I. Today's Gospel has a side of comfort to us. It reminds us it puts the truth in a way that none can possibly mistake of the largeness, the freeness, of God's forgiveness. "He loosed him, and forgave him the debt." He forgives us from day to day and from hour to hour, and He is not afraid to tell us beforehand nay, He presses on us as the great hope of our continual repentance and ultimate strength, that we may countupon His forgiveness.
II. But the parable has also its side of warning. "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?" Our Lord is not speaking at the moment of the attitude of human authority towards offenders against law. Nor, again, is He speaking directly of the duty of judging gently the wrong-doings of others. What our Lord is speaking of in this parable is the forgiveness of personal wrongs to ourselves. The lesson of forgiveness begins in repentance, in the new, unselfish, humble heart, which we learn at the cross of Christ.
E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons,p. 196.
References: Matthew 18:21; Matthew 18:22. R. D. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,2nd series, p. 246. Matthew 18:21-35. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 468.