MUDDYPIGGIE!

‘Happy as a Pig in Mud’ by Mr. Simon Woods is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Pigs just love mud!  But there is a reason.  Pigs have no sweat glands.  The average person has 2 million!!  The soles of your feet and the palms of you hand contain more sweat glands than any other part of your body.  One square inch of skin on the palm of your hand may contain as many as three thousand tiny sweat glands. Our sweat glands secrete perspiration when we get hot.  Perspiration is mostly water and as the water evaporates, it cools our skin and helps to regulate our body temperature.                                                                              

Pigs use mud!  Mud keeps them cool when it gets hot outside.  It is pig sunscreen, acting as a barrier against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.  As the mud dries, it also protects them from insects.  Besides, it is just plain fun to wallow in the mud.

But you are not a pig!  In fact, God works overtime to keep you out of the mud.  Mud has become a symbol of sin.  In the beginning, before man disobeyed God, mud was holy.  God made man out of mud, (‘the dust of the earth’).  But after man disobeyed God, what did He say to Adam, the first man?  He said, ‘because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, THE GROUND IS CURSED (the mud) because of you.’ Genesis 3:17. From that day forward, mud became symbolic of sin.  Is it any wonder?  Mud is certainly no longer Holy.  It is full of bacteria, bugs, and who knows what else.  That is why we wash it off our bodies.  But for Jesus, ‘who knew no sin’, the mud is still holy.  That is why He used mud to heal the blind man’s eyes. ‘Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with His saliva, and put it on the blind man’s eyes.’ John 9:6. Using mud to heal a man was another proof to His disciples of who He was!  Only the Son of God, a sinless man, could use mud to heal a man because His mud was the same mud He used to create man in the first place!

Thank God, if you get stuck in the mud, He will come into the mud and pull you out especially if you ask Him to, but sometimes even when you don’t!!!  David, the King of Israel, was stuck in the mud.  He sinned against God big time.  His conscience was really bothering him.  He wrote, ‘My soul is in deep anguish.’ I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.’  He asked God to ‘turn to him, deliver and save him because of Gods unfailing love.’  And what did God do for Him.  ‘He turned to David, heard his cry, and lifted him out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; set his feet on a rock and gave him a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in his mouth, a hymn of praise to God. 
Psalm 40:1-3.

Look at Saul who was later named the Apostle Paul!  He had mud all over him.  He was stuck in it!  In his own words, ‘I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.’ Galatians 1:13. He stood by as they stoned Stephen, a Deacon in the early church.  He was a Roman soldier who, going from house to house, dragged off both men and women who were Christians and put them in prison where they were typically beaten or stoned.  But God saw his heart.  Saul didn’t even know he was stuck in the mud.  He thought he was doing God a favor purging the Christians from Judaism.  As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven blinded him and he fell off his horse, he heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ Who are you, Lord? ’ Saul asked.  
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’  He was blind for three days.  Jesus sent a man named Ananias to place his hands on Saul to retore his sight.  Saul was the man Jesus pulled out of the mud ‘to proclaim His name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.’ Acts 9:3-18.  He is also attributed with writing 13-14 of the books in the New Testament!  

Today there are thousands of testimonies on-line!  I counted 1300 of them on CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) alone!  Many are accompanied by video interviews. (See link below). The stories of God’s intervention in people’s lives are absolutely miraculous and a pleasure to read.  So many, like King David and the Apostle Paul are stuck in the mud of sin.  God loves them all!   And if they ask Him for help or often of His own volition, He ‘lifts them out of their mud and mire, sets them on a rock (which is Christ) and puts a new song in their mouth!’      

But it is far better, as the scripture admonishes us ‘to keep yourself unspotted from the world’, James 1:27 NKJV.  To not get muddy, because sin hurts you and everyone around you and grieves the God who loves you.

STAY OUT OF THE MUD!!!

Link to CBN testimonies:  https://www2.cbn.com/article/not-selected/christian-testimony