Dennis Tuuri

to a portion of scripture that we dealt with the portion of this scripture. This portion in brief fashion and the verses just preceding us in much more detailed fashion two weeks ago when we spoke about excommunication. We return to that same passage now to look at the last portion of this chapter of Matthew 18. And we’re going to talk this morning about forgiveness. We talked two weeks about excommunication.

We talked last week about repentance and this week about forgiveness. We said that Calvin said, and I think it’s rightly evident in scripture that the gospel is comprised of two parts, repentance and forgiveness. And that both an understanding of both those two elements will give us an understanding of the gospel and what the nature of the good news of that is. It’s I also mentioned last week it’s appropriate to be talking about these things.

The context of this morning being the first Sunday in Advent. We sang a song this morning that is an Advent song. And we also just before that we read a psalm and talked about the coming of God in judgment. And we said several weeks ago and we dealt with one of the psalms that judgment has a twofold aspect to it. There are people that are commended and there are people that are condemned. And so the advent of Jesus Christ is not to be seen as limited totally to his first coming.

When we sing come Emmanuel, we’re supposed to remember that Jesus Christ comes in history in terms of judgment as well. We remember that when he came 2,000 years ago to ransom the captive Israel, but he comes also to our country to ransom the captive church, captive to false theologians and captive to humanists and captive to the sins that have beset our churches. And so God is coming in judgment. There is an advent of Jesus Christ as it were in the midst of this country right now.

And we ask for that judgment when we celebrate the Advent season. And when we get together for communion, we expect Jesus to be there with us at the table blessing and cursing, sorting us out as it were, sheep and goats. And so it’s proper to talk about excommunication, repentance, and forgiveness in the context of Advent as well. Now, we dealt with the first half of Matthew 18 briefly, or this last half rather briefly several weeks ago.

We’re going to pick up now where we left off in terms of verse 21 and go on to talk about the rest of this portion of Matthew 18. The first half that we talked about last two weeks, excommunication, the first half of Matthew 18 has primarily to do with the case process of excommunication where you have a brother that doesn’t listen to the rebuke and to the exhortations to repentance that are given to him by individual then by two or three and then by the church and so that process ends in the excommunication of the individual church court action imaging God’s action in heaven. The second half of this deals primarily though with the person that does listen and does come to repentance and that’s the second half of this deals with and so we’re going to talk about that this morning.

The second half here begins in verse 21 with the question by Peter having understood the teaching relevant to man who doesn’t listen and having followed that to his logical conclusion then goes back it seems in his own mind to think now wait a minute you said that if I do know my brother at first and he repents then I want my brother and Peter goes back now I think to address that kind of issue and begins to think through the implications of that and it kind of bothers him it seems from the question anyway does that mean that we can keep forgiving people over and over again that we have to.

Peter was kind of bothered. It’s interesting. I in the mail this week I got a flyer on a book on 7,700 sermon illustrations. and they advertise little pages out of the sermon illustrations. And one section had songs that we really sing, you know, Christian hymns we really sing to ourselves sometimes. And for instance, it said, for instance, one of the songs we sing is when morning gilds the sky, my heart awakening cries, oh no, another day. You know, you’re supposed to see, thank God for the day. Well, this response of Peter here almost this is not this is too strong, but it seems like what we worry about sometimes is why do we want to do we have to forgive people that we don’t think are really very good people and do we have to keep forgiving them?

And another song in that sermon illustration flyer was Amazing Grace. It went amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you. And you wonder if that isn’t kind of Peter’s mindset here as he asks, “Well, now wait a minute. If this guy comes to me seven times in a day, do I still have to forgive him?” And so, that’s the kind of question he asks. Peter, I think, needs this lesson that Christ is going to give him on forgiveness. And we need this lesson on forgiveness. We need the lesson on forgiveness that Jesus teaches here.

One, because we have sin in our own life. We have personal problems that we deal with every week, every day that beset us. And we have to understand the nature of biblical forgiveness. If we don’t have somebody that we can think of off the top of our heads who sins seven times a day against us. We can certainly usually think of seven times during the day in which we’ve fallen short of the righteous commandments of God and the standards that he has given to us.

And so we need to understand the nature of forgiveness for ourselves. We need to understand the nature of forgiveness because we have problems within our families. We have husband wife situations that frequently have problems associated with them. We have to understand what forgiveness is all about and how important it is to that relationship. We have problems within our family then we also have problems with our church and we’re dealing with problems now within the church family.

And those problems desperately need us to understand and be of like-mindedness here in terms of the disciplinary action of the church, what excommunication is and isn’t, what suspension is and isn’t, and then what repentance is and what forgiveness is. We need that because we have church problems as well. We also need the lesson in forgiveness that Jesus teaches here because we have social problems that we walk in the context of.

I know I have a social problem now ongoing in my life. for those of you who read the Wednesday morning Oregonian. And you’ll see what I you know what I mean. There was a letter to the editor attacking me talking about the Dennis Tuuirs of this world, how they should read their Bible more deeply and understand that we have a loving God who doesn’t tell us to beat our kids when they get out of line. I was quoted in a article in the Oregonian several weeks ago as saying that the Bible says we’re to use a birch rod on our children.

Well, I don’t you know it’s misstatement that it what I told them was the Bible says we should spank our children. We should use rod. And I mentioned the birch rod is normally the rod that in the colonial days was used. But this person wasn’t upset by the fact that I said birch. This person was upset by the fact that I said the scriptures say you should spank. And so there was this letter to the editor that gave the implication that I was in favor of child abuse and was advocating beating of children.

And so I have a problem now. Now that letter to the editor is important for you to understand that I have to understand too this lesson in forgiveness. Do I forgive that lady for writing that letter for attacking me and for making innuendos and slandering me in a way that simply is not true in terms of what we believe as a church and what I believe as a person about corporal punishment or spanking of our children.

So it’s important I bring it up to point out that I have a need for understanding this teaching of forgiveness as well. But I also bring it up for another reason. The people that write such letters frequently are very good at what they do. The letter uses the word beating children several times in the letter to the editor. Now, I bring that up because words are real important. And for a person to say that somebody who believes in using the rod on children and spanking, believes in beating children or whipping them or hitting them, which is other phrases that commonly are used to refer to spanking these days by words commonly used by state agencies to refer to spanking.

Those people know the power of words and they know that they can gain the upper hand as it were by transferring over this terminology. Now Dan North is well aware of this in terms of the pro-life movement and that people in favor of legalized murder call themselves pro-choice and so with the with the use of proper deceptive words they can gain the upper hand in an argument and this letter is a very this letter of the editor about myself and about those who advocate spanking really by implication is important because it shows us the importance of words and the correct use of words.

And I want to get back to that in a minute. But the point reason I bring that up is because we’re talking now about forgiveness. Okay? And we don’t want to we don’t want to take that biblical term of forgiveness and muck it up with other things that may be proper in themselves but are not biblical forgiveness. So words are important. So we need a corrective lesson here. Peter did and I think we probably all do at various times in our life.

A corrective lesson about biblical forgiveness. By the way, just so you’ll realize that what’s happening in terms of this letter to the editor about myself and this common perception of spanking is beating or whatnot is not localized here to Oregon, Reverend Rushdoony on his latest easy chair tape talks about the fact that he had just recently, I think in September, October, been at a three week trial back in the Bible belt in a southern state.

Several churches were being brought to court by the state because they used spanking in their Sunday school and in their Christian school and in their daycare centers. And so they were being brought to court. And Reverend Rushdoony said that while he was testifying on behalf of these churches, the person that the attorney who was cross-examining him said in essence, he said, “Uh, well then what you’re saying is that these people use a child abuse manual when they deal with their children.” And he identified the child abuse manual that he was talking about as the word of God, the Bible.

And so it’s don’t be surprised when in a court of law, for instance, when first person say that, don’t be surprised there are other people who write letters to editors that believe that what we have here is not the inspired word of God. What we have here is a manual that teaches how to abuse our children. See, that’s the perception on the part of those type of child advocates. And that shows you again how words can be twisted.

The very scriptures that give us the proper way to nurture our children are twisted by the use of improper words in being a child abuse manual. Well, do we forgive people like that attorney? That’s the question this morning. And that’s the question, one of the questions that Peter had. And we’re going to try to come up with an answer. Let’s pray and help ask God to clear our minds of alien presuppositions as we approach his word for corrective lesson and forgiveness.

Father, we pray for your understanding of your scriptures here. Help us to understand who you are, what you require of us in relationship to that. Help us, Father, to understand what Jesus was teaching here in terms of forgiveness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

This portion of scripture begins in verse 21 with a question by Peter. Jesus answers in verse 22 and then he gives a parable to explain his answer. He gives a second answer in the form of a parable in verses 23-34. And then he concludes this lesson in verse 35 with a third answer, a summation of the parable. So he gives an answer first, then he gives a parable and then he gives a summation of what he was teaching in the parable. And so he really gives them three answers.

Now that’s interesting because a lot of us sometimes people in this church can be sort of we’re all you know young Turks and we can give people the kind of answer that Jesus gives Peter here in verse 22 which is you know proper at certain times. Peter says well you say I have to forgive them seven times. Jesus says no seven times 70 times. And he just kind of hits him with that you know he says you got it all wrong. It’s it’s much more than that. But Jesus doesn’t leave it there is why I bring that up. He goes on to explain what he means. And if we’re going to use that kind of terminology in dealing with other people in the church here about issues that we understand rather than they do, let’s be careful that may be proper, but it’s certainly proper to go on and explain what we’re talking about and don’t just leave them hanging there with an answer that they can maybe react to and not understand correctly.

Jesus goes out of his way here to give three separate answers in an attempt to answer Peter’s question, and I think it’s important we have that kind of sensitivity to one another as well in the church. Jesus tells Peter though in that first answer 7 times 70 is what I’m telling you to the number of times involved. What he’s saying here obviously is not that after forgiveness number 490 in a day 491 is out.

Jesus is saying that numbers the quantity of forgiveness that you hand out during the day is irrelevant to the discussion of biblical forgiveness. Okay, that’s an important lesson. Peter was saying numbers were important. How many times you forgive was important. Jesus is saying no they’re not. And he uses 70 times 7 as a great fullness of numbers to indicate that. It’s kind of like when God says that he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, it doesn’t mean the cattle on hill 1001 isn’t his.

It means he owns them all. And Jesus is saying here, no matter how many times this happens during the day, you have to forgive. But he goes on then to flesh this out in a much fuller fashion than just saying the quantitative issue is not what’s in place here. And he uses a parable to do that. Now, we have to go over this parable. We understand it. A couple of elements in it here before we can get to understanding of what he’s trying to teach here in terms of the quality of forgiveness.

The parable begins with pointing out that there’s this day of reckoning that occurs. The king wishes to settle his accounts with the slaves in verse 23. And he’s got this one guy who owes him 10,000 talents. And you have to realize there as most of you probably do, but it’s important to realize here that he’s talking about a tremendous load of debt. I don’t know. My New American Standard Version says that it’s worth $10 million in actual money here.

And it goes on to say that $18 a day was a typical daily wage. And so, if you work that out, I think it’s somewhere around 100,000 years of labor is what this guy was in debt to his master for. Okay? This is a sizable debt. In fact, it’s obviously put in this kind of magnitude for Jesus to teach us that it’s an unpayable debt. The guy no way can live 100,000 years to repay this debt. It’s perpetual. It’s a terrible and crushing load of debt.

Okay. And then he goes on to say that the man when he’s brought to be sold his wife and his house everything he has to pay for this debt the man entreats the master the king that to not sell him. Says the slave therefore in verse 26 falling down prostrates himself before him. The King James version says worships him gets down on his face before him. He says, “Please have patience with me and I will repay you everything.” And then the Lord and that slave felt compassion toward him.

He said, “Okay, I’m going to remit his debt. It’s forgiven.” But that slave now, the one who has just been relieved of this tremendous $10 million debt he could never pay. That slave then goes out and finds somebody who is in debt to him. You know, it’s kind of like our society. There’s these debt pyramids. And in this situation, this guy was in debt to his king and he was also had somebody who was in debt to him.

And so it’s like the bank now in the Federal Reserve system. Now the bank goes to one of the people that’s borrowed money from it. So this guy then goes to another slave who owed money to him. And this man that the slave goes to owed him 100 denarii. Okay? And that’s about 3 months worth of work according to this scenario here in terms of the currency of the time. 3 months as opposed to 100,000 years worth of productive labor.

Okay. Quite a difference. This is a small amount. I mean, it’s not insignificant, but compared to the original thing he talked about, it’s a tremendously small amount, okay? A little tiny debt. And he goes to him and grabs him by the throat and says, “Pay me back that money.” And the fellow slave falls down. He gets down now. He prostrates himself in front of the man he owes the debt to and he entreats him and he says, “Please have patience with me and I’ll repay you.” The same thing that this slave had told to his master.

However, the man that he prostrates himself to, the man who had already been forgiven this tremendous debt, refuses and is unwilling to remit the person’s debt or to even wait until he has time to pay him back. Okay? He goes out and instead he has the man thrown in prison so that he should get back all that he was owed. So he throws the man in debtor’s prison. Doesn’t even give him time to pay it back. Throws him in debtor’s prison.

And then the people that observe this go back to his master. And his master says, “Well, you worthless person. I remitted this tremendous crushing load of debt. And you didn’t show that same remittance, that same pardon, that same grace to the man that owed you.” And then what does he do with him? He then is his lord moved with anger, hands him over to the torturers. Okay? An even greater thing in the debtor’s prison here to the torturers until he should repay all that he’s owed him.

So we have this parable here and then Jesus interprets the parable in verse 35. So shall my heavenly father do also to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. So Jesus says that the father in heaven is analogous to the king in this parable. The man who is the forgiving of people of this tremendous load of debt and that Peter now is like the middle servant. The one who is forgiven of the $10 million and won’t or maybe who doesn’t want to forgive somebody who owes him a smaller debt.

And that the sinner then that Jesus is talking about and that Peter asked the question of how many times does this man do I have to forgive the sinner? The sinner in this parable is the man who owes the smaller debt. Okay, so that’s what Jesus says. You’ve got the king representing the heavenly father, the servant relieved of $10 million representing Peter and then the other servant owing 100 denarii representing the other sinner in Peter’s question.

So that’s the answer that Jesus gives Peter. We want to talk now about the context of that answer and what Jesus was teaching. First of all, it’s obvious that Jesus is saying there’s two different sorts of debt going on here, isn’t there? There’s a $10 million debt and there’s a hundred denarii or I don’t know maybe a $100 debt on the other hand of that issue. So, there’s two different types of debts here or sins and that’s certainly true.

There are sins against God and penalties from God and that would correlate to the $10 million debt. It’s a debt we can’t pay. We have other debts though as a result of our sins toward our fellow man. Some of those can be paid and so there is a difference in terms of the sort of debts that we have. Peter that’s significant because Peter in asking the question says Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him seven times Jesus says no Peter’s asking about sins against him and so Jesus in the parable shows the sin against him the is 100 denarii compared to the man’s sin against God now we know that all sin is primarily is ultimately sin against God.

We know that from Psalm 51 where David says, “Against thee and against thee only have I sinned and done this terrible thing.” So we know that all sin is rebellion against God. But sin has a man aspect to it, at least some of it does, which is relatively speaking much smaller in terms of impact or indebtedness than our sin against God. So there’s a God-ward and a man-ward aspect to our sin and a resultant debt.

Now Jesus uses the term of debt here in terms of sin. which is used other places as well. In the Lord’s prayer, we’re to pray that we would be forgiven our debts as we forgive our debtors. And the word there in the Matthew account as opposed to Luke account indicates a monetary has a monetary indication to implication to it as well. Sin leaves a debt is what is true of this parable and is true of reality as well.

Sin leaves a debt and sin to God leaves a tremendous debt that we can never repay. That’s being taught in this parable. But there’s also a debt to society and sometimes debt can be repaid, sometimes not. That term debt to society of course is one that our country used to use a lot and it came from biblical terminology involving a understanding of sin as debt. So there’s two different types of sin. But still that doesn’t really help us in terms of understanding what sins we have to forgive or how we’re to forgive our fellow man in either one of these cases.

But the second thing I think and this is probably the most important thing to get out of this parable and out of what Jesus teaches here and this alone I’m going to make application of this in the next two points but this is the reason why I make this application this parable teaches as well as many other verses in the scriptures teach a necessary linkage between our process of forgiveness and God’s forgiveness okay it puts together the way we forgive people and the way God forgives us says they’re connected they’re linked they’re not to be decoupled they’re to be connected there’s a linkage.

Now we see that obviously in verse 35. So shall my father, heavenly father do unto you. If you do not forgive his brother from your heart, the implication is you’ve been forgiven. You got to forgive. There’s a linkage here. And this has already been stated quite obviously and we talked about this two weeks ago in verse 18 of this passage in terms of the church. Whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

So Jesus in Matthew 18 in verse 18 says that the church action must be linked to God’s court action. And now Peter talking about sins against him personally and talking about personal forgiveness that we have toward one another and is necessary in life. Jesus now says that those also are linked in the same way. They’re to be seen as connected. Okay. Now this is repeated as I said throughout scripture in the Lord’s prayer itself of course in Matthew 6 verse 12.

Matthew 6:12, the Lord’s prayer after verse 11, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. See, forgive us as we have also forgiven. A connection in between our forgiveness from God and the way we forgive other people. And then in fact, after teaching the disciples how to pray with the Lord’s prayer, he goes on and reinforces just one aspect or one petition out of that prayer in verses 14 and 15.

And it’s this aspect of forgiveness. And he says, “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your heavenly father will not forgive your transgressions. Same thing being taught in the parable we have before us. Again, Mark 11 verse 25. Mark 11:25. And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions.

See, he links it together. Again, most of the places you look in the New Testament talking about forgiveness will have this linkage that our forgiveness of our fellow man is correlated and is linked to the way that God forgives us and our forgiveness before God. So, that’s found in Mark 11:25. Now, it’s interesting here, we’ll get back to this in a minute, but the context of the passage in Mark 11, before that, Jesus had cursed a fig tree up earlier in the chapter in verse 21, Peter sees this fig tree, he says, “Rabbi, behold, the fig tree you have cursed has withered.” And then after that, at the beginning of chapter 12 in Mark, after this statement of Jesus about to forgive, and so your father will forgive you, he talks about a vine, a vineyard, and the masters of the vineyard being cruel and not using it for the owner of the vineyard’s purposes and the judgment due to them that’s going to come upon them.

So, what I’m saying is this petition here, this directive to forgive as we’ve been forgiven is sandwiched by passages about judgment. Okay, that’s important to keep in the back of your mind. In Luke 6:37, we read the same kind of thing that we’ve been talking about. Luke 6:37, do not pass judgment, you will not be judged. Do not condemn, you will not and you shall not be condemned. Pardon and you’ll be pardoned.

Forgive and you’ll be forgiven. Necessary linkage. And again in Luke 6, the context is one. He goes on to talk about a beam and the splinter passage. He says, “If you’re going to remove the splinter from the other person’s eye, take your beam out first and then you can see clearly to remove the splinter. He doesn’t say forget the whole situation. Leave the beam in your eye, the splinter in his eye. That’s not loving.

He said if you’re going to help the guy get the splinter out of his eye, take the beam out of your own eye first. Okay? And then he talks at the end of that in the end of Luke 6, the last few verses, he gives the analogy the wise man and the foolish man. Foolish man hears the word of God, doesn’t obey it, and is judged by God for that and is cursed. His house falls and great is the fall thereof. So judgment is an aspect here as well of the context of Luke 6:37.

Now into the epistles in Ephesians 4:32, we have a verse that talks about forgiveness that what we’re talking about this morning when we’re to forgive each other, when we’re to forgive our mates, other people in the church, etc. In Ephesians 4:32, it says to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other. How? Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. See, same linkage. We forgive the way God forgives.

God forgives and we forgive. We don’t forgive, God doesn’t forgive us. Necessary linkage here. Now, that shouldn’t surprise us when we read our scripture passage every Sunday. We pray that God would illumine the scriptures to us, that we’d see something in the scriptures about God and understand that we’re creatures of his and we image God then in our actions. And so, it shouldn’t really surprise this group that we read in scripture is that we’re to forgive as God forgives.

That there’s this linkage. That’s just what we expect to find in the scriptures and we see it reinforced in all these verses. Okay, that was my second point. The first point is there are different types of sin. Second point is that our forgiveness, our forgiveness rather, is linked to God’s forgiveness. The third point is that God’s forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. Okay? God’s forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance.

Now, we talked about this last week. We’ll spend a few more minutes this morning talking about this. First of all, we just as we said last week, we want to stress this week. The basis for God’s forgiveness is not repentance. Okay? The basis for the master, the king here remitting $10 million in unpayable debt from the person is not the person’s repentance. It’s the fact that he pardons it of grace. The repentance is part of the process, which we’ll get to in a moment.

But the repentance can’t make satisfaction for the debt. The repentance doesn’t produce $10 million in the king’s coffers. Okay? There’s a real debt there and it can’t be paid by the person. And so the person’s repentance doesn’t produce enough value to get him forgiveness. That’s not what’s being taught here. It’s just the reverse. The person can’t make repentance. He can’t make satisfaction rather because repentance will not produce satisfaction.

The basis is the pardon by the king. Now, this is where the analogy breaks down a little bit because the parable doesn’t give us isn’t meant to give us a full picture of all teaching about forgiveness. But the point is that you can see obvious deficiencies in the parable here if we take it too far. One is that in our case, the pardon that we receive from God before God isn’t just a pardon based upon no other actions.

The pardon we receive is based upon somebody else paying the debt. God just doesn’t say it’s remitted and we’ll just fudge the books a little bit. No, the basis for our forgiveness is the work of Christ. He pays the $10 million. Okay? Somebody else pays the debt. It’s not simply remitted. Christ paid the debt. Secondly, it breaks down because $10 million is a tremendous amount of money. And in our day, it may be more like 10 billion in terms of buying power.

But even that pales in comparison to the price whereby Jesus paid for our sins. Jesus pays the price for our sins in his precious blood. The most precious commodity there is. God sending his own beloved son to earth to die for our sins. It’s the blood of Jesus Christ making satisfaction for our sins. That’s the basis for our forgiveness before God. It’s the basis for his pardon of our sins. He doesn’t wink the eye at our sins.

He doesn’t fudge the books. He pays the price through his own son, Jesus Christ. And through Christ’s precious blood, forgiveness is purchased for it. And there’s one other thing that’s a little bit different, of course, that Jesus Christ pays Jesus Christ pays that precious price not for people originally that are repentant before him, but for people that hate him. Scriptures say we were enemies against God.

We were enmity with God. We hated God. We rebelled against God. And it was for those sort of people that God sent his son Jesus Christ to fully pay debt of our sins, eternal death, to put upon Jesus Christ our sin and the curse for our sins and for his precious blood to make atonement or pardon for those sins. And so the basis for our forgiveness then is the sabbatical release purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ as he pays the debt for our sins.

Okay, that’s the basis. But there is a process as well and this passage of scripture primarily is aimed at that process. The parable The answer to Peter is more aimed at the process. Now, let’s look at that process in a little bit more detail here. We have a person remitted of debt, the man who owes $10 million. But look at the conditions before the person forgives him. And we’ll see if those match up with the conditions we talked about last week.

And they will. First of all, there’s a confession that the person really is in debt. He doesn’t when the master calls him and says, “You owe me $10 million pay up.” He doesn’t say, “Well, I really don’t owe you that money. It’s you know, just a loan and I’ll pay it back to you on the very payments we scheduled here. He doesn’t try to make excuses. He doesn’t say, “Well, I had that 10 million. It really isn’t my fault that I can’t pay it because I invested in the market.

The market crashed 4,000 points and I lost it.” Or he doesn’t say, “Well, you didn’t give me enough training to handle that $10 million correctly.” He doesn’t make excuses for his sin. Is what I’m saying here. We’ve said this time and time again over the last couple of months. We’ve said it often because it’s important. Most of us in this church are raising children. We’ve got to teach those children. There’s no excuses for violation of the ethical demands that God places us on us in the scriptures.

We don’t when we’re confronted with our sin want to make excuses for it. We want to agree with God. Yet, that is a debt. I sinned. I broke your law. Satisfaction must be rendered. We don’t make excuses for it. We don’t want to be like King Saul who made excuses for his sin and therefore the kingdom was removed from. We want to be like David. Terrible sin owned up to the sin. Yes, I’ve sinned against God. As we said earlier, he said in the Psalms, “Against God only have I sinned.” He understood that his sin was real.

So there’s confession. First of all, the debt or the sin. No excuses. Secondly, there’s a sorrow for it. The man just doesn’t say, “Yeah, you’re right. I owe you 10 million. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.” He gets down on his face before the king. He is sorry that he can’t pay that price. He entreats the king with tears. He’s he worships him. He gets down on his face, his hands and knees before the king.

There is a genuine sorrow here for his position of indebtedness in terms of the king. And then third, there’s a change of life. He doesn’t just say, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.” He says, “I’m sorry. Let me try and I’ll pay back the debt.” There’s an intent to change his way of life from being a debtor to being a creditor and paying back the debts that he owes. There’s a change of life that goes on. He wants to cease being in debt.

He wants instead to be a creditor and pay back what he has already owed. There’s an intention to repay the debt here. And that’s a condition and that’s the conditions that precede then the king’s forgiveness of that debt. Now, those are just the same conditions we talked about last week in terms of repentance. Repentance is a confession of sin. But it’s more than that. It’s a sorrow for sin. But we read in 2 Corinthians that sorrow can be unto sin or can be could be unto life, can be unto death.

Sorrow isn’t enough. There has to be a change of life. There has to be a turning away from sin and a positive doing what’s right. She said in Ephesians 4 that those who lie stop lying and speak the truth with his neighbor. Let him who steals no longer steal. Let him work at his hands that he can give to those who have needs. Repentance involves those three aspects then a confession, sorrow and a change of life.

All those are necessary. This parable tells us before the king forgives or remits the debt. So forgiveness is conditioned God’s forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. This means as well then and this is our fourth point now that if there’s this necessary linkage between our forgiveness and God’s forgiveness and if God’s forgiveness has its condition in terms of the process now the way God works it out repentance understanding of course that repentance is only possible by the grace of the Holy Spirit that means that our forgiveness of one another then must also be conditioned upon repentance.

Real obvious logical progression here. And yet it just isn’t understood very often in this light. Now again, what we’re talking about here is biblical forgiveness, the way the scriptures use the term. Now, some people would say that it’s forgiving somebody to not hold a grudge, not to say it’s okay what they did in our own mind, but to be kind to them anyway. Now, the scriptures say we should be kind to our enemies, and in so doing, we heap coals upon their head.

But that isn’t really forgiving them. Forgiving is pardoning. It’s as if the sin didn’t happen anymore. It’s a complete pardon of the sin. So, let’s keep the terminology intact here. Let’s use the biblical terms. When the Bible speaks about forgiveness, it speaks about pardon from sin. It doesn’t speak about us being kind to those people who persecute us. That’s not forgiveness. That’s forbearance perhaps.

That’s longsuffering. That’s a lot of other things. But it’s not what the scriptures talk about in terms of forgiveness. Forgiveness is pardon. But our forgiveness, that forgiveness must be conditioned upon repentance is what this verse I think this parable and Christ teaching tells us. Now there’s one other caveat I want to make to that though and that is that the parable is speaking about sins or offenses that are known to the person committing them.

Now I say that because we know that God’s forgiveness of us is conditioned upon our repentance. But that’s only true of those sins that we know about. We all sin in many ways and throughout the day and throughout the week and throughout our lives in ways we’re not even aware of. And certainly God doesn’t require repentance of us for those sins. But he wants us if we are if we’re convicted of sin, if we know that we’ve broken a command of God, that’s what’s being addressed here, to repent of those sins.

And it’s the same with each other. We’re not saying that we all have to be searching our lives minute by minute for all sins and then repenting one another so we can or confess them and repent so we can be forgiven. We’re talking about sins and offenses that are known to the individuals. Now, part of the process of Matthew 18, of course, is making people aware of those sins that are that are grievous.

And so, we have an obligation to instruct each other that certain actions they’re involved with really are sin. My wife and I were talking about this yesterday, you know, we’re saying in a way you could almost come up with the errant conclusion that ignorance is bliss in terms of sin. You know, if you don’t have to repent for those sins, ignorance is bliss. I don’t want to read the law anymore cuz I might find things that I’m going to have to repent of. Just at that moment, Benjamin was walking along on the wooden floor and was kind of enjoying looking up and he just kept looking up, you know, and he fell right over backwards and hit his head on the wooden floor and he just kept looking back until he just fell right over.

Now, he didn’t know, you know, as he looked up that he was going to fall over back. He doesn’t understand this balance thing fully yet. He was ignorant of that, but it certainly wasn’t bliss for him. You know, he had a quite a bump in the back of his head there. And it’s important that we recognize that we have this obligation to instruct each other when we see each other doing this kind of a thing or sinning in God’s word that’s going to bring judgment upon us that we instruct each other and help each other and show that kind of love for each other.

But in any event, when there are sins that are known, offenses that are known to the individual and they come to us asking for forgiveness, the scriptures teach that forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. We’re not to give blanket forgiveness. Now, there’s a parallel passage of this sevenfold forgiveness in Luke 17, verses 3 and 4. Be on your guard.

If your brother sins rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. See here he says it real blatantly. If your brother sins rebuke him if he repents forgive him. You don’t forgive him if he doesn’t repent is what’s being said here. And then Jesus goes on to say, “And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent, forgive him.’” They put those two verses together, and what they’re saying is that all sins against God, against the church, great societal sins, as well as sins that affect us, sins against you, are conditioned, the forgiveness for those things that we issue with our mouths to other people is conditioned upon a credible confession.

Sorrow for the sin and a turning from that sin, repentance. And so it says just what the analogy itself says and there so many verses say about this linkage to God that is God’s forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance. Our forgiveness of each other also must be conditioned upon repentance and all that entails. And so if you’re not sure of a person’s repentance, it’s proper to look for fruits of repentance.

We talked about that last week. Remember we said last week in terms of repentance and a demonstration in the life of the repentant attitude of the person and the necessity of fruits of repentance. In certain cases that obviously fruits are required in and you’ll understand you cannot just autonomously grant forgiveness to people. A credible profession is important here. A credible profession of repentance.

Now this is important. What this says is that when we forgive somebody, it’s not based upon the person saying I’m sorry. It’s based upon repentance. Now we in our society are raised taught to say we’re sorry for things we do wrong. And you know, one of the first phrases most children learn is, “I’m sorry.” You know, you come after them and say, “What do you do wrong?” “I’m sorry.” And in many households, that’s it.

That’s the end of the situation. And the kids out of the doghouse now and he’s not going to get a spanking because he said he’s sorry. Then he goes right back and bops his brother or sister on the nose again. You go back to him. I’m sorry. I tell you, I’m sorry. You know, then he goes back and hits him again. Biblical forgiveness is not based upon I’m sorry. It’s based upon repentance. Okay? And if he if he repents, you’re to forgive him.

And if he comes to you and says, “Not I’m sorry, but I repent. I’m going to turn from my sin.” You forgive him. Okay? A credible confession of repentance is what the basis for our forgiveness has to be. Now, sometimes you may not know if there’s biblical repentance demonstrated in gross in sins that are big sins, sins that are of a scandalous nature. The church has in times past given an absolution to people.

And absolution doesn’t mean the church can forgive those sins. Absolution is a statement by the church court to the congregation to the person involved and to the public at large basically saying this person has demonstrated a repentance. They’re forgiven. God’s forgiven and we recognize that repentance. And so as we deal with great sins within our church context, we should move together on that kind of thing.

And if the church says this person is now repentant, then we should all fix our attitudes correctly and say yes, this person is forgiven now. And if the church says there must be a demonstration of repentance, then we should all get in line and say, “Okay, that’s the way it is with that particular item.” You see what I’m saying? If there’s great sins involved and you’re not sure that the church action is involved, then you must let the church work as a church government. You must be part of that process in terms of talking with the eldership to move toward a resolution and a understanding of the church in terms of repentance.

What I’m trying to point out here is that this means that forgiveness that we offer one to another is not autonomous. Ultimately, the real forgiver behind all forgiveness is God himself, not man. When we substitute our own standards for forgiveness, not based upon God’s standards, when we substitute our compassion apart from what God how God defines compassion.

When we substitute our fiat word in terms of uttering forgiveness to a person and pardon for sins where God’s word has not given it, we seek to unseat God. We must bring our understanding of our pardon of each other and our forgiveness of each other in line to God’s standard. God’s word, God’s definition of compassion, God’s standards of righteousness. Now in light of that, how can we say that a person who has attacked us for instance or who has slandered us or who has declared the word of God to be a child abuse manual, how can we say, “Well, I’ll forgive that person.” See, that is autonomousness.

That’s substituting our standards apart from what these standards tell us they should be. Our forgiveness has to be linked to God’s forgiveness. Does it help the individual when we do that? Is it really love and compassion of the individual to say, “You’re forgiven anyway?” Well, no. Of course it doesn’t. We can’t consign people to hell but God can and he will unless repentance is demonstrated on the part of people for those sort of activities and how does it help them to paper it over and to coddle them by saying well I forgive you it’s okay well that just condemns them to hell the further and denies our responsibility according to Ezekiel to warn the sinner of his evil ways and if we don’t do that then his blood is upon our hands.

Remember that passage in Ezekiel. Jesus says that the fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit is not to be said it’s okay you don’t have any fruit. We’re not to forgive the fig tree. Jesus didn’t say the masters over the vineyard who beat the servants of the owner of the vineyard. He didn’t say you should forgive those guys. He didn’t say that Lazarus who when he attempted to blame uh or when the rich man rather when he attempted to blame his sins upon God’s not giving him people back from the dead he would believe. God doesn’t tell us to forgive Lazarus in our hearts.

God doesn’t tell us to take the man who scriptures say should wear a millstone around his neck who has caused other people to stumble. He doesn’t tell us to issue pardon to that man with our lips and so condemn him to hell even the further. He doesn’t tell us to leave the man with a splinter in his eye where he is after we remove the beam. He tells us to go on and remove the splinter, help him get it out of his eye.

Don’t leave him with that condition and say, “It’s okay. You’re forgiven. I forgive you. He doesn’t tell us to tell the foolish man whose house collapses upon him or who will if he doesn’t turn from his deeds. He doesn’t tell us to tell the foolish man, you’re forgiven. I forgive you.