A Grave Danger
“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. 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.” (Mark 9:42-46)
Dangers can be assessed by the discipline they accrue and the distance by which we avoid them. A wasp may pose some small amount of dangers, but compare how we handle a wasp to how we handle an alligator. I have seen warning signs around alligator infested waters, but I’ve never seen one around a wasp nest. With that distinction in mind, it would be worthwhile to see how Jesus handles the topic of sin.
Sin occurs a great punishment, even when against the least of victims. We tend to grade the severity of the punishment by the standing of the person. If you slap me, you would barely face any punishment; however, if you slap the president, we may never see you again. If we apply that same logic to our passage, it should shock us. Children were the “least” in society, the bottom of the totem pole. And yet, if we teach the least of these to sin, donning a pair of concrete boots in the Gulf of America would be better for us. If an offense against a child warrants such a punishment, what about against God? Sin is serious. Shouldn’t this make us a little more circumspect about our actions? Have we thought for a moment what our manner of speech teaches our children? Of the movies we recommend? Of the habits we entertain? If sin warrants such a punishment, we must stay far away from it.
More than a great punishment, sin warrants a great distance. How far should we go to avoid sin? Far enough to cut our limbs off. We have all known individuals so plagued by disease that amputation was the only way to save their life, and I have seen the same in men plagued by sin. They may not be removing arms, but it has involved severing men from phones, relations, and conversations. (And it hurt as bad as an amputation to them.) The cost of the cure must match the severity of the disease. If Jesus gave His life to deliver us from sin, we should not hesitate to give an arm and a leg to distance ourselves from it.
My friends, let’s not play, let’s not diddle-dally, let’s not even entertain the least idea of sin in our lives. We have a greater chance of swimming those alligator infested waters than we do surviving a life of sin. Avoid sin at all costs.
