Pluck Out and Cut Off

In this part of the sermon: Martin clarifies that the passage cannot mean salvation by works or sanctification through bodily abuse, as these interpretations contradict other clear biblical teachings and the…

Martin uses the Roman Catholic Church's selective interpretation of a few verses to nullify the rest of the Bible as an example of how not to interpret Scripture, highlighting the danger of isolating passages.

You see? This is one of the great fallacies of the Roman Church. Almost every Roman Catholic will know just three verses. Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted.

8:45 - 8:55 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Any teaching that makes us live an unnatural life is not New Testament holiness. Now that's good, you ought to memorize that. Any teaching that makes us live an unnatural life is not New Testament holiness. I didn't say …

He recounts Martin Luther's experience with self-flagellation and ascetic practices, showing that such bodily abuse does not address the root of sin in the human heart, supporting the argument against literal interpretation.

Now again, not to pick on any system, but to show the error. There have been people down through the centuries and especially during the time of the Dark Ages who took this literally and thought that holiness was to be attained by wearing a hair shirt and sleeping upon a bed, and whipping the body and flagellating the body. Martin Luther went through this for years and found that it did nothing to touch the terrible fountain of corruption, the human heart. God cannot be speaking of a sanctification to be attained by mutilating the body, for it would contradict again the rest of his teaching th...

12:56 - 14:22 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He provides two extended illustrations: a salesman who left his lucrative career due to its inherent dishonesty, and a recovering alcoholic who avoids places where she might…

A story of a successful salesman who left his lucrative career to become a high school teacher because he found he could not be perfectly honest in sales, illustrating the principle of cutting off a 'right hand' (financial gain) to avoid sin.

And if He didn't mean the actual cutting off of the hand and the plucking out of the eye, and He couldn't mean that, for that would contradict too much of the Scripture, then He must have meant that we must take any measure, no matter how stringent it is, to remove the occasion of sin, even if that thing's as dear as the right hand and the right eye. Let me illustrate. Several months ago I was privileged to be in the group of godly laymen, men who know God and are doing far more than a lot of us preachers, and I include myself in the number. And I was talking with a man who'd had a tremendous ...

23:42 - 24:22 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He provides two extended illustrations: a salesman who left his lucrative career due to its inherent dishonesty, and a recovering alcoholic who avoids places where she might…

The story of a respectable alcoholic who, even after conversion, must cross the street to avoid the smell of certain liquors, demonstrating the radical measures taken to remove occasions of sin.

Jesus said, you know what? I don't care what you profess, Jesus says the lake of fire will be your portion. Isn't that what the book teaches? I remember a woman that I met in a Bible conference down in Florida.

27:28 - 27:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Be careful what you take in by the eye gate and what you touch.

A lengthy quote from Matthew Henry on making a covenant with one's eyes to avoid impure imaginations, illustrating the discipline of the eye gate and the need for penitential tears.

And I love this quote, very quaint quote by Matthew Henry. I typed it out so I could share it with you. Matthew Henry said, The eye is both the inlet and the outlet of a great deal of wickedness of this kind. What need have we therefore with Job to make a covenant with our eyes?

43:42 - 44:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin emphasizes that the soul is of far greater importance than the body, arguing that any physical loss is profitable if it leads to salvation and avoiding hell, contrasting…

A hypothetical scenario where everyone in the assembly has their right hand severed and right eye gouged out, then healed, to illustrate that such a physical tragedy would be a blessing if it ensured salvation from sin and hell.

Jesus teaches in this passage that the soul of man is of much power. It's greater importance than the body of man. Jesus said it's profitable to enter heaven maimed than going into hell whole in body. Suppose a group of madmen should break into this assembly today and at gunpoint force all of us to line up along all the walls.

46:03 - 46:30 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin emphasizes that the soul is of far greater importance than the body, arguing that any physical loss is profitable if it leads to salvation and avoiding hell, contrasting…

An analysis of a hair dye advertisement that appeals to vanity and the desire for male attention, used to illustrate the world's obsession with the body and its contrast with the soul's greater importance.

And again, my heart is bled as I thought of this message and cried to God. You precious young people are being brought up in the world that says there's only one thing important, your body. One of our people showed me a two-page color ad from one of the magazines. On one side, it had the little caption, if I only had one life to live.

48:02 - 48:25 Read in full sermon