Well, good morning to everyone.
If you'd open your Bibles with me, the book of Matthew chapter
18 is where our lesson will be from this morning. Matthew chapter
18. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we bow before your
throne this morning, seeking a blessing from the storehouses
of thy word this morning. how we pray that you would be
our teacher, that you enable us to hear with an ear of faith
and to learn more of our Lord Jesus Christ, learn to trust
him more fully, learn to serve and help one another in a better
fashion. Father, I pray that you would
be with me and be with our teachers this morning, that you would
enable us to rightly divide the word of truth, to in clear and
simple terms proclaim our Lord Jesus Christ, that you might apply your word
to our hearts this morning, that we might leave here this morning
believing in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we dare not sin against
thee in forgetting to pray for your people that are in time
of trouble and trial. We pray for your hand of healing,
comfort, and direction upon them that you might lead them out
as soon as it could be thy will. Father, we pray that in all things
that you might enable us to see your glory in everything that
you're doing and working in our day. Father, show us your glory,
we pray, in the redemptive power of our Lord Jesus Christ. For
it's in his blessed name we pray and give thanks, amen. Now our
title of our lesson this morning is Forgiveness and Forgiving. The Lord gives us a parable on
forgiveness. And this parable shows us, first
of all, how God forgives the sin of his people. And if the
Holy Spirit will show us that, show us how God has forgiven
our sin, we'll be motivated to forgive one another. That's the
point of the parable that the Lord gives us. And you know,
this is something that we have to be taught. God's people have
been given a heart, a heart of forgiveness, a heart of love.
That's the nature that God gives his people in the new birth.
But this is also true. We have to be taught to love.
We have to be taught to forgive. And that's what the Lord's doing
for us here. And Lord gives this parable as we read it. You're
familiar with it. The Lord gives this parable and
answer. to Peter's question about how often we should forgive our
brother. Verse 21 of Matthew chapter 18. Then came Peter to
him and said, Lord, how often my brother sin against me and
I forgive him till seven times. Peter probably thought he's really,
you know, doing something, you know, real well just till seven
times. Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven
times, but until 70 times seven. Now the answer to Peter's question,
how often should I forgive my brother, is not 70 times seven,
not mathematically. The Lord does not mean 490 times. Seven is the number of perfection
in scripture. What the Lord's teaching us here
is to forgive our brothers always, to forgive them perfectly. And
the Savior gives us the motivation that we're to have to forgive
one another. He gives us this parable, and
the first thing it teaches us There's several things about
the way, how it is God forgives our sin. In the parable that
we'll read it here in just a minute, the king is a picture of God
and the servants in the story or parable are pictures of God's
elect. And the first thing Lord's teaching us is this, sin is a
debt, a debt that we owe to God. Verse 23, therefore is the kingdom
of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account
of his servants, And when he had begun to reckon, one was
brought unto him, which owed him 10,000 talents. Now, scripture sometimes calls
sin by a lot of different ways. It describes sin to us in many
different ways. Sometimes scripture refers to
sin as an uncleanness, a spiritual disease like leprosy. Sometimes
scripture calls sin death. Sometimes it's bondage, bondage
to sin. You can't quit sinning, can you? That's the bondage to
sin. But here, our Lord calls sin a debt, a debt that we owe
to God, and that's a debt that absolutely must be paid. Now,
God's our creator. God's our master. Everything
we have, everything every human being has, God gave him, didn't
he? Everything. Well, doesn't it stand to reason
that we're obligated to be obedient to him? Doesn't it just stand
to reason? God's commanded us. It's only
right that we obey Him. But I'll tell you what's more,
God's commandments are always good and right. God's commandments
are always best for us. Always. Yet we never obey. Ever. Not one commandment. God
commands us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind.
God's perfect. God's holy. What's not to love? We owe it to God to keep his
commandment, to love him, to obey him. Yet we never do. And every transgression of God's
law is sin. And it just keeps adding to our
sin debt against God. And God's holy. So that debt
must be paid. It must be. God's justice must
be satisfied. God's holy character must be
satisfied. Every debt must be paid. And
one day God's going to take account of all of his creatures, just
like the king here took account of all of his servants. One day
God's going to take account of all of his creatures and the
accounts are going to be settled. And the debt's not going to be
paid with silver and gold. The debt is going to be paid with
lives and with eternal souls. And I say paid, but you know
what? If God cast us into hell, the debt will never be paid.
Our soul will be lost. but the debt will never be paid.
An eternity, never ending suffering, will never, on our part, will
never pay for one sin. Scripture says, the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. The debt must be paid. All right,
number two. Our sin debt against God, the
debt must be paid. What kind of debt are we looking
at here? What's the total bill? Our sin debt against God is infinite.
Verse 24, when he begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which
owed him 10,000 talents. Now 10,000 talents is a definite
number, but it represents an indefinite, an infinite number. I look this up, 10,000 talents
is a measure of silver that's worth over $175.5 million, nearly
$176 million. But that represents an infinite
debt. There are people who could pay
$175 million debt, aren't there? But this is a parable. Remember,
you don't take things in a parable literally. What our Lord is teaching
us, and we'll see in comparison the two different debts, we'll
see this in a minute. But our sin debt is infinite. And it's
a debt that we can never, ever pay. on our own. We don't have
a nature. We don't have a soul. We don't
have blood that's able, that's worth anything to pay our infinite
sin debt. Here's the third thing. We've
got a debt against God, sin debt, a debt we cannot pay, but there's
good news. God freely and fully forgives
the sin of his people. Verse 25, but for as much as
he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and
his children and all that he had and payment to be made. The
servant therefore fell down and worshiped him. He fell down and
begged him saying, Lord, have patience with me and I'll pay
the all. If you just wait long enough,
I'll pay the, I'll pay you everything. Then the Lord of that servant
was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave the debt. The king didn't lose him and
say, okay, pay me when you can. Let's set up a payment schedule
here. He freely forgave the debt, canceled it completely. The servant
had nothing to pay. He bankrupt. He didn't have a
penny to his name. And that's such a good picture
of us spiritually. We've got nothing to pay. We've
got nothing to pay God for all of our sin against him. We're
spiritually bankrupt. We think we've got all these
works and different things that we have to offer. We don't have
one blessed thing God would want. Not one. Not one of our works,
not one of our thoughts, nothing. We don't have one thing God would
want because everything we have, everything we do is defiled. It's defiled with sin. We're
spiritually bankrupt. Our morality, listen, we all
ought to be moral people, but our morality won't pay the debt
to God. Our repentance, we ought to repent. We ought to repent,
and then we ought to repent of our repentance. But our repentance,
we ought to do it now. We ought to turn to God. But
our repentance won't pay the debt. Our law keeping, trying
to keep the law, that's not going to pay the debt. All that's going
to do is add more debt, because we try to keep the law and don't.
It's just adding more debt. All of our religious activity,
not going to please God. Not gonna satisfy God. Us giving
offerings, we ought to give an offering. We ought to come and
give an offering as part of worship. But giving an offering in the,
used to be the plate, now it's the box back there, is not gonna
lower our sin debt to God. No. We have nothing to pay. Absolutely nothing. But the debt
still must be paid in full. It must be. There must be perfection. God requires it. And that's something
we cannot provide. All we are is dirty, stinking
beggars. Homeless, dirty, stinking beggars
with nothing. Nothing before a holy God. Now
that's us. That's us. Now let's look at
the Lord. This guilty beggar. Hard telling
what he did with $176 million, isn't it? I mean, hard telling
how the man wasted $176 million. That's a lot of money to waste.
He's guilty. It has to be bad management. How can you possibly lose that
much money? He's guilty. He just took advantage
of the king, took advantage of the king's generosity and loaned
it to him. He expected to make some money
back on this. This is a business deal. And he wasted it. He's
guilty. And the only thing left for him
to do is beg for mercy. He begged the king for mercy.
and the king was moved with compassion. This man took advantage of the
king. He wasted the king's generosity. It's such an amazing thing. He
begged for mercy and the king was moved with compassion for
this servant who sinned against him. Now you see the picture,
don't you? This is a picture of almighty
God who forgives the sin of his people. He forgives it completely,
fully, freely, And you know why? Because he has compassion on
sinners. It was love. It was compassion
that moved the father to choose a people to redeem out of Adam's
fallen race. It was love that compelled the
son to become a man and suffer and die for the sin of his people.
It was love. Love, love for his people that
moved Christ to give himself, give everything that he is, to
be the sacrifice for the sin of his people. It's love which
compels the Holy Spirit to move. We don't know where he's coming
from, we don't know where he's going, we don't know when he moves,
but it's love which compels the Holy Spirit to move and give
life and faith to God's people. He does that because he loves
you. And it's love, thank God it's love. Thank God it's love,
not merit. It's love which compels God not to cast his people away
from him. When after all the mercy and
all the grace that he showed us, all the teaching that he's
given us, we continually stumble and fall short and sin and have
bad attitudes and make so many mistakes, it's love which compels
God not to cast his people away from him. God said, I am the
Lord. I change not. That's why you
sons of Jacob were not consumed because his love doesn't change
him. God's people beg him for mercy. God always freely forgives them. And we say God freely does something.
This is what we mean by that freely. It means that the center
is forgiven without any condition that that center must meet in
order to receive mercy. Not one condition is required
of him. Good thing, because he can't meet even one condition.
He's got nothing to pay. God freely forgives his people
when they come beg him for mercy. Now, God's holy. God cannot ignore
the sin of his people. He can't ignore this debt. He
can't write the debt off to bad debt. I used to be responsible
for the finances of a pretty large distribution company And
I can't tell you how it grieved my soul. I mean, just grieved
me. Oh, I get mad just thinking about
it. We would deliver something to
somebody, large quantities, and they wouldn't pay. They wouldn't
pay. We take them to court, they wouldn't
pay. They say, I got nothing to pay.
They got a house worth over half a million dollars, but got nothing
to pay. try to put a lien on the house,
you find out, well, you're not going to get paid. You're behind
the IRS, and the IRS has a lien on the house, too. They make
a habit of not paying people. And I'd try and try and try and
try and try everything in this world I could do to get them
to pay, and they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. Well,
we can't keep carrying that debt on our books like we're going
to get paid for it, because we're not going to. So you know what
we had to do at the end of the year? We had to write it off
to bad debt. I mean, it just aggravated me
to no end. God's not going to be forced
to do that. God's not going to write this debt, our sin debt
against Him. He's not going to write it off
to bad debt. He's not just going to ignore it and say, well, you're
so cute, you don't have to pay. The debt must be paid in full. God's holiness, His justice demands
it. So if God forgives our sin, you
know why He forgives our sin? because the Lord Jesus Christ,
God's son, came and paid it for us. That's why he forgives our
sin, because somebody else paid the debt for us. God freely forgives
without any obligation to be met by the sinner. You know why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
took all the obligation of his people on himself, and he paid
the debt for his people. They could not obey the law.
Well, Christ took it as an obligation on himself to come in the flesh
and keep the law for them so they'd be made righteous. They
couldn't pay for their sin. So Christ took that obligation
upon himself. He was willingly made sin for
his people. He took their obligation, the
obligation of his people. He made their debt to be his
debt. He became guilty of it so that he actually owed the
debt. And then he did what his people could never do. You and
I have nothing to pay. He does. He has something to
pay. He's perfect. He has his perfect
self. He has his perfect pure blood
to offer before the father. He did what his people could
never do with his own blood. By his own sacrifice, he paid
the debt in full as the substitute for his people. His death is
their death. They did what he did. His death
was their death, so God's justice is satisfied. And he freely forgives
the sin of his people without the sinner meeting any obligation
because Christ took our obligation upon himself. And notice as soon
as this man begged for mercy, the king forgave him, forgave
his debt, didn't he? In full. God is always ready
to forgive. Brother Fortin, I remember him
saying something like this. I chewed and chewed and chewed
on this. He said, God's more ready to forgive sin than we
are to beg for mercy. That's right, isn't it? He's
more ready to forgive sin than we are to beg for mercy. That's
his greatest glory. He delights to show mercy to
sinners. It's his greatest glory in paying their sin debt for
them. It's his greatest glory. Well, you know what? It'd be
a mighty good idea for us to come beg God for mercy, wouldn't
it? To beg Him to forgive us would be a mighty good idea.
I know we don't deserve it, but God delights to show mercy. So
you come beg God for mercy. Beg Him to forgive you for Christ's
sake. And our Lord's telling us here, He'll do it. He'll do
it. But let's understand something
here. God's not going to forgive your sin because you come beg
Him for mercy. See, people get this twisted.
If God forgives your sin because you come back in for mercy, well,
you've obligated God to do something, haven't you? We can't do that. No, that would be works, not
mercy. God's not obligated to show mercy
to anybody yet. You come beg God for mercy and
he'll be merciful. You beg him for forgiveness and
he'll forgive you. You know why? Not because you
asked, but because he's merciful. Because he's ready to forgive.
That's who God is. That's his character. He freely
and fully forgives the sin of his people because he paid the
debt for them. That's how God forgives sin.
That's our sin. That's who we are. That's how
God forgives sin. That's who God is. Well, that
brings me to the fourth thing. That's how God forgives sin.
Shouldn't that motivate the believer to be forgiving? Shouldn't it?
This parable ought to melt our hearts. This is the way God's
forgiven my sin. I mean, that ought to just melt
our hearts. Look here though, verse 28. But
the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants,
which owed him a hundred pens. 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,
begged him saying, have patience with me and I'll 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 they came and told
unto their Lord all that was done. Then said his Lord after
that he had called him and said unto him, Oh thou wicked servant,
I forgave thee all that debt because thou desires me. Shouldest
not thou also have had compassion on my fellow servant, even as
I had pity on thee? Now the king had just forgiven
this servant's debt, almost $176 million. The servant, a fellow
servant owed him About $1.75 million. Now, I know $1.75 million. That's a lot of money. He took
that servant, owed him almost $2 million, and threw him in
debtor's prison because he couldn't pay the debt. Now, when you throw
somebody in debtor's prison, this always confused me about
debtor's prison. You throw somebody in debtor's
prison, well, they're in prison. They can't go to work. They can't
do anything to be productive, to pay the debt. I never could
figure out why you'd throw somebody in debtor's prison. You're never
going to get your money doing it that way. But he threw his
fellow servant in debtor's prison, even though that fellow servant
was begging him for mercy, using the very same words he just used
before the king. The very same words. You'd think
he'd think, this sounds familiar. But he didn't. Now, here's the way I see it.
This first servant, he's about $176 million to the good, right? I mean, if you have $176 million
debt that canceled, suddenly it's gone. You don't owe anymore.
You're a lot of money to the good. The debt's canceled. I
believe you could spare about $2 million. Couldn't you? I believe. After that debt was forgiven,
sadly, That first servant didn't learn anything. He didn't learn
anything about compassion. He grabbed his fellow servant
by the throat. He didn't learn anything about
compassion. He just came from receiving such tremendous passion,
compassion and forgiveness and walked out of the presence of
the king and put his hands on the throat of his fellow servant
and threw him in prison just for meanness sake. Wasn't going
to do him any good to throw him in prison. Not going to help
him get his money. Matter of fact, it's going to be stopping
him from getting his money. But he threw him in prison just
for meanness sake. He didn't learn anything about
compassion. He didn't learn anything about love. He didn't learn anything
about forgiveness. This man had just been forgiven
an astronomical debt. And by comparison, he wasn't
willing to forgive a small debt. He just didn't learn a thing,
did he? And that's our nature. I mean, I'm not saying, oh, this
guy's so bad and we're good. No, this is our human nature.
This is the way all of us are by nature. We just didn't learn
a thing. But I know you see the lesson
of the Lord's teaching here, don't you? After the Lord has
forgiven us an infinite sin debt, how can we not forgive one another
smaller offenses? Yes, the offense could seem to
us to be large. Yes, the offense could really
hurt. But what is it in comparison to my sin against God? Really,
it's a small debt, isn't it? We ought to be ready. Those who
have been forgiven ought to be ready to forgive. We ought to
be ready to show compassion one to another. Believers of all
people should be motivated to be merciful. We should be motivated
to be forgiving after God's been so forgiving, so merciful to
us. Look at Ephesians chapter four. Now I'm not telling you,
and scripture's not telling you, be merciful and be forgiving
so that God will forgive you. No, that's putting the cart before
the horse. Be merciful to others because God has been so merciful. He's already been forgiving with
you. Ephesians four, verse 31. Let all bitterness, all of it,
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Now why would I do that? Even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you. That's pretty good motivation.
Now look back at Matthew chapter five. Here's another reason that
we should be merciful. Be merciful, not in order to
obtain mercy, but be merciful, be forgiving, because God has
given you a merciful, forgiving nature in the new birth. Be forgiving,
because this is what God's made his people. He's made them to
be forgiving. He's made them to be merciful
people. Then show mercy to one another. Matthew five, verse
seven. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy. Now way back when we were in
our study of Matthew, we were studying through these beatitudes.
This isn't, you know, the Lord's not saying be merciful so that
you shall obtain mercy. What he's saying is God's been
merciful to you and he's been forgiving to you. Now you be
merciful. You know, anybody that God saves,
they've been saved in pure mercy, right? Nobody's ever earned salvation. Anybody that God saves, they've
been saved in pure mercy, and they're completely dependent
on God's mercy to keep them. Now, somebody who's been such
an object of mercy, who's received such mercy, who is so dependent
on God's mercy, sure ought to be able to show mercy to others
and their weaknesses. And when they make mistakes,
if God's been so merciful to us, so freely merciful to us,
how can we not be merciful to others? If the Lord's not held
our feet to the fire, how can we hold our brother's feet to
the fire? How can we demand of others what God has not demanded
of us? Now you be merciful because God's
given you a heart, a nature of mercy in the new birth. And then
be merciful to others. This is important. Our attitude
toward others, is a mighty good indication of our relationship
with God. It is. Our, how we treat others
is a mighty good indication that we're a child of God. We won't
turn there, but let me read it to you. Luke six, verse 36. This
is what our Lord said. Be ye therefore merciful as your
father also is merciful. Like father, like son. You be
merciful. You've been born from the seed
of the word of God. Be like your father, which is
in heaven. That's a mighty good indication.
Being forgiving, being merciful to others. It's a mighty good
indication that you're a child of God. And somebody who is not
merciful, who, you know, I'm not saying always, but it just
could be. They can't find it in their heart
to ever be merciful. Could just be God's not their
father. God's children will be merciful. All right, here's the
last thing back in our text. The Lord's aware of everything
that happens to his servants and his creation. He'll settle
the accounts when he asked in verse 33, should it's not thou
also have had compassion on my fellow servant, even as I had
on thee and his Lord was Roth and delivered him to the tormentors
that 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 everyone, his brother, their trespasses. Now the king settled
his accounts justly, didn't he? He gave that first servant what
he deserved. Well, this is the parable that, you know, the king
here is a picture of God, our king, God, the king, God, the
judge of all the earth is going to settle the accounts and he'll
do right. You'll do right. The Lord's gonna
settle the accounts of all men in judgment. That day's coming. But let's remember this. That
settling of the accounts, that's not our business. That's not
our business. Until the Lord comes in judgment
and he settles these accounts, let's just make it our business.
At least make this an attempt to forgive others as much as
possible. as much as possible, as often
as possible. And I know we can't do it perfectly. I know we can't. But stretch
yourself. Stretch yourself and try. I got
a little time left. Let me tell you this. I've used
this example before, but I love it. I was a little fella. I was probably four years old.
We lived in Michigan at the time. And John says it snows from,
what, August to June or something, you know, in Michigan. Big snow. I mean, it seemed to me like
this is the, I mean, because it was like up to here on me.
I mean, it's huge snow. And my dad went out to shovel
the driveway. And I'm this little fella, you
know. I want to go out with my dad. And I may even had some
little shovel or something, you know. I don't know. He's out
there shoveling. And he shoveled the driveway. I'm out there on
my, you know, snow suit and put your arms down and go to school,
you know, and I'm out there all toasty warm. Well, after Dad
shoveled the driveway, I don't know what he was doing. There
was a farmer that lived back behind us. He was walking back
toward his field, to his field. He had his boots, you know, big
snow. And where my dad stepped, there's,
to me, like a gigantic boot print, gigantic. And the The distance
between those gigantic boot prints was huge to me. I'm three, four
years old. It's huge. But you know what
I did? I put my footprint, my little
old foot, I put in his boot print. And I stretched as far as I could
go. And I didn't get there. But I stretched to get there.
And when I got to the next giant boot print, you know what I did?
Put my foot right in it. We can't forgive one another
perfectly, but stretch yourself. Stretch yourself. Let's try.
We'll be a whole lot more useful to one another if we do. We think,
well, I'm not going to forgive them. I want to teach them. Let
the Lord teach his children. We'll be more useful if we stretch
ourselves and try to forgive. All right. That's the motivation
for it, isn't it? All right. I hope that'll bless
you.