Pastor Clint Magnus
Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow.”
I’m pretty sure that most of us will not soon forget the dump of snow we had on January 15.
I happened to be away at a funeral that weekend and when I came home to Kitimat I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Our driveway was full of snow, my truck was completely buried and I had to wade through drifts as high as my armpits in order to get to the front door.
Now, I can tell you that I, like everyone else, was dog-tired from shoveling…but as I looked around after the work was done, I was awed by the beauty of all that fresh white snow everywhere.
There was no brown, dirty looking snow with gravel mixed into it anywhere, there was no sign of pollution or litter, just a clean, white blanket of snow covering up all the flaws that might be underneath.
And you know, that is just like it is with God and us.
The Bible tells us that each one of us is dirty and polluted at our core. The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 64:6, “We have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.”
When God looks down upon us, He does not see innocent people who are basically good, and just mess up once in a while; no, He sees people who have turned their backs on Him.
Psalm 14: 2 says, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who seek after God, but they have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
And so, we have a basic problem; how can dirty, polluted sinners like you and me stand before a holy and righteous God and receive forgiveness and eternal life, when God cannot be in the presence of sin?
Sin and God are like opposite ends of a magnet; they repel each other.
Well, God in His mercy has provided a solution to the problem.
We find His answer in 2Corinthians 5: 21, “For our sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”
In other words, God sent His Son Jesus Christ, who was without sin, to this earth to become one of us.
He then gave His life on the cross as ransom for the debt each one of us owes God.
He shed His perfect blood for you and for me, so that by believing in Him, we are able to stand before God and ask for forgiveness.
And because of His sacrifice, we have the assurance that our sin, no matter how big or how many, will be covered over like a fresh blanket of snow, and we will receive a clean slate.
What a wonderful promise; forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ.
And so if you are feeling dirty inside because of things you have done, I would urge you to ask God to forgive you and give you a fresh start, and because of Christ, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will become white as snow”…amen.