They do not see that there are not only such things as feelings about God; but that there are also such things as laws of God; and that God can enforce those laws, and does enforce them, sometimes in a very terrible manner.  They do not believe enough in a living God, an acting God, a God who will not merely write His laws in our hearts, if we will let Him, but may also destroy us off the face of the earth, if we would not let Him.  They fancy that God either cannot, or will not, enforce His own laws, but leaves a man free to accept them, or reject as he will.  There is no greater mistake.  Be not deceived; God is not mocked.  As a man sows, so shall he reap.  God says to us, to all men,—­Copy Me.  Do as I do, and be My children, and be blest.  But if we will not; if, after all God’s care and love, the tree brings forth no fruit, then, soon or late, the sentence goes forth against it in God’s kingdom, ’Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?’

There is a saying now-a-days, that nations and tribes who will not live reasonable lives, and behave as men should to their fellow-men, must be civilized off the face of the earth.  The words are false, if they mean that we, or any other men, have a right to exterminate their fellow-creatures.  But they are true, and more true than the people who use them fancy, if they are spoken not of man, but of God.  For if men will not obey the laws of God’s kingdom, God does actually civilize them off the face of the earth.  Great nations, learned churches, powerful aristocracies, ancient institutions, has God civilized off the face of the earth before now.  Because they would not acknowledge God for their King, and obey the laws of His kingdom, in which alone are life, and wealth, and health, God has taken His kingdom away from them, and given it to others who would bring forth the fruits thereof.  The Jews are the most awful and famous example of that terrible judgment of God, but they are not the only ones.  It has happened again and again.  It may happen to you or me, as well as to this whole nation of England, if we forget that we are in God’s kingdom, and that only by living according to God’s laws can we keep our place therein.

And this is what the parable teaches us.  The king tries to teach the servant one of the laws of his kingdom—­that he rules according to boundless mercy and generosity.  God wishes to teach us the same.  The king does so, not by word, but by deed, by actually forgiving the man his debt.  So does God forgive us freely in Jesus Christ our Lord.

But more than this, he wishes the servant to understand that he is to copy his king; that if his king has behaved to him like a father to his child, he must behave as a brother to his fellow-servants.  So does God wish to teach us.