Participants: Frank Fournier
Series Code: HPOV
Program Code: HPOV000021B
00:01 We've been studying the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
00:03 We're looking at the elder brother. 00:05 You know, I've a hard time accounting 00:07 for why he treated his younger brother the way he did? 00:10 But we do need to understand 00:12 that the family had been embarrassed. 00:14 The family had been put to shame, 00:16 they had been insulted and perhaps 00:18 in the community they were a laugh, 00:20 maybe they were a laughing stuff I don't know. 00:22 And in any case when the younger brother 00:24 came home and his father forgave, 00:26 the one thing that was happening 00:28 in the elder brother's heart was that he could not forgive. 00:34 He was trying to-- 00:37 Have you ever come to the place 00:39 where someone has hurt you 00:41 and you wonder how you can make them 00:42 suffer that which they have made you suffer? 00:45 Is there no way to make him feel 00:48 what he has made us feel? 00:49 And so the younger, 00:50 the elder brother is not able to forgive 00:52 and I can feel a huge frustration in his heart. 00:56 Have you ever been brought to the position in your life 00:59 where there is someone who has done you wrong 01:02 and you don't know how to forgive? 01:06 Turn with me to Matthew Chapter 6 01:08 and we're gonna look at verses 14 and 15. 01:11 "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, 01:13 your heavenly Father will forgive you. 01:15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, 01:17 neither will your Father forgive their trespasses." 01:20 Friends, this sounds very legalistic to me. 01:23 It sounds like our forgiveness 01:24 is based on what we do and not what Jesus said, 01:28 but this is not what Jesus was trying to say. 01:30 Jesus was trying to say 01:32 is that we cannot give what we do not have. 01:35 If we do not forgive us 01:36 because we've never received forgiveness 01:39 and so this is what this is trying to say here. 01:42 The elder brother had never received the help 01:45 that he needed from heaven, from his father, 01:47 therefore when his younger brother came by 01:50 he had nothing to offer 01:53 but he was ruled by his carnal nature, 01:56 he was governed but by what was in his heart 01:59 and out of the abundance of his heart came words 02:03 that were cutting, filled with anger, 02:05 filled with fear 02:07 and the elder brother himself was loosing his way. |
Revised 2014-12-17