The Story of Salvation from a Thistle

You may or may not know what a thistle is. For those who don’t know, it is a stalky plant with fingered leaves alternating up the stalk with a beautiful, purple, pom-pom type blossom that pops out at the tips of the stalks.  What makes it so unique is the fact that almost every inch of the plant is covered in thorns and spiny prickles.  It hurts like the devil if you brush up against one or grab it by mistake.  I watched my grandfather, who was a farmer, walk his fields with a special tool and a five-gallon bucket digging the things up because nothing could eat them and even though they are native, they could become invasive and quite a nuisance to livestock.  They are beautiful and happen to be a host plant to several species of butterflies who lay their eggs on them for protection.

My friend Deann, who does most of our children’s sermons, told me what she was going to do on this particular Sunday and had a picture of a thistle to show.  I told her she needed the real thing.  I knew that they popped up all along my country road in the spring, so I went in search of one for her object lesson.  I found one earlier in the week on the side of the road.  Friday evening, my hubby and I went to dig it up.  Planted it in a bucket so we could handle it and the darn thing just died within 24 hours.  Sunday morning, we were digging up another on the way to church. 

Well, where is the salvation in all of this?  The Bible tells us that the glory of God is revealed to us in nature and a thistle plant is surely part of Nature.  Deann began by showing a photo of a beautiful thistle bloom.  Then she pulled out the bucket with the real plant.  Sin is like the bloom, all fun and nice looking to begin with.  But, when you embrace that sin, you find out real fast that it’s not all beautiful and fun.  Sin is full of thorns and prickles and once you get wrapped up in sin, its hard to get all of those thorns and prickles out. What looks pretty and inviting to begin with may not be what God wants you to be involved in.  Deann revealed to us that she had never seen a thistle bloom because when both of us were growing up, they got dug up as quickly as possible.  They were never allowed to bloom. That’s exactly what we should do when we are tempted with sin.  Dig it up and get rid of it.  Remove the temptation or remove ourselves from the temptation.  Sin will always be around.  You have to protect yourself from it by staying away from it and or learning how to remove it.  Just like the thistle, when you dig out the root of the sin, remove it, and ask for forgiveness, the sin will die.  The best part is, even if you get tangled in sin, no matter how big or small, repenting and asking for forgiveness from God will quickly remove that sin from His memory.  Just like the thistle plant, when you dig out the sin, it will die. 

So, enjoy the beauty that God created and use what you learn to know when its okay to enjoy something and when you need to stay away from it.  God will guide you.  Every.  Single.  Time.

 You can watch Deann’s children’s sermon here.  Choose the 6/9/24 date and fast-forward to the 24:00 min mark. https://www.crestviewbaptistrockingham.org/sermons

If you zoom in on the pictures, you can see all the thorns and prickles.