October 8, 2019 – Click here to listen
One night I went into Jefferson County Prison with some buddies from church to witness to the inmates. Our pastor Kenny Munds did a good job advertising the event as there was standing room only in the auditorium. The inmates sang several songs that moved me deeply, and then our guys performed a few numbers. Afterwards I gave my testimony and at the end asked those who wanted Jesus in their lives to allow us to pray with them. God gave a bountiful harvest and we were blessed as many inmates came to us. I was standing down in the front of the auditorium and a line formed with inmates coming through and many asked me to pray for them to receive Christ. Also, some had sick members in their families, some were fighting temptations, others were fearful of what might happen when they got out, and so forth and I prayed with them about those issues.
One man came to me and asked me to pray that he could forgive someone who had greatly wronged him. He rattled off all of the wrongs that had been exacted upon him by this dude and it was everything from this guy sleeping with his girlfriend to selling his car while he was locked up. I counseled him about forgiveness and related that over the years I had experienced problems with it as well. This seemed to start him up again and immediately he began spewing venom and he growled through clinched teeth, “He doesn’t DESERVE to be forgiven!”
I quickly retorted, “Neither do we my friend, but Jesus forgave us anyway and He said if we aren’t willing to forgive others then we cannot be forgiven.” I could tell from his expression that this hit home. I went on to tell him that forgiveness was really about us and not the person being forgiven. I said, “Night after night you lay in that cell of yours thinking about this guy and how he has taken advantage of you and how to get even and you are allowing it to eat you up. All it does is harm you and the sad thing about it is this guy probably isn’t even aware of your misery.”
He slowly nodded his head and thanked me, and I moved on to others waiting in line until finally the guards started moving the inmates out and back to their cells. As they were filing out, the guy with whom I’d counseled and prayed about forgiveness came up to me again and told me that whether I knew it or not I had just saved someone from certain death tonight.
“How so?” I asked.
Suddenly his demeanor and expression completely changed before my eyes and he looked as though a demon had entered his body. I’ve seen people get baptized in the Holy Spirit and take on an expression of holiness when they are being filled with the Spirit that is difficult to describe. This inmate’s expression dramatically changed, but it was just the opposite; he had a look of pure evil about him that was equally difficult to describe. He looked at me with cold, hate-filled, mean eyes and told me that he was getting out in just a few months and he had a Remington 30-06 stashed away and had planned on killing the guy that had wronged him. He said, “Because of what you said tonight I’m going to let him ‘slide’ and allow him to live. I’m going to forgive him.”
I told him that I was very happy that God had changed his heart and he would never regret it. When I said that his expression abruptly changed back to normal. I related to him that I had been in prison ministry for many years and had met numerous guys in prisons all over the country and many of them were in there for decades for exacting revenge on someone. In fact, I even talked to a couple of guys on death row that were awaiting execution for taking vengeance into their own hands. I mentioned that they were the ones who suffered the most when they disobeyed one of the central premises of Jesus in that grace is about giving everyone something that none of us deserve: FORGIVENESS. We deserve to go to hell for our sins, but Jesus forgave us in spite of our black sins.
To me this is the most stunning enigma of all time. Why does He do it? Because He loves us more than we can comprehend, and He wants us to love each other in like fashion. Surely if a violent inmate so filled with hate he was planning to murder someone to get even can find it in his heart to forgive a guy that is not deserving of it you can find some room to forgive that person who greatly wronged you. Just move on and allow God to deal with it.
Romans 12:19
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 the Lord.