The sermon addresses the lack of forgiveness as a failure to extend mercy after receiving it, illustrated most clearly in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. A servant whose enormous debt is compassionately canceled by his master immediately seizes a fellow servant over a small debt and has him imprisoned. The master, upon learning of this, revokes his earlier mercy, declaring that the forgiven servant should have shown the same compassion he received, and delivers him to torment until the full debt is paid. Jesus concludes that the heavenly Father will act likewise toward anyone who refuses to forgive a brother from the heart. This lack of forgiveness reveals an inadequate grasp of the mercy already granted by God and violates the condition of the covenant relationship with Him. The same principle appears in the warning that refusing to forgive others results in the Father withholding forgiveness, and in the command to put away all bitterness and malice while forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave. Such hardness of heart disrupts the required connection between receiving divine mercy and practicing it toward others, leaving the unforgiving person subject to judgment rather than the triumph of mercy.