The Color Black

Yesterday, I was thinking of how the Black Plague (or Black Death) reminds me of the color 'Black' of the wordless book colors. If you don't know the story of the Black Plague, it was a terrible event that started in 1347, when ships came into a port at Messina, Italy. When the ships were opened, most of the sailors were dead and were covered with black boils on their bodies. Those who survived were very sick and in a lot of pain. What happened next was so horrible. This Black Plague, also known as Black Death, spread throughout the continent of Europe. Within 5 years, 1/3 of Europe's people died because of this 'Black Plague'. The Black Plague killed people as the disease entered their bodies. We call this physical death. But there is a part of people (human beings) that is invisible, but will live on forever. It is called our 'spirit'. With human beings, they are made up of a physical body that can be seen, and a spiritual body that can't be seen. Just as the Black Plague caused many to die physically, there is a kind of spiritual 'Black Plague' that affects every human being who has been born. It is called, 'sin'. We talk about sin and its affects on us but we don't really understand that, according to the Bible, sin kills us. Sin is like a disease. The devil is our Enemy and he will try to tempt us to sin, because he knows that sin will kill us. When we sin, we don't necessarily feel like we died. It is a tricky thing. Not only does sin kill us, but God will also punish sin in the end. Every person on earth is affected by sin. What is sin? Sin is the bad things that we do, but it is also so much more. We sin because we are sinners. We are born with a sinful heart. A sinful heart looks selfish and prideful. As we begin to develop in life, we can see more and more sin in our own hearts. As we grow up, we love ourselves more and more, and we love other people less and less. We don't love God because our darkened hearts cannot see Him and we don't know Him. The root of sin is in all of our hearts. It must be taken care of. How did this all happen, you might ask? Why was I born with a sinful heart? It goes back to the Bible in Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, we see how God created man and woman, and took good care of them. God was good to them and loved them. They were not born with sinful hearts. But one day, the devil played a trick on Eve, who was the first woman God made. The devil was angry with God because he tried to be more powerful than God and was filled with pride. He wanted to take over the world and he sinned by trying to take God's place on the throne. After the devil did this, God threw him down to earth. Now the devil was roaming the earth and he planned to ensnare human beings into rebelling against God. The devil was successful. God told Adam and Eve that they were not to eat fruit from a certain tree in the Garden of Eden. There were many, many, many trees and plants Adam and Eve could have eaten from, but the devil went up to Eve one day and lied to her. He tricked her into eating the fruit from the tree that God told them not to eat from. When God came down to see what happened, He pronounced a curse on the devil, on Adam and Eve. The earth was cursed as well and was not going to bring forth all the beautiful fruit and vegetation that it once did. Things would never be the same. Since then, sin has been a big issue and a lot of people have been hurting each other. Now we have sickness and disease, war and famines. All kinds of bad things have happened since Eve took the fruit off the tree at the devil's recommendation. Now our spiritual hearts are filled with the disease of sin. It results in our being selfish and wanting to control others. It makes us hateful and mean. It makes us so we hate authority. It makes us angry with God, for we want to call the shots and get what we want instead of what God wants for us. It makes us so that we don't trust God. It makes us so we don't believe God is good and will be good to us. The wordless color black reminds us of sin. Sin is the ugly things we do, especially to others. But the good news is that we can have a cleansed heart. We can actually have a new heart. God sent Jesus, His son to us, 2,000 years ago. Jesus lived a perfect life. He never sinned. But He came to pay the penalty for our sins. When Jesus died, all of our sins were placed upon Him. God the Father punished Jesus for our sins. Now we can go free. We can be sin free because of what Jesus did for us! Jesus died and was buried. But three days later, He came back to life. He stayed on earth for about 40 days then went back into heaven to be with His Father. We can have our hearts cleansed from sin. But we must turn away from sin, and trust in what Jesus did for us on the Cross, 2,000 years ago. God will cleanse our dirty hearts, and He will also give us a new heart with new desires. Jesus death was powerful enough to cleanse every sinner from their sins. '...the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.." 1 John 1:7 My heart was dark with sin, Until the Savior came in. His precious blood, I know, Has washed me white as snow. And in God's word I'm told, I'll walk the streets of gold. To grow in Christ each day, I read the Bible and pray.

Have you heard of the 10 Commandments?
1. You shall have no other gods before God. (You shall not love anything as much as or more than God).
2. You shall not make any graven images of God. Don't make up a god that you want to believe in. That is called, 'Idolatry'. We are to trust in and hope in God alone.
3. You shall not use God's name in vain. Use God's name only when you are addressing Him or telling others about Him.
4. Keep the Sabbath Day holy. Keep one day a week set aside to spend with God.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not murder. This includes abortion, as well as being angry with people. Murder begins in the heart as anger.
7. You shall not commit adultery. If you are married, stay faithful to your spouse. If you are not married, don't look at people in a lustful, sexual way.
8. You shall not steal. This includes anything. Answers to tests, and downloading things from the Internet that aren't free. Also, taking towels from a hotel you have stayed at. Your friends will know what you have done when they see the Holiday Inn towels in your bathrooms.
9. You shall not bear false witness. This is telling things that are not true. It is a form of lying.
10. You shall not covet. coveting involves wanting to have something badly. Whatever it is that you want, it is more important to you than God is.
Have you kept the 10 Commandments? If you gave yourself a score on your ability to keep them 24/7, how would you score? Anything less than 100% means you have failed the test! Go to http://thegospelconversation.blogspot.com for more info.
Here is a video of a no-fail card trick that talks about the 10 Commandments. Watch and Enjoy! (You might have to turn the sound up. It is hard to hear!).

New-Bible Lessons For Children and Answers

For those of you interested in learning more about the Gospel from the Bible, you can go to the lesson page and read the lesson. Don't forget to go to the lesson question page. You can print out the questions and fill in the blanks. Once you are finished, go to the lesson answers page to see how many you got correct. Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer! If you got all 10 correct, you get 100%! Congratulations.
  There is a color print-out too, on some of the lesson pages. Go to the link page and print out the picture to color.
   Don't feel silly if you are an adult and would like to do these short lessons. They are made for everyone. They are short and easy to understand. Here are a couple of other web pages with the Gospel message: The Gospel Conversation   and  The Good Person Test Page