Tom and his two brothers were walking to Sunday school. After a bit their path came near to the Fraser River. Suddenly their clothes began to feel hot and heavy. The water looked so inviting!
They were not far from a sawmill and the river was partly filled with logs that the current was pulling down to the mill.
Suddenly Tom’s older brother spoke, “I don’t know about you fellows, but I’m playing hooky from Sunday school and going to have a good swim! How about it, you, too?”
Dan looked troubled. Just a week before at some tent meetings he had received the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior. The water was tempting to him, too, but there was a new voice inside of him encouraging him to do what was right for the Lord’s sake. So he shook his head, “I really don’t want to, and you know you shouldn’t either.”
Jack looked at Dan thoughtfully a moment, and then said firmly, “Well, it’s too bad that you don’t want to go swimming because you’re going to go whether you want to or not. If you go to Sunday school, then you can tattle on us, but if you go swimming, too, you won’t have much to say!”
He grinned but took a firm hold of Dan’s shoulder, “Come on, Tom, we’ll have to help this guy make up his mind he wants to swim!”
Somehow Dan’s clothes came off, and before he knew it he was in the water with his brothers. It did feel good—in fact, it was wonderful—if only it were not wrong to be deceiving and disobeying his parents.
A few logs had jammed up in a cove of the river making sort of a raft. The boys discovered them and soon were using them for a diving raft. All three boys could swim quite well, so they were soon having a wonderful time, diving and battling the swift river current.
“Say, where did Dan go? Did he swim to the bank to dress?” Both boys looked anxiously, but there was no Dan on the bank. Then they looked at one another with terror in their eyes! The strong river current must have pulled Dan under the logs and trapped him there!
Tom and Jack began to shout desperately for help, pushing hopelessly at the big logs. In a few moments men arrived from the sawmill, but there was nothing they could do. It was too late!
Tom and Jack felt that they just could not go home. How could they tell their parents? Oh, if only they had not disobeyed! A detective arrived and asked them questions which they answered with sick hearts. Then he said, “Come, I will go home with you and help you tell your parents.”
Never will the boys forget the misery of the next few hours when they saw the pain and sorrow their disobedience had brought to their parents. The only comfort was in remembering that Dan had received the Lord Jesus as his Savior the week before, and was now in the presence of the Lord.
Then a voice seemed to say, “What if it had been you, Tom?”
Night after night the question would return. Dan had been saved, and had gone to heaven. Tom knew that it would not have been so with him. The burden of his sins was heavy upon him. One night, a week after Dan had drowned, Tom could not sleep. He found his father still sitting up downstairs and soon he was pouring out his heart to him.
Opening his Bible to Isaiah 53:44Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4) and 5 his father read these wonderful words aloud, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”
As Tom saw that the Lord Jesus had already taken the punishment of his great sin, with a glad heart he received Him as His Savior.
A few days later his older brother Jack received the Lord Jesus into his heart also, and although there was pain at the memory of Dan’s death, there was joy in the hearts of the parents that the Lord had used it to bring Jack and Tom to Him also.
Today Tom is a missionary whom God is using for much blessing in Uruguay, South America. He would like to say to you, “You have read my story. This is what it took for God to reach me. What will God have to do to reach YOU?”