In keeping up with Biblical analogies related to my most recent workplace, I couldn’t help but post this entry after learning something fascinating a little while ago. I hope I don’t make any of you feel I’m “beating the sheep” either, but this post is necessary, and I’m not one to tickle ears anyway.

At my last temp assignment, in a plastic mold injection factory, I noticed that there’s this material that gets used frequently, consisting of a type of plastic resin that is totally white, with only a few black pellets scattered throughout it. Yet, despite the high volume of white in this material, when it goes through the injection and into the mold, the parts come out completely black. My sensibilities would assume with this much white, and that little black, that it would come out a light grey color as a result of getting mixed together.

I asked someone who would know better than I about how this works and why it comes out completely black. He asked me if I ever made Jello before. I was familiar with Jello so he compared this process with that of mixing that powder with hot water, and how it looks really white as a powder, with a small amount of colored powder throughout it, but when it mixes together in the water it forms a much darker color than you’d expect from looking at its original properties. Well the same was true with the plastic pellets; the black ones have a high concentration of the pigment or whatever it is in them. Therefore, all it takes is this small number of pellets for every large amount of white pellets, because when diluted with the white, it will make the whole box turn out black.

Fascinating huh?

I honestly see that the same way as the writer of Ecclesiastes said “Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.” (Ecc 10:1) It doesn’t take much to ruin the perfectly wonderful smelling aroma of that stuff, so to speak.

We are to live pure and holy lives as followers of Jesus Christ. But yet countless men and women of God have lost everything–their jobs, careers, lifestyles, families, houses, all from just a few acts of indiscretion, or maybe even just one. Whether it be infidelity, embezzlement, some kind of blatant public hypocrisy–whatever the case may be, even if their ‘track record’ was pure, all it took was one or a brief amount of mistakes, and everything is gone. I know I don’t judge them in my heart, but there are people in my life of whom its been years since they’ve “messed up” (I’m being vague and general), and they have been restored, and are in right standing in their Christian fellowships and in their relationship with God in the years since, but they still are dealing with the consequences of actions of theirs. Pure and right before a Holy God through repentance and the grace of Jesus Christ, they are totally pure in His eyes, yet in this lifetime, the repercussions had lasting effects.

We could look at high profile ministries, such as the ones during the 1980s. Those men were used powerfully and mightily of the Lord, but sin cost them a high price, and even though both of them are fully repentant now and restored in their relationships and walks with God, their ministries are nothing like they used to be. Friends, let us not be people who think anything is a trivial or small thing in our lives.

“Oh Steve, don’t be so legalistic–there’s not THAT much nudity in that movie.” But would you watch if right now in the room you’re in a man and a woman began to do in front of you what those actors did in front of the video camera, and shown on that movie screen or TV set? What’s the difference?

“Steve, you’re so judgmental, of course I’d never do in real life those things I do in that video game–it’s just a video game, it’s all make believe.” What did God mean with the commandment “thou shalt not kill”–was that only relegated to ‘reality’?

“Steve, to the pure all things are pure–the Bible says so somewhere–there’s nothing wrong with listening to this type of music, even if it is horribly antichrist and they cuss like crazy–they’re just being real.” That may be, but why would anyone want to pour crap into their spirits willingly, “real” or not?

Friends, let us not be the type who, through little bits of compromise here and there, opened the door gradually over time and eventually find ourselves treading down slippery slopes we discover ourselves powerless to overcome. If you think you can spend a lot of time alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend and that no temptation will overcome you, be very careful to make wise decisions that render you free from situations where you would have to decide on what to do in the midst of those temptations.

Forgive the crass analogy, but how many of you would dare drink a glass of water or juice, whose contents were 99% pure, but there was just a tiny drop of urine in it? Knowing fully well that a tiny amount of impurity was in it would propel you away from it! Yet, many believers are content with this type of barometer in their own spiritual lives, thinking a “little” ungodly entertainment or unholy activity “won’t hurt anyone“–but it hurts the Lord, and even ourselves many times, or our credibility in a dying world’s eyes who are watching us closely.
Friends, your soul will adapt to whatever you expose it to–what are you exposing it to?

“God knows my heart, you say, but ah yes! Do you know the Lord’s heart–what grieves Him and what pleases Him? All it takes is a little bit to ruin the whole. Don’t let your life be a casualty in some way, no matter how trivial the issue may seem to you now.

And lest you read this far and feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit or the finger of God on an area of your life, remember and know there is mercy and forgiveness. The same analogy I used at the beginning can be applied to the reverse– “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18) As if nothing ever happened–but that involves the humility to go to Him and admit you need Him–there is only forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

This is repentance.

Be encouraged.