12 May The Jailers
The following is an excerpt from my book, Broken to Bulletproof available on Amazon.com.
The Prison of Resentment and the Torturers that Run It
There’s a chilling scene in the 2013 movie “Zero Dark Thirty” that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up the first time I saw it. U.S. forces have captured a key terrorist operative and he is incarcerated in a makeshift jail cell in Pakistan. A cold-as-steel CIA agent (played deftly by Jason Clarke) is in charge of the prisoner’s interrogation. His mission; to obtain information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He sits on the outside of the cell, looking in at his captive, stone faced and says, “Can I be honest with you? I have bad news. I’m not your friend. I’m not going to help you. I’m going to break you. Any questions?”
You can only imagine how that interrogation went. (Buy or rent the movie on Amazon.com here and see for yourself: http://amzn.to/1W1p21d)
This scene is about the assertion of one man’s will over another, the understanding of who is in authority. The CIA agent (the jailer) is there to change the prisoner’s mind. The stubborn prisoner has refused to give the jailer what he wants. The higher authority (in this case, the U.S. government) has given power to the jailer to inflict punishment, torment and torture upon the prisoner until his will is broken and he changes his thinking…until he stops refusing the jailers authority.
In this world, we have physical jails where we send criminals that have committed crimes against others – these people aren’t capable of behaving properly in relation to the rest of the world in one specific way or another. The goal of a jail sentence is to bring about “rehabilitation” – a different way of thinking about the rest of the world, at least in most cases. These criminals need this kind of punishment to “break them” mentally and emotionally as to put their minds back in proper order so they can function in society.
Frighteningly, there is also a spiritual prison like this. It is a place where men find themselves when they think wrongly about forgiveness in order to accomplish the very same thing. It has a force of equally brutal guards or “jailers” that inflict spiritual torment. Jesus infers that these jailers are there for one reason; to torture their captive until he has paid his debt in full. I should know… I have been there:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This is the story of the Unmerciful Servant found in Matthew 18:21-35. The Unmerciful Servant doesn’t properly understand his role in the King’s kingdom and he doesn’t properly understand the King’s heart. In his disordered thinking, he believes he is more important than the other servant who owed him money. He wrongly believes he has the right to exact his own justice upon him. In so doing, he refuses to consider the great debt the King had just forgiven him of. His thinking is out of order and it must be restored for the King’s kingdom to run properly.
The word Jesus uses when he says “unless you forgive your brother” is the Greek word
“ἀφῆτε” or “aphēte”
It means “to let go, give up, a debt, by not demanding it.” (see http://biblehub.com/greek/863.htm) It is a releasing of the right to set things straight into the hands of God. This is biblical forgiveness, to release the payment of a debt.
However, the Unmerciful Servant does the opposite of this and demands payment. Instead of releasing the debt, he stubbornly refuses and holds onto his right for repayment. The text uses the words “οὐκ ἤθελεν” or “ouk ēthelen” which means “would not” and in this text is translated “but he refused”.
The day I finally allowed myself to be vulnerable and transparent by confessing my hidden, secret sins to my friends, one of them spoke a tremendous truth from the Lord to me. He said, “Bro, you’re being held captive and tortured by the Jailers. You have resentment in your heart and THAT’S what God wants you to deal with. These things you’ve been doing (pornography, sexual sin, deception, drunkenness, prescription pill abuse) are just symptoms of the deeper problem which is in your heart and has to do with resentment, unforgiveness. These things you can’t stop doing are the jailers who are torturing you to bring about repentance. God is allowing the jailers to break you so that you’re willing to submit to His authority.”
He then read me the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:21-35)
It was as if the large, iron bell of my heart had been rung. The truth of this story in my own life echoed deep within me. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the details involved – I just knew there was truth to be explored here because, in a spiritual sense, I had definitely been in jail and my jailers had been harsh, bringing about devastation and negative consequences in my life, marriage, family, career, finances, health. Resentment, unforgiveness was the jail. My addictions were the jailers.
There is a particular phrase in this story that jumps out at me –,
“But he refused.”
I was doing this. I was refusing to release long-held resentments against others, against God, but mainly against MYSELF. I was refusing to fully embrace the Lord’s forgiveness of the awful things I had done. I was refusing to give up my sinful lifestyle and submit my life to God. “Refusing” – this is a spiritual determination made in a man’s heart. The Unmerciful Servant refused to do the right thing; which in this case was to have mercy on his fellow servant. “Nope. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to have mercy on you. You can beg and cry and plead all you want, but I’m going to EXACT VENGEANCE upon you. I’m going to do things MY way and have my vengeance right here and now. You owe me. Pay up!” And in simple acts of spiritual defiance like this, we harden and shut off our hearts to God and rebel against him every day. We refuse to let go of all kinds of things in our lives that God wants to work a miracle with if we would just release them into His hands, which is also a spiritual determination. “God, I will give this thing over to you to do what YOU want to do with it in my life. I will let YOU administer justice. I trust you to do that.” When we refuse, we assert our own will above God’s and, in effect, make ourselves god and take our Heavenly Father’s place. At the most basic level, this is actually the sin of idolatry, a direct breaking of the second commandment; “You shall have no gods before me.”
Because God loves his children so intensely, he will not allow us to continue in bondage to “the jailers.” His justice allows us to go to jail, but when we are there, we are separated from Him. He desires to be near us, not apart from us. This is about proximity for God. It is about family – we’re his kids. This is much more about us being “with” Him than it is His need for justice. When we fail to understand this, we miss God’s heart for us. Can you imagine how a loving Father must feel when one of His kids is in jail, especially while knowing it really is the best thing for them? His heart must break!
Yes, God is a God of justice. But He is also GOOD and He is a God of grace. He wants his children SET FREE from this kind of bondage. He understands the power of idols like alcohol, pornography, sex, pills and countless other things in our lives and how we can become imprisoned by them. He allows these jailers to inflict their punishment so that we will HIT ROCK BOTTOM, cry out to Him and beg Him for an appeal to our case. He knows that His love for His children and His GRACE is greater than His need for justice – ALWAYS.
It took me well over a year of wrestling and resisting and trying in my own strength to break free from my addictions, attitudes, habits (the jailers), to fully understand the significance of my friend pointing out the truth of this parable in my life.
Freedom came when I was literally arrested and put in jail. No, really – SO ironic. You can read about that event here: https://www.brokentobulletproof.com/worth-ship-the-idol-test/ .
While I only spent one night in jail, even after I had been released physically, my heart and mind were still imprisoned and being tortured by my “jailers”.
The spiritual jail cell door opened for me when I finally addressed the resentments I had in my own heart, which included forgiving myself and many other people, institutions and principles with whom I had been angry. I was not able to do this on my own. I needed the help of some trustworthy friends (a safe community of the church body and my men’s group) and a man who patiently guided me through the 12 steps of recovery. In this process, I made a “searching and fearless moral inventory” (4th step) which included everyone I had a resentment towards (unforgiveness). I was able to talk through each of these situations and relationships, examine what happened and why I still held resentment (5th step). Then I became willing (that’s the opposite of refusing) to have God remove these shortcomings and I humbly asked Him to do so (6th and 7th steps). These are spiritual steps that require the help of someone who has taken them before and understands how to move through them effectively.
Steps 8 and 9 allowed me to take responsibility for my part in each of these relationships and to make amends with the people I held resentment against. It was through this process that my spiritual jail sentence was completed. The jailers stopped their torturing. The cell door was opened and I took the final steps into spiritual freedom. Steps 10, 11 and 12 are how I continue to walk in transparency, being of service to others every day.
Jail is a hard place to be, I know. Our jailers are harsh and they can come in many forms – usually the things we turn to in place of God when we are in spiritual pain. Yet God’s goal with this process of spiritual torment is to bring about “rehabilitation” – right thinking about our relationship to God and his children. It is a painful act of love that God allows in our lives to bring stubborn hearts back to him. I know this may sound crazy to some, but I’m THANKFUL for the jailers. I would not know Jesus like I do today without their painful punishment. This is how Jesus taught me to make proper spiritual determinations in my heart – to release people, processes and institutions that have harmed me into God’s hands instead of refusing His will and insisting on my own brand of retribution.
On the other side of the 12 steps, as I live OUTSIDE the jail cell today, away from the jailers, my only regret is that someone had not taken me through these steps earlier in life – BEFORE I had allowed my addictions to spiral out of control. I could have received so much benefit from this process as a young man. These steps bring life, serenity, freedom, hope…and I am so thankful for those things today in my life. Being on the OUTSIDE of the jail cell bars is a place of gratitude, joy and LIFE.
If there are elements of this story that resonate with you, let us know – we’d love to have your comments. If you are struggling with an addiction or bad habit you can’t control on your own, allowing God to work in your life through the 12 Steps will set you free. Contact us and we’ll direct you to sources that can help for your specific situation.
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