We're going to be in Matthew. Matthew 18. Of course, I forgot my glasses this morning, and I brought my small study Bible, so if I say something weird, it's because I can't see the words. Don't worry, though, I made the font on the sermon big enough so I can see it without glasses. So Matthew 18, verse 21-35. We haven't read this yet this morning, so I'm going to read it for us before we start. Matthew 18, starting verse 21. 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? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. So the text this morning, I actually taught this as a backup in Matthew's Sunday School class about Matthew. And it struck a really deep chord with me. And so when Doug asked if I'd be willing to preach this week, that was what was on my heart. So I took this text and dug into it a little bit more. And I really ought to, when you think about it, terrify us and comfort us at the same time. They should do both of those things. So hopefully by the end of this sermon, they will have done both of those things. And that's what God's Word is designed to do, right? It's designed to reveal Christ to us, to show us our fault, to show us the remedy for that fault, and then show us reconciliation. Now this topic of forgiveness is very simple to Christianity, isn't it? We talk about forgiveness a lot, right? And yet it seems one of the hardest things for Christians to do is this very thing, is forgive people. And that seems very odd to me that that's the case. But that's what Jesus is talking about here. He tells a whole story about forgiveness for this very purpose. Now, I find it very interesting in the Bible, it never ceases to amaze me every time I open it up, how God has designed and ordered and put it together for us. Remember, He's sovereign over all things, even the way that He's put Scripture together for us. If you notice, and you go back up a few verses, starting in verse 15, that section that's right before the section we're looking at, follows precedingly before the one we're talking about. And that section talks about church discipline. More specifically, what do we do with a brother who constantly is sinning, an unrepentant brother, and you bring it up to him and he refuses, and then we have a number of steps that we're supposed to take and deal with him. A number of years ago, if you remember, Pastor Doug was preaching through Matthew, and on that section, the title of his sermon, I went and looked it up because I thought I remembered this correctly, was the three-step program. We have a lot of programs in our culture, and his three-step program was first, you go to the brother privately. If he refuses to listen, you bring two or three witnesses. If he still refuses to listen, you bring him before the church. And then following that final step, you cut him off like a Gentile. and a tax collector. So church discipline right before this passage on forgiveness, which I think is remarkable. Then Jesus adds this sentence in on verse 18. He says, Truly, at the end of this section on discipline, I say to you that whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now I bring that up because it's significant to our passage this morning, and we'll see why. But again, I find it remarkable that this passage on discipline is followed immediately. The next thing that he talks about is forgiveness. Okay? There's a logical connection there. The first passage, the one on discipline, focuses on what to do with the sinning brother. Okay? Clear. That's what we do with the sinning brother. The second passage, the one that we're talking about this morning, focuses on the one who is sinned against. Okay? So the first passage is, what do you do with the sinning brother? What do you do as the brother who is being sinned against. Okay? And we're going to see what they have in common here. So Jesus, as I pointed out, has just told his disciples what to do if a brother sinned against them and they are unrepentant and they refuse to acknowledge it. And we hear what Jesus says about that. And in the next verse, our text, starting in verse 21, then Peter came up. Okay? And it's always Peter, right? Always seems to be Peter. Not this Peter, but Peter in the Bible. Always wanting to demonstrate his devotion, right? Or his misguided zealousness. It's always impetuous Peter. And yet we might even call it showing off at times and still, nevertheless, God used Peter to ask questions like this so that we would have scripture, right? So 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? Now it sounds at first in reading this that Peter is slightly annoyed, right? How many times is this guy gonna sin against me and how many times must I forgive him? Seven times, is that enough times? But I don't think that's exactly what's going on here. Rather, I think he asked this question to Jesus because he wants to prove something to Jesus. Now, according to Judaism, three times, this is important, three times was enough to demonstrate a spirit of forgiveness. How many times do you forgive? Well, Judaism says three times enough. Now this is based on a couple of texts, Job 33, 29, which says this, Behold, God does all these things twice, three times with a man to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life. Then you have Amos, who says this, Thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So they use these texts in Judaism to say, okay, this is enough times. If God forgives his enemies three times, then that's surely enough for us. That's what was going on. That was just standard in Judaism, okay? So Peter here is at least trying to show off a little bit. How many times must I forgive? Seven times? Now that was more than double what was required, right? We just said that three times was enough in Judaism. Peter says, what about seven times? That's really good, right, Jesus? Right? Seven times. That's four more than what I'm really supposed to do. So he's trying to show Jesus that he is really a generous and forgiving spirit. You see how gracious I am, Jesus? I can forgive this guy seven times. That's pretty good, isn't it? You can almost see this broad, like, grin on his face when he says this. Which, again, isn't so much a question, it's so much of a statement of, look what I can do. Who has two thumbs and is gracious? But Jesus shatters this basking in the sun for Peter. He says, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. Forgive me, there's a lot of math in this sermon. I'm an accountant. So according to Jesus, the number of times that we should forgive our brother is 490 times. Right? Is that what he's saying? 490. If I did my math correctly, 70 times seven, 490. So once you get to 491, that's it, right? We've gone too far. Is that what Jesus is saying? No. The number isn't the point, is it? If so, if that number was the point, then Heidi would have hit that number like two days after we were married, with me. We're up to like, I don't know, 500,000 or something like that. But Jesus takes the number that Peter presents, okay, and he turns it into a far more greater number, or a far greater number than Peter imagines. Peter thinks he's doing well. Seven times? Jesus says no. Seventy times seven. This number again isn't the point. It's not the 490 or the seven that's important. It's the fact that it's pointing to an indefinite number of times. Right? Seventy times seven. You say seven times, I say you keep going. How many times must I forgive? Well, Jesus' answer is basically this. How many times have they sinned against you? That's the number you forgive. That many. That's exactly what Paul is talking about in Colossians 3. That's why we read that this morning. This is the instruction for the Christian. Listen to this. Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion in hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you. And that's key. So you must also forgive. Right? As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. But we like to hold on to grudges, right? Whether we realize it or not, people say, I don't hold grudges. Everybody holds grudges in some form, right? We're depraved creatures, that's what we do. Even if we don't call them grudges, that's what we're doing. And if we don't hold grudges, we at least keep a pretty significant list of wrongs that have been done to us, don't we? And even in times where we say we forgive someone, in the back of our mind, it's still there, what they did. Like, I forgive you, but I'm never going to forget what you did to me. Right? And we kind of use that to judge the way that we interact with people in the future, that same person, if they sin against us. But that's what Paul in Colossians 3 calls the old self. That's the old man. That person keeps the list of wrongs and keeps a short record of sins. It's the old man who wants revenge or the opportunity to seek vengeance upon them and not forgiveness. But again, the context of the Colossians passage that we read is the new self, not the old self. We ought to have compassionate hearts, he says, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. So the question is, are you known for those things? If somebody looks at you and says, yeah, I know that guy, that's Sean, he is not a patient person. Or the opposite, is that what you're known for? So Peter asks, how many times must I forgive? And Jesus says, as many times as you've been sinned against, that's how many times you forgive. And why? Paul answers it here back in Colossians. It's interesting. He says, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. So the question is, well, how has the Lord forgiven you? Right? If the Lord, if that's our standard, as the Lord has forgiven you, then we have to ask, how has the Lord forgiven you? Only for a certain amount of times, at 490, is that how many times that God has forgiven you? No. He's forgiven you a lot more than that. Only for certain sins, maybe it's, you know, this sin is kind of out of the realm of His forgiveness. Well, that's not how He forgives you either, is it? Only what He has found easy to forgive for, like, okay, well, that wasn't that big of a deal. He didn't murder anybody. He kind of just told His white light work. It's not a big deal. So those are the only sins he forgives? That's not what the Bible says, is it? No, how the Lord has forgiven you is this, completely, wholeheartedly, and eternally. Listen to these verses, okay? How many, and here's the question I'm going to ask about these, how many trespasses of ours has God forgiven, according to these verses? And you, who are dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. So according to God, as far as the East is from the West, that's how He remembers your sin. It's not even close. That's what His forgiveness entails. Another one, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. He knows what we are, and He still forgives us. That is how the Lord has forgiven us, so we must also forgive in the same way. So the question again is, then, do you? Is that how you forgive or do you forgive but never forget? Right? How many times have I heard that in my life? I forgive but I never forget. Well, if that's the case, then you haven't forgiven. Hate to tell you. But you haven't forgiven. This is what Jesus is relating to Peter. How many times must you forgive? As many times as you've been sinned against. It isn't optional. Jesus doesn't give you an out here. It's something that we're told that we need to do and it carries a very, very heavy weight. We're going to see that. So Jesus then makes a story, he tells a story, a comparison, to explain this to his disciples a little bit further. He says in verse 23, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. So this is the story that Jesus now tells them. Now this is basically, he doesn't call it a parable in the text, but this is basically a parable, right? It's a story to use to teach. Even so, it's not a parable, it's still important to figure out who's who in the story, right? Well, the king would be the father, right? God. Easy enough. The servants would be citizens of the kingdom. Those who serve the king. Because that's who everyone is so far. So in verse 24, when he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents, and since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made. And we kind of gloss over this when we read the story, at least I used to when I read this story. Okay, the guy owed a debt, he couldn't pay it back, etc., etc. But I want you to understand the situation here for this servant. Okay, it's vitally important. Because it makes the case about how desperate we are before God. Now a talent, okay, I know we do like the Fall Festival Flair thing, the talent show, we're not talking about those kind of talents. Doug playing the banjo is not in view here, okay? A talent was a unit of monetary reckoning. I think we all are aware of that. It wasn't an actual coin necessarily. It was just a reckoning of money. It was a unit of money. Now here's the important part. One talent was equal to 20 years of labor for a common worker. So take your middle class, average guy, a decent job, 20 years of labor, that's one talent. So let's say today, again I apologize for more math, Let's say today that the average wage is $15 an hour. Now, if someone works an average of 2,000 hours a year, which is about right, they would make $30,000 a year. Remember, I just told you that a talent was equal to 20 years of this. So today, one talent would equal $600,000. One talent, $600,000. But the servant didn't know just one talent, did he? He owed 10,000 talents. So again, doing my math correctly, you multiply 600,000 by 10,000, you get 6 billion in today's terms, $6 billion that this guy owes to the king. This isn't some rich guy. This isn't Donald Trump. This is the run-of-the-mill average middle class guy supporting his family with his job, $6 billion in our terms. Now, even though I gave you some rough numbers to illustrate the point, again, the actual number is not the point, okay? It's not that he actually owed 10,000 talents. That's not what the point of the parable is or the story is. The point is that this amount to this servant represents an incalculable debt. There's no way. It's insurmountable. Like the biggest debt you can possibly imagine, this is what's going on here. That's the point. More debt than you can possibly imagine. More debt than even the federal government. That servant couldn't pay the king what he owed, right? Thus, not only is he in trouble now, but so is his family. Do you catch that? Since he could not pay, the master ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had. That's what he was facing. It sounds harsh, right? Today, we don't think about that kind of stuff because you have bankruptcy laws. We just file this and file that. It's all gone. Seven years, we're clean again. But not here. It does seem a bit extreme to us, but it wasn't in their day. At the time, that was common practice. It was punishment for those who had debts they could not pay. If you worked for somebody, they sold you, and not just you, your wife and your kids. All gone. So remember, for instance, the story of Elisha and the widow's oil. Remember that story about the miracle of the widow's oil? Now before that miracle, where the oil fills up every vessel that she has, we read this in 2 Kings, Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. But the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves. That's what they did when you couldn't pay it back. They came and took you and your children and your wife, and that's how they settled their debt. They literally took it out of your hide. That's the way it was, and it sounds harsh, but that's what was required when you couldn't pay something back. Now this is where the servant finds himself before the great king. And is this not where we find ourselves before the king of kings? Destitute. Some translations say that he had no coin to pay. Basically, there's no way he could pay this back. A penalty which was imposed that we would never be able to satisfy. Ever. So even if this guy had been sold along with his family, he would take that as compensation for the debt, but it would never pay it back. That's what you're supposed to understand. It would never ever go away. It would never satisfy. Now people say, today especially, that the God of the Bible is just too harsh. You read things like this, like, I don't want anything to do with the Christian God. Why? We read that the wages of sin is death. And that if you break one law, you're guilty of breaking them all. So why, they ask, would God send any person to hell for even just a tiny, small, minuscule sin for all eternity? Why would he do that? Why would a Christian God do that? That sounds way too harsh. It's because even the smallest sin is a sin against an infinitely holy God. Does that make sense? So even the smallest sin, as small as it is in our eyes, offends a holy God infinitely. because that's who he is, he's holy, right? Isaiah, holy, holy, holy. That's what they cry out to him all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For eternity, that's what they say, holy, holy, holy. That's who he is, so even one sin does that. Arthur W. Pink says this, he says, for one sin, God banished our first parents from Eden. One thing. For one sin, all the posterity of Canaan, the son of Ham, fell under a curse which remains to this day. For just one sin, Moses was excluded from Canaan. For one sin, Elisha's servant was smitten with leprosy. And for one sin, Ananias and Sapphira were cut off out of the land of the living. One, that's all it took in all these cases was just one sin, and this penalty was imposed. So now think back to our story. Even if the servant would have only owed one talent instead of ten thousand, and yet still couldn't pay the one talent as much as he couldn't pay the 10,000, then the same punishment would have been extracted from him, you see? It doesn't matter how much he owed. The fact is that he owed and he couldn't pay it. So whether it was 10,000 or one, it doesn't matter. That penalty was going to be imposed on him. And even in our case, one sin is enough to warrant that punishment. Yet we're guilty of far more than one sin, and this guy had far more than just one talent. We have offended not just one time, but an infinite number of times. Did I say infinite? Infinite, not infant. Now it ought to humble us to think about what happened to those in the quotes I just told you from Pink, Elisha's servant, and all those guys, because of just one sin. Now we wake up day after day after day after having demonstrated our depravity, each day thousands upon thousands of times. Does that not demonstrate God's mercy toward us, that we wake up every morning and we probably shouldn't? The fact that Jesus died on the cross shows God's hatred for sin. The great Stephen Charnock, who I love to read, says this. He says, Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious demons, nor the groans of the damned creatures give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin as the wrath of God let loose upon his son. Never did divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time of our Savior's countenance, when he was most marred in the midst of his dying groans. The fact that Jesus died shows you how much God's hated sin. This is how serious God takes this. We don't like to talk about that in our day and age, but this is how serious God takes it. This is how serious, I tell you these things so you would understand how serious the debt was that this servant had gotten himself into. So what was he to do? He owes us 10,000 talents. There's no way he's going to be able to pay it back. The text tells us that he can't pay it back. So then you look to verse 26. What's his only recourse? So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. That sound odd to you? I will pay you everything. And the text already told us he can't. Again, I find it to be interesting because again, verse 25 tells us he can't pay it back. He says, I will pay you everything. The king knows better. He knows he's not ever going to pay this back. He could not pay. That's what the text tells us. He's still trying to get by here on what he doesn't have. Right? He can't pay it. We'll just have patience. I'll pay you everything. He doesn't have anything to pay in the first place. What makes us think that he'll pay later on? Do you remember the amount of the debt that he had? Again, 20 years of wages for one talent, he owed 10,000 of them. It would have taken him 200,000 years of paying nothing but this debt back to satisfy him. Yet not being able to settle now, why would again the king think that he would ever be able to pay it back no matter how much patience the king had? The king said, okay, I'll give you 30 days. That wasn't going to do it. 20 more years, that wasn't going to do it. The fact is, he was never going to be able to pay this back. But then we find the gracious nature of the king. So the story shifts from the servant to the king. After having a servant incur a debt of that amount, and I don't know what in the world he did in the story to incur a debt of that amount, not going to the chariot track anymore, I guess, I don't know. After he comes to the king and he pleads his case, and he asks if the king have patience with him, Verse 27 tells us this, and out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. So the king forgives the servant his debt, and he does so for two reasons. One is very explicit, and the other one is in the text, but not so explicit. But it's something that's very glaringly obvious, and I've already stated it. Now, the explicit reason is, of course, that the king had pity for the servant. That's what it says. Out of pity, the king forgave. He had pity on him. And we hate that word as Americans, I think. We don't want pity. I mean, I've heard this tons. Don't pity me. I don't want your pity. We don't like that. It kind of does something to our self-image. We don't want to be pitied. Yet, aren't we grateful for such a glorious king who does pity us? Isn't that what we want as sinners, as someone who does pity us? As this story illustrates, it's out of that pity that this man is forgiven. So if he doesn't have pity, he's not forgiven. That's one reason. Here's the other reason, and it's very simple. I already told you, the guy couldn't pay it back. That's why he's forgiven. He couldn't pay it back. There's no way that the king was ever going to be able to collect from him what he owed. He never was going to get that money back. There was only one solution to this problem, and that's if the king forgave him. Again, it doesn't matter how much patience the king would have granted, this was never going to be settled unless the penalty was imposed upon him. So the king, in his generosity, does not exhibit patience, rather mercy. Not only does he forgive this man, he releases him from the order of being sold. Remember, he ordered this man to be sold with his wife and his kids, and he takes the order and he throws it away, and he releases him and says, you're forgiven. You no longer owe this money. Indeed, this debt was so incredible that it would take something even more incredible to make it go away. Likewise, our offense is so great before the Lord that we have to agree with Martin Luther that I am a great sinner, but I have a greater Savior. That's what the story demonstrates, that the gift of salvation or forgiveness is immeasurably great. You can't put a number on it. And so we ought to heed Hebrews when it says this. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" It's a real warning. If we neglect it, where else can we go? What else do we have? So for the servant, there was no tomorrow, right? The king didn't say, come back tomorrow, we'll talk about it. He had been ordered to be sold that day. There was no, I will have patience, get a second job, maybe a third job, we'll see what he can come up with. No, for him, today was the day of salvation. Either he was going to be sold and his family sold, or he'd be forgiven. That was the only two options here. Should he have neglected then? Of course not, how could he? But sadly, this is not where Jesus ends his story, is it? Verse 28, but when that same servant went out, Remember, he's just been forgiven this insurmountable amount of money. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. How terrible is this? He had just left the king. Remember, the king wanted to settle accounts with his servants. So you can imagine there's probably a line that are waiting to go in to see him in the king's court there. This line of servants, and this guy walks out of there, basically a free man. He owes no money anymore. He's been forgiven this amount that he's never going to be able to pay back. And as he goes out, he's probably walking by and he sees a fellow servant, probably waiting there to do the same thing, or he's walking on the road or whatever. And notice that this is not his inferior either. This is not someone that worked for him. This is another fellow servant, someone on equal footing with him. There's no relationship of superior and inferior as there was with the king and the first servant. Now one would think that having such an enormous blessing of being forgiven that much would change his heart, so that the kindness that he had been shown would overflow to others. But instead we find the exact opposite. Now, what makes this story even more of a tragedy at this point is the servant who owed the king so much was owed himself only what would be a minuscule amount in comparison. I told you today that the first servant would have owed $6 billion in today's money. And what was owed to the servant, by the way, was only 100 denarii. Now, it's no small amount of money still, but it's smaller, right? It would be about $12,000. That's what this guy was owed. Again, $12,000 to me is a lot of money. It's no small amount. And though I'm an accountant, I've never really claimed to be a good accountant, but I do know that $6 billion is greater than $12,000. We're all in agreement with that? $6 billion greater than $12,000. Okay. Again, the importance is not the numbers though. They're just for illustration. The point is the contrast of what those numbers illustrate. This big giant amount compared to this relatively moderate small amount. The one was forgiven, this one's going to be exacted, or tried to be exacted. So not only does he seemingly forget the tremendous debt that was just forgiven him, he orders this fellow servant to pay up. He does so violently. It's not just, he said, hey, you happen to have that $12,000 you owe me? He doesn't do that. He takes the guy by the throat and he starts choking him. One moment he's pleading for patience, the next moment he's strangling a guy, pay me, pay me. And brothers and sisters, I pray that that is not how we are, especially for small offenses. And those of you who are waiting for it, here it is, here's your Spurgeon quote. On this very verse, Spurgeon said this, our little claims against our fellow men are too apt to be pressed upon them with unsparing severity. What he means by that is we are so anxious and so unkind to people that we can't wait to just nail somebody for something. As soon as a wrong word comes out, we're on top of it. In other words, we take those offenses against us, those seemingly small things in comparison, and we treat them as if we were the king and we had been infinitely offended. If this guy did this to my family, I'll never forgive him. This person once said this to me, so I'm going to hold that grudge forever. He must apologize. I'm not saying a word to him until he comes to me and apologizes. That kind of an attitude. He has to pay what he owes. Feel guilty for what you have done. This servant, first of all, obviously had no right to be choking his fellow servant over this. In reality, he just used the freedom that he obtained from his debt to try and get more for himself. That's what makes it even, I think, even more awful. He wasn't just trying to get money back. He didn't just have an unkind heart. Think about it. This guy is at ground zero now. He's just been forgiven. He owes nothing. And the first person he sees is this guy who owes him money. And I said, okay, I don't owe anything. I can make $12,000 profit right now by getting this guy to pay me. He's trying to make money off of the fact that he doesn't owe anything. Think about it. If he were to still owe this amount, that $12,000 would have gone right to the king and not to him because he owed it. But now he doesn't. That money would have been his. You can almost see his pupils change to dollar signs like Scrooge McDuck. I watch DuckTales. Because what he sees is not an opportunity to do for someone else what's been done for him, but again, he has the opportunity to make some gain here. Instead of owing $6 billion, he can come out on top with $12,000. And then we find incredible irony in verse 29. So his fellow servant, as he's being choked out, falls down and pleads with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. Does that ring a bell? Do we not just read this? Is this not the same exact pleading and prayer that the first servant gave to the king? Does he not remember that just even a few minutes ago, He had fallen down before his master and begged for patience for himself and asked for some more times and he would promise that he would pay him back. He just did this himself and now here's the exact same thing coming to him. It really should have startled him. It should have jolted him like, you know what? What am I doing? I just did the same thing. I was forgiven. But that's not what he does. It should have reminded him. Again, so short of a time it should have reminded him. But sadly it appears that it didn't, obviously. Because instead of showing mercy, or instead of showing the mercy that he had been shown, he shows violence, demanding payment, choking literally the life out of this servant. And then what does this pleading do, this other servant? This guy asked for patience. Patience, I will pay you. Verse 30, he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. So you have two things going on here. One, he was forgiven and he goes free. And now with this servant, he's not forgiven and he's put in prison. So the two things that this first servant got, this servant gets neither. He ignores the pleading and unlike the king, he has no pity. And that word just basically means a compassionate heart for his fellow servant. Having been shown compassion, he has no further compassion for others. Unlike the king, he does not wipe the debt away, but he determines to exact it, even by killing this man if he can do it. And if he cannot exact it, then he will never see the light of day again. This man will be put in prison until he pays all of it. But the good news here is that God sees all things, right? He knows what's going on. That's both, again, comforting and terrifying. He sees the grudges that we hold over people. He hears the jab that we deliver with a poisoned tongue. He knows when we are short with our wives. In my case, I know all of you know that as well. But I digress. Wives, he knows every unsubmissive and or bitter thought you have towards your husbands. Kids, he knows every single lie that you've told your parents, every disrespectful attitude. The great king knows just how unmerciful we can really be and how we treat other people who are fellow servants. How we treat others who are made in the very image of God that we are made in. In this case, there's no difference, so the king finds out what happens. God knows all things. The king finds this out too. Verse 31, when his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. And they went and reported it to their master, all that had taken place. Greatly distressed. They saw this man being choked to death. It makes me think when you see all these things on YouTube of all these bullies and everybody's with their phones filming it and stuff, they're just helping the guy, right? It's sad. So they do the right thing and they go to the master and they say, this has taken place. This guy that just walked out of your courtroom is now choking this guy, asking for money. So not only did this servant demand payment from his fellow servant, not only did he choke him, he also did it in view of others. People saw this happening. So it added insult to the injury. It's humiliation. This guy owes me $12,000. Others saw what was going on, but so did God. So these servants are distressed by it, and they go and they tell their master what's going on. They may have just watched the first servant being summoned. Perhaps they were waiting their turn. They saw the great mercy that he had been given. They watched him walk out with a smile on his face. He owes no more money. Then they watched him walk out, grab the first person that he sees that he knows who owes him money, and completely ignore what has just been done for him in the king's courtroom. And then he tries to strangle, literally, the money out of this guy. So now what response will the master have? Remember, he's just forgiven this guy. And this is, my friends, why I told you earlier, this message should terrify us. This response right here. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all of his debt. That's scary. If that doesn't bother you, read it again. You wicked servant, The great mercy the king had shown was apparently of little value to this man, who is now called a wicked servant. Now, what does this prove about the wicked servant? Well, obviously he did not have a transformed heart, right? That this forgiveness that he had been shown did nothing for him. It didn't seem to matter. And so the caution is for us to be cautious, be cautious. The Lord does not bestow gifts and blessings and mercies to us that we might use our freedom to then choke the life out of other believers because of their sin against us. Now the king of the story says as much, doesn't he? He says, I forgave you all, all that debt because I had pity on you. I didn't require a thing from you. I didn't ask you for a single denarius. I forgave it all. I had compassion on you because you pleaded with me and you asked me for patience. You should have shown the same mercy to that man as I showed you. So should we as the king's servants then not display the great mercy that the king has shown to us? That's kind of the point of where he's going with this. Should we not imitate the Lord in His wonderful kindness to others, especially when He has been so kind to us? That's what the gospel is, right? Is it not that we are in dire straits, that we have no way to pay it back, that we're dead, No way to escape the penalty once it's imposed. And yet that penalty was paid by someone else. And so because of that, we're forgiven and we're released. That's the gospel right there, isn't it? Though we couldn't pay it back, but Jesus paid it, and now we're free. Has not the mercy of God had a changing and lasting effect upon us? That's what we should be asking ourselves when we read this story. Now for so many of us, and I dare say especially us Calvinists, sometimes the good news becomes old news and forgotten. Think about it. Can you remember back to when you were first saved, if you have a date, or at least the first time you recalled what it meant to be forgiven, and just the tears streaming down your face knowing what it was like to be free of guilt? That I'm free now, that Jesus, what He has done, has freed me. That there's no, like we said earlier, no condemnation now for me. Sadly, that's an old and long lost feeling I'm afraid that Christians just don't remember anymore. We get so caught up in other things and the simple truth becomes boring to us. And so we grow harsh and cold with our fellow man because they believe that doctrine or this guy did this or whatever it is. And so in doing so, we then, and this is the worst part about it to me, we turn God into us. We think that God is like us in that. So we project our own unkindness unto Him and say there's no way that God would love everyone. There's no way that God would show unelect any kind of mercy at all. And that's what we turn it into. We project our own unkindness and harshness onto our Creator. We think that He is like us because we think we have the right doctrine. But I'll read this scripture to you, and I want you to take it personally. We've read it before, a few minutes ago, and you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the air, the spirit that is now work of the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and the mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raises up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Does that not stir your heart? it ought to. We think about what we owe to God and how much we've offended him. This is what was shown to the wicked servant. And instead of that kindness leading to a changed heart, he was neglected. And the wicked servant was worse off than he was before. So before he owed $6 billion, he was sold. Now he's separated from his family and he'll be in prison forever. In anger, Jesus says, the king delivered this fellow to the jailers until he should pay all of his debt. Of course, as has been pointed out, that debt wasn't possibly going to be paid. So great that it was. So the king represents God, of course. The servants represent us. So what does the prison and the jailers represent? Well, I think it's eternal punishment for the prison. And jailers, by the way, in the Greek, this is interesting, actually means torturers, tormentors. Not just a guy standing outside the cell with a key, not letting you out. The Greek implies torturers, tormentors. This is who this guy was turned over to. So it wasn't that this man was just going to sit in prison for so many life sentences, indeed it would be eternity, but that he would be tormented for all eternity as well. I'm not making this up. This is what the text says. And then the last verse of our passage this morning, not to send chills down her spine because of this. Now, Jesus has been telling the disciples the story, right? And Peter asked this question about how much or how many times he should forgive. Now, it's up to this point, it's been a story that Jesus has been telling. But here at the end, Jesus makes it real. I wanna read to you again, verse 34, before we get to 35. And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt back. And then here it comes. Verse 35, so also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. That's scary or what? This is no longer just a story that Jesus is telling the disciples, is it? He says flat out, my Heavenly Father will do the same to you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. This is how serious God views forgiveness and an unforgiving heart. It's no small matter to God about how we treat people and how we are supposed to forgive people. Because He has forgiven us infinitely more than we realize. That's where this is coming from. It's not that just God is this harsh tyrant of a God. He knows what forgiveness does. He knows what forgiveness costs. He has forgiven us more than we could ever, ever hope to repay. More than we certainly ever deserve. And this forgiveness did not come cheap. See, God doesn't need money. He doesn't need money. That's not the point of the parable. But His holiness demands that a penalty be paid for sin. We talked about God's holiness earlier. And it was by the blood of His Son. And that's why the text also comforts. It's not just a scary text, it's a comforting text as well. Because we have a great King, who though we be desperate, though we owe so much, though we can never do anything to wipe out our debt or take care of that penalty, has had compassion on us. He has pitied us. And because of that, He has forgiven us. So reflect on this this morning, especially during the Lord's Supper. What you're partaking in when you take the Lord's Supper, by breaking the bread and drinking the wine, demonstrates the compassion of God and the forgiveness that He has bestowed upon us. There's a couple of practical questions to ask, I think. From this text, do we hold a grudge against someone this morning? Someone in this room, maybe, I don't know. Someone out of this room, doesn't really matter. Have we shown them mercy for their sin? I'm not saying not be good stewards about things, okay? I'm saying be merciful about it. Even though it may have injured us in some way. Doug laughs, I told him I was preaching on forgiveness after he told me what happened with their house. Even if it injures in some way, have we been merciful and forgiving? If so, then you're supposed to remember this story. But more importantly, remember the truth of it. That God wants us to forgive from our heart. Because that's what God did. That's what it says. The penalty for not doing so is far too great. But even then, we are shown mercy for all the times that our hearts are bitter and unforgiving. And that's the great news, isn't it? You read a text like this, and you're like, man, I know there's people I haven't forgiven. I still hold grudges against, but even that God has paid for. But that doesn't get us off the hook, does it? Like we sang earlier, that's why I chose that song, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is forgiven. that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all our sins. Comfort. Comfort my people, says your God, for He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. The legal demands were satisfied. So be satisfied in your heart because of what Christ has done for you. And that's why I want to point out, He used the story as an illustration. It's not a monetary thing. It's not like we can do so many good works or even pay back for what we've sent. We can't do that because it's not a monetary transaction. It's a penal transaction. It's a criminal judge relationship. It's not a debtor and a boss relationship. And that penalty was satisfied. That's why it had to be done. That's what the law required. That's what Christ did. He nailed it to the cross. He made, what does the scripture say? He made Jesus to be sin and he punished it so we could go free. So be satisfied in your heart this morning and be forgiving in your heart, especially as we take communion this morning. Think about the forgiveness that God has given you and then do unto others. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this text this morning. It's a difficult text. We just ask for your mercy. We fall down before you and we plead with you that you would continue to show us mercy, even as we remember the great mercy you've shown us in Christ, that we need that mercy and forgiveness every day. We thank you for that, that though we owed so much in a way of a penalty that we would never be able to pay back, that Jesus took that penalty and He satisfied the law's demands. that we might go free. Teach us to be forgiving people, I pray, especially in a culture as ours that is so bent on suing one another and political correctness and so many things are going on that we just shake our heads at. Teach us to be forgiving and give us the grace to do so. We know that we can't do that apart from You. I pray these things in the name of Your Son, our faithful and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.