The Power of Forgiveness

This episode features the following programs:

"Confront or Overlook"

"Freedom from Prison"

"Don't Wait! Forgive"

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Dannah Gresh: Is there someone in your life who’s hurt you? You know you need to forgive, but . . . here's some advice from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Where does God find you on this whole issue of forgiveness and 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?

Dannah: Forgiveness isn’t easy, and really it’s hard, but it’s necessary. Got someone in your life that you need to forgive? Let’s talk about it today. 

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

I love Nancy’s book on the topic of forgiveness. In it she wrote about “the delete button.” You know, as in on your computer keyboard! I've got to tell you, it's quite an improvement from my high school years when we had to grab the whiteout to fix our mistakes . . . and it never looked good. You could always see that blob of white that reminded you that you made a mistake. Today, with one little button, bam, the mistake is gone! Well, Nancy says that when we choose to forgive someone, it’s like pressing that delete button. What a wonderful word picture!

But of course,  it’s easier said than done. 

Some people . . . well, you know . . . they seem to want to wear out our delete buttons!

Remember when Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, asked him how many times we should forgive? Do you remember Jesus’ reply? He said seventy times seven. That is a lot of forgiveness that Jesus talked about in Matthew 18. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will walk us through that passage and what forgiveness looks like. And, oh, you’re about to hear two women sharing some of the most inspirational stories of forgiveness.

Starting with Kathy. If anyone could appear justified in harboring bitterness, it was Kathy. She was the absolute victim of a horrible crime. In fact, I want to warn you that what you are about to hear could be upsetting to you if you have sexual abuse of any kind in your background. But I want you to experience the freedom that Kathy did. Because even in midst of that horror, God was setting the stage to perform a special miracle in her heart. Let's listen to Kathy's story. 

Kathy: When I was sixteen years old, I was sexually assaulted by three boys who I thought were my friends, and I learned the meaning of hate. I wanted revenge so badly that I honestly think I could have killed, if I could have gotten away with it.

I never told anybody: my mother, my father, no one. But in my heart I knew that the boys had probably told everyone. You know, maybe I imagined the way people looked at me. My last year in high school was horrendous and as soon as I got out of school, I got out of that town. And I never effectively went back to see anybody but my parents.

Dannah: Can you imagine? Maybe you don't have to. Maybe Kathy’s story is too close to your own. If so, I am so sorry. I wish I could cry with you.

I do want to say this. I want to encourage you to tell someone. If something that grievous happens in your life, you need help navigating through, protecting your heart, and healing. I hope you'll tell someone today. Don't keep that as a secret locked in your heart. You can't handle it alone. 

We’ll hear more from Kathy and how she handled it. I hope it encourages you, but right now to set the stage, I want my friend Kim Wagner to share part of a story she witnessed when her husband was asked to preach a revival service in a small country church in South Arkansas. Here’s Kim.

Kim Wagner: On Sunday morning there were maybe thirty people there. It was a typical little Southern Baptist church service.

Preacher: “All right. I want you to complete this statement. ‘Eat everything on your plate. After all, think of . . .’”

Kim: My husband preached on Matthew 18 on the unforgiving servant. He talked about how offense can place you in a prison of bitterness and you will be tormented by your bitterness.

A little lady, an elderly member of that church, came down to the front and in brokenness and weeping confessed before that church body that she had been sinning against God for years because she had held onto unforgiveness toward a very well-known man in that community.

He was a wealthy rancher, and she had blamed him for her mother’s death. There were some questions over her mother’s death, and she blamed him as the reason she had died.

She asked the church family to pray for her to go and ask his forgiveness for how she had treated him, because he was a lost man and he knew that she was a Christian. So she asked the church to pray for her as she went the next day to ask his forgiveness.

Dannah: Have you been in that woman’s place? Harboring bitterness and needing to forgive. Oh, that’s such a hard place, a humbling place.

But you can choose to forgive. In fact, you should, because it’s actually something that God requires of us— to forgive those who’ve wronged us. But, I'm saying it is easy. It certainly isn't. And in some cases, it's very, very difficult.

Do you remember Jesus’ reply when Peter asked how many times we must forgive? Jesus said seventy times seven. 

On the daily broadcast Revive Our Hearts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth explained the reasons for needing to forgive. Here’s Nancy, reading from Matthew 18, starting in verse 23.

Nancy: "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 canceled 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 canceled 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.

When we refuse to forgive, we end up being turned over to tormentors. Many of the issues that many of us battle with may be the fruit and 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" (Matthew 18:35).

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.

Dannah: Those are powerful words from Nancy. Oh, friend, she is telling us the truth. I’m gonna quote from Nancy, “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.”

Remember Kathy from the beginning of our time together? She had been sexually assaulted by three young men, and she’d come to hate them. The hatred and bitterness changed Kathy, and not for the better.

She was in the studio audience the day Nancy gave the message we’ve been listening to on forgiveness. God used those words to unfold a miracle in Kathy’s heart. She came forward that day to share what was going on in her heart and mind.

Kathy: Over the years I have said that I have forgiven, but I don't think I really have because I think about it so much. And none of their lives have been worth anything. One is gone; he's not alive anymore. And if I go to a high school reunion, I still have to still face one. I finally got up the nerve twenty years later to go one and I was just in knots inside. I didn't enjoy anything because I had to face that one.

It's something I've carried in my heart so many years and I have buried it so long. I finally, three years ago, got up the courage to tell my husband. And my husband had known it all along because I couldn't watch a program on TV about rape. I couldn't even talk about that, so my husband knew. But bless his heart and thank God for him, he never pressured me.

So I have so much to be thankful for because there have been so many hard issues in my life, medical issues, that God has spared my life. And I felt like He had a greater work for me to do. I have really striven to be faithful to God and to try to do His work, but I know until I release all of those things, no matter how far past, that I won't be free.

And I say in front of you today, "I forgive those boys who are men now, older than me. I forgive them and I pray for them that they can have the forgiveness and receive it that I have had in my life." Thank you.

Nancy: Turn if you would to Isaiah chapter 61. God has shown Kathy something that most believers who have been through a similar experience never, ever realize. I don't want us to miss the point. This is not just about Kathy, but it's about the ways of God and God being glorified in our lives.

What happened to Kathy when she was sixteen years old is an unspeakable atrocity. It's wicked. It's heinous. And those boys, now men, have had to live with the consequences in some fashion of their sin.

There's no question that they sinned. But what most of us who have been sinned against in some way never get honest about are the ways that we have sinned in responding to those who sin against us.

And Kathy was so specific. She said, "I hated them. I wanted to take revenge. And I thought in my mind that I would kill them, if I thought I could get away with it."

Now, any person who's listening to that story and has an ounce of mercy in their heart wants to say, "Kathy, I understand why you would feel that way. I'd feel the same way if I were in your shoes." But that's where, if we're really going to be instruments of mercy in each other's life, we need to bring each other back to the truth. And God has just done that for Kathy.

What He showed her is that her hatred, her desire for revenge and her murderous heart are wicked. And you notice all these years she's been in bondage. She wasn't the one who did this. Why is she in bondage? She hasn't been in bondage all these years because of their sin--no one else's sin can put you in bondage. She's been in bondage because of her sin.

And it sounds incredibly unjust or imbalanced to point that out, but God pointed it out to Kathy and showed her that as a child of God she could not hate, that revenge is not hers, it's God's.

And that by thinking these thoughts in her heart, she had in effect committed murder. And she's in the process of getting set free because she was willing to say, "Lord, it's not those three young men, it's me in need of Your mercy."

Yes, they need God's mercy but they are not her responsibility. And don't you just sense in Kathy the first stages of release, the freedom that God wants to give to her. It reminds me of the passage we've got open before us.

Isaiah 61:1, the passage talking about Jesus before He ever got to earth and talking about what His ministry would be. This is not only what He did here on earth, this is what He does in times of revival.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good new to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

Does that sound like what God has just been doing in Kathy's heart and in several of us in this room in different ways today, giving us good news about our poverty, healing broken hearts.

You get healing by dealing and letting God deal with your own heart and with your own sinfulness because that's how our hearts get broken ultimately. It's not by what others do to us, though that does wound us, but the deepest wounds of our lives are the result of our choices.

So God is healing the brokenhearted. He's proclaiming liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

Dannah: Only God can heal the brokenhearted and free the captives. He can exchange our ashes for beauty. Oh, what a great reminder and story of forgiveness from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

As I said at the beginning of our time together, forgiveness isn’t easy, it’s hard. For Kathy it took years. 

Friend, are you walking through something similar? Or it could be the bitterness of a fresh divorce, pain from a prodigal child, or maybe it’s a rift with a friend that has gone on way too long. Whatever it is, take it to God. Drop it at His feet and ask Him to exchange your ashes for His beauty and freedom.

Remember the story that my friend Kim Wagner started to share? The story of the elderly woman crying and confessing unforgiveness to her church congregation? She asked for prayer to forgive the man she thought had had a hand in her mother’s death. Listen to what happened when she began the steps of forgiveness. 

Kim: Unbeknownst to her, while she was asking that man’s forgiveness, her husband, who was known as the town drunk, was on the side of the road selling watermelons out of the back of his pickup in order to get money for more liquor. He was sitting there selling watermelons when my husband and the pastor of the church stopped by to have a little visit with him.

As they came walking up, before they could even hardly start talking to him, he got down on his knees and was crying out to God for forgiveness, asking God to save him. And he had no idea what his wife was doing.

He went home for lunch to tell her what had happened. As she is coming in the door to tell him where she has been and confessing her bitterness toward the man that she had had resentment toward for years, she can hear him just shouting out, crying, praising God before she even walks in the door of the house.

By that evening, word of the fact that this woman had gone to the rancher and asked his forgiveness, and her husband, the town drunk, had surrendered his life to Christ had spread. By that night there were about 100 people there in the revival service.

The spirit of forgiveness began to spread throughout that community. By the next night, the rancher had come. There were about 150 or 200 people there.

The little church building was totally filled up. The doors were opened; the vestibule was filled with people. People were standing. They didn’t have enough chairs for people. The rancher surrendered his life to Christ that night.

There was a family in the church who, because of an adultery situation, had separated. That husband and wife came together, mended their lives, and their son in that revival got right with God. He now is a missionary our church supports in Russia.

There were over 1,500 people throughout that week that came to hear the messages being preached in that little bitty church. They extended the revival for two weeks. The pastor wanted to go on further, but we had already missed a week of classes of school. We were in Bible college.

We ended that revival after a two-week period of time with literally . . . I don’t even remember how many people made decisions, how many people accepted Christ as their Savior. Lives changed. People still talk about that revival today, and that’s been almost twenty-five years ago.

And revival started from one woman surrendering her bitterness—what she had held onto for years that she believed she was justified in, having anger and unforgiveness toward this man, a lost man—and going to him and asking his forgiveness. When that spirit of forgiveness was released . . . It is so true: You are never more like Christ than when you forgive.

As lost people saw forgiveness at work and saw the life of Christ at work in that community, God was able to move in and work in just a miraculous way.

Song: "Forgive Me" by Steve Green

And for all the sin in me, any sin at all,
Forgive me; forgive me; forgive me.

Dannah: So neat to hear Kim Wagner share about the ripple effect that forgiveness had on this small little community. God used one woman to say, "I forgive you," and it snowballed. I love how God does that. It’s so beautiful.

You know, if our conversation today stirred something in your heart and you have more questions on forgiveness, deeper questions that we don’t have time for, then can I suggest the book Choosing Forgiveness that Nancy wrote? I really think this is a must-have book for anyone’s bookshelf. And this month we are giving it to you when you give a gift of any amount to Revive Our Hearts.

You can give your gift and request your book by calling 1-800-569-5959. And remember, request your copy of Choosing Forgiveness when you make your gift, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Next week, I want to spend some time thinking about how we prepare our kids and grandkids to go back to school. These are tough days, and parents are making some tough decisions. So whether the kids are homeschooled, private schooled or public schooled, let’s pray those children up.

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team: Phil Krause, Blake Bratton, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, Erin Davis, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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