And now in the book of Ephesians,
chapter four and verse 32, the Apostle Paul said, And be you
kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Our subject today is the freedom
of forgiveness, the freedom of forgiveness. And when we say
that, our first thought is the freedom that we feel and enjoy
by having been forgiven of God and how blessed that is. But
in this passage in Matthew 18 and in the verse in Ephesians
4, 32, Paul is talking about not the freedom of being forgiven,
Blessed as that is, but the freedom that comes and the blessedness
of being a forgiver and having a forgiving spirit toward others. I would say there's more people
sitting in church houses this morning all over this country,
miserable in their heart, disgruntled in their spirit, because of a
grudge, bitterness, and unforgiving spirit that many have carried
many, many years. And in this verse in Ephesians,
we read, forgiving one another is the only true, proper motivation
for forgiving others who have wronged you. And here it is.
Here is the proper and true motivation. Even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you, do not think that you can truly forgive others
because you're such a good person and it's just the right thing
to do. You're not that good a person and you can't do it. And certainly
you need not try and convince yourself that the person who's
offended you, who's done you wrong, deserves to be forgiven. They don't deserve it. And you
cannot bring yourself to believe they deserve it. What they deserve
is, and what you would like to contend is, that you have a right
not to forgive. You have a right to stay mad.
You have a right to hold a grudge, and so you hold your ground. But
no, forgiving is the right thing to do. But here is the only real
motivation for it. Even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you. After all that Christ has done
for his people in being our surety, in bearing our sin, in paying
our debt, the only way God can be God, the only way God can
live with himself is to forgive his elect people our sins for
his son's sake. And in like manner, after God
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost has done so much for us, the
only way we can possibly be God's children, I didn't say become
God's children, I said the only way we can possibly be God's
children, the only way we can live with ourselves is to forgive
others who have done us wrong. If Christ lives in you, there's
no other way. One writer said, we can occupy
ourselves with nothing better than maintaining a forgiving
spirit. Now, it's not always easy to
forgive a brother or a sister who has really hurt you. But
I'll promise you this, it is the only way to live victoriously. and to be a blessing to anybody
else. And so this is such a serious
matter we're considering this morning. Not going to be a shouting
message. Of course, you're not too bad
for that anyhow. It's a serious message, an important
message. And I don't want you to think
I have any specific person or persons in mind. I don't. But
I feel compelled to the Lord to speak on this subject this
morning. And it can be very profitable,
it can be very liberating to someone under the sound of my
voice right now. I have known several people through
the years who for a while seemed to be sound and established in
the faith. only to have some little something
happen, something somebody said, something somebody did. And it
would ignite a little flame in their heart, a little flame of
resentment, ill feeling, bitterness, a flame that they had refused
to do anything but fan and make it bigger year after year after
year. And they so justify themselves
in it. After a while, they're not ashamed
to speak openly about it and say, well, so-and-so did this. So-and-so said this. And I'll
just be honest with you, I never got over it. Well, why didn't
you get over it? God's Word commands us to get
over I'm saying don't clutter up your
life, your mind and your heart. Don't cramp your spirit with
any such. Forgive. Let it go. Let them
off the hook. But they really hurt me. Let
them off the hook. They don't deserve to be forget, let them off the
hook. We've all heard that little line, let them off the hook,
but you probably hadn't considered really what it means. It has to be a fishing expression. Some of us have said it, all
of us I guess have said it at some time, let them off the hook. Any of us that have fished any
much in our life have said this, I hooked a big one, but he got
off. The one that got away. What does
that mean? Well, it means first that the
fish messed up. He took my bait. I hooked him. I had him. I had a claim on him. I started reading him in. He's
mine. He's caught. But then when he
got off the hook, he's not caught. He's not mine. He's as free as
if I never hooked him in the first place. That's what forgiveness
is. He or she has wronged me. But by God's grace, in my heart,
I've let them off the hook. They're as free as if I'd never
hooked them. They're as free as if they'd
never offended me. It's gone and forgotten. It's
over. It's done. Somebody says, well,
I might would forgive so-and-so if they had apologized. Wait
a minute. Wait a minute. God's forgiveness of it. See,
Armenian religion has got us into this mess. Armenian religion
has messed us up. God's forgiveness toward us precedes
our repentance and is actually the cause of our repentance. Most people think, well, you
know, I'll repent, I'll go down the aisle, I'll make a profession,
I'll get down, shed a few crocodile tears, and I'll apologize to
God and maybe He'll forgive me. No, if God has forgiven you,
He's the one that will move you. He initiates any godly sorrow,
any repentance, any shame, any confession on your part. So I
repeat, God's forgiveness of us precedes our repentance and
is actually the cause of our repentance. None can truly repent
of their sins except those already forgiven their sins in Christ. Our repentance is not the cause
of our being forgiven of God, but our being forgiven of God
is the cause of our repentance. And so our forgiveness of others
is not something to be withheld on our part until they apologize. It is rather what God says for
us to do and is something that God may use to pierce their conscience
and pierce their heart and persuade them to apologize. But whether
they ever do or don't is beside the point. We're to forgive.
We're to forgive. Hello? Y'all still here, ain't
you? Alright. We should never forget,
and I mean never forget, that God has forgiven us of far more
than we'll ever be called upon to forgive others. No one has wronged you nearly
as much as you have wronged God. Count on it. Now, looking at
the passage of our earlier reading here in Matthew 18, 21 to 35,
we need to clarify first that the issue dealt with, and I challenge
you to read these verses more when you go home, Matthew 18,
21 to 35, but we clarify that the issue dealt with here is
not regeneration, not being born again. But it is dealing with
forgiveness between brethren. Back in verse 15, when the Lord
started speaking about this, He said, If thy brother transgress
against thee. And in verse 21, Peter's question,
Lord, how shall my brother sin against me? So this is something
between brethren. It's about brothers forgiving
one another. If you try to apply this parable to salvation, to
regeneration, being born again, you'll run into several problems.
Salvation is by grace. Salvation is of the Lord, not
just from the Lord, but it is of the Lord. It is the Lord who
initiates it. So to read into this text that
in order to be forgiven of God, you must first forgive others.
would be to teach salvation by works. And that won't do. That
won't do. Again, in the end of the parable,
after the first fellow was forgiven, then because of his unforgiving
spirit, the forgiveness he had received is reversed and he's
thrown in prison. God does not forgive and then
unforgive. So don't misinterpret this. as
pertaining to regeneration or being born again. No. Christ
says in verse 23, this is how the kingdom operates. It's not
how the world operates, but it's how the kingdom operates, the
Lord's people. Now in verse 21, as we look at
this, Peter asked a question. Lord, how off shall my brother
sin against me and I forgive him till seven times. Peter actually expected to be
commended of the Lord here for his suggesting that one should
forgive the huge number of times as seven. And by the way, that is a lot
of times if you're counting. It was customary and even in
some of the rabbi's teaching to forgive a brother three times. It was pretty much incorporated
into Jewish religion. And they thought they got it
from the Bible back in the book of Amos. Chapter 1 and verse
3, thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus, and
for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. And he
repeats that concerning Gaza and Tyrus and Edom and Ammon
and Moab. He repeats it of Judah for three
transgressions of Judah. And for four, I will not turn
away the punishment thereof. He repeats it of Israel. For
three transgressions of Israel and for four I will not turn
away the punishment thereof. Now of course the issue there
was not forgiveness. The issue was withholding judgment. Big difference. But Peter had
this number three fixed in his mind as God's thinking. And now here in his zeal Peter
thinks well The master always blows everything
out of proportion. I'll just blow this out of proportion.
I'll double the three, make it six. And then I'll tack on one
for good measure. Seven. And so he says, Lord, how often
shall I forgive my brother? How about seven times? He fully expected a big smile
to break out on the Lord's face. But, verse 22 says, Jesus saith
unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until
seventy times seven. In other words, Peter quit counting. Why bother to count? And all
of you that went to school much knows that 70 times 7 is 490. But that's not what he's saying. The Lord is saying this is not
about 3 times or 7 times or 70 times 7. But he's saying, Peter,
why is it not in your heart to forgive every time? This don't
count. I feel this morning that God's
people as a whole do not understand the bondage created by and the
long-term effects of an unforgiving spirit. You say, I wonder who he's talking
to. I'm talking about you. Don't look at anybody. Huh? This is a mirror message. The one you see in the mirror,
that's who we're talking to, myself included. It's a dangerous thing, unforgiveness.
It's a lingering thing. It's a killer. It's a killer. I've had numerous young people
through the years, many years now, young boys, teenagers, and even younger than teenagers,
say to me, I hate my dad. He left us. I hate my dad. He's a drunkard. I'm ashamed of him. I hate my
dad. He's a dopehead. But they really didn't hate him.
They hated what he had done. They hated the hurt he'd brought
on his family. And I've also had girls, usually
teenage girls, and even older than their teens, say to me,
I hate my parents. I hate my mother for what she is and what she's
done. But they didn't really hate her. They hated what she'd
become. I said that to say this. You
would think that would create something in the hearts of those
young folks to determine with ever ounce
of strength in them, never, never to turn out like their parents
did. But on the contrary, they often
turn out exactly or even worse than their parents. All the hatred,
the bitterness, the unforgiveness bottled up so long finally expresses
itself in the doing of the very things that crush their young
hearts in the first place. That's hard to understand. A young man, 14 years old, crushed
that his dad was on his deathbed from the effects of alcohol in
his body. The young man said, I hate drinking.
I hate alcohol. I hate it. I hate it. I hate
it. His dad died, was buried, and in exactly four years time, at 18 years of age, he was addicted
and was a bigger drunk than his dad had ever been. and said this
four years later, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. You see, only God in His mercy
and by His grace to give us a forgiving spirit can spare us from such tragedies. Only God through his gift of
a forgiving spirit to you and to I. We ought to pray for it. We ought to ask God for it every
day. Only God can spare us such awful long-term results. Church people. And I can talk about church people.
I've been one of them all my life. I mean, long as I can remember. When I was a baby, I had a drug
problem. My mom and daddy drug me to church
on Sunday morning. They drug me to church on Sunday
night. They drug me to church on Wednesday night. I had a drug
problem. So I know about church people.
Church people play religion on the outside, hate one another's
guts on the inside. and then don't understand why
their children want to live like hell. In this parable, we see the main
character in three conditions. Let me consider these three things
hurriedly. First, he's a debtor. And there's many specifics we
could go into if time permitted. But he owes the king a large
sum of money. 10,000 talents. Now this was more than this man
could ever earn in a lifetime and pay back. The king knew it
and he knew it. But yet he fell at the king's
feet and pleaded and promised that in time he would pay him
all of it. The Bible says the king was moved
with compassion and forgave the man. So the man was first a debtor.
and was forgiven the debt. Secondly, this man is a creditor. We read that another servant
owed him a hundred pence. That was not a drop in the bucket
compared to the large amount that he had owed the king. His debtor came to him and pleaded
almost exactly as he had done. And the scripture says that he
laid hands on him, took him by the throat, and said, you're
going to pay me, mister, every dime of it. He had received forgiveness,
but he had none to give. He had no forgiving heart. When
the king heard about it, he was wroth. And this is the third
condition we find this man in. Because of his unforgiving heart,
unforgiving spirit, he became a prisoner. The king said, all
right, if that's how it is, I'll require of you all that you owe
me. This is very simple, but the
point of the whole message is this is exactly what an unforgiving
spirit does to you and I. It puts us in prison. We're talking about the freedom
of forgiveness, not the freedom of being forgiven of others.
That's nice. That's a blessed thing. But the
freedom of forgiving, that's more blessed. The person being forgiven has
much to gain, but not so much as the person doing the forgiving. I've had much trouble in my life
when I have wronged others. And it's been more times than
a few, by the way. I'm not suggesting one or two. But when I've wronged others
and had to wrestle with it, the guilt of it, miserable over it,
until finally I've had to go to people and get it straightened
out and the Lord helped me with it. But you know what? I hadn't
had near as much trouble with that. as I've had with people
who have wronged me and hurt me, and I just didn't want to
forgive them, period. There was no excuse for what
they'd done. They don't have a right to be forgiven. And I
feel like I'm justified in not forgiving them. I've had a lot
of trouble with that. That put me in prison. That put
me in prison. So the person forgiving has more
to gain than the person being forgiven. And here's how very
foolish it is not to forgive. The offender has made, many times,
doing people wrong a way of life. It just happened to be you that
day. It'll be somebody else tomorrow. And the reason we don't forgive,
what really burns us up, is that they were in the wrong, we got
hurt badly, it cost us dearly, and they don't care. They go right on like it didn't
even bother them. They don't care that they've
done you wrong. They're just off to look for
somebody else to take advantage of. And when I say it cost us dearly,
I'm not referring to something they took from us. I'm referring
to the unforgiveness in our heart. That's what really cost. And as God's child, you cannot
just bottle up that resentment, that unforgiveness. Now, if you're
not God's child, you'll hold on to it until you die in hell,
no question about it. But if you're God's child, you
cannot have any joy and victory. You cannot hold on to it. Stick
it over in some little compartment of your heart and carry it week
in and week out, year in and year out, and have the joy of
the Lord. You can't do it. Now I know we
have these little sayings. Well, I get along with so-and-so
all right, but they're not my favorite person. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that statement.
We all know people who are not our favorite person, but you
want to be real careful. You want to search your hearts. I get along with so-and-so, but...
They're alright, but... You want to be real careful.
Search your heart. And make sure that's not just
a nice way of saying, I hate their guts. We can get by with this stuff
on the outside. We're good at it. We're con artists, all of
us. But the Lord's not looking on
the outside. The Lord's looking on our heart as individuals. Now, I'm not going overboard
with this this morning. I'm not saying a forgiving spirit is
just a foolish laying down of all you are and all you have
and allow somebody to just go ahead and destroy you and all
you have. I'm not saying that. If somebody's already stolen
half your goods. I'm not saying leave the door
unlocked so they can steal the other half. I'm not saying that.
No. I'm talking about maintaining
a forgiving spirit. There's a whole lot of people
around this town of Hendersonville and around this county of Henderson
that I and you have been associated with good people, some of them,
but they don't care for the truth of the gospel. They're into this
bleeding heart religion, this God's doing his best to do as
much as he can for everybody he can and he's not getting much
done. No, no. We stay with the truth
of this book that Christ came into this world
Matthew 121, to save His people from their sins. He ain't saving
no more, no less. He's still on plan A. He don't
have a plan B. God's right on track. We're messed
up, but God's right on track. And a lot of people don't think
it important not to pervert the gospel. And they look at us as odd. having
strange beliefs because we believe what the Bible says that before
the foundation of the world God chose a number of Adam's race
in his son to redeem by his grace through the sending of his son
into this world and laying down his life and shedding his blood.
We simply believe what the Bible teaches, that every single one
for whom Christ died is safe and sure in Him forever. But folks kind of look down on
us, look at us as odd, strange beliefs. No. And I want to say
to you, the Lord really helped me with this. Had a lot of trouble
with it more than any of you through the years, I'm sure.
I want to tell you here is if we let that crowd, if I let that
crowd affect me very much, I get so down, I can't lift my head.
I can't operate. But God helps me. He helps me. Gives me a positive attitude,
a forgiving spirit toward them. And I pray, Lord, be merciful
to us and them. And I'm not mad at people. I
just believe there's a lot of ignorant people. A lot of people will mistreat
you and go on about their business. And it don't bother them a bit.
But as God's child, if you can't forgive and go on, it'll eat
you alive. and to carry that junk will plague
you as long as you live. God help us. One great man said,
and I want you to listen to this statement. I read it in an old
book, and this is really what got me to looking and nibbling
on this, meditating on this subject the Lord gave me. Here's what
he said, I am determined to permit no man to narrow and degrade
my soul by making me hate him." That's exactly what it does.
Narrows and degrades. One writer said, the world's
greatest prison, the world's worst prison, is the prison of
an unforgiving spirit. I'll conclude with this little
story I once read I know you all will be glad that I'm concluding,
but I'm going to conclude with this little story I once read,
and this makes the point well. A man had been falsely accused
of an awful crime, charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. He had a faithful friend. who
knew he was innocent and was faithful. And for years this friend would
keep trying to find new evidence and he'd go to the authorities
and he'd plead and try to get them to reopen the case and do
this and do that. He'd get discouraged and give
up and let it go a few months and then he'd get to working
in him and he'd go to trying again. Finally, after many years, he
went to the authorities and just asked and said, look, I know my friend
is innocent, but it's been a lot of years.
Innocent or not, it's been a lot of years, and I'm asking for
a pardon. And so they got the judge and
all the proceedings and agreed and granted the pardon. And the man asked, he said, I'd
like one more favor. I'd like to be the one, if you'd
let me, if you'd permit me to take the papers, go to the prison,
go to his cell, I'd like to be the one to tell him. And they agreed and said, all
right, you can do it. So he went to the prison with
the papers in his back pocket. He was carried back into the
prison, back to the cell, went inside the cell, sat down on
the side of the cot by his friend, began to talk to him. And he said to him, I'd like
to ask you a question. He said, I just wonder, what
would you do if you knew today you could walk out of this prison
and be a free man? And without any hesitation, the
man looked him in the eye and said, I would go as straight
as I could go and buy a gun And I would kill the two men that
I know are responsible for me being here. The man finished his visit, got
up and left the prison with the papers still in his back pocket. He never even told the man. It
was no use. He knew the man meant what he
said. He would have went out and committed a double murder
and been right back in there for life. The man was in a prison bigger
than the one with the steel bars. He was in the prison of an unforgiving
heart. The bitterness, hatred, Unforgiveness
in his heart cost him his freedom For the rest of his life, he'll
do the same thing to you. He'll do the same thing to me
Now you can just this can just be another Sunday and you'll
forget about it before next Sunday And just go right on with our
normal thing of going to church every Sunday and forget about
before next Sunday I'll tell you the Lord sent this. The Lord put this in my heart.
I don't know what it's for, who it's for, what it's about. I
have no idea, but I know it's right. And so I'd ask us to be
careful. Christ said from the cross, Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. You
say, but the person who did me in knew exactly. what they were
doing. Yeah, but do you know what you're
doing? And do you know what you're doing
in your heart by not forgiving, by holding
on to that? Let it go. Move on with the Lord. And again, I'm not saying there's
anybody here that hates anybody else. I don't know. But I want
to say this. This heart is deceitful. And
if you're not careful, you'll be hating somebody long before
you confess that you hate them. That's how pitiful, that's how
deceitful, how wretched this heart is. Don't let it linger. Don't dwell on being done wrong. Just realize that and rejoice
in the fact that God has done you more good than all people
put together can ever do you wrong. Don't entertain thoughts of vengeance. It'll kill you, not them. Lord, help us to realize who
the real loser is if we don't forgive. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Why? Even as God, for
Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. That's the message. Stand with me.