Radical Amputation
Matthew 5:27-30
A Sermon By Dave Redick
Hwy 20 Church of Christ, Sweet Home, OR
We are a weak generation, accustomed to obeying our feelings. "If it feels good, then it's right to do it. If it doesn't feel good, then it isn't right to do it." That is the current philosophy of the world around us. We are led by our feelings like a bull with a ring in his nose. But that isn't the teaching of Jesus. It is the teaching of the fallen world.
Introduction
The scream of sirens pierced the warm air as what had promised to be a quiet summer night turned into a nightmare of flashing red lights, twisted metal, and whirring pain.
The driver of a small red sports car had lost control and crashed over a 30 foot embankment. The tiny baby riding on his mother's lap had been thrown clear to land safely on a grassy knoll, but his mother was not as well off. Her legs were crushed and pinned in the wreckage.
Rescue workers fought feverishly to free the woman. They knew she was in shock. Finally, after some 45 minutes of prying and cutting, they managed to slide a blood spattered stretcher into a waiting ambulance that lunged into the muggy night, hospital bound with the woman on board.
Two hours later a nervous husband paced the floor outside the emergency room, praying to God that he would be able to see his wife alive again.
Suddenly, a Doctor appeared in the hall with a clipboard and pen. "Are you Mr. Johnson?" he asked. "Yes, I am." "Please step inside the waiting room with me for just a moment."
The young husband steeled himself for what he was afraid he was going to hear.
"Sir, there is just too much damage to save your wife's legs. We are going to have to amputate both of them. Your wife is unconscious. We need your permission to do the surgery. Will you sign the release that allows us to operate?
The thought hit his mind with the impact of a fully loaded freight train.
"Her legs? She will never walk again? Always in a wheel chair? There's no other way?"
"I'm sorry, Sir. There just isn't. If we don't do the surgery, your wife will die."
Mr. Johnson took the clipboard and wrote out his name on the blank line. Quickly the doctor walked back down the corridor and disappeared into the room marked "surgery."
Four weeks later, that young husband was visiting his wife in the hospital to bring her flowers. Had the doctors not amputated her legs, he would have been bringing his flowers to the cemetery.
How would you like to lose your legs - both of them, right up to the bottom of your hips? Not a very pretty thought, is it? But when the alternative is certain death, what other choice is there? Which one of us would have refused to sign the release had it been our loved one?
That story parallels something that Jesus once taught his disciples. I think looking at it would do us some good.
(Read Matthew 5:27-30)
This passage of Scripture has much in common with the story I just told you about the woman who lost her legs in that, it, too, describes an amputation - a RADICAL AMPUTATION - an action so drastic that it can only be imagined against a backdrop of serious threat to life. In the case of that young woman, it was the threat of loss of physical life. In the case that Jesus describes here, it is the threat of loss of spiritual life.
This passage is among the harder sayings of Jesus. The idea of self mutilation - cutting off your body parts - seems strange in our culture. We will get to the obvious question of whether Jesus meant this literally in just a bit.
For now, let me say that I know that at least some of you here are struggling with things in your life that you know are no right, yet you've never been able to fully overcome them. Oh, you've tried. You've wished over and over that you could be free of them. They make you feel terribly guilty. But so far you've failed to break free and perhaps you have even begun to wonder if you will ever be free.
This passage contains several inferences that I believe are helpful in overcoming those more tenacious sins that often wrap their tentacles around our lives and hold us captive. Stay with me for a bit and I'll show you..
I. These Verses Answer the Question, "How Hard Does God Expect Me To Strive Against Sin In Order To Overcome It?"
A lot of remarkable things have been done by people who have had a spirit of overcoming - people who refused to be daunted by overwhelming odds.
Early in my ministry I clipped a story from the newspaper about an eleven year old boy named Morgan Rowe.
Young Morgan was sitting on a moving tractor at his father's fence company in Georgia when he fell and was dragged beneath the machine. His left arm was ripped completely off in the accident and his right arm was badly mangled. Doctors were able to restore some of the use of the right arm, but the left one was lost. After 3 months in the hospital the boy was released with a medical bill totaling $30,000. (Remember, this incident took place nearly twenty years ago. Inflation has made that $30,000 look smaller to us than it was then.)
The story would probably have lost its newsworthiness right there had this been someone besides Morgan Rowe. You see, the boy set out to pay his own bill! As soon as he could walk about freely again, he scoured the roadsides picking up cans and bottles. He collected and sold newspapers.
His mother said in a telephone interview, "He has gathered hundreds of cans, thousands of cans, I don't know how many. He started out with Coke bottles. Then he read... about recycling cans. I thought he'd give up after awhile, but he's kept it up. He's still doing it."
Morgan first paid off the $455 ambulance bill. Then he put $2,500 down on the hospital bill. His family raised another $9,000 toward the hospital bill.
Then in the month of July following the accident, someone mentioned him to the Bear Archery Company in Florida that makes aluminum arrows. Bear donated its scrap metal to help. As the boy's story made headlines, contributions from 2,000 people began pouring in. Donations totaled $25,000, more than enough to pay the bill. The extra money was used to finance additional operations in an effort to restore more mobility to Morgan's remaining right arm and hand.
My point is this: Many adults would have given up under such seemingly overwhelming circumstances. But this eleven year old boy overcame! Many adults would have reasoned, "Certainly no one would expect me to go to such an extreme in my condition. I just can't pay my bill. It's too much to ask!"
I mention this because sometimes we use the same excuse with regard to overcoming difficult habits of sin. They look overwhelming to us. The hold seems too great for us to quit them.
We reason, "Overcoming this particular sin in my life is going to be hard. It is going to hurt. It is going to cause a lot of inconvenience in my life. It seems impossible that I could overcome. Certainly God doesn't expect me to go that far does He?" So the sin is never really faced off. It stays there as we move into adulthood and becomes a permanent part of us because we think that surely God wouldn't expect us to go that far in striving against sin.
Take a man hooked on drugs. In order to get off he will have to go through withdrawal. Many times he will be tempted to say, "Surely God wouldn't expect me to have to go through that to overcome this problem!"
How far does God expect us to go in striving against sin? How much is enough struggle?
Jesus answered that question for us in these verses:
"And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."
He expects us to strive against sin even when it hurts! Even when it will cost us a part of our physical body.
Was Jesus teaching us that we should actually mutilate our bodies? When I was in Wyoming a number of years ago I heard of a young man who did gouge out his eye and cut off his hand with an ax. He was a man with a record of mental instability, however. I have never heard of anyone mentally competent who took Jesus literally in this passage.
I really don't believe Jesus intended self mutilation here. I think He was making a point. No person in their right mind would go to such an extreme. They would give up the sin first! They would get tougher on themselves in their efforts to give it up. They would figure out a way to overcome.
If the heavy drinker knew that the next time he took a drink he would lose an eye or a hand, he probably would fight much harder than he does to overcome.
Jesus is saying here that there are some sins where a person needs to get tough on himself in order to overcome! He needs to take extreme measures. That is the lesson of this passage.
You'll find the same idea expressed in another New Testament passage. In Hebrews 12:4 we are told,
"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin."
How far does God expect us to go? How much is enough struggle against sin? The answer is "Much more than we usually do."
Stephen was stoned to death because he refused to give in to sin.
They took old Isaiah out and laid him between two boards, sort of made a sandwich out of him, then they sawed the boards in half with him still in them!
Accounts outside the Bible tell us that when the Apostle John did not denounce his faith in Jesus Christ he was boiled in oil.
Why is it that when we find out that our faith is going to cost us a friendship or a pastime or a boyfriend/girlfriend or our popularity or our momentary comfort, we think it is just too much to give?
Why is it that when we learn that we are going to have to suffer a little to overcome some difficult sin, we think, "Surely God wouldn't expect me to go that far!"
Jesus is saying here that it is better to suffer loss than go to hell! He expects us to adopt extreme measures if necessary in our fight against sin.
If there is something in your life that you know is wrong but have not been able to overcome, perhaps it is because you have been saying "I can't" rather than getting tough on yourself and pressing on. You've been making excuses and believing them.
Jack Paar once said, "My life seems like one long obstacle course, with me as the chief obstacle." It's true that often the way we look at obstacles determines whether or not we succeed in overcoming them. If we start off thinking, "I can't. It's just too hard. Surely God doesn't expect that kind of effort," we're whipped before we start.
Dave Thomas does not know where he was born. An orphan, he left his foster parents at a young age to make his own way in the world. His first full-time job was as a busboy in a restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee. From there he went to work for Kentucky Fried Chicken under Colonel Harlan Sanders. Dave worked hard. He applied himself. While others who would have loved success just as much as he went home thinking they'd "done all they could," Dave stayed on and worked. One day he was asked to go to Columbus, Ohio, to try and save four small restaurants that were failing. By applying the same determination he had become known for, Dave Thomas turned those stores around. With this success, he decided to take his profits and open up his own restaurant. How many of you have eaten at Wendy's Restaurant within the last six months? That's Dave's place - named after his daughter. The Wendy's chain consists of over 3,500 restaurants and is one of the top three fast-food companies in the country.
Determination and hard work still pay off today, just as they always have. But most people, when faced with what looks like an obstacle, quit before they win.
Let's apply that to our subject of overcoming sin in our lives. The same is true. Most people, after token effort, simply give up and quit. They don't overcome. They are overcome.
Well, how far does God expect us to go? To the point of pain? Absolutely! This metaphor of cutting off the hand and gouging out the eye suggests nothing less!
We are a weak generation, accustomed to obeying our feelings. "If it feels good, then it's right to do it. If it doesn't feel good, then it isn't right to do it." That is the current philosophy of the world around us. We are led by our feelings like a bull with a ring in his nose. But that isn't the teaching of Jesus. It is the teaching of the fallen world.
Besides answering the question of how far God wants us to go and how much effort we should put forth in striving against sin,
II. These Verses Also Answer the Question, "How Can I Overcome The More Difficult Sins?"
Let's not forget that these verses have a context.
(Re-read verses 27-28)
Is that a difficult statement, or what? Was Jesus really serious about this? Yes, He was.
A couple of things you need to know about these verses...
That word "looks" in verse 28 - look at it. At first you might get the idea that it means casting a quick glance in the direction of a pretty girl. That's not it at all. In Greek it is in the continuous present tense. It indicates something that happens and keeps happening without stopping. It means "to look and keep on looking, to gaze intently." The guy's eyes are boring holes. Her dress is starting to smoke. He's gawking. All the while he's "lusting." He's doing with his mind what he'd like to do physically. That's not right, guys. (It's not right for girls, either.)
Did you know that back in the time of Christ there was a sect of the Pharisees that were called "the Bruised and Bleeding Pharisees?" That's right. They got that name because every time they saw a woman walking down the street they shut their eyes. But they didn't quit walking! They ran into walls and posts and tripped over things. I don't think that is what Jesus meant for us to do here.
It's not that sex is wrong. God invented sex. It's right and proper and He encourages it for pleasure - in marriage. You see, our sexual drive is one of the most powerful motivators in us. God wants us to limit sex to marriage where it can be a force for good. The intimacy of the sexual relationship is intended to bond two people together in a relationship that lasts for life so that we can have stable families in which to raise our children and a stable society where I don't have to worry about my wife being unfaithful or someone trying to seduce her away from me and ruining my life and my children's lives. One of the reasons there are so many broken homes, single parent homes, and blended families is because people disregarded God's rules in this area. Who suffers? Everyone ultimately.
So God wants us to control ourselves in this area and focus our strong physical desires for the opposite sex on one person, for the purpose of marriage.
How can you do that in times like ours? You drive downtown and there is the "black velvet" lady stretched out across the billboard. On the sitcom and the soaps everybody's jumping into bed with everybody else! Why even Taco Bell advertises with half-dressed ladies dancing across the screen. The magazines, the steamy novels, the videos... I don't have to tell you any more.
How is a guy or gal to keep his or her eyes and thoughts pure? I believe these verses hold the answer.
(Re-read v. 29-30)
I said a moment ago that I did not believe Jesus intended this passage to be literally obeyed (i.e., gouging out an eye, etc.). The truth is that even if you gouged our both eyes, you could still lust if you wanted to on the images already present in your mind. But, without eyes, it would be far more difficult to sin. There would no longer be the constant input of new thoughts and images to contend with.
I believe, therefore, that Jesus was implying that we should amputate the practices that provide a constant stream of image input that we have to contend with.
It is far more possible for you and me to contend with five temptations than with twenty-five or one hundred. No, there is no way to avoid temptation altogether. But there are steps we can take in structuring our lives so that we minimize such temptation.
If your trouble is with R and X rated videos, then stay out of the video store. (Yes, I know that there are Disney movies for the kids and a few other things a Christian might watch in there. But to get them you have to wade through the other images and temptations.) Now, I'm not trying to start a new legalism here that says it is a sin to go into a video store. But I am saying that if you are made out of dynamite, don't be a fool and play with matches!
Perhaps the idea Jesus is trying to get across could be seen in an picture. Here is a man who, having lost an eye, a hand, or, to take it a step further, a foot, has to go to quite an effort to sin. He has to hobble and feel his way over to the place of sin on his remaining foot. Hopefully, in the process, he will think about what he is doing and realize the cost of it. You see, such a measure would take care of the unconscious drift into sin that is often our downfall.
Let me give you a real life example of that.
Sometime back I counseled a young man who was not a member of the congregation where I preached. He and his girlfriend were having some problems. It seemed they had gone too far with one another in their intimacy. Both of them were Christians and knew what they were doing was wrong. That is why they came to me. In my office the young man said, "We just can't help ourselves! We resolve to stop, but it happens again."
I asked him where it usually "happened" and he told me it was usually in the back seat of his car at the drive in movie.
To shorten the story for you, I shared this passage with him. I told him that he needed to amputate the practices that were making it easy for him to sin. He would have to stay away from the drive-in. In fact, in the view of the progress of their intimacies, I recommended that they stop dating alone altogether. I even suggested (horror of horrors) that they take their parents with them once in awhile! They needed to structure their dating so that it would be very difficult to sin.
He did not take my advice. His girlfriend got pregnant. They hurriedly got married. Today they are divorced. and somewhere there is a little guy of gal about 5 years old who is just getting to the stage of wondering why he or she doesn't have both a mommy and daddy like his/her friends.
I spoke with a seventeen year-old young woman involved in an affair with a married man one time. She was a Christian. She knew it was wrong and she wanted it to stop, but so far she hadn't been able to make it happen. After she explained the whole thing to me, I told her, "Give me the keys to his apartment." She didn't want to at first, but finally, reluctantly, she did. Then I told her to call him right there in the office, tell him where she was, and break it off. She didn't want to do that either, but she did. Then I told her to call her parents and ask them to come over. She did. When they arrived, she confessed the whole thing to them. They already knew it. Today she is living happily with her own husband, a man she married about a year later. Her sin is forgiven by God and by him. They're building a marriage that is strong and sure. But you see, she had to amputate the offending relationship. Nothing less would have done it. She couldn't patsy around with it. It was painful for all involved. But she overcame.
I know of a man who lived in a small town. His doctor told him that if he didn't quit smoking he would be dead within a year. He had tried and failed to quit before, but this time, in view of the danger of losing his life, he decided that a drastic measure was called for. An amputation was in order! He went around to all the store owners who sold cigarettes and gave them each $50 and told them it was theirs to keep if they ever caught him buying a package of cigarettes from them again.
What are we talking about? We're talking about overcoming difficult sin by radical amputation. We're talking about cutting off the practices that make it easy to sin.
If your temptation is alcohol, then there are some people and places you are going to have to stay away from. Cut it off!
If you're having trouble staying out of the back seat of your boyfriend's car, then you'd better quit single dating. Cut it off!
If you're having trouble keeping your thoughts pure, then perhaps you need to move the television out of the bedroom (or get rid of it) or quit looking at porn magazines. (And girls, some of the romance novels that you have in your bedroom are no better.) If it offends you, cut it of! Cast it from you! Tear it out!
Conclusion
God has not left us alone to face temptation and sin without resources. It's just that, more often than not, we have not used the full resources of his Word. This is a little understood and under used passage of Scripture.
Will you start doing it today?
God expects you to get tough with sin. You cannot say, "It's just too hard," in light of passages like this. You haven't resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.
On particularly difficult sins, the ones that just keep cropping up, perhaps for years on end, you need to cut off the things that make sinning easy. It may cost you some things or persons to whom you have become very attached. But what is it you want? Your sin or your God?
In the amputation of an arm or leg, quite frequently time is of the essence, lest the rest of the body be infected. Such is also the case with sin. Time is of the essence! If there is an amputation that needs to take place. Get to it today!
Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.
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