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Before diving into the text, let me remind you of Joseph's story. Joseph is now prime minister of Egypt, and his eleven brothers stand before him—brothers he hasn't seen in 22 years. They know who he is, but he knows who they are. Joseph always knew this day would come because God gave him prophetic dreams.
These brothers were consumed with jealousy. Joseph was their father's favorite, wore the coat of many colors, and told them he would one day rule over them. They couldn't stand it. They planned to kill him, but Ishmaelite traders came by, and they sold Joseph into slavery instead. They dipped his coat in blood and told their father a wild beast had devoured him.
Joseph became a slave in Egypt, serving an officer named Potiphar. God was with him and exalted him to head of Potiphar's household. But then came sexual temptation. Potiphar's wife repeatedly asked him to lie with her, and he refused. He could have rationalized it—he was in a foreign land, mistreated by his brothers, deserving of comfort. But he resisted because God knows.
Imagine being that devoted to God. You do what's right, and then what happens? You're falsely accused and thrown into prison. There's no future for you.
If you did the right thing and things got worse, you don't understand it. But you're in preparation, because God has something for you.
Joseph couldn't have known he would become prime minister. But God had a plan. Through interpreting Pharaoh's dream, Joseph was elevated overnight to the second-highest position in Egypt.
Then a famine came—the very famine Joseph had prophesied. His brothers, desperate for food, came to Egypt to buy grain. They had to bow before the prime minister and beg for provisions. Joseph always knew this day would come. He could have said, "Gotcha," and thrown the book at them.
But by the time the dream was fulfilled, Joseph was a different man. He was broken. He had totally forgiven his brothers.
Joseph could no longer keep his composure in front of all his attendants and he called out send everyone away from me. No one was with him when he revealed his identity to his brothers but he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the pharaoh's household heard it. Joseph said to his brothers I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him because they were terrified in his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers please come close to me and his brothers came near. He said I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt and now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years and there will be five more years of famine. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here but God.
The word I'm to deliver tonight was born in the darkest hour my wife Louise and I ever experienced. During my 25 years at Westminster Chapel, something unjust and horrible happened. It was the worst ordeal of my life, and I thought I was finished. I was angry. I was bitter.
An old friend named Joseph Ton from Romania was in London. Because I knew he wouldn't tell anyone, I decided to confess everything to him. He was the only one who knew what had happened.
I thought Joseph would put his arm around me and validate my anger. I wasn't prepared for what he said next.
He looked at me and said: "RT, you must totally forgive them. For until you totally forgive them, you will be in chains. Release them and you will be released."
Nobody had ever talked to me like that. I said, "Joseph, I haven't even told you everything." He interrupted me: "RT, you must totally forgive them. For until you totally forgive them, you will be in chains. Release them and you will be released."
I said, "Joseph, I can't." He said, "You can and you must."
It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do—almost certainly the hardest thing you will ever have to do.
When you forgive, you do it right against nature. You let your enemy off the hook. But that's not all—you must pray for them. And when you pray, you don't just say, "Heavenly Father, I commit them to you," hoping God will punish them. You ask God to bless them, and you mean it.
You say, "I can never do that." I believe you. But I also believe this is where the anointing of forgiveness comes. The anointing is the power of the Spirit that enables your gift to function with ease. If you want a greater anointing than you want anything else in the world, then you're in the right place.
But I understand the hesitation. I know there are people here who have suffered terribly. You were abused as a child. Your spouse was unfaithful. You were promised a job and someone else got it—your enemy got it. You were betrayed. You were lied about, and everyone believed the lie.
I get it. But I have to tell you: there are no loopholes. None.
Here's how you know you've totally forgiven. Proof number one: you don't tell anybody what they did.
Look at the text. Joseph says, "Send everyone away from me." He's about to reveal his identity, but first he clears the room. Why? He's about to forgive these men, and he wants to make sure the word never leaks out.
Joseph knew that if the Egyptians heard what his brothers had planned to do to him, they would hate them. Joseph wanted his brothers to be heroes in Egypt, not despised. So he protected them by making sure no one else would know.
When we're hurt, what's our first instinct? We get on the phone. We tell what they did. Why? We can't bear the thought that the world doesn't know what was done to us—especially if it's someone of significance, someone well-known. We want to spill the goods.
There are two exceptions. First, you may need to tell one other person for therapeutic reasons. I told Joseph Ton. Second, if there's a crime, it must be reported to authorities—that's not personal; it's justice.
But the real reason most of us tell others? We want to make the people look bad. We want them punished in the court of public opinion.
Pour your complaint out to the Lord (Psalm 142).
There's an old spiritual: "Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen, nobody knows but Jesus." That's how Jesus likes it. He wants to be the only one who knows. But when you've told two, three, five, ten, or five hundred people, then you tell the Lord. You're not confiding in Him—you're just adding to the list.
Proof number two: you don't let them be afraid of you.
The brothers are terrified. Joseph's power over them is complete. He could destroy them. But look what he does: "Please come close to me. Come close to me." He wants to love on his brothers.
When we haven't forgiven, we want to keep the other person nervous. We want them afraid. Husbands and wives play this game all the time—keeping each other on edge.
But Paul writes:
Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).
Why do we keep records? To prove we're right. So we can throw it back in their face. Your husband says, "I'll remember that." Your wife says, "I won't forget what you just said."
Listen to me: if your marriage is in trouble right now, it could be healed by sunrise tomorrow if both of you would stop pointing the finger. One says, "I'll do it when he does it." The other says, "I'll do it when she does it." No. You do it for Jesus.
Proof number three: you don't even want them to feel guilty.
Joseph says: "Come close to me. I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt and now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here."
Isn't that amazing? He's literally telling them: don't feel bad about what you did.
Have you ever said to someone, "I forgive you," but secretly hoped they'd feel terrible? Because you want them to know how hurt you are. You want to punish them a little bit.
Here's the thing that gets our goat: the person who hurt us doesn't know how much we're hurting. We just want them to know. But total forgiveness means you're willing for them not to know.
I must tell you something: if this sermon convicts you, and after the service you find someone and say, "In light of this sermon, I forgive you for what you did," you're not forgiving them. You're performing. You're making sure they know you've forgiven them, which means you still want them to feel the weight of what they did.
Here's where the anointing kicks in: God knows. The people I've had to forgive—some of them are still alive. They have no idea I pray for them. They'll never know. But this is whether you want the anointing.
Don't be surprised if it's a fellow Christian or someone with a reputation for godliness that you have to forgive. Sometimes the hardest people to forgive are other believers.
Proof number four: you let them save face.
Saving face is an oriental expression. It means you cover for them. You act like you don't know what they did, or you make it easy for them. You might even justify what they did.
Dale Carnegie, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, has a whole section on letting the other person save face. He says if you do that, you win a friend for life.
Joseph does exactly this. He says: "Look here, God sent me ahead of you to keep you alive for a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here but God."
Think about what he's doing. He's saying the whole thing was God's plan. He's saying: "This shouldn't surprise you—it was predestined 400 years ago when God told Abraham his seed would come up out of Egypt. Someone had to get here first. God said Joseph, you go first. I just got here first."
He's reframing the entire narrative so his brothers can feel better about themselves. They can't believe their luck. The man they planned to kill is now saying God orchestrated it all.
Proof number five: you protect them from their darkest secret.
These brothers must have been thinking: "It's good that Joseph has forgiven us, but now he's going to make us go back to Canaan and tell Dad the truth about the coat of many colors. We'll have to confess we sold our brother into slavery." They would rather die than confess that to their father.
Joseph knew this. And it's so beautiful—he writes the script for them. He tells them word for word what to say to their father when they get home. He won't let them tell the truth. He won't let them expose themselves.
And that's the way God is with all of us. We've all got skeletons in the closet. God isn't wanting to yank out that skeleton and make you look bad.
As far as the East is from the West, so far are our transgressions removed from us. The blood of Jesus Christ washes away all sin.
There's somebody here who knows something about somebody that could ruin them. They're scared to death you're going to tell what you know. You probably know something that could destroy them. Don't ever let them fear it. Let them know no one will ever know.
Proof number six and seven: you bless them and pray for them, asking God to bless them. And it's a life sentence.
Here's how we know Joseph's forgiveness was genuine. Seventeen years later, their father Jacob died. The brothers come running to Joseph, terrified. They're thinking: "Joseph was just waiting for the old man to die. Now he's going to go after us."
So they make up a story. They say, "Dad told us before he died: please don't hold it against us. Please forgive us."
Joseph starts to cry. He says: "What's the matter with you? I told you 17 years ago I forgave you. I forgave you then. I forgave you now."
That's the proof. He didn't just forgive for a moment to look good. It was real. It was total. And total forgiveness must come from your heart.
You agree to pray for them—not for a day or two, but a week later, a month later, a year later, twenty years later. The people that hurt me don't know I still pray for them. And yes, I actually pray asking God to bless them.
You say, "I couldn't do that." But you can. You can. It's a matter of doing what will make you more like Jesus.
Before I close, let me tell you a story from my time at Westminster Chapel.
We were a traditional church. I was helping lead worship, and we were singing the great English hymn "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven." A woman walked in—someone who had done irreparable emotional damage to one of our children.
When I saw her come in, I lost it. I couldn't sing. I just mouthed the words. Then I had to read Scripture. Then we sang another hymn. Then came the pastoral prayer, which lasted ten minutes. I have no idea how I got through it. It was horrible.
What saved me was offering time. A deacon came to welcome visitors and give notices, saying, "The morning offering will be received." That gave me about five minutes to sit next to the pulpit and just reflect.
Something happened that had never happened before and hasn't happened since. The Holy Spirit entered into a conversation with me. I won't say this is verbatim, but it's pretty close:
"RT, you want to see revival in Westminster Chapel, is that right?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Good. How much do you want to see revival?"
"I won't tell what they did. Too late, RT. I've already done it. Don't do it anymore. I won't let them be afraid of me. I will protect them from their darkest secret. I will let them save face, and I accept that. I pray for them—not just for one day or tomorrow, but as long as it takes, from this day forward."
That conversation changed everything for me. Not only was it life-changing, but that's where I first noticed a higher level of anointing. People ask how I've written all these books—they think it's my education, my brain. No. It's the anointing. I began to get thoughts I couldn't write fast enough. Ideas kept coming; publishers were queuing up asking for another book. I couldn't write them fast enough.
Here's what God showed me: The thoughts that come from God, He will do it for you. You may not become an author, but you've got a gift nobody else has. You might say, "RT, you don't know about my gift. There's no demand for my gift."
Let me ask you: What kind of demand would you think there was for Joseph's gift? Can you imagine Joseph coming into Rockwall on a Monday morning, going to an employment office? He says, "I need a job." The interviewer asks, "What is your name?" "Joseph." "Good. Your address?" "Well, what do you do?" "I interpret dreams." "Oh—thank you very much. We'll write your name down. We'll be in touch with you."
You may feel your gift is about as relevant as that. But who would have known that the day would come when Pharaoh had a dream that nobody could interpret? Joseph—who had a past, who had no hope of a future, who was known as a rapist—God overruled everything. Joseph interpreted his dream, and it changed everybody.
God can do that with the most insignificant gift. The question is whether you can totally forgive and pray for them and actually ask God to bless them—and mean it.
I made a deal with you at the beginning. I don't know if you accepted it, but here was the proposition: If I could show in the last 25 minutes or so that you haven't totally forgiven after all, would you then do it? That's the deal.
I'm going to ask you: Do you see now that you have some business with God? Do you need to forgive? In about one minute from now—60 seconds from now—I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet. Not yet. In 55 seconds, stand.
You say, "In front of all these people?" Yes. "They'll know I've had a problem." Well, they might look at it that way, but does it matter? Don't you care what God knows? Worry about what people think.
In 45 seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand. Don't wait and see if anybody else stands. This is just between you and God. In the next 35 seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand. Don't stand—unless by standing you're prepared to say:
I won't tell what they did. Too late—I've already done it. Don't do it anymore. I won't let them be afraid of me. I will protect them from their darkest secret. I will let them save face. And I accept that. I pray for them—not just for one day or tomorrow, but as long as it takes, from this day forward.
If you're prepared to forgive them—5, 4, 3, 2, 1—stand to your feet right now. Let the angels know you're prepared to forgive them and ask God to bless them.
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. He's near right now. This may not come back again like this. Seize the moment.
Normally I would ask people to come forward, but we'd have too much congestion. I want to do that, but what I'm going to do now is pray. Because what you've just done is the easy part. The hard part will be an hour from now—you'll think, "What came over me?" Tomorrow morning, after coffee, you'll second-guess yourself.
Look, we haven't prayed yet. You can still get out of it. But we're going to pray now, and we're going to enter into a prayer covenant—and that makes it serious.
Here's why: Every covenant in the Bible was ratified by blood. That was serious business. We're going to enter into a covenant that was ratified 2,000 years ago when Jesus shed His blood on the cross.
If you're ready to pray, I want you to repeat these words out loud. Don't say them if you don't mean it. If you mean it, you're ready to go. Say this out loud:
Lord Jesus, I need You. I want You. I'm sorry for my sins. Wash my sins away by Your blood. I'm sorry for my unforgiveness. I ask You to forgive them. I ask You to bless them. I set them free. I set them free. I set them free. Come, Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your patience with me. As best as I know how, I'll give You my life in Jesus' name.
One last thing: When you mess up—and we will, because we're not perfect—when you forget, when you point the finger, when you say something about somebody you shouldn't have, the devil will come along and say, "See? There you broke the covenant. It's over. Forget it."
That's what the devil wants you to do. But when you make a mistake, when you mess up, remember 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confess it, and that way you have an unbroken relationship with God.
I promise you—I guarantee you—the anointing will set in. That's why I'm so anxious to put this to you. If I come back a year or two from now, I want this still happening. Don't do it just today and think you've done it once. No. It's a life sentence. That's the commitment.
Before diving into the text, let me remind you of Joseph's story. Joseph is now prime minister of Egypt, and his eleven brothers stand before him—brothers he hasn't seen in 22 years. They know who he is, but he knows who they are. Joseph always knew this day would come because God gave him prophetic dreams.
These brothers were consumed with jealousy. Joseph was their father's favorite, wore the coat of many colors, and told them he would one day rule over them. They couldn't stand it. They planned to kill him, but Ishmaelite traders came by, and they sold Joseph into slavery instead. They dipped his coat in blood and told their father a wild beast had devoured him.
Joseph became a slave in Egypt, serving an officer named Potiphar. God was with him and exalted him to head of Potiphar's household. But then came sexual temptation. Potiphar's wife repeatedly asked him to lie with her, and he refused. He could have rationalized it—he was in a foreign land, mistreated by his brothers, deserving of comfort. But he resisted because God knows.
Imagine being that devoted to God. You do what's right, and then what happens? You're falsely accused and thrown into prison. There's no future for you.
If you did the right thing and things got worse, you don't understand it. But you're in preparation, because God has something for you.
Joseph couldn't have known he would become prime minister. But God had a plan. Through interpreting Pharaoh's dream, Joseph was elevated overnight to the second-highest position in Egypt.
Then a famine came—the very famine Joseph had prophesied. His brothers, desperate for food, came to Egypt to buy grain. They had to bow before the prime minister and beg for provisions. Joseph always knew this day would come. He could have said, "Gotcha," and thrown the book at them.
But by the time the dream was fulfilled, Joseph was a different man. He was broken. He had totally forgiven his brothers.
Joseph could no longer keep his composure in front of all his attendants and he called out send everyone away from me. No one was with him when he revealed his identity to his brothers but he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the pharaoh's household heard it. Joseph said to his brothers I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him because they were terrified in his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers please come close to me and his brothers came near. He said I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt and now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years and there will be five more years of famine. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here but God.
The word I'm to deliver tonight was born in the darkest hour my wife Louise and I ever experienced. During my 25 years at Westminster Chapel, something unjust and horrible happened. It was the worst ordeal of my life, and I thought I was finished. I was angry. I was bitter.
An old friend named Joseph Ton from Romania was in London. Because I knew he wouldn't tell anyone, I decided to confess everything to him. He was the only one who knew what had happened.
I thought Joseph would put his arm around me and validate my anger. I wasn't prepared for what he said next.
He looked at me and said: "RT, you must totally forgive them. For until you totally forgive them, you will be in chains. Release them and you will be released."
Nobody had ever talked to me like that. I said, "Joseph, I haven't even told you everything." He interrupted me: "RT, you must totally forgive them. For until you totally forgive them, you will be in chains. Release them and you will be released."
I said, "Joseph, I can't." He said, "You can and you must."
It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do—almost certainly the hardest thing you will ever have to do.
When you forgive, you do it right against nature. You let your enemy off the hook. But that's not all—you must pray for them. And when you pray, you don't just say, "Heavenly Father, I commit them to you," hoping God will punish them. You ask God to bless them, and you mean it.
You say, "I can never do that." I believe you. But I also believe this is where the anointing of forgiveness comes. The anointing is the power of the Spirit that enables your gift to function with ease. If you want a greater anointing than you want anything else in the world, then you're in the right place.
But I understand the hesitation. I know there are people here who have suffered terribly. You were abused as a child. Your spouse was unfaithful. You were promised a job and someone else got it—your enemy got it. You were betrayed. You were lied about, and everyone believed the lie.
I get it. But I have to tell you: there are no loopholes. None.
Here's how you know you've totally forgiven. Proof number one: you don't tell anybody what they did.
Look at the text. Joseph says, "Send everyone away from me." He's about to reveal his identity, but first he clears the room. Why? He's about to forgive these men, and he wants to make sure the word never leaks out.
Joseph knew that if the Egyptians heard what his brothers had planned to do to him, they would hate them. Joseph wanted his brothers to be heroes in Egypt, not despised. So he protected them by making sure no one else would know.
When we're hurt, what's our first instinct? We get on the phone. We tell what they did. Why? We can't bear the thought that the world doesn't know what was done to us—especially if it's someone of significance, someone well-known. We want to spill the goods.
There are two exceptions. First, you may need to tell one other person for therapeutic reasons. I told Joseph Ton. Second, if there's a crime, it must be reported to authorities—that's not personal; it's justice.
But the real reason most of us tell others? We want to make the people look bad. We want them punished in the court of public opinion.
Pour your complaint out to the Lord (Psalm 142).
There's an old spiritual: "Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen, nobody knows but Jesus." That's how Jesus likes it. He wants to be the only one who knows. But when you've told two, three, five, ten, or five hundred people, then you tell the Lord. You're not confiding in Him—you're just adding to the list.
Proof number two: you don't let them be afraid of you.
The brothers are terrified. Joseph's power over them is complete. He could destroy them. But look what he does: "Please come close to me. Come close to me." He wants to love on his brothers.
When we haven't forgiven, we want to keep the other person nervous. We want them afraid. Husbands and wives play this game all the time—keeping each other on edge.
But Paul writes:
Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).
Why do we keep records? To prove we're right. So we can throw it back in their face. Your husband says, "I'll remember that." Your wife says, "I won't forget what you just said."
Listen to me: if your marriage is in trouble right now, it could be healed by sunrise tomorrow if both of you would stop pointing the finger. One says, "I'll do it when he does it." The other says, "I'll do it when she does it." No. You do it for Jesus.
Proof number three: you don't even want them to feel guilty.
Joseph says: "Come close to me. I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt and now don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here."
Isn't that amazing? He's literally telling them: don't feel bad about what you did.
Have you ever said to someone, "I forgive you," but secretly hoped they'd feel terrible? Because you want them to know how hurt you are. You want to punish them a little bit.
Here's the thing that gets our goat: the person who hurt us doesn't know how much we're hurting. We just want them to know. But total forgiveness means you're willing for them not to know.
I must tell you something: if this sermon convicts you, and after the service you find someone and say, "In light of this sermon, I forgive you for what you did," you're not forgiving them. You're performing. You're making sure they know you've forgiven them, which means you still want them to feel the weight of what they did.
Here's where the anointing kicks in: God knows. The people I've had to forgive—some of them are still alive. They have no idea I pray for them. They'll never know. But this is whether you want the anointing.
Don't be surprised if it's a fellow Christian or someone with a reputation for godliness that you have to forgive. Sometimes the hardest people to forgive are other believers.
Proof number four: you let them save face.
Saving face is an oriental expression. It means you cover for them. You act like you don't know what they did, or you make it easy for them. You might even justify what they did.
Dale Carnegie, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, has a whole section on letting the other person save face. He says if you do that, you win a friend for life.
Joseph does exactly this. He says: "Look here, God sent me ahead of you to keep you alive for a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here but God."
Think about what he's doing. He's saying the whole thing was God's plan. He's saying: "This shouldn't surprise you—it was predestined 400 years ago when God told Abraham his seed would come up out of Egypt. Someone had to get here first. God said Joseph, you go first. I just got here first."
He's reframing the entire narrative so his brothers can feel better about themselves. They can't believe their luck. The man they planned to kill is now saying God orchestrated it all.
Proof number five: you protect them from their darkest secret.
These brothers must have been thinking: "It's good that Joseph has forgiven us, but now he's going to make us go back to Canaan and tell Dad the truth about the coat of many colors. We'll have to confess we sold our brother into slavery." They would rather die than confess that to their father.
Joseph knew this. And it's so beautiful—he writes the script for them. He tells them word for word what to say to their father when they get home. He won't let them tell the truth. He won't let them expose themselves.
And that's the way God is with all of us. We've all got skeletons in the closet. God isn't wanting to yank out that skeleton and make you look bad.
As far as the East is from the West, so far are our transgressions removed from us. The blood of Jesus Christ washes away all sin.
There's somebody here who knows something about somebody that could ruin them. They're scared to death you're going to tell what you know. You probably know something that could destroy them. Don't ever let them fear it. Let them know no one will ever know.
Proof number six and seven: you bless them and pray for them, asking God to bless them. And it's a life sentence.
Here's how we know Joseph's forgiveness was genuine. Seventeen years later, their father Jacob died. The brothers come running to Joseph, terrified. They're thinking: "Joseph was just waiting for the old man to die. Now he's going to go after us."
So they make up a story. They say, "Dad told us before he died: please don't hold it against us. Please forgive us."
Joseph starts to cry. He says: "What's the matter with you? I told you 17 years ago I forgave you. I forgave you then. I forgave you now."
That's the proof. He didn't just forgive for a moment to look good. It was real. It was total. And total forgiveness must come from your heart.
You agree to pray for them—not for a day or two, but a week later, a month later, a year later, twenty years later. The people that hurt me don't know I still pray for them. And yes, I actually pray asking God to bless them.
You say, "I couldn't do that." But you can. You can. It's a matter of doing what will make you more like Jesus.
Before I close, let me tell you a story from my time at Westminster Chapel.
We were a traditional church. I was helping lead worship, and we were singing the great English hymn "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven." A woman walked in—someone who had done irreparable emotional damage to one of our children.
When I saw her come in, I lost it. I couldn't sing. I just mouthed the words. Then I had to read Scripture. Then we sang another hymn. Then came the pastoral prayer, which lasted ten minutes. I have no idea how I got through it. It was horrible.
What saved me was offering time. A deacon came to welcome visitors and give notices, saying, "The morning offering will be received." That gave me about five minutes to sit next to the pulpit and just reflect.
Something happened that had never happened before and hasn't happened since. The Holy Spirit entered into a conversation with me. I won't say this is verbatim, but it's pretty close:
"RT, you want to see revival in Westminster Chapel, is that right?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Good. How much do you want to see revival?"
"I won't tell what they did. Too late, RT. I've already done it. Don't do it anymore. I won't let them be afraid of me. I will protect them from their darkest secret. I will let them save face, and I accept that. I pray for them—not just for one day or tomorrow, but as long as it takes, from this day forward."
That conversation changed everything for me. Not only was it life-changing, but that's where I first noticed a higher level of anointing. People ask how I've written all these books—they think it's my education, my brain. No. It's the anointing. I began to get thoughts I couldn't write fast enough. Ideas kept coming; publishers were queuing up asking for another book. I couldn't write them fast enough.
Here's what God showed me: The thoughts that come from God, He will do it for you. You may not become an author, but you've got a gift nobody else has. You might say, "RT, you don't know about my gift. There's no demand for my gift."
Let me ask you: What kind of demand would you think there was for Joseph's gift? Can you imagine Joseph coming into Rockwall on a Monday morning, going to an employment office? He says, "I need a job." The interviewer asks, "What is your name?" "Joseph." "Good. Your address?" "Well, what do you do?" "I interpret dreams." "Oh—thank you very much. We'll write your name down. We'll be in touch with you."
You may feel your gift is about as relevant as that. But who would have known that the day would come when Pharaoh had a dream that nobody could interpret? Joseph—who had a past, who had no hope of a future, who was known as a rapist—God overruled everything. Joseph interpreted his dream, and it changed everybody.
God can do that with the most insignificant gift. The question is whether you can totally forgive and pray for them and actually ask God to bless them—and mean it.
I made a deal with you at the beginning. I don't know if you accepted it, but here was the proposition: If I could show in the last 25 minutes or so that you haven't totally forgiven after all, would you then do it? That's the deal.
I'm going to ask you: Do you see now that you have some business with God? Do you need to forgive? In about one minute from now—60 seconds from now—I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet. Not yet. In 55 seconds, stand.
You say, "In front of all these people?" Yes. "They'll know I've had a problem." Well, they might look at it that way, but does it matter? Don't you care what God knows? Worry about what people think.
In 45 seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand. Don't wait and see if anybody else stands. This is just between you and God. In the next 35 seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand. Don't stand—unless by standing you're prepared to say:
I won't tell what they did. Too late—I've already done it. Don't do it anymore. I won't let them be afraid of me. I will protect them from their darkest secret. I will let them save face. And I accept that. I pray for them—not just for one day or tomorrow, but as long as it takes, from this day forward.
If you're prepared to forgive them—5, 4, 3, 2, 1—stand to your feet right now. Let the angels know you're prepared to forgive them and ask God to bless them.
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. He's near right now. This may not come back again like this. Seize the moment.
Normally I would ask people to come forward, but we'd have too much congestion. I want to do that, but what I'm going to do now is pray. Because what you've just done is the easy part. The hard part will be an hour from now—you'll think, "What came over me?" Tomorrow morning, after coffee, you'll second-guess yourself.
Look, we haven't prayed yet. You can still get out of it. But we're going to pray now, and we're going to enter into a prayer covenant—and that makes it serious.
Here's why: Every covenant in the Bible was ratified by blood. That was serious business. We're going to enter into a covenant that was ratified 2,000 years ago when Jesus shed His blood on the cross.
If you're ready to pray, I want you to repeat these words out loud. Don't say them if you don't mean it. If you mean it, you're ready to go. Say this out loud:
Lord Jesus, I need You. I want You. I'm sorry for my sins. Wash my sins away by Your blood. I'm sorry for my unforgiveness. I ask You to forgive them. I ask You to bless them. I set them free. I set them free. I set them free. Come, Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your patience with me. As best as I know how, I'll give You my life in Jesus' name.
One last thing: When you mess up—and we will, because we're not perfect—when you forget, when you point the finger, when you say something about somebody you shouldn't have, the devil will come along and say, "See? There you broke the covenant. It's over. Forget it."
That's what the devil wants you to do. But when you make a mistake, when you mess up, remember 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confess it, and that way you have an unbroken relationship with God.
I promise you—I guarantee you—the anointing will set in. That's why I'm so anxious to put this to you. If I come back a year or two from now, I want this still happening. Don't do it just today and think you've done it once. No. It's a life sentence. That's the commitment.
