Unforgivingness by Sunday School Times

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 25, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 17.

Unforgivingness.

By Sunday School Times

SATAN rejoices every time any one feels unforgiving toward any one else. For unforgivingness means unlove, and that means hatefulness, which always plays into the hands of the devil. No Christian can serve Christ, or loyally represent Christ, while withholding free, full forgiveness from a single fellow man,—no matter how unworthy of forgiveness that fellow man is.

The Christian who says of any human being that, because of this or that terrible injury or injustice, he can never forgive him, has abandoned Christ and is serving the devil in that act. The devil knows this, and seeks persistently to persuade us that there are some things, or some persons, that we ought never to forgive. He succeeds in persuading more of us than he ought to. Paul gave as a reason for free, unconditional forgiveness "that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices." We are fond of claiming that it is our own high sense of righteousness and fairness that makes it "impossible" for us to forgive certain offenders; but the real reason is our likeness to that very offender, in our confessed allegiance to the same Satan that he serves. —Sunday School Times.