Cutting Heads Off of Snakes

I used to live in a house on an acre of land that was infested with poisonous snakes. There was a creek that ran in back of the property and it was a breeding ground for snakes, and the snakes that appeared most frequently were poisonous copperheads, and every year I had to go out to my yard and kill snakes. I remember one time I was battling a baby copperhead, which is quite poisonous, and it was in a rock bed, and I had a shovel in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other, and I poured the gasoline onto the rocks to flush out the snakes that were in there, and as they came out I would smack them with the shovel, and I hit this one copperhead with the shovel, and as I did it squirted its venom right in my eye, but thankfully I was wearing glasses and it just hit my glasses, but those snakes were hard to kill, and especially when they got around close to my back door, because you only had one chance to kill them, and they would disappear, and after years of killing snakes, I finally learned that the most effective way to kill a snake is to cut its head off.

You take a shovel that is good for digging with a flat edge, and you get close enough to the snake, and then pin its head with the shovel, and lean on it with your weight until you cut its head off. That's the most effective way to kill a snake, because if you don't cut its head off, it will still be there next time. I had to learn by trial and error that the best way to get rid of snakes was cutting their heads off, and that's the title of my message today, friends.

Cutting the heads off of snakes, but I'm not going to be preaching on snakes, I'm going to be preaching on the doctrine of sin, and my text is Mark chapter 9 beginning in verse 43. You can turn in your bibles there now. In our passage, Jesus is speaking about hell and its fires, and sin and its dangers, and he makes the illustration that if your hand is causing you to sin, it's better to cut it off than to go into hell, and hell with it, with your sins, and he talks about if your foot is causing you to sin, it's better to cut it off completely rather than enter hell with it whole, and your sins following you there too, and that's how you deal with sin.

You must cut its head off, or it will come back at you like that snake I mentioned earlier. Before I read a passage today, I feel I ought to say a word about the times in which we live. The days are evil, friends.

Society grows more wicked every day. We are all desensitized to sin just by being exposed to it on a regular basis, while you can't go hardly anywhere anymore, even in the grocery store, just standing in line at the checkout. There's pictures of naked women on magazine covers staring you in the face.

We live in a society where the public goes out wearing its underwear. Billboards line our main streets with nudity and sex. Even TV commercials are R-rated these days, and everybody's so used to it that it just doesn't bother us much anymore.

We as a society have even renamed sin to make it less evil. Fornication is called fooling around, adultery is having an affair, and sodomy is given a happy name, gay. And in the church, things are no different.

Holiness is a taboo subject from the pulpit, and most church members do not pursue lives of holiness, quite the opposite. They indulge in their sins and gratify their lusts and sit in church on Sunday morning and say they love Jesus and believe they are on their way to heaven. Many church members have no problem with viewing nudity on TV and watching sex scenes in movies.

It's our culture, and you have to adapt to it, they say. But Jesus doesn't see things that way, friends. My Bible says if you die in your sins, you will surely go to hell, and my Bible declares that without holiness, no one will see God.

And in our passage today, Jesus gives a very clear warning to those who claim to follow him with their lips, but with their lives they do not follow him. And our trouble today is we believe in a God who is a sin-tolerating God. We believe only in a God of love who wouldn't hurt a fly, much less send someone to hell.

You won't hear many sermons on the subject of the wrath of God in our pulpits today because a vengeful, wrathful God is not popular, nor is he politically correct. Actually, a vengeful, wrathful God is an intolerant God in our society today. Well, that's how we think.

But you better hear me, friends. God is a God who must punish sin. God sent his only beloved Son to suffer and die on a bloody cross because of sin.

Only the blood of Christ can wash sin away. Are your sins washed in the blood? Are they? Jesus came to save his people from their sins. He did not die on that cross so you can live in your sin, friend.

I can promise you that many today in our churches believe you can sin all you want to and still go to heaven. But we live in a time of sad spiritual declension in the church where sin is not only tolerated, but indulged in by people who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ. I will illustrate it this way.

A friend of mine was going through counseling with a Christian counselor who told this friend the following. She said, you do not have to give all yourself to Jesus to be saved. Jesus just wants part of you.

And to prove her point, she told about how just this past week in her church, they found a church member who's a teenager and a drug dealer. They found him in the church restroom having sex with his girlfriend and he was reprimanded for his behavior. But they were thrilled that he came back to church next Sunday because he's a Christian who's just trying to be a little better.

That's what this Christian counselor said. She said that the drug dealer is a Christian because Jesus just wants a part of him. And as long as Jesus has a part of him, then Jesus is okay with him.

And that's how folks think today, friends. They think that it's acceptable with God as long as we give him Sunday and a part of our money and sin is tolerated and indulged in because we've given him a part of our lives. But it isn't so.

You will surely go to hell living like that, friend. At least that's what Jesus tells us in our passage today. I believe it's time we take a look at what he had to say on this important subject.

Here now is Mark chapter 9 and verse 43. Listen to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off.

It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter, halt into life than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Now you won't hear many sermons taken from this passage today, friends.

There aren't many pastors willing to handle this hot potato of the topic of sin and judgment and hell and its fires. No, they'd rather preach a sermon on faith or getting along with one another or the need for prayer or forgiven to the church. But not many will preach on the necessity of repentance from sin to get to God's kingdom.

We just don't believe Jesus meant what he said here. Is he really serious that we should cut off her hand if we sin with it, that we should pluck out her eye because of lust, that we should cut off our foot because we are quick to run to evil? Let me tell you something, friends. There are plenty of people in hell right now that would give their right arm or their eye to get out of hell and its fires.

But we tolerate sin today because we are a sin loving society. But Jesus wants us to deal with our sin like you would deal with a snake that needed its head cut off before it crawled into your living room. And that's how you deal with sin in your life.

You cut off its head so it cannot live any longer. Our problem today is we judge ourselves against other men and say, I'm not as bad as that fellow. I'm not cheating on my wife with my secretary.

But you are cheating on her by what you watch when she is not with you. And you're cheating on her by lusting after that woman in the elevator with you. Jesus declared in Matthew 5 verses 27 through 30.

He have heard that it was said by them of old time thou shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.

For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Jesus is speaking of mortifying the flesh because of the spiritual death that attends sin's penalty. And that is hell. Listen, friends.

Jesus never preached the sin of religion like we do today. He's speaking of the most important matters in the universe, and that is your soul. The downgrade in our church circles today is so bad we must realign ourselves to our Bibles and the words of Christ our Lord.

Regarding this passage, I have just read about plucking out both eye, foot, and hand if they cause us to sin. I want to refer you to Matthew Henry's commentary on this passage because back in the days of the Puritans, it was a time when Christians lived closer to God and lived out their Bibles in holiness unto the Lord. Henry writes, We must be careful to avoid anything and everything that will take us off from our duty or lead us to sin.

That which does so, we must part with, though it be ever so dear to us. The case opposes that our own hand, or eye, or foot offend us, that the impure corruption we indulge is as dear to us as an eye or a hand. The duty prescribed in that case, pluck out the eye, cut off the hand and foot, mortify the darling lust, kill it, crucify it, starve it, make no provision for it, and keep out a distance from that which is a temptation.

In other words, Matthew Henry's agreeing with Jesus on this point. We must cut the heads off of our snakes which are sins in our lives. And I want to take this time, friends, to read you a passage from a very valuable book that I feel every Christian should take the time to read.

It's written by the Puritan Thomas Shepard, and the book is The Sincere Convert and the Sound Believer. It talks about true conversion as opposed to a false profession. It's worth its weight in gold.

Let me read you Thomas Shepard's word on sin in the life of a believer and the danger of dying in one's sins and being cast into hell forever. Please listen to his words carefully, for though he is dead, yet he may be speaking directly to you, dear friend. He's addressing the person who mistakenly believes themselves to be a true Christian, when in reality, they are quite lost in sin and on their way to hell.

They are nothing more than deceived individuals who indulge sin in their life and still believe they're going to heaven. No unregenerate man, though he go never so far, let him do never so much, but he lives in some one sin or other, secret or open, little or great. Judas went far, but he was covetous.

Herod went far, but he loved his Herodias. Every dog hath his kennel, every swine hath his swill, and every wicked man his lust. And here lies his lust or sin, which he must needs live in, and so they give way to sin, and therefore live in sin.

The best hypocrites hide a lust, as the whore in the Proverbs that wipes her mouth and goes to the temple and pays her vows. It's an easy matter for a man to confess himself to be a sinner and to cry to God forgiveness until next time, but to have a bitter sorrow, and so to turn from all sin and to return to God and all the ways of God, which is true repentance. Indeed, this is hard.

Please, friends, don't be fooled by today's standard in our churches today for the standards all in to such low levels that a sin is tolerated because we have such a low view of God today. We have a low view of God and a low view of sin rather than a high view of God and a holy fear of sin. I'd like each of us right now to take the time to go to prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to shine his spotlight on the snakes in our lives, the sins that must be dealt with.

Ask him for the grace to mortify our lusts, crucify our sins by cutting the heads off them before they are our undoing and ruin. I've known some church people who were faithful attendees of churches for years, but a sin that they tolerated in their lives that they hugged ended up being their utter ruin. This is serious business, friends.

This is serious business, indeed. Like that property I used to live on where snakes would breed and multiply each year to such a degree I had to go out and kill them by cutting off their heads. That's the only way to rid ourselves of the sin that so easily besets us.

Pray that God will grant you the grace to rid yourself of the very thing which might send you to hell. Listen to me, friend, and I will leave you with this scripture verse. The worst thing that can happen to a person is for God to leave them in their very sins, which they love to hug and indulge.

Here is a verse in Hosea which would strike terror in our hearts. It's Hosea 417, which reads, Ephraim is joined to his idols. Let him alone.

Listen, friend, those who are not disturbed in their sin will be destroyed for their sin. For someone who is in love with their sin and addicted to it runs the risk of being destroyed by it. My Bible declares the soul that sinneth it shall die.

Cut the head off of it, friend, before it cuts off your own head.