Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving 4

There's one thing I forgot to cover that we're expected to do before we forgive someone. Remember that when we forgive someone, it's not just a nice saying; something actually happens when we forgive. The burden of guilt is actually lifted from the persons shoulders so that we can be reconciled with them. So before we forgive them, we should have prayed about it asking the Lord to give us a forgiving heart and to give us His Words to speak to the person so that true reconciliation can occur. We should never depend on ourselves when we need to forgive someone, but always ask for God's help. We shouldn't wait till the last minute to talk to God about this either. This should be the very first thing we do when we realize that someone has sinned against us. I know I've posted this before, but will post it again here, as I copied a little prayer about this that to me was just perfect to use as a model for my own prayer:

O God, give me a heart of forgiveness, so that I may commune with You in the fullness of fellowship and joy and not experience the chastening that comes when You don’t forgive me because I won’t forgive a brother or sister in Christ. May I remember that for everyone who sins against me I have sinned multiple times against You, and You have always forgiven me. At no time has any of my sin caused me to forfeit my eternal life; therefore, no one else’s sin should cause them to forfeit my love and my mercy toward them. Amen.

We will be talking more about how God will punish us by treating us the same way we treat someone else that we should have forgiven, later.

Ok, what about unbelievers? What do we do about them? Remember, we're to forgive the way God forgives us and since forgiveness always starts with belief and faith in Jesus, unbelievers cannot truly be forgiven. What we need to do now is see what God says about how we are to treat unbelievers. I'm sure you can think of a number of things the Lord tells us about unbelievers, but I want to start with a general statement that defines our attitude toward them: Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Of course, the "everyone" in this command includes unbelievers. This verse points out that there may be times when living at peace with others isn't possible and that's most likely when it involves an unbeliever. I love this verse because it again shows us that God doesn't expect us to do the impossible and that what He does expect of us, He enables us to do. This verse lets us know that we need to be realistic about people and realize that we don't live in an ideal world where everyone is going to get along well together all the time. This is something I have to remind our members about in the apologetics forum. It can get pretty rough in there and because we're believers, we tend to automatically expect other people to act with the same morals and values we do. But when you're dealing with an unbeliever, you can't expect that!

Unbelievers are the exact opposite of what we are. We're God centered and growing more God centered, while they're self centered and growing more self centered. When we were saved, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us and poured out His love in our hearts so that we could love Him and others with His true love and not the worlds false kind. Because we have His love in our hearts, we're able to love others, even unbelievers with His love and that too is something that the Lord increases in us as we continue to grow. But an unbeliever doesn't have God's love in their hearts because they weren't saved and they don't have the Holy Spirit within them. Without that, they cannot love God or other people in ways that are acceptable to God, nor can they understand our values, morals and way of life because they can't understand the Bible and don't really want to. Like God says, they can't please Him. They're incapable of it, just as we once were. That's why God tells us in this verse that He wants us to live at peace with others "if it's possible". He knows that with unbelievers involved in a relationship, that may be difficult at best and at times impossible.

Next God tells us that we are the only one that can be counted on to do right in a relationship with an unbeliever. That makes sense when we realize that the unbeliever is incapable of even understanding our morals and values much less living them.

I know that about now everyone is probably thinking, "but wait, I have a friend that's not saved and they're good people...they don't cheat, lie, steal, or murder and they are good parents to their children etc. I'm sure you do, I know people like that too. There's a big difference in why we act the way we do and why they act the way they do, and that difference is foundational to everything they are and we are. I'm not going to get into this now though as it would take way too long and this isn't what we're studying right now. For the purpose of this study then I would ask you to simply accept what scripture says about unbelievers, and we can certainly look into this more when we're done with this one if you want too.

Let's look at how the world handles it when someone does something the world considers is wrong. Usually if someone does something wrong and they value the relationship with the other person, they'll admit what they did and apologize for it. Remember, I posted a little about apologizing already. Let me quote parts of it here in case you missed it:

Quote:
Now, about "apologizing". Apologizing is the worlds substitute for forgiveness.

Saying your "sorry" and actually repenting of sin are two very different things. Someone can simply be "sorry" they got caught, or sorry they're going to have to pay the consequences of their sin, in fact they may not even believe in God or sin. If they do, they can even just be "sorry" that they're going to be in trouble for not doing what they knew they were supposed to do. They don't hate the sin, they're just sorry about it. All they're doing when they say they're sorry is telling you how they feel. They're not even telling you why they feel that way, which as I just showed could be for many different reasons! They aren't promising anything or doing anything about the sin when they say they're sorry either - as with repentance which means that they hate the sin and won't do it again and then they ask forgiveness and a promise is given that the sin won't be brought up again.
Let's look at the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow over a wrongdoing (sin).

2 Corinthians 7:8–11 —Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— *yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. *Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. *See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. *

One kind of repentance comes from God and leads to life so there's no regret in having confessed and repented of the sin, but the other kind comes from the world and leads to death. There's two obvious examples of both kinds of repentance, Peter and Judas. Judas repented, was full of regret, the worldly way and killed himself, whereas Peter repented, also full of regret, weeping, and then assuring Jesus of His love accepted His forgiveness and went on determined not to sin that way again.

If we look closely at the two different ways of repenting, we see that one is self centered and one is God centered. The world's way if obviously the self centered one. Unbelievers repent, or "feel badly" that they did something wrong for selfish reasons. They might be sorry they got caught, or sorry they have to pay the consequences of the wrong, or sorry that someone else found out about it, or sorry about what it'll do to their reputation now, or how it might affect their personal life, business life, etc. or what they may have to give up or not get because this happened, or they may be sorry that it will affect their friendship. That sounds close to what we might feel, but it's really not. They're sorry because of the loss to themselves, not because of the hurt to the other person. For the unbeliever, it's all about them.

For us, it's all about God. We're sorry because we've hurt our Lord, or displeased Him in some way and desperately want to make it right.

As you can see from this, there is simply no way that the unbeliever's repentance is nothing like ours and won't lead to the same good results. So it's up to us to do our best to find a way to settle things so that we can continue to live in peace with them.

Before I get into exactly what to do with an unbeliever, let's take care of our own hearts. God says we're to forgive them, so there must be a way we can do so, even though they can't really repent. The way we do this is by forgiving them in our hearts. This is how we are told to deal with a great many sins against us so that we're not constantly running to other people to rebuke them. (I heard that sigh of relief! ) BUT, in the cases of serious sins against us, forgiving them in our hearts does not let us off the hook. We still have to rebuke them and forgive them to their face if they repent.

Let me show you what the Bible says about this.


1 Peter 4:8 —Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. * This is actually a quote from

Proverbs 17:9 —He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. * So the only sins we need to actually confront someone about are those that love can't keep covered up. Or in other words, when it is in the other persons best interest to be told about their sin because if we do not do so it would break our fellowship with them. Just as God doesn't pick on us for every single sin we commit every day, neither should we pick on other people for their sins. We see this in parenting and in marriages too.

All this means then is that when a person sins against us in a way that perhaps hurt our feelings but that we are not going to allow to break our fellowship with them over, we forgive them in our hearts, by going to God in prayer about it. We go to the Lord and tell Him that the person hurt us and we don't want to have any bitterness or resentment in our hearts toward them because of the sin, and ask Him to help us with that. Then we simply tell God that we because we love them, we forgive them for their sin. That's it. It's not forgiveness like we'd grant to someone who has committed a major sin against us, but then they don't need that kind of forgiveness as it's not a big deal. Let me think of an example...

Sometimes I say things I don't mean. Especially when I'm in a lot of pain. I tend to snap at my husband then and can get quite mean, using a mean tone of voice, although I don't mean to. I try hard not to let that happen, but sometimes when the pain's really bad and I've been trying to hold myself together for a while for the sake of my grandchildren, when they leave, out of relief that I can now "relax" and take my pills, I'll have let down my guard and will slip up.

Like one night when the kids and grandkids had been here visiting all afternoon and for supper, I was in really bad pain and trying hard not to show how bad it was. I could barely walk. They knew I was in pain...I couldn't hide that and wasn't trying to. I simply didn't want to cry in front of them as that would upset the little ones, and I was about to do so by the time they left. so I walked them to the door as did my husband and once they were outside and out of the range of my voice, I mentally "relaxed" my control. At that moment all I was thinking about was making it back into the living room so I could sit down take my pills and not move for at least an hour.

Bruce said something to me asking why I'd done something earlier. I don't remember what. But whatever it was, instead of calmly telling him why, I acted like he should be able to read my mind and know why, and snapped at him and while I don't remember anymore what I actually said, it was probably something along the lines of, "because I'm stupid, that's why!" implying that the only reason he brought it up was because he thought I'd done something wrong or that I shouldn't have done at all. Of course that wasn't true at all and I knew that and instantly repented; but before I could even say anything, (he was behind me) he came closer to me and gently put his arms around me and ignoring my snide remark, simply said, "your back is really bad now isn't it?", which brought on the tears which then flowed even heavier because of the pain.

That my friends is a beautiful picture of love covering a sin. His love for me, knew that the words I'd spoken weren't from the real me and that I didn't mean them and that I loved him too, so he simply forgave me in his heart and covered my sin with his love. And that's what we're to do with most of the sins that are committed against us. We simply love the person enough that the sin doesn't matter and we tell the Lord we've forgiven them or even ask Him to forgive them as well if we feel that's appropriate. I'll have to cover the way we deal with the unbeliever when they must be confronted tomorrow.

Proverbs 10:12 —Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. *

Ephesians 4:32 —Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. *

Ephesians 5:1–2 —Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children *and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. *

Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving 3

Keep in mind what we've learned so far about forgiveness:

1. We are commanded to forgive
2. Forgiveness is a choice, a decision; not a feeling
3. There are conditions attached to forgiveness,

• only those who are saved can be truly forgiven, because it is through the blood of Christ that we are forgiven
• only those who repent of their sin can be forgiven; without repentance, there is no forgiveness

4. We are to forgive other believers the way God forgives us, by "not remembering" their sin anymore. Meaning that we promise not to bring it up again to ourselves, them, or anyone else.
5. when a believer sins against us we are to go to them and rebuke them. The rule is: The one with the sore toes goes because he’s the one who always knows.
6. If they continue to sin against us, but also continue to repent, we are to continue to forgive them.
7. The goal of forgiveness is to restore the relationship between you and the person who sinned against you; as well as restoring each persons relationship with the Lord.

I would like to say something about that last one really quickly here. We are commanded to forgive for a reason. I'm sure you have noticed too that in the NT love and unity between believers is stressed a great deal. 1 John especially talks about this. Because we each are saved and have a personal relationship with the Lord, it's our relationship with Him and our love for Him that unites us as we obey His command to love each other. Today the idea of that "unity" between believers has been twisted to mean things that God never intended it to mean. I'll go over this more later, because our fellowship with each other is of utmost importance to Jesus and should be to us as well.

We will be going over much more about the "rebuking" part later. I'm sure you want to hear about "unbelievers" so I'm going to cover that first and then go back to our responsibilities concerning believers. We will also cover what to do when we are the ones who have sinned against someone else, as well as a number of other common things about forgiveness.

 

I want to talk about our feelings as they regard forgiving others for a moment, as we so often think we can't forgive someone if we don't feel it or don't really want to. Let's really look at that for a moment. Do we do that with other situations in our life? I remember when I was working and the alarm clock would go off in the morning, I did NOT want to get out of bed What I felt like doing was rolling over and going back to sleep! I don't ever recall laying there and trying to decide if I "could" get up since I didn't "feel like it". No, instead, every morning, in spite of how I felt, I'd get up, get dressed and off to work I went. Nor did I feel like a hypocrite for doing so and I seriously doubt if anyone would have said I was - if only because they probably felt the same way every morning.

The kind of job I had was taking care of disabled and or elderly adults. That meant I had to do some things that are just plain unpleasant to put it mildly. Most of us have changed a dirty diaper on a baby, but i had to change dirty diapers on adults, and had to clean them up after they had had an accident in the bathroom. I remember one time in particularly when that had happened and the person was so embarrassed and humiliated by it that they'd tried to clean it up themselves, but because of their disability and all, what they actually did was spread it all over everything including themselves. It was quite literally all over the floor, walls, toilet, sink and all over them. It was the worst mess I've ever seen, and I had to clean it and them all up and do so in such a way that they wouldn't be embarrassed even more. I most certainly did NOT "feel like" doing that! But, I did it anyway assuring the person there was nothing to be embarrassed or humiliated about.

Even now that I no longer work, there are many things I do each and every day that I don't feel like doing and things that I just plain hate doing even - but I do them anyway because they have to be done. I'm sure you do as well.

You can see then that we regularly and normally do things we don't feel like doing. When we think of those things, we usually simply see it as being responsible. In fact, when we sometimes hear about someone that does choose to go with their feelings and not do the thing that needs doing, we'll say that they're irresponsible.

It's no different with forgiving someone, regardless of what they've done or said. We may not feel like forgiving them, but we do it anyway. We do it because God commands it and we love Him, and when we do, we're simply doing our job and being responsible.

So what would be hypocritical? It would be hypocritical if I'd led other people to believe that I loved cleaning up that mess, or getting up in the morning and never thought about throwing the alarm clock through the window. It would be hypocritical to tell someone that I loved someone and enjoyed being with them, if I didn't. It would be hypocritical to lead someone to believe that I felt like forgiving them (or someone else) when I didn't feel that way. As long as we don't lie about how we feel though, we're not being hypocritical

We can forgive others even when we don't feel like it and we can make a promise when we don't feel like it. We can even keep a promise when we don't feel like it. I don't know how many times I made promises to my children to do things, like to take them swimming or to their baseball game or boy scouts or something like that, after work later in the week. Then, when that day came, I'd take them regardless of how I felt. In fact, I never felt like taking them to their baseball games because I hate baseball lol and I hate bugs and there's always tons of those tiny biting flies we call "no see ems" during that time of year. But I took them twice a week, every week during the season and I stayed and watched them play. It didn't matter how tired I was, or if I was sick or if I'd much rather be doing something....anything else lol, I took them to their game. Like I said, I'm sure you've all done similar things and still do. It's the responsible thing to do.

So never allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that you can't forgive someone because you don't feel like it; or that you haven't really forgiven them because you don't feel like you have. Our feelings about things like this, really don't matter.

Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving 2

We need to understand that forgiveness is conditional. In other words there are conditions attached to forgiveness. It's not given without those conditions. Many people think we have to forgive others even if they don't repent and they use what Jesus said on the cross to prove it. (you know, where Jesus said, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do" Luke 23:34) The problem with this is that when Jesus said that, He wasn't forgiving anyone, He was praying! If He had forgiven everyone then everyone would be saved without having to accept Him as God and without having to believe that His death paid for their sins. The Father did in fact answer His prayer too. Think about what was happening right then. The Lord, the God of all creation was hanging on a cross, put there by men He Himself had created, after they had tortured Him! If anything would anger the Father, THAT would! Remember what happened? It sure sounds to me like the Father was angry!

Luke 23:44–45 —It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, *for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. *
Matthew 27:51 —At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. *
Matthew 27:54 —When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” *

I honestly believe that the only reason God didn't wipe out mankind right then and there is because of our Lord's prayer! But no one was forgiven of their sin, especially the sin of crucifying the Lord unless or until they had repented. The Father answered that part of our Lord's prayer as well as both the thief and the centurion repented and I'm sure others did as well that we're not aware of Luke 23:42–43, 47; and of course others were saved after the Lord rose again and more still after the Holy Spirit was sent. Each one that was saved though had repented of their sins.

Any way you look at it though, Jesus did not forgive "everyone" or anyone when He prayed that, He was only asking the Father to forgive mankind for what they were doing to Him. Just like Stephen did when he was stoned. Jesus knew that those who had put Him on the cross did so because they were still under the control of sin...of Satan and that they didn't understand what they were doing. He wanted them (and us) to have another chance to be saved.

In the entire Bible, the only time someone is forgiven is when they have repented of their sin. That includes us too. Let's say we have a habit of swearing. We've done it for years and we really don't think it's all that bad because we don't use the really bad words, just a few of the milder ones. But we go to God and ask Him to forgive us because we know it's wrong and a sin. If we don't truly hate that sin and mean to stop, then we are not forgiven of it. We can ask all we want to, but until we truly repent, we're not forgiven. If we have truly repented, we will hate that sin and do our very best not to repeat it. If we do slip and repeat it anyway, it will cause us to feel just awful about it and we'll go to the Lord begging His mercy and help and be forgiven again. However, if we're just asking forgiveness because we know we're supposed to, then we might as well save our breath. Our relationship with the Lord won't be restored and we won't have peace with Him until we truly hate that sin. Look at that portion of the passage we're studying again:

Luke 17:3–4 —So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. *If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *

It's when the person has repented that we're then able to forgive them. Luke 24:46–47, Acts 17:30 and many many other passages show us that repentance must come before forgiveness.

So let's say a Christian lies to you and you go to them and tell them that you know that they lied. Let's pretend they act really sorry about it and say they repent and ask you to forgive them. Keep in mind, if you say you will forgive them, then you're promising that you won't bring up this matter ever again to them, to yourself or to anyone else. Because the Lord says to forgive them though, you do so. You both feel better and you go back home. Well a few days later, you're talking to them on the phone when they again say something that you again know is a lie! So you again confront them right away and again they repent or seem to, and you again forgive them. Let's say this keeps happening, over and over again and you're really beginning to wonder if this person even knows what repentance is! You're getting really annoyed with them and having trouble not sinning yourself because of anger toward them. This is the kind of situation the apostles were talking about when they asked Jesus just how many times they were supposed to forgive someone for something.

Luke 17:4–5 —If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” *

See how they responded to the Lord when He said that? If put in modern terms, you could say they said, "Whew! That's asking a lot! No way i can do that without more faith!" What did Jesus think of their reply though? Did He tell them that was good and that more faith would be supplied if they needed it? No!
Luke 17:6 —He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. *

And after saying that, He then went straight into the story about the servant and how the servant should obey and not expect to be rewarded for just doing what he'd been ordered to! So with those words, Jesus took care of all our excuses for not forgiving someone who has repented, or who at least says they've repented!

He first tells us that no matter how little our faith is, we have enough to obey Him and forgive because forgiveness is a choice not a feeling. Only God knows for sure what's in someone's heart. He does tell us in other places that we can know people by their fruit, but fruit takes time to grow. It doesn't grow over night or even in a day or a week. So just because someone keeps repeating a sin, if they say they've repented and ask our forgiveness, we have to forgive them. We have no choice, because those are our orders. We're to leave the judging to Him and forgive them.

Then He tells us the story about the servant and that one takes care of our excuse of not feeling like forgiving them! Read that one now:

Luke 17:7–10 —“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? *Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? *Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? *So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” *

Now, think of this servant. He's been working hard all day long and like anyone would, by supper time, he's hungry. But it's his job to prepare supper and serve his Master, not to eat it himself. So he cleans up, fixes supper and by then he's starving! He takes the meal out to his master, practically drooling over it himself, and has to stand their ready in case his master wants something, while his master eats it! When his master is finally done, he still doesn't get to eat... now he has to bring out the desert! When his master has finished that, he has to clear the table. Then and only then, can he finally reheat everything and get some supper for himself.

What is that servant feeling do you think? I'm quite sure he's feeling hungry and wanting to eat that food and wishing he could. His "feelings" are telling him to eat it and to eat it right now! Then why doesn't he? He doesn't eat it because he knows that he has to obey His master. There's no way he's going to think something like, "If I feel like it I'll obey my master, but if I don't feel like it, I'll just do what i want, which in this case means I'll go ahead and eat!" Jesus tells us that when the servant obeys in spite of how he "feels", he's not even doing anything special. He's just doing what he's supposed to do!

So now we know that we have to forgive when another Christian says they repent, regardless of how we feel, regardless of whether or not we see the "fruit" of repentance in their lives, and regardless of how much "faith" we have, because how ever much we have is enough.

Often we tend to think we're being hypocritical if we forgive someone that we don't feel like forgiving, so we really need to remember and understand that forgiveness is not a feeling. I want to quote from one of my books again because the way they explain this is really good and easy to remember.

“But, wait a minute! God doesn’t want me to be a hypocrite, does He? ”
No.
“Then, if I forgive someone when I don’t feel like doing so, won’t I be a hypocrite?”
No. Let me tell you why. The only reason you raise such an objection is because you have been influenced by the feeling-oriented times in which we live. You see, to think that way one must adopt an unbiblical, feeling-oriented view of hypocrisy. Your argument is that if you don’t feel forgiving, granting another forgiveness will be insincere and thus hypocritical. But actually, you have bought into a very foolish viewpoint. Let me explain.

Every morning I do something against all my feelings: I get up. Hardly ever do I want to get up. I’d like to throw the alarm clock through the window, cover my head with the covers, and forget the whole unpleasant business. But I don’t. I get up. Now, does that make me a hypocrite? Of course not. And, that isn’t the only thing I have to do against my feelings. All day long, in order to be responsible to God and others, I must do many things against my feelings. What does it mean when I pursue my responsibilities against my feelings? It simply means I am being responsible.

The biblical view of hypocrisy makes sense. If I had told you or led you to believe that I love to get out of bed in the morning when the truth is I don’t, then I would have been acting hypocritically. But I’ve told you the truth.

Adams, J. E. (1989). From forgiven to forgiving

One other thing I want to address is the idea that we're to "forgive and forget". We already talked about God "not remembering" our sins meaning that He promises not to bring them up to us, Himself or anyone else again, which we are also to do when we forgive. Forgiving and forgetting is another one of those sayings that have been repeated so often that people think it's biblical when it's not found in the bible anywhere! God never tells us to forget something. For one thing, He'd never command us to do something we're incapable of. (yes, I know He tells us to "be perfect" but the word that's translated "perfect" in that passage simply means to be "spiritually mature", so He is telling us there to grow in our faith which we are perfectly capable of doing) For another, He tells us to be aware and alert of dangers and temptations, and if we literally forgot things, we couldn't be aware of many of them. You can't learn a lesson and forget how you learned it. What He does tell us to do is "not remember" the sin in the same way He doesn't.

We're to make the same promise He does: not to think about it, not to remind ourselves of the sin, or remind the person or anyone else about it ever again. That means, taking our thoughts captive when necessary and using a Phil 4:8 list to direct our thoughts elsewhere if needed.

Philippians 4:8 —Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. *

(A Phil 4:8 list is a list we can make of things that we can think about that will agree with this verse. This list will be a list of things to think about whenever your mind starts wandering into areas it shouldn't. After writing down the verse, you list 20 different things to think about. These are NOT to be little, light things or things that you can only think about for a few seconds, but things that will keep your mind occupied for awhile. Write down things like, "What do I have to do to get ready to go on vacation"; "ideas of ways to talk about God to my children/grandchildren" or "how I want to redecorate or rearrange my living room"; or maybe, "people I might be able to help and include how" Or "what I'm going to do in my garden". I don't know what things you will want on your list, but they should all be things that agree with the above verse and that will keep your mind occupied for some time. Ask the Lord to help you think of things to put on it.

So the first step is to take your thoughts captive which we've discussed at length in other studies. If after taking your thoughts captive and replacing them with God's Truth, your mind keeps wanting to bring up the forbidden subject, that's when you use your phil 4:8 list to distract it.)

What's really great about this is that as we obey God and take our thoughts captive about these things (or anything else for that matter) we DO eventually forget it! Not literally of course. If we were to dig around in our memories, we'd find it, but for all practical purposes, eventually the memory of that sin will fade away as it's covered up with the other things we think about instead. You know that if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you can't just stop doing something or thinking something or saying something. You have to replace it with something else. Once you replace it and the replacement becomes a habit, then you've "forgotten" the bad habit. The same is true with this. Eventually the memory fades away as it's been replaced. So truly the only way we can forget something someone has done to us is by forgiving them God's way!

Now, about "apologizing". Apologizing is the worlds substitute for forgiveness. Originally the word meant defending yourself against a charge of wrongdoing in court (in Greece). Obviously that's the exact opposite of confessing your sins. Somehow or another though the word began to be used for when people said they were 'sorry" they'd done something. Saying your "sorry" and actually repenting of sin are two very different things. Someone can simply be "sorry" they got caught, or sorry they're going to have to pay the consequences of their sin, in fact they may not even believe in God or sin. If they do, they can even just be "sorry" that they're going to be in trouble for not doing what they knew they were supposed to do. They don't hate the sin, they're just sorry about it. All they're doing when they say they're sorry is telling you how they feel. They're not even telling you why they feel that way, which as I just showed could be for many different reasons! They aren't promising anything or doing anything about the sin when they say they're sorry either - as with repentance which means that they hate the sin and won't do it again and then they ask forgiveness and a promise is given that the sin won't be brought up again. Again this will help you understand it much better:

Picture the wrongdoer holding a basketball. He apologizes, saying, “I’m sorry.” The one offended shuffles his feet awkwardly. It is always awkward to respond to an apology, because you are not asked to do anything, and yet some sort of response is expected. The offended party says something inane like, “Well, that’s OK.” But it isn’t. The matter has not been put to rest. When you say the wrongdoing is OK you either lie or condone a wrong. At the end of the transaction the wrongdoer is still holding the ball.
Now, consider forgiveness. The wrongdoer comes with his basketball. He says, “I wronged you. Will you forgive me?” In so doing, he tosses the ball to the other person.
He is freed of his burden. Now, the burden for a response has shifted. The one wronged is asked to do what God requires him to do. He must either make the promise or risk offending God. There may be indecision on his part, but there is no awkwardness occasioned by unclarity. He knows what the Bible expects of him. When he says, “I forgive you,” he promises not to bring the matter up again. The two have both made commitments. The wrongdoer confessed to wrongdoing; he committed himself to that confession. The offended party committed himself to burying the matter. At the end of the transaction, the ball is tossed away and obligations concerning the matter are over and done with. Both are free to become reconciled. The matter has been set to rest.

Adams, J. E. (1989). From forgiven to forgiving

I think now you can see that apologizing is just the worlds substitute for forgiveness and it doesn't work very well. That does not mean that you can never say you're sorry to someone though. The world expects it and there's no real reason you can't give it to them, as long as YOU understand what's really happening. It's sad, but true that this is the best the world has to offer for unbelievers.

Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving 1

I've been studying forgiveness for quite a long time, off and on, and felt like I was beginning to understand it fairly well, but there were still some things that confused me about it. So I asked the Lord to help me understand it and He really did! I was amazed because it seemed like things I'd read so often before, suddenly became quite clear to me! I realized that a lot of what we think about forgiveness is actually from the world and not God which is why we tend to get confused about it. So I'd like to share what I've been learning with you.

Like everything else, in order to learn about forgiveness, we need to look at how God forgives and what He says about it. One of the first things we will see is that forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with our feelings. Forgiveness, like love, is a choice. It is not a feeling. In Ephesians 4:32 we're told that we're to forgive others the way Christ forgives us, so as I said, we need to see how God forgives to know what we need to do, when we need to do it, and how to do it. One of the first things we notice about what God does is that He tells us when He forgives us. He doesn't let us wonder about it, He comes straight out and tells us so and tells us that He won't hold our sins against us now or ever again. In fact, He promises he won't hold our sins against us.

Isaiah 43:25 —“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. *

He actually says He won't "remember" them anymore, as in the verse above, but that's impossible since God knows everything, so what does He mean by that? What He's saying is that He promises that He won't bring them up to us or anyone else ever again; He won't beat us up about them or remind us of them. What does that remind you of? For me, it reminds me of how he loves us. He tells us that godly love, the way He loves, doesn't keep records of sins or wrongs, remember?. It's in 1 Cor 13:5. So when God says He won't remember them, He's saying that He won't bring them up to us or anyone else ever again. They're are as though they never happened.

This also reminds me of something else and I bet it does you too. There is someone who loves to beat us up about our sins, and who constantly 'reminds" God about our sins - Satan! The Bible tells us that Satan is our accuser and goes before the Lord continually accusing us of our sins.

Revelation 12:10 —Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. *

But our Lord is there too and every time Satan accuses us, the Lord says, "Paid for! and clean by the Word I've spoken to them!" and the case is dismissed!

Now we can easily see how each side handles sin as far as forgiveness goes. God doesn't beat us up with our sins. He loves us and when we ask, He forgives our sins and never brings them up or uses them against us again.

Obviously now we're talking about people who are saved right? God is willing to forgive everyone, but there is only one way that can happen, and that's to accept His gift of salvation. The only way an unsaved person can be forgiven of something is if they first accept His gift of salvation. Then all their sins are forgiven, just as ours are. After that, if they sin, they know they are not going to be judged for their sins because their sins were paid for already just as ours were. Now if they sin, like us, they're looking to restore their relationship with the Lord.

Please make sure you understand the difference there. Before we are saved, we're God's enemy and are under judgment for our sins and will ultimately go to Hell for them. Once we accept His gift of salvation though, we are no longer His enemy. We become His children. Now, instead of treating us the way a judge would treat a criminal, He treats us as His beloved children. So now when we sin, we aren't looking at a sentence to Hell, we're looking at a relationship with our Father that needs to be restored. Sin causes us to lose the peace we have in our relationship with the Lord because we feel guilty. So when we ask for forgiveness, He cleanses our consciences and totally wipes the sin away, restoring our peace with Him.

Let me repeat this one more time. The only way an unsaved person can be "forgiven" of anything is if they first accept God's gift of salvation and come to Christ. We'll go into this more later, too but I did want to make that clear from the start.

Since we are to forgive others the way God forgives us, we too are to "not remember" their sins against us when we've forgiven someone. That means that we promise not to bring their sin up to them, or anyone else, which includes ourselves, ever again. Remember though, this has nothing to do with feelings. This is about making a decision, a choice, of not thinking or speaking about something again. Yep, there's that nasty word, "thinking" again too. And you're right, that means we're probably going to have to take our thoughts captive when we have to forgive someone of something that's really hurt us, in order to keep that promise. Keep in mind too that we're promising God that we will do this, so it's not something we can say lightly and then forget about.

When God says, "I forgive you", it means a LOT, and He expects it to mean a lot when we say it too.

Now, I want to give you one other thing to think about today. When we talk about forgiveness, we're talking about forgiving sin that's been done against you personally. We're not talking about someone who has committed a sin against you, and has not repented of that sin. God does not forgive those who have not repented and neither do we. We're to forgive the way He does and He even tells us how to do that, and it involves some work on our part. For one thing, He tells us to go to that person and tell them that they've sinned against you! He doesn't say to wait till they come to you and say they're sorry, He says, go now and rebuke him!

I really love how one of my books explains this. They put it in such a way that it's easy to remember and understand and is kind of cute . So I'm going to just quote that for you and let you chew on this today and we'll discuss it more tomorrow. here's the verses we're looking at now:

Luke 17:1–10 —Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. *It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. *So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. *If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” *He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. *“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? *Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? *Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? *So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” *

A Warning
The words, “Be on your guard” (v. 3 ) may seem an unusual introduction to a discussion of forgiveness, yet that is how Jesus began. He must have had a reason. Think about it for a minute.
Renowned preacher Charles Spurgeon, who had a very serious case of gout, was once approached by a man who claimed that his rheumatism was more painful than Spurgeon’s gout. Now, you simply didn’t say things like that to Spurgeon and get away with it! Spurgeon replied: “I’ll tell you the difference between rheumatism and gout: Put your finger into a vise and turn it until you can’t stand the pain; that’s rheumatism. Now, give it three more turns; that’s gout!”

Jesus warns you because in verse 3, there is both rheumatism and gout. In verses 3–10 there is some of the most difficult teaching in the New Testament. It is not difficult to understand, just difficult to put into practice. Jesus warns you that what He is about to say will be hard to swallow. So Christian, get ready for it: “Be on your guard.”

The Rheumatism
“If your brother sins, rebuke him; if he repents, forgive him.” Those are difficult words. The first is hard, extremely hard, and the second even more so. But, let’s look first at the rheumatism: “ If your brother sins, rebuke him.”

As verse 4 makes clear, the sin about which Jesus is speaking is a sin against you. The question arises immediately; How do you handle sins against you? Think about that a bit. How do you?
Here you are, minding your own business, provoking no one to anger, just surveying the scene. All of a sudden, literally or figuratively (probably the latter) your brother (or sister) comes along, stomps all over your toes, and disappears over the hill. There you stand—through no fault of your own—with ten toes flattened out like ten silver dollar pancakes. They hurt! Now, what do you do next?

Well, some begin to whine and feel sorry for themselves. They look for the syrup and pour it all over their feet. They hold a pity party and invite others to join in. But that isn’t what Jesus said to do.
Others get furious. They storm about making their wrath known, and either go after the brother to tell him off or charge around their home kicking chairs or children instead. Neither is that which Jesus said to do.

A third group, more pious than the rest, go around the congregation displaying their flattened toes to as many as will view them, saying, “Now, you understand that I don’t mean to gossip in telling you what so-and-so did. I’m just warning you so that you can protect yourself from such injury in the future.” But Jesus didn’t tell you to do that either.

What did He say?
Jesus says, “Rebuke him.” That’s rheumatism!
What He tells you to do is go after the brother, take him (gently) by the collar, and say, “Brother, look at my toes!”

Notice, Jesus doesn’t allow you to go tell others about it, to sit in the corner and feel sorry for yourself, to take it out on others in your vicinity, or even to tell the elders. He says go to the one who tread on your toes, and talk to him about it.

Why You Should Go
“But why should I go?” you ask. “I didn’t start anything. I was an innocent bystander, just surveying the scene when he (or she) came along and flattened my toes. Shouldn’t he come to me?”
That is a reasonable question and one that many persons ask. The trouble is that most of them answer it the wrong way. Jesus is saying, in effect, that whenever your brother or sister wrongs you, that obligates you to take action. No matter how innocent you may have been, you are obligated to go to him.

“But isn’t he obligated to come to me? I don’t see why his sin against me obligates me to act; let him come to me.”
Yes, as a matter of fact, if he has sinned against you, he is obligated to come to you. But that is another passage, to which we are not currently referring (Matt. 5:23–24). The command in Luke is for you to go to him. Both commands are important; you should go and he should go. Ideally, you ought to meet each other on the way.

“Well, if he’s obligated to go, I don’t see why I must do so too.”
Let me try to explain. You haven’t seen your friend Jane for several months; she’s been away traveling. This morning you see her at church, seated on the opposite side of the building. You can’t wait till the service is over to talk to her. At the conclusion of the service, you rush around the pews and happily call to her, “Jane! Jane! It’s so good to see you!” But Jane sticks her nose into the air, turns on her heel, and sails out of the church as rapidly as possible, without so much as a “how do you do?”

You stand there hurt and perplexed. If you respond as many do, you’ll say, “Hurrruuummmph! If that’s the way she’s going to act, then so be it! I can wait till she comes down off her high horse and wants to talk. Then maybe I’ll be ready to do so and maybe I won’t!”

But, you see, Jesus won’t let you do that. He tells you to go after her and show her your toes. Suppose you do. Having recovered from the shock, you say to yourself, “Something’s wrong here. I’ve got to get to the bottom of it. I can’t have this happen to Jane and me.” So you hightail it out of the church after her. There she is over at her car. You go over and you say, “Jane! What’s wrong? I was so glad to see you home again that I rushed over to see you after church, but when I called to you, you stuck your nose in the air and left. What’s wrong?”

Perhaps Jane’s response will be something like this: “Oh no! Mary, I didn’t even hear or see you! you see, I caught a bad cold on my trip abroad, and the pastor preached forever today, and I left my tissues in the car, and I thought for sure I was going to drip all over my new dress and my Bible. That’s why I put my nose back and rushed out here to get those tissues. I was so preoccupied with all that I didn’t see or hear you.”
“Stupid illustration,”you say.
Yes, but I chose it because I have known case after case where friendships have been destroyed over misunderstandings just as stupid as that. Don’t you see? You are obligated to go because the brother or sister may not know that he (she) stepped on your toes. It may all be a misunderstanding. So, the rule is:
The one with the sore toes goes because he’s the one who always knows.

Adams, J. E. (1989). From forgiven to forgiving

Satan is very active in our lives right now

We all know we're living in the last days of the end times right now, and that means of course, that Satan is very active. I know there's often been a general tendency to blame Satan for just about everything instead of realizing that it's simply our flesh or the world that's been causing us the problems in our lives, but right now, in one area especially, I think Satan and his demons are to blame. It's our families.

It seems like just about every Christian family I know has or is experiencing severe relationship problems within it. Family members are fighting with each other, some are walking away from their faith, others haven't been saved yet, there's affairs, divorces, anger, malice, rage, bitterness, grudges, slander, gossip, deceit, hatred, jealously, selfishness, self pity, self-righteousness, vindictiveness, and a whole lot of unforgiveness.

All those characteristics are often shown together in God's Word as the characteristics of the unsaved, and that we're to rid ourselves of. These characteristics are part of our sin nature, so they show up naturally in all of us. At our salvation, the Lord gave us a new nature, but we have to choose to walk in it constantly, otherwise we'll simply revert to acting out of our old nature. And we all know how easy it is to fall back into old habits.

We know that Satan is out only to steal, kill and destroy. We've seen in the news how he's been attacking the family for a long time now. We've seen him do that through the homosexual activists, and before that through the women's lib movement, as well as things like abortion, no fault divorces, etc. I never looked at it as "personal" before, but saw his scheme as trying to destroy the foundation of marriage and family, not individual families. Now I realize however, that he's doing both.

While those things can certainly affect our individual families, he's also attacking us each individually by another of his standard modes of operation: strife and division. When I say Satan's attacking us individually, I don't mean that Satan himself is personally attacking each of us. His demons simply plant the seeds and our sin nature takes it from there. Plus he has the help of the secular worldview (how we see and interpret the world and our lives) which he's always been behind as backup. (It's yet another reason why the Lord says we need to be in His Word daily so our minds can be renewed with His Truth, and we won't fall back into the way the world sees things.)

Knowing the cause of the problems made me realize that we had been duped by Satan; he loves putting evil thoughts and ideas in our minds, and encouraging those thoughts and resultant feelings, causing all the strife and division. That made me angry! Real angry! How dare he! Then it made me ashamed. For years I'd tried to figure out the cause and gone from blaming myself to this person, to another. To finally discover that it was one of Satan's schemes that we're to be aware of, made me ashamed because I hadn't seen it before and I should have. But I was too busy blaming everything else and nursing my feelings of rejection. It was a relief also to know that all the garbage was from Satan and not really from my children at all.

Most importantly though, knowing the cause of the problem, I finally knew how to "fix" it with the Lord's help and guidance. To overcome Satan's scheme, all we really need are 3 things; and they're the 3 most basic and most important things that the Lord tells us about over and over again in His Word: love, forgiveness and humility. That's it. Loving God and others, forgiving, and being humble, are the three main things that God tells us to do from Genesis to Revelation and they're what Satan hates more then anything else, and that will beat him every single time! God pours His love into our hearts for the very purpose of loving Him and others and forgiving. Obviously, we can't do this without His help, but with His help, we can.

If you take another look at the list I wrote, all but the "affairs and divorces" are feelings, and the affairs and divorces happen because of "feelings", right? God's Word tells us not to trust our feelings in the first place, but instead to trust only in what His Word tells us. He also tells us that we're to be in control of our thoughts, because it's our thoughts that produce our feelings, which in turn produce our actions. We need to replace the thoughts that lead to those kind of feelings with thoughts that lead to the kind of feelings He wants us to cultivate, and dwell on those instead.

The "trick" however is in the forgiveness, because we have to forgive the way God does, not the way the world does. We have to forgive, promising to never bring up the matter to the person or anyone else, including ourselves, ever again. That's what "forgetting" means, when God says He forgets our sins. You can read more about that in Forgiving and Forgetting, the Lord's way if you want to (it's very short!).

When we bring love, forgiveness, and humility into the cycle of broken relationships, under the covering of prayer, they begin to heal. When the others push our buttons and get nothing back from us except for more love, they have nothing to continue their fight with. Oh, they'll keep trying for awhile, but you'll be amazed how it will change the whole dynamics of the situation. And it's when they push our buttons that humility comes into play too, for humble person will serve others, and put others before themselves, submitting themselves to God and others the way the Lord tells us to.

There's another very important aspect to all of this though. We need God's help to do this, for only with His help can we really pull it off. His Word tells us that there are two basic necessities for getting His help: constant prayer and being in His Word daily. We need to keep talking to the Lord about what we're doing and why asking for His help and guidance, expecting answers. His answers come through His Word. So we need to alert, and ready to apply what He shows us, and He will show us! We need to remember too though to always put the Lord first...even before the family we love. If we do, then the Lord says He will grant us the desires of our heart. I know my desire is to see each of my family members reconciled to the Lord, to each other, and to me and Bruce. Knowing God's promise if I'm obedient, I know that He will reconcile my family and is even now working in each of us to bring it about; and doing it for His glory and our good. Satan may have gotten a running start on us, and it may be his hay day, but our God always wins!

John 10:10 —The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. *
2 Corinthians 2:11 —in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. *
1 Peter 5:8–9 —Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. *Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. *

The Deafening Silence

It's been bothering me for a long time and as I've seen more and more of it, I've become more and more appalled by the deafening silence around me. It's so loud that sometimes it feels that's all I can hear anymore. I wasn't going to say anything although every fiber of my being has wanted to scream it out and tell people to wake up and hear it for themselves. But I know that I'm viewed as some kind of fanatical idiot and goody two shoes, and those are probably the kindest things said about me. I can't be quiet though, because if I am, then I too am continuing to contribute to the silence. I just can't do it anymore. I talked to the Lord about it all day yesterday and talked to my daughter too, thinking perhaps that would be enough. But the Lord's word's burn inside me and they have to come out. I feel like I know how Jeremiah felt in Jeremiah 20:9 and Jeremiah 6:10–11 when he spoke of this. It's like I'll burst if I don't say something, so I will.

I'm sure you've heard the silence. I know I've been part of it, especially before I was saved, but even since then at times. What am I talking about? The dead silence we hear when someone we know has sinned or is sinning and others acknowledge what they're doing, even congratulating them, or at least acting and speaking as though it's perfectly normal and acceptable. Oh yes, there's plenty of noise...plenty of talking, but there's total silence concerning what God says and thinks about what they're doing.

Each time it happens now, I ask myself, "Why??? Why doesn't someone speak up???" What hit me really hard though was when someone I really respected as a mature Christian didn't speak up. That just floored me and really shook me up. It made me question if I was doing right, because I so respected them. And again I asked myself, "why didn't they speak up", and I came up with a number of reasons that could apply. Perhaps they were ignorant about what the other person was actually talking about since they're from different generations, so since they didn't know, they couldn't speak up. Or perhaps, again not realizing what had actually been done, they were in a hurry and simply wanted to encourage a youngster, not realizing they were encouraging sin. I hope and pray to God that's what happened in that instance, but I know that normally, that's not the case. Normally, no one cares, because everyone considers sin normal and acceptable; or those who do know better simply don't want to rock the boat and don't want others to be angry at them, or take the chance that they won't like them anymore. I feel I can say that because I know that's what my excuses have been in the past as well. I'm not innocent. I've added to the silence many times. I just can't do it anymore.

I'm glad that happened and made me question myself though, because I took my questions to the Lord and He assured me that I was to speak out, and not just me, but all of us. He showed me that in His Word, over and over again. I still wasn't sure He wanted me to say anything about the subject in general though. Not until I opened my bible this morning and the first words my eyes focused on were "Our Guilty Silence". Since my bible library opens up to random pages, and I don't believe in coincidences, I felt sure that was the Lord's way of confirming what He wanted to me talk about. Especially since I'd again, already brought it up to Him as I was opening my bible library.

How do we break out of our old habits of being silent when we see people we care about doing and saying things that we know are sinful, or even blasphemous, or that are leading them away from God? When we see a teenager flippantly talking back to their parents, or singing along with secular songs that are obviously about premarital sex, and other sins - an attitude totally opposite of that we're supposed to have as followers of Christ? When we hear a friend talk about getting their horoscope or seeing a psychic, or another talking about lying to their spouse, or another who defiantly insists that there's nothing wrong with looking at porn? Someone that's gotten involved with false teaching and is spreading it around? A parent who's caved to their teenager's demands and is allowing their teens boyfriend/girlfriend to live with them and sleep with their teen, or a parent who's living with someone without being married?

How can we speak up when we sin too and have even done some of those same things? All I know to do is to speak from my heart and tell them up front that I've done those things too and because I have, I know from experience that the Lord disciplines us when we sin, and I don't want to see them go through that. I think it only seems hard because we're afraid that we'll be seen as fanatics (and we will be). Because if I bought an expensive product and found it to be a piece of junk, every time I heard someone talking about that kind of product, I'd quickly jump in and warn them to never buy the one I did and I'd tell them why. It would never occur to me to be afraid of being seen in a bad light or losing them as a friend. And most would heed my advice or at least take it into great consideration. Yet for some reason, when it involves sin and God, the opposite happens!

If a child, friend or loved one, was about to get hit by a car or burnt by fire, we'd immediately jump into action and pull them out of harms way. We wouldn't even stop to think about it, because we love them and don't want to see them hurt or in pain. Yet when those same people we love are threatened with the fire of hell for eternity, or on the verge of being disciplined by the Lord for sin, we look the other way... in fact, we often run the other way as fast as we can! That doesn't make sense! Why do we do that???? The only answer I can come up with is that we've been literally brainwashed throughout our lives by Satan, the world and our flesh. But God expects us to change and to speak up. The good news is that we can, with His help. But that means spending time in His Word with Him every day, and many of us just won't do that either. (for which Satan is very grateful!) Romans 12:2 among other scriptures (Colossians 3:10; John 17:17 etc) tells us though that our minds must be renewed by God's Word in order to be sanctified and transformed. So I guess the silence will continue to grow and people will go through trials that might have been prevented, and more people will be lost to hell that might have been saved.

Father, Grant us boldness to speak the Truth with love, & to never compromise Your truth. Grant us boldness to tell others about Your gracious gift of salvation. Grant us the words & wisdom to speak so that no one will be able to resist or contradict us. Enable us to encourage, rebuke, train, and teach others in righteousness. I pray that we may be active in sharing our faith, so that we will all have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. I ask this that You would be honored and glorified. In Jesus's Name I pray. Amen. (Luke 21:15; Ephesians 6:19; Acts 4:29; Titus 2:15; 2 Timothy 3:16; Philemon 6)

Jeremiah 20:9 —But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. *

Jeremiah 6:10–11 —To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it. *But I am full of the wrath of the LORD, and I cannot hold it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street and on the young men gathered together; both husband and wife will be caught in it, and the old, those weighed down with years. *

Jeremiah 6:12–19 —Their houses will be turned over to others, together with their fields and their wives, when I stretch out my hand against those who live in the land,” declares the LORD. *“From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. *They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. *Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them,” says the LORD. *This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ *I appointed watchmen over you and said, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But you said, ‘We will not listen.’ *Therefore hear, O nations; observe, O witnesses, what will happen to them. *Hear, O earth: I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law. *

 

None of us are perfect, and if we speak out as though we are, then we're sinning. But when we speak to someone because we love and care about them, and are concerned about them, it puts a totally different "tone" on what we're saying. People can tell when we love them, and when we don't. That's why I said this:

Quote:

How can we speak up when we sin too and have even done some of those same things? All I know to do is to speak from my heart and tell them up front that I've done those things too and because I have, I know from experience that the Lord disciplines us when we sin, and I don't want to see them go through that. I think it only seems hard because we're afraid that we'll be seen as fanatics (and we will be). Because if I bought an expensive product and found it to be a piece of junk, every time I heard someone talking about that kind of product, I'd quickly jump in and warn them to never buy the one I did and I'd tell them why. It would never occur to me to be afraid of being seen in a bad light or losing them as a friend. And most would heed my advice or at least take it into great consideration. Yet for some reason, when it involves sin and God, the opposite happens!

I'm not suggesting though that if we speak in love that the person will always welcome what we say, because they won't, but it will plant a seed that the Lord can grow. Nor am I perfect at this because there's times I don't speak up when I know I should. With the Lord's help those times have gotten much fewer and will hopefully never happen again. But if it does happen, I know He will forgive me and that He will show me how to do a better job next time. We all have to speak when the Lord tells us to Ruthanne and keep our mouths shut when He tells us to. One thing to keep in mind though is that He tells us when to speak in His Word, not just in our heads, and expects us to obey Him.

Many of us are afraid of confrontation, which makes this near impossible. I know I sure was. But the Lord can teach us and help us overcome that too, I know because He's done so for me. It took quite awhile, but He did it. I had to remind myself of what's more important, God or the fear of rejection. God won.

Setting the Record Straight

Setting the Record Straight

by Phil Johnson

More than two years ago, I wrote an article titled “The Burpo-Malarkey Doctrine,” critiquing the insanely popular I-Saw-Heaven-and-Here’s-What-It’s-Like genre of Christian best sellers. We posted that article on the Grace to You blog in anticipation of a revised and expanded edition of John MacArthur’s The Glory of Heaven.

One of the books I critiqued in that blog post was The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven by Kevin Malarkey. That book, published by Tyndale, is the story of Malarkey’s son, Alex, whose spinal column was completely severed at the neck in a horrific crash at an Ohio intersection on the way home from church one Sunday morning. Alex’s survival is a remarkable providence, and his courage and endurance through the whole ordeal is a true wonder. His experience is a compelling story, apart from the heaven-and-back element. Doctors said he would not survive, but Alex pressed on through numerous surgeries, countless inconveniences, and unbelievable adversity, always with a smile and a grateful heart.

Even at age six, recovering from an injury that would ordinarily be fatal, and coming to grips with total paralysis, Alex kept an unusually positive frame of mind. He pondered (as anyone would) troubling metaphysical questions like Why? What next? and What is God’s plan in this? One of the ways six-year-old Alex dealt with the trauma and the questions (while totally immobile and heavily sedated) was by imagining what had happened to him and what it all might mean. The tedium of hospital life was excruciating. So he answered people’s questions with stories he knew would get and hold their attention. Those stories became the seeds that planted the idea for Alex’s father’s book about heaven.

Shortly after “The Burpo-Malarkey Doctrine” was posted on our blog two years ago, Alex’s mom, Beth Malarkey, contacted me to acknowledge that John MacArthur’s analysis is correct: “These modern testimonies . . . are simply untrue.” She and Alex had already been doing everything they could to get the word out that The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven told a largely imaginary story, and that most of the details had been greatly embellished and exaggerated in the writing. Publicity about the book had incited a cult of afterlife enthusiasts and hangers-on who wanted to canonize Alex and idolize him as a mystical seer with an open connection to heaven. Alex was uncomfortable with the feeling of moral and spiritual responsibility his sudden fame had thrust on him. Still a child, he nevertheless understood that the truth was more important than his own reputation.

The publisher refused to pull or alter the book. Alex’s father, thrilled with the book’s best-seller status, stood with the publisher. Even a pastor from whom Alex sought counsel said he thought the book was “blessing” people. He advised Alex to be quiet and let it ride.

Before John MacArthur’s new edition of The Glory of Heaven went to press, John added a section noting the disclaimers Alex and Beth Malarkey had published in their futile attempts to make the truth known. In a footnote on page 55, for example, John wrote:

Although Kevin and Alex Malarkey are listed as joint authors on the book’s cover, Alex has publicly disclaimed the book online, calling it “1 of the most deceptive books ever.” Beth Malarkey, Alex’s mom and Kevin’s wife, describes the book as “a beautiful testimony distorted, twisted, packaged and used as business.”

Reviewing The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven at length in Appendix 2, MacArthur noted:

The book’s cover lists Kevin and Alex as joint authors, but the copyright notice is in Kevin’s name alone, and it is clearly Kevin who tells the story. Also on the book’s cover, in large type, are the words “a true story.” But as we shall see, there is considerable evidence that Kevin Malarkey has embellished, exaggerated, and even fabricated the supposed visions and experiences he attributes to Alex. (p. 199)
. . . . . . . .
Kevin Malarkey has overlaid his son’s testimony with so much that is unbiblical that the book considered as a whole is dangerously misleading. Alex himself posted a similar assessment of his father’s narrative at a webpage publicizing the book, but the comment was quickly deleted. Beth Malarkey reposted Alex’s comment at her own blog, saying “Alex voiced accurately what the book was about but he was silenced.” Like Alex, she emphatically disavows many of the claims that are made in her husband’s book, adding this: “Buyer beware. There is only one absolutely infallible and ‘true’ book: God’s Word! It does not need fancied up or packaged for sale. It is incredible as it stands!” (pp. 200-201)

Beth Malarkey perfectly summarized the issue in three sentences, saying: “Alex never concluded he was in heaven. He was a small boy who experienced something extraordinary. The adults made it into what would sell to the masses” (footnote, p. 201).

The Glory of Heaven (2nd ed.) was published in early 2013, so the true story about The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven has been in circulation and widely available for two years. Justin Peters became aware of Mrs. Malarkey’s plight last year and tried many times to call attention to Alex’s disclaimers. But the publisher continued selling and promoting the book with a cover that boldly (and falsely) proclaims it “a true story.”

Last week, Alex Malarkey himself weighed in with a short open letter.

An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back from Heaven

Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.

I did not die. I did not go to heaven.

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.

It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of heaven outside of what is written in the Bible . . . not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.

In Christ,
Alex Malarkey

Alex’s letter is articulate. It is gospel centered. It has the clear ring of truth.

When Alex has tried to make similar statements on Facebook or in other online forums, he has been routinely shouted down, his comments deleted, and his fragile voice silenced. We want to give his testimony maximum exposure, because Alex is right: The truth is more important than how anyone feels about it.

One of the top online reviews of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven says: “I can tend to be a little skeptical of otherworldly experiences, but when I hear it from the words of a child, I am much more open to the idea. A child is not going to be capable of making up these kinds of images and keeping his story straight for month after month after month.”

That, sadly, is what lots of readers think. What they don’t realize is that there is a massive industry behind books like these, heavily populated with decision makers who care more for filthy lucre than for truth. Employed in that industry are some mercenaries who have no scruples whatsoever about making up tales like these, polishing and embellishing them, and buttressing them with details designed to enhance the illusion of believability. It’s the very worst kind of pragmatism gone to seed. What’s “good” is defined by what sells. Scripture calls it “the teaching of Balaam” (Revelation 2:14).

Christian publishing is long overdue for reformation.

posted with permission http://www.gty.org/blog/B150116/setting-the-record-straight

 

Boy Says He Didn’t Go To Heaven; Publisher Says It Will Pull Book

LTRP Note: Today, there are many stories being highly publicized (and books being published) about people who supposedly have come back from the dead or near-dead, telling of their experiences in Heaven. The general public’s willingness (including multitudes of proclaiming Christians) to gobble such stories up shows how easily people are deceived. Many of the people who claim to have these experiences are not born-again Christian believers, such as the case with Dr. Eban Alexander, who wrote about his mystical experiences in his book, Proof of Heaven (see link below). Jesus made it very clear in Scripture that He is the only door to Heaven.

By Bill Chappell
NPR

Nearly five years after it hit best-seller lists, a book that purported to be a 6-year-old boy’s story of visiting angels and heaven after being injured in a bad car crash is being pulled from shelves. The young man at the center of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, Alex Malarkey, said this week that the story was all made up.

The book’s publisher, Tyndale House, had promoted it as “a supernatural encounter that will give you new insights on Heaven, angels, and hearing the voice of God.”

But Thursday, Tyndale House confirmed to NPR that it is taking “the book and all ancillary products out of print.”
The decision to pull the book comes after Alex Malarkey wrote an open letter to retailer LifeWay and others who sell Christian books and religious materials. . . .

“I did not die. I did not go to Heaven,” Alex wrote. He continued, “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. Click here to continue reading.




Related Information:
Book Review: “Have Heart” by Steve Berger – Endorsed by Church Leaders, But Sadly Normalizes Necromancy (Communicating with the dead)
Dr. Eben Alexander’s “My Proof of Heaven”: A Review and Theological Commentary
Follow Up Story on Newsweek Article about Heaven: Author of “Proof of Heaven” Admits to Practicing Deep Meditation
NEW BOOKLET TRACT – REGENERATION: “Ye Must Be Born Again.” by Harry A. Ironside
A Warning: The Angel of Light and the “Wiles” of the Devil

posted with permission;
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=16774