August 16 "When Jesus Sounds An Alarm" (Mark 9:42-50)

My title this morning is When Jesus Sounds an Alarm.

When Jesus Sounds an Alarm.

How many of you have been dead asleep at night?

Maybe it's 2.17 in the morning.

Now you didn't know that when it happened, but that smoke detector went off.

Beep, beep, beep, and it startles you.

And your first reaction is you know what?

The last time it went off, was there a fire?

No.

The time before that, was there a fire?

No.

And there's probably not one now.

So your first instinct is to shut it off.

Give me a broom handle and let me hit that button to make it stop.

But now, folks, you know this, but smoke alarms are not there to ruin your sleep, they're there to save your life.

And they might be annoying at times, but they serve a good purpose.

Guess who's sounding an alarm this morning?

Jesus is.

And the alarm that he's going to sound is going to have some incredible, serious language involved.

We're going to hear Jesus talk about cutting off hands and feet, gouging out eyes, and even drowning.

And he does all of that to sound an alarm.

Beep, beep, beep.

If you hear the Lord sound an alarm in your heart, in your soul, in your mind this morning, please don't silence it.

Jesus is not sounding an alarm this morning to ruin your life.

He is doing it in the case of some to save your soul.

He is doing it on the part of some to improve your life in your walk with Christ.

Now, why does Jesus use such language that I've alluded to this morning?

Gouging our eyes, cutting off hands and feet, drowning, because of the seriousness of sin.

You see, most of us don't view sin as seriously as Jesus does.

Most of us will refer to it, man, I look, I flubbed up.

I made a mistake.

It was an indiscretion.

Do you know how Jesus views it?

Jesus views it as treason.

If you take the name of Jesus and claim him as your Savior and Lord, then when you sin, it's almost as though, you know what?

My preferences are to be preferred over your commands.

And from God's perspective, that is serious.

Blatant disobedience is incredibly serious, and it's almost like cosmic treason.

And so therefore, the Lord's going to sound some alarms this morning, and I would like to take those alarms and try to impress upon us the uh the the seriousness of sin.

And my purpose is to share with you four ways you can demonstrate your awareness of the seriousness of sin.

Last Sunday, Kevin preached for me while Jennifer and I and our family were on vacation, did an excellent job.

And in the verses that he preached last week, he talked about the disciples, he was like teaching the disciples about humility, about greatness from the kingdom perspective and caring for the little ones in the kingdom.

Jesus uses a little child not to just simply say you have to be childlike, but indeed you have to have childlike faith to be a part of the kingdom.

And now he shifts gears and talks about the seriousness of sin.

Four ways to demonstrate the first.

The first way to demonstrate your awareness of the seriousness of sin is to eliminate harmful influences.

Eliminate harmful influences.

Now, for clarity, I'm not talking about harmful influences on your life.

I'm talking about you being a harmful influence on others.

Verse 42.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Now, little ones here, a little bit after the first part of the verse, little ones here, not little kids, is speaking about believers that might be immature.

They might be new believers, believers that have not been walking with Jesus all that long, people who put childlike faith in Jesus and now they're beginning their journey.

Jesus says, whoever makes one of those people who believe in me to sin, that's bad.

That's not good.

And so I hate to share with you this next illustration because for us who are Duke fans, it's embarrassing.

And for you, Carolina fans, you're probably saying, yeah, come on, you can't get it out fast enough.

Back in 2016, Grayson Allen, who was a guard for the Duke Blue Devils, not once, not twice, three times in just about a year's period, tripped an opponent.

The third time was against a player from Elon, just down the road, they're in the Greensboro area.

And then Coach Kay had had enough.

He suspended him, he called his behavior unacceptable and suspended him indefinitely.

He was only suspended for one game.

Tripping, it's unsportsmanlike.

In basketball, it will get you teed up.

It might get you ejected from the game.

In soccer, it'll get you a yellow card, maybe even a red card.

And tripping is so serious because sometimes, best case scenario, you get tripped on the hard court, on a football field, on the pitch in soccer, you get up and maybe you just got some skin burns or some grass on you.

Worst case scenario, you could have a torn ACL, you could have a torn hamstring, you could have a season, even a career-ending injury.

That's serious, not near as serious as what Jesus talks about.

Notice with me, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, some of you, your translation might say, to stumble.

To sin, to stumble.

What is doubly interesting to me is the word that is translated in our English Bibles as sin or stumble, it's where we actually get our English word scandal from.

Grayson Allen's tripping was scandalous.

Infinitely more so.

It is scandalous, if you will, for a believer to be involved in causing another believer to stumble to sin.

That is very serious.

So if you cause another believer to stumble, you're in trouble.

You're in serious trouble.

So we need to ask ourselves some questions.

How can I go about causing another believer to stumble, to sin?

Let me give you some possible ways you can do that.

Number one, by living hypocritically.

Oh man, on Sunday you're here, you're praising the Lord, raising your hands, or not, it doesn't matter.

But you're here and you're praising the Lord, you come off as living a Christian life, and then you go to work, and I'm telling you what, you you are somebody different.

Your anger erupts.

It's embarrassing.

The fallout from it is is not pretty.

You're dishonest, you cheat customers, you fudge the numbers.

If a relatively new believer sees that, they might conclude that that's normal, that maybe that's just the way Christians live and act.

If you tolerate coarse jesting, sexual activity in movies, drunkenness, etc., you are having a horrible influence on other believers.

What an older believer tolerates, a younger believer might imitate.

And so what you tolerate in your life, if a younger believer, a less mature believer, thinks that that's okay, they may imitate what you're doing and find themselves stumbling into sin.

And folks, here's an incredibly alarming thing.

The person that you might cause to stumble could be somebody that you dearly love.

Moms and dads, you don't live the Christian life like you should.

You're causing your kids even to stumble?

You cause your grandkids.

Do you really want to do that?

Sir, do you really want to be guilty of causing your wife to stumble?

Ma'am, your husband to stumble?

In the first service, where most of our teenagers are, the older teenagers were over here, the younger ones were in this section.

And I just encourage the older teenagers, be careful how you live your life.

Don't cause your sibling to stumble into sin by making it seem as though your behavior is normal.

Another way to promote stumbling in somebody's life is to promote false teaching.

Do you know how sobering this is for me?

James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

Many of you would know James 3 is about the tongue.

And James 3, verse 1 says that guys like me, teachers and preachers of the gospel, who use their tongue to teach and preach the word, the judgment's going to be stricter for me.

James 3:1

Because of all the words that I use to influence you.

If I were to water down the gospel, if I was to soften the gospel and give it some smooth edges, when indeed they are sharp and they are rigid, I could I could, God forbid that I would be guilty of it, but I could lead you to stumble and to think that certain behaviors are okay, that God's word doesn't address certain things.

You could also be guilty of directly causing somebody to stumble.

Hey, have you seen this app?

It's new.

And everything on it is completely private.

Pictures, texts, the whole nine yards.

Man, you can send stuff to girls, you can send stuff to boys, and nobody will ever know.

Have you found this website?

Have you seen, have you been to this website?

Have you seen what's on here?

To be sure, none of us want to stand before the Lord having blatantly tried to get somebody to be involved in something that's sinful and cause them to stumble.

But Jesus is sounding the alarm.

Don't be guilty of this.

Um, at the beach this past week, I don't remember what day it was, but Jenna, my oldest and the oldest of my two daughters, and my son Jake.

The three of us were out in the ocean.

I think the kids were around, but the three of us were there, and and Jenna just almost like out of the blue said, I tell you one thing, I sure would hate to die by drowning.

And Jake and I, we we all agree that would be a horrible way to drown.

And it reminded me of what I had in my notes.

Medical timelines for drowning are unforgiving and remarkably consistent among all age groups.

When oxygen delivery to the brain is disrupted, damage begins earlier than most people expect.

At approximately two minutes, oxygen deprivation begins to impair normal brain function.

Your awareness is affected.

Your coordination and your judgment are adversely affected.

Between four and six minutes, the risk of irreversible brain injury rises sharply as brain cells begin to suffer permanent damage.

After six minutes, fatal outcomes escalate rapidly.

Now, some of you are probably wondering, why in the world are you talking about drowning?

Because that's what Jesus says.

You would be look back at verse 42.

It would be better for him or her if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than to cause another brother or a sister to stumble.

That's how serious Jesus sees this particular sin.

That's serious.

By the way, when's the last time you uh talked about a millstone?

Do you have any idea what a millstone is?

Let me give you a picture of one.

That's hundreds of pounds.

They would use that to break up wheat, to make their bread.

Jesus is saying you would be better off to have one of those put around your neck, dropped in the sea, and drown than causing a brother or a sister to stumble.

That's how serious Jesus takes it.

So, if you cause one of Christ's little ones to stumble, you're in big trouble.

Question: Would your family say your life makes it easier or harder to follow Jesus?

Would a new believer grow spiritually by imitating your priorities?

Would your social media posts encourage someone toward holiness or worldliness?

Do your words consistently build others up or tear them down?

Ask yourself this.

If everybody in our church were just like me, what kind of church would our church be?

A second way to demonstrate your awareness of the seriousness of sin is to eliminate sinful practices.

Eliminate sinful practices.

Read with me verses 43 to 48.

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell to the unquenchable fire.

If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where you're where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

So Jesus talks about hands, feet, and eyes.

The hands represents what you might do, the feet where you might go, the eyes what you might crave.

So let's revisit each one of them and think further.

Number one, your hands, the things that you might do.

Are there hidden activities that you engage in that if somebody found out about them, you would be embarrassed?

Have you used your hand to maybe click a mouse button?

Or have you used your fingers to go to certain websites that you know are sinful?

Have you with your hands taken something that doesn't belong to you?

Have you with your hands touched something or someone in ways that you should not?

Have you used your hands to hurt anybody?

The feet, the place that you might go.

Are there places that maybe your feet are taking you?

That if your family found out, it would be devastating.

Maybe on out-of-town business trips, do your feet take you to certain establishments that you don't dare frequent when you're here because too many people know you?

Your eyes, the things that you might crave, the things you look at and crave.

It's almost time for school to start back.

Do you crave good grades to the point?

That with your eyes you look on your neighbor's test papers for answers?

Do you with your eyes see other people and crave what you might do with them, give it an opportunity?

Do you with your eyes look at other people's lifestyles, their standard of living, and just covet what they have, crave what they have?

Jesus says, if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut them off.

If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.

After all, it's better to go to heaven with one hand, one foot, one eye, or a combination of all the three, than to go to hell perfectly intact.

Now, sometimes people actually do this literally.

You may have heard the name Aaron Ralston.

Back in 2003, he was hiking in southeast Utah.

And while he was hiking, there was an 800-pound boulder that just moved slightly and dropped, and it pinned his right hand and arm, and he could not move it.

And he he immediately knows how how bad this situation could prove to be because he didn't tell anybody where he was.

He is 20 miles from the nearest paved road, and cell phone reception, you might as well forget it, there's no cell phone reception where he's at.

And so he took his multi-tool and pulled out the knife part and actually worked and worked and worked until he amputated his own arm.

And now, bleeding, he walks and travels the distance all the way back to where his truck was parked to get to a hospital.

Aaron preferred his life over his limb.

Living was more important than having a right hand.

So he was willing to cut it off so that he might live.

And sometimes you and I need to do things that are might that might be perceived as radical so that you might have life in Christ.

Question then.

Does Jesus expect you to do this literally?

Literally cut your hand off to keep from stealing?

Literally cut your foot off to keep from going to places you shouldn't go?

Literally take out an eye?

No.

I could have both of my eyes plucked out and still lust.

I could have both of my feet taken off and still long to go places.

No, the Bible clearly says that we shouldn't mutilate our bodies, but that doesn't lessen what Jesus is saying.

He is saying, folks, wake up.

Sometimes you got to take some radical steps to keep from sinning.

Now, I know that today it's almost impossible to not use technology.

Nearly impossible.

Some of you, I mean, your job requires you've got to have a computer.

You got to be accessible by a phone.

I realize that.

If said devices are a problem, and you can't just completely get rid of them, we'll put filters on them.

Did you know that my devices have covenant eyes?

I've talked about it before, covenant eyes.

Every week, my wife and Kevin get a report.

It shows the all the website activity that I've been engaged in.

All the pastors have that.

To me, that's a way of taking purity serious enough to know that you know what?

It's just a help.

It's a help to keep you from not doing that which you know you ought not to do.

And maybe that would be a help to some of you.

And by the way, if you were to encourage your spouse or your kids to pursue something like that, and they buck you, odds are it's because they got something to hide.

And I'm not I'm not trying to be judgmental, I'm just trying to be faithful in applying the text.

Jesus says, cut it off, cut it off, pluck it out.

And so sometimes you have to take some drastic actions.

After all, the Bible tells us that Christians are to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

Is 2.12.

We're exhorted in 1 Peter 2.11 to abstain from the passions of the flesh which war against your soul.

Many a married man ruined his marriage by going to places he didn't need to be going and dabbling in sin that he didn't need to be dabbling in.

Too many women have broken their husbands and their children's hearts because they saw with their eye something that looked better.

And so they pursued another man or whatever.

So many people, so many people have foolishly thought they could handle alcohol, handle drugs, and their life and their families have been ruined as a result.

For some of you, you've got a friend or a group of friends, and every time you're around them, your walk with Christ goes down.

They're a bad influence on you.

Cut them off.

Cut them out.

I know we're supposed to be like the light of the world, but until your walk with Christ is the way it should be, you try to shine your light when you've been living in their darkness.

They're not going to listen to you.

So if you've got bad company corrupts good morals, 1 Corinthians 15, 33.

Cut them off.

If you don't take sin seriously, if it's not dealt with properly, it could send you to hell.

That's what Jesus is teaching here.

After all, you must be safe from your sins to go to heaven.

And a genuine believer will always want to fight against sin to keep himself or herself pure.

So if indeed somebody does not fight, is not willing to cut it off as it were, not willing to pluck it out as it were, it may be evidence that you truly don't know Jesus.

That may be what it's proving.

Is there anybody here who thinks I enjoy preaching about hell?

I don't.

But this word hell in our text, it's the Greek word gehenna, which means eternal hell.

If you look back at verses 43 and 48, it talks about unquenchable fire.

This unquenchable fire of Gehenna, hell.

In our New Testaments, it's mentioned 12 times.

12 times it's in the New Testament text.

Do you know who uses it 11 of those times?

Jesus.

Jesus does.

Did you know he says more about hell than he talks about heaven as far as what the scriptures say?

Too many churches don't talk about hell.

Too many churches maybe downplay it, minimize it.

Thinking, man, you know what?

Come on, this is the 21st century.

What in the world are we doing talking about?

Well, folks, if if Jesus talked about it and if my Bible has it, then we we need to deal with it when it comes up.

And God forbid that anybody hearing my voice would end up in hell.

So your whole fight against sin may be indicative of where your eternal destiny is going to be.

You don't earn your salvation, that's not possible.

But your fight against sin, recognizing the seriousness of it, can be indicative of your being on your way to heaven.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

And there's this small movement, it's been going on for about 25 years, but it's recently had an uptick in popularity because of Kurt Cameron.

Kurt Cameron, the actor, the evangelist.

He holds to the doctrine of annihilation.

The belief that when an unbeliever dies, they do not have eternal punishment despite what Jesus says here.

They eventually just cease to exist.

Their punishment then is not being able to enjoy the glories of heaven.

Well, now, folks, if that's true, and I don't believe it is, then somebody who has sinned against God, how how are they punished?

If all they do is miss heaven, that would be bad, but that's not what the Bible teaches.

Have you ever asked yourself where you'll be a hundred years from now?

And maybe you're thinking, well, I'll be dead.

You will exist.

You will either have conscious awareness in heaven or in hell.

Both are equally real, both are equally taught in Scripture.

And perhaps the alarm, beep, beep, beep.

That alarm that's going off in your soul is the Lord saying, I don't want you to go to hell.

That's why Jesus died, so your sins could be forgiven.

A third way to demonstrate your awareness of the seriousness of sin, endure painful trials.

Endure painful trials.

Verse 49.

For everyone will be salted with fire.

Puzzling verse.

It's only found here in Mark's gospel, nowhere else.

A lot of interpretations have been proposed.

To me, the best interpretation pictures believers as sacrifices offered to God.

And Romans 12 talks about that, to give yourself as a sacrifice unto the Lord.

And it draws on the Old Testament practice of offering sacrifices with salt.

And the fire represents the purification that comes through suffering and hardships.

Yet, just as Saul preserves rather than destroys, God uses trials not to destroy believers, but to purify them and make them more like Christ.

So, whenever you are salted with painful trials, I'm urging you not to question God's goodness.

I'm urging you not to sin in questioning God's sovereignty.

Don't sin by becoming bitter at what he allows into your life.

Don't run away from him in disappointment.

Run to him in desperation to become more like Jesus.

And then a fourth way to demonstrate your awareness of the seriousness of sin, embrace influential living.

Embrace influential living.

We draw this from verse 50.

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

So Jesus speaks about salt becoming unsalty.

The Israelites, the Jewish people, knew how that could happen because when salt was mixed with gypsum near the Dead Sea, it became diluted and worthless.

No benefit for preserving, no benefit for flavor.

Instead, like good salt, we ought to give flavor to life.

We ought to so live our lives that people want to be around us, that their lives are improved by being around you.

And ways you can do that?

Speak truth, show kindness, be forgiving, be generous and joyful, give love, encourage, compliment, and be at peace with one another.

Salt in the ancient world was also used to preserve food from rotting.

And Jesus wants us to be a preservative, if you will, in this decaying world around us.

Maybe you've heard the name William Wilberforce.

He was the man who almost single-handedly brought about the slavery emancipation bill in England.

He's living proof that a little salt goes a long way.

He didn't appear to be much.

However, James Boswell wrote this of him after hearing one of his speeches.

I saw a shrimp become a well.

Tiny, elfish, misshapen.

He was salt to British society, not only bringing preservation but enticement to Christ by his beautiful life.

And if we're salty spiritually, people will know it.

And so I would like to encourage us to so live our lives that it will generate thirst in people's lives and souls for the Lord.

November 2024.

When the fire and arson experts went back through the rubbish of the home, guess what they discovered?

Not one, two, three, four, or five, but six smoke alarms that had all been disconnected.

Probably because of the typical reasons that we do it at home, that aggravating chirping that the battery needs to be replaced, or that aggravation when the smoke alarm goes off because we're cooking, not because the house is on fire.

All six of them.

And it cost him his life.

I'm begging you, don't silence that alarm.

Don't take the batteries out.

Don't disconnect it.

Don't hit the button to cause it to stop.

Listen, Jesus does not sound alarms like these to ruin your life.

He does it to save your soul and to make your life a beautiful picture of Christ.

Let's pray.

Father, Lord, truth has been certainly confrontational this morning.

I don't know where all the alarms have sounded, but Lord, you have made it very, very clear by the imagery, by the language in this text that you take sin seriously, and so should we.

So Lord, if now there are some dear brothers or sisters in this room listening online, and the alarm's going off, it's going off, it's beeping because of sin.

Oh Lord, I'm asking that your Holy Spirit would continue to work so that we won't silence it, but that we will respond to it.

If there is an influence of our life negatively on others, may we get rid of it.

If we are dabbling in sin, we know it.

Oh God, I pray we will stop.

May we cry out to you and ask for the power of your spirit to help us to be the men and women of God that we're called to be.

And so, Lord, right now, as your people pray, as they confess their sins, I want to thank you and praise you that your grace is greater than our sin.

And so, for any of the spiritual alarms that are going off, may we respond in obedience, confession, repentance.

And so, right now, just as the music plays, would you talk to the Lord?

Don't silence the alarm, but respond.

Ask him for forgiveness.

Commit yourself to a new, fresh pursuit of purity.

Commit yourself to take the steps that just might be necessary, though drastic, accept to guard your heart and protect your soul.

If someone here today does not know Jesus and you don't want to go to hell, I I would love to introduce you to Jesus.

When the service is over, we're going to have a baptism here in just a minute.

And when the service is over, I'll be out in the fellowship mall like I normally am and would love to have the opportunity to talk to you more about Jesus.