Learning to Forgive – II
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2014 · 27 April 2014
Let's continue our study of Matthew 18 of several months ago where we have learned that believers need to be treated like children. And Matthew 18 concludes with a great lesson on how we need to forgive others in the form of a parable from Jesus Himself.
And so we saw the inquiry about forgiveness and we saw the extent of forgiveness in verse 22. The Lord says to forgive 490 times and by that He means an unlimited amount, endlessly and continuously. And we also discussed the effect of forgiveness when we looked at Matthew 6: 12-15 where the Lord says, that if you don't forgive each other, He won't forgive you.
And then we came to the example of forgiveness, beginning in verse 23 of a masterful parable loaded with great truth. It is spoken to the disciples. About a month ago we looked at the beginning of that parable from Matthew 18:23, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.”
And we saw that this king is God. And this servant is a man who has been given a privilege. He was like a steward, who was given a whole territory of responsibility in which he collected taxes which then were to be given to the king for the operation of the kingdom. And periodically the king takes an account of those who have been given this responsibility.
Every person in a sense then is a steward of what God has bestowed upon him or her. And every person at some point in time will be asked to come before God to give an account of that stewardship. And we pointed out that this is a time of conviction. It is the time when God calls men to give an account of their life.
Now verse 24 tells us about this one particular individual, "And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.” And this term here describes an unpayable amount. We talked about that amount last month. Here is a man brought before God, convicted of a huge debt. And verse 25 says, "But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.”
The man had no resources for paying the full amount of debt, but all that could be paid would be paid and this was the custom. Selling everybody in the family into slavery and selling everything they had so that whatever could be realized from that sale could offset the debt is common practise. Now the principle is clear. All men are brought before a holy God and they all must give an account for the stewardship of life and everything else that they have been given.
And they will be convicted at that point of their sin debt that could never be paid. God has the power to deliver them over to judgment in hell. And although men will spend forever in hell paying what they can pay they still will not be able to pay off their debt in hell. That's why hell is forever. And so it is a terrible, but righteous sentence for the debt is real and the man has defrauded the king.
Notice verse 26, "The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Here is a broken man who knows he is on the edge of judgment. And he worships and he says, "Master," and he affirms the sovereignty of the king over him, "have patience with me and I will pay you all." He recognizes the justice of his sentence. He does not say it is unfair, he simply says please be patient and I will pay you everything.
Now, the reason the man says ‘I will pay it all’ is because he really doesn't understand the enormity of his sin. People who are brought to moments of great conviction about their sin, when brought face to face with God want to say, “God, just be patient and I'll promise I'll do better, I'll give you my life, I'll do whatever I can.”
And they really don't yet understand either the enormity of their sin or their inability to pay them off. But there is true contrition and there is true sorrow and there is genuine brokenness because of verse 27. And that is the key to the entire parable, “Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.”
Now that is the key to interpreting the parable. The man was released. What does that mean? He had no responsibility to pay that debt anymore, none. The man was released from any obligation. And then secondly, he was forgiven. He was freed from having to do anything because the king did everything.
Now, this describes the saving grace of God. The man is released from any obligation. And he is totally forgiven. And that is the essence of salvation. The king himself absorbs the loss and that is exactly what was shown on the cross of Christ. Because it was on the cross of Christ that Jesus in His own flesh absorbs the loss. He Himself paid the price for your sin and mine.
This man had real repentance and genuine contrition even though he did not understand the enormity of his sin and he really does not understand how it is all forgiven completely by the grace of God. The master frees him from any responsibility to pay the debt on his own and forgives him of all his sin.
So the essence of what the Lord is teaching here is forgiveness. Now we saw all of that as the initial understanding of the parable and now we move on to verse 28 and the main message. Up to now we just talked again about our last discussion several weeks ago at the beginning of the parable.
Now watch what happens in verse 28, "But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ Wow, that is amazing. How soon did this guy forget his Lord's compassion? It says that “he went out and found”, in other words, he was looking for somebody. He didn't inadvertently run into the guy. No, he was out there searching for this fellow. And notice, it was one of his fellow servants.
What this means is this other servant was a man who also has been forgiven. Another one from within the family. And so the Lord then gives this parable for the family of those who are believers in Christ who are in the fellowship. It describes in the parable a Christian brother or sister. It is used consistently that way in the rest of the parable in the four times that it appears. So he finds another fellow servant, another believer.
Now this other servant was not necessarily of the same rank. He perhaps worked under this first servant. But they both served the same king. And what happens is really absurd. He goes, finds the guy, takes him by the throat, literally the Greek says he went about choking him, and saying pay me what you owe me.
If the man is not a true Christian as some would have us believe in this parable, then the whole parable in its context breaks down. Because the impact of the parable is that here was a man who was fully forgiven, right? And he went out and he wouldn't forgive someone else. We don't expect him to forgive if he wasn't forgiven himself. We don't expect him to do what God did if God didn't do that.
This is not a parable about genuine salvation. It is a parable about forgiveness and the validity of forgiveness and one believer forgiving another. And what makes this parable so powerful is that the guy was really forgiven. And now he gets his hands on this other servant and starts to choke him. That is the old collection agency approach. Just use force to strangle them to death if they do not pay.
Christians struggle with this. Do you have anybody who owes you money? Do you think of them? Hmmm, how many times have you choked them in your mind? We still have the same problems in the church of Jesus Christ. Somebody says something you don't like and for the rest of the time in the church you avoid that person. Every time you see that person, anger comes up in your heart, you are bitter and you hold a grudge.
Maybe there are people in our church right now who are still unforgiving toward other Christians and that is causing all kinds of anxiety, pain and friction and yet they are Christians. They cannot forgive others, because they will not forgive. The flesh rises to seek its vengeance. Christians can really hold grudges and retain bitterness. I hope that God speaks to you through this sermon.
And so he says "pay me what you owe me." We shouldn't be startled that this is a Christian. And look at the response in verse 29, "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” Isn't that the same thing you were pleading and you were begging the king to let you off the hook and now a guy owes you only 18 bucks and you're strangling him?
He's begging. This isn't worship. This is a servant to another servant. And he says look, just be patient and I'll pay you all and he could have paid given a little time. But the application is obvious. Compared that with our sins against God where our debt is impossible to pay, all other debts we incur with people are easily payable. The point is when we have received forgiveness from God that is so far reaching and so comprehensive, how can we be so small as not to forgive another.
And we ought to get used to forgiving others. We surely are going to need it. And we may need it from the very person we won't give it to. It's really bad that Christians do this. It's the reason churches split. You get people in a church, maybe somebody does something they don't like and instead of being able to give it to the Lord and forgive and embrace that person in love, they just get bitter and that bitterness becomes divisive and breaks up churches.
It's bad but it's more common than we would like to admit. And it may well be that the disciples were in the midst of doing it themselves. They were, fighting to see who would be the greatest in the kingdom and in order to sort of keep their supremacy, they may have cultivated in their hearts certain attitudes towards the others, which in their mind demeaned the others so they could feel good about themselves by exaltation.
Look at the response in verse 30, “And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.” He had no compassion. This is an impossible bad reaction. He was pitied, so he should have pitied others. He was forgiven, so he should have forgiven, himself loved, he should have loved, himself having received mercy, he should have dispensed it.
So if you're not willing to forgive, your flesh is winning. And when you do that, you will cut yourself off from that relational forgiveness with God that makes the communion so sweet. And if you see a lack of power, a lack of hunger for God's word, a lack of love for prayer and communion, it may be because there is a blockage there and the Lord isn't giving you that forgiveness that brings a sweet relationship with Him.
So look what happens in verse 31, "So when his fellow servants," there is that term again, here is a group of Christians, “saw what had been done, they were grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.” They saw the whole thing. They did the only thing they had left. They were very grieved. There are two things in here that stand out. One, there was one servant who was unforgiving and second, there were other servants who were sorry about that.
This is the majority kind of attitude of those who have been forgiven. What unites God's forgiven people is that they want to become forgivers themselves. And they know the standard God has established and they know how He longs to give forgiveness. And they understand the holiness of His law. And they understand the unity of His family and they understand the richness of fellowship and so they are sorry.
What do you do when you have done everything and the person still will not respond? We go to the Lord don't we? If believers would be this concerned about each other's sinfulness, oh how great the power of a healing spirit there would be in the fellowship. They told the king everything that had gone on. That is God's people going to the Lord in prayer about a sinning brother or sister.
What was the response of the king? Verse 32, “Then his master after he had called him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.” What's God's attitude? He says "You wicked servant." Now some people say oh, that can't be a Christian. Could God say to a Christian oh you sinful person? In Romans 7 Paul himself affirms his sinfulness as a believer.
God says, "I forgave you all your debt." God reaffirms the reality of that full forgiveness. He says, "I forgave you all that debt because you begged me." And then in verse 33 we read, "Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” And the word pity explains a beautiful thought. You should have had compassion and pity just like I did." God had compassion and forgave him.
That is the most liberating thing there is. Somebody has done something to hurt you, said something about you that wasn't true, they've maybe done something to defraud you economically or property wise or whatever and you are going to let this thing burn in you or you are going to get your revenge. No, God says just have compassion on them.
Verse 34 says, "And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.” The Lord gets angry every time you sin, don't you think so? The Lord has holy indignation against evil, even in your life and mine. Look at Hebrews 12:5-6, "My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."
So verse 35 says, "So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." And again the ‘you’ is the group of disciples who are believers, genuine ones. He's not saying this to unbelievers because they can't do and can't act like God toward each other and forgive.
One old saint of long ago said, "Revenge indeed seems often sweet to men, but oh it is only sugared poison and it's after taste is bitter as hell. Forgiving, enduring love alone is sweet and blissful. Forgiveness is a shield from which all the fiery darts of the wicked one harmlessly rebound. Forgiveness brings heaven to earth and heaven's peace into the sinful heart. Let us pray.