PARABLES OF CHRIST
THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 18:21-35
MARCH 22, 1998
Three thousand years ago, the prophet Nathan approached the throne of King David. We are told this in the Old Testament in the book of 2 Samuel, the 12th chapter. We are told that as the prophet Nathan approached King David, Nathan told the king a story. Nathan said, “In a certain city there were two men. One was rich and the other was poor. The rich man had many flocks and many herds, and the poor man had only one little lamb which he loved, and that lamb ate from his table and drank from his cup and was like a member of the family. Now, there came a visitor to the rich man. The rich man, wanting to feed him but not wanting to take one of his own sheep, though his flocks were vast, stole the poor man’s lamb.”
Now, when David heard this story, he became enraged. He said to the prophet Nathan, “Who is this man? As God lives, he deserves to die. He will repay the poor man four times over because he showed no pity.” Nathan looked at King David and Nathan said, “You are the man!” It was David who had a harem of wives and yet stole Uriah’s wife, taking Bathsheba, committing adultery, and thereby sinning. David understood that the prophet Nathan had told him a parable. The Hebrew word is the word “mahshawl,” which means “to set side-by-side.” The Greek equivalent used in the New Testament is the word “parabole,” from which we get the word “parable.” It means “to place by the side for the purpose of comparison.” That is what a parable does. A parable reveals truth by means of comparison. A parable is a story or a saying which reveals truth through the medium of comparison.
In the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ gave at least forty parables. In these upcoming weeks and months, we will explore these parables. As we do so, God will reveal truth to us if we have ears to hear. This morning we come to our first parable, and it is the parable of The Unforgiving Servant.
From this parable, we have two teachings. The first teaching is this: If you are a Christian, if you have received Jesus Christ and you believe in Him as your Savior and Lord, then you have been forgiven a massive debt. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.” Now, this was an incomprehensible debt. To give you some idea of how great this debt was, the average wage earner in Israel took 15 years to earn one talent. It was fifteen years for the average wage earner to earn one talent and yet this man owed a debt of 10,000 talents. It would have taken him 150,000 years to pay off that debt. Of course, that was impossible, which is exactly the point our Lord is making. This was a debt impossible to pay back. An unbelievable debt.
Just this last week, I saw where our national debt here in the United States has, as of this week, reached $5,534,202,155,277.20! There is the latest statistic. Our national debt has now exceeded $5.5 trillion, an incomprehensible debt. If all these dollars were stacked on top of each other—not laid end-to-end but just stacked flat on top of each other—that stack would ascend into the heavens more than 300,000 miles. This is an unbelievable debt, and it could never be paid back. I do not need to be a prophet to tell you we will never pay that debt back.
The national debt continues to grow. Since President Clinton took office in January of 1993, the debt has increased at over $8,000 a second. The debt has continued to increase at the rate of $700,017,000 a day. Since he took office in January of 1993, the debt has continued to increase by $1 billion every 33 hours and 27 minutes.
And so, you see, the debt is not only unpayable, but it just keeps growing. That is exactly what our debt regarding God is like. It is exactly what my debt is like. It is what your debt is like. The debt against God is so great it could never be paid back, and yet the debt keeps growing because we all just keep sinning. We all keep sinning. So, we have this debt of sin regarding a holy God, who is utterly holy, and the debt just keeps growing.
Today in India, in the city of Haridwar, over 100,000 Hindus will gather. This is in connection with a festival that is going on right now called the “Kuba Maylah.” This festival began January 1, and this festival will continue through the month of April. During this festival, every single day, 100,000 people come to the city of Haridwar—100,000 different people each day, fifteen million people in all—in conjunction with this festival of Kuba Maylah. What is it all about? It is all about sin. All these people are coming to bathe in the Ganges River, which they believe is sacred, holy, and divine. Their hope is, in conjunction with this Kuba Maylah, that as they come to Haridwar and as they enter the water, their sin will be washed away, and they will be cleansed. Fifteen million people.
It is sad because we all know that the polluted waters of the Ganges River cannot take away anyone’s sin. And yet it is also touching and even beautiful because at least these fifteen million people acknowledge that they are in debt before God. At least these fifteen million people acknowledge that they are sinners. At least they long for forgiveness. And today there are missionaries there in Haridwar by the Ganges. They have been there since January 1, and they will continue through April. Those missionaries are there to tell these people about the cross and about the beauty of the atonement and about the King who is willing to cancel their debt.
Of course, there are some people in this world who will not acknowledge their debt. There are some people in this nation who really do not believe they have a debt before God, some human beings who really do not think they have a problem called sin. And certainly, this is true of secular Darwinists. Secular Darwinists tell us that mankind has ascended from the primordial ooze and that through a process of natural selection and cell mutation mankind has evolved from lower forms of life and life has evolved until it reached the category biologists call primate. Then it continued to evolve from Australopithecus to Homo Erectus to Homo Sapien, from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon, to modern man. And here we are, the secular Darwinists tell us, and if at times we seem animalistic, it is not sin, it is simply natural. If at times we seem bestial, it is not sin. It is only our link with our animal past.
God, the secular Darwinists tell us, IF there is a God, ought not to condemn us. But indeed, God ought to stand up and applaud us because we have climbed the ladder of evolution and we have reached the pinnacle of evolutionary progression. We have brought civilization to the earth. We have unleashed the power of the atom. We have examined the microcosm and the macrocosm. We are ascendant and God ought to cheer. There is no debt. There is no sin.
But most people in this world (and even most evolutionists) know this is bogus. Even most evolutionists are not secular Darwinists. Most people know in their heart and in their soul that they are not simply an evolved animal. They know that they are not simply biological and genetic. They know they have a soul. Most people sense that there is something spiritual about mankind and they know in their soul and in their heart that there were times when they knew something was wrong and they could have stopped but they went ahead and did it anyway. They know in their soul that there were times when there was a good thing they should have done and they could have done it but they just did not do it. Most people know they have sin. Most people know that they have this debt before God. Most people have guilt. That is what psychologists tell us the world over. Most people have guilt. Because of this debt, because of this sin, most people have guilt and, in their soul, most people have pain. In fact, you can examine all of history from the perspective of soul pain. You can examine each person’s life from the perspective of their soul pain, their effort to overcome the pain that is in their soul.
People seek to numb their conscience through alcohol and drugs. It does not really work. People seek to just ignore their conscience because they focus on money, sex, and power. Through hedonism, materialism, and ascensionism, they hope they can just ignore the pain that is in their soul but that does not work. Some people try to honor their conscience by doing all things right. They seek to be perfect, but they ultimately fail, and it does not work. Some people, of course, seek to sear their conscience (as the Bible tells us people will try to do in the end times), redefining morality, producing a new morality, saying that what they thought was sin is not sin. They sear their conscience, but that does not really work either. The soul pain is still there and so Jesus says to the world, “Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden. Take My yolk upon you. Learn of Me. I am lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your soul.” Only in Christ, as we come to Him and we have the debt forgiven, are we are cleansed of sin.
Jesus can do that because of the cross and because of His substitutionary atonement. You know that Jesus died on the cross for my sin and you know that He died on the cross for your sin. You know that He paid the penalty for sin, and you know that from the cross He shouted out, “Tetelestai!” which is often translated, “It is finished.” But I think most of you know that that was the word stamped on debts that had been cancelled. “Paid in full.” That is what Christ did on the cross. He paid in full. When you came to Him and you received Him as your Savior and your Lord and you came in repentance and you came crying out for mercy, Jesus cancelled the debt and your soul pain began to go away. Every day as you confess your sin and celebrate His forgiveness, you have rest in your soul. And this comes only from Christ.
The world has a hard time understanding this because the world does not cancel debt. I mean, you cannot go to the bank that holds the mortgage on your home and say, “Hey, I’m sorry. I really am. I cannot pay this. Will you have mercy? Will you forgive my debt?” The bank is going to say, “No way!” You cannot go to the bank that has the loan on your car and say, “Have mercy on me.” You cannot fall down on your knees and say, “Will you forgive the debt?” They will not do it. You cannot do that with your VISA or Master Card. This world does not forgive debt.
That is even true in a criminal sense. We just got a call, Barb and I, this last week, from our son Drew who’s back in college in Boston. He had lost his license a little over a year ago because of four stop sign violations where he had not made complete stops near a school. Then this last summer he got another ticket going ten miles an hour over the speed limit on I-25 where the speed reduces as you approach Denver. He just got a letter in the mail saying that because of that new ticket he may lose his license again. He wanted to know what to do. When he gets home, we’ll go down to the DMV and we’ll ask for mercy, but do you think we’re going to get mercy? Not likely, because the world just normally does not work like that. The world does not work like that, but Christ does, and this is the glory of the gospel. We have a King willing to forgive debt. And how great that is!
There is a second teaching here, and that second teaching is this: Having been forgiven a great debt, we are now commanded as Christians to forgive others. Having received mercy, we are now commanded to give mercy. Jesus tells us that the same servant, as he went out, came upon a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii. A denarius was equal to one day’s wage for the average worker in Israel, so a hundred denarii would have been a little over three months’ income—a small debt compared to the incomprehensible debt that the servant had been forgiven. And yet he found a fellow servant who owed him this small debt. “He seized him by the throat,” Jesus said, “and said, ‘Pay what you owe.’” This fellow servant fell down and besought him and begged for mercy, but this wicked servant refused and sent him to prison until he could pay the debt.
We have this warning where Jesus said, “The king will say, ‘You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you besought me, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant even as I had mercy on you?’” And so, if we are Christians and if we have been given this forgiveness and shown this mercy, we are called to render mercy. It is not natural for us with our sinful natures. It just is not natural for us to immediately think in terms of mercy and forgiveness.
Perhaps you have heard of the story of the little boy Bobby who was five years old. He was playing in his room with his 2-year-old sister. Suddenly the mother heard a scream from their bedroom. She went and opened the door, and the 2-year-old sister was pulling Bobby’s hair and Bobby was screaming. The mother went up and freed Bobby’s hair. Bobby was angry. The mother said to Bobby, “Don’t be angry. Your little sister did not understand and she did not really know what she was doing. She really does not know. She is too young. She doesn’t know that when you get your hair pulled, it hurts.” The mother left the room and closed the door. A couple of seconds later there was another scream. She comes back and opens the door and Bobby’s got a smile on his face. He says to his mother, “She knows now.”
Isn’t that human nature? I mean, that’s human nature. That is how we want to respond when someone hurts us, isn’t it? Jesus tells us there is no room for vengeance. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.” When Peter said to Him, “How many times does my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times but 70 x 7.”
I think this teaching has been more misunderstood than any teaching in scripture. What does the Bible means when it commands us to forgive? Some people think that Christ wants us to forgive immediately, unconditionally, and automatically. But that is not what this passage of scripture says. You must look at this passage of scripture in its context, as you should look at all passages of scripture in their context. Now, this passage begins with Peter’s question, “How many times shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” But you really must go back to a few verses earlier. You must go back to the 15th verse of that same chapter where Jesus said, “If somebody sins against you, you should go to them and reprove them. If they listen, if they repent, you have gained a brother. If they do not listen and they do not repent, bring one or two more and reprove them. If they still do not listen, if they still do not repent, bring it before the church. If they still do not repent, regard them,” Jesus said, “as a tax collector and an infidel.” Those are the verses that immediately proceed Peter’s question and the whole Parable of the Wicked Servant, so we need to understand it in its context.
Jesus is not telling us to forgive immediately, automatically, and unconditionally. Even in the parable, you see that the servant who was forgiven a massive debt first pleaded for mercy and acknowledged his debt. You really see a clear teaching from the lips of Jesus on forgiveness in Luke, chapter 17, verses 3 and 4, where Jesus said these words: “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in the same day and comes to you seven times that day saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” That is the teaching of Christ. But there needs to be repentance. Forgiveness needs to be given in a responsible manner and some people just do not understand this.
You know, last year at Heath High School in Kentucky three high school students were killed. They found the young man who did it, 14 years old. This young man was named Matthew Carneil. He did not repent. He was a confused young man. At his high school, at Heath High School, some students got together and made these banners which said, “We forgive you, Matt,” thinking that was noble. Automatic, unconditional, immediate. But it’s not biblical.
Last August, President Clinton and his wife and daughter went for a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. They went to a church there. The pastor told the congregation that every single person in the United States of America needs to forgive Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who snuffed out the lives of 168 Americans. The pastor said to his congregation, “Can you look at a picture of Timothy McVeigh and forgive him?” The pastor said, “I’ve done that, and I invite each of you to do that as well.” But, you see, Timothy McVeigh did not sin against us. He sinned against those 168 and all their families. He sinned against God as all sin is against God. Timothy McVeigh has never repented. He has never acknowledged that he did anything wrong.
Just two weeks ago, Billy Graham was on television being interviewed by Katie Couric. Some of you saw that interview. They were discussing many things, including President Clinton and the allegations that have been made against him. Billy Graham was describing his friendship with the president and saying some very good things about President Clinton. Katie Couric said, “Do you believe that the President of the United States should live a life that the people of America can be proud of?” Billy Graham said, “Yes.” She said, “Well, if these allegations are proven to be true, what should Americans do?” Billy Graham said, “They should forgive him. America should forgive him.”
I respect Billy Graham so very much. He has been, is, and always will be one of my heroes. But I would respectfully disagree with him, not because of any wisdom I have but because of the teachings of holy scripture. I must believe that Billy Graham, on further reflection, would want to restate that. You see, forgiveness needs to be given responsibly. It is not even loving to just forgive unconditionally, immediately and automatically. That is not loving. That does not help the person who has committed the sin. It really does not help society. It creates a society without responsibility. So, I hope you understand what Jesus really said about forgiveness. I hope you also understand that as Christians we are called to have an attitude of heart where we want to forgive. We are called to have an attitude of heart where we long to forgive. There is no room to bear a grudge as a Christian, no room to harbor bitterness. If someone has sinned against you, you are to love them and you are to pray for them, but you are not to go to them and forgive them unless there’s repentance.
Indeed, Jesus said we are to go to them and lovingly reprove them for their sake. There should be, in your heart, a longing to forgive, a desire to forgive if only they would repent. There should be no harboring of bitterness, no desire for vengeance, but a longing to forgive them if only they would repent. You should be willing to forgive, as Jesus said, not just once but without limit when there’s repentance. Even if they sin against you repeatedly, the same sin, you should forgive them if they continue to repent. It is not yours to judge the heart. It is not mine to judge the heart. It is God’s to judge the heart, but if there’s repentance we are bound to forgive.
You know, if you have a spouse who has hurt you deeply, it’s really not God’s will to harbor a grudge or wallow in bitterness. He wants you, in your heart, to long to forgive, to want to forgive your spouse if only they would repent. Even as the father in the story of the prodigal son was longing to forgive his son if only he would come home and repent, that should be our attitude. We are just waiting, scanning the horizon, longing to forgive.
If your parents have hurt you in some fashion and you have been harboring a grudge all these years, God wants you to love them, pray for them, bless them, and long to forgive them if only they would repent. That goes for whatever pain our children have caused us, whatever pain our friends and loved ones and neighbors or associates at work have caused us. There is this attitude of heart where we long to forgive and yet we only give forgiveness responsibly when there has been repentance.
We have this warning, and with this we close. The warning that is from this parable is that having been forgiven this massive debt when we repented, we need always to forgive when others repent. If we do not, there is this warning: Judgement will be without mercy for those who have shown no mercy. The king took that wicked servant and delivered him over to the torturers. Jesus said, “So will My heavenly Father do with each one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.