A Severe Mercy!
Sermon
SERMONS ON THE GOSPEL READINGS
Series I, Cycle A
French author Victor Hugo has a short story titled, "93." In the midst of this tale a ship at sea is caught in a terrific storm. Buffeted by the waves, the boat rocks to and fro, when suddenly the crew hears an awesome crashing sound below deck. They know what it is. A cannon they are carrying has broken loose and is smashing into the ship's sides with every list of the ship. Two brave sailors, at the risk of their lives, manage to go below and fasten it again, for they know that the heavy cannon on the inside of their ship is more dangerous to them than the storm on the outside. So it is with people. Problems within are often much more destructive to us than the problems without. Today, God's word would take us "below decks" to look inside ourselves concerning the whole matter of forgiveness.
Everybody's In Debt!
In the text, Jesus tells us of a king who decides to settle accounts with his servants. One man is brought before him who owes 10,000 talents. The modern equivalent would be about ten million dollars! So this subject was hopelessly enslaved to debt!
Yet another fellow in the text is mentioned as owing a hundred denarii, which today equals nearly twenty dollars. So everybody in the text is in debt. Some owe a lot. Some are indebted a little. But all owe somebody!
The text also makes it clear that the terrible consequence of being in debt was debtor's prison. Why, when a bill became past due and one couldn't pay, the creditor had the right to seize you and throw you into the rat infested, dark of a dungeon. And there you remained until you paid every cent or died.
You've been in debt, haven't you? Remember the fear, the worry? Things get bleak, don't they? One holds his head down and avoids all eye contact. Frustration compounds fatigue and leaves you drained. God is saying that unforgiven sin in our life is like those unpaid debts. They weigh heavily upon us whether a little sin or a huge amount of sins.
Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment is about this. The novel is little more than the tale of a young, fascist, poor student who murders a rich, old lady so he can get her money and continue his studies. But the student, hounded by guilt, pursued by his sins, finally confesses his crimes and is punished. Eloquently, so eloquently, Dostoevsky shows us what the real world is really like, a world where sin comes due like all debts and must be paid in full as the creditor comes calling us to account.
The same is true of Shakespeare's play Macbeth. A man is killed so Macbeth can usurp the crown, and Lady Macbeth, tormented by her part in the murderous sin, is driven to insanity. She pitifully raises her hands imagining them still to be stained with blood, and frets, "Will these hands ne'er be clean?"
Can't we identify with Dostoevsky and Shakespeare's characters? We are sinners like they were. Some of us owe a lot. Some are sin indebted a little. But each of us, like the debtors in the text, must settle accounts with the king, God Almighty himself.
Forgiveness Is Available
So, in the text everybody owes everybody. Now this: According to this parable Jesus told, forgiveness is available.
The king in calling his subjects before him finds one who owes ten million dollars. Surely Christ is exaggerating here! According to Roman tax records of the time, all Israel's taxes for one year amounted to about $800,000. So Christ was saying this man was hopelessly indebted. His bills were impossible to pay. Yet the debtor grovels before the king and says, "Please be patient with me. Just give me a little more time." He declares, "I will repay you in full!" The king had pity on him, the text says. Rather than throwing him in jail, he simply forgave him his debts and let him go.
Jesus is saying God is like a king who has pity on us. He is willing to cancel out impossible debts and he is willing to forgive.
Did you know that the Greek word for forgive means to let loose? That's right. It's like a terrible knot that suddenly gives and is completely untied. It's like a dark bondage from which there is sudden release.
Try this experiment when you get home today. Take a trash can lid and lay it on a healthy portion of your lawn. Leave it there for a week. Afterward, lift the lid and look under it. See the pale, sickly grass? See the roaches and worms nesting in the dark decay of the withered grass. That's what sin does to us!
Put the lid back down on the grass. Does the grass have the power to remove the lid all by itself? No. That's impossible. And again, we are like the man in our text with an impossible debt to the king. We are helpless to free ourselves.
Finish the experiment. Take the lid away. The bugs flee. The grass begins to receive sunshine and moisture. Its health is revived, restored. It is literally forgiven, let loose from bondage and decay. Forgiveness is just like that. What we can't pay, God pays. God lets us loose from debts of sin and frees us to new life!
The Forgiven Should Forgive
Back to our fascinating parable. We have already seen that everybody owes everybody in the text, and that forgiveness of debts is available from a merciful king. Now this: When forgiven our debts, we should forgive others their debts also.
In the parable, the king forgave a man his ten million dollar debt. He let him loose, let him out of it! And what does this free man now do? He goes out and happens upon a fellow who owes him a measly twenty dollars. He seizes him by the throat! And he demands, "Pay what you owe me!" When the fellow says he cannot and asks for patience, the man throws him in debtors' prison. And someone goes and tells the king.
What does the king do? He recalls the man, derides him for his wickedness and explains, "Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" In anger the king delivers the unforgiving man to the jailers until he pays the ten million.
Some story, eh, this parable Jesus told? And the point is clear. If God forgives us we must be about forgiving others.
I once talked with a lady who had been hurt six years ago. During that time she had never forgiven the individual who'd sinned against her. Instead she nursed her grudge, schemed of glorious get even tactics, and meditated on hatred. So now she was tired all the time, her face was hard and wore a mask of bitterness. She was neurotic. My, was she neurotic - such negativism and compulsive criticism as you've never seen! But what do you expect with her mind so focused on evil all the time! We talked. She was a Christian. I suggested she let her debtor loose just as God had let her loose. Finally the woman decided, "Well, I guess I'll pardon her as you suggest, but I don't want anything more to do with her!" "Is that how you'd like God to forgive you," I asked, "To pardon you, but then have nothing more to do with you?" She saw the point, and forgiveness flowed and this withered woman began again to thrive.
Now this is just the point of the text. When we begrudge someone, refuse to forgive, someone goes and tells the king. They tell God, and according to the text we are turned over to the jailers. The Greek word for "jailers" is literally "tormenters" or "torturers." We are tormented in prison when we are unforgiving!
Years ago, on a television show, a comic character was angry with another fellow. He said, "I'm tired of him slapping me on the chest every time he sees me. I've told him to quit and he won't. So I'm ready for him. I've got me three sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest. Next time he hits me it'll blow his arms off!" The first character was about to find out that his grudge was going to cost him as much or more as it was going to cost the other fellow! The fire he'd kindled for his enemy was going to burn him more than the other.
Dear people, when you're playing with unforgiveness, with grudges and hatred, you're playing with dynamite. You're playing with fire. Julie Nixon Eisenhower says, "One of the most deadly things you can do to yourself, is to be unforgiving." It's true. The text says so. It says unforgiveness ruins your relationship with God. It ruins your relationship with people. It imprisons you with torturers! It makes you sick to be unforgiving!
Let Go?
What about you? Have you called on God to forgive you? Your debt is impossible to pay, you know. I hope you're not like the fool in this parable who just wanted a little more time so he could scrounge up ten million bucks. Have you faced God and told him you're helplessly a debtor to sin and prayed for mercy? You can be let loose from your sins in Jesus!
And what about your own debtors? Forgiven, are you now forgiving? Are you bearing grudges, holding debts over others, and thus ruining your own relationship with God while being tormented yourself?
Just like the unlashed cannon in Victor Hugo's story, are there burdens of unforgiveness crashing around inside you tearing your guts out, rending your mind, tormenting you with the rise and sink of every day? "I can't forgive!" you say. Oh, but you can! The trouble is, you haven't wanted to, you haven't asked Christ to help.
Right now, ask Jesus to take your hand and go below decks with you. Tell him you're weak, you're afraid you'll fail. But tell him you're willing to forgive, willing to go with him and take care of all the troubling things within. Yes, tell Jesus you're willing, ask him to give you power, to forgive through you, and the healing, oh, the healing, it will begin!
Suggested Prayer
Lord Jesus, let's begin! Amen!
Stephen M. Crotts
Everybody's In Debt!
In the text, Jesus tells us of a king who decides to settle accounts with his servants. One man is brought before him who owes 10,000 talents. The modern equivalent would be about ten million dollars! So this subject was hopelessly enslaved to debt!
Yet another fellow in the text is mentioned as owing a hundred denarii, which today equals nearly twenty dollars. So everybody in the text is in debt. Some owe a lot. Some are indebted a little. But all owe somebody!
The text also makes it clear that the terrible consequence of being in debt was debtor's prison. Why, when a bill became past due and one couldn't pay, the creditor had the right to seize you and throw you into the rat infested, dark of a dungeon. And there you remained until you paid every cent or died.
You've been in debt, haven't you? Remember the fear, the worry? Things get bleak, don't they? One holds his head down and avoids all eye contact. Frustration compounds fatigue and leaves you drained. God is saying that unforgiven sin in our life is like those unpaid debts. They weigh heavily upon us whether a little sin or a huge amount of sins.
Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment is about this. The novel is little more than the tale of a young, fascist, poor student who murders a rich, old lady so he can get her money and continue his studies. But the student, hounded by guilt, pursued by his sins, finally confesses his crimes and is punished. Eloquently, so eloquently, Dostoevsky shows us what the real world is really like, a world where sin comes due like all debts and must be paid in full as the creditor comes calling us to account.
The same is true of Shakespeare's play Macbeth. A man is killed so Macbeth can usurp the crown, and Lady Macbeth, tormented by her part in the murderous sin, is driven to insanity. She pitifully raises her hands imagining them still to be stained with blood, and frets, "Will these hands ne'er be clean?"
Can't we identify with Dostoevsky and Shakespeare's characters? We are sinners like they were. Some of us owe a lot. Some are sin indebted a little. But each of us, like the debtors in the text, must settle accounts with the king, God Almighty himself.
Forgiveness Is Available
So, in the text everybody owes everybody. Now this: According to this parable Jesus told, forgiveness is available.
The king in calling his subjects before him finds one who owes ten million dollars. Surely Christ is exaggerating here! According to Roman tax records of the time, all Israel's taxes for one year amounted to about $800,000. So Christ was saying this man was hopelessly indebted. His bills were impossible to pay. Yet the debtor grovels before the king and says, "Please be patient with me. Just give me a little more time." He declares, "I will repay you in full!" The king had pity on him, the text says. Rather than throwing him in jail, he simply forgave him his debts and let him go.
Jesus is saying God is like a king who has pity on us. He is willing to cancel out impossible debts and he is willing to forgive.
Did you know that the Greek word for forgive means to let loose? That's right. It's like a terrible knot that suddenly gives and is completely untied. It's like a dark bondage from which there is sudden release.
Try this experiment when you get home today. Take a trash can lid and lay it on a healthy portion of your lawn. Leave it there for a week. Afterward, lift the lid and look under it. See the pale, sickly grass? See the roaches and worms nesting in the dark decay of the withered grass. That's what sin does to us!
Put the lid back down on the grass. Does the grass have the power to remove the lid all by itself? No. That's impossible. And again, we are like the man in our text with an impossible debt to the king. We are helpless to free ourselves.
Finish the experiment. Take the lid away. The bugs flee. The grass begins to receive sunshine and moisture. Its health is revived, restored. It is literally forgiven, let loose from bondage and decay. Forgiveness is just like that. What we can't pay, God pays. God lets us loose from debts of sin and frees us to new life!
The Forgiven Should Forgive
Back to our fascinating parable. We have already seen that everybody owes everybody in the text, and that forgiveness of debts is available from a merciful king. Now this: When forgiven our debts, we should forgive others their debts also.
In the parable, the king forgave a man his ten million dollar debt. He let him loose, let him out of it! And what does this free man now do? He goes out and happens upon a fellow who owes him a measly twenty dollars. He seizes him by the throat! And he demands, "Pay what you owe me!" When the fellow says he cannot and asks for patience, the man throws him in debtors' prison. And someone goes and tells the king.
What does the king do? He recalls the man, derides him for his wickedness and explains, "Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" In anger the king delivers the unforgiving man to the jailers until he pays the ten million.
Some story, eh, this parable Jesus told? And the point is clear. If God forgives us we must be about forgiving others.
I once talked with a lady who had been hurt six years ago. During that time she had never forgiven the individual who'd sinned against her. Instead she nursed her grudge, schemed of glorious get even tactics, and meditated on hatred. So now she was tired all the time, her face was hard and wore a mask of bitterness. She was neurotic. My, was she neurotic - such negativism and compulsive criticism as you've never seen! But what do you expect with her mind so focused on evil all the time! We talked. She was a Christian. I suggested she let her debtor loose just as God had let her loose. Finally the woman decided, "Well, I guess I'll pardon her as you suggest, but I don't want anything more to do with her!" "Is that how you'd like God to forgive you," I asked, "To pardon you, but then have nothing more to do with you?" She saw the point, and forgiveness flowed and this withered woman began again to thrive.
Now this is just the point of the text. When we begrudge someone, refuse to forgive, someone goes and tells the king. They tell God, and according to the text we are turned over to the jailers. The Greek word for "jailers" is literally "tormenters" or "torturers." We are tormented in prison when we are unforgiving!
Years ago, on a television show, a comic character was angry with another fellow. He said, "I'm tired of him slapping me on the chest every time he sees me. I've told him to quit and he won't. So I'm ready for him. I've got me three sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest. Next time he hits me it'll blow his arms off!" The first character was about to find out that his grudge was going to cost him as much or more as it was going to cost the other fellow! The fire he'd kindled for his enemy was going to burn him more than the other.
Dear people, when you're playing with unforgiveness, with grudges and hatred, you're playing with dynamite. You're playing with fire. Julie Nixon Eisenhower says, "One of the most deadly things you can do to yourself, is to be unforgiving." It's true. The text says so. It says unforgiveness ruins your relationship with God. It ruins your relationship with people. It imprisons you with torturers! It makes you sick to be unforgiving!
Let Go?
What about you? Have you called on God to forgive you? Your debt is impossible to pay, you know. I hope you're not like the fool in this parable who just wanted a little more time so he could scrounge up ten million bucks. Have you faced God and told him you're helplessly a debtor to sin and prayed for mercy? You can be let loose from your sins in Jesus!
And what about your own debtors? Forgiven, are you now forgiving? Are you bearing grudges, holding debts over others, and thus ruining your own relationship with God while being tormented yourself?
Just like the unlashed cannon in Victor Hugo's story, are there burdens of unforgiveness crashing around inside you tearing your guts out, rending your mind, tormenting you with the rise and sink of every day? "I can't forgive!" you say. Oh, but you can! The trouble is, you haven't wanted to, you haven't asked Christ to help.
Right now, ask Jesus to take your hand and go below decks with you. Tell him you're weak, you're afraid you'll fail. But tell him you're willing to forgive, willing to go with him and take care of all the troubling things within. Yes, tell Jesus you're willing, ask him to give you power, to forgive through you, and the healing, oh, the healing, it will begin!
Suggested Prayer
Lord Jesus, let's begin! Amen!
Stephen M. Crotts
