What could that be floating strangely on the lake? As Bill stood on the deck of his house looking out over the lake, he saw a bright red ball in the water. Still, there was something very unusual about that ball. It appeared and then disappeared, and once again appeared, making a zigzag path across the water. Bill looked more carefully. Yes, it was a ball - an eight-inch, bright-red basketball that once had belonged to a child. But now it was moving across the water in the mouth of a very large flathead catfish!
Bill called to his wife to bring him a camera. This was a fish story that no one would believe unless they saw it! The fish was very large, and Bill figured it probably weighed around fifty pounds! As he watched the fish, he decided that the ball must have become wedged in its mouth. But the basketball was too big for the fish to swallow and too far into the fish’s mouth for the catfish to let go.
Bill unrigged the sail from his nine-foot boat and tried to corral the fish toward the shore. The fish dived, but each time it dived the air in the ball pulled it right back up to the surface! The fish dived again and again, and each time it would reappear on the surface. The effort of diving for its life was wearing out the poor fish.
That bright red ball may have seemed attractive to the catfish when it first went after it, but now it was proving a terrible mistake. Things that look good to you and me can sometimes be a terrible mistake. Do you remember the Bible story of Adam and Eve who both ate a piece of fruit, and that one act of disobedience meant that they must die? God had said that they were not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. But they chose to do what they wanted, instead of obeying God. All of us have made that same mistake. We have chosen our own way. It may have seemed all right to us, but we have disobeyed God. That careless lie, that little dishonesty or that bad word is sin in God’s sight. And it has unhappy results.
The fish in our story was struggling with the unhappy results from its mistake. It was being pulled up, up, up to the top of the water when it wanted to be at the bottom of the lake. It could not fight against that pull. But our sins are pulling us down, down, down, and we are just as helpless. We may try to be good and to stop sinning, but we cannot do it in our own strength. Our hearts are sinful, and the Bible says we are “without strength” (Romans 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)). If we die in our sins, the Lord Jesus warns, “[Where] I go, ye cannot come” (John 8:2121Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. (John 8:21)).
Was there any hope for the exhausted catfish? Yes. Bill finally got close enough to try to pull the ball from its mouth. He lifted the fish right out of the water by holding the ball, and that ball was still stuck tightly in its mouth. Finally he asked his wife to get a knife.
What do you think he did next? Have you ever stuck something sharp in a balloon? What happened?
When Bill carefully stuck the knife in the basketball, there was a whoosh of air escaping. Suddenly the ball was a whole lot smaller, and Bill was able to pull it right out of the jaws of the fish. The fish immediately made one more dive and disappeared into the deepest part of the lake.
Bill rescued that fish from its misery. It meant he had to leave the deck of his nice home and wade out into the water, but it didn’t cost him anything to rescue it. Within a short time he was in his house, quite dry and comfortable again.
When God saw us poor sinners in this world, He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, who left heaven and came down to this earth. Because of His great love for you and me, the Lord Jesus came to rescue us from our sins, but this rescue was not quick or easy. It cost Him so much that we will never really understand all He went through for us. He was misunderstood, laughed at, beaten and finally nailed to a cross. The awful sins of many sinners were laid on Jesus in those three dark, black hours when He paid the penalty for them. Then a soldier stuck a spear in His side. It is the blood that flowed from His precious side that can wash away our sins and set us free. His hands and feet still have the marks of the nails. What a huge price He paid to rescue sinners from their sins!
ML-01/23/2005