God implores us and enables us to forgive – or we die
Mat 6:9-13 The Lord’s Prayer:- notice the one truth re-emphasized right afterwards:
In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts (our sins), As we forgive our debtors (those
who have sinned against us).
And lead us, not into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Mat 6:14-15 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matt 18:32-35 – The parable of the unforgiving Christian
Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant (Christian)! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?'
And his master was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to him.
So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."
Who are the tormentors? Wicked spirits that now torment the Christian’s thought life with every conceivable kind of fear, worry, anxiety and depression thought. Against which the Christian, being cut off from God, has absolutely no defense – until he obeys God’s command to forgive the other person’s sin. And he will have to do it by faith, the faith given to him by God, when he probably doesn’t in the least “feel” like it.
And, just like God’s forgiveness of us, forgiving another does not mean condoning what they did. Equally just like God’s forgiveness of us we must then choose to not remember that persons sin anymore – our own sinful flesh, un-enlightened people and evil spirits will try to remind us of the sins of others; but we are enabled by Jesus Christ to choose, and must choose, not to be reminded. Does this only apply to forgiving other Christians? No! And must someone first be sorry for their sin against me before I forgive them? No!
Mark 11:25-26 And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against
anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you
your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in
heaven forgive your trespasses." Only my pride keeps me from obeying.
Eph 4:32 And you be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. KJV
The incredible risk and danger we face when we refuse to forgive as we are forgiven:
As we have plainly seen, as long as a Christian willfully chooses to defy God and does not forgive everyone of every thing, by faith from their heart, that Christian forfeits their own forgiveness by God. Now they are going to be tormented day and night by horrible thoughts form evil spirits and will remain in spiritual prison cut off from God. This is a nightmare and it won’t get better only worse – and if this rebellion stays uncorrected do you think such a Christian has any hope whatever of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven?
Why is the consequence of un-forgiveness so severe? In the above parable of the unforgiving Christian Jesus likened it to refusing to forgive someone a $20 debt after you have been forgiven by God a $20 Million debt. And since the forgiveness of all sins by God is based solely on Christ having borne those sins, both ours and that other persons, to refuse to forgive another is to trample under foot Christ’s substitutionary work on the Cross. This is big time sin. A B Simpson refers to un-forgiveness of another as an unforgivable sin, because it is an ongoing sin. Is that true? Of course it is.
1 Jo 2:2-3 He (Jesus) is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of the whole world (does this include the sin of the one who sinned against me? I must see in my heart that Jesus bore their sin too).
And how can we be sure that we belong to Him (Jesus)? By obeying His commandments (especially His command to forgive others). NLT
One of the hideous results of defiantly choosing not to forgive and forget another’s sin is this: Since I myself am no longer forgiven by God I will have lost my peace with God. Most likely I will try to regain my peace with God by receiving His forgiveness. But I will fail every time because it is not available while I choose not to forgive someone else.
The longer this continues the more discouraged I’ll get – now, my spiritual enemy (who encourages my disobedience to God) may suggest to me that the reason I can’t get peace with God is because some awful sin that I’ve committed in the past (something other than my un-forgiveness of others) is so bad that God cannot forgive me. The danger is that I will believe this lie. Now, even if I do finally forgive whoever it was, I may not be able to forgive myself for that sin I was deceived into believing was not forgivable – meaning I cannot now believe that God has forgiven me for it. If I die now in this state, I will die in my sins and be permanently separated from God! The un-forgiveness trap!
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death…
Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, (un-forgiveness of others) that he will also reap (his own un-forgiveness).
Jam 1:15 …And sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
The blessedness of not being offended
Ps 119:165 Great peace have they which love your law (your word): and
nothing shall offend them. KJV
Mark 4:16 And these are they likewise (the seeds of God’s words) which are
KJV sown on stony ground (meaning, sown in the hearts of those who still have areas of hardness in their hearts where they are resisting God); who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;
17 And have no root in themselves (their heart isn’t very deep because of the hardness – the stones), and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution (some trouble in their lives) arises for the word's sake, immediately they are offended (openly or secretly offended at God).
Matt 13:54-58 When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their
synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
55 Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?"
57 So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house."
58 Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
Matt 24:10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will
hate one another.
Luke 7:23 And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.
1 Cor 13:4-6 Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never
boastful or proud,
5 Never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong (for it always forgives as it is forgiven).
6 It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out; TLB
7-8 (Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails… NKJV
