Chapter VII: “Forgiveness”

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
debtors.”—MATT. vi. 12.

“And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves also forgive every one
that is indebted to us.”—LUKE xi. 4.

My exposition of the Lord’s Prayer brings me this morning to speak a few simple words upon the two great fundamental facts of the Gospel—man’s need of forgiveness, and God’s willingness to bestow it.

The petition immediately preceding this one is the prayer for daily bread. We are absolutely dependent upon God for our very existence; so our Lord teaches us to ask God for the food—the material bread that is to sustain our physical life from day to day. But “man shall not live by bread alone.” There is another hunger than hunger of the body—there is a hunger of the soul; and what the soul hungers for is pardon, forgiveness, and the peace forgiveness always brings. So when we have prayed for bread we have not come to an end. We have another prayer to offer. We have a larger request to make. We have a greater boon to ask—“Give us this day our daily bread, AND forgive us our sins.”

The question has often been asked, “Is life worth living?” By some the question is answered without reservation in the affirmative, by others in the negative. For myself, I am not prepared to answer either “Yes” or “No.” My reply would be, “It all depends.” Life, it seems to me, is not worth having if it be not lived in the sunshine of God’s smile. Life is not worth having if God’s face is turned away from us. Life is not worth having if our sins interpose themselves like a black frowning cloud between us and the Eternal Light. To make life worth living, life must be made happy and blessed and peaceful, and before life can be made happy that barrier of sin must be removed, and we must walk in the light of God’s countenance. The prayer for bread is a prayer for _life_—for mere _existence_. But mere existence may be a doubtful boon. To some the prolongation of life simply means the prolongation of misery. Why should men pray for the continuance of a life which is radically wretched? There are multitudes in our world more inclined to pray for swift death than for long life. They say, with Charles Kingsley, “The sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep.” No, it is not mere life, it is not life at any price, but it is the blessed, the peaceful life we want. So we go on to pray for a gift greater far than the gift of bread; we go on to pray for that which alone can make life tolerable, welcome, really worth living; we go on to pray for mercy, pardon, reconciliation, peace. “Father, forgive us our sins.”

“Sin” is an ugly word, a word that stands for the ugliest, most terrible fact in the universe of God. The world was fair and bright till sin entered it; all its wretchedness is the result of sin. Man was pure and happy till sin entered; his foulness and broken-heartedness are the result of sin. The Bible looks at this terrible fact of sin, and fails to find a single word large enough to describe it in all its many aspects of horror. It employs various words for this one terrible thing according as it views it from different standpoints. Looking at it from the standpoint of the true end of human life, sin is a “missing of the mark.” The chief end of man is to glorify God. The sinner fails in that. He misses the mark. Sin from this point of view means _failure_, _defeat_, _disaster_. The Bible looks at sin from the standpoint of Law, the Divine Law written in the nature and on the conscience of man, and brands sin as _lawlessness_. Every single sin is a _trespass_, a transgression, and overstepping of the bounds. The Bible looks at sin from the standpoint of prudence, and stigmatises sin as _folly_—the most stupendous and senseless of all follies. The sinner is a man who, for a few moments of delirious excitement, barters away his immortal soul. The Bible looks at sin from the standpoint of God, and sin then becomes disobedience, or, as in the text quoted from Matthew, it becomes “_debt_.”

Perhaps we are too apt to think of sin only in its effect upon ourselves. We think of the blight it brings upon human character and the ruin it makes in human lives. It is terrible to us because it always brings a curse with it. We fear and dread sin, not always because of its own intrinsic horror, but because of the penalties it inevitably entails; so that all too often our very fear of sin has its roots in selfishness, and springs out of self-love. I want to say to you that we shall never see sin in its naked horror, we shall never see it in its awful hatefulness, until we look at it from another standpoint. We sin not against ourselves alone, but _against_ God. David, in the great crime of his life, had sinned against Uriah, whose blood he had caused to be shed, and against Bathsheba, the partner of his sin, and against his own soul; but when under the faithful speech of Nathan he was brought to see that awful sin of his in its true light, he lost sight of himself, and Bathsheba and Uriah; he could only think of the God he had flouted and outraged and grieved, and this was the agonised cry that broke from his lips, “Against _Thee_, Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in _Thy_ sight.” Then comes in the enormity of sin. It is sin _against God_! Let me illustrate what I mean from our ordinary human life. Say that a son who has been loved at home and has been the pride of his mother’s heart, falls into disgrace and is brought up in the police courts charged with some shameful deed. If such a son has any sensibility at all, his sin will appear hateful to him, not so much because it has brought disgrace and loss of liberty to himself, but because away at his home a mother’s heart is well nigh broken with shame and grief. That will be the keenest stab of pain such a lad will suffer. It is the picture of his heart-broken mother that will make him loathe and despise and hate his sin. It is then we shall see the hatefulness of sin, when we occupy David’s standpoint, and say, “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.” Even though sin entailed no loss to the sinner, involved no penalty, brought with it no curse, it would remain still utterly loathsome and hateful if we only realised that every sin of ours caused grief and pain to the heart of the eternal God, our loving Father in heaven.

Now that is the point of view from which sin is regarded in this prayer. It is _against God_! Matthew uses the word “_debt_.” As Dr. Morison says, “When we sin there is something in our act for which we become _liable_ to God. Formerly He had a claim upon us; now He has a claim _against_ us.” The sins of our past history are included in this word “debt.” They have not done with us, though we try to persuade ourselves that we have done with them! Ah! what a relief it would be if we could only be sure that sin when once committed was over and done with for ever! But it is not so! These sins of ours enrol themselves in a great book of accounts; not one is omitted; not one is overlooked; not one is forgotten. Do we try to persuade ourselves that somehow or other the sins of the past have been lost sight of? Do we try to flatter ourselves that they have been buried in the dust of the years? That is a vain hope. There are no mistakes, no omissions in the eternal account books. The ink of those books never fades. There every sin is enrolled. There you see them—a long, black, damning list. That is your DEBT. Sins of commission—the evil words we have spoken, the evil deeds we have done, they are all there. Sins of _omission_ are there as well. In fact, I fancy that it is to sins of this class that the word “debt” specially points. “Debt” is something we OWE. In relation to God it is something we owed to Him and failed to pay. So it stands here for the many things we ought to have done, which we have left undone.

There are some of us who perhaps flatter ourselves that we have never committed any flagrant sin. We are not blasphemers; we are not drunkards; we are not profligates; we have never committed theft or adultery or murder; we have never been guilty of any crime that has brought us to public shame; and on the strength of that we are half inclined to think that the name “sinner” is not applicable to us. But notice how this word “debt” lays hold of even the most respectable of us. There are certain things we _owe_ to God. We owe Him reverence. Have we given it to Him? We owe Him obedience. Have we given it to Him? We owe Him service. Have we given it to Him? We owe Him our heart’s best love. Have we given it to Him? We owe Him the first place in our thoughts and affections. Have we given it to Him? We owe Him complete self-surrender. Have we given it to Him? Ask yourselves these questions. Probe your hearts with them. Face them frankly and honestly. Have you given God perfect obedience, the best love of your hearts, the first place in your lives? Oh, how such questions humble us! How they cover us with shame and confusion! Looking back over my own life, I can see how my years have been marred and disfigured by my failure to give to God what He has a right to expect. I can see that I have not reverenced Him as I ought; that I have not obeyed Him as I ought; that I have not placed Him first, as I ought. When I begin to ask myself if I have done what God expects from me, my pride all disappears, my heart is pierced as with sharp swords, my self-satisfaction is torn to shreds, and I am humbled to the dust; for as I look back every day tells its tale of things left undone which I ought to have done, and these sins of omission rise up before me—a mountain load of debt which I owe to God.

DEBT! what a terrible word that is to every true and honest man! There are multitudes who would prefer to bear privation and poverty rather than run into debt. The workhouse is bad enough, but better the workhouse than “debt.” But will you suffer me to say that “debtors” we all of us are? “We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We have come short—we have given God less than His due; He has a claim against us; we are “in debt” to Him. And the debt is one that cannot be expressed in the figures and coinage of earth. It is a debt that money can never pay. I have heard sometimes of men who, when they have found themselves in financial difficulties, have called their creditors together, and have said to them, “If you will but give me time, I will pay you all in full”; and from time to time we read in our newspapers of honourable men discharging with interest debts they had incurred years before. Can we do something like that with this debt we owe to God? Can we work it off in the days and years that are to come? I cannot hold out to you any hope of doing that. Work as hard as you like to please God to-day, when the day is done, what will you have to say? Just this, “We have been unprofitable servants—we have only done what we ought.” Only what we ought—there is no margin, nothing over, which you can apply to the reduction of the old debt. The arrears of obligation are untouched. May I venture to say that, before night comes, by some sin or other, you will have added to the debt? It would be as easy to bale the ocean dry as to hope by your own efforts to pay this debt. It would be as easy—nay, it would be infinitely easier—to count the sands of the seashore than to remove this mountain load of obligation. Try your best, and you will fail as Paul failed, as Luther failed. Spite of your best efforts the debt—that crushing debt—goes on increasing. Well, what can you do? _You_ can do nothing! _Sin_ past and present, _sin_ of commission and omission, _sin_—that long, black, damning record that stands against your name in the eternal account book—what can you do with it? How can you remove it? How can you blot it out? How can you bury it out of sight and mind? How can you erase out of the book that fatal story? You say you must have something done, or that debt will strangle you. What can you do to be delivered from this body of death? My brother, you can do nothing; you cannot pay the debt, you cannot blot out the sin, you cannot erase the record from the book. Do your best, and at the end you will be “in debt.” But you say, “Can nothing be done? Am I, then, doomed to ruin and to death? Is there no way of paying this debt?” Here is the gospel in a nutshell. Here is the good news, old as the centuries, but new in your ears and mine to-day. Something _can_ be done! _You_ can do nothing, _I_ can do nothing, but God, the God against whom we have sinned, He can do everything. He can remove that mountain load of debt. He can blot out that fatal record in the book. He can erase every entry. He can bury our sins out of sight for ever. We can never pay that overwhelming debt; but HE, He can give us our account back with “Settled” written at the bottom of it. Oh yes, here is the Gospel: Sin in man, but forgiveness in God; debt in man, but mercy in God. “Where sin doth abound there grace doth much more abound.”

Listen, as to what God will do with your sins and mine! He will cancel the debt! He will blot out the handwriting that was against us and put it out of the way, nailing it to the Cross of Christ! He will erase that fatal record in the book! He will remember our sins against us no more. As far as the east is from the west, so far will He remove our transgressions from us. Listen to His invitation and His gracious promise, “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.” This is the Gospel—this is the good news. There is something greater, stronger even than the sin of man, and that is the grace of God. I can see a limit to human sin. I can see no limit to the Divine mercy.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to pardon all my sin.

Yes, there is mercy with God! There is forgiveness with Him! The wonder of the world still is that the God against whom we have sinned is the One who will take our sin away.

All souls that were, were forfeit once,
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy.

That remedy was the Cross of Christ. It is He, the sinless Jesus, who has cancelled the debt. “He died for us according to the Scriptures.” It is His pierced hand that shall blot out the record of our sins. It is in His life-blood that we are to be washed free from every stain. It is at the foot of His Cross our sins are to be buried. Christ the sinless one is the Lamb of God. He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. This is the Gospel. There is a debt against us we can never hope to pay. But God for Christ’s sake will cancel it. There are sins which crush us with their weight and burden, but God for Christ’s sake will take them all away. There are stains upon us—black and deep and foul; but the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Just as the snow descends from heaven and hides all the grime and filth of earth underneath its mantle until the whole surface is one pure glistening white, so God will let His mercy cover us; He will clothe us in righteousness until every stain is covered and we stand forth whiter than snow. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses. The Cross proclaims that there is forgiveness with God. And I want to preach the free glad Gospel of the Cross to you this morning. I want to say to you sin-stricken, perishing, dying men and women, there is forgiveness with God. There is nothing which His mercy cannot do. There is no sin too great, no guilt too black for Him to pardon. A poor criminal in Scotland, as he went forth to his place of execution kept crying out, “He is a great Forgiver. He is a great Forgiver.” Yes, He is a great Forgiver! Let us men and women, ruined and undone by sin, praise God, for He is a great Forgiver. His tender mercy is ever upon us. In God’s mercy is our hope. And the Cross is the pledge of pardon which stoops to the lowest and most vile. The Cross, the Cross—the bitter, shameful Cross; the glorious, radiant Cross; our most jubilant songs arise from the Cross—

E’er since by faith I saw the stream
His flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

Well! and what was the _price of pardon_? I can tell you what it cost God. It cost God the death of His own, His only Son. The Cross was necessary to make pardon possible. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” That is what your forgiveness and mine cost God, it cost Him the blood of His Son. But what will it cost us? What will it cost? It will cost us _nothing_. As I said, when speaking of the previous petition, God does not sell, God _gives_. Some have tried to buy forgiveness by fasts and vigils and penances and rigid self-discipline. That is how Luther, when he was a monk at Erfurt, and Thomas Bilney, when he was a student at Cambridge, tried to obtain pardon and peace. Some have even believed that pardon was to be bought with money, so the boxes of the Indulgence sellers in Germany were filled with the coins of men and women who wanted forgiveness. But pardon is not to be bought, neither with money nor with penances nor vigils nor fasts. Forgiveness is to be had for nothing. Pardon is given without money and without price. All that is required is that you should _ask_ for it. “Ask and ye shall receive.” Zacchæus asked, and he received it. Mary of Magdala asked, and she received it. The thief on the cross asked, and he received it. Come and ask, and you too shall receive it. Why will ye be stricken any more? Why will ye die, O house of Israel. Come and ask, and you shall hear the answer fall on your ears like sweetest music, “Son, daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” That is what this petition teaches us to do. It bids us come and ask. For Jesus recognizes that we are all of us “debtors.” But the debt will be remitted for the asking. Therefore He teaches us to pray “Forgive us our trespasses.” The ground of forgiveness is not in ourselves. It is not because of our own merit that the debt is cancelled. We are saved not by works, but by grace. We are forgiven because of the boundless love that fills the heart of God, the love that found expression in the Cross of Christ. Our confidence lies in the fact that God is our Father. Let us trust the Father! Let us believe the message of the Cross! Let us not hang back through doubt or fear! Let us go with boldness to the throne of grace just as we are—guilty, sin-stained, and vile. He will cast none of us out, but He will forgive us freely; His anger will be turned away and He will comfort us, and peace like a river shall flood our troubled souls!

Let me now go on to ask you to notice for a moment the qualifying clause: “As we also have forgiven our debtors,” says Matthew. “For we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us,” says Luke. I think these words are meant to be in the first place _words of encouragement_. If man can forgive, much more can God. They remind us of that splendid verse, “If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things unto them that ask Him.” We have known men who have generously and freely forgiven great wrongs committed against them. We are here told to think of the way in which even men can forgive in order that we may have faith to believe that God, who is infinitely more loving and pitiful than the best of men, can and will forgive to the uttermost. But these words are also words of _solemn warning_. Sometimes they make the prayer die upon our lips, for they require the forgiving spirit to be in us before we ask forgiveness from God. Do you notice how this prayer, which soars to the heights, enforces also the simple everyday moralities? Look at this petition, “Forgive us our sins, _for we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us_.” “For we ourselves also forgive every one.” Is that true? Have you forgiven every one? Are there no grudges that you cherish? Are there no enmities in your heart? Is there no one against whom you cherish malice or ill-will? If there is ill-will against anyone in your heart, can you pray this prayer? Can you say to God, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one?” You remember how, in the striking story of the two debtors, our Lord condemned the man who could ask God to forgive him that awful debt of sin, and yet cherish an unforgiving spirit against his neighbour. Oh what a warning, a solemn warning, there is in this petition, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Or look at the way Matthew puts it, “Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.” I want to ask you a plain question: “Would you really like God to forgive just in exactly the same way as you forgive your enemies?” Do you think you would? Why, is not our forgiveness all too often grudging and half-hearted? Do we not often cherish the remembrance of the offences? Do we not say, “I will forgive, but I cannot forget?” Would you like God to forgive you like that? I can never forget the words which Augustus Hare writes on this passage. He pictures an unforgiving man praying this prayer, and this is what he says: “O God, I have sinned against Thee many times from my youth up till now. I have often been forgetful of Thy goodness. I have neglected Thy service. I have broken Thy laws. I have done many things utterly wrong against Thee. Such is my guiltiness, O Lord, in Thy sight; deal with me, I beseech Thee, even as I deal with my neighbour. He has not offended me one-tenth, one-hundredth part as much as I have offended Thee. But I cannot forgive Him. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O Lord as I deal with him. He has been very ungrateful to me, though not a tenth, not a hundredth part as ungrateful as I have been to Thee. Yet I cannot overlook his ingratitude. Deal with me, O Lord, I beseech Thee, as I deal with him. I remember and treasure up every trifle which shows how ill he has behaved to me. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O Lord, as I deal with him. I am determined to take the very first opportunity of doing him an ill turn. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O Lord, as I deal with him.” Oh, what a terrible curse such a prayer is! But, brethren, may it not be that, if we cherish unkind feelings in our hearts, if we hug secret hates and enmities, when we ask God to forgive us, in exactly the same way as we forgive others, we too may be invoking not blessing, but doom upon our own heads. Before we can pray this prayer we need the spirit of forgiveness in our own hearts. Emerson says of Abraham Lincoln, that “his heart was as big as the world, but there was no room in it for the memory of a wrong.” Such must be our spirit also, the spirit that Jesus showed when on the Cross he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” May God help us even now to forgive from our hearts our brothers their trespasses, then can we draw near with boldness to the throne of grace and pray, “Father, forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us.”