Should I Forgive Big Eva Even When They Refuse to Admit They're Wrong?

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they want to do is tone it down, tone it down, you know, minimize it, get the situation to go away, right?

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Yeah. Say whatever they have to say in order to get it to go away and then we can all move on to the next scandal and then, you know, but whatever is happening is not real reconciliation.

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Heaven. The issue is hanging over our heads.

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They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will not act upon them.

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll seek to answer the age -old question, what is God's plan for us? I'm going to start with the age -old question, should

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I forgive Big Eva, even when they refuse to admit they're wrong? Now throughout the last few years, obviously there's been a lot of contention, even in the

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Christian world as it relates to COVID -19 and the proper response that we should have and should have had in light of the virus.

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Really in every aspect of life, how should we have responded? Recently, as more and more things have come to light, as testimonies have been given about the vaccine and we've sort of seen the results of locking people down, putting people in camps even, wearing masks, trying to social distance, one of the shifts that I've noticed and Tim, you've probably noticed this as well, is it seems like a lot of the people who were really pushing those kinds of ideas, they've gone from the sort of like, hey, we have to do all these things, we have to do all these things in the name of love and the name of loving our neighbors, they've sort of shifted from that kind of position to something more along the lines of, hey, we need to, you know, we need to grant each other amnesty over the way that we all behaved during the

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COVID pandemic. Yeah, there's more of that information seems to be coming out. What hasn't happened is you haven't had a group of individuals who are essentially admitting that they made wrong recommendations, but then the conversation has now shifted to basically a posture that says, hey, let's just forget that it all happened and, you know, move on.

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These were dark times, you know, in everyone's life. And maybe we all act a little bit crazy. And so, hey, we all act a little crazy here and tried to move on and, you know, turn a corner.

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But yeah, and even, you know, the Atlantic put out an article.

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I don't I don't have it pulled up right now, so I'm not going to show it, but we'll probably post a link to it at the very least.

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But I mean, basically, it was advocating for that exact thing. Hey, we need to grant each other pandemic amnesty.

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Right. This idea that this idea that, hey, everyone on every side has done something incredible, you know, incredibly wrong.

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No one had the right information. No one was no one could have known. We just need to all grant each other, basically get out of jail free card for whatever for whatever was done.

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And, you know, and I was reading that and, you know, I was thinking, hey, you know, at first when

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I first read that article, just to kind of pull the pull the curtain back a little bit at first, I was like,

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OK, how do we how do we talk about this on the podcast? Right. How do we how do we address the fact that this is this feels weird to have this request made?

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And as I was thinking about it, you know. I kind of came to the conclusion, hey,

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I feel like we've we've talked about, you know, covid -19 and the response to it. We did a you know, we did the episode.

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Should you trust pastor? I can't remember the name of it now, but essentially, should you trust pastors who basically caved right away and shut down their churches?

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In light of covid -19, but then you and I were talking about it and I think we kind of came to the conclusion, hey, basically what what's really being asked here is, hey, one side recognizes that they were wrong and really wrong.

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I think they know that. But and now they're basically saying, hey, you must forgive us for what for what's happened.

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And so we were kind of talking about it and basically saying, hey, it might be helpful to just like, why don't we why don't we look at this situation and then and then or talk about what is forgiveness?

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Right. And then sort of apply it to this this specific situation as a as a sort of application.

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And so so we really so really this episode is going to be a lot about what is forgiveness and what does it look like?

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Because because what's being asked is essentially, hey, you need to it's not even really a question.

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It's more like a hey, you need to forgive us. It's the demand. You need to forgive me. Grant, you know, essentially grant me amnesty.

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Yeah. Cloaked as we've all done something wrong. Yeah. And so I'm reading the article basically saying, like, well, what do

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I need amnesty for? You know, I didn't you know, I didn't put people in camps.

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Like Australia did. I didn't fire people for not getting a vaccine. You know,

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I didn't shut people in their homes or shut down churches. Like, well, I lose their jobs.

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Yeah. What do I need amnesty for? Yeah. No, it's one of those things where, yeah, even on the other side, there's no real admission that they've done anything wrong.

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Right. It's just more like, hey, you know, everyone in general, we've all made mistakes. I mean, I guess you had a funny meme that I saw essentially where they burned the witches at the stake and and then they realized, oh, they weren't witches after all.

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And then and then, you know, they shouted out, well, mistakes are made on all sides. Right. Yeah. That's basically what's happening.

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Yeah. That's basically what it is. Yeah. So there's a demand that, you know, everyone extend, you know,

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Christian mercy and forgiveness without us having to admit necessarily that we did anything wrong.

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You know, mistakes are made all around. We all hey, maybe we all got a little bit a little bit crazy here. Right. Right.

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But, you know, it's perfectly reasonable, perfectly understandable considering the, you know, the novel nature of the time, who could have known who could have possibly known.

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They say, you know, as you know, everyone on the other side is sitting there saying, yeah, we knew and we have eyes in our head.

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And not only, you know, did you not listen to us, but then you called us names and, you know, forced us to agree with you and took our jobs and and pretended to know at the time right now dogmatically knowing you're in.

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So, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. So basically, you're reading the article. It's pretty much demanding that you forgive them.

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And and I've even seen, you know, progressive Christians, Christians on the left who are who are saying the same thing.

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Like, hey, we we need to have this. We need amnesty. Right. I'll pretend like that didn't happen.

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Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, hang on a second. That feels like this feels really weird. Right. And and so I guess.

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With that in mind, why don't we just start with talking about the forgiveness aspect of everything and then coming back around and then looking at the situation and saying, how do we how do we, you know.

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How do we address this type of situation, knowing that the Bible does say, like, hey, we do need to forgive one another.

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Right. So forgiveness. So forgiveness is actually a part of the Christian life. It's not like we can ignore it.

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But then, you know, I don't know that I don't know that it necessarily works the way that it seems like a lot of people are assuming it works where you can just demand forgiveness almost.

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Right. So so why don't we just start with answering the question, what is forgiveness?

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Yeah, I mean, forgiveness is a release of debt. So it's a biblically speaking that forgiveness is a transaction where an individual basically makes a threefold commitment.

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So if I were to say, you know, if I were to ask you, will you forgive me? I'm essentially asking you to make a threefold commitment.

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And that threefold commitment is based on what God actually does in forgiveness. So our forgiveness as Christians is modeled after God's forgiveness towards us.

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So that threefold commitment commitment essentially is to release the debt. And in doing so, what you're doing is you're saying, you know,

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I'm going to not bring the matter up to myself anymore, meaning I'm not going to keep a record of wrongdoing, so to speak.

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Right. I'm going to I'm going to flee from bitterness. So I'm I'm I was a little bitterness and wrath and clamor and standard we put away from you, along with all malice.

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I'm going to make a commitment. I'm not going to dwell on it. And I'm not I'm not it's not forgiveness is not forgetting.

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Meaning it's not making a commitment to forget something. God says when we when he forgives us, he cast our sins into the depths into the depths of the sea and he remembers them no more.

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So we're making a commitment that we're not going to remember them anymore, meaning when your offense comes in my head,

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I'm going to make a decision to not dwell on it and to remind myself that I forgave you.

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So I'm not going to bring it up to myself. I'm not going to bring it up to you, like keep that record of wrongdoing against you. So I'm not going to keep on bashing you over the head with it.

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That, you know, that doesn't mean that, you know, we may not have a conversation about what happened and how do we resolve it and how do we keep it from happening in the future?

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But I'm not bringing it up to you in a harmful way, if that makes sense. I'm not just going to keep on reminding you that.

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Yeah. You know, you remember what you did, right? Yeah. Now you're in the doghouse.

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Now you're punished. You know. Now, you know, I'm mad at you. You're going to have to know I'm releasing the obligation. I'm not going to bring it up to myself.

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I'm not going to bring it up to you. And I'm not going to bring it up to other people, meaning I'm not going to I'm not going to gossip about it, essentially.

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Now, that doesn't preclude, you know, me saying, hey, let's go talk to someone about this and try to resolve whatever is happening, rebuild trust and everything else.

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But it's just I'm not going to sit there and complain about it to myself, to you or to other people, essentially.

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So that's that's that's what you're saying when you talk about, you know, what is forgiveness? And that's why it's important to use that term.

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Like, will you forgive me over and against other terms like just apologize because it actually is a term that's a lot more morally clear what we're even talking about.

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So you're making that threefold commitment there. OK, so so it's basically a giving up, you know, or you're forgiving a debt.

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Right. In some way, releasing the debt. Right. We're fine. Scales are balanced. We're good.

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Right. Yeah. Now, is this forgiveness? So as the person who needs forgiveness, is it is it a right that you have to be forgiven?

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It's not a right. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, you know, if you imagine any kind of offense that you might commit against anyone, forgiveness is not like something that you're owed, meaning you don't owe someone to cancel your debt.

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Like you're not owed that. Right. So if I were to steal something from you. And. You know, take your property and destroy it, like I don't deserve for you just to release me of the obligation to get it to enact justice at that point.

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I don't deserve that. But then it is a Christian obligation that we have. So, you know, because we've been individuals who have been forgiven by God and astronomical debt that we can never pay.

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Right. We have no hope of repaying. It's, you know, immoral for us to hold on to lesser debts against our, you know, fellow believers or people who sin against us in that way.

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So we are to forgive us. Jesus has forgiven us. And so it's a moral obligation that we have.

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But it's not something that we can demand of other people as if it's something that we are owed. It's not something we're owed.

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It's not something we deserve. It's just a responsibility that God has given to us to extend to other people in that way.

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Okay. So keep going. Well, it's just always like it's always wrong. Then if people are treating forgiveness like as something that they deserve.

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Well, that kind of defeats the whole definition of forgiveness, right? If you act like you're entitled to it.

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Right. Right. Like if you act like you're entitled to it, then you misunderstand the very concept itself. You're not entitled to it at this point.

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You don't deserve it. You have a debt that you need to repay. And forgiveness is only possible really in a

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Christian worldview. The thing is, there's no objective basis or grounding for forgiveness in an atheistic kind of worldview because forgiveness is not justice, if that makes sense.

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Right. Yeah. So if you sin against me, if you wrong me, there's no objective basis for you to release that debt.

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There's no expectation that you should do that unless you have essentially a

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Christian worldview that is present there. So basically for the one who needs forgiveness, forgiveness is not owed to them.

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Right. It's not like a right that they have. But then for the one who can do the forgiving, they are charged basically with forgiving the one who's wronged them.

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They're charged by God, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they're charged by God because...

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Why is God charging us to forgive others? Well, yeah, because he's paid our debt, right?

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I mean, there's basically a parable of the unjust servant, essentially, where the servant owes astronomical debt he can never pay.

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And then he begs God to please forgive him, right? Like, please forgive me the debt.

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And the master essentially forgives him, right? But then he goes out and he finds his fellow servant and grabs him by the neck and says, you'll pay me what you owe.

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And God considers that to be the height of wickedness. Like, you know, if I forgave you all this debt, you also ought to have forgiven your fellow servant a debt that they owe as well.

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And so, you know, not only is it just an obligation to the Christian, it's like the text actually said that you wicked servant, right?

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It was an act of wickedness to not do that. So God, you know, if we are individuals who want to lay claim to God's forgiveness, we also in turn are expected to be individuals who quickly, eagerly grant that to other people.

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That's part of the Christian life. Yeah. And I guess that kind of brings up the question, which can, to be fair, can be fairly complicated just because there's so many different situations.

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You know, when should a Christian forgive someone else?

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Right. And so the reason I think that there, you know, this can be sort of a complicated answer is just because, you know, you have plenty, basically,

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I mean, we live in a society that number one, I think is so prideful that we refuse to admit when we're wrong.

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Right. But then number two, we also act all the time. Like we are entitled to forgiveness.

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And when someone doesn't forgive us, we act as if we, all of a sudden, are the party who's been wronged, right?

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As a society. And so, as Christians, you know, I think there's a lot of different scenarios to consider with this kind of question, when should we forgive?

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Like, you know, when do I forgive the person who refuses to ask for forgiveness?

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Right. Who refuses to admit they're wrong, for example. And so I guess maybe just answer it broadly, and then if we want to get into more specific, kind of harder situations like that, then maybe that'll be the most helpful way.

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But the general question is, when should we as Christians forgive another person? Yeah, I mean, we should forgive them if they ask, okay?

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Okay. So, I mean, Luke essentially says, pay attention to yourself. This is Luke 17, 3, you know.

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If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times again, saying,

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I repent, you must forgive him. So, like, there's a scenario where we should forgive.

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But then that scenario, it basically, it hinges upon them repenting.

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And repenting in that way is just short form for basically admitting, one, that they've done something wrong.

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And then two, you know, so admitting that to you and asking you to release that debt to them.

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Right? So, like, there's a, so there's, you can't, like, biblically speaking, you can't really forgive someone unless they ask you.

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And that's part of the difficulty we have in the kind of scenario that's happening here, is that, you know, in this pandemic amnesty kind of scenario, there's just a very general mistakes have been made on all sides kind of thing that is failing to meet these basic kind of standards of any real acknowledgement of wrongdoing on their part.

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Right. So, like, there's different kinds of sorrow in the Bible, you know. And a good passage to go to with that is something like 2

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Corinthians 7. And, you know, one of the things that you're going to find is, like, you have what's called godly grief and you have worldly grief.

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And, you know, godly grief, which is what produces repentance, right? 2

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Corinthians 7 describes it this way. It says, godly grief produces repentance that leaves the salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

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See what eagerness, what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you. Also, what eagerness to clear yourself, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment.

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At every point you prove yourself innocent in this matter. So you have these characteristics of godly grief and they are, you know, what you might describe as indignation, right?

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Which is kind of like a hatred for what you've done. There's like a eagerness to clear yourself, meaning there's an eagerness to say, hey, you know,

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I want to fix this, right? I don't want to just, like, I recognize I've done something wrong.

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I want to fix it. I hate it, right? I have indignation. I have a fear of kind of doing it again.

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I don't want to go back there because I realized it was a bad place to be. And then you have, like, a longing to be restored, right?

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Like, I love you, I care about you, I want to be restored. What I did was wrong, I hate it, and I never want to go back there and be guilty of that again.

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I have a zeal, right? Like a zeal, like, I'm taking this seriously.

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I'm not trivializing it. I don't want to just, like, forgive and forget and move on kind of thing, right? The zeal, and then, like, what punishment?

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Punishment in that context is just, it's not like penance or something like that. There's a situation where they refuse to church discipline a man who was sleeping with his mother -in -law, and he told them that they're glorying and that's not good.

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You need to put him out of the church, and the punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient.

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So that punishment really is about a willingness to take action and to right the wrongs and fix what's going on, if that makes sense.

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So, you know, that's the kind of thing that the Bible imagines when you talk about forgiveness, is that you have a person who is really repentant, right?

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And he's not just flipping out a, hey, forgive me, right? Let's move on. Don't talk about it anymore. Right? Right. But then

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Big Eva's not even doing that. I mean, they're just saying, hey, you know, everyone makes mistakes. You know, we're all a little bit crazy.

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And so the problem is that none of these characteristics of godly grief are present in this encounter.

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And there's no real admission, like, I'm repenting. I'm doing anything wrong. And so the net result is just, hey, we're all forgiving people, so just forgive us.

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But then it doesn't pass the smell test. It's a problem, right? This isn't real repentance.

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This is just, you know, you trying to— It's a demand. Yeah, it's a demand, you know, quit talking to me about it.

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You know, we all make mistakes, and let's just move on, which is more like worldly grief at that point.

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It's not godly grief. It's worldly kind of sorrow that leads to death. So that's the problem. The problem is that, yes, as Christians, we should forgive people, but they need to ask, okay?

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They need to ask. And if seven times a day they come and they actually repent, we need to forgive them.

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But if there's none of that repentance that's happening there, it's just, you know, we're just going through the motions. This basically all becomes just a big farce, if that makes sense.

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And when you give that answer, hey, you forgive someone after they ask for forgiveness, after they communicate to you, hey,

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I realize what I've done here is wrong, and I need forgiveness, that idea, then you forgive them.

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I can imagine a lot of people really kind of recoiling at that type of answer, because I think they probably don't really understand what forgiveness is, or even how

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God forgives, right? And so, basically, what you're saying is the same. What you're saying that we should do in response to people who've wronged us is essentially what

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God does, right? I mean, He doesn't forgive every single person who's ever existed for their sin, right?

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Right. Well, that's why our forgiveness is modeled upon His forgiveness. So if we confess our sins, the Bible says

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He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But then there's not just a general forgiveness of everyone.

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You know, He's not releasing the debt for every human being who's ever existed. So that's not what's happening.

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You know, if He did, then He would be unjust to send them to hell. Right. But the reality is that if you don't repent of your sins and believe the good news, you will spend eternity in a very bad place, you know, where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched.

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So the issue is God doesn't just forgive and forget and pretend and move on.

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Like, what He demands is actual repentance. And so there's forgiveness conditioned upon repentance.

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And we, as Christians, we do the same kind of thing. Like, we should be more than happy to forgive anyone who is not demanding it, but who is actually genuinely sorry over it and repentant of it.

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We should be more than happy to do that. And if we're not, there's something wicked about us.

24:55

Right. But then it is conditioned upon repentance, is the point. Yeah. And so we're following God's example where everyone has sinned against God, and yet He doesn't forgive everyone, right?

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He forgives the ones who humble themselves before Him and ask for forgiveness. And, you know, He's glad to do that, right?

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He's glad to forgive the one who humbles themselves, confesses their sin, and repents. And so we should be able, we should be willing to do the same thing.

25:23

Now, what I will ask you is, okay, so we're supposed to forgive people once they repent, right, once they ask for forgiveness.

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Does that mean that, you know, as the one who's wronged, so let's assume you're wronged by someone and they don't ask for forgiveness, at least right away, right?

25:45

Um, maybe it takes them a few weeks or something. Um, does that mean that you're just allowed to, like, be angry and, and dwell on it?

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And, um, you know, like maybe possibly even try and get back at them?

26:01

Yeah, no, I don't, you know, vengeance is ultimately, um, uh, given over to God. But then, you know, it depends on the nature of the defense, since, uh, nature of defense in a certain sense.

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Okay. Let me explain what I mean. Like, um, you know, if someone were to kill your wife, you shouldn't just sit there and, you know, stew on it and be mad about it forever.

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Wrath of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires, but then there are punishments that are given for that kind of thing.

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And justice does demand that, you know, a life for life, you know, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. And government is

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God's, you know, deacon of wrath. It's there to mete out vengeance. So it's not meant to be a personal private issue.

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So depending on the nature of the offense, um, you can personally forgive someone, but there are demands that are required of justice in that way, such that you don't trivialize sin in that way.

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But so the point there is just to say, um, you know, personally, you don't, someone doesn't ask for forgiveness.

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You don't need to just give yourself over to bitterness and wrath and anger. But if they're sitting there in some cavalier way, just demanding that you forgive them without even any acknowledgement on their part that they've actually done anything wrong and without any specificity as to what they're actually asking forgiveness for, particularly when they're, you know, their sins against you are fairly significant and fairly high handed, then, you know, there is, you know, it is appropriate at that point to remind them of their obligation to actually repent there.

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And so what, what that, what needs to happen is you need to have some posture that's ready to forgive contingent upon repentance, if that makes sense.

27:49

So, I mean, just, you know, good example along those lines is just the prodigal father where, you know, the prodigal son essentially wishes that he were dead and demands his inheritance right now so that he can go waste it all on, you know, prodigal living.

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But, you know, the prodigal father is pictured as, you know, basically waiting for his son to return.

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So the father sees the son coming from a far distance and he runs to go meet them, meet him, right?

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But, but that, like, that indicates that he's been waiting and waiting and looking.

28:20

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So what we need is we need a posture of forgiveness for those who have sinned against us, but you can't have real reconciliation or real forgiveness happen until they ask.

28:32

So a good, I mean, a good example I always give is just the, you know, an analogy of the conjoined hotel room essentially, where you go to a hotel room and there's doors on, you know, there's two rooms that are joined together by two doors.

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And what, what, like, biblical reconciliation looks like is, like, you're going to open your door, right?

28:54

And you're going to wait and you can't really be reconciled until they open their door and you kind of walk through and, you know, give them a hug, right?

29:03

Right. And so that's what, that's what it looks like. And so right now what's happening in the, you know, in the big event kind of scenario is that you have a group of people who are essentially on the other side of that conjoined hotel room with the door closed.

29:14

And you have, and all we can do is open our door and, you know, try to knock on it and say, Hey, we're waiting, right?

29:21

Like we're waiting, we're happy to, we're happy to forgive you when you ask. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

29:27

But you're gonna have to humble yourself. Admit you've done something wrong. You know, have that godly grief that you see in 2

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Corinthians 7, and then we're ready to go, man. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a kid and whenever my family, we went on a trip or something and we had one of those hotel rooms,

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I always wanted, I always wanted to open that door and see where it went. My parents never let me. So maybe, maybe we were the ones that were supposed to be seeking forgiveness in the analogy.

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And we, we refused to open the door. But no, no, that makes sense.

29:59

So basically when, when someone refuses to, to ask for forgiveness, to admit their fault right away, the wronged party doesn't need to just outright forgive that person right away.

30:16

Right. But then they do need to avoid inward bitterness, right.

30:22

Towards the other person, basically have a, yeah. Like you're saying, have a posture that says I'm ready.

30:27

You know, I'm ready. I'm, I'm willing to, you know, I love you enough to forgive you.

30:34

All you have to do is ask for it. Right. Yeah.

30:39

Now, yeah. And I think, so, I mean, just imagine that, you know, the husband, there's a husband in a scenario who is constantly looking at porn, right.

30:48

And, you know, the wife is just, you know, at her wit's end, wants it to stop, you know, embarrassed, humiliated, degraded by this.

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And, you know, the husband looks at her and just says, Hey, you know, mistakes are made on all sides. Right.

31:02

Amnesty. And you just, we just, we just need to move on. Right. Yeah. The Bible commands you to forgive me.

31:08

Right. So just quit talking about it. Right. It's like, well, what just happened there? Right.

31:13

So, so yes, we need to forgive people. Yes. We need to release the debt, but like, that's, you're trivializing what's happening here.

31:21

Yeah. By caving to that kind of demand, you're, you're almost enabling sin. Right. Yeah. You're enabling it.

31:28

You're treating it like as a, you know, just insignificant kind of thing. And, you know, that's like, you're not doing anything loving to them.

31:35

You're not doing anything helpful to them. We're just, you know, pretending like this isn't happening, you know?

31:41

So I'm participating in a farce. Now, I mean, like when sins against individuals are significant in that way, it may be that you don't immediately grant trust in that way.

31:52

So just because you forgive someone doesn't mean that like all your, you know, you trust them and everything goes back to exactly how it was before.

32:01

No, no. It may take time to rebuild trust and to get to a place where, you know, you're, you're restored like completely in that way.

32:10

But, you know, like that's not going to happen unless they repent. And then like, as you're saying, if they refuse to repent, you're not just going to give yourself over to bitterness, but, you know, it may be that your trust in them has been significantly damaged.

32:26

And, you know, the first step to rebuilding that is going to be for them to acknowledge what's happening and quit trivializing it and show genuine sorrow over it and genuine humility over it.

32:36

And I mean, that goes a long way, but, you know, there, there are consequences to certain things that are fairly significant.

32:43

Right? Right. So, I mean, in that, you know, the, the funny comic or whatever, which wouldn't be funny if it were real life, but, you know, they burned the two witches, you know, the family members of those two witches are going to be, right.

32:57

That's, they can, they can forgive those people, but, you know, they, they, they may take a long time to rebuild trust there.

33:05

They may not want them to be in charge of them anymore either. Right. Like if, so if they had any ability to vote for those guys, it may be that, hey, you know, you guys have discredited yourself here.

33:16

And, you know, it may be that like, you know, there's a lot of pastors and a lot of church leaders here who have broke significant amount of trust, you know, in, in some of their actions here.

33:26

And it may take a long time of them just humbling themselves and shutting up and before they ever get it back, you know.

33:34

Right. But yeah, I think forgiveness, definitely we should, we should forgive. We shouldn't be just doing a bitterness. We shouldn't be just angry and mad.

33:43

So what, so what should a person do, you know, say you're in a situation where someone's wronged you and then, you know, they do ask for forgiveness.

33:53

They do admit they're wrong. Right. But then inwardly you feel as if you cannot forgive them.

34:03

Yeah. I mean, forgiveness is not a feeling. Okay. I mean, it's a decision, it's a decision that you're going to make to cancel their debt.

34:11

So it doesn't matter if you feel like forgiving them. What matters is that if Jesus has forgiven you a debt that you can never pay, then you holding onto this and refusing to let it go is the height of arrogance and pride and ingratitude.

34:30

And so like that kind of person needs to be rebuked. Like, and it doesn't really matter how big of the offense is like they need to be rebuked and they actually are rebuked in the

34:39

Bible. Right. So the master looks at that person. He says, you wicked servant, you know,

34:44

I forgave you like this humongous debt. Right. Right. You ought to have forgiven the lesser debt.

34:50

So like that person needs to gain some kind of perspective. And I mean, the Lord's prayer, you know, says we, you know, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

35:00

And if we, you know, um, don't forgive our brother whom we've seen, you know, if we don't forgive, then our heavenly father won't forgive us.

35:09

And so that kind of person is in a very dangerous situation, um, you know, the kind of person who wants to presume upon God's forgiveness while at the same time, not granting it.

35:17

That's a very, um, dangerous position to be in. And we should be very clear in our interactions with that kind of person that that's evil.

35:25

It's wicked. And it calls into question the nature of your faith, if that makes sense. So even, so even if someone were to say, like, come in and, and like kill your whole family, and then, you know, later on, they go to prison, they're found or they go to court, they're found guilty.

35:43

They go to prison in prison, you know, they, they write to you or something and they say, you know,

35:50

Hey, I realize everything, you know, obviously I can't do anything to undo the actions that I've done that have changed your life now forever, but I realized how wrong they were, you know, and I, and I'm asking for your forgiveness, uh, you know,

36:04

I need your forgiveness. And, uh, and so, so basically what you're saying is for the person who just had their whole family killed, they're now getting this letter from the murderer saying,

36:16

Hey, I'm wrong. I need your forgiveness. If that person doesn't want to forgive, then they're in the wrong.

36:24

Is that what you're saying? All right. So, you know, like the idea is like that servant owed the master a debt of 10 ,000 talents.

36:33

Okay. And, you know, if you do all the math and you add it all up, uh, that labor would need to work 60, uh, 60 billion or 60 million days to pay it off.

36:47

Essentially. That's a lot of days. It's a lot of day. All right. So the point is, it's like a astronomical amount, right?

36:56

Like unpayable debt. Yeah. Unpayable debt. Like, uh, that would be, you know, in prison for a thousand years kind of thing, you know, like it's, it's not like, this is multiple lifetimes.

37:09

Okay. Like this is, this is a obscene amount and then like the debt against him.

37:16

Right. So when you look at the amount that he's owed, um, it's a hundred denaria, which a denaria is a day's wage.

37:24

So it's a hundred days versus, you know, 60 million days. Meaning it's not, it's not, it's not comparable.

37:32

Like that's the point right now, like now that assume, so basically, you know, like you can imagine the worst case scenario possible, like in the, you know, in the analogy there, that's still a hundred days debt.

37:47

Does that make sense? Doesn't matter how bad it is compared to 60 million.

37:53

So like meaning, so like, so the issue is like any sin against us pales in comparison to the debt that we owe

38:01

God. And the only way that you like, like the only way that you actually will forgive others is if you see your own sin against God as, you know, astronomically worse than anything anyone else can do to you.

38:15

So like, that's like that kind of person they need to be taught, like, like they don't understand how sinful they are.

38:22

That's the point. They don't understand how much they've been forgiven. And that's, but, but like now, like, that doesn't mean like, you know, that doesn't mean that, you know, someone stabs your wife to death and they say,

38:34

Hey, forgive me. You know, Bible says to forgive me. So you need to forgive me. My bad.

38:42

Like, like, like then there's something else going on there. Right. So not everyone who demands forgiveness, like you shouldn't forgive everyone who's demanding forgiveness in that way.

38:53

But like, if, if it is sincere, if it is real, there's no, it's evil not to grant it.

38:59

Now, if, if we don't want to forgive people, is that something, you know, is that, are you in a place now where like,

39:06

Hey, okay, now you need to repent. Like you're in sin at this point. If you refuse to forgive.

39:13

Yeah. I mean, that's what Matthew 18 32 says. The master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant,

39:18

I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have mercy on your fellow servant, as I have had mercy on you.

39:26

And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from the heart.

39:35

In other words, if you don't forgive, you know, there's no evidence that you're actually going to be forgiven.

39:42

So if you don't forgive, you're described as a wicked servant, which means you're in sin.

39:50

Yeah. So, so, okay. At that point, we're in sin.

39:55

If we refuse to forgive, which I'm assuming, you know, basically means like,

40:01

Oh, all right. Now, now we have forgiveness inception where now you need to go to the other person and say,

40:07

Hey, you know, I don't want to forgive you. Will you please forgive me for not wanting to forgive you?

40:15

Does that make sense? What I'm saying? Forgiveness, inception, forgiveness, inception. Um, that's, that's just the technical term.

40:25

Yeah. I, I don't know. I didn't think about that. Meaning I finally stopped you.

40:33

Maybe so. No, I mean, I think our sin is primarily against God. Okay. I can not necessarily against the other person.

40:41

If that makes sense. Explain a little more for me. Because it seems like,

40:47

Hey, like I'm, I'm, I am sending against that person if I'm refusing to.

40:53

Well, they don't know. I'm not doing them any wrong by not releasing them. They're dead. Okay. Does that make sense?

40:59

Okay. I think so. But keep, keep explaining. Yeah. I'm not doing anything. So when I, when we send ultimately we're sending against God in the first instance,

41:07

I'm not, I'm not sending against that person. Right. In the first instance. But, you know, like, um, there are ways in which you can, we can do unjust things to them, but the, the injustice here is not towards the fellow servant.

41:21

The fellow servant is getting justice. By not being forgiven.

41:27

Yeah. He doesn't deserve to have his debt paid by that other person. So he doesn't have any, he can't demand it.

41:32

He doesn't, he's not owed it. So the sin is not against him. Like the sin is against the master at that point, if that makes sense.

41:43

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm smart. I'm just,

41:48

I'm laughing, you know, cause I thought I stumped you. And then, and then you give like a, just right out of nowhere, you give, you give the answer that I think is right.

41:59

Well, you know, no, I mean, the point is maybe one day now.

42:07

Yeah. No, you should forgive your brother from the heart out of like, because the, your master.

42:12

You know, if you refuse to do that, you're dishonoring what the master did.

42:18

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you're dishonoring him. That's the point. Yeah. You're dishonoring what he did.

42:24

And then you're even directly disobeying what he told you to do. Right. Right. So it's about your relationship with him again.

42:31

So he's, he's doing that for you and he's expecting you to pay it forward, you know? And if you're not willing to do that, you didn't do anything wrong to your fellow servant.

42:41

Okay. Because they're not owed anything. They don't deserve anything from their perspective or from like what they're.

42:49

All right. So look. Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. Right. So the servant, he says, have patient with me and I will, you know, pay you everything.

42:58

Right. And then out of pity of him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him his debt.

43:04

Right. So the fellow servant said the same thing, have patient with me and I'll pay. Yeah, I'll pay you.

43:09

Right. And so then like the issue though is just, um, you know, when we ask

43:15

God to forgive us, you know, we are saying have mercy on me, have pity on me. Right. Yeah.

43:20

Please forgive, please forgive me. And we're not, that's not a posture of strength. That's a posture of, I don't deserve anything.

43:26

So, I mean, we have, we have to have that posture towards our fellow brothers and sisters. I don't deserve your forgiveness. I mean, there's been plenty of times

43:32

I've sinned against my wife and I said, Hey, I don't deserve. I was wrong. You're right. I don't deserve for you to forgive me.

43:37

I recommend people to say that. I don't deserve you to forgive me. But I will ask you to forgive me.

43:46

And, and so then, you know, if they don't, yeah, they're in sin. They're in sin if they don't.

43:51

Right. And if they refuse to do that, but then they're not sending against me, they're sending against God.

43:57

Okay. Primarily. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Now I have two more quick questions about forgiveness and then

44:03

I want to get to, what do we do with, with Big Eva? Um, so the first question is what is you and you kind of touched on this earlier and I want to get you to explain it a little more.

44:17

He taught, you talked about this way at the beginning of the conversation, but you said, you know, you, you recommended people actually say the words, will you forgive me?

44:26

Right. And I think probably what most people do these days is say, Hey, I'm sorry. Right.

44:32

And, and maybe for most people, they really just, they really don't even understand why you would, why you would make a distinction between those two.

44:43

Um, so, so could you explain why you think people should say, will you forgive me?

44:49

As opposed to, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's not really like, there's no command to say you're sorry in the

44:55

Bible, but we are to forgive our debtors as, um, you know, um, we are to figure, uh, forgive our debtors as, you know, we are forgiven essentially.

45:06

Right. And so over and over again, you can find forgiveness in the Bible. Forgiveness is all over the place. And, you know, there's examples after examples of individuals asking forgiveness.

45:15

So the Bible commands us to ask forgiveness. And that's like, um, that's conceptually, we all know what to do with that.

45:22

I mean, we should, if you know what I mean, like we don't necessarily know what to do with, sorry. So if someone says,

45:28

Hey, sorry, most of the time you're just like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, whatever. Don't worry about it. Right. Yeah. No big deal, whatever.

45:34

So it's just a very awkward transaction that no one leaves like entirely satisfied with. No one knows really what to do with that.

45:41

But if we use biblical language, will you forgive me? Then like you are asking, will you release this debt?

45:47

Yeah. And, and that often like brings to moral clarity, what's actually happening in those moments.

45:54

Right. Right. Which I, you know, anyone who doubts anyone who doubts that I just challenge you to the next time you need to ask someone for forgiveness, just say, will you forgive me instead of say, saying,

46:10

I'm sorry. And, and I think you'll see that it is like, it does feel harder to say, will you forgive me then say,

46:18

I'm sorry. Yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's harder to say, and then it's harder to say, yes,

46:25

I will. Like, you get what I'm saying? For the person who is doing the forgiving.

46:31

Yeah. Yes, I will. Like, you know, whereas if you just say, sorry, then like, yeah, no big deal, whatever.

46:38

Yeah. Yeah. I'm still mad at you. Okay. You jerk. Yeah. Whatever I say through gritted teeth.

46:46

Yeah. No big deal, man. You know, but so forgiveness is what the Bible does tell us to forgive each other.

46:55

You know, we forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those trespasses against us. And it's better to say it because it's more clear what's actually happening there.

47:03

Yeah. Yeah. So basically, you know, Hey, when you've done, when you've wronged someone, you ask, you say, will you forgive me?

47:12

And then when someone's dog dies, you say, I'm sorry. Yeah. I mean, you say, yeah, if you step on their toe, you know,

47:19

Hey, I'm sorry. Right. Now, some people are addicted to saying, they're sorry. They really need to stop, you know? Oh, I'm sorry.

47:24

I bumped into you. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's just like, Oh, just, you sound insecure. You just stop it. You know, quit doing that so much.

47:31

But yes, I mean, sorry is something where, yeah, like I'm not accepting moral responsibility for anything that just happened.

47:37

It was an accident. I stepped in your toe on accident or, Oh, I didn't see you there. Or, Oh yeah. You're sorry for your loss.

47:43

Right. Right. Right. I'm not saying I killed him. Right. Sorry. I killed him. So safe.

47:48

Sorry for accidents. Or I mean, if you want to say, Hey, I'm sorry for doing this. Will you forgive me? And that's fine. Just say, will you forgive me?

47:55

Yeah. The forgive me part makes everything clear. It makes it painfully clear. Now you can flip out like,

48:02

Hey, I'm, you know, forgive me. Hey, forgive me. Okay. I was wrong.

48:08

Forgive me. Right. But so what, I mean, you need like, I would encourage people to look through the list and second

48:14

Corinthians, when they're asking forgiveness and think about what it's saying, you know, so there's a, there's earnestness, there's a eagerness to clear yourself.

48:23

There's indignation, there's fear, there's longing, there's zeal, willingness to take action.

48:28

I mean, I think, you know, the more words you can put into it, the better. Yeah. Now I generally, I mean, I generally encourage people to be specific about what they're saying.

48:36

Right. So, Hey, you know, like if you just like, you had a fight with your wife and, you know, you're out of control, whatever you're screaming and hollering and slamming doors and throwing things and punched a hole in the wall.

48:49

And, you know, I, I, there are people like this, right. Who, who did kick the dog, you know, whatever.

48:56

Don't worry about that. That's fine. No, some people are going to think you're serious.

49:08

This is our pet episodes coming out. Yeah. No, no. I mean, if you're slamming things, hollering, punching, you know, yelling at everyone, like, you know, all that through a pot and pan or whatever, like, yes.

49:23

I mean, then you go up to someone, you say, Hey, you know, Hey, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry.

49:28

Will you forgive me? It's like, well, for what? Like, what am I, what are we talking about here? You know?

49:34

So I encourage people to be specific with it. Like, you know, Hey, I was out of control.

49:40

Right. It's not your fault. It's my fault. Like, don't blame shift it. Right. I'm sorry. But if you weren't so crazy,

49:45

I wouldn't have went crazy back. Right. Yeah. No, it's like, no, like, I'm sorry. There's no excuse for what

49:51

I did. You know, I, um, you know, I shouldn't have yelled at you and called you all those names and punch the wall and all that crazy stuff.

49:59

And like, that was me, you know, that wasn't you. That's like, it's my fault. You know, I have a sinful heart and there's no excuse for it.

50:07

And, you know, I, I want to be, I generally want to be a different person and don't want to be characterized by this anymore.

50:18

And like, I need to quit tolerating this and have a zero tolerance policy for it, you know?

50:25

And if it's like something crazy like that, you know, I'm willing to do what it takes to restore trust and get help.

50:31

And we need to resolve this. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Being specific is helpful.

50:39

Now, the last question before we get to the big Eva stuff, what, so the, you know,

50:45

Jesus, for example, he says, Hey, when someone strikes you, turn the other cheek, right? No mention of like forgiveness or anything, basically just,

50:55

Hey, you're being wronged. Turn the other cheek. I think it's the, the Proverbs that say, you know, it's to a man's glory to overlook an offense.

51:06

Right. So how do those kinds of passages or even, you know, for example,

51:12

Paul in Acts, he's wrongfully he's, he's treated terribly by the high priest.

51:21

He's struck by the high priest and he says, you know, he says something

51:27

Paul's in the right in that moment. And, and he says something to the high priest, basically saying, are you, you know, calling him out for what he did?

51:36

Whitewashed him. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then he realizes, Hey, that's the high priest.

51:42

And all of a sudden, and then all of a sudden Paul kind of, kind of takes like,

51:47

Hey, you know, I wouldn't have said that if I'd known you were the high priest, right. Trying to acknowledge the, the position of authority that he had and, and show a certain type of respect towards that.

51:58

So how do those kinds of passages fit into this idea that we should only forgive when someone actually asks for forgiveness?

52:08

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, in the Paul situation, essentially he's being struck by the high priest or being commanded to be struck by the high priest.

52:18

He says, God's going to strike, strike you. You whitewashed wall. Are you saying to judge me according to law yet contrary to law, you ordered me to be struck.

52:27

Those who stood by basically, you know, why would you revile the high priest in that way? And he basically says,

52:32

I didn't know that he was a high priest. And so but he does, you know, he does make an appeal in that way.

52:38

So Paul is he is making appeal to Caesar. He is going through legal channels to get his rights restored.

52:47

So, you know, there's, there isn't in the Bible, just this simplistic, take any abuse that anyone wants to give you without any kind of legal questions or anything like that.

53:01

So there are like, there are demands of justice. Now, when Jesus is talking about something along the lines of, you know, if someone strikes you on the, on the left cheek, turn to them, your other also one of the things to realize about that is that's not saying that anytime someone, anyone wants to do you harm in any way, you just stand there and take it.

53:19

Right. That's what most people think, but that's not actually what's happening. So just to help you understand what's happening there, just imagine, you know, someone were to stab you on your right cheek, turn to them, the other.

53:32

Also, that's not, that's not the situation that Jesus has in mind.

53:39

Oh, I've been doing that one wrong then. Yeah, I keep on getting stabbed. I keep on getting stabbed on both my cheeks, man.

53:46

Sir, can I have another please? No, like the issue is like, so normally people are right -handed and if you're going to strike someone on the left cheek, the only way to do that is not like that is like a backhand.

54:01

Right. So now a backhand, like is not meant to, if you get backhanded in public, no one, right.

54:12

But maybe now we're so sensitive as a society that we don't have these kinds of categories anymore.

54:19

But I mean, growing up, there was that category of someone just backhanded you. And that was like, you know, if you're smiling, there's other words for it, but no,

54:31

I mean, you get backhanded, everyone's like, oh, you know, he just embarrassed you. Right. Yeah. So, but the issue is, it's something that's embarrassing.

54:38

It's not something that you're thinking, oh, they're trying to choke you to death and kill you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So like, that's the situation

54:44

Jesus has in mind. It's like, you know, why not rather suffer indignity from this person, be embarrassed, be willing to be shamed.

54:52

It's not like, just like mindlessly let anyone come along and take your life, you know, or permanently disable you, curb stomp you on the side of the road or something like that.

55:03

So there is like a doctrine of personal protection in the Bible for all these things.

55:08

But like, that's, so like the issue is like, you should love people, care about people enough that you're going to surrender just your dignity in that way.

55:16

Yeah. You want to embarrass me? You go and embarrass me. Right. Like basically like, you don't have to get defensive just because someone socially embarrasses you or something.

55:28

Right. It's like, yeah, you want to make fun of me? Whatever, man. Yeah. Go knock yourself out. You know, I don't have to,

55:33

I don't have to respond to that. Yeah. So like, we shouldn't be vindictive in that way.

55:40

You know, and so, I mean, there's a category for just, yeah. All right. All right.

55:46

I guess you embarrassed me, man. I feel so embarrassed. Right. Move on, right.

55:53

I feel deeply ashamed and humiliated now. But you know, like that, that the

55:59

Christian shouldn't just be so petty that their ego is in the way with those kinds of things.

56:04

But there is a category for appealing to Caesar. There is a category for like, you know, the evil person is trying to take your life, trying to kill you, kill your family.

56:13

You stop them from doing that because life is a precious gift. So Jesus tells his disciples to go buy swords at one point, right?

56:20

Because there's blind purposes, like evil, like random, you know, evil people out there that are just going to, they're not trying to kill you for the gospel.

56:28

They're just trying to kill you to get your money, you know? So there's no sense in just throwing away your life and throwing away your life, you know, for that.

56:35

Right. So, so there is a doctrine of personal defense and forgiveness doesn't preempt any of that.

56:41

It doesn't, it doesn't preempt you seeking damages for your loss, you know, losses that you've incurred.

56:52

I mean, you shouldn't sue your brothers and sisters in Christ, but then there is no command to say you shouldn't sue anyone in general.

56:58

Yeah. So there's, there's a Roman 13 kind of stuff, but yeah. And, uh, with the overlooking, you know, as to a man's glory to overlook an offense, is that basically saying like,

57:07

Hey, not everything that someone does to you, that may be like a wrong towards you is worth like,

57:16

Hey, all right, we've got to go through, you need, you know, you need to ask me for forgiveness kind of thing is, is that basically what that verse is communicating or.

57:25

Yeah. You need to just like a helpful thing to think about is just three different categories. So there's, you know, what you might describe as preference issues, there's wisdom issues and there's sin issues.

57:34

Okay. Preference issues are just general, like, um, uh, minor offenses, things that, you know, you don't particularly like things that you might personally find irritating.

57:48

They're just preferences, right? They're just things that you, you know, don't typically like.

57:53

And so, you know, if, if you treat every single thing that you dislike, as if it's some kind of moral sin, you're not going to have any friends and you're going to ruin every relationship that you have.

58:03

So like, biblically speaking, when someone sins against you, you need to confront them, but you need to make sure that you are not guilty of the same thing that they're doing in the same instance.

58:13

But beyond that, you need to confront them about it. If it's a sin issue, there's a lot of things that are just wise kind of, you know, wisdom kind of issues, like where the

58:22

Bible has principles that apply, but, um, you know, it may be that you raised your voice a little bit at me.

58:29

Did you sin? I don't know. You know, it may be a wisdom issue, right? Yeah. You know, it may be that you looked at me with a irritated look on your face, right.

58:37

Or maybe slightly took a deep breath when I said something, you know, it, maybe it's a wisdom issue, you know, maybe it's not clear sin.

58:43

Maybe just cut people a lot of slack and don't be policing their facial expressions or mannerisms, you know?

58:49

So like, there's like, is it clear sin? You know, is it wisdom?

58:55

Is it just something I don't like that I just need to get over myself? You know, and the hardest people to live with are people who have just were constantly policing all their preferences.

59:02

So. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Now going back to the, the, the big

59:10

Eva stuff, I think my takeaway over the last few years of sort of observing a lot of, um, you know, the prominent evangelical leaders of today is

59:24

I have noticed a distinct, a distinct lack of, of leaders asking for forgiveness, right.

59:34

Or, or, or even just, I mean, not even just asking for forgiveness, just admitting that they were wrong about something

59:41

I, you know, going back before this whole amnesty thing, I think about, um,

59:46

Ed Litton with the whole, um, you know, not, he's just taking, um, other people's sermon outlines and then giving them.

59:56

And it's not just like one, you know, a handful of times, it's like a whole series through Romans that essentially, you know, most people were getting mad because they're saying he plagiarized.

01:00:06

I didn't think that was like the big, the, you know, the big issue. I thought the big issue was,

01:00:12

Hey, it sounds like you're really not studying, you know, and trying to be prepared to shepherd your people.

01:00:20

Well, you're just kind of taking what someone else did and, and then using that and hoping that's good.

01:00:26

And you even taught wrong things through that. And so, so he goes through that whole deal and then there's really no admission of anything wrong being done.

01:00:39

He just takes down all the videos, right. And, and kind of, kind of pretends like it didn't happen, um, mostly.

01:00:47

And you have different examples like that over the, over the last few years that I've noticed. And so I get,

01:00:53

I guess the question is just like, as a Christian, what are you supposed to say?

01:00:58

What did he say? Something like my sin was, uh, not asking JD's permission or something.

01:01:04

Yeah. You know, I vaguely remember. I asked his permission, but I, um, my sin was,

01:01:10

I, uh, didn't attribute, I asked his permission, but I didn't let everyone know that I had asked his permission.

01:01:17

Right. Right. Which I mean, even the problem there is like, he's telling stories and telling them as if they happened to him.

01:01:25

Right. So he's, he's essentially lying about now. I mean, they're sort of inconsequential lies, right.

01:01:32

Um, but then he is lying. He's pretending that things happen to him that never actually happened to him.

01:01:38

Um, most likely. And so, so you have the, you have these kinds of things that keep happening.

01:01:45

There's, there's been this big ordeal that we, we really haven't addressed at all with the whole, he gets us .org

01:01:52

thing. I don't know if you've seen, I don't know if you've seen all that going on, but, uh, I think it was nam, they, they partnered with that organization and it turns out that organization is like openly, you know, um, coaching people who want to get abortions to find a church that's going to support them and getting their abortion or, you know, being in their same sex relationship or whatever.

01:02:17

And, you know, nam, nam tries to sweep it under the rug and, and tries to distance themselves from, he gets us, um, but never comes out and just says,

01:02:27

Hey, we didn't, we didn't, you know, um, hopefully, you know, it would just be,

01:02:33

Hey, we didn't actually real, we didn't do all the research. So we should have done, we didn't realize that they approved of all these things.

01:02:40

There's, there's no kind of admission like that. And then finally you get this whole COVID amnesty stuff.

01:02:46

Hey, you know, there's, there's wrongs on every side. No one knew what was going on. We all just need to grant each other amnesty, right?

01:02:53

The theme with all of these things is there is no real, here is how

01:02:59

I'm wrong. And here is why I need forgiveness. So what are we supposed to do with that?

01:03:07

Yeah. I mean, I think if you go back to just what big even needs to do is they need to take a lesson on how to ask forgiveness and they don't seem to be doing it very well and they're not modeling it very well.

01:03:20

They need to subscribe to the podcast is what you're saying. They do. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, if you're going to ask forgiveness and you want people to actually take you seriously, like you do need to acknowledge that you did something wrong and you don't need to make excuses for it.

01:03:33

And so, I mean, they're just flubbing like this basic, like everything about asking forgiveness biblically, they're flubbing it all.

01:03:40

Right. So it's almost as if they've just never done this before. They're supposed to be teachers of this kind of thing.

01:03:46

And that's, what's so disturbing about it. So if you're going to ask forgiveness, I mean, step one is you have to own it. You have to say, Hey, I was wrong.

01:03:52

I sent, um, you know, I send against heaven and in God's sight and it's me.

01:03:59

Right. And then you have to, you have to name the right sins, right? Yeah. Right. You have to name the right sins.

01:04:05

Like I send against heaven and in God's sight. And, you know, I mean, this is what, um, you know, the prodigal son does when the prodigal son returns,

01:04:12

I send against heaven and in your sight. Right. I'm not worthy to even be one of your hired servants.

01:04:19

Right. And so like that's humility there, you know, the, the, um, you know, you have the, the

01:04:25

Pharisee essentially saying, Hey, thank God I'm not like this, you know, all these centers, right. These tax collectors and look at all these wonderful things

01:04:31

I did. But then, you know, one, one of the centers, you know, wouldn't so much as look up to heaven and said, have mercy on me, a sinner.

01:04:39

Like, so what you have to have, like, in this is some sort of posture of humility to say, I was wrong.

01:04:45

You know, I send against heaven and God's sight. There's no excuse for it. Like, there's no excuse for it.

01:04:51

Um, it's all on me. And, uh, and, you know, this is specifically what

01:04:56

I did wrong, you know, and have it actually be a biblical thing. You know, I, I, you know, I pretended like these sermons were mine for years and they weren't right.

01:05:05

They weren't mine. Um, you know, and, you know, I, um, that's bearing false witness and like, that's a gross sin in God's sight.

01:05:16

And there's no excuse for it. You know, uh, man, it doesn't matter how busy I am.

01:05:22

It doesn't matter, you know, how much I want to be liked or, you know, want people to think well of me and want me, want, you know, to want people to think

01:05:31

I'm a good teacher and want people to think I'm a good teacher. None of that matters. What matters is that first and foremost, it was a sin against God.

01:05:38

And second of all, it's a sin against you. It was an abdication of my duty. But I mean, no one can criticize that kind of thing.

01:05:44

You know what I'm saying? And most of us would be more than happy to say, okay, you know, yeah, thank you.

01:05:50

Thank you for admitting that. We're happy to forgive you. Now, I mean, there's real questions to be had about, like, if you've been doing this for years and like, are you qualified to be a pastor?

01:05:58

But that's the whole, like, like there are consequences to certain things. And that's, I think that's what they're trying to avoid is that they know that like real forgiveness, real biblical forgiveness means that there's entailments to these kinds of things.

01:06:11

So what they want to do is tone it down, tone it down, you know, minimize it, get the situation to go away, right?

01:06:20

Say whatever they have to say in order to get it to go away. And then we can all move on to the next scandal. And, you know, but whatever is happening, it's not real reconciliation there.

01:06:28

You know, so, you know, but they should be the ones leading the way in these kinds of things. And, you know,

01:06:34

I mean, I think sadly we are living in one of the least forgiving times, you know, in history.

01:06:41

Where you can have angry mob of internet people who are looking to destroy you and destroy your livelihood.

01:06:48

And so, I mean, I understand that, like dynamic of it. Tanner Iskra Yeah, cancel culture coming for you.

01:06:53

And they'll come for you and they'll, you know, do everything they can to destroy you. So I get all that. But I mean, at the same time, that doesn't change biblically what's required of us in these ways.

01:07:04

So, and what we need is like real humility to say, I was wrong. There's no excuse for it. Will you forgive me?

01:07:11

And I'm willing to rebuild trust and be specific about it. So when these types of people don't do that, they don't ask for forgiveness.

01:07:21

We should not forgive them. Well, we can't. I mean, we can't like for out of love for them and out of love for brothers and sisters, we can't just flip out.

01:07:34

Like to do that, it's just we're going to be grossly covering their sin. Pete Right. So God doesn't do that.

01:07:40

And God doesn't just sit there and forgive everyone apart from them repenting. So we need to do the same.

01:07:47

Tanner Should we, I mean, what should the response be at that point? Should we like demand that they repent or should we just, you know, mark and avoid them, demand they leave their positions?

01:08:02

I mean, what is the - Will Depend on what we're talking about. Yeah, I mean, depending on what we're talking about, I do think there is like a, hey,

01:08:08

I'm willing to forgive you if you ask and you admit that you did something wrong, but I'm going to keep on reminding you about it until you, like you admit it.

01:08:18

Tanner Yeah. So I mean, in a certain sense, I mean, I don't think you just keep on nagging, nagging, nagging, but I mean, you do have a prodigal father posture that says, hey, you know,

01:08:27

I'm standing here waiting, you know, like we're waiting, we're waiting whenever you're ready to come back and acknowledge what you did.

01:08:34

We'll be fine. We'll throw a feast, man, you know? Tanner Yeah. Kill the fatty calf, ready to go, but you're going to have to humble yourself and ask.

01:08:43

Will Yeah, and then I guess - Tanner But I'm not going to give you more money so you can get more prostitutes, you know, pretend like it didn't happen.

01:08:50

Will Right, and I guess, you know, just as a closing thing for the person who's looking at Ed Litton, for example, and what he had done with those sermons or, you know,

01:09:06

NAMM or the ERLC, you know, voting against the abortion ban in Louisiana, or they didn't vote against it, they lobbied against it.

01:09:20

You know, for us looking at those organizations and those individuals who were behaving that way and performing those actions, we still need to have a posture of like, hey,

01:09:32

I want to forgive you, right? And if we don't have that posture, then there's something wrong in us as well, right?

01:09:43

Like, I want to forgive you, I'm just waiting on you to admit fault, right? Tanner Well, I think the

01:09:50

Kosti Hinn -Doug Wilson kind of situation was a good example of what that should look like. Okay, what happened there?

01:09:57

Will Well, you know, I think he just started making a bunch of wild -eyed accusations against Kosti Hinn -Doug

01:10:05

Wilson. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people, myself included, who were basically making posts saying, hey, yeah, you know, the kind of things you're saying are not flippant things, they're very serious things.

01:10:17

But then, I mean, he did a very specific kind of, I mean, as specific as they get, you know, you can do better.

01:10:25

I think all of them could do better than what they do. But his was about as good as it gets. And I think any number of people were like, hey, you know, that's fine, move on, right?

01:10:34

Tanner Yeah, he basically, I think - Will Humbled himself, mea culpa, removed the post, said I was wrong, right?

01:10:40

Tanner Yeah, yeah. And then everyone forgave him, right? Will Yeah, everyone forgave him, moved on. It's like, okay, right, you know, we're all happy.

01:10:46

Doug's happy, we're all happy. You know, G3 guys are happy. All right, you know, we're good, man.

01:10:53

That's restoration. So, I mean, I don't, I think that's a good example of that kind of thing to where that's what it should look like.

01:11:00

And now, I mean, I think with some of these things, like with the pandemic amnesty and all that, I think these are pretty serious things, you know, shaming people for having their doors open and encouraging them not to go to church and encouraging them to get experimented on.

01:11:17

You know, knowing that a lot of people died from these things and, you know, lost their jobs from these things, and they weren't advocating for them and defending them in any way, they're just as terrified as the pagans were.

01:11:31

I think at some point, you say, hey, maybe you're not cut out for this job, you know?

01:11:37

I'll forgive you, we can move on, but I don't know that I'm going to trust you until I see a big, long track record of you doing the opposite, you know?

01:11:47

And really own it, you know, if I don't see, like, fruit in keeping with repentance, I'm not going to trust you, you know? But, I mean,

01:11:54

I'm not going to, you know, if you ask forgiveness, I'm happy to do it, and I'm happy to move on, and I'm not going to talk about it anymore, right?

01:12:00

We're done, you know? Pete Yeah, okay, well, I think that's a good place for us to end this episode on.

01:12:07

You know, I personally, I think, you know, obviously forgiveness is such a big part of Christian life that we really do need to understand what it actually is, according to the

01:12:19

Bible, and especially when people are coming out now and basically making demands of us saying, hey, you know, we need to grant each other amnesty, you know, we need to understand how to respond to that, because it feels wrong, and the reason it feels wrong is because it is wrong, and it's not the way that forgiveness works in the

01:12:38

Bible. So, hopefully, you know, by listening to this episode, you kind of have a, if you didn't already, you have a pretty good understanding of, number one, how

01:12:49

God forgives us, but then number two, how we are supposed to forgive others the same way that God forgives us.

01:12:59

And I guess what I will leave you guys with is what we talked about probably,

01:13:05

I don't know, maybe three quarters of the way through this episode, where we talked about the difference between saying

01:13:11

I'm sorry and saying will you forgive me. I really do think that there is a big, it doesn't seem like there would be a big difference between those two phrases, but I really believe that saying will you forgive me is so much harder than saying

01:13:28

I'm sorry. And so, I guess what we'll leave you with is just challenge you to, you know, the next time you find yourself in a situation where you've done something, you've wronged someone else, you're in need of forgiveness, say will you forgive me instead of saying

01:13:45

I'm sorry, and see if it feels different communicating that way. So, but anyways, you know, it's a lot of fun to be able to sit down,

01:13:54

Tim, and talk about these things and help people think through these things, equip them for the works of ministry.

01:14:01

We hope that you've been encouraged by this conversation and that you have been equipped and that this has given you a lot of challenging things to think through and apply to your life and given you a better understanding of the scriptures.

01:14:15

We thank you guys for supporting us week in and week out, watching the episodes, listening to it, communicating with us, letting us know the ways that these episodes have blessed you guys, and that's really encouraging for us, so we thank you for that, and we look forward to having you on the next one.

01:15:05

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01:15:11

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.