Mel Trotter was a famous rescue mission worker, but he was the son of a bartender who drank as much as he served, as it goes. Trotter followed in his father's footsteps, losing job after job because of his addiction to drinking and gambling. Each time he lost a job, he promised to reform and start doing better, but each time he failed. After the death of his baby son, Trotter made his way to the city of Chicago where he intended to drown himself in Lake Michigan. He had sold his shoes to get money for another drink and was walking barefoot through the snow towards his death when he went inside the Pacific Garden Mission and was saved. From that point on, over the next 40 years, Trotter did everything he could to help those like himself who had fallen prey to the temptations of sin to be rescued out of them. And Mel Trotter is one of many, many, many people who have experienced the truth of the next name of God we are going to study tonight. And that name is Jehovah Rapha. which means, the Lord that healeth. Exodus 15, look at verse 22. The Bible says, So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet, there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them and said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. In the Hebrew, it is Jehovah Rapha. Tonight, let's consider this name and how it impacts us as people as we continue this study of the names of God and talk about, of course, Jehovah Rapha. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer first. Father in heaven, tonight we want to thank you for your mercy upon our lives. We thank you for how good you are, and Lord, we appreciate everything you're doing to change us and make us into the people you want us to be. Lord, we thank you for this time we can study the Nis, Wonderful and powerful name. I pray it will be applicable in some way to each person here tonight. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, when God warned Adam and Eve about not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He was attempting to warn mankind of the detrimental consequences of sin. Sin is a very serious thing. one that our world doesn't seem to get a whole lot of. But if you've lived any length of time in this world, which we all have, we've experienced the consequences of it. Our world, since that first sin was committed way back in the Garden of Eden, has been a place of brutal heartache for billions of people that have come into existence since that timeframe. Though sin is laughed at and mocked and jeered and even cheered on by many folks in our world today, Its consequences are quite damaging, especially to the human soul. The Bible says in James 1.14, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Now, sin appears pleasurable to begin with, but it is destructive over the long haul. It destroys everything it touches. It harms everybody that plays with it. It is a very difficult thing to overcome. The heartaches we have all felt, the scars that we all have within our souls have some direct result from sin. Everything that we have that aches in our heart is in some regards directly related to sin, whether it's our own sin or it's the sin of somebody else. It results in people being broken. Now, there are a lot of broken people today, aren't there? Even in churches, there are broken people, people whose hearts ache and souls are languishing for various reasons, usually because of some sin that has taken place. Though people can put on a good facade on the outward, can take nice looking pictures, everything isn't always okay. I remember years ago when I was part of the National Guard, we used to take our two-week training. Most of the time we were going to Camp Ripley up in northern Minnesota, not too far from Little Falls. And usually what happened, we'd go out into the field for about a week or so and then we'd come back and there was a lot of cleaning and training and doing all that kind of stuff. But I remember after we had gotten back from the field and some of the guys went out, which was some of the habits of some of the folks, they would get out and, well, they would tip a few too many, let's just put it that way. I remember one guy who I had actually had training with in another drill some time back, He was from a different company, or battery, as we called him. And he was, for whatever reason, wandered into where myself and some of the people from my battery were staying. And he was, let's just put it away, a little bit intoxicated. But that intoxicating that took place in his life became truth serum. I began to talk to him a little bit. And all he began to do was just usher out problem after problem and heartache after heartache of what was going on in his life at that time. And before when I had met him during the training, he seemed like any old Joe. But you know what? When there was nothing hindering his mouth, let's just put it that way, everything came spewing out. And it was sad. Couldn't do a whole lot with him. I was unfortunately saved at the time. I think I gave him a track or something. But it just goes to show, you know, not everything is going well in the lives of most people. I've got a book on prayer written by a gentleman. I believe it's called The Hour That Changes the World. It's a really good book. But he made a statement about the news cycle. He said, you know what the news really is? It's the pagan's prayer list. Think about that for a little bit. It's those who do not know Christ what they're crying out in pain about. How often do you hear good news, really? That stuff doesn't hardly make the news cycle, does it? But what makes it all the heartaches, frustrations, angers, fears, and all those other types of things come out? And the author put it well. He said, you know, it's like it's the pagan's prayer list. It's the crying out of the human race for help. because of what is going on. The aches and pains of our world become an open view. And really, those things that we may see on the news or we may know about don't even begin to scratch the surface of all the agony that's been experienced by the people of this world. Only God in heaven knows all the deep depths of everything that goes on in people's lives. These heartaches, if not dealt with, will remain like open wounds in the lives of people, like hurting, oozing sores that just don't seem to heal, that just seem to continue to ache and continue to bring back bad recollections. of some event, some circumstance, some word, some person. And it's hard to live with that every day. And these hurts affect the way many people respond to their situations in life, too. Have you ever known somebody that's extremely crabby? Maybe you work with people like that. Maybe you're like that. Just always cranky. Ah, it's because I need my coffee. You mean you need your drug, eh man? And there's others that are very insecure. You know, they're always kind of looking over their shoulder, always making sure, they're always concerned what people think about them. Very insecure. Maybe they're just what we would call difficult. Angry. Depressed. Fearful. People who are like that on a consistent basis, where it's just kind of their demeanor, maybe more times out of a week than not, you know what that really is? It's a sign of sores on the soul that have never been healed. That's what it is. It's a sign of something's not right on the inside. And in some cases, in a lot of cases, really, there's some sort of sore, some sort of heartache, some sort of agony that still exists in there that just has never healed. It's just never healed. And you know what, they've been struggling to find healing, but just can't seem to find it. And maybe it's because they've used what the world has suggested that they do. Go on pleasure escapes. Go get yourself wasted. Go pump some drugs into your system. Go spend everything you possibly can. Go have illicit relationships with as many people as you possibly can. Do just a bunch of anything that, whatever your heart, heart's pleasure is go after it. But yet, you know what? Even after they do all that stuff, they're still sore on the inside. In fact, many times the sore is even worse. However, there's a God in heaven, as named here in the Hebrew, Jehovah Rapha, who has the ability to heal the sores of the soul. You know, Jesus is called the great physician, right? The Bible doesn't say great physician, but the terminology of some verses communicate this to us. And when we think of physician, we're thinking of physical healing. And yes, he does do that. But I think some of his greatest healings don't come necessarily physically as much as they do internally on the soul. You know, Jesus, here in Mark 2, verse 17, when Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick, I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He's talking about something that was beyond the physical. In this case, he was talking about the spiritual, the need for a person to be right with God. But we see this reference to a physician, right? Luke 4.23, it says, and he said unto them, Jesus speaking, ye will surely say unto me this proverb, physician. Again, he's called the physician. Heal thyself, whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. Again, Jesus is referred to as a physician, the great physician, if you will. See, Jesus came to help heal people. In particular, their broken condition due to sin. Though the body can suffer from sin, no doubt, we all probably have some scars from that on our bodies in some regards, it's probably the soul that needs the most help. It's the soul that bears a lot of scars, a lot of sores, because of sin that we have committed and sins that people have committed against us, if you will. And though a person can be physically strong, if the soul is sick, they're weak. They're very weak. You cannot accomplish what you have made to accomplish for the glory of God with a sick soul, no matter how much strength that you have. By the way, the Bible mentions how a broken soul dryeth the bones, and a broken soul is a soul that needs to be healed. If you go to Isaiah chapter number 61, hold your place here in Exodus. Isaiah chapter number 61, referencing Luke chapter 4, that was when Jesus opened up His earthly ministry in Nazareth. And He's preaching in His home church, if you will. It was a synagogue, but we'll call it His home church. And He quotes the passage that we see here in Isaiah 61, referencing the ministry that he was about to partake on. It says here in Isaiah 61, verse one, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up, notice, the brokenhearted. to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." Notice throughout that passage, there's references that would indicate the pain that goes on in the human soul, right? Bind up the brokenhearted. Proclaim liberty to the captives. In other words, people who are enslaved by those mentalities and sores that live inside of them. To a point, beauty for ashes. You know how many people's lives have been burnt to the ground because of the sinful choices they've made? The oil of joy for mourning. How many people mourn? The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. How many people suffer from that heaviness, the depression, if you will? All those things. You know, Jesus was sent, amongst other things, to come and help heal the soul that is suffering because of sin. And maybe tonight you're one of those people. There are some sores within your soul that have never been healed. And you can't figure out how to get them healed. You can't figure out what to do with them. They just kind of sit there in the back of your heart, in the back of your mind. People may know them, people may not know them at all, but they just cause a, I guess a, a depressing part of it. They become a depressing part of your spirit and they weigh you down emotionally. There's an impact on your life that if that burden wasn't there, that sore wasn't still oozing, you'd be a whole different person. You know, Jehovah Rapha tonight, the Lord who healeth, would like to help you tonight. And tonight, let's consider our text and learn a little bit more about Jehovah Rapha. First off, let's talk about the hardship. Now within context of our passage tonight, the Jews are fresh off of their exit from Egypt. Moses went there and there were 10 plagues that God bombarded the Egyptians with. And finally Pharaoh let them go and they hightailed it out of there. And then they went through the situation at the Red Sea where God split the Red Sea and the Jews went across, but Pharaoh's army was obliterated. Well, they're at the point now where they had just passed through the Red Sea and they're riding pretty high. I mean, wow, look what God did to get them out of that bondage. It's quite an amazing thing. And in fact, most of chapter 15 of Exodus is a song of praise for what God had done. I mean, they were just pumped up. But then things begin to get tough again as they move on. Verse 22, so Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And found no water. You know, three days, evidently, without any water. They say that it takes about, you know, three days without water is about the most you can go. without starting to suffer some serious consequences to your body. That's kind of where they're at now. It's beginning to get a little, well, life and death is starting to flash before some people's eyes. They're out in the wilderness. They're out in the desert, really. Water is quite scarce. And God had been leading out there through Moses, and then they come up to this place called Marah. They found water. But to their dismay, they couldn't drink it because it was bitter. They couldn't drink, according to verse 23. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Marah. It was very bitter water. I don't know what was in it, but something caused it where it was undrinkable. Well, understandably, they begin to get very distressed, don't they? Because much longer and people were going to start dying real quick. In verse 24, and the people murmured against Moses saying, what shall we drink? So what was going on here? Now here, God made this big rescue and all this kind of stuff. Now it's just three days after the exit through the Red Sea and here they're on the verge of death. What's going on here? Well, God was gonna be teaching them some things. And there's a very important lesson that God wanted to teach them here. And sometimes to do that, sometimes to teach us the lessons that are important for us to know, God has to allow us to experience some things so that we understand. Not just learn them from a textbook, but to experience them firsthand. Often we might even call them object lessons. Again, we can sometimes try to teach people something, but it doesn't always click until their senses are engaged. That's what's happening here. Their senses are fully engaged, very readily. That's one of the things I appreciate about missions trips. We've tried to take several in the past and we're waiting on the Lord to open up more opportunities to do that. But one of the things that comes out of those types of projects is a person's opportunity to see, taste, touch, smell, feel. what it's like to be in those foreign countries and what it's like to be amongst those people. You know, in Ezekiel, when he was sent to the people of Israel that had been shipped over there to start what was known as the Babylonian captivity, it mentions he sat where they sat. In other words, he got to feel and sense and get his heart emotionally, you know, experienced. in those positions. And that's one thing that's going to be really impactful on the life of an individual. When you have experienced something, when you have had a chance to sit where people sit and feel what people feel, your understanding is enriched in ways that no textbook could ever teach you. And that's kind of what God's doing here a little bit. He needs to teach him some stuff. And God knows very well that experience is an incredible teacher. See, God wanted them to experience his ability to heal their circumstances. Not just hear it, hear about it, but actually know that he can heal. Again, it would serve as a great object lesson for them. Verse 25, it says, And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast in the waters, the waters were made sweet. And there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them. Here Moses cried out for God's help. Then God provided the means to heal the bitter waters, to quench the thirst of the people. Again, the purpose for this lesson involving the hardship was verse 26. And he said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. He makes it clear to say, you know all those stuff that you saw that go on in Egypt, who I didn't, I didn't heal, per se. That's stuff I'll protect you from because I've got the power to do that. And by changing this bitter water into sweet was another evidence of what God was capable of doing. He can heal. He can restore. He can repair anything. Can I encourage us that in our hardships, we gotta remember that God is always trying to teach us something. That God is trying to teach us something very valuable. It might be a good idea to ask God when we're in those hardships, what is it that you are trying to teach me? Or what is it that you're trying to get my attention about? Sometimes that's when we become more, the most receptive. if we drop the spirit of complaining. You just get mad and go, God, why don't you take this out of my life? And you know, we get like that, but God's trying to teach us something in those hardships. Say, I'm not sure what it is. Well, ask him. And I believe he'll show you. It might be something that you don't see in your life that he sees with his glaring 20-20 vision. that is important for you to go on to the next step that he wants to bring you to. See, God had some things that he wanted to bring the Jews to. Remember, he wanted to bring them to the promised land. But in order to get there, they had to learn some things. And it required some hardships. that they gave them some experience with God that was necessary for them to move forward. You know, it might be a good idea to not complain as much as to ask. Say, Lord, what do you want me to learn from this? You know, but it may be that we'll see a resolution sooner. than if we were just complaining about it. Just a thought for us tonight to consider. Because we're prone to complain. We're prone to, God, get rid of this problem. You know what? Maybe God's trying to get rid of a problem out of us. Well, there's nothing wrong with me. Point number two, the healer. The healer. Now the object lesson focuses on the name of God, Jehovah Rapha, the God that healeth. Now as I stated earlier, many people suffer from various things that have occurred in life that they would consider bitter. It might have been a bad home life. Might have been a absentee dad. Abusive dad or abusive mom. Abusive dad. It could be a number of things like that. Maybe they faced rejection from other people on a consistent basis. It could be any number of things that would be classified as just simply bad. People carry those things. And they can carry them for a long time. They can carry them for decades. And a lot of times, these things have left a gash on the soul. Maybe it's even decisions that they made that were not right, and they're living with the consequence of that. But it leaves a gash on the soul. We might call it a heartache. I would consider it, for the sake of what I'm trying to communicate tonight, a sore. And sometimes people, as a result of that, get real bitter about it. Real bitter about it, deep in their heart. That can be tucked away there for some time. But if the right circumstances or the right things jog the memory, it gets real difficult, and the bitterness somehow begins to come out of the heart. You get real bitter about it, or oftentimes there's those negative feelings of depression, of anger, of fear, discouragement, all those negative emotions. that get carried every day of their lives because of something in the background, something that happened, or multiple things that even happened that has caused open wounds, if you will, in a person's soul. For some, it becomes so much of a prison that they feel like they're just a slave to those sores, that that's just the way it's always just gonna be. Always gonna have just that everyday dread, everyday fear, everyday insecurity, everyday instability, really, emotionally. And maybe tonight they want to change, of course. They want to be, I guess, what you might call happier. They want to do better. They want things to be different. They want victory. But the open wounds were creating negative thinking, or they're creating negative thinking, which leads to, of course, negative feelings. And the cycle just seems to not be able to be broken. May I say tonight that Jehovah Rapha can step into the circumstance and heal the sore on the inside. For he alone has the ointment that heals the damage that is in here. You know, the Psalms communicate this. Psalm 41, 4, I said, Lord, be merciful unto me. Heal my soul. Heal my soul. God can heal whatever it is. that's going on or has happened within our soul. Psalm 147.3 is a great promise. He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. That's what God, Jehovah-Rapha, wants you and I to understand tonight. that regardless of what that wound is or where that sore came from, that continually creates a problem within your heart, that continually drains your emotional resources, that continually drags you down, that continually robs you of the joy that Jesus wants to put in your heart since the day you got saved, but you haven't had that sore replaced or healed. Jehovah Rapha wants to do some healing. and can, and has the power to do so. Just like God healed the bitter waters so the thirst of Israel could be quenched, Jehovah Rapha can heal the heartaches and sores that exist in our souls today, regardless of how long they've been there. Regardless of what's caused them. So that we can receive, as the Bible puts it, times of refreshing from the Lord. Say, I just don't see how that's possible. Well, it's possible. A guy like Mel Trotter, whose soul was extremely damaged by his decisions, can be turned around, so could you. You know, I was talking to a biblical counselor here just this last week, and we were talking about the ministry they've been involved with, counseling people, and some of the things that he has come up against as far as people's problems and marriages and people's problems with just some of the scars that some of the people, some of the sores that they had come across or had because of some of the experiences. And he related to me one gal that since about the age of two was abused literally almost every day of her life, was treated like scum, took a bath one time a week. You know, it just was a mess. Well, this lady got saved. And this man's wife began to teach her, had to start at the basics, just even personal, general basic personal hygiene to begin with. But he said as she began to grow in the Lord and God began to help her put some things in her life, she's blossomed. Evidently, she has some children from what I understand, and had bought her first home, had become actually a top salesperson for Verizon in her area there. I mean, is just doing well. Say, how can somebody turn around a life that was so destitute and hopeless? Well, Jehovah Rapha can. So he has the power to heal. the brokenness in the soul of an individual. He can give the ointment to heal those sores that are in there. Even some of the most difficult cases can see resolution, can see peace, if given the opportunity. See, God knows the heartaches of this world because of sin. He's very, very well acquainted with it. and he's in the business of restoring lives so that they can be useful for his glory. In Luke 9, verse 56, the Bible says, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Now, there's lots of connotations to that, but one of the things that he will save them from is a life that is full of heartaches. our sores, it's not that we won't ever have any problems anymore, but we do not have to allow the sores to exist on the soul, they can be healed. So that a person can move on. See, the Bible is full of examples of lives that were ruined by sin. Hearts that were broken, yet restored and made useful because Jehovah Rapha healed them from the inside out. Boy, just look at the Gospels themselves. You think of the demoniac of Gadara, there was a mess of a man. God saved him and made him into a tremendous soul winner. I mean, many people came to Christ as a result of what God did in the life and the heart of that man. Then there was Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were cast. There was Zacchaeus, who was a cheapskate and a deceiver, who was changed from the inside out. There was Saul of Tarsus, who was an awful man, who God changed the inside of his heart and made him into the greatest propagator of the Gospel at that time. The Bible is chock full of people who have went from one extreme to the next because Jehovah Rapha entered into their life and the sores and the aches in their hearts were resolved. They were healed. They were given new life, if you will, because of what God was able to do for him. Now God begins His healing process in people's lives the day a person, of course, gets saved. That's the first thing that needs to happen. You can't get God's help unless you come into a personal relationship with Him, which happens the days you get saved. The day that you turn from your sin and repentance and trust Jesus Christ in faith, asking Him to save you, and you get put on the road to heaven, you get the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you, and you get things right between you and God. If you've never been saved, you have no access to this help. But God's trying to draw you maybe through those problems to show you your great need for that, for that restoration of a relationship with Him. And once you get that, then you're in the arena to get the help that you need. Because the day you get saved, your greatest problem is solved. And that's the fact that God issues forgiveness willingly to you for the sins that you have committed against Him. That is our greatest problem because our sins will send us to hell. Jesus wants to bring us to heaven, but that sin is what's keeping us apart. God wants to take that sin problem away and put us on the right road. And God issues that forgiveness that day. you get saved and brings peace between you and him. Just like it says in Romans 5-1, therefore being justified or saved by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Can you honestly say tonight, you have peace with God? that you have been saved, that you know it. You have a time and a place when it took place. You can remember that moment in time in your life. Maybe you don't remember the exact date and the exact time, but you can look back and you say, I know when it happened. My life was different. I made peace with God. I got right with Him. And I know for sure that I'm on the road to heaven as a result. Well, there are a lot of things that happen at that moment. But one of the big things is that God rescues us from the presence, power, and punishment of sin. It gives us a new lease on life. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5.17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Get a new opportunity, if you will. However, depending upon the person, past hurts can still exist within the heart. that may still linger. Hurts that come up throughout life will certainly happen as well, that will need healing. However, the Lord has a prescription to heal if we give Him a chance and follow through with it, as we see thirdly and finally, the healing, the healing. Now when Moses cried out to God, did God heal the waters? Yes, but guess what? He showed Moses how to do it. Verse 25, remember? And he, Moses, cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Showed him a tree which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. See, when we seek God for healing, God will have something we will need to apply to make that healing possible. And our part in the healing process is sometimes what holds people back the most. We just want God to snap his fingers and take it away, but it doesn't really work like that. It doesn't work like that at all. We want healing, but sometimes we don't wanna apply what God is telling us to do in order to get that healing, because we feel it's too difficult. When it comes to what we would call the sores of the soul, probably the most significant thing that needs to be done is either the seeking of forgiveness or the extension of forgiveness. That's usually the majority of the problems. That's usually what needs to take place in the life of an individual. In other words, a person needs to make amends. Usually first off with God, maybe it's with other people, for things maybe they've done, and that they feel that the Lord is convicting them about. Salvation makes us right with God, and of course, daily sanctification, daily confession of any sin keeps us in right standing with God, but even with others. Have you and I done anything against others that needs to be made right? We need to sometimes seek forgiveness from others by apologizing. It might be to our children. It might be to our spouse. It might even be to a co-worker. It might be to a family member. It might be to somebody. But we need to seek forgiveness because of something we've said or done. And maybe that needs to take place. Sometimes we need to forgive somebody for something that he or she has done. And sometimes that can be the biggest and hardest to deal with, especially if it's been in the heart for a long time. To extend forgiveness to somebody, even if they don't seek it from you, Because not everybody's going to seek forgiveness from us. But we are still morally obligated to give it. So how can you forgive somebody? And no doubt there's probably somebody sitting in here, but you don't know what so-and-so did to me. I don't know what so-and-so did to you. I don't. It might have been something really bad. But at that moment in time, you have to make a decision. Am I going to live my life shackled to the bitterness of what that person does or did? Or am I going to live in freedom by choosing to forgive them? Really, forgiveness is more for ourselves than it is for the other person. You realize that tonight? It's more for us. Why? Because as long as we hold on to that bitterness, as long as we hold on to that anger, as long as we hold on to whatever it is that they did or said, or insinuated, or we even think they did, you are going to be a slave to that. And that sore is going to remain open within your heart. It's gonna remain open. And it's going to ooze from time to time. And you know what? There's a devil that likes to pick at sores. There's a devil that likes to put salt in wounds. And he knows exactly how to do it. And he knows exactly how to rev you up about that person or that situation. He knows how to do it. And he will. Because nothing he likes more than keeping people bitter at other people. There's nothing he likes more than keeping you and I locked up in the state of personal fits because of what somebody's done. And when we forgive, what we need to do is this. We have to acknowledge what was done to us. We have to acknowledge the hurt and the hate that we have inside of us. And then we must choose to bear the burden of the offense without using the information against the other person in the future. That's what true forgiveness is all about. See, we think of that and say, that sounds so unfair. especially with what some people have done or experienced, right? But you gotta understand, you're going to bear the burden of it regardless. You can do it in the bondage of bitterness, which many choose to do, or you can do it in the freedom of forgiveness. Those are our choices. Now, before we get all uptight about, well, this is still not fair, I'll guarantee you, somebody has to do that for what you and I have done to them, whether you realize it or not. So we all commit things and do things, and people have to deal with it. It goes equally across the human race. But we're going to bear the burden of the offense one way or another, but forgiveness frees us from the pain. as it initiates the healing process. And that's how God initiates, allows the healing process to take place. Until we acknowledge, until we make the personal choice to forgive, God will not initiate the healing process. That sore will remain open and it will remain as an influence on your life and an open door for the devil to pick in your life. And he will. He will pick and pick and pick. until that thing gets healed. Only God has the ointment to heal, and God requires forgiveness as the means of beginning the healing process. Forgiveness frees us from the pain, but also the vindictive spirit that comes with it. We live in a vindictive age. I've never seen so much hate spewed out of so many sides by people who are so bitter at each other across this nation. We're burning our own nation down because of the vindictive attitudes of people. People will not forgive anybody for anything. We just get so mad at each other, and we take it to social media, and we take it to all these places, and, well, I'm justifying my vindictiveness. No, you're not. God does not justify vindictiveness at all. People who get vindictive only create a greater prison cell for their souls and only open up bigger wounds from within their own hearts. It destroys a life. It destroys a life. And there are many lives that are being destroyed tonight because of this lack of forgiveness and this vindictive spirit that people have taken on. That's not the way I want to live. That's not the way I wanna live and that's not the way we have to live. Now I'm not gonna say it's always easy and sometimes those pains are hard. Some people have been through some real hard stuff. But it's better to forgive than to be enslaved to something for the rest of your life. And it is an enslaving thing. You may not be in shackles physically, but your soul will be in shackles. And the misery that it causes will go with you until you make the choice to forgive. When we forgive, in essence, what we're doing is letting the other off the hook. Again, we sit there and think, that's just not fair. Let me finish. When we let others off the hook, that doesn't mean they're off God's hook. And that's a key thing to understand. Remember, the Bible says in Romans 12, 19, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. In other words, don't get vindictive, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. And God has a better way of doing things. And God can settle the score. And God knows how to do all that. Far better than we can. They're not off God's hook. See, forgiveness allows us to be disconnected from the hurt, which allows the sore of the soul to be healed. And wouldn't it be nice not to sit here? Every time a name is mentioned, our thoughts about a certain person come up, and you're not getting all frazzled about it and mad. Wouldn't that be kind of nice? Instead of every time that person comes up, you kind of feel... You know what, that can mess with your head for hours and days and weeks. What a horrible way to be. Hey, I've lived through some of that in my own self. I've had to deal with bitterness with some things in my past. You know what? That's just not a fun way to get up in the morning. That's not a fun way to go through your day. And it's certainly not gonna give you a whole lot of restful sleep at night. See, God wants to heal the sores. The Bible says in Psalm 23, he restoreth my soul, speaks of healing. And maybe tonight we sit here with the need of Jehovah Rapha to come in and help us because there's some anguish in our hearts because of, again, another's actions or words. And we need to apply what is needed so that God's grace can begin to heal the soul. Allow Him to do so, but you gotta follow through with what He prescribes. If we don't do that, then there will be no healing. Say, I don't know what the hurts were. I can't remember. Well, allow God to bring them back to mind. Maybe sometimes we even forget about them. We just, no, why do I feel so, eh? Well, maybe there's something in the baths back there that needs to be dealt with. See, God doesn't want us to be broken by sin or our sin or the sins of others, but he wants to heal us so that we may experience his love in more reality and the joy that comes with it. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth. Do you need his healing touch today on your soul? There is a way. May we pursue it.