Choosing Eternity: The Weight of Our Actions

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.” This is the first warning that Mark gives us in this section, and it has respect not so much to children as you might expect from the translation here. [00:04:41]

And Jesus warns that if people who are puffed up with knowledge, puffed up with their status in the church use their arrogance to cause the simple Christian to stumble that that person is exposing themselves to great chastisement from the Lord. [00:05:49]

You see what happens everyday in our country today in seminaries, in colleges that are supposed to be Christian colleges where the students come as freshmen excited about their Christian faith, and their faith is systematically attacked day in and day out in the classroom. [00:06:57]

Now here Jesus introduces a metaphor that’s graphic and terrifying. He said, “It would be better for that person if they had a millstone tied around their neck, and they were cast into the sea.” Now think of that image. In the ancient Jewish community that was an agrarian society, one of the most important products they produced was grain. [00:07:56]

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. For it is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go to hell.” Now what Jesus does here is makes another comparison. In the first place, He’s understanding the Jewish tradition that repudiated any acts of self-disfigurement. [00:10:01]

And yet Jesus says here, as precious as your hands are to you, you would be better off to cut off your hand and be maimed like that rather than to have two hands that you take with you to hell. And in like manner He says, “If your foot offends you, it would be better to cut it off and be crippled than to have two good legs that take you to hell. [00:11:06]

Now we know that in former generations preachers would preach fire and brimstone sermons warning their flocks about the imminent danger of going into hell. But in the twenty-first century, the doctrine of hell has all but disappeared from Christian preaching, and people don’t even want to think about it, or if they do think about it, they water it down to such a degree that people are no longer living in fear of going to hell. [00:12:26]

Well, beloved, here’s what I want us to see this morning that nobody in the Bible talked more about hell than Jesus. Secondly, we need to face the reality that Jesus talked more about hell than He talked about heaven. I wonder why it is that so much of what the Bible teaches about hell comes to us from the lips of Jesus. [00:14:51]

And then think about this, that in most cases when we use language symbolically or figuratively, we understand that the reality that we are describing by the symbol or by the figure is more intense in reality than it can possibly be in the symbol. Let me say it again. The reality is more intense than the symbol. [00:17:03]

And it is a fearful thing, a dreadful thing as the Bible says to fall into the hands of the living God, to be exposed day in and day out to His wrath. Well, how long does it last? You know, there’s been this movement in the last twenty years in the evangelical world to discount hell in terms of the doctrine of annihilation. [00:20:38]

And it’s those dreadful images that Jesus uses to paint the picture of hell. Hell is a place where the worm doesn’t die because the host is never consumed. You believe in the resurrection of the body. The Bible teaches not only the resurrection of the body of the saints but also the resurrection of the bodies of the damned, that they may be fit to receive their everlasting punishment in hell where the worm never dies, where nobody ever pours water on the flames, and the fires never go out. [00:30:08]

And if you’ve never thought about it before, think about it now. And ask yourself not, “Where am I going to be next week?” because you don’t know, “Where am I going to be next month?” because you don’t know that. You might guess, and you might be correct in your guess. But ask yourself this question today, “Where am I going to be a hundred years from now?” [00:33:21]