THE DANGER OF UNFORGIVENESS

Dear friend, has anyone offended you so much that you have determined in your heart never to forgive the person? What is the worst offence that someone has committed against you? Did they:

·        steal your money or property?

·        tell lies against you that landed you or someone else in prison?

·        betray your trust?

·        rape you or a loved one?

·        sexually molest you or a loved one?

·       kill your spouse, sibling, child, relative, neighbour, friend or colleague?

·        bully you or continually molest you with physical and emotional abuse?

·        turn your spouse, sibling, child, relative, neighbour, friend or colleague against you?

·     shoot you or a loved one such that you or the person is now physically scarred or permanently incapacitated?

 What exactly was done to cause you so much pain for which you are unwilling to let go and forgive?

When our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in 1975 took Mary K. Baxter to show her the realities of heaven and hell, He showed her many people who were in hell for various reasons.

Please permit me to digress a little here. Remember hell is a place of ETERNAL TORMENT, and anyone who is unfortunate to get there after death has absolutely no hope of getting out and therefore it is not a place for one to decidedly want to be. 

As I write, there are millions of unfortunate souls there currently being tormented and tortured by satan and his demons and who are left with memories of the lost chances they had to avoid the place but it is now TOO LATE. Only those who are alive now on earth have the opportunity to avoid Hell and its eternal torment.

Now back to our true story: Our Lord Jesus showed Mary Baxter a particular woman in hell who was preaching: "Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Him" - the demons and other lost souls in hell were shouting at the lady to shut up.

When Mary Baxter was confused about what was going on about a lost soul in hell preaching about Jesus, the Lord Jesus told her the story of this unfortunate woman. She used to be a preacher of the Gospel while she was alive on earth. It happened that her husband committed adultery and came to confess to her and asked for her forgiveness.

This lady refused to forgive her husband and became so bitter about the revelation that she stopped preaching the Gospel trying to justify her actions by saying here she was preaching the Gospel of Christ while her husband was committing adultery.

The Lord Jesus ministered severally to her to check her life and discover that she was the cause of the problem but she refused to listen saying she was the holy one while her husband was the sinner. She stopped going to Church and even when Jesus sent the Church members to minister to her she rejected them.

Eventually, this lady one day shot her husband and killed him, killed her husband's adultery partner and also killed herself - that action landed her FOREVER in hell and she is now regretting and wanting to repent and forgive her husband but the Lord Jesus told her as He has told several unfortunate souls there - IT IS TOO LATE.

The reason why I share this true story is to enable you, dear reader and I who are still alive to learn the lessons that this unfortunate lady cannot learn any more. The truth is, there is absolutely nothing anyone has done to us that cannot be forgiven. It is we who choose not to forgive either because we hold on too much to the offence to let go or out of sheer pride like in most cases.

Pride is one major reason most people are simple unable to forgive and reconcile with their offender. They believe the offender would see them as cowards or as weaklings and would mock them. They also believe even other people not related to the incident would also see them as weaklings and mock them.

What does the Word of God say about these things? In response to His disciples questions on who was the greatest in Heaven, our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 18:3-5, "I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child. And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me.

We will all agree that just like our Lord Jesus was stating, a little child is unable to harbour feelings of hatred towards other children or even an adult. If you observe children playing, you will notice their innocence when for a short while they appear to quarrel with each other and even when you separate them, after a while they come back together to start playing as if nothing ever happened between them.

Our Lord Jesus wants and expects adults who claim to be Christians or His followers to behave in exactly the same way and even go a step further to reconcile genuinely with the other party even if you are the offended and not the offender. Do not say the other person offended you and should make the first move of reconciliation.

With children, both offender and offended forget whatever issues they had and begin to play again with each other innocently. This is exactly the way to get to heaven when we truly forgive from our hearts and forget and reconcile with the other party.

As painful as it sounds, anyone who is not ready to follow this teaching of the Lord is ignorantly rebelling against the Lord and the Lord views rebellion like witchcraft, and views arrogance as idolatry (1 Samuel 15:22-23). If UNREPENTANT witches, wizards and idolaters amongst others would go to hell, then there is no hope for the person who refuses to forgive the wrongs others have done as hell is also the destination of such person.

There is also a warning from our Lord Jesus to offenders in Matthew 18:6-7, "If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied round his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.

How terrible for the world that there are things that make people lose their faith! Such things will always happen - but how terrible for the one who causes them!"

Just like the true story above, the lady's husband offended her and made her to lose faith in the Lord Jesus and she ended up in hell because she REFUSED to forgive even when the Lord Jesus made several entreaties to her personally and through other Christian brothers and sisters.

If heaven is a place of love, then forgiveness is a NON-NEGOTIABLE REQUIREMENT to get in there. The Word of God says in Matthew 6:14-15, "If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done."

In the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), we ask God to forgive us the wrongs we have done against Him as we forgive others the wrongs they have done to us. So the condition is clear as stated in the Scripture passage above that God can ONLY forgive us as we forgive others.

We are advised in Mark 11:25, "And when you stand and pray, forgive anything you may have against anyone, so that your Father in heaven will forgive the wrongs you have done." It means unforgiveness hinders our prayers from being answered.

It also follows that we are not to have any human enemies. The Lord Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:43-48, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your friends, hate your enemies.' But now I tell you:love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons of your Father in heaven.

For He makes His sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that!

And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! You must be perfect - just as your Father in heaven is perfect!"

The number one enemy we have is satan because judgement has already been passed on him (John 16:11) to remain in hell forever until when hell and death  are cast into the lake of fire when satan and his demons will be tormented eternally (Revelation 21:8).

For now satan is always moving about as a wounded lion seeking whom to devour (1 Peter 5:8-9) and send to hell like himself. He has succeeded in deceiving so many innocent souls who have died and are now in eternal torment in hell. One way satan is using to capture people is the sin of unforgiveness and our Lord Jesus Christ has said so many people are in hell for this sin of unforgiveness.

Like the story above of the unfortunate lady in hell, the Lord Jesus ALWAYS makes several efforts (through preaching of His Word) to get people to repent of sin and turn to Him but when they consciously choose to disobey, they unfortunately end up in hell when they die in sin.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command at the beginning of creation and therefore brought sin into the world. The bible makes us know in Romans 5:6-11, "For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time God chose. It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might dare to die for a good person.

But God has shown us how much He loves us - it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! By His sacrificial death we are now put right with God; how much more, then will we be saved by Him (Jesus) from God's anger! We were God's enemies, but He has made us His friends through the death of His Son.

Now that we are God's friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ's life! But that is not all; we rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now made us God's friends."

Dear friend, look at the depth of God's love and forgiveness for mankind - He gave His only Son to die a shameful and painful death on the Cross of Calvary, all for our sins to reconcile us to Himself. 

This type of death was reserved for criminals in the time of Christ but He chose to pass through it to shed His precious blood all for our sake and open the gates of heaven for all who qualify to enter.

If the Lord Jesus has done all this and tells us to show love and forgive those who offend us, why is it so difficult for us to accept? The question may arise that how many times are we to forgive those who offend us?

The Lord Jesus answers this question in His Word (the bible) in response to His Apostle Peter in Matthew 18:21-22, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked "Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?"

"No, not seven times," answered Jesus, "but seventy times seven." Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety times and the Lord Jesus said this because He would not expect anyone to keep a record that long of his or her brother's sins to know when to stop forgiving.

The Lord Jesus wants us to erase such records and forgive wholeheartedly because He has FIRST FORGIVEN US our wrongs already by His sacrificial death at Calvary. At this point, I want to ask you again, what is that sin or wrong someone has done to you that you have refused to forgive?

If you answer by saying it is because what you are experiencing or experienced has not happened to me, it means you still do not get the point. The guarantee to heaven is to obey God's commandments and if He has asked us to forgive injuries and wrongs, then we MUST OBEY Him for our own good.

With this message, the Lord Jesus is asking you and I to examine our lives and where we recollect any wrong we have done to someone or someone has done to us, we must make the genuine effort to reconcile with the person. We start by asking the Lord to forgive us for holding on to unforgiveness for so long and causing so much pain to ourselves and to others.

Next, we forgive the person wholeheartedly from our heart and free ourselves from satan's bondage that will lead to hell if not done now. Then we seek the person out, remove pride and arrogance and whatever thoughts about relenting we may have and make a genuine reconciliation with the person.

No matter how holy we claim to be as children of God or how prayerful to shake the kingdom of darkness and satan, unforgiveness is a sin that would prevent us from entering heaven if we do not sort it out NOW. 

Behind unforgiveness is a happy satan at work and he knows that the person who remains unforgiving is heading to hell and satan will do everything possible to make it happen. I urge you sincerely to free yourself from satan's grip of pride and arrogance and choose to serve Jesus Christ as the ONLY guarantee to eternal life.

If you have read and understood this important message, please say this prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for this day and this message you have revealed to me about the danger of unforgiveness. Thank you for your love for me by dying on the Cross of Calvary to forgive my sins and reconcile me to God the Father and open the gate of heaven for me.

Please forgive my sins and hardness of heart by remaining unforgiving towards others and I now understand that without humbling myself and forgiving others, God the Father will never forgive my sins. I promise today to obey your commandments to forgive and seek genuine reconciliation with others who have offended me. I also promise to let go of pride and arrogance and ask others to forgive me for the wrongs I have done them.

Please send your Holy Spirit to always remind me to do your will as the ONLY guarantee to enter eternal life with you when I depart this world. Thank you for answered prayers in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

With this prayer and the action I expect you to take next to prove it, you have taken a critical step in your Christian life and I urge you to share this message with others and win souls for Christ as He expects every Christian to do. God bless you mightily as you do this in Jesus Precious name, Amen.

Gabriel Ama.