The Cure

TITLE: The Cure
DATE: January 11, 2019
TEXT: Mt 11: 2-6 (ESV) - 2Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepersa are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

​The news article said that Jennie-O was recalling more than 164,000 pounds of ground turkey. Now Pamela and I usually buy our turkeys in the 18--to-24 lb. range. So, if my calculations are correct Jennie-O is recalling 8,200 of my Thanksgiving turkeys.

I don’t know how many cubic feet would be taken up by 8,200 turkeys, but I know that I wouldn’t be able to get them all into my Buick.

The news article said that Jennie-O was recalling more the 164,000 pounds of ground turkey because people were getting sick from salmonella poisoning. Now I didn’t know much about salmonella, so I looked that up, too. The internet said salmonella poisoning is really nasty but most people get well  on their own, only a few have to be hospitalized and far fewer die from the illness.

That agreed with the facts I had been told.

But just how big is the salmonella bacteria? I looked that up too…. And I still don’t know. They gave me all kinds of information using symbols I never had seen before. The best I could do is say: the salmonella bacterium is v-e-r-y small and weighs v-e-r-y little.

So, in summary, here’s what the article said:
SOMETHING UNSEEABLE HAS CORRUPTED SOMETHING VERY BIG AND THE END RESULT IS PEOPLE ARE GETTING VERY SICK.

Like sin.

Think about it. Adam and Eve were living in the perfection of the Garden of Eden. The snake comes in and through him the devil conveys an encouragement to sin. It wasn’t a big sin as far as people measure sin nowadays. No one was murdered; nobody had their nest egg stolen; nobody was tricked.
The first sin was one bite by Eve; one bite by Adam.

But what a change those nibbles introduced into the world. Indeed, the entire universe was sickened. Sorrow, sadness sickness; pain, problems, pestilence, plague and death. That which had once been very good, no longer was.

Like the salmonella bacteria, sin had made a change for the worse.

The greatest difference between salmonella and sin is people usually get better from their bouts with salmonella. That is not the situation with sin. Scripture is clear: the wages of sin is death; it is plain when it relates the soul which sins will die; the wages of sin is death; there is not a just man on the earth who always does good and never sins.

No sin has corrupted this planet and us as well. Which is why we need a Savior. We need a Savior Who is powerful enough to defeat death with a call and send Satan back to his home turf. We need a Savior, Who can put things right.
Which is why we need Jesus. Thank God we have Him, ‘

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I give thanks for a Savior Who has done all which was necessary to conquer my sins and give me salvation May others soon know of what He has done to save them from their transgressions. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Today’s devotion was inspired by various articles, amongst which is the one written by .the AP for MPR on  editors for Newser on December 23, 2018  Those who wish may check out this link which was, at the time of writing, fully active: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/12/23/jennieo-recalls-more-than-164000-pounds-of-ground-turkey

The music which introduces and concludes our devotions was written by Guy Baumann, one of my long-ago confirmands. He is singing with three brothers. This song comes from the album: The Baumann Brothers which may be ordered here: http://thebaumannbrothers.com/index.html