Brush Your Teeth and Cleanse Your Sin
Imagine, you've just awakened and you feel that yucky, pasty film in your mouth. Morning breath! Everybody gets it. Everybody hates it. You can't even think of kissing your spouse good morning until you make a beeline for the bathrrom to brush your teeth.
Why? Because brushing your teeth will clean your mouth and freshen your breath. Right? Well, your breath might smell fresher, and your teeth might appear cleaner, but are they really?
Take a look at the image below. It is a single "used" bristle from a toothbrush. THIS is what you are using to "clean" your teeth.
Yuck! Turns out we are using dirty, germy utensils to clean our dirty, germy teeth.
Well, it might not be a perfect method, but when it comes to teeth, it's the best system we have to work with.
Ok, so our teeth won't be perfectly clean. They'll at least appear to be clean.
But when it comes to our sin, the appearance of clean just won't cut it.
Our sin needs an utter scrubbing, a complete bleaching, a total cleansing. This can't be accomplished by our own efforts! We, ourselves, are soiled and unclean. You can't scrub filth with filth. You can't cleanse away sin with a dirty rag. Oh, we might do a good job of appearing to be clean (holy). But it's just a facade.
Nothing short of the perfect cleansing of sin by the blood of our Perfect Savior can genuinely wash away our sin and shame. In the words of the old, classic hymn:
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Oh precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Stop trying to whitewash your sin with your own good efforts. That sparkling white smile won't fool the Savior.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9, ESV).
"He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5, ESV).
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10, ESV).
World's Dirtiest Man Dies at Age 94
Amou Haji, dubbed “The World’s Dirtiest Man” died at the age of 94 in his native town of Dejgah, Iran, on October 23, 2022. Haji’s claim to fame? Not bathing for over 60 yrs!
He was a hermit, living alone in an ash covered, cinder block shack. It is reported by locals that he survived by eating roadkill and smoking animal feces in a pipe, all the while believing that bathing would make him ill.
Amazingly, Haji lived a long and mostly healthy life. Until, that is, locals finally convinced him to bathe and seek medical examination. A few short months later, Haji grew ill and died.
No, bathing did not kill Haji, as some have speculated, but neither did it save him. He was an old man. Death comes to us all, regardless of our personal hygiene habits.
There is a sense in which we all have much more in common with Haji than just our inevitable mortality. The truth is, spiritually speaking, that we are all filthy. No amount of soap and water can wash away the sin that soils, defiles, and darkens our souls.
Yet unlike the ineffectual soap and water the locals used to try to cleanse Haji from his filthy past, there is a washing and renewing which can not only cleanse us from our past, but also grant us ultimate spiritual health and eternal life.
As the beloved hymn so accurately proclaims, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5, NKJV).
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, ESV).
“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14, NIV).
Spiritual Quarantine
You may have heard the story of Carl Goldman. He and his wife were on a cruise in Asia, and one of the passengers contracted COVID-19. The cruise ship was quarantined for 10 days, and during that time Carl got the coronavirus.
When everyone was released from the cruise ship, Carl was quarantined in a bio-containment center in Nebraska. His room was completely sealed off from other people. Cameras and two-way video monitors allowed him to communicate with people outside the room. No one came inside unless they were wearing a hazmat suit. Carl was sealed off like this for 12 days.
Then he was released into a different area of the hospital, where he was quarantined with other patients who had the virus. So he was able to have more contact with other people. He couldn’t leave the hospital until he tested negative for COVID-19. Unfortunately, his tests kept coming back positive long after his symptoms abated. Finally, after he was quarantined for 30 days in the hospital, Carl tested negative for COVID-19 two times in a row, and he was allowed to go home. Adding the time he was on the cruise ship, Carl was quarantined for a total of 40 days.
We are in a similar situation as Carl. But instead of being quarantined from people, we are quarantined from God. Our sin separates us from Him because God cannot be in the presence of anything unholy. That's why we need Jesus - to cleanse us from our sin and release us from spiritual quarantine.
But unlike Carl, the moment we place our faith and trust in Christ, we are cleansed. There are no stages or tests that have to be passed first. The salvation Christ offers us is instant and it is eternal.
"If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved" (Romans 10:9-10).