Tin is a very commonly used metal.  Tin is used to form many alloys.  Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.  Pewter is an alloy of lead and tin.  Tin is used to make many different products from paper clips, staples, and safety pins to pistons in airplane engines.  Tin is used in solders, due to its low melting point.  It is used to make collapsible tubes, such as those used for toothpaste.  Tin plated steel cans, which we normally call “tin cans” are commonly used due to the fact that tin protects the steel from rusting, and is non-toxic, and does not discolor food.  (Peter Durand, an Englishman, patented the tin can in 1810).  Tin is used in wrapping candy.  Tin foil was once common but aluminum has now replaced tin in the making of foil because aluminum is far cheaper than tin, economically speaking.

Tin, however, has one great weakness.  Extreme cold weather turns tin gray and brittle.  John Hudson Tiner has written “one of the great tragedies of Antarctic exploration came about because of tin used to solder the seams of kerosene cans.  Captain Robert Scott, a British explorer, organized an expedition to try to be the first to reach the South Pole.  He led his party across 1,800 miles of ice and snow.  At regular intervals they stored fuel and food for their return.  They reached the South Pole on January 18, 1912.  Standing on the spot was a marker left there one month earlier by Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer. Disheartened, the men began their return journey into the face of a blizzard.  When the weary men arrived at food and fuel, the tin had turned to powder.  The Kerosene leaked through the seams.  The desperate men raced to the next cache.  The cans there were empty too.  The entire Scott party perished in the frozen wilderness, partly because of the little-known fact that tin becomes brittle at cold temperatures.” (Exploring the World of Chemistry, p.9).

Here’s the point.  God created physical laws that we live under and ignorance is no excuse.  Why should we think things will be different when it comes to God’s spiritual laws?  They won’t.  2 Thessalonians 1:8 tells us that Jesus will return “taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel..” Matthew 15:14 warns, “if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a ditch.” 2 Timothy 2 :15 admonishes, “Be diligent to present yourselves approved to God…rightly dividing the word of truth.”  1 Thessalonians 5:21 instructs, “test all things …” Hear this: to be ignorant of God’s spiritual laws is of far greater consequence, than to be ignorant of physical laws.