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.”
VIII
“Temptation”
“And bring us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”—Matt. vi. 13.
“And bring us not into temptation.”—Luke xi. 5.
Forgiveness is the beginning not the end, the first step not the last in the Christian life. In the Gospel according to John, we read a story about a poor woman who was dragged half dead with shame into the presence of Christ, and charged before Him with a nameless crime. Her enemies crowded round clamouring for her instant punishment. But Jesus, just because He was so pure and good, was infinitely tender and pitiful. He had no harsh judgment to pronounce upon this poor, shame-stricken woman.
When her brutal accusers, made cowards by their own consciences, slunk away one by one, leaving the sinner alone with her Saviour, His word to her was one of pure compassion, “Neither do I condemn thee.” There was pardon for her black sin, forgiveness for her shameful past. But having forgiven her, Christ did not let her go without laying a command upon her. This forgiven woman was not at liberty to return to her old life of folly and shame. “Go,” said Jesus, dismissing her, “sin no more.” That is an illustration of Christ’s unvarying methods with sinners. Forgiveness—full, free forgiveness—is to be had for the asking. Bring your sinful, shameful past before Him; you will hear no bitter, angry words of reproach from His lips. The words you will hear will be words of tenderest compassion. Bring your terrible debt before Him and tell Him of your dire, your abject, your utter poverty. Say to Him, “Lord, I have nothing to pay,” and He will say to you, “All this thy debt, I freely forgive.” Bring your burden of guilt and shame to Him. He will not spurn you from Him though He is so pure and you so unclean, but with words of pity and love He will welcome you, and take the burden of your guilt and shame clean away. Yes, Christ will freely forgive you. He will have mercy upon you. He will abundantly pardon. But forgiveness of the past is not all. What of the future? Well, as to that future the Master will lay upon you also the old injunction, “Go, sin no more.” For the forgiven man cannot return to his old life of sin. After forgiveness comes the life of struggle and conflict against the world, the flesh and the devil. After the blotting out of the shameful past comes the earnest striving to keep the record of the future clean. Forgiveness is not the end, but the beginning. After forgiveness comes all that our fathers meant by the old term, “sanctification.” After forgiveness comes all that John means when he tells us to purify ourselves even as He is pure; all that Paul means when he tells us “to work out our own salvation.” The struggle, the conflict, the battle comes after pardon has been bestowed. For when Jesus whispers into our ears the gladsome message, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” He lays upon us also the command, “Go, sin no more.”
What I have been saying up to this point illustrates the connection between this petition and the one we studied together last Sunday morning. “Forgive us our debts” is a prayer that God will blot out the record of past sin. “Lead us not into temptation” is a prayer for protection in the future. For I want you to notice that the man who has truly repented of his sin wants not simply the past to be blotted out, but he wants grace to shun sin in the days to come. He wants not only to be delivered from the penalty of sin, but he also longs to be emancipated from its power. Let not the freeness of forgiveness ever lead you to think lightly of sin. There were some in the very early days of the Church who interpreted this freeness of forgiveness as a licence to sin. They said, “What matters it? God will forgive.” Nay, they even thought, or at any rate they tried to persuade themselves, they were doing a favour to God by continuing their old wicked practices, as the greater their sin was, the finer the opportunity for the display of God’s forgiving love. They sinned, so they said, that grace might abound. The Church has been troubled and harassed by many a heresy in the course of the centuries, but the most damnable, the most soul-destroying that ever assailed it, was this Antinomian heresy, which bade men sin on because God was ready to forgive, which taught that sin was light, trivial, cheap, because pardon was free. Sin light? Sin cheap? Sin trivial? Brethren, look at the Cross of Jesus Christ! Measure the enormity of the sin by the sacrifice of the Cross! It cost God the life of His own Son to deliver us from it.
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin,
He only could unlock the gate