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Much to my chagrin, I drive an old car…eighteen years old to be exact.  The car has old car issues, but runs good and faithfully gets me from A to B with only the sort of occasional routine maintenance repairs that you would expect on any car.  Let me emphasize again…this is a good car.  Nonetheless though, in recent years I have entertained the thought of replacing the old jalopy with a newer model, but have yet to do so due to economic restraints.  So, a few weeks ago, I did the next best thing to buying a new car.  I had heard a while back that the new car smell of a new car is a chemical perfume that is added to the vehicle post production, and sure enough, the auto parts store had a car scent called “new car scent.”  Having paid for the new car smell, I sprayed that stuff all over my old car…and amazingly, it smelled brand spanking new.  I was ecstatic!  The next morning though when I got in the car, I noticed that the new car smell had been replaced with a definite undesirable funky smell.  So, I sprayed more of the new car scent.  Day after day, the new car scent was replaced with a funky stench that made the old car even worse than it was before I had sprayed the new car scent.  I began to wonder if the car perfume people added an additional smell of funkiness that slowly overtook the new car smell…just so you would use more car perfume and purchase more of their product to cover up the funky smell.  Bottom line…if I want that new car smell without the funkiness of the after stench, I’ll have to keep going back to the perfume people for more of their product.  The alternative, of course, is to cease and desist use of the new car scent, and leave the windows of the car open long enough to air out the after stench.  On one hand, the new car scent brings pleasure on the front end, but is nauseating on the back end.  Airing out the car and throwing the rest of the perfume bottle in the garbage would be the best bet, but by now I am in the habit of using it.  Maybe you have figured out by now that this post isn’t really about car scent, but about sin.  Our sin is just like the new car scent I have just described; it can bring an initial sensation of pleasure that quickly turns to an unpleasant stench.  The only way to get rid of the stench of sin is to throw it away and open the windows of your life to let the Lord clean it all out.  So before you pick up the spray bottle again today, ask yourself if the new car smell is worth the funky stench that is sure to follow.