Unforgiven!

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Last week, as you are aware, was Wall Street's worst ever. A week ago, the Dow Jones Industrial dropped 2400 points and 22%. It erased some 2.4 trillion dollars in market value, and only time will tell how bad our current financial situation really is. Many individuals were terribly affected as a result of what happened a week ago.

But as bad as our situation might be, as bad as your situation might be this morning having been affected by all of that, I can assure you, as you will see in a moment, it is not nearly as bad as the desperate financial situation of one man Jesus described. Jesus used this man's financial crisis to make for us a profound spiritual point.

The story is here in Matthew 18. It begins in verse 21. You follow along as I read. "Then Peter came and said to Him, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 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. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.' And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, 'Pay back what you owe.' So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you.' But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, 'You wicked slave, 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?' And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart."

The first two verses that I read to you really set the context for the story that Jesus tells. Verse 21, Peter comes and says, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Now, Peter had just heard Jesus say in verse 15 that when someone who has sinned repents, we must forgive that person. We must seek to be reconciled with that person. And so, Peter now, having heard that, is just trying to work out the details in his own mind of exactly what that looks like.

Don't be too hard on Peter here, by the way. He's going way beyond what was acceptable in his culture. You see the rabbis taught that you should be willing to forgive but there should be limits to which your forgiveness should go. The Talmud, for example, the Babylonian Talmud which interpreted the Jewish law, said this: if a man commits a transgression the first, second, and third time he is forgiven; the fourth time he is not. They saw, from several verses in Amos and other places, that this is how God reacted to men, which isn't true. But they assumed that was true, and so they had reasoned that if God doesn't forgive more than three times, then why should we forgive others more than three times. So, Peter here is very generous. He doubles the conventional wisdom of his times. "Instead of three times", he says, "should we do it up to seven times?" Peter is still thinking, though, inside the box of his times. There must be some limit on our forgiveness.

Jesus' response to Peter shows us that Peter was not only not in the right ballpark, he hadn't even gotten to the right city yet. Verse 22: "Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'" Now, the Greek text here allows for two translations of the numbers. One of them is "seventy and seven" or, in other words, 77 times. Those commentators who take this view, point out that that exact Greek expression is used in Genesis 4:24 and there, if you look in the Hebrew that the Septuagint was translated from, it clearly is 77. If so, if this is what Jesus intended to say, then Jesus chose the number 77 to make a powerful contrast, because Genesis 4:24, if you remember, is Lamech's prayer, or excuse me, poem of revenge. Lamech says to his wives, "If revenge should be taken, then I will take 77-fold revenge." By using the same number, Jesus is saying that instead of Lamech's relentless pursuit of vengeance, we should be pursuing forgiveness with an equal enthusiasm.

The other possibility is, as it's translated by the New American Standard here, "seventy times seven" or 490 times. If this is what Jesus meant, then understand that He isn't setting a limit on our forgiveness. He's not saying, "Look, it's okay. Once it gets past that, you draw a line. You say, 'Okay, sorry, you just used up your 490 times. You're out of luck. No more forgiveness for you!'" Instead, Jesus' message is there is to be no artificial limits on our forgiveness.

In fact, keep your finger there but turn over to Luke 17. Luke 17. The events recorded here occur more than six months after the events of Matthew 18. And Jesus is reminding His disciples of what He had taught them before. Luke 17. He is on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. He's going to be crucified. And on the way, He gives them these instructions again. Verse 3: "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times [in the same day], saying, 'I repent,' forgive him." Jesus is saying we should be generous in our forgiveness. We should be eager to forgive, so that if the same person sins against us in the same way, seven times on the same day, and comes and seeks our forgiveness, we should be eager to offer it. Leon Morris puts it this way: "Jesus' followers cannot withhold forgiveness from anyone who sins against them and seeks their forgiveness."

To drive home this point, Jesus tells Peter (back in Matthew 18) and the rest of the disciples a story, a parable. And in this parable, there is a king who represents the father and there is an unforgiving slave who represents someone who wants God's forgiveness, but who isn't nearly so eager to offer that forgiveness to others. The basic message of the parable is clear. If God has forgiven you the unpayable debt you owe Him, then you must forgive others. This parable is a great preparation for communion because it both reminds us of the wonderful forgiveness we enjoy, and it compels us to make sure that we forgive others before we think about celebrating God's forgiveness to us.

This parable has two parts. The first part, in verses 23 to 27, is a picture of God's forgiveness of us, a picture of God's forgiveness of us. And the second part, verses 28 to 34, you have a picture of our unwillingness to forgive another. Two pictures - one God's forgiveness of us, and the other, what it looks like when we refuse to grant forgiveness to someone else. Let's look at this parable together.

First of all: a picture of God's forgiveness of us. As Jesus begins to picture God's forgiveness, He first highlights the unpayable debt that we owed to God. Look at verse 23: "For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves." Jesus says, "Life in My kingdom, that is, the spiritual kingdom over which I rule right now, let Me tell you what life in that kingdom looks like." It can be compared to a king. Here you are introduced to a monarch in the ancient near east and at his court. He decides to settle accounts with his slaves. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Jesus doesn't mean here that the lowliest, menial slaves - those assigned the lowest duties. Instead, the kind of slaves that He speaks of here, are those who are in high positions. You see, in the ancient world, even the most powerful court officials were referred to as the king's slaves. So, you might be the second person in the kingdom, and still be considered a slave of the king. In light of the size of the debt that's mentioned here, it's likely that these slaves were actually the very highest officials in this kingdom - the satraps and the governors over entire regions under this king. And one of the responsibilities of such men would be to collect the taxes from their region, to record the taxes, to protect the taxes, and to make sure that they ultimately are distributed and delivered to the king. So, he calls these governors, these high officials in his realm, to come in and stand before him and give an account.

Verse 24: "When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him." Unfortunately, the word "talent" confuses many Christians because they read that word and they think it has something to do with an ability to play a musical instrument or something. Actually, a talent was a weight, a measurement of weight. One Greco-Roman talent was somewhere between 53 pounds and 83 pounds of gold or silver coinage. That was a talent. So, here we're talking about 10,000 talents - a huge amount of money. In fact, a talent was the highest unit of currency the Greeks had, and 10,000 was the highest Greek number.

To truly get the impact of Jesus' story here, I think we have to translate these numbers into our modern context. One way commentators do that is simply to figure out how much money that would be in today's dollars. The closest estimate, when that's done, is about $12 million this man owed.

The problem with that, as I got to thinking about and studying it this week, is that really doesn't make the contrast Jesus intends to make. So, let me do it a slightly different way. We know how long an average worker in the first century had to work to earn this amount. You see, in the first century one talent, one talent, was equivalent to 15 years' labor for an average worker. 15 years' income - one talent! So, that means that this man had accumulated a debt equal to - are you ready for this? 150,000 years of a person's labor! That's how long it would take at that income, an average income in the first century to retire the debt this man had accumulated. That's assuming, of course - 150,000 years is assuming that he could spend every dollar he earned to pay off this debt. And, secondly, that there was no interest accumulating through that period of time. It would take 150,000 years, every dollar he earned with no interest ever having been accumulated on it.

This week I wanted to figure out the real equivalent for us. So, I used the average income in Texas. According to several sources, the average tax and income is about $50,000 (just a little short) and I multiplied that times 150,000 years. That means that in today's terms, to compare it to you sitting here today, this person would have had a personal debt of $7.5 billion. You thought your debt was bad.

Obviously, Jesus intends here to picture an impossible, unpayable debt. Jesus wants us to realize there is nothing that can be done. This man has nothing he can do. He is in an utterly impossible situation. He owes 150,000 lifetimes, or excuse me, 150,000 years - several lifetimes... many lifetimes to pay off this debt.

Jesus also wants us to see something else though: this is not an honest debt. We know from historical records of the time, that the total tax revenue Rome collected from the region of Palestine - if you take Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and add in Idumea - so that entire region, the total tax revenue that Rome collected from all of those regions in a year was 8000 talents. That means this man had accumulated a debt equal to more than a year's worth of Roman taxes for all the land of Palestine. There was no way this man could have accumulated that much debt through the normal exercise of his job, even if he was terribly unlucky or grossly incompetent. The only way for him to accumulate that much debt as a governor or satrap in the first century would be through sheer, reckless abandon or embezzlement. He was stealing from the king. So, here was a man with an utterly impossible debt and a debt that he brought entirely upon himself by complete and utter reckless abandonment or by stealing from his employer.

Now, if you're beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about now, you should be, because you're in the story, and so am I. This is Jesus' picture of the debt that every sinner, without exception, accumulates before God. This is Jesus' picture of every person here this morning. This is Jesus' picture of you and of me. I don't care how good you think you are, apart from grace, this is how good God thinks you are. From God's perspective, we have all recklessly spent His good gifts. We have wasted them. In fact, you and I have taken what really belongs to Him, and we have used it solely for ourselves. We have embezzled from the God of heaven. And we have accumulated with Him and utterly unpayable debt. That is the spiritual circumstance of every living human being, apart from grace.

This was our situation before Christ found us. We were morally bankrupt, and we owed a debt we could not pay. And there was no way to get rid of that impossible, unpayable debt that we had recklessly made. What Jesus wants us to understand is we were in a situation where no amount of effort, no lifetime of effort and work, no many lifetimes of work and effort could ever bring us out from under the debt we owed. The interest just keeps accumulating through eternity and it becomes greater and greater and greater. This was us. This was you. This was me.

Verse 25: "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." This was a common practice in those times. Although, there was no hope of regaining the entire amount of this man's debt, the king decides to get what he can get from this bad debt and to write off his losses. And so, he commands that this man and everything that belongs to this man be sold, and he'll take what he can get and write it off as a loss and move on. Understand what this meant for this man. The king had every right to do this. And here stands this man giving an account before his king and the king says, "I want you to sell him and everything that belongs to him." This was the end for this man. That meant that this man and everybody who lived in his home with him, would spend the rest of their lives, would die in slavery.

Verse 26: "So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.'" That was, of course, impossible but it's all he has to offer. By the way, did you notice? He doesn't offer to make an initial down payment against the loan. The clear indication is that this man has nothing. Not only does he have this huge debt, but he is completely bankrupt. He has utilized every resource. And he knows it. And so, he's reduced to a plea, a prayer for mercy. Sounds like the words of the prodigal son, doesn't it? "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight... make me as one of your hired men [servants. There's nothing else I can do but fall on your mercy]."

So, with that, Jesus describes our unpayable debt. That's where you were. That's where I was when God found us. We had accumulated the equivalent of $7.5 billion in debt. We could never repay it in 150,000 years. Nothing could be done. We were at the mercy of the one whose resources we had squandered. And then, we cried out.

I want you to notice God's forgiveness, God's unparalleled forgiveness of this man. Verse 27: "And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt." The king's heart is moved with compassion, with pity, for this man and his circumstance. And to the shock of the rest of the court, as they stand around listening to all of this unfold, the king doesn't follow through on the sentence he has just passed. In fact, he doesn't even stop at just granting the request of this man which was, "Give me some more time and I will repay you everything. Be patient! Have mercy!" He doesn't even stop there. Instead, the king makes two shocking decisions. Did you notice them in verse 27? He orders this man to be released. The threat of prison is gone. And, secondly, he forgave the entire debt. In a moment's decision, the king wiped away the entire debt. There were no conditions. There was no hesitation. It was an act of pure, unmitigated grace.

When I graduated from college, that was grace as well. But that isn't the point of the story I want to tell. I had, by what today's standard, was a small amount of student loans. And I remember the heavy weight that debt was. And I also remember that huge sense of relief when I wrote the last check, sealed the envelope, and popped it in the mailbox, and knowing that my debt was fully paid for and retired. Perhaps you've had a similar experience at some point in your past. You know what that feels like to pay off the mortgage or retire that debt, and to know that the weight of the pressure of that crushing, financial load is gone.

Imagine. Try to imagine what it would have felt like for this slave, who had accumulated through reckless abandon and embezzlement, a debt that couldn't be paid in 150,000 years. Imagine the relief, and the gratitude, and all that would have flooded his heart. He'd accumulated a debt that was unpayable. And he'd asked for more time to pay the debt himself but instead, in a moment's time, the king releases him from it all. He absolves the debt. It's gone! Can you imagine what that would have been like? You can imagine it because, again, the picture here is of you and me if you're in Christ, because that's a picture Jesus gives us of what it was like to have been a condemned sinner, living with a debt that could never be repaid, a debt we had created for ourselves. And then we come, and we throw ourselves on the mercy of our God. And in a moment's time, the load is gone, the weight is lifted, and it's gone forever. You have experienced that. And that's what Jesus wants us to see. So, that's the picture of God's forgiveness of us.

That brings us to the second part of this parable, and that's a picture of our unwillingness to forgive others. As Jesus begins to picture our unwillingness to extend forgiveness for others, He begins with an unsettled debt. Notice verse 28: "But that slave [the slave that has just experienced this incredible forgiveness] went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii..." The forgiven slave leaves after that staggering moment when the king says, "It's done. It's gone. It's cancelled. You owe me nothing!" And he either goes out looking for his fellow slave or he just comes across him.

This fellow slave owes him, it says, "a hundred denarii". This is 1/600,000th, 1/600,000th of what he had owed the king. A denarius was a Roman silver coin that was roughly equivalent to an average worker's daily pay. So, 100 denarii was worth about three-month's worth of income in the first century for the average worker. Again, if we use the average Texas income, this slave had owed $7.5 billion to the king. And he encounters a fellow slave who owed him the equivalent of $12,500.

Notice his response - his unforgiving spirit. Verse 28: "...and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, 'Pay back what you owe.'" Roman law allowed a creditor to physically seize his debtor and bring him before a judge. Roman writers, on several occasions, mentioned creditors twisting the neck of a person until blood began to flow out of the nose and mouth of that person. So, this guy grabs his fellow slave and insists on his money.

Verse 29: "So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you.'" Don't miss the irony here [coughs]. He uses almost the same words that the first slave had used before the king. And here, this is a large debt, but it was certainly payable. In today's terms, it would be like owing the money for a nice used car. It might take several years to squeeze that money out of his income, but it was doable; he could repay it. So, he's asking for time.

Verse 30: "But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed." He couldn't sell him into slavery like the king had said he was going to do, because Roman law wouldn't let a man be sold for more than his debts. But he could be sentenced to prison. That seems kind of strange in our times - the whole idea of a debtor's prison, but it was a common practice in the Greco-Roman world. It kept the one who defaulted from running away, from leaving his debt, running from that area or the country. It also put pressure on the friends and relatives to come up with the money in order to pay off the debt and to free that person from prison.

Don't miss the point Jesus is making here. Regardless of how someone else has sinned against you, regardless of how terribly you have been sent against, it is a very small debt compared to what you have been forgiven. Jesus is contrasting the great debt forgiven by God, with the small debt that others may owe us because of their sin against us. Regardless of how someone has sinned against you, it is incredibly wicked to have just been forgiven an impossible, unpayable, almost incalculable debt, and then to refuse to forgive the small debt that is owed to you. It is unthinkable!

But Jesus isn't done, because He turns to the lesson. Verse 31: "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported [the Greek word is 'they fully reported in detail'] to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, 'You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me." By the way, the word order in the Greek text puts "all" first - "all that debt I forgave you". The emphasis is on the size of the debt that this slave had been forgiven.

Verse 33: "Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?" It's interesting. Again, in the Greek text, there's a word that means "it is necessity", "it is necessary". It literally says this: "Is it not necessary for you to have had mercy?" "You are obligated to show mercy to others in the same way I have shown mercy to you."

Verse 34: "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him." The man was to be imprisoned. He was to be periodically tortured until every last dime was repaid.

Now, in verse 35, Jesus applies the parable: "My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each [notice that word] of you [with no exceptions] does not forgive his brother from your heart." Now, let me tell you what Jesus' point isn't, what He doesn't mean. He doesn't mean that God freely forgives us and then takes back His forgiveness. Remember, this is a parable. There's one big point. Not every point makes a spiritual lesson. So, don't confuse that. God doesn't forgive us and then take back His forgiveness, as this king appears to do.

Secondly, it does not mean that there is an after-death sort of torturing that takes place - the Catholic version of purgatory. That's not what Jesus is saying here. What He does mean, I think, is two things. First of all, He means that we must forgive anyone that sins against us and repents because of what we have been forgiven. William Hendrickson puts it like this, "Prompted by gratitude, the forgiving sinner must always yearn to forgive whoever has transgressed against him, and he must do all in his power to bring about complete restoration." But secondly, I think Jesus intends to give us a warning, as He does on several occasions during His ministry. And that is, the person who claims to know Him but who, as a pattern and habit of life continually holds onto anger and bitterness and refuses to forgive, has in fact never truly experienced God's forgiveness himself or herself.

Let me ask you this morning. Who do you struggle to forgive? Who has sinned against you in this life most frequently? Who has sinned the greatest sin against you in this life? Who has come to you too often seeking for your forgiveness and has simply used it up? Who owes you the greatest debt? Jesus says, "If they're willing to repent, you must forgive them as God has forgiven you." You must have an attitude, a spirit of forgiveness, whether they come to you and seek your forgiveness or not. That's commanded in other places. But if they come seeking your forgiveness, you must grant it wholeheartedly, notice, Jesus says - with your whole heart. You must give them what you have received. You must give them patience and compassion and mercy and comprehensive forgiveness, as the Lord does here in this parable.

Think about what you've been forgiven. Think about that debt that you had, that you could never have repaid, and God has forgiven you. And it will lay the groundwork for your forgiving others. And if you refuse to forgive, listen carefully, Jesus' point is this: if you refuse to forgive others and you're a believer, then you will be handed over to the torturers. I think that's Jesus' way of saying, you are going to suffer severe discipline at the hand of God. If you're in Christ and you hold on to anger and resentment and bitterness toward that person who has wronged you, then Jesus says God is going to do the same to you. And if you live in a constant and continual pattern of bitterness and unwillingness to forgive someone or many, then you prove that you are really not a believer at all. That's the message of this passage.

But this passage doesn't exist in a vacuum. It has a context, and the passage that immediately comes before it, interestingly enough, is the passage about church discipline. So, this passage on forgiveness occurs in the context of church discipline. Peter's question grew out of Jesus' teaching about practicing church discipline, and if somebody repents, you're to wholeheartedly forgive them. So, in the context, the primary application of this passage is if someone who has sinned and has been disciplined, if that person repents and comes and seeks forgiveness, we are to be eager and generous to welcome them back and to receive them and to forgive their debt. And as a church, we have that wonderful opportunity today.

Our Father, it's impossible for us to adequately thank You for the love You have shown us in Christ. Lord, don't let us ever get over the reality of our sin and the debt that that had accumulated with You. However good we may have thought ourselves to be, Lord, grip our souls with our sin. And then, Father, grip them even more with the grace of Christ, with His willingness to lay down His life in the place of guilty sinners, to cancel out the debt by paying it in full. Father, we thank You and bless You for what we've studied together this morning. We thank You and praise You for Your work in our lives. We all stand before You as forgiven sinners, forgiven of an unpayable, incalculable debt, paid at the cross. We thank You and praise You in the name of our Savior and for His sake, Amen!