| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Forgiving Those We Overlook
00:02:09
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| Many preachers, including myself, have long been quoting 2 Chronicles 7.14. | |
| If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land. | |
| Ingrained in our thoughts and our speaking. | |
| But do we really know how to walk in our talk? | |
| In my lifetime, I have been privileged to minister to many presidents, such as my dear friend Ronald Reagan, and provide them counsel. | |
| I have interviewed thousands, including teachers like Kenneth Hagen and C.M. Ward, the great Revival Time speaker, survivor like Corey Tanboon, personalities and musicians like Pearl Bailey, Mickey Rooney, Dean Jones, Andre Crouch. | |
| I have lived on the highest of mountaintops and I have fallen into the deepest valleys because of my sin. | |
| Like Job, the one who God called my servant, I lost everything. | |
| I lost my ministry. | |
| I lost my family. | |
| I nearly lost my life. | |
| I had to learn the hard way that I was wrong. | |
| In my prison cell, I was given two choices. | |
| I could rot away for the next 45 years and never again see the light of day. | |
| Or I could repent of my own wicked ways and learn to forgive. | |
| And that's what I did. | |
| I forgave everyone. | |
| I forgave the judges and the lawyers and all of those who put me away. | |
|
Repentance Today
00:05:52
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| I forgave those who forced me out of my ministry. | |
| I forgave every single person who hurt me, wronged me. | |
| And then I forgave those whom I overlooked. | |
| And then I picked up my Bible and I began to truly walk with Jesus. | |
| I studied every word that he spoke and I grew closer and closer to him. | |
| Five years later, I was acquitted of all the charges and I was released from prison in 1994. | |
| I continue to walk with God down a road of repentance and I still walk that path today. | |
| Our nation needs three things, I believe. | |
| The first is repentance, asking God to forgive you and to forgive your nation and forgive our sins. | |
| You just can't ask for repentance and continue as you are. | |
| You must truly let go of the old and never pick it up again. | |
| America must have repentance and forgiveness for others. | |
| The second is that you need revival for your life. | |
| We must pray for revival. | |
| And I'm not talking about a meeting. | |
| I'm talking about from the heart where America says we're sorry. | |
| We're sorry for anything that we did in the past. | |
| We're sorry for what our forefathers did. | |
| We're sorry for everything. | |
| The Bible says if we don't forgive, we will not be forgiven. | |
| So we turn to God. | |
| We must seek his face and his will for our nation. | |
| We must not leave God sitting on the side. | |
| We must seek him, seek healing for all of the strife between the parties, between the races, between all beliefs, and even for our family members. | |
| The division must stop, and we must become united under Jesus Christ. | |
| The final step to reformation, we must allow God to transform our lives so that we love one another. | |
| We follow him in earnest, and we commit ourselves to following his will. | |
| Our daily walk, our daily actions, our daily conversations, our daily decisions must reflect this reformation. | |
| Otherwise, our repentance and what we call revival will not be effective. | |
| Just before leaving prison and beginning to follow my own path of repentance, I began to follow what I call my daily walk. | |
| This is written in prison. | |
| And if you can follow these steps, they work for me, then you can help lead yourself and this nation into true repentance, I believe. | |
| I will humble myself as number one and walk in humility before God. | |
| I will seek my God and do nothing without consulting him. | |
| Our nation must do that. | |
| I will read, study, and meditate on God's word and implement it. | |
| I will have no other gods or idols or place anything, anything before my God. | |
| I will love, trust, praise, and worship my God with all my heart. | |
| I will show mercy, forgiving all and love my neighbor as myself. | |
| I will abide in Christ and keep his commandments. | |
| I will crucify my flesh and die to it daily, fleeing temptation and sin. | |
| I will accept the trial of my faith. | |
| This might be hard, but it's true. | |
| I will accept it as more precious than gold. | |
| Knowing whom God loves, he chastens. | |
| I will always confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. | |
| I will keep my heart right towards God, confessing my sins and never lying to the Holy Spirit. | |
| I will live by the total counsel of God's word. | |
| I will not judge others, nor lean to my own understanding or trust the arm of the flesh. | |
| I will demonstrate love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. | |
| Finally, I'll keep my eyes on heaven, the mark of the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ. | |
| My brothers and sisters, the time has come for repentance today. | |
| I join with you in humility before the throne of our Father in heaven. | |
| I plead today for our nation's healing and for him to lead us away from the abyss. | |
| We ask our Father in heaven that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | |
| Forgive us our sins and forgive us as a nation for our transgressions. | |
| Only you, God, can redeem and save America. | |
| And we ask today that it will be so. | |
| In your name we pray. | |
| Amen. | |
| Always remembering God loves you. | |