FORGIVENESS.
The next thing is perhaps the most difficult of all to deal
with--FORGIVENESS. I believe this is keeping more people from having
power with God than any other thing--they are not willing to cultivate
the spirit of forgiveness. If we allow the root of bitterness to spring
up in our hearts against some one, our prayer will not be answered. It
may not be an easy thing to live in sweet fellowship with all those
with whom we come in contact; but that is what the grace of God is
given to us for.
The disciples’ prayer is a test of sonship; if we can pray it all from
the heart we have good reason to think that we have been born of God.
No man can call God Father but by the Spirit. Though this prayer has
been such a blessing to the world, I believe it has been a great snare;
many stumble over it into perdition. They do not weigh its meaning,
nor take its facts right into their hearts. I have no sympathy with
the idea of universal sonship--that all men are the sons of God. The
Bible teaches very plainly that we are adopted into the family of God.
If all were sons God would not need to adopt any. We are all God’s by
creation; but when people teach that any man can say, “Our Father which
art in heaven,” whether he is born of God or not, I think that is
contrary to Scripture. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God.” Sonship in the family is the privilege of the
believer. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children
of the devil,” says the Apostle. If we are doing the will of God, that
is a very good sign that we are born of God. If we have no desire to do
that will, how can we call God “Our Father?”
Another thing. We cannot really pray for God’s kingdom to come until
we are in it. If we should pray for the coming of God’s kingdom
while we are rebelling against Him, we are only seeking for our own
condemnation. No unrenewed man really wants God’s will to be done on
the earth. You might write over the door of every unsaved man’s house,
and over his place of business, “God’s will is not done here.”
If the nations were really to put up this prayer, all their armies
could be discharged. They tell us there are some twelve millions of men
in the standing armies of Europe alone. But men do not want God’s will
done on earth as it is in heaven; that is the trouble.
Now let us come to the part I want to dwell upon: “Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” This is the
only part of the prayer that Christ explained.
“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.”
Notice that when you go into the door of God’s kingdom, you go in
through the door of forgiveness. I never knew of a man getting a
blessing in his own soul, if he was not willing to forgive others.
If we are unwilling to forgive others, God cannot forgive us. I do
not know how language could be more plain than it is in these words
of our Lord. I firmly believe a great many prayers are not answered
because we are not willing to forgive some one. Let your mind go back
over the past, and through the circle of your acquaintance; are there
any against whom you are cherishing hard feelings? Is there any root
of bitterness springing up against some one who has perhaps injured
you? It may be that for months or years you have been nursing this
unforgiving spirit; how can _you_ ask God to forgive you? If I am not
willing to forgive those who may have committed some single offence
against me, what a mean, contemptible thing it would be for me to ask
God to forgive the ten thousand sins of which I have been guilty!
But Christ goes still further. He says: “If thou bring thy gift to
the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against
thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” It may be
that you are saying: “I do not know that I have anything against any
one.” Has any one anything against you? Is there some one who thinks
you have done them wrong? Perhaps you have not; but it may be they
think you have. I will tell you what I would do before I go to sleep
to-night; I would go and see them, and have the question settled. You
will find that you will be greatly blessed in the very act.
Supposing you are in the right and they are in the wrong; you may
win your brother or sister. May God root out of all our hearts this
unforgiving spirit.
A gentleman came to me some time ago, and wanted me to talk to his
wife about her soul. That woman seemed as anxious as any person I
ever met, and I thought it would not take long to lead her into the
light; but it seemed that the longer I talked with her, the more her
darkness increased. I went to see her again the next day, and found her
in still greater darkness of soul. I thought there must be something
in the way that I had not discovered, and I asked her to repeat with
me this disciples’ prayer. I thought if she could say this prayer
from the heart, the Lord would meet her in peace. I began to repeat
it sentence after sentence, and she repeated it after me until I came
to this petition: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us.” There she stopped. I repeated it the second time,
and waited for her to say it after me; she said she could not do it.
“What is the trouble?” She replied, “There is one woman I never will
forgive.” “Oh,” I said, “I have got at your difficulty; it is no use my
going on to pray, for your prayers will not go higher than my head. God
says He will not forgive you unless you forgive others. If you do not
forgive this woman, God will never forgive you. That is the decree of
heaven.” She said, “Do you mean to say that I cannot be forgiven until
I have forgiven her?” “No, I do not say it; the Lord says it, and that
is far better authority.” Said she, “Then I will never be forgiven.” I
left the house without having made any impression on her. A few years
after, I heard that this woman was in an asylum for the insane. I
believe this spirit of unforgiveness drove her mad.
If there is some one who has aught against you, go at once, and be
reconciled. If you have aught against any one, write to them a letter,
telling them that you forgive them, and so have this thing off your
conscience. I remember being in the inquiry-room some years ago; I was
in one corner of the room, talking to a young lady. There seemed to be
something in the way, but I could not find out what it was. At last
I said, “Is there not some one you do not forgive?” She looked up at
me, and said, “What made you ask that? Has anyone told you about me?”
“No,” I said; “but I thought perhaps that might be the case, as you
have not received forgiveness yourself.” “Well,” she said, pointing
to another corner of the room, where there was a young lady sitting,
“I have had trouble with that young lady; we have not spoken to each
other for a long time.” “Oh,” I said, “it is all plain to me now; you
cannot be forgiven until you are willing to forgive her.” It was a
great struggle. But then you know, the greater the cross the greater
the blessing. It is human to err, but it is Christ-like to forgive and
be forgiven. At last this young lady said: “I will go and forgive her.”
Strange to say, the same conflict was going on in the mind of the lady
in the other part of the room. They both came to their right mind about
the same time. They met each other in the middle of the floor. The one
tried to say that she forgave the other, but they could not finish;
so they rushed into each other’s arms. Then the four of us--the two
seekers and the two workers--got down on our knees together, and we
had a grand meeting. These two went away rejoicing.
Dear friend, is this the reason why your prayers are not answered? Is
there some friend, some member of your family, some one in the church,
you have not forgiven? We sometimes hear of members of the same church
who have not spoken to each other for years. How can we expect God to
forgive when this is the case?
I remember one town that Mr. Sankey and myself visited. For a week
it seemed as if we were beating the air; there was no power in the
meetings. At last I said one day that perhaps there was some one
cultivating this unforgiving spirit. The Chairman of our committee, who
was sitting next to me, got up and left the meeting right in view of
the audience. The arrow had hit the mark, and gone home to the heart
of the Chairman of the committee. He had had trouble with some one
for about six months. He at once hunted up this man and asked him to
forgive him. He came to me with tears in his eyes, and said: “I thank
God you ever came here.” That night the inquiry-room was thronged. The
Chairman became one of the best workers I have ever known, and he has
been active in Christian service ever since.
Several years ago the Church of England sent a devoted missionary to
New Zealand. After a few years of toil and success, he was one Sabbath
holding a communion service in a district where the converts had not
long since been savages. As the missionary was conducting the service,
he observed one of the men, just as he was about to kneel at the rail,
suddenly start to his feet and hastily go the opposite end of the
church. By and by he returned, and calmly took his place. After service
the clergyman took him on one side, and asked the reason for his
strange behavior. He replied: “As I was about to kneel I recognized in
the man next to me the chief of a neighboring tribe, who had murdered
my father, and drunk his blood; and I had sworn by all the gods that
I would slay that man at the first opportunity. The impulse to have
my revenge, at the first almost overpowered me, and I rushed away, as
you saw me, to escape the power of it. As I stood at the other end of
the room and considered the object of our meeting, I thought of Him
who prayed for His own murderers: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.’ And I felt that I could forgive the murderer of my
father, and came and knelt down at his side.”
As one has said: “There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in the world--a
kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one
who has offended, and set him down before the blow-pipe of their
indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him; and when they
have kneaded him sufficiently with their fists, then they forgive him.”
The father of Frederick the Great, on his death-bed, was warned by
M. Roloff, his spiritual adviser, that he was bound to forgive his
enemies. He was quite troubled, and after a moment’s pause said to the
Queen: “You, Feekin, may write to your brother (the King of England)
_after I am dead_, and tell him that I forgave him, and died at peace
with him.” “It would be better,” M. Roloff mildly suggested, “that
your majesty should write at once.” “No,” was the stern reply. “Write
after I am dead. That will be safer.”
Another story tells of a man who, supposing he was about to die,
expressed his forgiveness to one who had injured him, but added: “Now
you mind, if I get well, the old grudge holds good.”
My friends, that is not forgiveness at all. I believe true forgiveness
includes forgetting the offence--putting it entirely away out of our
hearts and memories.
As Matthew Henry says: “We do not forgive our offending brother aright
nor acceptably, if we do not forgive him from the heart, for it is that
God looks at. No malice must be harbored there, nor ill-will to any; no
projects of revenge must be hatched there, nor desires of it, as there
are in many who outwardly appear peaceful and reconciled. We must from
the heart desire and seek the welfare of those who have offended us.”
If God’s forgiveness were like that often shown by us, it would not be
worth much. Supposing God said: “I will forgive you, but I will never
forget it; all through eternity I will keep reminding you of it;” we
should not feel that to be forgiveness at all. Notice what God says: “I
will remember their sin no more.” In a passage in Ezekiel it is said
that not one of our sins shall be mentioned; is not that like God? I do
like to preach this forgiveness--the sweet truth that sin is blotted
out for time and eternity, and shall never once be mentioned against
us. In another Scripture we read: “Their sins and iniquities will I
remember no more.” Then when you turn to the eleventh chapter of the
Hebrews, and read God’s roll of honor, you find that not one of the
sins of any of those men of faith is mentioned. Abraham is spoken of
as the man of faith; but it is not told how he denied his wife down in
Egypt; all that had been forgiven. Moses was kept out of the Promised
Land because he lost patience; but this is not mentioned in the New
Testament, though his name appears in the Apostle’s roll of honor.
Samson, too, is named, but his sins are not brought up again. Why, we
even read of “righteous Lot;” he did not look much like a righteous
man in the Old Testament story, but he has been forgiven, and God has
made him “righteous.” If we are once forgiven by God, our sins will be
remembered against us no more. This is God’s eternal decree.
Brooks says of God’s pardon granted to His people: “When God pardons
sin, He takes it sheer away; that if it should be sought for, yet it
could not be found; as the prophet Jeremiah speaks: ‘In those days, and
in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought
for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not
be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve.’ As David, when he saw
in Mephibosheth the features of his friend Jonathan, took no notice of
his lameness, or any other defect or deformity; so God, beholding in
His people the glorious image of His Son, winks at all their faults and
deformities, which made Luther say, ‘Do with me what thou wilt, since
Thou hast pardoned my sin.’ And what is it to pardon sin, but not to
mention sin?”
We read in the Gospel of Matthew: “Moreover, if thy brother shall
trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him
alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” Then a
little further on we read that Peter comes to Christ and says: “How
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven
times?” Jesus replied, “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but
until seventy times seven.” Peter did not seem to think that _he_ was
in danger of falling into sin; his question was, How often should I
forgive my brother? But very soon we hear that Peter has fallen. I can
imagine that when he did fall, the sweet thought came to him of what
the Master had said about forgiving until seventy times seven. The
voice of sin may be loud, but the voice of forgiveness is louder.
Let us enter into David’s experience, when he said: “Blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there
is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring
all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my
moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin
unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my
sin.”
David could look below, above, behind and before; to the past, present,
and future; and know that all was well. Let us make up our mind, that
we will not rest until this question of sin is for ever settled, so
that we can look up and claim God as our forgiving Father. Let us be
willing to forgive others, that we may be able to claim forgiveness
from God, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said: “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.”
Pardon.
“Now, oh joy! my sins are pardoned!
Now I can and do believe!
All I have, and am, and shall be,
To my precious Lord I give;
He roused my deathly slumbers,
He dispersed my soul’s dark night;
Whispered peace, and drew me to Him
Made Himself my chief delight.
“Let the babe forget its mother,
Let the bridegroom slight his bride;
True to him, I’ll love none other,
Cleaving closely to His side.
Jesus, hear my soul’s confession;
Weak am I, but strength is Thine;
On Thine arms for strength and succor,
Calmly may my soul recline!”
_Albert Midlane._