Killer of Spiritual Lifes (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

The Destructive Power of an Unforgiving Spirit

I am an assassin. I'm a killer. I wreck marriages. I destroy friendships. I split churches. I'm a person who will not forgive. I'm a person who has an unforgiving spirit. I'm a person who has been forgiven much but will not forgive a little.

Please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18 and let's look at this topic of forgiveness. Christians have been forgiven therefore they forgive. As you know we've been doing a three kind of part cameo series of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want you to be impressed by him. We've looked at Matthew 17, the transfiguration. He himself by nature is impressive. We've also looked at Matthew 12 where what Jesus does is impressive. Stretch out your hand and the man stretches out his hand.

And today we're going to see that Jesus is impressive by what he says and how he says it. Before I get into the topic any further I have a question for you. Is there anyone in your life you won't forgive?

Is there anything that you're holding against someone and you won't forgive them? They've asked for forgiveness and you simply won't. Who won't you forgive? Why won't you forgive? We're going to learn in Matthew chapter 18 today that forgiveness for the Christian is top priority.

A top priority. When I think of Matthew 18 if I was going to do word association I'd say Matthew 18 you'd probably say what? Church discipline. But here I want you to see past that and see in fact that those who have been forgiven much ought to forgive much.

Christians are a forgiving people. I meet people all the time and they say, well I've been hurt, I've been wounded, I have been sinned against. You don't understand how bad it is. You don't understand what they did to me.

And we're going to see today in the passage when we reflect back to the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done on Calvary and how many sins he's forgiven every Christian. How could we not forgive? Those who have been forgiven much will forgive everything.

It's a very relevant topic. Why? Because we sin against other people, they sin against us. When I was a kid I loved my grandparents. I had two sets of grandparents and my mom worked at Mutual of Omaha's insurance company and I thought she worked for the Wild Kingdom part and that didn't work out.

And my father worked at Northwestern Bell Telephone Company and so I'd take turns getting to one grandma's house then the next. So the one grandparents, they were known as Grandma and Grandpa Up the Hill because they lived up the hill and then I had Grandma and Grandpa Avendroth and I loved them and they loved me and they were wonderful.

But I thought to myself, why don't they have any friends? The answer is because they didn't forgive. They'd been hurt by people and they would not forgive. I asked myself the question, how can somebody be married 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and then divorce their spouse?

The answer is the same reason, they simply won't forgive. How can people go to church for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and then leave? The answer is because they won't forgive. James Coulter said, unforgiving spirit is the number one killer of spiritual life and it's a killer in the church too.

Lloyd-Jones would say, I say to the glory of God and in utter humility that whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anyone anything.

New Testament scholar Leon Morris said of forgiveness, we can always think of some good reason why in any particular case we need not forgive but that always is an error. Popular writer once wrote, everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.

What about you? Is there someone you won't forgive? Is there someone, something that you won't forgive? How do we change? How do we do something differently? Here's God's ordained way. He takes the word of God and works with the spirit of God to change Christians.

Say, I'm a horrible forgiver, is there any hope for me? I claim to be a Christian, I want to forgive more. The way we forgive is ordained through scripture and so we're going to look this morning at Matthew 18 verses 21 and following to see what forgiveness is like.

To hear from our Lord and he will be impressive, yes, but it will be convicting even more. What about forgiveness? Forgiven people forgive. Matthew 18 verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

As many as seven times? Now, I know you because I'm your pastor and the first thing you want to do is say, well, there's a context to this, there's a reason, there's a setting. So, big picture, remember, Matthew, the book of the king.

King of kings, Lord of lords, he's royal, he's the monarch and he ought to be worshipped. We ought to submit ourselves to him, we ought to believe in him. That's Matthew. But Matthew 18 has a context.

Let me read verses 1 through 20 so you can see why Peter asked the question because verse 21 says, does it not, then Peter came up. What preceded Peter's statement? Verse 1 of Matthew 18. At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever receives such one child or one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Woe to the world for temptations to sin, for it is necessary that temptations come. But woe to the one by whom temptation comes. If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away.

It's better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away. It's better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

Verse 10, see that you do not despise one of these little ones for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? Man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray.

Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? If he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the 99 that never went astray. So it is. Not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two along or others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him to be to you as a tax collector and Gentile. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my heavenly Father or my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.

Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Hey, Peter got the lesson at least initially. It's important to forgive. Forgiveness is good.

It's a virtue. Forgiveness is like God. Godly behavior represents God. His behavior resembles God's behavior. God forgives and to be godly is to also forgive. Ungodly is doing something opposite of what God would do.

God forgives. Ungodly doesn't forgive. And Peter knows at least enough to say, I want to be magnanimous and I want to forgive. Did you know the rabbis said three times you forgive? Loosely based on Amos chapter one, you forgive three times.

And so Peter said, you know, after all, we're Christians and we forgive more than these Old Testament folks and these rabbis and scribes and Pharisees. We'll one up it and we'll do the mathematical WPI equation.

If X is forgiveness, which is three to X plus one is what we do. See, some of you were sleeping. Now you're all paying attention. Big hearted mathematical. But as we would all agree, if we understand Jesus, right.

Forgiveness isn't quantitative. It's qualitative. Here's like, I know we have to forgive. That's important. I'm going to double the quota and add one. Will you forgive me? Five. Yes. Six times. Yes. Seven times.

Yes. And then after that, is there a cap ceiling limits? Rabbi Jose Ben Hanina said he who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times. Rabbi Ben Yehuda said if a man commits an offense once, forgive him.

If he commits an offense twice, forgive him. If he commits an offense a third time, forgive him. The fourth time, do not forgive him. And Jesus responds in a way that is fascinating and convicting. Verse 22.

Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 dash or 70 times seven. And we can tell already that we're caught up in numbers like Peter when you think of things like 490. Seventy times seven, before you know it, it's like seven, seven, carry the set, four, nine, oh, 490.

So, okay, we're calculating. Forgiveness is like math, right? It's like 488, you're getting close, 489, 490, I'm done with forgiving you. Except when Jesus is going to explain this to us, forgiveness has nothing to do with math, it's all about mercy.

It's about mercy. It's not math. The language of forgiveness has nothing to do with factorials and square roots and pi r squareds. The flesh counts. The law tallies. Immaturity says, one more and you're done.

I'm counting. And this isn't the same sin. Someone sins against you the same thing every day. And Jesus is saying, you know what, Peter, forgiveness is important. But there's no limit. There's no limit.

Jesus gives this number 70 times seven for two reasons. One, it's just a large number you're not supposed to count. And number two, if you read your Old Testament, what does it make you think about? 77.

70 times seven. Oh yeah, Genesis chapter four. Lamech. Lamech said something about 70 times seven, didn't he? If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech, 77 fold. 70 times seven. If you're going to mess with me and my line, my line of Cain, and you're going to mess with me, you are going to get unlimited revenge.

70 times seven. It wasn't like the 491st time you mess with me and my kin, you're going to get it. It's you're going to get back what you deserve times 5 ,000. You're going to do something against us, you will get evil without limit.

As one man said, this is the law of the jungle, Cain and Lamech. So Jesus says, you know, when it comes to sinful man, when it comes to primitive man, when it comes to carnal man, it's unlimited revenge when someone does something against you.

Seventy-seven. And for the Christian, it's not unlimited revenge. It's unlimited mercy. It's unlimited forgiveness. I have a question to ask you again. Is there anyone in your life that you won't forgive?

Is there anyone in your life who you, I didn't say couldn't because it's not a matter of can, it's a will issue, that you will not forgive? Well, the good news is scripture is going to give us some answers.

And some really good news is unforgiveness, although sinful, can be forgiven. It can be forgiven. Let's continue with our passage and watch how Jesus teaches. I'm impressed by the person of Christ, the work of Christ.

I'm also impressed by He teaches. Who teaches like this? He draws you into this parable and you're saying yes and amen. That's true. I'm on board. I get it. And then it's you are the man. There's a tale to this scorpion in this passage.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared. And that signals right away. Jesus is going to teach a spiritual lesson. What's the lesson? The lesson has a situation. The lesson has an occasion. The lesson has a context.

What about forgiveness? Is there any person I won't forgive? Do I cap my forgiveness? Friends, remember what is forgiveness? Here's what forgiveness is. When God forgives us, what does He say? As far as the east is from the west.

The other way around. For you, that's right though. Cast the sin in the deepest sea. Cast the iniquity behind His back. All language of it's forgotten, it's over. Here's what God does when He forgives.

I'm going to treat you like it never happened. Did you get that? I'm going to treat you like it never happened. Spouse sins against spouse. Spouse says, I sinned. Please forgive me. The spouse says, I forgive you.

And when they say, I forgive you, then they act like it never happened. They don't say, well, you know what, I'm going to just store this right here. Because I know I'm going to use this as ammunition and down the line.

Next time we have a fight and, you know, remember you were standing there and you wore that, standing by that, wearing this kind of cologne on that particular day. Nope. When forgiveness occurs, I forgive you.

It's gone. The king wanted to settle accounts with his servants. That's what the kingdom of heaven is like. There's a king who says, it's settle up day, boys. Get in line and it's pay what you owe. Reckoning.

Settle up affairs. It's D-Day. Grab your accounting books. Grab your cash. And I'm the king and there's a divine reckoning day. And everywhere you look in this passage, you see flickers of eternal truths.

One day we're going to stand before God on that day. When he began to settle, I mean, there's one after another, after another, after another. One was brought to him. That's almost a language of, you've got to kind of push him up to the front because he knows this is really going to be bad.

Brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents. You say, well, how could anybody ever owe so much? It's not the point of the parable. He does owe so much is the point. What's a talent? They would measure things by weight back in those days.

Talents about 75 pounds, about 34 kilograms. You'd weigh gold. You'd weigh silver. And it was the largest denomination of weight. The Bible says that, Psalm 40, verse 12, as many hairs that we have on our head, that's how many iniquities we have.

When you're younger, at least, I guess. Still a lot. It's uncountable. This talent is so heavy. I said earlier, it's like a $20 billion debt. And then Guido came up to me after first service, and he said, I did some calculation.

He said, if we would have found out the gold rate a year ago, it would have been $20 billion. But he says it's about $13 .4 billion now. Okay, deal. Okay, I owe $20, $10, $13 billion. And I've got to go settle accounts.

No wonder he's brought, because he doesn't have it, and it's time for settling. From the king. The king, he can do anything. You don't owe the king money for long and live. Now what's the little flicker of truth here?

What's the debt of every sinner before God? How many times have you committed sins against God? You say, well, you don't understand. I'm not really a murderer. Let me ask you another question. What's the greatest sin in all the world?

The greatest sin in all the world is when you disobey the greatest commandment in all the world. And the greatest commandment in all the world is to love God, who created you with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, 24 hours a day, seven days a week since you were conceived, to love Him with enthusiasm and with worship and with total conscious worship.

That's the greatest commandment. Therefore, it's the greatest sin. The second greatest commandment is as much as we love ourselves, we're to love others. Every person on the face of the earth, young and old, is a debtor to $20 billion worth of sin.

How could we pay? How could we ever be off the hook and to think one sin because God is so holy? God is so great. God is so just. How long does it take to pay for one sin in hell? Answer? There's no time limit because it's so great.

That's why hell is eternal. Because sin is so bad and the one sinned against is so great, you can never pay except throughout all eternity your debt in hell. This guy owes 10 ,000 talents. So we've got a large number for talent and then the biggest Greek word we can find is 10 ,000.

That's the largest numerological term we can find in the Greek language. It means myriad. It means countless. It means incalculable. It means unpayable. It means over the top. Solomon got the weight of gold in one year in 1 Kings 10, 666 talents of gold.

That was Solomon. This guy's brought to account before the king he has a debt that he cannot pay. Verse 25, since he could not pay, his master ordered him, might as well get something out of the deal, to be sold.

And his wife, they're worth something. And children, they're worth a little more. That will motivate the families around them, the nephews and nieces and other grandpas to try to come up with something.

And all that he had and payment to be made. There's a payday one day. Let's recover a little bit. Sell the wife. Sell the child. Sell everything he had. Sell him too. How can we pay for the debt of sin we owe God?

Why do you think it's even called a debt? Forgive us our debtors as we forgive those. It's a debt. We owe to God honor. He made you and we owe Him worship and submission and reverence and praise. And then when we don't get it, we have a debt and we can't pay.

By the way, that's why Christians look quickly to the cross where Jesus Christ pays for the debt that we incurred. His debt wasn't he didn't love God with his heart, soul, mind, and strength. His debt wasn't he didn't love his neighbors himself because he did love God and he did love his neighbor.

Throw these people into jail. Sell them. Verse 26, what would you do? Servant fell on his knees. He's in the lineup here for the payday, reckoning day. He's on his knees imploring him, have patience with me, I'll pay you everything.

That's not going to work. The debt is too large. There's no hope. It's too much to pay. You can't ever make that much money. But he is on his face. Interestingly, he doesn't say, I didn't do it. Wrong accounting.

Call in different CPA firm. I have some excuses. The devil made me do it. I've got a syndrome. I've got a disease. I've got some bad accounting ledger people for me, under me. He didn't explain himself.

He didn't deny it. He didn't give any excuses. Doesn't it sound like Luke 18 to you? Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Justice won't do me anything except punishment. Mercy. Throwing himself on the mercy of the king.

He didn't say, I'll try to do better. I'll shape up my life. I'll try to be nicer. Isn't this true in life? People wander around. They don't think they're accountable to God. They have no conscience that they're going to stand before God because it's too seared.

If they would only think ahead to that day, to that judgment day,.

They would feel the debt. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.