RADIO SERMON PART THREE..FORGIVENESS

This is part three of a radio sermon I preached in 1994. Luke 6 verse 37 "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:" If somebody wrongs you, our Bible tells us we have to forgive them. If you wrong someone, you need to ask for forgiveness. Something happened to me over two years ago at a church. This particular church was having a series of meetings..."revival" it is called. The singing was great and the evangelist started preaching; he went on and on and on. Finally, the invitation song was being sung, and there, on the back bench nearby me was an old man. At the invitation song, the old man got up and went out the door. The Lord spoke to me, and said, "Go see about him." So, I too, got up and went out. I found him, he had lost control of his bladder, and his pants was wet. He was so upset, he couldn't even find his car. I helped him, reassured him, and prayed for him. He had lost his wife and was missing her. About three months later, this man went on to be with Jesus. As I prayed for him that night, the love and compassion of Jesus was so real and so strong. The next night at the "revival", the evangelist stated, "Y'all should have been here last night. I had them under conviction so bad, they were running out the back door!" The "y'all" he referred to was the old man and me. Recently, I called this evangelist, and told him what had happened. He was very contrite and humbled by what I told him. I had already forgiven him because I knew what the Lord did that night. 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 speaks of spiritual gifts given by the Spirit: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles,prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues. You must be a willing vessel for the Lord to give you those spiritual gifts for use in the building up of his kingdom. Irvin L. Rozier