Sin Crusher

I have done some scuba diving in the past. I'm no pro. A short (40 ft) lake dive is about my limit. I did dive in the ocean once, looking for a shipwreck, but really was on a wild goose chase. (I think that guy in the Scuba shop "saw us coming"). I drained a tank of air on a bridge dive in Gulf Shores one time as well. I cut my hand on some coral on the bridge pylon and blood started pouring (not really, it just seemed like it). Every shark movie I had ever seen came to mind at that moment.

The deepest recreational divers can go is 130ft when breathing air. To dive deeper, hey mix gases, but only a couple hundred more feet is the limit. The deeper you go, the shorter the time you can stay at that depth. You are actually in the water longer, but not at a constant deep level. The deepest dive recorded was about 1083 feet! Pressure increases when you dive - especially on the air in your lungs. For example, if you take a balloon filled with air at the surface, then drag it down to a depth of ten feet, its volume would become half of what it was at the surface. Think about what your lungs are doing down there. Human divers cannot go deep enough to be crushed though - they would just die because after a certain depth, you just can't breath. (Diving lesson 101 is now over)

I looked it up and the deepest point in the ocean is the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean. It has a maximum depth of 35,840 ft - almost 7 miles. At this depth, the atmospheric pressure is so great that it can crush all the bones in your body and reduce you to nothing!

Ok. What is this all about? Why do I say all this about diving? Micah 7:19 says, "You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!" Before anyone understood atmospheric pressure or even though about recreational diving or submarines, Jesus used a word picture to illustrate his cleaning power over sin. When cast into the bottom of the sea, our sins are crushed to the point of disintegration. Jesus destroys our sin! How alive this becomes when you understand what happens to objects at the bottom of the ocean. The ocean could never crush our sins the way Jesus can though. He obliterates it. A phrase you may have heard "The Sea of Forgetfulness" is not actually in the Bible. But the concept is. The scripture says in Psalm 103:12 that God has put our sins away from us as far as the east is from the west. This is a statement of infinity. Sin is removed as far as possible from us by the sacrifice of Jesus life on the Cross.

Think of that image: God taking your sins under his feet, he tramples over them, they become like dust. These sins are then thrust into the deep, deep ocean. Or as the prophet Jeremiah put it: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34) Thank you Jesus for removing my sins from me and from your remembrance. I am grateful and yours.