Infinite, eternal and unchangeable

In holiness

The symptoms of smallpox

Symptoms of smallpox

• Smallpox was a killer - about a third of all those who caught the disease died from it.

• About 500 million people died as a result of smallpox infection in the 20th century.

• It was known as the ‘pox’ or ‘the red plague.’• The last case of smallpox was identified on the

26th October 1977.

A scientist working with a dangerous virus

• The smallpox virus is known to have been kept in two locations.

The Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta – one of the two registered locations of remaining smallpox on earth.

The other location is

• Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Russia.

• It is so secret that there are no pictures of it on the internet!

Scientists accessing smallpox work at Biological Hazard Safety level 4

• They use a positive pressure personnel suit, with its own air supply.

• The entrance and exit of a level four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard.

• Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time.

• All air and water service going to and coming from a biosafety level 4 (or P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.

• Scientists predict that there would be a huge epidemic of smallpox if this virus was released.

• Imagine how you would feel if a terrorist was threatening to release this virus.

That is something like how God feels when confronted by sin.That is something like what it means to be holy.

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong (Habakkuk 1:13)

• Sin is a killer.• So far 100% of infected people have died.• It leaves eternal scars which deteriorate for ever.• God’s holiness means that he cannot allow sin to

go unpunished – he cannot tolerate it or make a truce with it.

• God’s holiness means he cannot ultimately allow sin to continue to contaminate his good creation.

God is • infinitely holy;• eternally holy;• unchangeably holy.Is it therefore totally hopeless because we are

all sinners and God is so holy?

• The terrible disease of smallpox was eradicated from the world by people being voluntarily injected with a similar but much less harmful virus called cowpox.

• God has provided a cure for sin not by taking something similar to sin into himself … but by actually taking the sin of all his people into himself.

• After the discovery of vaccination to be safe from the disease you had to trust the doctor to give you the right injection.

• Will you receive the cure for sin?

• Will you trust yourself to the only doctor for sin?