If Someone Trespass Against You, Rebuke Him, and if…He Repent Forgive Him

World Current, Luke 17:3 June 2, 2016

In 2013 Cleveland Ohio, Michael Madison was arrested for killing three women and putting their bodies in garbage bags. The nightly news reported that his crimes were so hideous that they could not give details, except to say they were “horrendously unspeakable”.

He was prosecuted and found guilty. At Madison’s sentencing, Van Terry, the father of the youngest victim, who was 18 years old, was addressing Madison and said; “Right now, I guess we’re supposed to, in our hearts forgive this clown, who has taken my child.”

Madison then smiled an utterly satanic smile at the victim’s father. It was too much for the grieving Van Terry who lunged over the table to get to Madison. It took all the court officers to get Van Terry away from Madison, who remained smiling the whole time.

The presiding Judge was Nancy R. McDonnell, who had been a judge for over 20 years and had never had to issue the death sentence till now, was quoted as saying that she was “struck by the sheer inhumanity of what one human being can do to not one, but three human beings.”

Afterward a reporter interviewed the father, Van Terry, and asked him what happened to him in the courtroom and he replied “I lost my mind. When I saw this man, who had killed my daughter, smiling I lost my mind.” Then the reporter asked the father “What about forgiveness?” at which the father said “WHAT#?!?” “What about forgiveness! I’m not ready to forgive this guy and forgiveness ain’t for him, it’s for me.”

But this is the way of the world today. The religion of humanism which flies in the face of what Jesus told us point blank. What He said about forgiveness can be found in Luke 17:3: “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.” The operative word here being; IF– IF – he repent. There is no forgiveness if one does not repent, if one is not truly sorry for the sin or the offense or the crime committed. All the legal jargon, all the loving hypocrisy of humanism cannot convince or indict what simple common sense and respect for order and truth dictates to the simplest realities of conscience.

I found life and forgiveness for my sin by taking responsibility for the things I had done and for the pain and suffering I had caused others, whether I loved them or not, it did not matter. I had to repent of those deeds before God would let them be drowned in the sea of forgiveness.

I will never forget how that forgiveness came about. I never cease to acknowledge in my heart the day that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My whole life had been all about sinning. I was a drug addict, alcoholic, depressed, suicidal etc. etc. – the list goes on. My life had always been about ME. I had tried AA/NA meetings for four years, but I knew that there had to be more to it. Although I had managed to stay clean and sober, it just didn’t work for me. I felt like the meetings encouraged me to believe I would always and forever be sick, even that they were keeping me sick. There was never any forgiveness or letting go of the past. It was all about keeping my sins in the forefront of my mind, so I was always running scared that I might do those things all over again.

Then one fateful Thanksgiving day at my sister’s pastor’s house, I sat around this huge round table full of people, some whom I knew, others I did not know, when something supernatural started happening to me. I couldn’t hear any conversations going on around that table except for what the pastor, Terry, was saying to his father. Terry was reading from Romans 10:9-10; from his bible;

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

When I heard those words I felt a huge turmoil within my spirit, I didn’t realize it at the time but it was a spiritual battle that was going on for my very soul. I was frozen in my seat. Part of me wanted to run out of there screaming like a maniac, but the other part of me knew I couldn’t leave and that this was exactly what I needed in my life. I finally broke down crying tears of repentance and told my sister that I needed Jesus too. I then confessed Jesus Christ and that I believed that God raised Him from the dead, and repented of all my sins, and I know God forgave me my sins right then and there. I was delivered of many spirits in that very moment. I truly became a new creature in Christ and all my sins were forgiven.

“Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor 5:17

For the next three days I cried tears of joy. So grateful that all my sins had been forgiven and my heavy burden had finally been lifted. My repentance was real and God forgave me. My whole walk with Jesus is a daily dying to myself, seeking the will of God and doing it. And when I fall short He shows me that, so I can repent, and turn from what I’m doing that is not pleasing to God. God shows us these things about ourselves because He does love us. It is judgement with truth and mercy, and He’s not out to get us. In 1 Timothy 2:3-4 it states “For this [is] good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” But it is all contingent on true repentance, and God does not require us to forgive someone who is not repentant.