The Terrible Prayer - [Matthew 6:12]

I don't know if you're familiar with Richard Dawkins. He wrote a book called The God Delusion.

Basically you're delusional if you believe in God. He said, What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such an appalling role model as Yahweh.

And even worse, Dawkins says, that they should possibly try to force the same evil monster on the rest of us.

You think that would be enough right there for blasphemy. But he said when God told

Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it was, quote, disgraceful. It was child abuse.

It was bullying. He said, I'm tired of this God who breaks into a monumental rage when people worship other gods.

And he said Joshua's description of Jericho is, quote, morally indistinguishable from Hitler's invasion of Poland or Saddam Hussein's massacre of the

Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. When you hear things like that, what goes through your mind?

Well, I have lots of things that go through my mind. Number one, I'm very glad God is merciful for Richard Dawkins' sake.

At least for now. I'm glad I don't think that way anymore, and I might not have put it in those terms, but I before my salvation, and so were you at enmity with God.

But I mainly think this, that all that kind of horrible, sinful thinking could be cleared up with the right view of God as Father.

Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 and look again in this great sermon, the

Sermon on the Mount, understanding God as our Father. Now, you may have had a bad father on earth or have a bad father on earth, but here we look to this heavenly

Father who is anything but someone who engages in some of the things that I hope

I never have to repeat that have come out of Richard Dawkins' pen. Matthew chapter 6, the

Sermon on the Mount, specifically 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount, but now we're up to Matthew chapter 6,

God as Father. You see, the Pharisees didn't understand God as a Father. They understood God as something different than Father, and Jesus comes along and teaches the disciples there's a way to think about God.

If you're a Christian congregation, you must think about God as a

Father. Really that is the essence of Christianity, summarized by thinking about God as Father.

If you don't get that right, you don't really get anything right. Count with me if you see in Matthew chapter 6, how many times does the word

Father occur? Verse 1, with your Father who is in heaven.

Verse 4, your Father right there in the middle. Verse 6, two times, your

Father who is in secret and your Father who sees what is done in secret. Verse 8 of Matthew 6, your

Father knows what you need before you ask. In the prayer we've been studying verse 9, our

Father. Verse 14, your Heavenly Father. Occurrence number 8 found in verse 15, your

Father. Verse 18, your Father, and then another one, your Father. Verse 26, your

Heavenly Father, and finally the 12th example of this word Father that Jesus is teaching the disciples about found in verse 32, your

Heavenly Father. The scriptures reveal that God is known as Father.

A far cry from the pagan kind of birthing God called Mother. Whenever we go to CBD, we always run upon the same books.

These books in the ten cent bin, and then they're in the five cent bin, and then they're we pay you bin if you take these books away.

There's one that always is there, and I always have to answer it out loud. Steve knows what it is, probably

Brian knows what it is. Is it okay to call God Mother? And so I always pick up the book and say, no, it's not.

Mothers are pagan. Mothers aren't pagan. Not all mothers are pagan. Now, let's just get this straight.

That should be my Mother's Day sermon. When it comes to thinking about gods and goddesses, mothers somehow birth, but God the

Father, He creates, and He creates with a word, and Jesus wants to make sure we all realize, especially in that time of prayer and communion with God, that we think about Him as Father.

Frankly, in the Old Testament, it was almost unheard of to think of God as a personal Father. Thirteen, fourteen, maybe fifteen times in all of the

Old Testament is God known as Father. And now Jesus comes to redeem a people, and to die for them, and to be their brother, to be their captain of their salvation, to be the substitutory sacrifice on Calvary, to be raised from the dead.

And early on, before any of this happens, He says, I want you to know that when you pray to God, think of Him as Father.

Don't do what the Pharisees did in chapter 5, they forgot God was Father, and don't think about what they think about in chapter 6.

How did the Pharisees think? Verse 1 of chapter 6, Beware of practicing your righteousness,

Jesus said, before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your

Father who is in heaven. And then He says in verses 2 to 4, when you give alms, make sure you remember

God is your Father. And if you give alms to the poor, do it with an eye towards God as Father.

When you pray, verses 5 through 15, think about God as Father, and when you give up food and you fast, verses 16 to 18, think of God as Father.

Is it okay to call God Mother? No. Jesus wants you to know that God is called a

Father for many reasons, but this is the God we're to pray to, God our Father.

Well we're up to petition number 5 today, part 2, petition 5, found in verse 12.

Let's look at the verse, we're going to examine this verse and a couple other ones in depth today as we work through the

Sermon on the Mount, specifically the Lord's Prayer, or technically the Disciples Prayer, Jesus teaching us to pray.

And so Jesus says in verse 9 of Matthew chapter 6, pray then in this way.

And Jesus is going to give a skeleton prayer, a very summary kind of fashion prayer, He's not going to tell us everything to pray, but He's going to give us some words and some thoughts and sentences to shape our prayers.

This is no different than shaping some kind of clay into a form, this is just very basic externals to help shape our idea that God is good and with confidence we can go to this great

Father who loves us. After all, we are image bearers and if I am a father who is full of sin and guile can love my children, so much so a

God who is holy, holy, holy can love His children. Pray then in this way, our what?

Father who is in heaven. And this is setting the whole tone for the prayer and you can just see how it starts to develop, hallowed be your name.

There's a God who's close and intimate, Father, Daddy, and then there's a

God who sits in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases, He's in the heavenly places and we're to be concerned about God and His program, not our own program, not our own health first, not our children's health, not our businesses, not our relationships, but when we pray,

Jesus says, I know you're going to pray wrongly, so as a brother, as a friend, as your savior, as your master, as your king, pray for God's glory first, hallowed be your justice, hallowed be your mercy, hallowed be your loving kindness,

God, hallowed be your holiness. Petition two, your kingdom come.

Petition three, your will be done. Now we move from God's glory to our good.

Give us this day our daily bread and everything that we need, food and clothing and shelter. And then we come to verse 12, and forgive us our debts, and I wish it just stopped there.

We're going to look today at all of verse 12, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

What Augustine called the terrible prayer, the prayer that if you pray with malice towards others, with unforgiving heart towards others, you're basically saying,

God, don't forgive me. But I digress. I get ahead of myself. And so several weeks ago, before the ice storm, before the snow storm, it's good to see a packed house today.

I don't know if this is a house, but the Lord's house, it's good to see everybody here again. And three weeks ago,

I preached a sermon on this verse, and we were looking at misconceptions that people have about prayer that this verse helps correct.

And so let's look at those misconceptions again, a few quick review, quickly to review, and then into the new ones.

Misconceptions, that's our outline today, misconceptions about prayer and about God that this passage helps correct.

So thinking properly about God. Number one, this is the first misconception.

This prayer comes naturally. It doesn't become naturally because otherwise, why would Jesus teach us to pray then this way?

Remember, these disciples were influenced by all the Pharisees, and they wouldn't pray this way unless Jesus says, this is exactly how

I want you to pray. Pray with a command in this way. Pharisees have no father.

Don't pray like them. Forgive us our debts. That's the way we're to pray.

Misconception number two, this prayer has changed as scientific discoveries have rendered it as obsolete.

After all, who sins anymore? Even Carl Menninger said years ago, 40 years ago in a book, whatever happened to sin?

But we know this is an eternal verse, as it were, at least if eternity is measured on earth.

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

Just because somebody says you've got a syndrome or you need a 12 -step group or a five -step plan or whatever they come up with next, we still sin against God and we need forgiveness.

I love the story I found out about Eskimos this week. There's no word in Eskimoese for forgiveness, wherever this was.

But they did find a word in this particular tribe's vocabulary, and the word, and I won't try to pronounce the word, hallelujah.

It's not the word hallelujah, but you're saying hallelujah because you don't want me to try to say that word. Here's what this word meant, not being able to think about it anymore.

Reminds me of Jeremiah, I will remember their sin, what? No more. Whatever culture, tribe, nation, year of the world, people sin against God and they need something and it's forgiveness.

It'll never go out of date. Third misconception, God only reluctantly forgives.

He's stingy with forgiveness. He's only a God of justice. No, God is free with forgiveness, full of compassion.

He loves to forgive. How great is it to grant forgiveness and restore a relationship? How much more with God?

Let me paint the scenario. Don't go there, but just listen. Exodus 14, then the

Egyptians chased after the Israelites with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them by camping by the sea beside two mountains,

Pith -Harioth and Baal -Zephon. So here comes all of Pharaoh and his armies.

And now there's the sea over here, the Red Sea, and there's a mountain here and there's a mountain here, armies, mountain, mountain, sea.

There is no way out, Exodus 14. But Moses said to the people, do not fear.

Stand by, here's your job, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which

He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever.

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord swept back the sea by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into a dry land, so the waters were divided.

We serve a God that sets up forgiveness in such a way that no one else could grant it. No one else could come up with it.

We've got a sea there, we've got the armies there, we've got the mountain there, the mountain there, there's no way out except God.

He's a God and His love and His kindness has forgiven us our sins because of Christ's payment. Number four, this prayer teaches you about the goodness of mankind.

I believe in sin, don't you? One man said, because I'm a realist, we all know about our sin.

This prayer doesn't teach us about the goodness of mankind. I was just reading a story the other day about Matt Schmucker from Nine Marks Ministry at Capitol Hills and he said, play this game when you watch the

TV with the kids. Play this game, catch the lie. You watch the TV and when they have a lie, you all say,

I saw that lie. Well here's a big lie you need to make sure your children catch, that men and women are good.

Obviously, we sin and so Jesus says, here's the remedy, ask for forgiveness. Number five, the fifth misconception is that this prayer teaches you there's nothing worse than sinning against other people.

There is something worse than sinning against other people, it's sinning against God Himself.

Against Thee, the psalmist said in Psalm 51, and Thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in Thy sight.

The sin was against Uriah, the sin was against Bathsheba, the sin was against Israel, but it was so huge, it was so enormous when he thought about his sin against God.

Number six, we've almost caught up, this prayer teaches you that you are better than Judas, that you're better than Herod, you're better than Jezebel, and that you're better than Hitler.

Friends left to ourselves, we all sin against this triune God and we are not any better than anyone else.

Now number seven, new, a new misconception. You thought there were too many misconceptions before, now here's a new one.

This prayer teaches you that you lose your salvation if you don't forgive. That's a misconception.

First of all, if you can't come up with your own salvation, you can't lose what you can't come up with. But something else, look at the text,

Matthew 6, 12, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Verse 14, if you skip verse 13, Jesus goes on to say as kind of a postscript to the prayer, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions. Sadly, too many people have thought that this means you can lose your salvation if you don't forgive.

It doesn't mean that, but the question should be now, what does it mean? Let me tell you something that when it was taught to me, it just opened my eyes to the realm of theological history and who

God is. Very easy concept, but too often forgot. There are two kinds of forgiveness in the

Bible, judicial and what? What's the other kind? Parental.

Judicial forgiveness and parental forgiveness, and we ought not to mix those two up. You'll see both in the

Bible and you experience both as well. If you have children and they sin against you, of course, like a good father, you tell them, we're going straight down to the county clerk's office and I'm erasing your name, your last name, because that's my name and you've sinned against me and you're no longer fit to have my last name.

We do that all the time, don't we? Is that what we do? No. There's a judicial kind of forgiveness at Calvary.

Jesus paid for all our sins, past, present, and future, which also includes times when we don't forgive, true?

Judicially declared righteous by Christ's work, perfect life, perfect death, perfect resurrection.

Our righteousness exchanged for his sin? His righteousness exchanged for our sin.

But then there's a parental forgiveness. Do you expect your kids when they sin against you to come up and say, Daddy, would you please forgive me?

What are you doing? I've already forgiven you. I've already declared that I would always forgive you. You'll always be my child.

You can't become my child, so therefore don't ask me those things. Is that how you treat your kids? Of course not.

There's a judicial forgiveness and a parental forgiveness. What kind do you think Jesus is talking about here?

He's not talking about judicial forgiveness. He's talking about parental forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness says,

Colossians chapter 2, he's forgiven us of all our sins. It speaks language like this,

Micah 7, they will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

It speaks like Psalm 103 when it says, As far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us.

It's based on Christ's work where he would bear our sin, take away our sin, purge our sin, put away our sin.

That's judicial forgiveness. But then there's parental forgiveness as well. And so you sin against your father on earth, you sin against your heavenly father and you say,

I'm a child, you're my father, but I've sinned against you or we have fellowship broken and now please forgive me of those sins.

So if you understand the difference between judicial and parental forgiveness, it's helpful, especially helpful if you listen to people like Bob George on the radio who says you never need to ask

God for forgiveness because he's already declared you forgiven at Calvary. You don't want to fall into that trouble.

You say, I want to know more about this. Well, let's keep putting these things together. Misconception number eight, this prayer promotes sterile rote confession.

This is the kind of prayer that you just say, you know what, this reminds me back in my Lutheran days. I thought if I die with any sin,

I'm going straight to hell and so I better try to remember all the sins I committed today and get them all out to make sure that they're all kind of covered and every night it turned into the same kind of prayer.

Forgive me for this. Forgive me for that. Forgive me for the other. And forgive me for anything else I haven't thought of. You know, down I go.

There's a kind of forgiveness that's not from the heart that doesn't say I've sinned against my father. If you think of God as a father, you don't come with a rote kind of deal.

You don't come even in prayer for the food. I mean, for us, it was as rote as you can get. Come Lord Jesus, be our guest.

Let this food be blessed. Amen. Now lean down to sleep. I pray to the Lord. Is that the way you want your kids to say goodnight to you?

I love it when my kids say, I love you, dad. I love you, dad. You tell me if you think this is rote confession or kind of dragged out confession.

Joshua said to Achan, my son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel and give praise to him and tell me now what you have done.

Do not hide it from me. So Achan answered Joshua and said, truly I've sinned against the

Lord, the God of Israel. And this is what I did when I saw among the spoil, a beautiful mantle from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold, 50 shekels in weight.

I coveted them and I took them and behold, they're concealed in the earth inside my tent with silver underneath it. Was that a good confession?

Well, at least he was right. But confession is not,

I'm going to drag this out of you. I've got a spear to your throat and you better tell me or else. That's what basically happened with Achan.

Confession even isn't being sorry for something. When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.

I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they said, what is that to us? See to that yourself.

For being sorry for what you've done and the consequences, that isn't enough. The Prussian king,

Frederick the Great, he toured a Berlin prison decades ago. And he'd say the same thing to every person in prison.

Why are you here? Armed robbery, your majesty. Are you guilty?

And for the first time, one of the men said, I am guilty. Every person else would fall on their knees and say,

I didn't do it. You don't understand. It's kind of probably like policemen when they pull us over, we're driving, you know, all these kinds of things and excuses.

Why are you here? Armed robbery. Are you guilty? Yes, I'm guilty. I deserve my punishment. Frederick then summoned the jailer and ordered him, release this guilty wretch at once.

I will not have him kept in this prison while he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who occupy it.

This prayer has nothing to do with, we just say the words to get him over with. We address

God, our Father, and He wants us to do it properly. With our hearts, with our minds.

Number nine. This prayer teaches you, and now we get really into the meat, this prayer teaches you that forgiving other people is trivial before God.

It's not that big a deal. You don't have to forgive that grudge that you've held against your spouse, your brother, your sister, your kids, your aunt, your old boss, your neighbor.

It's not a big deal. Don't worry about it. Come see, come saw. God doesn't care at all.

Bigger things in life. Look at the text again, please. Matthew chapter six, verse 12.

And forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

Jesus is basically saying this. When you come to the Father and you say, God, cleanse me like a father would a child, grant me parental forgiveness.

I know you're already considering me as a child of God and you've purchased me, but now what

I'd like to do is I'd like to reconcile. Jesus says, the way you'll determine how you think about this is if you have any malice and spite and anger and bitterness and unforgiveness in your heart towards other people.

That's why Augustine called this the terrible petition. Because if you can't forgive other people when they've sinned against you, although God can forgive you because you've sinned against him, then you should pray this prayer.

Oh God, I am not going to forgive my brother, so please don't forgive me.

That's the point. And Spurgeon said, if that's the way you want to pray, you've signed your own death warrant.

God, deal with me as I've dealt with other people. God, I've got sinned against and you don't know how important I am in this world and however

I've been sinned against, it doesn't compare to how I've sinned against you. Exaggerating what people have done to you and minimizing how

God has forgiven you. Would we ever want to pray that way? Why would

Jesus even teach us this if we weren't prone to do it? If we weren't prone to wander? John Wesley was in America, as you know, in the state of Georgia, and he met a general called

Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe was a great leader militarily, but he said to Wesley one day,

I never forgive. So Wesley, who was a smart man, said, then sir,

I hope you never sin. We appear before God and we say,

God, our Father, hallowed be thy name. God, I come to you as a forgiven person and so I'm asking you to forgive me because you've changed me,

I'm different, and I have now an attitude that says, I want to forgive other people. When you're young,

I think it's a pretty easy verse to deal with because A, you forget about what people do to you that's sin, and B, I remember my mother told me once, she said, it took me to be 40 years old in my life before I realized some people didn't like me.

It only took me 20. No, just kidding. Here's what

Jesus is saying in kind of compact language. Forgiven people what?

Forgive. If you've tasted forgiveness, can you imagine what hell must be like for the unforgiven?

Edward said, the sinner in hell would give everything and more just to make the weight of his sin in hell one less.

If I could just have one little bit of water, if I could just not be paying for a million sins, if I could be paying for $999 ,999, there'd be a relief.

And here Jesus bears on his body all of our sins, every one of our sins, as the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus in this great triune salvation, dark from noon to three.

And we have been forgiven freely, but we can't forgive other people. People say this,

I can't forgive someone else. No, you won't forgive. I can't forgive this person, you don't know what they've done.

No, you won't forgive them. And I know this, while I might not know what they've done,

I know what you have done against God. Not particularly, but generally. It's almost time for kind of a sigh of relief here.

I can feel the tension. Sometimes Christians are the ones who harbor bitterness and unforgiveness the most.

Story goes, there's two congregations located only a few blocks from each other in a small community. They thought it might be good if they were united into one body rather than two small little struggling churches.

But they couldn't do it because they had an argument on how to recite the Lord's prayer. One group wanted to forgive us our trespasses,

Luke, while the other demanded to forgive us our debts, Matthew. So, as Archangel Hugh says, one church went back to its trespasses while the other returned to its debts.

Forgiven people forgive. Turn with me, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 4.

I think Paul is insightful here. I think he learned a lesson from Jesus, whether someone related the

Sermon on the Mount to him or Jesus specially taught him personally about this fact. Certainly, Paul experienced forgiveness on the road to Damascus as he was going to go kill more

Christians. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32. Friends, forgiveness in this local body, forgiveness wherever you are, is important.

It's important in your family. It's important in this local church. And the bad news is we'll sin against each other.

We'll be sinned against. But there's a larger mission involved and it's the glory of Christ at stake.

It's not our rights. It's not, you know, how did this person, how dare this person do this. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32.

You see this kind of amplification of Matthew chapter 6 right there in verse 32. And be kind to one another, tender hearted.

What's the text say? Forgiving each other. Literally, the word there is gracing each other.

There's lots of words for forgiveness. One word is to let go. It's almost like a helium balloon. You just let it go and you just...

This word isn't to let go though. This word is to grace. Chorus. To grace them.

Gracing each other. How do Christians act? They have been graced so they grace other people. Just as, look at how he says it.

Grace each other just as God in Christ also has graced you.

Grace each other now because in the past, at a particular time, God graced you. That time is

Calvary. Broad, broad forgiveness. One man called this unbelievable generosity.

Letting go. And you notice the passage there? Each other in the context of a local church.

Certainly applying to a husband and wife. You've got to grace each other. And the model is

God's forgiveness. That's the motivation. Just as. Don't forget this statement.

We forgive because we're forgiven. That's what we do. He forgave us.

We forgive others. And for us it costs nothing. All we have to do is say what?

Someone says, I've sinned against you. And you say, please forgive me. What did it cost God? It cost him everything.

You say, but the person doesn't deserve it. Just as God in Christ forgave us.

Did we deserve it? You say, you don't know what the person did. You don't know how many times this person commits this sin.

Luther kind of went off the deep end once in a while. When it came to kind of satanic tax.

And I don't know if this really happened. But this is Luther's account. He thought he was attacked by Satan in a dream.

And the devil took a large parchment and unrolled it before Luther in the dream. And it had all

Luther's sins on it. And then the end of the scroll was pronounced by the devil.

And Luther said, is that all? No. Satan said, and he got a second scroll out.

Went through the whole list. Is that all? No. The third scroll comes out.

Luther said, you've forgotten something. Quickly write on each one of them.

The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses from all sins. All sins.

Not just the bad ones. Not just these ones. Every sin. No matter what the sin is.

When people come to you and say, please forgive me. You are to grant that. You say, well, you know what?

I don't feel like forgiving. What would you say to someone who called you on the phone? Someone sinned against me. I don't feel like forgiving them.

You would say what? Well, if you were sweet, you'd probably say,

I understand where you're coming from. I've gone through that myself. Here's how to walk through it.

And if you were abrupt, there's a time for abrupt counseling, I think. You would say, what do you mean you don't feel like it?

You don't have to feel like anything. You're like, well, what does this whole feeling thing have to do? I have a good illustration for you for those who want to be driven by feelings.

We have feelings, but they just ought not to be the engine. So you tell your children, please pick up the room. Please get all the stuff ready.

Get your Bible ready for church. Get your tights out. Get all those things. And when you come to them and you say, why didn't you do that?

You've disobeyed daddy. You've dishonored me. I know I have to grant you parental forgiveness because I've learned about that from church.

But you know what? You're in big trouble. And then your little daughter says to you or your little son said to you,

I didn't feel like it. So you have to just wave it, right? I thought that was going to be funnier than what it was, but that's all right.

I'm not a good actor. Just stick to the text, Mike. The feelings are irrelevant when it comes to forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an act of the will. When we're told to forgive, we're supposed to forgive whether we feel like it or not.

It is a sin not to forgive. I remember one man, he said, you know, everybody thinks sin is a great idea until they have something to forgive.

MacArthur said, refusing to forgive is a horrible sin. Leon Morris said, we can always think of some good reason why.

In any particular case, we need not forgive, but that is always an error. Look down at this postscript found in Matthew chapter 6, verse 14 and 15.

For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you. It's not necessarily an if then in chronological terms, but it's forgiven people forgive.

And you can tell you're a child of God and God is your father if you forgive like God forgives.

God forgives, his children forgive. And if you don't forgive, then you ask yourself the question, how can I be called a child of God?

Verse 15, but if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions.

Jesus wants to make it steep. He wants to make it difficult because this is so hard to do. It needs to be reinforced into our mind.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18. So we can make sure to understand that we never have a right to refuse forgiveness.

That we realize that unforgiving spirits should make ourselves ask the question, how can

I call myself a Christian and not forgive? It could be difficult. Many times it is difficult, but we see people like Joseph in Genesis chapter 50,

Stephen in Acts chapter 7, forgive. And if the spirit of God gives you a command to forgive, and the spirit of God gives you an enablement to forgive, we need to be forgiving people.

And one of the all -time great sections about forgiveness is found in Matthew chapter 18.

Interestingly, right after church discipline, Jesus talks about forgiveness.

Now let's just paint the picture here by diving into verse 21 of Matthew 18. Then Peter came and said to him, right after church discipline, right?

Right after where two or three are gathered in my name, I'm there in their midst as they discipline the chairs out of the church and try to help these people.

Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Let me just read a little into this.

I know the rabbis do three times. And the rabbis have been told to forgive three times. We try to listen to them.

And so you know what? Oh, this church discipline thing's big, and I know there's forgiveness needed and sin and all that. So I know what to do.

We're going to give double that, right? Double plus one. Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Up to seven times? Hey, I'm going to be generous. I'm going to be, you know, thoughtful.

I'm going to go above and beyond, kind of extra stuff. I'm such a big -hearted guy. And basically,

Jesus is going to say what? Matthew 18, verse 21. Forgive up to seven times.

And Jesus said to him, You don't measure forgiveness with a calculator.

That's not what he said. But you're going to see that's what he's going to mean. There's a difference between some kind of calculation, weights, measures, grams, millimeters, quantities.

It's a qualitative thing, and you can't measure things by numbers when people sin against you.

Up to seven times? And you can just see Peter lick his finger and get the standard operating procedural manual out to find out what rabbi said what.

Maybe he turned to Rabbi Hosea ben Hanina. He who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times.

Maybe he found Rabbi Hosea ben Yehuda. Aren't you glad I didn't pronounce the Eskimo names? If a man commits an offense once, they forgive him.

If he commits an offense a second time, then forgive him. If he commits offense a third time, forgive him. The fourth time, do not forgive him.

How many times does someone sin against me, and I have to bury it? I have to say,

I forgive you, and I'll treat you like you never did it to me ever. I mean, come on.

It's unnatural. Three times, four times, five times. I've got to get my flow charts out and figure out, well, maybe if it's a really bad one, then

I'll forgive three times. And maybe if it's my husband, I'll forgive one time. If it's my wife,

I won't forgive her at all. See how I got out of that one? Trying to get those numbers right.

Basically, if you want marriage counseling right here, what destroys a marriage? Unforgiveness. Show me somebody with marriage problems, and I'll show you somebody who's got a problem with forgiveness.

Come on, Peter says, I'm going to double down and add a little bit. Jesus said, verse 22, I do not say to you, forget

Rabbi Ben -Huda, forget Rabbi Eliezer, forget any of these other people, and forget what

Peter says too. I say to you, isn't this the language of Matthew chapter 5? You have heard it said, but what?

The king who's now on earth is going to tell you the truth. I say to you up to seven times, no,

I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven.

And if you're not careful, and if you're a WPI student, you're going to start saying, it's 490. 490, 70 times seven, seven factorial, square roots.

Listen, I can't stand that stupid book about love languages. By the way, if you ever want to know what my love language is, it's receiving gifts.

Let's just get that out right now. But if you're so wise not to buy into any of the stupid love language stuff, there's no language of forgiveness that talks weights and measures.

Pi R squareds. That's not the language of forgiveness. Vincent said forgiveness is qualitative, not quantitative.

There's no limit is the point. There's no limit to forgiveness in the local church.

There's no limit to forgiveness in a marriage. There's no limit to forgiveness in a neighborhood. And when you start limiting forgiveness, you will be in a court of divorce.

You will have disunity in the local church body. I don't know why Jesus picked seven and ten, 70 times, 490.

He just said, I want you to forgive a lot. There's no number. John Wesley said, if this be

Christianity, where do Christians live? I want to be there. And now

Jesus tells a story. And this is the story where Jesus is going to make his point. And this is the jugular point.

This is the point where you listen to Jesus, and you hear him tell a story, you hear him tell a parable, and you somehow are watching the parable from the outside, and before you know it, the greatest preacher who ever lived will have you in the middle of the parable, and you're next.

Peter, don't think like the scribes. Don't think like the Pharisees. You've got God as your father.

How many times has your father forgiven you? So now we go to verse 23.

For this reason, see how they're tied in together? For this reason, we have one of the greatest truths of forgiveness ever taught.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king. By the way, I wonder who that king might be. We'll find out later, but I'll give you a hint.

It's the great king. Who wished to settle accounts with his slaves? By the way, it's time for reckoning day.

It's okay to live day after day after day, big pile of debt and big pile of things that you owe people, but then all of a sudden, it's reckoning day, time to pay up.

This human king is going to reckon with his servants, to take account. It's time to settle up affairs. Verse 24.

And when he began to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him 10 ,000 talents.

10 ,000 talents. 10 ,000 talents. I don't know what the biggest number in the world is, but the biggest number in this world was this number right here, 10 ,000.

It means myriad. Put in Googleplex if you want. I don't care. A talent was about 75 or 80 pounds.

It was a weight of measure. And for those of you that want to know in detail, an addict talent meant no less than 6 ,000 denarii or dinars.

6 ,000 days of wages. So 6 ,000 days of work. It would take a laborer 1 ,000 weeks to earn just one talent.

Hendrickson said to earn it, to save that amount in order to pay a debt would of course take much longer.

We don't know why he owed a lot. We don't know why the reckoning day was now. How could you get in that much debt?

We don't know those details. That's not the point. Sins cannot be estimated.

You can start saying to yourself, how many sins have I sinned against God? And if you go, well, I don't murder and I don't commit adultery and I don't do those things, so I'm pretty good.

Then if you begin to think, you know, I'm to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I'm to love my neighbor as myself. And all those times when

I'm not loving God fully and actively and giving him worthy and worth and glory and laud and honor and all these things, those are all sins too.

This is basically our debt before God. Whatever number you can think of, it's the highest number. Now listen to this.

I mean, this is just Jesus the master teacher. But since he did not have the means to repay, I mean, how are you going to repay?

Call Congress and bail out the unions in Detroit? I don't think it's going to happen. Sorry. His Lord commanded him to be sold.

Let's get something out of these people. Something's better than nothing. And so what will it cost?

Common for the day. Commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had and repayment to be made.

We're not going to get this back very much, but we'll get something back. And so sell them into slavery. Put them into debtor's prison.

No, sell them as slaves. People can't work in debtor's prison, so sell them as a slave. They'll work.

Pay back. By the way, 10 ,000 talents. Did you know the

Old Testament teaches that all the gold given for Solomon's temple was just over 8 ,000 talents?

Did you know from historical writings of the time, if you want to collect money from Edomia, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, you collect taxes from people and that region for a whole year is 900 talents.

This is a large number here. Payments got to be made. What happens, verse 26, the slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, have patience with me and I will repay you everything.

I like the thought, but he could never repay him everything. There's no way he could do it. He runs before the king.

Remember, it was a certain king and with submission and with homage and with total humiliation, have patience with me.

Verse 27, this is not just a just king. The lord of that slave, what?

Felt compassion. He pitied him. He pitied the wife. He pitied the children and released him.

You can almost hear the language. It's so staccato because it's just driven down into your brain. It's like a hammer going into a nail.

Felt compassion, released him, forgave him the debt. Shocking. God releasing the sinners of the debt based on Christ's work.

Verse 28, read carefully.

I know you've all read it a thousand times, but read carefully. That slave, which one? That slave that had been on his face found one of his fellow slaves.

He's owed money too and he just is going to run around like some kind of crazy person finding the first one he can find.

He doesn't even go to some place where they are. He can't find where any of them are. He went and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him three and a half months of pay, a hundred denarii, a hundred days of work and seized him and began to choke him before he even said anything.

It doesn't say pay back what you owe and if you don't, I'm going to choke you. He grabbed him and began to choke him.

By the way, that's what they used to do back in those days. Livy said people would have their necks twisted because they would be taken into court that way.

Cicero said, lead him to the judgment seat with a twisted neck. Here this guy who has been forgiven a billion sins as it were, a billion dollars as it were, goes and finds someone and begins to choke the guy.

Same kind of language where the pigs are cast into the sea and they begin to choke. I wonder what that sounded like.

He seized him and began to choke him saying pay back what you owe of the sin of the king choking cruelty of the servant.

By the way, in the Greek pay back what you owe. Pay is emphatic.

Pay. And you know the story of verse 29 but it's still very effective even though you know it.

So his fellow slave fell down began to entreat him. Sound familiar? Have patience with me and I will repay you.

He fell down and began to entreat him. Imperfect tense. Began to entreat. Earnestly betreat.

He besought him. Verse 30. He was unwilling however but went and threw him into a prison until he should pay back what he owed.

He would not is also imperfect. He would not, he did not, he will not, he never will and he drags him away to judgment.

So what's the story? End. So verse 31 when his fellow slaves saw what had happened they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their

Lord all that had happened. The fellow slaves go and say King, people in your kingdom don't act like you.

You have shown the standard of mercy and compassion and forgiveness and debt release and now someone who has been released by you goes out there and tries to exact all this money.

This is grievous. Then summoning him, his

Lord said, verse 32 you wicked slave I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me.

Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave even as I had mercy on you? The original is very, very emphatic.

You're wicked and this is not New England wicked where it's wicked good. This is wicked, wicked. You're a villain.

You're a scoundrel. The rest of the days of your life that was your obligation to treat people the same way you had been treated and then strikingly don't forget this verse and his

Lord moved with anger handed him over only time using the New Testament to the torturers.

This is not just a prison. This is not some place where you just get a little bit of food in the morning and some water at night.

This is a place where there is torturers not just prison punishment, active punishment until he should repay all that was owed him.

How long will it take you to repay money that you owe someone else and earn money that you owe someone else while you're being tortured?

I've seen some of those torture places in England down in these Warwick Castle and stuff down in the dark torture places and I just think, wow.

I used to think it was some torture thing to have some kind of bed of nails but I would see some of those things and I just thought the rack and everything else

I think my favorite one and how can you have a favorite torture instrument I don't know but the most interesting one at least was the gossip helmet and it was this metal helmet that had a hinge here and it swung over like this and then there was a little lock here and then it had a super long piece right here that would jab way to the back of your mouth and so you would keep and you would have that on for a week and so you would realize that it was a bad thing to gossip in the town

I digress just a story though there's no real spiritual truth

Jesus is just using this as kind of a diversion no, I wish he was verse 35 so, the moral is the theological truth the spiritual truth to this situation so we all get it so my heavenly father also do to you torture punishment of course we see the compassion and the mercy of the father as this great king as he forgives people but there's also the holy nature of God and his holy justice and we see both here in this passage what would it take for God to torture someone we talk about Guantanamo and all these other things do

I believe in torture well, I don't believe in torture because of Alan Dershowitz believes in torture as he has given

Christ fully and freely for forgiveness to all those who will look so my heavenly father also do to you if you do not what be martyred for your faith give up everything and follow

Christ forgive his brother not wrotely not statistically not with numbers but from your heart our offenses are comparatively small we are to grant forgiveness to those no, so what do

I mean our offenses are comparatively great before God we freely forgive because we have been forgiven we must forgive and if you say if I forgive that shows that somehow

I've earned favor with God and that I'm forgiven you have to be very careful here's how we parse this language forgiven people forgive if you can't forgive your spouse you should question if you have been forgiven by God it's not

God says you can't forgive you're not a Christian no, it's more nuance than that you say to yourself if I can't forgive then should

I call myself a child of the father who forgives so I can't wrap my arms around this whole torture thing

D .A. Carson Jesus sees no incongruity in the actions of a heavenly father neither should we indeed it is precisely because he is a

God of such compassion and mercy that he cannot possibly accept as those devoid of compassion and mercy you get it someone that has that much compassion and mercy and forgiveness

God the father will have children who do the same now let's make it very personal and then we'll close is there anybody in your life is there anybody who has come and said please forgive me and you've basically said no friends that's a sin that we can correct by the grace of God we can grant it is there somebody that you've sinned against and you say

I want to ask for your forgiveness is there someone who has said to you brother or sister husband or wife please forgive me and you've said yes but you haven't acted like you've forgiven them it hasn't been as the text says from Jesus from your heart you know the good thing about our

Lord today's the day today's the day husband and wife should talk maybe there's some issues between church people they should talk and then we can come and pray before our great

God the father who is abundant in mercy and forgiveness God forgive us our debts because we've forgiven other people thank you for our day in this house it is good to be with other saints to sing your praises and remember you're our father what sisters and brothers wouldn't want to ask for forgiveness to please their father and so Lord I don't know if there's unforgiveness in this church or lack of granting

I can just imagine with all these people Lord you've protected us from disunity you've protected us from factiousness

Lord I pray that you'd use this message to even further protect us guarding us from these kind of issues and I pray that you'd grant us because we can't do it on our own we have to even pray for it that you'd grant us the boldness the humility the compassion to grant forgiveness when someone has sinned against us and Lord we now pause just for a moment and remember every one of our sins from not following Christ to loving ourselves has been paid for by Christ Jesus who never sinned one time and yet one day they'll be in account so I pray for those today who aren't