Last summer we had an experience with yellow jackets at our house that made us uneasy. Yellow jackets are similar to bees and hornets and have black and yellow stripes. When God formed this world for man, He made it for man’s comfort and blessing, and He pronounced everything as “good.” Today, of course, we know that bees and hornets and yellow jackets sting when they feel threatened, and these stings are very painful. They can also be quite dangerous to people who are allergic to them. How was the nature of God’s creatures changed? When Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God, it brought this whole world under a curse. “We know that the whole creation [groans] and [travails] in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22).
Yellow jackets make their nests out of paper, which they form by chewing up wood and other plant fibers. A colony of yellow jackets made its nest behind the wood siding of our house. We soon saw a lot of activity. Yellow jacket workers were busy going in and out of a crack in our siding, bringing supplies and food to the nest. Even worse, this crack in the siding was right next to our front door! It was interesting to see all of the activity, but troubling several times when people were stung. On one occasion, a friend came over with a bouquet of flowers and was stung at our front door. Something had to be done about that nest of yellow jackets behind our siding!
I called an exterminator and found out that he could solve our problem by applying a special powder around the crack in our siding. The cost would be $150. That seemed like a pretty high cost to me, so I decided to go to the hardware store and see what I could find.
I bought a can of spray, which was supposed to kill the pests. I sprayed it on several yellow jackets and then sprayed it in the crack in our siding. After using up the entire can, I had killed about twenty yellow jackets. I bought another can and sprayed the crack again, but still the yellow jackets came and went.
I went back to the hardware store, and this time I bought a trap which was supposed to attract yellow jackets by a sweet-smelling liquid in a jar. The yellow jackets could enter the jar but could not get out. The instructions were to hang this jar, which had a bright yellow lid, about twenty-five feet away from the nest. There was a hook about three feet away from the crack in the siding, so I decided to hang the trap on that hook instead. After several days, there were no yellow jackets in the trap. Then I decided that I’d better follow the instructions, and I hung the trap about twenty-five feet away in a nearby tree. Sure enough, soon several yellow jackets were attracted to the trap with its yellow lid shining brightly in the sun. Over several weeks, perhaps fifty yellow jackets entered into the trap and were drowned in the sweet-smelling liquid.
One afternoon as I was sitting on the front porch, I was interested to watch the activity around the trap. There was a yellow jacket inside the trap, flying around, trying to find a way out. And there were several yellow jackets flying around the outside of the trap, perhaps attracted to the sweet-smelling liquid. I thought of the story told in Luke 16:1931 of the rich man in hell who was in agony. The rich man called to Abraham to warn his five brothers not to “come into this place of torment.” I wondered if perhaps the yellow jacket inside the trap was trying to warn his friends on the outside. May each one of us pay attention to the warning to “flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7).
Since there seemed to be no less activity from the yellow jackets even after using the trap, I finally did what I probably should have done at the first. I called the exterminator. He came out a few days later and applied his special powder. That solved our yellow jacket problem.
That was a reminder to me that there is only one way of getting rid of our sins, and that is God’s way: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). The cost of our salvation was enormous! The Apostle Paul wrote, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). But, salvation is freely offered to anyone who feels their need and accepts God’s provision for them. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). We hope that each one of you has accepted God’s free gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
ML-05/04/2003