Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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The Parable Of The Unforgiving Servant
There was a man who owed the King an enormous debt - one that was impossible ever to pay. Even all of his possessions, indeed his very life would not be enough to pay the debt ...and if he lost his life, what would that avail him? The man came shaking in fear before the King and said, "Lord have mercy on me! I know that I owe a debt that I cannot pay. Please bear with me. I want the account to be settled but I don't know how. The King had compassion on him and in mercy paid the debt himself, setting the man free.
Some years later, the same man was wronged by someone in his church....deeply wronged and his family treated with disrespect so that he was faced with a person who owed him an apology. However, the feelings of the man were so hurt that he couldn't forgive this person. Instead, he became bitter and left the church, never again to darken its doors. Moreover, he did harm to the church - in fact to The Church by his unforgiveness.
What will the King, our Lord, do? Will He banish this man to outer darkness for eternity? No. He has already forgiven this man and set him free. How beggarly is this man who was forgiven so much and yet not only withholds forgiveness, but continually adds to the wrong by wrongs of his own!
For further discussion on the "sacredness" to some of their feelings and how they hide in them as an excuse for serious sin, see @Such_are_you's recent post, "God Is Mean".
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Comments (6)
Thank you. This reminding of a parable has come with impeccable timing. :) God Bless.
I agree w/ your assessment that people hide behind their hurts and their feelings and use them as a cloak to justify their behavior and make excuses for not following through on God's will for them. I've done that, and I've also been on all sides of that church hurt issue. However, right away we have John's words in I John 5 that tells us God's commandments are not burdensome for the Christian because we are given the power to fulfill them through the indwelling Holy Spirit; therefore we have no excuses for disobedience.
Augustine ~ "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt."
We need to take care in reading parables. Prior to the parable of the unforgiving servant is Peter's wanting to restrict forgiveness based on his human reasoning/impulses... ~ "How many times, do I have to forgive, Lord. I mean I've already forgiven him seven times! Surely that's plenty, isn't it?" – but our Lord makes it clear that in the Kingdom economy that is not plenty and that if we are not forgiving others as God has forgiven us (70 times 7, in other words perfect forgiveness, no limits), then that may very well be a sign we've never really known the extent of our sin debt to God, and at best we do not yet really know the depth of the love, mercy, grace and forgiveness of God – and at worst we may not actually be saved at all. Hence the servant ends up being jailed until he could pay the debt (which we know would be impossible). The parable is given to us out of the mercy of God, to give us the opportunity to be examining ourselves, to see if we are in the faith. We're to be holy as God is holy, and we can't dumb down the commandments to make them more palatable, or to lessen in any way God's demands on us.
Jesus said, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
Our forgiving others isn't the root of God's forgiveness of us, but it is certainly some of the fruit we should be bearing as born again children of God ~ as those who have known the manifold mercies of God and those who have the Spirit indwelling us, we are empowered to forgive one another as God in Christ forgave us. If we have a continuing pattern of not forgiving, if we keep making excuses and keep harboring bitter unforgiveness, then we seriously have to question whether we are truly God's children. Unforgiveness is not the way we learned Christ. I write this with soberness, seeing the great plank in my own eye.
Matthew 18:32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
@naphtali_deer@xanga - No excuse for disobedience. Yes, that's practically the whole of what I intended. A post written hastily often is full of holes - as this one is. The thought for this post came from a lesson at VBS yesterday. I was taken by the wickedness of the servant who was forgiven so much....At the same time, the thought of forgiveness withheld in church disputes, etc. came to me as a great discrepancy when we have been forgiven of an unpayable debt. I can see why so many look at the sin of professed believers and begin to doubt the salvation of the same. That, of course, can be an explanation. However, it is even more despicable to have believed and accepted God's forgiveness and been born again, then to treat another in an ungodly manner.
I have even been that person. There is no peace when sin is eating away at us. So I wrote this hoping to help someone see that the cost of swallowing pride and confessing is far less than the cost of keeping hold of it.
@Jackelin_Noel@xanga - I am always glad when God can use my feeble attempts to write something helpful.
@quest4god - I've also been that person and have known that same lack of peace.
For example, several years ago someone came to me to ask forgiveness, and I balked at that, but God made me willing to do so as He convicted me and began to show me the depth of my sinfulness and the wonder of His love and forgiveness – to get me to consider how hard it was for me to forgive that person's small sin against me, and then in contrast how amazing it was that God forgave all my sins for Jesus' sake. And then I couldn't help but forgive. That particular event was the springboard for me to begin to know God and His love for me in deeper and deeper ways. Romans 8:28 - "all things" do include church hurts.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - Yes, I know. God is SO good!