Matthew-066

 

Today we continue to study the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 18:15-22, and we will also look at Luke 17:3-4, the parallel passage to this.

 

Forgive when a brother repents. Bring in others to help him repent

You recall that in Matthew chapter 18, the whole passage concerned sin, sin among Christians, sin in the church, and how to deal with it. And we saw also that if a brother repents, we are to forgive him. But if he does not repent, we are to take the matter before two or three witnesses, and if he still does not repent, we are to take the matter before the church. Now I would like us really to bear the Lord’s teaching in mind.

 

Talk it over with the leaders so that the offender may be asked to repent

Many times, when a brother or sister has sinned against us, we become so fed up with this and that very easily, we decide to quit the church altogether. And I don’t mean just to quit that particular church or this particular church, but to quit altogether, that is, not to go to church anymore. That is very unfortunate, and that is not the way to deal with the problem. By running away from the problem, the problem does not go away; the problem in fact becomes compounded, it becomes worse. You simply must deal with sin. If somebody has offended you in the church, you must have sufficient confidence in the church, in the brothers and sisters, in their sense of justice before the Lord, that they will straighten things out with you. So if somebody has offended against you, it is no solution simply to run away from the church. The church is there not to take sides with one person or against another person. Trust the fairness of the church, the brothers and sisters, and take the matter before two or three elders of the church or two or three brothers and sisters, and say, “Look, this brother or this sister has offended against me, has committed this sin.” Why don’t you do this? Why do you say, “I don’t go to church anymore.” That doesn’t solve any problem. That doesn’t help that person, it doesn’t help you, and it doesn’t help the church because the church doesn’t even know what happened. Take this matter to the church. Naturally, if you have no confidence in the fairness of the church, you won’t do this. But I hope you have sufficient confidence in the fairness of the church to give it a chance to see if they will deal with the matter fairly or not.

I find this is a very practical problem that the Lord is dealing with in Matthew 18 because so many people find that someone has care­lessly, or perhaps willfully offended them. And they say, “Okay, they offend me. I’m not going to church anymore.” Well, only one person has offended you, not the whole church. And if you are a Christian, you have as much right to be in the church as the other person. Why should you quit? I don’t understand this thinking at all. And some­times there are problems like this in the church and I don’t know anything about it. I seem to be the last one to know, whereas I could have intervened on your behalf if you are the offended party, and straightened the matter out. So the Lord deals with a very practical matter which happens so many times, where somebody offends you, and you decide to say, “Oh, all Christians are hypocrites so I don’t mind.” Are you a Christian or not? What do you mean all Christians are hypocrites?

Surely, if you have been offended against, take the matter to one of the elders, take the matter to one of the church officers, take the matter to the pastor, or even to any other brother and sister and say, “Look, this person has done this. I don’t think Christians should do that, should they?” And then the matter is set in motion. Someone will talk to that Christian and ask, “Why did you treat this brother or sister like this? Have you any reason? If not, you must repent of your action.” If that person then repents, the matter is finished. Then he is satisfied and you are satisfied. Everything is dealt with and there is no more problem. But if you let the disease fester in the church, the whole church will become sick. You must deal with this for the sake of Christ and for your own sake, as well as for the sake of the brother and sister.

 

“How many times must I forgive a repeat and repentant offender?”

But here, the Lord is dealing with another question. The question is this: Okay, this person has offended against me and he has repented. He has apologized and I forgive. Okay, I forgive him, but he does it again and again!” Now this is the question that the Lord wants to deal with. “How many times is he going to offend me and I keep saying, “Okay, I forgive you”? There must be a limit.”

So Lk. 17:3-4 reads like this:

 

The Lord says forgive seven times in a day – forgive limitlessly

Seven times a day?! Is there some kind of limit to this? You mean he steps on my shoes, steps on my toes seven times in a day and says, “Sorry.” And I say, “Okay.” And he steps again and he says, “Sorry”, and I say, “Okay.” Seven times? How many more times? He is going to wear my shoe out! And I’m still forgiving him? There must be some limit to this.

The Lord says, “Seven times if it happens.” Certainly, in saying “seven”, he doesn’t mean to say seven is the limit. Seven is a perfect number, as you know. In fact, if you can forgive a person seven times all in one day, you can certainly forgive him eight times or even ten times. By the time you reach seven, you have been able to forgive him that many times, you can certainly forgive him thereafter too. The next day, it goes back to zero and you start all over again to forgive him seven times a day. You do this every day but for how long a period? The Lord didn’t tell us. This forgiveness is going to go on and on every day. That is the Lord’s teaching. We are to be unlimited in our forgiveness to others.

 

How unforgiving are you?

Think for a moment, how unforgiving you or the average Christian might be. Someone offends you once, and you are blue or red in the face, or whatever color your face becomes when you get angry, and you decide, “That’s it! I will never talk with this nasty creature again! I shall never see the inside of a church again!” Only once, and that’s enough? That’s it? What happens to the seven times in a day? Our forgiveness is as limited as that? Why should we forgive? Why should we? “I mean, I never did anything against him, and he offends me? Why should I forgive him?”

So let us turn to Matthew 18:21-35, and we will read about the Lord’s teaching.

Now Peter here was thinking that he was quite generous. He thought seven times is not a bad figure because according to the Jewish rabbis, they said, “You can forgive a fellow once, twice and three times in the whole lifetime, but not the fourth time. Three is enough! That is the maximum. Finished! If the fellow keeps doing this kind of thing, that’s it! No more fourth time! That’s it!” And so Peter thought that if he doubles the number that the rabbis recommended, and in fact, a little bit over double to seven times, he was being extra gene­rous. The rabbis said three times is all in the whole lifetime, while remember, Luke was saying, “seven times in one day.” If you take that number through a lifetime, that will give you quite an astrono­mical figure! So the Lord says to Peter, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven (Mt. 18:22). Again, the figure is meant to be symbolic of a limitless number. If you can forgive a person seven times a day for say, seventy days, for two and a half months, that is pretty well without limit.

 

Why should we forgive?

And then the Lord goes on. Why should we forgive? Notice the con­nection of verse 23 to what goes before with the word “therefore.”

 

The Lord requires you to forgive from your heart

Notice the words, “from your heart” (v. 35). It’s not to say, “Okay, I’ve got to forgive you. After all, the Lord said so. So okay, I forgive. I forgive.” But the forgiveness is not from the heart. To forgive from the heart is done joyfully, “Right! Sure!” What we say in Chinese, shuang kuai – clean, absolute forgiveness, and not just grudgingly, which is: “Okay, but don’t do it again next time, huh! Next time I won’t be so generous with you.” The forgiveness from the heart is what the Lord requires.

Why should we forgive? The Lord explains why in this parable. I have touched upon this parable some time before, and I’m not going to deal with this parable in detail on these particular points because I want to turn our attention to some important principles of the Christian life. However, for the benefit of those who may not have heard me mention this parable previously, I will just very quickly give its outline.

 

The outline of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

The Lord himself is compared to the lord of a great kingdom, a great establishment, if you like. And one of his servants has so mis­managed his business that he is in debt to the tune of 10,000 talents.

 

The servant is condemned for mismanaging $1.5 billion

How much is 10,000 talents? If you had the RSV (Revised Standard Version Bible), it tells you in the margin, a talent was more than fifteen years’ wages of a laborer. How much is fifteen years’ wages of a laborer? If you take say, by the Canadian standard of living, because this amount makes no sense unless you deal with it according to our standard of living. How much does a laborer earn for one day in Canada? I suppose if you take it at a very low figure, let’s suppose a worker in Canada earns $30.00 a day, and I’m sure that most of them earn more than that. But suppose he earns $30.00 a day, and in a five-day week, he earns $150.00, and in a month he earns $600.00. So I suppose that a $30.00 work-day would be acceptable. Now, one talent is equivalent to more than fifteen years of work, that is equivalent to over 5,400 days of work.

To put it briefly, an average common worker earned one denarius a day, and 10,000 talents is equivalent to 50 million denarii. If you multiply by 30, the figure will take us to $1.5 billion! So you can get a good idea of what kind of figures we are talking about here. When we talk about this kind of money, billion dollars, it is the kind of finances that has to do with the state. I mean, Canada might for example as a state in its budget, talk about one billion dollars here and two billion dollars there, but no private individual can manage to talk about money in those figures.

All the high officers are called “servants of the king,” so this minister may be the finance minister, and he so mismanaged the govern­ment’s finances in some way, that he has put the government in deficit to the tune of $1.5 billion. That pretty well happens from time to time. And the king calls him to account and says, “What kind of a mess have you made with our government’s accounts? What have you done? As punishment for your sins, you and your family will be sold into slavery.” Maybe they should do that in modern countries too, maybe you will get better finance ministers if they realize that they might be sold into slavery if they mismanaged the government’s finances. That might not be a bad idea at all. But anyway, in the old days, this actually happened. Then the king called his finance minister to account for $1.5 billion deficit. And as punishment for submitting such a complete mess, he and his wife and his children were ordered to be sold as punishment. And he fell on his knees before his lord and begged him please to have mercy upon him, and promises he will repay. Notice his very ambitious words in v. 26, “and I will repay you everything.” I don’t know how he proposes to do that. Perhaps he thinks, “Give me another chance as finance minister and I will bring the finances to the tune of $1.5 billion of credit.”

 

His lord forgives him freely because he repents

I’m sure that no king is likely to want to give him another chance to make a second mess after he has made one mess already. But notice how generous this king is. This lord forgives his servant of his debt freely. He says, “All right, since you implore, since you repent, I freely forgive you your debts.” And he gives him another chance! He forgives him. He wipes out the debt. So this minister is extremely happy and goes out.

 

But he will not forgive a fellow servant for a very small debt

After a little while, he runs into a fellow servant who owes him one hundred denarii, we read here in verse 28. We know that if we work at thirty dollars equivalent to one denarius, this man is owing him quite a respectable sum of money, about $3,000. It is not to be sniggered at. Three thousand dollars is quite a considerable sum, but certainly nothing compared to $1.5 billion. So he grabs his fellow servant and says, “Look here! I want my three thousand dollars back!” And that man falls upon his knees and says, “Please, have pity upon me. I just don’t have three thousand in my pocket, but I will certainly repay you the three thousand.” Three thousand is possible to repay isn’t it? It’s still quite a sum that is within reach of the average working man given enough time. But he refused and he throws this man into prison. He had this man jailed over $3,000.

 

For not forgiving as his lord forgave him, he is delivered to the torturers

This news was reported back to the king, and the master is very angry with him, and summons this finance minister and says to him, “If I have forgiven you, shouldn’t you have forgiven your debtor? Shouldn’t you have done the same as I have to you?” Remember the Lord’s Prayer? “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That is when I was already dealing with this particular point.

But if we don’t forgive our debtors, neither will we be forgiven. Therefore this man has his original forgiveness revoked. And this is what we read in this passage. “The lord says to him, “You wicked servant, I forgive you all that debt because you besought me, and should you not have had mercy on all your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?” And in anger, (in wrath), (his) lord delivers him to the torturers.” That is what the word is there, “torturers,” until he should pay back the $1.5 billion, which means he will never be able to pay it back, most certainly not in jail!

 

The message of this parable is:

“Loss of grace”

The message of this parable is quite plain to us. It’s very easy to understand. It is what Prof. Eduard Schweizer of Zurich puts it in his more-recently-translated-into-English commentary from Das Neue Testament Deutsch where he puts it simply under the heading, “Loss of grace.” The grace that was originally given was lost through this man’s unworthiness to receive of that grace.

 

God’s forgiveness of sin is revoked

Or put in another way, the message is also very plain, as that great German scholar H. A. W. Meyer puts it in his twenty-volume Commentary in the Greek New Testament, in fact one of the best commentaries available today although written a hundred years ago, and has only been re-printed this year. This is what he writes under the heading, “Doctrine of this parable”:

This message is plain enough. Even this great evangelical German scholar Meyer points out that the grace or forgiveness initially given is revoked. Even if the person has been forgiven, he or she will be cast in gehenna to be punished eternally.

 

Watchman Nee says the initial grace is not revoked

Naturally, this teaching does not go down well with most Chinese churches who want to reject the plain words of the Lord, for the sake of their doctrines. And when I was looking at Watchman Nee, it was almost painful to see the way he tries to wriggle out of this. The more he tries to wriggle out, the greater mess he gets into. For example, he says that it’s not that the initial grace was revoked, but that the subsequent grace was revoked. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because if the initial grace was not revoked, then he would still be forgiven his $1.5 billion debt. And if he was still forgiven his $1.5 billion debt, he would not be cast into jail because he would be cast into jail for no reason. There would be no debt for him to repay. This kind of logic is almost unintelligible when we sacrifice the truth of the Word of God to dogma.

When asked how might he repay the debt in prison, Watchman Nee goes on to something which sounds remarkably like heresy. He goes on to say that the person will then be tortured through the one thou­sand years of the messianic reign. This is the nearest thing to purgatory in Protestant teaching that I have ever heard. Then some­how, by being tortured for this one thousand years, he might then be forgiven at the end of the thousand years. Now this is incredible!

If my sufferings and my being tortured can actually atone for sin, then why did Christ need to die in the first place? If by being tortured for one thousand years, the 1.5 billion-dollar debt can be removed, then why did Christ need to die? Then why did Christ need to die? This is the kind of tragic situation that those who don’t want to face the Word of God come into.

 

Always come to God’s Word without prejudice

But we shall not waste time with this kind of people’s notions. I mention it particularly for the benefit of those in training. As I have always said and say again, when you come to the Word of God, you must come without prejudice. You must come with an open mind with no preconceived doctrines in your mind. Otherwise, you are going to try to escape the plain statement that such as Prof. Eduard Schweitzer or H. A. W. Meyer have no problem in seeing. When you are locked into a dogma, you try to avoid the plain statement of the Word of God, and then we begin to speak complete nonsense. The consequences that follow will be dreadful. No! What the Lord is say­ing here is too plain even to discuss. As we saw, the great exegetes have completely and frankly confessed the plain meaning of these words.

 

Three stages fundamentally related to salvation

Let us look at the most important principles involved in here. You might say that this parable is theologically, extremely important although I don’t want to talk theology now. However, for the moment, I must use a few theological terms. There are three stages all mentioned in here, and all of them are fundamentally connected with our salvation. I hope that you will attend carefully to this para­ble because your salvation depends on it. If you make one mistake here, you are in big, big trouble.

 

Justification: God’s forgiveness of man’s sins

The first stage mentioned in this parable is what in theology is called justification, that is, the forgiveness of your sins; put in plain lan­guage it means forgiveness.

 

You are in unrepayable debt to God for your sins

What are we speaking about here? You and I need to be forgiven because we have sinned against God. Sin in the Bible is spoken of as debt as something that you owe to God. Every time you commit a sin, it goes on your computerized spiritual account as a debit; you are in the red. And the red is getting bigger and bigger all the time on your account so that you are in big, big trouble before God. You are heavily in debt.

Perhaps in Canada, the banks don’t put a debit in red, but in England, it’s always “in the red.” That is to say, every time you owe the bank money, that part will be in red, so if you owe the bank fifty pounds, that means fifty pounds will be in red. In Canada, I think sometimes they put some mark indicating that it is a debit although it may still be in black. I have to explain that because not everybody is from England, so they don’t know what “in the red” means.

So every time you sin, you are in debt. And the debt becomes such that it’s utterly unpayable. To use another figure of speech, the wages of sin is death. There is nothing that can buy you back from death. When you sin, the penalty is death. And how can you pay off the death penalty with money or any other means? The picture that the Lord uses shows us that we are so heavily in debt, we are so much in the red because we sin against God, and there is no way we can pay off our debt to him.

 

We cannot pay off with good works that are expected of us

It’s useless to say, “I can pay off with some good works” because the good works are what we have to do. Good works are expected of us, so no good works can remove the debit. In other words, if you are good, you are doing no more than what you should have done. That is why the notion that we can save ourselves simply by being good does not understand the problem of sin. We cannot save ourselves by good works because it’s simply our job to do them. Therefore, you cannot clear the past debts by doing your job. This is something very important to observe.

 

Repentance is the only way

What is more, the Lord illustrated by saying that we are in debt to the tune of an astronomical figure when we have sinned against God. We have no way to pay back this debt. Therefore, the only way you can clear your debt with God is to come before him and say, “God, I am a sinner. I realize that there is no way I can repay my debt. I beg of you to have mercy upon me, to forgive me.” And only on that condition can God clear your debt.

 

Christ died on the cross to pay your debt

How does God clear your debt? Through Christ who paid the debt. Christ died on the cross at Calvary to clear the debt. As we sang just now, “burdens are lifted at Calvary.” This man came to an enormous burden that amounted to $1.5 billion, and the Lord lifts the burden off him. The only way is that Christ takes the penalty. That is what “justification” means in theology. “Justification” simply means that when you have repented, God forgives you your debt. He clears your account and says, “Okay, I freely forgive you your sins.”

 

You must not stop here!

That is absolutely true, and most churches stop at that point. You must not stop there because if you do, you just might end up not being saved at all in the end. Why? Notice that this man had his debt forgiven, but when he proved unworthy of that forgiveness, he lost it eventually. That is a very sobering teaching in the Word of God that you must bear in mind. See to it that you never become compla­cent and say, “Okay, I’ve been forgiven, I am free now. Now I can go out and twist that fellow’s neck because he owes me three thousand dollars.” If you twist your brother’s neck, you will discover that you will lose the forgiveness initially granted to you.

 

2. Sanctification: Being forgiven must show in changed conduct of forgiving others

The second stage is what is called “sanctification” in theology. It’s very important for us to understand that we are concerned here with conduct. I will state it in such a way that it’s easier to remember in a moment. For this present moment, let us just remember this: You have been forgiven but that forgiveness places on you a very serious responsibility. I have said before and I say again, there are no privileges without responsibilities. It is a privilege when you are forgiven, but that privilege immediately brings a very serious responsibility. What responsibility? The responsibility that you, having been forgiven, will likewise forgive others. That is what was expected of the servant, the finance minister in the parable. God expects us to forgive others because he has forgiven us. What happens?

Put yourself in the position. Supposing someone owes you a hundred dollars, and says, “I can’t give it back to you. I have no money and my mother and my brother are sick, so I can’t return the money to you.” And you say, “Okay, forget the hundred dollars. It’s no problem. Just forget it.” Then he goes out and grabs another fellow who owes him one dollar and punches him in the nose giving him a black eye. “Give me back my one dollar!” You will say, “What is this? I forgave you one hundred dollars and you deal with the other guy like this for one dollar? I don’t believe this! Now I’m going to expect you to pay me back the whole hundred dollars.” Isn’t that how you would feel since you dealt with him so generously?

How do you think God would feel after he has so generously forgiven you, and you think you can go back and live the old life that you used to live before, being bad-tempered, nasty, and selfish? If you think you can live the old life again, what difference does being a Christian make? Nothing, except that you have been forgiven.

Many preachers preach the gospel like this and this is misrepresent­ation of the gospel. You must not believe this at all because being forgiven means that it has to be worked out in sanctification. That is what Paul means by “work out your salvation.” God has forgiven you, now you go out and forgive others. That is working out your salvation. God has loved you, now you go out and love others. God has been gracious to you, you must be gracious to others.

 

God will revoke his initial forgiveness to you if you don’t forgive others

If you say, “Supposing I don’t forgive others, supposing I am not gracious to others, so what? God has already forgiven me.” Yes, he has, but he will take it back, and you will go back to square one and end up paying the whole debt again. This is the crucial point about the Lord’s teaching on salvation, which the churches so often have not wanted to swallow. That is strange when this is undisputably what the Lord is saying. No serious scholar, no serious exegete on the Word of God would even care to deny that that is what the Lord is saying. It’s as plain as that.

It is most important to understand that God’s justification, God’s forgiveness of me must immediately find appropriate expression in my life if I am to continue in his forgiveness. That is what I have been consistently preaching all through the years. You cannot accept God’s forgiveness and go out and behave in a mean manner to other people. You cannot! If you do this, God warns you that the forgiveness granted to you will be revoked. In fact, the Lord says these words so plainly in verse 35 as he concludes the parable. He says it for us as plainly as this: “So my heavenly Father will do to you,” do what? He just said in verse 34, “deliver you to jail, to the torturers, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Remember the Lord addressed this whole passage in chapter 18 to his disciples. He cannot put it clearer than that, unless a person is simply spiritually deaf and blind and doesn’t want to hear the Word of God. The Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “If you don’t forgive your brother from the heart, so God will do to you - he will put you in jail, give you over to the torturers until you repay every cent of the $1.5 billion debt that you owe to him through your sins.” This is so plain that there isn’t even anything to discuss let alone argue. It’s as plain as that!

 

3. Judgment

Theologically, the first stage is justification or forgiveness, the second is sanctification or conduct, and the third stage is judgment. It is judgment.

 

This person who has been forgiven is under judgment again

Now there is a strange teaching that goes around telling us that Christians don’t come under judgment. Either we have not read the Bible, or they have not read the Bible; somebody has not been read­ing the Bible! The reason is this person who has been forgiven is under judgement again. Judgement is something that Christians will also come under. Make no mistake about that. Let no one tell you, “Christians can live as they like and they will not be judged.” It’s this kind of teaching that has reduced the church to the spiritual mediocrity it is in today. Look at Christians today, their behavior is so sub-standard. The Christians’ lives are often below the standard of non-Christians, yet they congratulate themselves that they will be in heaven while all these other people will be in hell. This is sheer nonsense! God expects a changed life from Christians. Christians will certainly come under judgment.

If we don’t live in the way that God expects of us, be assured that you and I will come under judgment. I don’t care what any preacher says about this because this is what the Lord Jesus says. Remember again, this servant who had been forgiven his 1.5-billion-dollar debt goes into jail and stays there because his forgiveness is revoked. He will never come out again because in jail there is no way to repay even a $100 debt let alone a $1.5 billion debt.

 

Two most important spiritual principles

Let us draw some very important spiritual principles about the Christian life from this matter. There are two main principles I would like to share with you here, two most important spiritual principles.

 

1. The Law of Sanctification: Deal with others in the same way as God deals with us

The first of these principles is this: We must deal with others in the same way as God deals with us. This is what the Lord Jesus is teach­ing us in this parable.

This principle is put specifically by the Lord like this in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful as your Father is merciful.” You must be merciful to others in the same way as God has been merciful to you. This principle can be formulated simply like this, that God expects us to deal with others in the same way as he deals with us.

 

When laws that govern our universe are violated, there are dire consequences

I want to say this to you all as beloved brothers and sisters. The spiri­tual life is ordered with the same precision as this universe that God has created. Any of you who study the universe and its structure, or physics will know that there are laws by which all matter is governed, and the violation of these laws brings its consequences. You do not escape unscathed.

There is the Law of Gravity, and if you want to deal with gravity, you have to do it according to the set laws that we have in the world. You need power to overcome gravity. Without power, you are going to get your legs broken, and maybe your neck broken as well if you jump off the third floor of a house. And if you jump off from a higher part, you can be sure that you would be pulverized, because there is a law of gravity that will pull you down. There is no way you can say, “It will be suspended. When I step out of the window, I will stand there in the air.” The law will pull you down unless you have power by some other means to overcome the law of gravity. Likewise, you must understand that God has set laws in the spiritual life. You will not go unscathed if you violate these laws.

 

A Christian’s action is determined only by God’s dealings with him

And this is a law here: Deal with others in the same way that God deals with us. This is most important. Therefore, since God is kind to me, I must be kind to others. If God is forgiving to me, I must be forgiving to others. What he or she does to me is irrelevant. Notice how important this principle is. It doesn’t matter how you behave to me, the important thing is how God behaves to me. The way to understand this spiritual law, this spiritual principle is: My conduct is not governed by you, the non-Christian, or the world. My conduct as a Christian is governed by one thing only, namely God’s dealings with me.

I wonder, how many of you live according to this law? He offended me so I hit him back. Your conduct is governed by the other person. We become robots, determined in our actions by other people’s actions towards us. He is nasty to me so I will be nasty to him. My conduct is tit-for-tat, that is, my conduct is governed by his conduct. It’s all passive. I don’t take the initiative; I have lost the initiative; my conduct is governed by him. I become a robot because I react to whatever he does.

Most Christians are robots. They have not yet arrived at the stage where they understand this principle: My action is not determined by you. Whether you are nasty or not, whether you are kind or unkind is irrelevant to me. My action is determined only by God’s dealings with me. You may be very nasty to me but I forgive you. Why? Because God has forgiven me. My action is determined by him not by you. That is why a Christian becomes the only free person in the world because everyone else is governed by someone else’s actions, but you are governed only by God’s actions towards you. Can you see the significance and the impact of this principle? Since his actions are governed by God’s dealings with him, the Christian be­comes a channel of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s grace, God’s power. He is never determined by other people. He is determined only by God. Can you understand how important is this principle?

So, if you find yourself reacting to other people’s behavior to you when you go out, for example, someone doesn’t serve you fast but serves someone else faster, you get angry. “What is this? Racialism! Because I am a Chinese, you don’t serve me first? This guy is white, so you serve him first?” And you get angry. “Next time I’ll show you. I’m going to be nasty to you.” Your action is determined by his nastiness. You become a robot.

The Christian is not determined by this or that person. He’s not determined by anyone in this world. He is determined only by God. That is freedom! That is freedom! That is why the non-Christian will not able to understand you. How come I insult you and you are still smiling? I don’t understand you. How come I am nasty to you and you are still nice to me? What’s going on here? Then you begin to realize you are determined by God not by him. You’ll say, “I’ve never seen this before. This is something new.” The Christian then becomes light in the world. He is extraordinary in the world. He never reduces himself to a robot dictated by other people’s actions. He enjoys the freedom in this world because all he wants is Jesus, who is the only true reflection of God (2 Cor. 4:6). “Jesus only”, as the Witness in Song Team was just singing. Only Jesus determines your actions. You are entirely free, entirely free, because you are determined by Christ, who brought you God’s forgiveness, and will judge you. This is a most important principle to understand.

 

2. The Law of Judgment: Do to others what you would have God do to you

Let us move on to the second law that we derive from this parable. God will deal with us in the same way that we deal with others. This is the second and complementary law to the first.

The first is the Law of Sanctification: We deal with others in the same way that God deals with us. And now this law turns around and becomes the Law of Judgment: I deal with others in the way that God deals with me. That is Biblical teaching on sanctification, if you want to use theological jargon here.

The second is the Law of Judgment. How does God deal with us in judgment? He will deal with us in the same way as we deal with others. Oh yes! The Lord has made plain this teaching many times. You can see this expressed in the Old Testament already. Perhaps we will just turn Psalm 18 and I will read it to you. God deals with us in the same way that we deal with others. This is just one of many places.

Psalm 18:25-26 reads,

There you have this spiritual law or principle stated very plainly: that God deals with you in the same way as you deal with others. If you deal with others loyally, faithfully, God will deal with you faithfully. And it says here, if you deal with others blamelessly, God will show himself blameless to you. If you deal with others in a pure way, he will deal with you purely. But if you deal crookedly with others, he will deal perversely with you, that is, he will deal hard with you. Now this principle is very easy to understand.

 

You can ask for trouble or mercy from God by the way you deal with others

That is the secret of spiritual life if you know how to apply this. That is really fantastic because now you understand how the spiritual life works. In other words, you can see how God will deal with you. In other words, you can ask for trouble or for mercy by the way you deal with others. Or alternatively, if you don’t deal forgivingly with others, the Lord says he will deal unforgivingly with you. It’s very easy to understand. If you deal graciously with others, God will also deal graciously with you.

 

“The Spiritual Circle of Blessedness”

Let us put it like this. Supposing you act in a loving way to others, you can be sure that God will act in a loving way to you. If you act in a generous way with others, God will deal generously with you. So this forms what is called “the spiritual circle of blessedness.”

I hope that when you go home and think carefully about it. First, God forgives me, so I am forgiving to others. Then, because I am forgiving to others, God continues to be even more forgiving to me. It moves around in “the circle of spiritual progress,” as you can call it. That is how it progresses.

Where you stop this circle at any point, that will be the stop of your spiritual life. You can keep this circle in motion or you can stop it. God puts the matter in your hands.

 

You become your own judge

In other words, this principle means that you become your own judge. God will deal with you in the same way as you deal with others. You will be your own judge. If you deal harshly with others, God will deal harshly with you. If you deal kindly with others, God will deal kindly with you. He is going to base his judgement on you in the way that you behave. It is as straightforward and as fair as that. You will again be your own judge.

I tell you, on the Day of Judgment, every man will say to the Lord Jesus, “O Lord, you have been absolutely fair; fairer than that you cannot be! I have been ungracious to others, so God is ungracious to me. I deserve that. I can’t argue with that.” It is as fair as that.

 

Restating the 2 principles positively

1. As God has been so gracious to me, I must be gracious to others

It also means positively, I can move this circle in such a way as to be truly more and more progressing in grace. Let’s take an example. When I was in financial need, and many of you know that in my student days, I looked to God for my financial supply as some of you also do now. God supplied my need so graciously and so generously. God has dealt with me so graciously, and that puts me under both a privilege and a responsibility. It means that now it’s my turn to deal graciously with others. That is the first principle we were talking about: As God deals with me so I must deal with others. So today, I must be gracious to others who are in need, because God has been so gracious to me in my student days. I dare not hold the money in my own pocket, because others through God’s working in their lives, were gracious to me, because God dealt so graciously with me through them, I must deal graciously with others. Therefore I must help them in their need. I must help them whenever I can. This is the first principle.

 

2. When I give more to others, God begins to give me more spiritually

The second principle is: Since I am helping others now, God in his graciousness begins to give me more, not necessarily materially, but spiritually. I don’t ask for more materially. God gives me more spirit­ually, so I have a new influx of God’s grace through helping others. Since there is this new influx of grace, I am encouraged to give even more, because when I give even more, God’s grace is even richer to me. It goes in the cycle. This is “the cycle of spiritual progress,” you go from strength to strength, from strength to strength. Try that.

You will find that God’s laws always work. Just as it works in the physical world so it works in the spiritual world because we are dealing with the living God. If God were not the living God, none of these laws could work. They cannot function. How do we know that God is real? The reason is when you apply the principles, they always work. They are so effective.

 

Do to others what you would have God do to you

We can formulate this second principle in another way. You could put it like this: Do to others as you would have God do to you. Think about that. This is an amazing principle when you know how to use it! These principles are given to us for our blessing, that you may know how to use them.

 

“Give and it shall be given unto you.”

Would you like God to be more generous and gracious to you? Then be more gracious to others and see what happens. He will pour out his blessing upon you. That is what the Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount. “Give and it shall be given unto you.” That is exactly the principle. And it shall be given unto you overflowing, pressed down, given to you in abundance. The reason you don’t have is because you did not give. Try giving. Try being gracious. Are you living in spiritual poverty? Try being gracious to others, and suddenly God’s gracious­ness will overwhelm you. It’s so wonderful! If, however, you are unforgiving, you will soon find that God’s attitude to you will be very cold. But you try forgiving someone else, and suddenly, God is so generous and gracious to you.

You determine the nature of your own spiritual life. You will also determine the kind of judgment that you will receive at the end. That is the secret of the Christian life! You can move it forward, you can stop it, and you can reverse it, whichever way. So much responsi­bility has God put into our hands when he gave us this freedom of choice. Since I want God to be more generous and gracious to me in his spiritual kindness, I will be more gracious to others. I won’t let them determine my action because that will put the wheel backwards. I will determine the action with God moving me forward. Can you understand all this? Is this hard to understand? I don’t think so. I think it’s very easy to understand.

 

Experience God’s lovingkindness by being loving and kind

Or here again, you can see if God is the living God People say to me, “I want to serve God but God is not so real to me. Try living in this way and see what happens. Try being gracious and generous, and see if the wheel doesn’t start moving, and God’s goodness will over­whelm you. I experience God’s lovingkindness and mercies daily in such a way that I feel humbled at his goodness to me. Why is he so kind to me? I do a little bit of something for someone and God over­whelms me with his kindness. It’s just too much! He is so generous and so gracious. His blessing is out of all proportion with the little bit that I do for others. It’s out of all proportion, but that is his kindness, that is his goodness.

However, his judgment can be equally severe if you are ungracious to others. We read in the Old Testament, his judgment will be seven-fold to what you have actually done to others. If you are nasty to others, God’s judgment will come upon you seven times what you have given to others.

But the same thing works towards goodness. You will find that if you give a little to someone else in need, God’s graciousness overwhelms you many, many fold beyond whatever you have done for others. Then you will know that God is real! Oh, God is real!

So many Christians never grow spiritually because they don’t apply these spiritual principles. And maybe you did not apply these spiritual principles because you didn’t know them. The Christian life is so exciting! It’s like an adventure! Launch out and you will see! You must know how to function with these spiritual principles.

 

Conclusion

Let me repeat these spiritual principles as we close now.

The first is: We are to deal with others in the same way that God deals with us. In other words, the initiative is always God’s. He first starts the ball rolling. He first forgave us. That is why we are forgiving.

The second principle is: When we become forgiving to others, then God deals with us in the same way as we deal with others – in the same way, but not to the same extent. That is to say, when you forgive others, he forgives you, but overwhelmingly more. He deals with you in the same way but always with his generosity, with his graciousness.

Experience the Christian life! It’s truly exciting! It’s truly wonderful!

Let us now be quiet before God in prayer:

 

Closing prayer

Precious Lord, we just thank you for your life-giving words, that you do not leave us in the dark, but show us the path of life. And Lord, because you are the God of order and not of chaos, all things function according to clear and well-established principles. Help us, O God, to understand these principles that we may apply them. And when we apply them we will see in our own experience how amazing are your ways, how glorious are your works, so that like the psalmist we shall praise you. Seven times a day we shall praise you, as the psalmist did say. Lord, help us to become a praising people because we are obedient to your word. Help us to apply your truth to us. Help us then to be forgiving even as you have forgiven us and then to experience your abounding graciousness to us when we on our part forgive the trifling offences of others against us.

So Lord, revive again your people we pray, through living according to your Word that we may shine in this generation for the glory of your great name. Hear us now, accept our praise, lead us forward, and glorify your name in us we pray, amen.