Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
DAVID: Good morning, everyone. Those of you who follow the news may know that NASA rescheduled a rocket launch on Tuesday to this Saturday. I think itâs âcause they heard about our kickoffâor, our consultation. [Loud laughter.] They wanted their own event to upstage us, but itâs not going to work.
But it did remind me of a story that I heard a fewâa lit- âabout a year ago. There was an astrophysics conference, and there were a couple of astrophysicistsâan American and a Russianâand they were swapping stories. And the Russian came outâhe came out and said, âHey, I want you to know weâre finally going to catch up to you guys. Weâre going to send a rocket to the moon, you know, in two years, okay? Itâs going to be even better, because weâre going to go build a base on the moonâour own Russian base on the moon.â
And the Americanâs like, âWell, thatâs good, but, you know, weâre way past the moon; weâre planning for Mars. Weâve got a rocket to go to Mars in five years. Weâre going to take care of it all.â
And there was a Polish astrophysicist who overheard them talking about this, and heâs like, âYeah, I couldnât help but notice you guys were talking about thatâwhere youâre going next. I wanted to tell you, we have plans. Weâre going to send a rocket to the sun.â [Laughter.]
And they were like, âThe sun! Itâsâyouâre going to burn up. You know, itâs way too hot. You know, itâll never work.â
And heâs like, âAh no, no, no. We thought of all that. Weâre going to go at night.â [Loud laughter.]
Iâm Polish, so I get to tell that kind of a joke. Donât anyone else try it, butâ [laughter].
What I have to say this morning can be summed up in nine words (besides the joke): âForgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.â You can decide for yourselves whether anything else I have to say adds to that.
Looking at the big picture, you can say that our community-wide consultation is about hearing and seeing God. Weâll know it works if, instead of just brainstorming a bunch of good ideas or coming up with a better five-year plan, we hear and see God. Forgiveness is essential to this because forgiveness, our forgiveness of one another, opens the way for us to hear and see God.
Put the other way, our unforgiveness is one of the greatest obstacles to seeing God in our brothers and sisters, to hearing what the Lord has to say in one another. Our consultation will only work if we can and do forgive one anotherâfor the past, and for ongoing insults, injuries, slights, etc.
Now thereâs a stunning example of thisâforgiveness opens the way to seeing Godâin the story of Joseph. When he reveals himself to his brothers, Joseph saysâthis is in Genesis 45:5ââNow donât grieve and reproach yourselves for selling me.â Youâve got to remember, they wanted to kill him at first, but they settled for just throwing him in a well and then selling him to Egypt. When he got there, he was falsely accused, thrown in jail, neglected, and forgotten for years. So you could understand if he wanted to rake them over the coals a little bit, for what they did. But he doesnât. He says,
âNow donât grieve and reproach yourselves for selling me, because God has sent me before you to save your lives. Itâs (been) two years since famine has been in the land and there will be another five years without tilling and without harvest. God has sent me ahead of you to make our race survive there and to save many of you. So it was not you but God who sent me here.â
I kind of wish you could hear how on earth Joseph came to forgive his brothers, but the Bible doesnât say anything about that. It just makes it clear that he does. He doesnât cover up what they did, or ignore it, or say, âWell, it wasnât that bad.â He also doesnât hold onto a grudge, or act like heâs better than they are, or insist that they make it up to him. He forgives them. And thenâthis is whatâs particularly stunningâhe sees God at work in everything that happened. He prophesies, âIt was not you but God who sent me here.â
And Joseph could have done a lot to frustrate what God was doing: he could have fallen into self-pity, he could have refused to give his brothers food or done violence against them, or he could have just given them the cold shoulder. In fact, if you look at the Hebrew of the story, I think you could say that he stands with authority given by God and the power to judge his brothers, the way God would. And in that place, he forgives them. That opens the way for him to see God at work and opens up a future for Godâs people. Itâs a miracle.
To get a sense for what our Lord has in mind for us with regard to forgiveness, I want to read to you the parable that is the culmination of Jesusâs teaching about forgiveness in community life. This is from Matthew 18, verses 23â35:
âTherefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, âLord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.â And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, âPay what you owe.â So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, âHave patience with me, and I will pay you.â He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, âYou wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?â And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.â
That last part is scary stuff!
Itâs best to read this story as if the servant were something like a subcontractor or an employee. The master is a king or lord who has entrusted this servant to collect taxes. Kings would assign different regions to various servants and say, âYou collect 10,000 talents over here; you collect 5,000 talents over there.â And the servants or subcontractors were in debt for that amountâsort of like, âYou figure out how to raise the money.â
When the master forgives the servantâs debt, he is not just being generous; heâs trying to make a point about his plans for his kingdom. âIâm not going to collect that money from you, and I donât want you to collect it from them either.â This is how the master wants things done.
The unforgiving servant is more than just stingy; heâs a rebel, sticking his finger in his masterâs eye. He also interferes in the relationship between the master and that other servant. Jesus is saying to us, âThis is how my Father wants things done. He wants you to forgive everything, just like he has forgiven you everything.â How amazing, how awesome it is that the Lord has forgiven us so much! Praise God!
If you take our Lordâs words seriously, I think you begin to realize that we usually do not take forgiveness nearly far enough. Most often, we think of forgiveness as something that applies when there is clear wrongdoing or hurt. We think of the things that we did that are bad enough that we need to go ask forgiveness. Conversely, itâs easy to keep a little mental list of all the peop- âother people that need to ask my forgiveness.
Now, the first part of that is good: what the Lord has taught us as a community about asking forgiveness when we wrong someone is a real gift. It seems like this is one of the great successes of the Marriage in Christ program and the summer camps during Action: we teach people how to ask forgiveness when you wrong someone and to grant it when someone asks you to forgive them. We should keep doing that by all means. In fact, I wonder if we could even be more evangelistic, and a greater light to the people around us, if we forgave more like that.
But Jesus tells us to go much further than these clear occasions of wrongdoing: forgive every little debt, every little thing you might hold against one another. âWhen you begin to pray,â says the Lord, âand suddenly remember that you have a grudge against someone, forgive him first! If you do not, your unforgiveness will step between you and the Father, and prevent your request from reaching him.â
Itâs not just the big things I can think of. Itâs everything, every grudge, every slight, every careless word someone said to you at a community gathering. Forgive your brother for breaking your table saw 25 years ago, and forgive him for the bad joke he made about the president five minutes ago. Forgive your sister for that time back in the 80s when she spilled the beans about the new baby you were expecting, and forgive her for forgetting your birthday last week. The Lord says that forgiveness should be more than just an occasional event in our lives. It should be our habitual attitude towards one another: âYou are not in debt to me, and nothing you do is going to leave you in debt to me.â
I heard a wonderful example of this from Christine Ziegler, whoâs in the South Bend branch and is the director of finance and operations at the LaSalle Company. Many years ago, Christine made a simple computer programming mistake that took the whole LaSalle Company down for three days. They were dead in the water: no orders, no shipping, no checks, no nothing. Michelle Herrli, another sister in the branch, who was her manager at the timeâyou can just sort of imagine what it was like to hear that news: âWell, I took the whole company down.â But Michelle was extremely kind, made it very clear that she forgave Christine, and then worked extra hard with her to get things back up and running.
Not long ago Christine was recounting this story to a group of people at a party. Michelle was there and got this confused look on her face while Christine was telling the story. Afterwards, Michelle came up to her and said, âWas I there when that happened?â (In case youâre wondering, Michelle has an excellent memory.) She had not only forgiven Christine; she had forgotten about it. What a miracle! Talk about not holding someone in debt.
When Christine shared this story she said something very striking: âI had always known Jeremiah 31:34: âFor I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.â But clearly, I didnât believe it until Michelle . . . both forgave me and forgot completely what I had done. It was a life-changing moment for me.â
Jesus wants us to become like our Father. He loves his enemies. He forgives them constantly. When we forgive, we become like him âwho makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.â (Thatâs Matthew 5:45.) You could picture it this way: every morning God âgets up,â pardons everyone in the whole world for everything theyâve done wrong, and makes the sun come up again. [Light laughter.] Thatâs what he wants for the world, and itâs what he wants us to do.
My wife is much better than I am: when she goes to wake our kids in the morning, no matter what happened or how many times that particular child may have woken upâwoken us up in the middle of the night, she greets them with the biggest smile on her face and says, âGood morning!â Itâs amazing.
However, Jesus also says to us, âThe Fatherâs pardon will not reach you if you do not pardon everyone in debt to you. You canât receive it. Your unforgiveness erects a wall between you and God, a wall that keeps his forgiveness of you out!â
Something in us really struggles with Jesusâs commandment to forgive one another. Forgiveness is often very difficult. Sometimes it looks downright impossible.
There are some things that donât cost us very much. Those things are easy to forgive.
âHey, sorry I broke your shovel.â
âWell, it was 30 years old and hardly worked. You did me a favor!â [Laughter.]
But there are many times when it is not at all easy to forgive. Sin and wrongdoing have real consequences. The thing I did to you may have threatened or destroyed something you cared about. Maybe I broke one of your favorite dishes, or backed into your car in the parking lot. Maybe I left the door to the Center unlocked, and someone came and stole all our sound equipment. Maybe I left a hot pot on, and it caused a fire that burned down your house.
I may have offended your honor: âHe should have talked to me before he made that decision.â âShe should have taken my advice.â âHe embarrassed me during that meeting.â âWhere does he get the right to correct me for that?â What I did may go against everything you think is fair. All that is to say, I may have done something wrong and really hurt you.
Think of all the times and ways we interact in community life. Think of all the things we borrow, the times we give each other rides, how close we live to one another, the projects we work on together. Think of all the decisions we make together, the life we have in common and all its moving parts. Think of the ways we have responsibility for one another and for one anotherâs children. Think of how much we need to communicate with each other, and how many times our communication breaks down.
You might say, âIs it really this serious and detailed?â Yes! If we didnât have much in common, or spend much time together, or do much together, we wouldnât need to forgive each other much. Many of us have been at this quite a while. Some of us, some of our brothers and sisters, have been deeply hurt and may be deeply disappointed that things are not like they once were. Sometimes the hurt is very serious and very present long after it happens, and we donât want to forgive.
At the same time, if weâre honest, sometimes the impediment is in ourselves. My security, my possessions, my honor, my prideâall those things cloud our judgment about what is right and wrong. How do I know that whatâthat you did something wrong, and not just something that wounded my pride? (Itâs a very sore spot in my body.)
Jesus means it when he says, âFirst take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brotherâs eye.â (Thatâs Matthew 7:5.) When you have a hard time forgiving someone, itâs worth it to ask yourself, What did he threaten that caused such a bad reaction in me? Am I struggling because I care too much about my family heirlooms or how people think about me? If thatâs true, you can âagere contra,â as Ignatius of Loyola says: âdo the opposite,â or struggle against that. Ask the Lord to take away your favorite things, or give you some humiliations to take down your reputation.
Now it is worth striving in ourselves to forgive one another, but in fact, there is something deeper going on here. God has given us everything we need, because he has given us new life through the Holy Spirit, his Spirit. It goes without saying that our new life in the Spirit is essential to everything, but it has deep implications for forgiveness.
Let me read to you from John 3. This is Jesus talking to Nicodemus. The TV series The Chosen gives a very insightful portrayal of Nicodemus. Heâs got all the robes, he knows the Scriptures, he hosts an excellent Lordâs Day [laughter]. But then he sees Mary Magdalene delivered from seven demons, and it totally throws him. In one scene he goes to visit John the Baptist in prison, and he says, âI have questions for you about . . . miracles.â Heâs completely shaken by what he has seen Jesus doing. He doesnât really understand it, but he can tell that something new is going on with Jesus. Picture that.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, âRabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.â Jesus answered him, âTruly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.â Nicodemus said to him, âHow can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his motherâs womb and be born?â Jesus answered, âTruly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.â
What Jesus says to Nicodemus is nothing short of amazing. He does not tell him he has come to bring a better life or make an improved humanity. He has not come to bring about human fulfillment or perfection, at least not in the way Nicodemus and the rest of us usually think about it. He says, âYou must be born anew by water and the Spirit.â This is new, not better. Jesus knows that no matter how noble we are, how hard we work to improve our character, the friends and good people we surround ourselves withâif thatâs all we have, we will remain earthâs prisoner. We need something else: a new existence. A new existence that originates in God. Not a mixture of humanity and divinity. A new being. A new divine being.
My parents got divorced when I was 11, and I harbored a lot of resentment and anger towards my dad. When I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, one of the life-changing things that happened was that at that moment, I forgave my dad for everything. I didnât have to try. I wasnât even fully conscious of it. I just forgave him.
Now recently, when I was praying about that, I noticed something else. The day after I was baptized in the Spirit, I went to a basketball game with my dad. During the game, I was thoughtâthinking, âThings are different now. Everything is new now that Iâm baptized in the Spirit. I wonder if I should go preach to people or do something bold and audacious.â It took me 23 years to realize that the answer was right there, sitting next to me. The Holy Spirit made a new divine existence in me and made new my heart towards my dad, forgiving him every debt. That was where the Lord wanted to start with me. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:5, love âkeeps no record of wrongs,â or âLove does not take offense,â as one translation puts it.
We may not be accustomed to thinking about this aspect of the Holy Spiritâs action in us. Itâs natural to look for all the ways the Holy Spirit breaks through and helps us in actual situations throughout our lives: praise and worship, speaking in tongues, a love for Scripture, healings, the [charismatic] renewal, âmore of the Lord,â the outpourings we see at our camps and Action trips. These are the sorts of things that come up throughout our daily lives and throughout our history as a community. And praise God for all the ways he helps and sustains us!
What we are talking about goes even deeper than that: new life. A permanent change, that exists no matter the swells of enthusiasm and consolation that come at various times in our life. This is something every bit as permanent as death and birth. âIt is not I who live, but Christ who lives in meâ (Galatians 2:20). The Holy Spirit has changed each of us and created a new life in us, and that really does change everything. When it comes to forgiveness, this means that not only can the Holy Spirit overcome our difficulties; he has already created in us the new life that goes hand in hand with forgiveness. God has forgiven us everything. He stands ready to flood us with his mercy and to forgive every one of our brothers and sisters, if only we cooperate with him.
Jesus puts this quite plainly at the Last Supper:
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, âDrink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.â
He pours out his blood, his life, for the forgiveness of sins. âThis is my blood poured out for the world as an expiation for the sin of the world; but itâs also my blood, my life, poured into you, so that you may forgive the sins of others.â
Forgiveness is at the very heart of what the Father sent him to do. And itâs at the very heart of what heâs sending us to do. He makes it possible for us to pray the Our Father: âForgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.â
Forgiveness, you could say, is the lifeblood of our life in Christ. Itâs like the circulatory system of Christ in me. I didnât do a thing to forgive my dad. It was a miracle, born of life in the Holy Spirit.
Corrie ten Boom told a story about how she was preaching about forgiveness in Germany after World War II. After one of her talks, a man came up to her, and she realized that he had been a guard at RavensbrĂŒck, which was the Nazi camp where she was imprisoned for hiding Jews. He said to her, âI 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. FrĂ€ulein, will you forgive me?â He didnât know it, but her sister had died in that camp. She said, âI stood there with coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotionâI knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. âJesus, help me!â I prayed silently. âI can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.ââ She lifted her hand, and forgiveness and healing overwhelmed her immediately.
This all has huge implications for the consultation, and really for our whole community life. Our life together in Christ aims at the love and union that Jesus prays for in John 17:
âI have given them the honor that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are oneâI in them and you in me, that they may grow complete into one, so that the world may realize that you sent me and have loved them as you loved me. . . . I have made your self known to them and I will continue to do so, that the love which you have had for me may be in their heartsâand that I may be there also.â
Thatâs John 17, verses 21â23 and 26.
Weâve heard Jesusâs commandment to love one another so much that it sounds almost trite, and the word âloveâ itself has gotten watered down in the modern world. But that is Godâs design, that we love one another. Thatâs the plan: love and union. Forgiveness is essential to love. Actually, itâs an excellent test of love. If I say that I love you, can I first say that I bear no grudges against you, that Iâve forgiven you?
When we refuse to forgive, we choke the flow of our spiritual lifeblood. I met someone at a party a while ago, and it dawned on me quickly, âYou know, this guy probably works with so-and-soâ (a brother in the community that I had had some difficulty with). I noticed this hesitation in me to say, âDo you know so-and-so?â And that hesitation came from the disagreement Iâd had with this brother. That was unforgiveness in me, rearing its ugly head. Because of the life in common that the Lord has called us to live, we have weekly or daily or even hourly occasions to forgive each other, to participate in the Lordâs mission, the mission the Lord gave us at the Lordâsâthe Last Supper, to forgive one another!
As we embark on the consultation, this is a particular moment to reflect and forgive one another where we need to. Itâs a moment to repent too, and especially to repent of our unforgiveness. The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders grew so repe- âunrepentant, so unwilling to forgive, so hard in their hearts, that they could not hear or see God. From Matthew 13:10â15,
At this, the disciples approached him and asked, âWhy do you talk to them in parables?â
âBecause you have givenâyou have been given the chance to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven,â replied Jesus, âbut they have not. For when a man has something, more is given to him till he has plenty. But if he has nothing, even his nothing will be taken away from him. This is why I speak to them in these parables; because they go through life with their eyes open, but see nothing, and with their ears open, but understand nothing of what they hear. They are the living fulfillment of Isaiahâs prophecy which says: âHearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them.ââ
There is a great word of warning to us in this. Someone recently told me the story of a woman who called him up and said that she had listened to a talk he gave at a community gathering, but that she couldnât hear it, because of something he had done years and years ago. That was very perceptive on her part, and a huge step forward to contact him. Corrie ten Boom, who I mentioned in the story earlier, ran a home for people wounded by the Nazis. She observed, âThose who were able to forgive their former enemies were also able to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.â
To the Pharisees and to us when we cultivate a garden of grudges instead of our love for one another, Christ says, âGo and learn what this means: âI desire mercy, and not sacrifice.ââ Itâs Matthew 9:13, quoting Hosea 6.
We must forgive in order to hear one another. Start with the men in your menâs group or the women in your womenâs group. You donât have to leave your seat to forgive someone. You donât have to wait for them to ask! You donât even have to tell them! The place where forgiveness happens is in you.
Thereâs a quote that was found wrapped around the body of a dead child at the RavensbrĂŒck concentration camp:
O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but also those of ill will. But do not only remember the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has come out of all this; and when they come to the judgment, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.
If youâre like me and this seems like a Herculean task, remember that God has already made us a new creation, like we just sang, and has made it possible toâfor us to forgive everyone of everything. In fact, our success depends on our ability to let go, to let the Holy Spirit continue to establish new life in us.
When it comes to life in the Spirit, we often think about all the things we can do to grow in spiritual maturity: think, reflect, study, fight our weaknesses, help our neighbors, serve faithfully and well, etc. Those things are important and they prepare the way, but our growth as children of God has to come from the source, from the Holy Spirit. The same is true with forgiveness. The more you think about how much you have to give up in order to forgive, you realize how much we depend on God in order to do it. Let our attitude be that of Maryâs [sic]: âBehold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your will.â Or as Caryll Houselander interpreted that passage, âMay Christ live in me the life He wants to live in me, where, with whom, and how He wants to live it.â
The Lord has given us a great call: forgiveness, the consultation, being a Christian communityâall of it. Let us each have faith in the new divine life in us. Ask the Holy Spirit to re-create us. Let this change our prayer of âCome, Holy Spirit!â
Come, help us with our needs! Come, set us free to forgive! Come, continue your work of a totally new creation in us! Eternal Beginning, Creative Spirit, re-create us! You who have begun us, complete us!
Come, Holy Spirit!
Amen. [Loud applause.]
[This marks the end of Davidâs talk. He now continues by leading the group in deliverance prayer.]
The devil is very active, teaching us to deal with others the way they have dealt with us. So we need to learn how to handle his temptations, and so weâre gonna take some time now to do deliverance prayer.
So why donât we all stand up and . . . letâs just go ahead. If you haveâif youâweâll come against the devil, and if thereâs a particular spirit you think that we should pray against, just shout it out. Iâll try to repeat that, but shout it out loud, and weâll pray against all the evil spirits harassing us and our brothers and sisters throughout the community.
[Hum of others praying in the background as David prays.] So, come, Holy Spirit! Come, Lord Jesus! Praise to you, Lord God! Glory and praise to you, Lord Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus!
Satan, we rebuke you in the name of Jesus our Lord. We command you to be gone! Distrust, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be gone from us! Be gone from our brothers and sisters!
Envy, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We command you to depart from us, from our brothers and sisters. Glory and praise to you, Lord God!
WOMANâS VOICE: [Inaudible] spirit, be gone!
DAVID: Say that again?
WOMANâS VOICE: Critical and judgmental spirit.
DAVID: Amen! Critical and judgmental spirit, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Be gone in the name of Jesus, critical and judgmental spirit! Glory to you, Lord God, Lord Jesus! Praise to you, Lord Jesus!
WOMANâS VOICE: Spirit of lies.
DAVID: Lies, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and command you to depart in the name of Jesus. Be gone completely! Lies, we cast you out.
WOMANâS VOICE: Presumption.
DAVID: Presumption, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
MANâS VOICE: Discouragement.
MANâS VOICE: Apathy.
DAVID: Discouragement and apathy, we rebuke you and command you to be gone in the name of Jesus! . . . We cast you out. [Prays in tongues.]
MANâS VOICE: Disappointment.
DAVID: Disappointment, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We command you to depart in the name of Jesus. [Prays in tongues.]
MANâS VOICE: Self-importance.
DAVID: Self-importance, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and command you to be gone. [Prays in tongues.] Be gone in the name of Jesus!
WOMANâS VOICE: Self-reliance.
DAVID: Self-reliance, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [Prays in tongues.] Be gone in the name of Jesus!
WOMANâS VOICE: Despair.
DAVID: Despair, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you, and we cast you out in the name of Jesus. [Prays in tongues.]
WOMANâS VOICE: Comparison.
DAVID: Comparison, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and cast you out. Be gone from us! Be gone from our brothers and sisters! [Prays briefly in tongues.]
MANâS VOICE: Fear.
DAVID: Fear, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out. We rebuke you. [Prays in tongues.]
Sickness, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We command you to depart from us, from our brothers and sisters. Be gone in the name of Jesus! Spirit of sickness, we cast you out. [Prays in tongues.]
MANâS VOICE: Confusion.
DAVID: Confusion, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and cast you out. Be gone from us!
WOMANâS VOICE: Hard-heartedness.
DAVID: Hard-heartedness, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We command you to depart.
MANâS VOICE: Murder.
DAVID: Murder, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! Spirit of murder, we cast you out, in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
WOMANâS VOICE: Self-pity [inaudible]!
DAVID: Self-pity, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We command you to depart! [Prays in tongues.] We bind you and cast you out.
WOMANâS VOICE: Spirit of anxiety.
DAVID: Anxiety, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out from us and from our brothers and sisters. Be gone in the name of Jesus!
WOMANâS VOICE: Abandonment.
DAVID: Abandonment, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and cast you out, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
WOMANâS VOICE: Doubt.
DAVID: Doubt, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! [Prays in tongues.]
MANâS VOICE: Sloth!
DAVID: Sloth, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and cast you out. Be gone from our midst!
WOMANâS VOICE: Suspicion.
DAVID: Suspicion, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We rebuke you and cast you out.
WOMANâS VOICE: Gossip.
MANâS VOICE: Gossip.
DAVID: What was that?
VOICES: Gossip.
DAVID: Gossip, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We command you to depart in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Letâs bind all the other spirits as Legion. Legion, be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord! We cast you out from us and from our brothers and sisters. [Loud hum of praying.] Be gone, in the name of Jesus! Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Lord God. Thank you, Lord. Satan, be gone from us! Be gone from our brothers and sisters! We cast you out and command you to be gone in the name of Jesus our Lord. Thank you, Lord God.
Lord, we thank you! We thank you for delivering us. We thank you for your goodness to us. [Loud clapping along with praise.] Thank you, Lord God! Praise you, Lord God! Glory to you, Lord Jesus. [Clapping and praise get louder.] Thank you, Lord Jesus. Glory to you, Lord God. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Lord God. [Clapping subsides.]
Thank you, Lord. Thank you that our names are written in the book of life. Amen.
Okay, what weâre going to do now is take until 11:15; we have a time for a break and for personal prayer. So, you can feel free to take a walk around the grounds or in the building or wherever youâd like, but use that time how you want to. And weâll gather back here at 11:15.
Praise God!
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