Plucking Eyes and Cutting off Hands

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.
-Matthew 5.29-30

Christian reader:
What is your view of sin? Does the thought of remaining sin in your life pester you? Does the thought of offending the Lord Jesus Christ through your continued rebellion cause you to come to Christ in repentance? The fact is that we are to have a holy violence against the sin that causes us to stumble. The sin that makes the unconverted look upon you and me as a hypocrite is in need to be cut off as the Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Many so-called Christians today live in a state of rebellion against the savior, living as though grace was a license to sin; living as though they are under no obligation to be conformed to the image of the Son of God. What is that image? How did Christ live? Christ lived in perfect obedience to the law of God and we are to live in obedience to the general equity of the law. This is the will of God in Christ. We are to hate our sin, we are to fight against what the Apostle Paul calls the "old man". We are in need of daily repentance, daily conversion to Christ- we are to regard sin with such heinousness that we would be willing to enter heaven dismembered and maimed than to offend our true Love, Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, when was the last time that you repented and brought your sin before God with tears? When is the last time that you meditated upon your sin that Christ bore upon that cross of judgment?

Now to arm such Christians against their special sins, their peculiar sins- whose sins are advantaged against them, either by their constitutions and complexion, or else by their particular calling, or else their outward state and condition, or else by their distinct and peculiar ages, or else by their particular way of breeding and education- is my present work and business; for though the reigning power of this or that special peculiar sin be broken in a man's conversion, yet the remaining life and strength that is still left in those corruptions, will by Satan be improved against the growth, peace, comfort, and assurance of the soul. Satan will strive to enter in at the same door; and by the same Delilah, by which he hath betrayed and wounded the soul, he will do all he can to do the soul a further mischief. Satan will be still a-reminding of the soul of those former sweets, pleasures, profits, delights, and contents that have come in upon the old score, so that it will be a hard thing, even for a godly man, to keep himself from iniquity, from his special or peculiar sin, which the fathers commonly call, though not truly peacetime in daleks, a man's special daring and beloved sin.

Well, Christians, remember this once for all- that sound conversion includes a noble and serious revenge upon that sin which was once a man's beloved, bosom, darling sin: 2 Cor 7.11, "Yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge." You see this in Cranmer, who when he had subscribed with his right hand to that which was against his conscience, he afterwards, as a holy revenge, put that right hand into the flames; so Mary Magdalene takes that hair of hers. Of all sins, saith the sound convert I am resolved to be avenged on my once beloved, bosom, darling sins, by which I have most dishonoured God, and wronged my own precious and immortal soul, and by which I have most endangered my everlasting estate.
-Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)