Vomit...Hmmm....Tasty?!

This is not a cheddar broccoli soup. This was potato soup. The cream stuff on the side is what it should look like, not yellowish-orange.

I like my mom's potato soup recipe. 10lbs potatoes (peeled; if I'm using yukon gold I scrub and leave the skins on), a clump of celery, 2 yellow onion, celery seed, salt. Chop up the potatoes, celery, onion into the pot. Fill pot with water till just over the vegies (say 1"). Bring to a boil then simmer until done (potatoes cooked, celery cooked). Season to taste with the salt and celery seed (be very careful how much celery seed goes in). It will thicken in a day. Makes a wonderful soup for the winter months.

The stuff above I'll have to admit sat on the counter for 3-4 days before I decided to wash out the pot upon whence I discovered the illustrated predicament...and smelled it too.

Contrast the above situation to the following picture. Looks good, tastes good, is good; completely opposite the stuff pictured above.

While not potato soup (chili really), this soup is none-the-less very good, wholesome, healthy. Smells oh so so good, the smell fills the apartment. Tastes even better! Oh so tasty and good.

Do you have a mental picture of each in your head? Imagine the taste of each permiating your mouth. Imagine the smell working its way up your nostrils, into your nasal cavity and tingling the recepters. Imagine the texture of each on your tongue. Imagine swallowing...do you swallow each with the same ease? Are you gagging on the first? How is your body reacting to the yellowish putrid slime?

These two substances in the pot could not be more opposite. I would like to propose that such is the relationship of sin to what God wishes for each of us, a Christlike character...only the contrast is even more pungent. The distastefullness, the putridness of sin is far worse than my forgotten potato soup and a taste of Christ's character is far more excellant than any chef, amateur or professional, could create.

Just a couple passages:

Proverbs 26:11 "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly."

But for God's grace each and everyday, this would the natural result of human efforts to be free.

Unfortunately many times we choose the slime, thinking it is good. I've done it. But what is it really? I have had a cut on my foot that got infected. As a result I have had a glass sitting on my computer table containing a mixture of bleech and water with which to periodically swab the area. I have left the glass there for about a week now. Multiple times I have almost instinctively reached for the glass to take a drink. It looks like water, doesn't smell and my mouth tingles for the moisture even though I know what it is. The problem is, if I followed that impulse, I would be drinking poison. Such is sin.


Isaiah 28:7 "But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 28:8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:'

If I may be granted a little illustrative leeway in the above passage: equate the wine here to sin given that we know fermentation is a Biblical representation of sin and given the description we know that this is fermented wine (fermented grape juice). If I may ask - could we see here illustrated not only some of the effects of sin (spiritual effect) but also how to effectively counter it? Sin, one could say, is spiritual intoxication (among other things it dulls the mind and will and enslaves dragging the consumer to destruction) and the only effective counter is to saturate the mind with the Word, here a little and there a little - a fortress is build stone by stone, brick by brick. Saturating the mind with the sweet savor of Christ's character of which we learn of in His Word is the only effective counter to sin. Which do you want? The indulgence of a moment or Christ