5 And whoever receives one such child in My name, receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea. 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
A man going to undergo an operation tomorrow where doctors will cut his leg is very happy, and he thinks it’s much better to go through the operation. You know why? Because he realized that there is gangrene—a festering wound. If allowed for a week, it will spread and consume his whole body. So he thinks it’s better to take away the leg instead of losing life.
There is another blind man who was once asked if he had no desire that his sight should be restored to him. He answered boldly, “No, because Jesus says, ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.’ God probably saw that mine eyes would offend me, so as to endanger my soul, and so He has prevented this great evil, by plucking them out Himself; and I thank Him for it.” The Lord in our passage talks about how it is much better for us to cut off a hand, leg, and eye. It may seem very cruel, but to the man who by the light of the Holy Spirit (HS) has some sense of sin, and realizes a little of the exceedingly sinfulness of sin, the horror of sin, and the eternal wrath his sin will bring upon him, these words are the most loving, honest words of Jesus.
In Matthew 18, we are seeing God’s great care for his children. Just like he protected the Israelites with a cloud of fire, he put a cloud of fire with these words: “Anyone who touches them does the worst crime possible.”
We saw last week the great NT principle: what we do to God’s children, God takes it as if done to him because they are inseparably united to him. Secondly, we saw the great danger coming from not recognizing this principle. “Ah, all these church people we have seen so many years, what big… what can they do?” And instead of receiving them as Christ himself, we do the opposite of causing one of these to stumble. Christ’s greatest threatening: two options. Live as long as you want causing stumbling. The second option: it will be far exceeding better to die immediately in the most gangster-style murder—in the first century language, a heavy millstone tied around your neck and drown you in the middle of the sea.
We saw that very frightening threat. A solemn woe of divine judgment is denounced on those who cause His little ones to stumble. Verse 7: “Woe to the world for its offenses, but woe to him through whom it comes.” This should make us shudder, and may we never share in this guilt, may the blood causing stumbling not come on my head. If causing stumbling to another brother is such a crime, the most earnest question we need to ask is: “Now, how do I prevent this in my life? How do I live such a life that I don’t cause any stumbling to my brother?“ Anyone who fears God’s word will earnestly desire to know and live like that, right?
That is what we see in Verses 8 and 9:
8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.”
9 “And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”
We will understand this in two headings. First, let us understand the meaning of these verses, and then how this will prevent us from causing a stumbling block to others.
1. The Meaning of Drastic Action
What is the meaning of this verse? Two things we see: an occasion/opportunity to sin, and secondly, how to deal with it.
There is extraordinary energy in these words. Solemnly they are repeated twice in Matthew, verbatim. Solemnly they are repeated verbatim three times in Mark’s edition. The urgent stringency of the command, the terrible plainness of the alternative put forth by the lips that could say nothing harsh or false, or exaggerate, and the fact that the very same injunction appears in a wholly different connection in the Sermon on the Mount, show us how profoundly important our Lord felt the principle to be which He was here laying down.
An Occasion to Sin
The central teaching of the passage is this: A first opportunity or occasion to sin. “If your hand or foot causes you to stumble… if your eye causes you to stumble.” The Lord doesn’t talk about this in a generic way, but about something as concrete as your hand, your foot, and your eye—things within the sphere of your control. He clearly makes his point in a vivid way.
Stumble ($skandalizo$ from $skandalon$) is the same word used earlier, “cause one of these least ones to stumble.” Here, “if your hand, leg, eye cause you to stumble.” Stumble means to put a snare/trap, entrap, trip up, hence to cause to stumble, fall into sin, or entice to sin. It makes you stumble, traps you into temptation, and makes you sin. Like a spider web traps an insect: how it subtly threads and finally completely traps. So, anything that traps you in temptation and causes us to sin.
Sin is defined by God’s word. He doesn’t mean just outward acts of sin, but the inward volitional act of sin—any violation of the law of God in heart or in life. Broadly, sins are divided into two: sins of omission and sins of commission. There are duties you have to fulfill; God’s law positively commands you to do it, but you fail in duty—that is a sin of omission. Think of how many sins you committed last week. There are things you shouldn’t do; God’s law forbids, but you do it and break God’s law.
Those of you sitting in church today, Christ is talking to you: “if your hand, feet, or eye causes you to sin,” what do you do? You may be a Christian for 10, 20, 30 years, a church member. What kind of sins are you struggling with in your life? Not able to overcome and easily falling—besetting sins. Do you have a sense of them, how horrible they are? What if they are flashed on the projector screen above now? How would you feel about them? Do you realize these are causing short-cuts to hell for you? You may sit here in the church looking as if you are going to heaven, but you know in your heart that there is a secret, private back door to hell in your secret life. What are those sins? Bring them fresh in your mind now. You have to identify first what are the occasions, the things that cause you to sin.
Secret sins are more sinful than open sins. The Lord says “I have been watching.” Jeremiah 13:27: “I have seen your detestable acts! Woe to you! How long will you be unclean?” If you are struggling with sins, permanent deliverance for you can only come from this principle Christ is teaching here; nothing else will work. There are believers 30, 40, 50 years struggling without realizing this truth, wasted their lives. Even men like J.I. Packer admitted that. So listen carefully.
Do you wrestle with things which become occasions/temptations that ensnare you into sin? If so, hang upon the word of Jesus as you would hang on life itself, for the central issue addressed in this passage is what I am to do with those things which makes me sin.
The first step is honestly, to stop deceiving yourself and examine yourself in honesty. Look at your heart and bring your heart to this verse in honesty. Ask your heart, “What are my besetting sins?” Beg of God to aid you by his Holy Spirit to apply this to your heart. God is speaking to your heart.
Our heart is so deceptive. In life we have to most fear ignorance of our own hearts, and deceiving your own souls. It will find different ways to slide away and avoid being impacted by these verses/preaching, you watch. You maybe self-deceived thinking you don’t have any sins that has to be dealt like this. John says “if we say no sin, you are self-deceived.” If you say there are no occasions of sin with which you struggle, you are above and beyond that, God says you are a liar. Other way the heart deceives us: when God speaks severest truths, piercing truths, we end up applying them to others, looking at others, and not really seeing our heart.
Not only our heart, what can I tell you, the deceiving and hardening power of sin is beyond us. We can take a series on that. You will not even realize how much sin is deceiving each of you now. It will deceive and harden our hearts, saying “oh, this is not a big sin, that is not a big sin, we are not so sinful.” In these many ways, we avoid applying this to our hearts. We are deceived by sin. If in your heart deception you say, “Okay, if this is what the central point is to deal with sin in life, then I can pretend as if I am listening and not allow it affect my heart. Hear and forget, pull the blinders and not listen. Whatever he may say, I will hear and harden my heart so I don’t get impacted by what he says.”
If you do that, then, the Lord says you are a slave to sin and you will go to hell. You know to whom this sermon will be a blessing? Men who have a sense of sin, know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. “Lord, this is what I need. I understand how sin is destroying me.” Like David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” “Speak Lord, I will take this to my heart.” If you are indifferent to this teaching, you are a slave to sin, and don’t want to be delivered from it.
Oh, may God open your eyes and make you realize. Sin has chains tied firmly in your hands, legs, and eye that will drag you to eternal hell.
This verse may be simple, but if you look intently, the Lord says your relationship to sin and how you deal with your sin, may seem as not so important thing to you, but the Lord says it is directly linked to eternal destiny—whether eternal life or eternal torment. If you don’t deal with it as the Lord says, you will 100% go to hell, whatever you may claim. To make us realize the foolishness of our sinful lifestyle, Christ sets the issue of eternal hell two times in two verses, and eternal life two times in two verses. Verses 8 and 9: “It is better to enter life than thrown to hell.”
Let your mind be transformed with this perspective. As I address this subject of sin found in yourself, don’t allow your mind to excuse, coach these, and adjust in any other context but the context of the ultimate end of all men: whether you will be in glorious bliss of the immediate presence of God in new heavens and new earth amid the company of the redeemed of all ages, or in eternal torment with demons, the place where the worm never dies, the fire is never quenched.
This is the only perspective that will make you escape from all the deceptive and hardening power of sin.
Sin is so subtle, so self-excusing, so dulling to the senses, so blinding to spiritual vision, in the manner it approaches, so harmless, so eloquent and persuasive in its pleas to be spared, adapting to our circumstances, giving innocent names, good arguments: “this is really not wrong for you, nothing will happen,” so much it promises.
You will never be able to escape its deceiving and hardening power by any other perspective, but when your mind is enlightened, see how sin will directly affect your eternity. With all its deceiving voices, only when you dump on it in your comparison: “Do you want this or the glorious of heaven and eternal bliss? If you want this, compare where this will lead: the terrors of hell.” Only such a perspective will shut the mouth of its devilish eloquence and unravel the horrible scenario of its subtlety and its deceitfulness. The Sirens in Greek mythology—mermaids sing so beautifully, creating such a spell on sailors; they will follow that voice and go and hit the mountains, causing a shipwreck. And then the sailors fall, and the Sirens will eat their flesh and drink their blood. That is the deceiving voice of sin. The only way to escape is to keep lively pictures of heaven and hell in your mind. Unless you learn to see sin in that light, you will mostly stumble and fall in sin.
Do you see your besetting sin as a life or death issue? Christ says that more than anything else we say or do in our life, how do I relate to occasions of sin shows very clearly whether I am going to heaven or hell. It is a concern of hell or heaven. I know some don’t want to believe this. Whatever you believe, sin will not make you believe this. Some of you are practical atheists on this point, and may God help you to believe this. Because this comes from the one who on Judgment Day will decide every man’s destiny, and you will be judged on his standard, not yours.
So the central first point of this verse is opportunity to sin. Next, how to do deal with it.
The Difficult Duty Commanded
It is a difficult duty commanded and urged with authority.
Verse 8: “And if your hand or your foot is causing you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you;” Verse 9: “And if your eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you.”
“Cut it” or “Tear out” and “throw” are both in the aorist imperative, a command from our Lord calling for urgent action. Do this now! It is critically important! Don’t hesitate or delay! Deal drastically with anything that predisposes you to sin!
A verb is used of strict, immediate, pressure, authoritative word of direction. If thy hand causes thee to stumble, pray that God may cause it to wither and fall off. Pray God may give you strength to overcome it? No, to cut it off. It is a duty given to you. Upon you and me, cut it off.
If your eye causes you to sin, weep, weep, and pray God may cause your eye to turn, cause God to put a patch, purify? No, cut it, cut it, no, cut it off. What intensity in the command!
This is the same gentle Jesus who said “come unto me I will give rest.” “I am the good Shepherd.” Here he is so aggressive, relating the occasion of sin to heaven and hell. He enjoins this difficult duty: cut it off.
What did he mean? Should we cut our hand, leg, eye? If we do it, will we stop sinning? He didn’t mean sin has a residence in our bodily members. The whole Bible teaches sin sits in our heart. Even our Lord said in Matthew 15:19: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements.“
All these come from the heart of man, not from hand or eyes. Members of the body work as instruments of sin, working in the service of sin. He is not teaching sanctification by dismemberment. Some in church history in fact did this. The early Church Father, Origen, took this command literally and had himself castrated. Whether true or not, clearly that is not what Jesus is calling for! What use is it if you can cut off a hand and eye, but your heart will continue to lust, anger, or murderous thought?
This is figurative language, hyperbole. Now that’s hyperbole. I mean he’s not literally telling them to chop off all their limbs, but he is saying that if you don’t take intensive, radical, drastic measures with sin, it will take you to hell.
By using hand, leg, and eye, which are not only very close, important, but very essential, he is teaching that in dealing with sin we should take drastic measures and be ready to sacrifice our dearest, nearest, most precious, even most necessary things to ourselves to avoid sin. If the sacrifice of these are essential to the avoidance of sin and living a holy life, we should be ready to cut off as important and as essential things as a hand, leg, and eye. This is our solemn duty.
The things that are dear to us as eye, foot, or hand, are to be cut off and given up if they make us sin and injure our souls, whatever pain the sacrifice may cost us, like cutting off a hand or pulling an eye. The rule sounds stern and harsh at first sight. But our loving Master did not give the rule without cause. Compliance with it is absolutely necessary, since neglect of it is the sure way to hell.
When the occasion for sin comes, radical response is essential. Anything in our life which causes us to stumble and fall into sin—it can be things, men/women, relationships, places, gadgets, anything within the sphere of our own control which can trap us, tempt us, and make us fall into sin—must be strictly, dramatically, quickly removed from our life. However, close and desirable the thing may be.
Can I cut only the fingers? No, entire excision is the only safety. Who has to do this? I myself am to be the operator in that surgery. I am to lay my hand upon the block, and with the other hand to grasp the sword, axe and strike.
Whatever things are causing me to sin—if a friendship causing me to sin and damaging to my spiritual life, cut that friendship dramatically/earnestly and quickly. If going to a particular workplace causing you to sin regularly, quit the job and find another place to work. If watching TV is causing me to sin, take that TV, even though it is a 75-inch Samsung QLED paid lakhs to buy, take that, sell it, or if you have money, break it. I am not saying don’t keep TV. If it causes you to stumble, delete the YouTube app in your mobile. If the smart phone causing you to sin, sell or break it, and buy the cheap and best Nokia 999 phone. What in your life is causing you to sin or damaging your spiritual life? Quickly, intensively, deal with it.
“Pastor, to tell it is easy, but so difficult.” Yes, I know. If you deeply weigh what Christ is saying, allow this truth to impact your mind, the HS will give you the determination to do it. I have meditate on this to an extent where it gave me strength to do it in my own life.
It is our solemn duty, not our option. Cut it off or you will go to hell. The issues are not God’s blessing or no blessing, or God’s chastisement. The issue is heaven or hell.
Okay, if you say this is all difficult, “I cannot do all that.” Christ again gives two options. Just like he said better a millstone and put into the sea than a life of sin. You can have lifespan by living in secret sin, and continue, but what is going to come is unimaginable: thrown into fiery hell. Here he says it is good for you to cut off a hand, leg, eye immediately now, than live a lifespan of sin.
Verse 8: “It is better for you to enter life maimed or without a foot, than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.” Verse 9: “It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fiery hell.”
It is exceedingly better, far better. It is good for me to be maimed, crippled, one eye than to live in sin. Do you know what it is to lose both legs or lose an eye? Some of them in GRT school. Oh, apart from the embarrassment, think of the inconvenience to live and operate in the world where all its customs, systems, and services, and interactions are planned for normal human beings who have two hands, two feet, two eyes. For you to live with one hand, walk with one leg, and use crutches, limping, see with one eye and have all the strain with one eye—try it. All that inconvenience is much better than for you to live with two hands, feet, and eyes, and continue sinning by failing in duty or breaking God’s law and living a life of sin. Better you immediately become a handicapped person than to live such a life in sin.
If the only alternative to dealing with the occasion of sin is for you to live in a handicapped manner, with all its inconveniences, even looked upon as strange, it is far better to live like that than to have your whole person cast into hell. Like the man who realized that gangrene will kill his whole body is happy to cut off the leg.
Why should we be so radical—“Cut it”? If you understand the nature of sin and realize what that sin does to you, even one sin allowed will not stay in a corner. It is deceiving, subtly, and it will never stop till it has complete control over you, undisputed, complete dominion. Like a snake that rounds the feet, it will not leave without biting. It is like slowly rounding the leg, a snake like an anaconda will swallow us completely. It will make sure finally it will drag you into hell. It is like a leprosy starting in a little corner in the leg. This will overspread the whole man, eat the whole man inside and outside.
If we refuse to cut off a hand/leg which, if left, becomes a means for destroying your whole soul and body, eternal misery will be our merited and inevitable portion.
The whole work of redemption, what is it for? The whole planning of the Father, coming of the Son of God, suffering, dying and rising, and sending the Holy Spirit—for what purpose? To deliver us from our sins and take us to heaven. If we play with that very purpose and expect God to take us to heaven. God will not allow any sin into heaven. Sin itself will make heaven hell to you.
No other choice or alternative. If there was, the loving Christ wouldn’t have used such terrible words. The choice is either to mortify every sinful propensity, or to suffer eternal misery in hell. Hence, our great and solemn duty is to deal drastically with all occasions of sin, cut it and tear it.
Take drastic measures to overcome sin so that if you have to sacrifice the dearest, nearest, precious things like your hand, feet, even eye, cut it and throw it. Far better.
So we see the central issue: Occasion for sin and how to deal with it. How does this prevent us from being a stumbling block to our brothers?
The Connection to Preventing Stumbling
This is a principle He first gave in Matthew 5:29 and 30, and we studied it there. In its context there, he was talking about the heart holiness of the law in the Sermon on the Mount (SOM): “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away,” and so with the hand [and] leg.
But here our Lord just pulls that same principle up, and here uses it in this context to prevent stumbling to others. How will this principle help me to avoid being a stumbling block to others?
He says deal drastically with sin in your life by killing it. Deal drastically with your own sin. If you don’t do that, you will inevitably cause other believers to stumble, directly or indirectly, by your example, your low, hypocritical, outward spiritual life. Where is spiritual life and example without killing sin secretly? Because if you’re in sin, the pattern is there being demonstrated to others to stumble and sin because of you.
Only when you deal drastically with sin in your secret life, you will progress in grace and godliness, and be an example to others in every way. Instead of causing them stumbling, you will be receiving them as you receive Christ and helping them to grow in grace. Take drastic measures, because you’ll never be able to keep from causing someone else to sin unless you are not sinning yourself, you understand that?
See the beautiful connection. There is a double pressure to strive to deal with sin. By your sinful style, you are not only going to go to hell, but you are causing one of these little ones to stumble. The blood guilt of that also will be laid on you in hell. It is far better for a millstone to be tied and you immediately die instead of living in secret sin.
The best way to not cause stumbling to others or to sin is to deal drastically with sin in your own life, to live a sin-killing, holy life. If you have to prevent others from stumbling and falling into sin, your life, your personal life, your life when no one sees, there you need to deal drastically with sin.
See, we can act all we want in the church, but unless our secret life is holy, and we take drastic measures to kill sin, use our time, and live life to grow in grace, use the means of grace, we will be a stumbling block one way or other in the church to others. All growth in grace, progress in faith, developing in spiritual gifts, and being able to receive others in the church as we receive Christ and serve them with humility comes only when we live a holy life, killing sin in secret. Otherwise, our example will cause others to keep distance in the church: “Some people avoid Pastors or church people to be close, just sit on the last benches, come not to be too involved, don’t come on weekly calls, don’t be involved in church ministry, don’t study the Bible. Too close, they will expose their life, so keep distance.” That itself is a stumbling block to the church.
Without that basic discipline and secret holiness, there is no way we can serve others in the church and grow in the ministry.
So we learn from this passage: The great NT principle is that every Christian is one with Christ, and when you receive a Christian, you receive Christ. The great danger when we don’t recognize that, the peril is that if you offend a Christian by causing them to sin by your lack of personal holiness, failing to deal with sin in your own life, if you offend by words, example, indirect provocation, your misused liberty, or through your failure to give righteous direction to that life, if you cause them to sin, it would be better for you to be drowned in the middle of the sea with a millstone immediately than to do that because your future punishment is unimaginable. Instead of doing that, take drastic measures to deal with your own sin, which is the best way to prevent being a stumbling block. That is the lesson from this passage.
Unavoidable Conclusions (Applications)
1. Holiness at Any Cost is Required of Disciples.
According to the words of Jesus, all disciples must pursue holiness at any cost or at the risk of going to hell. Jesus was not talking to the crowd or the Pharisees. This is his intensive training to the disciples, talking to the inner circle of twelve. “Peter, James, John, if your hand offends you, you Peter, John cut it off or you will go [to] hell.”
There is nothing in the cross of Christ, there is nothing here in union with Christ, gift of the spirit, power of the spirit to overcome sin. Jesus gives this command before all that.
Nothing I do on the cross will ever negate your duty of cutting off a hand and leg and avoiding sin. These are relevant words even when the HS comes. There are fuller teaching going to come about the Spirit’s help and richer blessings Christ will purchase for us; none of those will cancel this duty.
All Christ’s blessings on the Cross—justification, propitiation, his union with the believer, gift of the HS, Word of God, adoption—all are given not to make us indifferent to cutting off a hand and feet, but to make us victorious/effectual in that exercise. Privileges of grace are not to make us careless regarding sin, but to intensify our hatred of it and give us power to conquer and fight against it and kill sin in our life. That is what Paul says in Romans after talking about justification by faith, sanctification, and glorification, with all those blessings Christ purchased in Romans 8:13:
“for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Consider what Peter says: “Abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
They destroy the soul, its peace, its growth, break down its strength, lead it into captivity, and make it a slave instead of transforming it into God’s image.
Every disciple must pursue holiness at any cost or run the risk of hell. Do you see that passage?
We studied “killing sin.” Owen said, “Kill sin or it will kill you. Be killing sin, or it will keep killing you.” We have a series of “killing sin” on our website. Take all drastic measures to kill sin. It will be useful if we go through it again.
2. The Practical Help of Ultimate Destiny.
It is a great practical help to bring our ultimate destiny to mind when struggling with occasions of sin. Why did Jesus say “if thy hand offend…” Why are heaven or hell set with sin? Like I said, the deceiving and hardening power of sin is so great, the rationalizing influence is so subtle, its ability to be a chameleon and adopt itself to the varying color upon the tapestry of the soul according to circumstances, our mindset, our weakness, at any given moment this ability is so great. That the only thing that will strip sin of all its self-justifying power and deception is to set itself in all its nakedness against the glories of heaven and the horrors of hell. Only when we learn to practice this in every temptation, we can escape from its deceptive power.
When you and I are enticed to sin, sin becomes the greatest, best artist, and paints a beautiful, attractive, harmless picture/canvas/scene in our mind before our eyes about the pleasure and satisfaction that will come from a given sin. It is so harmless, no one will know, so free and so enjoyable. “Without this, how boring our life is, how sad we are.” For any temptation, this picture is painted in our mind in an irresistible, so sweet way.
Oh, the great way to escape from that attractive picture when tempted, take this truth, lift your eyes, gaze through the horizon, and go beyond that horizon. See where this attractive picture will lead you: down and down, over the abyss, until you see the fire unquenchable. See the horror of outer darkness, fiery hell, weeping and gnashing of teeth, undying worms, for all eternity. Then see what this sin’s attractive scene will make you miss. Look up. Light goes up and up, the glories of heaven, eternal inheritance, the inheritance of all things, and all the redeemed bliss.
Don’t just see the picture sin presents; see these two pictures. Then decide what you will do with the picture sin presents. How you deal today with this sin will decide your eternal destiny. Don’t allow sin to deceive you or blind you. When you bring this verse picture, may it bring different thoughts, like:
The mortification of sin is a difficult and painful work, like the destruction of an eye, or the excision of a hand, but eternal misery in hell must be the consequence of indulging one single sin. If you learn to see sin from this verse, you will understand: “The pleasure of sin will surely be too dearly purchased at such a price as this.”
Whatever we design to procure, we always consider what its value is: what is the price I have to pay? If it’s no worth, we will not pay a big price. Nobody will go and drink a poisonous grape juice because it is so colorful and sweet and it is free, when he realizes it will fill him with excruciating agony to the latest hour of his life. Many people quit drinking when they see where that sparkling wine will lead him finally, with blood vomiting and liver and lung cancer. Where this will lead, what price he has to pay.
We grant then that sin is pleasant, just for the moment, but will that fleeting pleasure of sin/momentary enjoyment repay an eternity of misery, of such misery too as no imagination can conceive? We grant too that something may be gained by sin, but can the gain ever equal the loss that will be sustained?
Moreover, the pain of mortifying sin can never be compared with that which will follow from the indulgence of it. Be it so, the mortifying of sin is painful; but what are the sufferings of hell fire? Were the pain of self-denial a million times greater than it is, it is but for a moment, whereas the pains of hell are everlasting.
Alas! Who can think of them and not tremble? Who can think of them and hesitate one moment about the mortifying of sin? See what we do when informed that the retaining of a limb will endanger our lives: we suffer amputation, however painful it may be; and are glad to pay the person that will perform the operation for us. O let us be equally wise in relation to our souls!
The Puritan William Gurnall asked: “What lust is so sweet or profitable that is worth burning in hell for?”
Flee from the opportunity of it, from the company of those who might draw you into it, from the places where you might be tempted to do it. Write the word “poison” on all sinful pleasures.
Practically, it is essential and very useful to bring near our ultimate destiny when tempted to sin.
3. God Takes Sin Exceedingly Seriously.
God takes sin exceedingly seriously. Do you take it? You say it is sin. “This hand caused it, but it’s a little one, excuse it.” You sin and just pray one single confession and live as if nothing happened. No. See how seriously God takes your sin, serious enough to threaten hell if you continue in it.
Do you take your sin seriously? Serious enough to not just pray, “Oh Lord, sorry, I sinned again,” no, but serious enough to cut out all the occasions for sin. Take drastic measures in life to avoid sin. Do you take it serious enough to do something more than sign and pray, wish and hope you will not do it again?
What are you going to do practically for occasions of sin? Does your television tempt you into sin? Then get rid of it. Does the computer in your home give the enemy opportunity to grip your heart? Then you’re better off without it. Better—better by far!—to live life deprived of these temporal conveniences than to burn eternally in hell.
“If I don’t have TV, I will not know what is happening in the world, don’t know latest things in the world, latest inventions.” Yes, it is fine. It is better for some of you not to have a mobile, or a mobile without an internet connection. Some of you don’t have Facebook or Wi-Fi. Don’t know many things? Better go to heaven in ignorance and not be well informed and go to hell, defiled by your gadgets and television.
Think of the last time when you fell in sin, and trace the root what caused you that temptation and remove that root, cut it. Determine to change the certain patterns of life.
Jesus didn’t say “if your hand offend pray about it.” No, he said “cut it.” Can we do it in our own strength? No, we cannot. Our prayer is not an excuse, but a reverent dependence for God’s help to cut the hand in the course of obedience. The HS comes and helps us kill sin. No matter whatever God helps, He will never cut it. You must do it, cast it from you. Grace never works as to negate the consciousness or vigor of your effort. Grace promises success in that effort. “If you by the Spirit do mortify…” Is it I or the Spirit? It is I by the Spirit, not I without the Spirit.
If your phone causes you to sin—what are you waiting for?—cut it off! “Why don’t you simply crush your cell phone?” That’s what I asked a young man recently who was reflecting on the ease with which he was able to access pornography. That is a great temptation today for many people. Sexual drive, when perverted, it makes men monsters. Technology is creating more monsters like that, waking up the monsters in men.
Earlier, not easily accessible, go buy in somewhere or buy somewhere, getting over the hurdle of that embarrassment was enough to keep them from the sin. But today a person can sit in the privacy of his or her own home and indulge in these “pleasures” without ever having to account to anyone else. You get endless variety for pleasures. The insidious lie in this is that we can fool ourselves into believing that no one is getting hurt; but we forget Paul’s injunction concerning sexual sin: “All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18b). We primarily destroy ourselves whenever we sin sexually!!!
We have to take all measures to avoid this. Cell phones or computers can be big temptation. What will you do? Let’s be clear. It’s not as though possessing a smart phone is a human right, or, for that matter, even a basic life necessity. It is still possible to buy a dumb phone for talk and text, or, you could turn off internet capability on your phone.
But you still might be tempted by another device, like a computer. Okay, then make a decision to never take your computer when you’re alone, put that in the hall of your house, not some corner in the bedroom. If all these suggestions are truly impracticable in your case, sign up for Covenant Eyes so that a friend or two will get an update on everything you view online. I have such an update. When I go to some wrong site, my wife will get a weekly email on what sites I went to.
If you keep sinning via your phone or computer but are unwilling to do something radical about it, maybe it’s time to consider whether you are—or ever have been—a disciple of Christ. That tells you more than anything that you are going to hell.
Let us resolve by God’s grace to make a practical use of our Lord’s solemn injunction in this place. Deal drastically with occasions of sin. Let us walk in Job’s steps—he says, “I made a covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1). Let us remember Paul—he says, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away” (1 Cor. 9:27).
4. Innocent Things Can Be Dangerous.
Notice another important point: What seems innocent things can take us to hell.
What sin did hand, leg, eye do? Is it wrong to have them? No, those things which in themselves are good, and may be used as instruments of good, even those, through the corruptions of our hearts, prove snares to us, incline us to sin, and hinder us in duty.
The whole stringency of the commandment rests upon that “if.” “If they cause thee to stumble.” These are neutral things. The operation of them is perfectly innocent, but a man may be ruined by innocent things. Even what seems innocent, when they become occasions for sin, we should cut them. We argue, “What is wrong in that? What is wrong in that?” Even good things, if we see them leading us into temptation, if the process began, we should be ready to cut them.
This teaches us there are higher things which are our priority and other lower things in life, which are not wrong/sinful. We should never allow lower things to overcome the higher things. In practical life, there are many who destroy their spiritual lives by overindulging in lower things which are not sinful and not giving importance and time for higher things.
God says the highest thing in our life is to be seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness. See how people can sin by disobeying that. A young person may study so much day and night, a good thing, but he doesn’t have time to pray, come to church, because he is very busy with his important exam that will decide his future. It is like the eye, hand. See how that hand/eye can cause him to sin.
Like this, so many innocent things by the sin of giving excessive importance given can destroy our soul. My capacities and powers which seek God’s kingdom first, something else is drawing away my thought, energy in other direction, however innocent it may be, it is sucking all my force, it is a sin. The only cure for it is to use the knife, cut it out or it will drag us to hell.
Every man has to give up a great many things if he means to succeed in one, and has to be a man of one pursuit if anything worth doing is to be done. Christian men especially have to adopt that principle, and shear off a great deal that is perfectly legitimate, in order that they may keep a reserve of strength for the highest things.
If we are earnestly seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we must give up allowable things in order that with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and mind, we may love and serve our Master.
5. Deal Thoroughly – No Half-Measures.
Entire excision is the only safety.
Deal thoroughly. Don’t cut only the nails or fingers and leave it. Cut the full hand. Don’t play with sin. Don’t say “little, little I will do and stop.” No, completely cut and throw or it will not work. Take for example with drinking, physical intoxication, it is a great deal easier to abstain altogether than to take a very little and then stop. The very fumes of alcohol will sometimes drive a reclaimed drunkard into a bout of dissipation that will last for weeks; therefore, the only safety is in entire abstinence.
There are no half-measures to be kept; the only thing to do with the viper is to shake it off into the fire and let it burn there. We have to empty our hands of earth’s trivialities if we would grasp Christ with them. We have to turn away our eyes from earth if we would behold the Master, and rigidly to apply this principle of excision in order that we may advance in the divine life. It is the only way to ensure progress.
Why is spiritual life so low in our midst? We have in a low Christian state embraced a practical antinomianism. We continue and allow sin in life and sleep nicely, excuse and allow sin in practical life. That is why you can sit under powerful preaching where your sin is pointed out, yet live as if not impacted and keep hardening, hardening, hardening your heart and leave this place and do nothing to implement and change, whether it is the duty explained in the Word of God or sin pointed out in the preaching. You just go and think it is a nice sermon, but never change in life.
This passage teaches it is very useful to develop a good fear of hell to kill sin. Do you have the fear of hell? In many ways, the lack of it is what emboldens us to sin.
We all need to develop a good fear of hell. That should keep us from sin. If we could see hell-fire in every sin—it would make us fear to commit it! Every sin is a drop of oil upon hell’s eternal furnace!
There was a poll in the US: “how many believe they will go to hell?” Less than 3%. There is a possibility they may go. Somehow, everyone reason, contrive, assume, think they will never go to hell. Some of us sitting here, no one will believe you will go, but sadly you will. You think somehow you will figure out, somehow you will miss that. Everyone who went to hell thought that way. Less than 3% believe. That tells us they are deceived. We shouldn’t be deceived like that. Christ says in this passage, if we don’t deal drastically with sin, we will go to hell. With this definition, how many think they will not go to hell?
The Bible says many will go to hell. Christ himself said many will go to hell. Every second souls are going to hell. When you take the next breath, more souls are going to hell. Jonathan Edwards: “Men are walking on a thin sheet. We don’t know they will slip and fall into the bottomless pit.”
The Bible has a concept of “filling up the measure of sin.” Many are living in this world so they can fill up the measure of sin so they can get maximum punishment.
The severity of hell is its duration. Those who are in hell, they will see everywhere, “forever, forever.” Above everything, every fire, there is utter hopelessness.
The doctrine of heaven is glorious. Even the doctrine of hell is glorious in its fearfulness, its horrors. It reveals attributes of God that we don’t like to see. Oh, the severity! Hell is fearsome, dreadful. We can read and pass over texts so freely: “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Verse 9 says “fiery hell.” Hell is a place of fire. Raging fire is so scary in this world.
Fire can give such exquisite pain; nothing else can give it. Unimaginable pain. Oh, who can dwell with everlasting burnings? The horror of horrors is that it never ends. It is excruciating. Our generation, we know so little of pain because we have so much medicines, but here there will be no medicines. God will not dull the pain in anyway. Your capacity to endure pain will increase, increase, so will the intensity of your punishment.
The place of weeping: weep uncontrollably, uncomfortably, weep forever. It is more than all the weeping of all men in the world will exceed, a million, billion times.
Gnashing of teeth: unbearable pain and anger, bitterness, what an opportunity missed.
The Confession of Faith (COF) says our bodies will rise to dishonor. Our whole being will be dishonored and shamed. The image of God will be more and more defaced in you in eternal ages. The place of eternal shame and contempt. He will dishonor. God will find us absolutely loathsome, vile and terrible.
Eternal destruction, away from his presence. Departing from all goodness. God will hate you with perfect hatred. Hell is the total presence of God in anger, wrath, and justice.
Almighty God will inflict wrath without any pity. God will never pity the extremity of your case. Seeing your punishment is so vastly disproportionate to your strength, how your poor soul is crushed and sinks down infinite gloom, he will not have compassion on you, no regard that you should suffer too much. He wants you to suffer maximum.
Some of you will incur God’s anger more than those in hell. Yes, you have opportunity more than Sodom and Gomorrah. You know more truth than those in hell. When the measure of your sin is filled, God will not allow you one moment longer to live. You are walking on a rotten cover and will slip into hell.
We think this is too severe because we are man-centered. The doctrine of hell is so poor today that as a result, the burden for souls is so lacking. We don’t have Hudson Taylor, William Carey missions going to far lands with the gospel. They couldn’t sleep at night, for hours, thinking of men who go to eternity without Christ.
The doctrine of hell, our views of sin. We see sin horizontally: “oh, what we did to other person.” No, the greatest person who gets impacted by sin is God. It is God. As a reflection of his nature, He gave his law, and we created in his image violate that law, we violate God. Joseph said “how can [I] sin against my God?” Psalm 51: David doesn’t cry about how he sinned against Uriah or Bathsheba. “God, how I sinned against you.”
The doctrine of hell is a wake-up call. Our sin is against God. God is not to be toyed with. He is not for us; we are for him. He is the self-existent, sovereign God.
God, having all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; he is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things, and he hath most sovereign dominion over all creatures, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth; in his sight all things are open and manifest, to him is due from angels and men, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience, as creatures they owe unto the Creator, and whatever he is further pleased to require of them.
“Oh, sin is such a small thing. Oh, if I sin for few years, how will God torment me forever?” There seems to be a disproportionate dealing of sin. No. When we realize who we are sinning against, who is the one we sin against, what he is, and how glorious, infinite, eternal, self-existent, sovereign God he is.
It is one thing to squash a mosquito. If you go and kill a dog in the street, or even someone killing a child, sin is much greater, more consequential. Sin against whom that is done has greater worth. But how do you measure sin that is committed against an infinitely holy God? Even the smallest sin against an infinitely holy God, it is infinite.
It is infinitely wicked. When we hear “forever, forever, forever,” hell is reasonable when we see that the one sentenced to that place has wickedness that is infinite.
Hell is the most hottest place and is reserved for those who have more light. You think cannibals in Africa will have less punishment than most people going to church all their life, learning so much truth, and living in sin.
May God give these views and help us to take drastic measures to cut sin from our lives.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 