I believe there is discipline and chastening to every son that God loves. And that's when He puts us in the hands of the inquisitors or the jailers or the tormentors, parabolically speaking, who apply the pressure to us until we admit our sin and confess our sin. And in this case it is the sin of unforgiveness. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. When you sin, is God angry at you or disappointed or frustrated, or does He simply forgive and forget? And when others sin against you, how can you treat them the way God treats you? Important questions.
John MacArthur has answers in his series, My Brother's Keeper. But before the lesson, John, we are coming up on Grace To You's 56th anniversary. You started at Grace Church as pastor in February of 1969, and we always link the origin of Grace To You to that date, because they recorded your sermon. And it's important to recognize that Grace To You is not merely surviving after all of these years, but we're thriving. And we rejoice at the ministry opportunities that are still before us.
And John, I know that you're as amazed as anyone by the longevity and the reach of grace to you. So, to what do you attribute the scope of this ministry? I've always said that if I concentrated on the depth, God would take care of the breadth. I never ever, and you know this because of all these years, I've never sought ways to promote the preaching, ways to sell it, to get it out. All I ever wanted to do was say, let's just make sure we're faithful in handling the Word of God and leave the breadth of it to the Lord.
I remember at one of your anniversaries recently, the theme was the work of the Word. And that's really what it boils down to. Yeah, and I knew when I came to Grace Church, one thing for certain, God would honor His Word. And if His Word was faithfully taught, He would take it where He wanted it to go.
And the rest, of course, is 50 years of amazing history. And now these messages go out by the millions all across the earth in multiple languages. And that is a testimony to the work of the Word, not to the work of the messenger. And I just have to say this in light of all of that, none of this would have happened without listener support.
To be doing this for half a century, thinking about that at the beginning, I would have imagined that never would happen. But because of the people who have responded to the teaching of the Word of God, because of their love for the truth and their love for the Lord, they have decided to stand with us. And they literally are our sole support. And I'm not under any delusions about how this happened. I know who makes it happen. It's the work of the Word. It's the work of the Spirit of God. And we're on strong footing because of people just like you who are listening to me right now. When you're blessed by what we do, when you learn the Word of God, when we're the instrument, at least in part, where the Lord exposes you to the gospel, maybe you've been saved listening to grace to you, you've been sanctified following grace to you, and you've given sacrificially to this work. You are the real power behind this ministry, other than the Lord Himself. So from the depths of my heart and all of us at Grace to You, thank you. And now stay right here as we return to our study from Matthew 18 called My Brother's Keeper, and the focus of today's message, learning to forgive others. Yes, friend, to learn more about the often sticky subject of forgiving others, stay right here. And now here again is John to continue his series, My Brother's Keeper.
In Titus, I'm drawn to the third chapter. Listen to what Paul says, speak evil of no man, be no brawlers, don't get into fights, but gentle, showing all meekness unto men, unto all men. In other words, you're to be forgiving. For we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient, deceiving, rather deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hatred, hating one another. I mean, we used to be like that, but after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. In other words, He says, don't treat people like you used to. Look at what Christ has done for you.
It's the same idea. And so sadly, the church has been riddled all its life long by the tragic sin of unforgiveness and the consequent bitterness and hostility and discord. And I really believe that this is to go against your new nature because I believe that if you're in the kingdom, you're a merciful person. Blessed are the merciful, but they shall obtain mercy. I think we're marked as merciful people. That's our newness. And it's only the flesh that rises up and makes us merciless.
So consider the source. If you're not forgiving, that isn't the new you. That's your sin, your flesh vaulting itself into prominence. And when you do that, you will cut yourself off from that relational forgiveness with God that makes the communion sweet. And if you look at your life and you see a lack of power and you see a lack of depth in your spiritual life, you see a lack of hunger for God's Word, a lack of love for the private place of prayer and communion, if you have not seen what you would like to see in your life of the richness of your relationship with God, it may be that you'll never have that because there's a blockage there and the Lord isn't giving you that forgiveness that brings sweet relationship with Him because you've got it blocked somewhere else with somebody else. And until you forgive that other one, the Lord isn't going to open up the flow of communion with Him. So verse 31, look what happens. So when His fellow servants...there's that term again. Here's a group of Christians, believers, who saw what was done.
They saw the whole thing. Now at the risk of sort of reading into the parable a little bit, let me suggest to you that if this parable were a true story, these fellow servants would have no doubt followed the sequence of Matthew chapter 18 verses 15 to 20. They would have seen this unforgiving servant. They would have gone to him. Then they would have taken two or three with them. Then they would have told it to the whole assembly and then they would have put him out if he didn't respond. Let's assume that if we put the whole chapter in the context and this were a real story, that these fellow servants would have done all they could to get the guy to do what was right and forgive the debt, whether or not the fellow paid it back.
But apparently they have exhausted that capacity. And this servant who is determined to get his due out of this guy is resistant to all their efforts. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, apparently they've seen it firsthand. They're witnesses to it. They've been involved in the process. They did what only thing they had left. They were very sorry. I love that.
There's two things in here that stand out and I just would mention them to you. One, there was one servant who was unforgiving and there were servants who were sorry about that. May I suggest to you that these people are acting in accord with the new creation. This is the majority kind of attitude of those who have been forgiven. They are forgivers. The other is sort of an isolated case from here to there, but the normality, the commonness of God's forgiven people is that they are concerned to be forgivers. And so here you have the rest of the believing people who are sorry about this because they know what they have been forgiven and they know the standard God has established and they know how God longs for forgiveness and they understand the holiness of His law and they understand the unity of His family and they understand the richness of fellowship and so they are sorry. It's a strong word for sorry.
Svoedra means excessively grieved, violently grieved. They are very distressed and this is a beautiful thing when Christians become concerned about another Christian sin. They are violently excessively grieved about this because there's a lack of response to the law of God and the will of God and the way of God that's disrupting the fellowship. And what do they do? This group in their sorrow came and told unto their Lord all that was done.
What do you do when you've done all the steps of discipline and the person hasn't responded? Then where do you go? You go to the Lord, don't you? I see this as these people coming before God with a broken heart.
It's a beautiful picture. If believers would be this concerned about each other's sinfulness, oh what a healing thing that would be in the fellowship. They go to the presence of the King. It assumes in my mind they've already been to the servant and been unsuccessful in getting him to respond. And it says that they came and told their Lord. And the word there is a strong word for told. They gave them a careful, detailed outline of everything. They must have gone through the whole process. It's not just a simple word for told, but a complex one.
They told them everything that had gone on. No doubt they recited the whole process to the King and said, we've tried everything we can to settle this thing and we just come to you as a last resort. We are so sad about this unforgiving servant. That's God's people going to the Lord in prayer about a sinning brother or sister. And I really believe we have the same responsibility to take that to the Lord that they did.
Well, their response was grief. What was the response of the King? Verse 32, then his Lord, after He had called him and said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou besoughtest me.
Stop there. What's God's attitude? He comes to him and says, O you wicked servant.
Now some people get nervous here. They say, oh, can't be a Christian. Can't be a Christian. God would never say that to a Christian.
Oh, what is wickedness? Sin. Do Christians sin? Would God say to a Christian, oh, you sinful person?
Yes. There's no problem here of that. You're acting in a wicked manner. One sin has constituted wickedness. And so the Lord is simply affirming what is true about the guy. You are a sinful person.
All unrighteousness is sin, you wicked servant. And then He affirms the basic principle of the whole parable again. I forgave you all that debt. And you can underline that again. That is the interpretive key to the whole thing. I forgave you all that debt. He doesn't back off and say, boy, it must not have worked or maybe the transaction never was made or whatever.
No. He reaffirms the reality of that full forgiveness. Because you begged me.
And that adds another ingredient. Back in verse 26, He fell down. He worshiped. He said, have patience.
I'll do my best. And here we find added to that that at the same time He begged. Here is a broken person aware of his sin, brought to conviction, pleading for God to be merciful. And it was out of that pleading that he was saved and forgiven and loosed from the debt and I think it was a real forgiveness.
And that is the heart of the whole thing. He says, I forgave thee all that debt because thou besoughtest me. And then the next verse we find, shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant? The point is, if the first forgiveness wasn't legitimate, the second point is meaningless. Is He saying to him, if my forgiveness didn't work for you, then maybe yours doesn't need to work for somebody else?
No. He has to be legitimate in the first forgiveness and that's the substance on which the second forgiveness is built. Shouldn't you have forgiven your fellow servant or had compassion on him as I had pity on you? Lenski calls this a moral monstrosity, that anybody should be so forgiven and unable to forgive someone else. Look at verse 33 for a moment. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion? And then he uses the word pity.
This is a beautiful thought. It isn't that he said to him, now you should have given the guy the opportunity to pay back the debt. I mean, you should have let him work it off in freedom without going into prison.
I mean, you should have sought out justice some other way and gotten your justice. No, he doesn't say that. He says you should have had compassion and pity, just like I did. And how did he have compassion? He had compassion, loosed him from the debt and what? Wrote it off, absorbed the loss, forgave him. That is the most liberating thing there is. It is utterly liberating. Somebody owes you something, they've done something to hurt you, they've done something to irritate you, they've offended you, said something about you that wasn't true, said something about your wife that wasn't true or your husband or your kids or whatever and they've done something to hurt you and offend you and they've maybe done something to defraud you economically or property-wise or whatever and you're going to let that thing burn in you or you're going to get your due?
No. Just have compassion. It's what you should have done because that's what was done for you when you pled for forgiveness. Verse 34, and now we're really getting down to the nitty-gritty, folks. And his Lord was angry. And here are people who get nervous again. They say, oh, this can't be a Christian. Is the Lord angry with a Christian?
Sure. The Lord gets angry every time you sin. Don't you think so? What makes him angry? Sin makes him angry. And if he wasn't angry, there's something wrong with his holy nature. He always gets angry about sin. That's a built-in response.
That's a built-in response. The Lord has holy indignation against evil, even in your life and mine. And he was angry and he delivered him to the tormentors, to the jailers, to the inquisitors till he should pay all that was due unto him. Now this can't be a Christian. What are we doing with this Christian turning him over to the inquisitors, the tormentors?
You don't think that could be a Christian? Look at Hebrews chapter 12 for a minute. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 5, have you forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto sons?
This is to children now of God, sons, believers, Christians. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, now get this one, and scourges every son whom he receives. Every Christian feels the tormentors.
Every Christian feels the scourging. Every Christian at some point in time is going to feel the inquisitors, putting the pressure until we confess and repent, right? If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chastens not? And if you be without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons? The Christian will be turned over to the inquisitor.
You say, now what is the point here? The point is that the inquisitor sort of puts you under the gun, under the stress, under the difficulty, under the pressure, under the chastening until you confess your sin, right? Till you confess your evil. And that's exactly what the Lord's chastening is to do. If you're not forgiving someone, the Lord will put you under chastening and in a sense he'll put the screws to you.
He'll apply the pressure to you until your response is right. And I think that's what he means at the end of verse 34 when it says, till he should pay all that was due. He could never pay the whole debt. Even an unbeliever couldn't pay the whole debt. So at that point, the physical parable cannot convey the full understanding of the spiritual truth. I think the intent of the parable is simply to say you put him under chastening pressure till he pays what should be paid in light of what he's done. And I believe that's all that's saying is that the Lord delivers us to chastening.
And all of us have experienced it. In 1 Corinthians it said among the Corinthians that some of them were weak. They literally lost their physical strength because of illness.
Some of them were sick, which seems perhaps even more severe, and some of them were dead. 1 John 5 says it's a sin and a death. 1 Corinthians 5, I believe, is referring to a believer who's literally put out of the church. Satan destroys his flesh. His spirit will be saved. I believe there is discipline and chastening to every son that God loves. And that's when he puts us in the hands of the inquisitors or the jailers or the tormentors, parabolically speaking, who apply the pressure to us until we admit our sin and confess our sin. And in this case, it is the sin of unforgiveness. If you wonder why there's trouble in your life and you wonder why things aren't going well and you feel the inquisitors or the tormentors in your life, you feel the pressure being applied and the chastening be applied, and you don't have the liberty and the joy and the freedom that you think you ought to have as a child of God, maybe you ought to look around in your life and find some unforgiving spirit. And as long as it's there and you're not forgiving the way you were forgiven by God magnanimously and compassionately and totally, you're not going to experience relief from these inquisitors.
Now, I think that's what the parable is saying plain and simple. The sinner will satisfy God. He'll pay what can be paid. He'll satisfy the debt when he is broken, repentant, contrite in heart, and steps into the sphere of obedience.
Friendship is restored. Chastening in a sense then makes us pay. That's what it does. Chastening makes us pay with a view not just to punishment as such but to refinement as a goal. You don't punish your child just with that in mind. When your child has something bad, you don't just whack them around so that you can deliver the punishment.
You do that with a view to changing their behavior, right? To modifying their behavior so they'll do right next time God is doing the very same thing. So as Christians, this is a strong, strong word to us.
It is a powerful passage and its summation is drawn in verse 35. So likewise, just as in the parable, shall my heavenly Father do also unto you...and again the you is the group of disciples who are believers, genuine ones. If you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother, his trespasses. And I promise you one thing, he's not saying this to unbelievers because there's one thing unbelievers can't do and that's they can't act like God toward each other and forgive. These are Christians. And he's simply saying just like in that story when a guy was forgiven and wouldn't forgive and he was punished, you've been forgiven and you better forgive or you're going to be chastened.
Two things stand out in this parable. One, we ought to forgive. Positive reason, because we have been what? Forgiven so much. Negative reason, we ought to forgive because if we don't, we're going to be chastened.
It's a very strong word and it's to us. Lord Herbert said, "'He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.'" One old saint of long ago said, "'Revenge indeed seems often sweet to men, but oh, it is only sugared poison, only sweetened gall and its aftertaste is bitter as hell. Forgiving, enduring love alone is sweet and blissful. It enjoys peace and the consciousness of God's favor. By forgiving, it gives away and annihilates the injury.
It treats the injurer as if he had not injured and therefore feels no more the smart and sting that he had inflicted. Forgiveness is a shield from which all the fiery darts of the wicked one harmlessly rebound. Forgiveness brings heaven to earth and heaven's peace into the sinful heart. Forgiveness is the image of God, the forgiving Father, and an advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world. Your unalverable duty is clear. As surely as we are Christians, men who have experienced great compassion, who see in every man a brother in Christ and are going forward to God's righteous judgment, so surely must we forgive.'"
End quote. A great commentator on the parables, William Arnot, wrote this, "'A traveler in Burma, after fording a certain river, found his body covered all over by a swarm of small leeches busily sucking his blood. His first impulse was to tear the tormentors from his flesh, but his servant warned him that to pull them off by mechanical violence would expose his life to danger. They must not be torn off lest portions remain in the wounds and become a poison.
They must drop off spontaneously and so they will be harmless. The native prepared a bath for his master by the concoction of some herbs and directed him to lie down in it. As soon as he had bathed in the balsam bath, the leeches dropped off. Each unforgiven injury, says Arnot, rankling in the heart is like a leech sucking the life blood. Mere human determination to have done with it will not cast the evil thing away.
You must bathe your whole being in God's pardoning mercy and these venomous creatures will instantly let go their hold and you will stand up free. You must bathe your whole being in God's pardoning love." That's the parable. You must see how much you have been forgiven. We can stand around praying for the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, but we'll experience it when we learn to forgive, won't we? Three stages in forgiveness. Stage one, suffering.
Suffering creates the condition that brings the need for forgiveness. Somebody does something to hurt you. You suffer.
You're offended. You're hurt. Second, surgery. Surgery. Here is the inner response where the forgiver performs spiritual surgery in his memory, just like God did, who remembers our sins no more. Sure you suffered and now you're going to do surgery and you're going to cut out of your mind all of those things. And you do that by the power of God and the meditation on His forgiveness.
Thirdly, starting over. Forgiveness is complete when alienated people are fully reconciled. Now when you forgive, it doesn't mean that you forget. Our minds hang on a long time, don't they? It doesn't mean that you excuse the sin or the wrong.
It does mean that you end the cycle of pain and you restore the relationship. That's what our Lord is after. We're children in the family, beloved. We came in like children.
We have to be cared for like children, protected like children, disciplined like children. And we need to forgive each other because we're just human. And if we are a society of forgiving people, we'll be so unlike the world, won't we?
We are forgiven and we are to forgive. We're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John calls his current study, My Brother's Keeper.
Now back to something John said before the lesson. These lessons are made possible because of friends like you who benefit from John's teaching and you want to help others access it too. So thanks for supporting Verse by Verse Bible teaching on this radio station.
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Our web address again, gty.org. You can also mail your donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 71412. Or call us at 800-55-GRACE. Also keep in mind the Bible study tools available at our website, including all seven messages from John's current study, called My Brother's Keeper.
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All those study tools are affordably priced. You can order them now at gty.org. Or call us at 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television Sundays on DirecTV channel 378, and tune in tomorrow when John continues unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
