My wife and I had a very long honeymoon; I mean for lots of years. Our honeymoon was in its early years when we got some very scary news. The doctor said that my wife might have a very serious disease. She had a routine physical for her job, and the chest x-rays revealed some suspicious dark spots on her lung. We got that report on a Friday, and we had to wait until Monday to get the final results. It might have been one of the longest weekends of our lives!
When the doctor met with my wife on Monday, he wanted to talk about chickens and farms and growing up in the Midwest. He asked her if any of these things had been a part of her childhood. Well, actually they had, and that explained the spots; a childhood disease they call histoplasmosis. It tends to occur in kids who grow up on Midwestern farms where they breathe the bacteria left by chickens. And what they were looking at on her lungs was the scars left over from that illness.
I knew how serious those dark spots could be. When my father was a young man, he had similar x-rays and they revealed what really was tuberculosis. And from my Dad, that meant two long years in a hospital to save his life and beat that disease. An x-ray can reveal some very bad news, but facing those dark spots can start the healing and it could even save your life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Deadly Dark Spots in Your Soul."
God does x-rays. Actually, heart x-rays; pictures of what's going on inside the deepest parts of you. One of those x-rays is in our word for today from the Word of God beginning in Mark 7:20. He says, "What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. So from within, out of men's hearts, come (now there's a list here, and we're all in here somewhere) evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly."
Those are dark spots in the human heart where none of our family or friends or coworkers can see, but God sees. If God illuminated your x-ray or mine to show us what He's found, we might very well see some dark spots on our souls. Of course, the darkness inside doesn't stay inside. It keeps spilling out on the people we love doesn't it? And according to the Bible, those dark spots inside us are the symptoms of a disease that will ultimately kill us. It's called sin; spiritual cancer. That's ignoring God. It's you running your life instead of God running your life. It's hijacking your life from your Creator.
The Bible says, "Sin, when it is finished gives birth to death." It's the death of an eternal separation from our God. The x-rays from God would say "hopeless" except for one incredible hope-giving word - Savior. There's only one name that goes with that title - Jesus.
Here's the amazing cure for our deadly eternal soul disease. It's in 1 John 1:7 of the Bible, "The blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from all sin." That's the possibility of having those dark spots on your soul removed, of having your sin washed away. It's all wrapped up in Jesus shedding His blood on the cross to remove this awful curse. The cure is expensive. Not for you, but for Jesus. It cost Him everything and that cure becomes yours the moment you put all your trust in Jesus to be your personal Rescuer from your personal sin.
You tired of the dark spots and what they're doing to you and doing to others? If you believe your Creator's diagnosis and if you want to escape the death penalty for that diagnosis, then it's time to open your heart to Jesus to become not just the Savior of the world, but the Savior of you.
There's wonderful information I'd love to give you at our website so you can be sure you have begun your relationship with the only One who can save you from your sin. That website is ANewStory.com.
There's no reason to carry the death sentence of that disease of sin one more day, because Jesus is waiting right now to trade that for eternal life.