Are we willing to pay the price of forgiveness? Welcome, we're taking another look today into the life and message of Elizabeth Elliot. She called us to live to a higher standard each day. Not satisfied with just a little religion in life as a shallow substitute for giving God our best. Our series continues as we hear from family, friends, and others who are influenced by the life and message of Elizabeth Elliot. Hey, thank you for joining us today. Well, as usual, we have two Gateway to Joy programs. Actually, we'll be wrapping up a series on the price of love as we hear about the price of forgiveness and the presence of God. We'll be hearing from Walt Shepard, son-in-law of Elizabeth Elliot, as he spoke at the Wheaton Memorial Service for Elizabeth back in 2015. Also, we'll be hearing from a listener named Araceli, who talks about the ministry of Elizabeth in her life. First, though, the price of love, part three, the price of forgiveness. Think about what Jesus said on the cross. Remember, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Do you think missionaries ever struggle with truly forgiving? How about forgiving each other on the mission field? Think about the challenges of mission life and more as you think about love today. You are loved with an everlasting love. That's what the Bible says, and underneath are the everlasting arms. This is your friend, Elizabeth Elliott, talking with you this time about the price of forgiveness. In the last few times, we've talked about love's price tag and about surrender. And if there's nothing else that I succeed in doing in these few minutes that we have together, I would certainly hope and I pray with all my heart that the Lord will enable me to point you to Jesus Christ himself. that's what this program is about it's not about Elizabeth Elliot God forbid it's about Jesus Christ but I hope that I can help you to see that he is your friend that he is the one who wants to be the companion of your days of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of your life and knowing Jesus Christ affects everything in one's life. I really mean that with all my heart. And so if I'm going to talk to you about the price of forgiveness, the first thing that I want you to think about is the price of Christ's forgiveness. We talked about the price that God has paid because he loves us. He gave his only son to die for us. The price of his surrender, what was that? He put himself in the hands of wicked men. Can you imagine the prince of life, the lord of the universe, putting himself helplessly in the hands of evil men and being nailed to a cross? And now we think of the price of his forgiveness. while he was hanging there on the cross with the nails driven through his hands and the crown of thorns on his head. His prayer was, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. If Jesus was forgiving his killers while he was hanging there on the cross, then God was forgiving them, wasn't he? Because God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God was forgiving them. Are we followers of Jesus? If we are, then we are to be tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. Do you suppose that missionaries ever have to forgive one another? Missionaries, aren't they supposed to be the most spiritual giants in the world? Well, I used to be one myself, one of those missionaries, very far from a spiritual giant. And perhaps even more than in other situations, missionaries find the need for forgiveness because one of the occupational hazards of being a missionary is that you are forced to work with and live with people that you might never in the world choose as your friends under ordinary circumstances. You get assigned to a certain station and assigned to a certain job, and you not only have to work with those people, but very often have to live with them, maybe even in the same house, and you may be the only people that speak English in that whole area. You are foreigners, and so you are isolated and thrown together. recently I had a letter from a missionary about this subject of forgiveness and it's an eloquent letter another one that I just feel as though I want to share with you she said she was sorry that she hadn't written to me sooner and I certainly understand the impossibility of missionaries keeping up with their correspondence so she needn't have apologized for that but she said if I had written a month ago, I would have asked questions about forgiveness, about coping with injustice from fellow Christians, about appropriate indignation, seeking some loophole through which to turn from loving. Think of that phrase. I would have asked questions about forgiveness, seeking some loophole through which to turn from loving. A time of crushing seemed too severe, and I wanted to know the proper means of protest. Today, some answers have come, ones which no doubt you yourself would have given me. You have, in fact, written about humus. That word humus is the word from which we get the word humus, that good rich soil loam that you use for your garden. It's also the word from which we get the word humility. Humos is something that can be walked on. Amy Carmichael wrote a poem, We are too high, Lord Jesus. Make of us something like the low green moss, a quiet thing before thee, cool for thy feet, sore wounded on the cross. Would you mind if Jesus walked all over you? Most of us would say no, we wouldn't mind that. And yet when somebody else does we withhold forgiveness from them In this country where the missionary works that wrote me this letter hummus is the name of a sauce made of ground chickpeas mashed beyond recognition In the blender I'm sure there is no petitioning to change the process. The sauce is made no other way. The peas have no voice. She goes on to say, for me, the same hand that scourged and purified to heal, made me able to nourish another. The caked on sin needed the severest scraping, and my true soul exposed beneath, that is, made in his image, virtually leaped as a child into communion with the Father. Thy hand has done this could be said in a deep gratitude rather than in protest. And no words can describe the liberation. Pride can be an exhausting business. Rage chokes every avenue of giving and receiving love. I've reread Creation in Christ by George MacDonald, she says, and suddenly I saw that embracing the offender was a precious privilege, not a sullen act of obedience. There is a desire to preserve the life and the soul of the offender rather than to punish. For underneath the retorts that destroy the speaker more than the hearer is an enormous amount of affection, the true self asking for recognition and love. Have you ever discovered that pride can be an exhausting business? Have you experienced rage choking every avenue of giving and receiving love? Well, I certainly have. And I have not always by any means seen embracing the offender as a precious privilege. It has been nothing but a sullen act of obedience sometimes in my life. But I was greatly helped by this letter from my friend. And I was encouraged by the fact that she had a desire to preserve the life and soul of the offender. I thought of someone who has offended me and of that sneaky, unspoken desire to punish, to see that person apologize. But she says, underneath the retorts that destroy the speaker more than the hearer is an enormous amount of affection. the true self asking for recognition and love. A lengthy time of humbling and of verbal confession unleashed Christ's presence among us, she says. Obedience removed the dragon's skin which was weighing us down for years. There was at once rest and power flowing from the long-avoided acts of humiliation. if I'm speaking to someone today who has long been avoiding an act of humiliation apology and forgiveness may I encourage you to allow Christ's presence to come in and give you his rest and his power to forgive forgiveness is a grace it's not something that we can do by ourselves. But Christ stands ready to present you with all the grace that you're willing to receive so that you in turn can present that grace of forgiveness to someone else. The life of Jesus insists on loving and still goes on invading our lives, still delivering us from bondage to hate, still offering us supernatural love and forgiveness. As soon as she was relieved of that huge burden of anger and revenge, she said she wanted to run into the streets and tell these people to whom she was supposed to be ministering, God is. He loves you. Your enemy is your brother. The price of forgiveness, does it seem high? Does it seem more than you can possibly give at this point? But look at the rewards. Look at the freedom and the liberation. We're just sinners, aren't we? Sinners saved by grace. We have sinned against so many who have forgiven us. Let's not cherish the resentment. It will eat you like a cancer. It can actually make you sick. Jesus Christ is mighty to save because he is perfect in love. Will you come to him for forgiveness and ask him to help you to forgive that other person. The Price of Forgiveness. That's the third in our series, The Price of Love. Right now, though, let's hear from Walt Shepard, son-in-law of Elizabeth, during the Wheaton Memorial Service. In 2015, he talks about his mother-in-law and acknowledged she was controversial, But as we're thinking about love this week, what did Elizabeth teach him about that subject? Her warmth for people. Yes, indeed, she was warm for people. She had a tough life there. The early 70s were not all friendly. I was her driver, and I took her to some places where she spoke, and not everybody was thrilled to see her. And I was being a bodyguard one night when some very, very passionate young ladies came to the front and they were coming with a very ugly tone and I forgot that we weren't in a bar and I wasn't the bouncer. And I stood there and she said afterwards, she said, thank you for standing up for me, but can we do it with a little less color? She taught me life is not about easy. I heard her one time and I said to her, boy, you put the boots to that guy. And she said, boots, huh? I said, yes, ma'am. I unpacked it for her. And so one day after that she came into my bedroom and wrote in the dust on my dresser, one of those weeks that I wasn't very meticulous, not dust me, but the boots. how she could stand and deliver, teaching things, teaching people, teaching concepts that were terribly sensitive issues back then. And I told her one night in a firefight, I want you on my side. Yet all the while a surprising vulnerability an utter dependence upon the grace And she was God's show and tell for me what I needed so much to learn of a picture of what Jesus described as one who loves so much because she's forgiven so much. Walt Shepard at the Elizabeth Elliot Wheaton Memorial Service in July of 2015. We'll be hearing from a listener named Araceli in a little while as she talks about how Elizabeth has made an impact in her life. But first, let's wrap up this series on the price of love as we think about the presence of God. We'll be hearing about an English woman named Daphne who had a special relationship with Elizabeth's parents. We'll be reminded that nothing changes the fact that the Lord is with each of his children. And Elizabeth thinks back to the time when she received that alarming news about Jim Elliot being missing. What was the scripture passage that came to her mind? It was from Isaiah 43, if you'd like to turn there. I have a dear English friend named Daphne. Her name was Daphne Lacey back when I was a missionary in Ecuador. She got to know my parents. She's just a little younger than I am, and she sort of became a surrogate daughter to my parents, who were missing me very much. I had not met her until I went home on a furlough from my missionary work. and Daphne was one of those people with that most glorious of all glorious English accents and I won't pretend that I can really do it exactly the way she does but when Daphne would call and recognize my voice on the phone her first words were, oh hello Betty, this is Daphne Lacey speaking and I always teased her about that and she would tease me about my dreadful American accent as well Well, just very recently, after many, many years, I had a phone call from Daphne, who is back in England now and married to an American. She called to say that her dear John had had many physical troubles lately. He's nearly 80 years old. And she said the other day they were just about to go out, and they had gotten just to the door when he suddenly collapsed in her arms. he was trembling and he was turning blue. And she said, I managed to move to a chair and I sank into the chair and he sank into my arms. And I said to him, the Lord is with us, dear. The Lord is with us. And I could just see her face as she would have said that. And as she said those words, Daphne herself fainted. Can you imagine the scene? The man collapsing, trembling, turning blue. The wife faints. But then she came to again and managed to get him to the hospital. But I thought about Daphne and her years of walking with the Lord. She used to be a Bible teacher following the Billy Graham campaign in New York City many years ago. She was asked to take a Bible class of women on Long Island. And Daphne has walked with God. That kind of trust that can immediately turn and say, the Lord is with us, the Lord is with us, is very real and very strong. And it's the fruit of years of living with God, counting on his promises and his presence. Because the truth is that nothing changes the fact that the Lord is with us. absolutely nothing from here to eternity can ever change that fact. We have the promise of his abiding presence. Many times I've told the story of how when I received the word that my husband Jim Elliott was missing in the jungle, God brought to my mind a promise of his presence. It was from Isaiah 43, the second verse. when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee. The presence of God. I was recently sent in the mail a manuscript by a German who tells this remarkable story and as I read it I'd like you to remember that he was one of what we would have called the enemy back during World War II, doesn't it seem like one of the huge ironies of life that on both sides of terrible conflicts, there will be people of God. In Lincoln's second inaugural address, he refers to the fact that on both sides, north and south, were godly people praying to the same God for victory. And Lincoln points out the fact that it would have been impossible for the prayers of both to have been answered. Well, here was a German Christian. He tells of how he was in a dugout. An enemy battery was in the process of adjusting the range of its shells to our position. We were on a lower level to them and offered them an ideal target. We braced ourselves for the shuddering impact of each explosion. The sequence was ominous. First to the right, then the left, a burst in front of us, and then beyond us. Suddenly a deafening blast floored us as a shell landed at the entrance of the dugout. The whole structure began to cave in on us and the light went out. Two men managed to stave off the complete collapse of our hiding place by putting their backs against the wooden boards, thereby preventing an avalanche of earth on top of us. We held our breath. knowing that we were within a step of death, we knew that at any moment we might be swept into eternity. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife in that dugout. Even two lively characters who had cheered us in other tight situations with their wit were silent now. They were doubtless aware of how inappropriate their sense of humor was as we waited on the threshold of eternity. weightier considerations pressed in upon us as the seconds ticked by. The way in which Jesus showed me that he was with me in that moment is something I have never forgotten. Quietly, but very clearly, he brought back to mind the verse of a hymn, safe in the arms of Jesus safe on his gentle breast there by his love o'ershaded sweetly my soul shall rest no greater contrast could be imagined than the sentiments expressed in those lines and the circumstances facing us in the tense atmosphere underground Yet that hymn spoke the truth. The sense of security given by Christ's presence in that crisis was so deep and reassuring that I was pervaded by an overwhelming peace. then he reminded me of another verse of another hymn oh that you might believe it for wonders would unfold the peace of jesus presence to comfort and uphold let me make clear that i did not draw from that verse the false conclusion that i would be rescued from a precarious situation because i knew jesus that is the kind of superstition that a pagan might entertain. My own conviction was quite the opposite. The battery commander who gave the orders to fire at us was at liberty to bracket his shells for the maximum effect. Yet even if he scored a direct hit, I was not in his hands, but in the hands of Jesus my Lord. that's a tremendous testimony isn't it particularly those last words i did not draw from that verse the false conclusion that i would be rescued from a precarious situation because i knew jesus how often we misconstrue the promises of god and think that salvation means not only the hope of heaven, but perhaps exemption from all the woes of this life. Non-Christians often think that that's the way it's supposed to be, and they challenge us Christians with the age-old question, well, if God loves you so much, how come he lets these things happen? This German soldier whose manuscript I've just read did not assume that because he knew Jesus, the bullets or the shells would not find their target. He knew perfectly well that if the battery commander gave orders to fire, he was at liberty to bracket the shells for the maximum effect. Yet even if he scored a direct hit, I was not in his hands, but in the hands of Jesus, my Lord. Am I speaking to someone today who is fearing the worst? Let me say that even if the worst happens, God will be there. You will be not in the hands of the person who is perhaps suing you or someone who may do you some harm or even of a disease that is incurable. Where are you? you're in the hands of Jesus. If that's where you want to be, if you put your life in his hands, he takes it, and he has promised to keep us. You're always in his hands. And I was glad that this German soldier refers to that lovely little hymn, Safe in the Arms of Jesus. That was one of the ones that we sang sometimes in our family prayers when I was a child. And often at night I would go to bed and sing that song to myself, one of the things that we were allowed to do after we got into bed was sing. We were not allowed to talk, but we were allowed to sing. And that was one of my favorites. I was a little bit afraid of the dark, too. I had nightmares from time to time. And I was a small child at the time of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. And there were times when I would imagine that I could hear a ladder being put up to my window and see the rungs of that ladder appearing. And I would sing these words to myself, safe in the arms of Jesus, safe on his gentle breast, there by his love or shaded, sweetly my soul shall rest. Are you willing to commit your soul to him for salvation, for heaven, and for everything that happens here on this earth? Paul said in Romans 8, those last few verses, I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths, nothing in all creation that can separate us, from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The presence of God as we've wrapped up our series, The Price of Love. Well, before we go, let's hear from Araceli, one of our fellow listeners, who had some thoughts about the impact of Elizabeth in her life. I would like to think that I know Elizabeth Elliott from reading her books. The first book that I read from her was The Seven Disciplines for a Believer. I purchased this one my first year of marriage and there were so many things I needed to grow and learn from and every time I picked up that book it hit the nail every time I needed to hear God to know where I needed to grow in from the discipline of my mind the discipline of my emotions my possessions my time it was just every time I got that book the word spoke to me directly and I just know that was God using her through the words that she wrote in that book. And I loved every time I read that book and I just continued to read her books. And I like to think I know her even though I never met her, but I know her through her books and I look forward to the day that I meet her in heaven. I know she's with our Savior now and she continues to be a blessing. The words that she wrote in that book are a lie because it's God's word. And God is still using her to this day. Thank you. Thank you, Arisalli, for those comments. Hey, if you'd like to leave a comment, get your phone out and go to elizabethalliot.org and scroll down till you see where it says, share a message in the podcast section. Share a message. And you'll have five minutes or so, but you don't need to take that long if you don't want to. But how did Elizabeth point you to Jesus? and the principles of the Bible. We welcome your comments. ElizabethAlliot.org Well, thanks for letting us come along with you as you took that jog, or maybe were working at home, or maybe at the office and you had a break. Thanks for joining us today. And be sure to check out the lectures, the devotionals, the videos, and more at ElizabethAlliot.org Until next time, may God remind you each day, you are loved with an everlasting love, as we thought about love today. And underneath are the everlasting arms.
