Scripture
“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord.“ Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
~Isaiah 1:18, NLT
Quote
Sins are sins because they’re already committed. They are history, a part of the past, and the past is finished humanly speaking.
~Jonathan Cohn {Book of Mysteries}
The color scarlet {deep red} was made from a dye extracted from the Scarlet worm {the female ‘coccus ilicis’}. The female scarlet worm attaches itself to a tree where she dies giving birth to her young. As she dies, she emits this deep red dye which given time will turn to pure white. The Hebrew word for this worm is tôlāʿ and it is used in Psalm 22 in reference to Jesus on the cross. We can call it the miracle of atonement. Jesus shed His red blood but that precious scarlet blood erases our sins and makes us white as snow. If you take a white garment and dye it scarlet; how can you restore it to its original whiteness? In the fabric industry, it is impossible to remove all the die and to restore the fabric to its original whiteness. So how does God remove our sins and change us from scarlet {guilty} to pure white {innocence}?
Remember the wedding in Cana of Galilee. This was Jesus first miracle in John and it involved turning water into wine. Now we all know that wine is made from grapes and wine can not be made in an instance. The thing that makes wine is time. Without the process of aging, you really don’t have wine, just grape juice. So technically, to change the water into wine, Jesus had to change the water into grape juice and then create a past so it could age. Of course the greater miracle is that He did it in an instant. Can Jesus change the past? Can He alter time? Who created time? If God brought time into existence, can He not bring it out? God does not just merely forgive our scarlet past, He changes it. He erases it so that we are restored to our original purity before we ever sinned {garden}. So God sees us without seeing our past. Can God really do this? Let me asks you a better question: is there anything that He cannot do?
I was lying in bed meditating on this and praying for God to give me understanding and a practical illustration of this truth. My computer came to mind. I know very little about computers. I can cut them on and off and that is about it but a computer programer can erase a computer’s past and it will be as though it never existed. I want to believe that God has erased my past and the word in Psalm 51 that David uses…blot out my transgressions… is the Hebrew word māḥâ and it means to erase, to rub out. My problem is my memory; I cannot forget my past or my sins. I can’t erase all the guilt. I highlighted three words in todays text, “I will make.” I can’t forgive myself, I can’t erase the guilt from my memory, I cannot make myself white as snow BUT God doesn’t expect me to do so; matter of fact, He knows I cannot make myself white as snow. He claimed this responsibility when He said, “I will make you as white as snow.” Don’t underestimate His ability to do anything. Nothing is impossible with HIM.
EXTRA
We had great attendance yesterday considering all the covid cases announced last week. I was afraid we would be down. I had the largest crowd in the outside service that we have had since we went back inside at 10:15. We had 6 cars and 10 people. We’ve been having visitors every week and we had more yesterday, PTL.
They have the TERRACE in Priceville {Where Vellene resides} locked down because of the covid outbreak. Bob Brechtel is back home after being hospitalized with covid. I understand that Gregg George had to go to hospital with covid and I am trying to get an update on his status.
I hope you have a great week. Thanks for reading the blog.
P.S. Word Press changed the blog a few months back and they have made it difficult to get the blog sent to your email automatically. A lot of people will not go to the trouble of looking it up each day but there is nothing we can do about it. Catfish is working with WP to see what can be done. Of course, if you are reading this, you know how to find us…brotherjack.org