Unforgiving
Jesus tells us an interesting Parable in Matthew 25:14-28 about an extremely wealthy man who entrusts some of his Servants, or executive employees, and one gets 10,000 talents, or around 340,000 kilograms of gold {340 Tons}, valued at about USD$13.7 Billion, worth about 200,000 years work – more than 3,000 lifetimes. Then there is the other man who owed a mere 100 denarii, or about 100 day’s wages.
To get this in perspective, you have worked for 20 years and have now earned 6,000 denarii. That’s enough to pay back one talent. You only have 9,999 more talents to go.” From this, we can easily see that if it takes 20 years to earn just one talent, then repaying 10,000 talents would require working 200,000 YEARS! Remember that this is 100% of your earnings, so your “Living Costs” must increase this number of years, considerably.
Average Kiwi’s earn about $50,000 per year, and our PM earns $471,049. If one made this debt the ownership of our PM, and then taking her “Daily Earnings” then this equates to her earning about $1290 every day. Using this as our measuring stick in this parable, then the “Mega Debt” is $94,209,800,000 Kiwi. Yet the poor servant only owed $129,000, which most Kiwis could easily repay. To equate the two debts, it is like the cost of the “Address Label” stuck on the window of a brand new “Super Car,” worthless when compared to the eye wateringly expensive “Super Car” that it is so temporarily attached to.
As the Bible story unfolds, “Mega Debt” is obviously “un-payable” so with tears and pleadings, it is magnanimously wiped in an instant, freely forgiven, and yet he still keeps his houses, lands, possessions, wife, children, everything. His “Gratitude” {actually, Lack thereof} is shown by his instantly falling upon one of his tiny slow payers, descending in wrath and un-forgiveness, and to prison the wee debtor went. In the Bible, we have this term from the day that they lived in, Colossians 2:14 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;” and this depicts this very fact; for nailed to every prison door was a piece of parchment.
On this parchment, was the debt recorded, and as payment was made, there was a new figure written down. When the debt finally got to Zero, the door sprung open, and the prisoner was now free to go, this is the Biblical concept of “Forgiveness,” walking out with no evidence of there ever being wrong-doing. Anybody could walk down the prison row, stop at any door, “flash the cash,” and then free, or reduce the sentence. Paul, picking up on this daily occurrence, pictures all of us in a prison cell, a cell holding us because sin has made us mega debtors, wages of sin, for there is a “Mega Debt” written on the parchment, Jesus Christ stops at our cell door, whips out his “Credit Card” and swipes the machine (because of his sacrifice on Calvary, John 3:16) and we walk out free, all because of Calvary. In our story, it appears that our generous philanthropist, also went down to the prison and forgave this man’s tiny debt and released him as well.
Now we have an “Empty Cell,” so a certain “Un-forgiving” Mega Debtor has just had his forgiveness revoked, the so quickly erased debt, is now re-instated, and re-written up on the parchment, nailed to the prison door, Mega Debtor is unceremoniously tossed in, the door clangs shut, and will only open to let his coffin take his dead corpse out to the cemetery, or maybe they will just leave his dead corpse there for another 200,000 years. We have all been “Mega Forgiven” and that is all through Jesus Christ who died on Calvary to pay our Mega Debt, but this story warns us all about falling back into “Un-Forgiveness” or worse, falling back into sin and to be negligent of abiding by the commandments. John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
So our gratitude for our Mega Forgiveness, for the sacrifice on Calvary, is all shown by our Love, and our Love is clearly measured by our Obedience to God’s Commandments. John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” Matthew 6:14-15 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
You see, when Adam Sinned, we were all in Adam, so we all sinned, and were all condemned, we all bled and died and turned to ash on the funeral pyre right there immediately. BUT, it actually was a lamb that actually was offered on the altar, a lamb that bore the consequences of sin [wages of sin] and this symbol pointed forwards for 4000 years until the Lamb of God came, took Adam’s place on the Cross in reality, and gave us life. We look back almost 2000 years for that comfort and assurance of the reality of our magnanimous forgiveness and freedom.
You see, Sin and estrangement from God is this “Mega Debt” and thousands of years of hard work cannot repay the debt, but God in Christ Jesus, has wiped the debt, and we walk free, the Lamb has died not for us, but as us, but remember that “Un-forgiveness” or going back into sin, can revoke and then re-instate the “Mega Debt,” and it will be served out till the very last day. So “In Christ” we forgive always, so that we can remain forever forgiven, so are you “Unforgiving?”
