Forgive Series

Could you have forgiven? God asks us to confess to God any trouble we might have forgiving others. He is telling us to ask Him to provide what we need so that we can forgive and move forward in our relationship. Think of it this way. Every person that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which they must pass themselves. Every person has need to be forgiven.

Now, to drive home His shocking “seventy times seven” statement to Peter, Jesus told a parable. Keep in mind that this wasn’t a true story, but just an illustration to emphasize what Jesus wanted to teach. READ Matt. 18:23-27.

So, this parable is about a man with a major debt crisis. He owed the king a crazy amount of cash and had no means of paying it off. In Jewish parables, a king symbolized God and the idea of settling accounts symbolized judgment.

When the king called in the note, the indebted man fell face down on the ground, begging his master to give him additional time to pay it back. The king was wise. He knew this man could burn the candle at both ends, working 24/7 for the rest of his life, and still not produce the cash required to pay this bill. So, what should he do? In an act of grace and mercy, the king relieved the man of his responsibility and pardoned the debt. ALL of it.

Do you see that each of us is like the servant with an incredible debt? How big is our debt? Jesus used to outrageous amount of 10,000 talents. Of course, Jesus again was exaggerating to make a point. A talent was the highest denomination of currency at that time, and 10,000 was the largest number in the Greek language.

A worker typically earned one denarius a day, and it took 6,000 denarii to equal one talent. To earn one talent, then, would take about 20 years. With a debt of 10,000, it would take the debtor 200,000 years to pay off his debt.

The point that Jesus is trying to get across to us today is that our debt of rebellion and offense against God is so huge it’s impossible for us to pay the debt. But Jesus paid the debt for us, and God has forgiven the debt. God, in His grace and mercy has extended forgiveness to us through Jesus. WE ARE FREE! I thank God for the unlimited amount of times that He continually offers us forgiveness.

READ Matt. 18:28, 32-33. So, the king set the man free from his enormous debt. He was allowed to run free, but unfortunately, he ran in the wrong direction. He ran after someone who owed him money. The 2nd man’s debt wasn’t small, but it was insignificant compared to the debt just cancelled.

The 2nd man’s debt was 100 denarii, about 3 month’s wages, but what’s that compared to 60,000,000 denarii—200,000 years worth of wages—that the man owed the king?

Jesus’ story was designed to produce outrage in the heart of the hearers. Jesus wanted Peter and the others to ask themselves the question, “What kind of person would be so cruel as to require his friend to pay, right after he was just pardoned?” To use modern lingo, “Why wouldn’t this man choose to pay it forward?”

Now, here’s the real question. Why do we behave like this? Why do we withhold forgiveness when we’ve been forgiven so much, and when we have it in our power to give forgiveness so easily?