Prayer Keys - Forgiveness
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Mark 11:25
In the last few days there was an item on the news about residents in a local neighborhood finding a bobcat in their yard. A story we sometimes hear is about an alligator being found in a drainage ditch. We haven’t heard that this year, with the drought, but sometimes we do. In Alaska, none of the cities are very far from the wilderness, so it is common to find bears roaming the streets.
The next time you find a bobcat, an alligator, or a bear in your yard, my advice is to keep your distance. Leave it to the professionals. The next time you find a wild monkey in your yard, I can help.
I have heard descriptions of two monkey traps based on the same principle. One is a vase with a neck just wide enough for a monkey to stick its open paw in. The other is a coconut with a hole cut in it that is just big enough for a monkey to stick its open paw in. Some nuts or pieces of fruit are placed in each. The vase is buried with just a little of the neck above ground while the coconut is tied or chained to a tree. Then the monkey hunter waits for a hungry monkey to come along.
The hungry monkey smells the treat and finds the buried vase or chained coconut. He reaches in, grabs his meal, pulls… and pulls… but can’t get his fist with the treat through the narrow opening. Now he is hungry and mad. As he continues pulling, he screams his displeasure, but he never lets go. He holds tighter, pulls harder, and screams louder.
The monkey hunter, who may be having lunch, or reading, or napping, hears the screams, walks to his trap, and throws a net over the monkey, who is still holding tightly to his treat.
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him…”
The Greek word for “forgive” was also used in Bible days for loosening a ship from its mooring or for releasing an accused person. As I understand it, the root meaning is “to let go.” “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him…” Let go of whatever you are holding against him. Let go of your grievance. Forgive him.
Paul said, “If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven – if there was anything to forgive – I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. We are not unaware of his schemes,” 2 Corinthians 2:10-11. 1 Timothy 3:7 and 2 Timothy 2:26 both refer to a snare, to a trap, set by the devil. When I refuse to forgive, when I refuse to let go, the devil becomes the monkey hunter and I become the monkey.
Mark 11:25 specifically shows that unforgiveness hinders prayer. But there is so much more.
Have you ever tried to find your way through one of those mazes drawn on paper? Do you know the kind I’m talking about? The maze has an arrow that says, “Start here.” You are supposed to find a path to the second arrow that says, “Finish.” Have you ever noticed that sometimes it is easier to begin at the “finish” and find you way back to the “start here?” It may not be very scholarly, but that is how my study went for this passage. I started at the end and worked my way back.
Notice the first word in Mark 11:25, “and.” Verse 25 is not the full idea, it is the end of an idea. Let’s back up and begin reading at Mark 11:20.
“In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’
“‘Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered. ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins.’”
Unforgiveness not only hinders our prayer, it hinders our faith. It hinders our battle with doubt.
The expression “move mountains” or “cast mountains into the sea” was a rabbinic figure of speech referring to something extremely difficult to do. For a 90 year old woman to bear her first child was unheard of when Sarah conceived, but God made it happen. There was no visible way for the Israelites to escape Pharaoh’s army when God parted the Red Sea. All through scripture we see that God not only does the difficult, he does the impossible. But God’s ability to do the impossible did not end with Revelation 22:21.
Oscar C. Eliason was dying of TB in a Minneapolis hospital when an elderly minister visited and prayed with him. The next day he showed signs of improvement. As he continued to improve the doctors had to admit that something out of the ordinary had happened.
In 1929, as he continued to get better, he noticed an ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a construction company. He changed their words to make a song: Got any rivers you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through? God specializes in things thought impossible! He does the things others cannot do!
The song spread by word of mouth, and there were several versions by the time it was published in 1945. A line that apparently never changed through those years was that, “God specializes in things thought impossible!”
God’s ability to move mountains is not limited to being just a figure of speech. Mark Stibbe tells the story of a Japanese orphanage with the coast on one side, a road on one side, a high-rise building on one side, a hill behind them, and no room to expand.
While the missionaries were out fundraising, the kids went out back to apply what the missionaries taught. They prayed that the hill would be moved. The next day, bulldozers arrived to level it. The dirt was needed for ballast at a nearby wharf.
Paul Wallace tells the story of a church member in the foothills of the Great Smokies leaving land to the church in his will. The church built a new sanctuary on the land but ten days before they were to hold their first service, a building inspector informed the pastor that the parking lot was too small for the building. Until the church doubled the size of the parking lot, they would not be able to use the new sanctuary.
Unfortunately, the church had used every bit of available land to build their new facility. All that was left was the mountain against which they had built.
The Sunday before the scheduled move, the pastor announced that he would hold a prayer meeting that night with all members who had faith to move mountains and more. The “and more” was praying that God would provide the funds to have the area paved and painted before the dedication ceremony next Sunday.
Twenty-four of the church’s three hundred members met and prayed for three hours. At 10:00, the pastor said the closing “Amen.”
The next morning, a construction foreman knocked on the pastor’s study door. “Excuse me, Reverend. I’m from the Acme Construction Company over in the next county. We’re building a huge new shopping mall over there and we need some fill dirt. Would you be willing to sell us a chunk of that mountain behind the church? We’ll pay you for the dirt we remove and pave all the exposed area free of charge, if we can have it right away. We can’t do anything else until we get the dirt in and allow it to settle properly.”
To be honest with you, these stories about an orphanage somewhere in Japan and a church somewhere in the foothills of the Great Smokies and the generic “Acme Construction Company” sound like parables made up to illustrate the scripture. I would be more confident of their authenticity if they named a specific orphanage, a specific church, a specific place, a specific missionary, or a specific pastor. But they could have happened. They are believable. I am encouraged by the fact that God can do the unbelievable.
Unforgiveness hinders our prayers. Unforgiveness hinders our faith. Unforgiveness hinders our battle with doubt. But we have not yet backed up to the starting point for this study. The lesson on faith is a response to a withered fig tree.
“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season of figs. Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it.” Mark 11:12-14
Between the cursing of the tree and finding it withered, Jesus cleanses the temple.
Back in the 70 s, I heard the Bob Craig, Director of the Baptist Student Union at Lee Junior College in Baytown, TX, preach on this passage. He said he decided to talk to a horticulturist at the college to find out what he could about this fig tree.
Fig trees produce tiny figs before they produce leaves, so this tree, in leaf, should have at least had tiny, green figs on it. Bob said the horticulturist told him that was not the most important point in this passage. What’s more important is that there are trees that are supposed to bear fruit, but don’t. All the energy that should go into producing fruit goes into producing leaves. The trees, so full of lush leaves, are beautiful, but they don’t do what they are supposed to. They are fruitless, but they look good.
The temple was bearing no fruit. All its energy went in to sustaining the religious system and making a profit instead of producing fruit. The Jewish system of religious legalism, like the fig tree, was cursed and would never produce fruit.
Unforgiveness not only hinders our prayers. It not only hinders our faith. It not only hinders our battle with doubt. Unforgiveness hinders our fruitfulness. Unforgiveness is serious.
Now we have reached the beginning of our study. Jesus is teaching the results of being unfruitful. He gives three keys to bearing fruit: faith, prayer, and forgiveness. At the same time, bearing fruit, faith, and forgiveness are three prayer keys. These four things, bearing fruit, faith, prayer, and forgiveness, are inseparable.
Tonight’s Bible study reveals that unforgiveness hinders our prayers. Unforgiveness hinders our faith. Unforgiveness hinders our battle with doubt. Unforgiveness hinders our fruitfulness. Unforgiveness is serious.
One reason unforgiveness is so serious may relate to last week’s study, doing everything for the glory of God. One scripture we did not study last week, but we could have, is Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your father which is in heaven.”
The word for “light” refers to reflected light. Just as the moon generates no light of its own, but reflects the light of the sun, so we generate no light of our own. When people look at us, they should see God’s light reflecting from us. They should glorify God because of what they see in us. When we are unforgiving, people do not see the light of God in us. They do not glorify God.
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
A common piece of advice is to “forgive and forget.” God says in Jeremiah 31:34 that he will forgive our iniquities and he will remember them no more. He can do that, but he does not expect that from us. The Bible does not use the words “forgive” and “forget” in the same verse. Jeremiah 31:34 is the closest passage to that I could find, and it applies to God, not to us.
We do not have the ability to erase our memories at will. That is why lawyers will produce evidence they know is not admissible in court. The judge can order it striken from the record and he can order jurors to disregard it, but it is irrational to think that they won’t remember it. God does not expect us to forget as soon as we forgive.
Have you heard the example of the bell in the tower? You give the rope a mighty pull and the bell gives a loud ring. When you let go of the rope, the bell is not silent immediately. There is a ring not quite as loud as the first, and then a ring not quite as loud as the second. The ringing continues less loudly each time, until the bell is quiet.
When we forgive, we let go of the rope, but we should not be surprised if the angry thoughts do not end immediately. If they do end immediately, praise God. If they don’t, don’t be surprised. Don’t let the Devil snare you with your memories. “If you really forgave, you would not feel like this. You would not think like this. You didn’t really forgive. You can’t forgive this. You are a hypocrite.” Don’t listen to the Devil. As the bell keeps ringing after the rope is released, angry thoughts and bad feelings will return from time to time. As the bell becomes quieter and quieter, the angry thoughts and feelings will grow less and less. As the bell is eventually quiet, the angry thoughts and feelings will eventually be gone.
God does not command us to forgive and forget. Don’t let the Devil use that misunderstanding to accuse you.
Forgiveness can have a profound impact on the forgiver, on those who see us practice forgiveness, and on the forgiven. Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis said:
“The following day [the day after an assassination attempt] my father said he knew his physical healing was directly dependent on his ability to forgive John Hinckley. By showing me that forgiveness is the key to everything, including physical health & healing, he gave me an example of Christ-like thinking.”
Ernest Hemingway tells the story of a father and his teenage son who had a strained relationship. Then the son ran away. The father began a desperate search for his rebellious son. Finally, he put an ad in the Madrid newspaper: “Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspapaer office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.”
The next day at noon in front of the newspaper office, 800 “Pacos” showed up.
Tonight’s Bible study reveals that unforgiveness hinders our prayers. Unforgiveness hinders our faith. Unforgiveness hinders our battle with doubt. Unforgiveness hinders our fruitfulness. Unforgiveness is serious.
Let me say that one more time, this time, I will say it positively. Forgiveness enhances our prayers. Forgiveness enhances our faith. Forgiveness enhances our battle with doubt. Forgiveness enhances our fruitfulness. Forgiveness is powerful.
