Rev. David Holwick G
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 22, 1998
Matthew 18:23-35
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I. Would you be able to do this?
It was September 9, 1981.
Clark and Vicki Sheldon had just moved to this area.
They were living out of a motel because they hadn't found a house.
As they stopped at a red light on Route 46 in Dover, a station wagon
barreled down on them at a high rate of speed.
His license had been revoked. The second time.
The driver had a long history of drug use, but he wasn't on drugs
that day.
Perhaps his mind was thinking about his crumbling marriage.
No one will ever know.
What we do know is that his station wagon hit the Sheldon's car
so hard they flipped over into the intersection.
The hatchback flew open and their two young daughters were ejected.
Very young - Katy was 2, and Lyndsi was 3.
Both were killed.
The funeral service was held at Ledgewood Baptist.
They didn't know anyone in town, but the accident was so tragic
the church was packed.
Everyone who was there remembers only one detail of the service,
but they remember it perfectly.
The Sheldons, both still recovering from injuries, got up and spoke
to the congregation.
They said they believed it was all part of God's plan.
Just as their daughters used to bounce in the back seat of the car,
they were now bouncing in heaven, with God was taking care of them.
And they wanted everyone there to forgive the young man for what
had happened.
They said they held no bad feelings for him.
After the service, they got on with their lives.
The reaction of the people I have talked to was that the Sheldons
must have been real Christians.
And maybe - a little nuts? Could real people actually do this?
Several felt it was almost obscene to forgive their girls' killer.
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What do you think?
In their situation, what would YOU do?
As a Christian, what SHOULD you do?
II. A test on whether you are a forgiving person:
A. Does memory of how someone hurt you still stir up pain?
B. Do you ever daydream about an enemy, and imagine really
bad things happening to them?
C. Is there someone you haven't spoken to - deliberately?
III. What's wrong with forgiveness.
A. It is unnatural.
1) Animals don't forgive predators.(sharks and dolphins)
a) Dogs eat dogs.
b) Nations and economies operate on this principle.
c) Freud: "One must forgive one's enemies, but not before
they've been hanged."
2) Best-known saying of Jesus: "Forgive your enemies."
a) Seems suicidal.
b) If forgiveness was natural, it would be easier.
B. It is unfair.
1) Our sense of justice yearns to be vindicated.
a) More directly: we want revenge.
2) Forgiving may let a bad person off the hook.
a) They may do it again.
b) Megan's Law: should we forgive sex offenders??
c) The only ones who should be forgiven is US.
3) This unnatural, unfair trait is at heart of Christianity.
IV. A little perspective helps.
A. Ten thousand talents owed. Matt 18:24
1) 100 talents of silver hired 100,000 mercenaries. 2 Chr 25:6
2) Queen of Sheba gave Solomon 120 talents of gold. 1 Kg 10:10
3) Solomon earned 666 talents a year at peak. 1 Kg 10:14
4) David gave 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 of silver for
construction of Temple. 1 Chr 29:4,7
5) BIG bucks - national debt. 10,000 talents = $1 billion.
B. Not able to pay.
1) Family and possessions sold to defray debt.
a) Defrays maybe one talent. 9,999 to go.
2) "Be patient - I'll pay back everything!"
C. Master's reaction.
1) Took pity.
2) Forgave debt.
3) Let him go.
D. Far-out details.
1) Huge amount of money.
2) Pitiful attempt to defray debt.
3) Ludicrous offer to pay back.
4) Super-generous forgiveness of debt by master.
E. Parable must go beyond human situation to Divine one.
V. What the parable is really about.
A. We are in great debt to God.
1) Debt = sins. (Compare Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:12)
2) We think of our sins as small debts. Actually, they're huge.
a) Are debts are to God, and not in comparison with others.
b) A single sin separates you from God.
3) There is no possible way we can pay them back.
a) Can't roll them over on your VISA.
B. God forgives our debt.
1) Not because we have earned it, but because he is gracious.
a) Through faith in Jesus Christ.
2) Popular doctrine.
a) Everyone wants to BE forgiven.
b) We automatically assume God desires to accept us, and
will do what it takes to bring it about.
VI. The parable continues.
A. The forgiven debtor finds someone who owes him.
1) Denarius a day's wage, so not a pittance, but not huge.
B. Chokes him and demands payment.
1) Buddy offers to pay back (same terms as above).
2) He refuses, and throws him into debtor prison.
3) Other servants inform the king.
C. The response of the king.
1) I showed mercy - shouldn't you?
2) Thrown into prison for torture until debt paid. (Never will)
D. Why is the king so forgiving, yet so ruthless?
1) A God of such compassion and mercy cannot possibly accept as
his those who are devoid of compassion and mercy.
2) Those who can't forgive are incapable of accepting forgiveness.
a) It's a double deal.
General Oglethorpe, to whom the young John Wesley was
chaplain in the colony of Georgia in America, once said
to Wesley with great pride, "I NEVER FORGIVE."
Wesley replied, "Then I hope, sir, you never sin."
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VII. How we can forgive others.
A. Forgiveness is hard, but unforgiveness is even harder.
1) Bitterness can eat at us, even destroy us.
2) It will devour our relationships.
3) Unforgiving people end up all alone.
B. God can help us forgive.
1) Keep in mind what God has done for you.
2) Take a small first step.
3) Ask for God's help.
C. Forgiveness changes us.
1) Anyone who forgives can hardly tell the difference between
feeling forgiven and doing the forgiving.
2) Example of Corrie ten Boom.
She was stuck for the war years in a concentration camp,
humiliated and degraded.
This was especially true in the delousing shower where the
women were ogled by the leering guards.
But she made it through that hell.
And eventually she felt she had, by grace, forgiven even
those fiends who guarded the shower stalls.
So she preached forgiveness, for individuals, for all of
Europe.
She preached it in Bloemendaal, in the United States, and,
one Sunday, in Munich.
After the sermon, greeting people, she saw a man come
toward her, hand outstretched:
"Ja, Fraulein, it is wonderful that Jesus forgives all our
sins, just as you say."
She remembered his face; it was the leering, lecherous,
mocking face of an SS guard of the shower stall.
Her hand froze at her side.
She could not forgive.
She thought she had forgiven all.
But she could not forgive when she met a guard, standing
in the solid flesh in front of her.
Ashamed, horrified at herself, she prayed:
"Lord, forgive me, I cannot forgive."
And as she prayed she felt forgiven, accepted, in spite
of her shabby performance as a famous forgiver.
Her hand was suddenly unfrozen.
The ice of hate melted.
Her hand went out.
She forgave as she felt forgiven.
And she was probably not able to sort out the difference.
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VIII. Have you experienced forgiveness?
A. Faith is the appropriate response.
B. Let God begin to change you.
There is more to the story about the man who ran into the
Sheldon's car.
About nine months later the state prosecuted the young man on
the charge of "vehicular manslaughter."
It was the first time New Jersey had done this.
In the end, the jury found him not guilty, but convicted him of
"death by auto" instead.
He served a year in prison and was released.
He told his sister-in-law that he had changed the things in
himself that had caused the accident.
He quit drugs, and changed his devil-may-care attitude.
He goes to Alcoholics Anonymous three or four times a week.
He also stops by the Dover Soup Kitchen and helps out, and
talks to addicts at the Hope House.
His family was devastated and shamed by the accident.
A year later, his father died of cancer.
The relatives got tired of hiding, and decided to do what they
could to get their good name back.
The mother helps take care of quintuplets in the area.
His sister-in-law got involved in community projects.
None of this will bring two little girls back to life.
Only God can do this.
When we forgive, we are announcing that we believe God is still
in charge, that he will work things out in the end.
If you really believe in God, REALLY BELIEVE, you can extend
the gift of grace, forgiveness, to those who wrong you.
The Sheldons were not nuts. They just knew what it is all about.
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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