Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Paul Aurandt tells this story of General Thomas Jackson who was the right arm of General Lee.

The Confederate soldiers were so impressed with his bravery in battle as he stood out in front that they called him Stonewall Jackson.

His first brigade was the most devastating war machine the South had in the Civil War.

The Union Army dreaded any encounter with his troops.

In May of 1863 he pulled off a victory near Chancellorville, Virginia that made it into the textbooks.

He divided his troops, and then divided them again, and made a surprise attack.

The Union Army had never seen such a strategy, and they were defeated.

But as Stonewall returned to his own camp his own men hearing him come through the woods opened fire.

He was hit three times and died a few days later, and this ended the unbeatable war machine of the South.

So often good men die at the hands of their own troops.

Our own recent history as a nation reveals how often our own soldiers perish because of friendly fire.

Warfare is complicated, and it is hard to avoid mistakes.

The same thing is true in spiritual warfare where the forces of light fighting the forces of darkness often shoot out the lights of their fellow soldiers.

When a soldier of light comes under attack by the enemy and falls wounded on the battlefield of life because of being enticed into sin, the rest of the troops often leave them to be captured by enemy forces.

This was not the strategy of General Paul.

Every Christian soldier was precious to Paul, and he established a tradition in spiritual warfare that has become a tradition for American soldiers.

That tradition is that you pay the cost and suffer great risk to rescue your own.

The wounded soldier may have been stupid to do what he did.

He may have been disobeying orders even, and deserved to be left bleeding and dying alone for his folly, but the effort is to be made to rescue him and not leave him to the enemy.

So Paul says to the Corinthians that the Christian man who has been so sinful in your midst, and who has brought grief to us all by his immoral behavior, is to be rescued from the clutches of Satan and restored to fellowship.

The man he is referring to is the man who was sleeping with his step-mother, and bringing shame on the whole church, for even the pagans round about them did not condone such immorality.

The church listened to Paul and put this man out of the church, and they shunned him, but now Paul says to them that the goal is not to get rid of him and let the enemy have him.

The goal of punishment is to get him to repent so that he can be forgiven and restored to the ranks of the soldiers of light.

The bottom line Paul says is not to let Satan outwit us, but to outwit him, and the key weapon of spiritual warfare to achieve this goal is the weapon of forgiveness.

This is a weapon that comes from the arsenal of heaven, and from the very heart of God.

If God was not a God of forgiveness there would be no spiritual warfare, for all men would be captives of Satan with no hope of escape.

But God is a God of forgiveness.

Here are just a few texts that focus on this fact:

"Thou are to God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful.

(Neh.

9:17)

Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin.

(Psa.

85:2)

Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive...(Psa.

86:5)

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities...(Psa.

103:3)

I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

(Jer.

31:34)

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

(I John 1:9)

These do not exhaust the subject, for the forgiveness of God is inexhaustible.

God knows how to use this weapon perfectly.

He is the expert in forgiveness, but for us it is not automatic.

We need a lot of practice before we can wield this weapon well and be effective in rescuing the fallen from the clutches of the enemy.

Dr. Neil T. Anderson is the leading authority today in dealing with helping Christians and churches get released from the bondage of sin and ignorance.

In his many books he makes it clear that there is no escape from bondage without forgiveness.

The truth will set you free, and the truth in forgiveness is the key to getting out of almost every kind of bondage that Satan has in his bag of tricks.

In his 7 Steps To Freedom In Christ the third is forgiveness, and I want to give you the gist of his teaching, for he has helped thousands of Christians learn how to use this weapon to outwit the devil.

The thing I find fascinating about his teaching is that his focus is on the forgiver, and not the forgiven.

That is, the value of forgiveness is in what it does for you, and not just in what it does for the one you are forgiving.

He begins by encouraging Christians to pray this prayer: "Dear heavenly Father.

I thank you for the riches of your kindness, forbearance and patience, knowing that your kindness has lead me to repentance (Rom.

2:4).

I confess that I have not extended that same patience and kindness toward others who offended me, but instead I have harbored bitterness and resentment.

I pray that during this time of self-examination you would bring to mind only those people whom I have not forgiven in order that I might do so (Matt.

18:35).

I ask this in the precious name of Jesus.

Amen."

The point of forgiving is to get Satan's foot out of the door of your life so that he cannot use the offenses of the past to spoil your present and future.

As long as a person holds on to a past offense it is still hurting them.

If you forgive it you cast it into the past and eliminate its present impact.

The Corinthian church was still feeling the pain of the punishment of this offender, and he was still feeling it.

Paul feared he could become overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

There is no point in letting pain dominate your life is Paul's point.

There is a limit to the value of suffering.

After it has done its work it is to be eliminated.

It is an abuse to go on punishing when the offender has repented.

It is time then to put the pain of the past behind you, and move on to the pleasure of love and forgiveness.

If you keep focusing on punishment you are in a spirit of bitterness and revenge, and you will be playing right into the hands of Satan.

All negatives have their proper role in the Christian life, but they are only temporary, and they are to be quickly replaced with positives.

Any negative that is prolonged will aid the enemy in spiritual warfare.

If you have any negative attitude that goes on for a long time, you can count on it that it is a defect in your life, and you are letting Satan have an advantage over you.

But Christians will often protest: "You don't know how much I was hurt by so and so.

I just can't let it go, for it was terrible."

But the fact is, because you can't let it go you are allowing the hurt to go on and be magnified over and over.

They hurt you a weeks worth of pain, and because of your lack of forgiveness you have multiplied it into a year, or even decades of pain.

The magnifying and multiplying of pain is not the work of the kingdom of light.

It is the work of the kingdom of darkness.

As long as you persist in letting past offences affect your present, you are, in that area of life, in bondage to the enemy.

Dr. Anderson deals with the protest of the Christian: "Why should I let them off the hook?

You may ask.

That is precisely the problem-you are still hooked to them, still bound by your past."

Then he says something profound.

"You don't forgive someone for their sake; you do it for your sake, so you can be free.

Your need to forgive isn't an issue between you and the offender; its between you and God."

In other words, forgiveness is a weapon by which you outwit the devil, and eliminate any foothold he may have in your life.

It blows to pieces the sins, the mistakes, the follies of the past, so they cannot control or obstruct your present and future.

Dr. Anderson says in conclusion: "Freeing yourself from the past is the critical issue."

If you want freedom from bondage, then learn to wield well this weapon of forgiveness.

It is a Satan smasher, and it destroys the devil's devices.

It pulverizes his use of the past, and it fractures his formations.

It shatters his schemes, and it ruptures his resources.

It demolishes his demonic delight in destroying your peace of mind.

The victorious Christian life is a life where forgiveness plays a major role.

If anyone in all of history had reason to hold a grudge and be filled with resentment it was Jesus.

He did nothing but good, and He loved all people.

He brought joy and healing wherever He went, and He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God, and yet He was despised and rejected.

Our human nature would love to see a Rambo-like ending of this story where Jesus rips His hands from the cross, grabs the sword of the Roman soldier and begins, like Samson of old, to slay the enemy.

A field of dead and bleeding Pharisees and Saducees seems more fitting than one dead and bleeding Savior with two dead thieves beside Him.

The only problem with that scene is that Satan would have been the victor.

The kingdom of darkness would have won that day, but Jesus outwitted the devil.

He died with not one note of bitterness and revenge.

He cut Satan's influence out of His life completely with the weapon of forgiveness.