Matthew 18:8-9…Ready

Matthew 18:8-9…Ready

18:8 If your hand or your foot (Spiritual course, direction, and trajectory of your life) causes you to sin,  cut it off and throw it away.  (The type of hyperbole Jesus is using here is like we might say; “You’re going to drive yourself off a cliff if you don’t stop doing that.”)  It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. (The words used for the “hell fire”-[K.J.V., A.V.] is “Geenna,”  a transliteration of the Hebrew word “Hinnome.” “Gehenna” was the Hinnom Valley, bordering Jerusalem. It was the trash dump/landfill/sewer, and would have had a constant burning of dead carcasses, and a stench of death and decay. Cannot be taken laterally because the other hand & eye would still be capable of leading us into sin all by themselves.-(New) (For Complete Expository See Book)    

Extended Sermons 

“Calls for taking extreme measure in cutting off anything that can offend or cause others to stumble and fall into sin.” →We often downplay the sin and harm that we’ve done. We tend to think “The thing that I said was it really that bad? Did it really hurt them that much”? They’re probably just being too sensitive. That’s like the problem with our whole society, everyone’s just too sensitive, right. As a result we end deflecting and down playing our own sin and the harm we’ve done. We start to take on the Mantra of our culture “As long as it doesn’t hurt someone else, go for it.” Or even it does still go for it! But imagine what could happen if, instead of brushing off our actions, we truly paused and considered their impact. What if we chose humility over pride, compassion over indifference, and owned our mistakes rather than excusing them? Real growth begins when we face the truth and let it guide us toward change. We have the power to break free from cultural habits of minimizing harm and to set an example of care, empathy, and accountability.

“Even today, were to get rid of anything that can cause others to stumble and fall into sin. For some it may be entertainment choices: music, movies, nightclubs, bars, video games, etc.,. For others it may be friends, jobs, relationships, social media; TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc..” ⇒ As Christians we often don’t care about how these sorts of things can effect fellow believers. How many times have you seen social media photos of Christians raising a glass wine. This is not saying that’s there anything wrong with drinking alcohol in moderation. As Christians we have certain liberties in things we don’t see as sinful. But do you know everybody who’s looking at that picture? Or how many times how you seen social media photos of Christians on Spring break dressing inappropriately. Again nothing wrong with that, if they don’t see it as a sin. But do you know everybody that’ gets onto your Facebook page and sees that and how they’re going to feel about it? That it’s O.K. that as a believer they’re seeing you act that way and dress that way. No you don’t! So don’t post it on social media.

“Jesus is not being a killjoy in cutting out all the fun in life. But rather He is doing this out of love in freeing us from the immediate for something greater later”. ⇒ Jesus wants us to sacrifice and give up something in the immediate for something better later. It’s like giving up desert (a little things) for something better, maybe feeling better, better health, lowering your cholesterol, your blood sugar level, etc. Or how about retirement. We have money taken out of our paychecks now [in small amounts] So that it will grow in something later when we retire. Maybe for you it’s giving up a drink now, to live a life of sobriety. A life of being present with your family. Or maybe it’s putting off marrying that girl [who’s an unbeliever] for a wife later who is a believer.

Additional Notes & Applications

Calls for taking sin seriously in how it can effect others around us.

Calls for parting with all that holds us back from a life of holiness and obedience to Christ.

Calls for making difficult choices in putting personal holiness as more important than anything else we possess in the world.

Teaches how No solution for sin and its effects is too radical or too extreme.

Warns against behooving sin our lives, that its nothing we can do anything about. Or taking any steps to remove sin out of our path.

Teaches how Jesus doesn’t hold back on the inconvenience and great difficulty it’s going to be to get rid of sin in our lives. Or how that’s going to play out and yet its necessary.

Teaches how it matters what we do. It matters what we watch, what we listen to. It matters what we look at on our phones, and what we spent our time doing.

Teaches how a truly humble person will be quick to repent and admit when their wrong and take immediate action to fix it .

Calls for doing whatever it takes to keep peace and harmony in the church whatever it costs.

Teaches if we need any greater reason to repent and fight sin, it’s this so we don’t end up in hell.

Teaches by taking radical & extreme measures against sin shows how we have it in our hearts to be done with sin. . If we have it in our hearts to be done with sin, the Lord will give us the grace to make those hard and difficult choices no matter how much it cuts deep and hurts..

Taking extreme measures in cutting sin off in our lives requires a great deal of honest reflection and inner searching of your attitudes and actions. This is not an easy thing to do. It means being willing to ask yourself some hard questions and facing the consequences. Those consequences can be difficult because we are facing the loss of something that is precious to us. What must happen is that Jesus and our relationship with Him must be more precious than anything, even and eye or an arm.

Hyperbole uses extreme exaggeration for effect and is not meant to be taken literally. These examples aim to convey a feeling of significant pain, discomfort, or unwillingness to do something by exaggerating the alternative to a ridiculous degree. Common hyperboles we find in everyday conversations are; “I am so hungry I could eat a horse.”  “I told you a 1000 times before”. ” I had a ton of papers to grade before Friday.” “My feet are filling me”. “My hands are so sore they feel like their going to drop off.”. “He has eyes as big as the stars”. etc.

Jesus is obviously speaking figuratively, because no part of our physical bodies causes us to sin. And removing any part of it would not keep us from sinning. If we were take what Jesus says literally, Christians should be the most self-inflicted, disabled group of individuals around. The Church would have all sorts of people walking around with missing appendages. The church would look like a bunch of Pirates with peg-legs and one-eye patches

Since Jesus had already taught the same concept back on the Sermon on the Mount, almost verbatim.-(Matt. 5:29-30) Goes’ to show how the hard saying of Christ which are displeasing to flesh & blood need to be repeated to us again and again. (Matthew Henry) The ones that are hardest to digest are the ones you need to feats the most on.

Jesus was probably not the first one to use this analogy.  This saying is also found in Jewish culture and Greek culture at the time. Both in Rabbinic literature as well as in Greek Hellenistic literature. Even the Greek philosopher Seneca , who as actually born the same year as Jesus 4 B.C.  But who lived in Rome had a similar saying; “If any vise rend your heart, cast in away from you. And if you cannot be rid of it any other way. Pluck out you heart also”.

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