9.26.21 Mark 9:38–50
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name. We tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not try to stop him, because no one who does a miracle in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil about me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Amen I tell you: Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, will certainly not lose his reward. 42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall into sin, it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around his neck. 43 If your hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed, than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 ‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 45 If your foot causes you to fall into sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell, 46 ‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 47 If your eye causes you to fall into sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good. But if the salt loses its flavor, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Three times Jesus talks about hell in graphic terms as He calls it -
the unquenchable fire, 44 ‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
‘where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
He is referencing the last verses of Isaiah, where the prophet takes the saints on a tour of hell, through the valley of Hinnom on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was a place where the Baal worshipers used to burn their babies after they sacrificed them. Jesus refers back to this place and plainly states that this place still exists, but it is a place of everlasting decay and fire. He talks about sinners being THROWN into hell. They don’t volunteer to be there. But on Judgment Day they will have no choice.
Did you know that according to one statistic, only 56% of people believe in hell. Another statistic states that almost half of all Americans (44%) have no idea where they’ll go when they die, but only 2% believe they’ll go to Hell. Maybe that’s why so many people are no longer coming to church, since nobody thinks anyone is going there. H. Richard Niebuhr described American Christianity pretty well today when he said, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
Yes, most people would say that a God who sends people to hell doesn’t sound very loving and very kind. They would rather think of God in terms of acceptance and tolerance. But Jesus keeps on talking about hell again and again, three times in today’s text. He wants us to take the threat of hell very seriously. Actually, Jesus said that the pathway to Hell is wide, and MANY enter into it, while in comparison the pathway to Heaven is NARROW and only a FEW find it, at least in comparison with those who go to hell.
So we need to educate ourselves and our children on WHO GOD IS and how we can be saved from this place called Hell. We need to take the threats seriously, and not act as if Jesus were just throwing out empty threats here. We also need to beware of Satan and the demonic forces of this world who would like nothing more than to lead everyone into Hell with them. That’s how this text started out, with a battle. People were casting out demons in the NAME of JESUS. Jesus is the only One who has the power to free us from Hell and Satan. So when we talk about Christian Education, CHRIST needs to be at the center of this whole battle.
Jesus is very protective of His CHILDREN, first and foremost. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall into sin, it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around his neck. I had the chance to teach the Sunday School children this past Sunday, and it was a lot of fun actually. One young boy asked question after question after question, he was so hungry to learn! How many of you were like that at one time? And then I think, what happened to those children over the years?
Many of them have fallen from faith. Why? There are many temptations out there. Just recently Gonzo dressed up as Cinderella and came out as a cross dresser on Sesame Street. Walk into your local public high schools and you will see room after room after room promoting the homosexual agenda with pride flags in every window. Listen to the lectures at college dorms, how openly they attack the very concept of Creation. Children that used to believe are now indoctrinated with everything but Christianity. Immoral sexuality is being PUSHED on our children, causing many of them to fall into sin of unbelief and immoral behavior. According to the State of American Theology in 2014, two thirds of those who are 18-34 years of age, do not believe pre-marital sex is ever wrong.
This is one reason we have Christian Education, so our children have a clear sense of identity in their baptism. So they find their love in God’s love and forgiveness in Christ. So they realize that their goal in life is to give glory to God with their bodies as God designed them. So that they know right from wrong and so that they know forgiveness through faith in Christ crucified.
The education needs to start at HOME with YOU, the parents. If you’re not excited about coming to worship, how do you expect them to be? If you’re more dedicated to get them to a sporting game than you are about church, and if you only talk about the game with them, what is your message? Sports are more important than Jesus. If you don’t talk about Jesus at home, then why would they? What does your example teach them about marriage? Love? Commitment? Do you have any sense of right or wrong in your house at all? Do you get drunk in front of your children? Do you let your children do what they want when they want? Most of the time when children act up they are simply seeking ATTENTION. And if YOU don’t give it to them, then they will seek it online, from predators and all kinds of simply sick behavior. These aren’t just YOUR children. These are God’s children. It’s time for you to step up. It’s time for you to repent. Examine your attendance in this past year and tell me otherwise. Examine your prayer life and your time in Bible study. Look at how many children aren’t here after they are confirmed, and that most often comes back to YOU. If you mess up with them, God says it would be better if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were tossed into the sea.
So Jesus points not just to what happens to the children, but also what happens with you. We tend to think of temptations as being OUT THERE, but not IN HERE, starting with ME first. Temptations will always be at your school, your place of employment, at home and on your computer. So notice WHAT Jesus causes you to sin. It’s YOUR eye, your hand, and your foot. Think of David. His neighbor’s wife was bathing on the roof. He saw her with his eyes. He should have looked away, used his hand to open the door and walk OFF of the roof. But it was HIS eyes that kept looking. The temptation came in from there, from his OWN desire which he should have fought, but he didn’t. You can’t blame other people when you fall into sin. Even if you have easy access to the Internet on your phone and your parents or your spouse don’t know what you’re looking at, it should be free reign in your mind to indulge your lust. The fruit of the Spirit is SELF CONTROL, and you need to exercise this with YOURSELF. You shouldn’t need someone looking over your shoulder every minute. When Jesus said to have SALT in yourself, He meant to let these condemnations burn in your mind and your soul. Let the guilt be felt. Without guilt, you won’t have any repentance.
If you let sin enter through your eye, your hand, or your foot, then Jesus threatens hell. So it makes you ask, does SIN send someone to hell? Isn’t it actually UNBELIEF that sends to hell, and not sin? After all, all of us sin every day. We are born into sin and even our righteous acts are like filthy rags. So why does Jesus threaten hell over sin being committed? If sin sends people to hell then aren’t we all going to hell?
What is it that leads to faith? What is it that leads to unbelief? It’s how we THINK about sin, and how we DEAL with sin. So if our eye causes us to sin, and we think NOTHING of it, as if it wasn’t that big of a sin because we didn’t actually DO anything, that leads to more sin, and it also is a sign of impenitence. So sin, when it goes unchecked, has a way of hardening in your heart, making you defensive of it, acceptable to it and eventually to live in it. So whereas it may not be the sin in and of itself that leads you into hell, it is the nature of sin to lead to either a hardening of the heart or a guilty conscience, both of which can lead AWAY from Jesus when we want to stay in the sin.
Take for instance when someone decides to live together with another before marriage or get an unlawful divorce. Somehow they have excused themselves for some reason. They know it’s wrong. So what do they do? They stay away from church. They stay away from the pastor. They stay away from repentance. Why? Because of the guilt of their sin. Or they get angry at the pastor for their own refusal to repent. It isn’t just the sin of adultery or unlawful divorce that damns. It’s more what the sin of adultery DOES to someone. The less you make of sin, the minute you make a sin “small” in your mind, is the minute that it can and does become big. If sin goes unchecked, make no mistake, it leads to hell.
So take Jesus seriously when He talks about throwing people into the eternal fires of hell. This is a call to repentance. What are you doing with your eyes? Your hands? Your feet? Are there things you need to cut off from your life? Get rid of the internet? Get rid of Netflix? Get rid of sports? Get rid of alcohol? Drugs? Friends? Even good things can be evil when they get in the way of our relationship with God. Jesus talked about cutting things off, especially if those things in this world are leading you to hell.
But then, of course, if we take this seriously we have to ask where it ends? I probably should cut off both of my eyes and both of my hands and both of my feet. But what is it that directs the eye and the hands? It’s the mind. And what drives the mind? It’s the heart. So if I really want to take the threat of hell seriously, then it would appear that Jesus is saying the only way I can be saved from hell is if I kill myself and cut myself off from the land of the living.
But then we have to remember who is talking to us in the first place. It’s God in the flesh, with eyes, hands, and feet. And we have to remember what He’s doing with this human body in the first place. He’s come to be the sacrifice FOR US. He’s come to look sin and death in the eye, to see the world with all of its ugliness, and watch it spit on Him and nail Him to a cross. He’s taken on human hands and feet to carry the cross to Golgotha and have them nailed to that tree in order to be punished for the sins of the entire world. Look at Him with your eyes. Hold Him with your hands. Walk to Him and see Him at the cross with your feet.
He’s come here to sacrifice Himself, so our religion wouldn’t be one where we have to make the sacrifices to try and save ourselves. That’s what the Baal worshipers did as they danced around a cow and tried to evoke fire from their god. It didn’t work. That’s what people do who don’t accept Jesus’ sacrifice. They scrape themselves and cut themselves in an effort to punish themselves because they feel so miserable about themselves. Others drink themselves into oblivion to try and cover the guilt of their sins. But here Jesus is with a human face and body, looking at us and saying, “You don’t need to do that. I’ve already done that for you.”
And there’s another way to look at this too. Think of the way that Paul described baptism. He said in Romans 6 that, “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” When we were baptized we were put to death. Our eyes, our hands, our minds, our hearts, all of them were put to death when our sinful nature was put to death. Then a new man came to live inside of us as the Holy Spirit came to live with and in us and our dead bodies. How do we then live? We live by continuing to die. We can spiritually pluck our eyes out as we close them in prayers of repentance. We can cut our hands off when we fold them in prayer to our Lord. We can render our feet inactive when we get on our knees to pray. In these ways we put to death the things that want to lead us into hell, as we continue to cling to Jesus for forgiveness.
It’s interesting for me to do nursing home services in Bay City, in dealing with the elderly. People who’ve lost their ability to see very well, walk, and even talk in some instances. I just went and finally got to see Bob at a nursing home after he was in Covid lockdown. Here he is, this man in his 90’s, finally able to get out of bed, sitting in his wheelchair, and he’s filled with a profound sense of remorse over his sin and yet love for his Savior. How difficult it is for people to grow old. It isn’t for the meek and the timid. How many people feel completely worthless because they can’t walk or hear or see anymore. But in a sense, that’s exactly what Jesus is telling us to do in today’s text. Chop off your feet, your hands, and your eyes, if they keep you from the kingdom. Be willing to sacrifice all to stay in a close relationship with God. This is what we are training you for, training you to die with Christ alone.
If you grow old enough, you have no choice in the matter. You’ll lose your youthful looks. You’ll lose your athletic ability. You’ll lose your friends. Everything will die. But there’s one thing that will remain when you stay in the faith, is your hope. Your hope that you’ll get to use your eyes, hands, and mouth again, and that you’ll get to see Jesus and your loved ones in heaven. When all is said and done you aren’t going to care about whether you made the all star team or whether you had five hundred likes on Facebook. Your social presence will be gone. But God will still know you. God will still want you. God will still love you. God will still save you when you believe in Jesus. He’s worth sacrificing everything for, and most importantly, He has sacrificed everything for you. Amen.
