Mark 11:25-26

But if ye do not forgive.

Prayer and forgiveness

1. The first lesson here taught is that of a forgiving disposition. God’s full and free forgiveness is to be the rule of ours with men.

2. There is a second and more general lesson. Our daily life in the world is made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. Life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which now the one, then the other, can be taken up. My drawing nigh to God is of one piece with my intercourse with men. Failure here will cause failure there.

3. We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson. In our life with men the one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. The right relations to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the conditions of effectual prayer. (A. Murray.)

Forgiving foes

I. We should forgive our enemies and all who have injured us, because of the Divine example. Let us learn to act like our Father in heaven, who forgives us without any merit on our part.

II. We should forgive because it is needful for our own peace. Revenge cherished is like a thorn in the flesh.

III. Forgiveness is one of the most important signs and essentials of spiritual growth.

IV. We should forgive one another because it is the condition of our own forgiveness. (Anon.)

Forgive

He that cannot forgive others breaks down the bridge over which he must pass himself; for everyone has need to be forgiven. As when the sea worm makes a hole in the shell of the mussel, the hole is filled up with a pearl; so, when the heart is pierced by an injury, forgiveness is like a pearl, healing and filling up the wound. (Anon.)

Generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive. (Bacon.)

Forgive and forget

Whilst wrongs are remembered, they are not remitted. He forgives not, that forgets not. When an inconsiderate fellow had struck Cato in the bath, and afterwards besought his pardon, he replied, “I remember not that thou didst strike me.” Our Henry VI is said to have been of that happy memory, that he never forgot anything but injuries. (J. Trapp.)

Forgive

A wealthy planter in Virginia, who had a great number of slaves, found one of them reading the Bible, and reproved him for neglect of his work, saying, there was time enough on Sundays for reading the Bible, and that on other days he ought to be in the tobacco house. On the offence being repeated, he ordered the slave to be whipped. Going near the place of punishment soon after its infliction, curiosity led him to listen to a voice engaged in prayer; and he heard the poor black implore the Almighty to forgive the injustice of his master, to touch his heart with a sense of his sin, and to make him a good Christian. Struck with remorse, he made an immediate change in his life, which had been careless and dissipated, and appears now only to study bow he can render his wealth and talents useful to others.

Forgiveness by those forgiven

A great boy in a school was so abusive to the younger ones, that the teacher took the vote of the school whether he should be expelled. All the small boys voted to expel him, except one, who was scarcely five years old. Yet he knew very well that the bad boy would probably continue to abuse him. “Why, then, did you vote for him to stay?” said the teacher. “Because if he is expelled, perhaps he will not learn any more about God, and so he will be more wicked still.” “Do you forgive him then?” inquired the teacher. “Yes,” said the little fellow; “papa and mamma and you all forgive me when I do wrong; God forgives me too and I must do the same.”

Why prayers sometimes fail

I. Let us, in the first place, enter upon an intelligent exposition of the verses just as they stand. It will be quite as necessary for us to be sure what they do not mean, as what they do mean; for the declaration has been somewhat abused.

1. It is easy to show what our Lord does not teach in His repeated counsels on this point. The new revision gives a very interesting turn to the form of expression by throwing the verb into the past tense: “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This intensifies the admonition, and enforces the condition that ensures success in our praying; for it demands that our pardon of injuries shall have taken place previous even to our coming to the mercy seat for ourselves. It cannot be that the passage we are studying means that our forgiveness of others is in any sense the ground for our remission of sins from God. It cannot be that the passage means that our forgiveness of others is to furnish the measure of our own pardon from God.

2. What then does our Lord mean when He gives this warning? How is a forgiving spirit connected with our prayers? If our having pardoned those who have injured us be not a ground for our own pardon nor a measure of Divine grace, what is it? For one thing, it may be used as a token. It can be looked upon as a hopeful sign that our transgressions have been removed, and that we are now heirs of the kingdom. “For, if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Such a token can be employed very easily. If used faithfully, it would set at rest many a doubt concerning religion in one’s heart. For another thing, this passage may serve as an admonition. And it is likely that it will have in this its widest use. The petition of the great universal prayer cannot be pressed without its comment. In this demand for a forgiving spirit, there is nothing less than a permanent reminder that when we come asking for pardon, we must be prepared to exercise it likewise; if not, we are to turn on our track and seek preparation.

II. This being the exposition of the verses, and the conclusion having been inevitably reached that we cannot even pres without the spirit of forgiveness, it is evident that we must move forward to a higher plane of Christian experience in this one particular. So we inquire, in the second place, concerning the reach and the limit of the doctrine of forgiveness.

1. The reach of it is indicated in an incident of Simon Peter’s life (Matthew 18:21).

2. But now, with a sober sense of inquiry, and a sincere wish to be reasonable, some of us are ready to ask after the limit as well as the reach of this counsel. (Luke 17:3.) Before this question can be plainly answered, we must be careful to see that forgiveness does not imply that we approve, condone, or underrate the injurious acts committed; we forgive the sinner, not the sin-the sin we are to forget. Nor does forgiveness imply that we are to stifle all honest indignation against the wickedness of the injury. Nor is it settled that we are to take the injurious man into constant companionship if we forgive him; Jacob and Esau will do better apart. What, then, are we to do? We are, in our very heart of hearts, to cease forever from the sore sense of a hurt; we are to shut our souls against all suggestions of requital or future revenge; we are to use all means for furthering the interests of those who have done us harm; we are to illustrate the greatness of God’s pardoning love by the quickness of our own. All this before our wrongs have been atoned for; before our honest acts and decent deeds have been shown! It does seem a little difficult; but think over Augustine’s searching question: “Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and vindicated, and the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor his innocence vindicated?” It is related of the chivalric leader, the great Sir Tristam, that his stepmother tried twice to poison him. He hurried to the king, who honoured him as he honoured none other, and craved a boon: “I beseech you of your mercy that you will forgive it her! God forgive it her, and I do! For God’s love, I require you to grant me my boon!” (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Forgiveness of injuries

A young Greenlander said to a missionary, “I do love Jesus-I would do anything for Him; how good of Him to die for me!” The missionary said to him, “Are you sure you would do anything for our dear Lord?” “Yes, I would do anything for Him. What can I do?” The missionary, showing him the Bible, said, “This Book says, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’” “Oh, but that man killed my father.” “Our dear Lord Himself says, ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments,’ and this is one of them.” “Oh,” exclaimed the Greenlander, “I do love Jesus! but I-I must-” “Wait a little, calm yourself; think it well over and then come and let me know.” He went out, but presently came back, saying, “I cannot decide; one moment I will, the next I will not. Help me to decide.” The missionary answered; “When you say, ‘I will kill him,’ it is the evil spirit trying to gain the victory; when you say, ‘I will not,’ it is the Spirit of God striving within you.” And so speaking, he induced him at length to give up his murderous design. Accordingly the Greenlander sent a message to the murderer of his father, telling him to come and meet him as a friend. He came, with kindness on his lips, but treachery in his heart. For, after he had stayed with him a while, he asked the young man to come and visit him on this side of the river. To this he readily assented, but, on returning to his boat, found that a hole had been pierced in the boat, and cleverly concealed by his enemy, who hoped thereby to destroy him. He stopped the hole, and put off in his boat, which to the surprise and wrath and indignation of the other, who had climbed a high rock on purpose to see him drown, did not sink, but merrily breasted the waves. Then cried the young man to his enemy, “I freely forgive you, for our dear Lord has forgiven me.”