SCARLET

Today's reading: Isaiah 1-6

"Come now, let us argue this out, says the Lord. No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if your are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool." Isaiah 1:18 NLT

If you've been in the church for any length of time, like me, your preferred word for crimson is 'scarlet'. It's what is used in the King James Version, it's what used in hymns, it's what's been referred to by a whole lot of pastors.

Scarlet. 

I found out a very interesting fact about 'scarlet' this week while listening to a Bible teaching podcast...

Scarlet was a color in ancient time that could not be bleached out, washed out or changed by the addition of another color.

Once it was scarlet fabric, it remained scarlet fabric.

No bleaching agent could lighten it. No addition of blue could turn it to a lovely purple. 

So, for God to speak through Isaiah and mention the scarlet stain of sin--and the ability of God to make a scarlet-stained life as white as wool, people had to notice.

Their ears had to perk up.

Their interest had to have been peaked.

And for us today? Well, while we don't deal with the fabric dying process, we deal with the effects of sins--the guilt, the shame, the consequences, the weight, the penalty.

Allow God's loving touch to change your stained heart and make it as white as wool.