WE were spending our holidays at the coast. It was a bright summer evening and the small-boats were all out on hire. Some were rowing, others fishing. A lot of us younger ones were wading and paddling in the little pools on the beach. A loud shrill cry suddenly rang out, causing us all to start: I looked in the direction from which it came, and saw that a small boat had struck one of the rocks and was being dashed about in the surf. Four boys were in it; two of them not more than twelve years of age. I ran up to my mother who was sitting on the beach, and told her what had happened, and by the time we got around to the nearest point to where the boat was, a crowd had gathered, but no one knew what to do. The little boat was filling fast with water and would soon become a wreck. The four boys, frantic with fear, were clinging to each other and crying out for help. Poor fellows! How I pitied them, but I could not help. Were they to perish before our eyes?
“If we only had a rope,” said someone, “we could pull the boat round to the sandy beach.”
“Who would go out with it if we had,” said dressy young lady, “nobody would risk their life for four boys, I know.”
“When the rope comes we’ll see, ma’am,” said a young boy who had just come down, and was busy casting off his upper garments close by. In a few minutes a rope was brought, and amid the tears of not a few, and the cheers of the rest, he plunged from a rock into the sea, which was tolerably calm. Every eye was fixed on the swimmer as he struck out for the wrecked boat, whose occupants were now up to the knees in water. In five minutes more he reached them and made the rope fast to the boat, then he gave a signal to those on shore to pull gently and unitedly, as he directed them. Many willing hands obeyed his order, and in less than ten minutes the water-logged boat, with its four trembling occupants, was on the beach. The swimmer followed breathless and exhausted, but thankful that he had been the means of rescuing the four boys from a watery grave.
What do you think the boys did for their deliverer? Did they walk away without recognizing or thanking him? Ah, no! They grasped his wet hand as soon as he came out of the water, and amid their tears, they thanked him for becoming their deliverer. The crowd carried him on their shoulders home, and the following day he was presented with a handsome gift by the parents of the boys, and the people of the place.
These four boys in their sinking boat remind me of the sinner, disobedient to God, taking his own way, and unable to save himself. It was such helpless sinners that Jesus came to save. He came to deliver them from going down to hell. Have you allowed Him to rescue you, or do you refuse His hand outstretched to save? Think what folly it would have been, had these four helpless boys, in danger every moment of being plunged into a watery grave, pushed away from them the noble youth, who, at the risk of his own life, had come out to rescue them. Would they not have been considered mad had they done so? Yet there are thousands doing precisely this to the Son of God, who came down from heaven and entered death’s dark waves, to save sinners from going down into hell. They reject His outstretched arm and perish.
Are you one of these Christ-rejecters, my dear reader?
Are you pushing from you the only One who is both able and willing to save you?
ML 10/12/1924