7 “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. 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.”
What causes us to sin? What stumbling blocks, what offenses bring us guilt and grief? “Such things must come,” states the Lord Jesus. Therefore, being sure of this certain danger, we must endeavor to arm ourselves all the better. We should be determined to keep a constant watch over our own hearts suppressing the first sign of corruption whenever it rears its ugly head. This present world is full of sins, sorrows, stumbling blocks and snares. Because of this certainty, we are to stand on our guard.
We remain easy prey for the adversary (and for our own sinful natures) when we are not alert to his tactics and cunning guile or when we continue to place ourselves in situations where we have fallen (and fallen) before. Satan is constantly seeking opportunities for vicious attacks upon those who love the Savior. He is not our friend. He looks for hearts of those whose walls of self-control have been breached – places where we have either let our guard down or allowed sin to enter through our thought patterns. Don’t flirt with sin if you are serious about living for Jesus – flee sin and quickly. Sin always carries with is a death sentence. We must resist its beginnings – even though pleasant - to keep out of harm’s way – restraining ourselves and seeking God’s sufficient (much more than sufficient) grace. If Satan cannot keep us from being saved, he desires to keep us from being used. He seeks to destroy our testimonies as well as our lives. We are told in 1 Peter:
8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)
“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.” John Bunyan
James tells us to resist the adversary as well, our only defense is standing wholly on the Lord Jesus – leaning into Him, trusting Him, depending upon Him, saturating ourselves with His Word, praying continually and allowing Him to be our satisfaction:
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7 (NIV)
As believer’s walk through this life we are to depend upon the indwelling Holy Spirit’s power and guidance – yielding to His control and leading. We will never be entirely free from evil desires that stem from our fallen nature. Therefore, Paul encourages us in Galatians to live by the Spirit:
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Gal 5:16 (NIV)
“When we believe in Jesus Christ all our sins are pardoned; yet the power of sin, although it is weakened and kept under by the dominion of the new-born nature which God infuses into our souls, does not cease, but still lingers in us, and will do so to our dying day. It is a doctrine held by all the orthodox, that there still dwells in the regenerate the lusts of the flesh, and that there still remains in the hearts of those who are converted by God’s mercy, the evil of carnal nature.” Charles H. Spurgeon
The Apostle Paul writes of this battle that wars within in Romans:
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:18-20 (NIV)
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:24-25 (NIV)
“I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” John Newton
We are to crucify the old self as symbolized by Jesus in our verses for today as cutting off our hand or foot or gouging out our eye – ridding ourselves of the sin that contaminates our relationship with Jesus and others - and we are to put on the new self which is daily being renewed by the Spirit in knowledge in the image of its Creator. We are not to go on living as if we were still alive to sin and dead to righteousness – that is the path of destruction. Paul tells us in Colossians:
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Col 3:5-10 (NIV)