The Way To Growth In Christlikeness - Part 6 — Zac Poonen

The Sermon on the Mount and the Conditions of Discipleship

We were studying the Sermon on the Mount, seeing it as a description of partly, a part description of a Christ-like life. All of Christ-likeness is not found in the Sermon on the Mount. It's a much vaster subject than that.

But the Sermon on the Mount is a good beginning and it is for those who have, who are disciples. Let me emphasize that. Matthew 5 Jesus, when he saw the crowds, which is a big multitude, went up to the mountain and his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to teach his disciples.

So the first step is to be a disciple and that is to fulfill the conditions in Luke 14, 26 to 33, to love Jesus more than father, mother, brother, sister, and all relatives and all brothers and sisters in the church.

Always, wife, children, everything. And secondly, to be willing to die to yourself every, not willing, but to take up the cross every day of your life. And thirdly, to give up possession, give up the possessive attitude to material things.

Then we come to the Sermon on the Mount, because then he will teach us what this means. And we saw here that, first of all, the Lord spoke about nine right attitudes in Matthew 5, verse 3 to 11, to be poor in spirit, to mourn for our sins, to be gentle, meek, and then to be, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful to others, to be pure in heart, which means we love only God, and then you see God everywhere, to be peacemakers, to pursue peace with all our heart, to be willing to suffer righteousness for righteousness' sake, and then to be willing to suffer for Jesus' sake.

That makes us salt that has not lost its savor and the light that can shine without being dimmed before the world. And then he goes on to expand the meaning of the law. He goes to the root of the Ten Commandments and the root of the other commandments in the Old Testament, and he says, your righteousness, Matthew 5, verse 20, must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.

Exceed means it must go deeper, must go to quality, and not just be superficial. And then he begins to speak about nine areas where our righteousness must not be superficial. The first is anger, that is you, the equivalent of murder in the Old Covenant is, in the New Covenant, is anger.

Overcoming Anger as a Wrong Attitude

If it is thou shalt not commit murder, here it is. Anger can finally lead you to hell, Matthew 5, 22. That's the first wrong attitude that we need to get rid of by the help of the Holy Spirit, and it is possible.

We've already seen that, that there's only one type of anger which is righteous, which concerns the glory of God, the house of God. Any anger that's manifested because people hurt me or treated me badly is sin.

Purity from Sexual Lust and Divorce

And then the next is sinful sexual lust, which can make a man sin in his thoughts. Its anger is something people can hear, whereas lusting is something which only God sees in our hearts. Even the devil can't see it.

The devil can suspect that you are lusting when you look in a certain way at anyone, but he can't know for sure when you're by yourself and just thinking. But God sees it all, so ultimately, Christ's likeness is inward, and sexual lust is one area where God really tests man to see whether he has the fear of God or not, because many of these other things are external.

And along with sexual lust comes the lust that makes a man divorce his wife or a woman divorce her husband because they want to find another partner, and then Jesus said that that is also adultery. And now we go on to the next area where Jesus speaks about our righteousness having to go beyond the righteousness described in Pharisees, and that is lying.

Truthfulness Beyond Oaths and Hypocrisy

Telling lies or a lying attitude. He says in the Old Covenant, verse 33, the command was don't make false vows. That means when you put your hand on some holy book and say, I swear to God, or without putting your hand also, I swear to God, I swear by heaven.

He says you should never do that. There's no need to do that. You don't swear by heaven or earth, but you can't even make an oath by your hair saying, because you can't make your hair black or white, it says in verse 36.

In the New Covenant, there's no such thing as swearing and then speaking the truth, because when a man is swearing in a court of law or sometimes even in conversation, I swear that is true. What he's really saying is, mostly the time I tell lies.

I want you guys to know that, but now I'm speaking the truth. I swear it is true. Now a person who has a consistent testimony of speaking the truth always doesn't need to swear. He says, I just speak the truth all the time.

I don't tell lies. Now that does not mean that we have to tell people everything they ask, because there's a lot of difference between speaking the truth and telling people everything I know. I don't have to tell people everything I know.

Supposing somebody has confided something in me and someone asks me about it. Speaking the truth does not mean telling him what I know. No, because then I'll be betraying that trust. That is another sin.

I have to preserve that person's trust in me and not tell him anything. If in such a situation I say, I don't know, that is the truth, because as far as he's concerned, I don't know anything about it.

So lying is not in the letter. People can go according to the letter and say I did not tell a lie. It's a spirit. It's a spirit of lying and it's very closely connected with hypocrisy. Truth is being free from hypocrisy.

When it says grace and truth came by Jesus Christ in John chapter 1 verse 17, does that mean that the first person who spoke the truth was Jesus? No, there are many people in the Old Testament. All the prophets spoke the truth.

But the word there, truth, means reality. So if truth is reality, lie is hypocrisy. So in lying is involved all types of hypocrisy and we have to be very careful that that is eliminated from our life completely.

Lying is equal to hypocrisy. And Jesus condemned the hypocrites more than he condemned anybody else. You never find him condemning murderers, adulterers, thieves, but you find Jesus condemning hypocrites, religious hypocrites, particularly the Pharisees.

So lying is a very serious sin. In fact, right at the beginning of the Bible, you see the first sins committed in the Bible are lying. You turn with me to Genesis and chapter 3 where sin begins. The sin does not begin, sin mentioned in the Bible does not begin with eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It begins with the devil who's called a liar. Jesus said the devil is a liar and he's a murderer from the beginning. Here we read in Genesis 3 that the devil came as a serpent and asked the woman, as God said you shall not eat of all the trees of the garden and the woman said yes from the fruit of the trees the garden we may eat but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, you shall not eat from it nor touch it.

That was a lie. God never said anything about not touching it. He only said don't eat from it. When we add to the Word of God, that's a lie. What God said you shall not eat from it, that's God's Word, but when you try to raise God's standard higher, that's what the Pharisees did.

You shall not only not eat from it, but also don't touch it. I'm a super holy man. There are Christians like that today who become, they become legalists. They bring people into bondage and you must not allow such legalistic Christians who try to become more holy than God, super righteous.

You should not allow them to bring you into bondage. When God's Word says you shall not eat from it, stop there. The last verses of Revelation say if you add to God's Word or subtract from God's Word, you're sinning.

And so that's a serious thing. And then the devil tells another lie there. You surely shall not die. That's a lie. So that's why the devil is called a liar because right from the beginning, his first conversation with the human race, he started with a lie.

If you disobey God here, you will definitely not die. Even though she knew that God had said you will surely die. That's what God had said in Genesis 2 .17. Please compare what Eve said with what God said in Genesis 2 .17.

In the day that you eat from it, you will certainly surely die. What did Eve do? She left out that surely and just said casually you will die and added you shall not touch it. See this adding and subtracting from God's Word is there in the very first sentence that Eve speaks in Scripture.

Adding you shall not touch it. Subtracting you shall die. When the Word of God says you shall surely die. You see in these words, the root of all that's happening in Christendom today, where people add to God's Word and subtract from God's Word, and it sounds very similar.

Many of you who read the Scripture may not even have noticed the difference between Genesis 3 .3 and Genesis 2 .17. You read the Bible carelessly, you don't notice these things and it's exactly like that.

If you listen to so many preachers today, you can be deceived because what they say sounds so right. I'll give you one example. I remember getting a leaflet once from one of the preachers in India whose habit was to collect money from people like most preachers and in that he quoted a verse, the last verses of Matthew 10, and says he who gives to a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet.

You can send your donations here. Now that sounds so similar, but if you read Matthew chapter 10, Jesus never said anything like that. It's a mixture of a couple of statements put together to fool people and this man who distributed that pamphlet in order to collect money from people knew that most people will not look up that Scripture and he also knew that 99 .9 of Christians are not familiar with Scripture.

When I read it, I saw immediately that's not Scripture. That's a twisting of Scripture. It's a deception. That is to be in fellowship with the devil, to twist the Word of God. So here we see the first lie, and the first sin mentioned in the Bible, is a lie by Eve and by Satan.

By adding to God's Word, subtracting from God's Word, and then saying you surely will not die. Now when God has said something that you will die, the devil says you'll surely not die. How does this apply to us today?

Spiritual Death and Perseverance in Romans 8

We need to see how does this lying apply to us today? We don't have a tree of knowledge of good and evil in front of us, a literal tree anyway, but I want to show you another verse and see what the devil says you will not die, to a verse in the New Testament where God has said you will die and the devil says you will not die.

Listen carefully because you may also be guilty of listening to the devil here. In Romans chapter 8, he's writing to born-again believers. He's taught them all about justification by faith in Romans 5, about overcoming sin in Romans 6, freedom from the law in Romans 7, and he's entering him under and talking about walking according to the Spirit, life in the Spirit, Romans 8 verse 4 and onwards and so on.

And then he says to such brethren, verse 12, he makes it clear. He's talking to born-again believers. Brethren, verse 12. Let me tell you something, dear brothers, born-again justified in Christ brothers.

Verse 13, if the Holy Spirit is saying, if you live according to the flesh, you will surely die. Just like what God said to Adam in Genesis 2. And what does the devil say? No, you will surely not die.

Because you accepted the Lord a few years ago, and once you're saved, you're always saved. There's no question of you losing your salvation. You know the number of people who are preaching that lie. When the Lord says, you brethren, if you live according to the flesh, you will surely die.

What death is the Holy Spirit speaking about in verse 13? Is it physical death? Everybody dies physically, whether they live according to the flesh or live according to the Spirit, you will physically die.

He's talking about spiritual death. What is spiritual death? It's going to an eternal hell separated from God. I don't know of any other spiritual death that the Bible speaks about. Eternal death. Dear brothers, born-again justified in Christ, even for a time overcoming sin.

Brothers, if you now live according to the flesh, not talking about if you slip up, you slip up somewhere, you repent, you come back. If your way of life is according to the flesh, you will surely die.

But the way to avoid that is Romans 8 13, putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. I want to encourage all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, don't listen to the lie of the devil here like Eve did.

Deception, Repentance, and Loving the Truth

Okay, the last sin mentioned in the Bible is in Revelation 22. First of all, verse 15. There's a list of people who are you know outside the kingdom of God. It's referring to the kingdom of God in verse 14.

Those who enter by the gates into the city. Outside the city are dogs. Dogs is usually an expression of people who live in sexual sin with the same sex among human beings. And sorcerers, immoral persons, murderers, idolaters, these are all pretty serious sins.

And it ends with those who love telling lies and who practice telling lies. That's the last one mentioned of those who go to hell. Think of that, how serious that is. To love telling a lie, to practice telling a lie.

And then the last sin mentioned in the Bible is in verse 19. If you take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, that's the last sin mentioned. To take away. That is to take away the seriousness of something written in God's Word.

When it says you should surely die, to say no, you won't die or you may, but not necessarily. That's taking away. God will take away his part from the tree of life. So we see lying is mentioned in Genesis 3 and right at the beginning and in Revelation 22, right at the end.

You can say the Bible is written between two warnings against lying, the beginning and the end. That shows how serious a matter it is. And that is why the Bible says about deception. Deception is a form of lying.

People try to deceive you by telling you something that is not absolutely true. They twist scripture or they take one scripture and ignore another. And you don't know the other one. So they, like the devil told Jesus, it is written.

He will give his angels to charge away to protect you. And Jesus said it is also written. And so that is another form of lying. The devil was lying to Jesus when he said, if you jump off the temple, you won't die because his angels will protect you.

That's a lie. The angels will not protect Jesus there. The promise in Psalm 91 is not for a person who tries to tempt God by jumping off the roof of the temple. No, it's written for those who are in dangerous situations without their choice.

But Jesus corrected Satan by saying it is also written. So scripture, the whole truth of scripture is not found in it is written alone. It is written and it is also written. Truth has got two wings. And if you don't use both the wings, you'll go around in circles with one wing.

So that is another form of lying where you take one part of scripture and ignore another. Let me give you an example. Jesus is eternally God, absolute truth. But he also became a man when he came to earth.

And as much as we accept him as God, we must accept the fact that he came to earth as a man, free from sin, but lived like us, tempted like us, and overcame. If I don't accept this part, it's I'm believing a lie.

Because the Bible says, even in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 5, it says that there's one mediator between God and man. And that is the man, Christ Jesus. That means even if he's in heaven in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 5, he's called the man, not the God-man like some people call him.

The word God-man is never found in the Bible. God became man. It's not that Jesus ceased to be God, but he so identified himself with the human race that he's called in heaven today, 1 Timothy 2 and verse 5, the man, Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and man.

That would have been the ideal place to call him God-man. But you know, the Holy Spirit wants to emphasize how much Jesus has identified himself with us. This is a great truth. And don't miss it because of the lie of the devil.

God's Judgment on Those Who Reject the Truth

I want to mention this one more thing about this danger of lying. You see, lying is when I don't love the truth. I get into lying. And here's the danger of not loving the truth. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, it says here, in verse 10 and 11, please read 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10 and 11 together, and says, if you don't receive the love of the truth and you don't want to be saved from sin, God himself will send a deluding influence so that you believe a lie.

God will allow you to believe a lie. Amazing. God doesn't tell a lie. No, he's always the truth. Only the devil's a liar. But God will allow you to believe a lie spoken by preachers, a lie spoken by the devil, a lie spoken by someone who loves you, if one of these two things are true in your life.

One, you don't love the truth about yourself when God speaks to you through a message or through some portion of scripture and you see that you're wrong. And you don't want to accept it. Maybe it's a doctrine you have believed for all your life because your parents believed it because your church teaches it and you believe it.

And then one day you read something in scripture or you read something or hear something in a message pointing you to something in scripture and you see that that is the truth of scripture, but you're not willing to accept it.

Because it's uncomfortable. You may have to leave your church and they won't accept you if you proclaim that. And then you don't love the truth. God will allow you to be deceived. God will send not only God will allow you, but God will send.

That's what it says here. I quote scripture exactly. God will send a deluding and deceiving influence so that you believe a lie. You believe what is very dangerous not to accept the truth of God, just because you want to please your pastor or your church or your parents or you want to hang on to a denomination or something like that.

The second way of not loving the truth is when God speaks to you in a message and you're convicted that you're in some area, you're wrong. And you don't want to face up to the truth about yourself. You want to cover it up and make some excuse to say, well, this is why I did that.

This is why and cover up and you know deep down your heart that what the truth is and you won't accept the truth about yourself. Again, God will allow a deluding influence to come upon you that you believe a lie.

The second reason why God will allow you to believe a lie is mentioned in verse 10. You don't want to be saved from sin. You only want to go to heaven. You hear the Word of God and you hear the strong preaching against sin and you have no desire to be saved from sin.

Okay. God will allow you to believe a lie. He'll allow you to believe a lie that even if you have no interest in being saved from sin. You only want to be forgiven. You'll go to heaven. That's a lie. Because Jesus did not come here only to forgive us.

Forgiveness was the first step to salvation. He's not a forgiver. He's our Savior. And forgiveness is a part of salvation. And if you don't want to be saved from sin. Here's a warning God himself will allow you to believe a lie.

A serious lie that you're a wholehearted disciple when you're not that you're saved when you're not going to end up with him for eternity. I don't want to Be deceived. I mean, the devil's always trying to deceive us our flesh is deceitful.

It says in Ephesians for our heart is deceitful. It says in Jeremiah 17 the heart is deceitful the flesh is deceitful and the devil's a deceiver. And the world is full of deceivers. On top of all that, if God himself is going to send a deceiving influence and yeah I'm finished.

There's no hope for me. My only hope of salvation is if God is on my side. And if you want God on your side against all the lying going on in the world and in Christendom and from preachers who tell lies.

Love the truth. Whenever you're convicted about sin acknowledge it confess it forsake it And acknowledge it. Lord, that's right. I'm a sinner. I sinned there or the truth in Scripture, which is completely contrary to what you believed all this time.

Accept it and say, Lord, I'm willing to change my mind. I don't care who stands against me. I'm going to accept your truth. You know, the number of people who don't take water baptism. Because their parents or their church doesn't teach it to people who don't believe in the baptism, the Holy Spirit, because their church doesn't teach it.

Okay. Well, God will allow them to remain without it all their life because they believe a lie. So it's very dangerous. Lying is a very, very serious sin. That's what I was trying to emphasize through in the way it is emphasized in the Bible.

Careless Words and a Reputation for Truthfulness

And one more thing in connection with lying. I want to mention from Matthew chapter 12 and verse 36 Matthew 12 36 it says here, every careless word that men shall speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment.

Sometimes we can carelessly tell a lie. It's not the absolute truth. And we know it. It's not accidental carelessly Tell a lie for whatever reason. Let me repeat again. You don't have to speak the truth about everything that people ask you about.

You can say, I don't want to talk about it or I refuse to answer. That's okay. But I'm not to tell lies. Jesus said, what did we read there in Matthew five, let your yes be yes and your no must be no.

Dear brothers and sisters, if you're in the church, you must have a reputation that you will never, never tell a lie. You may not reveal everything. That's fine. We should not reveal everything to others.

Many things we have to keep secret. And there are lots of things that I will keep secret. Sure. If people can find something in me. I'll never tell that to anybody, not even to my wife. If people consult my wife about something medically I tell her, don't tell me that's a medical confidentiality.

Keep it to yourself. So that's not what I'm talking about, but Never, never. Am I going to tell a lie. Because I don't want God to deceive me my yes must be yes I know must be no, and it must be like that in your life and my dear brothers and sisters, if you have not been serious about this till now.

Think of this promise acts 1730 the times of ignorance. God overlooks. Okay. All your past life. God's overlooked, but now he's commanding everybody to repent of this lying habit. Okay. Now we go on to the next bad habit.

Rejecting Vengeance and Loving Enemies

We've seen the habit of lying. The second one. The fourth one we've seen The Sin, the Anger sinful sexual lust and lying. The fourth one is taking vengeance or wanting to take vengeance. In Matthew 538 to 42 you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

That guy knocked out one of your eyes, you're permitted to take out one. I what God meant was don't take out both his eyes, you can take out one. It's not a command. It's a permission. That's why Jesus said you heard that it was said, you've heard it was said And a tooth for a tooth.

If he takes out one to the wheels, you knock out one to the race. Don't take our duty. But I say to you, don't do that. If somebody takes out your I forgive him. Slaps you on one cheek turn the other cheek.

You need to understand the spirit of it is not a literally somebody slaps you here you turn the other cheek. Jesus himself never did that when somebody slapped him when he was in the court being tried by his accusers.

He said, if I've spoken right. Why do you slap me. So it's the spirit of it that we need to understand here. If someone wants to sue you and take your shirt. Let them have your coat. Also, don't want to some somebody's Wanting to hurt you in some way.

Be good to him. That's the meaning. Not that if somebody wants half your property, give them your full property. Don't misunderstand and misquote scripture. It's talking about people who want to take advantage of you and harm you in some way.

Don't seek for vengeance, but do the opposite. Love him. He wants a little help. Give him a little more help. He wants you to go with him one go go one mile go two months. And here's the statement here.

I want to say a little more about vengeance. There's a command in Romans chapter 12 Which tells us very clearly about this matter. There's an Old Testament commandment which is quoted here in Romans 12 and verse 19 Romans 12 and verse 19.

It's a quotation from Proverbs and it says vengeance is mine. I will repay. Romans 12 verse 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved. Let God's anger deal with that man who hurt you. Because even under the Old Covenant, they were commanded not to take vengeance.

Vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord, even in the Old Testament and the Old Testament says Romans 12 verse 20 if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he's thirsty. Give him something to drink.

That's also from Proverbs chapter 25 verse 21 if he's In so doing, you will heap coals of fire upon his head, coals of fire of love. That's the meaning of there that if you do good to that man who's trying to do harm to you.

If your enemy is hungry, feed him. He's thirsty. Give him a drink, you'll be flooding his head with love your love. Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. See, the world is full of people who have the devil's philosophy that the only way to overcome evil is with more evil.

All the wars are like that you're going to come fight with me. Okay, my army will come and fight with you. It's the philosophy of the devil, which the world is accepted human beings have accepted it. And nations have accepted it even Christian denominations fighting with each other over something or the other.

I don't believe I should fight with people even over doctrine. I must explain doctrine clearly try to prove it to them, but not get into an argument and fight. Never. No. And if somebody hurts me. I must have zero desire for vengeance.

You know, sometimes it is not just a question of taking vengeance, not taking revenge. If you desire it in your heart. You wish some evil for him that will pollute your heart. So what should I do. You're the one who's hurt me is in some need.

Okay, let me do some good to him. In other words, let me have a good attitude towards him, even if I don't see him and maybe he's 100 miles away. Let me have a good attitude towards him. If he's hungry.

Let me not hope that he will die. Let me hope that he gets some food. If he's thirsty. Let me not hope that he will die. Let me hope that he will get some water in front of you. If I can't give it to him myself.

See this verse in Proverbs. Proverbs has some wonderful Commandments. In fact, it's one of the closest books to the New Covenant in in the Old Testament by part of the Bible Proverbs chapter 24. And verse 17 says don't rejoice when your enemy falls and don't let your heart be glad when he stumbles.

That's wonderful command in the Old Testament. Don't be happy when something bad happens to your enemy or someone who's hurt you, but feel sad about it, Lord. I hope no evil will come to him. In fact, it's a very good attitude for us to have very good thing for us to practically say that to God.

I've done it. You know, I'm a servant of the Lord. And when you serve the Lord, you have numerous enemies of the devil. Races up against you who are the devil is furious because we preach the whole truth.

And so he raises up people to oppose us, fight us, take us to court and do all types of things, but We don't wish any evil for them or their families. If anything wrong happens that we pray that God will bless them and heal them.

And protect them and nothing evil will happen to them. I've done that for every single person who has harmed me even the smallest little way. But there's an ant bite or a lion bite or whatever it is. I say, Lord, be merciful to them, forgive them.

I have nothing against them. I have no desire for vengeance. I say like Jesus, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's a great example. I'm not saying that they will all be spared.

We need to understand clearly because the people who crucified Jesus one day They'll have an answer to God in the final day of judgment. They're not going to escape it, even though Jesus said, Father, forgive them.

He forgave the horizontal aspect of that sin. See when somebody hurts me or harms me. There are two sins he has committed. One he sinned against me as a human being. And the other he sinned against God.

Whenever you hurt another human being, you're sinning against God. Now, I can only forgive that horizontal part of it like Jesus, Father, forgive them. From my side, Jesus as a man on the cross, forgive them for they know not what they're doing.

That horizontal part was forgiven. But if they don't repent, God doesn't forgive them. See, they are unbelievers. And an unbeliever does something to me. He doesn't have to repent. Without his repentance, I forgive him.

I must forgive every unbeliever, even if he doesn't repent. It's only when it comes to a brother, it says in Luke 17 verse 2, 3, and 4, if he repents, forgive him. Otherwise, all unbelievers. Well, that means people are not in fellowship with us.

We have to forgive, even if there's no possibility of their repentance. They don't have to repent. Automatically. In fact, my attitude has always been if I see someone or I hear someone has done something against me.

As soon as I hear it, I say, Lord, he's forgiven. I say it immediately before I hear the details and he's happened somewhere else. I found it much safer to take that attitude. And when I talk about a brother, I'm talking about someone who's in close fellowship with you in your church, not someone who calls himself a believer somewhere else.

You got to deal with him like with an unbeliever, forgive him. But if it's a person who's in close fellowship with you in your local church, you cannot have fellowship with him if he's got a sinful attitude towards you.

And you got to tell him, hey, listen, you got to set this, get rid of this attitude. That's what Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 18 and verse 14 onwards. If your brother sins, go and tell him. If an unbeliever sins, you don't have to tell him anything, just forgive him.

But if your brother sins, it's very clear what Jesus said, go and tell him. And if he doesn't listen to you, you want to save his soul. Take another brother with you and tell him so that he'll be saved.

And if he still doesn't listen to him, tell the church, tell the elders, if he still doesn't listen, then he's like an unbeliever, he'll be lost. Then once he's an unbeliever, I just forgive him. Because I'm supposed to forgive unbelievers, but I can't have fellowship with him.

I tried my best to fellowship with him, first by talking to him, taking two, three brothers and talking to him and telling the church and he still didn't bother. Then he's an unbeliever to me and I forgive him immediately because I'm supposed to forgive all unbelievers.

But I can't have fellowship with them. So the command in Matthew 18, 14 onwards and Luke 17, verse two onwards is for brothers with whom we want to build fellowship. You can't have fellowship if there's something which is not settled between both of you.

It's very important. Most Christians don't take this seriously. They say, oh, I'll just ignore it. You ignore it, but are you having good fellowship with each other? No, it's like a thorn in the foot.

It'll keep on irritating you and it'll finally get filled with pus and make you sick. But we must never desire vengeance. The Lord says, vengeance is mine. See, it's only if you understand what I'm saying that you will understand the Apostle Paul's words in Second Timothy four.