False Guilt vs True Repentance

False Guilt Vs True Repentance

When we walk with the Lord
in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will,
He abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Chorus:
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Not a shadow can rise,
not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear,
not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.
Chorus:

Not a burden we bear,
not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss,
not a frown or a cross,
But is blessed if we trust and obey.
Chorus:

But we never can prove
the delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favour He shows,
for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.
Chorus:

Then in fellowship sweet
we will sit at His feet,
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do,
where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.
Chorus:

“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call
upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked
forsake his way and the unrighteous man his
thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He
will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He
will abundantly pardon. ‘For My thoughts are
not your thoughts, nor are your ways My
ways’, says the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways, and My thoughts than your
thoughts’.” Isaiah 55:6-11

False Guilt Vs True Repentance
How can you tell the difference
between real guilt and false guilt?

Biblically, true guilt is when I personally
violate a specific Command in Scripture.
TRUE GUILT

False guilt, or psychological guilt, is a result of
selected focus, distortion of reality and ignorance of
history. It is vague and it involves guilt manipulation.
PSYCOLOGICAL GUILT

When we repent of our personal guilt in
violating God’s Commands the result is
forgiveness, freedom, healing and restoration.
FORGIVENESS AND FREEDOM

However, you can repent for false, or psychological,
guilt every day for decades, but you will never find
freedom and forgiveness from false guilt
– because the devil is a hard taskmaster.

The Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin, but the
devil brings condemnation.
You can easily tell the difference. Conviction
by the Holy Spirit leads to Repentance.
CONDEMNATION ENSLAVES

On the other side of repentance is
forgiveness, freedom, healing and
restoration.

By way of contrast, condemnation from the
devil and his disciples paralyses and enslaves
us.

Guilt
Manipulation
and
Distortion
of History
is Destroying
Civilisation

Dealing with
GUILT MANIPULATION
How can you tell the difference
between real guilt and false guilt?

CORPORATE GUILT or
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
We live in an age of guilt manipulation, where many reject
the concept of an objective standard of right and wrong.

Yet, while denying personal responsibility, many
will accuse whole nations of corporate guilt.

A BRAZILIAN CONFESSION
An example of this was seen at the Cape Town 2010
Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation.

On the final Sunday, at the Africa regional
meeting, a delegation from Brazil asked to
speak to the African participants.

Their spokesman then read out a very long
declaration, which in very categoric terms declared
their guilt for the Slave Trade:

“We are guilty of having kidnapped Africans from
their homes, transported them across the Atlantic, to
excavate our mines and to build our cities.”

“FORGIVE US AND PUNISH US!”
The Brazilian spokesman declared:
“Our children deserve to be taken from us and
forced to be your slaves, to be buried in
unmarked graves beneath your cities!”

In these, and in many other words,
the Brazilians bewailed their guilt,

confessed their sin and pleaded with the African delegates
to forgive them for this evil and to regard the Brazilians
as their own slaves, to do with as they wished.

SHOULD DESCENDANTS be HELD
ACCOUNTABLE for the ACTIONS
of THEIR ANCESTORS?

Evidently the
Brazilian
participants were
sincere and their
declaration of
repentance
indicated humility,
and a genuine
desire to make
right the wrongs
of long ago.

However, as I sat in the auditorium listening to this, the Scripture came
to mind: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of
the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness
of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the
wicked shall be upon himself.” Ezekiel 18:20

CONFESSING SOMEONE ELSE’S SIN
Were these humble, dedicated Christian Brazilians really
personally responsible for the evils of the slave trade?
Of course not.

WOULD 2 WRONGS MAKE a RIGHT?
Would it be just for their sons to be sold into slavery in this generation?
Would such a wrong make right the wrongs of long ago?

IS IT BIBLICAL?
Then one of the African
participants made the comment
that it was a pity that this
apology had not come from the
delegates from Europe, or the
United States of America.
From the nodding heads and
exclamations of agreement all
around me, it was evident that
many in the auditorium agreed
with this sentiment.
But is it Biblical?

SIN IS SPECIFIC AND PERSONAL
In the Bible, sin is very specific. It is the violation of the Law of God.
Repentance in the Bible is specific and personal. We are guilty when we
disobey one of God’s Commandments.

Sin is failing to worship
God alone, it is making,
or worshiping, an idol,
taking God’s Name in
vain, desecrating the
Sabbath, dishonouring
our parents, taking
innocent life, committing
adultery, stealing,
bearing false witness and
being covetous.
In the Bible guilt and
repentance are specific
and personal, not vague
and national.

RESTITUTION IS TO BE
FROM THE VILLAIN TO THE VICTIM
There was some discussion about the needs for restitution from
America and Europe for the slave trade, but Biblical restitution is to
be made by the culprit to the victim – directly and entirely.

Restitution
is not
meant to be
some
political
scam,
a coverfor
corruption
, where
restitution
is

demanded
from
people
who didn’t
do the
crime,
to be
distributed
to people
who
werenot
thevictims.

WHAT ABOUT THE ONGOING
ARAB SLAVE TRADE?
If the 300 year European and North American involvement in the
Atlantic Slave Trade is to be discussed, then why not the 1,400 year
Arabic involvement in the Slave trade in North Africa, Central
Africa, East Africa, in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East?

The AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE
In fact, as the president of Benin pointed out some years ago,
everyone in Africa is descended from those who were both
the victims of the slave trade,
and descended from slave traders

It is a fact of history that almost every tribe in Africa
practised slavery, as part of their criminal justice
system, and enslaved neighbouring tribes.

The Yao people of Malawi carried out slave raids on
the Bemba and Chichewa of Zambia. The
Madagascans enslaved Mozambicans.

The Ovambo enslaved the Bushmen.
The Matebele enslaved Shona people.
Congolese tribes enslaved the Pygmies.

In Loziland, the paramount chief of the
Barotse abolished slavery only in 1906.

Ethiopia abolished slavery in 1942.

Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1962.

Peru abolished slavery in 1968
and India only in 1976.

Yet, there are still officially
over 27 million slaves
in the world today,
mostly in the Muslim world.

BRITAIN’S LEGACY OF SETTING
THE CAPTIVES FREE
It seems most
unreasonable to single
out Great Britain in
demands for reparation,
for her disgraceful
involvement in the slave
trade, considering that it
was Britain who first
pioneered
the abolition
of the slave trade
from 1807.

For anyone to demand of Great Britain a further apology, for its part in
the transatlantic slave trade, betrays an ignorance of history.
Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, from 1713 – 1807,
was indeed disgraceful.

But, led by William Wilberforce, the British nation
more than atoned for its guilt in this vile trade in
human flesh, by setting every slave in Britain free in
1772, and by outlawing the slave trade in 1807,

mobilising her navy to suppress the
slave trade throughout the 19th Century,

and setting free all slaves in any territory in
which Britain had influence, or control, in 1833.

The British representative at the Congress of Vienna
insisted on the Abolition of the slave trade
being included in the International Treaty.

After the Battle of Waterloo,
this treaty was signed by all the European powers
(with the exception of Portugal), on 9 June 1815.

A Declaration by the eight powers of Europe that
they would abolish the Slave Trade
“as swiftly as possible” was annexed
to the final Treaty signed on 9 June 1815.

From 1809 the British government mobilised its
Navy to search suspected slave ships,
even foreign vessels, on the high seas.

For a century, the Royal Navy was dedicated to
setting the captives free, going far beyond
clearing the oceans of slave ships,

to boldly sailing up unchartered rivers and
creeks,

freeing captives at every turn.

No other nation has done more than Great
Britain in fighting and opposing the slave trade.

The British spent millions of pounds
in suppressing the slave trade, and sacrificed
much blood in fighting to set the captives free.
BRITISH RESTITUTION

Britain also invested vast amounts of money into
developing Sierra Leone as a free and independent
state, where liberated slaves could settle.

The United States, for their part, engaged in a bloody
civil war, in part to set all slaves free,
at a cost of over 650,000 of their own people dead.
AMERICAN RESTITUTION

The United States also heavily invested
in establishing Liberia as a free state
where liberated slaves could settle.

Some participants at the congress made the comment that
all whites are to blame for the slave trade,
yet the word ‘slave’ comes from the East European ‘Slavs’.
WHITE SLAVES

Most of the slaves in the Roman
Empire were white people.

St. Patrick, the English Missionary to the Irish, was
once a slave himself, kidnapped from his home in
England and taken to Ireland against his will.

Millions of whites were enslaved
by Muslims throughout the Middle East from
the 7th Century onwards.

Many were kidnapped from coastal towns
by Muslim pirates.

In 1526, over 200,000 Hungarian
Christians were dragged off to slavery in
Turkey.

If all whites are to blame for the slave trade, which a few
whites, over 210 years ago, were involved in, are all blacks to
blame for the murders and massacres which many tribes
engaged in over the last 200 years ?
THE BLAME GAME

What about the Arabs, who are still
involved in the slave trade today?

Considering that many whites opposed the slave trade, and
that the British Empire did the most to end the slave trade,
BLAMING the BENEFACTORS

is it reasonable to blame Britain for an evil that she
vigorously fought against and eradicated,
throughout the 19th Century?

What about great emancipators,
such as Dr. David Livingstone,

Henry Morton Stanley, and other dedicated
emancipators who set countless captives free?

Are claims for restitution from Great Britain and the
United States reasonable, when both these nations
abolished the slave trade over 210 years ago?
IGNORING PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS
AND PRESENT REALITIES

Bearing in mind that both Britain and the United
States have invested many billions of pounds
and dollars into developing Africa,

should the demands for restitution not more
rightly be demanded from the Arab world
which has been enslaving Africans

and waging Jihad against Christians to the
present day?

How far are we to go in corporate and national guilt?
HOW FAR BACK DO WE GO?

Must the Italians
repent for
and do restitution
for,
the devastations,
wars, aggressions
and enslavement
of the
Roman Empire?

Must the Greeks do restitution for the
destruction of Troy ?

Must the Greeks do restitution for the
conquests of Alexander the Great?

Are the Iranians
to do restitution
for the invasions
and oppression
by the Persians?

Are the Danes and Norwegians responsible for the
death and destruction caused by the Viking raids?

What restitution should be required of the French for
the devastation caused by the Napoleonic wars?

False Guilt vs True Repentance

False Guilt vs True Repentance

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