The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant - Do we freely forgive our brothers? - part 1

Well, if you would go ahead and take your Bible and turn to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18, I'll go ahead and tell you we're going to have a part one and a part two just because of the length of this body of Scripture and also because of the magnitude in the importance of what's before us. But tonight we're going to cover verse 21 and 22 and the actual parable starts in verse 23. We're going to read all of that together in a little while and I'm going to work through the parable but we're not going to cover the parable. I'm going ahead and telling you that ahead of time.

Now we have finished up our four parables that dealt with wisdom and foolishness. We studied wisdom and wise living and it was compared to or in contrast to foolishness and foolish living in three areas of life. Notice this. First we studied wisdom and foolishness in how we deal with the second coming of Jesus. And then second we studied wisdom and foolishness in how we deal with money and possessions. And then notice how these two parables went together. Third we studied wisdom and foolishness in how we take our money and our possessions and how we use those things to impact others with the gospel and in kingdom work.

Now tonight we're going to start our last group of parables. Tonight we will begin to study certain parables that Jesus taught that have to do with judgment. And as we will see these parables can teach many truths, many things, many lessons. We've all seen that. But the main point of each of these parables is concerning judgment. Now our first parable will be the parable of the unforgiving servant. Now some Bible translations will have a title like that. Some may not. As a matter of fact I noted in some of my study resources how there were some different titles there.

Now if your translation does not have a title or a heading there don't panic. That heading's there for a purpose but that's not inspired. But we will see that there is a parable here in the verses. It will be obvious for us to see. Now let's go ahead and read our verses. Matthew 18. Start with verse 21. Then Peter came up and he said to him, this is Peter questioning Jesus, talking to Jesus. Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times but 77 times.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants or slaves. 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. That would be sold into slavery with his wife and children and all that he had and made payment and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees imploring him or begging 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 100 denarii and seizing him he began to choke him saying, pay me what you owe. So this fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, I will pay you. And he refused and he went and he put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servant saw what had taken place they were greatly distressed and they went and they reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and he 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. Well here we have the story of a king who made plans to settle the accounts of some of his servants. This would be the debts that some of his servants owed him. We can easily see that this one servant owed the king a very, very large sum of money.

And because this servant was unable to pay the king ordered that this servant and his entire family be sold in his slavery to help pay the debt and also to sell all of his possessions to help pay the debt. But after this servant threw himself on the kindness and goodness of the king, the king graciously forgave the servant all that he owed but that forgiven servant did not do the same thing with the fellow servant who owed him. He did not extend grace and mercy but he demanded justice. He physically abused that servant who would not pay him and he had his fellow servant thrown into jail for the debt.

And when the king found out that the forgiven servant did not forgive just like he had been forgiven he had him arrested and thrown in jail. Well this story is easy to see. It's pretty obvious. But with the help of scholars we can see some details that enable us to better see what Jesus is teaching and illustrating here. First this appears to be a Gentile king. Scholars tell us that Jewish kings did not sell their own into slavery. In their day selling their own into slavery was a Gentile practice and this really, really, really turned the stomach of Jewish people.

Only Gentile kings in their day were notorious, they were torturous, they were ruthless. And then second it is obvious that the debt this servant owed the king was an unbelievable amount. The size of this debt was obvious to those listening. It's not obvious to us. One of my resources says this 10,000 talents could have been more than the entire annual income of the king. One resource says that the province of Galilee's total revenue amounted to 300 talents and this man owed 10,000. Warren Wiersby puts this figure in our day and time. I'm so thankful for that. He says this figure is equivalent to over 10 million dollars in our day.

Now he said that back in the 1990s so somehow we got to see what inflation does for that. I'll let you do that. So in the parable we have a servant who owes a king an amount that could never, ever, ever be paid. It is even completely unrealistic that a slave or a servant in that day would owe a king this amount of money. How could he have ever gotten into this kind of debt? How could he have ever gotten to a place where he would owe the king this amount? And those listening would have noticed that fact. A servant owing a king such a large amount. It really would not have made sense to all of the Jews listening there.

I thought about a way that I could put it in our day. If you were to find out that I owed 50 million dollars you would think how in the world could our pastor owe 50 million dollars? That doesn't make sense. And also we have what really does appear to be a Gentile king. Gentile kings in their day were notoriously cruel. Historians tell us they were horribly cruel. And at the end of the story we see that the king had this servant delivered to prison for what could have been torture in jail. The word in the original here jailers can be translated tormentor.

And they would definitely sell members of the family of the people into slavery for this kind of an unpaid debt. A Gentile king would have sold even women and children. It's hard to think about that into slavery. And I thought about a modern day equivalent. We know who Kim Jong Un is, the dictator of North Korea. And we hear about all of those kind of atrocities that he commits. Now question, what do these two facts tell us? Why do I spend the time to get into this kind of information? First this debt was an impossible debt. There was no way this debt could ever ever ever ever be paid by a slave.

It was so very large that there were only two solutions. First to forgive the debt and second to just make the servant go to prison to be tortured to try to somehow pay for the debt. Not to mention losing all of his family and property. But then second this cruel Gentile king demonstrated two things. First he demonstrated a very unusual kindness and grace and mercy. He kindly forgave the servant of the debt. And he mercifully did not give him what was due to him. So when the forgiven servant didn't forgive as he had been forgiven, he punished him by sending him to a torturous prison.

Now with all of that insight in mind, I want to read the parable again. But I want to read the parable. I want to read the verses in the amplified version which amplifies the text. And then I want to make some comments along the way. Let me read along in your copy of God's Word and just listen to what I'm saying. Starting in verse 23. "Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the accounting, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him." And right there, right there, the Jews would have been blown away.

They would have said there is absolutely no way that a king could have this kind of a debt. There's no way that this servant could ever pay that debt. That's what they would have thought. But because he could not repay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children and everything that he had possessed and payment to be made. And then right away those Jews would have thought, "This is probably one of those vicious Gentile dog kings." Remember they hated the Gentiles, they called them dogs.

So the slave fell on his knees and begged, saying, "Have patience with me and I will repay you everything." And his master's heart was moved with compassion and he released him and forgave him canceling the debt. And then right there those Jews would have been shocked. They would have been shocked. They would have said, "This Gentile dog king might not be so cruel and vicious after all." But that same slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii. And he seized him and he began choking him saying, "Pay what you owe." I imagine he was repeating it. "Pay what you owe. Pay what you owe.

Pay what you owe." So his fellow slave fell on his knees and begged him earnestly, "Have patience with me and I will repay you." But he was unwilling and he went and he had him thrown into prison until he paid back the debt. And when his fellow slaves saw what had happened they were deeply grieved and they went and they reported to their master with clarity and detail everything that had taken place. And then his master called him and said to him, "You wicked and contemptible slave, I gave all that debt, that great debt of yours because you begged me.

Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave who owed you a little by comparison as I had mercy on you?" And in wrath his master turned him over to the torturers, the jailers until he paid all that he owed. And then those Jews said, "Yep, we knew it. We knew it all along. He was a cruel Gentile dog king." So we have the parable. Jesus is teaching to the Jews and to his disciples. We have a pretty good understanding of the parable and how those Jews would have saw and heard and understand the parable. But we really know nothing about why Jesus told the parable nor the meaning or the purpose of the parable.

And why Jesus told the parable or the purpose of the parable, oh it's really, really important. Now let me tell you how we're going to approach it. I've already told you this is part one and part two. With a part one and part two we're going to look at six things. Part one we're only going to look at two. We're going to look at first the question about forgiveness in verse 21. Peter asks a question. And then we're going to look at the extent of forgiveness out of verse 22. And again we're not even going to get into the parable. This sets us up for the parable but there's a lot of truth right here in these verses.

So number one, I want us to look at the question about forgiveness. Go back to verse 21. And Peter came up and he said to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him." See the question? Now here we see a very, very important question asked by Peter. This question is important because it deals with forgiveness. But this question is important because it points to background. It points to the context. And the context and the background of this question really adds to how all of this applies to us. Now let's look at the question and make sure we see what Peter is asking.

And no matter your translation it'll be easy to see. Peter is saying, "Lord, how much, how often, or how many times should I forgive my brother when he or she sins against me?" But let's think, why did Peter ask the question? Was there anything to tell us why Peter asked the question? We can see why Peter asked the question by looking at two things. First their immediate context and then second their Jewish religious context, their immediate context and then their religious context. So first their immediate context. Now this immediate context is found in the verses above. Jesus had just taught them and what did Jesus teach them?

Yes, Jesus had just taught them those verses that we know of as the church discipline verses. Here in Matthew 18 starting in verse 15 down to verse 20, Jesus had just taught them how to handle sin between brothers and how that sin must be addressed. And this would be a certain type of sin. Now let me explain this. First of all this would be a sin that could not be forgiven and just let go.

Ephesians 5.32 says, "We as Christians are to be kind to one another and we are to be tender hearted to one another, forgiving one another as God has forgiven us." And what we see here in Ephesians 4.32 is that there are sins that we forgive and we just let them go. We see our brother, our sister, we understand they're a sinner, they sin by grace and mercy, we just let that go. But it's different here in Matthew 18. Here there are sins that we cannot let go. This does not mean that we do not forgive them. It means that we forgive them and we cannot let it go so the sin must be confronted so as to be repented of so as restitution can be made.

Let me give you an example. If you saw me mistreat my wife, if you saw me talk down to my wife, if you saw me be harsh to my wife, you could look at me and say, "I think the pastor has had a bad day, everybody has a bad day, pray for my pastor." But you know you could see me do that one time and maybe another time and then maybe another and then you as a man might come up and say, "Pastor, you don't need to talk to your wife like that." See what I mean? Now there's a whole host of sins that we could use to illustrate that. But then second, this could be a sin directly against a brother or a sister.

This could be a direct offense or an indirect offense. This offense could be a sin committed against a brother or this could be a sin that is committed and another brother or sister is just grieved by it. I've illustrated that just now. Well what did Jesus teach in verses 15 to 20? He taught His disciples how they were to handle sin against each other. This would be a sin that can't be overlooked in the spirit of and in obedience to Ephesians 4.32. And Jesus taught them a three-step process. First you go to your brother, if there's no repentance, then step two. Step two, you take two or three witnesses.

If there's no repentance, then step three. Third, you reprove them before a portion of the church or the church. And then if there is no repentance, then step four. And then fourth, you put them out of the church. And still if there's no repentance, step five. Fifth, you turn them completely away. So notice what I'm calling the immediate context for Peter's question. Jesus had just taught them this three-step process of how to deal with sin between brothers and sisters. This is a sin that cannot be just forgiven and let go. It must be confronted. And what happens?

In response, Peter says, "Lord, Lord, how much or how often or how many times should I forgive my brother when he or she sins against me?" See how the immediate context has a bearing here? And notice, understanding this question within this immediate context has tremendous implications for us, not just implications, but in our face application. Think about your life and the life of the church. Think about being in the life of the church over a period of time. There can or will come a day when one will sin against you.

There will come a day when a brother or a sister will sin against one another directly or indirectly and it will be a sin that you must confront it according to these verses. You will be hurt. You will be offended. You may be mad. You may be shocked. You may be all of the above. But it must be confronted. You are offended. You are hurt. You are distraught. And you will be brought to a place just like Peter. You will have to ask the Lord, "Lord, how much or how often or how many times should I forgive my brother when he or she sins against me?" I'm going to give you a personal example, a real one and a good one.

Some of you know this, some of you don't. We had some people in the life of our church several years back caused a lot of division and a lot of pain and a lot of hurt. And it ended up in church discipline with some of these people. Now I can stand here and tell you I was patient and I was kind and I was loving. Brother Keith would stand here by me and there are men in this room that would stand up and say, "Yep, I'll watch my pastor be very kind, very patient and very loving in these circumstances." But those people left and they didn't leave right. Some of them left and grow sin.

And I have had to wrestle with frustration at times anger and disappointment. And I've had to ask myself and the Lord, "Lord, if they were to repent and come back, how would I treat them? Would I forgive them? Should I forgive them? You see how real it is? So the question for us is this, when a brother or a sister in the church sins against us, they sit over here or right here, the question will come up. How much or how often, how many times should we forgive this brother or sister? But second, their religious context. Now this immediate context can be easy to see if we pay attention to the verses, if we just go above and read.

But their religious context is not easy to see unless we have the help of Bible scholars. Scholars tell us that the question of forgiveness and how much one should forgive another was a very, very big debate among Jewish religious teachers in their day. Popular Jewish teachings said, "If a brother sins against you one time, you forgive him." They said, "If he sins against you a second time, well you do the same, you forgive. But if he sins against you a fourth time, you do not forgive him." This may sound ridiculous to us, but these Jewish teachers did not just get this standard out of thin air. They had a biblical reason for this belief.

Writings from Jewish scholars of their time show us that they use scripture from the book of Amos to come to this conclusion. There in Amos there is a repeated statement by God against the enemies there around Israel. And there is a repeated statement where God says he would not forgive those people more than three times. That's dealing with judgment on pagan nations. And those Jewish leaders took those verses and they misconstrued them and twisted them and they came up with a universal standard and a belief which limited God's forgiveness and then they applied that standard to their relationships with other people.

They just twisted God's Word. Finally they said this, "If Amos says God forgives men only three times, then it's totally unnecessary for us to forgive others more than God does." Another way of putting it is this. They said, "If God only forgives three times, we're just going to do the same." Again, they're twisting scripture. Well commentators say that most likely Peter had that standard in his mind. As a Jew, Peter would have known how the Jews viewed these things. He would have known of the Jewish debate and the Jewish standard concerning forgiveness.

So it seems that Peter was responding to what Jesus had just taught about sin and discipline between brothers and no doubt he had this popular Jewish standard in mind. And in his response he does two things. First he asks, "Lord, how much or how often or how many times should I forgive my brother when he or she sins against me?" And then second he answers his own question as many as seven times. Now in a way there is no way to know what Peter was thinking here.

Was Peter trying to demonstrate a loving, generous spirit by saying, "Are we supposed to forgive as many as seven times?" He was more than doubling the Jewish belief and standard of the day, you see. Could Peter have been generous here? We will get more insight into what Peter was thinking here in just a minute. But my question right now at this point for you is this. What is your standard of forgiveness towards others, even brothers and sisters? What's your standard? Have you been given a standard or have you developed a standard of how you forgive others, even brothers and sisters in the church? Do you have a standard?

Have you been given a standard? Have you developed a standard? Do you have a standard that came from your family? And my question here is this. Is your standard biblical and if your standard is not biblical will you change? But then number two, we looked at the question of forgiveness. Number two, the extent of forgiveness. Look at verse 22. "Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times but seventy-seven times.'" Now I said earlier that we can't know for sure what Peter was thinking by asking Jesus if he was supposed to forgive a brother who sins against him as many as seven times.

But we can know how he was thinking or the manner he was thinking. Peter was thinking like a man. He was not thinking like God by approaching this question of forgiveness as he did. Notice what he does. Peter was thinking of a tangible, measurable, and even a limited way of approaching forgiveness. John MacArthur points out that Peter was approaching the question of forgiveness in terms of the law and not in terms of grace. He says, "Law keeps count but grace does not." Oh, that's so good. He says, "Law keeps count but grace does not." So how was Peter thinking? Law keeps count but grace was not. He was thinking like a man, not like God.

So we can't know what Peter was thinking, but we can know how he was thinking. He approached the question of forgiveness in terms of the law, not grace, which was all wrong. Let me ask you a very serious question. Do you approach forgiving others with some standard of law, keeping count, making limits, setting standards? Do you? Do you approach forgiving others through some standard of law, keeping count, making limits, setting standards?

Do you have a standard of, "Well, I can forgive this, but I cannot forgive that." Do you have a standard that says this, "Well, I can forgive her this one time, but if she does it again, I can't forgive and forget." Do you have a standard that says something like this, "I would never forgive him if he did what that other guy did." So I'm asking you, do you approach these verses by keeping count, making limits, and setting measurable standards? Now I question, what does Jesus mean by this saying here in the verses? What is he saying? It can be confusing. Now, Jesus was not doing what Peter did. Peter placed a limit on forgiveness.

Jesus wasn't saying, "Peter, your standard is too low, but I'm going to raise it. I'm going to raise it a little bit higher." That's not what he was doing. In fact, Jesus wasn't giving a figure at all. Jesus was using a figure of speech to say that forgiveness should be an indefinite number. The old English Baptist, John Gill, tells us what Jesus means here. And I'm quoting, John Gill says, "Christ's meaning is that a man should be all the days and in every day of his life, forgiving those that sin against him as often as they repent and acknowledge their fault." In the old English Puritan, Matthew Henry gives us a warning here.

He says, "God keeps an account." He's quoting Deuteronomy 32-34, "God keeps an account because he is judged and vengeance is his. But we must not, at least we be found stepping into his throne." See the warning? And for us, we need to see the big lesson here. We must approach forgiveness in terms of grace. In terms of grace, we all need to repeat this over and over, write it down, and remember it. Law keeps count, grace does not. Some of you are bigger legalists here than you knew. The standard of forgiveness must be set by grace, so the standard is infinite. It is limitless.

And my question here is, do we want Christ to forgive us based on law or based on grace? Years ago, there was a person in my life that was a hyper-legalist, a hyper-legalist. Legalists are always the same. They live by rules. They just might have a different set of rules. I remember as we began to deal with this legalist, me and some friends, I'll never forget a friend of mine said, "I just wish he would give us the grace that he has to receive from God." See? So do we want Christ to forgive us based on law or based on our standard of law or based on grace? So to me this brings us full circle to the question. Paraphasing Peter's question.

Jesus had just taught on how to deal with sin amongst brothers. What does He say? "Well Lord, if that's the case, if a brother sins against me and I'm supposed to go to him and go through that process, Lord if I'm going to do what You say I should do, if we are going to do what You say we should do, how much and how often and how many times should we or I forgive my brother when he or she sins against me?" And if we are like Peter and we answer that question in terms of some standard of law, we measure out some type of forgiveness, we place some kind of a cap on it, we have some things that we will forgive and some things that we will not, but the answer must be grace.

We must forgive a limitless amount. You might say, "Pastor, you have no idea how bad they hurt me." "Pastor, you have no idea what they did to me." What's the text say? We must forgive with no restrictions just as Jesus did. Just as Jesus did. So we see the question of forgiveness and we see the extent of forgiveness. Now you might know why I felt like we needed to spend more time just on these two verses before we even got into the parable. Now let me show you how this all worked together. All that we've studied tonight will enable us to look at the parable. So you have a job to do, you've got to remember all that we've studied tonight.

You've got to have it in your heart now and then when we come back to this second part then it will all come together and I think we'll ultimately be better at this thing called forgiving and forgiveness will be better than we have been. So tonight we've answered the question, "How much do we forgive?" God's word has set the standard, not men, not us. Next week we'll finish it up. Now let me give you the title of the message. I've been asking questions with these titles, I've kind of kept that up. We have the parable of the unforgiving servant, "Do we freely forgive our brothers?" a question we're wrestling to answer.