I once worked in a movie theater snack bar. While I worked there, the 10-second rule was strictly enforced.

I’m pretty sure some of the hot dogs turning on the rack were there before I was hired and continued to spin after I left. One day, one of the ushers knocked a hot dog to the floor and hesitated before picking it up. The manager on duty approved of the dog going back under the heat lamp. But he said, “If you had taken any more time in picking that up, we would have had to change the rule to 20 seconds.”

Sin and Seconds
I often think about the 10-second rule when the subject of sin comes up. Really!

Have you ever wondered about why the Bible talks about everyone being a sinner?

Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That same chapter, verse 10 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”

Maybe you’ve had a friend ask you, or you’ve wondered yourself, if that all can really mean “all.” Especially when you read something like Romans 6:23 that says; “The wages of sin is death.” That’s saying that everyone should be convicted of the death penalty for sin. How can that be?

Sure, maybe someone like Hitler you can call a sinner who’s worthy of the death penalty. Maybe the people on the news convicted of molesting and killing children—someone like that you could call a sinner who should die for their sins. But everyone?

Surely the Bible couldn’t be talking about Gandhi. Or Martin Luther King Jr. Or Steve or Joe, old-school or new-school hosts of “Blue’s Clues.”

What’s the Bible talking about?

Still Dirty
OK, back to the 10-second rule. Maybe you’ve seen “MythBusters” on the Discovery Channel. They’re the guys who take urban legends and test them out to see if they’re true. They had the audacity to take on the 10-second rule to see if it was true. And shock of shocks, they found out it isn’t.

If you drop a potato chip on a dirty, germ-infested floor, it doesn’t matter if it’s there for a second, 10 seconds or 10 minutes. Once it touches the floor, it’s dirty. Sure, it might seem less nasty to eat the Ho-Ho that has only been on the dirty floor for a second than the one that’s been resting through a couple of songs on the iPod, but it really doesn’t matter.

Imagine someone you love is in for surgery. All the instruments have been carefully scrubbed and sterilized. The surgeon is about to begin the operation. Then she drops the scalpel; says, “10-second rule”; picks the scalpel up off the floor; and cuts right in. That wouldn’t inspire confidence, and it very might well lead to a nasty, perhaps deadly, infection.

Sin is like that. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve sinned a little or a lot. Any sin makes us impure before a holy God, just as a surgical instrument exposed to a little or a lot of filth is unfit for use.

A lie to your parents, an insult to that annoying guy in your science class or shoplifting gum from a store: it’s all sin. Certainly, Adolf Hitler did worse things than you’ve ever done. I’ve probably done worse things than you’ve done. But any sin, big or small, separates us from God.

That’s what real death is. That’s what hell is. Separation from God.

But fortunately, there’s more to Romans 6:23 than I quoted before, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When you’re tempted to think, You know, I’m not so bad compared to . . . ” just remember the 10-second rule.