Several years ago the Church of England sent a devoted missionary to New Zealand. After a few years of toil and success, he was one Sabbath holding a communion service in a district where the converts had not long since been savages. As the missionary was conducting the service, he observed one of the men, just as he was about to kneel at the rail, suddenly start to his feet and hastily go the opposite end of the church. By and by he returned, and calmly took his place. After service the clergyman took him on one side, and asked the reason for his strange behavior. He replied: “As I was about to kneel I recognized in the man next to me the chief of a neighboring tribe, who had murdered my father, and drunk his blood; and I had sworn by all the gods that I would slay that man at the first opportunity. The impulse to have my revenge, at the first almost overpowered me, and I rushed away, as you saw me, to escape the power of it. As I stood at the other end of the room and considered the object of our meeting, I thought of Him who prayed for His own murderers: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And I felt that I could forgive the murderer of my father, and came and knelt down at his side.”
As one has said: “There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in the world—a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blow-pipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him; and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fists, then they forgive him.”
The father of Frederick the Great, on his death-bed, was warned by M. Roloff, his spiritual adviser, that he was bound to forgive his enemies. He was quite troubled, and after a moment’s pause said to the Queen: “You, Feekin, may write to your brother (the King of England) after I am dead, and tell him that I forgave him, and died at peace with him.” “It would be better,” M. Roloff mildly suggested, “that your majesty should write at once.” “No,” was the stern reply. “Write after I am dead. That will be safer.”
Another story tells of a man who, supposing he was about to die, expressed his forgiveness to one who had injured him, but added: “Now you mind, if I get well, the old grudge holds good.”
My friends, that is not forgiveness at all. I believe true forgiveness includes forgetting the offence—putting it entirely away out of our hearts and memories.
As Matthew Henry says: “We do not forgive our offending brother aright nor acceptably, if we do not forgive him from the heart, for it is that God looks at. No malice must be harbored there, nor ill-will to any; no projects of revenge must be hatched there, nor desires of it, as there are in many who outwardly appear peaceful and reconciled. We must from the heart desire and seek the welfare of those who have offended us.”
If God’s forgiveness were like that often shown by us, it would not be worth much. Supposing God said: “I will forgive you, but I will never forget it; all through eternity I will keep reminding you of it;” we should not feel that to be forgiveness at all. Notice what God says: “I will remember their sin no more.” In a passage in Ezekiel it is said that not one of our sins shall be mentioned; is not that like God? I do like to preach this forgiveness—the sweet truth that sin is blotted out for time and eternity, and shall never once be mentioned against us. In another Scripture we read: “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Then when you turn to the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, and read God’s roll of honor, you find that not one of the sins of any of those men of faith is mentioned. Abraham is spoken of as the man of faith; but it is not told how he denied his wife down in Egypt; all that had been forgiven. Moses was kept out of the Promised Land because he lost patience; but this is not mentioned in the New Testament, though his name appears in the Apostle’s roll of honor. Samson, too, is named, but his sins are not brought up again. Why, we even read of “righteous Lot;” he did not look much like a righteous man in the Old Testament story, but he has been forgiven, and God has made him “righteous.” If we are once forgiven by God, our sins will be remembered against us no more. This is God’s eternal decree.
Brooks says of God’s pardon granted to His people: “When God pardons sin, He takes it sheer away; that if it should be sought for, yet it could not be found; as the prophet Jeremiah speaks: ‘In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve.’ As David, when he saw in Mephibosheth the features of his friend Jonathan, took no notice of his lameness, or any other defect or deformity; so God, beholding in His people the glorious image of His Son, winks at all their faults and deformities, which made Luther say, ‘Do with me what thou wilt, since Thou hast pardoned my sin.’ And what is it to pardon sin, but not to mention sin?”
We read in the Gospel of Matthew: “Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” Then a little further on we read that Peter comes to Christ and says: “How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” Jesus replied, “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.” Peter did not seem to think that he was in danger of falling into sin; his question was, How often should I forgive my brother? But very soon we hear that Peter has fallen. I can imagine that when he did fall, the sweet thought came to him of what the Master had said about forgiving until seventy times seven. The voice of sin may be loud, but the voice of forgiveness is louder.
Let us enter into David’s experience, when he said: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”