April 18 Dry Cleaning Won't Work

April 18

Dry Cleaning Won’t Work

Ps 51:7 … wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

The men of the church grabbed him and lifted him over their heads. They carried him around the church while everyone rubbed their hands on him. Who was he and what were they doing?

Several years ago I read an article in the religious section of a weekly news magazine that described the above scene. The man being carried about the church was just one of the members. They were carrying him so the other members could wipe their hands on him symbolically transferring their sins onto him. Then they carried him into a bathroom and shook him over a toilet while the pastor flushed all their sins away.

No that was not a joke. I actually read about a church doing that. I guess they had figured out a way to dry clean their sins. But the Bible requires more than dry cleaning to remove sin.

Ps 51:2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

The old hymn says it well “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”  But people have been trying to solve their sin problems without the blood of Christ for centuries.

Different beliefs have offered a multitude of ways to care for the sin problem. One of the most common is to change how people view sin. The Bible says  “There is none righteous, no, not one”(Rom 3:10) but modern thinking is we are born good, with a spark of the divine and if we nurture goodness and do not do horrible things we are fine. Some religious leaders from the past dealt with sin by excusing it as “errors”. 

Another line of thinking is to admit we do bad things but we are not responsible. If we do bad things it is not our fault because our mother potty trained us too early. It is her fault. Or it is society’s fault. We grew up hungry or poor or any other excuse you want to add to the list. So even if we did something we should not be blamed. People will believe anything that they want to believe. It does not matter how silly it sounds they will believe it rather than admit they have a sin problem .

In the town where I live they have a winter tradition called the “burning of the Boog”.  It is a custom carried on in Switzerland. The Boog is constructed of paper mache and is hollow. People write all their troubles on pieces of paper and put them inside the hollow Boog. Then at some point the Boog is set on fire and all their troubles burn up with him. I doubt anyone really believes that is what happens. But there are similar silly things that people do, as in the flushing of sins mentioned above.

The purpose of our devotion today is to remind us of two things. First that we should not be lulled into a false sense of right and wrong by the worlds standards. There is so much in our world today that is wrong. Courts and judges may have ruled some evil things are legal but that does not mean they are no longer sinful. It is legal to abort an unborn baby, but the Bible says thou shalt not kill. It is legal for homosexuals to get married, but the Bible says it is an abomination. Now it is illegal to label such activities as sinful. You could be arrested for hate speech. Never the less the Bible says;

Ro 12:2 And be not conformed to this world:

but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,…

 Secondly, we should become more sensitive to what the Bible requires of Christians. Most of us are well aware that we should not kill people, rob banks and tell lies. We are careful to avoid sins of commission. But what about those sins of omission. The ones that require us to do certain things, that we do not do.

2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God,

a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,

rightly dividing the word of truth.   

It is wonderful to read a portion of scripture every day. But this verse says we should do more than just read. We should study and understand what we read.

Peter has a laundry list of what we should be doing.

2Pe 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity.

 

It is unfortunate that so much of society has not learned these qualities. It is tragic when we meet Christians who have little knowledge of Christ, are intemperate, impatient, ungodly, are not kind, but declare how much they love Jesus. Yes love covers a multitude of sins, but does not erase them, or forgive them. That requires the blood of Christ.

May we spend a few moments during our day to dwell on our sins of omission, and ask God to bring them to our mind that we might confess and forsake them. God bless you as you seek to please Him.

Let us close with some good reminders from James.

1Jo 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

 1Jo 1:8  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

 1Jo 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.