My grandfather was a farmer and
cattleman who I helped quite often in the fields and in the pastureland. Once we were
riding around in his old Willys jeep where the cows were grazing. We came
across a mud hole, and in the middle of it was a cow up to his head in the mud. He would
likely have died had we not come across its predicament. Papa didn’t get agitated
or alarmed at all. One of the things that I did as a kid growing up was to watch for Papa’s reaction to situations. I have seen him get animated and passionate at times, but his language was always civil and respectful. In fact, I can’t ever recall
him using foul language or a slight slipping of the tongue! That is amazing given the unruly nature of the tongue (cf. Jas 3:8). If he ever let it rip, I never heard it or of it.
Anyway, he instructed me to get a rope
out of the back of the jeep. Papa got right into the mud hole without
complaining and tied a loop around the neck of the cow. He climbed back out of
the mud hole and tied the other end of the rope to the jeep. He told me as soon
as the cow is pulled out of the mud hole quickly remove the rope from around
its neck. Concerned, I asked papa if that would hurt the cow. He spoke as one who
had done this many times before, “No,” he said. I believed him.
I think I was more scared than the cow
seeing its bulging eyes and tongue hanging out as it was being dragged from the
pit! It took the power of the jeep to pull that poor bovine out of there. I
quickly removed the rope, and off that cow went, muddy and wobbly, to meet up
with the rest of the herd. I coiled the rope back up and put it back into the
jeep. Papa and I moved on to greener pastures.
My grandfather was a good man, and I
respected him to the point of awe, but I don’t recall if I ever said that I
loved him, but I did. I know that now
when I look back on my experiences with him growing up. We never talked about
our feelings, only the tasks at hand. So, conversely, I don’t remember him ever
telling me that he loved me! I would like to think that he did, but I don’t
know. Somehow I think his generation was focused on the work at hand and putting
feelings about anything or everything on the back burner. I wasn’t saved back
then as a young boy that would come later, and I don’t know if Papa ever knew
Christ. I want to believe he did so much, but I don’t know. We only talked about the things at hand…
I am so thankful God didn’t put His love
on the back burner. Rather, He took the initiative to bring His love to the
forefront (Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 4:10, 19) rather than His holiness to the task at hand – rescuing us from our
stupidity in rebelling against Him (cf. Gn 3:21). If God had asserted His holiness without regards to man, we would all have been destroyed because the penalty of sin is eternal separation from God! We were like that helpless brutish bovine who wound up in
that mud hole by being “stupid” (Gen 3:6) that would not release its grip on the
cow (Gn 2:17), and there was no way we were going to extricate ourselves out of
that mud hole of sin. That cow would have died had we not intervened and
rescued it from its own destruction.
Our rebellion against God got us all
into a real mud hole (Rom 5:12; 6:23). But it was going to take a power greater
than any human could muster to rescue us (Acts 4:12; Jn 1:12; Rom 1:16). This
is where the lifeline of the cross comes into play (Rom 5:8). Unlike the cow, we
have a choice, whosoever will (Jn
3:16; Rom 10:13), to grab that lifeline to be pulled out of the mud hole (no
longer of the world, Jn 17:16) by the
power of God or choose to remain in it (in the world, Jn 3:19; 1 Jn 2:16) and
eventually perish (Jn 8:24; 1 Jn 2:17).
Without apology, I am dumb enough to believe that whosoever will
is a valid offer to all men, not just
to the elect, though God in His infinite knowledge knows those who will or will
not take the offer to get out of their mud hole. I believe that Christ died for all men, not just for the elect. I,
therefore, speak and write to all men
of the truth of the Gospel. If we are not careful our reason can take us beyond the scope of revelation, doggedly defending a school of thought based more upon reason than revelation itself.
God is not bound by our logic or
reasoning any more than He is to the laws of physics, but He is duty bound to
His Word (Psa 119:89; Mt 5:18; Lk 24:44; Jn 17:12; Isa 40:8; 51:6; Lk 21:33; 1Pet 1:25). I rejoice in that! Who can
understand the ways of the Lord (Isa 55:9)? I only know that to live I must die,
to get I must give away, to go up I must go down, or to be free I must be
enslaved! This is not the logic of man, but it is Divine logic, and a lofty logic
we must subscribe to though it goes beyond our human reasoning. My brain tells
me it’s illogical, but the Holy Spirit within me tells me it’s the way of God
that reveals time and time again that His ways are ascended beyond our capacity
to stretch that far, but He who knows the mind of the Lord is within me and
helps me to understand and pursue His ways and not my own whether if defies
human logic or rationale (Rom 8:26-27; 1 Cor 2:16; Eph 2:18).
All I know is that anyone without
Christ is stuck in a mud hole of their own choosing (Psa 7:15; Rom 3:23), and
they will eventually die there because their spiritual lot is not going to
improve if they choose to remain in that mud hole. Jesus will come to a
cry for help, extending His hand for any to grab hold of it by faith, trusting
in His effort (on the cross of Calvary) to pull us out of that mud hole of sin.
He not only will free us of that sin hole; He will clean us up (Isa 1:18; Psa
51:7). Forgiveness is not unconditional, however, it is predicated on
repentance, a change of mind resulting in a change of behavior (Isa 1:19). Evidence of our repentant heart is staying away from
that mud hole.
Of all the doctrines of Scripture,
understanding how God could love me enough to pull me out of that mud hole of
sin still defies my comprehension. In Adam I chose to rebel against Him in the
Garden; I refused to let Him rule over me; I beat Him with every ounce of
energy I could bring to bear; I disfigured Him by pouring out my hatred upon
Him by pounding, shredding, and puncturing His body; I cursed Him out of the
darkness of my soul; I humiliated and disrespected Him in every conceivable way
possible; when I could do no more for fear of killing Him, I hammered Him on some
dreadful wood at Calvary; and I walked away from Him to let agony and death
run its course, refusing His overtures of love and forgiveness.
I was in a mud
hole of my own making but no longer. Jesus extended His hand to me back on
January 19, 1976, at 10:40 AM, and by faith, I grabbed hold of it! He forgave me,
cleaned me up, and called me His son. Imagine that! He can do this for anyone stuck in a mud hole of sin
wanting to get out. There is no mistaking His love for me. I know that He does (Rom 5:8). <><
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