now let's turn to matthew chapter
six and i'm also also want you to go to matthew chapter eighteen
over inverse twenty three of matthew eighteen i want to read
the scriptures before we get started here on the essentials
of true prayer uh... the last part of the model prayer
in matthew chapter six uh... beginning verse twelve And this
is where the Lord says, forgive us our debts. Verse 12, as we
forgive our debtors. And then verse 13, he says, lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Literally that's
from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. Amen. And then in verses 14 and
15, now this is after he's concluded the prayer. because of the amen
which is a so be it that's how we conclude our prayers but I
want to include these two verses he says for if you forgive men
their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you
but verse 15 if you forgive not men their trespasses neither
will your father forgive your trespasses alright now The problem
that exists in these verses is they've really been a great source
of misunderstanding and division even among professing Christians. And the issue is this, is Christ
teaching here a conditional forgiveness of our sins? That God forgives
us based upon our forgiving others, all right, and does not forgive
us based upon our not forgiving others. And that question certainly
is compounded when you read verses
14 and 15 about the forgiveness of sin. Well, I have seven things
that I want you to consider as truths from the scripture concerning
this issue of the forgiveness of sins. But before we go there,
go to Matthew chapter 18 and look at verse 23. Now this is
a parable that the Lord taught. The first thing I want, before
I read this parable, this parable is a parable about forgiveness.
Forgiveness of death. But I want you to understand
something. Now, whenever you look at parables, you know, parables
are symbolic stories that illustrate a truth that has already been
established. Parables do not establish doctrine. Okay? Parables illustrate doctrine. So whenever you go to the parables,
don't go there to get your doctrine. The parables are meant to illustrate
certain things that have already been established. Secondly, keep
the parable in its context. What is the parable illustrating?
So this parable we're gonna read, it's a short parable. This parable
is not a parable illustrating how God saves sinners. All right? Now understand that. This parable
is not a parable about how God saves sinners. This is a parable
illustrating issue of forgiveness, okay? and what the forgiveness
of sins should bring that's what it's about so look at the parable
Matthew chapter 18 and look at verse 23 it says therefore is
the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would
take account of his servants and when he begun to reckon one
was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents now
in our modern monetary system that would be about a million
dollars And it says in verse 25, but as 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. The servant
therefore fell down and worshiped him saying, Lord, have patience
with me and I will pay thee all. And then the Lord of that servant
was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the
debt. You see, this isn't a parable
about salvation. You know, God must be just when
he justifies, as far as salvation goes. But this is about something
else. This is about compassion. And
he says in verse 28, but the same servant went out and found
one of his fellow servants, which owed him 100 pence, a whole lot
less. And he laid hands on him and
took him by the throat, saying, pay me that thou owest me. And
this fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him
saying, have patience with me and I'll pay thee all. Same thing
he said to the king and he would not, but went and cast him into
prison till he should pay the debt. Now that's an impossibility. How are you going to pay the
debt in prison? Yeah. Verse 31. 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. You asked me. Shouldest
not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant even as
I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth or angry,
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 you from your hearts forgive not
every one his brother their trespasses." Okay? Now again, that's a beautiful
parable, isn't it? And it teaches a hard and a very
eye-opening lesson about forgiveness. It's not how God saves sinners.
God, the Bible's clear that God must be just when he forgives. In fact, one of the One of the
passages of scripture that I've got cited in your lesson is 1
John 1, I think it's seven, where he talks about if you confess
your sins, he is faithful and what? Just to forgive you your
sins. He's got, God's faithful, that
means he's gonna do it the way he promised to do it. He's faithful
to his promise, but he's gotta be just when he does it too.
Payment has to be made. That's why Christ had to come
and die on the cross, okay? So understand that. Now, whenever
you talk about this, all right? Now, let me give you seven things
I've got listed in your lesson that you need to consider when
you look at the model prayer back here. And he talks about
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And verse 14, 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 your trespasses. What's he talking
about? Well, the first thing, notice how the Lord uses two
different words here. He uses debts and trespasses. And they're both words for sin.
That's what it is. The Bible says the wages of sin
is debt, often in the Bible, The issue of sinning against
God is described as a debt. You run up a debt. Now we should
understand that just like a criminal. A criminal who commits a crime,
a lot of times when they're caught and they're taken to court and
they're sentenced to a certain number of years in prison or
even to death if it's a capital punishment crime, we say they've
got to pay their debt to society. Well, sin runs up a debt. And
that's very significant to understand that because the doctrine of
imputation teaches that the sins of God's elect, his sheep, his
church, that their sin debt was imputed, charged, accounted to
Christ. He's our surety. he took our
debt upon himself that's what the bible means in second corinthians
five twenty one when it says he was made sin that means our
sins were imputed to him and he paid the debt in hebrews chapter
two verse seventeen it talks about it behooved him to be made
like unto his brethren means the debt he was indebted to do
so so you've got that word and then the word trespasses The
word trespass involves stepping over the line. You know, if you
trespass on somebody's property, you've crossed their property
line. Well, God drew a line in the sand back in the Garden of
Eden. He said, Adam, every tree you
can eat of except this one, there's the line. Adam stepped across
the line. He trespassed. And sometimes
there's other words for sin, but they all have to do with
sin against God. So that's what he's talking about.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. That word
sin means to fall short. Now here's what we've got to
understand now. In light of that, and this question
is at the last of that number one, can anything we do Whatever
it is, including forgiving others, can anything we do pay our debt
to God's justice? And what's the answer the Bible
gives? No. If I forgive you, and I should
forgive you if you trespass against me, or if you run up a debt,
in my case, should you forgive me? Yes. But will that pay God? Will that pay God's justice for
our debt to him? Well, the Bible's clear it doesn't.
So here's what, and I've got here, it takes the blood of Christ
to pay our debt, to clear us of our trespasses and make us
righteous before God. That's what it takes according
to this book. So now, if he's teaching conditional forgiveness
here, That flies in the face of the very basic precept of
grace in the Bible. And you'd have to say, well,
there's a big contradiction here. All right, here's the second
thing. Look at number two. The Bible's clear that because
of our sins, neither salvation nor any blessing of salvation,
including the forgiveness of our sins, The forgiveness of
our debts and trespasses can be earned or deserved by our
attempts to keep the law. By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight. If I can earn the forgiveness
of sins, it's not grace. The Bible's clear. You cannot
earn any blessing of salvation from God. It's not a matter. You see, it's not a matter of
putting God into a position where he's obligated to us because
of what we do or don't do. If it is, it's not grace. Read
Romans 4. In other words, if it's something
we do, if it's by works, even the work of forgiveness, and
I know how false preachers do that. They say, oh, that's not
works. It is too. If you earn God's blessings by
doing it, it's a work. Even faith, you know, somebody
says, well, faith is a condition for salvation. You've just made
it a work that separates you from the rest of humanity who
refuses to believe. That's not a rationalization.
That's why faith is the gift of God. That's why faith has
a foundation and an object, to put it in its proper place. So
understand that, see? Now, here's the third thing.
Salvation, including the forgiveness of sins, is a matter of God's
grace, not our works. It's based on the blood of Christ.
Now look over there at Ephesians chapter one. I've got like maybe
three scriptures there, but let's just turn to this one. This is
Ephesians chapter one. Here he's talking about, in Ephesians
one, how the whole salvation of a sinner The eternal aspect
of it, the legal aspect of it, the spiritual aspect of it is
all of grace. It's a gift. And it's not deserved
or earned by any of us, but look at verse six. He's talking about how salvation
is to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein, in His
grace now, God hath made us accepted in the beloved, and who's the
beloved there? That's Christ. Verse seven, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, and then the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. If we're saved by the grace of
God, we are sinners, but we're forgiven. of all sins. First John 1-7 says that. He
is faithful just to cleanse us from all sin and all unrighteousness. There's not, you know, I know
that the Catholics, you know, they divide sins up. There's
light sins and venial sins and then there's, what they call
them, mortal sins and all of that. The Bible doesn't teach
that. Now, I'll grant you this. In society, in our society, as
we live on this earth, there are some sins that are worse
than others, aren't there? I mean, I see it that way. You
take somebody who goes out and harms a little child or something,
or molest a child, I think that's the worst, if you think about
it. Murder, murder's a whole lot
worse than adultery to me. Adultery's bad enough. But in God's sight, it's not
that way. Isn't that right? In God's sight,
all sin deserves death. So when we talk about mortal
sins, Hey friend, that's us. That's what we deserve and earn.
And if we're not, if we don't get what we deserve and earn,
what is it? It's grace. God's grace. And I'll tell you
that ought to humble us, isn't it? Now, none of us, if, here's
the point. If God forgiving my sins were
conditioned on my forgiving others, then none of us would be forgiven.
Now that's the way it is. Now somebody says, well, you
know, I'm a forgiving person. I bet I could come up with a
scenario where you'd have a tough, tough time forgiving. You say,
well, I eventually would. Yeah, but it wouldn't be easy.
Let somebody harm one of your, you love your children and your
grandchildren, let somebody do something bad to them. You say,
well, I've seen it even, even unbelievers will look at people
sometimes say, I forgive you. But you think about that. Just
think about that within yourself. We're such a pitiful lot, aren't
we? Well, look at number four. We must keep in mind that the
Lord is teaching of obedience here that God requires of true
citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven now. That's
what he's talking about. And what is the kingdom of heaven?
It's a kingdom of grace. Isn't that right? It's the kingdom
of Christ who rules with a righteous scepter. So this is the citizens,
he's talking about here's how the citizens of the kingdom of
heaven. What are citizens of the kingdom?
They're sinners saved by grace. They're sinners who are forgiven
by grace, mercy. That's what we are, okay? And
it's the kingdom of grace and how does grace reign and rule?
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what this is about. This
is not Christ teaching the law as a means of attaining God's
favor and forgiveness. In fact, he's going against that.
The Pharisees taught that. And he's saying, well, now this
is the way it is. They taught you wrong. So whatever we read
here, including the believer's attitude, our character, our
conduct, it's got to be kept within the context of the kingdom
of heaven, the kingdom of God's grace, and how salvation comes
to sinners, how forgiveness comes to sinners, and a true believer's
obedience in any area, including the forgiveness of sin, how is
it to be motivated? Not by law. Not by, well, if
I don't do this, God's going to condemn me. No, it's to be
motivated by grace, by love, by gratitude for something that
God has freely and unconditionally given me through Christ. That's
the whole issue. You know, a lot of times the
charge, whenever we preach God's grace the way it ought to be
preached, A lot of times the charge that comes from unbelievers,
even professing Christians, is, well, if that's true, I don't
have to forgive anybody. I don't have to obey God. Here's
what they're saying. Paul dealt with this in Romans
chapter 6. What they're saying is, well, if that's true, that
God freely and unconditionally and fully forgives me of every
sin, Without my doing anything, then I just won't do anything.
Here's what they're saying. You've removed every motive they
have to be forgiving. Well, here's the point. Grace
removes every ungodly motive that we have to be forgiving. But grace also, in parts, gives
a godly motive for forgiving. And what is that motive? Grace,
love, and gratitude. Why should I forgive you when
you sin against me? Now, I know all sin is against
God, ultimately. That's what David said in Psalm
51. When he sinned against Uriah, when he sinned against Bathsheba,
when he sinned against Israel, he said, against thee and thee
only have I sinned, talking about God, because all sin is against
God. But why should I forgive you when you do things wrong
to me? I'll tell you why. Look at what all I've done wrong
to God, and look at how he's forgiven me. Now, is it easy
for me to forgive others? Is it easy for you? No. Listen,
we're still sinners, aren't we? We have to struggle. That's part
of the warfare of the flesh and the spirit. I mean, I think about
some people now who've done me wrong and it just wells up in
me, you know, and I just... That kind of thing. I shouldn't
do that. That's not right. That's not
right. And like I said, I look at how
God has forgiven me. And that's what inspires me to
be forgiving to them. That's how that battle's won. It's not by Bill's such a great
person or so forgiving. No, it's because God's grace has forgiven me of all my sins,
all my trespasses, all my debts. Think about it. I can stand before
God and say I'm righteous. How, how in the world can I say
that? By grace that reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's
it. And that, that, that, that's
every believer, every believer. Well, where are we on the fifth
one? All right, look at number five.
This shows us that whatever act of obedience is described in
this sermon as required by God and as identifying true children
of the kingdom as in the Beatitudes, this act of obedience is never
a condition we must meet in order to earn or gain God's salvation
or any blessing of it. It's always the fruit and evidence. Now there's your key now. What
he's talking about in the model prayer is the evidence of one
who has already been freely, fully, graciously forgiven by
God through the blood of Jesus Christ. You remember that parable
in Matthew 18? That fellow should have forgiven
the one who owed him the money because he had been forgiven
of much more by his Lord, but he didn't. And so what happened? Well, he's going to get his just
desserts. And this is what he's saying. This is the fruit. Christ said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches, you bear fruit. And part of that fruit is a forgiving
spirit, a forgiving attitude towards others. Now again, I'm
not saying that we have that imperfection and that it's easy.
We struggle. But the struggle is a struggle
of grace and not a struggle of law. You probably experienced in your
lifetime messages on giving. I mean, giving money to the church. I'll never forget this one time,
we had an evangelist come in, a Southern Baptist church that
I was a member of. And he had a message on forgiving.
And here's basically how it was put to us. It said, you either
give your tithe or God's gonna carry it out the back of the
door in a pine box. And basically the flip side of
that is if you give your 10%, God will give you more. Now that's
not biblical. And here's the thing about it.
You may give your 10%, your 20%, your 30%, and God may give you
more, but you still didn't earn it. He may or may not. He may give you more in other
ways. I don't know. I know there's a blessing connected
with it, but the blessing's not earned and it's not deserved.
It's just the way God does things. Can you handle that? That's called
the advanced citizenship of being a true child of God. That's what
it is. It is advanced citizenship, isn't
it? It's not the workings and the
doings of legal slaves, you see. But it's doing what we do because
we love the Lord. And that's what he's talking
about in this forgiveness. No act we can do can earn forgiveness
or make us righteous before God. But every act that we do in obeying
his commandments is to be done as motivated by the fact that
he's already, as Ephesians 1, 3 says, blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Look at number
six on the back. Just as faith is the gift of
God to his chosen, justified, and redeemed children, the forgiveness
of sins is the gift of God given to all his children based solely
upon the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Forgiveness is a gift. It's not payment. It's not God paying us for what
we do. And then I quoted that, I've got that quoted, 1 John
1.7 and 1.9. The only ground upon which God
can be faithful and just to forgive us our sins is the merits of
Christ's righteousness alone. Period. Mark it down. And then
number seven. It's true, however, that when
God the Holy Spirit in the new birth gives us life and knowledge
of how God freely forgives us and unconditionally forgives
us based on the blood of his son, he brings us to faith in
Christ and true repentance of our sins, and that's where he
imparts the spirit of forgiveness within us that motivates us and
causes us to desire and to attempt to be forgiving to others. And
that's something we have to be reminded of all the time, don't
we? So many times our first reaction
is vengeance, isn't it? We want retribution. That's the
flesh, isn't it? That's why Paul wrote in Romans
12, by inspiration of the Spirit, when he said, vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord. We were watching at Law and Order,
and they talk about the death penalty. And most people are
against the death penalty today. because they say it's not compassionate. Well, in the Bible, the death
penalty is not about compassion. You know what the death penalty
is about? It's about justice. Justice. And let me tell you
something, justice is a lost art in our society today. Actually, the death penalty is
really not even about, in its nth degree, discouragement of
crime. I believe it does discourage
crime in a lot of ways. And that's a good branch of it. But it's about justice. Justice. And we do have that sense in
our conscience. When somebody does us wrong,
we want justice. We want them to get their just desserts. in society we have to operate
that way or we'd have anarchy. I mean, if there was no, if there
were no laws, there are no penalties, we'd be out. But when it comes
to a right relationship with God, there we're on a different
plane. And I know this, if I would pick
out a person and say, well now that person is my worst enemy,
who would do me the most harm. Okay? Here's what I know in my
heart. I know that if God were to ever
save that person, our relationship would be different. God would
ever bring that person to know Christ the way I know Christ. If God were to ever show that
person the forgiveness of sins the way I've experienced the
forgiveness of sin, my relationship with that person would be different. Now we may not be the best of
friends, we may not be social buddies or anything like that,
but I know he or she would no longer be my worst enemy who'd
do me the worst harm. So what do I pray for that person?
God forgive them. Now Christ did that on the cross,
didn't he? Forgive them, for they know not what they do. And
that person doesn't know what they're doing. They don't. You see that? It's the forgiveness
of sins. And so, when God saves us, He
does give us a spirit of forgiveness. Now, it's not perfect. It's still
a struggle. We're still selfish. But being
assured of the forgiveness of our debts and trespasses that
God has bestowed upon us by His grace in Christ, that's the strongest
motivation for us to be forgiving towards one another and towards
others. And so that's what he's describing.
Well, let me conclude this. Look at verse 13. Here he says,
lead us not into temptation. God does not tempt anyone for
evil. Satan does. But we're still plagued
with the remaining influences and contamination of the flesh,
and there are numerous temptations around us. Every day we face
them, don't we? And these things, and listen,
we would be subject to them, we would submit to them, we'd
succumb to them if it weren't for the grace of God, wouldn't
we? And that's what he's talking
about. He's not talking about God tempting anybody with evil,
but he's talking about God bring us through. those things that
do tempt us and test us. And then he says, he says, but
deliver us from evil or the evil one, Satan, that's what he's
talking about. He's always accusing and attacking
brethren. But we cannot, but he cannot
win. I don't know why I put that he
in capitals. Mark that out. I don't put Satan's he's in capitals.
I always do that. That's just a mistake. but he
cannot win because we're saved by grace, we're protected, we're
preserved by God's grace. Read Revelation chapter 12, and
it'll show you Satan's defeat in that area. And then he concludes
this with, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever,
amen. All of this is to the praise
of the glory of God's grace in Christ. All right.