Purging – It’s Better than Tide! | Reformers Unanimous Blog

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged; and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. Proverbs 16:6

Mercy and truth produce the power to purge us from our sins. I have no doubt that everybody has a sin problem. We may have tried to get rid of our sin on our own, but it is impossible apart from the mercy and truth of God that we could ever give up that sin which doth so easily beset us. When the Bible talks about purging, the word means “to clean out, or to remove, or to take away.” If you are old enough, you probably remember the Fuller Brush man. A fuller was a man or woman who washed clothes for a living. The process of cleaning clothes was called purging. The bottom line of purging was the removal of the dirt. What the Bible is saying here is that mercy and truth together is like a fantastic detergent. It removes the dirt out of our lives and makes us clean and white in our garments for God.

When Solomon was inspired to write this verse of Scripture, I wonder if he thought of his father. In his confession in Psalm 51, David talked about God’s mercy and truth and about being purged from his sins. In 1946, Proctor and Gamble introduced a new laundry detergent. They had perfected a combination of ingredients that would get almost any stain out of clothing. Within three months, Tide was outselling every other brand on the market, and today it remains the best-selling laundry product in the world. But, the best laundry detergent in the world cannot remove the stain of sin. It takes the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son. That is the process David describes in Psalm 51.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of they tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:1, 2 & 7

If you have iniquity in your heart–unconfessed sin before God–then God sees you as dirty. Your life is sullied by the sin. How can it be purged from your iniquity? The Bible says that purging from iniquity comes through the blood, but it comes as God dispenses it in mercy and in truth.