Suppose you were to wake up one morning in your second-floor bedroom, roll over in bed and stare into the eyes of an elephant peeking in your window! Of course, that isn’t likely ever to happen. But it is true that an Asian bull elephant’s shoulders are nine and one-half feet tall and that they have no problem standing on their hind legs, which would make them even taller.
Now, have you ever gone swimming and tried to see how many laps you could make at the city pool without getting tired? Or perhaps you have tried to swim all the way across the lake near your house. It wouldn’t take too many trips before most of us would be tired. However, elephants have been known to swim thirty miles across the open sea, from one island to another! Sometimes they swim underwater with their trunks sticking up above the water, like a snorkel.
Elephants that weigh nearly ten tons seem so different from us, but they actually have a lot to teach us and in some ways remind us of ourselves. There was a naughty elephant named Jumbo at the zoo in Dresden, Germany. He got sick and wouldn’t eat anything. He even refused to take the medicine that the zookeepers tried to give him, but they noticed that Jumbo would grab and eat the food they brought to the other two elephants in the same yard with him. So one keeper hid the medicine in a crust of bread and held it out to the other elephants. Jumbo immediately grabbed it and stuffed it into his mouth, realizing too late that he had been tricked. From then on, he grabbed stones in his trunk and threw them at the kind zookeeper every time he tried to come near.
Are you like Jumbo? There are many people who are, and I don’t mean that they weigh ten tons. They are like Jumbo because they won’t accept the kind person who tells them the needed truth that they are sinners. The Bible says, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)).
Maybe you don’t like to hear that message, but God always tells the truth. He loves each of us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins on the cross. The Bible says that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3434Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:34)). You only need to repent, admitting that you have sinned against God and need the salvation He offers you. He won’t try to trick you into taking the medicine the way the zookeeper tricked Jumbo. He offers salvation as the only remedy for your sins, but you must accept it from Him, knowing that you are a guilty sinner who has no other hope. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)).
ML-04/02/2006