50 me compared to my numberless -sins against God ?—Lewis. v. 31. They were sorry. This seems to point to the common conscience of mankind which, anticipates the divine sentence. v. 33. Should have had compassion. If we could only be brought to realize how great our unpaid debt is to God, which He has freely forgiven us, we surely would not find it hard to forgive others. The greatest wrongs done us would seem small indeed compared with the wrongs we have done H im .^Torrey. v. 34. His Lord delivered him. The acquittal is revoked, a point not to be pressed in the interpretation. The chief lesson is the example of the divine spirit of forgiveness in -the act of the king. This example the pardoned servant should have followed.—Carr. v. 35. So likewise. The parable il lustrates God’s dealings with Christians, not with the world. Inasmuch as God has forgiven us the great and unpayable debt, we must also forgive our brethren the comparatively trifling debts which they have incurred by sinning against us. (Eph. 4:32).—Dummelow. For give everyone. The very foundations of the kingdom of heaven are laid in the preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ (Lk. 24:47; Acts 20:21, 25). Everyone who enters, enters as a forgiven sinner whom his Lord has forgiven a crushing debt. When one refuses to forgive a fellow be liever, he denies the very essence of the kingdom of heaven and violates, its fun damental principle. The lesson of the parable is for those whose sins have been forgiven. The basis of the com mand that we forgive one another, is God’s having first forgiven us. (Acts 13:39; Eph. 1 :7 ).-^Mauro. Life that ever needs forgiveness has for its first duty to forgive.—Lytton. There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.— Shaw. Forgive One Another. Matt. 18:21, 22 . Memory Verse.—“And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Eph. 4:32. • Approach.—A big boy in a school choked and abused the small boys un til finally the teacher asked the small boys to vote whether she should send
THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S
the big boy home to
BEGINNERS stay. They all voted AND PRIMARY, to send the big boy Mabel L. Merrill home except one lit tle five-year-old, yet he knew the big boy would continue to be cruel to him. “Why did you vote for him to stay?” asked the teacher. “Be cause father and mother forgive me when I do wrong; God forgives me, too, and I must do the same.” Practical Commentary S. S. Lessons. 1921. Lesson Story.— In our story today Je sus is with His disciples, and He is talk ing to them and telling them something very important for them to know, and it is just as important for each one of us to know, and for everybody to know. Jesus had been telling them how they should treat people who were not kind to them, or did not treat them right. Jesus knew how they would feel like treating them unkindly, or as we some times hear people say today when some one has hurt us or treated us in a way that is not right, “I’ll get even with you.” Jesus told them this was not right, even though some one has done us a wrong, we should not hold a wrong feel ing toward them, but should speak to them in a kind way until the people who had done wrong would be sorry, and then we must love them just as though they had always treated us kindly. Now you know while Jesus was talking Peter was thinking pretty hard, and just as soon as Jesus had finished speaking to them, Peter asks Jesus a question, and what do you think that question was? Peter had listened very carefully to all that Jesus had told them about for giving those who had treated them un kindly in any way, and he was thinking about somebody who had treated him unkindly, not only once but a great many times, so he asked Jesus how many times he ought to forgive the same person who had wronged him a great many times. Let me see if you can count as many fingers as I hold up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. That
Made with FlippingBook HTML5