Wisdom's Corner
Do Not Stain Your Clothes

Almost all children like to play outside. They like to run in the grass or play in the dirt. They do not care if they have on their regular play clothes or nice dress clothes.

But their parents care. If the child has on good dress clothes, the parent will tell them not to get stains on their clothes. That means the child is to be careful not to fall on the grass or slide in the dirt. Falling or sliding will get grass or dirt stains on their nice clothes.

These stains will be hard to get out and many times will not come out. This means that the nice clothes are now always going to look dirty. They may be so stained that they are no longer nice clothes.

God says that we can become like that spiritually. In Jeremiah 2:22 we read, "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God."

The word for "wash" is the word in the Hebrew that most often refers to the washing of clothes. Nitre was the soap used for washing clothes. The word "soap" is the word for the soap used to wash the skin. And the word for "marked" means to engrave.

In other words, our sins are engraved or marked on our spiritual clothes. Our spiritual clothes can get stained and no matter what we try to do we cannot get the stains out unless we obey God. We can attempt to wash our spiritual clothes with all kinds of religious soaps. But it will do no good. The stains will still be there.

Thankfully, Christ came to die for our sins. It is His blood that is able to wash us clean of our sins (Revelation 1:5). This can happen when we are old enough to understand the gospel and we are baptized to wash away our sins (Acts 22:16). If we obey God and do this, God will always wash our spiritual clothes clean. There is not a sin stain that Jesus' blood cannot wash away.

If any of this is hard to understand, ask an adult to help you. And until next time, keep reading and studying your Bible so that you can get God's wisdom.

Mark McWhorter

Copyright 1998

Published by The Old Paths Bible School
(http://www.oldpaths.org)