Spring 2006
Dearly Beloved of Our Lord:
We are very thankful to our Lord for the city of Portland and the assignments He has given us here. Every week we have the privilege of meeting many new brothers and sisters and sharing our lives with them. We have the joy of carrying the fragrance of Christ, which as you know is an aroma of life to those following Jesus and an aroma of death to those rejecting Him. So we often get some very different reactions from people we meet in Portland’s Living Room, Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Karen’s Testimony ~ We went to a meeting and listened to the testimony of a brother who was teaching about the importance of forgiving or remitting sin. He was discussing the scripture where Jesus is teaching His disciples about forgiving or retaining sins.
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:23 KJV)
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:23 NKJV)
The speaker would go on prayer walks where he would find himself in circumstances in which he would be surrounded by people who wanted to do him harm. When threatened with anger or violence he would look them in the eye and say I forgive you (I remit your sin). He would loose the goodness of God that leads to repentance. God would come miraculously to his defense and they would lose the desire to do him harm. If someone comes at you with anger you can either forgive him or her of the anger toward you or retain it. Forgiveness releases the anger from your own heart. But if you retain their sins, they are retained in your heart.
I decided to try it out. We have people who walk past us at Pioneer Courthouse Square that do not like us. They also try to slime us with their wicked practices or their own anger or hatred of God. One day a woman full of anger stopped by to look at my tracts. She took them and threw them on the ground. I looked her in the eye and said, “I forgive you.” She looked at me and was confused. “What do you mean you forgive me?” She was totally caught off guard. She was expecting me to get angry or react negatively. When I said ‘I forgive you’ it was like putting a mirror up that said you did something that needed forgiveness. It was convicting. And I was free from her anger and hatred.
The Lord asks us to be harmless as doves and wise as serpents. Friends of ours who have seen us sit on the square smiling and praying with people cannot understand why people give us the finger and yell at us, “I worship Satan.” I believe it is as Paul taught:
For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. (2 Corinthians 2:15-16 KJV)
We are here to remit sin and loose the goodness of God that brings people to repentance. We are not here to be offended and retain their sin. I want to emphasize that this is not a formula but must take place in our hearts with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Ron’s Testimony ~ One day a man approached me asking about confessing sins. He was asking if there was a church where he could go and confess his sins. I told him that we who walk with Jesus are the church and that he needed to confess his sins to God and that God would forgive him, and cleanse him. (1 John 1:9) He said that he needed to confess to a brother and then pray with someone. (James 5:16) So, right there on the street corner next to a lamp post, he bowed his head and began to repent of various sins and ask forgiveness for each one. As he prayed he began to weep. Then I prayed with him and for him concerning each one. I also led him in a form of prayer and deliverance concerning his sins and breaking the demonic power of some of them in his life. He also broke ties with those with whom he had sinned through forgiving them and praying for them himself.
Now I want to explain that all this lasted over ten minutes and took place on a noisy, busy street corner in downtown Portland. It wasn’t in a church meeting with soft music playing in the background. There had been no plea to come forward and receive prayer and be healed. This happened in the urban wilderness of a busy city with buses, trucks, and people passing by. But all that did not matter. The brother needed to unload his burden at the cross, along with the guilt, shame, hatred, and anger, and receive our Lord’s forgiveness. When we were finished we embraced and I told him that his sins had been forgiven.
On another occasion an Arab Muslim man approached me blaming me (as a Christian I suppose) and George Bush for the wars. This was just after the hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah (Hezbollah) had begun in southern Lebanon. He was a middle-aged man and he came at me with anger shaking his finger in my face. I was so shocked I looked at him and then felt compassion in my heart. Then I said, “I forgive you.” Upon hearing this he just did not know quite what to say at first but he recovered and said, “I don’t need you to forgive me. You people are the problem, you and Bush.” So I looked him in the eye again and said, “I forgive you.” He was disarmed and left. (See Matthew 6:12& 14 and John 20:23) Jesus teaches us to forgive and to release them into His care. This way we do not retain the other person’s sin in our hearts and become afflicted with their anger and hatred.
Remember that we all carry His fragrance wherever we are and people are responding to us in various ways. Be encouraged! His will is that we all bear much fruit and release the fragrance of our Lord Jesus at all times and in all places. Expect Him to use you. We send you our letter with prayer and thanksgiving. We pray for you and we thank our God for you. You go with us through your prayers, your encouragement, and your support. And we thank you for your friendship with us. May you richly know His grace, peace, and mercylove.
~ Ron & Karen
E-mail: awakening1s@comcast.net
Home Page: awakening1s.net
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Ron & Karen Rohman
PO Box 14292
PORTLAND OR 97293