Humility, Stumbling Blocks, and Hatchets

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I was told the last time I was speaking that that was pointed at my forehead.
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So I will move that down.
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Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18.
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We often forget that there are more things in the Matthew 18 than church discipline.
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Usually when we speak about Matthew 18, we're talking about confronting a brother or sister in sin and then we immediately jump to, oh wow, we're putting this person out.
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There's much more to the chapter of 18 of the book of Matthew, although there are some very disturbing words in Matthew 18.
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Some of the most scathing words and some of the most terrifying words, second to depart from me, I never knew you, comes at the end of this chapter where he actually casts those into everlasting darkness and to whether weeping and gnashing of teeth until eternal punishment.
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So before we read, let me pray.
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Father God, once again, what a privilege to have a Bible, the infallible written word of God, something to be examined, something to read, something to study, something to hold in our hands.
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Father, and what a privilege it is to have the opportunity to open your word and speak to your people, your truth.
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Father, I pray that you would strengthen me with the power of your spirit.
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Father, I would just not be a bag of wind, but Father, that the words that come out of my mouth be edifying, that the words that come out of my mouth, Father, would be truthful and accurate.
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And oh Father God, keep me from error.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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We'll read verses one through nine.
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And at that time, the disciples came to Jesus who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
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And he called a child to himself and set him before them and said, truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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And whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
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And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
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But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone around his neck and to be drowned into the depths of the sea.
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Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks, for it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come.
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But woe to the man through whom the stumbling block comes.
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And if your right hand offends you or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame with two hands or two feet and be cast into eternal fire.
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If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it from you.
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It is better for you to enter a life with one eye than to two eyes to be cast into fiery hell.
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Those are some tough words towards the end there.
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But these are the words of our Lord Jesus.
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And this is what he is saying.
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And I want us to listen clearly to what he says.
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And verse one begins with a very unusual beginning.
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It's an inappropriate argument between his disciples.
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Who's the greatest? And you go, well, how do we understand it? He's saying, well, who's the greatest? If you would go to Mark 9 33-41 and to Luke 9 46-41, those are called the synoptic gospels where you gather those three ideas together of the same event.
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And this would have been taking place in Capernaum.
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And it is when that this was probably been taking place in Peter's house, because that was the home base for Jesus's ministry while he was there.
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And if you remember back, he healed, not only did he heal Peter's mother-in-law, but he also healed the centurion's servant there as well.
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But we know this, that in Mark's account, they were arguing among themselves who would be the greatest.
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And then Luke's account, it says that Jesus perceived in his heart that they were arguing who would be great.
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But then here, they asked Jesus the question, who then is greatest in the kingdom? That's just odd.
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It'd be like our elders and meeting, elders and deacons meeting today, we get in the room back there and we sit down and we get a motion from one of them or one of us and says, hey, I'm greatest in the kingdom.
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How arrogant is that? But hey, we have 12 arrogant people walking around with the most powerful human being, the God man walking the planet.
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And he doesn't rebuke them, although he should have.
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They deserve a stern rebuke.
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But Jesus being loving and kind like he is, instead of rebuking them, what does he do? He uses what all good teachers do, an opportunity for teaching.
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Jesus then responds with an object lesson.
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Matthew says he called a child among them.
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He summoned a child to him.
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Luke says that he had the child stand in the midst.
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And if you look at Mark's gospel, it says he placed the child among them and then he took him, that child, in his arms.
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And imagine who that child would have been.
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Imagine being held into the arms of the creator of all things.
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And something that really needs to be understood clearly is when that child was summoned, that child came.
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When Jesus had come, that child came.
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It obeyed.
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And the child is pulled up into his arms.
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And then listen to the declaration Jesus makes in verse 3.
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He said, "'Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.'" Jesus just said to his disciples, unless you have a positional change, unless you are converted, unless you are transformed, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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The Greek word here is strepho.
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It means to have a positional change.
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It means to turn back.
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It means to return.
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And my favorite Greek lexicon is to allow Anita.
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And it actually says it can the synonym for repent.
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So he is saying, unless you repent, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Jesus then says to become, and the next part he says, and to become like children.
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Well, what does it mean to become? The Greek word there is genomai.
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And it means to be born, to be generated, to become.
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Just like it says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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Not saying that Jesus became, he came into being then, but it was the first time that the son of God, the second person of the Trinity became flesh.
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And it says you must become.
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And it does mean, here's the idea of to be born.
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So Jesus is already telling his disciples right here.
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It's not about who's gonna be greatest.
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If you are not converted, if you do not turn, and then you do not be born again, not that you won't be greatest.
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You don't even enter the kingdom.
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Notice that Jesus corrects their thinking.
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They were thinking who's gonna be greatest.
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He just said, it ain't about being great.
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It's about how you gonna get in.
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And how are you gonna get in? The same message that had been preached from the beginning.
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You have to repent.
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And a synonym to be born again is what? To believe.
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It's the same.
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The same thing from the beginning.
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You must repent and believe.
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Jesus' message had not changed.
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It did not change at all.
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He goes on into verse four.
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It says, whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
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Jesus was telling his disciples to turn from the preoccupation, to turn from their status, change from their position, and to humble themselves as this child.
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This type of humility doesn't come from a subjective attitude.
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Understand that.
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As we all know, children can be braggarts.
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My mom's prettier than your mom.
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My dad will beat up your dad.
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I'm faster than you.
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So we're not talking about that.
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We're talking about the objective humility of knowing that they're insufficient to provide for themselves.
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They're entirely dependent on the adult community.
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One, for protection, right? They can't protect themselves.
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And provisions.
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Children in ancient times.
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If you read any ancient writings, children were not held in high esteem.
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They were property.
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Now in the Greco-Roman society, they were held in a lower esteem than children in the Jewish community, but they certainly didn't hold much weight.
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But Jesus answers this question by telling his disciples that they must share the condition of this child.
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And that condition is utter dependence.
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It's humbling yourself to the point that you are dependent for everything.
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A true follower of Christ is total dependent on all of his provisions.
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We as Americans understand from our America that we wanna be independent.
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And we celebrate our independence from tyranny, don't we? Well, that's not what Jesus is talking about.
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He is talking about, we need to understand that the day that we place faith in him and him alone for forgiveness, the day that we turned our lives over to him, that becomes our dependence day.
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A day that we depend on him for everything.
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Just as that child was depending on its mother and its father to provide food and protection and all of those things, it was necessary for us to do the same.
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We must trust and one must first understand in his humility that he has to trust solely in the grace and mercy of God, solely.
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And we have to rely completely on the grace and mercy of God for whatever we get.
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And you go on to verse five and six.
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It says, and whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
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But whoever causes one of these to stumble who believes in me, it would be better.
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And I'm gonna stop right there because I wanna take verse six as a whole.
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As believers, we are to accept little children with open arms, even if they are unconverted.
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You understand that? Even in the unconverted condition, we are to receive children for the purpose of loving them, pointing them to Christ and for the pointing them that Christ is the only way of redemption.
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And when it necessary, we may need to provide for them food, shelter and clothing.
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And that we should do.
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And all children need to know that they are image bearers of God.
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Converted or unconverted, they need to know that they were created in the image of God and they bear the dignity of God because they were created in His image.
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But children, listen closely.
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Something you need to understand is that although that you were born in the image of God and created in the image of God, you're sinners.
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And there is no saving value within you.
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It all comes by the mercy and grace of God.
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And by any stretch of the imagination, children are not to be abused and are not to be mistreated.
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And the consequences then should be severe.
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I think they should, apart from what they'll get in the next life from Christ, if they're unconverted, mistreat a child, abuse a child in this life, it should be bad.
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Why? Because they're helpless.
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Why? Because they can't protect themselves.
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They can't provide for themselves.
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And we should never pray on those who can't protect themselves.
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But I wanna make a distinction in this text.
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That ain't what that text is talking about.
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Although that's good and true.
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My understanding of verse two is based on what Jesus has already said in verses three and four.
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I'm sorry, in verse five, which He's already said in verse three and four.
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And it is this.
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One, this little one, Jesus has already said, must what? Be transformed.
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Correct? He must have a new state of being.
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He must be changed.
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He must be converted.
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He must be humbled.
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And then what's the answer? Well, those are the ones that enter the kingdom of heaven.
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So this little child that Jesus has used as a living object lesson is to say, these little ones are actually, He's talking about converted people.
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Because He said, one, you have to repent.
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You have to believe.
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You have to be converted.
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So the one such child and the little ones are new believers.
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They are new disciples.
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They're true disciples.
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And they're to be welcomed and received in the name of Jesus.
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They're to be brought in, to be protected and provided a place of protection from false teaching.
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They should be provided food, meaning we should give those new disciples, these little ones, these new children and disciples into Christ.
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We should provide them with good teaching to feed their soul.
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And we are to receive even the ones who are weak and to not cast judgment on them.
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That's what Romans 14, one says.
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It also says that we are to comfort those who are faint hearted, uphold the weak and be patient with all.
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Don't those sound like little children we deal with? I don't know about y'all, but man, sometimes dealing with children can be difficult.
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Patience is what we need.
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We need to protect them and provide for them.
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And because of the believer's union in Christ, the inseparable union that we have between Christ and His people, whatever is done to Christ or these children will be done to Him.
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Let's just take for instance this.
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If you go to Matthew chapter 10, and you don't need to turn there, I'll read it for you.
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Here's what he says.
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Matthew chapter 10, verses 40 through 42.
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He says, he who receives you receives me.
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He who receives me receives him who sent me.
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He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.
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And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.
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And here's what it is.
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But whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones, even a cold drink of water will not lose his reward.
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Then he does go on to say too, that in chapter 25, verses 35 through 40, he says, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
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And I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
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And I was a stranger, you invited me into your home.
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I was naked, you clothed me.
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I was sick and you visited me.
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When I was in prison, you came to me.
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And then the righteous will answer and they'll say, Lord, when did we see you hungry? When did we feed you? When were you thirsty and we gave you something to drink? And when were you a stranger and we invited you in? And when did we clothe you? When did we see you, Lord, when you were sick or when you were in prison? And when did we come to you? And Lord says, to the extent that you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.
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So there is a connection to what you do to Christ's disciples, you do to him.
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We can just take for instance in Acts, when Saul was on the road to Damascus, what happened? God blinded him and knocked him off his horse.
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And he says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Well, was he actually persecuting Christ? In Saul's mind, no.
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But what he was doing to his people was no different than what he was doing to Christ himself.
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That's why we should understand it that way.
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Also goes on into the verse six, and I'll take it as a whole now.
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It says, but whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him to have a millstone wrapped around his neck and be thrown into the depths of the sea.
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We see that you do something to cause one of these little disciples to sin or to stumble, grave danger.
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The warning of judgment comes from those who lead these little ones or such ones to stumble, the word here is scandalizami.
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That is the verb form of this to cause to stumble.
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It means to offend or even to cause to sin.
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Some of your translations may even say to cause to sin.
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The noun form is scandalon, and it's the actual stick that you set a trap with bait on it and you put the bait on the hook.
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And it's to set a trap to catch someone in a snare.
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That's what it means.
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Jesus had already used this twice in the book of Matthew, in chapter 16, verse 23, it's the verb form, and chapter 17, verse 27 in the verb form again.
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In chapter 16, where he calls the first Pope, Peter, he calls him, Satan, get behind me, you're a stumbling block, okay? What a great thing to call Peter, Satan.
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He said, you are a stumbling block.
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He was saying, Peter, what you're doing, you're wanting me to sin and not carry out that which the Lord has called me to do.
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He was setting a trap.
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And then in chapter 17, verse 27, you could read that whole narrative.
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It has to do with paying taxes.
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And it would be great if we could go out and throw a hook in the water and pull up a fish with tax money in it.
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Well, I don't think that's gonna happen.
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But anyway, Jesus said, the question was, do we pay the tax? And Jesus made a small parable out of it.
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He says, do the sons need to pay the taxes of the king? And he says, well, no, well, the strangers pay.
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He says, well, basically, we shouldn't have to pay, but we don't wanna cause these people an offense or make them sins.
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What I want you to do is go out there and throw a hook in the water, and when you pull it up, there's gonna be fish with money in it.
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But when he said, we don't wanna cause an offense, Jesus says, we don't wanna cause people to sin in doing this.
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So it's better for us to not exert our liberty and to go ahead and do what's required of us.
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The noun form of scandalon refers to the trap, setting a trap.
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This warning is for those who intentionally set a snare for the people of God.
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Understand, we're not talking about missteps, a wrong thought, wrong deed.
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This is men and women who set a trap for God's people.
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And notice that this trap that set is opposite of what we would see in repentance.
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Repentance is to turn from sin to God, turn from serving self to serve God.
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This trap is we want you to turn from Christ and turn back to sin, turn from God and turn back to self.
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That's what the trap is.
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New converts are just like newborn babies.
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They don't know the difference.
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They crawl around on the ground, like a little toddler, put them on the ground.
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I don't know about y'all, but I had little kids, they'd pick up everything off the ground and eat because they were hungry.
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It wouldn't matter.
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It'd be G.I.
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Joe men, he men, blues, clues, crayons, it wouldn't matter.
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Well, we too, like new Christians are that way.
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And I can speak in my own experience.
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When I came to faith in Christ, I had nothing but false teacher books to read.
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I didn't know the difference.
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Fortunately, the Lord had impressed upon my heart at the time, let me read this book with an open Bible.
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I'm going, that ain't what that's saying.
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Now I couldn't point to all the wrongs and rights.
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I knew this, what that said ain't what this said.
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And I knew that that verse wasn't in the right spot with what this is saying.
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So start throwing the books away.
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That's setting a trap.
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And because new believers fall prey to false teaching, we need to receive them into the body.
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New converts need to be received and they need to be received so they don't fall prey to the false teachings.
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And we need to receive them with humility.
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I want you to understand that this type of sin has a dual effect of setting that trap.
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One, they're going to be guilty of setting the trap for God's people, right? They're going to set a trap, but then they're going to be guilty of causing that person to sin.
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Double damnation, double damnation.
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And now listen to the words of love incarnate, Jesus Christ, so meek and mild, so kind, it would be better for this man to have a millstone wrapped around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
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Millstone, you know what a millstone is? Millstone is a round, circular, ball-shaped stone.
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And it's set on a flat stone.
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And it had a hole that went through it in which they would put a pole and they would have a beast, whether it be a donkey or an ox or something to push that around in a circle and it would crush the grain, making flour.
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And in some cases, they made a man do it.
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His name was Samson.
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Humiliating thing they did to Samson.
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That ball, that circular piece of stone was anywhere in the ancients, say between two and 300 pounds.
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This was a brutal form of punishment, wouldn't you say? It was practiced not by the Jews.
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It was only practiced by the Romans, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and some Syriacs.
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And the reason why it was practiced by them it was they saw that the punishment for committing a crime or murdering a family member, and that's what they did.
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You committed a crime against a family member, murder or killed a brother, sister, mother, father, this is what they did.
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And I'm gonna describe what the execution was like.
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They get in a ship.
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They go out as far as they could to a deep part of the ocean or the sea.
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Could have even been the Sea of Galilee.
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And they took this rope, they wrapped it around that stone, tied it around that hole.
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Then they took the other end of that rope, wrapped it around this person, dude, chick, whatever's neck, bound their hands and feet.
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And then they would just take a couple of minutes and they'd throw that stone over.
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Well, as that rope got tight, what happens? Head first, right over.
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And with neck breaking speed, that stone that's plummeting at an incredible speed and force to the bottom of the ocean, so was that person's body.
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And they violently drowned to death.
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There's two illustrations in this passage that Jesus talks about that, dude, I don't wanna die that way.
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One, I don't wanna drown and I don't wanna burn to death.
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You know, if I can pick any other way, and I don't wanna die, I'm gonna sleep because I've got too much to do tomorrow.
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If I die tonight and I sleep, I'd be worried about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow.
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I don't wanna drown and I don't wanna burn to death.
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Violent.
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Jesus said it would be better for that to happen to the person.
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It would be better for you to die a violent death by drowning than to offend one of his disciples.
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It would be better for you to have your face removed from the presence of all men than to offend one of God's people.
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That's Jesus's words.
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Better.
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It would be better for him.
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Does that ring a bell, anybody? The night in which Jesus was betrayed? The night in which he betrayed.
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He said, whoever sticks his hand in the sop, when I do, that too will betray me.
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Matthew 26.
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Go back and read it.
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Jesus said it would have been better for that person to have never been born.
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Ain't nothing good about that.
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And then verse seven.
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Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks.
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For it is inevitable by the stumbling blocks, they'll come, but woe to the man through whom the stumbling blocks come.
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Jesus continues his words of judgment and condemnation.
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And it's woe.
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Woe.
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Woe.
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We hear that a lot in the Old Testament prophets.
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Woe.
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It'd be woe to a group of people or woe to nations and cities.
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Woe.
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It's an oracle of doom and condemnation.
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It's never anything good when a prophet whom Jesus was the greatest of all prophets says woe.
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It's an oracle of doom.
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It is an oracle to bring sorrow and grief.
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And it says, woe to the world.
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This doesn't mean woe to the planet.
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It doesn't mean woe to the grass and the dirt and the flowers.
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It's woe to this world system.
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Woe to this world because its system is offensive.
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James chapter four says, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility or an enemy of God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be friends with the world, you can't be a friend of God.
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You're an enemy of God.
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And then he says in first John two, verse 15 through 17, do not love the world nor the things that are in the world.
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For he who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.
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And this world is passing away with its lust.
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So woe to the world and this world system, which sets up stumbling blocks for you and I.
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The world's full of them.
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The world's full of stumbling blocks, full of causations of sin.
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Jesus has clearly said here that it's inevitable.
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It's gonna come.
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It's necessary.
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Some translations maybe say it's necessary.
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And it is, it's necessary.
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We live in a sin-filled world, full of sinners.
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That you know what we like to do? We like to sin against one another.
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So sin's gonna happen.
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This world's gonna sin against us and we're gonna sin against one another.
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Jesus then specifically condemns the man who caused this stumbling block.
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He says, woe to the man through whom the stumbling blocks come.
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He says, woe to those who call evil good.
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This is what the prophet says.
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This is the world.
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Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
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Woe to those who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness.
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Who substitute bitter for sweet, sweet for bitter.
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Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
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That's the prophet Isaiah.
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Woe to the world.
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Woe to the world who enact evil statutes and to those who constantly record unjust decisions.
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That's the prophet Isaiah speaking.
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We should say woe to this world.
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Woe to our learning institutions that teach that evolution is real and teach it as fact.
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And we should say woe to those who teach our children that fornication is okay, masturbation is okay, homosexuality is okay, that transgenderism is okay and that two people of the same sex can get married and we can call this marriage.
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Woe to them.
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And woe to those who make abortion acceptable.
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Do you know as of yesterday, as of yesterday, 62 and a half million babies murdered in the womb.
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I mean, 62 and a half million as of yesterday.
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1.9 billion worldwide.
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Just do, I mean, when I read that, just think for a second.
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There ain't but 330 million people in the United States.
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That's extinguishing the United States six times over.
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Woe to the world who does those things.
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And I have to be an equal opportunity offender.
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So when I say this, listen clearly.
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Woe to our homeschool material and our church school material that says that atheistic and godless nations have something in common in their community with the Bible.
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They do not.
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They say do not steal.
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They're not, that doesn't mean that they're inconsistent.
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They're consistent with the scripture.
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They're saying don't steal because they're trying to legislate morality, not because it's an offense against the holy God.
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Woe to those who call stumbling blocks in this world.
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Woe to the men and women that set stumbling blocks to God's people.
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And now we come to verse eight and nine.
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If your hand offends you or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, throw it from you.
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For it's better you to enter life crippled and lame than to have two hands and two feet be cast into eternal fire.
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For if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it from you.
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For it is better for you to have one eye in this life than to go into the fiery hell with two.
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Jesus has called us to beware of stumbling blocks.
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He's called us to have humility.
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He's now telling us, you know what? You gotta confront yourself.
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He has already called his disciples in Matthew 10 that it may cost them their family.
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He has told them in Matthew chapter 16 that they need to deny themselves.
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He says, hey, don't think I came to bring peace in this life.
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I may bring a sword and it may set the mother against the father, the father against the daughter and be enemies in their own household.
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And then he says in Matthew 16 that you have to be willing to take up your cross and follow him.
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Gotta be ready to die.
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Now Jesus is saying, you're gonna have to die to yourself and there's going to be self-repentance and that this is a lifestyle, not a one-time event.
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Now I do want you to understand when you come to faith in Christ, there is a initial from turning from unbelief to belief.
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And there is a initial saying I'm gonna abandon my sin and follow Christ.
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But that's the one-time event and that's it.
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It has a recurring effect in your life of constantly confessing and repenting.
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If you're not constantly confessing and repenting, you need a big, huge question mark in front of your salvation.
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And when you sin, it should bother you.
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It should bother you.
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The idea of plucking eyes out and hacking off hands was not the first time that Jesus said this.
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If you go back to the first recorded sermon Jesus ever did, it would be the Sermon on the Mount.
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And although it was in the context of dealing with adultery, he said, if your right hand offends you, cut it off.
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If your eye offends you, pluck it out.
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So this wouldn't have been the first time that they heard it.
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But the principle is the same.
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And Jesus is now reminding them again that sin must be dealt with radically.
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Sin has to be cut out to the root.
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And you know the word radical means rooted.
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It has to be got down to the root and removed.
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It has to be amputated.
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Should we hack off hands, poke out eyes? Literally, no.
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And some of you know who Origen was.
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What a fool, fourth century.
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The man took this to heart and he castrated himself.
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That's a fool.
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Jesus is not advocating self-mutilation here.
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He's advocating, look at this, what's in your life.
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And are you willing to do what's hard and difficult to get it out? That's what he is saying.
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It's called, he uses hyperbole to make his point.
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It's a rhetorical device.
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We often use it.
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But he is saying, look, if your right hand offends you, cut it off.
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Jesus wasn't saying, look, let's go mutilate one another.
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He's saying sin has to be amputated quick.
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It's like gain green.
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It's like cancer in our lives that has to be removed.
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And are we willing to take the extreme measures to remove it with the severity because of its consequences? Look here.
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It's not our hands and feet are the problem.
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Matthew 15 says this, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and blasphemies.
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That's what your hands are just doing what your heart wants to do.
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And how do we know that? Because Paul says in Romans 6 verse 13, don't present your members of your body as sinful instruments to carry out unrighteousness.
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As a necessary means God has given us for our sanctification and perseverance has given us the means of amputating those things in our life by the power of the Spirit.
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That's what he has done.
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And we should be thankful for that.
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Doesn't mean mutilate ourselves.
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It doesn't mean hack off arms and poke out eyes, but through the personal work of the Spirit and the personal work of Jesus Christ the sinner now has a new heart and with the gift of the Holy Spirit the sinner now is a partaker of the divine nature and has the necessary means to wage war against the flesh.
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Listen to this, Romans 8 verses 7 through 14, because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God it will not subject itself to the law of God.
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It's not able to do so.
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And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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However, if you are not in the flesh you're in the Spirit.
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If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
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Do you see that? If the Spirit of God is in you.
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Is there a believer in Christ that the Spirit of God is not in? If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness.
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But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
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So then you are no longer under obligation to the flesh or to live according to its lust.
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If you are living according to the flesh, you're gonna die.
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But if you by the Spirit are putting death the deeds of the body, you will live.
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For all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God.
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In both passages, both passages, both verses eight and nine the motivating factor for us to start putting to death the deeds of the flesh and radical amputation in our life is so that we don't go into everlasting fire.
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That should be motivating.
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I don't wanna burn.
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I don't wanna be set on fire.
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I don't wanna drown.
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So here's a choice to be made.
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You wanna go in this life blind and maimed or you get your sin? Or do you wanna go to hell with all your appendages? Hell is a real place.
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It's a real place of real torment with a real God who's really holy.
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Hell has two aspects to it.
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One is the removal of all that is good about God.
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In this life, even the young converter will experience God's grace and mercy.
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When that blind believer steps into the other side he will do nothing but experience the absolute power and wrath of a holy God that will pour out his justice for all of eternity.
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So it's the removal of all that's good about God and loving and kind, but then it's the actual, the exerting of all that's holy about God towards righteous and good and justice.
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And I've heard many people say over the years, I mean, as a street preacher, oh, you just preach over hell because you like to scare people.
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And I would say, yep, because that's what Jesus just said.
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Jesus used hell as a scare tactic.
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I think it's a good one.
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He also used drowning as a scare tactic.
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Don't stumble my people or it'll be better.
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I think it's a good one.
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I had a contract to do a medical facility some years ago and I didn't know what it was.
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Maybe I'll say the name, some of you may know.
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It's called the hangar clinic.
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I didn't know.
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I thought it was hangers, like hanging clothes up.
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I didn't know.
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So I get there and we're doing the other side of it.
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So we got to see, it was like an addition, seeing all these people come in and they were amputees.
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And Edward Hanger was the first amputee of the Civil War.
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And he had entered the Civil War and I think it was like June 2nd, June 1st of 1861.
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He was 18 years old.
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June 3rd, 1861, cannibal blew his leg.
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And imagine that, 18 years old, two days into service and you're about to die.
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Well, in the field, what they had to do in order to save his life, his friends amputated his leg.
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Well, that's where the hangar clinic came about was making for amputees people.
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I've just watched people constantly coming in, coming in with no appendages.
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We think about Edward Hanger, he had people and his life at that time that, hey man, we're going to have to do something difficult in the field.
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We have to cut this man's leg off.
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Hey, this is 1861, there was no anesthesia.
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And his friends removed his leg to save his life.
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But there's another person that we should think about too, that was more difficult.
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There was a man named Aaron Ralston.
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And you may know who I'm talking about.
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He wrote a book called Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
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And on April 26th, 2003, during his descent in the Blue John Canyon Crescent, he dislodged a boulder and his arm got hung.
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He hung for five days, five days.
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On day five, he had to make a decision.
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He had to make a decision that, I'm going to have to break my own arm at the forearm.
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And then he had to take his double pocket knife and cut off his arm.
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It's a great, you ought to read the book.
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That's tough.
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But his statement was, it was that or die.
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That or die.
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That's tough.
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Extreme measures to live.
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Are we taking extreme measures to live in our own life? Are we taking extreme measures to live a holy life? So in closing, just a few things of application and then I'll shut up.
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One, were to deny ungodliness and worldly desires were to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present evil age.
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And I'm just going to bet that's difficult.
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That's easy to say, but it's difficult.
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Two, do you as Edward Hanger have people in your life helping you mortify the deeds of the flesh? Do you have people in your life? Do you have people that are walking with you that you can share things within your life that you say, hey man, I need struggles and these sin of my life, I need help.
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Church life is a community effort.
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Christians are not island to their own.
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If you think you can do this on your own, you're sadly mistaken.
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Do you have, are you helping someone mortify the sin in their life? Are you mortifying the sin in your own life? Four, in our sanctification, God is sovereignly controlling whatever stumbling blocks come under our life.
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I want you to understand that.
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Whatever sin comes into our life and those stumbling blocks, know this, that God has brought those there.
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And he's brought those there for a purpose.
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And that purpose first and foremost is to quit trusting yourself and to trust him and to rely on him.
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Number five will be to parents and spouses.
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Don't be a stumbling block because of hypocrisy in your life.
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Don't be a stumbling block.
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Hypocrisy is a stumbling block when we say we're something and then we're in private, we're something different.
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And number six, be on guard.
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And I'll leave with what the Apostle Paul says.
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He says, I urge you, brethren, be on guard.
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Note those who cause divisions and stumbling blocks are contrary to the doctrine of what you have learned.
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Avoid them.
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For those who are such do not serve the Lord, but they serve their own belly with smooth and flattering speech that they may deceive simple hearts.
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Be on guard.
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I assume that the vast majority in this room are believers.
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And I'm thankful for that.
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But there are a few in some of these little ones that aren't.
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Jesus Christ made a way for us to escape the fiery hells of condemnation.
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He made a way.
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That way is through complete and total dependence on the finished work of what Christ did.
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It is turning from our sin, those things that are offensive to God, the things that we enjoy.
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Not about y'all, but sin's good.
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Sin's good for a season, but it brings forth death.
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We have to be willing to turn from those sins and turn to Christ, put all of our faith and trust that what He did was sufficient for our penalty for sin, and that we put all of our trust in that and know that His sacrifice was accepted in our place.
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Then by that act of faith, that act of faith, God then grants us forgiveness and then gives us the sign and seal of the Holy Spirit that we can put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit.
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That's good news.
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Let's pray.
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Father God, thank you for your word.
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Thank you for some of these tough words that your son spoke to his closest ones, the ones that he loved the most.
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Father, thank you that we have your word to instruct and guide us and to lead us into all truth.
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Father, I pray that you prepare our hearts now for a time of communion.
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In Christ's name, amen.