The Propers for today are found
on Page 215-217, with the Collect first:
The Nineteenth Sunday
after Trinity.
The Collect.
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GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not
able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Dru Arnold read the Epistle for today, which came from Saint Paul’s
letter to the Ephesians beginning at the Seventeenth Verse of the Fourth Chapter. Typical of Paul, he uses a spiral
argument with a seemingly confusing structure to further instruct the people on
how to become the New Man. Our
nature is not good, but rather straying from good. We have to work at good, by ourselves good is not
attainable, but through Christ, we can attain good. Paul asks us to lie no more, particularly to ourselves, but
rather to “speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of
another.” If we are angry, we must
“let not the sun go down upon our wrath.”
We should not live off others, but rather, “labour, working with our hands the thing which is good, that we may have to give to him that
needeth.” Speak good, speak that
others might learn. Put away ill
feeling, give in to God and be “kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” God wants us to be happy, to be good
and to enjoy life. If you find
this no other place, listen to the words of St. Paul.
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HIS I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye
henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being
past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all
uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that
ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that
ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt
according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his
neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not
the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let him that
stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the
thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no
corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the
use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not
the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let
all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put
away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Hap Arnold read today’s Holy Gospel came from the
Fourth Chapter of the Gospelaccording
to St. Matthew beginning at the First Verse. Jesus came upon “a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed:
and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good
cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”
Present were scribes of the temple. They thought to themselves., “This man blasphemeth. And
Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For
whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and
walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive
sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) Arise, take up thy bed, and go
unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. Sometimes we are tempted to view the
troubles of this world as the only issues we have to confront. Surely the trouble we have here pales
to that we have if we make the wrong choices here and end up in the pit. Many can heal the palsy; only through
Jesus can our sins be forgiven. In
this case, the sins were forgiven and the problems of this earth resolved. The power of Jesus was again made
manifest.
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esus entered into a ship, and
passed over, and came into his own city. And, behold, they brought to him a man
sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the
sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And,
behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth.
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and
walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive
sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go
unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the
multitudes saw it, they marveled, and glorified God, which had given such power
unto men.
Sermon
– Rev Deacon Jack Arnold – Time and Action
The Nineteenth Sunday
after Trinity.
The Collect.
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GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not
able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The collect continues on the
theme from last week, that without God’s mighty help through the Holy Spirit,
we would not prevail in our battle against the sin of this world. This trend is
evident in the Epistle, where Paul writes to the Ephesians, chapter 4, verse
17. “Yet henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
mind, having the understanding darkened and alienated from the life of the God
through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart.”
Paul basically is saying that we
should not do as the world does and look into ourselves for guidance for our
spiritual lives. That is just inviting a nasty disaster for our souls when we
die and wake up from our death to find that we are not only physically but have
died a spiritual death, a permanent separation from God, as we are away in that
“fixed gulf.”
Going on, Paul says that we need
to fix ourselves upon the waypoint of Christ and God and not use ourselves for
a moral compass. For if we use our sense of direction, we shall not get far and
indeed we will be in much distress, though we would not think of it otherwise
due to our easily corruptible minds. However, if we rely on Christ as our
navigator, He shall never fail us in His directions, if we will but listen to
him. He, unlike us, will never let us down or withhold anything that we need to
know, but the catch is that we have to be willing to listen to him.
We move on to the Gospel, where
Jesus, attending to a sick man, picks up on the evil thoughts of the temple
scribes., who think to themselves that Jesus blasphemed. However, if they
realized who truly the Son of God was, Jesus, they would be shocked if they
realized that they had just accused God of being a liar and blasphemer.
However, their darkness in their hearts, like the vanity of the Gentiles minds
that Paul talked about, prevents them from seeing the truth of the person of
Christ. Then he asks them, which
is easier, to say that the sins are forgiven, or to actually say “Arise and
walk”, or in other words, the command or the actual physical action of the
healing, of which is more important?
The command is important, but we
find Jesus doesn’t just talk to hear himself talk. Unlike some of the more
modern “Christian” televised preachers who do, but to make a point and to act
according to that point he makes. If we believe His commandments, we will keep
them. The book Acts of the Apostles,
isn’t “Meditations”, “Philosophies” of the Apostles, but Acts. Jesus puts forth emphasis on “Actions
speak louder than words” through his actions.
If we profess to be Christians,
then we need to act like Christians, not just say that we are Christians. As
the ending sentence at the end of the sermons I have given thus far go, “Be of
God”, “Live of God” and finally, last but especially not least “Act of God.” We
have to Be of God, and Live of God, to live our lives in a Godly and Christian
way, which means as Paul said “Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk”, so
should we not walk in the ways of the world but that of God and His Heavenly
Kingdom. Though originally, the term Gentile meant non-Jews (Ephesus was an
early Gentile Christian church), nowadays Gentiles are those who conform to the
world’s philosophies, including Christians that are Christians in name only and
not in deed/actions, who do not follow “Be of God, Live of God and Act of God.”
To Act of God, we must follow the
commandments of Christ and act according to them, loving our neighbor as we
love ourselves. If we do the three step process “Be of God”, “Act of God” and
“Live of God”, we will find ourselves in a much better position than walking in
the ways of the World.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
Bishop Ogles’
Sermon
We are oft fortunate to get
copies of Bishop Jerry’s sermon notes.
Today is one of those Sundays.
Today’s sermon starts off with the collect, and like always, it will
give you a lot to consider in your heart.
Sermon Notes
Nineteenth
Sunday after Trinity
14 October
2012 Anno Domini
The Nineteenth Sunday
after Trinity.
The Collect.
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GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not
able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
1 And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his
own city. 2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the
palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the
palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven
thee. 3 And, behold, certain of the scribes said within
themselves, This man blasphemeth. 4 And Jesus knowing their
thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your
hearts? 5 For whether is easier,
to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? 6 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on
earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. 7 And
he arose, and departed to his house. 8 But when the multitudes saw
it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men. (Matt 9:1-8)
As
the Collect for the day says, we are not able to please God in the ways of
righteousness, but we can be pleasing to God in the strength of our faith in
the Righteous One – Jesus Christ. Even the little acts of faith we
exhibit are not ours, but come at the mercy of the Holy Spirit. If He
rules our heart, our ways will be pleasing to God. There is no other way in
which we can please Him.
Jesus, in the previous chapter, has just cast demons from two young men which
He sent into a nearby herd of swine. The two men were set free from these
demons, but the swine rushed over a cliff into the waters below and perished.
The herdsmen rushed into the city and told all. We are told the entire village
turned out to meet Jesus – not to express gratitude for the goodness to those
possessed of demons – but to prevail upon Christ to depart from their shores.
They feared loss of revenue more than loss of their own souls. So Christ
departs, since He is a gentleman and does not impose His company upon those who
do not welcome Him, and proceeds across the Sea of Galilee to His own hometown.
It is here that we pick up on today's text.
And he entered into a ship, and passed over,
and came into his own city
It
is likely that multitudes were anxiously following the movements of Christ by
word of mouth. Every rumor of His coming was eagerly received. Were it the same
today!
And, behold, they brought to him a man sick
of the palsy, lying on a bed
Amazingly, there were men who had early heard of Christ's crossing to them from
the Gaderenes. They had already, by their strong faith, gone to the home of
their cherished friend and prepared him on a stretcher to bring to Christ. We
are not told of the faith of the man afflicted by palsy, but the faith of his
friends would prove sufficient. The man being brought to Christ had a
serious illness. It was a CHRONIC illness much as sin is to every man born of
woman. His illness had taken away his liberty to move, to associate, and to
speak out on matters of faith and life. Doesn't sin steal away our liberty in
the same way?
Now
this man is being brought to Christ, on the strength of his friends' faith, to
make him whole. It is much like the woman taken in adultery being dragged before
Christ – the only source of healing and forgiveness – by men who intended her
no good at all. We have all needed a friend, or even a stranger, to bring us to
Christ and introduce us to that great Personage and Lord. The man with the
palsy was in a most miserable of human conditions. So were we before we were
brought to Christ.
There are two powers revealed here in the text – the power of sin to destroy
and make miserable, and the power of Christ to make whole and impart joy and
liberty. We see in this account that our own faith may be essential to bring
another to the point of being made whole in Christ. We learn, too, that often
the efforts of more than one is necessary to bring one to Christ, and these
must work in unison (in carrying the bed level at all corners).
Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick
of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be
forgiven thee.
Jesus' notice is fixed on the faith of the men who bring the victim sick of the
palsy – not the victim. He sees THEIR faith and is moved to compassion and
amazement. One point I will make at the onset of the account: the furthest
thing from the mind of the man afflicted by this horrible ailment is most
likely not forgiveness. He desires, above everything else, to be made free of
the disease. But he does not realize that faith precedes freedom and
liberty. In first aid, we learn that the most important consideration in
treating a victim of some violent crime or accident is to STOP THE BLEEDING, if
there is any bleeding. This is the medical procedure of `triage' which requires
treatment of the most serious and life-threatening condition first. Our most
serious affliction is not leprosy, or palsy, or physical blindness! It is SIN.
Sin kills finally and forever! Jesus treats that affliction first! Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
And, behold, certain of the scribes said
within themselves, This man blasphemeth.
That's right! That same old gang of
detractors and doubters that followed Christ everywhere. They still follow Him
and doubt the miracles of life and love of which God is benefactor. They
saw Christ heal blind Bartemeus; they saw Him call Lazarus from the grave at
Bethany; they saw the young daughter of Jairus restored to life – yet, they
believed not. Why not, do you suppose? I believe it was because they did not
WANT to believe! If we believe Christ, we must abandon self. Our free wills
must be exchanged for that Will (Mind) which was in Christ! No longer would
they be king of the mountain, but Christ would be – so they traded their
birthrights in God for a bowl of Esau's porridge. But never doubt – our
thoughts are not kept from the notice of Christ. He knows our hearts better
than we know them ourselves.
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
Be not deceived, God is not mocked! Jesus
knows all of our thoughts – past, present, and future! Perhaps these rascals
were shocked that Jesus read their hearts without their speaking. Why do ANY of
us think evil in our hearts? Because, until we have known Christ as Lord and
Savior, we have all of the traits and characteristics of our father, the devil.
For whether is easier, to say,
Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?
Jesus Christ is God also. He has His seal of
authority to prove all things. Any man could falsely proclaim, Thy sins
be forgiven thee! But what would be the result? Our sin would remain
just as excessively as before the words were spoken. But when the same words
are spoken by Christ, they bear the seal of Divine Authority! In truth, they
are not the same words when spoken by Christ. Our words are like gold-colored
lead coins compared to His 24 karat solid gold words of the Realm of Heaven. He
proves all things by the Power of His Word. It is easy for man to speak false
forgiveness, but what of speaking true healing? Forgiveness is an inward and
invisible work of Grace granted by God. Physical healing is an outward
manifestation of miraculous proportion. The first is greater, but the second is
more observable! The foolish high churchmen (Pharisee) have been asked a
question they dare not answer. Nonetheless, the answer is immediately revealed
to their doubting eyes!
But that ye may know that the
Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
The
Seal of Authority of Christ is a plain manifestation to those who doubt. The
man, stricken with the palsy, has been healed of his most critical disease
(Sin) and is now given liberty to move and to shout after being healed of his
palsy. He not only arises from his bed, he obeys that voice of authority and
picks up his bed, and carries his bed to his house. Liberty in Christ is a TOTAL
liberty! We are no longer held down and bed-ridden, but have liberty not only
to move, but to bear burdens and to go to our wonderful home that awaits all
who belong to Christ. And he arose, and departed to his house.
But when the multitudes saw it, they
marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men
It
is paradoxical, indeed, that the multitudes of common folk recognized the
miracle as coming only from God, but the Pharisees did not! Of course, even the
multitudes did not recognize that it was God Himself that stood before them, in
Christ, to perform this miracle. How many today see the miracles but not the
hand of Christ behind them? How many walk the lonely road to Damascas, wanting
to see Christ, when He walks right beside them?
Behold, I am with thee always,
even unto the end of the world!
AMEN
Bishop
Dennis Campbell’s Sermon
Bishop Dennis is a brilliant
speaker. He is able to take
biblical precepts and make them perfectly understandable, even to me. Oft he provides the text of his sermons
and I take the utmost pleasure in passing them on:
Our Help to Please Him
Psalm 72, Ephesians 4:17-32,
Matthew 9:1-8
Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 14, 2012
The Nineteenth Sunday
after Trinity.
The Collect.
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GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not
able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
"… without thee we are not
able to please thee... ."
These words from Collect for the Nineteenth Sunday
after Trinity lead us immediately to that aspect of the Christian life into
which we hope to be encouraged and strengthened today, pleasing God. What
does it mean to please God, and how can we, weak and foolish and sinful as we
are, ever hope to achieve the lofty goal of pleasing God?
We must acknowledge that an essential part of our
calling into Christ, is pleasing God. I think contemporary evangelicalism
places too much emphasis on what God saves us from, and too little emphasis on
what God saves us to. It tends to give the idea that Christ died only to
forgive our sins and take us to Heaven. But He died to accomplish much
more than that in us. He died to make us into a new kind of person.
He died to bring us into an Empire of peace. He died to form us into a
kingdom of priests who offer up continual sacrifices of holy living in
accordance with the moral and spiritual teachings of the Bible. These
moral/spiritual teachings are just as much a part of the Gospel as being
forgiven of sin and saved from hell. The verse that says, "If ye
love Me, keep my commandments" (Jn. 14:15) is just as much a part of the
Gospel as the verse that says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus." In fact, that verse, Romans 8:1,
goes on to describe those who are in Christ Jesus as those "who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." In other words, it is those
who live the new life in Christ who are the saved. Or, as we read in
James 1:22 in the morning readings last Tuesday, it is those who hear and
do the word of God who are the real Christians, not those who only
"hear" it.
The Epistle for this morning pictures the new life we
are to live as Christians. The new life takes us out of the former habits
and values of spiritual darkness, which Ephesians 4:22 calls "the old man,
which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." Putting off such
things is a necessary part of being a Christian. They must be put off
like filthy, vermin infested garments, and we must put on the "new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph.
4:24). The rest of the book of Ephesians is about how the new man lives
the life of righteousness and true holiness. All those verses about speaking
truth, and working to earn your living, and submitting to your husband, and
loving your wife as Christ loves the Church, and honouring your parents, and
provoking not your children to wrath, and putting on the whole armour of God,
and watching in prayer, are about the way you are called to live if you are a
true Christian. And it might be a good thing to ask yourself right now if
you really intend to be a true Christian or not. Are you really willing
to follow Christ, or are you just playing games with God to salve your
conscience? Seriously ask yourself this, because you are to examine
yourself before you come to the Lord's Table, and because the consequences of
playing games with God are eternal.
Listen, please, because this is very important.
I constantly encourage you to pray and read the Bible daily and to come to
church every Sunday. I don't ask this for me or for my benefit. I
ask it for your benefit because I want you to grow in the knowledge and faith
and strength and communion of God. This is a very important part of being
a Christian. I think the Bible clearly teaches that those who
cannot find the motivation to do these simple things have reason to doubt the
validity of their faith. But, being a Christian is more than prayer and
Bible reading. In fact, you can read the Bible daily, spend hours in
"prayer," go to church, and receive baptism, confirmation, and Holy
Communion, yet still be far away from God in your heart. You can know the
Bible well, and be an expert in Hebrew, Greek, and all the various doctrines of
the Bible, yet still be mentally and spiritually aloof from God. That is
why James wrote that we must be doers of the word and not hearers only, for
those who hear but will not do the word, deceive themselves.
But who has been a doer of the word? Who has
lived life according to the Spirit instead of according to the flesh? Who
can say with confidence, "I have kept the commandments of God?" Would
we not be more correct to say with Paul, I am chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15)
and with the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" (Lk.
18:13). Thanks be to God it is not our works of obedience to His
commandments that make us acceptable to God. It is the sacrifice of
Christ, bearing our sins in Himself and dying for them on the cross that makes
us acceptable to God. And thank God also that we are not left to our own
devices and power to live the Christian life. Without Him, that is,
without His help, we are unable to please Him. Even with His help we will
not be perfect in this life, of course we can do far better than we are
currently doing, if we really want to. In A Serious Call to a Devout
and Holy Life, William Law asked why most people who call themselves
Christians never live devout and holy lives. His answer? Because
they never intend to. They go to church and they say the prayer asking
God to enable them to "live a godly, righteous and holy life," but
they don't mean it. They don't really want to live that way. I
believe he is correct, but I beg you not to let that be true of you.
Truly we need God's help if we are going to live
lives that are holy and Godly and pleasing unto God, but, is God willing to
help? To answer this question let us turn to the Gospel reading for this
morning. Here we see Christ healing the physical ailment of a paralysed
man. Our Lord makes it plain that He is not merely healing the disease of
the the flesh; He is primarily healing the disease of the soul. "Thy
sins be forgiven thee," He said to the man. Why do we read this passage
in connection with the topic of pleasing God, and how does it answer the
question of the willingness of God to help us? Because it shows the
compassion and help of God. If God was willing to help the man whose legs
were paralysed, He is also willing to help those whose faith is
paralysed. He who is willing to forgive sins at the cost of His own life,
will also freely help His people live the life of faith as surely as He who
freed the ancient Hebrews led them from Egypt to the Promised Land.
So, we need the help of God if we are going to live
the Christian life, and God has promised to help us. This means two
things for us in practical, daily life. First, we must ask God to help
us. This might mean that our prayers need to have a change of focus.
We may need to pray less about getting the physical things of the world, and
more about help to be the husbands,wives, daughters, sons, parents, employees,
church members, and Christians God wants us to be. In other words, we may
need to spend more time seeking help to live a holy and Godly life.
Second, we must avail ourselves of the help He gives. If you ask most
Christians how God helps us, they will usually say something like, "by the
power of the Holy Spirit." By that they mean God somehow infuses us
with Heavenly power and we are able to conquer sin and do all good works He has
prepared for us to walk in. But how does God infuse us with that power?
Primarily through the means of grace received in faith. He helps us as we
read the Bible in faith. He helps us as we pray Biblical prayers in
faith. He helps us as we worship at home and in Church in faith. He
helps us as we come to the communion table in faith. These are the things
God has ordained to help and succour His people, and to enable us to put off
the old things of sin and self, and to put on the new things of God and
holiness. These are the means by which God helps us please Him.
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GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not
able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things
direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev Bryan Dabney
of Saint John’s Sunday Sermon
We are fortunate to
have Bryan’s Sunday Sermon. If you
want people to come to The Truth, you have to speak the truth, expouse the
truth and live the truth. This is really a good piece and I
commend it to your careful reading.
The Sermon - Forgiveness from the heart
St. Paul understood the concept of godly forgiveness.
He had been in and out of prisons on account of the faith and had suffered
beatings of every sort, and was even stoned because of his preaching of the
gospel (II Corinthians 11:24-26). He could well have asked God to strike his
persecutors with lightning or worse. But instead, St. Paul asked God to forgive
those who harmed him. In his second epistle to the youthful Timothy (4:16) the
apostle recounted how no one had supported him against Alexander the coppersmith;
but in spite of that, he asked God that they not be held liable for their lack
of effort. Notice he did not include Alexander in his prayer request because he
had resisteth the truth in unrighteousness. The apostle’s prayer was for those
of the flock of Christ who had not resisted in unrighteousness but had not
stood with him against the unrighteousness of Alexander. Alexander’s offense
was more against God than the apostle. Those who had failed to support St. Paul
had offended the apostle and thus his request that God forgive them. As he
explained in our epistle (Ephesians 4:32), And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath
forgiven you.
God will forgive us of our sins and trespasses if we
repent and turn to him. We need only consider the very words that our Lord
taught us to pray saying, ... forgive us our trespasses to know this. But there
is a qualifier: as we forgive those who trespass against us. Yes, God will
forgive us, but we are called on to forgive one another from the heart, and to
forgive every offense regardless of the number of times we are wronged (St.
Matthew 18:21-35). These are hard words for us because we are prideful
creatures and when we are injured by others, we often react vengefully. God
would rather have us leave that desire for vengeance in his capable hands, and
for us to possess a forgiving spirit. He knows that we cannot be effective
messengers for him if we have opened ourselves to demonic influence (Ephesians 4:26-27).
There are other biblical examples that will validate
our Lord’s command that we forgive our trespassers. Examine the story of Jacob
and Esau (Genesis 33:4-15). Jacob had supplanted Esau as the inheritor of the
right of the first born. Esau in turn had sought to harm Jacob and so Jacob
fled to his uncle Laban’s land for refuge and to take a wife there. After God
had directed Jacob to return to the land of Canaan, God brought Esau into the
mix again. Jacob heard that his brother was coming out to meet him and he was
greatly concerned. But God turned the heart of Esau from hatred for Jacob to
forgiveness. Jacob was more than pleasantly surprised to discover this when he
met his brother. For at that meeting God’s love for Jacob was displayed in Esau’s
warm greeting and brotherly embrace.
The story of Joseph includes not only his
mistreatment by his brothers, but his forgiveness of them as well (Genesis
50:15-21). Joseph had been sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers who hated
him from the heart. Joseph was mistreated by Potiphar who had believed his
adulterous wife rather than righteous Joseph. Joseph had been seemingly
forgotten in an Egyptian prison until his gift of interpretation of dreams was
made known to Pharaoh. When Pharaoh was given a dream by the LORD which he
could not understand, he sought out his wise men and priests. But they too were
unable to explain it. It was then that an advisor to Pharaoh, who had been
imprisoned briefly with Joseph, told his master of a man who could interpret
dreams. Joseph was brought to Pharaoh and provided him the message God had
intended for him to know. Afterwards, Pharaoh appointed Joseph as second only
to himself in the kingdom for the purpose of saving Egypt from the approaching
seven years of famine. When his brothers came to purchase grain, Joseph was
troubled by their presence but, he forgave them because he had seen the hand of
God in his life. As he reminded his brethren, Fear not: for am I in the place
of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good
to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore
fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them
and spake kindly unto them. That is forgiveness from the heart!
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ also forgave those
who persecuted and crucified him (St. Luke 23:34). Consider his words, Father,
forgive them: for they know not what they do. St. Stephen, the first Christian
martyr, asked God to forgive his murderers (Acts 7:60) saying, Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge. These words were offered in the martyr’s prayer as he
was being stoned to death. Even facing death at the hands of a detractor, we
ought to ask God to forgive them and not carry any hatred and bad feeling into
our meeting with the Lord face to face when we “cross the bar.”
Consider Psalm 86:5 wherein it is written, For thou,
Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that
call upon thee. In the book of Isaiah (43:25) God said, I even I, am he that
blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy
sins. And further on in the same (55:7) we are admonished, Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto
the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will
abundantly pardon.
Are you in accord with God? Have you sought from him
a pardon for those who have sinned against you? Are you prepared to let go all
hatred, and all malice against those who have hurt you in any way? If we desire
God’s forgiveness for our sins and trespasses against him, we must also forgive
them who are our persecutors and pray for them who spitefully use us, that
perhaps God will turn their hearts as he turned ours. Make it your prayer this
day that God will not only grant you true repentance, but that he will also
give you a heart to forgive others. Give these persons over to him. Let God
decide what to do with them and be at peace within yourselves for that is what
God wants for his elect.
Let us pray:
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ORD, we
hand over to you all who have harmed us in any way, and we also pray for their
redemption; that they too might come to the knowledge of thy truth and be made
members in the fold of Christ; for these things we ask in the name of him who
forgave all at the cross, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Have a blessed week, Bryan+
