. Forgiveness is needed in families

b. Siblings can carry grudges for years.

c. Husbands and wives can carry grudges. Parents and children can carry grudges

2. Forgive each other. We will wrong each other. We need to forgive.

D. Drink wine

1. Romans 14:13 and 21

2. Drinking wine is a stumbling block to others.

3. Wine was a common drink among the people of Paul’s time.

a. In the New Testament the word that is translated wine is oinos. Our word “wine” refers almost always to an alcoholic drink. Oinos can be either an alcoholic drink or a nonalcoholic drink. We can see from Matthew 9:17 this is true. New wine would not be fermented. If you put it into a new wineskin the wineskin will expand and there is room for the gasses of fermentation. The old wineskin would already be stretched from fermentation. The wine also will be preserved longer without fermentation because only the natural yeasts would be present in the new wine. In the old wineskins there would be more yeasts to ferment the wine quickly.

b. Oinos is like our word cider. Cider if not pasteurized will ferment. Since the naturally occurring yeasts that cause fermentation have not been killed by pasteurization, it will ferment with time. Within a week or two refrigerated it will begin to become slightly carbonated and eventually become so-called "hard cider" as the fermentation process turns sugar into alcohol. Some producers "harness" this fermentation to produce "hard cider", and some carry it to the further acetification process to produce apple cider vinegar.

c. It is the same with oinos.

d. Many people say Jesus turned the water into intoxicating wine at the wedding feast at Cana. There were 6 pots containing 20-30 gallons each (John 2:6). That is 120 –180 gallons of wine. That is plenty of wine to get drunk on. If that wine was intoxicating, Jesus was a stumbling block to many people.

e. Noah got drunk and caused his son, Ham, and his grandson, Canaan, to stumble. Noah got drunk and lay down naked in his tent. Ham saw him and told his brother’s. They walked backward and covered up their father. When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor. He knew that Ham had mocked him. Ham’s son Canaan must have also done something because Canaan’s descendants were cursed. If you want to be a stumbling block to your children and grandchildren, drink wine.

f. He drank of the wine, etc. - It is very probable that this was the first time the wine was cultivated; and it is as probable that the strength or intoxicating power of the expressed juice was never before known. Noah, therefore, might have drunk it at this time without the least blame, as he knew not till this trial the effects it would produce. I once knew a case which I believe to be perfectly parallel. A person who had scarcely ever heard of cider, and whose beverage through his whole life had been only milk or water, coming wet and very much fatigued to a farmer’s house in Somersetshire, begged for a little water or milk. The good woman of the house, seeing him very much exhausted, kindly said, “I will give you a little cider, which will do you more good.” The honest man, understanding no more of cider than merely that it was the simple juice of apples, after some hesitation drank about a half pint of it; the consequence was, that in less than half an hour he was perfectly intoxicated, and could neither speak plain nor walk! This case I myself witnessed. A stranger to the circumstances, seeing this person, would pronounce him drunk; and perhaps at a third hand he might be represented as a drunkard, and thus his character be blasted; while of the crime of drunkenness he was as innocent as an infant. (Clarke, Adam, Genesis 9:21)

g. Habakkuk 2:15, Jesus would have caused some of his neighbor’s to lay down naked.

h. Lot slept his two daughters and they had children by him because he was drunk.

i. Proverbs 20:1

j. Proverbs 23:20-21

k. Proverbs 23:29-35, Jesus would have caused people to be beaten. He would have caused people to do stupid things and be killed.

II. At work. (How can we not be a stumbling block at work?)

A. Keep our behavior excellent

1. I Peter 2:12-15, 18

a. Keep your behavior excellent. Don’t provide your coworkers with a reason to slander you. Live your life so they can’t find anything wrong with you.

b. Your boss pays you to work don’t consider it social hour.

c. Daniel 6:1-5

B. Be above reproach

1. Philippians 2:15

a. Don’t stoop to their level. Don’t lower your standards.

b. Don’t laugh at their dirty jokes.

c. Don’t dress like the world. Shorts above the knee, Mini skirts, V-necks, split skirts, T-shirts with dirty pictures or words.

C. Don’t be a holier than thou.

1. Luke 18:9-14

2. We need to remember that we are all sinners. And we need to see our own sin and ask God to forgive us of our sin.

3. God wants us to be hot or cold not lukewarm.

a. Revelation 3:14-18

b. These Christians were like the Pharisee they thought they were so much better than everyone else was.

c. God wanted them hot or cold not in between.

d. Nobody wants a warm bowl of ice-cream or a room temperature bowl of oatmeal. If we are this way God will spit us out.

e. We are irritating to him.

f. Isaiah 65:5, nobody likes smoke in their nose. It burns and makes you gag and cough. People who see themselves as holier than others make God gag and cough.

III. At church (How can we be stumbling block at church?)

A. Be factious

1. I Corinthians 11:17-19

2. If it is a bible command or a bible principle we need to take a stand, but don’t cause a division over trivial things.

3. For example: I could say buying a Chevrolet is sinful because it is a waste of your money. Buying a Ford is what God wants because they last longer and they have less cost of maintaining. This is ridiculous, but many divisions are over stupid things.

B. Be a gossip

1. II Corinthians 12:20-21

2. Church can be a wonderful place to gossip. If someone is doing something wrong, don’t tell everyone else about it. Talk to them.

IV. In our own lives (How can we make ourselves stumble?)

A. A coyote or a coon would never be dumb enough to put a stumbling block in front of a trap for themselves, but we do it to ourselves all the time.

B. We make ourselves stumble with secret sins.

1. We think no one will catch us so it will be all right.

2. I know a few girls who thought it would be fun to sneak out of the house and put toilet paper on the cars of some boys who were their friends. They thought no one would know and no one would find out. They took the van of one of the girls parents and drove to where the cars were, but the boys were not asleep. So they drove a few blocks away and shut off the van. When they tried to start the van again it wouldn’t start. They had to walk over and get help from the boys. The boys couldn’t get it started either. They had to give the girls a ride home. In the morning they were very sorrowful and repentant and had to explain where the van was and why. They thought they had caused the van to break down because of what they did. The battery in the van was bad and needed to be replaced. When I heard what they had done this verse came to my mind, Numbers 32:23.

3. Sin will always be found out

4. Cain’s sin of hate revealed itself.

a. Genesis 4:7

b. Cain killed his brother. Cain stumbled because of his own sin.

c. Keep hate out of our hearts.

5. God will make sure your sin is found out.

a. Genesis 44:16

b. Joseph’s brothers had kept their sin a secret for over twenty years. God make it known

c. Their hate for their brother was made know.

d. God sees everything we do. We cannot hide from Him.

1) Jeremiah 23:23 and 24

2) There is no place we can hide from God. Sin likes dark places, because it is harder for other men to see, but GOD CAN SEE.

3) God knows when you sin. He hears you curse under your breath. He knows when you lust. He knows when you have bitterness, envy, and hate.

4) Hebrews 4:12 and 13, he sees the thoughts and intentions of your heart.

C. When we don’t resist the devil

1. James 4:7

Where is the Devil?

Men don’t believe in a devil now,

As their fathers used to do;

They’ve force the door of the broadest creed

To let his majesty through

There isn’t a print of his cloven foot,

Or a fiery dart in his bow,

To be found in earth or air today,

For the world has voted so.

But who is mixing the fatal draft

That palsies heart and brain,

And loads the earth of each passing year

With the hundred thousand slain?

Who blights the bloom of the land today

With the fiery breath of hell,

If the devil isn’t and never was:

Won’t somebody rise and tell?

Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint,

And digs the pits for his feet?

Who sows the tares in the field of time

Wherever God sows his wheat?

The devil is voted not to be,

And of course the thing is true;

But who is doing the kind of work

That the devil alone should do?

We are told he does not go about

As a roaring lion now;

But whom shall we hold responsible

For the everlasting row

To be heard in home, in church, in State,

To the earth’s remotest bound

If the devil, by a unanimous vote,

Is nowhere to be found?

Won’t somebody step to the front forthwith,

And make his bow and show

How the frauds and the crimes of the day spring up?

For surely we want to know.

The devil was fairly voted out,

And of course the devil is gone;

But simple people would like to know

Who carries his business on.

2. People want to think Satan is dead, but he is as busy as ever.

3. We nee to resist him

a. He wants you to be depressed and discouraged. He doesn’t want you to know the joy of the Lord.

b. Psalms 51:12, David sinned and he lost the joy of the Lord.

c. When we sin we loose the joy of the Lord.

Conclusion

We need to be careful! God says, “WOE TO HIM THROUGH WHOM STUMBLING BLOCKS COME.”

I. Be careful you do not cause the members of your own family to stumble. Don’t entertain yourself or your family with TV, videos or theatre movies that are ungodly. Control your temper and be forgiving.

II. Don’t cause your coworkers to stumble

A. Keep your behavior excellent

B. Be above reproach

C. Don’t be a holier than thou

III. Don’t be a stumbling block to other Christians. Don’t be a factious gossip.

IV. Don’t plant stumbling blocks for yourself.

A. Keep secret sin out. Remember God sees everything.

B. Resist the devil

What great thrill to see in life

Your dreams not go astray

To see your home a home of love,

With Jesus there each day;