If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Matthew 5:29-30
We continue this week in Conformed to His Image considering “Continuing on the Journey: What It Takes to Finish Well.” The above verses describe an act that will not only prevent people from finishing well, but it will prevent them from finishing at all! The inevitable end for those that refuse to pluck out and cut off as necessary is an eternity in hell. I’d say it’s important that we understand how we are to practically live out this instruction.
Have you ever been shocked when certain people were exposed in their sin? You thought they had a solid relationship with the Lord. Perhaps they even held an office in the church and had encouraged you through their ministry over the years. But all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, you hear they were caught in some heinous sin. What happened? They stumbled at these verses. They didn’t pluck out and cut off! These great stumblings don’t happen overnight. They happen by degrees! It is the little foxes that spoil the vines! (Song 2:15)
Christ’s example prior to our text is a good one in this instance. He warns of looking after a women (it starts with a look) to lust after her and instructs us that we must recognize that sin to be as great as the actual act of adultery! (Mt 5:27-28) What is often the problem that leads to this gradual decay? We justify ourselves in sin that either we claim isn’t sin at all or that we classify only as a “small sin”. There’s no such thing! When we allow “small sins,” pretty soon we don’t see them as sin at all, and we move on to something a little worse. We go in a little deeper.
Pr 7:8-9 describes a foolish youth that is led into adultery, and notice how it began:
Passing along the street near her corner;
And he took the path to her house
In the twilight, in the evening,
In the black and dark night.
He passed along the street “near her corner”. What was he doing there? What good can come from it?!! He went the way “to her house”! He had no business there! He should have found another route even if it was out of the way. V. 9 shows the gradual decline. Notice it starts with this young man in the twilight. There is a little light still present at the outset of his journey, but before all is said and done, it is the black, dark night! Pluck out and cut off, dear soul, before it is too late! Don’t toy with sin. It will consume you! Consider the question that Pr 6:27 asks: “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?”
Jamie