Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 27 – March 1976

 

Double Standards

 

Sermon by the Rev. C. Moerman Th.Grad. on Matt.18:21-35

Scripture Reading: Romans 15:1-13

Psalter Hymnal: 323 all; 193 1 and 4; 129:1,3 and 4; 380 all; 490

 

Congregation of the King!

You know what “DOUBLE STANDARDS” mean?

The grocer whose pair of scales facing the customer shows 16 oz, and on HIS side only 14; the father who says to his son, “John, be honest in everything, no dirty tricks,” BUT HE HIMSELF cheats on his timesheets, his hours of work were only 45 minutes (or less), but he charged the full hour; the man who says, “I am thankful to the Lord for my health” but when it is convenient he takes a ‘sicky’.

DOUBLE STANDARDS:

The girl who screams at her mother at the top of her voice, “I hate it here at home, I hate the whole world,” then suddenly, when her boyfriend comes in, she says, with a honey-sweet smile, “Hello darling, glad to see you!”  DOUBLE FACED.

The man who sings pious songs on Sunday, but the same mouth curses through the week; the man who puts a dollar in the plate, but cheats his fellow man out of ten dollars.

Christ has something to say about double standards. . . . and it is a heart-searching story He tells us.

For it concerns you and me. It is a warning, a very serious one, rejecting the Law of the Jungle an eye for an eye and pointing out the Law of the Kingdom turn the other cheek.

Jesus speaks about FORGIVENESS!

Forgiveness. . . . . . a word which so easily flows from our lips, but something very hard to put into practice.

The parable is told by Jesus after Peter made some enquiries about how many times a man must forgive his fellow-man who sins against him.  According to Jewish law one must forgive three times.  After that a man can be as hostile to another as he wishes.

Three times… and Peter, overwhelmed with a wave of generosity and trying to show that he understands the teaching of Jesus, says, “Shall I” (that is, the follower of Jesus, that is, you and I) “shall I forgive seven times?”  Jesus looks at his disciples, maybe a little amused, with a twinkle in his eye.  Peter feels so great and goody-goody.  SEVEN TIMES, LORD – isn’t that awfully good of me?

“Nay, Peter, you’re wrong.  Your human arithmetic does not apply to believers.  Listen, SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN…!!

That’s a lot.  But I’ll tell you a story.

And then the well-known parable follows.  An exciting drama.  with a great variety of scene, changes of mood, pity, indignation, compassion and cold- heartedness.  The king wants to settle accounts with his servants.  One owed him 10,000 talents.  This doesn’t mean very much to us, until we become mathematical.  If it were 10,000 talents of gold, the end figure is astronomical.  If it were 10,000 talents of silver, about five million dollars would be involved – an amount at that time, with a purchasing power so tremendously high, that the servant would have no hope whatsoever to ever pay this amount back to his king.  Of course the king knew that a debt so enormous was impossible to re-pay, so he ordered the servant, his wife and children sold into slavery.  But the miserable servant fell down in the dust before the king, “Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy.  I’ll pay back every cent.”  How could he ever?  The king knew, but yet, showed mercy and grace.  “Alright, I release you from your debt altogether.  Arise and be gone, you are free.  You don’t have to pay me anymore.”  FREE – a big smile..  “Thank you, my Lord”, . . . tears of thankfulness and off he went.

TODAY Jesus Christ seeks with us that same personal interview.  Accounts have to be settled.

A citizen of the Kingdom of God, who has professed Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Redeemer, is one who has been through such an interview, a reckoning.  He has been to the Cross… and his incalculable debt is forgiven… wiped away by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Just imagine, your enormous guilt and load of sin, 10,000 talents worth, and maybe more, is gone.  The parable uses such a fantastic, high amount to impress upon us that when men settle accounts with God, stand at the foot of the cross, no one can stand on his own feet.  The burden is so great, the debt we owe to God, to Jesus Christ, is so inexpressibly great, that no man can face the thought of his life being revealed in all its sinful details: “If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark transgression, O Lord, who then could stand?”

Just imagine, cast your mind back.  ALL your sins, from your youngest years onwards – your nasty lies, loveless words, your dirty thoughts, your awful deeds.  your clever tricks, your handy cover-ups – some standing out clearly in your mind, others forgotten because of their multitude.  SIN AGAINST MAN… SIN AGAINST GOD.  And all sin against man IS FIRST OF ALL SIN AGAINST GOD!!  One big heap of rubbish… of evil… of dirt.  It is impossible to ever calculate the greatness, the vastness, the sum total, the misery to God and man, the consequences of your sins IN THE WHOLE OF YOUR LIFETIME.

You remember the story of the great sin of David… and the prophet Nathan who came to make his sin known to him?  His face was twisted, his hands cold, a horrible feeling of nastiness turning his stomach upside down.  And he cried out with an agonising voice, “I have sinned against the Lord!” S ix simple words, and a truth as big as the whole of life itself.

YOUR SIN is NOT a matter first of all of man to man or woman’, not between you and your boyfriend, your parents, BUT BETWEEN YOU AND GOD.  Oh, of course you did hurt your fellow-man, sometimes even with a smile, but every sin big or small breaks the I – THOU relationship.  Every sin is a slap in the face of God, Who created man good and holy.

And nothing can be glossed over, none of our sins can be reduced.  But at the same time – and that’s the miracle of grace, the miracle of Calvary, – as the greatness of the debt is revealed, the man is freely forgiven.  He falls on his face in despair, pleads for mercy, and the debt is cancelled, that crushing, terrible load is gone.

Is God’s way not a wonderful way of working?  Grace… forgiving the sins of those who believe, through the Cross.  There at the Cross we see the cost of all our sin, all our rebellion against God… and it is wiped away, – ‘whiter than snow, yes whiter than snow’.

God forgives FREELY, and EVERYTHING!!

But forgiveness has two sides, inseparably joined……. the forgiveness each one of us NEEDS from God, and the forgiveness we OWE to our fellow-man.  Have we sometimes forgotten this??

You know what ‘double standards’ mean?

The same servant of our parable went out of the palace, leaping, rejoicing.  .  .  . thankful!

But then he comes upon a man, a fellow servant, who owes him a small amount of money (about ten dollars by our scale).  .  .  . peanuts.  .  .  . And roughly he seizes him by the throat and demands (he does not ask) immediate payment.  No further grace, no patience, PAY!!

And all the poor man’s begging for time and patience is of no avail.  HARD, STONE-HARD, he commands his fellow-servant to be thrown in jail.

The scene shifts.  Man goes out of the presence of God . . . returns from the Cross where forgiveness was granted for his unbearable load. . . . out of the church where we tasted the goodness of the Lord and where we sang “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me: I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see!”  And then we come outside on the hard street of daily life and we walk over to our fellow-man, and say, “We have to settle an account with you – you owe me an apology, you sinned against me. . . you played a dirty trick on me.  COME ON NOW, on your knees, PAY!!  Our hard words hurt and pain our fellow-man, our brother – we want revenge, payment; ‘hurt me hurt you’.

I won’t come to your place for coffee anymore.

I don’t want to talk to you anymore.  For you sinned against me, and I cannot forgive.  Oh, I say I do, with my lips, but my heart will never forget what you did against me you do not exist for me any longer – I am not going to give my time for the Church, for youth-work, or other works of the Kingdom!  I am fed up with it.  I can’t stand ‘the other’.  They never do what I want and think best.  They have sinned against me. . . . ME,  HOLY ME!!

DOUBLE STANDARDS?

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS?

Yes, we too have the same two very different worlds to face – the world of the Cross – of the privacy with Jesus Christ, where everything is so good and easy, the sphere of the church AND the hard street of daily life.  We have the same two different problems as this man in our parable had.  We get a lot, and free, FORGIVEN.  ALL and we smile and are thankful AND we also have our reckoning with our fellow-men; Our life of worship and prayer, and our life in this world; the money we give to God and the money we get out of our fellow-men.

And it seems to be so easy to listen to the whisperings in our ear as soon as we leave the presence of God: “Don’t be a fool, don’t be the smallest, the least.  Forget what you have learned at Jesus’ feet, do what you think is best – pay them back….. give them some of their own medicine, that’s the language they will understand.”

DOUBLE STANDARDS…. DOUBLE FACED!

Some people say “You cannot be a Christian in business life today; let us be practical You cannot take the teachings of Jesus literally in daily life.  You cannot forgive your fellow man who hurts you and steps on your heart.  Come off it.  It doesn’t work.” And the sin of an ‘unforgiving attitude” is so common and widely practised, even among church people.  We can be as hard as steel.  In the man spoken of in our parable, Jesus gives us a vivid illustration of how easy it is for us today to slip into a double and hypocritical way of acting.  Oh, we do not want to, but it is so easy.  Immediately when the man left the presence of the king, he changed.  BUT NOT FOR THE BETTER!!

When we think all this over (and I hope you do) we sometimes find it hard to see any consistency at all in our life.  “Oh, wretched man that I am we cry, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

We know that only Christ can deliver us from this strange tension, this pull between different worlds, those double standards.

And we’d better fight against this… wrestle with God in prayer… to deliver us from double standards, to let us grow in Christian maturity, and grace, in order that we can forgive those who have sinned against us, and DO forgive from the heart.

For Christ gives a warning too!!  The man with the double face, he whom was forgiven much but was not willing to forgive his fellow-servant, was thrown into darkness, into jail.  No mercy on others – no grace for him UNFORGIVENESS, LACK OF COMPASSION, standing on your own rights… there is this one form of inconsistency, of double standards that God will not pardon.  It excludes men from the Kingdom of God.  Jesus told us that there was a chance even for the prostitutes and the publicans, the gross sinners and the ‘no-hopers’, to get into the Kingdom of God, yes they will come.  But He tells us frankly that there is no chance for the UNFORGIVING, even if they are decent, middle-class people attending church every week.  “If you 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 “

Our world cries out for forgiveness… man does… for it breaks up and soils, and spoils human relationships…. it builds up tension in the life of him who does not want to forgive…….. it renders prayer life powerless, it makes us selfish, we lose interest in God and in His service, it increases feelings, feelings of hatred, of unbelief.

In the Church we need forgiveness so much.  “How good and pleasant is the sight, when brethren make it their delight, TO DWELL IN BLEST ACCORD.”

Husbands and wives need it – parents and children – friends and  workmates.

WE ALL NEED FORGIVENESS!!

“The Lord commands His blessing there, and they that walk IN LOVE shall share, in life that never ends.”

HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU WILLING TO FORGIVE?

SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN??