January 28 -- Taking a Swim in B Negative

The river vampires would love to have flowing through their neighborhood: Exodus 5:22-7:25

Forgive Others … Or Be Judged: Matthew 18:21-19:12

My Favorite Psalm: Psalm 23:1-6

Evil Deeds: Proverbs 5:22-23


The teaching in Matthew is pretty heavy. It reminds me of the model prayer that we say every Sunday morning: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. We have to forgive or we won’t be forgiven by God. As much as we think we can hurt someone else by staying mad at them, in the end we hurt ourselves a lot more.

At first glance it seems like Jesus contradicted Himself in Matthew. It’s almost like He said, “Hey, man. Forgive others or God won’t forgive you. But if your spouse cheats on you, don’t forgive – divorce.” But it’s really two different teachings. Jesus changed the topic from forgiveness to divorce only after he went to another town & the Pharisees brought up divorce.

Another thing, divorce as Jesus described it is not a matter of forgiveness as it is trust. Jesus didn’t say, “if your spouse cheats on you then you should hold onto your bitterness forever”. Instead, Jesus said that God didn’t dream up opposite sexes & marriage so that a married couple would get divorced, but if one person in a married couple can’t stay faithful then the other person doesn’t have to stay in that marriage. Breaking your vow is a sin, especially wedding vows.

Also, Brother Jack once pointed out that taking the Lord’s name in vain is not cussing by saying “God” (although we probably shouldn’t do that). It’s really about making a promise on the name of the Lord & breaking that promise. We don’t make promises like that much in 21st century America. We sometimes joke by saying, “I swear on my grandmother’s grave…”, but we don’t mean it -- except in weddings. When we choose to get married in a church before a preacher & share wedding vows, we’re making them before God. In doing so, we’re bringing the holiness of God into the vows. Thus, breaking the wedding vows by divorce defames the name of God.

Back to forgiveness – perhaps the people who have the hardest times forgiving are people who’ve been through divorce. Many of you youth can probably attest to that. Before I remarried & moved to FUMCH, I both taught Sunday School for singles (i.e. divorced) at another church & volunteered at the divorce counseling in Bessemer. As a Sunday School teacher, the hardest thing I’ve ever had trouble getting through to a class is that even divorced people must forgive or the Lord won’t forgive.