If Your Eye Causes You to Sin

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And 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 crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” (Matthew 18:7-9 ESV)

We live in a fallen and a sin-sick world. And when we are born into this world we are born with sin natures in the image of Adam who was the first man God created, and the first man to sin against God. We are all sinful human beings by nature, bent toward doing what is evil, and not toward doing what is good. And even though we are created of God in his likeness, ever since Adam sinned against God all human beings have been born into sin in the likeness of Adam, separate from God, unable to be acceptable to God. 

[Rom 3:9-26; Rom 5:12-19; 1 Co 15:21-22,42-49; Eph 2:8-10]

So, while we live in these flesh bodies in this fallen world we are going to be tempted to sin, and many will give in to those temptations, and many of them will tempt others to sin, too. It is the nature of things. These things will happen. But we can keep them from happening to us when we choose to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ and to trust him to be Lord and Savior of our lives, and when we die with him to sin and we now walk in obedience to his commands, in his power and strength, by faith, because of God’s grace.

In the previous verses we read that unless we turn (repent) and become like children (trusting, believing, following without question) humbling ourselves before God with that child-like faith in Jesus Christ which obeys him, we will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And then a caution is given to the one who causes such ones as these to sin against God, for “it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (see Matthew 18:1-6; cf. Matthew 7:21-23)

And then verse 7 continues with that same thought when it says that it is necessary that temptations come, “but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” So we are to take this subject as seriously as it is presented to us here, that, not only should we, as followers of Christ, no longer be walking in sin, making sin our habit, but we should not be those who then lead others into sin, who become the tempter to them to the point to where they are pushed into sinning, although they still have a choice.

And then we are given some instructions here in some things that we can do, as drastic as they may seem, to prevent ourselves from falling into sin. And I tend to take these instructions more figuratively, rather than literally, when it comes to the subject of cutting off our hands and feet, and with regard to gouging out an eye, if our hands, feet, and/or an eye should be instrumental in leading us into sin. For I believe these are to illustrate a biblical principal much like Jesus’ parables that he often spoke.

And the reason that I believe this is that, biblically speaking, our hands are often a symbol of our deeds, and our feet are often symbols of our walks, i.e. of our habits, our practices. And an eye is often a symbol of judgment and discernment. So if our deeds and our habits and practices and our judgments and discernment are what are leading us into sin, because they are against the Lord, and are contrary to the will of God, and because we are not exercising good judgment, then these things need to be out of our lives.

For example, if we are in the habit of watching movies that have sensuality in them and sexual situations and flirtations and extra-marital affairs, and this is what we are feeding our minds, through our eyes and our ears, then what we feed our minds goes into our hearts, and then what gets stored up in our hearts is what we produce. So we need to change our habits and we need to cut out of our lives any type of input that is sensual and seductive and alluring in nature, because that it just going to lead us into sin.

And if we are spending our free time that is not taken up with employment or childcare or housework, etc., just idly wasting time on viewing junk, without a plan, just coasting along, just channel hopping or internet searching blindly, and God has taken a back seat in our lives, then we are bound to fall into temptation to sin which then can produce a desire for more of the same. So we have to cut these things out of our lives. We can’t go through life not exercising good judgment and expect to not fall into sin.

So we must be those who first of all are committed to surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ, to do his will, to walk in his ways. And then we must discipline ourselves and guard our hearts and minds against the evils in this world by not “playing with fire.” And we must know ourselves well enough to know our weaknesses, and then to avoid those areas where we know we might be easily tempted. All this must be done in prayer and in the power of God, but we must be the ones to put these disciplines into practice.

Why? What does it say here? It is better to have these things cut out of our lives rather than to hold on to them knowing that they have the potential to lead us into sin. For if we hold on to them, and they continue to lead us into sin, in practice, habitually and deliberately, without genuine repentance, and without walks of obedience to our Lord in holy living, then we will not have eternal life with God. We will be thrown into hell, regardless of what we profess with our lips in the way of confessions of faith in Jesus Christ.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

For Our Nation  

An Original Work / September 11, 2012

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Trust Him with your life today.

Make Him your Lord and your Savior.

Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.

He will forgive you of your sin;

Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.

On our knees to God we’re praying,

Seeking God to give us answers

That are only found in Him.

God is sovereign over all things.

Nothing from His mind escaping.

He has all things under His command,

And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing

In our Lord, and interceding

For our nation and its people

To obey their God today.

He is our hope for our future.

For our wounds He offers suture.

He is all we need for this life.

Trust Him with your life today.

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