Remember You Are Dust

Today is Ash Wednesday on the Christian Year cycle. A number of Christian group gather for worship for the beginning of Lent. The actual word lent comes from Latin, ver which refers primarily to spring. However, the term as used in church is time of  preparation for the coming focus on Jesus' sufferings and death and the glory of his resurrection.  Even if you do not observe Lent with fasting and self-reflection the ritual of Ash Wednesday brings before us some vital Biblical truths. Primarily the mark of ash on the forehead carries the truth of our mortality and the need for ongoing repentance in our lives. This podcast looks at the trail of ashes in the Biblical story.

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Psalms 119:105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Transcript

Title:  Remember You Are Dust

Date: February 18, 2026

Scripture: Genesis 3:17-19; Psalm 103:14

AI TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. 

Today's topic, remember you are dust. Today is Ash Wednesday. Now not all Christian groups celebrate Ash Wednesday. In fact, my own do not ordinarily as a routine matter do that.

And yet it is a good practice in many ways to have a time when we go with other believers and recognize before God our state of being mortal beings and that we are a people who are called by God to, in humility, confess our sins and to be repentant in our life. So, I want to share with you the meaning, a biblical meaning, that can be and should be behind an Ash Wednesday, I hate to call it a celebration, but an Ash Wednesday gathering or practice. Now, basically what it is that Christians gather to receive the placement of ashes on their forehead. and to offer prayers unto God. And it has a very biblical basis, not necessarily the practice itself, but what it means.

Remember you are dust. I did a Bible research about dust and ashes. and his connection to humanity. It's amazing what you can discover when you just open up the Bible and start looking up the words. We first meet the whole concept in Genesis. Genesis chapter two and verse seven says that the Lord God, this Yahweh, Elohim, Yahweh, the true and living God, formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature. So, God, with his own hands as it were, took some of the dirt and formed it into the shape of what we call a man, a human, and then he breathed into it the breath of life and man became a living soul, a living creature. That's a creation.

But Genesis 319, this is after the fall, because you know what happened right before this, is that Adam, in deliberate disobedience to God's command, partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And in this rebellious act, he plunged himself and all of his descendants into sin, into the fall and the curse that was pronounced upon him.

This is what God spoke to Adam in the curse recorded in Genesis 3.19. Part of what he said.

At the end he says, by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, that's food, till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And that's the very words that's used in the ceremony of Ash Wednesday. So, when one goes forth to receive from the minister of the word, the ashes, he says to him, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

So, it's telling us to remember that we are creatures made in the image of God originally, but that we are fallen creatures and that we have now a mortal life, that is a life that is subject to sure and certain death. Unless Christ comes again, all living now up until that moment will die. In other words, it's only the intervention of Christ, and then even then, we're changed, if we're believers, changed in the blink of an eye for mortal immortality. So, in a way, even then, the old dies and the new comes.

So, the imposition of the dust, the ashes, remind us that we're dust and that to dust we shall return. It's often appropriate at the burial service, that that's some of the last words that are said, is the body is lured into the ground or disposed of in some other way, such as cremation.

Even in Genesis, again, Abraham gave voice to this. Abraham answered in Genesis 18, when he and the angel of the Lord the pre-incarnate Christ are speaking. He says, behold, I've undertaken to speak to the Lord, the Adonai, I who am but dust and ashes.

That's where that expression comes from. And so, it's a recognition of our mortality. And then I turned to the book of Psalms and there, very often, let me just run through some verses with you. Psalm 90, verse three. You return man to dust and say, return, O children of man, O children of Adam. You return man to dust. So, the Psalmist, which Moses is speaking, and he says to Yahweh, you say to us, return, O children of man, you return man to dust. And this is what you say, return to what you were. or Psalm 22, which is a messianic psalm, in which the words that this person in Psalm 22 speak foretell the Lord Jesus Christ and his agony on the cross. And here are some of the words of the messianic prophetic psalm of the prayer. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death.

All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Remember, it's under this agony that Christ cries out, I thirst. Psalm 103. Again, says, for he knows our frame, speaking of God, he remembers that we are dust. We need to remember that we're mortal, that we're dust. Psalm 104, 29, speaking about God, says, when you hide your face, they are dismayed, people. When you take away their breath, they die in return to their dust.

And if I turn from the book of Psalms into the book of Job, now Job and Ecclesiastes, both of whom I will be quoting from, they're written, Job is around the time of the kings in the Old Testament time. Here's Job, I want to try to give this in Job's lament. as he goes through things.

Beginning with Job 17, verses 13 and 16, the speaker says, if I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness, if I say to the pit, you are my father, and to the worm, my mother or my sister, where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?

Job 19, 26, he's speaking. They lie down alike in the dust and the worms cover them. Can't get more descriptive than that. Our Job 34, 15, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust. And Job himself says, after God has made a revelation of himself to him, and Job had sort of asked God some questions and sort of were saying, you know, I don't think I've been treated right. When God comes before him, he says, Job is saying, I repent in dust and ashes.

Or let's turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. Now that's one of the most depressing books you can read in some respects, unless you see the diamonds that are buried in the ground. And there are some diamonds there, but you have to look for them. You have to be alert.

Ecclesiastes 3.20 says, “all go to one place. All are from the dust and to dust all return.” And Ecclesiastes 12, seven, speaking about the end of the matter is that we should fear God and live our lives before his face and for his glory. It says, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

That's a description of what happens at death. But lest I leave us in that state, let us think about the great promise given to us in the book of Daniel. And I want to turn to that passage in the scripture and read it to you. Because here you see the imposition of ashes not only speak to us of our mortality, but they also signify repentance.

As Job said in Job 42, I repent in dust and ashes. And as Daniel says in his prayer on behalf of the people of God, recorded for us in Daniel chapter 90, verse three through five, Daniel speaking, then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer, and pleased for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, oh Lord, or oh Yahweh, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and your rules.

So, the ashes remind us of our mortality, remind us that we're living in a fallen world and in the fallen state of the world, but there is hope for the future. Meanwhile, we need to repent. We need to live lives of repentance and recognition of who God is and who we are. So, the ashes represent the mourning That is the feeling of sorrow and grief that we have done that which is contrary to God's will. And we suffer the consequences of that in our lives, in our fallen world with sickness and death.

So, these are things to help remind us of the truth of God that is given to us in this simple ceremony that I submit to you in the basis of the scriptures I've shared with you can be a biblical ceremony that speaks to us of some truths we truly need to remember. There's a collect, a collect is a prayer organized in a certain way in which you speak to God indicating some attribute, some characteristic that he has revealed to us about himself. And you make a petition before him, a request before him. And then many times you will then indicate what the result of that will be if God hears our prayer. Now these are old prayers. This may not exactly express it the way you might want to, but here are the words of the colleague Ash Winstead.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are repentant. Create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we, rightfully lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may obtain of you, from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness. You know, to one who repents and turns to God in faith, they receive forgiveness through our Lord Jesus Christ. Why through Him? Because you see, He's the one who owned the cross, took upon Himself our sins, our liabilities, if you please, as those who have gone contrary to God in His ways. He's the one who has made atonement for our sins and transgressions.

And because He has done that on the cross and was raised from the dead on the third day, He ever lives is our advocate on high. He is our great almighty high priest, who having made the sacrifice of himself in the days of his flesh, ministering as the priest after the order of Melchizedek. And that's the way he is now in heaven. He is our advocate. He is our great high priest. And he is our savior who presents before the father on high. the evidence of his own sacrifice, in which the debt of our sins and the judgment has been paid in all of those who trust in him.

They're not repentant because they are being condemned, but they're repentant because God in Christ has taken their sins. He's been condemned in our place. And so, we come before God with an acknowledgement of all of this reality. And God forgives us.

He renews in us the cleansing work of his word and his spirit so that we can rejoice and the great deliverance and salvation that he has given us in his son. Listener, you, if you're a believer in Christ, my brother and my sister, if you receive imposition of ashes or not, remember this, you are dust and to dust you shall return. And in light of that, let us live soberly, righteously as God's children to glorify him and to bear effective witness to him to an unbelieving world. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.