A little girl had been naughty, so she was sent to her room for a quiet time. Afterward, all smiles, she returned to her family, saying, “I prayed to God.”
“That’s good,” said her mother. “Did you pray that God would help you be a good girl?”
“No,” she replied. “I prayed that God would help you put up with me.”
Many of us are like that little girl. We do wrong, but rather than repenting of our sins, we pray that God will put up with us. And why not? It’s our nature to sin; it’s God’s nature to forgive. Some of us have that attitude.
A prominent book a few years back asked the question: whatever became of sin? It’s a good question. We don’t really sin nowadays. Instead, mistakes were made, as our politicians remind us. And yet, when we look at some of the teachings of Jesus, we get an entirely different view of wrongdoing. Listen to these very stark words from the lips of the Master:
“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.”
Pretty strong stuff. What shall we do with these teachings of our Master? Many Christians simply ignore them. They don’t fit into their theology of grace. They’re too harsh. After all, theology today is like a buffet line. You go down the line and pick what you find agreeable and leave the rest behind.
I was reading not too long ago that a recent Gallup poll indicated that 80% of Americans believe in God. And nearly as many believe that Jesus is God’s son. And yet, only 40% believe that religion is important in life.
Now let me get this right. We believe that there is a personal God who created us and reigns over us. And we believe that Jesus is his very Son. And yet we do not take the words of Jesus seriously? We do not feel that those words apply to us? His words are not really important? I’m not certain that’s a very wise approach to life.
Jesus says to us in today’s lesson that we should take sin very seriously. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off . . .” That sounds pretty serious to me. You and I live in a rather benign world. We are rarely confronted with absolute evil. If we were, we too would take sin far more seriously.
In his book, Descending Into Greatness, Bill Hybels, the Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, tells the story of a World War II soldier who was part of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. If you don’t know your WWII history, Dachau was one of the death camps where thousands of Jews were exterminated. The man told this story:
“A buddy and I were assigned to a boxcar. Inside were human corpses stacked in neat rows, exactly like firewood. The Germans, ever meticulous, had planned out the rows, alternating the heads and the feet, accommodating the different sizes and shapes of bodies. Our job was like moving furniture. We would pick up each body so light and carry it to a designated area.
“Some fellows couldn’t do this part. They stood by the barbed wire fences retching. I couldn’t believe it the first time we came across a person in the pile still alive! But it was true. Incredibly, some of the corpses weren’t corpses. They were human beings. We yelled for doctors and they went to work on these survivors right away.
“I spent two hours in that boxcar; two hours that for me included every known emotion: rage, shame, pity, revulsion. Every negative emotion, I should say. They came in waves . . . all but the rage . . . it stayed, fueling our work.
“After we had taken the few survivors to a makeshift clinic, we turned our attention to the Nazis: the SS officers in charge of Dachau. Our captain asked for a volunteer to escort a group of a dozen SS officers to the interrogation center, and a guy named Chuck . . . his hand shot right up. Chuck claimed to have worked for Al Capone before the war, and not one of us doubted it.
“Well, Chuck grabbed his machine gun and prodded the group of SS prisoners down the trail. They walked ahead of him with their hands locked behind their heads, their elbows sticking out on either side. A few minutes after they disappeared into the trees, we heard the rattling burp of a machine gun and three long bursts of fire.
“Soon Chuck came strolling out, smoke still curling from the tip of his weapon. ‘They all tried to run away,’ he said with a kind of leer.
“It was that day that I felt called by God to become a pastor. First, there was the horror of the corpses in the boxcar: I could not absorb such a scene. I did not even know that such absolute evil existed! But when I saw it, I knew beyond a doubt that I’d spend my life serving whatever opposed such evil . . . serving God. Then came the Chuck incident. I had a nauseating fear that the captain might call upon me to escort the next group of SS guards; and even a more dreadful fear that if he did, I might do the same thing that Chuck had done! The beast that was in those guards was also in me. The beast within those guards, the beast within Chuck, the beast was also in me.” (1)
To say that sin is not serious is naïve. You and I have a beast within us. It may only reveal itself under the most dreadful of circumstances, but it is there.
Sin is serious because sin always hurts people. That is why God hates sin. Sin hurts the sinner, but sin also hurts innocent people.
Pastor David Holwick tells about two Baptist ministers named Don Saunders and Buddy Stride. They were inseparable friends, and had been since high school. Both had gone to Bible college and married within a year of each other. These two friends got their doctorates together and preached in the same church. They were soon to be formally installed as the pastor and assistant pastor of that church. They were so close that their families even shared the same house.
However, one drizzly Friday night in February Saunders and Stride left their home along with Stride’s 2-year-old son to drive to the local grocery. They were picking up chocolate doughnuts and a videotape for a family night with the kids. They never made it back.
There was a driver on the road named Louis Serianni, Jr. Serianni shouldn’t have been near a car. His license had been revoked in 1982 after the state labeled him a “habitual offender.” But Serianni, 39, a mechanic, kept driving. “He’d forged an insurance card and racked up so many moving violations that his record runs 18 pages. He wasn’t due to get his license restored until 2019.”
“Serianni was steering his 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible in and out of traffic on a busy four-lane road, doing an estimated 60-70 mph in a 35 mph zone. His headlights were off and his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. At 7 p.m., witnesses told police, the big Olds crested a hill and slammed broadside into a small white car turning left.” It was the car in which Saunders and Stride and Stride’s small son were making their trip to the grocery.
Lois Stride was feeding dinner to her three girls when the police arrived. The first thing they said was, “The little boy’s OK.” Both men, however, were dead. (2)
Because of their deep religious faith the widows of Don Saunders and Buddy Stride were able to handle this deep tragedy. However, these two pastors were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but because of the sinful actions of another.
Sin hurts people. It hurts the sinner. But it also hurts innocent people, people who have done nothing whatsoever to deserve being hurt. That’s easy to identify in a situation like this one, of course, but it is also the case anytime we violate our sense of integrity, anytime we are guilty of wrongdoing. Somebody is likely to get hurt.
The problem is that actions have consequences and sometimes those consequences are far out of proportion to the actions themselves.
A young man goes to a party where there is much drinking. He takes only a few drinks, but then gets behind the wheel of an automobile. He has no intent of hurting anyone. He’s just having a good time. But then . . .
The lonely housewife, suffering from low self-esteem, reaches out to a man who is not her husband. No big deal. It’s only a harmless flirtation. But then . . .
The business man feels his corporation doesn’t appreciate his hard work. Also, he’s having more and more trouble keeping up with the lifestyles of his neighbors. And an opportunity comes to take a little extra out of an account that’s under his guardianship. Just a little. It will never be missed. But then . . .
Few of us look down the road to see where our acts may be leading us. The tempter never slams us head on. He always begins with the tiniest transgression.
Leland Gregory in his book Stupid History tells about an amazing incident that took place in the Republic of Benin, a small nation in West Africa. Benin doesn’t have a golf course, but a technicality like that never gets in the way of a dedicated golfer. A man in Benin named Mathieu Boya is a dedicated golfer.
Benin has five airfields within its borders, but only one has a paved runway; it was here at the Benin Air Base where Boya routinely practiced driving golf balls. Boya wasn’t playing a round of golf that day in 1987. He was simply practicing driving the ball, but he did hit a birdie while he practiced driving, a real birdie. He struck a hapless passing seagull in mid-air.
The unconscious gull subsequently fell into the open cockpit of a French‑built Mirage III fighter plane which was taxiing the runway. The gull landed on the pilot’s lap. The bird regained consciousness and began flapping wildly, which startled the pilot, as you might imagine. The pilot lost control of the plane and crashed it into the four other Mirage fighter jets sitting on the tarmac. The pilot was okay, and the gull flew out of the cockpit before impact, but all five jets, the entire fighter defense force of the Benin nation, were completely destroyed. So an errant golf ball flew into a flying bird which landed on a pilot who lost control of his plane and thereby destroyed the Air Force of an African nation. (3)
Do you understand that life sometimes works that way particularly when it comes to harboring sin in our life? Those simple vices like greed and envy and lust and sloth and anger can very quickly get out of hand. And sometimes the consequences of a sinful action are far out of proportion to the original action.
There was a crash several years ago of an Aeroflot jet in Siberia. All 75 people aboard the jet were killed. Before the crash you could hear their terrified voices on the flight recorder.
Apparently the pilot was giving his children a flying lesson at the time of the crash. You can hear a child sitting in the captain’s seat ask, “Daddy, can I turn this?” Then came the voice of the captain shouting, “Get out! Get out!” It seems his son had “accidentally pushed the right pedal, sending the aircraft into an irreversible spin.” (4)
It’s not a big deal, is it? A pilot, a loving father, neglects his duty as an airline pilot for just a few moments to show his son what he does for a living. However, it becomes a very big deal in a hurry when the child pushes something he shouldn’t have pushed. Seventy-five people lose their lives. Sin hurts. Actions have consequences, sometimes far out of proportion to the original act.
Christ came to save us from our sins. This is so important for us to understand. Christ did not come to condemn us for our sins. Christ came to save us from our sins. If there is something in your life, some wrongful behavior, some potentially damaging indiscretion, whatever it may be, that you know has the potential to hurt you or to hurt someone else, Christ wants to help you deal with that. That is the message of the cross. Christ loves you so much that he will go to any length to keep you from making a mess of your life. And if you have already made a mess of your life, he is waiting to forgive you of your sins and to heal you of your hurt. That’s the Gospel. That’s what it’s all about. Why would Christ go to all that trouble? Why would he suffer all that pain? Because sin is serious business.
Donald Grey Barnhouse tells of an event that occurred at the Atomic Energy Commission laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN on November 20, 1959. On that day a small amount of solvent exploded and blew open the door of a processing cell. When that happened, about one‑fiftieth of an ounce of plutonium was scattered into the air. Remember, only one‑fiftieth of an ounce of plutonium was involved, but here’s what the Atomic Energy Commission says resulted from this tiny spill:
All those who were within a four‑acre area of the explosion turned in their laboratory‑issued clothes to be decontaminated. Their urine was checked to insure that they had not inhaled or ingested any plutonium. The processing plant and a nearby research reactor were shut down. The buildings were washed with detergents, and the buildings’ roofs were resurfaced. The surrounding lawn was dug up and the sod carted to a deep burial place. One hundred yards of surface was chiseled off a nearby asphalt road. To anchor any speck of plutonium that might have survived, the buildings were completely repainted. Final cost, including resodding, repaving, and reroofing: approximately $350,000. (5)
The AEC will go to all that trouble for a fraction of an ounce of plutonium. Why? Because just a tiny amount of plutonium can do endless harm when released into the environment. Sin is like that. Even the tiniest sin has a way of getting out of hand and wreaking havoc in our lives. Sin destroys lives. Sin destroys families. Sin destroys churches and communities. And without the cross, sin would have destroyed all humanity.
“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off . . .” Not a very cheerful subject for a sermon, but it comes from the lips of the Master. And so we should listen. Sin is serious business. Get it out of your life. Keep it out of your life for your sake and for the sake of those around you. Let Christ help you get your life in order. Nobody loves you more than he does. Let him give you a new beginning today.
1. Bill Hybels, Descending Into Greatness (Zondervan, 1993), pp. 144-145.
2. Daily Record newspaper, Parsippany, NJ; “Widows Recall 2 Who Lived For Lord,” by Jeffrey Brodeur, Associated Press, 1998. http://www.holwick.com/sermons/Job-book/job1_1.html.
3. Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions . . . (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 2007), p. 172.
4. Daily Encounter, http://www.actsweb.org/. Cited by MONDAY FODDER, http://family-safe-mail.com/.
5. Timeless Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004), p. 448.