The end of Mark chapter nine where Jesus first warns his disciples not to destroy the faith of another person. He says, if you do that you'd be better off to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck. It's real gruesome image, very serious matter to destroy someone else's faith. But then he turns and starts to warn them about destroying their own faith. And that's the section we're going to focus on today. There's two main things you need to get from this first, the dire consequence he warns them about hell, this whole matter, this sin that you're fighting with, you're struggling with, if it's got a hold on you, and you're doing things that are harming your faith.

This is a matter of eternal life or death. That's one point Jesus made, but then he gives the remedy and the remedy is if your hand or foot or I caused you to sin, cut it off, gouge it out, throw it away. Now, if we really believe that if we took that passage Seriously, why is it that there's so many Christians walking around today with two hands and two feet and two eyes? Why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we could if Jesus had to do it? Why don't we Doing it?

Well, we're going to find out today what Jesus meant by cut it off and throw it away, and how that's done. This is such an important principle for living the Christian life, I hope you can really grasp these principles. Verse 43, if your hand causes you to turn away, cut it off, it's better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. So the warning about influencing others got one verse. Now Jesus turns to the problem of destroying yourself. And this gets a whole bunch of verses he goes on, he's gonna repeat it three times.

If your foot causes you to turn away, cut it off better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to turn away, pluck it out. It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. So what's the point of all that? Well, I Jesus send us very simple. Don't go to hell.

Right? Isn't that the point when you say, don't go to hell, verse 42. Don't send other people to help verse 43 and 248. Don't send yourself to hell. Now, how could your eyes and feet and hands send you to hell, because that's what he's talking about, right? The way you send yourself to hell as do with your hands, feet and eyes were 43.

If your hand caused you to turn away, cut it off there, do that and go to hell. There's 45 your foot cause you to turn away, cut it off there, do that and go to hell. And then before you send your icons, you turn away, pluck it out, it's better to do that than to go to hell. So sending yourself to Hell is the result of things your hands do, places your feet go and things that your eyes consider. In other words, it's things that you do with your body that end up having a bad influence on you that damages your faith. Watch your influence on others.

Watch your influence on yourself. There are things that you can do with your feet and eyes and hands. That can completely destroy your faith and Jesus commands us to take drastic action against those things. You'd be better off dead than to ruin someone else's faith. You'd be better off maimed and crippled and blind than to ruin your own faith. So what kinds of things can your hands and feet and eyes do that might destroy your faith?

Well, your feet could walk in the Council of the wicked, and stand in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of mockers, right. So on one one, your feet could carry you into a college classroom where professor is going to constantly attack the reliability of God's word, or into a psychotherapist office where your confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture is gonna be undermined. Your feet could carry you into a bar or a party or a place where the pleasures of this world are made to seem more attractive than the things of God. What about your hands, your hands could commit sins that feel good that deceive your soul into thinking that Those things are the source of life and good days instead of things of God better than God's grace. They could indulge in sins that end up enslaving you so that you're stuck and you can't escape about your eyes.

Well eyes are symbolic of a couple different things in Scripture they can represent desire. Number Joe made a covenant with his eyes not to look less fully or Second Peter to 14 talks about eyes full of adultery so so there they talked about desire, simple desire, eyes can also represent attitudes. Scripture speaks of hottie eyes, Proverbs six. Jesus spoke of generous eyes and greedy, stingy, insincere eyes and Matthew six. Proverbs talks about being wise in your own eyes. So the eyes are windows to your attitudes.

Can attitudes damage your faith? I don't even know of anything that has more power to ruin your family. Then attitudes, honestly, attitudes affect the way you see the world. Right? When information comes into your ears, attitudes color the facts before they get to your brain. They filter certain facts out they blow other facts out of proportion.

They distort others pretty soon you can't believe the truth because you don't even know what the truth is because there's been facts have been so doctor, by your attitudes that they don't even it's sort of beyond recognition. And sinful attitudes are especially damaging because they're so stubborn and persistent. They don't just appear for a moment they tend to cling to you, and trench themselves in your hearts and your heart. So, yeah, attitudes can really do damage to your faith. So that's the eyes so we have these deadly hostile faith killing influences attached to our body, her eyes and her hands and her feet. And how do you defend against that kind of enemy when you have something inside you that's destroying your life?

Destroying your your faith? Well, there's 43, cut it off, or 45 cut it off or 47 pluck it out. Don't mess around. Don't mess around. It's not a time for kid gloves. You're in a battle for your eternal life.

What could possibly be more important in your life right now you're facing, you know, big bill that you have to pay or some crisis or this health thing or this. What's more important than something that's about to send you to hell, you lose this battle, you lose everything. So Jesus says, Do not hold back, chop that stuff off, throw it away, get rid of it. It seems to me that this would go without saying not what could be more important than taking steps to avoid going to hell. And yet, it doesn't go without saying because so few Christians take the threat of hell seriously. We've developed doctrines that rip the meaning out of passages like this.

There's so many people read Christians read this and they're like, they don't And it's egged on by pastors who I mean, I listened to lots of sermons on this passage this month and you hear the same thing over and over, sermon after sermon where the preacher says, Don't worry, don't worry. If someone turns away from the faith, that person never really believed in the first place. So if you're a true believer, this can't possibly happen to you. So you don't have to worry. Time after time. I heard preacher say that this does not for Christians.

Jesus used this word for hell 11 times to have them. He's talking to the Pharisees, all the rest. He's talking to the disciples, warning Christians, about going to hell, including this passage where Jesus has his disciples in private, right away from the crowds is just as disciples and he's telling them don't go to help. Jesus had plenty of opportunities to say that to the crowds, he never does increase the crowds all the time. Why does he know say this to them. And when he gets his disciples alone in private or private teaching, he tells them don't go to hell make sure you don't go to hell.

Are we supposed to believe that when the disciples heard Jesus say that they sat back and said, well, that's not for us. He's talking us. Who else is he talking to? And the argument usually ends up being something like this. Jesus isn't warning true believers. He's warning fake, but he's warning churchgoers who attach themselves to they would claim to be Christians.

They look like Christians. They act like Christians. They hang around the church, but they don't really believe they're not really born again. They're fake. That's who Jesus is warning. So let's fake people.

Is that a possibility here? Now? No, it makes no sense. Fake believers are already going to hell. Why would Jesus warn them don't turn away. They make sure you don't turn away Jesus saying look This lifestyle you have a pretending to be a Christian associating with the church but not really believing.

Make sure you don't turn away from that. Why would you say that they should turn away from that. Jesus is not talking to fakers, these warnings are for us. And the solution Jesus gives is drastic. He says to cut off your hand cut off your foot cut, pluck out your eye. That's how you can stay out of hell.

Now, is this talking about physical amputation? No. I need to mention this because some people have taken this is literally this to the point where they've actually mutilated their bodies which is forbidden in Scripture not to mutilate our bodies. Jesus says if your body parts caused you to turn away, then you should cut them off. But he's not he was very clear. Remember back in chapter seven that body parts don't cause originate sin.

Where does all sin originate? According chapter seven. Now the heart, all of it. Hundred percent of sin originates in the heart. So this is a figure speech. It's the same figure speech.

We see this throughout Scripture. We're body parts are put in place of the thing inside you the spiritual thing inside you that animates those body parts activates them to act like in Proverbs in Proverbs when it says God hates feet, that Russian to evil, and he hates eyes that look upon, you know, he hates lying tongue or whatever. His anger isn't against the actual body part, the tongue in the foot and what his anger is against the thing inside you that animated that thing to do bad things. So what does it mean to amputate that? That's what we need to amputate, right? What it means is to destroy the impulses, desires, appetites, beliefs, attitudes, values, thought patterns, whatever it is inside you, that activates your body to do things that damage your faith.

That's what needs to get cut off and thrown away. Jesus wants us to do a deep dive into the inner man find out what's behind our sinful actions. We do these things What's behind that? What made my hands do that? What made my feet go there? What made my eyes look that way?

Find it, destroy it. So it's not talking about physical mutilation, but spiritual mortification. The physical metaphor just brings out the urgency of it because we can, we can imagine cutting off my own hand. That's extreme right? plucking out my eye. That word pluck By the way, that's an interesting word.

It's bolo. It means to cast with same word for casting out a demon. EQ means out bolo means to throw. So flinging away is the idea. just chuck it, get it away from you. The image, I think of it, you're exploring a dark cave, it's pitch dark, you're feeling around, you're scared, you're nervous, and then all of a sudden, something drops down on your back.

And at first you think it's like it's a snake or something and then you feel claws again and then and you freak out. You're thrashing around and trying to grow with you, you finally get it. You know, throw it as hard as you can on the back end. Thanks. All right, you have that image in your mind. That's the idea behind this word.

Jesus is warning us about something that has its claws into you, it's biting you, and it will kill you. If you don't fling it away with all your mind. Once you identify that attitude, that desire, that pattern of thinking, that wrong belief, whatever it is inside you that's damaging your faith leading you towards some sin, throw that thing away with the same energy that you would throw that creature in the cave. Okay, I've got some more godliness training exercises for you. I hope you're excited to hear that because you know by now these are the things that are going to bring about real change in your life. Okay, first, take a few minutes if you have time now, or if you have to carve out some time later in the day, but find some time sit down, when it's quiet.

When you're not distracted. You have a piece of paper and you can really brainstorm what are the internal impulses digital desires, the beliefs, the cravings, the motives, and especially attitudes. What are the things that are pushing me to use my body to engage in activities that harm my faith? And what would it look like to take radical steps to rip those attitudes and beliefs and all the rest out and throw them as hard as you can. Second, keep praying for victory. keep on praying for victory all through the day, and then also pray that God will expose what needs to be amputated.

So that's prayer. Next scripture. Read proverbs five, six or seven each day. So tomorrow, read chapter five. Next day, chapter six, next day, chapter seven, next day, chapter five. So you'll read each one twice before next time, okay, you spend a lot of time in Proverbs six through seven or five or seven.

They're just there's so much in there. Repent of your idols and set up the protections and secure perimeter around yourself. Ask a mentor for help if you can't figure out how you You can separate yourself from certain temptations, there are people who have gone through the same things you're going through, and maybe they have some really creative ideas. You know, maybe another woman has got this married to a husband that wants all that food and she struggled the same thing. And she found ways and you know, she's got stuff that that we haven't thought of. And, you know, so look for a mentor that can help you ask around, but especially repent of the idols in your heart.

Just make that decision. Okay, I'm breaking up. We're breaking up and take it seriously with the contrition and all the rest. Next, I said try again on the next step of not to be pessimistic, but I'm guessing some of you you need to try again. You were gonna try last week and you're gonna take the next step. And some of you did, you took the next step and you're there and you're for others.

Okay. I need to try again. Okay. Most of you, I'm guessing that's where we usually are. So try again to take that next step in your life. Read the preface.

What's so great about God? If you didn't read that preface, it's really important that preface is real important. And so if you didn't read that, go ahead and read that and keep going into what's great about God. And then the same assignment as last time. Did I experienced this at the end of day? Did I experience this attribute today in a pleasurable way?

And if so, write down a brief description of how it went. Okay, try that again this week. Keep reviewing Galatians 516 Isaiah 55 two, and then now memorize proverbs five, eight, word for word. Okay, don't go near the door of our house. And then the last one is always the same attend church on Sunday with as much participation as possible that fellowship is crucial for getting power from God.