Forgivenness, Prayer And Sin

John Wesley very wisely replied, then sir, I hope you never sin. There's a definite connection between forgiveness and prayer and sin. In fact, that's what Jesus had to say in Matthew chapter 6. I'm going to begin in verse 11 because all of this is tied together.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Not every translation has that benediction. It comes from something David said back in Chronicles. There's nothing in it that's unbiblical.

I think it belongs, but we won't make a new denomination over it. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

One of the strangest things in the family of God is the unwillingness of some people either to ask for forgiveness or to give forgiveness. I've pastored three churches. I've been the chairman of the board of a mission agency.

I have been the director of a radio ministry. I've worked with three parachurch organizations and three different churches, and it's remarkable to discover there are people who will not ask for forgiveness or will not grant forgiveness. Now the petition says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And so all I'm going to say today is simply this. The next time you find it difficult to ask for forgiveness or to grant forgiveness, remember this request. Because if you consider this simple request, what is before it and what is after it, these considerations will, I think, help us to be a forgiving people.

I saw a sign on the front of a church building in their display board. Some of these are not worth reading, but this one was great. It says, Christians are forgiven, forgiving, and for giving.

That's true. Some folks who profess to be Christians know nothing about that. What are the considerations then that come to us out of this request? And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Well, the next time you have a difficult time with forgiveness, just consider the blessedness of forgiveness. David said that, didn't he? Psalm 32. Oh, the blessedness of the man or the woman whom God has forgiven.

Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute iniquity. The blessedness of forgiveness. David went for almost a year in an unforgiving spirit, and then God dealt with him, and David was forgiven.

God, in His grace, forgives. God, in His government, says, you're going to reap what you've sown. Forgiveness is not cheap.

The most expensive thing in the world, from God's point of view, is forgiveness. It cost Him His Son. And from our point of view, it's the most expensive thing.

If we are an unforgiving people, we're going to pay for it. It's sad to say, even after we've been forgiven, we reap what we've sown. I can remember hearing Dr. William Culbertson, the godly president of the Moody Bible Institute, so often say in his praying, and, Lord, from the consequences of forgiven sin, deliver us.

Consider the blessedness of forgiveness. Now, the word forgive means to send away. I like that.

Just send away. As far as the east is from the west, which you can't measure. You can measure from north to south.

You can't measure from east to west. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

The image may go back to the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat. Remember the high priest had those two goats. One was slain.

The other one was the scapegoat, and the priest put his hands on that goat and confessed the sins of the people, and then a man took that goat out, and they never saw it again. To forgive means to send away, but a price has to be paid for God to forgive. Little children have the idea that parents, doesn't cost anything to forgive.

You left your bicycle in the driveway, and dad backed over it. Well, I'm sorry, dad, but somebody's going to pay for that. The dog buries the Volkswagen.

Somebody has to pay for this, and that's why the Scripture says in Isaiah 53, three times, that Jesus bore, carried away, our transgressions. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

That's verse 6, and verses 11 and 12, He bare our transgressions. So to forgive means to send away, and it's gone, and you never see it again. Now, you may disagree with my terminology, but I think you'll agree with my theology.

As I see it, there are three aspects to forgiveness in the Scriptures. There is final forgiveness, there is fellowship forgiveness, and there's family forgiveness. And when you keep these distinctions, it sort of helps you.

Final forgiveness, that's what the Lord gave me when I trusted Christ as my Savior. I don't know how many times I have pointed people to Colossians chapter 2, verse 13, having forgiven you all trespasses. You knew that verse was there.

A lady came to Dr. Ironside one day, and she said, I believe that when Jesus died, He died for my past sins, but not for my future sins. And very, very patiently and lovingly, Dr. Ironside said, Madam, how many of your sins were passed when Jesus died? We know that the work done on Calvary was an eternal work. Through the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself up to God.

He purchased eternal redemption. And eternal is not limited by time. And when Jesus died for me, He died for all of my sins, but He did something more.

Colossians 2, verse 13 says, having forgiven you all trespasses. And I'm liable to say, but wait a minute, Lord, the next time I do something, Your law is right there to condemn me. So verse 14 says, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Not only were my sins nailed to the cross, but the law was nailed to the cross. And now the very law that would condemn me, He has fulfilled. That's final forgiveness.

Now Jesus told a beautiful parable about this. Luke chapter 7. You know the setting. One of the Pharisees invited Jesus home to dinner.

This was often done on the Sabbath day after the synagogue service. And so He went to the man's house to eat. And as you know, houses were open, and the people who were not invited to a feast could stand outside and watch.

It's not a lot of fun for the people eating, perhaps, but if you have nothing else to do, you can stand outside and watch people eat. And a woman came in. A woman with a bad reputation came in, and she stood behind Him, and she wept, and she washed His feet with her tears, and she kissed His feet, and she anointed them with fragrant ointment.

Of course, He was reclining, you see, on a cushion, and she could stand right there at His feet and pour out her very best. Her tears, the ointment, her love. Now, a Pharisee didn't like this.

I suppose you wouldn't either. If you invited some important people to your house for dinner, and a prostitute came walking in and started putting on that kind of a display, you might be unhappy about it. And Simon the Pharisee was.

He says to himself, he wouldn't dare say it to the Lord, but he says to himself in verse 39, this man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. Not I am a sinner. She is a sinner.

Now, Simon didn't think Jesus knew what he thought, but he did. Nobody ever had to tell Jesus anything about anybody. He knew.

And so he said to Simon, I have something to say to you. And he said, well, teacher, say it. Of your unspoken thoughts, you are the master.

Of your spoken thoughts, you are the servant. Of your written thoughts, you are the slave. Be careful what you think, and what you say, and what you write.

This man was not expecting any trouble. Now, here's the beautiful parable. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors.

One owed 500 pence, the other 50, and when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him more? And Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, you have rightly judged.

Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman? The answer, of course, is no. He didn't see her the way Jesus saw her. In fact, he didn't even see himself.

This man was blind spiritually. He didn't see himself, he didn't see the woman, and he didn't really see Jesus, this man, if he were. Do you see this woman? I entered your house.

You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss. You see, there are sins of omission as well as sins of commission.

You can be condemned for what you don't do as well as what you do do. You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil.

Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. Sent away. For she loved much.

Now we aren't saved by love. We're saved by faith. What he's saying is, her love for me is the evidence that she's experienced forgiveness.

Keep that in mind. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. Now he's not talking here about amount of sin.

Here's somebody who owes 500 pence, here's somebody who owes 50 pence. How many sins do we have to commit to be forgiven? You're hanging over a chasm holding on to a chain of ten links. How many links have to break before you fall? Just one.

You're out in Denver, Colorado, and you climb up on a mountain peak. You go up Pikes Peak or somewhere, and a friend of yours is down in a coal mine. And God says, touch the stars, both of you.

Which of you is going to have an easier time? See, we measure sins, don't we? She's a prostitute, but I'm a Pharisee. Simon's sins were sins of omission, hers were sins of commission, but hers had been forgiven. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven.

And those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? Every Jew knew only God could do that. Then he said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace. Literally it says, go into peace.

From now on you live in peace, not in war. You've been fighting God, now you're in peace. You have peace in your heart, you're forgiven.

This is final forgiveness. And if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you have experienced final forgiveness. One Saturday morning, I was sitting in my study at home, and the devil was assailing me.

Now, you don't have this experience, but I do. He was accusing me. Does he ever do that to you? Does the devil ever come with his shovel and start digging things up? And so I just sat with my Bible and began to turn the pages to find out what God had done with my sins.

You know, a great place to start is the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 118, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. He cleanses my sins.

Isaiah 118. And then I followed the references and came to Isaiah 38, 17. You have cast my sins behind your back.

That means he doesn't see them anymore. Isaiah 43, 25, he blots out my sins. He repeats that in Isaiah 44, 22.

I have blotted out your transgressions as a cloud. God takes the record and just blots out my sins. But he goes beyond that.

Then he writes across that record, righteous in Jesus Christ. That's justification. Isaiah 55, 7, I will abundantly pardon.

And I might say to the Lord, but Lord, pardon. You know, they still keep the record when you're pardoned. And you get in trouble again, you're back in the penitentiary.

God says, no. Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 34, your sins I will remember no more. God not only forgives my sins, he destroys the record.

I may have told you this story, Roy Gustafson tells it, about the man with the Rolls-Royce who went from England to France on a holiday, and he had car trouble. Where he was in France, he could not find anyone who understood a Rolls-Royce. And so he phoned or cabled back to Britain to the Rolls-Royce people, told them where he was and what the trouble was.

They flew a mechanic over. Can you imagine AAA doing that? They flew a mechanic. A fellow fixed the thing, got in the plane, flew back.

All during the holiday, the man said, I'm gonna have a terrific bill when I get home. He got home, waited, no bill came. So he wrote to the Rolls-Royce people and told them where he was and what they had done.

And he said, how much do I owe you for repairing my car? You know what they did? They wrote a letter back that read like this, dear sir, we received your communique. We have no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce. That's justification, folks.

When God forgives, he forgives. He said, I'm gonna remember your iniquities no more. Now, it doesn't mean that God puts them out of his mind.

It means he doesn't hold them against us. God can't forget things the way I do. I forget things.

So do you. It means that God doesn't hold him against us anymore. Satan shows up and says, look at that fellow, where is he? Now, you remember, God said, yeah, he did do that, but I don't hold it against him anymore.

It's forgotten, as far as I'm concerned. Micah tells us he buries our sins in the depths of the sea. Micah chapter 7 and verses 18 and 19.

That's final forgiveness. Praise God. Now, the next is family forgiveness or fellowship forgiveness.

Let's start there. Fellowship forgiveness. After I've gotten into the fellowship of God, if I should sin, what do I do? What breaks my fellowship with God? So, according to 1st John chapter 1, I confess it.

Now, to confess does not mean just to admit it. It means to admit it and be sorry for it. To confess means to be honest about it.

The word means to say the same thing. 1st John 1.9 says, if we say the same thing about our sins that God says about them, he's faithful to his promise and just toward his Son who died for that sin. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1st John 1 talks about honesty in the Christian life. Three times it says, if we say, if we say, it's a dangerous thing to lie to God. That's a fellowship forgiveness.

Now, I need fellowship forgiveness. I need to come to God regularly and say, I lost my temper, Lord. I'm sorry.

I confess it. He forgives. Why? If I regard iniquity in my heart, what? The Lord will not hear me.

Now, that word regard doesn't mean I know it's there. It means I know it's there and I approve of it. That's what that word regard means in Psalm 66.18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, if I know there's iniquity in my heart and I approve of it and I defend it, I can pray all I want to.

God's not going to answer. And so I've got to have fellowship forgiveness. Now, our Lord is talking in Matthew 6 about family forgiveness.

We're members of a family. Our Father. Not my father.

I'm concerned about these Christians who are isolated from God's people. You know, Jesus did found the church. I remember a man who was looking for support for a work he wanted to do and he went to see a pastor friend of mine.

And my pastor friend did not pastor a church that supported Lone Rangers. This man was not under a board. He was not accountable to anybody.

And so my pastor friend said, well, I'm sorry, we just can't support you. Now, if you were a member of a bonafide church someplace and under a board with some authority and some accountability, we might consider it. He got angry.

The man said, well, yours isn't the true church anyway. I belong to the true church, the invisible church. And my friend quietly said, then get your invisible money from the invisible church.

Anymore, the invisible church is the church that meets on Sunday nights. Family forgiveness. My Lord is saying, don't you have the strange idea that you can walk with your father but be at odds with your brother or your sister? That's why he added that little postscript after the Lord's Prayer was ended.

Family forgiveness. Now look, if I contemplate the blessedness of forgiveness, blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is pardoned. Blessed is the one to whom the Lord will not impute a nickel.

He will not write it on his account. If forgiveness is such a blessed thing, why don't I want other people to have it? That doesn't make sense. And so our Lord is saying, if you've experienced forgiveness, then you got to share it with others.

If you've experienced the blessing of forgiveness, then when you need to be forgiven, you better talk to God about it. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, those who have indebted themselves to us. There's a second consideration.

It's just the opposite of what I've talked about. The blessedness of forgiveness, the wretchedness of sin. Jesus compares sin to a debt.

Now sin is pictured in many ways in Scripture. It's pictured as disease, who heals all your diseases, forgives all your iniquities. It's pictured as darkness.

It's pictured as defilement, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. But here it's pictured as a debt. I don't like debt.

When I used to do premarital counseling before marrying people, I used to counsel the couple, says, now look, live within your means. But when your outgo exceeds your income, then your upkeep is your downfall. And it just isn't worth it.

Stay out of excruciating debt. I don't like debt. There are times when you go into debt signing up for an automobile or paying off a mortgage.

That's kind of a business deal sort of a thing, if you don't go out of your range. But my Lord is saying, look, when you have an unpaid spiritual debt, you're in debt to God because you've sinned, or you're in debt to another because you won't forgive. Now, maybe that person doesn't even know that they've sinned against you, but you're harboring this down inside.

You have made, says the Lord, an obligation for which you are paying interests that really cost. And if you're going to get an enemy, get a good one. They're very expensive.

Don't just have some ordinary person. Get a really good one because you're going to pay for it. I don't know who it was who said, it may have been Ken Hubbard, who said that if you're going to nurse a grudge, your medical bills will be high.

And some people enjoy nursing grudges. I suppose in every church there are people who haven't forgiven this one or that one. Or perhaps we've sinned against the Lord and haven't come and said, Lord, I was stubborn.

Now, you see, we Christians are not stubborn. We have convictions. And we don't lose our tempers.

We have a holy wrath. And we don't gossip. We just share prayer burdens.

Oh, really? If you're having a hard time forgiving somebody else or coming for forgiveness, just consider the wretchedness of sin. The longer we carry this debt, the worse it gets. Our president is quite concerned about the national debt and hopes to do something about it.

I wish him well. Economists are concerned about personal debt. I heard a man say he was going to give his wife plastic surgery.

She was going to take all of her credit cards away from her. But there are a lot of people who are paying 18, 23, 24 percent interest on, I mean, they bought things they didn't need with money they didn't have for purposes they couldn't fulfill. And people are concerned about this, and rightly so.

What about spiritually? Is there something in my life that just keeps building up, building up, because I have not forgiven? There's a third consideration, and this ties in with verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread and, he connects the two, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He connects forgiveness with daily bread.

Why? Here's the third consideration. The goodness of God. The Romans chapter 2 verse 4, Paul makes an amazing statement.

He says, it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. You know, for years I thought it was the badness of man that led us to repentance. When we see how bad we are, we come and repent.

Paul says, no, that's true. There's a certain amount of truth to that, but it's the goodness of God. What brought the prodigal son home? There he was in the pig pen, taking care of the pigs, hungry and dirty, and he'd lost his ring, and he'd lost his shoes, and he was down to bare necessities in his dress, and he was hungry, and he smelled, and he was dirty.

He was a Jew taking care of pigs. He wanted to live high on the hog, and he ended up living with the hogs. What brought him home? He'd look in the mirror and say, boy, you're a mess.

Well, I'm so bad, I gotta go. No, no. He said, you know, the lowest servant in my father's house has bread enough and to spare.

My father is good. I've got a good father. He's generous, and if I go home, he'll be good to me.

It wasn't the badness of man, it was the goodness of his father that brought him home. I don't know about you, but when I contemplate the goodness of God, it breaks my heart. You get up in the morning, and you can move.

You look out the window and see a sunrise. You can see, and you turn the stereo on, and you can hear, and you pick up a book, and you can read, and you sit down at a table, and you can eat, and it digests and gives you strength, and you've got work to do, and you have hopes to fulfill. That's the goodness of God.

Did that ever break your heart? I'm glad I wasn't Nathan, David's chaplain, because David had a temper. He was a redhead, you know. That's right.

He was ruddy in complexion. He had a temper. A fellow wouldn't give him some food one day, and so David rallied his army and was going to go kill a man, until Abigail came along and knocked some sense into his head.

Now David has sinned, and Nathan knows that he's sinned. How do you go tell the king, hey, you've committed adultery, and you've murdered a man? You want the job? So Nathan did a beautiful thing. He was a smart man, good preacher.

He told a story. If you can't reach him with a sermon, tell him a story. He told a story about a sheep.

Oh, that was smart, because David had been a shepherd. He said, you know, there was a rich man in this town. There was also a poor man, and the poor man had one little ewe lamb.

It was like a pet that slept with the family and ate at their table, and they loved that little ewe lamb. A rich man had all kinds of flocks and herds, but a stranger came, or a visitor came to the rich man's house, and he wanted something to eat. And you know what that rich man did? He didn't take one of his lambs.

He went to the poor man's house and took his lamb and killed it. Oh, David's anger got aroused. It's so easy to be convicted about other people's sins.

He said, that man shall pay fourfold. That's what the law said. David passed his own sentence.

He did pay fourfold. And then Nathan looked at him and said, you're the man. But he went on to say, you know, God was good to you.

God called you out of the sheepfolds. God anointed you and gave you a crown and a throne. He gave you wives.

And he would have given you more if you'd asked for it. The goodness of God. And David said, I have sinned.

What brought him to repentance? The goodness of God. That's what James talks about in James chapter 1. He talks about temptation. Don't say when you're tempted, God's tempting you.

It's the devil that's doing it or the flesh that's doing it. You're tempted when you are drawn away by your own lust. Then he goes on to say, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

Why does he connect temptation with goodness? Because the more I realize the goodness of God, the less I'll succumb to temptation. Next time I'm tempted, if I'll just say, God's good to me. What can the devil give me? What can the flesh give me? What can the world give me? God is good to me.

The next time you have a hard time with forgiveness, just consider the goodness of the Lord. Now, we must go on because he connects verse 12 with verse 13. We're going to consider verse 13, Lord willing, tomorrow, tomorrow morning.

Verse 12, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Consider, consider the blessedness of forgiveness, consider the wretchedness of sin, being in debt, consider the goodness of God, and consider the wickedness of Satan. Now, why would he tie together forgiveness and the devil? Well, turn to Ephesians 4. Paul is addressing the church about everyday practical living, getting along with each other.

And he ends his admonitions in verse 32, and you know this verse, And be kind to one another, tender-hearted. Now, the opposite of be kind is be unkind, and the opposite of tender-hearted is hard-hearted. Forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Now, why in the world does he tell them at the end of this chapter to forgive one another? Well, if you look back in verse 27, he says, Nor give place to the devil. Did you know that an unforgiving spirit gives the devil a beachhead in your life? Now, the devil cannot work in my life unless I give him a beachhead. That word place means an opportunity, a beachhead.

The enemy soldiers sneak behind the lines and establish an area that they're in control. That's what the devil does, but I have to let him in. Now, how do you give the devil a beachhead? Well, look at verse 25, Therefore putting away lying.

You get a lie in your life, you start covering up a lie, you've given the devil a beachhead. 26, Anger. Be angry and do not sin.

There is a righteous anger. There's an unrighteous anger. But anger, you harbor anger, you're angry at somebody, you're giving the devil a beachhead.

Verse 28, Stealing. Verse 29, Corrupt Speech. Verse 31, Bitterness, Wrath, Anger, Clamor.

Not a very interesting list of sins, is it? Clamor means quarreling, loud, noisy quarreling. Evil speaking. If I don't like somebody, I'll say something evil about him.

Malice. Malice means I'm harboring something down inside. Now, all of these things hinder forgiveness and they give the devil a beachhead.

This is why the Lord connects the two. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation. If I am not forgiven and if I do not impart forgiveness, I'm just asking the devil to move in.

I've seen this happen in marriages where a husband or a wife or both are unforgiving. I harbor things. I heard about a man who came down to breakfast on his 25th wedding anniversary and looked at his wife and said, just think, 25 years, if I had to do it over again, I'd marry you.

And she said, oh no, you wouldn't. That's revealing. You see, if I have an unforgiving spirit, I'm saying to the devil, come on in, come into our home, come into our marriage, come into our church.

Be careful what you say in board meetings. A friend of mine was pastoring a church and God was blessing remarkably. I mean, people were being converted, not just every Sunday but during the week, and it was just thrilling what God was doing.

And they had to build. They had to build an educational plant to house the growing Sunday school or else lose everything. You know, if you don't put the grain in the barn, you lose it.

I was a man on the board, didn't want to spend the money. And this pastor told me the story himself. He just recently went home to glory himself, but he said to me in that meeting, this man got up and said, you will build this building over my dead body.

And you know what they did? Two days later he was dead. Now God doesn't always do that. I'm glad we'd have empty pews.

We'd also have empty pulpits. So it's a warning to me, be careful what you say. Next time you're having a problem with forgiveness, you can't forgive somebody or you won't come to God for forgiveness.

Just remember the wickedness of Satan. He'll use that for a beachhead. In a department, in a school, or in a church, or in a home, he just quietly moves in and says, ah, here's a hard heart.

Here's an unforgiving spirit. That's my kind of person. Have you read the Screwtape Letters lately? C.S. Lewis's masterpiece? Read it.

He tells us how Satan works, especially in attitudes. Now there's a fifth consideration. Before I give in to an unforgiving spirit, I'd better consider the blessedness of forgiveness, and I'd better consider the awfulness and the wretchedness of sin, carrying that debt and watching it grow, grow, grow.

And consider the goodness of the Lord. Oh, how good He is to me. And consider the wickedness of Satan.

I don't want to give him a beachhead. And finally, consider the oneness of God's people, our Father. That's why Jesus adds, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. You see, we're one in Christ. We belong to each other.

I don't even know your names, but we belong to each other, and we need each other, and we affect each other. I just finished doing a book on Joshua. And when I was studying that passage about Achan in Joshua 7, here's one soldier.

Joshua said, Don't touch the spoil. The spoil of Jericho belongs to God. This is our first victory, and the firstfruits belong to the Lord.

Don't touch the spoil. But Achan, when nobody was watching, saw a garment and some gold and some silver. Now, he couldn't help that.

He couldn't help seeing that. His sin was not in seeing it. His sin was in looking at it the second time.

There's some things I can't help seeing. There they are. I'm waiting for the weather to come on the television, and here comes an ad that is almost obscene.

I can't help seeing that. I can help watching it. Some years ago, something happened in a cable system, and people found themselves watching X-rated movies on their TV screen.

And people began to phone the cable people. But interestingly enough, all of them phoned after the program was over. See, we can't help seeing a beautiful woman, or a handsome man, or a picture.

We can't help seeing. We can't help the second look. And so here's Achan going through, you know, taking care of his soldier duties, and he sees it.

He should have just kept on going. Let your eyelids look right on. Don't look to the right hand or to the left.

But he looked again. He coveted. Just like Eve, she saw, she desired, she took.

Just like David, he saw, he desired, he took. But the interesting thing is this. They lost the battle at Ai.

Joshua goes back and falls before the Ark of the Lord, and spends all day crying out in prayer, Oh God! Why? Why? Finally, God says, Get up! Now, I know the Bible says pray without ceasing. That means keeping an attitude of prayer. There's a time to quit praying and start doing something.

He said, Get up! Get up! Now, he didn't say Achan has sinned. He said Israel has sinned. Israel has sinned.

There is a oneness to God's people, and what one does affects all of us. This morning I was reading in my devotional time, 1st Corinthians 5, where Paul deals with the incestuous member of the Corinthian church, about whom they were bragging. He said, I want to warn you, a little yeast will pollute the whole lump.

So all it takes is one unforgiving church member, or board member, or an unforgiving pastor, teacher, whatever, and poison begins to spread. The atmosphere changes. Cast out the scorner, and strife will cease, wrote Solomon.

I experienced that in one of our churches. It took five years to clean out poison. And folks, once it was gone, it was like heaven on earth.

Board meetings that used to take three hours were 45 minutes long. Now, says Jesus, you're not earning your forgiveness. He doesn't say, if you forgive, then God will forgive you.

You'll earn some brownie points. No, no. What he's saying is, if you have a repentant heart, you'll show it, not just by coming to God and saying, I confess my sin, but you'll show it by going to your brother or your sister and saying, I forgive you.

Matthew chapter 18. Now, you know this parable, but please allow me to hit some high points, and then we shall pray, and I trust go out to practice. Peter came to Jesus in verse 21, you find the record, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him, up to seven times? What a statement.

I'm not going to criticize Peter, I'd have done the same thing. Peter did not expect to sin against his brother. How often shall my brother sin against me? And Peter was not about just to give gracious forgiveness, as God does, having forgiven you all.

He said, I'll go up to seven. Now, the rabbis say three, but I'll be generous, I'll go up to seven. When you start counting how many times you forgive, you've not forgiven.

Do you want God to keep a record of how many times he's forgiven us? He'd need a computer. The Lord says, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times. That's 490.

Try to count that. Well, some folks would. I knew a man who was a deacon of a church, who actually kept a little pocketbook in which he wrote down things people said and did that he didn't like.

He was miserable, and his family was miserable. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants, and when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. That's an awful lot of money.

He was not able to pay. He was bankrupt. By the way, when I came with my debts, I was bankrupt.

But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children, and all that he had, that payment be made. You could do that back in those days, throw them all in debtor's prison. The servant, therefore, fell down before him, saying, Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.

What kind of talk is that? He couldn't live long enough to pay that much money back. See, he wasn't being honest. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion.

Perhaps he saw the children, the wife, released him and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred pence. That's a far cry from 10,000 talents.

He laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what you owe. He was trying to get enough money to start paying back, you see. This fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience with me, I'll pay you all.

But he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servant saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.

Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? His master was angry and delivered him to the torturers, oh my, until he should pay all that was due to him. So my Heavenly Father also will do to you, if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Now, he's not talking here about salvation.

You don't lose your salvation. It's not, this is not salvation. He's not talking about a kind of a general forgiveness.

He's talking about fellow servants, fellow brothers in the kingdom, forgiving each other. And what he's saying is simply this. You don't earn forgiveness, you don't deserve forgiveness, you've been forgiven.

There's a difference between receiving forgiveness, experiencing forgiveness, and sharing forgiveness. I fear there are, there are a lot of Christians who have received forgiveness, they've trusted the Lord, He's forgiven them, but the enormity of their sin and the greatness of God's grace has not yet gripped their hearts. There are times when we're going to have the Communion service in our church when it's very difficult for me to sing.

You know, we're singing a song. I just can't sing, because I realize how much the Lord's done for me. Now, there's a difference between being forgiven, sensing that in your heart, having been broken by it, and then sharing it with others.

And so this parable tells me that if I don't forgive my brother and my sister, I'll put myself in prison. I'll torture myself. Folks, it's not worth it.

You may lie in bed at night and think of all sorts of devious ways to get back at people who have hurt you. It's not worth it. Yeah, but you don't know what he did.

Hey, I know what I did to God. You know what? He forgave me. I was saved at the age of, well, just a few days short of my 16th birthday.

And, you know, when you're a teenager and you're a Christian, you know everything. And I went back to our home church, and I hurt my pastor. I really created problems for him.

I hurt him. Shortly after he left, another pastor came, but then we left the church. I went to a different church, but I was a big mouth, smart aleck.

God called me to preach. I started to preach, and, you know, nothing happened. Best kept secret in town.

I knew why. I had a debt to pay. I remember the day I got on the bus to go over to where he lived.

Usually that bus ride took about 25 minutes. Not that day. No trains.

No traffic. We were there. And I remember walking up the stairs and going to his upstairs apartment flat building, knocking on the door, and going in and apologizing.

Because I discovered it just wasn't worth it. Just wasn't worth it to harbor all of this down inside. And graciously, he forgave me.

And I'm sure he prayed for me. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Our Father.

Family forgiveness. What a blessing it is. Our Father and our God, I pray that you will turn your spotlight upon anything in our lives that keeps us from sharing your forgiveness.

And receiving your forgiveness because of our hardness of heart. And grant that as your family we shall be kind to one another. Tenderhearted.

We'll forgive one another because that's what you've done for us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.