The Measure of Your Loyalty
"You are only as loyal to Jesus as you are to your least favorite person."
By His substitutionary death for all of mankind, Jesus proved Himself to be loyal to absolutely everyone. Consistent with this doctrine is the call of Scripture that those who have received this act of love should, likewise, be loyal to all. Even to their enemies! To be disloyal to those for whom Christ died is to be disloyal to Him.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:43-45).
The Blaster
Fact of Fiction? It is legal to have your car retro-fitted with a flame thrower to ward of carjackers in South Africa. Fact!
With carjacking rampant in 1990s South Africa (in excess of 13,000 incidents per year), inventor Charles Fourie patented “The Blaster,” a flame-throwing device that could be retro-fitted to cars to ward off would-be attackers. “Casting a man-high fireball, reportedly with no damage to the paint, the Blaster … squirts liquefied gas from a bottle in the automobile's trunk through two nozzles, located under the front doors. The gas is then ignited by an electric spark, with fiery consequences.”
CNN reports that South African courts “allow killing if convinced that it's in self-defense.” Never mind the fact that flames shoot from both sides of the car simultaneously, posing great risk to pedestrians and passersby. In a society wherein cars are, for many, a luxury, some were willing to go to great lengths to stay in "the driver’s seat."
Can you imagine lighting someone on fire to stop them from stealing your car? Wouldn't it be better to just give them the car? ". . . Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?" (1 Corinthians 6:7).
Post Script: Wondering how the invention fared in its battle against crime? Motortorque.com (http://motortorque.askaprice.com/blog/tag/flamethrower-car/) reported in 2009 that fewer than 1000 were ever sold, suggesting that criminals simply resorted to shooting their victims from a distance, effectively nullifying the Blaster’s usefulness.
Cochineal Beetles: Painting the Town Red
Among the ancient Aztecs, red dye was collected as a yearly religious tribute. Acquiring this bright colorant required hundreds of subjects to comb the desert in search of its source-the tiny female cochineal beetle. Making just a pound of this rare extract required the harvesting of about 70,000 of these insects!
After the arrival of Cortez in the1500s, Spaniards traded for the dried remains of the cochineal beetle, whose red dye created a brilliant color that no one could duplicate by any other source. Soon after, Europeans used it for coloring fabrics. In the years that followed, Michelangelo used it in paintings and the British and Canadians for their red coats.
Today, less expensive synthetic dyes have mostly replaced this insect dye, but it is still used as a natural FDA-approved coloring for food, drugs, and cosmetics. Strange as it may sound, some brands of fruit juice use this beetle as colorant. It's also fascinating to note that Spanish traders never told the Europeans of the dyes origin. And because the little beetles looked so much like seeds, they were traded as grain.
While the dye from this little beetle is used in myriad applications, just be sure that you only let it come in contact with that which you desired dyed a deep crimson red, because there's not much hope that you'll ever get the stain out should you inadvertently spill or apply it!
That said, did you know that the Bible teaches you CAN wash red stains ... with blood no less! ... and get pure white? "Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD, 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, shall be as wool'" (saiah 1: 18).
"These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 7:14).