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).
When Cleaning Solutions Can Kill
Cleaning products are supposed to make things clean and germ free, right? But did you know that cleaning products can actually be the vehicle for spreading soil and germs? Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? How can cleaning products make things soiled or contaminated?
Well, consider what recently happened with a high-end line of cleaning products, sold under the name The Laundress, which recently had to recall nearly 8 million units of products, including laundry detergents, stain removers, and surface cleaners, because they potentially were infected with dangerous bacteria with really long, hard to pronounce names — like Burkolderia Cepacia Complex, Klebsiella Aerogenes and Pseudomonas.
Safety regulators said consumers should "immediately stop" using all referenced products and immediately return them for refund.
Or considered another similar incident just months prior when the Clorox company — the King of Clean, right?! — had to recall a variety of Pine Sol cleaning products because of the risk of bacteria.
In both cases, the very products designed and marketed to clean our filth, and thus keep us healthier, were actually spreading germs that could kill us.
Can you say irony?
Sadly, there is a spiritual parallel taking place in human hearts every minute of every day, as we make our feeble attempts to wash ourselves, purge ourselves of the stain of sin.
We attempt to scrub our soiled souls with the detergent made of our own human efforts, good works, and well intentions. We try to wash away past and present sin with the stain remover of pious acts or legalistic mandates. Yet for all our effort, we are simply injecting more sin, more soil, more contamination into the mix. And just like those contaminated cleaning products, our own self-righteous efforts can (and will!) kill us.
Scripture is clear — ALL our righteous deeds are like smelly, filthy rags in the nostrils of the Lord (Isaiah 64:6). The more we try to clean ourselves, the filthier we become.
There is only One cleaning solution fit to remove the stain of our soiled souls, and that is the cleansing power of the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Himself.
“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. … If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7,9 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).