When our oldest granddaughter, Barb, was ten years old, we decided that since she had grown up in a big city, she needed to see some of the Wild West. So we took off for the West in our truck camper. We visited the Black Hills, Devils Tower National Monument, Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.
All of this was new and exciting for a young girl. For the first time she saw moose, deer, bears, pronghorn antelope and mountain goats. She hiked mountain trails and swam in very cold lakes that were fed by melting snow.
One evening while we were eating supper in Devils Tower Campground, Barb suddenly asked, “What’s that sound, Grampy?” We could hear cattle bawling and men’s voices shouting. I told her, “It’s cowboys driving a herd of cattle.” She said, “Oh, Grampy, they don’t do that anymore!” The next minute her eyes widened, as out of a grove of cottonwood trees came a herd of cattle being driven by real cowboys on horseback with ropes, wide-brim hats and chaps.
One afternoon when we were camping at Custer State Park in the Black Hills, I heard Barb cry out in pain, “Grampy!” She had been playing with my fishing rod, and somehow she had hooked herself in the nose between her nostrils with a barbed fishhook! She was frightened and wouldn’t let me touch the hook. The only thing we could do was cut the fishing line and take her to the nearest doctor, several miles away.
When she walked into the waiting room with the hook in her nose, she said she knew how a fish felt. The doctor cut the hook and pulled it out and then gave her a tetanus shot. When we got back to the campground, I took her swimming, and she felt much better since she was free from the fishhook. I called her my “Little Squaw Hook-in-the-Nose.”
When the Lord Jesus was living here on earth, nets were used instead of fishhooks to catch fish. In Luke 5, when Peter, James and John had fished all night and hadn’t caught a single fish, the Lord Jesus appeared and told them to go back and let down their nets. Peter thought it was useless but obeyed the Lord. It was then that the Lord Jesus, as Creator, filled the nets so full with fish that the nets broke. Today the joyful gospel net is going out, bringing in souls who are willing to be saved from their sins. Soon it will be full, and He will take those saved souls home to be with Him in heaven for eternity.
Our enemy Satan also has a net—an evil net: “As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it [falls] suddenly upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9:1212For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. (Ecclesiastes 9:12)). Those who are refusing or ignoring the salvation that God is offering through the death of His Son are caught in Satan’s evil net. They will spend eternity in that awful place of judgment for sinners who are still in their sins. But God’s beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, will set anyone free from that evil net who will call to Him to be saved: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:1313For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)).
Are you still caught in Satan’s evil net? or do you have the truth of God in your heart? “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free....If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:32,3632And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)
36If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)).
ML-07/03/2016