THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S the two came forward and knelt to gether receiving forgiveness from God. The whole church was melted to tears and the community received such a re vival as it had never known before. This brought heaven into those homes and into the church and community. v. 21. How Oft shall my brother sin against me? We all have those whom we forgive and scarcely have we for given them but they offend again. How long shall they be COMMENTS FROM permitted to keep MANY SOURCES this up? J e s u s Keith h . Brooks multiplied Peter’s high figure by sev enty. Here we have the perfect number multiplied by the number of complete ness and multiplied still again by the perfect number. In other words, never cease forgiving.—Torrey. There is a proneness in our nature to be afraid of doing too much for religion, particularly by forgiving too much though we have so much forgiven us.—Henry. Some people have a way of keeping score of the offenses done against them, and then allow themselves to be revenged when they think the measure is full. God keeps account for He is the Judge and vengeance is His, but' it is not our place to keep account lest we be found stepping into His throne.—Sel. Until seven times. The Rabbinical rule was that no one should ask forgiveness of his neighbor more than thrice. Peter thought he was making a great advance in liberality and showing himself worthy of the kingdom of heaven, but the ques tion itself indicates complete misunder standing of the Christian spirit.-—Camb. Bible. v. 23. King would take account. The fundamental moral principle in God’s kingdom is righteousness. Many have failed to notice th a t the Gospel comes to us first of all, as the news of insolv ency and judgment, the institution of a strict account between God and man. A solemn sense of God’s awful righteous ness with- a searching eye upon our sin, is needed as the forerunner of ,our sal vation.—-Horn. Com. v . -24. One owed him ten thousand talents. ■Even if silver talents are meant the sum is enormous. It was probably more than the whole annual revenue of Palestine a t this time. The vast sum implies the -hopeless character of the
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debt of sin.—Carr. “A myriad of tal ents”—the highest number known in the Greek arithmetical notation. Oh, the boundlessness of our. obligation to God-and our utter incapacity as sinners infinitely indebted to divine justice, of paying one mite out of the talent.— Treas. Scrip. Knowledge. v. 25. He had not to pay. Sinners are insolvent debtors. There Is no evading the inquiries of divine justice. The debt will not go unnoticed. Think of the vastness of the number of our sins: ''h e y are myriad, more than the hairs l a our head (Ps. 40:12). Who can understand the number of his er rors or tell how oft he offends? (Ps. 19:12) .—Henry. Commanded him to be sold. Spiritually the selling is the expression of God’s right and power altogether to alienate from Himself, re ject and deliver into bondage, all those who have come short of His glory.— Dummelow. v. 26. Fell down and worshipped. It is no hard task for a sinful man to ob tain forgiveness from his God. In the heart of God there is no reluctance to forgive.-—A. Brown. Have patience with me. The servant asked not for full remission but for time, yet the loving kindness of the king granted full remis sion of the debt. Learn from this that God gives more than we ask.—Euthy- mius. I will pay thee. A sign that his repentance was very superficial as in deed. his subsequent conduct showed.— Seí. v. 28. Found hjs fellow-servant. By this is meant the debt of man to man, of fenses which men are bound to forgive one another.—Camb. Bible. Owed a hundred pence. The difference between the two amounts of debt named in the parable sets forth the vast difference be tween our indebtedness to man and to God.-—Meyer. Pay th a t thou owest. The servant in the parable was not un righteous but ungracious. Surely a man ought to pay his debts. If he does not want to pay them should he not be made to pay them ? It ill becomes a man, however, who has not been held to pay his own debts, to use compulsion to col lect those due him.—Farr. v. 30. He would not.. What does it mean to refuse to forgive? It is ex acting from our neighbor what is not being exacted from us. It is taking him by the throat when we have been al lowed to go free. What are the hun dred pence to ten .thousand talents? Whát áre my brother’s few sins against
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