Q&A
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It's time for the questions.
Is that the first one?
Yeah, that. There we go.
I struggled to forgive someone who has hurt me very deeply. His repentance required before I forgive that person.
In order for reconciliation.
There must be repentance along with forgiveness, and we find that in first John chapter one with the Lord, with with God.
In first John chapter one and verse 9.
And says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so.
There's confession, there's repentance, and then the Lord forgives. And when he forgives, then he cleanses us from all unrighteousness that, uh, then reconciliation can come back. We can be restored in fellowship to the Lord and to the, to our brethren.
We know the Lord Jesus was a sin, offering on the cross for sins of ignorance.
But when there's a refusal to apologize and to confess a sin.
Umm, that destroys any hope of reconciliation.
And in the in that case, the level of forgiveness.
Uh, uh, that level of forgiveness cannot be reached.
But we can still forgive.
We might not forgive. We can forgive the person. We can't forgive the act until there's been I, I believe this is correct. We can't forgive the act until there's been repentance and confession. But we can re we can forgive the person. And in that way it will free us from our, our ******* of bitterness that we have against that person.
It's in, uh, Luke chapter 17.
Uh, in verse 3.
And four.
Take heed to yourselves. If thy brother trespass against thee, Ribio Kim, and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day and seven times in a day, turn again to the saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.
But what I like to, the way I like to put it, is that you should have forgiveness in your heart at all times, given how much the Lord has forgiven us.
We can't do anything else but have forgiveness in our heart. But you cannot extend that to a person who has not repented himself like you mentioned. Uh, the Lord Jesus on the cross said Father forgive them for they know not what they do. He said that to his Father. He did not say to them to the ones that were found in the nails through his hands.
00:05:01
And so it's important that there be repentance otherwise.
To say I remember.
A young sister who was very troubled by something an individual had done to her.
And she had, uh, received counsel in.
From somebody that she needed to be forgiving to her father, uh, was her father that had done something to her that was very deeply injuring.
And.
She went to her father and said, Father, I forgive you.
And he says you forgive me, I need to forgive you. And so she came away just totally confused.
So I read these verses three and four of chapter 17 and showed that you could have forgiveness in your heart, but unless that person repents, there will be no basis, like you say, of reconciliation and forgiveness. Really, you can't extend it to that person unless they recognize what they've done.
So I think that's an important point.
But we need to have forgiveness in our hearts. And I find that people struggle with that. They feel the hurt of it. But let's go to Matthew chapter 18 because I found this very helpful in my own life as to having a forgiving attitude. Matthew chapter 18.
And we read a few verses here towards the end of the chapter.
It really starts with verse 21 when Peter says and came Peter to him and said, Lord, how OFT shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him till seven times.
Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until 70 * 7 four 190 times.
Therefore it says, is the Kingdom of heaven likened unto a servant, a certain king, which would take account of his servants, and when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents.
Incalculable amount.
Much as it got to.
His soul and his wife and his children, all that he had, and payments to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him and said, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. He doesn't seem to have a inkling of how much he owed. He thought he could impatience. If he had patience with him, he could pay at all. He could never pay that amount. Never.
And the Lord of the servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
The same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him 100 pence, a very small amount.
And he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me with thou oest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. It's the same thing he had said to the one he owes.
But he would not but went and cast him into prison until he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all, that, that because thou desirest me should not.
Thou also had compassion on that fellow Cervines, and.
As I had a city on the this Lord was wrought, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother his their trespasses.
This is not judicial forgiveness.
You too? Yeah.
You will not be forgiven. Remember that. It's governmental forgiveness. It's not judicial forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness is unconditional. When you accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you're forgiven all your sins because of what Jesus did on the cross. But what we have here, it's conditional.
00:10:15
It's governmental forgiveness.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother, their trespasses. So I think it's very important to have that for giving attitude.
Somebody done something wrong against me?
OK, what am I going to do about it? Hold it in reserve in my heart to get a time to get back at him. That will hurt you more than it will hurt anybody else. Let loose of that resentment. Forgive in your heart. You may not be able to extend that forgiveness to that person that is done that to you until he repents.
But make sure you have a forgiving attitude in your heart. If you don't, you're going to damage your own Christian life. So.
How important it is to let loose of those things.
Others have some comment on it too I'm sure.
Yeah, we talked about the end of heaven, lightning.
Is the Kingdom of heaven but on the earth?
Is the government of God?
Because brother, I was saying it's not eternal. Forgiveness is not the judicial.
It is. It is for down here.
As as we walk down here, the Lord may allow us to read what we saw and there may be a judgment of on our our walk down here.
So the Lord may forgive that.
If we do two things.
One is in first you must be chapter 2.
I'm sorry, first John chapter 2 is what I was thinking.
Let's go chapter one.
We're done. Chapter one and verse 9.
If we confess our chest, the face will adjust the perilous power tent and to bless us from all or ration.
So we we need to confess our sins. This is not talking about, uh, sins so that we can go to heaven.
If you thought about things that we have committed as delivers and the Lord forgives our sins if we confess our sins.
Many times we want others to.
Compasses into us and say, you know I have run you, but relaxing, we do not confess to the Lord.
And the second one would be to forgive from our heart, even to others. Do not forgive. Do not, umm, apologize to us.
And we have some of that in March Chapter 11.
And of course, uh.
It looks 17 we have if.
He comes and says, forgive me, you forgive him.
Some have taken that to to mean, well, if they don't come and say sorry, I don't have to forgive them. But it's a brother, Bob was saying it's extending the forgiveness. It's not about what's in your heart. But in March 11 talks, this is between you and the Lord because it's prayer. That's the question on March 11.
325.
And when he stands training?
Forget.
If you have audit against any that your father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses, that's also conditional man. And we see that in the case of Joe, he says I am vile on he confesses who I is, who he is, but he also has to pray for his friends. That had not been a comfort to him. They had accused him mostly and he probably had something against them.
00:15:03
Because how? How could they?
Say all those things that they said about, but he had to forgive that too. And umm, it is uh, as we're sad, if we to give this sense in our hearts, we're trying to damage them. There will be a root of bitterness in our heart and we won't leave a happy life in the Lord. Umm, did the Lord help us because it is humanly.
Contrary to human nature to forgive this way.
It is umm, born in this.
They have to 18 and it's.
From the heart.
What that really means is that we don't have.
Umm, bitter hard feelings towards that person and umm, but then we can't publicly umm.
Might they embrace them? So we there is a restraint, but yet there has to be there.
Give me that that bitter feeling.
You might say, well how can I do that? How can I when I know what this brother is doing or has done? But just do this. If you have those feelings towards that brother or sister, you pray for him every day and I guarantee you the Lord will change your heart.
You start praying for you.
And it will go away.
I find it very helpful to uh today when.
That's good. That's right. That's when we asked somebody that's done something against this. How many offenses have they committed against this? Maybe quite a few.
But how many sins did God forgive you of?
I don't know how many we've committed in life, but say.
You spend 10 times a day in a year, that's 3650 cents. Multiply that by 10 years. That's 36,500 cents. How many did he forgive you, brother?
All of them.
Or do you say there's certain ones? I'm not going to be able to take the account every single one.
And all that. That's it to me, I say, if you forgive me freely, how can I be resent? Yeah, it's not right what you're doing, but.
They haven't done that much.
You're 10,000 Allen debtors.
In a couple of places. Enjoy what you bought out today.
I guess we could turn to Luke Six first.
Let's start with just Luke 6, verse 27.
But I say unto you, which here love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto them Him that smiles thee on one sheet, offer also the other. And him that take us away like cloak, forbid not to take thy cloak also.
And then, real quickly, Ephesians.
I just had it earlier.
Yeah, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32.
And be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
Like you said I I believe that will change your heart and spirit towards that person that might have bereaved you or done something to you. You pray for them and then also that burst in Ephesians.
00:20:05
4A Spirit of kindness 1 to another.
And forgiving one because the Lord has forgiven us much.
But if you kind want to know, that speaks a lot.
Developed for a minute something you said Bob about.
Holding on to hurt and resentment and tearing your life up.
So we don't have time to go into this whole story, so I'm just going to briefly make a few points about.
David SIM with Bathsheba.
David abused his power as king.
And, uh, took a man's wife.
Stoller.
Got her pregnant, murdered her husband, tried to cover it up.
That story is in Second Samuel 11, but I want to point out two other people that were hurt in this terrible situation.
And how they responded differently.
So turn to Second Samuel 11.
Verse 3.
David sent and inquired after the woman.
And one said, Is that this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam?
The waste of Uriah Hitchhik.
Now turn it over to Second Samuel 23.
This is a list of David's mighty men.
And this nano Liam is on the list in verse 34. A lion, the son of a Hippophel, the Gaulinite.
Well, both Ilium and Ahisa Cell no doubt knew the inside story of what had happened.
The Bathsheba and significant.
Hurts and wrong was done, but there are two responses.
The heterosexual response was as Absalom rose to power, he joined up with him and he said the Absalom, I'm your man.
You give me an army right now and I will have him dead before the sun goes down. And he was angry, and rightfully so. What was done to his granddaughter was a terrible wrong.
But he harbored that anger and we understand it naturally, but he was unable to get past it and a HIPAA fill it. We read about him as Davis counselor and my my own familiar friends. And here he says, Absalom, I'll tell you what to do. You take your father's wives and you humiliate them publicly.
00:25:18
So they did.
Publicly shame them in front of everybody. And he says give me the word, I'll have him dead by night.
And uh, we know that Absalom listen to the council of Husiai through the Lord's intervention, no doubt. And uh, which guy said, no, no, no HIPAA fells council was not the right thing for right now, maybe next week or later, but today not good. And immediately hit the fell.
Saddled his *** went home, put his house in order and committed suicide because he knew that his plan was done and that.
When David was restored to be king, he would also be no doubt put to death. And we understand. I understand the deep resentment that I have to sell with be aware his granddaughter was so wrongly treated.
And his son and his grandson in law. But I, I find it very encouraging that it William, we don't read anything about that with him. And here at the end of the time, a Liam is listed as one of David's mighty men. And so I suggest especially to you young people.
Deep.
Hurt is real.
But to respond in the way that a HIPAA responded will basically take you down a path where your fruitfulness and your usefulness will be eaten alive from the inside out. And.
You will also become victim to uh, uh.
Useful, angry, bitter life. And really the only thing you wind up with this stomach ulcers.
So I want to encourage this. I know this is really hard, some hurts are so deep.
But you know what, I wonder if, uh, his, the cell didn't know the repentance that David had and the time, uh, that we read it in some 51 or Psalm 32 where David had it out before the Lord. But anyway, I, I don't want to talk too much, but there are two people in that family that handled it differently. So let's be like a lion and not like a HIPAA.
To me, on this issue, he said forgive. This is not earned.
Maybe we try to do tenants.
Infection. Repentance.
We can't earn.
Forgive me.
God love that he forgave us. We didn't do anything to earn it. We can never deserve forgiveness from God and the person who offended you can never do anything to deserve forgiveness.
Maybe they'll give you flowers or chocolate. They'll give you apologies.
They make, they may. There may even be repentance. There may be promises never to do it again.
But they cannot earn forgiveness. Forgiveness needs to come.
You it needs to come from your soul. It's an act of great. It's like with the Lord. Jesus had to have grace with her to forgive her.
Oh, that's that. That can't do that.
Umm and the other person can cannot do anything about it yet and they cannot pay for the person that.
00:30:00
Has, uh, the power to forgive The Jack is that person. The Lord did God for us. It was a tremendous destiny.
We are umm, able to do that too. But.
Uh, so they call it. So it's also providing, providing.
Our next question.
If my husband is not interested in going to meet him.
Is it OK for the wife to go without them?
There's a verse in First Peter chapter 3.
1.
Likewise, he was the interjection to your own husband.
And if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the conversation, or the matter of life of the wise, while they behold your taste conversation coupled with fear.
If your husband, uh.
Demand that you do not go to the meeting.
To be subject to him, and God will honor that.
But if he really doesn't mind, he stays at home.
By that, I believe it would be very good for you to continue to go to the meeting.
Still need to have the fellowship, the Christian fellowship. And so if he allows you and it's a good thing for you to go.
I believe that the Father's responsibility to.
As the verse says, bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
So it's wise for the father to be able to provide an environment for his family to.
To be brought up in Christ under Christian principles. The Father may not have a lot of understanding, He may not be well taught in the Scriptures, but he may love the Lord. He might not know how to present Scripture to you, but it's wise for him to be able to provide.
An atmosphere and environment where you can be brought up in the nurturing, the admonition of the Lord. Sometimes that puts a big responsibility on the wife to, uh, to umm.
00:35:11
Teach the children.
And.
If the Father brings you to the meeting.
That might be the only way he can uh.
Bring you up in the admonition of the Lord, but.
I think it can be both in the home, primarily in the home, but.
I believe it's necessary. It's why to bring the family also to the meeting where they are, where the things that the Father wants to be taught or you know, he does keep our reemphasize in the Bible movie.
That helped reason.
Umm and I just with the question that you asked about husband.
Stanford White Time to go to meetings and you're saying?
Right.
Ephesians chapter 65 and verse.
22.
Why submit yourselves unto your own husband?
As unto the Lord.
No, you have to re remember the order of authority.
That were given in the first print is 11 is that God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of the woman. That's the order of authority. So when there is an order given.
That directly.
Violate a superior authority command, then we are to always obey.
That the higher authority we have the illustration in the three friends of Daniel in chapter 3 of Daniel that were commanded to bow down.
By the really the sovereign of that Kingdom, the Babylonian Kingdom, to those I to that idol.
And they would not buy them.
Why would they be rebellious? No, they were being submissive to that higher power. And that's what I think comes down to is, is.
And so.
A woman I don't think is violating any specific command. I mean, it says forsake, not the assembling of ourselves together, but I think that she should submit to I knew a case in less than part of the United States.
Where a sister, her husband because of resentment, or the brethren commanded that she should not go community.
She should go again where he was going.
And she asked the brother what she should do and they said submit yourself.
It was very interesting to me to see that that.
Your husband.
Not too long after, got a.
I don't know if it's cancer or what it was, but who was taken out of the way?
Then when he was gone, 232.
What is very unusual situation?
Like of hours.
00:40:01
Umm, there was, uh, a hospital.
She's watching either and I won't give you the application.
The hospital was owned by a person who was.
In the earlier days it was quite a bright blue.
I'll be able to increase one of these four front runners of the proportion.
Well.
Obviously the question was look up the white.
Why did the book?
For that cluster.
Because quite a quite a discussion.
His her interest wasn't coming to me.
And so finally.
I was pretty young, so I would not be at any of the brothers in here or anything.
But umm.
It was.
Friday between her alone.
She was waiting for her husband with different authorities.
And she was.
On one hand, under the authority for Huddersfield, and yet she also recognized the authority thought.
Very faithful to me.
That that issue is kind of like swap but odd things happen.
That's the most unusual.
Mm-hmm. Right as you're right. I think so.
Didn't interfere with the sample matters.
Yeah, he didn't interfere with the family matters.
And she was locked in a hard place showing thing and it wasn't up for doing.
OK, so it's all things come up.
Umm.
You supposed to miss it?
Terms for husband, she's also business, I think the assembly as well.
Even though it's a very bizarre.
Admittedly bizarre situation.
Before we go to the next question.
About this question.
And I have written down here the gist of what what was the advice that was given?
God has given clear direction for life in a situation where the husband is not living according to the Word.
A husband can be gained by your manner of life.
A man will never respond to the preaching, advice, and underhanded remarks of his wife. You can't see his Holy Spirit. However, by living a godly life without trying to fix him on your own, God provides a way for you to reach your husband. You can't fix your husband, only God can.
So pray for him. God delights in your prayers for your husband and desires for you to have a role in his restoration.
As long as that role is recording to God's Word.
We have about 15 minutes remaining. Umm, we'll go to the next question.
Bob talked the other night on the honor of God was very helpful.
Could we please spend a few minutes on the restoration of a believer that has fallen in battle and how God used a restored sin?
I believe that verse that we've already had a couple of times in first John 19 answers how God used.
A fallen believer.
That has been restored.
00:45:03
Maybe you are one who has fallen.
And thank the Lord, you've been restored.
First, John 19 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God views you as forgiveness.
And you can accept yourself as being forgiven. And you've been justified, and you've been sanctified.
And you have been brought into a fleet where?
You can lose your life in all aspects of Christianity to bring glory to God.
You don't have to sit on the sidelines. You've been forgiven and you can continue on to worship the Lord.
I should have mentioned that.
Good weekend. God mentioned that because there is restoration and I'd like to talk about.
Two people in scripture that had a fall and were restored.
One was.
Same day that that Bernie was talking about and the awful thing he did.
Farrell And when he confessed his sin, when he said to the prophet, who said you're the man?
He didn't try this wiggle out of it. He admitted it, he confessed.
And immediately the prophet said, God has remitted or forgiven your sins.
But because you have made the enemies of the Lord to blasphemy.
The source will never be far from your house. In other words, there are governmental consequences to sin.
That's that's why we believe that the young people to be careful, especially in connection with sexual sin.
What was David an instrument of the Lord after that?
No question about it, he was mightily just took a lower.
The New Testament is called a man after God's own heart.
What a beautiful testing.
So God can use you and you need to.
They and humility because of your fault, but just simply stand for the Lord and when He gives you an opportunity to do something for Him to do it.
So that's a very important illustration.
But the other one I want to talk about is Simon Peter.
Simon Cedar had to fall through, the Lord had told him. Peter.
You're going to deny me three times? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Lord, I'm going to always be faithful. I'm going to always be faithful. He didn't realize how deceptive the human heart is.
I cannot trust my own heart.
No.
And so.
Peter has not learned that lesson.
And the Lord said I have prayed for the 8th eater. He says Satan has desired to have you, and when he says you it was plural all the disciples he wanted to have.
But then it says I have prayed for AZ feeder.
That's actually fail or not and once restored, strengthen my revenue. So either have to learn the hard way and sometimes that's the way we have to learn because we don't have ears to hear when the Lord speaks to it.
So how important to have tears to hear?
So Peter fell.
You denied the Lord three times.
00:50:01
With oaths and curses that he never knew the man.
Is that possible? Yeah, exactly.
About that, after the Lord rose again, just look at it in Luke chapters 20.
UH-4.
Luke chapter 24 and verse.
Verse 34 when the two that went to Emmaus came back to Jerusalem.
Here was what they found out in verse 34. It says faith the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon at Simon Peter.
That's the only verse we have to show us that the Lord had a private encounter with Peter.
That we know nothing about. Otherwise, what did they talk about?
That was between the Lord and Peter.
And I re I want to show that, to show that there has to be restoration on a personal, individual way, first of all.
But Peter's sin was a public sin. He denied it before all those that were around him.
And when does the public stand? There has to be a public restoration, and that's what we have in John Chapter 21.
Go there and then. It's so tremendously beautiful how the Lord does.
John 21.
Remember, he's got the message, Sea of Thyria and.
Serve them breakfast.
And then after they had gone.
Verse 15 So when they had died, Jesus said to Simon Peter.
517 Join us. Loveth thou me more than these? He said. I if all the rest you know thee, I won't deny thee. In other words, I love you more than all the rest.
Bye man.
Gonna join us, love us down. Me more than me.
Is that that that PM? Yeah, more than others, that I love me.
To me, that is such a interesting way. He doesn't say Simon Peter, why didn't you deny me? You know, doesn't mention.
Anything about the denial there?
When we fail, brother, it really comes down to that. The Lord wants you to be useful to Him. You're going to have to face that issue.
You say you love the Lord.
Do you really?
Wow, that really gets down to my heart.
It says Lord don't know me. Notice what he says then.
Phoenix Mylap.
Is there anything else that's so precious to the Lord that those lambs.
And yet he puts them into the care of Diamond. He has learned to mistrust himself. He had learned to trust the Lord forcefully.
And so he repeats the question three times.
Verse 16 and verse 17.
Why three times?
Peter United three times.
So here comes the question three times.
And the last time theater was greedy.
And said, Lord, thou N often come out that I like.
You said in the fact you may not appear Lord, that I love you at all, but you know all things and you know I love you.
And I do believe that Peter did love them more, even though you had that fall.
00:55:04
And the Lord says, See my sheep. Oh, what a beautiful thing. Useful.
There's Peter on the Day of Pentecost, preaching to the multitude of 3000 are saved, you say it can be a useful instrument after a fall.
You get into the large presence.
Confess your sins and humble yourself before the Lord can lift you up, no question or not.
But there are consequences.
It is amazing, that theater.
These chapters later, I think it's uh, chapter three or four before the Jewish people.
He says you denied the holy one of the job, not here that you deny the Lord to. How can he say that because he was so fully restored to the Lord and you can put that to their conscience. I think that's amazingly beautiful. I'm wondering yes, God can lift you up, but there are consequences. Dear David was.
Forgiven.
His office in but there were consequences and we lost four of his own sons.
Untimely death.
Yes, so that he would realize even though he was number one authority in the last.
And he had to give him account to God for what he did.
So we have to learn. Sometimes it's heavy what we have to learn.
The Lord help us.
Young people the Lord can restore, but far better if you resist the temptation of the devil and stand firm.
Stand before the devil, kneel before God. That's the way.
Any final comments before he proposed?
Before we pray here, the last verse, September 27th.
When we see thee as the victim.
Nailed to the accursed tree.
Where our guilt and folly stricken, all our judgment borne by thee.
Lord, we own with hearts adoring.
Thou hast washed us in thy blood. Glory, glory everlasting be to thee, thou Lamb of God.
Let's close in prayer.