Have you ever tangled with a skunk?
Maybe it was your dog, or you simply drove through an area where a skunk has sprayed. It seems like the smell will never go away. You can wash your pet over and over and still you cannot remove the smell! Finally, you have managed to get rid of the offensive odor. Think of all the poor tomatoes whose juice was sacrificed to the cause of eradicating the fetor. You would think the dog would have learned his lesson but given the chance he will do it all over again.
In the skunks defense they are cute as kittens. They have sweet faces and soft fur, but it is impossible to get past the bad odor of the animal to get close enough to be affectionate to it. Plus they carry contagious diseases, viruses and parasites.
That is the way God sees us humans. We are cute little skunks, but because of our stink and sin disease, he couldn’t get close enough to us to have a relationship with us. So, the blood sacrifice was required (Jesus Christ) to get rid of our stinking sin. Now we are cute and cuddly and can have a close relationship with our Lord.
We were a stink in the nostrils of God, and the very best of everything we did were as filthy rags. Think about it, some of us have pretty high opinions of ourselves, but the Bible said, we are, and what we do is as filthy rags! I am so thankful for the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ, so now I am whiter than snow and can have a close relation with my heavenly Father!
As parents we need to teach our children to be careful around things that could leave a permanent stink on them like sin. Teach them to seek the Lord’s forgiveness in prayer and to accept him as their personal Saviour. Then their true beauty can be seen.
We as writers can get our characters into situations that require almost superhuman acts to get out of. This is also true in our real lives!
And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
Isaiah 3:24
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
Isaiah 64:6