1. “Therefore if you are offering your gift...and there you remember that your brother has something against you...first go and be reconciled to your brother...Be well disposed quickly with your opponent at law, while you are with him on the way” (Matt. 5:23-25).
Second, dealing with sin involves being reconciled to others. Confessing sins to others involves begging others’ forgiveness for offending them. Being reconciled to others involves going and seeking peace with those who have animosity toward us. These two aspects are connected because those whom we have offended often hold a grudge against us. Therefore, we need to beg for forgiveness and seek peace with them. Sometimes, however, we are blamed for something by others, even when we have not offended them. In such a situation, we do not need to beg for forgiveness, but we should seek peace. We should do this so that no problem exists between ourselves and others or between others and ourselves. This enables us to be bold, and it eliminates all barriers when we come close to God and have fellowship with Him. (The offering of our gift in Matthew 5 refers to fellowship with God.)
2. “When you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone” (Mark 11:25).
If we have offended anyone, we should confess our sins to him and beg for forgiveness. This verse, however, says that we should forgive anyone who has offended us. If we want to live before God, we must do more than beg forgiveness from those we have offended; we must also forgive those who have offended us. Regardless of whether we have offended others or others have offended us, we must clear up any offense so that there is no separation between them and us before God. Then there will be no barriers to our prayer or barriers to the answers to our prayer. Any separation between others and us blocks our prayer and becomes a barrier to receiving an answer to prayer. Therefore, we must deal with these things completely so that we would not be separated from God.
Forgiving others is often harder than begging for forgiveness. Perhaps this is the reason that the Bible constantly teaches us to forgive others. The Lord often connected forgiving others with prayer because if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us, and there will be a separation between God and us. This will break our fellowship with God, and we will be unable to pray to God in an unhindered way. Moreover, we will be unable to receive God’s answer. We may not have offended others or created problems with them, and we may not need to beg forgiveness of others or clear up matters, but whenever someone offends us, if we do not forgive him from the heart, we will have a problem with him, and this matter will block our fellowship with God. Since it will interrupt our prayer to God, we must deal with it by forgiving others.
1. “If anyone sins and acts unfaithfully against Jehovah and deceives his associate in regard to a deposit or a security, or by robbery, or has extorted from his associate, or has found a lost item and lied about it, if he has sworn falsely in any one of all these things a man may do and sins thereby...he shall even restore it in full, and shall add to it a fifth part of it. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs, on the day he is found guilty” (Lev. 6:2-3, 5).
Third, we should deal with sin by restoring money to those whom we have cheated. If we have cheated others in money matters, we should repay the principal with an additional fifth part as soon as we realize our transgression. Although this is an ordinance of the Old Testament law, the principle still applies in the New Testament. In the New Testament the work of grace on a person has a higher requirement than that of the Old Testament. When the tax collector Zaccheus was saved, he said, “If I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four times as much” (Luke 19:8). This was the work of the Lord’s grace on him. Although we need not regard Zaccheus as a standard, we must at least comply with the requirement of the law, which is to return the amount in question with an additional fifth part.
Brothers and sisters, whether we owe something to the government or to individual persons, we should restore it all. If we do not, we will have unrighteous things in our hands or in our home. We cannot merely confess our sin of cheating people to God and then forget about it. We must completely restore what we cheated from others. When we confess our sin of cheating people to God, He will forgive us, but we still need to resolve the matter involved in our cheating of others. If something we obtained unrighteously is still in our hands, it will give us a feeling of unrighteousness and will interrupt our progress in spiritual matters. Can we read the Bible on a table that was bought with money obtained unrighteously? Can we kneel in prayer before a bed that we gained improperly? Can we give a message wearing a suit that was acquired unrighteously? God forgives all our sins when we believe in the Lord and when we confess them, but there is still a need to make restoration and completely deal with any unrighteous thing that is still in our hands. Although this has no relationship to our salvation, it is very much related to our spiritual life following our salvation. This would be like living with the corpse of a person of whose murder you have been absolved. Even if you have been absolved of his murder, you would have a difficult time living a comfortable life if the corpse was not removed from your house. Everything gained by unrighteous, improper means is like an unremoved corpse; it hinders us from living a comfortable spiritual life. Therefore, we must completely clear away everything of unrighteous gain and return it in a proper way.
This kind of restoration pleases God and is a result of the special work of the Holy Spirit. In England many years ago F. B. Meyer was preaching. Without warning, he pointed to the audience and said, “Look, here is a young man who stole three pounds eighteen shillings from his master. If he does not return it, he will never have peace.” The next day a young man came to see Meyer and said, “I am the person you talked about yesterday. I really did steal three pounds eighteen shillings from my master, and since then I have not had peace in my heart. With this check I will return the entire amount.” This shows that the Holy Spirit does a special work to cause people to deal with matters in which they cheated others.
When God leads us to deal with these kinds of things, He also gives us some special experiences. Before I believed in the Lord, there was a fire where I worked. While everybody was moving things out of the building, I saw a small Chinese ink bottle and a brush. I liked both of them and stole them. After being saved, the Holy Spirit told me to deal with this unrighteous matter. At that time I still had the ink bottle, but I no longer had the small brush, so I could only use money to replace it. I took the small ink bottle and a dollar and went to my old boss. I shamefacedly confessed that I had stolen two things and said that I had come to make restoration. My boss listened but refused to take them. After I continued to beg him, he said, “I will take the ink bottle, but I will not take the money.” Then he saw that I was carrying a small combined solar-lunar calendar card. At that time, everybody liked this kind of calendar card, but they were not easy to obtain. Then he said, “You can give me the calendar card as a substitute for the little brush.” Although I did not want to give up my calendar card, I owed him, and so I had to agree. After I left his office, I felt sad about losing the calendar card, and I did not know what to do with the dollar. Inwardly I said, “The best thing would be for the Lord to show me a needy beggar so that I can give this dollar to him.” When I arrived home, it was already dark, and I closed the door very securely because it was wartime. Not long afterward, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to see who it was. It was a beggar who could not find anything to eat. He came to ask for help. I felt that God answered my request, so I brought him in, fed him, and gave him a few steamed rolls. He did not know where to look for lodging, so I agreed to take him to a place. On the way, I gave him the dollar and told him that it was from the Lord Jesus. At a crossroads I pointed to a place where he could stay. He thanked me and left. At that moment Brother Chao Ching Hwai called to me from across the street, “Brother Lee, where are you going?” He came across the street, and I told him what had happened. He took an envelope and handed it to me, saying, “This is a gift for you.” When I arrived home and opened the envelope, I saw that it was a solar-lunar combined calendar card! By this time, I clearly understood God’s leading. God gave me a special beggar so that I could deal with that dollar. Then He caused me to meet that brother so that He could restore the calendar card. Although these were small matters, God’s arrangement and leading was truly marvelous! This proves that repaying our debts and dealing with unrighteous things pleases God.
2. “But if the man has no kinsman to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution which is made for the wrong goes to Jehovah for the priest” (Num. 5:8).
If we owe restitution for unrighteous things to a person who has died, we must make restitution to the relatives. If he has no kinsmen to receive our restitution, it should go to Jehovah for the priest. Today this means that it should go to the church.
We should make restitution in monetary matters within the limitations of our ability and circumstances. If we do not have the ability, or if our situation does not permit, it will be all right if we cannot do it. If we have the ability and the situation permits, we should be diligent in clearing up the matter. We should always clear up things to the best of our ability and to the extent that our circumstances permit so that our conscience will release us. We should do as much as we are able and as much as our circumstances permit us to do. If we truly are unable to repay the person whom we owe, we should still confess to him, beg his forgiveness, and promise to repay as soon as possible.
1. “He removed the foreign altars and the high places and smashed the pillars and hewed down the Asherahs”; “Purge...the Asherahs and the idols and the molten images” (2 Chron. 14:3; 34:3).
Fourth, in dealing with sin, we need to clear up evil things. We should remove every idol and everything used in the worship of idols. Many of us previously worshipped idols. After being saved, we should remove everything associated with their worship from our hands and our homes. If we hold on to these things, the devil has the ground to harass, attack, and disturb us. Therefore, we must clear up these things. We must completely stand on God’s side, not leaving any little thing of the devil.
2. “A considerable number of those who practiced magic brought their books together and burned them before all; and they counted up the price of them and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver” (Acts 19:19).
We should also clean out devilish and immoral things. The believers in Ephesus burned many evil books. A few years ago I went to Wei Hai to preach the gospel. Those who were saved brought many demonic and filthy things to the meeting place and burned them in front of everyone. They made a good testimony and gained the joy of being freed from sin. Demonic books, obscene books, pornographic pictures, gambling apparatus, things related to smoking and drinking, and things related to other kinds of sin should be completely removed from our homes and possessions after we are saved. Regrettably, many brothers and sisters still have evil things and keep evil things on their person and in their homes. According to the Bible, for example, the dragon is a symbol of Satan (Rev. 20:2), but even now some brothers and sisters wear clothing, shoes, and jewelry with dragons on them, have dragon furniture, or use utensils with dragons on them. Even now some brothers and sisters have pornographic books on their bookshelves and hang superstitious writings or indecent pictures in their homes. These should be eliminated to testify that we are children of God. When we preached the gospel in 1938 in Beijing, an elderly sister asked me if it was all right for her to have a lampshade with a dragon on it. I asked her, “How do you feel inwardly?” She said, “I think there is a problem.” I said, “Since you feel that there is a problem, why do you not take care of it?” So she got rid of the lampshade. If we truly want the Lord, the Holy Spirit will cause us to feel that certain things are wrong. We should not have any symbol of Satan on our person, in our homes, or on anything we own.
3. “If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up. / If you put injustice far away from your tents” (Job 22:23).
If we truly turn to God and desire to please Him, we must eliminate every evil and unrighteous thing from our person and homes. By doing this we can be built up before God.
If we practice what we have seen item by item and completely deal with every unrighteous and unclean thing and if we clear up everything until we are clean, we will have a strong testimony and walk in the straight way. God will bless us.