(Text and Audio)
Title: Woe to That Man
Today we continue to dig in to chapter 18. As I mentioned at the beginning of last week’s message, we will see a few recurrent themes and illustrations used by Jesus in this, the 4th great discourse recorded in Matthew’s Gospel.
Last week Jesus uses the illustration of “little children” to set the example of the type of heart and behavior that one must have if he is to be a true disciple of Christ. If you recall, we stressed that Jesus was not using the illustration of the child to make a point about our innocence, for that wouldn’t make any sense when considered against the whole of scripture.
Scripture reminds us of sin, of our total lack of innocence. Are we often ignorant, even ignorant of our own sin? Yes, but ignorance of sin is not innocence from sin’s judgment.
Rather, what Jesus is illustrating in verses 1-5 by using the example of this little child he sets among them is the child’s dependence and willingness to accept from others what they cannot provide for themselves.
Simply put: We cannot provide for ourselves what Jesus is offering. If any of us could, then Jesus’s death was unnecessary.
In a moment we will see Jesus, still teaching the disciples with this child among them as an illustration, deepen the impact of the teaching by offering one of the most vivid and sobering reminders in all of Scripture. Let’s begin.
(read/pray)
- Let’s Not Overlook The Warning
I think sometimes we tend to acknowledge the seriousness of the potential offense that Jesus is warning us of here, but not as much as we should. Let’s focus for a moment on what Jesus says as he compares these two positions.
Causing a little one to son vs. Having a millstone tied around your neck and being cast into the sea.
Anyone know what a millstone is?
Anyone know how large they are? (Show Picture)
Anyone know how much they weight? (Small=at least 100 lbs. Large=Well over 1000)
So we can safely assume that there is no hope for this person. The stone would be tossed into the sea, the person would, without any ability to sustain a fight against he weight of the stone, would inevitable sink into the water, lose their breath, choke, and die. And that’s the better of the two options!
I think we better look at the first option to make sure we aren’t close to being guilty of committing the offense against God.
II. What is the sin?
Can we force another person to sin? (No.)
Can we cause another person to sin? (Yes.)
Why is our ability to cause a young one to sin stronger than it is with an adult?
What are some ways we can cause another person, particularly a young one, who is depending on us, to sin?
- False Teaching (James 3:1 “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing you will receive a stricter judgement.”)
- False Witness/Example (Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”)
- Neglect (Deut. 14:27″Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town, for he has no portion or inheritance among you.”) (They will go to another entity, non-Christian, to get what we won’t give them.)
- Others?
POINT: This is about us. We’d better know who and what we are responsible to know and do or the sin in on our heads.
- Jesus Does not Excuse on the Basis of Human Nature
Does anyone understand what Jesus is saying in verse 7?
Is anyone brave enough to offer their understanding?
(I know, I know, you are thinking… “Isn’t this what we pay YOU for?”)
J.I. Packer does an excellent job of explaining what Jesus is saying in verse 7. I want to share a brief quote from him:
Universal human depravity will result in inevitable offenses,
(offenses must come)
but individual responsibility
(woe to THAT man by whom the offense comes)
is not diminished by the commonplace occurrence of sin.
In other words, what Jesus is saying in verse 7 is that he fully understands that we live in a depraved, sinful world. Because of that, the event of sin happening is understandable, but, because of God’s perfection and absolute justice the sin and the sinner must be held accountable for their actions.
If the basketball team that I coach has an awful game, guys missing assignments, taking bad shots, not boxing out to get rebounds, I wouldn’t pull aside an individual player and say, “Hey you had a horrible game, but everyone on the team had a horrible game, so don’t worry about it.”
If I did that, I’d be a horrible coach.
And the stakes that we are talking about here are so very much higher than a game of basketball. We are coaching our young one: our own children, the children of this church, the children we teach at our jobs, anyone young one who looks up to us, we are coaching them about Jesus Christ.
And I don’t think anyone here needs me to stress the importance of this particular lesson on not causing a little one to sin by our lack of proper ambassador ship of Christ at this time of the Christmas season.
How many millions of “Christian” parents are literally heaping judgement and the wrath of the Most High upon themselves right now because all their kids know of Christmas is Santa, Toys, the Elf on the Shelf, cookies, and more toys?
We create, and are responsible for, the ignorance of Christ in our Children. May it never be so with the Children of this church. Let’s pray.