Join us as we explore the intriguing concepts of forgiveness and mercy through the lens of timeless parables. Learn how the implications of forgiving others can affect our spiritual journey, and reflect on the nature of divine pardon. Discover why the heart’s intention is crucial in understanding true forgiveness and how this impacts our own lives.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Is it possible for a sinner to be forgiven and then have that forgiveness taken away? It doesn’t sound right, does it? After all, God said that I will remove your sins as far from you as the east is from the west. In other places he said, your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more. Then surely once we are forgiven, we are always forgiven, right? No one can take that away from us, right? Well, Peter came to Jesus one day and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus said to him, no. No, seven times won’t do it. Until 70 times seven. In case your math isn’t good, that’s 490 times you’re supposed to forgive your brother. Now, you should know this is not a literal number. Peter might have thought he had the right to withhold forgiveness on the eighth time or the 491st time, but they’re symbolic numbers, and Peter understood that. He knew that Jesus meant you have to keep on forgiving your brother as long as there’s anything to forgive. There’s no limit to your forgiveness. And to underline this point, he gave Peter a kind of parable. He said, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought to him that owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he didn’t have anything to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and his children and all that he had and payment to be made. Now, an unpaid debt back in those times was treated like a crime. In fact, in a way it was. You borrow money from somebody, you don’t pay it back, you’ve stolen from them. But they didn’t send a man to jail. Rather, they sold him to work as a slave, and payment was then made to the victim of his crime. And because of the limits that the law placed on how long you could serve in servitude, The maximum sentence was seven years. You had to be let go in. Actually, the maximum sentence was six years because you had to be let go in the seventh year. Now, don’t assume from this that this king was unmerciful because you’re going to see as the parable continues that he was not unmerciful at all. He was just. And justice sometimes can seem pretty cold. Selling a person in ancient Israel did not mean you had no rights. What it really amounted to was a job you couldn’t quit for seven years. What it meant was they could grab hold of you and force you to repay your debts. You couldn’t just walk away from them and get away with it. So the servant, facing up to his debt, facing up to what was about to happen to him, fell down and worshipped the man. He did obeisance to him and said, Lord, have patience with me. I’ll pay all of it to you. And it says, the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion. He felt sorry for him, and he loosed him, and he forgave him the debt. Now, there’s something to really notice carefully about this. This king, who in the first place seemed so harsh, didn’t merely reschedule the debt. He didn’t say, I’m still going to require you to pay every dime of this, but I’m not going to sell you right now. I’m going to let you pay it off, and this is going to be the payments, and if you don’t pay them, then I’ll sell you. No, no, he didn’t do that. He wrote the debt off completely. So this king was not harsh. He was not unmerciful. He was a very generous man, I would say, wouldn’t you, to actually write off, just because he felt sorry for a guy, a very large debt. Now, here’s what becomes very important. How did this servant respond to the mercy that was shown to him? How did he handle the forgiveness when it came his way? Well, Jesus continued. We’re in Matthew 18, verse 28. The same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants that owed him 100 pennies, 100 pence, less than a talent. The other guy, his debt was 10,000 talents. This fellow’s debt is less than one. He said he laid hands on him, and he grabbed him by the throat and said, Pay me what you owe. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay you all. precisely the same plea that the first servant had made to his lord. But when the man asked him to forgive this debt, no, no, no, I’m sorry, he didn’t ask him to forgive the debt. All he asked him for was patience and time to repay. And he wouldn’t do it. He took him and cast him into prison until he should pay the debt. Now, anyone, anyone can see that there’s something wrong with this picture. How on earth could a man who has been forgiven and had written off for him 10,000 talents be unable to let go of a few pennies from someone else who owes him money? What kind of a mindset, what kind of a heart is in this person? What kind of greed is there to cause him to respond to his fellow man in that way? In one way, what does it say about the reasoning behind him getting a debt in the first place? It says an awful lot, doesn’t it? Well, when his fellow servants saw what he had done, they were very sorry, and they came and told their Lord everything that had happened. And his Lord, after he called him in and said, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt for no other reason than that you ask me. Shouldn’t you have also had compassion on your fellow servant, just like I had pity on you? And his Lord was angry, and he delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay every dime that was due to him. Now that’s a bit of a shocker. Because here is a debt that was written off, a debt that was forgiven, 10,000 talents, wasn’t going to have to pay it, all gone. And now that debt is reinstated. Every dime of it is brought back. Everything that he owed, every fraction of a talent was going to have to be paid back, even though it had originally been forgiven. And then Jesus drops the bombshell. He says, So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your heart do not forgive everyone his brother their trespasses. So our question is answered. God has forgiven each of us an enormous debt, and by comparison, the debts that we owe to one another our pennies. And the story makes it clear that having been forgiven, if we ourselves are unforgiving, our own debts can be brought back upon us. So it would seem that having been forgiven of our sins, having had them all wiped away, washed away, that if we ourselves in turn refuse to forgive someone else for anything, then our original debt comes back upon our shoulders again. Now, that’s a little troubling. It’s a very troubling concept. And I know that it flies in the face of an awful lot of theology having to do with salvation and how that we pass from death unto life and how that we have been forgiven of all of our sins and God will not require them of us ever again and so on and so on. Well, I know all that. But I also have to come face to face with this parable and this flat statement, which is not a parable, that says God’s going to do it to me if I don’t forgive you of your trespasses and the things that you’ve done to me. But what if the person we are asked to forgive has not repented of his sins, hasn’t repented of what he’s done to us, hasn’t even yet shown any sign of being sorry for it? What if he can’t repent of it? What if he’s dead? Or what if he has repented and you have no way of knowing? Are you required to forgive someone who hasn’t repented of what he’s done to you? We’ll talk about that when I come back in just a moment.
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1-888-BIBLE-44 And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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So God says to you, look, you have to forgive this man. And you say back to God, well, Father, I can’t even tell he’s sorry. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even realize he hurt my feelings. But even if he does, I can’t tell that he even cares. Do I have to forgive a man like that? And, of course, I have a feeling there are an awful lot of people out there bearing grudges for people who are dead and buried in their graves, and they still have a hard time letting go of whatever it is they hated them for. What do you do that for? What’s this all about then? The question I think you need to face up to is, who is forgiveness for anyway? How much real harm are you doing to this guy by thinking about him every morning and every night? How much harm are you doing to him when you lie awake at night losing sleep because of the anger you feel toward him? How are you hurting other people by not forgiving them? And how are you helping them by forgiving them? Well, really, not at all. The truth is that you’re the one that is carrying this thing around. Somebody’s harmed you, and for five years you’ve thought about him every day of your life. You’ve come to the place to where you almost hate and maybe borderline would be ready to murder the person. And for the last five years, all this time when you’ve been eating yourself up, not digesting your food, losing sleep at night, he’s been sleeping like a baby. His food tastes good and he’s having a good life and enjoying it. So you’re really doing that poor guy a lot of harm by not forgiving him. You know, you remember what Jesus said in this? He said, your heavenly father will do this to you too and will not forgive you. Unless you from your hearts forgive every man his brother his trespasses. From the heart. One of the most interesting things, I think, to be learned about this parable is that the first servant’s heart was not right. Think about it. This man had run up a big debt, 10,000 talents. The Lord forgave him of all that when he came in begging and pleading and crying. And he went right out and demanded repayment from a servant who owed him pennies. It’s not possible that his heart was right. It’s not possible that when he went into the king, he had anything more than fear. He didn’t have anything resembling true remorse. He was just simply scared spitless, right? Of course. So his heart was not right. But his Lord forgave him Anyway, why do you suppose that is? And if this is the pattern we’re to look at here, why then do we have the right to demand that someone else’s heart be right so that we can forgive them? That’s not the problem. The problem is not their heart. It’s ours. The problem was not the heart of the servant who owed 100 pennies. The problem was the heart of the man who had owed 10,000 talents. That’s where the problem was. And so when God comes to you and says, you need to forgive this guy, it’s for your sake, not for his. It’s because of your heart, not his. For God does not require that the heart be really right in order to forgive. If he did, would any of us ever make it in the first place? And what I think is important to understand about this wicked servant is, that the forgiveness he was given did not touch his heart it should have changed him but it didn’t and I think a lot of times when we go to God and we beg for forgiveness and we ask him to have mercy upon us the reason why God forgives is to change the heart and then if the heart doesn’t change well something didn’t work you know I think psychoanalyzing for a moment the servant who was forgiven, he must have assumed that he somehow merited the forgiveness, right? He must have said, well, he wouldn’t have forgiven that me if I wasn’t a good guy. I must have some merit in me of this. Of course, the passage tells us the guy forgave him because he felt sorry for him, nothing else. Now, I said earlier, I’m fully aware of all the problems this creates with various doctrines of salvation. I can’t help that. This is what Jesus said. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you if you from your hearts forgive not every brother his trespasses. And if you want to argue, well, his heart wasn’t right, so he wasn’t really forgiven in the first place. Well, I’m afraid we’re dissolving into semantics at this point. It doesn’t mean anything. Forgiveness is one of the great graces of life, and the ability to give it freely is one of the most healing things that we will ever do. Do you know why? In forgiving us, God grants power to us. He empowers us to forgive others. He gives us the grace to forgive others. He gives us what we need to forgive others and to let it go. Otherwise, we would never be able to let it go. There was a particular incident in another gospel, the gospel according to Luke, the seventh chapter. Jesus was invited to a Pharisee’s house. The account begins in verse 36. The Pharisee asked him to come and have not dinner with him, and he went to the Pharisee’s house, and he sat down to food. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner. She was the town naughty lady. When she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment, I gather very precious and very expensive. And she stood at his feet behind him, weeping. Now, if you can visualize, these gentlemen were reclining at meal. The table would have been about a foot off the floor. They would have been reclining on their elbows, reaching over into the table to get their food. This is the Eastern way of eating. So his feet were stretched out behind him, and that’s what it means when she stood at his feet behind him. And her tears were just copious and running down her face. And she knelt down behind him and her tears splashed on Jesus’ feet. And she began to wash his feet with her tears. And then she loosened the hair on her head and wiped and dried his feet with the hairs of her head. And kissed his feet and then began to anoint them with this very expensive ointment. It’s a very touching scene. Now, the Pharisee that had invited Jesus looked at this, and he spoke to himself, saying, This man, if he really were a prophet, would have known what kind of woman this is that is touching him, because she’s a sinner, and he wouldn’t allow her to touch him. It’s all wrong. There’s something really wrong with this picture. And Jesus said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. He said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor that had two debtors. We’ve got a little different version of the parable Jesus gave Peter, don’t we? There was a certain creditor that had two debtors. One owed 500 pence, the other 50. One owed 10 times as much. Now, when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. He just wrote both of them off. Tell me, which of them will love him most? Which of them will be the most appreciative to this man? He said, well, I suppose that he to whom he forgave the most. And he said to him, you’re right. Then he turned and looked at the woman. He said, Simon, do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you didn’t even give me water for my feet. which really was almost an insult because the custom was that when someone came in wearing sandals, the roads were dusty, he could take off his sandals, wash his feet, anoint them with a little something to make them soften up the feet, and I’m sure it must have felt real good to be able to wash them and put something on them. He said, you didn’t even give me water. for my feet. She has washed my feet with tears, wiped them with the hair of her head, and you gave me no kiss, which was also the custom when a man come to your house. You know, the old French style of kissing on the one cheek and then the other. He said, you gave me no kiss. This woman, since I came in and sat down here, has not stopped kissing my feet. You didn’t anoint my head with oil, which is really also another custom. This woman has anointed my feet with ointment. I’m going to tell you something. Her sins, which are many, are forgiven. You know how I can tell? Because of the love she has. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. And I can’t help but think back after listening to what Jesus says here to the wicked servant. He had been forgiven a lot, but it didn’t take much. Somehow it didn’t touch his heart. It didn’t change him in any way. I think we can confuse cause and effect if we’re not careful. The forgiveness of sin does not necessarily cause one to love much. But if one does love much, it’s going to be evident that they have been forgiven of much. And I think what Jesus must be saying is that there’s a very large matter of perception. That is, the person who is aware of what he has been forgiven, who will really love much, and the person who may have been forgiven a great deal, but just does not have an awareness of the significance of it, the same will love very little. And he said to the woman, your sins are forgiven. And they that were sitting at dinner said, Who is this that forgives sins also? And to the woman he said, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.
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I’ll be right back after these words. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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I suppose the truth is that even though God forgives us of a great debt, if we do not comprehend the forgiveness, it doesn’t mean anything. If we don’t grasp it, absorb it, the modern word, I guess, is internalize it, it just doesn’t go anywhere. For the wicked servant’s heart was not touched by being forgiven. He did not comprehend the forgiveness. And not comprehending it, I suppose that The sin didn’t really go away. The sin did not really go away because his heart was still greedy. The thing that was down inside of him that got him into trouble in the first place had not gone away. And it answers the question in a way, how can God remember a sin that he has forgotten? Well, I suppose in a lot of ways it’s like you can remember something that you have forgotten. Someone can come along and remind you of it. And while God says, I will remove your sins as far as the east is from the west, I will remember your sins and your iniquities no more. The problem is that if you’re still carrying those sins around with you, then God will remember them. I guess it’s as simple as that. If we assume, and this is the problem we run up against, If we assume when we’re forgiven that the forgiveness is in any way merited, then we haven’t comprehended it. If we think, oh, well, I’m a pretty good guy, and that’s why God gave me, or, well, I deeply and profoundly repented, and that’s why God forgave me. But the fact is that this wicked servant was forgiven when on the face of it, he had not deeply and profoundly repented. And I suppose that if we withhold forgiveness from another person because we do not believe that he has really repented, then we are requiring that he merit the forgiveness before we give it. And if we have that attitude, then we must think that we merited our own forgiveness. And if we’re thinking that way, we are not going to comprehend it. I suppose if you are having trouble forgiving someone of a crime against you, then you may be looking in the wrong place. It may be your own forgiveness that you need to comprehend first. You know, Jesus seems to have been, well, almost puzzled at times, I think, by the hardness of heart of so many he met, especially of the sect of the Pharisees. There are people who are religious people. And they have all the trappings of religion. They have all the form of religion. Not only do they have it, they have it all nailed down. They know exactly what to do and when to do it and how to do it. They know all of the words to say, and they have the jargon down pat. And they consult their expressions with praise the Lord this and if the Lord will that. And the Lord is in their mouth continually. They’re always talking about the Lord, but the heart… is another matter. The Pharisees, as a class, were a highly religious people. They had all of the things to do down. They knew the vocabulary. They knew the jargon. They knew when to kneel, when to stand, when to bow. They knew which days to observe, when to work, when not to work, how to fast and when to fast, and whether to fast. They knew all these things. But their heart was as hard as a brick. In truth, One wonders if there are very many people at all who really comprehend what God has done for them. He said to this woman who did seem to comprehend it, Your sins are forgiven. Then those who said it meet with him and said, Well, who does he think he is that can forgive sins? Jesus had the power to forgive sin because he was about to lay down his life to forgive sin. He carried the highest of credentials. Now, what you may not have understood fully is that in forgiving you, Jesus has granted some of that power to you because you would probably not have what it takes to forgive anybody. if Jesus had not given it to you to forgive. And so, if you’re having trouble forgiving someone, if it’s still hanging in your mind and you really can’t put it away, I would suggest that for a while you forget about that person and take a good hard look at yourself. Spend a little time with God in a quiet place and think about the forgiveness that God has granted to you. When you’ve comprehended it, I think you’ll find it a lot easier to release the anger and the hatred you have towards someone else, a lot easier to forgive. You know, if I were to cast about in my mind to find all the areas of life where the healing power of forgiveness was most needed, I would probably think about failed marriages. The collapse of the family not only destroys the lives of the people involved, it threatens to destroy the heart of the people as well. Why? Well, because of the anger that borders sometimes on hatred, and hatred that borders on murder, and because that hatred is often transmitted to the children who are oftentimes used like arrows and swords and rocks to throw back and forth at one another. No, there’s nowhere that the power of healing would mean more than it does in a marriage that’s falling apart, breaking up with the fighting and the bickering that’s going on. There is no place that forgiveness is more needed. I’m going to talk about divorce and remarriage and whether there’s life after divorce for people whose lives have been so torn up by it, but that will have to wait until the next program. Until then, this is Ronald Dart reminding you,
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You were born to forgive. 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net.
