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Beatty: [00:00:00.09] This is our fourth session on spiritual warfare, talking on getting free of torments, addictions and constant life challenges. Tonight, it’s going to be real interesting because the topic we’re talking on this is probably 60% or maybe more of most of the problems and torments that most people have that we’re going to be talking about tonight. So to bring you back up to speed. Our first topic, we’re talking on legal rights and understanding that legal rights is what gives a demonic spirit the right to torment us. A legal right is anyone remember unrepentant sin as long as we have an unrepentant sin. Then there’s an open door and we have the ability to be tormented. We then talked about strongholds, and that strongholds are the things that keep us from actually producing abundant spiritual fruit. Those strongholds can be what we think in our mind. They can also be demonic torments that are trying to crowd it out. And then the last time we talked on soul ties and sexual sin and I made a comment, I want to clarify, we made a comment last time on STD sexually transmitted demons. And when you have a sexual sin soul time, then you have a 100% chance of open doors. Whether demonic torments come through or not is not always 100% chance. But what happens is, if the partner you’re sleeping with has demonic torments, then you have a 100% chance that you can receive those torments. Not everyone you sleep with may have demonic torments, but what’s interesting is, is the torments that we’re going to be talking about to tonight.

Beatty: [00:01:59.96] On this topic are part of those torments that come through. It’s really interesting. So I just want to clarify that it’s a 100% chance that you will have open doors, whether you receive those torments now or you receive torments later or you don’t receive torments. That’s kind of not the point. The point is it’s a 100% chance of open doors. And this whole series is how do you close out these open doors? But the other thing that was interesting that happened is after our study last time. I was talking with someone and they were asking, what’s the real point of all of this? You know, this is this just interesting information? Is it worthless information? Is it something that we can do something with? And I wanted to share biblically what the point of this is about. So turn real quickly to Hebrews 12 versus five, six and seven. And I want to show you what is the purpose of understanding all of these open doors and how they work. So Hebrews 12, five, six and seven. That says, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? By the way, sons means men and women. If you remember Genesis, he says, Let us make man in our image. And he made them male and female. So sons is the term for those who inherit eternal life and inherit the kingdom.

Beatty: [00:03:31.10] And then it continues. My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reprove by them. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what? Son is there whom his father does not discipline. What’s the purpose of discipline? Correction. Correction. Yeah. So you have little kids. They do something wrong, you spank them and discipline them. And that teaches them not to do that and to teach them to do right. How does a child know that he’s being disciplined? It hurts. It hurts. Yeah. Mom or dad says because you did wrong, I’m going to spank you. You broke the rule. Right. How do we know when the Lord is disciplining us? Because this says that the Lord will discipline every one of us whom He loves. How do we know when we’re being disciplined? I think one way is you don’t feel close to him like you don’t hear him as well. Yeah. You know, I think that’s one way he does. Well, now, many of my conservative friends never do hear him, so we can’t use that. So it’s not good for you. So that’s not good for everyone. Okay. But I would like to suggest that what we’re talking about is. God’s discipline. So think about this. When I sin, does God come down and spank me or do I simply have problems that start to occur in my life? I have those problems that start to occur.

Beatty: [00:05:11.54] Yeah. Okay. That’s right. So what happens is just in a very simple way, you have God and God sets up rules that if we violate those rules, i.e. sin, that we then get disciplined. God doesn’t do the discipline yet it says that God disciplines us. You ever been to Auburn University? Anyone? Okay. Most college universities that are the same way and all the storefronts, all the restaurants and other places near the university. It says parking for customers only all others will be towed. Right. So think about what happens. That’s the rule. They go make contracts with a different towing companies and those towing companies are constantly lurking around looking for a violator because that’s how they get paid. So you pull into Wendy’s parking lot, it’s a low time. You know, there’s 25 empty spaces. You’ve got to go across the street to pick up something from one of the offices on the campus. So you pull into Wendy’s and it’s only going to be five or 10 minutes. You run over there, you run back and your car is gone. That would be bad. Or it’s 3:00 in the morning, you’re coming home late, you’re going to drop by a friend’s house for just a few moments. You pull in that Wendy’s parking lot. There’s no cars there.

Beatty: [00:06:39.78] It’s closed. There is no business. There are no customers. You park there and you go over to your next door to your your friend’s apartment because all their parking is full and you spend some time, you come back 30 minutes later and your car is gone into the Wendy’s establishment. Take your car away. No, but they set the rule. And then they went and hired the tow company to enforce that rule. And when that tow company enforces the rule, ultimately it’s the rule maker who is responsible that your car is not there, but it’s someone else that’s actually doing the discipline of taking your car away. What we have in this topic of spiritual warfare and legal rights and all these open doors is all about God’s discipline. God’s discipline is to bring about repentance. The reason to teach this and to teach it in enough detail and depth that you can do something with it is we’ll start to recognize that these torments in our lives, these things that we think are just normal because it’s the way it always is, or the constant life failures that we just think, Woe is me. The purpose of the teaching is to realize that this is how God disciplines. When we have the broken the rules, we commit sin. And the rule says to repent and we don’t repent. That now is an open door, that now these tow truck drivers, all the little demonic spirits lurking around looking for who breaks the rule.

Beatty: [00:08:20.61] And once someone breaks the rule, they get paid to jump in and start to bring discipline. So once we recognize it, then we can go, Oh, Lord, I repent of my sin. The discipline leaves. And then we know I better not do that again. I’ll never go park at Wendy’s even for 5 minutes again because my car is going to get towed. It’s not worth the risk. And when I do sin, then I’m going to be quick to repent, which is the change in behavior that discipline brings about. This is what Hebrews 12 is talking about. Don’t be surprised. God’s going to discipline those he loves. And the discipline is to bring about correction. And that’s what we’re talking about here. As I move into this, we’re going to talk about tonight’s topic is unforgiveness. And I want to give credit to Bruce Wilkinson. He’s with Teach Every Nation and created a teaching series called 70 Times Seven. And I’ve stolen excuse me, I’ve borrowed with permission some of the stuff that I’m going to be teaching you tonight, because it makes a lot clearer and it’s a lot easier. And he’s got a really great grasp on that. So with that, I want to talk on a couple of topics as we move into this area of unforgiveness. One of the men that I’ve I’ve learned walking in the spirit a lot more is a guy named Todd, and he goes out and he prays for people and he sees a lot of healings.

Beatty: [00:09:57.34] And he’s sharing the story of praying for a young man who had a very bad back pain for years, and he prayed for him and the guy wasn’t healed. And and for Todd, that is unusual. And so he was asking in the Lord, in his spirit, what’s going on? Why wasn’t he healed? And the Lord said he has unforgiveness for his mother. So Todd asked the guy who said, Hey, by the way, how’s your relationship with your mom? And he says, Why do you ask? I hope she rots in hell. Pretty strong. Okay, so there’s this deep unforgiveness. So Todd starts to talk with them and work through that, finds out that his mom is a passionate Christian, praying for him to come to Jesus. He’s offended by that, and he has this real deep unforgiveness, and there’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes. So Todd leads this man into forgiving his mother. And then Todd prays for his back, in a sense, to heal. And so the torment in this back was directly tied to unforgiveness. I see this when I go out to Walmart. I remember I was working with this one lady. Her name is Linda and she cannot read. Everything was blurry. Okay, you have a book and she just can’t read it. So her boyfriend would read a books to her and I just bought them a book on Christian growth at the time, and I was asking about that.

Beatty: [00:11:25.29] So I said, Well, let me pray for your eyes because God doesn’t want you not to be able to read. And her eyes cleared up a little bit, but only to a part. But she still couldn’t read. And so I said, Do you have any unforgiveness, anyone that hurt you and you haven’t forgiven them? And she said, yes, her ex-boyfriend, another person. She had no front teeth, top or bottom, because he’d taken her head and slammed it against a dresser in a fit of rage. And you can imagine just the trauma from that. And she had not forgiven him. So I let her into a short prayer of forgiveness, making sure she’s actually good with fully forgiving. And she forgave him. And I continued then praying for her eyes. And they cleared up to the point that she could take a regular book, hold it three or four feet away, and read it with clarity. What was holding it back was a lack of forgiveness. Unforgiveness carries with it long lasting repercussions. A friend of mine was sharing. He was on a cruise, a small cruise, and they had a doctor, the cruise doctor who joined the cruise as a Christian cruise. A bunch of Christian folks. She was not a Christian and she comes on and looks like she’s been beaten. This is my interpretation, kind of beaten with an ugly stick.

Beatty: [00:12:48.43] She’s angry at everyone. She’s bitter at everyone. She asks all these angry questions about Christianity, and it turns out that she has great unforgiveness for her mom. Back when she was in grade school, her mom was an alcoholic. She would get drunk and when she drunk, she would beat this doctor. And she said, My mom never hugged me and she never told me that she loved me. And so just this deep hurt. And now for 30 or 40 years, you know, the doctor had broken relationships. Nothing seems to work. Right. Always angry with everyone. And on that ship, she starts to learn about forgiveness. She goes through a process to forgive her mom. All of the hurts. And when she does, her whole countenance changes. All this weight is lifted off of her and she turns from this ugly person that looks like she’s been beaten with an ugly stick to now, someone who’s beautiful, someone who’s loving. And it’s an overnight or instantaneous type of change. And what’s happened is torment from unforgiveness. For her mom. That’s all it was. And so this goes in really deep. And I want to show you this in scripture. Turn to Matthew 18 and we’re going to read starting verse 21, the parable of the unmerciful servant. This is really interesting. So, Matthew, 18, starting with verse 21, then Peter came to Jesus and asked Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times.

Beatty: [00:14:29.92] I want you to understand this. The setting, Peter, is this mighty man of faith. He thinks, and he’s going to be really right with the Lord. How many times? Up to seven times. You know, beating my chest? Seven times. I’m going to forgive my brother. Then Jesus put him in his place. Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 70 times seven. And then to explain this further, Jesus goes into a parable and here’s what he shares. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king. The King represents God who wanted to settle accounts with the servants. And those servants represent men. As it began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold. Today’s dollars, $16. So a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him since he was not able to pay the master order that he and his wife and his children and all that he had, they sold to repay the debt. At this, the servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged and I will pay back everything. Keep in mind, they probably could never pay it off at this time. Right. But he’s begging for whatever grace he could get. I will pay back everything. The servants master took pity on him. Cancel the debt and let him go. But then when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver coins.

Beatty: [00:16:05.18] About 10,000. And he grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. This fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me and I will pay it back. And he probably could have. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. And then the master called the servant in you wicked servant, he said. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you? And in anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured. Until he should pay back all that he owed. So this is real interesting. It’s talking about God and man. And the aspect of forgiveness that the aspect of a lack of forgiveness. The King throws that first servant who was a very wicked servant because his debt was 10,000 bags of gold. The other one was just a small amount of debt. So this is talking about forgiveness and the king turns him over to the jailers to be tortured. But then we get to the Punchline. Jesus hasn’t finished yet. Keep in mind, Jesus is speaking to Peter and the 12 Apostles and the other small group of disciples that he is leading and teaching.

Beatty: [00:17:48.88] He’s not talking to the Jews, the unbelievers. He’s talking to those who believe in Jesus. And he says, Last sentence. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you. Unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. This is how my Heavenly Father will. Absolute assured he will treat you. If you don’t forgive your brother or sister. So. Pretty amazing. We have a couple of takeaways that we can pull out of this simple passage. Simple yet profound. The first one. We talk about the rules and we’re disciplined when we break the rules. The first thing that we find is that we have to forgive everyone. Not just those who did not mean to hurt us, not just those who come and ask our forgiveness. We’re to forgive everyone. For everything. The second big takeaway, this is God talking to us, the believers, when we fail to forgive. What does the King call the master when he failed to forgive his servant? He says You wicked, wicked. God calls us wicked. When we do not forget how many y’all want to be called Wicked by your Heavenly Father? That’s a strong rebuke. And yet that’s the rebuke that is given to the one who does not forgive. The third thing, notice that the king does not torture the servant. What does it say that the king did turn it over to the jailers, turns them over, grants authority.

Beatty: [00:19:56.76] The king is a judge and he says, you go to jail. And jail is where they torture. So what this is, God doesn’t do the discipline. But that lack of forgiveness is an open door straight to the jailers to be tormented. Open doors. A legal right. The fourth thing that we get is out of this, we infer this. But the torment lasts until the debt is paid. The torment lasts until the broken rule has been fully compensated in our terminology, until the sin has been repented for so until that sin is repented, the torment lasts. That’s why the doctor, 40 years later, from the time her mother hurt her and she held unforgiveness for 40 years, you got the torment. Until that sin was repented for. That’s the only time that their torment stops. And as I mentioned just a moment ago. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat you. You have a 100% likelihood that if you have unforgiveness for someone, there will be torment in your life. Most people never recognize the torment, and then they’ll have unforgiveness or someone else they’ll do something else. And all these torments continue to build and their life becomes a wreck and they have no idea why. What I want to show you is this is an open door. That’s probably 60% of the time. One of the key reasons for the torment. Once you know it, then you can start closing those doors.

Beatty: [00:22:04.77] Forgive the people and get rid of a lot of torment, and then you’ll start to recognize how that torment works. Does that make sense? So now I want to take you through an interesting word, understanding. So it says that the king will turn you over to the jailer. It will torment you once, as the jailer once says, torment her once as to jailers to be tormented. What’s going on. So I want to address this real quickly. The word been translated as jailer, as tormentor comes from a root word called bass and mezzo. And what it means. The jailer means one who affects the truth by the use of the rack. And then the root word that jailer is comes from is this word pessimism. So this is the root word of jailer. And it means to torture, pain, 12 or torment. And I want to show you three passages where this is used in the New Testament and show you what this means. Turn real quickly to Matthew eight versus five and six, Matthew. Eight, five and six. And I want to show you three uses of this word so we can understand what type of torments this is talking about. So Matthew eight says when he had entered Capernaum, the centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying, paralyzed at home, suffering terribly, Bethany, so terribly. So what we find is that this is a physical suffering. So you have a physical suffering.

Beatty: [00:23:54.98] Then turn over to second. Peter two verses seven and eight. Second Peter two verses seven and eight and it says there and if he rescued righteous lot greatly distressed by the central conduct of the wicked four as that righteous man lived among them, day after day he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. That word tormenting is fascinating. So what you have is a mental torment. This wasn’t a physical torment of being an invalid or being crippled. This is a mental torment of just being depressed, anxious, hearing voices in your head. It’s a lot of times the mental type of suffering you get. And then turn over to Revelations 12 to. This will be the third one. We look at Revelations 12, verse two, and it says that she was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. So now we have. A physical pain. So you have a physical torment, mental torment, and you have physical pain. All of these are the types of torments that occur. In other words, almost all of the demonic torment that people go through is the open door. When you have unforgiveness in your heart for someone, whether you go and and do something in the occult or you go and create a soul type or a sexual sin. Or you have unforgiveness. It’s the same group of demonic spirits, whether you park at Wendy’s parking lot, park at Jack’s or park at the little bookstore.

Beatty: [00:25:48.97] It’s the same tow truck companies going around and tell you it doesn’t matter what opened the door. Open doors and open doors. This making sense. So if you look at divorce, number one reason for divorce is there’s going to be unforgiveness somewhere. They get bitter with each other, then they fight and then it gets horrible. And then there’s this terrible rending and ripping of that marriage. And then it doesn’t stop. Their bitterness continues. All kinds of court battles and everything else. It’s a huge issue. You have two choices. You can choose to forgive and stop the torment. And you can choose to not forgive and continue the torment. It’s up to you. But here’s what’s really interesting. Why are we to forgive? What’s your thought? Why should we forgive? One reason it hurts you. Yeah, actually, that’s truer than you think. We all say, Well, we forgive because God forgave us. Well, that’s kind of the purpose of the parable. But go back to the parable. The last sentence in Jesus says The reason to forgive. Is so that you don’t get tormented. It’s a self interest reason. It’s not the ultimate reason we’ve been forgiven. We should forgive others. God commanded us to forgive. But God puts in a very special incentive. You are to forgive so that the torment stops tormenting you. Forget about the person who did anything to you. They don’t deserve forgiveness, probably.

Beatty: [00:27:36.13] You’re. Forgiveness has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with releasing your own torment. Follow back into the rules. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And that’s what we that’s what is going on. So what unforgiveness does. Imagine for a moment, you have a friend. And he pulls out this dirty knife that he’s used to skin and clean roadkill. All is infected with viruses and bacteria and all kinds of stuff, and it’s dirty. And he comes up and he jabs it into you, pulls it out. Oh, I thought you were a friend of mine. And now you are hurt by his action. Follow me. That wound in your shoulder with that dirty knife is unforgiveness. And we say, I’m not going to forgive you. I’m not going to clean that wound in my shoulder because I want that person to hurt and know how bad he hurt me. So I refuse to clean the wound. What happens now when I have dirt in that wound? Infection. Infection. It gets worse. So I try to cover it up. I try to put on a good face. I suck it up and I put on clothing. You don’t know that. My shoulders wounded. You come up and you tap me. Hey, baby. How’s it going? Tap me on the shoulder. What do I do to you? I jump all over you. I attack you. I get upset at you. I. I just belittle you.

Beatty: [00:29:16.96] I do whatever I shame you because how dare you hurt me? And now my response to something you did innocently. But unknowing. You touched a sore spot that someone else wounded me. Now I’ve wounded you. And now you have unforgiveness. And now there’s another break there. Does this making sense? So continues on. Until you claim the wound in your shoulder, it will not heal. Once you claimed that wound, then the shoulder can heal and that dirt in the shoulder is the unforgiveness in our heart until you clean out the unforgiveness. It will not heal. What’s also interesting is forgiveness is not tied to the relationship. It’s not. I’ll forgive if you restore the relationship. It’s not. I’m going to forgive to restore the relationship. Hopefully you can restore it. Forgiveness is entirely to heal. Your own wound has nothing to do with the other person. There is no requirement that you restore a relationship. I was teaching this to some some ladies in a rehab type of program, and a number of them had been raped. Forgiveness has nothing to do with giving the raper his deserved forgiveness or to establish and reconcile with the rapper. Has everything to do with relieving torment in your life, period. Does that make sense? So how do you forgive? I want to walk you through kind of a simple understanding. So you have a person and you have a hurt that that person did. I’m just going to draw a knife.

Beatty: [00:31:16.41] So this person. This is a person. And the knife is the hurt. What happens is when someone hurts us, we combine the two together and we say, You hurt me. Which is actually not true because it was the action that they did that hurt you and not them. You have to separate out the person from the action. To have true and lasting forgiveness, because what happens is we blur it together, and when we blur together, it makes it hard for us to fully forgive, or we try to forgive and say, Well, I’ve forgiven that person. You know, I’ve been forgiving them for the last 20 years, which means you haven’t fully forgiven. Is this making sense? So what happens is we have to understand that something prompted this person to do the action that hurt you. You could have slapped me on the shoulder and said, How’s it going, baby? I jump all over you. Now you’re hurt and you hold unforgiveness. I’m a jerk in your mind. And you don’t have any clue that what you may have done may have triggered something totally unbeknownst to you that you have, that nothing you did caused it. And now I make a response. Stephen Covey has a book that he wrote years back called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And he tells a story. A guy leaves work late at night, he gets on the subway. This is somewhere in New York.

Beatty: [00:33:03.42] And he just wants to chill out for the next 45 minutes to an hour on the way back to wherever his home is. And there’s a couple other people on the car. And then there’s this dad with these three kids, and they’re the most rowdy, rambunctious kids. They’re rude. They’re making noises. They’re they’re not respecting people’s privacy. They’re just really being jerks. And the businessman is trying to read his papers book, and he just can’t concentrate. These guys are just destroying it. And so after about 15 or 20 minutes, he puts his book or his paper down and he looks at the father and says, Can’t you control your kids? And the father just kind of looks up out of a stupor of some sort, looks over to the businessman and said, Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I probably should. My wife. Their mother just died. And they don’t know how to handle it. And I guess I don’t either. Now at that point. The businessman. Can you tell a difference in how the businessman will respond once he knows what happened? That’s causing this action. Now you can have grace and compassion on that man for unruly kids. What happens in life is there’s always something. In that person’s life that hurts you. That caused the action. They’re going through troubles in their own life. Something’s happening. It could be. They just lost their job. It could be a loved one. Just died. It could be.

Beatty: [00:34:51.19] They just broke up in a relationship. It could be they have a a drinking problem and they don’t know how to handle it. It could be all kinds of things, but this problem over here could also be demonic torment due to other things in their life. But there is a problem in their life. That prompts them to then take this action against you that now creates their hurt. In other words, they did not hurt you. Their action is what hurt you. And their action was prompted by something in their life. That prompted it. I remember I was sued by a friend of mine. I’ll call his name, Richard. And also the lawsuit. I loved him. I still called him my friend. Because he still is my friend to this day. He doesn’t like me because he has demonic torment in his life and a great level of bitterness and jealousy and anger and pride, resentment and all these issues in his life that he hasn’t dealt with. Many of them coming down generationally, because you can see it also go down in his kids and what happened between the two of us. He took what happened as a personal affront. I’m totally in the clear. I’m righteous. He then sues me. The Lord made clear in Scripture, I’m going to take care of you because you are righteous in this. And that lawsuit clears up. But the problem is, how do you recognize discipline? You recognize it with the torments that occur.

Beatty: [00:36:59.73] I’d actually told my friend because I had another friend, you know, some it’s all spiritual warfare. I had another friend just a few years prior to that that did the same thing. We’ll call his name Jim. Jim did the same thing. I told him not to. The Lord said I’m. You’ll be protected. I will fight your battle. The battle is mine. It is not yours. That’s what the Lord told me about Jim. And so the Lord cleared me out of there. But what happened to my friend Jim is family turmoil, struggle with the child, divorce of a loving marriage, everything ripped apart. When Richard came to me, he said, I’ve been talking to Jim and now I know the path to get you. I said, don’t go that route because God is discipline him and you’re likely to follow the same suit. Richard has had a wonderful marriage. We think we thought going through this process. Ripped apart. The same thing that happened with Jim. Same torments happening with Richard. I hate it for them. I don’t gloat over it. They attacked me. They were completely wrong. I’m righteous. I’ve dealt righteously with them. But the tormenting spirit’s tormenting them bring in discipline until they learn to repent. So it’s not the person. It’s the action caused by something going on in their life. What happens is we put this person. And a jail cell in our heart. And now we we’re going to talk about judgments as another open door later.

Beatty: [00:38:54.08] But we judge that person. How dare you hurt me? I forgive that person, but we keep him in the jail cell because we continue to hold judgment against him. And until you can release that person from the cell, forgive the hurt, release your judgment and set him free. You’ll never have full forgiveness. So lasting forgiveness is you got to release them. And you got to let them go. My friend Richard, I never had any unforgiveness for him from the very beginning with Jim. I had to learn forgiveness because it was a bad time in my life spiritually, and I reacted sinfully. So here’s a question. What about vengeance? Is vengeance good or bad? Vengeance is God’s. Vengeance is God is desiring vengeance. Is that a sin? Yes. Or is it not a sin? If someone has hurt you, is it righteous that. They should be punished. Yes. Is it okay for you to desire that they be punished? Yeah. Okay, so now we’re like, right? Right, right. So. So now we’re kind of questioning, is it okay for me to not need to forgive the person? Is it okay for me to desire that that person be judged for his sins? So let’s talk about that. So vengeance is the act or the desire to harm someone for the injustices or injuries that they committed against you. The question is, is it sinful? What we’re going to find is that a desire for righteous vengeance is not sinful, but desire for you to exact that vengeance is.

Beatty: [00:40:55.81] So let me show you in scripture. First off, is there any sin in heaven? The sin exists there? No. So let’s look at a passage in revelations. Revelation six verses nine and ten. This is in heaven. Opening the SEALs Revelation six, nine and ten. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony that they had maintained. And they, the slain people, called out in a loud voice, how long, sovereign, lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the Earth and avenge our blood. So here they’re saying we want vengeance for what they did. So here we see that in heaven. Vengeance is desired and it’s not sinful. Let’s look in second Thessalonians. Second Thessalonians. Chapter one. We’re going to read verses four, six and seven. So this is God’s view on taking vengeance for you. And it says. Therefore, among God’s churches, we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials that you’re enduring. So we know that persecutions and trials are brought upon by someone else. And then we’ve jump over to verse six, God is just He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you your trouble. That’s the same thing I saw with my friends.

Beatty: [00:42:38.96] Okay. And then Deuteronomy 32 versus 39 through 41, Deuteronomy 32, 39, 341. This is where God himself vows to take vengeance on those who are his enemies. So the question is, is vengeance wrong? And I’ll start reading, say now that I myself am he. There is no God besides me. I put to death and I bring to life I have wounded and I will heal and no one can deliver out of my hand. I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear. As surely as I live forever. When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. So we see those in heaven saying, when will you take vengeance? We see those now, Paul saying that the Thessalonians God will pay back trouble to those who are troubling you. He will take vengeance. And then we say in Deuteronomy, God saying, I will bring vengeance on those who hate me. So vengeance is not wrong. How do you deal with your desire for vengeance? Let’s look at that. Let’s turn to Romans, Romans 12. And I want to show you several things on how do you deal with this. So think back with these ladies who’ve been raped. Probably one of the worst sense you can have. And how do you handle wanting your desire for vengeance? So Romans 12 verses 17 through 19 do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Beatty: [00:44:20.13] Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone if it is possible. As far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends. But leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written. It is mine to avenge. I will repay, says Lord. So the first way to deal with your desire for vengeance is to pull back. Know that it’s not your right. It’s not your position. It is God’s role to bring vengeance on your behalf. And the vengeance he brings on your behalf will be more severe. Then the vengeance you would bring yourself. Okay. Because he sees it from a different perspective. Then let’s look at the next couple of verses versus 20 and 21. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. In other words, were to bless those who hurt us. Were to give to them. Were to love them with the love that Christ has or to bless them. How do you bless someone whose heart cheated? We’ll talk about that in a moment. And then the last thing I want to show you from Proverbs 24, Proverbs 24 versus 17 and 18. Again, this is how do you deal with your desire for vengeance? Proverbs 24, 17 and 18 says, Do not gloat when your enemy falls, when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice or watch this.

Beatty: [00:46:10.97] The Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from. So where to have this strange attitude? We desire vengeance. It’s not ours to exact. But when we watch our opponent getting vengeance, being exacted upon him, we’re not to gloat where to desire it, but we’re not to gloat. That’s the difference. We can watch it happen objectively and say God is delivering to them what they deserve. But once we turn that sinful and say, and I’m happy they’re getting it at that point, God will stop. Because now it’s become a sin to us. So don’t gloat when the Lord is bringing vengeance upon someone else to defend you for what they did. Or it will stop. So now with that, I want to go through some practical steps. Five steps how to forgive if you want lasting forgiveness, where you forgive someone one time and they are always forgiven, you don’t have to go back and re forgive them unless obviously they hurt you again. How do you do it? What are the five steps to forgiveness? Some of these will probably surprise you and some of these may not. So the first one, by the way, we’re going to go back to the parable of the unmerciful servant to learn what Jesus teaches in that parable and forgiveness. So we’re going to go back to Matthew 18, and this comes from verse 35, and I’m going to do this in the King James version.

Beatty: [00:48:06.57] So the first step is you must open your heart to forgive. And this is what Jesus says. So My Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart, does not forgive. So number one is you must open your heart. Opening your heart means that you choose to forgive. You cannot forgive if you don’t open your heart to forgive. Forgiveness is not an intellectual process. It is a process of the heart. It’s a spiritual process. And you have to open your heart because that’s where the wound is. Next. We see in versus 27 and 33, we’re going to be both of these. The next step, number two. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion. Released him and forgave him the debt. And then verse 33 says, Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? So sometimes pity can be compassion. Different translations. So what we have to do is we have to extend love. And compassion to the person who has hurt us. How in the world do you do that? Someone raped you. How in the world do you extend love and compassion to that person? Someone sued you. And fortune into bankruptcy. And you lost everything that you’ve been working for for 25 years. How do you forgive someone? How do you love someone and give compassion to someone like that? It comes back to you.

Beatty: [00:50:03.37] You have to understand what might have been going on at the time. Dislike my friend. All kinds of torment in his life. Just like the man on the subway. He doesn’t know the back story of what’s happened. All he sees is that moment in time. And that moment in time is not the real story. It’s just a reflection of where the rest of life has gotten. So you have to be willing to go back and see, is there something that they could have been dealing with that caused their action against you, that hurt you? Okay. Maybe your parents, if you have unforgiveness for your parents, maybe they were under stress and alcohol and therefore they became abusive. Maybe they just lost their job. Maybe someone has been abusing them. Maybe they don’t know how to love you because they were never loved when they were growing up. There’s all kinds of reasons that you can start to have compassion and love. And I remember as I was sharing this with this other group of ladies, the question was asked, how in the world can I love the person who raped me? That’s a tough question. My answer was a simple answer. It’s hard to apply. You can only love that person. With God’s love flowing through you. You cannot well add up in your own. This is a love that comes from the Lord only.

Beatty: [00:51:38.05] And it cannot come just that you cannot conjure up. But if you do not love them, this is the key. If you do not love them, you cannot ever forgive them. You can try to forgive them, but it’s not a lasting forgiveness because forgiveness starts with having love and compassion for that person to then release them. This is why the Scriptures say for Jesus loved us before we loved him. Even when we were sinners against him, he loved us. The third thing. Comes from verse 27 as well. Matthew 1827 then says Then the of that servant was moved with compassion. Number two. Released him. So you have to release the person. From your heart prison. Releasing comes before forgiveness. We’re going to talk in a few sessions later on, what’s called judgments. It’s almost like a word curse, but it’s where you hold a judgment against someone and it’s like a boomerang. And it comes right back to you. When we put that person in our heart prison, we hold a judgment against them. Yes, I’ve forgiven them, but we always talk bad about them. Hey, watch out. That guy’s a real jerk. You don’t want anything to do with them. He’ll screw you like he screwed me. Oh, I’ve forgiven him. Have you, really? Because he’s still in your prison. You can’t forgive until you release from the prison. Is this making sense? An easy way to do this is in picture.

Beatty: [00:53:32.38] And imagine you go into your heart prison and you’ve got a set of keys and you and you see that person standing behind those prison doors, looking at you through the bars, and you open the door, put your key in the lock. Open it. Swing open the door and say, John. I release you? I release you from my judgment against you. My judgment against you is different than my unforgiveness against you. I’ve got to release you from my judgment. When a judge gives a judgment against a criminal, he goes to prison. The prison is the judgment. That’s your heart. Prison is that judgment that you hold against him so you have to release him. And then. Continue with verse 35. Now Jesus says, So, My Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from His heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses. So this is plural. So we forgive all hurts. What this is telling us that if someone has hurt you, they’ve likely hurt you more than once. If your mom hurts you as you were growing up, there’s likely a whole lot of different hurts. I remember a friend was telling the story of back on this this doctor on this cruise ship and was talking about he was talking with her and she was saying that my mom hurt me. He said, well, what you need to do is go make a list of all the hurts.

Beatty: [00:55:18.18] And she said, Well, it won’t be many, so now it’ll be two or three pages. Oh, no, it can’t be that. So she goes back. They see each other the next day and she has two and a half pages. Listing of every single heart. So you want to list out all the hurts for each wound that that person is committed against you. You forgive the wound, the heart, but you have to first release the person. That’s why simply forgiving doesn’t work. It’s kind of that two step process. And then. The fifth one actually comes from a different passage. We’re going to move to Matthew five versus 44 and 45. Matthew 544 and 45. This is Jesus talking. But I say to you, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and the good. And sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So number five is you must bless and do good. One of those other ladies was saying, How in the world am I to ask God to bless the men who raped me? And I said, well, I struggle with that myself, with my friends in the past who have hurt me. And I said, The very greatest blessing you could ever ask the Lord to do in anyone’s life is to bless them with the grace of repentance that they may repent and turn back to the Lord.

Beatty: [00:57:17.76] So the greatest thing you can pray for that person is hurt you. Or please bring repentance into their heart that they may their relationship may be restored to you. Whether they ever come to me and ask my forgiveness is immaterial. So one way to bless and do good is that. Another way is if they’re hurting and hungry, need help. Freely offer that. Do not hold any of the hurts against. So how do you get free homework? This is homework assignment. First step is if you are experiencing torment in your life challenges, you’re wondering why and. As we’ve been going through this, people have come to mind that have hurt you, that you haven’t forgiven. That’s going to be the first step of where to look at. You have to choose to forgive. And I want to read a short thing because sometimes we wonder if we can really forgive that person for what they did. Because it was such a terrible thing that they did. And it hurt us so much after World War Two. There is a lady named Corrie ten, boom. She was in the concentration camps along with her sister. Her sister died in the camp. There are Christians, and Corey spent her life telling the story of forgiveness. In 1947, she is in Munich, Germany, going throughout Germany. To preach the message of forgiveness to them.

Beatty: [00:58:52.65] And I pick up. On the story. At the close of the service, a balding man in a gray overcoat stepped forward to greet her. Cary froze. She knew this man well. He’d been one of the most vicious guards at Ravensbrück, one who had mocked the women prisoners as they shower, and it came back with a rush, she wrote. The huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, and the shame of walking naked past this man. And now here was pushing his hand out to shake mine and saying a fine message. Fraulein, how good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the seas. But do you think she’s thinking at that moment? And then she goes and I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course. How could he remember me? One prisoner among thousands of women. But I remembered him in that leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face to face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze. You mentioned Robin Ashbrook in your talk. He was saying I was a guard there. But since that time he went on, I become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there. But I would like to hear it from your lips as well for online.

Beatty: [01:00:26.43] Again, the hand came out. Will you forgive me? And Corey said and I stood there, I who sense that again and again be forgiven and could not forgive. Betsy had died in that place as her sister could hear race her slow, terrible death simply for the asking. The soldier stood there expectantly, waiting for Corey to shake his hand. And she said, I wrestled with the most difficult thing that I’d ever had to do for I had to do it. I knew that the message that God Forgives has a prior condition, that we forgive those who have sinned against us. Standing there before the former SS man, Corey remembered that forgiveness as an act of the will, not an emotion. Jesus. Help me. She pray I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling. And so Corey thrust out her hand. And as she did, this is what she said. An incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm and sprang into our joint hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother. I cried with all my heart. Just for a long moment, we grasped each other’s hands. The former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love.

Beatty: [01:02:12.50] I had tried and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit. And so as you go into this, I realize it’s not your love to forgive. It’s the Holy Spirit love to forgive for this little assignment. There are three things you need to do. Number one is you make a list of all the people who have hurt you. China’s timeless have some quiet time with the Lord and just say, Lord, who would you like me to forgive? Make sure you have a pen and paper handy. And even if they’re dead, it doesn’t matter. Write their names down. Even if it was unintentional. Hurts. Write their names down. Start with your spouse if you have one, because chances are there is probably unforgiveness there. That is the root of divorce is unforgiveness. And make sure you have that healthy marriage. Make sure your name is on it. If there are things that you’ve done that you haven’t forgiven yourself for. But then number two, list every offense. That person did to you. Okay. And then third is you want to forgive each offense. First, release the person, forgive each offense. This is your homework assignment. It’s very simple. Lord, I released John from my heart prison. And John, I forgive you for whatever that hurt is. I forgive you for this. I forgive you for this. Forgive you for this, forgive you for this, forgive you for this all the way down the line. And then the final thing is, do it. It’s important. And it gets rid of lots and lots of torments in your life.

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