You know in those days they crushed corn to make the flour, to make bread and things. And they would have in the home a little stone and it would be sort of bowled out. And another stone and they would just go around and around until they crushed the corn. That is not the stone that is referred to here. This is the millstone, literally in the Greek mulos onikos, the mule stone, or the asses’ stone. This is not the little one you had in the house. This is the one that was pulled by the mule, the one that Samson was tied up to when he was grinding grain in his blindness. A beast had to pull it. A massive, huge stone, weighing tons, huge, would come into their minds when they heard mulos onikos. It would be better if you took a stone like that, tied it around your neck, and literally in the Greek it says drowned far out in the open sea, taken way out with a stone weighing tons around your neck and plunk. And I mean you’d go to the bottom like a rocket. Jews didn’t drown people for any kind of crime; it was to them a horrible, unimaginable punishment. And to be drowned all alone with a millstone around your neck in some far-off region of the ocean was terrifying. The Romans did that; the Jews didn’t. And that’s what Jesus says would be better for you, a lonely, terrorizing, shocking, painful end to your life. You would be better off dead with the worst kind of death imaginable than to offend a Christian, to cause that Christian to sin.
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ~ Matthew 18:6-7
Exodus 4:1-5:21
Matthew 18:1-20
Psalm 22:19-31
Proverbs 5:15-21
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New Testament: Matthew 18:1-20
Summary:
Who Is the Greatest?
Temptations to Sin
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Overview: Matthew 14 – 28 – Click Here
Verse 6 says, “But,” – now here’s the adversative, the other side of it – “whosoever,” in or out of the church, folks, saved or unsaved, Christian or non-Christian, “whoever,” doesn’t matter, “shall offend,” to cause to stumble. How do you offend a Christian? By causing them to do what? To sin. It’s the only thing it could mean. To trap them, to catch them in a trap, a death trap, a sin trap, to make them stumble into evil.When you cause them to sin, it were better, or it would be preferable, or it would profit you instead of that, that a millstone were hanged about your neck and you were drowned in the depths of the sea. You’d be better off dead than alive offending a Christian, making him sin. You see God is not only concerned that we not sin but that we not make other people sin. Better you should be dead, beneficial you should be dead, profitable that you should be dead rather than do that, preferable. Now the language here is really vivid.Jezebel is condemned because she seduced people into sin. Balaam was condemned because he seduced Israel into sin. Jeroboam was condemned because he seduced Israel into sin as well. God does not look favorably on those who make his people sin. Now it is not to say that they are not responsible on their own, but it is to say that when the judgment is passed out, not only the one who did the sin will be held culpable but the one who led that one into sin.So the principle is this: Every Christian is one with Christ, and when you receive a Christian, you receive Christ. The peril is that if you offend a Christian by causing them to sin through your seduction, through your indirect provocation, through your example of evil, through your misused liberty, or through your failure to give righteous direction to that life, if you cause them to sin, it would be better for you to be drowned immediately than to do that because the price for doing that is so high. Instead of doing that, take drastic measures to deal with your own sin. The bottom line is this: Why would a Christian want to assist Satan in his work of tempting God’s children to do evil? You wouldn’t, would you? I wouldn’t.
Don’t Justify Sin -Dr Michael Youssef
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