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This is a conversational podcast that brings powerful moments from the Inspirational Media sermon library into fresh, engaging dialogue. Hosted by voices who care deeply about sharing timeless biblical truth, each episode unpacks key ideas from sermons, devotionals, and real-life stories — helping listeners reflect, relate, and rediscover hope in today’s world.
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00:00:00 Speaker: What is the name of the Son of God? Jesus. Somebody had called out. What else? Emmanuel. Messiah. Wonderful. Jehovah. Counselor. Ah! I got the right answer. I heard somebody say, Lord Jesus. But there's more, Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's really quite important. I want you to look at First Thessalonians chapter one, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father, and in the what, Lord Jesus Christ, grace be unto you, and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor, of love and patience, of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our father. Now, to me, that's not just a verbal issue, because it's important that we know who he is. He is not just the Savior. He came as Jesus, fully God and fully man. Not half God, not half man, fully God, fully man, God in human flesh, and therein became our Savior. But he's not just our Savior. It's important that we know that he is Lord indeed until he becomes Lord, which means to us King and ruler of all. The one who created everything, the one who is over everything. Until we know that he is Lord of our entire life. We do not enter into the kingdom life here on earth. And it's important that we know that He is Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the one who brings us into the Kingdom. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul and I, in asking what the Lord wanted us to speak about, felt that he wants us to speak today about forgiveness. And truly, forgiveness is the most necessary thing for the body of Christ and for us ourselves to be in unity. The Scripture is very clear about forgiveness. And I'm reading a number of scripture references this morning. The first one is Matthew six, verses fourteen and fifteen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Nothing could be more clear than that. And then from Mark eleven, verse twenty five. And when you stand praying, forgive if ye have ought against any that your father also which is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. From Luke seventeen, verse four. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. From Ephesians four thirty two and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. And from Colossians chapter three, verse thirteen, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Let us bow for a moment in prayer. Lord, you are forgiving God. The very God of love and healing, of understanding, counsel and might. You are our wisdom, our rock, our refuge. You are our strength and our life. Unto you we give this day knowing that there is no renewal in our gathering together, but only renewal in Your Holy Spirit gathering us together. Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit may glorify the father and the son this day, and that when we go, we may go more filled with your spirit, more able to walk in your life, more sure of your lordship of our life. Be here, the teacher. We thank you, Jesus. Amen. I hope you saw in those scriptures that forgiveness is not a nice option. You know, sometimes we kind of like to hold a grudge and even feel proud of the fact that we can hold on to a grudge. But therein lies destruction, both of the other person and of ourselves. Jesus made it very clear that if you do not forgive other men their trespasses, neither will the father forgive you yours. And you remember that when the man had been forgiven ten thousand talents, he went out, and he found one man who owed him a talent, grabbed him by the throat and said, pay me what you owe me. The master heard of it and called him in and said, you didn't forgive that man, though I forgave you ten thousand. Now all yours are back on you. We find that in counseling, listening to people day after day, that when we do not forgive, we seal our own judgment upon us. Mercy doesn't happen to us. Forgiveness for the Christian is an absolute must. God doesn't force us. We're free to choose. But if we choose not to forgive, we bring upon ourselves harm and destruction, and upon the other. And so he has made it so clear within the Word of God that if we would be forgiven our trespasses, we have to forgive somebody else. And if we don't forgive, neither will our forgiveness as happen. And so forgiveness is something which is the very life of a Christian. It's something he must be willing to do and make himself do, and go against his very own nature, to make himself do time and time again, if he would be whole. Sometimes forgiveness is fairly easy because we can catch ourselves right away. We can hear the word that the other person says or receive what he does, and we just know that that's an error. He didn't really intend that, and we don't have to react Act as though we were rejected or though we were terribly misunderstood. If we see it right away and it doesn't have time to settle down into our inner being and hook into all kind of garbage that's there, I just. I love to tell stories about John, and I'm glad he gave me this part of the talk, because otherwise he'd be telling stories about me. But there are some things that he has done which, knowing his heart, you know, I knew that he loved me. And so I knew that what he was doing wasn't really representative of our relationship. Uh, one thing that he does continually is to feel very sorry, very compassionate toward our dog. We have a dog that's half malamute. Um, and the dog chews. Choose lots of things. She's eating raspberry bushes. She's chewed down small apple trees to the ground, you know, and she's pretty well past that. But he'll come home and he'll see that dog out there pressing her nose against the door and he'll say, come on in, Holly. And this is a good thing. Except once she's in, then he settles down into a comfortable chair and he forgets that she's there and she eats my houseplants. So. But I know that John is not intending this, and I can catch my reaction. And I don't say to him, that's okay, honey, because it definitely is not okay that the dog eats my houseplants. But I can, because the relationship is something that the Lord is in and I know his heart. I can say that's not alright, but I do forgive you. Now, John also has had a habit over the years of just losing all track of time when he's out ministering, particularly really investing himself with with someone doing important things for the Lord. He forgets when meal time is approaching and his tummy has to rumble very, very loudly before he realizes that it's dinner time. And so I'm at home cooking and the dinner is ready, and I've rewarmed it several times. And then finally he comes in the door. But I know that this is not something he has intended to do, and I feel like I'm sharing in his ministry so I can catch that response. And again, I can say it's not all right, but I forgive you. I remember once Mike came to dinner and this would be fine. You know, if Mike comes to dinner, I'd love to have Mike for dinner. Except this was a total surprise. And if I had had a beautiful roast, this would have been all right, you know. Then I could have thought, well, you know, we eat like this every night. I'm always careful to prepare a beautiful table. But we were having leftover hamburger and It was thrown together, you know. And here came Mike bouncing in, really expecting this to be a special occasion. And there I was. But again, I knew John had not intended this, and so easily I could say it's not all right, John. But I do forgive you. I remember one incident that was a little bit harder to forgive. We were in Chicago. We'd gotten off of an airplane, and John was going to speak somewhere, and the children and I were going to rent a car to go down to Saint Louis to visit my parents. And we were all excited to visit with the people who met us at the airport. But John, particularly because he had known these people before, and he just really got all involved in the visiting and just kind of casually he said, let's all go out and let's have something to eat before you go to Saint Louis. Before I go off to the speaking engagement and, uh, I'll ride with them so I can visit with them a little bit before the meeting. and you and the kids follow. And he told me the name of the restaurant, but he forgot to say, in case you get lost in the traffic, this is how you get to the restaurant. And I don't know how many of you have driven through Chicago, but Chicago traffic is just really vicious. And so three hours later, almost the children and I arrived at the restaurant and John and the others had gone ahead to eat, you know. And so, through a real struggle and yet still catching it before it had time to sink down to the inside of me, I could say, John, that is definitely not all right. But I forgive you. Now, sometimes forgiveness is not easy. And that's on those times first, when we are aware and we know the other person intended it and we don't want to forgive. You know, sometimes you feel so justified in being angry if it's obvious that the other guy is wrong. And of course, the very meaning of forgiveness is that you forgive when it isn't deserved. But we get justified in hanging on to because obviously the other guy is wrong and we have a right to be angry and feel very justified and become the Pharisee. And the other guy is the publican. So sometimes it does get lodged inside our heart. It gets down in there and then we've got something to wrestle with. And then there are those times when forgiveness is not easy. When we are unaware, for instance, something happens. Somebody slights us or hurts us. And on the spur of the moment, we don't feel it. Have you had that kind of an experience where somebody does something and on the spur of the moment you don't really feel angry and you say, you say, oh, that's okay. Which is the wrong thing to say is she said, never say that. Say it hurts, but I forgive. And later on we discover it hurt. You've had that and now you've got it lodged inside. And there it is. And you're living with that thing in there. Then there are those times when we do completely rationalize the thing away. Maybe it's something, some little pebble of hurt that happens every day and we rationalize it away. We don't handle it directly like we should. And really, we're going to repeat this to you many times this morning. Not to say it's okay. That's a lie. But to say you hurt me, I forgive you. And so we don't do that. We rationalize it away. And now it's lodged inside. But then the most, the one we deal with most often. And that's because we are counselors. And we do it day in and day out. We deal with those hurts which happened so long ago that they are in the wounds of the spirit. For example, I suppose most of you know by now that children who are adopted just almost always have wounded spirits, because their spirit was aware that the mother and father couldn't keep them for one reason or another, whatever it was, maybe a rejection, whatever it was, and they're wounded in the spirit. And how does the mind and spirit of a little baby handle that? There's nothing the baby can do with it. It just lodges inside and festers like a boil or a sickness. Or then sometimes as children, we get hurt. And how does a seven year old tell off his dad? You know. What does he do? What does a seven year old do with continual hurt? When the. When the seven year old brings his paper home from school and comes rushing up and wants to climb on daddy's lap and show daddy the paper and daddy's watching the football game. Go away. And that hurts. And that happens again. And does it happen in your home? That happens again and again. And what does a seven year old do with hurt? He doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ yet. He can't hand it to the cross yet. And where does it go? It goes inside and the mind is loyal. So the mind says, my, you know I love my daddy. It's okay. And it goes on. But the heart hurts and stores up that heart. And then it becomes just as though we had shot a bullet. And in the next second, we don't want that bullet to go. But how do you haul it back? You can't. It sails right on to its target. And so when we send a message down into our unconscious, to our heart, the heart obeys that and lives it out from then on. Uh, just last week, I had this example. A lady came to me and she had had three miscarriages in about the sixth or seventh month of boy children who then died. Her girl child she had carried normally and easily with a good birth, and she said, could there be something in me causing it? Is it psychosomatic? Now don't jump to conclusions. It isn't always psychosomatic and a poor counselor would jump. And so I said, I don't know. Let's look. Well, it turned out that she had a brother who was vicious to her day in and day out. He just beat on her and didn't tease her kindly like boys will do. He teased her maliciously and hit on her and was cruel to her day in and day out. And she can remember while she was talking to me in counseling, the Holy Spirit caused her to remember that as a little girl, maybe six or seven or eight, she was walking along the side of a river and she picked up a rock, And again and again she picked up rocks and she threw them into that river as hard as she could, screaming, I'll never carry a boy child. You see, that message went right into her body, and her body obeyed it. And there was a need for deep, deep forgiveness. How do we know when there's something really lodged down inside of our hearts? There's several ways we can tell. The first is that if we can look back and remember that devastating experience that we had and not shudder about it, then forgiveness perhaps has been accomplished. But if we look back and something in us just tightens up and we want to quickly pass on to something else and we're unable to praise God, we're unable to be glad that we went through that experience. We're still shaking. Then forgiveness hasn't been accomplished. Another way we can tell is that can we think of the person who wounded us and really hope that something good would happen to him? Do we like that person? Would we like to come around them again? Would we invite them to our home to have dinner? Would it just be something we'd be going through the motions of? Because we want to think of ourselves as kind and forgiving people. Or would they really be a choice that we would make for a dinner companion? Do we want to have fellowship with them? We had a friend in one of the parishes that we served who did a lot of babysitting for us. She'd invite us out to her home. We really let her into our hearts. She was somebody that for quite a long while, we shared with and we thought that, you know, here is a friend who can be trusted. And then one day, we discovered that she'd been talking out around the community about some of the private things that we had shared, some of the naughty little things that our children had gotten into. And so all of a sudden, it came to us as a kind of a betrayal that just twisted inside of us. And we wanted to hide, and we wanted to shove her away. And there was just a deep grieving. It was worse than if somebody else, you know, anybody else could have talked the way she did. But because she had been inside of our heart, and we had really met on a deep level and trust had gone between us, there was just a tremendous fracture. And I knew that I hadn't really forgiven her for quite some time because I wanted to go by on the other side of the street. I didn't want to have another encounter for fear of what was still in me. And one day we went up into the woods. We were looking for some trees to transplant from the woods into the yard of our new home, and we had to go by her house, and all of a sudden I realized that there was something new inside of me. I really wanted to stop and see how they were getting along. And so we stopped and there was a warm and an open and an embracing exchange that really made glad the heart. And I knew then that the Lord had accomplished something of forgiveness inside. The third way, we can tell is suggested to us by a Scripture. A good tree cannot produce evil fruit. Neither can an evil tree produce good fruit. And, you know, sometimes we have really deep things inside of us, deep roots into hurt and unforgiveness that maybe, maybe the branches aren't even showing. But if we look at the kinds of reactions we have in certain situations, we look to the kinds of things that really bother us in people. We can discover what kind of a tree is growing inside. For instance, sometimes women have a lot of trouble getting along with their teenage daughters, and the teenage daughters will exhibit little habits of old baby just simple things like the way they're putting their makeup on, or the way they're relating to boyfriends or the kinds of places they want to go, or maybe just speech patterns that just really bother, you know, and you wonder why you're irritated. Why should these little things make so much difference. When that happens. There's usually some kind of root of unforgiveness, of self inside. As a mother, I didn't like myself as a teenager. I didn't feel clean. I felt guilty as a teenager, and so it's hard for me to relate to my teenage daughter in my own life. There have been things in a couple of our children that were really hard for me to accept. They really bugged me. They really bothered. That was the sense of privateness that one of our boys had. Now, if there hadn't been anything in me, any judgment that I still had on myself, there hadn't been anything for it to hook into. I could have talked with that boy and patiently and lovingly drawn him out so that I could discover what he was thinking about. I would have been able to invite him to share. But I used to be a terribly private person locked up, and there were still areas of privateness in me and in my spirit. I was not forgiving myself, so I couldn't stand it in my son, something that I couldn't stand in anybody. And I still have a little bit of trouble with that. Though the Lord's taking care of it, that I can't stand for anybody to exaggerate. I insist on absolute factual reporting of all material. I get in trouble. Yes. And that's because I have a root of that same thing in me. Sometimes I will tend to embellish a story, and I don't like that in me. So I have a difficult time forgiving it in somebody else. So whatever makes you mad out there? Just consider that there's a root in here and you need to forgive yourself. And then you can more easily forgive somebody else. Most marital problems have roots in unforgiveness of our parents. You feel like your husband or your wife just never understands. They never appreciate you. They never see you for who you were. Probably your mother and your father never really understood. They never really appreciated you. One of them had a biting and a critical tongue, and somehow you just never managed to forgive them. You didn't want to dishonor them, so you shoved it down inside what your real angers were, and they just lie there, and then they pop out and splash all over a husband or a wife. You want to say, you know, somebody noticed me? Somebody listen to me. Because dad was always sitting in front of the TV, or he was always lost in a book, and nobody ever really was there for you. You couldn't forgive that. So you can't stand to let your husband have his quiet time. He has to be listening to you. Talking to you. That was well timed. Yeah. Did that make you think of some scriptures that are behind that? Romans two one therefore you have no excuse. Oh, man. When you judge another, for you yourself are or will be doing the very same thing. In fact, that's the principle. If you want to find out where there's a root in you, ask yourself, what do I get mad at out there? because you won't get mad at it out there. You'll see it, but not judge it and condemn it unless you're condemning you inside for the same thing in one way or another. We had a friend have a friend. This friend in the church we were serving in. Wallace came to the Holy Spirit quickly and, um, really got filled with the spirit and overjoyed, became our best friend. But then he got just furious at the people in the church who wouldn't receive the Holy Spirit. Have any of those in the church? Just recently, he came to understand that the real reason he was furious at them for not coming to life is that deep inside himself psychologically, as an only child, he had decided not to come to life. He would play the game, he would perform, but in his own heart he would retreat. So because he was doing it, he was mad at others who exposed it. If you would see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye, first take the plank beam log out of yours. Now that's the rule. That's the rule. Take it. Any time you get angry as an opportunity to find out what's in you. Because you wouldn't get angry unless there's something in you that cherishes an anger or a hurt. Now, what do we do about such resentments when we discover them? Well, I want to repeat that when we discover them, it's not a nice option what to do about them? There has to be something done if we want to maintain our life in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a discipline, you know. The Lord pours his love through us. It's not something we do. The Lord's life just pours out through us. His love pours through us. It's not our love, but that river of love has banks to it. And it's up to us to keep the discipline of those banks, or it dissipates. And the discipline is a discipline of being willing to face what is in us, not what's in the other guy, what's in us, and ask the Lord to get it out. Saint Paul wrote in Hebrews twelve, see to it that no root of bitterness spring up to cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled. See to it. That's a command. We have to go after that root of bitterness. Well, let me tell you the most startling thing. First, I wonder if you've discovered this truth. Forgiveness is impossible. Have you discovered you can't do it? Maybe you haven't tried hard enough if you haven't discovered yet. for the human being in his own flesh, forgiveness is impossible. You can make it happen. And there are several reasons it's not possible. The first one is simply psychological. That is, that when a thing has gotten deep inside of our heart, we can't reach it. We can't make our heart change. Can a leopard change its spots? We can't do it. Only the Lord can get at the heart. That's one reason we need a Savior rather than a teacher or a leader. He's the only one who can get at that thing in us. There's a deeper reason, and it's more biblical and theological, and that is. Hate destroys life. He that hates his brother is a murderer, is a murderer. Life is registered in the blood. Therefore, Saint Paul said, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness, no remission of sin. Therefore, no forgiveness can happen except as it goes through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. All forgiveness comes through the cross, even forgiveness of brother to brother through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because hate destroys life and the blood is the life, and the blood of Jesus washes us clean. But then how do you get that to happen? You know, we'd like to rush to the cross and say, Lord, take it. I don't want to take it. Take it. And sometimes he will and sometimes he won't. And you know why? Because sometimes he says you go through Gethsemane first. I went through Gethsemane. You go through Gethsemane. And what did Jesus do in Gethsemane? There Jesus laid aside his connection with the father, his righteousness, his holiness, his cleanness. And he who knew no sin became Sin. He identified with everyone who ever had lived, was living, then would ever live. He had to be God to be able to do it. And it was such a work that he broke into sweat and sweat, drops of blood to become what we are. He became every part of the rottenness you and I are. He was already half dead before he got to the cross. They tell us that he didn't die of the cross. He died of a broken heart on that cross. Now he says to us, you come into Gethsemane with me. And so when the thing is lodged, that deep in the heart, we have to do what the old Pentecostals used to have used to say all the time. Pray through. How many used to hear that expression you got to pray through? And sometimes you've got to get down on your knees and get with Jesus in that garden of Gethsemane, until you have become identified with him, and he with the other. And when that happens, then it becomes blurred. Who did what? It's no longer important. It is no longer that you are separated from that person. And he's that bad guy over there. And I'm this good guy over here. That's what happens in anger and in resentment is we. We separate ourselves. We break that unity. You know? He's over there. I'm over here. I'm okay. He's awful. And when we get into Gethsemane, what happens then is that we become aware of our sins. We become aware that we are sin. We're redeemed. Sin, yes, but in the depths there is nothing good that dwelleth in my flesh. We become aware. Lord, I can't forgive. I'm sin, I can't do it. And we cry unto God. And it is no longer that we're crying against him and feeling good that we manage to forgive him. It is that we and he are both enmeshed in sin. We even realize that he wouldn't have sinned against us if mankind, of which we're a part, hadn't sinned against him. And we lose those lines of separation, and we become one with the brother at the foot of the cross. And we cry unto God. God, deliver us both from this trap. How many have gotten into that thing? It's a spiral, you know where you you pray for somebody. Forgiveness. Then you feel noble. Then you get prideful that you forgave him. And then you realize, well, maybe I didn't quite forgive him. And you go back through it, and then you're prideful and then you're noble and then, oh, boy. And you never get out of that thing. And that is getting into Gethsemane and realizing that you can make it, that you're trapped in that thing. And only if the Lord's grace comes upon the both of you will you be set free. tree. Suppose you've gone through all of this praying and identifying. Then the final step is just simply to believe that the power of God is there to accomplish it. There's no power, absolutely no power in us, even while we're going through these steps that John has just described, there's no power to accomplish it. But there is power in the Lord. Our part is to say, Lord, I choose to forgive. Now enable me to identify with my brother. Enable me to feel what he feels. Enable me to forgive. And the surest thing, maybe one of the sure things is that Jesus can forgive. Jesus will forgive. He does forgive. That's what he came to make possible. Jesus came into the world to reconcile man to man and God to man and man to God. He was putting us all back together in loving relationship. And so when we say, God forgive in me, make this real. Don't let me just be going through the motions. Make it real. What we're doing is just opening up our whole inner being for him to do in us what he's wanted to do all along. So there's no way that it can fail. It might take some time. We might have to hurt a little bit. We might get a beautiful exercise in patience and in opening again and again to the Lord and keeping our heart open. But the Lord will accomplish it, and there's just no question about it at all. There's a scripture in Colossians three that says, put off the old nature with its practices. Now, what that means to me is that we are claiming what God is doing. He has cut away all of the the hang up, the sticky stuff, the hurtful, binding things inside when we ask him to enable us to forgive and we ask for his forgiveness. But our part after that is just a kind of a quiet, believing discipline of saying, Lord, I know that it's done in me. I expect it to be manifest in me. I know I'm growing in to the forgiveness, and it's a choosing in little steps, little things, every day, every moment of our lives to act in a kind and loving way. Just kind of celebrating that I'm going to have a new power within, to be kind and loving, that I'm not going to have to screw myself up to do this terribly difficult thing. I'm not going to have to work at it as though it all depended on me. It's God inside that's enabling it. And you know, have you ever watched a little child trying to get off a sweater that's a little tight? You know, it's a little tight around the head, and they get it almost off, and then they're stuck and they're just crying out for help. And I think sometimes we're in this kind of position when we're taking off that old garment, that old practice, that old habit of acting. Sometimes we just need to cry out to somebody else and say, you know, I've been with the Lord in this, and somehow it's stuck. My arms are up in the air and I'm suffocating with it. Will you help me? And that's where the body of Christ figures in. Because we need to help the Lord enable us in our forgiving. We need our brothers to help us to begin to exercise that new practice in that new power of the Lord, to be kind and gentle and forgiving. It's not something we do by ourselves. And forgiveness does not mean forgetting. How many of you have heard that expression? Well, if you haven't forgotten, you haven't forgiven. Mm. I think it's one of the most common statements and one of the most fallacious statements we say commonly. It's absolutely unscriptural. We do not forget, if we were to forget it, the whole purpose of its happening would be invalidated. We remember it and we cherish it and the Lord. Romans eight twenty eight does what? Works all things together for good. It becomes the most valuable thing. We are grateful, even that it happened, because the Lord has written a gold of wisdom into our heart. By it he transforms us by the renewing of our mind. Now that is the final act. As far as forgiveness itself is happened inside of our heart, we need to claim that Jesus has done it. Reckon it as dead on the cross. Yes, that's the final act. But as far as our life with the Lord Jesus Christ, we've only begun the act of forgiveness. I want you to turn with me to first Peter three. First Peter three. We begin with the eighth verse. Finally, be all of one mind having compassion, one of another love as brethren. Be pitiful. Be courteous not. Rendering evil for evil or railing for railing. But contrariwise, blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue it. We are called if hurt to bless. Bless those who persecute you, when all manner of men revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake, rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven. We are called to bless those who persecute us, and really, we do not fully claim our healing, and it does not really become transformed into the gold of wisdom until we have disciplined ourselves to obey that thing and turn that evil to good. You know, we hear a lot of things. I didn't plan to say this, but it comes to my mind now. We hear a lot of things about the ugly American, right? And all across the country, we're supposed to be the ugly American. All across the world. Listen, except for Cyrus in the Bible, America is the only nation I know of in history. And I was a history student. The only nation I know of in America who turned around to rebuild its enemies and to bless its enemies. In fact, it became a joke. If you want to get ahead, attack America. We rebuilt Germany and Japan, and I believe that America will be blessed for that. Praise the Lord. Isn't it neat what the Lord does with an ad lib? And that's true of us. That's the calling upon us is to bless. Now, I want you to see it again in more deeply in Romans twelve. We start with the fourteenth verse. Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not. See many people, they haven't really. They can't understand why that that unforgiveness keeps coming back on them. They went through all those first stages, but then it keeps coming back on. And the reason is that they did not go all the way through. They didn't bless the one who hurt them. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind, one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceit. Recompense to no man. Evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men, if it be possible. As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. You know I never understood that give place unto wrath until just in this moment. I always wonder why did he say give place unto wrath? You know why. Because there is a place that wrath has in our hearts. Wrath and hurt are to work a weight of gold in us. They are to cause things to happen by which we understand what Jesus really has done for us, and whereby he works in our heart to transform our nature into one of tenderness and kind heartedness. Let it work in you is another way of saying it. Instead of saying, give place unto wrath, say, let this whole thing work its way to gold in you. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Now when the missionaries went to Africa, and they preached from Romans twelve, what happened then was that some of the Africans took hot coals and went and poured them on their enemy's head. And we have about that much understanding of that scripture too. So I want to explain it in that country, in the Bible country, they did not have electric ranges and gas ranges and everything else. They cooked on a little on the ground between two bricks with a few sticks or cow chips. That's the way they cooked. And they didn't have enough fuel in order to keep a fire going all the time, and they didn't have matches like we have. So in order to have a fire in the morning, they appointed one man in the village who would be the one who would keep a small fire going all night. Towards early morning, before anybody got up, he would build that into a rather large fire. And then it let it come down into coals. Then he'd take a scoop and put that into a brazier until it was heaped up with hot burning coals. Then he put a wood block on his head, and put that brazier of hot coals on his head, took tongs, and went around from kitchen to kitchen, putting fire coals in each place. So it became an idiom in the east that you turn a man into. If you love him. When he has hurt you, you turn him into a spreader of warmth, one who puts fire of love in every kitchen. You heap coals of fire on his head. That's the meaning of that scripture. And that's why the context here is be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. That is the reason that thing happens. Which brings us to the final point. And that is to say that maybe there's a reason that you really haven't seen. It's been hidden from you. A reason that you've received some hurt. It's easy to see that people around you are sinful and they can be mistaken, and they just express their own angers. They come out on you, you know. Well, that's that person's problem. Sometimes you can say, well, I drew it on myself because of my own sinfulness. Sometimes you say, the devil did it, you know, and you give him the blame. But, you know, there's a dimension that I think we need to be more aware of. And that is that sometimes because God is yearning over every person in his creation, and he wants to draw all men unto himself. And because there are many people who just simply have not come into a knowledge of him. God has no access to him. He's been speaking to them. He's been calling them again and again and again. And their ears are closed and their eyes are stopped, and it just looks like there's no access to them. God in his love will call them into some kind of relation with a Christian who does have his eyes somewhat open, who does have his heart open, who is listening, who is in tune with the Lord, and who has enough sense to bring something to the altar and to give it to the Lord and invite the Lord in to take charge. God will bring that person into relationship with that Christian cause, that person to hurt the Christian because the Christian is called to give back kindness and blessing to give forgiveness. And then there's access to God, to that person. That person's heart is made available to the Lord through the Christian. And we want to just demonstrate that in a very graphic way that I hope will just really burn itself into your heart. That is if I come up on person that I am and I say, boy, you are a rotten guy. Then I do like this. And look at the bridge between us. God has a bridge between us and we're united, able to receive His spirit between us. Next. Let us bow in prayer. Father in heaven, we confess, as we have heard, that we have cherished our hurts and held our pity parties and invited our friends. We confess, O Lord, that we have not done as we ought to have done. We confess before you that we have let mountains of isolation be between us and our brothers. We repent before you, Lord. Lord, we repent most especially that our brother languished and was murdered in his own spirit because we failed to respond with blessing. We've not understood our calling, or if we understood it, we rebelled and didn't do it. And we ask your forgiveness now, Lord Jesus, we celebrate that that forgiveness is offered us without any qualification except that we repent. Except that we invite you. We thank you, Lord, that there is no way in which we can sin so mightily that repenting we can't receive from you. We're not omnipotent in our sin. We're not omnipotent in our unforgiveness. We celebrate, Lord, that just simply saying, Lord, we choose you. We choose your way. We choose to open our hearts to you. Then you come in with the reality to make all that happen. Lord, we bless you and praise you that on the cross you have died once for all. With that sin you became in the garden, that you became that unforgiveness. We are that you became that anger, that resentment, that you became that hidden thing in us that even we didn't know was there and that you took it to the cross, O Lord, in your cross and in your resurrection is all our deliverance and life. We have none anywhere else. You have the words of life. You are the rock of life and the refuge and the strength and the deliverer. There is none beside thee. O Lord, we thank you that in this moment you are walking. And precisely because we have sinned against you, you are forgiving us, and you are now pouring your blessing over us. Just blessing us, blessing us with love we don't deserve blessing us because it's your nature, not a gimmick. Praise you Jesus.