Don’t Tamper With The Seal

Matthew 3:1-2, 11  ¹ In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, ² And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand … ¹¹ I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

Acts 19:1-3  ¹ And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, ² He said unto them,  Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. ³ And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.

When 12 year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, awoke at dawn on September 29, 1982 with cold symptoms, her parents gave her one Extra-Strength Tylenol and sent her back to bed. Little did they know, they would wake up at 7:00 a.m. to find their daughter dying on the bathroom floor.

That same morning, Adam Janus, 27, of Arlington Heights, Illinois, took Extra- Strength Tylenol to appease a minor chest pain. An hour later, Janus suffered a cardiopulmonary collapse and died suddenly. That very evening, when relatives gathered at Janus’ home, Adam’s brother Stanley, 25, and his wife Theresa, 19, took Tylenol from the same bottle that had killed their loved one. They were both pronounced dead within the next 48 hours.

Mary Reiner, 27, of the neighboring suburb, Winfield, died after taking two Tylenol capsules the next day. Reiner, who was dead within hours at the local hospital, had just recently given birth to her fourth child. Paula Prince, 35, a United Airlines stewardess, was found dead in her Chicago apartment with an open bottle of Extra- Strength Tylenol nearby. Mary McFarland, 31, of Elmhurst, Illinois, was the seventh victim of the cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules.

After three terror-filled days, two off-duty Chicago firemen noticed that “Tylenol” was the common element mentioned in police-band radio reports. The Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules in question were each found to contain 65 milligrams of cyanide. The amount of cyanide necessary to kill a human is five to seven micrograms, which means that the person who tampered with the pills, used 10,000 times more poison than was needed. Dr. Thomas Kim, chief of the Northwest Community Hospital at the time of the poisonings, said, “The victims never had a chance. Death was certain within minutes.”

The nation was warned about the danger of Tylenol as soon as a connection could be made. Police drove through Chicago announcing the warning over loudspeakers, while all three national television networks reported about the deaths from the contaminated drug on their evening news broadcasts. A day later, the Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to avoid the Tylenol capsules, “until the series of deaths in the Chicago area can be clarified.”

Evidence suggested that the pills were taken from different stores over a period of weeks or months. The bottles were tampered with and then placed back on the shelves of five different stores in the Chicago area. It seems that the person responsible for the deaths, spent a few hours distributing the laced bottles of Tylenol. The publicity about the cyanide laced capsules caused a nationwide panic. Johnson & Johnson immediately alerted consumers across the nation, via the media, not to consume any type of Tylenol product until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Then, they recalled approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars.

After this crisis, Johnson & Johnson was faced with quite a dilemma. They needed to find the best way to deal with the tamperings, without destroying the reputation of their company and their most profitable product, Tylenol. Many marketing experts thought that Tylenol was doomed by doubts that the public may have had to whether or not the product was safe. “I don’t think they can ever sell another product under that name,” advertising genius Jerry Della Femina told the New York Times in the first days following the crisis. “There may be an advertising person who thinks he can solve this and if they find him, I want to hire him, because then I want him to turn our water cooler into a wine cooler.”

WHAT DID THE COMPANY DO TO RESTORE PUBLIC TRUST?

Tylenol capsules were reintroduced in November baring a new triple-seal tamper-resistant packaging. The package had glued flaps on the outer box, which had to be forcibly opened. Inside a tight plastic seal surrounded the cap and an inner foil seal wrapped over the mouth of the bottle. The label carried the warning: ‘Do not use if safety seals are broken.”

It was this SEAL, this tamper-resistant packaging, that assured the comeback of Johnson & Johnson from possibly the greatest crisis ever to hit the pharmaceutical industry.

·        In Biblical times, a SEAL had much more importance than Tylenol’s little marketing gimmick. It was the impression of a signet ring set in wax, which guaranteed that a document or jar had not been tampered with, and hence was authentic.

·        The term “sealed” is used in the Bible for that which is …

·        PERMANENT OR ETERNAL (Isaiah 8:16 – “bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples”)

·        CONFIRMED BY GOD (Romans 4:11 – “and [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith”)

·        IMPENETRABLE TO MEN (Revelation 5:2 – “who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?”)

·        AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH REVELATION (Daniel 12:9 – “the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end”)

·        APPROVED BY GOD (John 3:33 – “he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true”)

·        In the New Testament, the word “SEAL” is used to describe the HOLY GHOST, which is the mark of authenticity for the culmination of the New Birth experience.

·        Ephesians 4:30  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

·        Ephesians 1:12-14  ¹² That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.  ¹³ In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

·        The Bible calls the Holy Ghost the EARNEST of our inheritance – we would say a DEPOSIT toward our inheritance.  It is a part given as a guarantee that the whole will be forthcoming.

·        This justifies the NIV expansion of a single Greek word (KJV: “earnest”) into several English words (NIV: “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come”).

·        2 Corinthians 1:20-22  ²⁰ For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. ²¹ Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; ²² Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

·        When you receive the Holy Ghost, you receive the Eternal Spirit of God in your heart, confirming that you are a child of God, and sealing you with God’s approval. No one can understand this experience until they experience it! And the Holy Ghost is a deposit on eternal life – life more abundantly right now!

·        John the Baptist had preached the Holy Ghost, but by Acts 19 his disciples were not even sure that there was such an experience!  SOMEONE HAD TAMPERED WITH THE SEAL!

·        Pentecost without the Holy Ghost is helpless! Worship without the Holy Ghost is pointless! Salvation without the Holy Ghost is worthless! Life without the Holy Ghost is powerless!

·        DON’T TAMPER WITH THE SEAL! The product you get will bring death and not life! Make sure that your experience with God is SEALED by the Holy Ghost!