Pearls and Sin

THE rescue mission is an interesting place. There you see men and women dressed in rags, some drunk, some with scarred faces, and some unable to walk. On this color balance scale, you might consider them to be the dark grays and dirty brown. The reason why they are so terrible looking is because of sin. They have gone deep down into sin, and it has left its marks upon them. Just as soon as you look at them you know they are sinners.

There are other people who do not look like sinners, beautiful and gracious ladies, men who are kind and generous and who seem to be perfect gentlemen.  You might place them as the light gray or almost white on this color balance scale.  They do not appear to be sinners like these others; but that is looking at them from the outside only. We cannot see their hearts. Only God can see hearts, and He has told us in His Word secrets about people that we would never guess from looking at the outside.

Here is a pearl in a shell.  What color is it? White, you say? Now look at the white background. The pearl does not look so white now, does it? For now you have the whiter background to look at, and the pearl - as beautiful as it is - seems to be almost a dirty yellow! That is the way with sin. We speak of little sins and big sins. Some people even talk about “little white lies.” That is because they do not realize the holiness of God.


Adapted From: Donald Grey Barnhouse. “Teaching the Word of Truth.”