Turn back to Matthew 18. The title of the message is debt
free. Debt free. Just the sound of those words
is like music to the ears of those in debt. and know what
it is, how difficult it is, and how hard you have to work to
pay it back. Solomon said the borrower and
every young person ought to write this down and stick it on the
refrigerator. The borrower is servant to the
lender. Servant to the lender. Debt is
easy to make, a stroke of the pen. but hard to pay back. And the longer it takes to pay
it back, the more you pay back on interest. It's just, it's
just difficult. And most people do not make enough
money to pay as they go. They don't make that kind of
money. Most people don't. There's a few, but most people
don't make that kind of money. So they incur debt. And usually, by the time we pay
our debts off, it's time to die. Isn't it? By the time I pay my
house off, I probably won't live long enough to enjoy the months
that I don't have to make a payment. In all reality, I probably won't.
I'll probably be about 60, I think I'm going to be about 63, 64
years old. Won't live long enough to enjoy
it. That's about the way this life is. It ought to teach us
something if we listen, if we pay attention. It will teach
us something. Now, what we have in these verses is a parable
of a great debt forgiven. Not extended. Now, we didn't
put along an extension. It's forgiven. Freely forgiven. What would that feel like? What
would it feel like right now if the banks that owns the title
to your homes, cars and what all said forgiven? Oh, wouldn't that be something?
Freely forgiven. And on that grounds, our Lord
is teaching this, on that grounds of mercy received, forgiveness
received, we show mercy. We show forgiveness. Forgiveness
of our brothers and sisters when they sin against us. And if you'll
notice as we go along in this parable, how much that servant
owed and was freely forgiven And how much was owed him in
comparison? The lesson here, the message
is this. God has forgiven us our sin debt,
which is insurmountable. Not even beginning to be possible
for us to pay it. Therefore, forgive our brothers
and sisters of their little, little infractions. That's all
it is. It's just a little impractical. That's the message in a nutshell.
That's it. Now, Peter asked the Lord, how
often shall I forgive my brother? Seven times? Remember this. They were brought up under the
law. The apostles were brought up under the law, which taught
limits. The law taught limits. Eye for
eye, tooth for tooth. The law taught limits, so Peter
said, what's the limit here? How often shall I forgive my
brother? And our Lord gives him a number, but it's a definite
number for an indefinite number. But the gospel, the gospel of
the glory of God teaches us to forgive as we have been forgiven. Forgive as we have been forgiven.
Look over in Ephesians chapter 4. Over here in Ephesians chapter
4 and verse 31. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another even as God For Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. Oh, there's the principle. There
it is. Go over to Colossians chapter
3. Colossians chapter 3. Put on verse 12. Put on therefore
as the elect of God, holy and beloved vows of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another, even if any man have a quarrel
against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." There's
the principle. There it is. Forgiven for Christ's
sake. And the Gospel teaches us to
have that same, to nurture that same Spirit. Cultivate that same
spirit of forgiveness. We are to harbor a spirit of
forgiveness, ready, ready to forgive. And I want to show you
how serious this matter is. Over in Matthew chapter 6, in
Matthew chapter 6, it's very, very serious. J.C. Ryle said, this matter of a spirit
of forgiveness and forgiving one another is of grave importance. He said it's of grave importance.
In verse 12, in this prayer of the disciples, he says, and forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now look down at 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." Serious business, isn't it? That's serious business.
Not to be able to forgive, which we will see in the end of this
parable, is to be unforgiven. It's evidence of an unregenerate
heart. clear evidence of it. Now, let's start in this parable. In verse 23, let me read verse
23-27. 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 ten thousand talents, but for as much as he had not
to pay, His Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, his
children, and all that he had, payment to be made. The servant
therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience
with me, and I'll pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant
was moved with compassion, loosed him, and forgave him the debt." This parable starts out with
the kingdom and the king. The king comes. and takes account
of all his servants. And this king here in this parable
represents God Almighty, the Lord God. That's who he represents. All belong to him. All are his servants. All principalities are His and
serve Him. Willingly or unwillingly, knowingly
or unknowingly, all things serve Him. All creation serves Him. He hath His way in the whirlwind
and in the storm. It serves His purpose. All the
angelic hosts serve Him. All men serve Him. All are under
His authority. The kingdoms His. The kingdom
belongs to Him. Now the King comes to take account
of His servants. I want you to look over in Revelation
chapter 20. The King comes. I thought of this
last night. He comes to take account of His
servants. In Revelation 20, look in verse
12. And verse 11, And I saw a great
white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for
them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,
called to account. He is going to call every person
that has ever walked on the top side of this earth to account. And another book was opened,
which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out
of those things which were written in the books according to their
works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them. They were judged, every man,
according to their works. Are you not glad that you have
been judged in Christ and you won't stand at this place? Because
He's going to call to account every person that's ever been
born into this world. Our judgment has passed. Our
judgment in Christ, those who believe, our judgment has passed.
It was passed upon the Lord. And we won't have to face that.
But the King here, The parable is this, the king has come and
he has called to account all his servants and one was brought,
there was one that was brought that owed 10,000 talents. Do
you know what that's equal to at that time? Ten million dollars. Ten million dollars. As I looked
at this and I thought last night, I thought even if it were interest
free, I could not pay it back with my wages and you couldn't
pay it back. Not in your lifetime. You can't
live long. We're only going to live on an average of 70 years.
You cannot live long enough to pay ten million dollars back
even if it's interest free. Can't do it. Can't live long
enough. But here's the point. We owe. We owe a great sin debt which
we cannot pay back. We, by nature now, as we're born
into this world, we owe a sin debt and it's a very real debt.
This debt is very real. It's not some kind of figment
of the imagination. It's a very real debt. And it's
a mammoth debt. It is an absolute mammoth debt
that we can't even comprehend. Ten million wouldn't even touch
it. What we owe is a sin debt. We owe a debt of obedience. Abraham,
walk before me and be thou perfect. Do it. We owe a debt of love. Turn over to Exodus 20. We owe
this. God is our Creator. We owe Him
all things. I think it was John Howson. Yes, John Howson. I heard him
say this the first time. He said, I owe, I owe, I owe. So off to work I go. That's it. I said, debt. Debt. Oh, it's a terrible thing. What
did I say, Exodus 20? Okay, Exodus 20, let me start
in verse 3. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water or under
the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve
them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation. and showing mercy unto thousands
of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will
not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. Remember the
savage to keep it only. Six days shalt thou work. And
then down here in verse, let me see, verse 12, I'm looking
for a verse. Honor thy father and mother that thy days may
be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou
shalt not kill. I can't find the verse I'm looking for. Well, anyway, he says, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy soul, and thy
spirit. That is a command. And we owe
that. We owe a debt of love. We owe a debt of worship. Thou
shalt worship God and Him only. And I can go on and on with this
list of what we owe. It's endless. It's absolutely
endless. And sin, this sin debt, must
be reckoned with by a holy God. It's a real debt. And it must be reckoned with.
And God will reckon with it. He will not go unnoticed. He
will not go left alone. You just don't pay the bank.
I tell you what, just don't pay the bank. See, if they leave
it alone. And that's just money. That's just a monetary thing.
We are talking about sin against a holy God. He's going to call
it to account. And the servant is brought to
the king, and his debt is revealed. You see, the law went out, the
day of reckoning went out, and the law brought him in. And it
brought this servant in. And it brought him before the
king, and his debt, his great debt was revealed. And it says
in verse 25, that servant, and this is us by nature, that servant
had nothing to pay his Lord. He was broke. He owed $10,000,000
and he's broke. I tell you this, there's nothing
more stressful than that. Nothing, is there? You know,
there's nothing more stressful than that. Put it this way, there's
nothing more stressful than not being able to pay debt. That's
what's stressful. Not being able to pay it. And
here was a servant who was brought before his Lord not his equal,
his Lord. And he was bankrupt. He had nothing
to pay. And that's exactly how every
one of us whom God saves, that's how we are spiritually. Spiritually
bankrupt. And I tell you this, if we are
not brought to that place, we'll never be saved. We'll never come
to Christ. We'll never be saved until God
brings us to the place where we truly, I mean truly, are spiritually
bankrupt before God Almighty and condemned. Condemned. He had nothing to pay. Bankrupt. We are nothing but broke squatters
on God's land. What do you have that you did
not receive? Can you come up with anything? Do you have a job? Well, God
gave it to you. Do you have money in the bank?
God gave it to you. Do you have health? God gave
it to you. What do you have that the king
did not give you? What do you have that does not
belong to the king? If you'll notice, his whole family,
his wife and his children, his land and all of his possessions,
were taken by the king because the king owned them. They belonged
to the king anyway. It's in his kingdom. Whatever's
in his kingdom belongs to the king. And this servant was broke
and that's just the way we are. Absolutely broke. We cannot pay
one debt of obedience without sin. Just to try to do it, we
end up incurring more debt. More sin debt by the fact that
we're trying to do it. Oh, I'm telling you, what a debt
we owe. His servant owed so much that
it was impossible to pay off. Sin is a debt we cannot pay.
The fact that we sin continually, do we not do that? Is there not
sin in everything we do? Well, how fast does that debt
keep mounting up? It's like compound interest.
It just keeps rolling. It's like a snowball going down
a hill. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And the hill never stops. There's no bottom to it. And notice the king here. He
commanded that the servants' family and all his possessions
be sold and listened. Payment made. That caught my
attention. Payment made. Not paid off. That servant didn't
own enough to pay it off. He was going to sell it all and
just make a payment. That's all just a payment. Payment made. All that he possessed
couldn't pay off his sin debt. You know why hell is eternal?
Because we cannot satisfy the justice of God by our obedience.
Can't do it. You can never pay it off. You
can never satisfy the debt. That's why it goes on and on
and on. And here this servant, he says,
have patience with me. Well, patience is not what I
need. Patience is not what I need.
Mercy, forgiveness, that's what I need. That's what I need. I need His
mercy. I need His forgiveness. I need
to be forgiven of this great mammoth debt of sin. Have patience
with me and I'll pay thee all. He hadn't even made the first
payment. You couldn't even pay the interest
on that debt. If He wasn't making payments
before, why would He think He could make them now? Did you
see this ignorance of humanity? Fallen humanity? Just have patience
with me and I'll pay thee off. A man probably 50, 60 years old,
how long are you going to live? You can't do it. It's not possible
to pay it off. We are so spiritually ignorant
as to our sin debt That we think, by nature now, until the Lord
gives us a new birth, until He gives us life, men think they
can actually pay it off. They actually think they can
work their way into heaven. They can please God. Then the grace of our Lord is
revealed here in verse 27. Then the Lord of that servant,
the owner of that servant, It's His servant. All things serve
Him. He was moved with compassion. Moved with compassion. See, when
the Lord saved you, you who believe, saved me, He looked at us and
saw that mammoth sin debt that we owe and was moved with compassion. moved with compassion, and he
said, loose him and let him go. He knew the poverty of his servant. He knew this servant couldn't
pay that back. That servant didn't know much.
That's evident. But he knew he couldn't pay it
back. And he said, loose him. The Lord looked upon you and
was moved with compassion and forgave you. all that sin did. Now, if you know what sin is,
if the Lord has made you to know and understand something of what
sin is and who He is, you understand something of mercy
and grace. Loosing. Loosing from the law
that brought Him here. loose sin and let him go. He forgave the sin debt. But
now listen, he forgave that debt because that debt is paid. That
debt has been paid now. Our sin debt has been paid for. It has not only been forgiven
us completely, but it's been paid for. By what? By who? By what? By who? By our
surety who signed on the note and said, if you don't pay it,
I'll pay it. I'll be sure. Well, you can't
pay it. You cannot pay it. Our surety paid the same debt
that you and I went bankrupt on. Your surety paid the bill in
full. It's paid in full. The law is
satisfied because the note's been taken care of. It can't
come after you. It's been paid in. He paid the
sin debt by his obedience and debt. His blood wiped the slate
clean. A debt that you could not pay, and then yet when you go check
your credit score, it's 800. Perfect. You had a perfect credit
score on a debt you couldn't pay. Because someone else did.
And he didn't make late payments
on leather. He paid the debt. And he paid it in full. That's
what our Lord has done for His people. He paid it all. All the debt I owed. That's what
He did. Our surety did that. Here's going to be the lesson
in this to Peter and to us. All those who truly have been
forgiven that mammoth debt, that mammoth sin debt, will not have
a hard time forgiving a $20 debt. That's what he went after, that
servant. Remember, this is a parable on
debt forgiven. and our forgiveness of our brothers
for their little grievances against us. And we should never dare to compare
what someone has done to us with what we have done to God and
been forgiven of it. Someone has offended me? That's
absolutely nothing compared to my offense to God. My offenses
to Him. My breaking of His law. Nothing. Then in verse 28 through 35,
I believe, is the evidence of forgiveness experienced or not
in the heart. Now, He's going to take this
same servant He's going to teach us a lesson here. But the same
servant went out. See, he was forgiven the debt. So he leaves the presence of
his Lord, the One who owned him. And the way I read this, he immediately
went out and found someone that owed him. He found his fellow servant which
owed him a hundred pence, Equal to twenty dollars. That's what
it's equal to. Twenty bucks. He owed ten million. And he laid hands on him and
took him by the throat. He was going to choke it out
of him. Took him by the throat. Saying,
pay me that thou ow'st. And if you'll notice in verse
29, his fellow servant, his equal, someone his equal, fell down
and did the exact same thing that he did before his Lord,
said the same things. And his fellow servant fell down
at his feet and besought him, saying, Have patience with me,
and I will pay thee all of this. I will pay you the twenty dollars.
Now, I believe he could have done that. That's very reasonable. He could
have paid that. But he went and he cast him in
prison until he should pay the debt. You're going to stay in
prison until somebody comes up with the money. Somebody gives
you the money and you can pay me. Well, when his fellow servants
saw what was done, There in verse 31, when they saw what was done,
they were very sorry and came and told unto their Lord all
that was done. I want you to get this. Men see what we do. Our children
see what we do. I heard this statement. I thought
it was very good. They may not understand our doctrine,
But they do understand our actions. They may not understand why Christ
was slapped in the face, but they understand why you slapped
them in the face. That's why the fellow servants saw this,
and they were very sorry. Men may not understand why Christ
was spit in the face, but they understand why you spit in their
face. They understand our actions.
They may not understand our doctrine, but they understand our actions. Our actions do prove and show
who and what we are inwardly. They do. The general tenor of
a man's life. It will prove who and what he
is. And he said in verse 33, shouldest
not Well, let me go back to verse
32. Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto
him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou
desiredest me. Should not thou also have had
compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? Should
you have returned the same? I forgave you ten million. Could
you not have forgiven him twenty dollars? And his Lord was angry with him.
He delivered him to the tormentors. He sent him to hell. Because
it was evident the work of grace was never in his heart. It never
happened. And here's why he's saying, where
there is no forgiveness on our part of our brothers and sisters,
that's because there's no grace in the heart. That man, that
woman is still lost. That's why he's saying we're
still lost. Should you not have forgiven him on the same basis
I forgave you because you asked me? And our Lord shows us here in
this verse. And his Lord was angry. Wroth
and anger delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay
all that was due unto him. Our Lord was saying this. You
will be dealt with, Peter, as you deal with others. As you have been forgiven, forgive.
If you can't forgive, well, you'll be dealt with accordingly by
God Almighty. The absence of a forgiving spirit
is the absence of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have Him, if you have
Him, you cannot help but forgive. I promise you, if you have the
Spirit of God in you, you cannot help but forgive. It will be as easy, if not easier,
for you to forgive a brother or sister, whether in Adam or
in Christ, as it is for you to forgive your little ones when
they do something wrong. Here is the point of this parable.
There's been a great sin debt forgiven that we could not pay.
They're all taken away. So likewise, he says here, so
likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also to you. You notice he
doesn't say this person who cannot forgive, he doesn't say your
Heavenly Father. He says, My Heavenly Father forgives.
If you can't forgive, He's not your Heavenly Father. He's your
judge, but He's not your Heavenly Father. So likewise, shall My
Heavenly Father do also to you, if you from your hearts... Oh,
from your heart. Real forgiveness comes from a
regenerate heart. From your heart. Not just say,
well, we're just forgetting because we're supposed to. No. I mean,
from your heart. I mean, there's a real compassion
on your part toward your brother to forgive, to forgive him, to
have fellowship. If you cannot forgive, and here's
why he's teaching Peter. Peter said, Lord, how often shall
I forgive my brother that sins against me? Seven times? The Lord said, no. You live in
a spirit of forgiveness toward your brother. That's what he
said. You live in a spirit of forgiveness toward your brothers
and sisters. And if you can't do it, Peter,
it's because you're lost. If you can't do it, it's because
you're lost. But those who've been forgiven
of all that debt, all that sin debt, They will forgive. You can just
mark it down. They will forgive because they
are like their Father which is in heaven who delights to show
mercy. Delights to do it. Okay, Mike.