The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-5, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

This is the second time that I have been to church in two years.  I was a part of a very large and very active church in Dallas, Texas.  My family was very involved with the church.  My father taught evangelism for six years.  One morning our minister came up before us, after he had been preaching on marital enrichment for more than two months, and told us that he had been having an affair with one of the church women; one of the women that worked in the office at the church.  The church completely split and divided.  The Bishops sent him out of the church.

My question is, "Where can I find forgiveness for this?"  It's been very difficult for me to listen to someone time and time again.  The man became such an incredible person in the church; he was almost looked upon as being God.  I find it very difficult to be comfortable in organized religion, because I am worried that that kind of thing goes on and it is not found [out].  And it was a wonderful, wonderful, very fast growing church with so many wonderful programs.

Answer

I am glad that you asked that question, that's a heartbreaker, because you see that's such a powerful, powerful deterrent, as illustrated by your own life, to people to keep them out of the church.  Because when somebody at that level falls it's a total disaster; people are crushed all over the place, because if there is any one person in the world that you put your trust in it is the man of God.  When the man of God turns out not to be the man of God you have been totally deceived. 

I don't think that the devil, Satan, sin, the flesh, whatever, can do anything in the church that is as devastating as that.  Nothing in the church is as devastating as the moral fall of a leader that people have put their trust in, because it literally devastates not only their trust of that man, but their trust of that position, and I understand exactly what you're saying.

The only thing that I can say on the other side is that there have been men of God who have been proven through many, many years, to be faithful.  For every unfaithful man God has His faithful man.  You have to, first of all, find it your heart to forgive, I think for the simple reason that Christ has forgiven you and forgiven me.  In other words, who am I not to forgive someone else, who myself, though not committing perhaps the same sin, am so in need of forgiveness.

Let me give you an illustration, Matthew 18, there was a king and this king had a large territory, and he had apparently some providences and some provincial governors.  It was time for him to collect from them the money they had collected in their own providences for taxes.  So all these governors came in and it was a time for them to account for what they had done with their responsibility.  One of those men came before the king and it says that he owed the king an unpayable debt.  He owed him. . . .it uses "murion" which is the highest Greek term for a number, so it is an unnumbered amount, and unpayable amount.  Even if it translates 10,000 talents, it's astronomical, because the whole national debt of Galilee for one year was 600 talents.  So he owed 10,000 talents or he owed an unpayable sum.

So he falls on his knees before the king, and he says, "Have patience with me and I will pay everything back," and he means well.  The king looks at him and says, "I forgive you."  Now that king is God, and that man is any sinner, and any one of us who come to the Lord and fall on our knees before Him and recognize that we have defrauded God, and we have sinned against Him, and we can never pay for our own sin, and God then forgives us--we are in the same situation.

Then that man who had been forgiven an unpayable debt who deserved hell, in fact, the king said, "I am going to sell him and his whole family and get all I can get out of them," which is what hell is: not getting what God deserves, but getting all He can get.  The guy who was forgiven then went out, found a guy who owed him 300 denari (a few hundred dollars), grabbed him by the neck, strangled him, and the guy said, "Be patient and I will pay, I will pay!"  Instead of forgiving him, he threw him in prison.

So here's a guy who has been forgiven an unpayable debt by God; he goes out and he won't forgive some guy that owes him a few bucks, and he throws him in jail, and then the parable says, "That some others who knew about it (other servants) went and told the king what he did, and he went back and punished that guy," and the whole point of the parable is this (and that's just it in a nutshell), the whole point of the parable is this: who do you think you are not to forgive someone who has offended you, when you have so offended a Holy God, as to be in debt to Him to a level that you could never ever pay? 

So on the basis of God's free and comprehensive forgiveness of you, you ought to be able to forgive another brother who is a sinner like you.  So you need to understand both of those points: one you have to find it in your heart to forgive because God has forgiven you.  Secondly, I agree that, that kind of sin is a devastation that leaves scars, and may I add particularly on young people who are very, very vulnerable.  And I also want to add that there are men of God, there are faithful men of God that you can trust, and you can believe in, and you need to put yourself in the care of those men.  I think that God can restore the confidence that you lost.

Question (continued)

Do you think he should have been allowed to go on in the ministry?

Answer (continued)

No.  Not at all.