Have you ever poked a hole in a lemon and sucked the juice out?  Before you read the rest of this you might wanna go give it a try.  It will make you seriously appreciate a strawberry.
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Life is sour.  We can be injured and hundreds of thousands of ways.  And if you let it happen, you can develop a serious distaste for waking up in the morning.

To counteract the natural horror of this place, man has developed a multitude of additives.  If applied correctly, any man may experience a rather pleasant life.

In the end, however, we face the greatest horror of all.  The effectiveness of our additives comes to an abrupt end.  We say we don’t care.  We may wear the additive of “I’m strong enough to deal with it.”  But there will be no dealing with death.

We make plans for a pleasant casket.  Gold handles, mahogany wood, polished stainless steel trim, and fancy white satin, make a real nice last house.  But getting into that sucker is no pleasant task at all.  And once we’re there we have left behind another need for additives.  Nevermind.  You’ll deal with that later.

There is another place where additives are well applied.  And apparently they have some great success in dulling down the sour.  But just as in the rest of life, they do not change reality.  They only change our perception.  And in society, perception is everything.  Just ask Hollywood.

To make sure we’re all on board, please allow me to give you a short tour of some additives.  I don’t have time to write them all, and no one would take the time to read that list.  So I’ll just pick a few at random.

1. Easter has more to do with a bunnies and eggs and candy than the living God raised from the dead.  But it’s not appropriate to talk about such things outside of the church building.

2. If you leave a Bible on conspicuous display people will consider you a good man or woman.  You don’t need to have a clue what’s in it.

3. If you get dressed up real nice, put on a sweet face, talk pleasantly about inconsequential things, and be completely cordial when you go to church, you don’t need to consider the state of your soul or your relationship with the living God.

(I realize that’s a very long sentence.  You can’t see it, but I wear a big sign on my back that says, “Does not play well with others”.)

Water it down.  Water it down!  Water it down, until the gospel has no apparent effect on anyone.  Keep using additives to mask the truth!  We’ll deal with all that when we have gotten into that very tight casket.

Go ahead!  Water down the Lord Jesus Christ!  But the Lord is a consuming fire that no Fire Department in the universe can put out.  But by all means, go ahead and water it down.

By His Grace