Every Last Word

Guest (Male): How many times have we said to our friends or family, "I just can't forgive you"? We're often hurt in such a way that it feels impossible to forgive. Well, today we'll be looking at Jesus' words of guidance on this matter. We'll hear how to forgive and how to accept forgiveness.

Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. Today, we reach a section on forgiveness. Jesus wants to teach His disciples just how to forgive. Phil, why is it so important for us to forgive others when they've sinned against us?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: For a lot of reasons, Mark. I hope any of our listeners today who are really struggling with a relationship where it's hard to forgive someone will benefit from today's message. We should forgive others because Jesus has commanded us to do it and because relationships won't be restored without forgiveness. But particularly for this reason, to show that we really understand that we ourselves are forgiven in Christ. We really prove that when we show forgiveness to others.

Guest (Male): Well, what enables us to forgive others? I mean, where do we find that kind of strength?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: It's hard, Mark. I'm sure you've had broken relationships as I have had, and it's hard when the wounds are deep to forgive others. It really requires faith, the faith to forgive. I think that's why today's passage is so helpful for us. We need to pray the way the disciples did when Jesus spoke with them about these things. They said, "Lord, increase our faith." We need to trust you more so that we'll be able to obey you better in the area of forgiveness.

Guest (Male): All right, thank you, Phil. Let's turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 17, verses 1 to 6, and listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: Historians tell us that King Louis XII of France was cast into prison and held in chains before eventually rising to the throne of France. We're also told that upon his ascension to power, his advisors told him that he should respond to these misdeeds by seeking revenge, using every deadly means of violence. In response to their entreaties, the king made a list of the names of all of those who had committed crimes against his royal person. And next to each name, he marked a red cross. Surely these men would have to die.

When these men heard about the king's blood-red list, they assumed that they were dead men. And they fled for their very lives. But then the king clarified his true and very surprising intention. He said this, "The cross which I drew beside each name was not a sign of punishment, but a pledge of forgiveness, extended for the sake of the crucified Savior, who upon His cross forgave His enemies and prayed for them."

Now the flight of the king's enemies reminds us, I think, how unexpected it is to find forgiveness. When people are wronged, they are usually not seeking to forgive us, but to exact revenge. How surprising it is when someone offers full and free forgiveness. And when people do this, it is so often the case that they themselves have already received forgiveness, and thus they know what it means to be forgiven. You see that in the example of this king offering his enemies the same kind of grace that apparently he himself had received from the crucified Christ. It was because of Jesus that he had the faith to forgive.

Now at the beginning of Luke chapter 17, Jesus is calling us and all his disciples to exercise this faith and this forgiveness. Let me encourage you please to turn there in your Bibles, where we will look at Luke 17, verses 1 through 6. At the end of chapter 16, Jesus had been speaking with the Pharisees about heaven and hell. And here at the beginning of chapter 17, He tells His disciples not to give offense, verses 1 and 2, or take offense, verses 3 and 4, but to live by faith, and particularly to forgive by faith, verses 5 and 6.

You'll see that Jesus begins this discourse by telling His disciples not to become a stumbling block for other believers by causing them to sin. He said temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Now Jesus, when it came to sin, was enough of a realist to know that in a fallen world, people will always be tempted. In fact, He knew this from His own experience because He Himself was tempted as we are. Temptation happens. And even if we are not tempted by all of the temptations around us in the world, we would still be tempted by the twisted desires of our own fallen hearts. But woe to the person through whom temptation comes. Woe to us if we are the ones who are doing the tempting, and particularly if we are tempting the children of God.

This word that Jesus uses here for temptation refers very generally to anything that is a stumbling block for people, something that causes them to fall. And here it seems, from the overall context, that Jesus is talking about something that causes people to fall down spiritually, something that leads people sinfully astray.

Let's just reflect on that a moment. I've been thinking this week about some of the ways that Christian people particularly may lead other people to sin. We lead people astray anytime that our actions or our attitudes set a bad spiritual example that other people then are tempted to follow. We may do this by having a complaining spirit that promotes discontent and causes others themselves to be discontented. We do it by speaking poorly of others and therefore influencing in a negative and unfair way the opinion that others have of that person.

We do it by carrying on an argument to the point where someone else is provoked to make an angry response. We do it whenever we entice someone to commit a sin, when we encourage them to join us in some juicy conversation of gossip, for example, or when we entice them to commit a sexual sin. We do it when we boast, even in subtle ways, of our own accomplishments and acquisitions, and then we've got one up on them, they've got to get one up on us, and they are provoked to the same kind of boasting themselves. These are some of the ways that we might become a spiritual hindrance to other people. Now, of course, it's true they have to take responsibility for their own actions, but woe to you, Jesus is saying, if you make it easier for someone to sin or harder for someone to be godly.

Now, tempting people is a very great sin, but particularly so if the people that are being tempted are less spiritually mature. Let's think here about what is meant by this phrase "little ones." These little ones being tempted to sin. This may refer really to anyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus sometimes uses the same expression to refer to the original disciples. All of us are little ones who need spiritual protection, who need divine help and care.

But here, I wonder if Jesus may be referring more specifically to people who are just beginning to follow Him. He's talking to His disciples, and He's telling them how they should take spiritual care of others, particularly those who are just beginning in the Christian life, who are at the most vulnerable stage of their Christian experience. How important it is not to lead them astray.

This is a very strong warning that Jesus gives. He says woe, and then he, as we will see, gives a very serious statement of what kind of woe may come. Here we see what a very great sin it is to put a stumbling block in the way of another person's soul. Along with all of the other sins that we need to confess, we need to confess this one, the way that our sin has spread through the negative influence it has on others.

There's a good example of this kind of prayer in one of the poems of John Donne. Donne was concerned about not just his own sin, the sin that he had committed, but also the way that it had opened a door for others to sin. And he's asking God if there might be forgiveness for that. He said, "Will you forgive that sin which I have won others to sin and made my sin their door?" The answer to that question, if you put it as a question, is yes. Because if we come to God in true repentance, He will forgive us even for the sins we have committed that have caused other people to sin.

But we must come to God in repentance. Jesus here doesn't say exactly what woe will befall us if we fail to heed His warning here, but the comparison He makes is very frightening. It would be better for us, He says, to die a violent death by drowning than to lead one of God's little children into sin. Now, I hardly need to tell you that the large, round millstones that were used in those days for grinding corn were very heavy, much too heavy for a single person to lift. And needless to say, if someone put one of those around your neck, you'd fall straight to the bottom of the sea. But better that, Jesus says, better that than to lead God's people astray. Better for the children of God who would be led astray, and better for you if you're the one who causes them to stumble.

We were talking about this passage in the pastoral staff meeting this week, and Bruce McDowell, our own minister of missions, was reminded of an incident that he had once related on another occasion. It's the story of two grade school children who were led into sin by an older boy. It was a grievous sin, and this older teenage boy, who was in high school at the time, really ought to have known better. He came from a Christian family. He knew the difference between right and wrong, and yet he had led these little boys into sin.

Well, when their sin was discovered, the little boys themselves were very sorry for what they had done. And yet as for that older boy, he never really seemed to show any sign of repentance. And can you imagine the way people reacted within the Christian community several years later when that boy drowned in a scuba diving accident in the bottom of the sea? He was trapped in an undersea cave. And people couldn't help but think back to what Jesus said right here in the scriptures. Better for someone to be cast into the sea than to lead little ones astray.

You see what a great sin it is, and particularly, I think, given the context here where Jesus is speaking to His leading disciples, particularly any sin in the life of spiritual leaders that causes other people to stumble. And if you consider all of the moral and sexual and financial scandals that have plagued the church, the way that dishonor has been brought to God by spiritual leaders, you can see the truth of what Jesus is saying. Would it not have been better for everyone if such things had never happened? Indeed, if the perpetrators had died before their downfall. And are we not well-advised then to pray for ourselves that we ourselves might not lead others into sin, and to pray for our spiritual leaders that they will not do the same?

Now, as important as it is not to give offense in this way by causing other people to sin, it's also important not to take offense when other people sin against us. And maybe that's the connection between these first two verses and then the verses that follow in verses 3 and 4. But here we see, by the grace of God, that when temptation and sin happen, there is an opportunity for repentance and for reconciliation through the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus says, "Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying 'I repent,' you must forgive him." Now, there is a sequence here, and the sequence of these things is important. First comes the rebuke, specifically the rebuke of a brother or sister in Christ.

If a fellow believer has committed an offense, then we have a spiritual responsibility to show him his fault. And perhaps especially so if we're talking about the kind of sin that Jesus was talking about in verses 1 and 2. Maybe that's what He mainly has in mind, a sin that leads other people astray. Surely that needs to be rebuked. But of course, the same principle would apply to any scandalous sin. For the glory of God, for the real spiritual benefit of the person who has fallen into sin, Jesus commands us to rebuke unrighteousness in the family of God.

Now, of course, if you have any experience of these things at all, you know there's a right way and a wrong way to confront sin. We need to go courageously, not timidly, being willing to say what needs to be said. We also need to go to one another gently, not judgmentally, but demonstrating the tender mercy of Christ. We need to go to one another humbly, not proudly, having already confessed our own great sin. We need to go to one another affectionately, not harshly, showing one another how much we love them in Jesus Christ.

But you see, we do need to go to one another. A sin needs to be called a sin in a way that leads to repentance, and there's a divine imperative here. Jesus is giving us a command: if the brother sins, he needs to be rebuked. The question for us is, do we care enough to confront? And are we godly enough to do it with Christ-like compassion? We need the grace of God to do this, and to do it well in our relationships in the church.

But you see, this is only the first step because after that rebuke comes the repentance, or at least that's what we're praying for. Here Jesus says, "if he repents." Now unfortunately, in my view, some take this word "if" here as an absolute qualification on our forgiveness. And thus they understand Jesus to be saying here that we have the right to withhold forgiveness in our hearts until someone actually comes to us with satisfactory repentance.

But I think actually that's contrary to the example of Jesus Himself, who, as we'll see by the time we get to the end of this gospel, forgave His enemies even before they were asking for forgiveness. It's also very unlikely that you'll be ready to offer that forgiveness to someone in an interpersonal way unless God has already been giving you a forgiving spirit in the heart from which you are able actually to forgive them. And furthermore, I think it's contrary to the direction of His teaching in this passage, where the emphasis is falling on freely offered forgiveness.

Surely Jesus wants us to have a heart of forgiveness toward anyone who has done us wrong, even before we get to the point where we actually have the opportunity to offer interpersonal forgiveness in a more formal way. Surely Jesus does not want us to hold on to a grudge. But then we need to ask the question: why then does He say "if," "if he repents"?

Well, I think J.C. Ryle's answer is helpful. He says this expression is remarkable. It doubtlessly cannot mean that we are not to forgive men unless they do repent. At that rate, there would be much bitterness constantly kept alive in the world. But it does mean that when there is no repentance or regret for an injury done, there is no opportunity for the renewal of cordial friendship or for complete reconciliation between one man and another.

You see here is a sequence of events, and Jesus is describing the situation in which everything has gone the way that we hope. And now there's an opportunity to complete that process of reconciliation, and now the responsibility is back on us. A sin has been committed. A rebuke has been rightly given and graciously received to the point where true repentance has been offered. Now it is time to forgive, and if necessary, to forgive again.

How many times do we need to offer forgiveness? Well, we need to offer forgiveness every day, even seven times a day. Jesus, using the number of perfection, and the point, I think, is that we never reach the point where we have the right to say that we will no longer forgive. And Jesus puts it in a very strong imperative at the end of verse 4: "You must forgive." There is no limit to the forgiveness a believer in Christ is obligated to offer a penitent sinner.

Now, immediately, we think of all kinds of objections, or at least I do. What about accountability? What about church discipline? How can somebody really be repentant if they keep coming to you again and again and again asking for forgiveness? Well, all of those are legitimate questions, and the Bible speaks to them in other places. But let me just emphasize here Jesus is telling us to forgive, and to forgive, and to forgive.

It's not to deny that people don't sometimes need to be held accountable for their actions by someone in spiritual or judicial authority. There's a place for that. The Bible speaks to it so that people don't keep committing the same sin over and over again. It's not to deny there's a place for justice or that when someone else has sinned against us, it may take a while to rebuild trust. But Jesus here is speaking about the heart of forgiveness. He's telling us to have a heart of forgiveness. And when we have the heart of Jesus, then we are able to forgive again and again.

Cyril of Alexandria compared this work of forgiveness to the care of a medical doctor. And he pointed out that when a patient has some sort of illness, the doctor in the first instance will provide the appropriate and necessary cure. But then what happens if the patient suffers a relapse, or if the patient comes up with a different illness entirely? Well, the doctor will not say to him, "Look, I treated you once already, that's all I'm going to do." No, he'll prescribe another cure. He will offer a remedy again until the person is fully healed. And so it is with the soul-healing work of forgiveness. However many times someone comes to us to say they are sorry, we are to say, "I forgive you."

Now, at this point, the disciples just had to interrupt. And maybe you would have interrupted as well. Because you see, the things that Jesus was telling them were so far beyond their own capabilities that they simply had to ask for help. And I think we can understand how they felt. I mean, none of these things are very easy for us to do either. How hard it is to set a consistently good spiritual example and not to lead people astray. That's a hard thing to do. How hard it is to rebuke people in a godly way that will lead them to repentance. How hard it is to forgive people who have done us some kind of wrong. But now if you tell me I have to do that seven times a day, Jesus, you've gone too far. I mean, impossible. How could anyone do that?

Here Jesus is telling His disciples to take forgiveness to the ultimate extreme. He is telling them to forgive the unforgivable even, and to keep on doing it, having an ongoing heart of forgiveness. And as Jesus speaks to us about these things, we should be considering: who is the person that I need to forgive? Who is the person that I would say, "Jesus, increase my faith, help me so that I'm able to forgive them"? But what if you had to offer such forgiveness repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly? How could you even do it?

Well, this is the question that the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf was wrestling with after he gave a public lecture on Christian forgiveness. He had spoken very eloquently from the scriptures about the call to embrace the sinner with a heart of forgiveness. And as soon as the lecture was over, another theologian stood up, another very famous theologian, Jürgen Moltmann. And he raised an objection. He said, "But can you embrace a Chetnik?"

And here is how Volf explains what Moltmann was really saying and the answer he gave. He says, "It was the winter of 1993. For months now, the notorious Serbian fighters called Chetniks had been sowing desolation in my own country, hurting people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, destroying cities. I had just argued that we ought to embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. But can I embrace a Chetnik? The ultimate other, the evil other. Where would I draw the strength for that?"

And I suppose sooner or later that's a question we all have to face. In one difficult relationship or another, can I embrace the Chetnik in my life? That is to say, the person who has done me the most harm. Can I forgive the abuser and the betrayer? Well, Miroslav Volf waited a long time before answering that question, longer than people usually do in public lectures. But finally he said, "No, I cannot. But as a follower of Christ, I think I should be able to."

And maybe that's the way that you sometimes think about the difficult relationships in your life. You know that you ought to be able to forgive them, but somehow you don't feel like you have the strength to be able to do it. And I think that's what the disciples thought as well. They didn't know how they could possibly forgive anyone seven times a day. And so it was that they asked Jesus for help. The apostles said to the Lord, you see what they said in verse 5, "Increase our faith. Increase our faith."

Now, this may be one of the smartest things the disciples ever did. Not a very large category actually, smart things the disciples did. But here's one of them. They could have asked for many things. They could have asked for obedience to live the way that Jesus wanted them to live. They could have asked for more courage and compassion to rebuke people who needed to be rebuked. They could have asked for more patience with the people it was hard for them to love, and they needed all of those things. They certainly could have asked for them. But what they demanded was more faith, especially the faith to forgive.

And surely this is what we are to do whenever Jesus confronts us with a demand that we feel unable to meet. We need more faith. We need to pray for more faith. More faith in the promises of the Father, more faith in the grace of the Son, more faith in the power of the Spirit. And since we cannot increase in faith by our own strength, we must go to God and ask Him for it.

You see, whenever we put our faith in God, we are trusting Him to do something we cannot do for ourselves. And I think this kind of forgiveness is a perfect example. You're not going to find the strength to do that from your own goodwill. You're going to need some supernatural work of divine grace. Only God can give a forgiving heart. And since forgiveness is a gift, it can only be received then by faith. And to be specific, we're talking about faith in Jesus Christ, and more specific than that, faith in Jesus Christ and in His cross.

Since as we speak about forgiveness, we're drawn very close to the heart of the gospel. We're drawn to speak about the cross where Jesus died. And really, it's only in the cross that you have any satisfying response to the problem of sin, particularly unforgivable sin. Because the cross fully acknowledges the sinfulness of sin. It places it under the wrath and the curse of God. But it also atones for sin. It provides a way for sinners like us to be forgiven.

And so when we're wrestling with the difficult problems of forgiveness, the thing we need to do is look to Jesus and to the cross. And we should be reminded that what people did to Jesus there itself was unforgivable. Everything from the first kiss of betrayal to the last gasp of His breath on the cross. All of it was an unforgivable sin against Him. The wickedness of the priests that brought Him to die, the wickedness of Pilate in consenting to His execution, the wickedness even of His disciples who abandoned Him in His moment of trial. It was a completely unforgivable sin committed against an infinite and perfect divine majesty. It was an evil, infinitely evil offense against the holiness of God.

But how did Jesus respond to that unforgivable sin? He responded with forgiveness. He said to them, even as they were nailing Him to the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And as we ourselves wrestle with God's call to forgiveness, we need to keep going back to the cross of Christ. That's where we find our own forgiveness and also where we find the courage and the freedom and the grace to forgive others for what they have done to us. This is where I need to go when I feel like I cannot forgive. I need to go to the cross, the cross where Jesus forgave me. If I have faith that my sins are forgiven, then I can have faith that He will enable me to forgive others. And then the forgiveness I am able to offer will flow from the forgiveness that I myself have received from God in Christ.

Let me say again, as we speak about these things, we should be thinking ourselves: who is the person I am having trouble forgiving? Where do I need to apply this principle of forgiveness in a practical way in my own life? British Army officer Ernest Gordon writes about his own struggle with forgiveness in his book "To End All Wars". Some of you will know it, the book has made a deep impression on me because I've referred to a number of incidents to it. Let me just remind you of the story. Gordon and many others had been imprisoned in the infamous Japanese prison camp on the River Kwai. Gordon himself early on in his time there had been left to die. And yet by the grace of God, his life was spared, and he was restored and eventually came to faith in Jesus Christ. And with many other men in that prison camp, he would gather daily for worship. But he had noticed that when they came to a particular petition in the Lord's Prayer, that their voices seemed to falter.

And perhaps you can guess which petition it was. That one that says, "Forgive, Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." See, there I'm faltering. That's how it went, I suppose. Now, why did they falter? Well, it was because they had been so deeply wronged. And they knew that when they said "as we forgive our debtors," that meant that they had an obligation to forgive their Japanese captors. And Gordon speaks about how impossible that was. He didn't love his enemies, he hated them. But then there came a day when he had a spiritual breakthrough. And it came when he went back to the cross and found there his own forgiveness and the grace he needed to forgive people he found it impossible to love.

It happened on Good Friday. And in the course of the worship service, Gordon had been reflecting on the meaning of the cross. And he said, "I recognized that it was no easy thing to call that figure on the cross Lord." And I think he meant it was no easy thing because when you call someone Lord, it means you have to do what they say, including forgive people you don't want to forgive. And Gordon went on to say, "I heard again His words, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' This He had said for His enemies, but what was I to say for mine? I could not say what He had said, for He was innocent, whereas I was not. Humbly, I had to ask, 'Forgive me and forgive my enemies, for we know not what we do.'"

Have you had that experience of the grace of God? Have you gone to the cross to receive the forgiveness of your own sins, and in receiving that forgiveness, also receiving the grace that you need to forgive others? This is where we find the faith to forgive. It's at the cross where we ourselves have been forgiven. It's by faith in Jesus that we are able to forgive.

And when the disciples asked for more faith, I think they were asking for the right thing because it does take faith to forgive. Surely they were asking the right person because if we need forgiveness and if we need faith, we're going to have to receive it as a gift from God. And yet you may be somewhat surprised by the way that Jesus answered. Because rather than giving them more faith, Jesus said this, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."

Now, that is something of a rebuke, isn't it? Although at least this time Jesus wasn't telling them to move any mountains. If you know the gospels, you know there's another episode not unlike this one in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus says, "Look, if you have a little bit of faith, you can move mountains." Here at least it's only a mulberry tree. I mean, I know I don't have the faith to move mountains. Maybe I could manage a mulberry tree. But then no, you realize I can't even do that. Even that's beyond my capabilities.

It was in those days somewhat proverbial that the mulberry was the most firmly rooted of trees. Some of the rabbis said that if you planted a mulberry tree well, it would stay rooted for 600 years. It was no small thing to uproot such a tree. Certainly was no small thing to then plant it in the sea. I don't know how you would do that. But who would have the power to do any of that simply by saying the word? Jesus is saying you could say to the tree and it would happen. Well, surely only God has the power to do any of that.

I think what Jesus is doing here is giving us an illustration to show that we need to trust God to do what only God can do. That's what it means to have faith. It's believing that God is able to do something that you are not able to do. And Jesus is not saying here that faith will give you some kind of magic power, kind of like the force. You can make things move around. He's not saying that we should use our faith to do something trivial like move a tree from one place to another. No, it's simply an illustration of something we can't do but God can. And the point is that if God calls you to do something impossible, like forgiving someone seven times a day, or forgiving that person you're hoping won't come to mind in the course of the sermon because then you'd have to actually wrestle with the call of Christ to forgive them, that kind of impossible thing. You see the point is that if God calls you to do that, you need to trust in His enabling power for Him to give you the faith to do it.

And all it takes is really the tiniest little bit of faith. I mean, a mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, but even that amount of true faith has the power to move mulberry trees, maybe even mountains. In other words, it's not so much a matter of having more or less faith. What matters is having true faith, even just a little bit of it, in the power of the true God. It's not so much great faith in God that we need as it is faith in a great God. Even just a little bit of faith, even the smallest amount of faith, will enable you to do the things that God is calling you to do but that sometimes seem impossible.

Faith enables you to trust God for the future because you know that He's an all-knowing God. Faith enables you to trust God to provide even if you're not sure how God's going to do that because you know that you are trusting in a faithful God. Faith enables you to get past all of the broken dreams and shattered promises you have suffered in life because you are trusting a comforting God who knows your situation and cares about you. Faith enables you to resist temptation, the temptation that may be destroying your life, because that faith is placed in a powerful God. But most of all, in this context, the emphasis I think is on the faith to forgive, because we are trusting in a forgiving God.

Do you have the faith to forgive? A story is told of an old Zulu chieftain whose wife was unexpectedly converted to faith in Jesus Christ. And when the chieftain heard about it, he was enraged. He told his wife that he would never allow her to go to any evangelistic meetings ever again. But the woman was drawn to the beauty of Christ, to the forgiveness of her sins that she had seen in the cross. She went back the very next day.

When the chieftain discovered where his wife had gone, he went to find her. And in his rage, he dragged her out of the village, beat her savagely, and left her for dead. And yet some time later, he found himself wondering if she might still perhaps be alive. And so he went back out into the bush, and he found her. She was there lying under a bush. She was bleeding, she was gasping, she was near to death. "And what can your Jesus do for you now?" he scoffed. And her eyelids fluttered open and she said very quietly, very gently, "He helps me to forgive you."

Now, what kind of forgiveness is God calling you to offer? Who is the person that you need to forgive? Jesus will help you to do it. He will help you to do it by His cross and by His spirit. He will give you the faith to forgive.

Father, we pray for that faith. Father, we would think for a few brief moments of the people who have wronged us, some of them perhaps very grievously. Some perhaps bearing a weight of unforgiveness they have carried for many years, and yet it's such a burden to them. How we long to be free of the bitterness, Lord. But how we need your help to do it. We pray that you would help us to forgive, that we would trust in Jesus and in His cross. And that our forgiveness for others might be something like the forgiveness that we have received in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): You are listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. Alliance broadcasting includes The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, God's Living Word with Pastor the Reverend Richard Phillips, and Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible featuring Donald Barnhouse.

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