Look in verse 21. We'll start
reading there. Then came Peter to Him and said,
Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him? Till seven times Jesus saith
unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until
seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven
likened unto a certain king. He's going to give us a parable
now to demonstrate this, which would take account of his servants.
And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which
owed him ten thousand talents. over my margin at 750 ounces
of silver. That's a lot. That's into the
millions. But for as much as he had not
to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children
and all that he had and payment to be made. And the servant,
therefore, fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord, have patience
with me and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant
was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the
debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow
servants, which owed him a hundred pence, and he laid hands on him
and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his
fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him, saying,
Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not.
but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt.
So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very
sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done.
Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him,
O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou
desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have
had compassion on thy fellow servant, thy equal? even as I
had pity on thee, and his Lord was wroth and delivered him to
the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye
from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
What I want to look at this morning in the title of the lesson is
this, a lesson and forgiveness. Our Lord has given us here a
lesson in forgiveness. Now, the sound of that word sounds
like music to a sinner's ear. If you know what sin is, and
you know what a great debt you owe to God, and God has forgiven
you, that word sounds like music. To be forgiven. To be forgiven
of all my sins against God. To be forgiven of all the debt
that I owe, the sin debt that I owe, based on mercy. On mercy. And on that same basis, we are
to show mercy. We are to forgive. Our brother,
our brother in Adam, and our brother in Christ, both. And as we shall see, the way
that we show mercy is a real indication as to whether or not I've received
it. The way we show mercy is a real indication of my understanding
of the gospel of Christ. A real understanding of it. Our
conduct cannot be different than the one we claim to believe.
It cannot be different. Is our Heavenly Father merciful?
So are we. So are we. If we love God, John
says, we love the brethren. We love the brethren. Of my truly
loving God. I can say I love God all day.
I can say that. I can say I love God. I can say
I love Christ. But the evidence of that is how
I love you. It's how I love you. It's how
I forgive. It's how I show mercy. That's the evidence of it. Hell
is full. It's full of people who believe
election. It's full of people who believe particular redemption.
The Pharisees believed that. The Pharisees believed they were
it. They believed that they were the only ones that were going
to be redeemed. They believed that. But they did not love Christ,
and they did not love the brethren. Christ said, you're full of dead
men. You're a bunch of vipers. He said, that's what you are. But a true indication of my love
to God, to Christ, and that I have received mercy is how I treat
you. That's so. Now, Peter asked the Lord, how
often, how often shall I forgive my brother? Seven times? This is sad. Here's something
sad. That we even ask that question. Did I even ask how often should
I forgive my brother? Here's a question that will settle
that question. Now get this, how often do you
want God to forgive you? That settles it, doesn't it?
I don't have to go any further with this. How often do I want
God to forgive me? Well, on that same basis, I forgive
my brothers. My brothers, my sister, whether
in Adam or in Christ, it doesn't matter. Remember this with about Peter
and the apostles, and especially that day, they were brought up
under the law and the law taught limits. Eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, life for life. But the gospel, the gospel teaches
us to forgive without limits. It teaches us to forgive as we
have been forgiven. How have we been forgiven? Well,
we've been forgiven completely. We've been forgiven freely. We
have been forgiven, it says in Ephesians 4.32, for Christ's
sake. God did not forgive me for my
sake. The Word of God teaches us that
you and I, who have been forgiven, have been forgiven for Christ's
sake. That's why. For his namesake, John says over
1st John 2.12, we've been forgiven for his namesake. It never said
for my sake. It's for his sake. We are to harbor a spirit of
forgiveness, ready to forgive. And this is serious because over
Matthew 6, look back at Matthew chapter 6, look how serious this
matter is. In Matthew 6, verse 12, he says, And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the
power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you forgive not men their trespasses, Neither will your
Father forgive you yours." He won't forgive. That's serious,
isn't it? That's a serious matter. Not to be able to forgive is
to end up being unforgiven. Now, what we have in verses 23
through 27, and everyone here who has experienced the grace
and mercy of God, can rejoice in this great debt
forgiven. We have a debt forgiven. Now,
this parable starts out with a kingdom and a king. And this
king represents the Lord God Almighty. All belong to Him. All are His servants. All principalities serve Him. Willingly or unwillingly, they
serve Him. All creation serves Him. All the angelic hosts serve Him. All men and women serve Him,
knowingly, unknowingly, willingly, unwillingly, all serve Him, all
serve His purpose. Even the wrath of man serves
Him, and the rest He restrains. Right? All are his servants and all
shall give account. He has the right to call everyone
into account. Everyone. Now, the king comes
and he takes account of his servants. And there is one there who owes
a great debt. And he's brought, and he owes
a thousand talents. We're talking millions of dollars
here in our language. Millions of dollars. And I tell
you what, there's no way he's going to pay that debt off. Even
if it's interest free, he's not going to pay it off. That's right. Even if it's interest free, he's
not going to pay it off. I don't care if it's on sale. If you
can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you don't have the money to
pay it off, you can't pay it off. And this one, he owes so much, it
is not possible for him to pay it off. He can't live long enough
to pay it off. Not possible. Here's the point. God has forgiven. You say that God has saved you.
I say God has saved me. God has forgiven me a mammoth
mammoth debt of sin that I owed to him, owed to his law. Listen,
I owed and I owe a great debt of obedience. I can't pay that, not in this
flesh. I owe a debt of love. I'm to
love God with all my heart, my soul, my mind. I'm to love God
perfectly. Can you pay that debt? Can you
do that? I am, I owe God a debt of worship. God is to be worshipped. I mean,
he's to be worshipped from the heart. He's to be worshipped
with perfection. With a perfect heart. Can you
do that? I can't do that. I would to God
I could do that, but not in this flesh. Sin is like compounding interest. You just keep building and building
and building. There's no way you're going to
get rid of it. You and I can't get rid of it. We sin trying
to get rid of it. We can't live long enough. You
say, I'm going to straighten up. I'm going to fly right. It doesn't
matter. You cannot fly right. You can't
do it. As much as I want to. I know
that in this flesh, and I desire to do that. Be ye holy for I
am holy. I desire that. But I know that in this life, I can't do that. I can't give
that perfect obedience. We ought to have the attitude
of it. Our attitude is to be holy, isn't it? Our attitude
is to sin not. But when any man sins, if any
man sins, John says, when any man sins, we're going to do it.
It's a debt we can't pay off. It's a mammoth debt. And sin's got to be reckoned
with. God, listen. The parable doesn't cover everything.
Not everything in the parable. It's teaching us a lesson here
on forgiveness. But God cannot just forgive me my sins. Somebody's
got to pay for it. God cannot just look at me and
say, you're forgiven. No, He can't. God can't. The law's got to be satisfied.
Justice got to be satisfied. Someone's got to pay for that.
And I'll touch on that here in a little bit. But it's got to
be reckoned with. It's got to be called into account.
It's got to be dealt with. And this servant here is brought
to the king and his debt is revealed. Oh boy. The law is going to reveal
his debt. The law reveals our debt. I tell
you what, the law has everything down that you and I owe. The law is going to reveal his
debt. And it's revealed. And in verse 25, the servant
had nothing to pay. He had nothing to pay. He's brought,
a debt is revealed, this mammoth debt is revealed, and he has
nothing to pay. What can you pay God for your
inequity? You can't do it. What can you
pay God for your disobedience? What can you pay God for your
evil thoughts? What can you pay? You have nothing
to pay. I have nothing to pay. I don't
have the currency that's called for in this matter. That's how spiritually bankrupt
we are. We have nothing to pay. The dead
is mammoth. It's to be paid. And I'm broke. You ever been broke? I've been
broke a few times. You ever been broke? You can't
pay anything when you're broke, can you? You can give promises,
you can plead, you can do whatever, but you can't pay because you're
broke. Broke. And this is the place
we have to be brought to. We've got to be brought to this
place where we realize that we are broke and we can't pay anything
to God. for our sins. Can't do it. Now, this servant, as I said,
he owes so much that it was impossible for him to pay it off. And that's
what seeing is it's a debt we cannot pay off. The fact that
we continually keep sending reveals that we can't pay it off. If
you'll notice here also, the king commanded that the service
family You see, listen, I've never sinned
alone. You've never sinned alone. Whatever
you do will always affect somebody else. And the older ones, you
know, you've lived long enough to know that the choices you
make affect your family. You be careful making choices.
Decisions, they have consequences. And the choices you make will
affect your family. Choices this man made affected
his whole family. And the king said, bring his
family, because they belonged to me too. They belonged to me. And they were to be brought,
his family was to be sold, his possessions were to be sold,
because all of it belonged to the king. And payment. was to be made. The debt was
not going to be paid off. He didn't own enough to pay it
off. Just a payment made. He's making
a point here. Just a payment was going to be made. Just a
payment. And he said, have patience with
me. Have patience and I'll pay it
off. Don't you reckon he's had a lot
of patience up till now? I started to bring a message
this morning, or lesson this morning, on the patience of God.
The older I get, the more I stand amazed at the patience of God,
the long-suffering of God, what He puts up with in me, in you,
and in this world, what God puts up with. It's amazing! It's just
as amazing to me as any of His other attributes, His patience. What he puts up with, the long
suffering of God, waited in the days of Noah while that ark was
being... He put up with those people,
those rebels. And he said, have patience with
me. He's had a lot of patience with us. If he could not make the payment
before, what makes you think he can make
it now? If I can't take care of the past, what makes me think
I can take care of the future? I can't do it. It's not possible. We are so, by nature now, by
nature, we are so spiritually ignorant as to our sin debt that
we think we can actually pay it off eventually until God enlightens
us, until God opens our eyes. If that were possible, Hell would
have an end, wouldn't it? Hell wouldn't be forever if you
could eventually pay it off. But the reason hell is eternal
is because there's no way of paying off the debt. There's
no way for us to do it. Now the grace of our Lord is
revealed. He's moved, it says in verse 27, He's moved with
compassion. He's moved with compassion. And
every time, you know, in the Scripture, when Christ was moved
with compassion, he did something about it. I could be moved with
compassion, but not always, not always can I do something about
it. And it's really not always compassion. I just feel sorry
for somebody, but then it stops. You don't take that next step
and try to do something about it. Our Lord always did something
about it. He was moved with compassion over the multitude. He fed them.
Twice. But here the grace of our Lord
is revealed. You see, the debt is mammoth. The man has nothing to pay. And
he begs his Lord to have compassion, or to have mercy, or to have
patience. He said, have patience with me. Well, the Lord did more
than that, didn't He? I want to tell you something.
I do need the Lord to have more than just patience with me. I
need mercy. I need forgiveness. I need to
slate white and clean. Well, I can't pay it off. I can't do
it. The Lord knew the poverty of
His servant. He had compassion on him. He
said, Loose him. Isn't that what the Lord did to us? Did He not
loose us and set us free from the curse of the law, from the demand of justice? Did
He not loose us and set us free? Did he not do that? Did he not
do that in our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ? Our surety paid
the bill in full. As I said earlier, the Lord said,
he's not going to just forgive me a sin, there's got to be,
that has to be dealt with. And our surety is the one who
paid the bill. He paid the debt. He paid it. He paid the sin debt in full.
He did it by His perfect obedience. You see, I said we owe a debt
of obedience. He gave it. My meat is to do
the will of Him that sent me. He gave that perfect obedience.
He gave that perfect love. He gave it. And He gave it for
us. Us who believe. Us who are called of God. By His obedience, by His death,
by His righteousness, the slate is clean. Forgiven. Forgiven. Now, all those who truly have
been forgiven, that mammoth sin-debt will not, or should not, Have
trouble forgiving these little offenses. And believe me, they're
just little compared to what we did to God and what we owe
to Him. They're just little. Don't ever
compare. Do you know what He did to me?
Do you know what you did to God? There's the question. It's not
what you did to me. It's what did we do to Him. And
He's forgiven all. And on that basis, we forgive
all. And if you've tasted the mercy of God, you'll do it. You can do it. Now, here's the
seriousness of this matter. 28 through 35. Now, I'll try
to hurry. I'm taking too long. Here's the
evidence. What we have here is evidence
of forgiveness experienced or not in the heart. Truly experienced or not. Now,
this servant, that's forgiven of all this debt, he takes a
fellow servant, a fellow servant, his equal. You see, he's not
equal to the king who forgave him, but he took a fellow servant
who's equal to him. He must have borrowed some money
off of him, about like, I don't know, a few dollars, pocket change.
I mean, it really is just pocket change. So he goes to him, his
equal, and he grabs him by the throat and says, you pay me what
you owe me. It gets him by the throat and he's going to choke
it out of him. I'll tell you something, when somebody grabs
you by the throat and chokes you, they hate you. You should mark
it down now. There's no love there. He's had
more than just a bad day. And he takes him by the throat
and he tries to choke it out of him. Boy, does this reveal something.
Man, does this reveal something here. I want you to notice verse thirty
one, when his fellow servants saw what was done. You know,
you and I can say how much we love God. We can say we believe all the
doctrines. But the old adage is still true, actions are louder,
speak louder than words. Actions speak louder than words.
It's what we do, it's not what we say. It's what we do. Our
actions prove whether or not we love God, whether or not we
understand and believe the gospel. It proves that. Our actions prove
it. The life of Christ in the soul.
I was thinking about this last night and this morning. I wrote
this down this morning. The life of Christ in the soul
is not revealed so much. Now, if God saves a sinner, that
sinner is going to believe the right doctrine. He's going to
believe the doctrine of Christ. He's going to believe that. But
there's a lot of people who believe election and these things, and
they're not saved. They don't know God. But the
life of God, the life of Christ in the soul is revealed. Now
here, listen, it's revealed in love. In forgiveness? In giving? Love your enemies? It takes the grace of God to
enable me to love an enemy. It takes the same grace that God
took to love me. It takes the same. And that's where the life of
God is revealed. That's where it's revealed. Now, in verse 33, he says to
him, should you not forgive your fellow servant as I forgave you?
Here's the lesson, Peter. Disciples. Us. Here's the lesson. Should you
not forgive your fellow servant as I forgave you? Because you
desired me to. You ask me to? Can you do it just on that basis?
Ask, he said, and you shall receive. My brother said, forgive me. He said, forgive you. Men will be dealt with as they
deal with others. The absence of a forgiving spirit
is the absence of Christ. It's the absence of Christ. If you have Christ, if I have
Christ, I cannot help but forgive you. I cannot help but love you. I cannot help but go that second
mile. I know we still have sin in us. But did not the Lord say
that sin shall not have dominion over you? Over in the book of
Romans, he said through Paul, shall not sin, it will not have
dominion over you, it will not rule your life. Paul said, O wretched man that
I am, but he didn't live like a wretch after that, did he?
He didn't live like a wretch, but he knew he was one. Here's the point of the parable.
So likewise, verse 35, I'll close this. So likewise shall my heavenly
Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not
every one his brother their trespasses. Every one. Let me back up to
verse 34 a minute. His Lord, it says, was wrath,
delivered him to the tormentors. He delivered him to be tormented,
till he should pay all that was due unto him. Now, I tell you this, if they
put you in jail, you can't pay what you owe. You can't pay it. You don't make any money. You
don't make anything. The debt piles up, the bills
keep coming, and you're locked up, and you can't pay. So guess what? He's going to be
in there forever and ever and ever. Now, verse 35, so likewise shall
my heavenly Father do also to you if you from your hearts,
not just it's not a pretense, it's not a it's not a well, the
Bible says I have to forgive you, so I'm going to forgive
you. Of course, I have to. No, he said from your hearts,
it's a genuine This reveals a genuine work of grace in the heart. If
I, from the heart, can love and forgive my brother. From your heart. Real forgiveness
comes from a regenerate heart. That's the evidence. That's one
of the evidences. If a person cannot do that, it's
evident that person's lost. It's evident. If you can't do
it, you just can never forgive. It's because you've never tasted
that the Lord is gracious. Never tasted. However, those
who have tasted that the Lord is gracious are able to forgive
and they are debt free. debt-free, solely on the basis
of mercy. And that's the basis on which
we forgive.