More Serious Than You Think
Preached by Jason Abbott
November 24, 2013
Introduction
When I was in early grade school, I lived in a subdivision that backed onto another subdivision. The two neighborhoods were divided by a thin strip of woods and a little creek. One of my best friends lived on the other side of the creek from me, and we would often meet between our houses in the woods to catch crawdads or build wood forts or throw rocks.
So here’s the situation. One day, he and I met in the woods as usual except this time he brought a new game—a book of matches. (In fact, I called him this week to check the details of this incident, and while we couldn’t remember many of them, one thing of which he was certain was that the matches were wooden matches; we didn’t use cheap matches, only the best for us!)
Well, again, we don’t remember many details. Maybe we were going to roast marshmallows, maybe we were going to send smoke signals, or maybe we just wanted to burn something down. No matter our goal, we gathered as much tall dry grass and brush as possible; we placed it in the middle of a field full of more tall dry grass and brush; and, we started a fire. We’re pretty certain that we didn’t build a fire pit of rocks. We’re pretty certain that we didn’t tend the fire or watch it. We just set the creek ablaze!
By the time an adult caught on to our new game of matches, a pretty sizeable fire had been started. We had a good portion of a dry field between our two neighborhoods burning. The fire department didn’t have to come out. Only my friend’s mom came out, and (as he put it) “That was way worse!”
Why do I share this story?
I share it because, like my friend and me—like two grade school kids playing a game of matches in a dry field—we often toy around with things that are far more serious than we give them credit for being. We often mess around with eternal death and life without really considering the potential costs.
Here Jesus teaches that playing with sin is like playing with those matches. Sin is far more dangerous than we think; sin is far more serious than we think!
Mark 9:42-50
42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to 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 has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
1. Causing others to sin is dangerous (v. 42).
Here, “little ones” should not simply be limited to children or the young. Rather, Jesus is referring to all those who follow him—all his disciples. Therefore, Jesus is talking about little disciples and big disciples; for, they are all “little ones” in comparison to him. (As we discussed last week, Jesus is much, much bigger than we think he is!)
Yet, instead of minimizing the importance of his disciples when he calls them “little ones,” Jesus maximizes their importance and the importance of caring for them! So he explains how dangerous not caring for one of his disciple’s spiritual needs is. Jesus warns:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea (v. 42).
Just to drive the seriousness of this warning home, the millstone, in Jesus’ day, was a large stone which could only be turned by a beast of burden (e.g. an ox). Such imagery “was doubly dreadful for the Jews, who as a rule feared the sea and regarded drowning as a horrible form of death.”1
So, how serious is causing “one of these little ones” to stumble into sin? Jesus says, “Imagine the worst, most fearful kind of death you can! That would be far better than facing God’s wrath for having caused another person to sin!” Causing someone to fall into sin is a serious, serious thing! Therefore, Jesus warns us to be careful.
Now, let me bring this home.
(1) Certainly, we should never intentionally lead someone into sin. We shouldn’t invite an alcoholic over for a beer. We shouldn’t encourage someone to cheat on his or her spouse. We shouldn’t counsel others to do what is clearly against God’s will. Such things would obviously be included in Jesus’ warning in this passage.
(2) More subtly, we shouldn’t cause others to sin by converting them to those things that are of secondary importance to God at the expense of the things that are of primary importance to God. Jesus has harsh words for the Pharisees and scribes who do such things (Matthew 23:23). Today, we can easily convert people to our own traditions (e.g. having daily quiet times) while, all the while, neglecting an appropriate focus on the weightier matters of the law (e.g. pursuing justice issues for the oppressed in the name of Christ Jesus).
(3) Most subtly, we cannot take an attitude of neutrality toward those whom we see pursuing a life of sin. Sin is deadly! If I watch Ezra, my two-year-old son, playing dangerously close to the street as vehicles zoom past him and, yet, do nothing about it, no one will consider me blameless when he gets hit by a truck. Similarly, if we watch someone run into sin but do nothing to intervene, neither will God consider us blameless.
Are you your brother’s or sister’s keeper? In the Church, the short answer to this question is yes! We will absolutely bear responsibility for what we do or do not do to lead others away from sin and toward salvation in Christ Jesus. Therefore, Jesus warns us here about our serious responsibility when it comes to the spiritual welfare of others.
Next Jesus turns our attention to the seriousness of allowing sin in our own lives to go unchecked. He warns his disciples and us that:
2. Allowing ourselves to sin is dangerous (vv. 43-48).
Let me reread these six verses. And, please just allow the vivid imagery, which Jesus uses, to sink into your imaginations and inform the way that you think about the dangerousness of sin. Jesus says:
And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (vv. 43-48).
How dangerous is sin to you?
It is so dangerous that if it were possible to protect yourself from it by cutting off your hand then you should do it!
It is so dangerous that if it were possible to protect yourself from it by cutting off your foot then you should do it!
It is so dangerous that if it were possible to protect yourself from it by tearing out your eye then you should do it!
Why is sin so dangerous?
Sin is so dangerous because it is what will separate us from our Triune God! It is what stands between us and the enjoyment of eternal love and eternal pleasure and eternal good and eternal holiness and eternal perfection. All these (and so much more) can only be found in relationship with God.
When sin turns God’s smiling face away from us, it simultaneously turns God’s frowning disposition toward us. And, it is our sin that brings his wrath upon us. Here Jesus describes the final state of those whose sin forever separates them from God’s love. This state is described as a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched! It is horrific imagery which Jesus uses intentionally! It is not a place that should be lightly discussed!
Jesus’ original audience would have had a most concrete conception of the hell which he describes. The word translated hell is Gehenna in verses 43, 45, and 47. This is a place to the southwest of Jerusalem. It had historically been a place of despicable acts of sin (e.g. human sacrifice, 2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). Following such atrocities, King Josiah condemned those sinful acts by making Gehenna into a garbage dump which it remained into Jesus’ time.
Imagine walking into a valley filled with human feces, all kinds of trash, and animal carcasses. There would be a constant smoldering of things being burned, and there would be a constant rot and maggots turning in that decay. The fires would have burned in Gehenna on 365 days of the year, and the worms would have never seemed to die! This is the image Jesus used to depict hell. This is the reward for sin and rebellion against God.
Sin is deadly dangerous! Sin is much more serious than we dare to think! Thus, the reformers—in response to distinctions being made in Roman Catholicism between sins that lead to death and sins that do not—responded that all sin is deadly! Gossip is deadly. Lust is deadly. Deceit is deadly. Greed is deadly. Sin is deadly because it separates us from “eternal life, eschatological life…”2 which can only be found in relationship with God!
Yet, most every one of us will quickly concede that we are indeed sinners. We will readily admit that we are not perfectly good. We will quickly admit that we fall short of perfection. We are not nice enough. We are not pure enough. We are not honest enough. We are sinful.
What then are we to do? Our last two verses tell us. Our last two verses indicate that:
3. Offering ourselves to Christ is deliverance (vv. 49-50).
There’s a good amount of debate about the exact meaning of these verses. One commentator noted that more than “a dozen different interpretations are found” when one surveys the commentaries on this passage.3 How then do we come to a conclusion about what these final two verses mean?
First, we must allow the context at this point in Mark to set the backdrop for these two verses. Jesus has been over and over again teaching his disciples about the costs of following him.
They have to be willing to pick up their crosses and daily die in order to follow him (8:34).
They must put away selfish ambition and serve the weak and insignificant in order to follow him (9:35).
They cannot go about turf-guarding their own glory if they are going to follow him (9:39).
This is the backdrop against which Jesus is talking about the dangers of sin. (It is costly to follow Jesus. There is sacrifice involved when one walks with God.) And, in the disciples’ minds (indeed, in collective 1st century Jewish thinking), human sin and sacrifice must go hand and hand.
Second, we must bring Jewish sacrificial language to bear on Jesus’ words. When we do, we find that these two verses open up and bloom for us as they should have for the disciples. For, Israelite burnt offerings were supposed to be fully consumed by fire (Leviticus 1), and salt was to be part of every Israelite sacrifice (Leviticus 2:13). Now consider the last two verses with me:
For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another (vv. 49-50).
Do you see? Jesus is equating the costs or sacrifice of following after him with temple sacrificial practice. He is saying—as Paul would literally say later (Romans 12:1)—that his disciples are to be living sacrifices. “Discipleship to Jesus lays a total claim to one’s life; in the language of sacrifice, it must be totally consuming or it is worthless.”4
Yet, how are we able to do this? Only by faith in the one who first sacrificed for us can we succeed in sacrificing for him. Only by faith in Christ Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf can we sacrifice on behalf of others. Only by trusting in Jesus’ triumph over sin for us can we be delivered from sin for him!
1James R. Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, 293.
2Walter W. Wessel, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Mark, 708.
3Ibid., 709.
4Edwards, 296.
