Faith Walk / William Carroll
We will be talking about the word of God and how he moved in my life as I stood on his word. His signs and wonders that I have seen during the last forty years praying for my needs and the needs of others. I hope to encourage a new generation of believers to pray the word of God and to believe that He will move on their behalf. God answers prayers!
Faith Walk / William Carroll
Ep 70 Why God Forgets What We Keep Remembering
Forgiveness seems simple until we're tested. When Peter approached Jesus asking if forgiving someone seven times was enough, he thought he was being generous. Jesus's response—"seventy times seven"—wasn't just raising the bar; it was demolishing it entirely.
This episode delves into the radical nature of divine forgiveness and how it transforms our approach to relationships. We explore the beautiful truth that when God forgives our sins, He actually forgets them—casting them "as far as the east is from the west" into a sea of forgetfulness. Yet many believers struggle to accept this complete forgiveness, repeatedly asking God to pardon sins He's already forgotten while the enemy whispers accusations about our past.
For newer Christians especially, the journey toward overcoming persistent sin can feel like a series of failures. We share wisdom from an old preacher who explained that when we fail a spiritual test, we should "put it on the shelf" because we'll see that test again—and with each encounter, resistance becomes easier. As James tells us, God always provides an escape route from temptation, though we sometimes miss it or hesitate too long.
King David's story offers tremendous hope in this conversation. Despite committing adultery and orchestrating murder, David was still called "a man after God's own heart." His distinguishing quality wasn't sinlessness but his readiness to acknowledge wrongdoing and truly repent. When convicted of sin, David responded with genuine grief, seeking God's forgiveness through heartfelt repentance.
Ready to experience the freedom that comes from both receiving and extending forgiveness? Listen now and discover how breaking the cycle of unforgiveness might be exactly what your spiritual journey needs. Ask God to teach you something new about forgiveness, and watch how He transforms your relationships—especially the one with yourself.
Well, welcome to Faith Walk Podcast. We're still in Acts and we're in Acts, chapter 18. And we're going to talk 18 and 21. It says Peter came to him and said how off shall I, shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him Until seven times? And Jesus said, not until seven times, but until seventy times seven. Well, you know we had talked earlier in this chapter how that if your brother trespass against you, you take a friend with you, you confront him, you take two or three witnesses, you confront him. If he still won't hear you, you take the church. If he doesn't hear the church, then he's as a heathen or a publican to you. Well, listen.
Speaker 1:So I think this thought is coming back around and Peter's saying okay, so we did that. We took him to the church, you know, and he's a heathen or public. But now this man come back and asked me to forgive him and he said Lord, how many times should I forgive him? How many times shall I forgive him that he sins against me? And he said seven times. He thought he's being really generous. Seven times. And he said, no, not seven times, but seven times, 70. 70 times, seven.
Speaker 1:Okay, so my thought there is, if you were taking account and taking you know how many times somebody sinned against you, man, you would keep forgetting how many times it was, with that many seven you could remember. Now, that's just my thought. That's what I think about when I read that scripture. You know, how am I going to remember, how am I going to remember somebody sinning against me? What is it? 490 times, is that is my math right? 490 times 7 times 70? Well, anyway, that's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 1:So, in other words, we're supposed to forgive our brother as many times as he comes and says he's sorry, we're supposed to forgive him. And that's hard to do and I believe the only way you can do that is have a forgiveness like God. See, when God forgives us of our sin, he forgets. He puts them as far as the east, from the west, in the sea of forgetfulness, never to remember them anymore. So God forgets our sin. When we ask for forgiveness, he forgets our sin. See, so many times we go to him and says Lord, forgive me for doing so-and-so, whatever it is, you did it 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 5 years ago, 2 weeks ago, but you asked for repentance and you repented and you hadn't done it again. But the devil brings it up and says remember that sin, God, I can't forgive you of that sin. So you keep bringing that sin up and God is saying what sin, what sin? Because he forgot the sin, because he puts it away from him and now he could remember it if he wanted to, but he puts it far as east is from the west in the sea of forgetfulness.
Speaker 1:You see, god doesn't want to hold your sins over your head. He wants to forgive you of your sins. You've got to learn to forgive yourself. Maybe you're the person I'm talking to today. I didn't mean to go in this direction, but I'm going to tell you what. Evidently somebody is needing to hear this that you need, once you ask for repentance and the Holy Spirit moves on your heart to repent of that sin and you've repented on that sin and you've moved on from that sin, then quit bringing the sin up, because God's already forgiven you for it.
Speaker 1:Now listen, if you're a burning baby Christian, let's just go here. Since we're going this way, If you're a baby Christian and you have sin in your life and the Holy Spirit is moving on you and leading and guiding you to draw you out of that sin. Let me tell you something. You may come to that temptation many times and fail before you pass the test. I had an old preacher one time. He said this. He said if you come to a test and you take a test and you fail that test, put it on the shelf. Go ahead and put it on the shelf because you're going to see that test again. But each time you see that test it should become easier to try to get out of that sin. See, in James it says that wherever there's a test, wherever there's a trial, that the Lord will give us a doorway so that we can escape. Now, sometimes we don't take that doorway, or sometimes we take that doorway and we wait too long before we take it, but each time we take that test.
Speaker 1:I found this out to be true in my life. Each time I took the test of some of the sins that I struggled with, then it got easier. You know, I could say no, no, no, no, fall, all right. Then the next time it was no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then I stumbled and fell. Why? Because of the weakness of my flesh, because I wasn't walking in the authority and the power of the Holy Spirit. I was walking and I was yielding into my flesh and I yielded to that flesh. I yielded to it.
Speaker 1:You know now, when I repented, when it, when it hurt my heart, and I repented to God and I had true repentance and I didn't ever want to do it again. Did God forgive me? Yes, he did Right. Then he forgave me and he forgot. You know, he forgave and he forgot. Now I have to forgive myself for messing up and then I have to try, you know, and every time you get stronger, the test gets longer and further apart, but it comes back and even if you pass the test a few times later on on down the road, sometimes Satan, he's an old devil, he's an old slew foot He'll bring it back to you again, you know, and see if you really did overcome it. You know, and you may stumble and you may fall, but when you stumble and you fall and you have a repentant heart, that's what David did.
Speaker 1:David was a sinner man. David fell all the time, but when somebody brought it out, like the prophets, or God spoke to his heart or sent somebody to tell him, it grieved David's heart because he had a heart for God and he knew, when somebody said, david, you've sinned, that he had sinned and it grieved him and he repented and he sat in sackcloth and ashes and he called out unto God. And God always heard and God forgave David and he called him a man after his own heart. He committed murder of one of his best friends, one of his mighty men you know, wow, whose father-in-law was a mighty man and David, one of his counselors, was a good counselor and was the grandfather of Bathsheba, and David had him murdered.
Speaker 1:Anyway, listen, I'm getting too far off in that. I love that study and we may go there one day. You know, if the Lord keeps having me do this, right now, I don't know. I guess we're just kind of going, just kind of skipping around down here and kind of going. But you know, we have to learn to forgive others and listen.
Speaker 1:The next proverb is about a man. A king took account of servants and one owed him and he brought him in. He said let him be sold, let his house be sold, Let payments be made unto the Lord, to the king, and the servant fell down and said forgive me, lord. Well, listen, I'm not going to get into that. I think we've done plenty. Plenty I'm just talking about we need to ask for forgiveness, when we need to ask for forgiveness, and then we have to give others forgiveness and we'll get back into this parable next time. And then we have to give others forgiveness, and we'll get back into this parable next time and we'll talk about that how we have to learn to forgive others Just because we're forgiven and we're walking afresh.
Speaker 1:We have to learn to forgive others even though they're new Christians or they're not Christians.
Speaker 1:See, a lot of times we run with people who are not Christians. We get saved. What to do? What to do with your friends? Well, you know, I had to walk away from my friends. I had to walk away from my friends and the temptations that my friends brought me, and you know.
Speaker 1:But the Lord restored me back to those relationships later on and I could share with them what God did in my life, because they watched me from afar and they saw how, when I said something, you know that I was born again, that I was a Christian. I'm not the same, I'm a new man. You know that the Lord's changing my life. And when they heard me say that and then they saw me walk through that for many years. Then they knew that it was true, right? Well, anyway, listen, god bless you. I'm going to get off of here and until we talk the next time. You know, walk your faith, walk out, get God out of the box, get him out of the box. Say Lord, teach me something new, and he will. God bless you Until next time.
