It is Unjust to Forgive the Wicked Unrepentant

It is not true that any good comes from forgiving evil men when they are not repentant.

It is a lie that we become bitter when we do not forgive an unrepentant wicked person.

We do not have to hold grudges just because we have not forgiven an unrepentant person. A grudge is when someone will not forgive when someone confesses. I desire to forgive and reconcile but I am prevented when someone refuses to be sorry.

It changes nothing when someone is not sorry and we say we forgive, there is nothing that comes from that except enabling the one who thinks it was alright to sin against us. Consequences are necessary for the offender to learn and for the offended to have a sense of justice.

Bitterness is more likely to grow in a victim when others demand forgiveness for the perp when everyone around the victim is coddling the offender.

I would never tell a rape victim to forgive the perp when they are not sorry and continue to do their dastardly deeds, this would not be justice.

Forgiveness for the unrepentant places undo pressure and guilt on the victim giving them no comfort at all. Rape victims need to see justice and compassion for what they went through.

To expect them to forgive a wicked person who is not repentant is cruel and shows compassion for the wicked not the victim. This is backward from what the Bible teaches.

Sorry, there is no way you will be able to convince me with Scripture out of context that we just throw aside justice so the perp can feel better about himself.

Perps do not come to Christ when they are coddled, it is enabling in the worst way.

Ecclesiastes 8:11

"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil."

God demands justice for unrepentant people who enjoy their sin and enjoy even more the torment of the ones they harmed.

God's Ways are Different from the Ways of Psychology

The teachings of Psychology have some good things in it but much of it comes from Darwinism and has no value for the Christian. Often it focuses more on feelings than it does on spiritual and emotional strength.

We cannot change anyone else who may be acting more like an enemy than family or a friend. What we can do is pray that God help us to be what we should be no matter what anyone else is doing.

Canceling a debt of sin against us does not help the other person nor does it do anything for us. God only cancels the debt of sin for those who repent and desire to be changed by Him. This is God's way of forgiveness, that our relationship with God is restored when we repent and then He forgives. This is His way and should be our way with one another too. God will not cancel the debt of sin against Him unless we repent.

The idea that we should forgive for our own sake is psychology it is not Biblical and does nothing for us or the offender.

Luke 17:3-4 "…3 Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Forgiveness is for the purpose of reconciling a relationship. Confession and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin, both must be present for reconciliation.

However, this does not mean we treat anyone badly, we are to bless our enemies, but this does not mean we remain friends with those who offend and think it is alright to do so.

When we short-cut God's way of forgiveness and do our own thing to feel better about ourselves we diminish the power of reconciliation. The goal is not to make ourselves feel better, it is to reconcile and this can only happen when both confession and forgiveness are present.

When we love people we want them to see their need for growth and change. When we only love ourselves we want to "feel" better and even boast about forgiving when all that happened are words that fall to the ground and produce nothing Godly.

Forgiveness is not words or feelings, it is the canceling of a debt toward us when someone is repentant. Forgiveness God's way is harder and takes more faith than just words or feelings. It depends on God to work in the lives of others so that something real and permanent can happen. It also causes us to remain faithful to God even when others are not.

1 Peter 3:9-14 "1 Peter 3:9-14

"9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you would inherit a blessing. 10 For,

“The one who desires life, to love and see good days,

Must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

11 He must turn away from evil and do good;

He must seek peace and pursue it.

12 For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,

And His ears attend to their prayer,

But the face of the Lord is against evildoers.”

13 And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be in dread,"

God told us to walk away from those who are continually wicked and refuse to repent. 2 Timothy 3 describes these personalities who enjoy dominating others and reviling that which is good. This is a description of the last days apostate church.

It is sinful to pressure others to forgive those who refuse to repent. Anyone who does this is thwarting God's purpose in the process of confession and forgiveness.

God will not forgive us if we do not repent and neither should we forgive others who are not sorry. Having said that I must add here that if someone is authentically repentant then we are commanded to forgive. This means we cancel their debt against us and restore the relationship.

I have only had this happen a handful of times in my more than 70 years, it is not common because those who offend are too prideful to humble themselves and the one offended is too prideful and cowardly to discuss the problems and require contrition.

It is pride that prevents us from doing things God's Way and pride that causes us to seek out secular psychology instead of God. Now we have three generations of people who think requiring repentance is wrong and forgiving without it is what God does.

NO, God does not forgive unrepentant people, they will go to hell unless they repent and desire to be changed by Him.

Mankind's relationship with God remains broken when there is a refusal to repent. Just as our relationships remain broken when someone is not sorry for offending others.

When someone is sorry and comes to make it right it is easy to forgive, all debt is cancelled and the relationship is restored permanently.

Unless there is false confession in which someone is tired of the broken relationship and comes to confess because they want things to go back the way they were before, but are not sorry they sinned against us.

True confession of sin involves a changed heart and changed behavior. The wonderful thing about confession is that it is so humbling that it changes the heart permanently for another growth spurt.

A false confession to gain something one lost, will often lack the changed behavior that caused the problem in the first place.

We forgive immediately when someone confesses, but we also watch to see if there is a change in attitude and actions.

Psalm 51:10

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

This clean heart can only come when there is confession.

1 John 1:9 "9 if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

We must confess our sin to be cleansed by Christ and we must confess to those we have offended to cleanse and renew the relationship.

Our culture focuses more on personal feelings and happy thoughts than it does on real and permanent change. Because of this people are walking around "feeling" all good about themselves but no good has happened, it's all in their heads and does not flesh out into any real healing.

May believers actually follow God's way and not the way of the psychologized culture that short-cuts God's way for the easy way of the world. To follow Christ we must know His word intimately and do what He commands.

Proverbs 4:23

"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."

Strength Only Comes From Jesus Christ

In recent months I have been suffering from neck and back pain. Every day I take medicine to allow me to be out of pain for a few hours at a time. In an effort to figure out what is causing this I have seen a couple of kinds of doctors to get to the source of the problem. Finally, I was referred to a chiropractor after the doctors ruled out more serious possibilities.

In pondering this situation it occurred to me that the solution was for this new doctor to manipulate the muscles and bones back into alignment where they should be. In doing this there is worse pain for there to be less pain.

Life is like this too, we cannot fix the spiritual and emotional problems in our life without the painful solutions, which are to face our own sinfulness, call it what it is, and seek the healing that only comes through admitting we have a problem with sin and asking Christ to cleanse us from the emotions that lead us into sin.

Sin is always driven by fleshly emotional responses to pain in our hearts, real or imagined, we tend to follow our feelings which motivates us to fall into sin. The devil uses these emotions just the same way he did with Eve in the garden.

The devil manipulated Eve to harden her spiritual and emotional heart, diminishing her ability to think rationally and logically.

He convinced Eve that she was missing out on something by obeying God. He manipulated her to distrust God and trust in her own fleshly emotional desire to experience something better than what God had offered her, or so the devil convinced her.

When we lean into our emotions, fulfilling our fleshly desires that defy God we will always take the easy way that gives momentary pleasure and fits in with the ways of the world and the devil.

2 Corinthians 4 tells us that the world is under the influence of the devil continually being twisted in the wind of emotional desire but the born again believes are under the power of the Holy Spirit, given the power to resist the devil and walk in a way that blesses God and themselves.

Just as with the painful manipulation of the muscles and bones to cause healing in our bodies we must do the painful work of facing our sinful nature, admitting our frailties to be cleansed. Without admitting guilt of our sin there can be no healing.

The more we massage our feelings and justify our sinful attitudes and actions the more we become hardened in our hearts. Just like muscles in our bodies that become stuck in painful patterns that cripple us so does pride stiffen our spiritual and emotional muscles leading us into worse pain than if we had admitted what was wrong and allowed the pain of facing our sinfulness to promote healing in our souls.

The longer we resist admitting our sinfulness the harder our hearts become and the more spiritual and emotional pain we live in day after day.

Those who are weight lifters know that in lifting those weights they are tearing down muscles that must heal back making the muscles stronger than they were before the tears.

Those who fight to defend their sinfulness, justifying it through manipulation of their thoughts, are weakening their spiritual and emotional structures. To become strong we must first become humble appearing weaker to those who love their pride, but in the final run, we are strengthening ourselves.

Our culture says things like "no pain no gain" when it comes to physical activities to make our bodies stronger but neglects the need to painfully humble ourselves to grow spiritually and emotionally stronger.

Those who neglect the spiritual and emotional aspect of their lives focusing only on the physical will be physically strong and emotionally and spiritually weak.

The spiritual and emotional strength is far more important than the body and yet they are the parts of our being we neglect the most.

1 Timothy 4:7-9 "…7 But reject irreverent, silly myths. Instead, train yourself for godliness. 8 For physical exercise is of limited value, but godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for the present life and for the one to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance.…"

The spiritual, emotional and physical aspects of our being are deeply connected, they work together whether for health or for degradation.

Those who have had much physical pain, having to face it every day in their lives are more likely to be able to face that pain with grace when they walk with Christ. The physical pain does not overpower the Spirit of Christ in us, we can roll through our pain with Him and remain emotionally stable because He is with us. We may weep at times but the joy remains in us because this life and this physical body are not our real selves, our Spiritual life in Christ is who we are and in Him we have Spiritual and emotional strength.

As followers of Christ having been born-again we have hope in our future redemption from this physical life to the new bodies we will receive when we leave this physical world of death.

Those who are not in Christ very often become bitter because they do not have the help of God, they must depend entirely on their own fleshly strength, as weak as it is, to carry them through.

In the final analysis, the physical life is very temporary but eternity is forever and that is the life we look forward to as believers. These trials and the infirmities of this life pale in comparison to eternity with Christ. This world is our boot camp, the training for the Millennium and beyond, it has a purpose and an ending, we know it is very temporary compared to eternity.

Romans 8:18 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

What an amazing hope we have when we are born-again. We desire that those who do not know Christ would repent and find this hope too.

Isaiah 40:31. "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Hallelujah!!!!