This sermon emphasizes the great tragedy of Christianity being the inability to forgive, leading to a loss of intimacy with God and a detrimental impact on one's spiritual and mental well-being. It highlights the importance of forgiveness in maintaining a close walk with God, the damaging consequences of harboring unforgiveness, and the transformative power of seeking forgiveness and extending grace to others.

Do you know what the great tragedy of Christianity is, beloved? Have you ever thought what the great tragedy of Christianity is? Let me shock you. The great tragedy of Christianity is that you won't forgive, that you can't forgive and you won't forgive. You lose the tender walk with God you could have known. The Holy Spirit is so sensitive, and don't doubt this, He withdraws from the tenderness He would have had with your life. The moment you don't forgive and won't forgive, the Holy Spirit withdraws from the walk you could have known with God. The relationship, the walk with God you could have known. You pay a greater price than the person that you're not forgiving. You think they're paying a great price for your not forgiving them. You pay a greater price. You lose the walk you could have known with God, and that's a price to pray. If you can't forgive, if you can't forgive, it affects you. It affects your spiritual walk. It destroys your spiritual walk with God. If you can't forgive, it destroys you. It affects you mentally. You begin to think irrationally. I've watched Christians, it's not rational the way they're thinking. It's just the twisted thing that comes of your whole personality, in spite of the Holy Ghost being in your heart. Everything comes out wrong. If you can't forgive, you don't only destroy your spiritual walk, you destroy your mental health, you destroy your health in the end. How many Christians have lost their health, harboring anger and resentment and bitterness all the time, and there's no peace? God's peace is gone. There's no communion with God. Oh, the price you pay if you don't forgive. To be forgiven, and know the smile of God, and the tenderness of God, and the consciousness that your life pleases God, as that boy did, as that young preacher did, as that godly woman who for 53 years didn't fail did. That her children are scared how they react to their husband, because they know God can give grace. Forgive to be forgiven. Forgive to be forgiven. I wonder if I could shock you all here tonight. I wonder if I could shock every one of you to your heart. You've heard so many appeals, haven't you, to be saved. For this and for that, I'm going to ask you, those of you sitting here tonight, who need to ask God for forgiveness for not forgiving, that this sin in your life has probably caused God more grief than the sin those people who made you angry is in God's eyes. In His eyes, it's probably caused them far more grief. Forgive me, God, for not forgiving. Forgive me. I need the blood of Christ for being so long to come to a place where I know in my heart that just to have the smile of God and the grief I must have caused, that it didn't concern me. Oh God, forgive me that I have not taken up the cross to follow Thee, to follow Thy example as they nailed Thee to the cross. I thought I had the right to present the gospel, the message of the cross to my children. While I didn't live the example of the cross, no wonder they don't follow Thee properly. Oh God, I need forgiveness, because I couldn't forgive all this time. I've been so long in forgiving. Forgive me for this terrible sin, and God give me the grace. Give me the grace, Father, tonight that I don't have to utterly forgive through a work of the Holy Ghost in my heart and with the blood of Christ that will forgive through me. God, I want to forgive. I want to love my enemies, not hate them. I want to bless them that curse me, to do good to them that hate me, to pray for them which despitefully use me and persecute me. Oh God, give me the grace I don't have. I want to ask every single person sitting here, and this will cost you to admit it, even if you're a preacher. I want every one of you, if you're a boy or a girl, a father, a wife, a husband, I want every one of you that stands in God's sight tonight and needs desperately to say to God, Oh God, forgive me for being so long in forgiving and the grief it must have caused thee. Forgive me for this sin, God. By the blood of Christ, cleanse me, and God give me the grace tonight to forgive that I will utterly forgive and begin to love my wife and begin to love my father and begin to love my husband and subject myself to him. Begin to love my enemy to do good to them. Oh God, give me the grace to forgive. Forgive through me. I would take up the cross and reveal Christ, reveal Christ to them, not myself. Forgive through me, God. I want those who need to say that to God to stand right now and say, God, I come and I ask thee to forgive me for being so long in forgiving and I ask thee for grace to forgive, to utterly forgive, grace I don't have, so that I can love, that thou canst love through me, God. Oh, I know it's costing you to stand, but imagine what it's going to cost you if you're too proud to admit that this is your case. You go on turning away from what God should have done if you just opened your heart and admitted it to God. Come all of you standing, will you come and stand in the front here, please? Just make your way. Let's make something sacred of this. I know what it costs you, but God will love you and the devil will tremble because of the walk you will find with God that you haven't known, and the Christ-likeness you will reveal. If this will be your lot till the day you die, that you're determined by grace to take up the cross and follow Christ now all your life. Come, let's all bow our heads. Can everyone in the congregation stand, please? And I want you out there not to judge these standing here. You have no right to judge. God alone judges. All you have the right is to respect those here who seek God, and I want all of you out there to say amen to this prayer. I wonder if everyone in the front here, please, could just pray these words after me. I know that God does not look at the words that proceed out of the mouth. He looks at the heart from whence they come, but if you, if you, in spite of them being my words leading you, can just say, God, these are my words. God as a whole has a holy obligation to himself and his promises and his integrity to not turn his face away from you, but to answer this prayer fully, and don't dare believe he won't. He wants this more than you, so pray as best as you can from your heart now, and all of you out there can just say amen. Will you pray aloud with me? Oh God, forgive me that I have been so long to be forgiving. Forgive me for the grief it must have been to thee and to man, that I could have won their respect and even their souls. Wash me in the blood of Christ from being such a grief to thee. Forgive me this night because of the blood of Christ, and give me a clean start here tonight. Help those that I did not reveal Christ to, to forgive me, whether they are in my home or whether they're my open enemy. Help them to give me another chance to reveal Christ to them and to trust my Christianity, that while I live the example of the cross, I will have the right to preach the message of the cross, even to the most ugly life the devil could send my way. Give me that right by thy grace. Forgive.