SOMETIMES an incident in the life of man, fallen and faraway from God seems sent to shadow forth something more intense, something eternal, and to point us to “the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” (Eph. 3:1919And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:19).)
In the autumn of the year a pilot boat was sailing outside an Australian port. She was “looking out” for a large ship, which, from the date she was known to have left London, then was due.
Suddenly a heavy squall was seen approaching, and one of the crew climbed the mast into the rigging to take in sail. He was too late. Before he could succeed, the little boat was caught by the wind and lay over on her side.
The man in the rigging knew the danger, and shouted to the crew below, “Cut away the mast.”
They hesitated. It was sending him to instant death. But they obeyed his command, and in less time than we have taken to tell it the boat righted, and the crew were saved.
But the man in the rigging, where was he? Gone! into death. To save the others he had sacrificed his own life, Brave, noble man!
To deliver us from “so great a death,” Christ died (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). Does not this great love of the Lord Jesus, this love unto death, “even the death of the cross,” (Phil. 2:88And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8)), move the heart of the reader to accept it?
“The Saviour left the realms above,
Left the bright world on high,
And came on earth for man to die.”
Was ever love like this?
ML-08/07/1960