amen why you folks sure know how to sing deeply appreciate the music and we want to thank you the amazing facts and the Affco team would like to thank the Cape Conference and all of the churches represented for the very kind treatment and it's such a delight to see you I've been wanting to come to this city for years partly because you know pastor Ross was born here and he was always telling me how beautiful it was so I'm waiting for the clouds to lift so I can actually see it but we're expecting some good weather we're going to take a look around tomorrow and it's been a delight just being here we want to thank you in advance after the program tonight for a few minutes mrs. bachelor and the Ronson's and I will be over here on the left if you want to come by and shake hands I know some of you maybe you have a long way to go and you'll be heading out the doors but we just want to be available to to greet you and next time we see each other on TV I'll wave at you okay so we're we're friends now so if anybody asks you say I know the bachelors we've met for friends anyway it has been good to be here with you and as we share in this series about the keys of the kingdom you may be surprised by what I've chosen to share for this final message it's on the subject of forgiveness years ago a man and a French village was bitten by a dog now this is before Louis Pasteur had discovered a cure for rabies and they found out this dog had rabies now you know if you've been bitten by a rabid dog before there was any cure you were going to die in a few days you'd go mad you get hydrophobia whatever it is and you become rabid and so one of them the man found out that the dog had rabies and he was infected he asked the doctor 'i says please get me a piece of paper and a pencil and so the doctor gave him a piece of paper and a pencil and he started writing very furiously and the doctor said if you're writing your will you have a few days take your time think of what you're saying is that I'm not writing in my will since I'm writing a list of everybody I'm going to bite before I die now this is the attitude of some people the Bible says in Revelation 12 Satan has come down with great wrath because he knows his time is short so the devil wants to hurt as many people as he can on his way out and some people live their lives that way they're hurt they want to hurt everybody else but the Bible is very clear that vengeance backfires the Bible says if you dig a pit for somebody else you will fall in the pit that you have dug maybe you remember the story of teaming in the book of Esther he built the gallows to hang Mordecai and you know who ended up hanging on those gallows Haman was hung on the gallows he built for someone else now some people go through life they've been hurt and they're bitter and they're angry and they're spending their time wishing bad things to happen to somebody else or they just feel like maybe because life has not been fair they want to see some kind of equality or vengeance there's a Chinese proverb that says if you if you're trying to live your life getting even with your M&E you're digging two graves one for yourself and one for them and I heard a story about a a man in Scotland named McGillicuddy and he was having a terrible feud with his neighbor and he and his neighbor fought for years and he just would not miss any opportunity to do something mean to his neighbor and then one night in a dream an angel said McGillicuddy I am going to give you whatever you ask me as a blessing but just know that I'm going to give your neighbor twice whatever you ask I'll give it to you but your neighbor gets twice a McGillicuddy thought and he thought he just kind of bear the thought of his neighbor getting twice of what he got so he said I want to pray that the angel takes one of my eyes take both of his neighbor's this is the way some people live they're just angry you know we need to learn to forgive everybody's been hurt because in order for the forgiveness of Jesus to blossom in your life we need to learn how to forgive each other so turn with me in your Bibles is one story we're going to look at it's in Matthew chapter 18 verse 21 it's a parable that Jesus shares that sometimes known as the unmerciful dinner Matthew 18 verse 21 Peter came to Jesus he said Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him up to seven times and he might be thinking Peters being a little bit selfish with forgiveness seven times it doesn't sound like very much but you have to understand in the time of Jesus the religious leaders used to say God will forgive you three times they thought a sin is some big monumental failure and they thought you know you like baseball three strike we don't play baseball three strikes and you're out and so they thought well Peter realized he's this was so loving maybe if I double it and add one for good measure seven a nice biblical number he said Jesus how often shall I forgive my brother's seven times he knew Jesus was so merciful so patient he expected Jesus to pat him on the back and said Peter now you're getting the idea or don't go that far but instead Jesus shocked him he said I don't say unto you seven times but seventy times seven now what did the Lord mean by that did God mean that up in the sky he's got a piece of paper and a pencil and he's counting out your sins and when you get to 490 you're done no more forgiveness or that you're supposed to keep a list with your friends and your family and anybody that's hurt you and every time your husband says something unkind you write it down 301 302 all right I'll forgive you this time but you're running short 310 311 and then when you get to 490 you say we're done is that what Jesus is saying you know why he said 70 times 7 he's referring back to another 70 times 7 in the Book of Daniel and Daniel chapter 9 the annual is praying and he's saying Lord you have been so merciful to your people they keep backsliding and you forgive them and they backslide and you discipline them and then you forgiving them and how long until the Messiah comes and the angel said seventy weeks how many things in a week it's the same way in North America is South Africa slicker than coincidence seventy times seven seventy times seven till the Messiah came that's talking about the mercy of God is unlimited now let me make it clear God will forgive you as often as you genuinely repent you don't have to worry that God is going to run out of forgiveness there's a danger though in continuing in sin you may lose your capacity to repent you could lose the ability to genuinely sorrow for your sin because your heart gets hard so I'm not saying because God is so forgiving that you can just send like crazy and just keep asking for forgiveness and if all of us were honest we'd admit that sometimes we've gone into sin with our eyes wide open saying I'll ask God to forgive me later that's presumptuous and that's very dangerous God is merciful and he is forgiving but if you continue to sin willfully Hebrews chapter 10 verse 26 if we sin willfully after we received a knowledge of the truth there's no more sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful looking forward to a judgment and fiery indignation if we continue to knowingly sin willfully you harden your heart you lose the ability to repent and you know what the outcome is you'll be lost so sin is a dangerous thing but what I want you to know today is that God is merciful he is long-suffering he's abounding in mercy and he will forgive you every time you genuinely humble yourself and repent you know the Bible says Mary Magdalene out of whom Jesus cast Seven Devils the Bible says a righteous man falls seven times and rises again the Lord will deliver you in six troubles yay and 7 no evil will harm you the book of Job so the Bible is full of promises and it always connects forgiveness with seven so to illustrate what Jesus was talking about he went on and he shared a parable with Peter the question was how often shall I forgive my brother so we have two kinds of forgiveness we're talking about in this story first you and God that's your vertical forgiveness and then you get the horizontal forgiveness you and your neighbor Jesus shares a parable that talks about both says therefore the kingdom of heaven I'm in verse 23 Matthew 18 23 the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants by the way there's going to be a day when I can counts are settled everything will be brought we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ can you say Amen we need to be aware of that certain King he wanted to settle accounts with the servants and when he had begun to settle accounts one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents now a talent in the Bible it's like a bag of cement as far as weight it weighed anywhere between 56 and 75 pounds is varying men for a talent can you imagine 10,000 bags now these are talents of silver probably the Bible also talks about a lot of talents of gold 10,000 talents of silver would be the largest sum that you can imagine wouldn't you like to have 10,000 talents of silver how would you like to attend thousand talents of silver could you pay it back this is a fantastic amount and so this servant works for the King and evidently he was high up and maybe he was an accountant and he had been squat he had a royal credit card and he had been spending the Kings money and he'd been going on expensive business trips and staying in the best places and eating the most expensive food and then one day they and he's probably gambling and maybe he had some drinking problems but he was wasting a lot of government resources now you might wonder how one person could end up spending ten thousand talents of the Kings money so quickly have you heard of government waste before in America we had a scandal a few years ago we found out that contractors were charging the military the most astronomical prices a hammer $300 and a lot of things like that so you can understand how this one fella he was running up an incredible bill ten thousand talents so the king commanded him to be brought in verse twenty five but he wasn't able to pay so his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had and that payment be made I was a pitiable saying you see in Bible times if you couldn't pay your debts I don't know exactly what the laws are here in America if you can't pay your debts you can go through these illegal procedures where you file what they call chapter 11 or chapter 13 and you filed bankruptcies and just I'm insolvent I'm sorry I can't pay then I'll put you in jail Bible times they not only put you in jail if you couldn't pay your debts they would torture you in jail according to how much you owed that would really discourage people they can also take your children read 2nd Kings chapter 4 this Widow her husband died and she couldn't pay her debt and the debtor the creditor was coming to take her children and sell them as slaves they could take your wife and make her part of their harem or sell her and all of your possessions became theirs and so this man he saw what his sin had done do you think this man just woke up one day and realized that he owed ten thousand talents so he knew that he was wasting the King's money he had news Sunday judgment was coming but he wouldn't stop wasting the King's money and finally it all caught up with him and there was a Judgment Day and it was discovered and everybody was looking at him and he saw the guard taking his possessions out of his house and he saw his wife and his children being taken off to be sold and he fell down before the king and he cried and he prayed he said please have patience with me and I will pay you all well he does wasted ten thousand talents of the Kings money how is he ever gonna earn it himself but the King saw the man crying he heard the man pleading and listen to what the Bible says the servant fell down it's a be patient with me and I'll pay you all and the master of that servant was moved with compassion and he released him and forgave him the debt Wow because it doesn't say he put up a payment program that no did you catch that don't miss that it says he forgave the dent that's a different than the King saying alright I'm going to let you pay me back you got to give me you know thousand talents a month or something for the rest of your life he didn't say that he forgave it but evidently this servant in a Blee now what does God do with our sins does God set up a payment program or does he forgive completely and freely he freely forgives us he had compassion on him and he released him and he forgave him the dead now someone once said there's a difference between pity and compassion in San Francisco years ago I heard a story about they had a streetcar one of these trolley cars that was going up the road and it struck a pedestrian knocked him down and ran on top of him he was injured and trapped underneath the the undercarriage of the streetcar and as often happens in the cities people all came running the police hadn't gotten there yet in the ambulance and all the people came running they looked underneath they saw the man was still conscious and he's injured and he's trapped seriously hurt and some people looked underneath the streetcar and they said you're going to be ok help is coming some people watch from the corner and they shook their heads and said what a shame that's called pity but one man in a business suit he got down on his belly and he crawled underneath the streetcar and he put his hand on the man's shoulders he said you're going to be ok helps on the way I'll stay right here with you that's the difference between pity and compassion pity looks down compassion gets down when you and I were lost did God just look down or did he get down he came down to where we were right God didn't just have pity on us he had compassion on us so the king is moved his heart is moved who winds up paying the debt when this man can't pay the king the King has to pay for it who pays for your dad God had to pay someone had to pay he's moved with compassion and the Lord pays the dead now this is where I'd like to stop the story just talk about the Kings forgiveness but the story goes on that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii I that's like a week's work and he laid hands on him and he took him by the throat that's sort of personal and he shook him and he said pay me what you owe me now you know this is amazing I don't know about you have you ever been in debt you ever owed a lot of money and you couldn't pay it back and maybe then you have some windfall or there's some blessing and you finally pay the debt and you get out from under the debt you are so thankful or maybe you've had some burden that you've carried for years and you just bothers and you think about it all the time and then the burden is removed anything praise God and you can jump ten feet high free at last free at last right after this men this man had been forgiven by the king ten thousand gallons this is something that was a cloud that was following him everywhere the King says you're forgiven forget about it new beginning new beginning I would have gone out from the King actors but Hall praise the Lord praise the Lord but this guy doesn't go out happy he goes out mad he is somehow is convinced himself the reason he's in debt is because his buddy owes him $40 or 400 Rand sorry I'm always thinking in dollar terms and he goes and he finds his friend right after being forgiven instead of being grateful so you thinks he's got to pay the King back he doesn't believe he's forgiven and so he goes to find everybody that owes him something and he takes it out on them and he grabs his felony shakes and he takes him by the throat it says pay me you owe me 400 grand or whatever it is small amount now I want you to I want to make sure you understand the difference between these two sums the earth I don't know in kilometers in miles the earth is 93 million miles from Earth the Sun rather is 93 million miles from the earth that's how much God is forgiving us that other sum is one foot the difference between the 10,000 talents and the 400 Rand is the difference between the Sun and one foot a metre God is willing to forgive us the distance between the Earth and the Sun but we struggle to forgive each other just a metre you see what the analogy is that Jesus is making here he's talking about how much God has forgiven you ten thousand talents but yet how we struggle to forgive others and sometimes we think all the pastor Doug you don't know what they've done to me if you only knew how they treated me I've been and you know what I always think is really sad it's almost ironic is I meet people all the time they don't go to church anymore and I say why don't you go to church anymore oh if they didn't treat me very nice these people were so unkind and they were mean and and so I'm going to I'm going to teach them a lesson and I'm just going to be lost and that will teach him this is exactly what the devil wants you to do and did Jesus have a Judas in his church there's going to be tears mixed in with the wheat don't let the devil scare you out of church because there's some Omri people in the church that's exactly what he wants to do you're falling right into his trap and then the other thing to remember is you don't know why some people act the way they do because you can't look in their hearts some people are unkind and nasty and do mean things and they got issues you don't know why they've got issues I heard about a pastor that was travelling one time and he was waiting for a plane his plane was late he was in the airport and in the airport there was a boy shining shoes and this is years ago in the past we thought well you know I admire that he's trying to get some work done so the pastor is sat down and he said well you need to make sure shine and he sat in the chair and then the boy began to work on his shoes and he was getting polished the past aside he's getting polish on his socks and it were he was smearing it it was getting it on the laces and then the boy was trying to do a spit shine you know what it is through you spit in your buff young you know one friend brother but the spit wasn't all getting on the shoes where the pastor saw this he was getting angrier and angrier and he thought you want me to pay for this any finally told the boy he says Thompson look at the mess you're making you got about my socks and you spit on my pants and he it's all smeared around his eye you want me to pay for this how did they let you stay here in the airport and do this and for the first time the boy looked up in the pastor saw his face his eyes were all red and he said I'm so sorry mysteries that I could barely see right now as my mother died last week and I cried a lot I got an infection in my eyes and I can't see but I've got to work because I've got to feed my little brother and sister well pastor felt so ashamed all he saw was the Miss on the outside and he didn't know anything about the hurt on the inside and that's the way we are sometimes it's hard to forgive people because we don't know what's going on in their heart now I went to read on here he went and he found a fellow servant took him by the throat that servant falls down and says to him the very same thing he says have patience with me and I will pay you all this is the same prayer that he himself had prayed before the king the King had answered his prayer but he wouldn't do it for anyone else it says he would not but he put him in prison till he should pay the debt now you and I think wow that is so cold-hearted but maybe Jesus is talking about you how much did Jesus pay for you how big is your account jesus paid our destiny donatto when you come to the cross and you say lord have mercy on me a sinner do you know what you're really asking how many sins does it take to be eternally lost one Unforgiven sin if you you know all you got is murder once right pick your sin sin a sin take that now and extrapolate it over the course of your life when you come to the cross and you are asking Jesus to forgive a life of sin and don't forget your sins don't only affect you it's like a pebble thrown in the water whatever you do it will affect others around you and the good or evil that you do in your life is impacting those around you so it's not just what your sins have done to you it's what your sins have done to other and humanity in history as it goes ripples on through time so when you come to Jesus and you say Lord forgive me do you know how much your sins cost what would be the most valuable thing in the universe I hear you got a big gold mine here in South Africa we're going to try go see it got a lot of gold take all the gold in the world it's not worth anything compared to the whole world and the world is not anything compared to the one who getting make a world the most valuable thing in the universe would be God because God made everything else is that you with me God the creator gave himself to forgive you ten thousand talents and you look at the cross and you see Jesus up there bleeding you see him beaten and you see all the suffering that he went through and you realize that he's there paying for your sins and then you say I cannot forgive that sister because she gossiped about me Oh big deal gossip there's a little things compared to what you have done to the Lord and I know there are some serious things I have people come to me sometimes after a message like this let's say pastor Doug I was abused by a family member sexually for years as a child I cannot forgive them what do you think should they forgive now left now I got your attention you must forgive of the resentment it doesn't mean you have to trust a person again doesn't need mean you have to open yourself to abuse but you need to let some things go or it will destroy you and it'll eat you up you know in North America years ago they had a civil war it was it was a very fierce Oh got to thank more Americans died in the Civil War than any other war in our history it was very bloody and the North fought against the south and one lady that lived in the south she had been a wealthy woman had this plantation and she was talking to the general robert e lee who had led the south but they lost the battle and and he the house was all beaten up and there was this oak tree up on top of the hill and she started to tell robert e lee she said that oak tree was an ancient tree it was a beautiful tree it was symmetrical and look at what these terrible yankees have done with her cannons it's all busted to smithereens and those Yankees and and you know what he told her she was using that tree as a monument of her anger he said madam cut it down and forget it now that doesn't mean that person is not going to be responsible for their sin but if you spend your life bitter about what someone else did to you you cannot control what someone else does to you what you can control is that you're not going to be a slave to what they did to you if you let the emotions in the anger control you then they win but if you can forgive your enemies while we were yet sinners Jesus died for us you know it's interesting the Bible says love your enemies and the Bible says love your neighbor that's because sometimes your neighbor becomes your worst enemy you look in the Bible at all the time is when they dealt with friendly fire you know what I mean by friendly fire who was it that sold Joseph his brothers who killed cable who killed abel cable I made a new name you know our two youngest boys are Stephen and Nathan and one day Karen was exasperated in church in the courtyard and the kids were running around and misbehaving and she was trying to get them to come to her and so in her frustration instead of staying Stephen or Nathan she said Satan come here so I just mixed up Cain and Abel and I made cable but he was pain that killed his brother who tried to kill David his own king and his own son and who betrayed Jesus one of the head elders so don't be surprised that the devil often hurts us through those closest to as a matter of fact it hurts the most when they are close if I'm walking down the street and I meet a total stranger he starts to rave and save all your ugly and I don't like you and I hate bald people and does whatever he happens to say I don't really care I don't even know who he is I feel sorry for them but when someone close to you hurts you then it's different but you still have to let it go because if you don't forgive your the forgiveness of God cannot grow in your heart the best way for you to enjoy the forgiveness of God as you receive it and then you pass it on you'll never grow more you'll never make more room for the working of the Holy Spirit in your life this is one of the keys to the kingdom is you accept the forgiveness of Jesus and then you forgive others you might save a pastor dog you don't know what they've done to me I can tell you some stories about what's been done to me and I'd get your bethey but i'm not going to because then it brings up all those memories that I'm trying to forget it has anybody here been hurt more than Jesus when you think about anything that is done to hurt any human being Jesus said in as much as you've done it to the least of these you've done it to me so there is nobody in the world who has ever lived that has felt more pain than Jesus because Jesus has felt the pain of every person who's ever been beaten or abused or ripped off or gossiped about or whatever you might find experience violence I'll pastor Doug how can I forgive them let me give you an illustration that might help a little bit suppose you go to somebody's house after church they invite you over to their home for dinner and you come in the front door and they got a little hallway there and they say look I'm in the kitchen getting things ready why don't you go in the living room let me take your coat and you give him the coat and why you're going in the living room this older gentleman walks up to you and he said what are you doing in my house just I don't want all these people coming in my house he said all these ugly people come into my house he said Matt I've never seen anybody so ugly and your Palm Beaches gonna eat all our food you people just come like pigs and eat all of our food in person just starts to insult you I need a man I've never been so offended in all my life and you go to the hosts and say I want my jacket I'm leaving she says why well that man in there that old man just was insulting me she said oh we're so sorry you met grandpa we didn't know he was awake grandpa has dementia he used to be the nicest guy in the world but he's sick and when they tell you that you go oh he's sick yeah sure I can stay as long as I don't have to sit by grandpa isn't it easier to forgive people when you know they're sick you know why people do mean things because we got a disease called sin and you just got to realize that the devil gets in people haven't you heard stories of people that did terrible things and then somehow God saves them you ever read in the story about King Manasseh Manasseh was the longest reigning king of Judah 55 years killed the prophet Isaiah set up idols in the temple of the Lord sacrificed his children to pagan gods that's got to be the unpardonable sin right anyone here can top that and you know what the Bible says Manasseh was attacked by the Syrians Assyrians and he was carried off to Babylon and he prayed and turned to the Lord and repented and it's almost unbelievable God forgave him and brought him back to the kingdom and it says and then he knew the Lord was gone Manasseh was converted you know there's going to be some prize some surprises when you get to heaven and I want to be there and see some of people's expressions for example it'll be interesting to see David and Bathsheba and Uriah won't they all be there when David has some explaining to do says you know that suicide mission you are sent on your wife here you know another interesting scenario is going to be when Stephen gets to him and the last thing you remembered is there is this young Pharisee named Saul that was helping execute him and Stephen gets to heaven and he sees a parade and the angels are carrying Saul on their shoulders and Stephens going to go wait a sec what you guys made a mistake what's he doing here and the angel says Stephen remember that prayer that you prayed Lord do not lay this sin to their charge just like when Jesus died Father forgive them they don't know what they do and that man who was killing Christians was converted and became the greatest missionary will Stephen be glad that he was forgiven yeah have you ever considered the people that you're bitter against might get converted and one of the things that might convert them is the way that you act if they see that you truly forgive them you know another reason I think it's important that we understand forgiveness it's our relationships God completely and freely forgives you he does not set up a payment program if God is a creditor if he's a banker and you're paying him back you're never going to love him I learned this the hard way small church I was pastoring and one of our families in the church a new family moved to town nice family another father a couple of daughters he was in the auto business you had set up a body shop they didn't auto body repair he said pastor Doug I don't know what to do you might give me some advice I got this check from an insurance company to pay for a job I'm doing $1,500 and he said they won't cash the check because I just moved to town I don't have an account yet and I don't know what to do and they said maybe I could get someone to co-sign for the check and I looked at the check it was a legitimate insurance company and I know this family said sure I'll cosign so I cosign the bank cash their check they took their money they spent the money a couple weeks later I got a notice that $1500 had been subtracted from our bank account and I called the bank find out what happened they said well you know that check you cosign the insurance company canceled it uh-huh I said well you know it was they said you cosign you're responsible so what do you think I did I went back to this family I said look they just took this money out of my bank they said pastor we just found out we are so sorry and they tried to explain there's some business problem with the job they've done and they said we don't have the money we spent the money but we'll pay you back I said okay I took him at their word and I think they wanted to now this family when they first moved to town small Church they sat right on the front row and the man sang beautifully he well she could probably sing too but he was in a choir he really had a beautiful voice and they said they can pay me back is it okay and I noticed that nothing happened for a few weeks I wasn't getting my money and I'd go he was working hard but you know they were struggling new town new business and he just wasn't able to get a hand they were always just a little behind and paying the basics and so I'd go see him and you know the first thing he would say when he saw me it was a high pasture dying how are you doing praise the Lord let's have a Bible study first thing he said when he saw me was your money's coming I know I haven't forgot I got this car here I'm going to do that I'll get a little for that and I got this other job since I'll pay you don't worry pastor that's okay no I want my money back one of you I mean it's one thing to make a donation to the church but I didn't expect to do it to an auto body business yes so then I noticed I came to church and they move back a road and a few weeks later they move back another Road and then I'd run into him in town I wouldn't even say anything about the money and he would bring it up I know about the job I haven't forgot don't worry and they move further back then I noticed one week they weren't there came back after a couple weeks then they missed two weeks I could see what was happening and I was this was a problem I was praying what do I do I was driving down the road one day and I heard this little voice say to me do unto others as you would have them do unto you that's his Lord you surely don't mean and then I read in Luke where Jesus said give expecting nothing in return no not that Lord and finally I just was realizing that you know this was what's worth more this family sold or the money now let me make it very clear at this point I am not telling you this story to say that you ought to go to somebody that you owe money to it's a pastor Doug says I shouldn't have to pay you back if you're a Christian you ought to pay your debts and I say you're an amen and we ought to be the most trustworthy people out there we ought to be the most dependable people out there but if you're on the other boat you can always choose to forgive now I'm not saying you forget a person that's just constantly living in a prodigal way because you could be hurting them by encouraging bad behavior but I was convicted I needed to forgive him so I went to see him one day he's in his body shop he's working on his car and when he sees me coming what do you think the first thing is that he said oh god this glad I got this car pastor going to do this work and then if you wreck your car I'll fix it for you so we'll pay you back and it's a brother forget about it and when I first set it up no don't say it it came out of my mouth and then I wanted to take it back but you know right when I said it I felt that he's a no no no pastor I'm gonna I owe it to you it's it wasn't yours you trust trusted me I'm going to pay back I said no no forget about it and the more I tried to convince him the more I started convincing myself I was really going to forgive him and eventually I took his hand that's it look brother for it pretend it never happened it's over it's done with you don't owe me anything let's get a new beginning and he stood up straight and he took a deep sigh and he said thank you and where do you think he was next week back up foot singing better than ever when you got the debt idea with you and God it hurts the relationship God forgives that 10,000 talents that you owe he will completely forgive you and if you're completely forgiven do you know what that means you have everlasting life and if you've got everlasting life are you going to be more careful with the Kings account you know what I'm saying the people who really believe they're forgiven are more frightened of sin than anybody because they know how much it costs the king and so that man who would not forgive his neighbor took him by the throat shook him put him in prison to be tortured for that few pence that he owed eventually where it reaches the king when verse 31 when his fellow servants saw what had been done they were very grieved and they came and they told their master all that had been done and the king the master after he had called this wicked servant he said to him you wicked servant I forgave you all of that debt because you asked me what do you need to do to be forgiven ask just think about that he simply sincerely said please have mercy on me it's like Jesus told the story about the Pharisee and the publican two men go into the temple to pray one a Pharisee one's a public one's a tax collector one's very religious the religious man he sits up front and he says thank you Lord that I'm not like other men I pay tithes of all that I have I fast twice a week and I'm glad I'm not like this extortion or back on the back road and the publican would not so much as lift up his eyes into heaven but he smote upon his breast and he said lord have mercy on me a sinner and you know Jesus said but publican went home forgiven where did you like to go home forgiven the king said I forgave you that entire debt because you you ask me all the sins of your life were paid for by Jesus sacrifice you are not a better sinner than Jesus is a savior and he says that if you come to him and you ask him to sincerely forgive you he will forgive you and if you're forgiven he gives you a gift of everlasting life and then he gives you power and a new heart to live a new kind of life and each one of us has that opportunity but this man through his friend in prison when the King heard about that he said you wicked servant I forgave you that debt because you asked me should you not have had compassion on your fellow servant how as I had pity on you how does Jesus want us to forgive each other it says even as Christ has forgiven you so ye must forgive each other you know the Lord's Prayer forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and it says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us I heard one boy asking his father young boy coming home from church one day so dad what does it mean to forgive someone their trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets father didn't correct him he thought well he sort of got the idea we ask God to forgive our trespasses and you know there's only one commentary Jesus makes on the Lord's Prayer it's also at the end of his parable the master was angry and he delivered him to the tormentors the torturers until she should pay all that was due him so my heavenly father will do unto you if each of you from his heart does not forgive every man his brother their trespasses you know Jesus says after the Lord's Prayer the only comment Jesus makes after the Lord's Prayer is if you do not forgive your brother their trespasses neither will your Father in heaven forgive you Wow that's pretty heavy can you see how important it is to understand this subject it's not optional it is mandatory that we learn to let go and forgive you know when the Holy Spirit is going to fall out on the church when did the Holy Spirit fall out at Pentecost the disciples were arguing with each other which of them was the greatest there was jealousy and bickering and the one person they should have been suspicious of they wanted to elect the treasurer all of them were wanting to sit on the right hand in the left hand and there were problems they were fighting or whoever got to sit at the Last Supper but after they saw Jesus dying on the cross and they realized they were all guilty of betraying him and forsaking him they gathered in an upper room and they knelt and they prayed and they hugged each other and they forgave each other and the Bible says not only were they in one place but what else is it they were one Accord and then God poured out the Holy Spirit you know why they it's forgiven each other now all of us have some history because things were angry about those things were bitter about we feel like we've been treated poorly or unjustly if you embrace that it's like acid it will devour you need to ask God to wash you and let it go on and you know there's such a freedom because wait I want to make one thing very clear before I make that next statement in this story God is not saying if you forgive others I will forgive you Hooten the sequence is very important who does the first forgiving the King does the man comes to the king he says forgive me says I will freely forgive you ten thousand talents saying basically go down do likewise God forgives you first God is not saying I tell you what I'll make you a deal you go forgive everybody the things that they've done they're hurt you or all the Inger whatever you got in your heart and then I'll forgive you God is saying no I forgive you first now pass it on because you cannot have the power to forgive others the way God wants you to forgive others unless you are forgiven first it's the power of Christ in us that gives us the ability to forgive them and God is willing to do that for you so my heavenly father will do for each of you if you from your heart does not forgive his brother their trespasses now think about this it says the master was angry and he delivered him to the torturers tormentors now I don't know exactly how that work but I guess in Bible times if you went to the debtors prison because you owed money they have a price list on the wall and if you owed one Talent you're in prison for you know 30 days and you got beaten with so many stripes of the whip and stretched on the rack and they only pulled out one fingernail I don't know but they tortured you somehow can you imagine going to a prison where you're tortured according to your debt owing 10,000 talents now think about this when it comes to your being forgiven for your sins does the Jesus ever partially forgive when the Lord comes again let's suppose you were a Christian and you've asked God to forgive you several times but you kept falling back in your sin and you never really repented you end up dying where you're not totally surrendered but you have prayed for forgiveness for things so when Jesus comes do you only pay for the sins that you forgot to repent of suppose you are lost but there was a while when you are a Christian maybe half your life you are a Christian and then a person turns away in the other half their life they're living for the world and then they die do they end up paying for 50 percent of their sins when Jesus comes I got sad news for you it's either all or nothing that's what you learn from this story the king said look if you I forgave you ten thousand talents and I forgive you a hundred percent forgiveness but if you will not forgive your brother I revoke a hundred percent that scares me a little I don't want to go into the judgement Unforgiven how about you friends we must a hundred percent embrace the forgiveness of the Lord and then realize how deadly sin is we need to then continue to walk with the Lord and when we realize how much we've been forgiven it transforms us have you ever been hurt and have you sometimes found it hard to forgive others you keep thinking about it I know some of your thinking pastor Doug I forgive them but I keep thinking about it does that mean I haven't forgiven them no you've heard the expression before you cannot prevent the birds from flying over your head but you can prevent them from making a nest in your hair you cannot alight easy for me of course you cannot prevent those thoughts from coming of what people have done but you can choose when you remember those things that don't dwell on it just choose to forget it and when the devil tries to bring it back to you they get behind me Satan by the grace of God I'm going to let that go I'm not going to dwell on that and you might have to tell the devil to get behind you several times and say by the grace of God Lord give me your spirit of forgiveness he can help you forgive and then you know what you will feel a revival and a relief in your heart because you get a new beginning you know you can't hurt a person that's dead if a person is dead and you go hit him they're not going to react they don't care they're dead a dead person cannot be hurt if you are crucified with Christ there is something liberating about that because you're not living for yourself usually when we are angry and bitter it's because there's a lot of pride and they hurt us and the self within us is offended but if you're crucified with Christ they may hurt they did person I am a new creature I'm born again where did you like to have that experience you know years ago a famous artist in Italy named Leonardo da Vinci was asked to paint a very beautiful mural of the Last Supper you probably seen pictures of it before where Jesus is at that dinner table and he's got John on one side on his right hand and Judas is on his left hand and then there's Peter on the other side of John Jesus is in the middle and the Twelve Apostles are on the right and left you seen probably pictures of that before the famous painting the Leonardo DaVinci did in this Chapel at the big mural covers a wall and right when he was painting that painting Leonardo and it took him a long time he got into an argument with another famous artist that became very public his name was Michelangelo and they began to write open letters and insult each other and I don't remember everything they said but you know Leonardo would say oh you think that you're a sculptor you don't know anything about it in you're not an architect's painters sculptors and a very brilliant and they got some jealous Prime things started going on and they started sending these public letters and everybody was reading the reports of what Leonardo and Michelangelo were saying about each other insulting each other finally Leonardo got an idea when it came time to paint the face of Judas on his mural normally he used you know models different people but he thought I know what Michelangelo looks like and he very skillfully on the left of Jesus he painted in Judas a Michelangelo as Judas and as he was doing it eat us ha ha people came by and they watched him work and is it whoa look at that they could see what was happening and he felt pretty good about it because I'm going to immortalize what a scoundrel he is he was getting even but you know the last face he wanted to paint was the face of Jesus and as he tried to paint the face of Jesus he no that's not right he'd strike it out and he paints um that's not right he'd strike it out he'd paint something else and this went on for weeks trying to paint the face of Jesus he had the arms in the hands and everybody couldn't get the face and finally in desperation he prayed he wanted to get that face of love and that compassion and that majesty of Jesus why don't you like to see Jesus face and he prayed here Leonardo's all this time he's talking to the Lord he prays and he says Lord help me see your face and he began to plead with the Lord help me see your face and finally you heard a voice speak to him it said you will never see the face of Jesus until you change the face of Judas and he became convicted and he went any erase Michelangelo's face there and painted into the one that you see today in that mural some of us have never really seen the face of Jesus because we we want to accept his forgiveness but we've not been willing to share it with others that forgiveness make someone very close to you and your family you know what would be the most wonderful thing that could happen after a message like this I was preaching in Romania and someone came up to me after I shared this sermon and they said pastor Doug my father and my brother have not talked in nine years they were both sitting in church today but they won't talk to each other a father and a son and he said during the sermon after you said this I turned and looked at my father and I went meaning you got a call my brother there might be some people you need to call there might be some letters you need to write you might need to begin by apologizing to somebody that you're angry with but if you really want to experience the Holy Spirit humble yourself in the sight of God be reconciled with each other that's the most important thing that could happen that's one of the keys to the kingdom God says they'll know that you are my disciples by what your love for one another and I don't know everything about South African history but I know you've got some history where there's been some tension and there's been some division between different classes different races and there's been some brutal things that have not been done and probably everybody that wants to have a reason to be mad can be mad but what a wonderful testimony it would be among God's people we could demonstrates what it means to be a Christian and to really love our brother and forgive each other would you like to experience that forgiveness you know I'd like to pray for you we found someone that's going to bring a special item for us I think Ian is going to sing in just a moment but before he does I want to have a special prayer and that I'll have some concluding remarks if the Holy Spirit has spoken to you today and you realize maybe you have not completely believed in the Kings forgiveness I've been willing to share the Kings forgiveness and you'd like for me to pray for you that you can do that right now it takes supernatural help if you want to stand in his presence and say lord please help me to experience that forgiveness and to share that forgiveness would you be willing to stand where you are say pastured I pray for me I've been struggling I want to know that I've got that forgiveness I want to be able to share it it might be someone in your family espouse children this sometimes struggles God wants us to forgive and to love each other praise God Father in heaven lord I believe you're very close right now because this a message from your son that we could completely understand and receive the incredible mercy that you're offering us the ten thousand talents that we've squandered and you're willing to not only forgive you're willing to forgive and forget and cast our sins into the depths of the sea and look upon us as though we've got the purity and the righteousness of your own son thank you lord I pray that that joy that we feel from knowing we're forgiving will translate into our willingness to forgive others even as Christ has forgiven us bless these people each one and their families you know what the individual struggles are if there's a letter they need to write or phone call they need to make a brother or sister they need to walk up to an embrace give them the grace and the courage to do that and Lord then pour out your spirit on your people prepare us for your return we believe the gospel will go to the world when we really understand this important key of forgiveness we thank you and we pray this all in Jesus name Amen
