Break The Cycle Of Spiritual Osmosis

1 Corinthians 15:33

(God’s Word Translation)

Don't let anyone deceive you. Associating with bad people will ruin decent people.

(New Living Translation)

Don't be fooled by those who say such things, for "bad company corrupts good character.”

(International Standard Version)

Stop being deceived: "Wicked friends lead to evil ends."

1. Osmosis

Egg Osmosis

Osmosis is the process by which water enters our tissues. All of our cells are surrounded by a membrane that selectively allows in anything the cell needs but prevents unwanted molecules from entering. Weigh the uncooked eggs and carefully place them into a large glass of vinegar, cover and leave for 2 days. It might start to look a bit like beer but please don't drink the liquid, its not nice!

Remove the eggs and rinse gently under the tap. All of the shell should be gone by now (you can wipe off little bits still left over). Weigh the egg again. You need to be really careful with the egg now as it is still raw and if you burst the outer skin, it will make a big mess. Put some of the eggs in corn syrup and some in water. Leave overnight, rinse and weigh again. (If you have no scales you can look at the egg and record any differences that way!) Try adding some food coloring to the water and see what happens.

If you now put the egg in water, it will grow in size a lot more due to the much larger water concentration gradient across the membrane. If you add food coloring to the water you can see the process of osmosis in action as the colored water passes into the egg. Water is known as hypotonic, ie. very dilute and contains more water than the egg.

If instead you place the vinegar soaked egg in corn syrup you will see the opposite. There is a much higher water concentration in the egg than in the syrup so water will pass in the opposite direction. This means that the egg will shrink in size. The corn syrup is a hypertonic liquid, ie. very concentrated with not much water compared to the egg.

Spiritual Application

1 Corinthians 15:33 (God’s Word Translation)

Don't let anyone deceive you. Associating with bad people will ruin decent people.

The Bible gives us a good indication about the effects of associating with what is called “bad people”. Some kind of Osmosis happens.

You know (reverse) Osmosis can be used as a scam to sell you water filtration systems. Sales people from various water purifier companies of late are making use of a so called “Precipitator” or Jam Jar Purity Test to supposedly prove that all water except for the water produced via their purification equipment, is impure and subsequently unsafe for human consumption.

The fact is that is possible to purify water using a reverse osmosis system (RO) has very little or no minerals present in the water, thus the water will not conduct electricity and the precipitation will not result. So normal tap water with minerals in it seams to be dirty and water “purified” by reverse osmosis looks crystal clear.

Well let me tell you that coming to Church will produce spiritual purification in your life in the measure that you associate with Jesus Christ and with men and women of God

Acts 4:13 (ISV)

Now when the Jewish leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John and found out that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and realized that they had been with Jesus.

2. Empathy

Now let’s use another difficult word... Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. Empathy is an ability with many different definitions.

Showing Empathy

To show empathy is to identify with another's feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of another. The ability to empathize is directly dependent on your ability to feel your own feelings and identify them.

Acts 5:1-2 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With HIS WIFE’S FULL KNOWLEDGE he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

We see in Scripture that one couple, even though outwardly they seemed GENUINE and GENEROUS, in the real sense, they still struggled with issues…yes, money issues. While it’s true the land belonged to Ananias, when he had made up his mind to sell it, it was a pledge he had made unto the Lord. But when in reality the money transaction was sealed, he felt as if he had made a raw deal. God will understand, I can only imagine him thinking as he kept some of the money for himself. But here is the problem. His wife, Sapphira never tried to convince him otherwise. Of course, she had the opportunity to SPEAK UP, but she preferred to KEEP SILENT and go along with his game. What she didn’t know was she was about to pay a VERY HIGH PRICE not for her direct sin, but for the SIN OF ASSOCIATION.