THE CHILDREN'S CLEANSING

Maybe we have all known times when we have tried to cover stains or other marks in our clothing so as to hide them from ourselves and keep them out of sight of others. Maybe too that our very efforts have but drawn attention to them! How like the garment of life this is when God is speaking to the conscience. Not long ago handbills were issued offering a new and wonderful fluid for getting stains out of cloth - 'sure to do it, never known to fail'. Perhaps it came up to expectations but, in any case, nothing that human science could produce could ever remove the stain of sins. The stain may be very deep in the texture of the soul but the same holy God who makes us aware of it has Himself provided the remedy - the precious blood of Christ. This gives us the relief of being cleansed and thus only could it be that "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool".

Through the name of Jesus sins committed can become sins remitted. If He has borne them they no longer belong to us. They have been 'sent away'. The type of this in Israel's history was the goat sent into a land far away from mankind, bearing on its head the sins of the whole nation - of children as well as of grown-ups. This had to be repeated every year whereas the sacrifice of Christ was once for all. The apostle John, writing as a father to his children, stressed the joy of being freed from sins by confessing them to God who has been sinned against. It is to our great loss if we do not confess, but God waits in grace. He had to speak against Ephraim who ought to have been a child of delights to Him. But all the time God was watching him and yearning for him, as He does for you.

You will remember that when Jesus had died on the cross His side was pierced and there flowed out water as well as blood. This was a sign that believers would need and should have the means of being purified in motive and thought as well as have a covering for sins. As a hymn-writer has well put it:

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleansing from its guilt and power.

This cleansing acts largely through the word of God in the Scriptures, by daily and family readings and by the Father's discipline. It is the way of holiness. Are you in it?

J.C.Evershed