In summer the Rideau Canal in Ontario is full of pleasure boats, for it is a recreational waterway. In the winter the canal is turned into a skating rink, which they call “the longest skating rink in the world.” They keep about seven miles of it clear, so that you can begin at one end and skate seven miles without turning around.
When the warm rains come in spring and the ice begins to melt, sometimes flooding occurs along the canal and river. Occasionally there will be three feet of water on top of a foot or two of ice, so they send men out in boats with sticks of dynamite. Those men place the dynamite in strategic locations in the ice, and then they explode them and break up the ice to keep it from piling up down the canal and causing floods.
Several years ago there was a government worker who was out in his boat. He placed his dynamite in the proper places, and then in his haste to move away from the dangerous location his boat capsized. Imagine how cold two or three feet of water is on top of a foot or two of ice! This man realized very quickly that he wasn’t going to survive long in those frigid waters. He was able to scramble up on top of his overturned boat and began floating down the river. At first it didn’t seem so bad, but up ahead were the Rideau Falls. There were those on shore who saw the plight of this man as he crouched there on the boat. They saw him gently floating along with the current toward the falls, and someone quickly called the fire department.
The man on the capsized boat was helpless. But have you realized that you, with your heart still full of sin and heading for judgment, are also helpless and in even greater danger? God’s Word tells us that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)).
Just above the falls there is a bridge spanning the river, and the firemen rushed to that point. They could see the man coming down the river on his boat. It was moving faster now as the current picked up and approached the falls. They took a rope and as the boat approached the bridge they let the rope down carefully—oh, so carefully!—and held it right in front of the man so that as he passed under the bridge he could reach up and grasp the rope and be pulled to safety.
He came to the bridge—he passed under the bridge—and the rope dangled untouched. It seemed that he made no effort to reach up and grasp that rope! As the crowd that had gathered watched in horror, he went under the bridge and over the falls to his doom. As he went over the falls they heard him cry: “I’m frozen to the boat!”
As he crouched on that boat with his hands supporting him, they became caked with ice from the frigid waters that lapped over the boat, and he was unable—powerless—to reach up and grab that rope.
As he went over the falls to his doom, someone in the crowd was heard to say, “If they had only lowered a man, they could have saved him.” What he needed was not a rope he could grasp; he needed a man on the end of that rope to grasp him and to pull him from that boat to safety.
And that is just what we all need for salvation. We do not need a rope to grasp and save ourselves by our own efforts; we need One who can come down to where we are and lift us up from our everlasting peril. There is One who has come down. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). He didn’t just look down—He didn’t just throw us a rope and tell us to “hold on”—He came down. The Saviour of sinners, Christ Jesus, came into the world to save sinners.
I couldn’t save myself. You can’t save yourself either, but there is One who can save you. That One is holding out His hands now, ready to grasp and pull you from certain doom and to place you safely on the narrow way that leads to life. Are you going to come to that One? “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)).
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself came down to rescue you! Won’t you let Him?
“The Son of Man is come to
seek and to save
that which was lost.”