The Most Frightening Bible Passage?

‘If we think little about the personal consequences of our sin, how less so the destruction it inflicts upon others.’ We live in an age where selfishness has been transformed into a sanctimonious act. What past generations would have condemned as being outright self-centred and destructive we’ve found ways to morally justify and champion. We camouflage our narcissism with pop psychological phraseology. The need to be ‘true to ourselves’. To ‘love ourselves first before we can love others’. Or to even ‘Christianize’ it by claiming that ‘God just wants me to be happy’. Little, if any, thought is given into how these narcissistic beliefs and behaviours might negatively impact others. Take the all too common attitude that our culture has towards divorce these days where allegedly it’s better for children if their parents end an ‘unhappy’ marriage. How often do we hear people use the excuse that they left their spouse ‘for the sake of the kids’? (Obviously, I’m not referring to genuinely abusive situations.) Yet how has this nonchalant attitude towards divorce distorted young people’s view of marriage today? Well, it’s not surprising that many don’t even want to marry. They’d rather live together...which, according to statistics, doubles their chances of divorce if they eventually do decide to marry (The reasons for that I’ll have to leave for another time). This brings me to a sobering teaching that Jesus preached on numerous occasions. It’s so important that different versions of it were recorded in three out of the four gospels. For instance, in Luke Jesus warned; Luke 17:1-3 NIV [1] “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. [2] It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. [3] So watch yourselves. As unpopular as it is to talk about sin these days you can’t understand Jesus’ teachings without it. ‘Gentle’ Jesus taught that all of us will have to stand before God one day and give an account of how we lived out our mortal lives. But notice where His emphasis laid in the passage up above. Yes, our sin is serious. But it’s the chain reaction, the domino effect that it has upon others which is so serious to Jesus. When all is revealed on the Great Day of Reckoning it will be bad enough seeing our own sin played back before our eyes. But imagine the horror show we’ll be forced to watch in how our sin impacted the lives of those around us?