Gospel of Matthew in the 18th chapter For my church history class on Tuesday night this week is midterm exam. I'll not be there Tuesday night there are several of in the class that are going to Austin the capital city for their mission conference, and I'm going to meet them out there Thursday sometime, but if you are in my class and you are going to be away this week I But you need to take the midterm exam. I'm going to give that midterm exam this afternoon at five o'clock in my office. That is just for those who are not going to be here on Tuesday, five o'clock this evening in my office. If you can't make that, then you need to let me know after the service. All right. Matthew chapter number 18. Matthew chapter 18. And I said verse 22 on the screen. I really mean verse 21. Matthew chapter 18, verse 21. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times. Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, One was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had in payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wrath, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you. If ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. In the verses immediately prior, the Lord had instructed his disciples on the way of dealing with offenses. That instruction then becomes the pattern for church discipline. When a brother has offended you, when he is living in sin, when he is engaged in conduct that is hurtful to the testimony of the church, there is a biblical way to confront him. And in those verses, we noted that there are four levels of confrontation. There is private rebuke. There is before two or three witnesses. There is public rebuke before the church. And finally, there is expulsion from the church. You hope that you never get to that fourth step, but a church has to be sure that it doesn't neglect that if it ever becomes necessary. If a man humbles himself under private rebuke and asks for forgiveness, then that is the last step. And if that brother does confess, then it is the responsibility of the offended brother, and really the church as a whole, to forgive that man and to hold no grudges and no bitterness against him. The Apostle Peter hears this and as he is prone to do, he takes that principle to the extreme. How much forgiveness is too much forgiveness? What if he commits the same sin? How will I know if he is genuinely repentant if he does this same offense over again? And Peter is not arguing against forgiving one another. But how much forgiveness? How many times? Where do we cut it off? And the question that Peter raises opens up a conversation between the Lord and His disciples on the extent of forgiveness. That subject, that word forgiveness is one of the richest words in the Christian language. And the most basic definition is a removal of guilt. It is to release the dead. It is to release from blame. It is to absolve from sin. And I wanted to come in this morning and just do a systematic study just of the theology or the doctrine of forgiveness. And I'm not going to take time to do that. But just think about what it means that God has forgiven you of all your sin. What a great concept. The conversation, however, is that because you and I have been forgiven, then how much more should we forgive others? There's a great statement found in Proverbs 19 and verse 11 where Solomon writes that it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression. That's a glorious thing. Colossians 3 and verse number 13 says that we ought to be forbearing one another and forgiving one another. And then it says that even as Christ forgave you, then so also do ye. And we're never more like Christ than when we're able to forgive someone of something they said or did about us. Now, before we get into the text, because there is some misunderstanding, I want to make two statements and clarify two common misunderstandings. Here's the first statement. You can't judicially forgive sins. You do not have the power To absolve sin, only God can do that. So when we're talking about forgiving one another, we're not talking about absolving their sin debt to God. If you go into a confessional and you confess your sins to a priest, and that priest prescribes Hail Mary's or whatever, and says that your sins are forgiven you, he's lying to you. He has no more power to release you from your sins before God than any man on the street. You can't forgive sins, but you can forgive offenses. I can't release you from your debt to God, but I can release you from your debt to me. The second statement that I want to make is that you cannot forgive a person if they don't confess. Now, there's some preaching on forgiveness that you hear, and I think it's sincere, but it's misguided. And the essence is that if somebody has wronged you, maybe even years ago, and you have harbored ill feelings in your heart toward that person, then what you need to do is you need to forgive them and hold no bitterness against them, and you need to let it go, you need to release it in your heart. Now, that is true, that is what you need to do. However, that's not necessarily the biblical doctrine of forgiveness. How do you forgive someone without telling them? What benefit is it to them? That if you forgive them in your heart, but you never let them know that you've forgiven them. But what if they don't want forgiveness? In fact, what if they don't believe they're ever wrong? Or what if they know they're wrong and they're not sorry for it? They're not remorseful for it at all? How do you force forgiveness on someone who doesn't think he needs it and he doesn't want it? And the answer is that you can't. And God doesn't forgive that way. A man has to acknowledge his sin, and he has to seek forgiveness, and then God will forgive him. But God doesn't go to a man and say, I know that you don't realize that you have sinned against me, and I know that you don't care that you have broken my laws, but I'm going to go ahead and forgive you anyway, so I don't have any ill will towards you in my heart. That's not how God forgives. And you can't forgive someone who doesn't acknowledge their need for forgiveness. Here's what you can do. You can pray and you can ask God to forgive you for the bitterness in your heart and to heal you of the offenses so that you can go on and live a peaceful life. But you have to keep the terminology straight. And here's the thing, I've seen people on the altar weeping and telling God that they forgive somebody of something that happened 20 years ago. Now, if that is really what is happening, Then you have to go to that person and you have to seek reconciliation with that person and you forgive them and move on. But it may be that that person doesn't realize they've offended you. They don't know that they were wrong. They've forgotten about it. They don't care. So how do you forgive that person? And I say that the offense may not even be real. It may not be real to them. Then what you have to do is say, Lord, forgive me of the bitterness in my heart And forget forgiveness for your spirit and you move on and leave them up to God. So you can forgive someone if they don't confess. But if they do confess, then you absolutely have a responsibility to forgive them. That's what this passage is about. Three things this morning. First of all, I want you to notice in verse 21, there is an inquiry about forgiveness. Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him till seven times. Now what Peter is asking is, is there a limit to forgiveness? How many times am I expected to keep forgiving a man, yet he keeps coming back and he commits the same offense over and over and over? Surely, there must be a breaking off point where I can justifiably say that this is your last chance. And what Peter is asking is really something that every one of us believes in our heart even if we would not say it. I'll illustrate it this way. I think that probably one of the hardest things There would be to forgive would be the unfaithfulness in a spouse. Now, thankfully, I've never had to deal with that. And some of you have. But suppose that a man cheats on his wife with another woman and the guilt of it is just so overwhelming and so overbearing that he can't live with it. And so finally, he comes to his wife and he confesses it. He can't live with it, let the chips fall where they may, but he's repentant and he's remorseful and he's sorry, and she forgives him. That'd take a lot of grace, wouldn't it? That's a lot of grace to forgive. But she finds the grace of God, and she finds the strength, and she forgives him, and they work together to rebuild their marriage, and he works to regain her trust, and she prays for strength to love him, and to eventually trust him again. And so he comes, he confesses, and she forgives him. And then next year he does the same thing again. Now I want to tell you, it's going to be twice as hard to forgive the second time as it works the first time, right? And then in year three, he does it again. Now, all of you would say, she needs to forgive him the first time. But there is eventually a number where you're going to say, you know what? That's it. Just divorce the bird or kill him or something and take him for everything that he's got. He doesn't deserve any more forgiveness. Now you know as well as I do, that we can say things illogically, but when we put it over there into real life, there's going to come a time when we say, hey, that's it, he's sorry, he's a bum, just cut him off. Right? So Peter says, how many times? What's the extent? And then Peter suggests a number. Till seven times. Now why would he say seven? Do you know Jewish rabbis taught that the number was three? You got three chances on the fourth, that's over. And here's the reason why they said that. In the book of Amos, there is a statement that the Lord makes, and he makes it several times, and it says, for three transgressions and for four, I will not turn away the punishment. And what Amos is saying is that God is patient with nations, but on that fourth time, then judgment is coming. So the rabbis had built a little theology out of that and said that three times you get forgiveness that fourth time, you're turned over to the judgment of God. Now, they completely misinterpreted the statement, but that is their teaching. So when Peter suggests seven times, he's going far beyond what any rabbi or what any synagogue has taught. He thinks that he's being very magnanimous. Surely there must be a limit to forgiveness on a human level. Surely there is a cut and off point. But if we call it that seven times, then we say we've gone far above and beyond what anybody else does in the area of forgiveness. There's an inquiry. But then in verse number 22, there's an instruction about forgiveness. Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee till seven times, but until seventy times seven. So Peter suggests the limit of forgiveness could be set at seven times. We're really stretching it there. That would be a very lenient thing. And then Jesus shocks him and everybody else that's listening. It's not seven times, but it's 70. times 7. Now if you're any good at math, or mediocre at math, you would know that's 490 times. And there's nothing magical, there's nothing concrete about the number 490 times. We understand that the Lord is speaking in hyperbole now. I know what it is, I can't say the word. And the idea is not that you need to keep a count, and you tick it off, and when you get to 491 times, alright, you don't have to forgive me anymore. That's not the point. The Lord is simply paying off of the number that Peter has given, and he's adding a multiple to it, and basically is saying that there is no number. In fact, in Luke chapter 17, the Lord has a similar conversation with the disciples about the same subject, and he says that if a man trespasses against thee seven times in a day, seven times in a day, again, again, he's not setting a limit, but he's making a point that there is no limit. Even if he does seven times a day, you still keep forgiving him. And I think that all of us would do well just to pause and to meditate on this because this is really radical teaching. Because if the Lord is saying that there is no limit to the number of times that we should forgive, then surely we can say that there is no limit to the nature of offense that we should be able to forgive. And maybe it is that somebody has hurt you not so many times, but they've hurt you so deeply that the offense was so great That it was so grievous, that it was so painful. And can you forgive even that? And you really have to answer that in light of God's forgiveness of us. Because our example in this is the forgiveness that Christ has extended to all of us. We are called to forgive as He has forgiven us. And I wonder this morning if there's anybody here and you feel like that you have ran out of chances with God, that you've used all of your lifelines and there's no use to come back to God for the thousands time and ask for forgiveness because surely you've reached the limit. And if you think that you're wrong, you didn't get that idea from the Bible. Or maybe you feel that you have crossed a line with some unforgivable sin, the worst sin that's ever lived. And surely God will forgive so many sins, but He won't forgive that sin in God. It's cut you off. And if you think that, you're wrong. Wherever you got that idea, you didn't get it from the Bible. Paul says in Romans 5 that where sin abounds, grace did much more abound. Thank God for that. And when the love of Christ fills us and the grace of God enables us, we ought to be able to look at one another and say, no matter what, no matter how many times, I forgive you. You cannot exhaust my love for you. You cannot offend me so deeply that I won't forgive you. Seventy times seven, seven times in a day, there is no limit. to my forgiveness so we have an inquiry we have an instruction but then notice in verse number 23 down to the rest of the chapter there is an illustration about forgiveness and the Lord gives this parable to illustrate the principle that is just set forth and the parable is severe it is severe And because it is so severe, then there's a lot of people that have stumbled over this and they've been hesitant to apply it to the Christian life. But I believe it does apply to the Christian life. So in this parable, I want you to notice four things. First of all, I want you to notice the servant's unimaginable death. Look at verse 23. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his service. I'm going to interpret this as I go through it. The king is God. And this king has servants that he holds accountable for their actions. A servant in this case is like a steward. He's a steward that's been given responsibilities and areas of ownership under the authority of the king. By the way, every man, whether he acknowledges God or not, is accountable to God. You have a stewardship that's called life. And man has a responsibility to God in how he lives, in what he does with his life, and his blessings, and his responsibilities, and the opportunities that God has given him. And this king has called this servant to give an account. Now, I know there is a final accounting. It's called the Great White Throne Judgment. This is not that. It is a general statement that throughout a man's life, God calls a man to give an account. Periodically, God will convict a man of their sin and call on him to believe on Him. Periodically, a man is reminded of his sins and he is prompted to confess his sins. Periodically, a man is shown the error of his ways and he is urged to repent and to turn his life around. And sometimes that accounting comes in the form of a tragedy or loss. God knows how to get your attention. Sometimes there's a painful circumstance and God is calling you to an accounting. Sometimes that accounting comes to a sermon. Maybe even this morning, the Holy Spirit convicts you this morning that you are a sinner and that you are lost. The King is calling you to an accounting. So in verse 24, When he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand pounds. So the servants brought before the king, and this servant has racked up an enormous debt to the king. And just the sheer size of it seems to suggest that there's been some embezzlement, there's crooked dealings going on. It's not likely. that the king has loaned legitimately this large sum of money to the servant. So maybe it got out of hand, maybe he didn't mean for it to get out of his hand, but he has an enormous debt and he'll never be able to repay it. A lot of Bible students have tried to calculate exactly how much 10,000 talents is. How much is that? I know that in the temple in the Old Testament, when Solomon built the temple, that the whole thing was overlaid with gold. And it was 3,000 talents of gold. So that was 3,000, this is 10,000. 10,000 is a whole lot more than 3,000. And so the idea is, I don't know the exact amount, the dollar amount, but 10,000 is really a way of saying you can't calculate how much he owed. In fact, they say that in the Greek language that 10,000 is the highest number that there is. We have millions, bazillions, bazillions. You didn't have that in the Greek language. So 10,000. For example, in Revelation chapter 5, there's a multitude of angels around the throne and here's how they're described. 10,000 times 10,000. That's a lot. That's like 10 million or 100 million. It's a lot. 10,000 times 10,000. And then it says, and thousands and thousands. So there's another way of saying a bazillion. So you say 10,000, you take the largest number and you multiply it by the largest number. It's not telling you that this is the exact head count of angels in heaven. It's telling you that there is an innumerable host. So when we read that the servant owes 10,000 talents, the Lord is using the largest number that they have to tell you that it is a debt that cannot be numbered. That's the point. It is a debt that's too great to count. Now, do you know who the servant is in this story? It's you. It's me. The debt represents the sin debt that you and I owe to God. And when the Holy Spirit convicts you and calls you to give an accounting to God, you will see your sin as a great debt that you can never settle. When conviction sets upon a man, he sees the exceeding sinfulness of his sin. He abhors himself. He is overwhelmed with the sense of his guilt and his shame. It is a debt that you can't calculate, let alone begin paying back to God. See, here's what he does in verse 25. For as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. Now, it sounds severe. Because the penalty now is we're going to sell all of your belongings. We're going to sell you, your wife, all of your family. We're going to sell you into slavery. And by the way, that's still not going to pay the debt back. But the king has the right to regain as much as he can. He has the right to pass judgment. So the punishment for this man really is something that that world would be familiar with. All your earthly belongings you've sold into slavery. That may sound extreme, but the debt has to be paid off. And if this man and every member of his family works every minute of every day for the rest of their life, they will never repay 10,000 talents. There is nothing that can be done to repay the lost money. And I tell you that this is a picture of a sinner in his debt to God. Hey, I want you to know this morning that your sin debt is enormous. And the king calls you to give an account, and the penalty for your sin is death and eternal punishment. And a man who argues against the severity of the judgment, that somehow God is not just in sending a man to hell, has never grasped the enormity of his sin. When you see the enormity of your debt to God, then you understand the justice of God. But can I tell you that even hell is not enough to pay your sin debt to God. If the punishments of hell could ever redeem a man, then when he is redeemed, he should be released. But men are never released. And the idea that a man can go through purgatory for a few years, I'll come out purified as a lie of Satan. People go to hell to pay for their sins and it is never enough to pay the debt. There is a servant's unimaginable debt. The second thing in this is the sovereign's undeserved deliverance. Look at verse 26. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee all. realizes how great a debt that he has, realizes there are no excuses, nobody that he can blame, and he understands the justice of the sentence that the king has determined against him, facing a lifetime of slavery for himself and his family. So he begins to plead with the king, please, please king, be patient with me and I will repay you. Now wait a minute. You can't repay it. That's a ridiculous thought, to think that you can repay 10,000 talents. It would take you a lifetime of lifetimes to do this. But I want you to notice how his attitude has changed. He wants it to be different. He wishes he can make it right. Maybe if I straighten up my life, maybe if I do the best I can, maybe if I do good deeds, maybe the King will have mercy on me if he sees my efforts and applies my good deeds to that great debt. And the first thing that a man does when he is confronted with his sin is he tries to make amends for it. I'm going to tell you sir, I'll tell you ma'am, it is ridiculous to think that you could in a few years of a good life repay the debt that you owe to God. But that doesn't stop a man from trying. So maybe what I'll do, I'll clean up my life and I'll quit my cussing, I'll quit my smoking, I'll quit my drinking, I'll start going to church and maybe God will notice and maybe God will apply that to my account. But you can no more pay your debt to God than this servant can work off this debt. So in verse 27, shouting ground, get ready to shout. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. He doesn't even acknowledge the servant's attempts to pay off the debt, but he sees the brokenness and the humility that this man has, and for no other reason but grace and compassion, he takes the debt and says, forgive me. I release you from the debt. I release you from the obligation. Since you are no longer in debt to me, there's no need to punish you. The slate is wiped clean. He just takes it off the books. Now in order to do that, he absorbs the loss. He doesn't ignore the debt. But he has to absorb the loss. And I tell you, that's exactly what God did for you and I. That when a sinner comes to God in brokenness and humility, realizing, I have violated the commandments of God, I am a lawbreaker, I have a sin debt to God, I'll never be able to pay this off. I'll never be able to earn enough merits with God. And you come to God, not with any merit, not with any good deed, not with any church membership, but I come to you as a vile sinner and I beg for forgiveness. That is when God rushes in. And by the power of God, and by the blood of Christ, when He writes, forgive us all over the dead, cancels it, removes the blame, removes the guilt, and forgives you. Oh, what a wonderful thing that is. What a wonderful thing. The sovereign's undeserved deliverance. The story takes a turn. Look at verse 28. Here's the servant's unreasonable demeanor. Verse 28. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pens, and laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou ow'st. His fellow servant fell down on his feet and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I'll pay thee all. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. Now remember the Lord is telling the story. Here's the lesson. It is the extent of forgiveness. There is no limit to forgiveness. And our responsibility to forgive any offense that is committed against us is based on how great a forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ. And if God has forgiven us of our great sin, then we should be able to be willing to forgive others of such smaller things. So you watch how this story takes a drastic turn. He has just been forgiven of an enormous, unpayable debt. Now he goes and he finds another man that owes him literally pennies. And he gets physical, grabs him by the throat, puts him in prison. His attitude has changed from brokenness in verse 26 to belligerence in verse 28. And there are some Bible students that look at this man's attitude in verse 28 and say, this can't be a saved man. that this can't apply to a Christian because of the way that he acts. But I just can't take a couple of things about that. First of all, I want you to remember this man is forgiven. The forgiveness is real. It's not imaginary. So he must represent a saved man because he is forgiven. And the second thing that I want you to notice about this is that the parable would not mean anything if he's a lost man. the force of the parable that this unforgiving attitude is so unreasonable in light of the great forgiveness that is received. I would expect him to act this way if he were lost, but not if he is saved. We don't expect him to act like God if he doesn't have God in his heart. We don't expect him to do what God would do if he doesn't know God. And so what makes the parable so powerful is that he really has been forgiven himself and doesn't extend the same forgiveness to somebody else. This is a saved man who has been forgiven of his sins, but he refuses to extend that same forgiveness to his fellow man. And his irrational reasoning, his unreasonable behavior is meant to show you how unreasonable Bitterness and unforgiveness is in your heart. The greatest sin that any man can commit against you is nothing compared to the sin that you've committed against God. And if you and I have been forgiven of the greater, how much more should we be able to forgive of the lesser? Unreasonable demeanor. But here's the fourth thing is the sovereign's understandable Displeasure, look at verse 31. So when they saw the service, all that was done, they were very sorry. They came and told the Lord all that was done. And then his Lord, after that he had called him, and said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was very wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. Now again, this is where Bible students stumble and say, this cannot be a Christian, because the king gets angry at him, and delivers him to the tormentors to punish him. But he's been forgiven, but he refuses to give forgiveness. And it makes him a wicked servant and subject to chastisement. And it doesn't say that the king casts him into outer darkness where there's weeping and wailing and ashing teeth. It doesn't say that he goes to hell. But there is chastisement, there is punishment until he learns to forgive others. Do you believe that God can be angry with his own children? Do you believe that God can be displeased with His own servants? And Hebrews chapter 12 says that if you're a son, that you will have chastisement, and if not chastisement, then you're not a son, but you're a bastard. A believer who belligerently lives in sin and refuses the conviction of God will face the chastening hand of God. And in this parable, Jesus is telling us that the sins that God will hold a man accountable for, one of them is the unforgiving spirit, and you will face chastisement for that. It's not a lost man that's being sent to hell. It's not a saved man who has lost his salvation and is being sent to hell. That's not what it is. A tormentor. A tormentor is like an inquisitor. And he is brought in to put the screws to you. To put pressure on you to get you to make a confession. It is not torment for torment's sake. It is torment to get you to confess to something. And God will bring the punishment. God will bring the chastisement. God will bring the tormentor for you to confess your sin to Him. I want to be careful here, and I'm trying to be done. I don't believe that all sickness, that all problems, all trouble is the chastening hand of God. I don't believe that at all. But I say to you this morning that if you have pressure, and it feels like the tormentor is after you, then I would check. And I would ask God to see if there is some sin in your life. Because God does send chastisement into our lives, not just for punishment, but to modify our behavior. And if it is an unforgiving spirit, then the chastisement is there. Then God wants you to confess that and get that right. Now notice what he says in verse 35. So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you. If ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. That's not the first time that we've read a statement like this where Jesus links God's forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. And some would take this and say that if you don't forgive others then God won't save you. So this becomes a condition for salvation and I don't believe that. I believe that what this parable is simply saying is that just as the servant who was forgiven and would not forgive is punished by the king, so the father will do the same to you. And you won't have any fellowship. You won't have any joy. You won't have any love for one another. And you won't enjoy your relationship with God if your relationship with your brother is not right. So Peter says, How many times? Seven? I mean, if we set the bar at seven, that's higher than any rabbi's teaching. That's way up there. And Jesus says, multiply it by seventy. The debt is insurmountable. So why can you not forgive something so small? There's no person, no sin, no offense that you should not be able to forgive because you've been the recipient of such grace. There's three stages to forgiveness. There is, first of all, suffering. That's where you feel the pain, the hurt, the offense. That's the condition that's going to bring about forgiveness. And then after the suffering, there is the surgery. That's where you perform inner surgery to remove that offense. And you make the decision that you're going to release that person from that guilt, and you're going to remove it from your mind. And you can't do it by your own power, but you can by the power of the Holy Spirit. The third stage is starting over. That's where you go to that person and you say, I forgive you. And you release it and you fully restore that relationship. No grudges, no bitterness, no disrespect, no hard feelings. It doesn't mean that you ignore the offense. It doesn't mean that you excuse the offense. It doesn't even mean that you forget it because the mind has a way of remembering things from a long time ago. But it means that you end the cycle of pain and you restore the relationship. And maybe this morning, God has put in your heart some bitterness, some anger, some unforgiving spirit towards somebody. That person has even asked you for forgiveness. But you want to hold to it. You want to find solace in the pain. But if God has forgiven you of your sins, that you must forgive them of theirs. Simon Wiesenthal was a young Jew who lived in Germany under the terror of Adolf Hitler. He was arrested by the Nazi police, taken to a concentration camp in Poland. He was there, I think, for four or five years under the most brutal, most horrible conditions. When World War II was ended, he was released from concentration camp. He went on to become a very prominent Jewish leader In 1976, Simon Wiesenthal wrote a book detailing some of the things that happened in concentration camp. The title of the book is called Sunflower. It tells about his time in those prison camps. He tells a story in that book about one day a nurse came to him and took him by the hand and said, I need to take you somewhere. And they took Simon Wiesenthal into a makeshift infirmary where some Nazi soldiers were being treated. And so they took Simon Wiesenthal, he was just a young man, they took him to the bedside of a 21 year old Nazi soldier. He had bandages all over his head, he had pus oozing out of a lot of sores, his eyes were sunk back into his head, he was dying. This young soldier was 21 years old. This 21-year-old Nazi soldier took Simon Wiesenthal by the hand and began to confess the crimes that he had committed against the Jewish people and the Holocaust. And he said, I know I'm dying. But he said, I can't die until I have confessed my sins to a Jew because I've killed so many of your people. And he begged Simon Wiesenthal to forgive him on behalf of all Jewish people. And Simon Wiesenthal, that Jew, who is in prison camp, has come through the Holocaust, is holding the hand of a Nazi soldier, is asking him to forgive him. Simon Wiesenthal held his hand for a little bit, and finally Simon Wiesenthal jerked his hand away, turned around, and walked out without saying a word. You've gone too far. You've done too much. You've killed too many of my innocent brethren. You've wreaked too much havoc. No forgiveness. And in the end of the book, Wisensoff simply ends the book by asking the question, What will you have done? And at the end of that book, there are 53 prominent men. Men like the Dalai Lama. Men that were asked that question, what should he have done? And 32 of those 53 prominent men said, Simon, you were right. You were right to walk out. And I understand the theology, you can't forgive a man for something he did to a third party sitting at the side. But 32 prominent men said, that if you had forgiven him, you would have minimized the evil of the Holocaust. So let the man Go to hell. But that is not how it is with you and God. And I say to you this morning, if you don't know God, know the forgiveness of sin, I want you to know that you have a debt that you'll never be able to pay. And all of your goodness and all of your religion, and every good thing that you want to say about yourself, your debt is insurmountable. But Jesus Christ paid for that debt on the cross. He shed His blood for your sin debt. And if you'll come to God like this servant came to this king, please have mercy. God will forgive you, not on the basis of how good you are, but on the basis of His Son's death on that cross. God will forgive you. He'll release you. The obligation will set you free. And I say to you this morning, that if there is somebody that has offended you, and you harbor bitterness and unforgiveness, you must forgive them. You must release it. You must restart that relationship.