Isaiah 1:18 "Come, sit down. Let's argue this out." This is God's Message. "If your sins are blood red, they'll be snow-white. If they're red like crimson, they'll be like wool. (The Message)
According to a resource, blood red (scarlet) and crimson are shades of red made from the crushed body of an insect. And at that time in history it was the most securely fixed dye known and no launderer could remove it from the cloth.
We now buy dye in little boxes at the grocery store or if we really get into dyeing, we can order dye from various companies on the internet. One company I found sells 16 different types of dyes. Each one a little different. It depends what type of fabric you have or the type of application you will use. You can paint dye on, tub dye, microwave dye or stencil, spray and
squirt dye on. I never realized there was so many ways of dyeing items.
I dyed an article of cloth in my washing machine before and learned the hard way, not all the dye comes out in the final rinse. The article I dyed came out great, just the color I wanted, perfect!! However, because I didn't re-rinse (a 2nd time) the washer after I finished dyeing, my next regular white wash load also came out a little colored. Not so perfect!!
Isaiah is telling us that our sins are like a dye, a stain. And unlike dyes that are permanently ingrained into a product, our sins aren't permanently ingrained in us. God can remove the stain (sin) in one washing. It's gone.
Nancy
