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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Forgiveness: Preparation for Eternity

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

There are not too many times in the Bible that God says, if you do this, you will not be saved.

Now, there's a place right at the very end of the Bible, in fact, the seventh last verse of the Bible, where God says, But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie." That's Revelation 22.15.

Now, there's a passage in 2 Timothy 3 that says that perilous times shall come in earth's last days when Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, and so on.

Ultimately, that's a catalogue of 18 or 19 sins.

Of course, people caught in that may repent.

But when Paul writes, from such turn away, you know it's clear that these people are headed in the wrong direction.

Sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and liars and blasphemers and lovers of money.

These people have told you by their actions that they are not especially interested in God's will for their life.

But here's something that might surprise you.

"...for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

If you don't forgive, God will not forgive you.

And that's not saying we are forgiven because we forgive, but we're forgiven as we forgive.

If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

And I say soberingly, because so many people have issues with forgiveness.

And yet here's God saying, if you won't forgive others, you can expect that God will not forgive you.

Forgiveness is an attribute of the divine, an expression of divine love and grace.

When you welcome Jesus into your life, forgiveness must become a feature of your life because Jesus is now the anchor of your existence.

Then someone who has deep issues they're dealing with thinks, how is that possible?

Certain things can be very difficult to forgive.

Let me share with you a story of forgiveness.

The man in question was born south of Buffalo, New York and raised in Long Beach, California.

As a child, he learned to fight so he could handle the bullies who gave him a hard time for being Italian.

In high school, he developed into an outstanding runner.

He competed in the Olympic Games Trials in 1936 in New York City in temperatures of up to 100 degrees or 38 Celsius.

The stars of those trials included Jesse Owens, Mack Robinson, the older brother of baseball's Jackie Robinson, and this man, Louis Zamperini, who finished in a dead heat for first in the final of the 5, 000 meters, becoming at just 19 years of age, the youngest American to ever qualify for the Olympic Games in the 5, 000 meters, which is a distinction he still holds.

He finished fifth in his heat at the Berlin Olympics and eighth in the final.

At those Olympics, Zamparini met Adolf Hitler after catching Hitler's eye by running the fastest single lap ever run in the 5000.

You're the boy with the fast finish, Hitler said to him.

It wouldn't be long and Louis Zamparini and Adolf Hitler would be looking at each other very differently.

5 years after the Olympics in 1941, the year the United States joined World War II, Louis Zamperini joined the U.S.

He was posted to Tuvalu, or the Ellis Islands as they were then known, in the South Pacific, and he narrowly escaped with his life when his B-24 bomber was attacked by Japanese Zeros during a raid on Nauru, which at the time was held by Japan.

Just weeks later, his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean 1, 300 kilometers south of Hawaii, and he drifted in a life raft for almost 50 days.

Sharks ominously followed the raft while its occupants survived on rainwater and the few fish and birds they were able to catch.

The raft was strafed repeatedly by a Japanese aircraft, But in spite of being filled with holes, it never sank.

Of the 11 people on board the plane when it crashed, only 3 survived.

1 of those men died, leaving only Zamperini and 1 other as the only survivors.

They were taken prisoner by Japan when they came ashore on the Marshall Islands.

And it was then that Zamparini's life descended into the stuff of nightmares.

His biography, Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, discusses the cruelty and torture he endured at the hands of his Japanese captors.

The book spent more than 4 years on the New York Times Best Seller list, including more than 3 months at number 1, and was made into a movie also titled Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie.

In the movie, the brutality of Zamparini's captors, in particular of 1 certain prison guard, was portrayed in excruciating detail.

On 1 occasion, he forced Zamparini to hold a 2-meter-long beam of wood above his head for 37 minutes in an attempt to break the American.

The psychological cruelty was also extreme during the 2 and a half years Zamparini spent in 3 separate Japanese POW camps.

After the war he was plagued by memories of what he endured as a prisoner of war.

Of course, by now his running career was over.

When he competed at the age of 19 in Berlin, he believed that the 1940 Tokyo Olympics would be the real opportunity he would have to win an Olympic gold medal.

Those games were never held, although ironically it was the time he spent in Japan that would largely define the rest of his life.

How do you come back from what Zamparini went through?

After returning home, he had nightmares in which he dreamed of being bludgeoned by his captors.

He often thought of murdering the man who stalked and tormented him every day while he was a prisoner of war.

And he actually made plans to return to Japan and kill that man.

Struggling with alcoholism and with his marriage in tatters, At the urging of his wife, he went to hear the famous preacher Billy Graham speak at a revival meeting in Los Angeles.

The second night he attended, his heart was touched by Graham's message and he gave his life to Jesus that very night.

And in an absolute miracle of God, the hatred he felt for the man who had cruelly abused him while he was a POW just melted away.

He even wrote to the man expressing his forgiveness and sharing with him his faith in Jesus.

There are many people living their lives chained to another person.

I'll tell you more about that in just a moment.

Almost everyone has issues with forgiveness.

It can be hard to forgive an ex, a teacher, a boss, or someone who has wronged you or your family.

Forgiveness can be difficult, but there is a way to forgive.

Jesus said if we don't forgive others, God won't forgive us.

Get today's free offer, Forgiveness, and learn how you can forgive.

Author Laura Hillenbrand described Louie Zamperini as an incorrigible delinquent as a child.

She spent 7 years getting to know him, researching and writing her book, Unbroken.

Here's what Hillenbrand wrote in a Guideposts article.

To live in bitterness is to be chained to the person who wounded you, your emotions and actions arising not independently, but in reaction to your abuser.

Louis became so obsessed with vengeance that his life was consumed by the quest for it.

In bitterness, he was as much a captive as he'd been when barbed wire had surrounded him.

This is why forgiveness is so liberating.

For Louis, it lay in resurrecting his dignity, seeing himself not as the wretched creature that the bird had striven to make of him, but as the object of God's infinite love.

It was forgiveness that changed Louis Zamparini's life and set him free to live with peace in his heart.

In 1950, he visited a prison in Tokyo where several of his former prison guards were being kept and he told them he forgave them.

Prior to the Nagano Winter Olympics, almost 50 years later, he carried the Olympic torch for about half a mile between rows of Japanese soldiers near 1 of the prison camps in which he'd been held.

He tried to meet with the man who persecuted him so terribly during his imprisonment in Japan, but the man refused to meet him.

I spoke with a woman once whose parents were senselessly murdered by a man who had escaped from a halfway house where he'd been serving a sentence for manslaughter.

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Forgiveness: Preparation for Eternity

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