Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3415
“And if your hand offends you, cut it off.” Mark 9:43.
SALVATION is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not of works, neither can it be procured by human merit. It is the free gift of God through the atoning Sacrifice of Christ to every soul that believes. But what is salvation? Salvation is, in short, deliverance from sin, deliverance from the guilt of it, from the punishment of it, from the power of it. If, then, any man is saved, he is delivered from the reigning power of sin. It is not possible, therefore, that any man should have salvation and yet continue in the indulgence of sin. Jesus Christ came to open a hospital for sin-sick souls, not that they might remain sick in a hospital but might go out of it healed. He came not to take men to Heaven with their sins about them, but to purge them from their sins and so make them fit to enter Heaven! Hence, Jesus Christ is the severest of all moralists and while He and His followers denounce all trust for salvation in merit, they equally declare that no man is a saved soul who tolerates any known sin. All the Gospel declares this. In all its parts it implies this and that man cannot and ought not to consider himself to be saved and cannot truly be said to be saved while he lives in the indulgence of evil propensities as he did before. We shall not at all, therefore, come into conflict with the Doctrines of Grace while we preach to you the strongest claims of Christ upon our hearts and lives through His Word. We shall have to urge upon you the most strenuous giving up of sin and that which leads to sin—but this, not as a means of salvation—but as a result of faith and as an evidence that salvation is truly possessed—as the sign and token, the proof and the earnest of the good work of the Holy Spirit within the soul. We shall begin, therefore, with this short assertion which will serve as our first point of thought—
I. Everything Which Offends God Ought to Offend Us
You notice the text says, “If your hand offends you.” We might read it, “Makes you to offend God.” The two expressions ought, in our experience, mean the same thing, for everything which offends God does offend every truly gracious heart. That short statement will serve as a touchstone for us all to know whether we are reconciled to God or not. Remember, if you truly love God, it must be so—that that which is hateful to Him will be hateful to you. Where two hearts are bound together in the bonds of love, they are quite sure to endeavor to remove everything out of the way that would cause pain to either. You cannot love me if you favor my enemies. You can have no affection for me if you delight to thrust before me that which vexes my spirit and grieves my heart. True love feels a sympathy with the person loved and learns to put away that which is obnoxious. Now say, Heart, do you put away from yourself that which God hates? Do you hate it because He hates it—not so much because your fellow Christians dislike it, or because the public judgment would go against it—but do you hate evil because it is detestable in the sight of God? If so, then you have a clear mark that you love God and you should be thankful for the Divine Grace which has put your heart into such a state.
Again, if that which offends God offends us, then we may congratulate ourselves that there is some degree of conformity between God and us. All the saints are to be made like unto God. It was in God’s image that man was first made— he lost that image by his sin—but that image is to be restored by the work of the Holy Spirit. If you do, even now, in your soul war against that which God loathes—if you strive and cry after that which God loves—then there is between God and you some degree of likeness. You are like He in your hatred of evil—like, not in degree, but yet still in substance. You are like God in your love towards that which is lovely and good and pure—not like He in degree, I say again, yet still in the matter of fact there is some likeness between God and your soul.
Then there is one other thought that ought to cheer you. If you can honestly answer this question—If that which offends God offends you, then there is some communion between God and your soul—and though it may be a questionwith you and you say, “Will God in very deed speak with such a one as I am? Will He reveal Himself to His servant and show Himself gracious to such a worm as I?”—He has done it and He is doingit and this practical proof of His communion is far better than half the raptures and the joys which may be but the fruit of men’s carnal excitement! This solid gold of holiness is full and true proof that the hand of the Lord has been laid upon you. Settle this, then, my beloved Brother or Sister, in your heart from this day forth! If there is a good man in this world, if God loves him, I must love him. If there is a good Doctrine preached anywhere, though I may scarcely understand it, yet if God loves it, I must believe it and rejoice in it! If there is any Providential dispensation that is really of God’s mind, then let it be of my mind. Oh, Spirit of God, bring me to love what God loves, not only to acquiesce in His will, but to rejoice in His will! And Lord, teach me to hate what You hate. If there are those in this world whose company You would not have, for they blaspheme and rail and speak lightly of holy things, help me to shun their company! If there is a song that Christ’s ear would not hear, let my ears refuse to hear it. If there is any sight that a holy God would not gaze upon, let not me gaze upon it. May I seek only to love that which would approve itself to the pure mind of Christ and to be offended, heartily and naturally—without any twisting of myself towards it—at everything that is at enmity with God. That stands as the first thought. Now, let us pass on.