When the time came for Jacob to leave Laban and move on to the covenant-location of Bethel, God allowed a crisis between ‘Executive Director’ and ‘Manager’; between father-in-law and son-in-law (Genesis 31:2-3). It took that ‘quarrel’ between both parties for Jacob to move on to where Covenant was waiting for him. Imagine some ‘concerned’ priest or anyone trying to settle that quarrel!
2. Manipulated Relationships
It seems clear from our primary text that emotions and relationships are manipulable by spirit forces, and they can be weaponized. So, sustaining smiles or avoiding wars may not altogether depend on the meticulous adherence to textbook rules on relationship and romance (Genesis 11:7-8). One can sow all the right relationship seeds and still reap enmity if there is a spirit-cause unknown or ignored.
1. The Paradoxical God of Peace
It is traditional to think of God as the “God of love,” the “God of peace.” That is correct, for, according to 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (NLT). In other words, according to that passage, love is God’s nature, and love is His ‘address.’ God is such a God of love and peace that He also urges His children to be like Him, to “Do all that you can to LIVE IN PEACE with everyone” (Romans 12:18, NLT).
1. Keep your Focus
The path to the Promise sometimes leads through places that do not look like it. To lose sight of the Promise and focus on the passage is to distress the soul and be likely to miss the Promise. It happened to many on their way from Egypt. Their vexing present seeming a far cry from the promised future, they were bitter and chose to die. They did, and quickly so – before the Promise had been reached. Along the passage, they strove with Moses and demanded,
That God has made you a promise does not always mean that He must perform it. Shocked? How you treat His promise determines what you get of it. To Moses, God said about certain of the Israelites all of whom had departed Egypt, headed in the same direction of the Promised Land, “Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I sware to give unto your fathers” (Deuteronomy 1:35). God had firmly sworn, but He was under no obligation to perform the promise to certain persons. Fulfilment of promise was based not only on the promise made but also on the nature of its reception; it was based not only on the integrity of the Promise Maker but also on the character of the receiver.
1. The Tête-à-Tête on Joshua
As Moses prepared to vacate the scene of leadership, God continued to guide him to groom Joshua his personal assistant. On one crucial occasion, God said something privately to him about Joshua, something which Moses was later to make public. God said of Joshua, “But Joshua the son of Nun, which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither: encourage him: for he shall cause Israel to inherit it” (Deuteronomy 1:38). There are many things packed into that verse, but one of them strikes me: “encourage him: for he shall cause Israel to inherit.”
There comes a time of emergency in a land when God’s hotline is open not only to holy priests but also to others of the opposite kind, as in Nineveh. When Nineveh’s king called a sudden national fast at Prophet Jonah’s threatening ultimatum of disaster, it was not exclusive to holy priests. By the way, there was none in that Gentile land of total sinners.
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son provides insights into the process and principles of forgiveness, or of securing forgiveness. In that parable, a junior son demands his inheritance from the father, and promptly goes off to a very distant land where he wastes everything in debauchery. Sometime later, the hammer of hardship forces his eyes open. He realises his trespass and takes steps to make amends in the frittered relationship with his father.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son (Luke 15:17-22).
The following deductions are possible from the parable:
1. Realisation
There was self-realisation, which is where the miracle started for the Prodigal Son. Apology or confession without realisation, without true consciousness of the harm done to the other, is mere oration. Apology that does not come from the deep well of penitence is like a forced sacrifice, which could be painfully offensive, additionally offensive, especially to the one for whom it might have seemed intended. He “came to himself.”
2. Responsibility
There was admission of guilt for the trespass committed, a personal acknowledgment of sin. “I [not you] have sinned,” he said to the father. He did not blame his ways on someone else; not on the father, not on the other brother. He took responsibility for what he had done wrong, putting the blame where it rightly belonged. True penitence does not seek whom to hang the fault on. It acknowledges its sins, which is where its strength lies.
Apart from not guilting others for his trespass, he also did not excuse himself. He did not call his act a ‘mistake,’ a ‘wrong journey,’ or some ‘juvenile misadventure.’ He frankly called it a sin; a sin against God and man. Alone, at last, he told himself the truth. Sinners are usually ready for healing when they start to tell themselves the truth. It is one sign to look out for in the ‘application’ for reconciliation/restoration, that they have accepted the truth or have told themselves the truth rather than keep blaming their fate and faults on other people or on other factors. “I HAVE sinned…”
3. Resolution
After realisation, there was a resolution to do something about the discord separating him from his father. He made up his mind what he would do. He took a decision, and he spoke out his resolution. He told himself out loud what he would do, as if to enlist himself as witness against himself if he did not follow it through. He rehearsed what he would say when the moment came: “… and will say unto him, Father….” The resolution was firm… ”I WILL arise and go…”
4. Return
There was action backing the resolution. He did not make a resolution that he was not going to follow through, like the shadowy New Year’s resolutions that some people make but never keep. He backed his resolution with action. He began a journey to reach the father he had trespassed against, and he followed that process through to its ‘logical conclusion.’ He did not wait to be begged. He arose, and he went. It was willingness backed with action; action that did not give up midway. “And he AROSE, and CAME…”
5. Renunciation
He did not expect the father to give a cue before he would start his speech. He confessed to his sin against God and man. It was concrete confession, an actual verbal, worded confession, a clear renunciation of his wayward past: “And the son SAID… I have sinned.” The trespasser spoke in words, not ‘in action’ that the other was meant to ‘understand.’ Anyone that cannot put their repentance into words or speechless tears is proud, and has not yet regretted their error. They could do worse tomorrow. There is less likelihood for someone to repeat a fault that they have sincerely regretted in express words of confession. Confession is a form of renunciation of past errors. “And the son SAID unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight…”
6. Repentance
The Prodigal Son did not return merely to restart the prodigal culture in the father’s house. He had changed. True repentance is not mere words, it’s meant words; it’s not lip service, it’s heart-service. True repentance is not always hard to notice. One does not search for it with a magnifying glass; one does not need the village council to announce it on behalf of the close-lipped adamant ‘renovated’ trespasser. It shows. The distant Far-Country son had brought himself so close that the father could say, “THIS my son…” (v.24), not ‘THAT my son…’ and everyone could see it. Repentance is a change in lifestyle, a coming back home, a coming closer, a turnaround, a resurrection from ‘death,’ which was why the father could say that son was alive “again,” as if he had been dead all the prodigal while. “For THIS my son… is ALIVE AGAIN…”
*7. Response *
There was a response from the father, in the form of the items and symbols of restoration administered to the returning son. The father would not even let him complete the long speech that he had prepared ahead of that meeting. Forgiveness is the kind hand that one stretches out to receive a returning sinner.
What if the father had said nothing and done nothing despite all the prepared long apology speech of that miserable ragged returnee from a distant land? What if… Repentance and forgiveness are like a dialogue. One says something penitently, the other responds reassuringly. “But the father SAID…”
8. Restoration
There was a natural outcome to the return and repentance. The father restored him to sonship through the ritual of the ring, the shoes, and the garment. The restoration was part of the father’s response to the returnee. “But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet” (v.22).
9. Remanence
The son remained at home. He was not about to take the father’s forgiveness for granted, and take off again to a farther country with the new shoes on his feet. He did not repeat the same offence for which he had confessed and received forgiveness. The father testified to that when he said that the lost son was in the state of having been found. Forgiveness gives the other person another chance to start afresh, not another chance to sin again. “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and IS found…”
10. Specific Sin
The trespass is called by its proper name: SIN, not ‘mistake’ or ‘accident.’ The offender did not try to lighten his offence by calling it a clever nicer name. It is neither repentance nor apology that lightens one’s trespass with fanciful words while exaggerating the other’s side to the matter. Any repentance or conflict resolution that evades calling errors by their deserved ugly name is a cover for worse days ahead. “I have SINNED…”
11. Specific Confession
The confession was specific as to the trespass committed. It was not a generalised ‘sorry for everything’ addressed to nobody. It was not a “sorry” that admitted no guilt. It was not apology for the sake of apology; apology merely to flatter the father and get an improved image.
12. Specific Address
The ‘application’ for forgiveness was specific to the person trespassed against, to the father offended, not to an uncle or the mother or the father’s pastor. The trespasser “came”; he didn’t send a proxy; and he came “TO HIS FATHER,” not to another.
13. Multiple Apologies
Sometimes one wrong act distresses more than the person immediately affected by the act, and should therefore, as much as is possible, be accordingly addressed in those multiples. The son made ‘two’ confessions: the first, addressed to “heaven,” and the other to the father. He did not say that he owned nobody anymore apology because he had ‘settled with heaven.’
In summary, the main highlights are the 9 R’s, the 3 S’s and the Multiple Apologies:
Realisation, Responsibility, Resolution, Return, Renunciation, Repentance, Response , Restoration, Remanence, Specific, Sin, Specific Confession, Specific Address, Multiple Apologies
If resolving relational concerns would be so imperative as to make no affronted father too far from Far Country and no betrayer-brothers too blighted to be embraced again, forgiveness might mean more than we would ever know. If a royal servant’s timeless horror could be hinged on a moment’s cross-relations with another, despite how well and how long he had served his king; if relational offences are capable of disqualifying the great sacrifice one brings to the altar, and eventually determining whether one remains in the King’s court or is cast to tormentors in ‘outer darkness,’ forgiveness must be more than just another Sunday school subject. Your very life and eternity might depend on it.
From The Preacher’s diary
October 13, 2018.
To be continued…
Culled from the latest bestseller, Forgiveness. Contact the office for copies or get online from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/FORGIVENESS-PREACHER/dp/B09CRLXZ9P
And the city shall be cursed, even it, and all that therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house: because she hid the messengers that we sent.
Joshua 6:17.
1. Treasures in a Stained Vessel
Do roses grow on dump sites? Can messiahs proceed from notorious Nazareth? Can the discarded jawbone of a dead donkey become the salvaging weapon of mass destruction in the hand of a strong man?
Mind the errands on which your money goes, whether sent by you or by a delegate. Mind what your money does, and what others do with it, sometimes. That is one profound lesson from Judas Iscariot.
