Freedom from Prison

Dannah Gresh: Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You know, I believe that when we as Christian women begin to live out the forgiveness that we have received from God, that the world around us is going to stop and take notice and say, "Now that's a message I am interested in hearing."

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Forgiveness, for July 12, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

She’s not known for her prowess with computers, but Nancy is about to venture into the “domain of the digital” with a computer analogy. It’s part of her continuing series, “Freedom through Forgiveness,” here on Revive Our Hearts. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I know just enough about computers to be dangerous. But one thing I have learned the hard way and that is the meaning of this little button that says DEL. What does that stand for? Delete!

And what happens when you press the delete button? Whatever you've done is gone. Now they are nice to give you a little prompt, "Are you sure you want to delete?" But I have found myself at times just moving too quickly and losing material. When you press that delete button whatever you've done is gone. If you haven't saved it, it's gone.

And I think this is a picture, a great picture in some ways, of the whole meaning of forgiveness, what it means to forgive.  

As we look at the Scriptures in the Old and New Testaments, in the original languages, there are a number of words that are translated into English with the word "forgive." But those words in the original meaning are rich in meaning.

Here are what some of those words mean. To forgive is "to carry away," "to bury," "to cover over," "to pardon," "to reconcile," "to let it go," "to send it away," or "to graciously restore."

There is a wonderful verse in Colossians 2:14 where Paul says, "God has forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that were held against us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Now when we read in that verse about the handwriting of requirements against us, that's a reference in that culture to a handwritten certificate of debt. Somebody owed you money, you wrote out a certificate that said that they owed you money.

The fact is, we owed God an unpayable debt for violating His law and as a result we were under the sentence of death. And Paul is comparing God's forgiveness of our sins to wiping ink off a parchment, pressing the delete button if you will.

He's saying that through Christ's sacrificial death on the cross, God has totally erased, He's wiped out our certificate of indebtedness and He's made our forgiveness complete. That's the way He challenges us to forgive others.

He says, "God has taken that certificate of debt and He's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Now that brings back something we don't understand in our day and age because we don't use crucifixion today. But in the Roman era when criminals were crucified, many of you are aware that a list of their crimes was written and it was nailed to the cross above that prisoner's head so that, as people would walk by, they would see this is what this criminal was guilty of.

He's a murderer, he's a thief, he's a kidnapper, whatever he did, the list of his crimes were written out and nailed to the cross declaring the violations that he was being punished for.

In fact, you remember that when Jesus was crucified there was written above His head the words, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." That's the worst thing they could find Jesus guilty of.

But what happened when Jesus died was that all of our sins were put to Christ's account. They were nailed to His cross as He paid the penalty in our place for all of those sins. And as He died, He satisfied the just wrath of God against our crimes, the punishment for our sins was paid in full.

What a picture of God's forgiveness. As our crimes were nailed to the cross and the penalty was paid, the requirement of God, a Holy God, was satisfied. And so God says that He has forgiven our sins in this way, all of our trespasses, and then He calls us to forgive everyone all the sins they have committed against us.

When we forgive we are really making a promise, a promise never to bring that sin up against that person again. We won't bring it up to that person, we won't bring it up to God and we will not bring it up to others. It's a promise.

That doesn't mean that we will automatically forget what they have done or that we will never have difficult emotions dealing with and thinking about what they have done. But it means that we will never hold it against them again. We're clearing their record. We're saying that they no longer owe us that debt. It's been paid in full. As Christ has forgiven me, so I forgive them.

Sometimes I hear a woman come to me and say, "I have forgiven my husband or my father or my pastor or this situation or that. I have forgiven this person, but . . .  And then they begin to list to me all the things that person did against them.

Now I know in their heart they may think they have forgiven. But the fact is, if they are still holding it against that person, still listing it, still bringing it up against that person to others, then they really have not cleared the record, they really have not forgiven.

Now I want to ask a question. As we are being honest before the Lord and each other, as we've defined forgiveness, forgiving the record, pressing the delete button, how many of you would be honest enought to say, "There are one or more people in my life—past or present—who are never fully forgiven. There are some roots of bitterness in my life. Someone who I've never fully forgiven."

Can I just ask you to raise your hand? I want to see as we are being honest.

Now, I want to say I've asked that question in many different places to many different groups of women across the United States. Seldom have there been fewer than 80 or 90 percent raise their hand. I'm talking about groups in churches—women who have claimed to have received Christ's forgiveness, and I believe in most cases, have.

Now in a sense that motivates me as we talk about this matter of forgiveness because I know that it's something most of us need to hear, and that most of us need to hear it again and again as new hurts come into our lives.

We need to be reminded of the ways of God in forgiveness. But it also saddens me to realize that the vast majority of us as Christian women are walking, in some degree or another, in unforgiveness.

In fact, how can we expect our world to believe our Gospel when we tell them that we know a Christ who has forgiven us and will forgive them, we're offering this Gospel of grace and forgiveness but they know us, they work with us, they live next door to us, they hear the way we talk about the people who have wounded us—about the ex-mate, about the grown son or daughter, about the parent, about the employer or employee. They hear the way we talk about those people and they know that we who claim to have this great gospel of grace and forgiveness, have never fully forgiven others. And, understandably, ours is not a message they are drawn to believe.

You know, I believe that when we as Christian women begin to live out the forgiveness that we have received from God, that the world around us is going to stop and take notice and say, "Now that's a message I am interested in hearing."

I believe that the world is dealing with guilt and shame and the weight of sin and that many would want to know the Christ who can forgive if they can just see that forgiveness lived out in us.

 

Dannah: If you find yourself in that 80 to 90 percent of people with someone you have yet to forgive, remember, there is hope because of Jesus. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has shown us the importance of hitting that “Delete” key and wiping out whatever we’re holding against others.

She’ll be right back for part two of this episode of Revive Our Hearts. Nancy wrote in greater detail on this topic in her book Choosing Forgiveness. She explains what it looks like to forgive others “as God in Christ has forgiven you.” I’ll let you know in a few minutes how you can get a copy.

As we continue today’s program, I need to warn you that the story Nancy is about to tell could be difficult for you to hear, especially if you were sexually abused as a child. And I want to say in advance that when Nancy speaks of forgiving those who sin against us in these horrible ways, she’s not saying you should just pretend it never happened. Nor does forgiveness mean the perpetrator is off the hook, and there aren't consequences to him or her to experience. But she is talking about what’s going on inside your own heart. That’s important to remember as we listen together.

Here’s Nancy again, continuing her series, “Freedom Through Forgiveness.” She starts by referring to the parent organization of Revive Our Hearts, and that's Life Action Ministries.  

Nancy: In the ministry that I've been serving with, we have the privilege day after day of seeing God set His people free when they apply God's principles.

This matter of forgiveness is one of the most foundational, fundamental, needed truths in our Christian lives today. And when we live out God's principles of forgiveness, we find ourselves getting set free.

Often we will give people an opportunity to share how something like the truth of forgiveness has worked in their lives. I remember a session when an adult lady stood to tell a story that had happened to her many years earlier when she had been a little girl.

I don't know that she had thought about it constantly in recent years, but as we were talking about bitterness and forgiveness, God brought this series of circumstances to her mind and she began reliving it. Then she stood one day to share the process that God had had her in.

On that particular day years earlier, she and her little girlfriend ran off to visit the man they thought was their friend, who also happened to be the county sheriff. His office was in a building that was also the town jail. This was a man they knew. They thought he was their friend, and they went into the building where he worked.

And then this woman shared how her little girlfriend ran off to play and left this woman, then a little girl, with this man.

She then proceeded to tell how the sheriff turned to her and said, "If you ever tell anyone what I am about to do to you, I'll put you in one of those jail cells. And if you ever tell your parents what I've done to you, I'll put them in one of these jail cells." And then the man she thought was her friend took her as a little girl and molested her.

Now as an adult, she is standing and telling this story as a married woman. She said, "All those years ago, I realize now that what I did was I put that man in one of those jail cells."

He had since died but in her mind he was still in that cell. What she had not realized until God opened her eyes to see this matter of forgiveness and bitterness and what it does to us, she had not realized that not only did she put him in a jail cell but that day, all those years ago, she put herself in a jail cell.

Through all these years of harboring a seed of unforgiveness and bitterness toward this man who was not even alive any longer, she had found herself in a prison of her own making because of an unwillingness to forgive.

Now what happens when we refuse to forgive? The fact is we do become the prisoners of those who have wronged us.

Let me ask you to turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18. We're beginning in verse 21. Peter initiates the conversation. He comes to Jesus and he says. "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Now I think Peter probably thought he was being pretty generous because the law of the religious leaders of that day required that you would forgive three times, but Peter is saying, "Lord, seven times! That sounds like a lot to me."

And the implication is that it is the same person, maybe even committing the same sin, and he does it again and again. "How many times should I forgive him?"

Well, Jesus answered something that everyone within earshot had to think was astonishing. He said, "I tell you not seven times, but seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:22).

What is Jesus saying here? Is He saying, "Okay, Peter, notch it up a little bit and when you get to 490 times, then you can stop forgiving?" Now that's not the heart at all. What Jesus is really saying is "forgiveness without limit."

Now as Jesus so often did, He goes on to tell a story to illustrate His point. He says beginning in verse 23,

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is a like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.

Now this was a sum that in our day would total millions of dollars. The point is it is an amount that was infinitely beyond his ability ever to pay back.

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before his master, "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay back everything."

Well that was a joke. There was no way he could ever pay this back. He's just saying, "Please have mercy on me." And wondrously, verse 27,

The servant's master took pity on him. He cancelled the debt and he let him go. He said, "Your record is clear."

But then we have a turn of events in verse 28:

When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him . . . [if I could put it in modern vernacular, a few bucks]. He grabbed his fellow servant and began to choke him. "Pay back what you owe me!" he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, [as this man had just begged his master] "Be patient with me and I will pay you back."

Now, I'll tell you when I read this passage that I find sometimes my blood pressure just going up, and I get so angry at this servant who had just been forgiven so much and he refused to forgive until the Holy Spirit shines the light in my own heart and says, "How often are you that servant? Holding against others their petty little offenses in light of the incredible offense of which God has forgiven you."

Well in verse 30 he refused.

He refused to forgive and have mercy on his fellow servant. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and told their master everything that had happened.

And by the way, we have a master in heaven who always knows when we refuse to forgive. We may hide it from others, but He knows. And He will call us to account as he does in verse 32.

Then the master called the servant in. "You wicked servant!" he said. 

That's pretty strong language. He just didn't say, "You know, you made a big mistake here. You really should have forgiven that man."

This master is exercised. He is grieved; he's angry. He says, "You wicked servant!" And how often am I and how often are you, really that wicked servant, if we could come to see the sin, the greatness of our sin of unforgiveness.

We are so conscious of how great the sin is others have committed against us, but God wants us to see that our unforgiveness is a huge wicked sin.

"You wicked servant!" he said. "I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?" In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

One of your translations reads, "He turned him over to the tormentors," to the tormentors! You see when we refuse to forgive, we get turned over to tormentors.

What are some of those tormentors? They may not be literal tormentors. I tell you what I think is one of them and that is the chronic emotional and physical disorders that some of us women experience. In many cases these are the fruits of unforgiveness. Some of those emotional disorders, chronic recurring depression, not in all cases but in many, is the fruit of an unforgiving spirit.

You see, God never intended that our bodies should hold up under the weight and the guilt of unresolved conflicts, of bitterness and unforgiveness. Many of the issues many of us battle with, I believe, may be the fruit, the result, the consequence of refusing to forgive. And then Jesus ends this passage by saying,

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. (Matt. 18:23–35).

We've prayed many times the prayer Jesus taught us to pray where we say, "Father, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matt. 6:12). We've heard the words of Jesus who said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matt. 5:7).

The fact is, we cannot and will not experience God's love and forgiveness in our lives if we refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us.

I meet so many women who struggle to accept God’s love and forgiveness. There can be a number of different reasons for that. They may have never known what it was to have a father figure in their lives who extended love and forgiveness. But I think one of the biggest reasons that we as women struggle with experiencing God’s love and forgiveness in our own lives in a real way is because we have refused to forgive others. We can’t enter into that which we’ve refused to give to others.

Scripture says that bitterness is like a root, which, if we let it go untended in our lives, will spring up, defile us, it will trouble us, and many around us will be defiled.

Where does God find you on this whole issue of forgiveness, bitterness? Is there a root of bitterness in your heart? Is there someone that you’ve refused to forgive, someone whose record you just won’t clear? Would you come to the place of acknowledging to God that your unforgiveness is a great sin against your forgiving heavenly Father?

As you contemplate how much He has forgiven you, do you realize how serious it is that you or I would refuse to forgive someone else? So cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me, and may I be to others as forgiving as you have been to me!”

Father, I just want to thank You with all of my heart for that day at Calvary when You pressed the delete button and extended to me full, complete, unconditional forgiveness for all my sins. And forgive me, Lord, for how often I have held against others their sins, when You have been so gracious to forgive me of my sins.

And forgive us, Lord, as Christian women being in so many ways unforgiving, for refusing to extend Your grace and forgiveness to others. But thank You that You have made provision for us, and we just cry out to You for mercy and we ask, Lord, that you teach us to forgive.

And may we make that tough choice but right choice. The choice You will bless is to press the delete button, to make a promise, "I will clear that person's record. I will never bring up that sin against that person, to that person, to God or to anyone else." In the process we know that we will be truly set free as well. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. 

Dannah: Amen! Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is helping us see the importance of choosing forgiveness instead of wearing ourselves out by carrying the weight of bitterness and resentment. Choosing Forgiveness is the title of a book Nancy wrote. The subtitle is exactly what she was just talking about: Moving from Hurt to Hope. As we release those who have wronged us, we find that we ourselves are the ones with newfound freedom.

I want to get a copy of this into your hands, so this month we’re thanking you for your donation in support of Revive Our Hearts by sending you a copy of Choosing Forgiveness. We are so grateful to you for your support. Revive Our Hearts is listener-supported. That means we depend on donations from listeners like you to continue bringing this program to you on a regular basis.

And a special thanks to you if you’re a member of the Revive Our Hearts Monthly Partner Team. Your donation of $30 or more each month is helping smooth out some of the “dips in the donation road” we experience here in the summer months. I hope you’re enjoying your Daily Reflections devotional that you receive as a thanks for being on that team. And, I hope you’ve signed up to attend True Woman '22 in the fall. As you know, the registration for members of the Monthly Partner Team is on us! To find out more about our Monthly Partner Team, or to simply make a donation, just head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to ask about Nancy’s book Choosing Forgiveness.

Well, tomorrow we'll hear from a woman who allowed hate and bitterness to build up in her heart toward three men who assaulted her as a teenager. How can someone who's been the victim of terrible abuse ever learn to forgive? We'll hear Kathy’s story tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.  

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to press the delete key and discover freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from NIV84.

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