Message from Scripture: 8/17/2020

Today our message from Scripture comes from Isa. 1:18. Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

New and improved!  Now more environmentally friendly formula!  Twice as effective as before!  Do these slogans sound familiar?  A minor change in the composition of a product results in major changes in advertising. Now, no stain you get on your clothes is too tough for modern detergent to remove! However, the greatest stain of all remains indelibly pressed on us, no matter our efforts to remove it.  Sin stains our very souls, and we by our own efforts are unable to remove it and its effects from our lives.  Like Pilate, who washed his hands in front of the crowds in an effort to assign guilt to them instead of himself (Matt. 27:24), we can assign guilt and responsibility elsewhere, but the stain of our sin remains.  Only God can make a change in us spiritually.

What Isaiah said could happen, has happened for us in Christ. Through His blood we can be washed clean of our sins. The blood that was shed almost 2,000 years ago can’t be improved. The price for our forgiveness can never be lessened.  Nothing else can be offered that will do what our Lord has already done for us.  He alone can remove sin, keep us cleansed from its stain, and provide the blessings of eternal life.  He makes us new and improved. As Paul said to the church in Corinth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Though our sins were like scarlet, in Christ, we are white as snow; they were red like crimson, but now like the purest wool. What we could never do, Christ did. Let us rejoice in the love of God, the effectiveness of the blood of Christ, and the hope we have of the eternal. God bless.

Robert