Sin Exterminator: 100% Success!

A couple nights ago I was startled during dinner by Laura's scream behind my back.  Laura had been baking cookies in the kitchen.  I didn't have to turn around because she ran to her chair at the table and sat down, her hands still covered with oven mitts.  Let me preface this by saying our kitchen and house is clean, is situated on a concrete slab, and I usually spray for insects once a month.  Yet despite our precautions, apparently a large cockroach had crawled into a drawer under the oven reserved for cutting-boards and Glad plastic containers and lids.  "And so what do you want me to do?" I asked.  But I already knew the answer.  It was time to wage war on the rogue insect!

I was admittedly reluctant in emptying the drawer.  The last thing I was interested in while my food cooled on the table was to be surprised by some bug dropping onto me.  As I continued to remove item after item, soon the roach was spied by Abel crawling across the baseboards and squeezed behind the dishwasher.  It was very large, very dark, and probably the most athletic specimen I have ever seen.  The legs looked...muscular!  I began to spray all around the dishwasher, scooting it from side to side and spraying as much pesticide far back as possible.  Then we all waited and waited.  I finished off my cold chicken and turned on the TV to see if any sport was on.  Now comes the funniest part of the story.

About five minutes later I heard an all too familiar shriek from the kitchen.  As my head whipped around to see,  Laura ran like a world-class sprinter out of the kitchen, spiked her oven mitts to the ground, and darted into the lounge room!  I walk over to see that our large muscular friend had made his grand exit from the dishwasher.  It was rather anticlimactic, seeing he was nearly dead from fumes.  I applied a generous amount of poison directly, just to ensure he would trouble us no more.  During the cleanup phase, our family talked about how a random roach is way better than some other critters that can take up residence without permission in a home.

The hardest thing in that situation was not knowing how many roaches we were dealing with.  I had the horrible thought:  what if when I move the dishwasher 20, 50, 100 of those suckers start running around?  Would I be able to kill them all?  I didn't think there was a single roach in our house - could there possible be more than one?  I remember a "playhouse" my dad had built for me and my siblings when we were kids.  If my mind serves me correctly it was built on an 8 X 8 foot platform.  When the day came for the house to be demolished, my dad lifted and flipped over the base.  Nothing could have prepared us for what was living underneath the house!  There was a literal 8 X 8 foot square of cockroaches which began to scatter in all directions!  I think my mom started tromping them; I started running away from them!  They slowly disappeared into the turf.  That was one of the most wild insect surprises of my life.

When we think about addressing sin in our lives, it's not a pretty picture.  Sometimes we don't want to deal with the consequences of our sin.  We don't want to see firsthand how deep our wickedness runs.  But the wondrous beauty of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness we receive through His blood is that we don't need to worry if all our sin has truly been dealt with!  We don't need to live in fear that all our sins have not actually been atoned for.  Christians do not need to fear that perhaps unforgivable sins remain that will keep us out of heaven.  We receive assurance of our forgiveness through God's Word:  1 John 1:9 reads, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

There is the point:  we need to confess our sins.  If our problem with insects were to grow and we hired an exterminator, it would be to our benefit to explain where the cockroaches or ants are most often found.  How silly would it be to hire a man but withhold necessary information!  How ridiculous is it to have a Saviour, a Deliverer, a Forgiver in Jesus Christ, but not freely confess where we need His sanctifying touch.  Even though roaches are relatively harmless, the thought them scrambling over your body is a bad feeling.  How much worse is sin which causes separation from God and leads to death!  Sin must be dealt with, and thank God Jesus Christ has dealt with it once and for all on the cross!  He takes away our guilt, uncleanness, and our worry too.  Let's thank Him by never falling prey to worry again!