Most of us are familiar with a bell tower. In order to ring the bell, a rope has to be pulled. For the bell to stop ringing, we must let go of the rope.

Corrie ten Boon, best known for hiding Jews during the Holocaust, was later captured and sentenced to hard labor in various concentration camps. She alone, from her family, survied to tell her story. Time and again she was confronted with her need to forgive those who had so brutually tortured her and her family.

Years later, after hearing a sermon on forgiveness, she often used the imagery of a bell in the tower to recount her own struggle with "letting go."

“'Up in that church tower,' [the pastor] said, nodding out the window, 'is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops.'

“I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.” — Corrie Ten Boom, Guideposts Classics, November 1972)

To the thief on the cross Jesus said,"Today you will be with me in paradise."

That's grace. All that thief had was a prayer, but that's all it took. He had no time to be baptized, or do good works, or turn over a new leaf. He was on a cross dying. That's grace.

Most people celebrate the forgiveness of the thief on the cross, but how about Jeffery Dahmer? He was a serial killer. The Milwaukee Monster was convicted of 17 murders. Eleven corpses were found in his apartment. He dismembered them. He consumed them. He was sentenced to life without parole.

A few months before an inmate murdered him, Jeffrey Dahmer became a Christian. He repented and said he was sorry, profoundly sorry for his sins. He was baptized in the prison. He began reading the Bible and attending chapel. His conversion was genuine. His sins were washed. His soul was saved. His past was forgiven, and that bothers some people.

As Max Lucado expresses the hearts of many, "God is kind, but He's no wimp. Grace is for average sinners like me, not deviants like [him].” 

IF GOD CHAMPIONED CANCEL CULTURE…

• The Samaritan woman stayed washed up.
• The Prodigal Son is stuck in the pig pen.
• Zaccheus is still up a tree.
• Peter is still casting nets, not using His keys and feeding His sheep.
• James and John, the sons of thunder, are all wet.
• Saul of Tarsus kept holding coats and chasing down Christians.
• Thomas drowned in his doubt.
• The thief on the cross is hung out to dry.
• John Mark might as well have stayed AWOL.
• Hebrews 11, what with Noah (the drunk), Abraham (the liar), Moses (the murderer), Rahab (the harlot), etc., is never written.
• At least five of the seven churches of Asia are in the dark.
• All humanity is hopeless (Rom. 3:23).
• He is neither faithful nor just (1 John 1:9). 
• He never would have died on the cross (1 Tim. 2:6).