At one of the piers at the Gulf port of Mississippi a large ship rode at anchor. On the pier there was a club house, where almost every night a large party of young people danced and frolicked till long after midnight. On one occasion a number of these people, probably between dances, came out of the club house and made their way toward the ship, intending to board it. One young woman ran ahead of the rest, bent on getting to the upper deck of the vessel before them. She made for the ladder. The moon was shining brightly, and cast a shadow of the ladder some five or six feet beyond it. In her hurry and excitement the young woman sprang, as she thought, for the ladder. But she had mistaken the shadow of the ladder for the ladder itself. Down she went into the water, to rise no more—perished!
Yes, she perished—and that because she had mistaken a mere shadow for the substance. Instead of grasping the ladder, she set her foot where there was only a fancied support, and plunged into death. There was a safe way to the vessel; she missed it. Confused and excited, she looked where there was no salvation; a terrified cry of despair rent the air, to be silenced in the dark engulfing waters. She stepped with her foot, but there was only a shadow; she clutched frantically with her hand, but found nothing to hold. This young woman fell and sank and drowned because her hope was a deception.
And thousands of people today are grasping at shadows while an eternal danger confronts them. The wages of sin, the wrath to come, the vengeance of eternal fire, the yawning abyss of the bottomless pit, are all in the pathway of every sinner. Are you, reader, depending alone upon the Saviour?
Have you been saved by grace? Or are you grasping at a shadow?
The law is a shadow: “The law having a shadow of good things to come” (Heb. 10:11For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. (Hebrews 10:1)). Thousands imagine that there is no way of salvation but by keeping commandments: “Thou shalt”; “Thou shalt not.” The law is not a Saviour, it is only a shadow.
Religion without Christ is but a shadow, and will give the fainting sinner no support in the hour of death. The Lord Jesus is a Saviour in life and death. To be in Him is to be safe and satisfied. When darkness comes He says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” When death seems to take every support from under the feet, He says: “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”
Make sure, dear reader; make positively certain that Christ, the living Redeemer, is your own precious Saviour, lest you discover when too late that your confidence was in a shadow which could not save.
ML 08/13/1961