WWUTT 2056 How Often Must I Forgive (Matthew 18:21-35)

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Jesus' disciples asked him, how often should I forgive my brother when he wrongs me?

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Should I forgive him seven times? And Jesus says, not seven times, but 70 times seven.

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Don't even keep track when we understand the text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we've been in chapter 18 for the last couple of weeks.

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We have one portion of the chapter to finish up. It's the parable that Jesus tells his disciples about forgiveness.

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So I'm gonna begin by reading that here, verses 21 to 35 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Hear the word of the Lord. Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

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Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven.

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For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

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When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him 10 ,000 talents was brought to him.

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But since he did not have the means to repay, his Lord commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had and repayment to be made.

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Therefore, the slave fell to the ground and was prostrating himself before him saying, have patience with me and I'll repay you everything.

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And feeling compassion, the Lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

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But the slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denarii and had seized him and began to choke him saying, pay back what you owe.

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So his fellow slave fell to the ground and was pleading with him saying, have patience with me and I will repay you.

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But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed.

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So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their

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Lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his Lord said to him, you wicked slave,

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I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you?

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And his Lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.

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My heavenly father will also do the same to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your hearts.

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Now this parable of course comes on the heels of what we had just been reading last week, the instructions that Jesus gave concerning church discipline.

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So back in verse 15, it was said that if your brother sins, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

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If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won't listen to you, you bring one or two others along that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

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If he won't listen to them, you bring it to the church. And if he won't listen even to the church, then you are to treat him as an unbeliever.

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Those instructions we refer to as church discipline. They outline our disciplinary process that we should be exercising in churches whenever somebody sins against us or a person is guilty of sin at all and needs to be confronted in that sin.

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If they are willing to repent when confronted, well then the matter is ended. They are forgiven and we continue forward.

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But if they remain resistant to that correction, then you go through the continued steps until if that person continues to be unwilling to repent, then you would have to remove him from the church and he would be excommunicated.

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So it's right after those instructions that Jesus gave and concerning his church, because him saying, you will take it before the church.

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So this is how we are to be within the body of Christ when it comes to handling disputes that we might have with one another or when somebody is sinful against us.

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After Jesus had talked about these things, Peter asked this question, how often shall

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I forgive? Now this section that we have of this parable, verses 21 to 35 is broken down this way.

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You have the question that's asked by Peter in Jesus' response, and then he gives the parable. And the parable is in three parts.

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You first have the exchange between the first slave and the master. And then you have the exchange between that slave and another slave who owes him money.

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And then you have the exchange between the slave and the master again. And then at the end of that,

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Jesus gives the point of the parable and tells his disciples exactly how they are to be with those brothers in the

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Lord who would sin against them. How often do you forgive them?

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And the answer is all the time. I know the answer he gives is 70 times seven, but you know, you've heard this before.

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It means you're not keeping track. You're not keeping count. As often as he would ask forgiveness from you, you must forgive him because the

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Lord has forgiven us of way many more sins than anybody has ever done against you. So let's go back and look through the parable.

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Peter comes to Jesus and says, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

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Up to seven times? So it's like he's going back to the first step of this process. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

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If he listens to you, then you have gained your brother. So you're confronting him in sin and he admits it.

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He's convicted. He says, you're right. I sinned against you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

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So Peter's going back to that step. Well, let's say we're doing this over and over and over again. This guy is, you know, he's sitting against me 20, 30, 40 times.

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How often am I going to forgive him? Just seven times? And then that's it. So we can just go through that first step seven times.

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And then we can say, no, he's a tax collector, a Gentile.

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Get him out of here. And Jesus says to him, I do not say to you up to seven times but 70 times seven, which of course is 490.

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But Jesus is not telling his disciples, keep track. And once you get to 490, then you can give up on him.

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And that would be it. Really the number seven is you understand seven to be the number of completion.

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You've heard that before, right? And then 70 would be seven times 10, 10 being the number of the law because we have 10 commandments.

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There is some significance to these numbers. I'm not just making this up. So you have two numbers of completion, seven and seven.

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One seven is times 10, which is the number of the law which you might think of the brother as having sinned against you, he's broken the law.

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So you're to forgive him 70 times seven times which means this is the completeness of forgiving that you just keep forgiving.

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You need to have mercy and compassion toward your brothers and sisters in the

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Lord because how often does the Lord show this mercy and compassion toward you? More times today than you will probably show the brother who sins against you in either of your lifetimes.

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The Lord is showing mercy to you daily as said in Lamentations three, his mercies are new every morning.

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Great is his faithfulness. And that is good news to us. He has compassion toward us. So because we have the grace of God that has been poured out upon us in such a way, we should demonstrate that same grace with others being willing to forgive those who have wronged us.

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Now, surely you've heard this question asked and perhaps you've even asked it before. What if my brother doesn't ask for forgiveness?

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Do I still need to forgive him even if he doesn't ask for forgiveness? There does need to be a disposition in your heart that is inclined toward forgiveness whenever anybody wrongs you.

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This is the disposition that we all need to have as followers of Jesus Christ because we know that we've been forgiven much.

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We must be willing to forgive much. And because that condition in your heart is already there, like you're already prepared.

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You're ready to forgive anybody who comes to you and asks for forgiveness. You're not holding grudges.

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You have no bitterness. You know you've been forgiven much so you're willing to forgive much.

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And this is just who you are now in Christ Jesus. You are ready at a moment's notice to forgive somebody who asks for your forgiveness.

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So it's like you're in a mindset of forgiveness. You love to forgive.

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You would love to relieve a person of the burden or the guilt that they may be experiencing because of the wrong that they have committed either to somebody else or to you.

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You know, whatever it might happen to be that they come to you and say, I've done wrong, will you please forgive me?

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And you're ready to forgive. That doesn't mean though that you issue forgiveness to a person who is not repentant and has not asked for forgiveness.

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I don't think it's a good thing for us as Christians to go around issuing forgiveness to people who haven't asked for it because we're basically saying to them, you don't even have to do anything.

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You don't even have to feel wrong about it. I'm just going to go ahead and forgive you. And then that's it.

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The matter is settled and you justify for them in their minds and their hearts that I haven't really done anything wrong.

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There aren't going to be any consequences. It's just your opinion that I've done something wrong. And so you've chosen to forgive me, but there's nothing that's going to be held against me here.

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I don't think that's the way that we should be exercising forgiveness. We give forgiveness to the person who asks of it, but that also does not give you permission to hold grudges and walk around with bitterness.

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Again, you need to have that disposition in your heart that is ready to forgive anybody who comes and asks you for forgiveness.

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It's not a, let me think about that sort of a thing. You've already thought about it. You've already resolved it in your mind.

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God has forgiven me. And so I am ready to forgive you. And that's how forgiving we need to be or need to be ready to be.

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Does that make sense? So Peter is, he's almost asking for permission here to hold a grudge.

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I can just forgive him seven times and then I'm justified in my anger toward him or my shutting him out or not wanting to have anything to do with him anymore.

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We want to have our grudges. Like we have a natural disposition to want to hold grudges.

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I'm talking about who you are in your flesh, the sin nature that you had inherited from Adam.

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Every single person wants to be justified in the anger that they have toward other people.

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We enjoy being angry toward people. I mean, if you could quantify that as enjoyment.

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There's a certain pleasure that a person gets with being mad at somebody else. Do you know what I mean?

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It's not like a good pleasure. It's not something that makes you happy certainly because that would be antithetical to the concept of being angry toward someone else.

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But we're really content with our bitterness. We almost feel like we are getting one up on the other person if we can just stay mad at them.

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I want you to be miserable as I feel. But really when it comes down to it, it's like we're drinking poison and expect the other person to die from it.

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When you're just bitter toward another person all the time and you think that that's going to do them harm. I mean, it probably is hurting them.

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It's hurting your relationship with them, but it's hurting you most of all. So it's like, I'm going to drink poison and expect this other person to die.

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That's the bitterness that you continue to have in the grudge that you're holding against this other person.

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That's just who we are. A lot of us like grudges, for lack of a better term.

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Like is probably not the best word, but people like to hold grudges. And the world will tell you you're perfectly fine for holding a grudge against that person.

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You're totally justified in the anger that you have toward them. But Jesus is saying that is not how we are to be toward one another.

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We actually need to be ready to forgive, not ready to hold a grudge. And so the statement that he makes with his disciples here, you don't just forgive your brother seven times, you forgive him without counting.

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You're not keeping track. God's not keeping track of your wrongs as said through the prophet

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Isaiah, I have blotted out your transgressions. Return to me and I will make you new.

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Or as we read in Psalm 103, he's taken our sins and thrown them as far as the East is from the West and he remembers them no more.

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God doesn't keep a record of our wrongs. And so the instruction is given to the church that we're not to keep any record of wrongs.

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First Corinthians 13, in the description of love, it keeps no record of wrongs.

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And so we need to be willing to forgive. You have a willingness to forgive. Don't forgive a person that hasn't asked for it because then you are probably gonna end up making them feel justified for the wrong that they've done.

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But you've already resolved in your heart, you're not gonna hold a grudge against another person and you're ready to forgive them when they ask.

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If we're holding grudges in our hearts, if we're walking around with bitterness, it makes us miserable and it makes the people around us miserable.

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They probably don't even know why you're such a miserable person. So let us demonstrate in our lives the understanding that we have been forgiven much.

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And Jesus really illustrates that with the parable that follows as well, showing his disciples just how much we've been forgiven.

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So he says in verse 23, for this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

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When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him 10 ,000 talents was brought to him.

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Now I know the money amounts, the currency that's used here in this particular parable can kind of be difficult for us to wrap our minds around.

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We've had a lot of time that's passed since then. We don't use this kind of currency. We live in a different hemisphere of the world.

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Whatever it might happen to be, we can't wrap our minds around this. But just understand 10 ,000 talents was millions and millions of dollars.

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Like for Jesus to even have said that, that the slave owed him 10 ,000 talents would have surely made the disciples go 10 ,000 talents.

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What did he do? What was he spending money on that he ended up 10 ,000 talents in debt?

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They would have known when Jesus gave that money amount, there is no way this guy is paying that back, especially on a slave salary.

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I don't know what he was spending money on, but that is a permanent debt. There's no way he can give that back to his master.

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But since he did not have the means to repay, it says in verse 25, his Lord commanded him to be sold along with his wife and his children and all that he had and repayments to be made.

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Therefore, the slave fell to the ground and was prostrating himself before him saying, have patience with me and I will repay you everything.

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And that's surely a laughable response. Maybe even as Jesus is telling this parable, his disciples are going, yeah, right.

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Have patience with you, you're gonna pay back 10 ,000 talents, give me a break. But feeling compassion, it says in verse 27, the

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Lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

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He did more than just tell that slave, all right, I'll give you a time. I'll give you 10 years.

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I'll give you 50 years to pay back the debt. The master doesn't even say that. He has compassion on the slave to the point that he not only lets him go, he erases the debt.

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You don't owe me anything. And that would have been flabbergasting to these disciples.

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Are you serious? Because who takes the load off the master? The loss there in that scenario, the master takes the loss.

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He didn't get anything back, 10 ,000 talents, more money than a person will make in their lifetime than any of these disciples would see in their lifetime.

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And the Lord is not even making him have to repay it. He's expunging the debt. He's wiping it out.

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You don't owe me anything. That is some incredible mercy.

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But then look at what the slave does next, verse 28. That slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denarii.

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Now, denarii is worth much, much less than a talent. In fact, I can tell you exactly what a talent is worth.

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A talent was 15 years of a laborer's wage. One talent was 15 years wages.

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And this slave owed 10 ,000 talents. That's 150 ,000 years of wages.

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So you understand what I mean now when I said it was such an insurmountable amount of money, there was no way he was gonna be able to pay it back.

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Well, a denarii is a Roman silver coin. And one denarii might be a single day's wage.

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Now, that's still, it's still an amount of money that he has to pay back, 200 days wages. So there's something to that, but it's much, much less than 150 ,000 years wages.

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So this slave is now beating this other slave to pay him back a much, much smaller amount than he had owed to his master.

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He's choking him and saying, pay back what you owe. His fellow slave fell down to the ground and he's pleading with him, have patience with me and I will repay you.

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Same words that this slave had said to his master just moments ago, but the slave was unwilling and he went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed, which how are you able to do that?

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How can you work to pay back what you owe if you've been thrown into prison? So this is just completely unmerciful.

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This is a lot of bitterness here that this slave has toward his fellow slave, not even willing to let him work to be able to pay it back.

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Nah, I'm just throwing you in prison. He's gonna keep him in this burden forever.

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That's really the demonstration of his heart over a much, much smaller amount of money. It is something that he owes him, but it's minuscule compared to what this slave owed his master.

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Now the fellow slaves or other slaves that witnessed this happen and they're distressed by it and they come and they report to their

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Lord everything that had happened. So now we have this final exchange between the master and his slave again, verse 32.

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Then summoning him, his Lord said to him, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me 150 ,000 years wages.

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I forgave you all of that. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you?

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And his Lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed to him.

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How's he gonna be able to pay back 150 ,000 years wages if he's been thrown in prison?

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So what's being illustrated here is he's being cast into hell and he'll never be able to pay it back.

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He will forever be there in eternal punishment because he did not have mercy on others.

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Though his master was willing to show mercy to him, he was not willing to show mercy to others.

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And now he will be punished for eternity. And the disciples would have understood.

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That's what he gets. And so Jesus says this, directing it to his disciples.

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My heavenly father will also do the same to you. If each of you does not forgive his brother from your hearts.

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It's a pretty powerful point to make. And just as I said earlier, you have committed worse sins against God, more sins against God.

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You have a way greater debt that you owe God than anyone owes you, than anyone will ever owe you.

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No one will ever sin against you. As many times or in as many ways as you have sinned against God, and yet he's shown compassion to you.

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So shouldn't you show compassion and mercy to others? Jesus had said something similar back in the

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Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, after he gave instructions on prayer. If you forgive others their debts, your heavenly father will forgive you of your debts.

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But if you do not forgive others their debts, neither will your heavenly father forgive you. If you have this attitude of forgiveness, of being willing to forgive, you demonstrate the evidence that you know and believe

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God has truly forgiven you. But if you won't show grace to other people when they wrong you, then you show that you don't really have the grace of God.

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The apostle Paul says this in Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse 12, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other.

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Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also you should forgive.

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Above all these, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

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You may have a past in which some people in your history have done some pretty wicked and miserable things to you.

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My friends, so do I. And yet our

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Lord God has told us we need to be willing to forgive. So you need to have such a disposition in your heart.

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Even if those people have not come to you and asked for forgiveness, you need to have that disposition in your heart that you want them to ask for forgiveness and you're ready to give it because our

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God is ready to forgive us our wrongs and has forgiven us of wrongs that we deserve hell for.

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So you must also be willing to forgive. As 1 John 1, 9 says, if we ask forgiveness for our sins,

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God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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Heavenly Father, thank you for this parable. And I pray that this parable weighs on us heavy, that we understand the debt that we owe

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God is so great that we couldn't possibly pay it back. But Jesus took the debt upon himself when he died on the cross for our sins.

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The debt that we owed God, you placed upon him, he was crucified and the wrath of God was satisfied through the precious blood of Jesus.

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Jesus rose again for our justification as said in Romans 4, 25. And so as we have received such wonderful mercy from God, teach us to be merciful to one another.

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Forgive us our sins and help us to forgive those who sin against us. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.

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Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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.com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our