Teachings & Travels of Jesus

We're going to begin tonight in talking about the teachings and travels of Christ. We're going to begin in Matthew chapter 18. We are at a period of our Lord's life where he's finishing up a six-month time called the Training of the Twelve. And we hope to get to the end of that tonight, at least to the end of the actual training, before he begins taking a trip to Jerusalem. Now there's some training that also goes on that trip that we'll look at in Luke 9, if not tonight, and we'll look at it in a couple of weeks. Next week we have George Mohammed with us. But the Lord's ministry will take another turning point at the time he gets to Jerusalem. He is six months away from the cross. And at that time the Lord is setting his face toward the cross and toward his death and burial and resurrection. And so Jesus' ministry will change once again. And there will not be as much opportunity with the twelve. The crowds will begin to swell around him again. Opposition will grow much more fierce. And there will be an increasing both rise again of popularity and intense increase of opposition until the cross. And so we're just about to head into that time period of our Lord's life and ministry. And we've been looking at Matthew chapter 18 where we saw last time Jesus was teaching about conflict resolution. And we talked last time about the procedure of conflict resolution. And that is a four-step procedure when there is conflict with another believer. That's the thrust of this passage here. If a brother sins against you he says, so the first is personal confrontation. You are to go just between the two of you and deal with the issue that has come between you. And then if that does not, if that is not successful, group confrontation. Take one or two others. And if that is not successful, then it may lead to church confrontation. And then the fourth step is church exclusion. And this is a passage that is often used rightly so for church discipline. But we talked as we ended last week about some cautions with that. Both about misuse, overuse, and abuse. All of those uses of church discipline. I think the Bible is very clear that there are cases where the church must dissociate itself from people who claim to be followers of Christ. But people who are living in such a way that brings reproach upon the name of Christ harms the testimony of the church. But that must be very carefully done. First of all, this process must be followed. And then the scriptures bear out the New Testament that only those kinds of cases where there is public damage to the cause of Christ and the community. The name of Christ is being reproached. Should church discipline actually be taken. Let's begin tonight with the purpose of conflict resolution. We're going to go back to verse 15 and just emphasize for a moment the purpose. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. That gives us that last part of the verse gives us the purpose of conflict resolution to win over your brother. Interestingly enough, that's a commercial term, not in the sense of a TV commercial in the sense of a business type transaction. The term won over actually had to do in New Testament times with either gaining or losing wealth. And so the idea is when your brother sins against you, you actually lose something. What do you lose when there is conflict because of sin and distance and alienation? What do you lose? You lose fellowship? Yes. What else is lost? Respect. Respect. In fact, influence. Yes. Trust. Sometimes trust is lost. There are lots of things that could be marked up in the lost column. And even the ability to work together again. So there is a fracturing and a loss of synergy, a loss of working together to accomplish the purpose of God. And so the work of God suffers when that happens. So there's a lot of losses in the lost column. And this is really a financial transactions being looked at here. If there is sin that causes alienation, distance, conflict between two Christians, there are a lot of losses there. And the goal is to get that back in the positive column, to get that back in the gain column, to win over your brother. What you have lost now you win back and you take out of the negative column, the minus column, put in the plus column. And so that's the purpose. The idea then that Jesus is getting across is that the goal of conflict resolution is always to be positive. The goal is always to be restoration, not excommunication. Some people treat this process as, come on, let's get on to step four. That's the real purpose of this thing. Get him out of here. Kick him out. You know, that's the purpose. No, that's not the purpose. The purpose is resolution. The purpose is to win your brother back. And so every step in this process should be taken very carefully and maybe even several efforts at each step. There's no indication here that you just try this one time and done. But maybe several efforts and prayerful reflection and time given to this process because the whole purpose is to win that person back so that there can be the pluses again, the gains again rather than the losses in the lost column. So that's the purpose of conflict resolution. Okay, just a very brief mention of that in verse 15, but it kind of controls the whole process. That's the whole goal that you're aiming toward. Any comments or questions about the purpose? Conflict resolution. Let's take a look at the product of conflict resolution. There are three things that result from winning your brother back or from from resolving the conflict. The first one in verse 18 is divine approval. He says, I tell you the truth. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. Do you remember we saw this same kind of statement back in chapter 16 when he was talking about forgiving of sin. And we saw that it was a particular tense in the original language that really is a little awkward to translate in English, but probably could best be understood will have been done in heaven. What's the same tense here? The idea is not that God looks on what we're doing and ratifies it necessarily. It's that we are actually ratifying what God has already done in heaven. So read it this way, whatever you bind on earth. And the binding here has to do with restoring the person forgiving their sin, whatever you bind here on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will have been loose in heaven. In other words, the conclusion, if you follow a biblical process is in line with what heaven has already said should be done. So what already has been done in heaven is now being carried out on earth. So when you do that, you know you've got divine approval. You know you've got God's approval for something he's already told us to do. If you follow this process, then you have God smile upon you because you're doing what God said to do. So divine approval. Second product of conflict resolution is power in prayer. And let me say this about these three verses, 18, 19, and 20. These verses are often as many verses are ripped out of context and used just kind of general principles. And this one in particular in verses 19 and 20 are often used. You hear them quoted a lot. You hear them use the lot and standing on their own. And they were never intended to stand on their own. They fit within this context of resolving conflict with a brother and handling those issues correctly in the church. One of the blessings of that is power in prayer. Verse 19 and 20. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, they're MI with them. Familiar verses, aren't they? One of them really about prayer, one of them to do more with the presence of Christ among us. And you hear that one a lot, just kind of thrown out on it soon. But really the idea is if you are fulfilling God's purposes in relationships, in conflict resolution, if you're doing what God says to do there, God puts His blessing upon a church that way and answers their prayers. When a body of believers are handling things correctly like that, God says then your prayers will be heard in heaven. Interesting verse, isn't it? Verse 19, a lot of times people just use this about, okay, let's get two people to agree on something. Let's pray about it and God's obligated Himself to answer. And to give us that, is that what that verse is saying? Kind of sounds like it doesn't. I mean, if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my father in heaven. So if I can get one of you to agree with me to pray that God give me a million dollars, then God's obligated to give me a million dollars, right? What do you think? This verse has been used a lot that way. And it's just an illegitimate use of the verse. It's what B.A. Carson would call an exegetical fallacy. It's a wrong way of interpreting scripture. You know that's wrong because there are lots of other verses on prayer, aren't there? This is not the only one. There's not just one qualification for getting prayer answered and that is get someone else to agree with you if two of you agree. You got it. Again, in the context here, he's talking about a church that is seeking to resolve personal relationships in the right way. And when a church is functioning in that way, biblical church, biblical conflict resolution, then there are spiritually minded people who are in agreement on what they should ask God for. There are lots of other qualifiers about prayer. If you pray with sin, known sin that you're not confessing, God will not answer your prayer. If you pray to consume, that's Psalm 66, 18, by the way. If you pray to consume something on your own lusts, James 4, 2, and 3, you will not get your prayer answered. If you do not pray according to the will of God, 1 John 5, 14, and 15, you will not get your prayer answered. So there are lots of other qualifiers. This one doesn't stand on its own. So remember whenever you use a verse of scripture, make sure you've got the whole picture. You're not just picking out a verse and making a stand on its own. So power in prayer is one of the products of conflict resolution. A third verse 20, actually verses 19 and 20 again, is unity. If two of you on earth agree about anything, so the emphasis is on agreement and then verse 20, where two or three come together, the emphasis is on coming together, the unity of coming together in Christ. So there's no division or disunity here. People are in agreement with one another and they're coming together in Jesus name. He promises to be in the midst. When there is division and disunity in a church, when there is improper conflict resolution. So there's a lot of conflict going on, which creates division of disunity. When that's happening in a church, then obviously that church is powerless. But Jesus is there in his power. He is there with us when a church has unity, when it is dealing with conflict appropriately. Okay, that kind of finishes up that passage then on conflict resolution and comment or question. Yes, Kisti. I'm not sure if there is a really any correlation. Kisti is asking if there's a correlation between verse 16, taking two or three others along so that everything can be established with two or three witnesses and then the two or three in verse 20 that come together in my name. The purpose of verse 16 is basically to fulfill the Old Testament requirement that everything have testimony that can be given witnesses that can be given that something was done appropriately. Trying to think of how that would fit with verse 20. I'm not sure that there is a connection there. Can anyone help me out there? You see a connection? Some kind? Some type of a ought to be maybe, but I can't pick it out. So what is the two or three that are together together in verse 20, meaning that it's the same type of thing. It's the three that go. So what are the two or three that are together in verse 20? I can see how the people are being come together together in the same. If you continue on the thought of conflict resolution, it could be talking about the same dynamic, the same people, the two or three who were witnesses or the two or three who are gathering in his name. And that could be could well be could be a direct correlation there. Okay. Good question. Any others comments questions? Alright, let's move on. Then Jesus in verse 21 brings up or actually Peter brings up another issue, but it ties right into what we've just talked about. If you are going to resolve conflict, in other words, if you're going to go to a brother who has offended you, which is what Jesus has just talked about, that assumes that if that brother says, you're right, I'm wrong. I'm sorry. That assumes that you will forgive him then. I mean, that's part of the conflict resolution, right? It's not just going and making him aware of his failure and you just, okay, you both have knowledge of it. Okay. So what's next? Well, you you, you forgive each other. So that raises in Peter's mind a question about forgiveness. So Jesus is going to answer that question and then give an illustration to reinforce his answer. It's a very fascinating passage. Let's look at it in verse 21. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sends against me up to seven times? Peter, Peter raises this question about relationship between two believers again. How many times do I forgive my brother if there's conflict between seven, seven times? And Peter thought he was being very generous. The rabbis taught, forgive someone twice in rare circumstances, maybe as many as three times. And that's all you're required to do. And so Peter thought he was really showing some grace here, seven times. I mean, that's better than the rabbis. Twice as good as the rabbis, Lord. Aren't you proud of me? I came up with that on my own, Lord. And notice Jesus answer. I can just imagine Peter's jaw dropping. Jesus answered in verse 22. I tell you not seven times, but seventy seven times is what the NIV has some, some say seventy times seven. And that does seem to be the more appropriate translation. Seventy times seven. It's kind of like in Daniel 9 where there are seventy sevens. Remember that of that Daniel 70, 70 weeks. And so it's a little hard to know how it's to be taken. Is it seventy seven or seventy times seven? Probably seventy times seven. So Jesus answers Peter's question. Peter, you think seven times is very gracious. You're doing much better than the scribes. You haven't come close to understanding God's forgiveness. Let's try seventy times seven. And what do you think the word meant by that? Don't count. Okay. All right. Any other ideas, comments? Do you think the Lord was saying you can stop after 490, you know, after several years, 488. Don't have much longer to deal with this person. Oh, you did it again. 489. I got one more. And then I don't want to. You think that's what he was talking about? If you're counting, you're not really forgiving. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the very act of counting is an evidence that you're holding on to the grudge. Right. I mean, you're hanging on to it because you're counting how many times have I got left really before I can quit forgiven this person. You've still got the bitterness in your heart. That's exactly right. So Jesus is not dealing with mathematics here. He's not giving a number that you can stop at. That's not the point. The seventy times seven was Hebrew idiom, a Jewish manner of speaking, seventy times seven, just made an unlimited number. And so when Jesus says forgive seventy times seven, it means just forgive. Don't count. Just forgive. Don't count three or two or seven. The number is not the issue. The spirit of the forgiveness. That's the issue. What's in your heart when you forgive someone? That's the issue. Forgiveness is not a matter of mathematics. Forgiveness is a matter of love and character. What's in your heart? And so then Jesus gives a story to illustrate that story. Verse 23 begins. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like. So Jesus is saying, okay, this is how it works in my kingdom. This is what the kingdom of heaven is like when it comes to forgiveness. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. Okay, this is how things work in my kingdom. Here's the story. A king calls his servants to reckon. He calls them in to give an account of what they have done with their particular line item in the budget, if you will. Or their particular stewardship of funds. It was like an audit of the books. That's what he's talking about here. Everybody's going to have to give an account for how they have used the king's money, whatever department they were over. You got to give an account for this. Verse 24. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. In Bible times, money was measured out by weight, not necessarily by coinage, but by weight. And it depends on the kind of metal you were using as to how much we're talking about here, but conservative estimates put this figure at somewhere between twelve and twenty million dollars. This guy's been different into the till a little bit, hasn't he? Twelve and between twelve and twenty million dollars. Evidently, he's been embezzling money for a long period of time and has stolen a lot of money from the king. So what does the king do? Verse 25. Since he was not able to pay and who could pay this sum? Not able to pay the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had. In other words, all of the possessions and his servants, he might have whatever, be sold to repay the debt. And obviously, even that's not going to be enough to repay the debt. That Jesus' point is that this is a debt that is not possible for this man to pay off. So the only thing to do with him is to take him, all of his family, everything he owns, sell everything he owns, pay down the debt, throw him in prison. Because this debt is impossible to pay off. There's no way he can do this. Well, look at what the servant does. Verse 26. The servant fell on his knees before him. And notice these words, be patient with me. He begged, and I will pay back everything. He's not going to pay back twelve to twenty million dollars, but he's begging frantically for mercy. Verse 27. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go. Unbelievable. This is pure grace. He doesn't say, well, okay, I think maybe we can work out something. Maybe give you an insurance discount, and we'll cut it down to six million, and we'll figure out a plan whereby you can start paying that off. I didn't say that. They just say, okay, we'll forgive the whole thing. It's all gone. It's all wiped off your record. Pure grace. No one would expect that. It's pure grace. And then the story takes a very ugly turn. You're familiar with it. I'm sure. Verse 28. But when that servant went out, okay, remember, he's just thinking, wow, I can't believe this. I was ready to lose everything. I was ready to get thrown in prison for the rest of my life. And now the whole thing is forgiven. Just think of how you must feel going out. So he's walking out. He's going out. He found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari. A hundred denari is about $16. 16 now, okay, which in that day was about three days wages, but still doesn't go anywhere near comparing to 12 to 20 million dollars. Middle of the verse, he grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me. He demanded his fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him. Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. Have we heard that before? He is hearing what he has just said to the king. Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. Verse 30, but he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. Verse 31. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told her master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in you wicked servant. He said, I cancel all that debt of yours because you begged me to shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you. In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. Now, the moral of the story, the lesson Jesus is pointing toward, verse 35, this is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Tell me, what is this story of forgiveness designed to teach us? Forgive as we have been forgiven. Yes, very much so. Forgive as we have been forgiven. King has forgiven a servant, a debt which he could never hope to pay back, and then that same servant will not forgive a very small debt to a fellow servant. Who is the king represented in this story? God, who does the servant represent? Us? In particular me? Who does the other servant represent? You, you, you. Anybody I may come in contact with? Okay. So the point is, as Margaret said, forgive as you have been forgiven. What has God forgiven us? Everything, everything. He has completely forgiven us. He has forgiven us a debt that we could never have paid off. You can never pay enough to pay off your sin debt. He has forgiven us everything. It is not about math. It is not about count up to 490 times and then you can stop forgiven that person. No, God has forgiven you 12 to 20 million dollars worth and that is just the figure in the story. He has forgiven you more than you can ever hope to pay back. So when we see a brother, when we see a fellow servant who belongs to the same king, who serves the same king, and he owes me something. She owes me something. And it is not money that is the issue here. It is about forgiveness. That person is in your debt because they have harmed you. They have wronged you. We are to forgive. Now remember how God has forgiven us. He has forgiven us no matter how great the offense was. No matter what your past was, no matter what you did, no matter how sinful your past has been, God forgave it. So he forgave you no matter how great the offense was, which means we ought to forgive others, no matter how great the offense was. And that gets hard sometimes, doesn't it? It is very hard to forgive. It is very hard to forgive those kind of heinous crimes. The passage where it says that it is a clear thing to follow the people who are being denied the person who doesn't forgive the person who is still in the same state. According to verse 35, God is going to be very angry with a person who doesn't forgive. I want to come back to that in just a moment. Forgive the most heinous crime. That is difficult to do, but that is what God has done for us. It gets into the issue of what forgiveness really is. But now go ahead. The issue here is brother to brother. That is the context back to verse 15 with conflict resolution. If a brother sins against you, this is within the family. Peter has asked the question, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? That was the nature of the question. Jesus is talking about two servants. I would say at least this. And please, please, this is just a general statement. You can find all kinds of exceptions and caveats and disclaimers and all kinds of things like that. But in general terms, Jesus is talking about our relationship in the family of God. He's not necessarily talking about every legal issue that you just drop every legal issue with anyone, no matter what it is. That is not necessarily so. Now we know 1 Corinthians 6 talks about brother should not sue brother. You know, you should handle those things within the church. You should have spiritual maturity to be able to handle those things without going to court. But that does not forbid all legal actions. So let me kind of wipe that one off the table to start with. But there's a whole lot here about what what is the nature of forgiveness to forgiveness does not mean you necessarily erase the consequences of someone who's committed a horrible crime. It doesn't mean well, it's okay what you did. So you know, you killed all my family, but I'm not going to I'm not going to press charges or anything like that. I'm not going to report you. I mean, that's an extreme case, but doesn't mean that. There are a lot of issues in regard to forgiveness. Forgiveness, the root word of forgiveness means to release. And ultimately, forgiveness for anyone, whether believer or unbeliever, means that you release them to God. You no longer, you no longer hold them in your debt. They don't owe you anything anymore. That's the essence of forgiveness. Forgiveness really has two parts. The first is in the heart of the forgiver. I release them. They do not owe me anything anymore because if you don't do that, if you don't do that, bitterness and resentment will eat you alive from the inside out. Regardless of whether it's a believer, unbeliever, regardless of how heinous the crime is, if you do not release that person from your debt, you owe me. If you don't release them to God, then you will destroy yourself. All of us need to forgive in that way. But there is another aspect of forgiveness, which is restoration, which means the relationship is fully restored. And that depends upon the repentance of the center, the offending party, and their willingness to make restitution. If that happens, then the relationship can be restored. If it doesn't, then you may never be able to restore the relationship, but you've released them in your heart. You're not going to hold a grudge. You're not going to hold anything against them. You release them to God. Let God deal with them. So there are those two aspects of forgiveness. And I didn't mean to get into all that here, but it's important when we start asking these questions about who do I forgive and who do I not forgive? What kinds of things should I forgive and what should I not forgive? In the sense that I release from my heart that person owe me anything, so I hold it over them. I've got to forgive anybody anything there. In the sense that we make full restoration of a relationship, that doesn't necessarily follow. If a person has, for instance, abused a member of my family, it doesn't mean I'm going to come let them live with me. Full restoration may not be possible, but releasing them from my heart to God is possible. And that kind of forgiveness should be always done. Now, doesn't that mirror the kind of forgiveness God gives us? On the cross, forgiveness was given completely. Everything covered, but that is not put into practice as far as the restoration of the relationship with God until that person turns from sin, turns in faith to Christ, repents, comes to know Jesus, and then the relationship is restored. So there are two levels of forgiveness even with God. All right. I've probably opened two or three cans of worms here. Any comments or questions before we go on? Yes, John and Enbury. This is all the second here is all about money. I just wanted to ask you to understand, is there more to it because he could have used the example of cattle or something like that? Is it just money because people can relate to that? I think, yeah, I think Jesus just uses the illustration of money as he does in many of his parables. He uses financial things because people relate to that well. He could have used any number of other things, but Jesus uses money a lot in his parables. When he talks about responsibilities that were left within his absence, he talks about some was given so much money and some was, you know, he just uses money a lot. I think it's difficult. People can relate well to that. It touches people's hearts. Barry? Yes, specifically in this context, talking about, yes. I would say for a non-believer, yes, in the sense that I would release them to God. Specifically, this is talking about a believer with a believer, but yes, with a non-believer, I release them to God in the sense that I don't hold anything against them. They don't owe me anymore. I'm not going to hold something against them, and that's what I mean. They don't owe me anything anymore. If I loan the money, they still owe me. But if they've done something against me, an unsafe person, I release them to God. There never would be quite the same restoration as there would be in the family of God. This is all family-type stuff here. So that level isn't quite reached, but there can still be a restoration of relationship, even with an unsafe person. So yes, the same principle applies. Max? Yes. I would agree. Max has raised a very good point. That phrase, forgive your brother from your heart. We can know what the scriptures say. We can logically reason it out. I'm supposed to forgive them, but forgiving from the heart is really a work of God, isn't it? It's an act of grace that God gives us the grace to really release that person from our heart. It's very easy to say, I forgive you, but harbor resentment in your heart and keep carrying that with you. Forgiving from the heart is a deeper issue, and I believe you're right, Max, exactly. It does take a deeper work of the Holy Spirit to allow us to really release that from the heart. Not hold it against a person. I think that the man has been able to be able to find the way to release that person from the heart. You will be able to make use of that person. Here's what we've done about the Holy Spirit. I think we've used something to make sure that the Holy Spirit is not a threat to the Holy Spirit. Good point. The huge disparity here between the $12-20 million and the $16 bucks serves to illustrate that a lot of the things we have conflict over are things that you just forget about $16 bucks. I think that's true, and that happens a lot in families. I tell couples who are getting married and premarital counseling this all the time, when you have two centers living under the same roof, you're going to have conflict. You're going to have problems. You have to learn to overlook some things. Love covers a multitude of sins. The Bible says. Yeah. Personality deficiencies don't just happen once, do they? They tend to come up over and over again. I see a lot of smiles of recognition on that here. That's interesting. Herb, did you have a question? I agree. Nobody could have said it better. We say a lot of things like that. Don't we? You're getting ready to hang up as Herb said. I love you. A lot of that is just another way to say goodbye. You know another phrase we use like that? I'm praying for you. I will never forget someone who once said I forget what was sermon or just a personal challenge or what, but it boy just hit me. When I said something about that, I pray for you. This person said, do you really mean that? Are you going to pray for me? I made a covenant with myself and God. Whenever I tell somebody that, if I'm not at a point where I can write that request down or jot it in my PDA and my list of prayer requests that I want to remember, I just quickly pray for them right then. I pray for you and not do it. That's not the best, but it's better than nothing I guess. But we do that a lot. Yeah, I love you. Oh, I forgive you. I'm praying for you. And that's what Max was getting at. Different to do it from the heart. Yeah, they all. Yes, I'll forgive you, but I won't forgive your actions. Yeah, or I'll forgive you, but don't you ever expect me to forget? And you know, forgiveness does not necessarily require that we forget. You can't automatically erase things out of your mind. You know, the Bible says God does not remember our inequities. It doesn't say that. It says God does not remember our inequities against us. God knows all things. He never forgets what we've done. He's omniscient. He knows all of our sins. Never forget those, but he'll never bring them up again. And so, yeah, the real essence of forgiveness is don't bring it up again. Don't use it against that person. Go ahead. Here's a girl. We heard a girl from the old dog. And somebody. And I never forgot her. If somebody, if you think somebody is their manager, you don't say I'm sorry. You say, really? So that it gives you a chance to release you from what they have to do. If they're fall for it, they have to think about it. It's a good point. Good point. Rather than saying, I'm sorry. Say, will you forgive me? Yeah. I've gone on this a great issue. Right now, they've been all over the race. So, Bander, we all understand that. Brother, we understand a lot of things are raised out of your mind. And ours too, all of ours. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for bringing us back to that, Kathy, because I didn't want to finish without getting to that. This verse has been used to teach a lot of weird stuff. This verse has been used to teach loss of salvation. In other words, if you don't forgive someone, you get thrown into prison, which means you go to hell. It's spiritually, you get thrown into God's prison. It's been used to teach loss of salvation. It's been used to teach purgatory. That whatever you have not forgiven people of, you're going to have to pay for somehow. So when you die, even if you're a believer, you have to go through what Roman Catholics teach is a temporary punishment to burn off all your sin before you can get to heaven. That's purgatory. And this verse has been one of the verses that has been used to teach that. Okay. So what is Jesus saying? And our time is already up. So if I could just briefly summarize, I'd love to just throw this one out for a great discussion, but it's already after eight o'clock. A couple things here. Number one, remember this is a parable. We are interpreting a parable. Remember if you took the doctrine of the Bible class here on Wizzanite over a year ago now, we talked about interpretation. You interpret a parable differently than you interpret, say, an epistle or another kind of scripture. A parable, you don't press all the details. You don't look for parallels in every detail to parable. A parable is designed to teach one main truth. And the one main truth is that we should forgive others as we have been forgiven by God. That's the main truth. But having said that, Jesus does say this is how your heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. So obviously he is saying there will be some kind of punishment. Okay. So another point of interpretation is you always interpret difficult scriptures by the rest of scripture. You always interpret single scriptures by what the rest of scripture teaches. The rest of scripture makes it clear that once you are saved, that is eternal. So we know he cannot be talking about the loss of eternal life. Okay. This must be talking about God's chastening, God's discipline, God will punish God will discipline, God will chase and any believer who has an unforgiving spirit toward another believer. And again, in this context of believer to believer, he will chase him. It's interesting that the word, the torturers that this man, he gets thrown into prison, turns him over to the jailors to be tormented. That's the word which is used in the New Testament. St. Greek word is used of physical ailments and judgments or things that God brings into your life and to discipline you. So I think the thrust of the passage is any person who maintains an unforgiving spirit, God will chase and God will discipline. Now what is the purpose for God's discipline again to restore us exactly. And so when God senses and what God senses, when God knows there is an unforgiving spirit in us, he's going to discipline and chase and us to remove that unforgiving spirit. To bring us to the point discipline always helps us to grow. He's going to bring us to the point where he wants us to develop a forgiving spirit. And so I think that's what verse 35 is talking about. It's not talking about loss of salvation, it's not talking about purgatory, it's not talking about you're going to lose what you had. It's talking about if you have an unforgiving spirit, in the story the guy got thrown into prison. The way the father treats you is he disciplines his children, he chases his children. For the purpose of purging that unforgiving spirit and developing a forgiving spirit in us. Now, chasing is not pleasant, it can be pretty rough sometimes. But God will work on us if we have an unforgiving spirit. Okay. All right, our time is up. So we're not even going to get to the trip of Jesus that is so very interesting, but we'll get to that couple of weeks. Okay. Let's pray. Father, thank you for our Lord's teaching on conflict resolution and forgiveness and such important truths for us and our relationships with one another. I pray that we will learn and we will explore even more the understanding and meaning of your word of how you have forgiven us so that we may then not have forgiven others. Lord, help us tonight to search our hearts to see if there is any spirit of unforgiveness toward another person in us. And may we deal with that? May we examine ourselves and deal with it so that you do not have to deal with us about it in your chasing and discipline. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.