This sermon was preached on Sunday
morning, November 9, 1986, at the Trinity Baptist Church in
Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to the
Gospel according to Mark, Mark's Gospel and the ninth chapter.
Would you follow, please, as I read Mark, chapter 9, verses
42 through 50. Mark chapter 9, beginning
the reading at verse 42. Picking up on the theme introduced
primarily in verse 37, in which our Lord speaks of receiving
one such children in his name, referring of course to all believers
who have been brought to the posture of dependantness and
vulnerability characterized by a child. He says in verse 42,
And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe
on me to stumble or to be ensnared in sin, it were better for him
if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast
into the sea. And if your hand cause you to
stumble or to be ensnared in sin, cut it off. It is good for
you to enter into life maimed rather than having your two hands
to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes
you to stumble, cut it off. It is good for you to enter into
life halt. rather than having your two feet
to be cast into hell. And if your eye causes you to
stumble, cast it out. It is good for you to enter into
the kingdom of God with one eye, or literally one-eyed, to enter
the kingdom of Cyclops, rather than having two eyes to be cast
into hell, where their worm dies not. and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted
with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt
have lost its saltness, wherewith will you season it? Have salt
in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. Now let us
again seek the face of God in prayer and ask the Lord by His
Spirit to own the exposition and application of His own Holy
Word. Our Father, we come this morning
conscious of the words of our Lord Jesus, uttered just prior
to His return into your presence, that His followers were to teach
disciples all of the things that he commanded. And you know, Lord,
that it is nothing less than the sense of being true to that
commission which binds us to handle these sober words this
morning. Left to ourselves, we would pass
over them lightly. Left to myself, O Lord, you know
I would not preach on them. but constrained by the word of
Him who has all authority in heaven and upon earth. We subjugate
all of our natural inclinations to His gracious authority and
come to hear His word. Speak then, we pray. Send the
Spirit upon us in power. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now no doubt there are some of
you who, in following the reading of this portion a few moments
ago, wondered why I omitted what appears in your particular translation
as verses 44 and 46. For if you have before you the
authorized or commonly designated King James Version, or the New
King James Version, you will have noted that I skipped what
you see in your particular translation as verses 44 and 46. And in both
of those verses you will find written the precise words of
verse 48 with reference to hell, our Lord says, where their worm
does not die and the fire is not quenched. And you may ask,
and rightly so, why this discrepancy? Well, without wearying you with
the technical data, suffice it to say that all of us hold in
our hands, if we have an English version, that which is a translation
out of the original language of the Word of God. Those who
hold a Greek New Testament before them hold what represents a studied
judgment as to what the original text was, a judgment based on
a collation or gathering together and a comparison of all of the
available manuscripts of the New Testament documents, plus
excerpts out of liturgical forms of the early church and other
extant documents containing references to the New Testament scriptures.
Now, in the passage which is before us, men who are equally
devoted to Christ, equally convinced of the highest view of the divine
inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God, equally fearful
of either deleting or adding to the word of God, and you know
I am referring here to the horrible threat found in Revelation chapter
22. Well, men with equal commitment
to those perspectives come to equally strong convictions with
reference to including what appears as verses 44 and 46 in some of
the versions, and excluding them as the translators of the 1901
and many other translations have done. Now, since there is no
disagreement as to whether or not verse 48 belongs in any translation
which purports to be a translation of God's Word out of the original,
and since verses 44 and 46 are exactly the same as verse 48,
Nothing is lost in omitting verses 44 and 46, but the repetition
of the thought patterns embodied in the language of verse 48. And so, without giving you my
reasons for casting in my lock with the judgment of those who
have omitted those verses, we will approach the text with what
I trust is the modesty of realizing that the truth of verse 48 is
so inherently horrific in its nature that it doesn't even need
repetition for us to feel its weight and the impression upon
our souls. Now, with that issue of the discrepancy
in the number of verses in the passage behind us, let us reverently
approach this portion of God's Word and seek to understand its
message first of all to the disciples to whom it was originally spoken,
and then to us as a gathering of disciples of Jesus. I remind
you briefly of the general setting. The disciples had been arguing
among themselves as to who would be greatest in the kingdom. Jesus responds to his knowledge
of that discussion and argument by giving several vivid lessons
on the matter of humility using a child as his object lesson. As Jesus speaks, John's conscience
is smitten with reference to an earlier incident in which
he fears, apparently, that he may have violated the final word
of Jesus in verse 37 about receiving whoever is to be found under
that general identity as one of Christ's little ones. And
John confesses what his conscience troubles him about, and he indicates
that he prohibited this unnamed disciple from casting out demons
in Christ's name. Jesus reverses the prohibition
and gives three reasons for the reversal of that prohibition. And then, in verse 42, he begins
this section which could be given the general title, Serious Warnings
About Causing Offenses. And as we saw last week, the
first warning focuses on the terrible possibility that disciples
may do, say, or in some other way do things that cause believers
in Christ little ones who trust in Him to be ensnared in a course
of sin. And rather than be the occasion
of causing a believer to sin, Jesus says it would be better
for us to be cut off by a gruesome, violent death, even a death gangland
style, having a great millstone hanged around our necks and to
be thrown into the deep sea. Now this morning we come to verses
43 to 48, in which our Lord warns His own about another danger. And here it is not the danger
of their becoming an occasion of sin to others. but of their
becoming an occasion of sin to themselves. And as we take up
the passage this morning, I want us first of all to understand
the central concern addressed in this portion of the Word.
Amidst all of this graphic, even horrifying language about amputating
limbs, casting away an eye, a never-dying worm and a fire unquenchable,
what is the central issue addressed? Well, if you look carefully at
the passage, you will see that it all hangs on the words with
which the passage begins. Verse 43, And if your hand cause
you to stumble, Our Lord is introducing the subject in these words, the
very subject that he picks up two more times, verse 45, and
if your foot causes you to stumble, verse 47, and if your eye causes
you to stumble. So you see, the central concern
addressed is this. It is the issue of what we are
to do with those things, people, relationships, attitudes, or
actions, within the sphere of our own control, which become
the occasion of our being ensnared by sin. That is the central concern
addressed in this passage. He is addressing the issue of
the things, the people, the relationships, the attitudes or actions within
the sphere of our own control which become the occasion of
our being ensnared by sin. Now, our Lord, in typical, graphic,
Eastern fashion, does not address this concern in nebulous abstractions
or in theoretical generalizations. Rather, as we see Him do again
and again throughout His earthly ministry, He addresses the concern
in concrete terms. something so concrete and tangible
as your hand, your foot, and your eye. He does not say, if
you have a relationship, an attitude, an action, a thing which within
the sphere of your control causes you to—no, the Lord doesn't deal
in abstract generalities. He says, if your hand causes
you to stumble, verse 43. If your foot causes you to stumble,
verse 45. If your eye causes you to stumble,
verse 47. But in so repeating the central
concern, And by expressing it not in abstractions or generalities,
but in these vivid, concrete ways, our Lord makes His point
clearly and unmistakably. He is giving His disciples directions
as to what they are to do with those things which become an
occasion of sin to them. And I remind you that whenever
he is concerned about matters pertaining to sin, he is concerned
about sin as defined by God. When he says, if your hand causes
you to be ensnared, if your foot causes you to be ensnared, if
your eye causes you to be ensnared, remember, that our Lord is not
speaking of just gross, outward, aggravated sins as the world
may define sin. According to His own description
of sin, He is speaking of the inward disposition of the heart,
the volitional glance of the eye. He is speaking of sin in
terms of any violation of the law of God. He is speaking of
sin in terms of any failure to do what the law demands. For this is the same Lord who,
in describing the coming day of judgment, describes the whole
of lost humanity as being damned, not for what they did, but for
what they did not. Matthew 25 and verse 45, Because
ye did it not, depart. from me. Now then, do you see
what the central concern is? And do you see immediately how
burningly relevant this concern is? Do you as a disciple struggle
with sins of omission? Are you conscious in your day-by-day
experience of being ensnared by various things over which
you have control, which result in your failure to do your clearly
defined duty as an individual Christian? As a Christian who
stands in certain relationships, the duty of which are clearly
defined by God, husband, father, wife, mother, son, daughter,
to parents, citizen in society, worker in the shop, in the office,
in the home, do you as a disciple of Christ struggle with sins
of omission, sins of commission, occasioned by things within the
sphere of your control? Do you wrestle with things, relationships,
activities, desires, natural inclinations which become the
occasion of your being ensnared by sin? If so, then, dear disciple,
hang upon the words of Jesus as you would hang upon life itself. For the central issue addressed
in this passage is the issue of what I am to do as a disciple
with those things, those relationships, those attitudes, whatever falls
within the sphere of my experience and control that becomes the
occasion of sin to me. And if you're sitting here saying,
well, if that's what the central concern is, I can pull down the
shade over my mind. I don't need the light of this
passage. If you can hear that this is the central concern and
have any other attitude but one that says, oh, God, yes, that's
where I live. That's where I'm at. Speak, Lord. Oh, Lord, speak a word to me. If you have an attitude of indifference,
then it's only because of one of two things that is true of
you. Either you're a lover of sin and a slave of sin and thereby
a stranger to grace, and you do not want anyone to touch your
chains. You love your slavery to your
sin. And, my friend, if so, you're
to be pitied. And I pray that just a few beams
of light will come from the Word of God that will cause you to
see that the ropes and chains you love are ropes and chains
that will continue to bind you and gall you through all eternity
unless you repent and flee to Christ to be delivered. The other
alternative is you may be a self-deceived man or woman who, in the language
of 1 John 1.8, dares to say, I have no sin. God has a word
for you. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If you say there
is one day that you can live, without this central concern
of the words of Jesus being applicable to you, and yet you claim to
be a disciple, you have it upon the word of God. You are self-deceived.
If you say there are no occasions to sin with which you struggle,
you are above and beyond that. God says you are a liar and self-deceived. The truth is not in you. Well
then, having looked at the central concern addressed, now notice
the ultimate issues involved. The central concern addressed
is whatever becomes an occasion of sin to me as an individual
disciple. The ultimate issues involved,
what are they? Well, it's very interesting that
as Jesus addresses the matter of the things that become occasions
of sin to disciples, not the things by which they might cause
sin to another, but by which they cause sin in themselves.
He does so by focusing on the ultimate issues that are at stake.
And to get the message across, just like the central concern
comes before us three times in the exact same wording, if by,
and then he changes the things, hand, foot, eye, but it's if
something pertaining to yourself causes you to stumble. So now
we have two couplets of three. The issue of eternal life is
set before us three times, and the issue of eternal torment
is set before us three times. Look at the passage, verse 43.
It is good for you to enter into life, literally into the life,
that is, the life which is life indeed, speaking of the consummate
bliss of eternal life in the age to come, verse 45. It is
good for you to enter into life. And then verse 47, it is good
for you to enter into the kingdom of God. Three times he says to
his disciples, are you concerned with this central issue of the
things that cause you to stumble into sin? Well, if so, let that
concern be couched in the light of these ultimate issues, the
issue of eternal life. It is good for you to enter the
life. It is good for you to enter the
life. It is good for you to enter the
kingdom of God. And again, the kingdom of God
in terms of its consummate glory at the second coming of Jesus.
Even as we find it described in Matthew 25, 34, come ye blessed,
enter the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world. But set in stark contrast as
the other side of the ultimate issues involved, three times
Jesus makes reference to eternal torment, verse 43, rather than
having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,
into Gehenna, into the fire, the unquenchable. Verse 45, rather than having
your two feet to be cast into hell, verse 43, it is merely
going into hell. Verse 45, it is being cast into
hell. Verse 47, rather than having
two eyes to be cast into hell. My friend, I ask you, could Jesus
make the ultimate issues involved any plainer than this? In this
short compass of dealing with this central concern, Three times
he says the issue is eternal life or eternal torment. Eternal life, eternal torment. The kingdom of God, unquenchable
fire. What is he saying? He's saying
to his disciples, look, as I address this subject of occasions to
sin found in yourself, don't you couch these issues in any
other context. but the context of the ultimate
end of all men, the glorious bliss of the immediate presence
of God in the new heavens, the new earth, amid the company of
all that is redeemed of all ages, and the issue of Gehenna, the
unquenchable fire, the place where their worm never dies,
and the fire is never quenched. These, according to our Lord
Jesus, are the ultimate issues involved in the matters of concern
with respect to our own sins precipitated by factors in our
own lives over which we do have control. Now, why did Jesus do
this? Well, for the simple reason that
he understood all too well that sin is so subtle, so self-excusing,
so dulling to the senses, so blurring to spiritual vision,
so eloquent and persuasive in its specious pleas to be spared,
so convincing in its ability to rationalize that nothing less
than dumping down upon sin The glories of heaven and the horrors
of hell will shut the mouth of its devilish eloquence and unravel
the horrible, horrible scenario of its subtlety and its deceitfulness. And one of the things that has
gripped my heart in preparation is this very simple truth, that
while I am convinced there is no one in this congregation who
accepts in theory what is commonly called the carnal Christian doctrine,
that is, the doctrine that there are three basic categories of
men and women. You have the saved and the lost. You have not only natural men
But you have spiritual men, but in between you have people who
have accepted Christ, who are regenerate, who are saved, who
if they died would go to heaven, but the dominant characteristic
of their life is fleshiness, worldliness, carnality, and yet
they are still saved. We reject theoretically that
horrible teaching, but I fear from a pastoral perspective that
there may be more than a few. who have embraced that theory
at the level of how you deal with your offending eye, your
offending hand, and your offending foot. And though you would never
speak a theoretical doctrine of the carnal Christian, the
absence of hand-to-hand vicious life-death suffused perspective
in dealing with your own sin indicates that you have embraced
a practical doctrine of the carnal Christian. Theoretically, you
would never deny that without holiness no man shall see the
Lord. But in the day-by-day way in
which you deal with your offending hand, foot, and eye, One looking
at you would certainly gain the impression that you're convinced
that you'll still make it, even though you're not hacking, hewing,
and plucking. And you've imbibed a practical
antinomianism that says, Heaven is secure to me whether I hack
and cut and put or not. And that's the only explanation.
as to why you can sit in counseling sessions and have your duty laid
out before you and sit there and say, I'm not sure if I'm
going to do it. You can have your duty spelled
out in preaching that is so plain that your conscience has no confusion
as to what the law of God demands and leave this place and do nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G to implement the
duty that has been articulated by the Word of God. And by your
willful, perpetual sins of omission, you demonstrate that you don't
really believe it's a matter of life and death whether you
become holy in the way of God's precepts. My dear friends, God
have mercy on you. Jesus Christ stood in the circle
of the Twelve that day, and He stands among us by His Word and
Spirit as the Lord of His Church today. And as He addresses this
central concern, how do I relate to the things, the people, the
activities, the relationships that become an occasion of sin
to me? Either sins of omission, sins
of commission. As he addresses that central
concern, he says the ultimate issue involved in this concern
is heaven or hell. Some of you are practical atheists
on that point. You really don't believe that.
God helped you to believe it because Jesus does. And in the
day of judgment, you'll be judged by his measure of reality, not
yours. Now, then, Having looked at the
central concern addressed, the ultimate issues involved, now
look at the difficult duty enjoined. The difficult duty enjoined. And I've chosen the word enjoined
purposely. If you were to look it up in
the dictionary, you'd find that it means to urge with authority. And Jesus is urging with authority
a difficult duty. But the duty laid upon his disciples
is unmistakably clear. Three times he uses an aorist
imperative. A form of the verb is used to
speak of the most strict, immediate pressure of an authoritative
word of direction. Look at verse 43. And if thy
hand cause thee to stumble, pray that God will cause it to wither
and fall off. If thy hand cause thee to stumble,
the you who possesses the hand and the you who stumbles, you
are to cut it off. It is a duty enjoined upon you,
upon you, upon me. Cut it off. And if your foot causes you to
stumble, whine and complain about your spiritually paralyzed foot
and pray that God will make it better. No! Go to whacking and
cutting and hewing. Cut it off! Verse 47, And if thine eye cause
thee to stumble, pray that God will grow a patch over it. No!
Reach in Pull it out! Can this be the same Jesus who
said, I am meek and lowly in heart? Can this be the same Jesus
of whom it is said they wondered at the words of grace that proceeded
from His mouth? Yes, my friends, it is the same
Jesus who says in the circle of the twelve, as He addresses
this central concern of occasions to sin that fall within the circle
of our own relationships and actions and activities that we
have something to say about, couching them in the ultimate
issues of heaven and hell. He enjoins this difficult duty,
but enjoying the duty He does, If your hand offends, cut it
off. If your foot offends, cut it
off. If your eye offends, cast it out. Now then, you say, yes,
it's evident. That's what he said. But what
did he mean? Well, surely there are two things our Lord did not
mean, for it would contradict his own teaching in the rest
of Holy Scripture. Our Lord does not mean that sin
has its residence in our bodily members. Sin does not have its
residence in our bodily members. The whole of the Bible teaches
that sin has its residence in the heart. You remember you who
were with us for our earlier expositions in Mark 7. One of
the great errors of the Pharisees was a religious system that looked
upon sin in a materialistic way. And Jesus said, no, sin has to
do with the heart. And so he says in verse 21 of
Mark 7, For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts
proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings,
wickedness, etc. These evil things proceed from
within. Our Lord is not saying that sin
somehow has distilled into a pocket of evil somewhere between the
wrist and the fingers. And if you'll only cut it off
high enough on the forearm, you can be done with the sin. No,
he is not teaching that sin has its residence in our bodily members.
Though the Bible does teach and our experience validates that
the members of the body are called into the service of sin, sin
does not reside in the members of the body. Romans 6.16 says,
You presented your bodily members, servants, to uncleanness, but
the uncleanness had its origin not in the finger or in the hand
or in the arm or in the foot, but in the heart. And then surely
our Lord is not teaching sanctification by dismemberment. There have
been some in the history of the church who actually, based on
these words and similar words found in Matthew 5 and Matthew
18 and in Luke 17, actually cut off certain members of the body.
You see, from the words themselves, it's evident our Lord is not
teaching this. For if a man is allowing sin
in his heart to find expression with his hand, taking forbidden
objects, what good would it do to cut off one hand? He still
has another with which to take a forbidden object. And if his
two feet are carrying him into forbidden paths or through sinful
laziness, refuse to go into a path of positive obedience, cutting
off one foot would not keep a man determined to pursue his sin.
or to pursue his sins of omission, he would simply hobble in the
forbidden path. And if I is the inlet of a covetous
spirit and of lust, plucking out one will not do. Plucking
out two will not do, because then the man would flash upon
the chambers of his mind all of the thoughts of lechery and
uncleanness that he had stored up out of the filthy storeroom
of his heart. No, Jesus is not teaching that
sin has its residence in our bodily members. He is not teaching
sanctification by dismemberment. This cannot be the meaning of
our Lord's words. Well, what then is His meaning?
Well, one author has expressed it something like this. He is
teaching us that it is our solemn duty to sacrifice what is nearest,
dearest, most precious, or most necessary to ourselves. if the
sacrifice is essential to the avoidance of sin and to living
a holy life. That's what he's teaching. It
is our solemn duty, not our option. It is our solemn duty. Cut it
off. Cut it off. Cast it out. Three imperatives. The issues
are heaven and hell in the face of those imperatives. It is our
solemn duty to sacrifice whatever is nearest, dearest, most precious,
or most necessary to oneself, if the sacrifice is essential
to the avoiding of sin and living a holy life. To state it differently,
what is it to be maimed? Look at the words. It is good
for you to enter into life maimed. Verse 43. Verse 45, it is good
for you to enter into life. Halt! It is good for you, verse
47, to enter into the kingdom one-eyed. Now, some of us know,
not just theoretically, but from close relationships with some
who have suffered the loss of an eye, the loss of a hand, there
are among us some who have lost the use of foot and feet. And apart from the embarrassment
that is inevitably present, think of the inconvenience of having
to operate in a world in which all of its systems of service
and convenience and all of its interaction is predicated upon
normal human beings who have two eyes, two hands, two feet,
and to go through life maimed, just one hand, halt, hobbling
on one leg, or one leg in crutches, or one leg in a prosthetic device,
to go through life one-eyed, having a narrowed field of vision,
all the strain upon the one eye, is certainly to go through life
inconvenienced, isn't it? It's to go through life handicapped,
is the word we use. You see what Jesus is saying?
If the only alternative to dealing with that which is an occasion
of sin to you is to go through life in a manner that to some
degree means you are handicapped, inconvenienced, or even looked
upon as a bit strange, far better to be rid of hand and foot and
eye! than to be damned in pursuit
of being a whole person. That's what Jesus is saying.
Oh yes, if you're not conversant about the latest issues that
are discussed on the television, you'll be considered a little
out of it. But if the only way you can gain the mastery of your
television is not to have it, then pluck out the eye and go
through life one-eyed. Go through life with a narrow
perspective on current events and current social pressures
and happenings, but go to heaven ignorant and not to hell informed. Go to heaven ignorant, but don't
go to hell well informed and defiled by your television. That's what Jesus is saying. And if your heart is so perverse
that to have the things that most people have And even brothers
and sisters can have, with apparently no idolatrous attachment, but
for you to have them is to create an idol at which feet you worship
and to which you pour out your devotion. And far better to go
through life halt, maimed and one-eyed, than having a whole,
full, enriched life and go to hell as the price of it. As difficult as is the duty enjoined,
the duty is clear. If you would go to heaven, you've
got to hack, you've got to hew, you've got to pluck out and cast
away. Now, having looked at the central
issue addressed, the ultimate issues involved, the difficult
duty enjoined, now in closing, look at several unavoidable conclusions. that we are warranted to draw
from the text. Number one, according to these
words of Jesus, all professed disciples must pursue holiness
at any cost or run the risk of going to hell. You hear that
Jesus was not talking to the Pharisees. Jesus was not talking
to the scribes and the mixed multitude. He's talking to the
inner circle of the twelve. And He says to Peter, James,
and John, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, if you have
a hand that offends you, John, you, Philip, you, Peter, you,
Andrew, cut it off or you'll perish. If you have an offending
foot, an offending eye, Now there's nothing here about the cross
of Christ, which is the base upon which any sinner must stand
if he's to hack and hew out of evangelical motives. If he is
to hack and hew with the power of the cross operative in him,
there is nothing here about union with Christ and the gift of the
Spirit. Jesus would give much more rich
teaching to these very disciples. You remember that earlier in
the chapter verses 30 to 32, he had emphasized the necessity
of his impending death. Jesus is fully conscious that
the cross lies before Him, that if these men to whom He speaks
are ever to be cleared before the bar of eternal justice, He
must complete His life of obedience on their behalf, and He must
lay down His life to satisfy all the claims of divine justice
against the sins they had committed. And while He is on His way to
the cross and the cross fills His own vision, He utters these
words. What he's saying is this, nothing
I do on the cross to form the just basis of your forgiveness
and acceptance will ever negate the necessity of your hacking,
your hewing and your plucking out and casting away. Later on,
he gives them the rich teaching of the upper room. And he speaks
of union with himself under the imagery of the branch and the
vine. And he says, without me, you can do nothing. He says,
when I go away, the spirit, the comforter will come. And in the
comfort, he's coming. I come. My father comes. The
triune God will inhabit you. Glorious truth. But he didn't
stop at the end and say, oh, no, by the way, in the light
of all the privileges that will become yours at Pentecost, just
strike out those rather harsh words I spoke as I was heading
to Jerusalem. You see, once my spirit comes,
sanctification will be as easy as breathing. Just forget all
those words about offending eyes, offending feet, and offending
hands. That's all can't. No, no, my
friend, listen. Though there was a fuller revelation
to come, of the only basis of a sinner's acceptance with God
through the blood of Christ, though there was fuller teaching
to come about the gift of the Spirit and the precise nature
of justification and the privilege of adoption, none of those realities
ever formed the basis of canceling the duty enjoined in the passage. Christ died and the Spirit was
given, and the privileges of adoption and justification are
conferred, not to make us indifferent to hatching and hewing, but to
make us effectual in that exercise. The privileges of grace are not
to make us careless regarding sin, but to intensify our hatred
of it. and to give us power to conquer
in the fight against it. My friend, if Jesus' words mean
anything, they tell us that every professed disciple in this place
must pursue holiness at any cost or run the risk of hell. You
see that in the passage? The second conclusion we draw
is this. It is essential to bring near
our ultimate destiny when struggling with occasions to sin. Why did
Jesus say, if by hand offend, it is good to enter life maimed
rather than having two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable
fire? Why are heaven and hell set right
down in the midst of each one of the three strands of our Lord's
teaching? Well, what he's saying is this,
the power of sin is so great. The rationalizing influence of
sin is so subtle. its ability to be a chameleon
and adopt itself to the varying colors upon the tapestry of the
soul at any given moment. That ability is so great that
the only thing that will strip sin of all of its self-justifying
power is to set it in all its nakedness against the glories
of heaven and the horrors of hell. You see, when you and I are being
enticed to sin, It's as though sin becomes an unusually astute
and prolific artist, pulls out its canvas and splashes very
quickly, right before our eyes, upon that canvas, all of the
so-called pleasure and satisfaction that will come from the indulgence
of a given sin. Whether it's a sin of commission
or a sin of omission, whether the temptation to lust or to
laziness, it matters not. There it is, painted before us.
Jesus says, Take the fist of truth and punch through the canvas
and gaze to the horizon. And there see upon the horizon
light that goes up and up until it's enveloped in the very glory
of the immediate presence of God in all the redeemed. And
then look down over the abyss until you see the fire unquenchable,
until you see the horror of outer darkness. Then he says, decide
what you'll do with that offending eye, hand and foot. Surely, if the text teaches us
anything, it's teaching us, dear people, that it is essential
for disciples to bring near our ultimate destiny when struggling
with occasions to sin. Then thirdly, according to the
example of Jesus in this passage, Faithfulness to the souls of
men demands honesty about the horrors of hell. Faithfulness
to the souls of men demands honesty about the horrors of hell. Bishop Ryle, in commenting on
this passage, said with such astute and perceptive insight,
it is not possible to speak too much about Jesus, but it is possible
to speak too little. about hell and friends, you'll
notice I haven't even expounded the phrases, the fire, the unquenchable,
where their worm dies not and the fire is never quenched. I've
not even expounded them, have I? I've simply quoted them. But those 12 who heard Jesus
speak would have known immediately that he was referring. It's almost
a verbatim quote. from the last verse of the prophecy
of Isaiah, where God, in prophesying of the future glory of the kingdom
of God and the ultimate destruction of the wicked, that glorious
prophetic utterance embodied in the book of Isaiah ends with
these words, that you shall see God's judgment upon those concerning
whom it is said, their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is not the time or the place
to go into an exposition of the word Gehenna, which is used by
our Lord ten times in the gospel records, refers to that place
of torment and unspeakable suffering and woe. Suffice it to say that
in this passage, even choosing the textual variant that does
not allow that the words of verse 48 are repeated in verses 44
and 46, as some of you have them, surely once is enough. Their
worm never dies. The fire is never quenched. For our Lord Jesus' faithfulness
to the souls of men demanded honesty about the horrors of
hell. And as one author has said, don't
spend time inquiring or disputing about the nature of the unquenchable
fire. Spend your time doing what you
must do to escape it. Don't sit in your arrogance and
debate about its justice. bow before Jesus Christ, believing
that whatever figures and images he used were but the poor stuff
of human communication to convey something of a horror that is
far greater than words can ever convey. And then finally, we
learn from this passage, according to Jesus, God takes sin. exceedingly seriously. Do you? Do you? You say, oh, it's just a little
offense and a little sin into which this right hand or this
eye or this foot causes me to stumble, just a little one. I
see no such distinctions in the passage. God takes your sin and
all of it seriously. serious enough to threaten hell
if you continue in it. God takes sin seriously, do you? Do you? Serious enough not simply
to bow quietly when Mr. Hushin's plays are sobering him
at the end of his service. Serious enough not just to have
subdued conversation when the meeting is over. but serious
enough to go home, and for some of you, clean out your magazine
rack, pull out your TV, get rid of certain commodities, determined
to stop certain patterns of life, determined to incorporate certain
disciplines. Do you take it serious enough
to do something about it? to do something more than sigh
and wish and hope and even pray. Jesus didn't say, if your hand
offends, pray about it. He said, go to whacking. You
say, can we do it in our own strength? No. And when you set
yourself to do it, You'll see how impotent you are, and then
you'll pray. But your prayer won't be an excuse for obedience.
Your prayer will be a true act of reverent dependence upon the
living God in the course of obedience. See the difference? It's all
the difference in the world between whimpering to excuse your sin
and crying to God to deal with it. But no matter how much God
helps you, he's never going to be the amputating surgeon. You
must be. You must cut it off. You must
whack it off. You must cast it from you. Grace never so works as to negate
either the consciousness or the vigor of your effort. What grace
does is to promise success in that effort. If you, by the Spirit, Do mortify. Well, is it the Spirit
or is it I? It is I by the Spirit. Not I without the Spirit. Not
the Spirit without me. I don't understand that. It proves you're not doing it
or you would. Dear people, this is an awesome
passage. Jesus Christ stands among us
as He stood among the twelve. And he puts the issue into sharp
focus. He says the issue is this, whatever
there is in your life, whatever in your life over which you have
any control that becomes to you, not to your brother, your sister,
your wife, your husband, son or daughter, no, whatever becomes
to you the occasion of dismaying you, whether in sins of commission
or omission, you must be prepared to do whatever you must do to
deal with that occasion to sin. You say, well, that's a hard
thing, yes. But dear child of God, heaven
awaits us, not as the reward of our hacking and hewing, but
as the reward of grace to all who, abandoning all confidence
in themselves for pardon and all confidence in themselves
for even sanctifying power, have looked unto Jesus and in the
strength of Jesus, out of love to Jesus, have hacked and hewed
and plucked and cast away until they come to that place where
hacking and hewing and plucking are no longer needed. And we
are like him when we see him as he is. What is it that to
you is the offending hand, the offending eye, the offending
foot? Jesus tells you what to do. He
sets it in the context of heaven and hell. May God grant that
we shall not despise his word, that we shall not find some clever
way to get around his word. Surely, in the sayings of Jesus,
there are things that the most profound and devout souls pray
over and examine carefully all the days of their life and at
the end have to say, Oh God, my light upon this issue is but
veiled darkness. But my friend, this is plain
stuff. If your hand offend, cut it off. If your eye offend, cast
it from you. If your foot offend, cast it
off. Why? It's better. It's better
to enter life. Jesus is concerned that you enter
life. He doesn't say it's good to go
into hell maimed, hauled, one-eyed. He said it's good to enter life.
But there's no way that even the Son of God can make a way
into life that bypasses the hacking and the hewing. And if you want
such a way, you'll make it and you'll sink into hell with it.
God help us to go his way in his strength out of love to him
who loved us and died for us that he might have in the language
of Titus chapter two, a people zealous of good works. Let us pray. Our Father, We pray that the
Holy Spirit would even now take the words of Jesus upon which
we have meditated this morning and cause them to be burnt into
our hearts in an age characterized by self-indulgence and such pitifully
low standards of holiness and obedience and radical discipleship. Oh, that each one who truly knows
your dear son would hear His voice in the Scriptures and follow
Him this day. We pray for those who sit among
us, careless in their sins, cavalier in their attitude to sin. O God,
may the word preached this morning sting their consciences and alarm
and awaken them to just how seriously you take human sin. May they
find no rest nor peace until they rest under the canopy of
the forgiving grace that you extend to sinners in the Lord
Jesus. And until they are endowed with
that grace essential to wage an effective warfare against
their own occasions to sin, Lord, hear our prayer. May the great
and final day reveal that this word was not proclaimed in vain
this morning, but that according to your promise, you have made
it to prosper. in that whereunto you have sent
it. Hear us, we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.