By Rick Liggin
Two active young brothers were in the bathtub together, supposedly getting their bath. But like most young boys, these two were more interested in playing in the water than they were in washing their bodies. They had the rub filled with toys of every kind—plastic boats and bottles and cups; toy soldiers and little cars— all kinds of toys, so that they’d have something to play with in the water.
One of the boys, feeling an unknown slippery object under the water, picked it up to see what it was. It was just a bar of soap, an unwanted item, and so he threw it out of the tub onto the floor. His comment as he discarded the soap was, “It’s only soap; we don’t need that.”
“Now, hang on a minute,” you say. “I thought they were in the bathtub…to get a bath!” Yes, that’s true. “Well, isn’t soap pretty essential to getting a bath?” Yes! “So, didn’t they discard the very thing they needed the most?” That’s right! “How silly,” you say! And you’d be right!
But isn’t that exactly what we sometimes do when it comes to listening to the Word of God taught? We sometimes discard the very thing from a Bible lesson that is most important to our lives. While the preacher was preaching or the Bible class teacher was teaching, have you ever caught yourself thinking, “Boy, he sure is giving it to brother Jones over there”? If you’ve been guilty of this (as most of us probably have been at one time or another), chances are that you discarded something in the lesson that may have been applicable to you—you may have tossed out the most important “soap”.
Whenever we listen to God’s Word taught, we need to be aware of our personal responsibility to the one doing the teaching. With every sermon that is preached or lesson that is taught, we need to pay close attention and try to get something out of it that will apply to us. We need to listen to every lesson as if it were pointed directly at us. Every Christian needs to find in every sermon the things that apply to him or her and become a doer of the Word—because: “one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25).
Throwing out the soap may be kind of funny when it comes to two boys in a bathtub, but it’s sure not funny when the “soap” is God’s Word. Don’t you dare become guilty of discarding the “soap”—of ignoring an important application of Bible teaching to your own life! You may be discarding the very thing you need the most!
This bulletin is being published for the purpose of encouraging a further study of the Word of God. Editor – Josh Liggin
Want to get into touch check out our Contact Us page