Rev. Don Campbell

THOUGHT FOR TODAY, I OWED A DEBT I COULD NOT PAY

We were all morally and spiritually bankrupt when God sent his son:
He paid a debt He did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay
I needed someone to wash my sins away
And now I sing a brand new song
Amazing Grace

Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay

God’s grace is indeed amazing, and when we really sing this song with the Spirit and the understanding, it will be impossible for us to be judgmental.

In the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt 18:21-35), one man owed his master ten thousand talents. To put this into perspective, this was the amount that Haman offered to pay into the treasury of King Xerxes if the king would issue a decree to destroy all the Jews throughout the Babylonian Empire. King Xerxes had no soft spot in his heart for the Jews—or anyone else, but he was a businessman. He knew that killing all the Jews was going to cost him revenue. Haman was willing to indemnify the king (Esther 3:1-9). In Jesus’ parable, the servant cannot repay his master the ten thousand talents and begs for an extension on the loan. His master had compassion on him and forgave him the debt.

But this man had a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. A denarius was a day’s wage, so this servant owed about three month’s wages. He also was unable to repay his debt and begged for an extension of time. The unforgiving servant ignored his fellow servant’s plea for mercy and cast him into prison. The unforgiving servant’s fellow servants reported him to the master. When he makes his appearance, the master says, “I forgave you…should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant?” (vv. 32-33). He was then cast into prison to be tortured until he could pay the original debt. Jesus concludes, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses” (v. 35).

Many will go to hell not because of how much they owed but because of how little they were willing to forgive.