Chapter 19, we'll begin reading at verse 24. No, excuse me, we're going to begin reading at verse 18, right in the middle of verse 18. Now Shimei, the son of Gerah, fell down before the king when he had crossed the Jordan. Then he said to the king, do not let my lord impute iniquity to me, or remember what wrong your servant did on the day that my lord the king left Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart. for I, your servant, know that I have sinned. Therefore, here I am, the first to come today of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my Lord, the King. But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, answered and said, shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord's anointed? And David said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should be adversaries to me today? Shall any man be put to death today in Israel? For do I not know that today I am king over Israel? Therefore the king said to Shimei, you shall not die. And the king swore to him. Father, we thank you for your word, and it is our desire to conform our lives to it. It is our desire to grow in sanctification, and so we come into agreement with Jesus' prayer. Sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. Father, we want to be a sanctified people, holy, living our lives entirely to you. So we pray for your anointing during this time, both for the preaching and for the hearing of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, last week we got kind of a big picture of reconciliation, and today we're going to be looking at this small snapshot of how difficult that reconciliation can sometimes be. It would have been extremely hard for Shimei to engage in this repentance, and it would have been extremely hard for David to grant this forgiveness. In fact, apart from God's grace, it's impossible to have genuine repentance and genuine forgiveness. This is why Acts 11, verse 18 says that unless God, by His grace, grants people repentance, they will never come to faith. They will never get saved. They can produce a counterfeit repentance like Judas did, but not a genuine repentance that comes from heaven. And it's not just unbelievers. 2 Timothy 2 verse 25 says that God must grant repentance to Christians before they will turn back from their backsliding. I mean, it's all of grace. Only His grace can produce it. And so, If there are people here who need help on the repentance side, or if you're those who need help on the side of granting forgiveness to those who have engaged in repentance, this is a passage where we need to call out to God and say, Lord, We are totally dependent upon you. We need you to grant repentance. I would like to see our church engage in a day of fasting and prayer for Josiah and for some of the other young people over the past years that have kind of fallen away. and just ask God for his mercies, that he would grant repentance. It's not something we can produce in our own flesh. It's something that comes from the throne of God. Now, the same is true of the giving of forgiveness to those who have repented. It's a work of God's grace. So again, no matter which side of the coin you're on, whether it's asking for forgiveness or whether it's granting for forgiveness, it's my prayer that as we look at the scriptures this morning, it would cause your hearts to yearn for a deeper work of God's grace within you. Now, let's look first at what made Shimei's repentance a difficult thing to do. And to see that, let's turn back again to 2 Samuel chapter 16. And I'm just going to highlight a few things, but we're going to begin reading at verse 5. Now when King David came to Bahurin, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul whose name was Shimei, the son of Gerah, coming from there. He came out cursing continuously as he came. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. Also Shimei said thus when he cursed, come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned, and the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom, your son. So now you are caught in your own evil because you are a bloodthirsty man. Then Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king, why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. But the king said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse because the Lord has said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so? And David said to Abishai and all his servants, see how my son who came from my own body seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjamite, let him alone, let him curse for the look. So the Lord has ordered him. It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will repay me with good for His cursing this day. And as David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, threw stones at him and kicked up dust. Now the king and all the people who were with him became weary, so they refreshed themselves there." Now from that brief reading, we can see at least some reasons why it would have been very hard for Shimei to repent. The first is that from Shimei's perspective, David deserved his wrath, deserved these words of anger, deserved to be deposed. And we saw, actually, it is so. It is true that he did deserve that. David engaged in murder. David deserved to be deposed. And yet we saw that Shimei had false accusations mixed in with true accusations, and the way he went about this was certainly not right. But it is hard to confess your own sins when you can see the other person's sins so much more clearly than you can see your own. Secondly, it is shameful to confess your own sins if they are flagrant. Shimei was so angry at this point that he was doing things that were kind of irrational. And I'm sure when he looked back on that occasion, he was kind of cringing. It was something that maybe mortified him. Third, it's hard to confess your sins when you have bitterness and anger, and he had plenty of both. Now, the bitterness and anger to a large degree was based actually on misinformation about David. He wasn't cursing him because of the murder of Uriah. He was cursing him because he thought that David had killed Saul, which he had not done. But in any case, it caused him to be extremely bitter against David. The fourth, pride keeps many people from a full-hearted confession of sin. And yet, interestingly, Shimei did not allow any of those things to keep him from repenting. In fact, if you turn back to chapter 19 and verse 16, You'll see that he came as quickly as he could. And Shimei, the son of Gerah, a Benjamite, who was from Behurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. He hurried. There are so many things that can keep us from reprinting, and procrastination because of fear can be one of those. Some time ago, I told you about how I spent two long, miserable years fighting the Holy Spirit. prompting me to confess two sins that I had engaged in in high school. One was stealing potatoes when I was hungry and the other one was cheating on a math exam. And I was just so embarrassed and thinking I'd have to repeat that grade that I just could not do it. I said, Lord, I've confessed to you. And anyway, two whole long years and finally the Holy Spirit, he just wiped away every rationalization. I had a hundred rationalizations as to why I didn't need to do this. But once I repented and I wrote letters and did restitution, I looked at it and I wondered, why did I hold off for so long? It didn't make any sense. And from that moment on, I resolved, I'm going to be as quick as I can possibly be any time that I sin. I don't want to wait. This misery is definitely not worth it. And yet, there are so many things that can make it hard. Another thing that made this a difficult confession was that it was made publicly, and he even brought a thousand of his own friends to witness this confession. This is really remarkable. Look at verse 17. There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him. and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his 15 sons and his 20 servants with him, and they went over the Jordan before the king." It's much more humiliating to repent publicly than it is to repent one-on-one. The last phrase of verse 17 indicates he was willing to endure inconvenience. He swam over the river to the east side of the Jordan to meet David and repent rather than waiting for David to come over to him. In fact, when we get down to verse 19, we're going to be seeing he wanted to be the first one there. If you have to be prodded and coaxed into confessing your sins, you really need to ask God for grace to do so quickly and eagerly. There's an old proverb from my grandma's generation that says, many people use mighty thin thread when mending their ways. Many people use mighty thin thread when mending their ways. In other words, they do just enough mending to get by, but their repentance is not thorough. What we're seeing here is a much more thorough repentance than most people go through. The next thing that made this a tough repentance was that Shimei was willing to face huge risk when repenting. The second part of verse 18 says, now, Shimei the son of Gerah fell down before the king when he had crossed the Jordan. He wasn't crying out from the west side of the Jordan, hoping David would forgive him, but still safe from any arrows and spears and any sword. No, he swam across and he fell down at the feet of King David, knowing full well that he could be speared, he could be having his head cut off. And there was a huge risk in confessing his sins. Does confessing our sin to other people sometimes come back to bite us? Yes, it does. Sometimes it does. We think, wow, is that really worth it? Does confession of sin cause other people that we've confessed to to sometimes take advantage of us and to abuse us? Yes, it sometimes does. But you know, having the favor of God upon us is well worth that risk. And the risks we face, maybe shame or rejection or misunderstanding, or maybe the risk that we've confessed our part of the sin and the other person puts the whole blame on us then, so he confessed, he's at error. And we know full well they've got 60% of the problem on their side too. So there's a lot of risks that can be involved. But when God's grace is at work in our hearts, we are more concerned with being right with God than we are with being safe with man. The next thing that made this a tough confession was that it was self-abasing, not sin-minimizing or self-justifying. And we know from chapter 16 that he was a proud man and that he threw stones at David, that he cursed him from afar, but here he prostrates his wet body on the ground before David and he speaks with loathing of what he had done. He hates what he had done. James and Phyllis Olsdorf have worked for years dealing with domestic abuse. where spouses are battered and abused. And while they do deal with the need of the abused person to forgive their batterers, they point out that nothing positive can happen until the abuser has a repentance that does not justify his or her actions in any way or minimize in any way the sin. They say it starts when the batterer spiritually and psychologically faces the awfulness of his actions. There must come that loathing of oneself for one's sins as Ezekiel exhorts, then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. Ezekiel 36 verse 31. The horrors of the past must be named, not left vague and undefined. Here, sin and sickness move from the abstract to the concrete. And most importantly, the batterer takes responsibility for what he has done. And while I don't agree with their psychological approach to this subject, I 100% agree with their application of Ezekiel 36. And I just want to read that again. It indicates that when God gives genuine repentance, there will be self-loathing and self-abasing rather than making ourselves look better than we really are. To quote Ezekiel again, then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. Ezekiel 36 verse 31. That's so contrary to the self-esteem movement where we've got to build ourselves up. No. Repentance makes us loathe ourselves and find our esteem in Christ, our position in Christ, our security in Christ, our righteousness in Christ, okay? Point G highlights the remarkable change in his speech that can be seen in the first part of verse 19. Then he said to the king, do not let my Lord impute iniquity to me. He calls him Lord. Now, this is strikingly different from the kind of speech that he had in chapter 16. There he was arrogant, unsubmissive, refusing to recognize him as king, was rebellious, quarrelsome. He was abusive. I mean, he was so angry. He didn't care if he got killed from the things that he was saying to David. He was taking that risk that, you know, Abishai and Joab would come and whack his head off. He didn't care. He was so angry that he spoke utterly disrespectfully of David. But here he shows humility and he is willing to submit to whatever the king decides to do. He recognizes the king could have his head. So there's no trace of arrogance or blaming in his voice. He takes the blame for what he has done. His speech is humble. And I want you to also notice this is not simply an apology. Apologies are a thin substitute for genuine repentance. When you say, I apologize, or when you say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry is an okay thing to say as far as it goes, because I'm sorry means I feel bad. Well, you should feel bad when you have sinned, but that does not go far enough. There's no reconciliation. There's no asking of the other person to promise anything to you. You're still holding the ball of your guilt in your hands, and it's burning your hands, okay? So apologies typically bypass the need for grace. Biblical repentance not only describes this inaccurately, but it asks for forgiveness from the offended party, and forgiveness means that the offended party will no longer hold that guilt over your head and will relinquish their resentment against you. Those two things, okay? There's always those two parts, remittal of guilt, relinquishing of resentment. So look at verse 19 and you'll see both. Then he said to the king, do not let my lord impute iniquity to me. Okay, that would be holding him guilty, bringing charges against him, charging his guilt against him. He goes on, remember what wrong your servant did on the day that my lord the king left Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart. Now that part deals with holding a grudge in his heart against against Shimei. And when we ask for forgiveness, we are asking that the guiltiness be no longer held against us and that the offended party no longer harbor their bad feelings against us. Now already you're seeing that just defining the repentance, you see, it's making the forgiveness itself a very difficult thing. But it also makes it a very difficult confession because you're confessing, yes, I am guilty. and that it's caused David great pain. I've always found it easier to say, I'm sorry. than to say, I've sinned against you. That was a wicked thing. I should not have done that. Here's what I should have done. Please forgive me. Much harder to say the latter. And that brings us to point I. Shimei calls sin, sin. He does not minimize it. He does not blame his actions on his emotions, on his health, on having a bad hair day or anything else. And the first part of verse 20, he says, for I, your servant, know I have sinned. The hardest words to come out of any person's mouth are the three words, I have sinned. Pride does not like that. It does not like to admit unless we can share the blame. I've sinned, but I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for your jerkiness. We've always got to extend something to the other. But just to say, I have sinned. Wow, those are hard words to say. And this is actually, this acknowledgement of our sins is what separates the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the tares within the church. And I would like you to turn with me to Luke chapter 18 to see a vivid, vivid illustration that Jesus uses to speak about this. Luke 18 and beginning to read at verse nine. And he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This is the natural state of the human heart to think well of ourselves and to think poorly of others. When we are graceless, we are blind to all but the most obvious sins that are within us, But we can see the sins of others with 20-20 vision. Wow, it's so clear that those other people are sinners. Grace always reverses that. Now, this is going to seem like a mystery to you, but grace always reverses that process. The more grace we have, the more we see our own sins as being greater than the sins of others. God's grace was so at work near the end of Paul's life that he called himself, present tense, the chief of sinners. How in the world could he say that? He was an incredibly godly man, a self-sacrificing man, a man totally devoted to the Lord, but he saw himself as the chief of sinners. Why? It was because the closer he got to the spotlight of God's holiness, the more wretched his heart appeared. And by the way, by inspiration, Paul says, this ought to be the testimony of every Christian. Let me read that verse for you. He said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. In other words, every one of you ought to accept the saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Every one of us ought to be able to say that whole sentence that I just said there, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. If you spend more time thinking about the sins of others than you do of your own sins, it's an evidence that God's grace is not very much at work in your life. It is graceless people who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others. It is graceless people who see others as being the chief of sinners. You read through the Puritan literature and you will see this was the universal viewpoint of the Puritans despite the fact that from my perspective that was probably one of the godliest generations that has existed on planet Earth, and yet throughout their writings, they saw themselves as incredibly sinful before the Lord. They saw themselves as the chief of sinners. The closer they got to God's light, the more filthy they saw their hearts. Anyway, continuing to read, Luke 18, verse 10, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. I think you get the idea. There is no point in even arguing with this person about his sins, because he doesn't see his sins. And even if you successfully point out this person's sins, like Jesus did, you're far more likely to be crucified than you are for this person to actually repent of his sins and say, yes, I am a dirty, rotten sinner. Such Pharisees will hit the roof when you point out their sins. Why? Because repentance is a work of grace. And you can see God's grace at work in this tax collector here because he agrees with the Pharisee's assessment of him. You know, the Pharisee's looking down on him and it doesn't bother him at all because he's looking down on himself. He sees himself as being the chief of sinners. Verses 13 through 14. And the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So can you see how genuine repentance really is a difficult thing? It is not hard to to to fake repentance, to have the remorse that Judas did. Judas felt bad because no one thought well of him anymore. Of course he's going to have remorse. Pride is going to guarantee he will have remorse. That's not hard, but it's exceedingly hard to have genuine repentance. Now, the last characteristic of genuine repentance that we see in Shimei is that he doesn't confess his sins and then walk away. He wants reconciliation, and we see that in the rest of verse 20. for I your servant know that I have sinned therefore here I am the first to come today of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my Lord the King." He initiates reconciliation. He's not being drug into this. Now he could have escaped from Israel just like David did. He didn't have to come to David. There are a number of countries around there that would have given him asylum and said, yeah, we'd love to give any Israelite asylum. They didn't like Israel. So that would have been an easy thing for him to do. But Shimei, for some strange reason, wants reconciliation even at great personal risk. Now you might question his sincerity in that he came after David had won the war rather than before, but he came. That's the whole point. And in that, he is at least a picture of grace, whatever else you might think of his person. If there's one thing that the Sermon on the Mount teaches us very, very clearly is it's that God asks us to do difficult things. Well, actually, it asks us to do impossible things apart from God's grace. And so this passage shows us difficult repentance. It shows us difficult forgiveness. But before we look at the difficult forgiveness of David, I want us to look at the very easy response of Shimei that sandwiched in between those two. Verse 21, but Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, shall not Shimei be put to death for this because he cursed the Lord's anointed? No forgiveness there. There's no acknowledgement of Shimei's repentance. But I would say that this angry response is perfectly understandable. Perfectly understandable. It just doesn't seem right to give a slime ball like Shimei, who's thrown stones at them, who has cursed them, who has kicked them when they are down. I mean, he's the lowest of the low. Just let him off the hook because he's asked for forgiveness. It just doesn't seem right. If you're not familiar with grace, it seems like you ought not to let an offense like this go so easily. Surely he's got to pay in some way. The natural thing is to allow anger to fester rather than casting it off as an enemy. The natural thing is to nurse our grudges, okay, to brood over our grudges, to pet them rather than blowing them up. and burying them. The natural thing to do is to want mercy for ourselves and to want justice with others. The only way that Joab and Abishai were willing to forgive was when they were forced to forgive, but that's not really genuine forgiveness, is it? I want to read you a story that shows this kind of horizontal forgiveness that results from peer pressure that's really not the God-directed real thing. I read a story from John Wesley, I think perfectly illustrates this. He was one of the evangelists in the first great awakening. And when Wesley was traveling by ship to America, he heard a noise. in the cabin of General Oglethorpe, who was the governor of Georgia. And so he stepped into the room to inquire, and there on the floor sat Grimaldi, the governor's servant, skunk drunk. I mean, he had consumed every bottle of the governor's favorite wine, and it was extremely expensive wine. And when the governor came in, he was furious. And he shouted at the top of his lungs, I will be avenged. And he ordered the man to be tied up hand and foot, and he was going to be flogged, maybe even flogged to death, who knows, because the guy was so angry. And on passing Wesley, he must have thought he needed to explain himself to Wesley. He said, for you know, Mr. Wesley, I never forgive. Well, Wesley simply gave the quiet reply, in that case, sir, I hope you never sin. And that's all he said, but that so threw the governor for a loop. He was just confounded for a few months. He didn't know what to say. He just stood there. And after a while, he reached into his pocket, got the ring of keys, threw it to Grimaldi and said, there, villain, take my keys and behave better in the future. Now, at least he forgave, but it was really due to peer pressure. Now my point with Abishai is that this response is the easy one. It takes no grace whatsoever to appeal to the law of God and beat people over the head with it. It takes no grace whatsoever for Governor Oglethorpe to want vengeance. That's the easy way. That's the fleshly way. The second reason why this was an easy response can be seen in two phrases. In verse 21, the author makes clear that God does not approve of what Abishai is saying when he uses the code phrase, Abishai, the son of Zeruiah. And David did not approve of what Abishai was saying with the same phrase of both Abishai and Joab, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, in verse 21. And when we did a brief biography of Zeruiah, we saw that she was the sister of David, the mother of Joab and Abishai, so they were nephews to David. And she had the reputation of being sharp with her mouth, angry, vindictive, ready to take people's heads off, very hard to get along with. And used here, it indicates that just like these two had learned their other bad habits from their mother, they had learned this inability to forgive from their mother as well. That made it the easy thing to do is the learned response. It was just a habit. OK, grace takes us out of the easy into the difficult and makes the difficult eventually become the new easy normal habit. But initially, it feels like murder trying to overcome those old bad habits. That's why Paul talks in Romans 7, which is describing a believer. How in the world am I going to overcome these things that I hate? I keep wanting, I keep doing them. Why? Because they're habits. They're just part of our system. We do it without even thinking, but we can conquer those old habits and put on new habits, that's Romans 8, to become just as easy as the old sinful habits used to be. So there's hope. You can move on any given sin from Romans 7 to Romans 8. The third thing that made Abishai's response the easy response is that Shimei really deserved Abishai's wrath and anger. The law of God did say that no one should curse the king, Now the law didn't give that penalty. There was no penalty actually for it. Abishai just added that penalty on, but Shimei clearly deserved Abishai's wrath. But again, God does not call us to give people what they deserve when they ask for forgiveness. That's the easy way. That's the natural way. That's the graceless way. Chuck Swindoll once said, the proud have a hard time forgiving. Those who have never recognized their own failures have a tough time tolerating, understanding, and forgiving the failures of others. And it is so true. When people deserve a different response than forgiveness and reconciliation, which is really all of us, right? It takes grace to forgive. It's also true that those who are not daily experiencing God's grace in their lives have no grace to give to others. It doesn't take grace to appeal to God's law in verse 21. I mean, even Satan can quote scripture. It doesn't take any grace whatsoever to use the scripture. Why is it that people who can dish it out, you know what I mean, to others, have the thinnest skin when other people dish it out to them? They cannot respond graciously. I've just found this to be almost a universal phenomenon. Maybe it's not universal, but it seems to be the rule that the people who really dish it out and are harsh with others, if you give even the slightest criticism of them, they just blow up. Why do they blow up? Well, they blow up because they do not see themselves as the chief of sinners. It is a superficial, band-aid-level grace that they have tasted, not a grace that plows deep beneath the soil of their lives. When David tells these brothers, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should be adversaries to me today? They don't get it. Okay, they think they're doing the biblical thing. They think they're defending David. They're adversaries. What are you talking about? We're doing this because we're protecting you, David. We like you, David. We're your friends. What are you talking about? We're adversaries. But you see, David's heart desires and their heart desires were totally different. They're on different orbits, and their bitterness is trying to infect David. David's trying hard to do the right thing. What Abishai's suggesting sure seems tempting to David. He feels like doing exactly what Abishai's doing. And so his heart desire is being resisted by Abishai. That's what he's talking about. They're being adversaries to him today. He's in effect saying, why do you always make it difficult for me to do the right thing? Now that same phrase indicates that Abishai was being shut off from more grace from God. Jesus was quite clear that those who are not forgiving will not be forgiven. One of the scariest parables that Jesus gives to describe Christians who refuse to forgive is in Matthew chapter 18. I'd like you to turn there with me because I'd like you to see this with your own eyes. This is the parable of the servant, the unforgiving servant, He's asked for forgiveness of his master for having been forgiven for a million dollars, let's say, worth of debt. And the master graciously forgave him of that million dollars worth of debt. Then he goes and he finds a fellow servant who owes him a few hundred bucks, still a lot of money, but it's a few hundred bucks, and grabs him by the neck and he says, pay me. And the guy says, please forgive me, help me. And he says, no, I'm not going to. He throws him into jail. And so he really is the chief of sinners, a million dollars worth of sin, but he sees the hundred dollars worth of sin guy as being the chief of sinners. Okay, that's the dynamic that's going on. And Jesus ends the parable by describing how miserable such a Christian will be. He has opened himself up to demonic tormentors. And I'm just going to look at the conclusion beginning at verse 34. and his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers or tormentors until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses here." He's talking to Christians about Christians here and he indicates that when we are unforgiving The Father is going to give us over to tormentors. Now, some people think that it's demons that they're being given over. Others think it's your inward conscious, the inward torment. Some people think it's providences. I personally take it that the Father allows demons to have legal ground in your lives to do whatever they want to do. You will not successfully be able to resist them as long as you have an unforgiving heart. And whatever the way you take it, it's clear they're going to be miserable if they're unforgiving. It's sad to me when people do not realize how serious failure to forgive really is. And people say, man, you would be more sympathetic if you had to live with the person that I live with. Now, just keep in mind, this parable was an answer to Christ's question Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? And Jesus said to him, I do not say up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. And then he gives the parable of the million dollars worth of sin. And apart from grace, people say, no, that's asking too much. There's no way I can forgive that much to the other person. but that's how much God forgave you. Robertson McWilkin says, the sin of unforgiveness is a cancer that destroys relationships, eats away at one's own psyche, and worst of all, shuts us off from God's grace. And it really does shut us off from God's grace. Jesus is quite clear that if we are not willing to forgive, We will not be forgiven. He's going to keep holding those things against us even though we are sons and daughters. James is quite clear that God resists the proud but gives more grace to the humble. And cutting off that brother or that sister in life actually makes the torment permanent. makes the torment permanent. Dr. Paul Brandt told the story on his medical school administrator, a man by the name of Mr. Barwick. The man had some kind of a serious circulatory problem in his leg that gave him extreme pain. He resisted getting amputation But it was such agonizing pain day and night that finally he asked the surgeons to go ahead and cut off his leg. But he made a strange request to the surgeons. He said, when you cut my leg off, would you hang on to it and pickle it, put it into a jar? And he said this, I will install it on my mantle shelf. Then I shall sit in my armchair. I will taunt that leg. Ha, you can't hurt me anymore. He was a strange fellow. But the weird thing about it is after he had his leg amputated, he had phantom limb pain of the worst degree. It was just the weirdest thing. He thought he would get rid of his pain, but where his leg used to be, it felt like there was pain and there was nothing. He couldn't even touch it, but there was pain there. Phantom limb pain. And that's the way it is when we get rid of a brother because of bitterness. Bitterness ensures that the pain will stay forever. And some Christians think, no way, I'll do much better if I'm not around that person anymore. But Jesus says otherwise in the last two verses of Matthew 18. In effect, you'll have that phantom limb pain. And so my admonition to you from the life of Abishai is, don't go the easy way. because it will eventually become a very hard way. And Abishai and Joab certainly discovered that. It was a hard way indeed. But let's look at David's difficult forgiveness. He recognizes, first of all, what lack of forgiveness does to you. And we've already looked at that. David's remonstrance with Abishai shows that he recognizes where bitterness and lack of forgiveness leads. He didn't want any part with that. There's an old saying, he that doth not forgive burns the bridge over which he himself must needs pass. If you don't forgive, you're burning the very bridge you're gonna be needing in the future. So the first step is to recognize the dangers of lack of forgiveness, and we've already dealt with that. Second, Shimei's words, I have sinned, probably struck a chord with David and reminded him of his serious sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah. After all, Nathan had prophesied that exactly these events that he's just been going through would result because of that sin. It was the bitter fruits of that sin. He was thinking about it. In fact, some of the Psalms written during this period showed that God was impressing upon David's mind that he should not get angry. He should not fret, he should not take revenge into his own hands, and he must forgive others as God had forgiven him. He actually did a lot worse to Bathsheba and Uriah than Shimei had done to him. When David had just written Psalm 39 that week and said, deliver me from all my transgressions, do not make me the reproach of the foolish, he was not in a state of mind to withhold forgiveness from others. He knew he needed it badly. When Psalm 141 shows David thinking words that are much to the effect, there but for the grace of God go I, he was willing to be much more sympathetic with Shimei. When the same psalm says, let the righteous strike me. It shall be a kindness and let him rebuke me. It shall be as excellent oil. Let my head not refuse it. He is in a humble state of mind to learn from his afflictions and to be merciful rather than vindictive. Now, let me hasten to say that David is not telling Abishai to ignore sin. Far from it. Forgiveness is much higher than that. Even pagans recognize that indifference to sin is utterly different than forgiveness of sin. For example, George Bernard Shaw once said, the worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity. What Shimei had done was heinous. It was wicked. David was not indifferent to the sin. Forgiveness never minimizes the heinousness of sin. And so David has to resist the wisdom of the world on two fronts. First of all, he has to resist this idea that in order to forgive, we've got to lower the standards of God's law and make sin not really that bad of a thing. No, that slanders God's grace. But the other extreme slanders grace as well. It's to want to take revenge into our own hands, just like Abishai and Joab did. I don't know where I got this quote, but someone once said, doing an injury puts you below your enemy. Revenging one makes you even with him. Forgiving him sets you above him. Now Shimei is perfectly described in the first part. Doing an injury sets you below your enemy. In chapter 16, Wow, anybody who saw the behavior Shimei was engaging, it was shaking his head at that man. It reflected so poorly upon him. Abishai is described by the second part, revenging one makes you even with him. Okay, so if Abishai could do this, he would be even with the bad Shimei. That's not a great compliment, is it? No, he was stooping to the level of Abishai. It shows gracelessness, at least on this particular point. And David is described by the third part of that saying, forgiving him sets you above him. So David's forgiveness had to resist the wisdom, the thinking of the world on those two points. And I would say that too many Christians have imbibed Too much psychology when it comes to thinking about repentance and forgiveness. And if you want a good book that gives the biblical perspective, get J. Adams' book, From Forgiven to Forgiving. The fourth thing that made David's forgiveness difficult was that he gave his forgiveness before he could see any fruits of repentance. David didn't say, if you prove yourself over the course of the next year, I'll forgive you. That's the easy way to do it. But how many times do we do exactly that thing when people ask us for forgiveness? Forgiveness is conditional. And I immediately know what comes into your minds. Your minds are saying, yeah, but if I forgive him unconditionally, what if he hurts me again, right? That's exactly what goes through our minds. I can't forgive him until he changes. Well, I want you to turn with me this time to Luke chapter 17, And Jesus clearly, clearly, clearly gives the answer here. Now this, what I'm gonna be reading is in the middle of a chapter, four chapters actually, dealing with forgiveness. And if you struggle in this area of forgiveness, I would urge you to read Luke chapters 15 through 18. All of them deal with different facets of forgiveness. But look at chapter 17, and let's see here, beginning at verse one. Then he said to the disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come. Let's just stop there. Christ wants you to forever get it out of your mind that brothers and sisters will miraculously stop sinning against you after you've forgiven them. He says it's impossible that offenses will not come. You should be committed to the forgiveness process knowing full well that you will likely be hurt by that person again. And people immediately object. That can't be. That's not taking sin very seriously. You must be an antinomian. You're not taking seriously the law of God. But take a look at the whole verse. Jesus takes both sides seriously. Then he said to the disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come. It'd be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he should offend one of these little ones. So Jesus is saying that the sin that the other person has sinned against you is serious. It should be taken seriously. God is going to discipline that person. The church should discipline that person. OK, we shouldn't ignore the sin. But he goes on to say, it doesn't matter that it's serious. It's still no excuse for your lack of forgiveness. That's what he is saying. Continuing to read in verse three. Take heed to yourselves. Literally, that means watch out, be on guard. Jesus knows what he's been saying in these chapters is so radical that our flesh is going to rebel against it. Our minds are going to rationalize. We're gonna think of every excuse in the book as to why we, in our particular circumstances, can ignore the advice that Jesus is giving here. And he is saying, watch out, be careful. Continuing to read. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, and that's a big if, If your brother sins against you, do not confess sins that you have not committed just to get reconciled. That's what some people do just to create peace. Okay, they ask, I'm sorry, and they confess to things that they hadn't done. The point that Jesus is giving here is we need to take sin seriously. And if you're confessing to sins that you did not commit, you are not taking sin seriously. It actually slanders, it blasphemes the process of grace. Take heed to yourselves, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. Notice that he doesn't say, if he shows the fruits of repentance for a given period of time, then you can forgive him. No, it says, if he repents, forgive him. But that also implies there is no need for forgiveness if there is no repentance, right? No need for forgiveness if there's no repentance. Now, our heart should be forgiving and ready to forgive, but outwardly saying, I'm not going to hold that against you if the person has not repented, you do need to hold it against them. David could have treated Shimei as an enemy if Shimei had not repented. It would have been perfectly just. But he did repent. That's the point. Continuing to read in verse 4, and if he sins against you seven times in a day, wow. There's no time for the fruits of repentance to be proved here. This is a pretty radical call to forgiveness. Now keep in mind, he's not saying you have to forgive a person if he's not repented. Repentance is a commitment, a verbal commitment to turn around, to begin working on this problem. But Jesus reminds us that there can be failures initially, and people can fall down quite a number of times in the early steps of recovery. So let's read that again. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. Did David do the right thing in forgiving Shimei? There are some people who say absolutely no. I believe he was bound by God's grace to forgive Shimei. He did do the right thing. Had he been abused by Shimei? Well, yeah, he had been abused. Probably some of the rocks that Shimei had been throwing connected with him. He probably still had the bruises on his body from the abuse that he was getting from Shimei. And so it was a radical forgiveness. And if Jesus wasn't calling for a radical forgiveness, you would not have, verse 5. But Jesus didn't say to forgive if he proves his repentance. It says, if seven times in a day he returns to you saying, I repent, You shall forgive him. Now the apostles are stunned. They are flabbergasted. They just don't think this is fair. Surely Christ cannot mean what he is saying. Verse five. And the apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith. Sounds pretty spiritual, doesn't it? Lord, that's a good thing. If you would increase our faith, but I don't have the faith to do that right now. Maybe in the future I can forgive like that, but right now you gotta understand my situation and my faith's pretty weak. I think I can be excused on this. And Jesus is basically saying, no, I'm not gonna have any of that. I don't care how immature your faith is and how much of a newbie Christian you are, you can do what I am calling you to do right now. Verse six. So the Lord said, if you have faith as a mustard seed, That's pretty small, baby like faith. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you. So it's not the size of your faith, but whether you are exercising your faith. If God commanded you right now to say, speak against that wall and it throws down, doesn't matter how small your faith is, you could do it. If he said to you, pluck up a mulberry tree or move that mountain, just the exercise of the smallest faith, God's power would come through. Now thankfully, and this is a point that so many people miss, thankfully there is not a place anywhere in the Bible where God commands every one of you to pluck up mulberry trees or to move mountains. Can you imagine what a topsy-turvy world this would be if If you said, OK, the mountain's got to move over there, and I say the mountain's going to move over there, and we've got all these mulberry trees flashing everywhere, it would be a topsy-turvy world. God has not commanded us to do that. That's not His point. His point is, I'm commanding you to do something just as impossible, to give radical forgiveness And if you have the smallest faith, you can forgive because my power will come through to you. That's what he is telling us. I have commanded you to forgive. And so your immature faith is not a legitimate excuse. He next tackles the excuse that I'm an emotional wreck. I can't do that. I don't feel like it. My emotions will not cooperate with me on this. And Jesus basically says, hey, it's not about your feelings. It's about whether you're a servant of God or a servant of Satan. Let's keep reading. And which of you having a servant plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat? But will he not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you were commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. Now that servant was just as hungry As the master and he's cooking this food and it smells delicious And he sure does not feel like waiting till after the master has eaten to eat. He wants to snitch food right now but the point is He's got a duty to serve his master and he withholds those feelings out of duty and he serves his master It's about obedience. And Christ's point here is that Christianity is not about feeling. It's about obeying by faith. And you might think, well, I just do not have it in me to forgive. And with that, I can agree. That's the whole point of the sermon. We don't have it within us to do these things that God has commanded us to do. But what are we to do? The Sermon on the Mount says we are to be living in the realm of the supernatural. We are to be asking for the Spirit to give us the ability to do that. Christianity is not living by sight and what's reasonable. It's living by faith in what God has commanded us to do. Just as Corrie ten Boom asked God for help to do the impossible, and you all know that story, and she reached out her hand to forgive the Nazi soldier who had abused her and her sister, you too can do the impossible and forgive those who have hurt you. and watch God's supernatural love and His supernatural forgiveness come through you. So it is difficult forgiveness that God calls us to. And part of that difficulty is that we forgive even before we see the fruits of forgiveness. Now, what does David mean by the phrase, if you go back to chapter 19, what does David mean by the phrase in the second half of verse 22, When he asks, shall any man be put to death today in Israel, he's refusing to be vindictive. He's refusing to give the other person a taste of his own medicine. He's refusing to return tit for tat. He's refusing to operate in the natural. When he says, for do I not know that today I am king over Israel, he is saying that his security in his position as king is dependent on God. It's not dependent on risks like forgiving or not forgiving a person. And there were risks. In chapter 20, we're going to be seeing that 10 tribes, not Shimei, but 10 tribes abused this forgiveness. See, this is the fear that people have. If I give forgiveness, I'm going to be abused. Well, 10 tribes did abuse that forgiveness, and they engaged in a rebellion. So what does David now do? Okay, this is a new rebellion. They've not repented of it. He can fight against them, right? You deal with each new sin as it comes along, but you don't bring up all the plethora of sins that went before that. And so he can hold them accountable. He can bring church discipline. He can bring whatever needs to be brought. In his case, it was warfare. But we saw last week that God is in Christ reconciling all things to himself. And we are a part of that cosmic goal of reconciliation. And Christians of all people should be secure enough in our reconciliation to God to be able to extend that reconciliation to others. Ephesians 4, 32 tells us that we are to forgive each other just as God in Christ forgave us. Wow, it takes faith. to enter into the walk of repentance and to enter into the walk of forgiveness that God calls us to, but we should do it no matter what the outcome or the risk. We should do it to please God, not for pragmatic reasons. Finally, the difficulty of forgiveness is that forgiveness is always a two-part promise made to two people. We've looked at the two sides under Shimei's asking of forgiveness, but look at verse 23. Therefore the king said to Shimei, you shall not die. And the king swore to him. So there was a promise being made to Shimei. There was a promise being made to God. When you swear, you're always invoking the name of God. So there's two people there, but there's two sides. So there's two people, there's two sides to this promise. The first, remember, we saw was remitting guilt. The second side is relinquishing resentment. The remitting of guilt is a promise to not hold this against him. The relinquishing of resentment is a willingness to drop the matter and to become friends, and that's what's implied in swearing. They're in covenant together now. Let me end with a story told by prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder in the 1961 Reader's Digest article. Because I've seen various iterations of this story, I was kind of skeptical of it. You see these stories that go all over the web, but I did some research on it and it does seem that this is where it started anyway. Anyway, the Reader's Digest story, the prison warden, Kenyon Scudder, claims that his close friend was riding on a train and had a fellow passenger sitting next to him that looked rather depressed. And when he got into a conversation with this young man, it became quickly apparent that he had just been paroled from prison and was on his way home. And the young man had said, I have hugely shamed my family and actually shamed my whole town. And I don't even know if they will receive me back. They've never visited me. They've never written me a letter. Of course, he said, I'm hoping it's because they're too poor to travel here. My parents are very poor and neither one can write or read. But I wrote them a letter and I'm hoping somebody read it to them. And in that letter, what I did is I repented of my crime, I asked forgiveness for the way that I've shamed them, and that I would understand if they simply could not forgive me. And he said he was on his way home that if they had forgiven him to hang a white ribbon or a white cloth in the apple tree that was right next to the railroad tracks, and if they didn't want to forgive him to just not put anything up there and he would continue on his way. Well, as the train neared his hometown, the suspense became so great that he just couldn't look out the window. And he asked his partner if he could change seats and if he would look for him. The guy said, sure, I'll look out. And when they got near the apple tree, the man said, I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There's a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you. And brothers and sisters, I would urge you to make it your goal in life to have this kind of willingness to forgive, not halfway, but filling your tree with ribbons. Spread so many ribbons on your apple tree, it'd be easy for your children to repent. It'd be easy for your parents to repent, or your spouses to repent, or your friends to repent. OK, those white ribbons are symbols of the presence of grace in your life. And if you're the one who needs to repent, what you need to do is, yes, write that letter or speak it and say, I repent. I want to turn around, get on the train and go home. But you've got to begin to reverse your lifestyle. And it's my prayer that this church would be a symbol of people meeting under the apple tree. What better way of magnifying the grace of God than to be people of grace? What better way of magnifying the forgiveness of God than to be a forgiving people? Put off the Abishai syndrome and put on the David syndrome. Amen. Father, your word sometimes has pleasant subjects, sometimes has hard subjects like this. Subjects that sometimes can make us despair and wonder if we can even do what you have called us to do. Help us, Father, not to look to our own right arm of strength, but to by faith realize that it's not me, but Christ living in me and through me who can do these things. And so, Lord Jesus, I pray that you would be in us and that you would love the unlovable through us. that you would, through us, forgive those who have sinned grievously against us. And Holy Spirit, that you would give to us the gift of repentance, the gift of forgiveness, and enable us to walk in the realm of the supernatural. Help us not to excuse our lifestyles by what we can and cannot do, but help us to step into the realm of faith and to live our lives so fully to Your glory that Your smile of approval rests upon us. We do not want to be handed over to the tormentors. We want to be secure in your love, your forgiveness. And it drinks so deeply of the living waters that flow from your throne that we freely give those living waters to those who are around us. Help us to have the apple tree of our life so filled with ribbons that it would be easy for those who are around us to repent and to seek forgiveness. if they are filled by Your grace. Help them to know, Father, that we love one another. You have said that this is one of the marks of the church, that they love one another. And Father, may this church exemplify that mark to a high, high degree. And we pray it in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.