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Well brethren have you ever stopped and wondered what it means to be forgiven
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Sometimes we forget about the seriousness and magnitude of God's forgiveness toward us and now brethren this is actually March 23 and just a
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little bit or just about a month from now we are going to keep the Passover
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and this is high time for us to reflect one of the meanings the great
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significance of this day which is the forgiveness that you receive from God
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through the death and sacrifice of our Lord and Master Yeshua. That's why
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brethren I want us to take into consideration this afternoon the importance of forgiveness and one of the best ways to better understand this
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concept is through going to the one of the most or I would say most important
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parables of Yeshua and in this parable we will better understand what it means
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for God to forgive us and to extend the same love grace and mercy to other
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people. So brethren I would like to invite you to look into the parable of
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the two debtors. The parable of the two debtors. Let's go there brethren and this
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is the only passage that I have for you so we are going to focus into the story
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now I'm not just going to talk about the parable itself but I would like us to go
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through the story itself that why did Yeshua give this story or this parable
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why did he what what are the what is the situation that has led him to give this
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parable and by doing so brethren we will have a bigger or deeper understanding
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of what this parable will mean. So this is the lessons that we will receive or
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we will acquire from the parable the two debtors. So let's go there brethren
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let's start reading Luke 7 verse 36 Luke 7 verse 36 then one of the Pharisees so
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later we will see that this the name of this Pharisee is Simon. One of the
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Pharisees asked him to eat with him so Simon invited Yeshua to go to his home
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and have meal with him and he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat
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and behold a woman the city who was a sinner so this woman is a known sinner
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within that place and what's so interesting about this woman brethren is
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that we know that everyone is a sinner but this particular woman maybe people
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have seen this woman to have exceeded the average level of being a sinful woman so
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a lot of people knew that this woman is sinful and some scholars assume that
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this woman is a prostitute so this woman heard that Yeshua is in that house in
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the house of that Pharisee and when she knew that Yeshua sat at the table in
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the Pharisee's house brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood
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at his feet behind him weeping. Alright so by reading this verse we probably
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don't really appreciate the depth and the impact or the magnitude of the
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action of this woman so actually if you think about it it takes a lot of courage
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for this woman to approach Yeshua the one who can forgive sin in her life
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because if you knew the culture at the time how can a sinful woman know to that
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place to approach Yeshua and even in entering the house of a righteous
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Pharisee so this is a big surprise this is unexpected this is something that
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Yeshua and other people have not really are not prepared for so all of a sudden
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they're eating they're eating and suddenly there's this woman coming inside and bringing alabaster flask and fragrant oil and what did he do
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brethren what did she do and she began to wash his feet with her ears and wipe
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them with the hair of her head and she kissed his feet and anointed them with
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the fragrant oil. Now this is very controversial at that time brethren you
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know why because in that in that society for a woman to let down her hair
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it's a an action of being seductive it is something that a normal a moral
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normal woman would never do right in the public and she was doing this and what
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else did he do she do if it weren't because of her tears people have might
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be thinking that she was seducting or seducing Yeshua because she was kissing
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the feet so this is actually a controversial action by the in the in
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the in the part of the woman and so a lot of these people were thinking oh no
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this woman is immoral this woman is sinful what is she doing here and people
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were thinking of themselves the right thing to do here is to push away this
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woman reject her and just to put her away so they were expecting Yeshua to do
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the same and yet what did Yeshua did you know what did Yeshua did here he says
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we read here or we now see the reaction of Simon here which represented
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the usual or the normal reaction of the people around him look at this verse 39
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now when the Parsi who had invited him saw this he spoke himself so maybe no
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balloon or or he was just telling himself this man talking about Yeshua if
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he were a prophet would know who and what manner of woman is is who is
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for she is a sinner so in the mind of Simon that in the mind of Simon that
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this woman does not deserve to be in his house to be in front of the teacher he
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was so convinced that this woman should be rejected to the point that he he he
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thought that Yeshua is not a prophet when we see here brethren and to the
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surprise of Simon Yeshua does not only knew the heart of the woman she also he
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also knew the heart of Simon that's why in verse 40 brethren says and Yeshua
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answered he answered and said to him Simon I have something to say to you so
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this is where the parable of the two debtors comes in and he said teacher
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say it in verse 41 there was a certain creditor who had two debtors one owed
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five hundred denarii and the other 50 so these two in the parable there were two
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first there are two people the one owed 50 denarii and the other is about 500
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denarii so according to scholars one denarii is or one denarius is
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equivalent to a day's wage so we have this one person who has who was was a
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debt of 50 denarii so it is equivalent to about two months of salary and the
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other is about two years of salary now the two people here does not have or do
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not have the same amount of of debt but the one common denominator denominator
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here is that both of them cannot pay it anymore so both of them even though the
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one the other one has bigger debt both of them cannot pay it anymore and so
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what did the creditor do says here in verse 42 and when they had nothing with
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which to repay he freely forgave them both tell me therefore so this is the
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question of Yahshua to Simon tell me therefore which of them will love him
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more so Simon was sensing I think this is a tricky question I think I think I
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love you not to do more though that's why he did not answer immediately he said
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here and I am Simon answered and said I suppose so he was kind of hesitant to
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answer the question because he knew that this is going to be about him he
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says I suppose the one whom we forgave more and so Yahshua said you have
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rightly judged verse 44 when he turned to the woman said to Simon do you see
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this woman now why would Yahshua ask Simon this question do you see this
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woman you know what brother you know why because Simon cannot see the woman
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he was so blinded by self-righteousness that he cannot see a woman there all he
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could see was the woman's sin and yet when Yahshua saw the woman he saw a
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woman that needs mercy grace and forgiveness that's why brethren it is
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very important for us to have compassion to other people because you
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know why because all of us are sinners all of us have fallen short of the glory
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of God that's why you cannot say now you cannot um you cannot fully compare
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yourself to others saying that oh look at this this this is a sinner this is
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someone is worse sinner than me and yet that is only natural for us when we see
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someone is committing when you see a drug addict how many of us have really
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thought that oh this person needs forgiveness the first thing that comes
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into our mind is that person deserves it that person needs to be sent to jail
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when we see people who are committing who is a drug in in death who are
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drowned in their sins or living since we don't usually see people who need
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forgiveness we see people who need condemnation we need see we see people
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who need punishment that's the natural thing to do here brethren but yet
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Yahshua was trapping us to see a person who needs mercy grace and forgiveness
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that's why brethren he asked do you see this woman I entered your house you
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gave me no water for my feet but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped
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them with the hair of her head you gave me no kiss but this woman has not ceased
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to kiss my feet since the time I came in you did not anoint my head with oil but
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this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil therefore I say to you her
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sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much but to whom little is
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forgiven the same loves little now I want to extract important lessons here
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for all of us now let me just give you at least three of them here the first
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lesson is this this lesson or this parables teaching us that it teaches us
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that we are all singers and no matter how big or small our sins are you don't
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have the ability to pay them back your sins have been you don't have the ability to pay it back that's why
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brethren we must not be proud of ourselves and say we are more righteous
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than others you know why because our righteousness is just equivalent to
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filthy rags we cannot simply say that oh look at me I sin little compared to
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this person who sin so big and so I'm better than this person no we cannot say
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that oh look at this look at this um look at this church look at this um look
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at this congregation look at their their leaders look at their members you know sometimes we are good at judging and judging others
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and yet we didn't see that on our own turf on our church we are doing the same
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thing or sometimes we kind of think that other people are worse sinners than us
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and yet we are just sinning in different way that's why brethren the message of
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this parable is that we should not think highly too much of ourselves because no
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matter how big or small your sin is every sin deserves death penalty and we
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cannot pay the penalty of sin and number two it teaches us that no amount of sin
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God cannot forgive no matter how big or small your sin is God can forgive that
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that's why when you committed sin brethren do not run away from God run
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towards him because that's the only way your sin will be forgiven and number
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three brethren it teaches us that God's mercy is infinite can you just imagine
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brethren if our Savior is like Simon someone who God is not in the business
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of condemning other people he is in the business of saving other people that's
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why he sent his son for us so that our sins would be forgiven and so in verse
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48 brethren we see we read here then he said to her to the sinful woman your
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sins are forgiven and those who sat at the table with him began to say to
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themselves who is this who even forgive sins and then verse 50 then he said to
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the woman your faith has saved you go in peace now what a wonderful way to
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give benediction to the woman you see brethren being forgiven should give us
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the peace of mind we should have the confidence that our sins have really
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been forgiven and because of this reference because God has extended this
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this forgiveness to us we must also extend this to other people now you
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might say oh that's very nice Joshua that's a very nice teaching from the
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Bible so so it's so it's so nice to the ears and yet brethren you know what by
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the time someone betrays you by the time someone offends you this teaching can
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s can easily be forgotten it can easily be thrown out of the window why because
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the natural thing to do is to be to be full of bitterness hatred we don't want
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to forgive we want to take revenge and yet brethren because we are forgiven
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then we ought to forgive other people now finally brethren I want us to
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remember this we must not be like the like Simon or other people have been
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forgiven you know what brethren because not everyone who has been forgiven of
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their death are happy have you ever experienced that brethren someone someone borrowed money to you and instead of being happy because you have
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you have lent money to them they become angry they become um I remember one time
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when I I let someone I let I lent someone money and then she forgot to pay
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and I asked her to I told her that I need the money and she told me that
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Josh so it is really something that sometimes people who are forgiven are
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not really that grateful and that is very dangerous you know why brethren
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because we don't take it seriously the forgiveness that we have received and
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because of that we don't see the need to overcome sin because it is very easy
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to be forgiven a month so I will just keep on sinning I would just ask for forgiveness but if we become we will become like this woman brethren when we
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it is like this brethren the bigger the sin the bigger the grace that is needed
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to be forgiven and because of that brethren we must not forget that it
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needs a big grace for us for our sins to be forgiven and that is how serious
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our sin is and so brethren this is the importance or this is the message of the
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parable of the two debtors so brethren no matter what sins you have
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committed it requires the death of our Savior because of great love mercy and
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grace of our Heavenly Father brethren we ought to extend the same love to
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other people and when we may we not forget the true meaning of God's
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forgiveness and how we should respond to his great love toward us
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