Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 506A — On Forgiveness
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: My question is, are we as Christians supposed to forgive someone unless they ask us for forgiveness? I have a daughter-in-law who has been absolutely just obnoxious, and now she kind of wants to be friends, but she just wants to forget the whole thing. And I told her, "I'd feel better if you would at least say, I'm sorry." And she said, "No, I'll never say I'm sorry." And I said, "Well, I can't say that you're really sorry if you can't say you're sorry." I want to know what should I as a Christian do with this person?
HC: Well, the fact is, Jesus put it this way. "If your brother sins against you, how oft shall you forgive him? Seven times?" And the answer came back, "No, seven times seventy times."
Now that means that you're living with someone who is an obnoxious person, and they sin against you. And are you to forgive them? Yes, you forgive them. You don't hold that against them. You obviously are not going to entrust them with something, knowing their weaknesses, and so on. But you don't bear any animosity toward them of any kind.
CALLER: But without their even apologizing?
HC: Without even their apologizing. That is not a condition for forgiveness. Now in other words, our role as born again believers is that we have to live at peace with them, even though they are going to continue to be obnoxious and continue to do what they want to do. We are to live loving them and at peace with them. We recognize of course that my friend or my loved one is having difficulties. She may be unsaved. She may be struggling with some big sins in her life. Maybe I don't know the condition of her heart at all, and likely I don't. But all I know is that when she comes against me I am not to live with any bitterness or any hatred or any animosity toward her. I am to live in a forgiven relationship.
Now she may think that I've sinned against her, and she may not want to forgive me. Well, that's her problem. If she doesn't want to forgive me, I'm not going to worry about that. The important thing is that I'm going to live in a forgiven relationship toward her.
CALLER: But there is nowhere in the Bible that it says that we . . . I don't mean that I'm just holding animosity. I don't want you to get the wrong attitude here. I forgave her long ago, or I wouldn't even say Hi to her really, over what she's done. But there's nowhere in the Bible that says that we are to forgive unless they ask us to. In other words, I'm going to be honest. I go on and I'm friendly with her, but deep in my heart I'm holding this because she won't say, "Look. I'm sorry."
HC: I know. But you see, you can't make that a condition for forgiveness, that she has to first say that she is sorry. She might he totally in rebellion against you, and so on and so on. But you are not to hold any grudges against her. You may feel sorry for her, you can have compassion on her because she won't do this. Lots of husbands and wives get into this. And one waits for the other to say, "I'm sorry." And then they don't speak to each other. And then pretty soon they begin to pick at each other. And then they begin to quarrel. And it just goes on and on because no one will say first, "I'm sorry." And it ends up not infrequently in the divorce courts.
Now that should never happen when one of them is a Christian. Let's say we have someone who is a Christian and someone who is a non-Christian. The Christian is going to be always forgiving, understanding. All right. Maybe my mate will never say, "I'm sorry" and will never take the blame for anyone or anything. But so what? What difference does it make? I'm not going to let them ruin my relationship with the Lord. I will forgive them. I will not hold any grudge or any enmity or any animosity toward my mate.
You see, it's the world that wants to hold grudges. It's the world that says, "Well, she did that to me, and until she apologizes I'm not going to do 'so and so.'" That's what the world says.
CALLER: Brother Camping, she has just hurt me so deeply. It's not madness. I am just hurt so deep that there's no words to describe it.
HC: Were you hurt as deeply as, for example, when the Lord Jesus, who was without sin, there was no way that anyone could point to any kind of sin in His life, and yet He was insulted, He was reviled, He was spit upon, He was crucified, He took all kinds of slander? Were you hurt that deeply? Were you hurt that deeply?
You see, this the role that God puts us in, that we walk in the same shoes as the Lord Jesus. Now the world, when they're insulted, demand apologies. But when we as born again believers are insulted or hurt very deeply, we recognize, "Well, all right. We understand. The world is full of people who don't understand what a Christian life really ought to be, and they're going to do nasty things and dirty things, and so on." But we're not going to react to this. We understand that this is the situation. And so we'll forgive them. We're not going to hold anything personal against them.
CALLER: The reason I was thinking this way is, you know, the Lord doesn't forgive us of our sin unless we ask Him, which in the same breath we're confessing. You know what I mean. So I was just wondering. I will do what the Lord wants me to do. And if He says, just go on, regardless of how you were hurt, without her saying, "I'm sorry," and confessing her sin to me at all, I'll do it. But I just didn't know what my part was in the situation.
HC: You see, when the Lord forgives us when we ask for forgiveness, the only reason we ask for forgiveness is because God inclines our hearts. We don't ask for forgiveness out of our own will. Jesus said, "No man cometh unto Me except the Father draw him." The only reason we ask for forgiveness is because God is opening our spiritual eyes so that we begin to see the desirability of going to the Lord for forgiveness.
Now we don't stand in that kind of a relationship to our fellow man. We have nothing at all to do with what is going on in their heart, or inclining their heart. That's not a parallel situation.
But now let me read to you a few verses from I Peter 2, and this will help us, I think. In I Peter 2:20: "For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted [that is, beaten] for your faults ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, reviled not again."
Now God says that we've been called to this, and there are going to be people who will vilify us and slander us. And if we are going to react as the world, our pride is going to be hurt, we're going to take it very personally, and we're going to feel deeply hurt. And we'll nurse this hurt, and there will be bitterness in our soul. Well, that's what the world does.
But as Christians we answer to God. And we know there will be those, and frequently they are those who are very close to us, who will say nasty, terrible things about us, and as long as our conscience is clear before God we say, "Well, what else is new?" We're not going to let it bother us, because we answer to God for our life.
Now if there's an element of truth in what they're saying, and sometimes there is, because we're not very perfect beings, then we have to say, "Well, I'm glad she said it. It was nasty and it was dirty, the way she said it, but there is an element of truth in it, and I'd better try to do a little better in this." And again I'm not going to feel deeply hurt by it.
CALLER: This is just it, Brother Camping. There was just no element of truth at all in what she said or did.
HC: All right. If there's no element of truth in it, then just don't react to it. In other words, you have nothing to be concerning about. If your conscience is clear and your life is right before God in this matter, then what difference does it make what people say about you?
CALLER: I've just never encountered a person like that, ever.
HC: But you see, God brings people like this into our life in order to test us, where we stand. Anybody can live like the world, you know, and nurse hurts and bitterness, and so on. But if we're a child of God, there ought to be a different kind of reaction. And that is what we have the opportunity to show, if we are saved.
Look at it this way. When your daughter-in-law, or whoever it is, says nasty things about you, then accept that as a challenge. This gives me an opportunity to show what a Christian really is. I'm not going to be hurt by that. I'm not going to pay attention to that, because I stand before the Lord, and I know that my daughter-in-law has got her personal troubles, and just look with compassion and pity upon her.
CALLER: God bless you, Brother Camping.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.