“Got one!” exclaimed a fisherman on the pier as the taut line bent his fishing rod. The vapor from his breath quickly turned to frost in the cold
winter air.
Coho salmon are big fish and fight to the finish, so the fisherman was grateful when a stranger farther up the pier picked up his long-handled fishing net. The stranger carefully picked his way down the pier, avoiding the slippery patches of ice. In the early-morning darkness he strained to see the slippery spots. The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour yet.
“Thanks,” the fisherman said as he carefully put the fish on his stringer.
“Nice Coho you got there.”
The fisherman’s second rod suddenly twitched and jerked as another fish tugged on that hook.
“Wait a minute ... got another one. ... Will you get this one for me, too?”
“Sure.”
This one was reeled in and netted like the first. The fish frantically flopped around in the net, its wet body glistening in the light from a street lamp at the end of the pier.
“Be careful on the ice,” the stranger said before he left to return to his own spot.
“Yeah,” the other man grunted in reply.
The waves were continually crashing against the pier. The waves hit with a big splash and rolled back into the next incoming wave. The spray, whipped up by the wind, was covering everything with ice.
The stranger suddenly heard a yell followed by a splash. He looked back toward the fisherman he had just helped. He wasn’t there! The stranger quickly walked back, watching for the slippery patches. The last couple of feet to the icy edge of the pier he crawled on his belly.
Ten feet below he saw the fisherman struggling in the dark waves. Fishing line was tangled around his neck and arms. A big wave washed over the man in the sea and he disappeared beneath the surface. He reappeared, and the stranger quickly lowered his long fishing net to him.
“Hang on to this!” he shouted.
The handle of the net was made out of broomstick. Under the pressure of the man’s weight going up and down in the waves, the handle began to crack. The fisherman couldn’t last long in that black, icy water if that handle broke.
The other men on the pier quickly gathered around the man holding the net. “I have a piece of rope in my tackle box; somebody get it,” he ordered. “Now tie a loop at the end and hand it to me.”
Lowering the loop to the fisherman in the water, he told him, “Put your arm through the loop.”
Suddenly, a police car with sirens wailing raced up to the pier. A fire engine came right after the police car, and a helicopter was also soon above them. Help was on the way!
The firemen in their long black rubber coats hurried out to the end of the dock. They studied the situation quickly. One of them hurried back to the truck, lifted off a long aluminum extension ladder, and brought it down the icy pier.
“We’ll lift the man out of the water like he is on a seesaw,” one of the firemen explained to the small crowd of fishermen watching.
The firemen extended the ladder and dipped it into the water underneath the fisherman. Then three of the firemen put all their weight on their end of the ladder, and the fisherman was lifted right out of the icy water. They pulled him carefully to the pier and rushed him to the hospital.
“I thought I was going to slip from the grasp of the fellow holding the net. ... I thought I was going to die. That man saved my life,” he said later on.
That fisherman had a very close call! Here’s a question for you to answer: When do you think that man’s life was saved? When the kind stranger lowered the net to him? When the fire engine came? When the helicopter flew overhead? No, none of those is right. The man’s life was saved when he was pulled out of the water and all danger of dying was past.
In the Bible, David said in Psalm 40:2,2He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. (Psalm 40:2) “He brought me up also out of [a] horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” Everyone that doesn’t know the Lord Jesus is in a horrible pit where something like dark waters will drown them when they die, at which time they will receive the judgment their sins deserve. The Lord Jesus, in His great love and kindness, went to the cross to die for our sins so that we can be saved out of that dangerous pit right now and walk with Him for the rest of our lives. Psalm 42:7,7Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. (Psalm 42:7) speaking of the Lord Jesus on the cross, says, “All [God’s] waves and [God’s] billows are gone over Me.” The stranger in our story was very kind and did a lot to save the man in the water, but he didn’t go into those waters himself. But the Lord Jesus, in His love for us, took God’s judgment against our sins. That judgment was like strong, awful waves crashing on Jesus. If we believe in Him, we will never have to suffer for our sins, since Jesus already did!
Won’t you accept His offer of free salvation and let Him save you out of the danger of dying in your sins? Then you will be safe, because He will never let you go. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice ... and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:27-2827My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:27‑28)).
Messages of God’s Love 3/3/2024